the doctrines taught by Christ's difciples were received, they who had been his implacable enemies, fhould be accounted not only ignorant and blind guides, but dishonest men; that they should not only lose their credit and authority, but be exposed to the refentment of the incenfed multitude; and therefore they thought that the best way to fecure themselves was to deter, and hinder the Apostles from appearing any more in public, and from preaching the Gospel. And when the difciples continued to perform the functions of their ministry, the high priest asked them, faying, Did we not Straightly command you that you should not

teach in this name? And behold, ye have filled Jerufalem with your doctrine, and intend to bring this man's blood upon us.

Miracles were wrought to convince them; but when a man is violently bent to believe or difbelieve, he is more than half perfuaded that things are as he defires. They haftily concluded that those miracles were either delufions and impoftures, or wonderful works performed by the aid of evil fpirits.

4

From these il difpofitions proceeded fuitable effects; for they perfecuted the first Christians, they accufed them to the Roman magiftrates of fedition, they beat them in their fynagogues, they imprisoned them, they banished them, they put many of them to death, and ftrove to the utmost of their power to deftroy this rifing fect. Some ancient writers affure us, that the Jews took the pains to send persons from Jerufalem into all countries, to accuse the Christians of atheism and other crimes, and to make them as odious as they poffibly could.

From the account which we have given of the obftinacy of the Jews, and of the causes whence it arose, it appears that their unbelief is no objection to the truth of the Gofpel. The modern Jews therefore reason weakly when they fay, that their ancestors would not, and could not have rejected Chrift, if the miracles related in the Gospel had been really wrought. Against this argument we may also observe, that it can

Juftin M. and Eufebius. See Juftin p. 171. and Thirlby's Notes, and Fabricius de Ver. R. C. p. 665.

do

do no service to a Jew, because it would prove too much. It would prove that Mofes wrought no miracles, fince the whole people of Ifrael often rebelled against him: it would prove that many of the prophets recorded in the Old Teftament were falfe prophets, because they were perfecuted by the Jews. The Jews are not able to give any reason why they acknowledge the Law of Mofes to be a divine revelation, which will not directly and more strongly establish the truth and authority of the Gofpel.

h

This argument is ufed by Origen: and Orobius, being preffed with it by Limborch, was forced to make two aukward conceffions; firft, that a few could not prove his religion to a Deift; and fecondly, that it became every Chriftian and few to continue in the religion in

h Contr. Celf. I. p. 32. and frequently through the whole treatise.

i See Limborch's Collat. & Le Clerc Bibl. Choif. xxiv. P. 359. The heretic Apelles faid much the fame thing, namely, μὴ δὲν ὅλως ἐξελάζειν τὸν λόγον, ἀλλ ̓ ἕκασον ὡς πεπίςευκε διαμένειν. Non effe omnino examinandam fidem, fed unumquemque in eo quod femel imbibiffet, perstare oportere. Eufebius E. H. v. 13.

which he had been educated, because each had arguments to urge which the other could not confute.

THE GENTILES had many prejudices in common with the Jews, and fome peculiar to themselves.

The causes of unbelief which were common to them with the Jews were, a great corruption of manners, the prejudice of education, the purity of the precepts of the Gofpel fo oppofite to their vitious inclinations, the temporal inconveniences which attended the profeffion of Christianity, and the temporal advantages which might be fecured or obtained by rejecting or oppofing it, the poor appearance which Chrift had made in the world, and his ignominious death, which they could not reconcile with the divine afcribed to him by his disciples; these things produced in the greater part of the Jews an averfion for the Gofpel, and they had the fame effect on the unconverted Gentiles.

power

The Gentiles ought not to have flighted and rejected the Gospel upon account of the low estate and fufferings of Chrift and his

Apostles.

Apostles. Their own reafon, and fome of their most approved writers might have taught them not to value perfons according to their greatnefs and riches, nor to meafure the favour of God by temporal happiness, but to love and honour oppreffed innocence.

They might have remembred that the best man and the wifeft philofopher recorded in their hiftories, lived all his days in poverty, was expofed to flander and calumny, and at last was accused by false witneffes, and condemned to die by unjust judges.

They knew that Virtue often obtains not the esteem and refpect which it deferves,

k Omnes adeo veftri viri fortes, quos in exemplum prædicatis, ærumnis fuis inclyti floruerunt. Minuc. Felix. 36.

1 Ἐγὼ μὲν οἶμαι, ἔφη ὁ Σωκράτης, εἰ ἀγαθό ὠνηθε ἐπιτύχοιμι, ἑυρῶν ἄν μοι σὺν τῇ οἰκίᾳ καὶ τὰ ὅπλα πάντα Távu pasíws Tévle uvas. I believe, faid Socrates, that, if I should meet with a good purchaser, my effects, house and all would eafily fetch me fixteen pounds. Xenoph. Oecon. I. 3.

Socrates, amicis audientibus: Emiffem, inquit, pallium, fi nummos haberem, &c. Seneca de Benef. VII. 27.

In Plato's Apol. Socrat. he says that he is in extreme poverty, ἐν πενίᾳ μυείᾳ εἰμὶν

that