precepts, the fulfilling of prophecies, the miracles of his Difciples, the irreproachable lives and magnanimous fufferings of their followers, with other confiderations of the fame nature: but whatever other collateral arguments wrought more or lefs with Philofophers of that age, it is certain that a belief in the history of our Saviour was one motive with every new convert, and that upon which all others turned, as being the very bafis and foundation of Chriftianity.

VII. To this I muft further add, that as we have already feen many particular facts which are recorded in holy writ, attefted by particular Pagan Authors: the teftimony of those I am now going to produce, extends to the whole hiftory of our Saviour, and to that continued feries of actions, which are related of him and his Difciples in the books of the New Teftament.

VIII. This evidently appears from their quotations out of the Evangelifts, for the confirmation of any doctrine or account of our bleffed Saviour. Nay a learned man of our nation, who examined the writings of our most ancient Fathers in another view, refers to several view, paffages

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paffages in Irenæus, Tertullian, Clemens of Alexandria, Origen, and Cyprian, by which he plainly shows that each of these early writers afcribe to the four Evangelifts by name their respective hiftories; fo that there is not the leaft room for doubting of their belief in the hiftory of our Saviour, as recorded in the Gospels. I fhall only add, that three of the five Fathers here mentioned, and probably four, were Pagans eonverted to Christianity, as they were all of them very inquifitive and deep in the knowledge of heathen learning and philosophy.

SECTION IV.

1. Character of the times in which the Chriftian religion was propagated.

11. And of many who embraced it.

III. Three eminent and early inftances. IV. Multitudes of learned men who came over to it.

V. Belief in our Saviour's biftory, the first motive to their converfion.

VI. The

VI. The names of feveral Pagan Philofophers, who were Chriftian converts.

I. T happened very providentially to the honour of the Chriftian religion, that it did not take its rife in the dark illiterate ages of the world, but at a time when arts and sciences were at their height, and when there were men who made it the business of their lives to search after truth, and fift the feveral opinions of Philofophers and wife men, concerning the duty, the end, and chief happiness of reasonable creatures.

II. Several of these therefore, when they had informed themselves of our Saviour's hiftory, and examined with unprejudiced minds the doctrines and manners of his difciples and followers, were fo ftruck and convinced, that they profeffed themselves of that fect; notwithstanding, by this profeffion in that juncture of time, they bid farewel to all the pleasures of this life, renounced all the views of ambition, engaged in an uninterrupted course of feverities, and expofed themselves to publick hatred and contempt, to fufferings of all kinds, and to death itself.

III. Of this fort we may reckon those three early converts to Christianity, who each of them was a member of a Senate famous for its wifdom and learning. Jo・feph the Arimathean was of the Jewish Sanhedrim, Dionyfius of the Athenian Areopagus, and Flavius Clemens of the Roman Senate; nay at the time of his death Conful of Rome. Thefe three were fo thoroughly fatisfied of the truth of the Chriftian religion, that the first of them, according to all the reports of antiquity, died a martyr for it; as did the fecond, unless we disbelieve Ariftides, his fellowcitizen and contemporary; and the third, as we are informed both by Roman and Chriftian Authors.

IV. Among those innumerable multitudes, who in most of the known nations of the world came over to Christianity at its first appearance, we may be fure there were great numbers of wife and learned men, befide thofe whofe Names are in the Chriftian records, who with-out doubt took care to examine the - truth of our Saviour's hiftory, before they would leave the religion of their country and of their forefathers, for the fake of one that would not only cut

them

them off from the allurements of this world, but fubject them to every thing terrible or difagreeable in it. Tertullian tells the Roman Governors, that their corporations, councils, armies, tribes, companies, the palace, fenate, and courts of judicature were filled with Chriftians; as Arnobius afferts, that men of the finest parts and learning, Orators, Grammarians, Rhetoricians, Lawyers, Phyficians, Philofophers, defpifing the fentiments they had been once fond of, took up their reft in the Chriftian religion.

V. Who can imagine that men of this character did not thoroughly inform themselves of the hiftory of that perfon,, whofe doctrines they embraced? for however confonant to reafon his precepts appeared, how good foever were the effects which they produced in the world, nothing could have tempted men to acknowledge him as their God and Saviour, but their being firmly perfuaded of the miracles he wrought, and the many atteftations of his divine miffion, which were to be met with in the hifto

ry of his life. This was the groundwork of the Chriftian religion, and, if this failed, the whole fuperftructure funk