overflowed its banks, or the Nile refused to overflow; if an eclipse, or an earthquake, or a dearth, or a pestilence occurred, the popular cry demanded vengeance on the Christians?.

To bigotry and inhumanity of this kind we owe those valuable remains of Christian antiquity, the apologies for their faith, presented by different writers from time to time to the emperors, who had the universal power to spare or to destroy. The terms in which they are couched, the humility of their demands, and the evils of which they complain, are sufficient proof of what the Christians endured ".

These, then, are the grounds upon which I argue that the reception of Christianity proves the divine authority by which it was introduced and supported. I see an undeniable change, of a nature which I know from experience is

9 So Tertullian feelingly complains, Apol. s. 20.

10 I have treated the subject of persecution in this very general way, because I consider the argument arising from it as completely exhausted in Paley's masterly work.

the most improbable of all changes: a change in principle, and a change in practice; a change in religious sentiments, which are commonly maintained most pertinaciously; a change in daily habits of life, which are relinquished most unwillingly. I find new habits and new principles assumed in spite of known hostility, and preserved in spite of rigorous persecution. I want a cause; a cause to account for this. I find an explanation in the miraculous testimony borne to the religion, and in nothing else. Allowing such miraculous testimony, the consequence follows of course; denying it, the effect must remain for ever unexplained.

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CHAPTER XII.

On the Effects of Christianity.

HEN the question concerns the probability of truth in a revelation, we are irresistibly led to take into the consideration its effects upon human happiness. Is it of such a nature as to improve the general condition of those to whom it is proposed? To raise or to depress the character of mankind? A revelation might possibly be made on such evidence as could not be rejected, which had no such beneficial tendency. But this at once strikes our reason as a case so improbable, that we feel it would require an unusual weight of positive testimony before a revelation could be accepted by us as divine, which did not bear witness to its origin by the excellence of its immediate effects.

At the same time, in every question of this kind, the object of the revelation must be kept

whether a revelation professes to be designed to place men at once in a perfect state, or to lead them towards one. The Gospel no where professes to place men at once in a perfect state. It professes to address those who are in an unhappy and guilty condition, naturally frail, and morally corrupt: a condition requiring that God should send his Son into the world, that the world through him might be saved. To such a condition it offers a remedy: not pretending to remove all the evils incidental to such a state; but promising, in behalf of those who put themselves under its guidance, to diminish and alleviate them.

Whoever refuses to bear this in mind, is incapable of forming a judgment respecting the operation of Christianity. A world exists, in which sin and sorrow are largely mixed up. To suppose that Christianity should take these altogether away, would be to suppose that it should create the world anew. It makes provision against them: it proposes a cure for them; and we can reasonably look for nothing more.

But there are other causes, independent of itself, of the partial benefits produced by Christianity. We have formerly seen, that the writers of the Gospel foresaw that its effects would always be inadequate to its inherent powers, and fall short of its avowed design, on account of the unwillingness of mankind to receive the remedy offered them. And to this obduracy we must in great measure attribute the evils which disfigure the face of Christianity. The first Christians, in particular, were taught to expect tribulation. And this tribulation was to come upon them, because their brethren refused to listen to the Gospel, and chose to persecute those who did. No small portion of the difficulties which have always beset Christians, arises from a similar cause: from the general discountenance which earnest piety and Christian circumspection meet with. The dread of this keeps multitudes still at a distance from God; and thus deprives them of the happiness resulting from the conscious possession of his favour, which nothing short of an entire devotion to his service can procure. And the feeling of this discourage