it must be of God, protected and advanced by his power.

Before proceeding to speak of the success of the apostles, we may deduce from the premises we have established a conclusive proof of the power by which they acted.

It is certain that they understood the difficulties, and anticipated the dangers of their work. As men of ordinary understanding they must have foreseen, while by the predictions of Christ they were distinctly apprized of the obstacles and perils they would encounter. Nevertheless, with a perfect knowledge of their own weakness, they undertook to propagate the gospel among all nations. Why? What was there in reproach and beggary, in racks and prisons, in wild beasts and flames, so inviting? Must they not have been sincere in their professions? Could any thing short of a thorough belief that Jesus was risen, and had promised to be with them in all their labors, have induced them to undertake such an enterprise? It is impossible, without ridiculous. absurdity, to question their entire persuasion of this. But is this a proof that Jesus was risen, and that, in divine power, he was with them? We do not pretend that, in general, the fact of the advocates of a doctrine being convinced, is valid evidence of its truth; but in the case of the apostles it should be thus regarded, inasmuch as they could not have been deceived. Whether Jesus wrought genuine miracles or not; whether he had appeared to them "at sundry times and in divers manners" after his burial;

whether he had eaten with them, conversed with them, journeyed with them during the space of forty days subsequent to his death; whether they heard and saw him, at the end of those days, solemnly give them their charge to propagate the gospel, and the promise of his presence and power wherever they should go, they must have known. Consequently, when with such undeniable knowledge and unquestionable sincerity, they went into all the world preaching Jesus and the resurrection, neither deceived nor wishing to deceive, the evidence was perfect that they labored in the service of truth-that their faith stood not "in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God."

II. Let us now consider THE SUCCESS of the apostles in executing their Master's charge. On the fiftieth day after his death they commenced. Beginning in Jerusalem, the very furnace of persecution, they first set up their banner in the midst of those who had been first in the crucifixion of Jesus and were all elate with the triumph of that tragedy. No assemblage could have been more possessed of dispositions perfectly at war with their message, than that to which they made their first address. And what was the tenor of the address? "Jesus of Nazareth, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain; whom God hath raised up. Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly, that God hath made that same Jesus whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ." One would have

supposed that the same hands that had rioted in the blood of his Master, would now have wreaked their enmity in that of this daring, and, to all human view, most impolitic apostle. But what ensued? Three thousand souls were that day added to the infant church. In a few days the number was increased to five thousand; and in the space of about a year and a half, though the gospel was preached only in Jerusalem and its vicinity, "multitudes both of men and women," and "a great company of the priests, were obedient to the faith." Now, the converts being driven by a fierce persecution from Jerusalem, "went everywhere preaching the word ;" and in less than three years churches were gathered "throughout all Judea, Galilee, and Samaria, and were multiplied." About two years after this, or seven from the beginning of the work, the gospel was first preached to the Gentiles; and such was the success, that before thirty years had elapsed from the death of Christ, his church had spread throughout Judea, Galilee, and Samaria; through almost all the numerous districts of the lesser Asia; through Greece and the islands of the Egean sea, the sea-coast of Africa, and even into Italy and Rome. The number of converts in the several cities respectively, is described by the expressions, "a great number," "great multitudes," ""much people." What an extensive impression had been made, is obvious from the outcry of the opposers at Thessalonica, that "they who had turned

*Acts 2: 41.
t Acts 4: 4.

+ Acts 5:14; 6:7.
Acts 8:4; 9:31.

the world upside down, were come hither also." Demetrius, an enemy, complained of Paul, that "not only at Ephesus, but also throughout all Asia,” what is now called Asia Minor, "he had persuaded and turned away much people." In the mean while Jerusalem, the chief seat of Jewish rancor, continued the metropolis of the gospel, having in it many tens of thousands of believers. These accounts are taken from the book of the Acts of the Apostles; but as this book is almost confined to the labors of Paul and his immediate companions, saying very little of the other apostles, it is very certain that the view we have given of the propagation of the gospel during the first thirty years is very incomplete. In the thirtieth year after the beginning of the work, the terrible persecution under Nero kindled its fires; then Christians had become so numerous at Rome, that, by the testimony of Tacitus, "a great multitude" were seized. In forty years more, as we are told in a celebrated letter from Pliny the Roman governor of Pontus and Bythinia, Christianity had long subsisted in these provinces, though so remote from Judea. "Many of all ages, and of every rank, of both sexes likewise," were accused to Pliny of being Christians. What he calls, "the contagion of this superstition," thus forcibly describing the irresistible and rapid spread of Christianity, had "seized not cities only, but the less towns also, and the open country," so that the heathen temples "were almost forsaken," few victims were purchased for sacrifice, *See Paley's Evidences. + Acts 21:20. “ ποσαι μυριάδες.”

and "a long intermission of the sacred solemnities had taken place.* Justin Martyr, who wrote about thirty years after Pliny, and one hundred after the gospel was first preached to the Gentiles, thus describes the extent of Christianity in his time: "There is not a nation, either Greek or barbarian, or of any other name, even of those who wander in tribes and live in tents, among whom prayers and thanksgivings are not offered to the Father and Creator of the universe by the name of the crucified Jesus." Clemens Alexandrinus, a few years after, thus writes: "The philosophers were confined to Greece and to their particular retainers, but the doctrine of the Master of Christianity did not remain in Judea, but is spread throughout the whole world, in every nation and village and city, converting both whole houses and separate individuals, having already brought over to the truth not a few of the philosophers themselves. If the Greek philosophy be prohibited, it immediately vanishes; whereas, from the first preaching of our doctrine, kings and tyrants, governors and presidents, with their whole train and with the populace on their side, have endeavored with their whole might to exterminate it, yet doth it flourish more and more."

There is no reason for diminishing the wonder which this rapid success of the gospel so necessarily excites, by the supposition that all these conversions, or the greater part of them, were little more than a change of profession and name-the substitution of a Christian church for a heathen temple-a mere tranLardner, vol. 4, p. 13–15.