SECTION IX.

I. The lives of primitive Chriftians, another means of bringing learned Pagans into their religion.

II. The change and reformation of their

manners.

III. This looked upon as fupernatural by the learned Pagans,

IV. And ftrengthened the accounts given of our Saviour's life and biftory.

V. The Jewish prophecies of our Saviour, an argument for the heathens belief: VI. Pursued:

VII. Pursued.

1.THERE was one other means enjoyed by the learned Pagans of the three first centuries, for fatisfying them in the truth of our Saviour's hiftory, which I might have flung under one of the foregoing heads; but as it is fo fhining a particular, and does fo much honour to our religion, I fhall make a diftinct article of it, and only confider it with regard to the fubject I am upon:

I mean the lives and manners of those holy men, who believed in Chrift during the firft ages of Christianity. I fhould be thought to advance a paradox, fhould I affirm that there were more Chriftians in the world during those times of perfecution, than there are at present in these which we call the flourishing times of Christianity. But this will be found an indifputable truth, if we form our calculation upon the opinions which prevailed in those days, that every one who lives in the habitual practice of any voluntary fin, actually cuts himself off from the benefits and profeffion of Chriftianity, and whatever he may call himself, is in reality no Chriftian, nor ought to be esteemed as fuch.

:

II. In the times we are now furveying, the Chriftian religion fhowed its full force and efficacy on the minds of men, and by many examples demonftrated what great and generous fouls it was capable of producing. It exalted and refined its profelytes to a very high degree of per fection, and fet them far above the pleafures, and even the pains, of this life. It ftrengthned the infirmity, and broke the fierceness of human nature. It lifted up E 2 the

the minds of the ignorant to the knowledge and worship of him that made them, and infpired the vicious with a rational devotion, a ftrict purity of heart, and an unbounded love to their fellowcreatures. In proportion as it fpread through the world, it feemed to change mankind into another fpecies of Beings. No fooner 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 fecond time into another ftate of exiftence.

III. It is not my business to be more particular in the accounts of primitive Chriftianity, which have been exhibited fo well by others, but rather to observe, that the Pagan converts, of whom I am now speaking, mention this great refor mation of those who had been the greateft finners, with that fudden and furprifing change which it made in the lives of the most profligate, as having fomething in it fupernatural, miraculous, and more than human. Origen represents this power in the Chriftian religion, as no lefs wonderful than that of curing the lame and blind, or cleanfing the leper. Many

Many others reprefent it in the fame light, and looked upon it as an argument that there was a certain divinity inthat religion, which fhowed it felf in fuch ftrange and glorious effects.

IV. This therefore was a great means not only of recommending Christianity to honeft and learned heathens, but of confirming them in the belief of our Saviour's hiftory, when they faw multitudes of virtuous men daily forming themselves upon his example, animated by his precepts, and actuated by that Spirit which he had promised to fend among his Difciples.

V. But I find no argument made a ftronger impreffion on the minds of thefe eminent Pagan converts, for ftrengthening their faith in the hiftory of our Saviour, than the predictions relating to him in those old prophetick writings, which were depofited among the hands of the greatest enemies to Chriftianity, and owned by them to have been extant many ages before his appearance. The learned heathen converts were aftonished to fee the whole hiftory of their Saviour's life published before he was born, and to find that the Evangelifts and Prophets,

in their accounts of the Meffiah, differed only in point of time, the one foretelling what should happen to him, and the other defcribing thofe very particulars as what had actually happened. This our Saviour himself was pleased to make ufe of as the strongest argument of his being the promised Meffiah, and without it would hardly have reconciled his Difciples to the ignominy of his death, as in that remarkable paffage which mentions his converfation with the two Difciples, on the day of his refurrection. St. Luke xxiv. 13. to the end.

VI. The heathen converts, after having travelled through all human learning, and fortified their minds with the knowledge of arts and fciences, were particularly qualified to examine thefe prophecies with great care and impartiality, and without prejudice or prepoffeffion. If the Jews on the one fide put an unnatural interpretation on these prophecies, to evade the force of them in their controverfies with the Chriftians; or if the Chriftians on the other fide over-ftrained feveral paffages in their applications of them, as it often happens among men of the best understanding, when their minds

are