I.

brace the gospel. Such malignant and superficial C EN T. reasoners do not consider, that those who em- PART I. braced this divine religion exposed their lives to the most imminent danger; nor have they attention enough to recollect, that neither lazy nor vicious members were suffered to remain in the society of Christians. Equally vain is the invention of those, who imagine, that the profligate lives of the Heathen priests was an occasion of the conversion of many to Christianity. For, though this might indeed give them a disgust at the religion of these unworthy ministers, yet it could not, alone, attach them to that of JESUS, which offered them from the world no other prospects than those of poverty, infamy, and death, The person who could embrace the gospel, solely from the motive now mentioned, must have reasoned in this senseless and extravagant manner: "The ministers of that religion which I have professed from my infancy, lead profligate "lives therefore, I will become a Christian, "join myself to that body of men who are con"demned by the laws of the state, and thus expose my life and fortune to the most imminent "danger,"

66

46

CHAP. V,

Concerning the calamitous events that happened to the church.

I TH

the Chri

I. THE innocence and virtue that distinguish-The Jews ed so eminently the lives of CHRIST'S ser- persecute vants, and the spotless purity of the doctrine they stians in taught, were not sufficient to defend them against Palestine. the virulence and malignity of the Jews. The priests and rulers of that abandoned people, not only loaded with injuries and reproach the apostles of

F 3

JESUS,

I.

CENT. JESUS, and their disciples, but condemned as PARTI. many of them, as they could, to death, and executed in the most irregular and barbarous manner their sanguinary decrees. The murder of STEPHEN, of JAMES the son of ZEBEDEE, and of JAMES, surnamed the Just, bishop of Jerusalem, furnish dreadful examples of the truth of what we here advance [e]. This odious malignity of the Jewish doctors, against the heralds of the gospel, was undoubtedly owing to a secret apprehension that the progress of christianity would destroy the credit of Judaism, and bring on the ruin of their pompous ceremonies.

And also by

tries.

II. The Jews who lived out of Palestine, in the those in fo-Roman provinces, did not yield to those of Jerureign coun- salem in point of cruelty to the innocent disciples of CHRIST. We learn from the history of the Acts of the Apostles, and other records of unquestionable authority, that they spared no labour, but zealously seized every occasion of animating, the magistrates against the Christians, and setting on the multitude to demand their destruction. The high priest of the nation, and the Jews who dwelt in Palestine, were instrumental in exciting the rage of these foreign Jews against the infant church, by sending messengers to exhort them, not only to avoid all intercourse with the Christians, but also to persecute them in the most vehement manner [f]. For this inhuman order, they endeavoured to find out the most plausible pretexts; and, therefore, they gave out, that the Christians were enemies to the Roman emperor,

since

[e] The martyrdom of STEPHEN is recorded in the Acis of the Apostles, vii. 55; and that of JAMES the son of ZEBEDEE, Acts xii. 1, 2; that of JAMES the Just, bishop of Jerusalem, is mentioned by JOSEPHUS in his Jewish Antiquities, book xx. chap. viii. and by EUSEBIUS, in his Eccles. History, book ii. chap. xxiii.

[f] See the Dialogue of JUSTIN MARTYR, with TRYPHO the Jew, p. 51, 52, 53. 109. 138. 318.

I.

since they acknowledged the authority of a cer- C EN T. tain person whose name was JESUS, whom PI-PART I LATE had punished capitally as a malefactor by a most righteous sentence, and on whom, nevertheless, they conferred the royal dignity. These perfidous insinuations had the intended effect, and the rage of the Jews against the Christians was conveyed from father to son, from age to age; so that the church of CHRIST had, in no period of time, more bitter and desperate enemies than that very people, to whom the immortal Saviour was more especially sent.

ment of

ciples.

III. The Supreme Judge of the world did The Jews severely punot let the barbarous conduct of this perfidious na-ni-hed for tion go unpunished. The most signal marks of their treatdivine justice pursued them, and the cruelties they CHRIST had exercised upon CHRIST, and his disciples, were and his disdreadfully avenged. The God, who had for so many ages protected the Jews with an outstretched arm, withdrew his aid. He permitted Jerusalem, with its famous temple, to be destroyed by VESPASIAN and his son TITUS, an innumerable multitude of this devoted people to perish by the sword, and the greatest part of those that remained to groan under the yoke of a severe bondage. Nothing can be more affecting than the account of this terrible event, and the circumstantial description of the tremendous calamities which attended it, as they are given by JOSEPHUS, himself a Jew, and also a spectator of this horrid scene. From this period the Jews experienced, in every place, the hatred and contempt of the Gentile nations, still more than they had formerly done. And in these their calamities the predictions of Christ were amply fulfilled, and his divine mission further illustrated.

Gentile persecutions.

IV. However virulent the Jews were against The ten the Christians, yet, upon many occasions, they wanted power to execute their crucl purposes.

F 4

This,

I.

CEN T. This was not the case with the Heathen nations; PART 1. and, therefore, from them the Christians suffered the severest calamities. The Romans are said to have pursued the Christians with the utmost violence in ten persecutions [g], but this number is not verified by the ancient history of the church. For if, by these persecutions, such only are meant as were singularly severe and universal throughout the empire, then it is certain, that these amount not to the number above mentioned. And, if we take the provincial and less remarkable persecutions into the account, they far exceed it. In the fifth century, certain Christians were led by some passages of the holy scriptures, and by one especially in the Revelations [b], to imagine that the church was to suffer ten calamities of a most grievous nature. To this notion, therefore, they endeavoured, though not all in the same way, to accommodate the language of history, even against the testimony of those ancient records, from whence alone history can speak with authority [i].

Laws made against the

V. NERO was the first emperor who enacted laws Christians, against the Christians. In this he was followed by DOMITIAN, MARCUS ANTONINUs the philosopher, SEVERUS, and the other emperors who indulged the prejudices they had imbibed against the disciples of JESUS. All the edicts of these different princes were not, however, equally unjust, nor made with the same views, and for the same reasons. Were they now extant, as they were collected by the celebrated lawyer DOMITIUS, in his book concerning the duty of a Proconsul, they

would

[g] The learned J. ALBERT FABRICIUS has given us a list of the authors that have written concerning these persecutions, in his Lux Evangelii orbi universo exoriens, cap. vii. p. 133. [] Revel. xvii. 14.

[1] See SULPITIUS SEVERUS, book ii. ch. xxxiii. as also AUSTIN De civitate Dei, book xviii. ch. lii.

I.

would undoubtedly cast a great light upon the C EN T. history of the church, under the persecuting em- PART I perors [k]. At present we must, in many cases, be satisfied with probable conjectures, for want of more certain evidence.

the Christi

VI. Before we proceed further in this part of The causes our history, a very natural curiosity calls us to of the perenquire, how it happened that the Romans, who secution of were troublesome to no nation on account of their ans by the religion, and who suffered even the Jews to live Romans. under their own laws, and follow their own method of worship, treated the Christians alone with such severity? This important question seems still more difficult to be solved, when we consider, that the excellent nature of the Christian religion, and its admirable tendency to promote both the public welfare of the state, and the private felicity of the individual, entitled it, in a singular manner, to the favour and protection of the reigning powers. One of the principal reasons of the severity with which the Romans persecuted the Christians, notwithstanding these considerations, seems to have been the abhorrence and contempt with which the latter regarded the religion of the empire, which was so intimately connected with the form, and indeed, with the very essence of its political constitution. For, though the Romans gave an unlimited toleration to all religions which had nothing in their tenets dangerous to the commonwealth, yet they would not permit that of their ancestors, which was established by the laws of the state, to be turned into derision, nor the

people

[k] The Collection of the imperial edicts against the Christians, made by DOMITIUS, and now lost, is mentioned by LACTANTIUS, in his Divine Institutes, book v. chap. xi. Such of these edicts as have escaped the ruins of time, are learnedly illustrated by FRANC. BALDUINUS, in a small treatise entitled, Commentarium ad edicta veterum principum Romanorum de Christianis. Of which a second edition was published by Mr GUNDLING, at Hall, 1727.