rived from the performance of undeniable miracles, and the numerous prophecies now fulfilling before our eyes, in the events of the world, we come next to contemplate the manifest interference of Almighty God, in the establishment of Christianity, and its subsequent continuance to the present day. This subject may be considered in the facts themselves which it embraces, and in the agreement of these facts with the predictions of our Lord, and of the prophets under the preceding dispensation. The propagation and preservation of Christianity, are in themselves proofs of divine authority; but when considered as the accomplishment of a long train of previous predictions, they have a still more overwhelming force. The power of God engaged in favour of Christianity, 'will appear, if we consider THE PRO PAGATION ITSELF- -THE OBSTACLES SUR MOUNTED—and the MORAL AND SPIRITUAL CHANGE produced in the converts. I. Let us call your attention to THE PRO PAGATION OF CHRISTIANITY ITSELF. 1. And here, if we reflect on the singularity of the attempt to propagate any system merely religious, it will lead us to attribute the suc cess of Christianity to a divine interference. For no religion, purely as a religion, was ever propagated, but the Christian. Heathenism was never a matter of dissemination or conversion. It had no creed, no origin distinct from the corrupt traces of a remote and fabulous antiquity. It was a creature of human mould, contrived for the sake of human legislation. The Greeks and Romans imposed it not on their subject nations. Mahometanism was the triumph of the sword. Conquest, not religious faith, was its manifest object; rapine, violence, and bloodshed, were its credentials. No religion was ever attempted to be spread through the world by the means of instruction and persuasion, with an authority of its own, but Christianity. The idea never came into the mind of man to propagate a religion, having for its set design and exclusive object, the enlightening of mankind, with a doctrine professedly divine, till Christianity said to her disciples, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. 2. The rapidity and extent of the propagation of the gospel were such as to prove its divine origin. On the very first day of its promulgation, three thousand were converted; these soon increased to five thousand. Multitudes both of men and women, were afterwards daily added to the new religion. Before the end of thirty years, the gospel had spread through Judæa, Galilee, Samaria, almost all the numerous districts of Lesser Asia; through Greece, and the islands of the Egean sea, the sea-coast of Africa, and had passed on to the capital of Italy. Great multitudes believed at Antioch in Syria, at Joppa, Ephesus, Corinth, Thessalonica, Beræa, Iconium, Derbe, Antioch in Pisidia, at Lydda and Saron. Converts also are mentioned at Tyre, Cæsarea, Troas, Athens, Philippi, Lystra, Damascus. Thus far the sacred narrative conducts us. The religion being thus widely diffused, the New Testament carries us no further. But all ecclesiastical and profane history concurs in describing the rapid progress of the new doctrine. Tacitus, Suetonius, Juvenal, Pliny, Martial, Marcus Aurelius, sufficiently testify the propagation of Christianity. To the statements of Tacitus and Pliny, we have already adverted briefly we must now produce them more at length. Tacitus thus writes, of transactions which took place just at the time that the history in the Acts of the Apostles closes, about thirty years after the crucifixion; he is speaking of the suspicions which fell on the emperor Nero, of having caused a fire which had happened at LECTURE X. THE PROPAGATION OF CHRISTIANITY. 1 COR. i. 19-21, and 27-29. For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and I will bring to nothing the un derstanding of the prudent. wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the Where is the disputer of this world? Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For after that in the wisdom of God, the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound things that are mighty. And base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen; yea, and things that are not, to bring to nought things that are; that no flesh should glory in his presence. HAVING considered the arguments for the divine authority of the Christian religion, de rived from the performance of undeniable miracles, and the numerous prophecies now fulfilling before our eyes, in the events of the world, we come next to contemplate the manifest interference of Almighty God, in the establish- ́ ment of Christianity, and its subsequent continuance to the present day. This subject may be considered in the facts. themselves which it embraces, and in the agreement of these facts with the predictions of our Lord, and of the prophets under the preceding dispensation. The propagation and preservation of Christianity, are in themselves proofs of divine authority; but when considered as the accomplishment of a long train of previous predictions, they have a still more overwhelming force. The power of God engaged in favour of Christianity, 'will appear, if we consider THE PRO PAGATION ITSELF THE OBSTACLES SURMOUNTED and the MORAL AND SPIRITUAL CHANGE produced in the converts. I. Let us call your attention to THE PRO PAGATION OF CHRISTIANITY ITSELF. 1. And here, if we reflect on the singularity of the attempt to propagate any system merely religious, it will lead us to attribute the suc |