tury there were Christians in the camp, in the senate, and in the palace ; in short, everywhere, as we are in- formed, except in the temples and the theatres : they filled the towns, the country, and the islands. Men and women of all ages and ranks, and even those of the first dignity, embraced the Christian faith, inso- much that the pagans complained that the revenues of their temples were ruined. They were in such great numbers in the empire, that, as TertuUian ex- presses it, if they had retired into another country, they would have left the Eoman territoiy only a frightful solitude. For the illustration of this argu- ment, we may observe that the Christian religion was introduced everj'where in opposition to the sword of the magistrate, the craft and interest of the priests, the pride of the philosophers, the passions and prej- udices of the people, all closely combined in sup- port of the national worship, and to crush the Chris- tian faith, which aimed at the subversion of heathen- ism and idolatr}'. Moreover, this religion Avas not propagated in the dark by persons who tiicitly endeav- ored to deceive the credulous, nor delivered out by little and little, so that one doctrine might pre])aro the way for the reception of another ; but it was fully and with- out disguise laid before men all at once, that they might judge of the whole under one view. Conse- quently mankind were not deluded into the belief of it, but received it upon proper examination and con- viction. Besides, the Gospel was first preached and first believed by multitudes in Judrea, where Jesus ex- ercised his ministry, and where every individual had the means of knowing whether the things that were told him were matters of fact ; and in this country, the scene of the principal transactions on which its credibilitj' depended, the history of Christ could never have been received unless it had been true, and known to all as truth. Again : the doctrine and history of Jesus were preached and believed in the most noted countries and cities of the world, in the very age -when he is said to have lived. On the fiftieth day after our Lord's crucifixion, three thousand persons were con- verted in Jerusalem bj' a single sermon of the apos- tles ; and a few weeks after this, five thousand who believed were present at another sermon preached also in Jerusalem (Acts ii, 41 ; iv, 4 ; vi, 7 ; viii, 1 ; ix, 1, 20). About eight or ten years after our Lord's death, the disciples were become so numerous at Jerusalem and in the adjacent country that they were objects of jealousy and alarm to Herod himself (Acts xii, 1). In the twentj'-second year after the crucifixion, the disci- ples in Juda3a are said to have been many mj^riads (Acts xxi, 20). The age in which Christianity Avas in- troduced and received was famous for men whoso fac- ulties were improved by the most perfect state of so- cial life, but who were good judges of the evidence of- fered in support of the facts recorded in the Gospel his- torj' ; for it should be recollected that the success of the Gospel was not restricted to Judrea, but it was preached in all the different provinces of the Iloman empire. The first triumphs of Christianity were in the heart of Greece itself, the nursery of loi-.rning and the polite arts, for churches were planted at a very early ])eriod at Corinth, Ephesus, Bercea, Thessalonica, and Philippi. Even Rome herself, the seat of wealth and empire, was not able to resist the force of truth at a time when the facts related were recent, and when they might, if they had been false, have easily been disproved. From Greece and Rome, at a jjcriod of cultivation and refinement, of gener.il peace and ex- tensive intercourse, when one great empire united dif- ferent nations and distant people, the confutation of these facts would very soon have passed from one country to another, to the utter confusion of the per- sons who endeavored to propa'^ate the belief of them. Xor ought it to be forgotten that the reli-rion to which such numbers were ]iroselyted was an exclusive one. It denied, without reserve, .he truth of every article
EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY 379 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY
of heathen mj'thology, and the existence of every ob- ject of their worship. It accepted no comprouiise ; it admitted of no comprehension. If it prevailed at all, it must prevail by the overthrow of ever}' statue, al- tar, and temple iu the world. It pronounced all oth- er gods to be false, and all other worship vain. These are considerations which must have strengthened the opposition to it, augmented the hostilitj' which it must encounter, and enhanced the difficulty of gaining pros- elytes ; and more especially when we recollect that, among the converts to Christianity in the earliest age, a number of persons remarkable for their station, of- fice, genius, education, and fortune, and wlio were per- sonally interested by their emoluments and honors in either Judaism or heathenism, appeared among the Christian prosel^'tes. Its evidences approved them- selves not only to the multitude, but to men of the most relined sense and most distinguished abilities, and it dissolved the attachments which all powerful interest and authority created and upheld" (VVatson, I. c).