to all the severities of persecution, exercised with unrelenting barbarity against the Christians.

The account you give of the origin and progress of episcopal jurisdiction, of the preeminence of the metropolitan churches, and of the ambition of the Roman pontiff, I believe to be, in general, accurate and true; and I am not in the least surprised at the bitterness which now and then escapes you in treating this subject; for, to see the most benign religion that imagination can form becoming an instrument of oppression, and the most humble one administering to the pride, the avarice, and the ambition of those who wished to be considered as its guardians, and who avowed themselves its professors, would extort a censure from men more attached probably to church authority than yourself; not that I think it either a very candid, or a very useful undertaking, to be solely and industriously engaged in portraying the characters of the professors of Christianity in the worst colours. It is not candid, because "the great law of impartiality, which obliges an historian to reveal the imperfections of the uninspired teachers and believers of the gospel," obliges him also not to conceal, or to pass over with niggard and reluctant mention, the illustrious virtues of those who gave up fortune and fame, all their comforts, and all their hopes in this life; nay, life itself, rather than violate any one of the precepts of that gospel, which from the testimony of inspired teachers, they conceived they had good reason to believe. It is not useful, because, " to a careless observer," that is, to the generality of mankind, “their faults may seem to cast a shade on the faith which they professed," and may really infect the minds of the young and unlearned especially, with prejudices against a religion, upon their rational reception or rejection of which, a matter of the utmost importance may (believe me, Sir, it may, for aught you or any person else can prove to the contrary) entirely depend. It is an easy matter to amuse ourselves and others with the immoralities of priests, and the ambition of prelates, with the absurd virulence of synods and councils, with the ridiculous doctrines which visionary enthusiasts or interested churchmen have sanctified with the name of Christian; but a display of ingenuity or erudition upon such subjects is much misplaced, since it excites almost in every person an unavoidable suspicion of the purity of the source itself, from which such polluted streams have been derived. Do not mistake my meaning. I am far from wishing that the clergy should be looked up to with a blind reverence, or their imperfections screened by the sanctity of their functions from the animadversion of the world; quite the contrary. Their conduct, I am of opinion,

ought to be more nicely scrutinized, and their deviation from the rectitude of the gospel more severely censured, than that of other men; but great care should be taken not to represent their vices or their indiscretions, as originating in the principles of their religion. Do not mistake me. I am not here begging quarter for Christianity, or contending that even the principles of our religion should be received with implicit faith, or that every objection to Christianity should be stifled by a representation of the mischief it might do if publicly promulged; on the contrary, we invite, nay, we challenge you to a direct and liberal attack, though oblique glances and disingenuous insinuations we are willing to avoid; well knowing, that the character of our religion, like that of an honest man, is defended with greater difficulty against the suggestions of ridicule, and the secret malignity of pretended friends, than against positive accusations, and the avowed malice of open enemies.

In your account of the primitive Church, you set forth, that "the want of discipline and human learning was supplied by the occasional assistance of the prophets, who were called to that function without distinction of age, of sex, or of natural abilities." That the gift of prophecy was one of the spiritual gifts by which some of the first Christians were enabled to co-operate with the apostles in the general design of preaching the gospel; and that this gift, or rather, as Mr Locke thinks, the gift of tongues, (by the ostentation of which, many of them were prompted to speak in their assemblies at the same time,) was the occasion of some disorder in the Church of Corinth, which required the interposition of the apostle to compose, is confessed on all hands. But if you mean, that the prophets were ever the sole pastors of the faithful, or that no provision was made by the apostles for the good government and edification of the Church, except what might be accidentally derived from the occasional assistance of the prophets, you are much mistaken, and have undoubtedly forgot what is said of Paul and Barnabas having ordained elders in Lystra, Iconium, and Antioch; and of Paul's commission to Titus, whom he had left in Crete, to ordain elders in every city and of his instructions both to him and Timothy, concerning the qualifications of those whom they were to appoint bishops; one of which was, that a bishop should be able, by sound doctrine, to exhort and to convince the gainsayer. Nor is it said, that this sound doctrine was to be communicated to the bishop by prophecy, or that all persons, without distinction, might be called to that office; but a bishop was "to be able to teach," not what he had learned by prophecy, but what Paul had publicly preached; "the

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things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also." And in every place almost, where prophets are mentioned, they are joined with apostles and teachers, and other ministers of the gospel, so that there is no reason for your representing them as a distinct order of men, who were by their occasional assistance to supply the want of discipline and human learning in the Church. It would be taking too large a field to inquire, whether the prophets you speak of were endowed with ordinary or extraordinary gifts: whether they always spoke by the immediate impulse of the Spirit, or according to the analogy of faith; whether their gift consisted in the foretelling of future events, or in the interpreting of Scripture to the edification, and exhortation, and comfort of the Church, or in both. I will content myself with observing, that he will judge very improperly concerning the prophets of the apostolic Church, who takes his idea of their office or importance from your description of them.

In speaking of the community of goods, which, you say, was adopted for a short time in the primitive Church, you hold as inconclusive the arguments of Mosheim, who has endeavoured to prove that it was a community quite different from that recommended by Pythagoras or Plato, consisting principally in a common use, derived from an unbounded liberality, which induced the opulent to share their riches with their indigent brethren. There have been others, as well as Mosheim, who have entertained this opinion, and it is not quite so indefensible as you represent it; but whether it be reasonable or absurd, need not now be examined; it is far more necessary to take notice of an expression which you have used, and which may be apt to mislead unwary readers into a very injurious suspicion concerning the integrity of the apostles. In process of time, you observe, "the converts who embraced the new religion were permitted to retain the possession of their patrimony." This expression, "permitted to retain," in ordinary acceptation, implies an antecedent obligation to part with. Now, Sir, I have not the shadow of a doubt in affirming that we have no account in Scripture of any such obligation being imposed upon the converts to Christianity, either by Christ himself, or by his apostles, or by any other authority; nay, in the very place where this community of goods is treated of, there is an express proof (I know not how your impartiality has happened to overlook it) to the contrary. When Peter was about to inflict an exemplary punishment upon Ananias, not for keeping back a part of the price, as some men are fond of representing it, but for his lying and hypocrisy, in offering a part

of the price of his land as the whole of it; he said to him, "Whilst it remained (unsold) was it not thine own? and after it was sold, was it not in thine own power?" From this account it is evident, that Ananias was under no obligation to part with his patrimony; and, after he had parted with it, the price was in his own power. The apostle would have "permitted him to retain" the whole of it, if he had thought fit; though he would not permit his prevarication to go unpunished.

You have remarked, that "the feasts of love, the agape, as they were called, constituted a very pleasing and essential part of public worship." Lest any one should from hence be led to suspect, that these feasts of love, this pleasing part of the public worship of the primitive Church, resembled the unhallowed meetings of some impure sectaries of our own times, I will take the liberty to add to your account a short explication of the nature of these agapæ. Tertullian, in the 39th chapter of his Apology, has done it to my hands. "The nature of our supper," says he, "is indicated by its name; it is called by a word which, in the Greek language, signifies love. We are not anxious about the expense of the entertainment, since we look upon that as gain which is expended with a pions purpose in the relief and refreshment of all our indigent. The occasion of our entertainment being so honourable, you may judge of the manner of its being conducted. It consists in the discharge of religious duties; it admits nothing vile, nothing immodest. Before we sit down, prayer is made to God. The hungry eat as much as they desire, and every one drinks as much as can be useful to sober men. We so feast, as men who have their minds impressed with the idea of spending the night in the worship of God; we so converse, as men who are conscious that the Lord heareth them," &c. Perhaps you may object to this testimony in favour of the innocence of Christian meetings, as liable to partiality, because it is the testimony of a Christian; and you may, perhaps, be able to pick out, from the writings of this Christian, something that looks like a contradiction of this account. However, I will rest the matter upon this testimony for the present, forbearing to quote any other Christian writer upon the subject, as I shall, in a future letter, produce you a testimony superior to every objection. You speak, too, of the agape as an essential part of the public worship. This is not according to your usual accuracy; for, had they been essential, the edict of an heathen magistrate would not have been able to put a stop to them; yet Pliny, in his letter to Trajan, expressly says, that the Christians left them off, upon his publishing an edict prohibiting assemblies; and we know that, in the council

of Carthage, in the fourth century, on account of the abuses which attended them, they began to be interdicted, and ceased almost universally in the fifth.

I have but two observations to make upon what you have advanced concerning the severity of ecclesiastical penance: The first is, that even you yourself do not deduce its institution from the Scripture, but from the power which every voluntary society has over its own members; and therefore, however extravagant or however absurd, however opposite to the attributes of a commiserating God, or the feelings of a fallible man, it may be thought; or upon whatever trivial occasion, such as that you mention of calumniating a bishop, a presbyter, or even a deacon, it may have been inflicted: Christ and his Apostles are not answerable for it. The other is, that it was, of all possible expedients, the least fitted to accomplish the end for which you think it was introduced, the propagation of Christianity. The sight of a penitent humbled by a public confession, emaciated by fasting, clothed in sackcloth, prostrated at the door of the assembly, and imploring for years together the pardon of his offences, and readmission into the bosom of the Church, was a much more likely means of deterring the Pagans from Christian community, than the pious liberality you mention was of alluring them into it. This pious liberality, Sir, would exhaust even your eloquent powers of description, before you could exhibit it in the amiable manner it deserves; it is derived from the "new commandment of loving one another;" and it has ever been the distinguishing characteristic of Christians, as opposed to every other denomination of men, Jews, Mahometans, or Pagans. In the times of the apostles, and in the first ages of the Church, it shewed itself in voluntary contributions for the relief of the poor and the persecuted, the infirm and the unfortunate: as soon as the Church was permitted to have permanent possessions in land, and acquired the protection of the civil power, it exerted itself in the erection of hospitals of every kind; institutions these, of charity and humanity, which were forgotten in the laws of Solon and Lycurgus; and for even one example of which, you will, I believe, in vain explore the boasted annals of Pagan Rome. Indeed, Sir, you will think too injuriously of this liberality, if you look upon its origin as superstitious; or upon its application as an artifice of the priesthood, to seduce the indigent into the bosom of the Church: it was the pure and uncorrupted fruit of genuine Christianity.

You are much "surprised," and not a little "concerned," that Tacitus and the younger Pliny have spoken so slightly of the Christian system; and that Seneca and the elder Pliny have not vouchsafed to mention it at all.

This difficulty seems to have struck others, as well as yourself; and I might refer you to the conclusion of the second volume of Dr Lardner's Collection of Ancient Jewish and Heathen Testimonies to the Truth of the Christian Religion, for full satisfaction in this point; but perhaps an observation or two may be sufficient to diminish your surprise.

Obscure sectaries of upright morals, when they separate themselves from the religion of their country, do not speedily acquire the attention of men of letters. The historians are apprehensive of depreciating the dignity of their learned labour, and contaminating their splendid narration of illustrious events, by mixing with it a disgusting detail of religious combinations; and the philosophers are usually too deeply engaged in abstract science, or in exploring the infinite intricacy of natural appearances, to busy themselves with what they, perhaps hastily, esteem popular superstitions. Historians and philosophers, of no mean reputation, might be mentioned, I believe, who were the contemporaries of Luther and the first reformers; and who have passed over in negligence or contemptuous silence, their daring and unpopular attempts to shake the stability of St Peter's chair. Opposition to the religion of a people must become general, before it can deserve the notice of the civil magistrate; and till it does that, it will mostly be thought below the animadversion of distinguished writers. This remark is peculiarly applicable to the case in point. The first Christians, as Christ had foretold, were "hated of all men for his name's sake:" it was the name itself, not any vices adhering to the name, which Pliny punished; and they were every where held in exceeding contempt, till their numbers excited the apprehension of the ruling powers. The philosophers considered them as enthusiasts, and neglected them; the priests opposed them as innovators, and calumniated them; the great overlooked them, and the learned despised them; and the curious alone, who examined into the foundation of their faith, believed them. But the negligence of some half dozen of writers (most of them, however, bear incidental teștimony to the truth of several facts respecting Christianity) in not relating circumstantially the origin, the progress, and the pretensions of a new sect, is a very insufficient reason for questioning either the evidence of the principles upon which it was built, or the supernatural power by which it was supported.

The Roman historians, moreover, were not only culpably incurious concerning the Christians, but unpardonably ignorant of what concerned either them or the Jews: I say, unpardonably ignorant; because the means of information were within their reach; the writings of Moses were every where to be had

in Greek; and the works of Josephus were published before Tacitus wrote his history; and yet even Tacitus has fallen into great absurdity, and self-contradiction, in his account of the Jews; and though Tertullian's zeal carried him much too far, when he called him mendaciorum loquacissimus, yet one cannot help regretting the little pains he took to acquire proper information upon that subject. He derives the name of the Jews, by a forced interpretation, from mount Ida in Crete; * and he represents them as abhorring all kinds of images in public worship, and yet accuses them of having placed the image of an ass in the holy of holies: and presently after he tells us, that Pompey, when he profaned the temple, found the sanctuary entirely empty. Similar inaccuracies might be noticed in Plutarch, and other writers who have spoken of the Jews; and you yourself have referred to an obscure passage in Suetonius, as offering a proof how strangely the Jews and Christians of Rome were confounded with each other. Why then should we think it remarkable, that a few celebrated writers, who looked upon the Christians as an obscure sect of the Jews, and upon the Jews as a barbarous and detested people whose history was not worth the perusal, and who were moreover engaged in the relation of the great events which either occasioned or accompanied the ruin of their eternal empire; why should we be surprised, that men occupied in such interesting subjects, and influenced by such inveterate prejudices, should have left us but short and imperfect descriptions of the Christian system?

"But how shall we excuse," you say, "the supine inattention of the Pagan and philosophic world to those evidences, which were presented by the hand of Omnipotence, not to their reason, but to their senses?"" The laws of nature were perpetually suspended, for the benefit of the Church; but the sages of Greece and Rome turned aside from the awful spectacle"-[to their shame be it spoken that they did so]" and, pursuing the ordinary occupations of life and study, appeared unconscious of any alterations in the moral or physical government of the world." To this objection I answer, in the first place, that we have no reason to believe that miracles were performed as often as philosophers deigned to give their attention to them; or that, at the period of time you allude to, the laws of nature were "perpetually" suspended for the benefit of the Church. It may be, that not one of the few heathen writers whose books have escaped the ravages of time, was ever present when a miracle was wrought; but will it follow, because Pliny, or Plutarch, or Galen, or Seneca, or Suetonius, or Tacitus, had

Inclytum in Creta Idam montem accolas Idæos aucto in barbarum cognomento Judæos vocitari. Tac. Hist. 1. 5. sub init.

never seen a miracle, that no miracles were ever performed? They, indeed, were learned and observant men; and it may be a matter of surprise to us, that miracles so celebrated as the friends of Christianity suppose the Christian ones to have been, should never have been mentioned by them though they had not seen them; and had an Adrian or a Vespasian been the authors of but a thousandth part of the miracles you have ascribed to the primitive Church, more than one probably of these very historians, philosophers as they were, would have adorned his history with the narration of them: for though they turned aside from the awful spectacle of the miracles of a poor despised Apostle-yet they beheld with exulting complacency, and have related with unsuspecting credulity, the ostentatious tricks of à Roman emperor. It was not for want of faith in miraculous events that these sages neglected the Christian miracles, but for want of candour and impartial examination.

I answer, in the second place, that in the Acts of the Apostles we have an account of a great multitude of Pagans of every condition of life, who were so far from being inattentive to the evidences which were presented by the hand of Omnipotence to their senses, that they contemplated them with reverence and wonder; and forsaking the religion of their ancestors, and all the flattering hopes of worldly profit, reputation, and tranquillity, adhered with astonishing resolution to the profession of Christianity. From the conclusion of the Acts till the time in which some of the sages you mention flourished, is a very obscure part of Church history; yet we are certain that many of the Pagan, and we have some reason to believe, that not a few of the philosophic world, during that period, did not turn aside from the awful spectacle of miracles, but saw and believed: and that a few others should be found, who probably had never seen, and therefore would not believe, is surely no very extraordinary circumstance. Why should we not answer, to objections such as these, with the boldness of St Jerome, and bid Celsus, and Porphyry, and Julian, and their followers, learn the illustrious characters of the men who founded, built up, and adorned the Christian Church? Why should we not tell them, with Arnobius, of the orators, the grammarians, the rhetoricians, the lawyers, the physicians, the philosophers, who appeared conscious of the alterations in the moral and physical government of the world and from that consciousness, forsook the ordinary occu

* Discant Celsus, Porphyrius, Julianus, rabidi adversus Christum canes, discant eorum sectatores, qui putant Ecclesiam nullos Philosophos et eloquentes, nullos habuisse Doctores; quanti et quales viri eam fundaverint, extruxerint, ornaverintque; et desinant fidem nostram rusticæ tantum simplicitatis arguere, suamque potius imperitiam agnoscant. Jero. Præ Lib de Illus. Eccl. Durip.

pations of life and study, and attached themselves to the Christian discipline? *

I answer, in the last place, that the miracles of Christians were falsely attributed to magic; and were for that reason thought unworthy the notice of the writers you have referred to. Suetonius, in his life of Nero, calls the Christians, men of a new and magical superstition.+ I am sensible that you laugh at those " sagacious commentators," who translate the original word by "magical" and adopting the idea of Mosheim, you think it ought to be rendered "mischievous or pernicious." Unquestionably it frequently has that meaning; with due deference, however, to Mosheim and yourself, I cannot help being of opinion, that in this place, as descriptive of the Christian religion, it is rightly translated "magical." The Theodosian Code must be my excuse for dissenting from such respectable authority; and in it, I conjecture, you will find good reason for being of my opinion. Nor ought any friend to Christianity to be astonished or alarmed at Suetonius applying the word "magical" to the Christian religion; for the miracles wrought by Christ and his apostles principally consisted in alleviating the distresses, by curing the obstinate diseases, of human kind; and the proper meaning of magic, as understood by the ancients, is a higher and more holy branch of the art of healing. The elder Pliny lost his life in an eruption of Vesuvius, about forty-seven years after the death of Christ. Some fifteen years before the death of Pliny, the Christians were persecuted at Rome for a crime, of which every person knew them innocent; but from the description which Tacitus gives of the low estimation they were held in at that time, (for which, however, he assigns no cause, and therefore we may reasonably conjecture it was the same for which the Jews were everywhere become so odious,-an opposition to Polytheism,) and of the extreme sufferings they underwent, we cannot be much surprised that their name is not to be found in the works of Pliny or of Seneca: the sect itself must, by Nero's persecution, have been almost destroyed in Rome; and it would have been uncourtly, not to say unsafe, to have noticed an order of men, whose innocence an emperor had determined to traduce, in order to divert the dangerous but deserved stream of popular censure from himself. Notwithstanding this, there is a passage in the

Arnob, con. Gen. 1. 11.

+ Genus hominum superstitionis novæ et maleficæ -Suet. in Nero. c. 16.

Chaldæi, ac Magi, et cæteri quos vulgus maleficos ob facinorum magnitudinem appellat.-Si quis magus vel magicis cantaminibus adsuetas, qui maleficus vulgi consuetudine nuncupatur. ix. Cod. Theodos. tit. xvi.

Pliny, speaking of the origin of magic, says, "Natam primum e medicina nemo dubitat, ac specie salutari irrepsisse velut altiorem sanctioremque medicinam." He afterwards says, that it was mixed with mathematical arts; and thus magici and mathematici are joined by Pliny, as malefici and magici are in the Theodosian Code. Plin. Nat. Hist. lib. 30. c. 1.

Natural History of Pliny, which, how much soever it may have been overlooked, contains, I think, a very strong allusion to the Christians, and clearly intimates he had heard of their miracles. In speaking concerning the origin of magic, he says, "There is also another faction of magic derived from the Jews, Moses, and Lotopea, and subsisting at present." The word faction does not ill denote the opinion the Romans entertained of the religious associations of the Christians;¶ and a magical faction implies their pretensions, at least, to the miraculous gifts of healing; and its descending from Moses, is according to the custom of the Romans, by which they confounded the Christians with the Jews; and its being then subsisting, seems to have a strong reference to the rumours Pliny had negligently heard reported of the Christians.

Submitting each of these answers to your cool and candid consideration, I proceed to take notice of another difficulty in your fifteenth chapter, which some have thought one of the most important in your whole book, the silence of profane historians concerning the preternatural darkness at the crucifixion of Christ. You know, Sir, that several learned men are of opinion, that profaue history is not silent upon this subject; I will, however, put their authority for the present quite out of the question. I will neither trouble you with the testimony of Phlegon, nor with the appeal of Tertullian to the public registers of the Romans; but meeting you upon your own ground, and granting you every thing you desire, I will endeavour, from a fair and candid examination of the history of this event, to suggest a doubt, at least to your mind, whether this was "the greatest phenomenon to which the mortal eye has been witness since the creation of the globe."

This darkness is mentioned by three of the four Evangelists: St Matthew thus expresses himself,-"Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land until the ninth hour." St Mark says, "And when the sixth hour was come, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour." St Luke," And it was about the sixth hour, and there was darkness over all the earth until the ninth hour; and the sun was darkened." The three Evangelists agree, that there was darkness; and they agree in the extent of the darkness,-for it is the samo expression in the original, which our translators have rendered earth in Luke, and land in the two other accounts; and they agree in the duration of the darkness, it lasted

Est et alia magices factio, a Mose, etiamnum et Lotopea Judæis pendens. Plin. Nat. Hist. lib. 30, c. 2. Edit. Hardu. Dr Lardner and others have made slight mention of this passage, probably from their reading in bad editions Jamne for etiamnum, a Mose et Janine et Lotape Judæis pendens

Tertullian reckons the sect of the Christians, inter licitas factiones. Ad. c. 38.