firmed by a proportionate force of evidence. And I cannot but be aware, that although this religion is countenanced by the State, and defended by the laws, and cordially believed by many; yet it is also disbelieved by many, neglected by more, and openly assailed by some.

For these reasons, I must have a stronger ground for believing Christianity, than that it is the established religion of my own age and country. This fact, together with its obvious utility to the public morals, may secure my respect to its institutions, and my compliance with its forms. But if I am required to go further, I must inquire deeper, and have a surer foundation of my faith. And the slightest consideration shows me, that I am bound to make this inquiry; and that if I neglect Christianity unexamined, I neglect it at my peril.

I must, therefore, trace back this revelation to its origin. It may not have had the origin to which it pretends. But it must have had some origin. As there are those who deny its origin to have been divine, what other account is given of its existence? It is not enough to speak generally of the New Testament as an imposture, a fiction; although such, if not true, it must have been. But an imposture must have had designers: a fiction must have been framed. Who and what were those who framed it? And how did they succeed? how prevail to get their fabrication recognized?

Pursuing this inquiry, I find that the origin of Christianity, as declared in its own records, is briefly this. About eighteen hundred years ago, a person, born in one of the provinces of Judea, went through that country, and attracted attention by the exercise of supernatural powers. He represented himself as the Son of God, having been born out of the usual course of nature, and sent of the Father in compassion for the state of the world, lying under the condemnation of sin. He instructed those, who flocked to him, in the rules of life which they should observe, and the dispositions they should cultivate; and promised to all, who should believe and obey him, everlasting happiness in a future state. After a short period of time, probably three years, passed in this manner, he was put to death, at the instigation of the chief persons among the Jews; but not until he had predicted this event, and declared it to be an essential part of the mystery of his incarnation; and 'not until he had attached to himself a certain number of disciples, and given directions for their disseminating and establishing in the world the religion which he had introduced and founded.

Now, is there any certainty that this indeed took place at the time and in the manner which the history records? Antichristian writers, I observe, affect to throw an air of obscurity over the first appearance and promulgation of the religion. One of them asserts, that the system was gradually formed

out of what he calls the chaos and anarchy of the three first centuries. And others generally assume, that the testimony to the introduction of Christianity is confined to the Church itself, which must not be solely trusted in its own cause.

The grand point is, to obtain something definite: we cannot lean upon a shadow. At what time did the religion of Jesus Christ supersede what was believed before? We know that it exists, and is established, now; but we know likewise, that it did not always exist; that it gradually took the place which had been occupied by Judaism and Paganism, and flourished upon their ruins.

There is, however, indisputable testimony that the religion was first preached and received at a time which exactly corresponds with the death of its Founder, as related in the Scriptures. We have no occasion, on this head, to appeal to the Church: that is, to rely on Christian writers alone. The foreign and collateral testimony fails in no point where it can be reasonably demanded. It has, indeed, been the fashion to complain of the silence or inattention of the contemporary historians, as to what has since assumed such vast importance. But the truth is, that they are not silent. They are not, indeed, full : but they tell us all that we require, and all which they could be expected to tell. As early as the time of Claudius, who died within twenty years of the rucifixion of Jesus, Christians had occasioned some

confusion even in the city of Rome, so that the Emperor thought it necessary to expel them from the city. This we learn from the Roman historian ;1 who also relates, in his biography of Nero, reckoning it among his praiseworthy actions, that he inflicted punishment on the Christians, a race of men following a new and pernicious superstition. This agrees with the account of the contemporary annalist Tacitus, according to whom, within thirty years of the death of Christ, his disciples at Rome were numerous enough to be well known and distinguished in that populous city, and generally styled Christians, after the name of their Founder; who, he adds, was put to death in the reign of Tiberius, by his Procurator, Pontius Pilate. The same author proceeds to describe the sufferings which they endured from the tyranny of Nero, who endeavoured to divert from himself the accusation of having set fire to his capital, and to fix the stigma upon them."

Another sort of collateral evidence, equally unexceptionable, is furnished by a long epistle of Clement, Bishop of Rome, which was addressed by him to the Corinthian Christians, about fifty years after the death of Jesus: the whole tenour of which proves

1 See Suetonius in Claud. 25; and compare Acts xviii. 2. The Em peror, he says, banished the Jews from Rome; who, impulsore Chresto made continual tumults. Christianity passed at first among the heathens for a sort of Judaism; a mistake easily accounted for; as also the error of the common word χρεστος, for the uncommon χριστος. 2 Tacitus, Annal. xv. 44

that the society of Christians had been long esta blished in that city. Several letters of another bishop, Ignatius, dated twenty-five years later, confirm the same point, with regard to many Christian communities in Asia. About the same period we have similar testimony from Pliny, proconsul under Trajan, who describes the Christian churches in Bithynia and Pontus, as consisting of many of all ages and of both sexes; and calls the religion a contagious superstition, which has spread not only through cities, but over villages and the whole country.1

To this open testimony it would be easy to add allusions, more or less clear, from almost every writer of note during that period whose works have remained. But my only object was to show that we have firm ground to set out upon. If Christians were known as a tangible body in Rome, upon whom a popular stigma might be attached, within twenty years of the date assigned for the death of Jesus; and if they could be collectively addressed in epistles sent to various parts of Greece and Asia; and if within seventy years of the same event they could be described as "a vast multitude, numbers of every age, of both sexes;" it is quite clear that we may assume the date to which the origin of Christianity is commonly referred, as one which is probably exact

1 Epist. Lib. x. Ep. 91.

2 Ingens multitudo, multi omnis ætatis, utriusque sexûs.—PLINY.