INTRODUCTION.

The several periods of the three first ages. Our Lord's coming, and the seasonableness of it for the propagation of the gospel. His entrance upon his prophetic office, and the sum of his ministry. The success of his doctrine, and the several places where he preached. The story of Agbarus not altogether improbable. Our Lord's death. What attestation given to the passages concerning Christ by heathen writers, The testimony of Tacitus. Pilate's relation sent to Tiberius. The acts of Pilate what. Pilate's letter now extant spurious. The apostles entering upon their commission, and first acts after our Lord's ascension. How long they continued in Judea. Their dispersion to preach in the Gentile provinces, and the success of it. The state of the Church after the apostolic age. The mighty progress of Christianity. The numbers and quality of its converts. Its speedy and incredible success in all countries, noted out of the writers of those times. The early conversion of Britain to Christianity. The general declension of Paganism. The silence and ceasing of their oracles. This acknowledged by Porphyry to be the effect of the Christian religion appearing in the world. A great argument of its truth and divinity. The means contributing to the success of Christianity. The miraculous powers then resident in the church. This proved at large out of the primitive writers. The great learning and abilities of many of the church's champions. The most eminent of the Christian apologists. The principal of them that engaged against the heresies of those times. Others renowned for other parts of learning. The indefatigable zeal and industry used in the propagation of Christianity. Instructing and catechising new converts. Schools erected. Travelling to preach in all parts of the world. The admirable lives of the ancient Christians. The singular efficacy of the Christian doctrine upon the minds of men. A holy life the most acceptable sacrifice. Their incomparable patience and constancy under sufferings. A brief survey of the ten persecutions. The first begun by Nero. His brutish extravagancies, and inhuman cruelties. His burning Rome, and the dreadfulness of that conflagration. This charged upon the Christians, and their several kinds of punishment noted out of Tacitus. The chief of them that suffered. The persecution under Domitian. The vices of that prince. The cruel usage of St. John. The third begun by Trajan. His character. His proceeding against the Christians as illegal societies. Pliny's letter to Trajan concerning the Christians, with the emperor's answer. Adrian, Trajan's successor; a mixture in him of vice and virtue. His persecuting the Christians. This the fourth persecution. The mitigation of it, and its breaking out again under Antoninus Pius. The excellent temper and learning of M. Aurelius. The fifth persecution raised by him. Its fierceness in the East, at Rome, especially

in France; the most eminent that suffered there. The emperor's victory in his German wars gained by the Christians' prayers. Severus's temper: his cruelty towards the Christians. The chief of

the martyrs under the sixth persecution. Maximinus his immoderate ambition and barbarous cruelty. The author of the seventh persecution. This not universal. The common evils and calamities charged upon the Christians. Decius the eighth persecutor; otherwise an excellent prince. The violence of this persecution, and the most noted sufferers. The foundations of monachim when laid. The ninth persecution, and its rage under Valerian. The most emihent martyrs. The severe punishment of Valerien: his miserable usage by the Persian king. The tenth persecution begun under Dioclesian, and when. The fierceness and cruelty of that time. The admirable carriage and resolution of the Christians under all these sufferings. The proper influence of this argument to convince the world. The whole concluded with Lactantius's excellent reasonings to this purpose.

THE state of the Christian church in the three first ages of it may be considered under a three fold period as it was first planted and established by our Lord himself during his residence in the world; as it was enlarged and propagated by the apostles, and first missionaries of the Christian faith; and as it grew up and prospered from the apostolic age till the times of Constantine, when the empire submitted itself to Christianity. God, who in former times was pleased by various methods of revelation to convey his will to mankind, hath in these last days spoken to us by his Son. For the great blessing of the promised seed after a long succession of several ages being come to its just maturity and perfection, God was resolved to perform the mercy promised to the fathers, and to remember his holy covenant, the oath which he sware to our father Abraham. Accordingly, in the fulness of time God sent his Son. It was in the declining part of Augustus's reign, when this great ambassador arrived from heaven, to publish to the world the glad tidings of salvation. A period of time (as Origen observes) wisely ordered by the divine Providence. For the Roman empire being now in the highest pitch of its grandeur, all its parts united under a monarchical government, and an universal peace spread over all the provinces of the empire, that had opened a way to a free and uninterrupted

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a. Contr Cels. lib. 2. p. 79.

commerce with all nations, a smoother and speedier passage was hereby prepared for the publishing the doctrine of the gospel, which the apostles and first preachers of religion might with the greater ease and security carry up and down to all quarters of the world. As for the Jews, their minds were awakened about this time with busy expectations of their Messiah's coming: and no sooner was the birth of the holy Jesus proclaimed by the arrival of the eastern magi, who came to pay homage to him, but Jerusalem was filled with noise and tumult, the Sanhedrin was convened, and consulted by Herod, who jealous of his late gotten sovereignty, was resolved to dispatch this new competitor out of the way. Deluded in his hopes of discovery by the magi, he betakes himself to acts of open force and cruelty, commanding all infants under two years old to be put to death, and among them it seems his own son, which made Augustus pleasantly say (alluding to the Jewish custom of abstaining from swine's flesh) It is better to be Herod's hog than his son. But the providence of God secured the holy infant, by timely admonishing his parents to retire into Egypt, where they remained till the death of Herod, which happening not long after, they returned.

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2. Near thirty years our Lord remained obscure under the retirements of a private life, applying himself, (as the ancients tell us, and the evangelical history plainly intimates) to Joseph's employment, the trade of a carpenter. So little patronage did he give to an idle unaccountable course of life. But now he was called out of his shades and solitudes, and publicly owned to be that person whom God had sent to be the great prophet of his church. This was done at his baptism, when the Holy Ghost in a visible shape descended upon him, and God, by an audible voice testified of him This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Accordingly, he set himself to declare the counsels of God, going about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the Kingdom. He particularly explained the moral law, and restored it to its just authority and do

b Macrob. Saturnal. 1. 2. c. 4. p. 279.

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minion over the minds of men, redeeming it from those corrupt and perverse interpretations which the masters of the Jewish church had put upon it. He next insinuated the abrogation of the Mosaic economy, to which he was sent to put a period, to enlarge the bounds of salvation, and admit both Jew and Gentile to terms of mercy that he came as a mediator between God and man, to reconcile the world to the favour of Heaven by his death and sufferings, and to propound pardon of sin and eternal life to all that by an hearty belief, a sincere repentance, and an holy life, were willing to embrace and entertain it. This was the sum of the doctrine which he preached every where, as opportunity and occasion led him, and which he did not impose upon the world merely upon the account of his own authority and power, or beg a precarious entertainment of it; he did not tell men they must believe him, because he said he came from God, and had his warrant and commission to instruct and reform the world, but gave them the most satisfactory and convictive evidence, by doing such miracles as were beyond all powers and contrivances either of art or nature, whereby he unanswerably demonstrated, that he was a Teacher come from God, in that no man could do those miracles which he did except God were with him. And because he himself was in a little time to return back to heaven, he ordained twelve, whom he called apostles as his immediate delegates and vicegerents, to whom he deputed his authority and power, furnished them with miraculous gifts, and left them to carry on that excellent religion which he himself had begun, to whose assistance he joined seventy disciples, as ordinary coadjutors and companions to them. commission for the present was limited to Palestine, and they sent out only to seek and to save the lost sheep of the house of Israel.

Their

3. How great the success of our Saviour's ministry was, may be guessed from that complaint of the pharisees, Behold the world is gone after him, people from all in such vast multitudes flocking after him, that

parts

c John 12. 19.

they gave him not time for necessary solitude and retirement. Indeed he went about doing good, preaching the word throughout all Judea, and healing all that were possessed of the devil. The seat of his ordinary abode was Galilee, residing for the most part (says one of the ancients) in Galilee of the Gentiles, that he might there sow and reap the first fruits of the calling of the Gentiles. We usually find him preaching at Nazareth, at Cana, at Corazin and Bethsaida, and the cities about the sea of Tiberias, but especially at Capernaum, the metropolis of the province, a place of great commerce and traffic. He often visited Judea, and the parts about Jerusalem, whither he was wont to go up at the paschal solemnities, and some of the greater festivals, that so the general concourse of people at those times might minister the fitter opportunity to spread the net, and to communicate and impart his doctrine to them. Nor did he who was to be a common Saviour, and came to break down the partition wall, disdain to converse with the Samaritans, so contemptible and hateful to the Jews. In Sychar, not far from Samaria, he freely preached, and gained most of the inhabitants of that city to be proselytes to his doctrine. He travelled up and down the towns and villages of Cæsarea Philippi, and went into the borders of Tyre and Sidon, and through the midst of the coasts of Decapolis, and where he could not come, the renown of him spread itself, bringing him disciples and followers from all quarters. Indeed his fame went throughout all Syria, and there followed him great multitudes of people from Galilee, Judea, Decapolis, Idumia, from beyond Jordan, and from Tyre and Sidon. Nay might we believe the story, so solemnly reported by Eusebius and the ancients (and excepting the silence of the evangelical historians, who recorded only some of the actions and passages concerning our Saviour, I know no wise argument against it) Acbarus prince of Edessa beyond Euphrates, having heard of the fame of our Saviour's miracles, by letters humbly besought him to come over to him, whose letter, together with our Lord's answer, are extant in Eud Euseb. Demonstrat. Evang. 1. 9. p. 439.

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c H. Eccl. 1. 1. c. 13. p. 31.