his followers to work. The idea must not be rejected as incredible, that the Apostles were endued with the faculty of speaking various languages for the purpose of communicating instruction, which otherwise could never have been imparted; or that they were supernaturally enabled to conciliate attention and favour by acts of mercy and of power. On the contrary, it appears probable, that if the religion were really divine, they would have been entrusted with such gifts. Because without them, they would in vain have attempted to withdraw the Jews from their ritual, or the heathen from their idolatry. It savours of atheism to exclude God from all concern with the world, of which he is acknowledged to be the Creator. True, we do not now experience his interposition. Neither do we perceive it in the direction of the natural world. But he did interpose in the natural world, when he

1 The difficulties which the first teachers of Christianity would have universally to encounter, are well set forth by Dr. Hey, b. i. ch. xviii. s. 6. "Nothing less than being present at the different scenes which attended the propagation of Christianity, would give us a perfect conception of this interesting subject. We should see the magnificence of the heathen temples, the fine workmanship of the statues, the priests, the victims, superbly adorned, the attendant youths of both sexes, &c. &c.; we should observe how every part of religion was contrived to allure and captivate; we should see how all men were attached to it, not only of the lower ranks, but the most improved and the best informed: for we, in our improved times, are apt to think Jupiter, Apollo, and Venus, so absurd as deities, that we have no idea or feeling of the attachment of the heathens to their gods."

established that order of things which we call the laws of nature. And so in respect of religion. He manifested himself openly till he had completed the full revelation of his will, and now leaves that revelation to work its effect upon the world without the further operation of his visible power.

2. The second question alluded to, as an argument against the reality of the Christian miracles, still remains to be noticed; the inflexible obstinacy of the ruling party among the Jews, and, indeed, of the great mass of the nation. Was it to be expected, that in the face of such evidence there should be any unbelief? that the religion should be only partially received? Who could withhold assent, when the most astonishing miracles were exhibited before their eyes?

In reply to this, we should observe, that it is an error to set the Christians against the Jews, and the Jews against the Christians, as a body. The preaching of the Apostles made the Jews a divided body; and the majority of the earliest Christians were, in fact, converted Jews. The conversion of one part removes the objection arising from the obduracy of the other. For what account can be given of that conversion, if the whole history is untrue? Whereas the unbelief of the greater number is sufficiently explained on the known principles of human nature.

We need not go far for an exemplification. We look around, and see a community calling itself Christian; and though a few may confess their scepticism, the majority would indignantly repel the insinuation that they disbelieve the Gospel. Yet how few, how very few, comparatively, act in consistency with their profession, or live conformably with the Christian faith? Not because they are convinced that it does not deserve to be believed, but because it interferes with their pleasures, or their habits, or their prejudices, and therefore they pass it over with a notice too inconsiderable to be acted upon. On similar grounds it is easy to understand the conduct of the Jews. When we remember the confession of personal guilt, which their acknowledgment of Jesus as the Messiah must have implied: the complete sacrifice of worldly advantages which it required: the prejudices to be renounced; the passions to be overcome; and further, when we add to this the obligations which it would have imposed upon them, the change of personal conduct which it demanded, to which they had the same repugnance as all other men; we shall perceive, I think, that national confession would have been an act of national repentance little to be expected from their character as a people, or from the nature of mankind in general.

Where there is a strong indisposition to believe,

pretexts for not believing are readily discovered. The history of Jesus acquaints us that the persons in authority drew the attention of their countrymen from the miracles on pretence of their being wrought through the agency of evil spirits. The prejudices of some rendered them unwilling to receive him as the Messiah; the habits of others disinclined them to listen to his doctrines; and this set them upon seeking for an explanation of the supernatural power, which they could not but acknowledge. They found one, which, however frivolous it may appear to us, at least gives the opinion of that age and nation. This solution was as satisfactory to them as that of magic to those among the heathen, who paid sufficient attention to the Christian story to know what it contained. The early apologists themselves assure us, that this consideration prevented them from alleging the miracles of Jesus as their strongest argument: they laid far greater stress upon the prophecies; and their choice in this matter, however unwise it may appear to us, seems justified by the ease with which Celsus thinks that he has disposed of all difficulty, when he has attributed the Christian miracles to a skilful use of magic.2 People are easily satisfied when they are willing to

1 Justin Mart. Apol. i. ch. xxxvii.

2 See, on this subject, Watson's Letters to Gibbon, page 147, &c.

be deceived; and a vague reference to such an explanation, though quite as insufficient to an honest inquirer then, as the plea of witchcraft to an enlightened philosopher now, might be enough to divert attention, and resist the first weak impressions of conscientious conviction. Particularly when a powerful array of immediate interests opposed the strength of evidence, and fortified the prejudices naturally entertained by the votaries and priests of an expiring religion. 1

1

The case of Paul illustrates these remarks. Without assuming that he was convinced by a miracle immediately affecting himself, we may argue that he was convinced, and from an enemy became a zealous partisan; from a Jewish persecutor a Christian confessor. Long after his conversion he speaks indirectly of the state of mind under which he had acted; which was no other than that foretold by Jesus, when men should go about to slay his disciples, and think that they were "doing God service." 2 He “did it ignorantly, in unbelief;" that is, he was so blinded by prejudice that he could

1 Much more might be said upon these points; but the question has been so fully and so ably treated, both by Paley and Chalmers, that no reader, I imagine, can require further satisfaction than he may meet with in those writers, respecting either the neglect of the heathen philosophers, or the unbelief of the Jews.-See Paley, Part iii. ch. iv.; Chalmers's Evid. ch. v.

21 Tim. i. 13.