coul amongst the exquisite sufferings of such a tedious execution; rather than renounce his religion, or blaspheme his Saviour. Such trials seem to us above the strength of human nature, and able to overbear duty, reason, faith, conviction, nay, and the most absolute certainty of a future state. Humanity unasisted in an extraordinary manner, must have shaken off the present pressure, and have delivered itself out of such a dreadful distress, by any means that could have been suggested to it. We can easily ima gine, that many persons, in so good a cause, might have laid down their lives at the gibbet, the stake, or the block but to expire leisurely amongst the most exquisite tortures, when they might come out of them, even by a mental reservation or an hypocrisy, which was not, without a possibility of being followed by repentance and forgiveness, has something in it so far be yond the force and natural strength of mortals, that one cannot but think there was some miraculous power to support the sufferer. We find the church of Smyrna in that admirable letter which gives an account of the death of Poycap their beloved bishop, mentioning the cruel torments of other early martyrs of Christianity, are of opinion, that our Saviour stood by them in a vision, and personally conversed with them, to give them strength and comfort during the bitterness of their long continned agonies; and we have the story of a young man, who having suffered many tortures, escaped with life, and told his fellow Christians, that the pain of them had been rendered tolerable, by the presence of an angel who stood by him wiped off the tears and sweat, which ran down his face whilst he lay under his fufferings. We are assured, at least, that the first martyr for Christianity was encouraged in his last moments, by a vision of that divine Person, for whom he suffered, and into whose presence he was then hastening. There are predictions of our Saviour recorded by the evangelists, which were not completed till after their deaths, and had no likelihood of being so, when they were pronounced by the blessed Saviour. Such was that wonderful notice he gave them, that they should be brought before governors and kings for his sake, for a testimony against them and the Gentiles, Mat. *. 18. with the other like prophecies, by which he foretold that his disciples were to be persecuted. Origen insists with great strength, on that wonderful prediction of our Saviour concerning the destruction of Jerusalem, pronounced at a time as he observes, when there was no likelihood nor appearance of it. This has been taken notice of and inculcated by so many others, that we shall refer you to what this father has said on the subject in his first book against Celsus. And as to the accomplishment of this remarkable prophecy, shall only observe, that whoever reads the account given as by Josephus, with out knowing his character, and compares it with what our Saviour foretold, would think the historian had nothing else in view but to adjust the event to the prediction. The ancient Christians were so entirely persuaded of the force of our Saviour's prophecies and of the punishment which the Jews had drawn upon themselves, & upon their children: for the treatment which the Messiah had received at their hands, that they did not doubt they would always remain an abandoned & dispersed people, & hissing and an astonishment amongst the nations, as they are to this day. In short, that they had lost their peculiarity of being God's people, which was now transferred to the body of Christians, and which preserved the church of CHRIST amongst all the conflicts, difficulties, and persecutions in which it was engaged, as it had preserved the Jewish government and economy for so many ages, whilst it had the same truth and vital principle in it, notwithstanding it was so frequently in danger of being utterly abolished and destroyed. Origen, in his fourth book against Celsus, mentioning their being cast out of Jerusalem, to which their worship was annexed, deprived of their temple and sacrifice, their religious rites and solemnities, and scatterd over the face of Ccc the earth, ventures to assure them with a face of confidence, that they would never be re-established, since they had committed that horrid crime against the Saviour of the world. This was a bold assertion in the good man, who knew how this people had been so wonderfully re-established in former times, when they were almost swallowed up, and in the most desperate state of desolation, as in their deliverance out of the Babylonish captivity, and the oppressions of Antiochus Epiphanes: nay, he knew that within less than an hundred years before his own time, the Jews had made such a powerful effort for their re establishment under Barchocab, in the reign of Adrian, as shook the whole Roman empire: but he founded his opinion on a sure word of prophecy, and on the punishment they had so justly incurred; and we find by a long experience of fifteen hundred years, that he was not mistaken, nay, that his opinion gathers strength daily, since the Jews are now at a greater distance from any probability of such a re-establishment, than they were when Origen wrote. In the primitive times, the christian religion shewed it's full force and efficacy on the minds of men, and many examples demonstrated what great and generous souls it was capable of producing. It exalted and refined its proselytes to a very high degree of perfection, and set them far above the pleasures, and even the pains of this life. It strengthened the infirmity, and broke the fierceness of human nature. It lifted up the mindą” of the ignorant to the knowledge and worship of him that made them, and inspired the vicious with a rational devotion, a strict purity of heart, and an unbounded love to their fellow creatures. In proportion as it spread through the world, it seemed to change mankind, into another species of beings. No sooner was a convert initiated into it, but by an easy figure he became a new man, and both acted and looked upon himself as one regenerated and born a second time into another state of existence. But we find no argument made a stronger impression on the minds of these ement Paganconverts, for strengthening their faith in the history of our Saviour, than the predictions relating to him in those old prophetic writers, which were deposited amongst the hands of the greatest enemies to Christianity, and owned by them to have been extant many ages before his appearance. The learned Heathen converts were astonished to see the whole history of their Saviour's life published before he was born, and to find that the evangelists and prophets, in their accounts of the Messiah, differed only in point of time, the one foretelling what should happen to him, and the other describing those very particulars as what had actually happened. This our Saviour himself was pleased to make use of as the strongest argument of his being the promised Messiah, and without it would hardly have reconciled his disciples to the ignominy of his death, as in that remarkable passage which mentions his conversation with the two disciples, on the day of his resurrection, St. Luke xxiv. 13, to the end. Besides, the Heathen converts after having travelled through all human learning, and fortified their minds with the knowledge of arts and sciences, were particularly qualified to examine these prophecies with great care and impartiality, and without prejudice or prepossession; so as to establish in their ininds the firm belief of the truth and excellency of the Christian religion, beyond the least degree of a doubt concerning it. FINIS, Mary Crocker Charles Cooley MIDDLEFIELD. William Lyman. MIDDLETOWN. Clarissa Davey John Southmayd Horace Pofter Rev. Geo. PhippenNehemiah Hubbard Hez. C. Simmons Benjamin Williams Wm. Trowbridge Jehial Johnson Benjamin Tuel. NORWICH. Theophilus Yale Solomon Williams Nath. Herrick, jr. John DeWitc Eliab Hyde Sarah Hyde David Gilson Eliphalet Baldwin John Hyde Elisha Tracy Giles Lhomedieu Dewey Brumbley Ebenezer Hyde,jr. Thos. H. Bushnell William Callyhan Mary Hill Samuel Ripley Mary I. Rogers NEW-LONDON. Peter Richards R. W. Parkin Richard Douglass Nathaniel Ledyard Lucy Douglass Mary Penniman John Ferguson, jr. Ann Frink Ralph Stoddard Bridget Barber Abby Leeds George Chapman Stephen Peck Daniel Starra *** William William's Thomas Williams. NEW HAVEN. Timothy Chitilen Daniel Trowbridge Elizabeth Myers Rebecca Atwater Ashael Tattle S. V. D. Shattock Elizabeth Harrison PROVIDENCE, (R. I.) Elibn Sanford Jacob Wolf. Sherman Blair William Walter John Mix Freeman Bassett John Davis. William Price Nicholas Dami D. S. Thayer Benjamin Hebbard Louisa Thornton 2Nancy Mason S. G. Arnold Thornton N. Macomber Mrs. Ives Abby Peck Stephen Jackson WINDHAM 95 Eleazer Welch Jonathan Walcott J. Huntington Lucius C. Frink Eliab Hills. John A. Smith 2Philip Hayward Amelia Badger Samuel Lee Zephaniah Ripley Abijah Park Betsey Littlefield Socrates Balcam Zilpha RobinsonA 1. Huntington: 8Sally Hartshorn Sally Spafford |