alive and remain, shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.

one another with these words *.

Wherefore comfort For we know, that,

if our earthly house of this tabernaele were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens t. For here we have no continuing city, but we seek one to come. Blessed is the man, that endureth temptation: for, when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love him §.

These were the avowed principles of the first teachers of Christianity; principles, adopted and faithfully acted upon by all their proselytes. The result was such, as might naturally be anticipated in the existing state of society; and as, in fact, was anticipated by the zealous missionaries themselves. From the concurring testimony of Christian documents and pagan declarations we gather, that, in every quarter of the world, they were hated, reviled, despised, traduced, persecuted, plundered, and murdered with every refinement of the most ingenious cruelty. Instead of gaining any worldly advantages to themselves; they sacrificed all their hopes and all their comforts on this side of the grave to the furtherance of project, which, in the eyes of an infidel, was a mere gross imposition upon human credulity. They

* 1 Thess. iv. 13-18.

+ Heb, xiii. 14.

2 Corinth. v. 1.

f James i. 1%.

were tortured, not accepting deliverance: they had trials of cruel mockings and scourgings, of bonds and imprisonment. They were stoned they were sawn asunder; they were tempted; they were slain with the sword; they were committed to the flames; they were crucified; they were exposed to the fury of wild beasts for the amusement of a brutal populace; they were destitute, afflicted, tormented; they wandered in deserts and in mountains, in dens and caves of the earth. In labours they were abundant, in stripes above measure, in prisons frequent, in deaths oft, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by the Jews, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren, in weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in journeyings often, in fastings often, in hunger and thirst, in cold and nakedness. Of all the apostles, one only died a natural death; the rest were slaughtered under various circumstances of cruelty and in various regions of the earth to which their zeal had transported them.

Now the whole of this was done and suffered, if we may safely receive the conclusions of Infidelity, for the purpose of deluding mankind into the belief of a fiction. The actors and the sufferers in this strange eventful history were manifest impostors: and, as such, they of necessity knew, that they were palming an imposition upon the world. Yet, though they knew the whole to

be a mere cheat, so delighted were they with the idle figment, that they cheerfully submitted to misery and contempt, to torture and death, in order that they might persuade others to receive for truth what they themselves all the while knew to be a gross fabrication. Nor was this extraordinary affection for pain and ignominy and discomfort and labour and slaughter confined to some one single person: no less than twelve principal leaders, besides a numerous host of inferior agents, were characterized by the same unnatural appetite for death and wretchedness. All these, or at any rate all the twelve, knew full well, that there was not a word of truth in the pretended revelation which they took so much pains to promulgate; they knew likewise, that, instead of gaining any worldly advantages by their labour, they were absolutely bringing themselves to certain ruin: yet, with rare unanimity, did they persist in their career; not the slightest confession would any one of them make; not the least hesitation was evinced, when the alternative of death or recantation was set before them.

All this must be maintained by Infidelity, if it be asserted that the primitive teachers of Christianity were impostors. Every part of the conduct of the apostles, every page of their writings, shews most indisputably, that they themselves sincerely believed the truth of what they taught: yet, in defiance of the strongest possible moral evidence, in defiance of the first principles of our

sensitive nature, such is the credulity of the infidel, that he finds it more easy to deem them impostors than to acknowledge them as the inspired messengers of heaven.

3. It will be asked, what, at this second stage of the propagation of the Gospel, could have specially induced the apostles and their companions to act the part which they did act. On the death of their master, they were scattered: and their whole conduct and language at that time shewed, that they had given up in despair the project of procuring his acknowledgment in the character of the promised Messiah. Yet, suddenly, their despair was changed into confidence: and, notwithstanding he had been violently removed from them, they still persisted in maintaining that he was the great prophet whom their countrymen were then universally expecting. What could produce this extraordinary revival of a project, when all hope seemed to have been previously extinguished?

Christ himself, we are told, had ventured to predict during his life-time, that, although the chief priests and the scribes would deliver him to the Gentiles for the purpose of effecting his crucifixion, he would nevertheless rise again the third day *. This prophecy was no secret, nor was the knowledge of it by any means confined to his own disciples: on the contrary, it

* Matt. xx. 18, 19.

was speedily divulged; and soon came to the ears of his determined enemies, the chief priests and Pharisees. Thus fortunately placed upon their guard, they now had it in their power to bring his pretensions to an easy issue. Accordingly, the day after his burial, they came together to Pilate, in order that the necessary precautions might be taken against any fraudulent attempt to bring about an apparent accomplishment of the prophecy. Sir, said they, we remember, that that deceiver said while he was yet alive ; After three days I will rise again. Command therefore, that the sepulchre be made sure until the third day; lest his disciples come by night, and steal him away, and say unto the people; He is risen from the dead. So the last error shall be worse than the first*. No arrangement could have been better conceived. Christ had publicly declared, that he would rise again on the third day. Nothing more therefore was necessary to confute his pretensions, even on his own principles, than to convince the whole nation that he did not then rise again and, to secure this confutation, the only thing requisite was to set a guard, who should effectually prevent any trick on the part of the disciples, and who should thus enable the Jewish high-priests to exhibit the dead body after the specified time had fully elapsed. The declaration of Christ was public: and the precautions taken

*Matt. xxvii. 63, 64.