'The time cometh, that he that killeth you will think that he doeth God service. And these things will they do unto you, because they have not known the Father nor me. But these things have I told you, that when the time shall come ye may remember that I told you of them."

I am not entitled to argue from these passages, that Christ actually did foretel these events, and that they did accordingly come to pass, because that would be at once to assume the truth of the religion: but I am entitled to contend, that one side or other of the following disjunction is true; either that the evangelists have delivered what Christ really spoke, and that the event corresponded with the prediction; or that they put the prediction into Christ's mouth, because, at the time of writing the history, the event had turned out so to be for the only two remaining suppositions appear in the highest degree incredible, which are, either that Christ filled the minds of his followers with fears and apprehensions, without any reason or authority for what he said, and contrary to the truth of the case; or that, although Christ had never foretold any such thing, and the event would have contradicted him if he had, yet historians who lived in the age when the event was known, falsely as well as officiously, ascribed these words to him.

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3. Thirdly, these books abound with exhortations to patience, and with topics of comfort under distress.

'Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.'

92

'We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed; always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body-knowing that he which raised up the Lord Jesus shall raise us up also by Jesus, and shall present us with you--For which cause we faint not; but, though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day, For our light affliction, which is but for a moment,

worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory."1

'Take, my brethren, the prophets, who have spoken in the name of the Lord, for an example of suffering affliction, and of patience. Behold, we count them happy which endure. Ye have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord; that the Lord is very pitiful, and of tender mercy.'a 'Call to remembrance the former days, in which, after ye were illuminated, ye endured a great fight of afflictions, partly whilst ye were made a gazing-stock both by reproaches and afflictions, and partly whilst ye became companions of them that were so used; for ye had compassion of me in my bonds, and took joyfully the spoiling of your goods, knowing in yourselves that ye have in heaven a better and an enduring substance. Cast not away therefore your confidence, which hath great recompense of reward; for ye have need of patience, that after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the promise.'

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'So that we ourselves glory in you in the churches of God, for your patience and faith in all your persecutions and tribulations that ye endure. Which is a manifest token of the righteous judgment of God, that ye may be accounted worthy of the kingdom for which ye also suffer."

'We rejoice in hope of the glory of God; and not only so, but we glory in tribulations also; knowing that tribulation worketh patience, and patience experience, and experience hope.'5

'Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you; but rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ's sufferings. Wherefore let them that suffer according to the will of God, commit the keeping of their souls to him in well doing, as unto a faithful Creator.""

What could all these texts mean, if there was nothing in the circumstances of the times which required patience, which called for the exercise of constancy and resolution?

Or will

it be pretended that these exhortations (which, let it be observed, come not from one author, but from many) were put in, merely to induce a belief in after-ages, that the first Christians were exposed to dangers which they were not exposed to, or underwent sufferings which they did not undergo? If these books belong to the age to which they lay claim, and in which age, whether genuine or spurious, they certainly did appear, this supposition cannot be maintained for a moment; because I think it impossible to believe, that passages, which must be deemed not only unintelligible, but false, by the persons into whose hands the books upon their publication were to come, should nevertheless be inserted, for the purpose of producing an effect upon remote generations. In forgeries which do not appear till many ages after that to which they pretend to belong, it is possible that some contrivance of that sort may take place; but in no others can it be attempted.

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ANNOTATION.

'These books abound with exhortations to patience, and with topics of comfort under distress.'

Very remarkable however, and very characteristic of truthfulness, is the calm, and almost careless tone in which both miracles and persecutions are spoken of. There is no attempt to express, or to excite, either admiration, or indignation, or pity;-no sign of what is called 'writing for effect.' On this subject I cannot forbear extracting a most admirable passage from the London Review, No. II. pp. 345, 346.

Theirs is a history of miracles; the historical picture of the scene in which the Spirit of God was poured on all flesh : and signs and wonders, visions and dreams, were part of the essentials of their narratives. How is all this related? With the same absence of high colouring and extravagant description with which other writers notice the ordinary occurrences of the world: partly, no doubt, for the like reason, that they were really familiar with miracles; partly, too, because to them these miracles had long been contemplated only as subservient measures to the great object and business of their ministry

the salvation of men's souls. On the subject of miracles, the means to this great end, they speak in calm, unimpassioned language; on man's sins, change of heart, on hope, faith, and charity; on the objects, in short, to be effected, they exhaust all their feelings and eloquence. Their history, from the narrative of our Lord's persecutions, to those of Paul, the abomination of the Jews, embraces scenes and personages which claim from the ordinary reader a continual effusion of sorrow, or wonder, or indignation. In writers who were friends of the parties, and adherents of the cause for which they did and suffered so great things, the absence of it is on ordinary grounds inconceivable. Look at the account even of the crucifixion. Not one burst of indignation or sympathy mixes with the details of the narrative. Stephen the first martyr is stoned, and the account comprised in these few words, They stoned Stephen, calling upon God, and saying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.' The varied and immense labours and sufferings of the Apostles are slightly hinted at, or else related in this dry and frigid way: And when they had called the Apostles, and beaten them, they commanded that they should not speak in the name of Jesus, and let them go.' And there came thither certain Jews from Antioch and Iconium, who persuaded the people, and having stoned Paul, drew him out of the city, supposing he had been dead. Howbeit, as the disciples stood round about him, he rose up, and came into the city; and the next day he departed with Barnabas to Derbe.'' And, when they had laid many stripes upon them, they cast them into prison, charging the jailor to keep them safely :

'Who, having received such a charge, thrust them into the inner prison, and made their feet fast in the stocks.

And at midnight Paul and Silas prayed, and sang praises unto God and the prisoners heard them.

And suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken: and immediately all the doors were opened, and every one's bands were loosed.'

Had these authors no feeling? Had their mode of life bereaved them of the common sympathies and sensibilities of human nature? Read such passages as St. Paul's parting address to the elders of Miletus; the same Apostle's recommendation of the offending member of the Corinthian Church

to pardon; and more than all, the occasional bursts of conflicting feeling, in which anxious apprehension for the faith and good behaviour of his converts is mixed with the pleasing recollection of their conversion, and the minister and the man are alike strongly displayed; and it will be plain that Christianity exercised no benumbing influence on the heart. No their whole soul was occupied with one object, which predominated over the means subservient to it, however great those means might be. In the storm, the pilot's eye is fixed on the headland which must be weathered; in the crisis of victory or defeat, the general sees only the position to be carried, and the dead and the instruments of death fall around him unheeded. On the salvation of men, on this one point, the witnesses of Christ and the ministers of his Spirit, expended all their energy of feeling and expression. All that occurred―mischance, persecution, and miracle-were glanced at by the eye of faith, only in subserviency to this mark of the prize of their high calling, as working together for good, and all exempt from the associations which would attach to such events and scenes, when contemplated by themselves, and with the short-sightedness of uninspired men. Miracles were not to them objects of wonder, nor mischances a subject of sorrow and lamentation. They did all, they suffered all, to the glory of God.'1

CHAPTER IV.

There is satisfactory evidence that many, professing to be original witnesses of the christian miracles, passed their lives in labours, dangers, and sufferings, voluntarily undergone in attestation of the accounts which they delivered, and solely in consequence of their belief of those accounts; and that they also submitted, from the same motives, to new rules of conduct.

THE

HE account of the treatment of the religion and of the exertions of its first preachers, as stated in our scriptures (not in a professed history of persecutions, or in the connected

1 London Review, No. II. p. 346.