are not perhaps at liberty to take for granted, that the lives of the preachers of Christianity were as perfect as their leffons:. but we are entitled to contend, that the obfervable part of their behaviour must have agreed in a great measure with the duties which they taught. There was therefore, which is all that we affert, a course of life pursued by them, different from that which they before led, And this is of great importance, Men are brought to any thing almost fooner than to change their habit of life, efpecially, when the change is either inconvenient, or made against the force of natural inclination, or with the lofs of accuftomed indulgences, "It is the most dif ficult of all things to convert men from vicious habits to virtuous ones, as every one may judge from what he feels in himself, as well as from what he fees in others *" It is almost like making men over again.

Left then to myfelf, and without any

* Hartley's Eff. on Man, p. 199.

D4

more

more information than a knowledge of the existence of the religion, of the general story upon which it is founded, and that no act of power, force, or authority, was concerned in its firft fuccefs, I fhould conclude, from the very nature and exigency of the cafe, that the author of the religion during his life, and his immediate difciples after his death, exerted themselves in fpreading and publishing the inftitution throughout the country in which it began, and into which it was firft carried; that, in the profecution of this purpofe, they underwent the labours and troubles, which we obferve the propagators of new fects to undergo: that the attempt muft neceffarily have also been in a high degree dangerous; that from the fubject of the miffion, compared with the fixed opinions and prejudices of thofe to whom the miffionaries were to addrefs themselves, they could hardly fail of encountering ftrong and frequent oppofition; that, by the hand of government, as well as from the fudden fury and unbridled licence of the people, they would oftentimes experience injurious

and cruel treatment; that, at any rate, they must have always had so much to fear for their personal safety, as to have paffed their lives in a ftate of conftant peril and anxiety; and laftly, that their mode of life and conduct, visibly at leaft, correfponded with the inftitution which they delivered, and fo far, was both new, and required continual felf-denial,

CHAP.

CHA P. II.

There is fatisfactory evidence, that many profeffing to be original witneffes of the Chrif tian miracles, paffed their lives in labours, dangers, and fufferings, voluntarily undergone in atteftation of the accounts which they delivered, and folely in confequence of their belief of the truth of these accounts; and that they also fubmitted from the fame motive to new rules of conduct.

AFTER thus confidering what was likely to happen, we are next to enquire how the tranfaction is reprefented in the feveral accounts that have come down to us. And this enquiry is properly preceded by the other, forafmuch as the reception of these accounts may depend in part upon the credibility of what they contain.

The obfcure and diftant view of Chrifti

anity, which fome of the heathen writers of that age had gained, and which a few paffages in their remaining works incidentally discover to us, offers itself to our notice in the first place: because, fo far as this evidence goes, it is the conceffion of adverfaries; the source from which it is drawn is unfufpected. Under this head a quotation from Tacitus, well known to every scholar, must be inferted as deferving of particular attention. The Reader will bear in mind that this passage was written about seventy years after Christ's death, and that it relates to transactions which took place about thirty years after that event. Speaking of the fire which hap pened at Rome in the time of Nero, and of the fufpicions which were entertained that the emperor himself was concerned in caufing it, the hiftorian proceeds in his narrative and observations thus ;

"But neither thefe exertions, nor his lar geffes to the people, nor his offerings to the gods, did away the infamous imputation

under