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SECTION II.

Reflections upon the preceding Account.

IN viewing the progress of Chriftianity,

our first attention is due to the number of converts at Jerufalem, immediately after its founder's death; because this success was a success at the time, and upon the spot, when and where the chief part of the history had been transacted,

We are, in the next place, called upon to attend to the early establishment of numerous Christian societies in Judea and Galilee, which countries had been the scene of Christ's miracles and ministry, and where the memory of what had passed, and the knowledge of what was alledged, must have yet been fresh and certain.

We are, thirdly, invited to recollect the fuccess success of the apostles and of their companions, at the several places to which they came, both within and without Judea; because it was the credit given to original witnesses, appealing for the truth of their accounts to what themselves had seen and heard. The effect also of their preaching strongly confirms the truth of what our hiftory positively and circumstantially relates, that they were able to exhibit to their hearers supernatural attestations of their miffion.

We are, lastly, to confider the fubfequent growth and spread of the religion, of which we receive successive intimations, and fatiffactory, though general and occafional, accounts until its full and final establishment.

In all these several stages, the history is without a parallel; for it must be observed, that we have not now been tracing the progress, and defcribing the prevalency, of an opinion, founded upon philosophical or critical arguments, upon mere deductions of reason,

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reason, or the construction of ancient writings (of which kind are the several theories which have, at different times, gained poffeffion of the public mind in various departments of science and literature; and of one or other of which kind are the tenets also which divide the various sects of Chriftianity): but that we speak of a system, the very basis and poftulatum of which was a fupernatural character ascribed to a particular perfon; of a doctrine, the truth whereof depended entirely upon the truth of a matter of fact then recent. "To establish a new religion, even amongst a few people, or in one fingle nation, is a thing in itself exceedingly difficult. To reform some corruptions which may have spread in a religion, or to make new regulations in it, is not perhaps so hard, when the main and principal part of that religion is preferved entire and unshaken; and yet this very often cannot be accomplished, without an extraordinary concurrence of circumstances, and may be attempted a thousand times without success. But to introduce a new faith, a new way of thinking and acting, and to perfuade many nations to quit the religion in which their ancestors had lived and died, which had been delivered down to them from time immemorial, to make them forsake and despise the deities which they had been accustomed to reverence and worship; this is a work of still greater dif ficulty *. The resistance of education, worldly policy, and superstition, is almost invincible."

If men, in these days, be Christians in confequence of their education, in fubmifsion to authority, or in compliance with fashion, let us recollect that the very contrary of this, at the beginning, was the cafe. The first race of Christians, as well as millions who fucceeded them, became fuch in formal oppofition to all these motives; to the whole power and strength of this influence. Every argument therefore, and every instance, which fets forth the prejudice of education, and the almost irresistible effects of that prejudice (and no persons are more fond of expatiating upon this subject than deistical writers) in fact confirms the evidence of Christianity.

* Jortin's Dif. on the Christ. Rel. p. 107, ed. iv.

But, in order to judge of the argument which is drawn from the early propagation of Christianity, I know no fairer way of proceeding, than to compare what we have feen of the subject, with the success of Chriftian miffions in modern ages. In the EastIndia miffion, supported by the Society for promoting Christian Knowledge, we hear fometimes of thirty, sometimes of forty, being baptised in the course of a year, and these principally children. Of converts properly so called, that is, of adults voluntarily embracing Christianity, the number is extremely small. "Notwithstanding the labour of miffionaries for upwards of two hundred years, and the establishments of different Christian nations who support them, there are not twelve thousand In

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