138 The Emperor Adrian, in his epistle to Servianus. 130 M. Aurel Antonin, philos., in his Meditations, B.11. 176 Lucianus, in his dialogue on the death of Peregrinus, and in his Philopatris. 176 Celsus, in his "Essay on the True Word;" resting the Honour of Origen. II. Those who are supposed by some writers on the Christian Evidences, to have alluded to the Christians; wrote about: A.D. 98 Dio Prusæus, in a particular phrase.* 100 M. Valer Martialis, in the epigram quoted in this DIEGESIS. 100 Dec jun. Juvenalis, in three lines quoted in this DIEGESIS. 109 Epictetus, in a single phrase quoted in this DIEGESIS. 140 Arrianus, in the use of the same phrase. 164 Lucius Apuleius, as quoted iu this DIEG esis. 176 Ælius Aristides, in the use of a particular phrase.‡ III. Those who would be likely to refer to the Christians but who have not done so; wrote about: *OI TAVтa diaẞaλλovтes-those who cast away every thing.-Dio Prus. + as oi Taxiλator-like the Galileans.-Arrian. Tois Ev Taλaiσtivn dvσeßeσiv—to the impious people in Palestine. § Both those philosophers were living, and must have experienced the immediate effects, or received the earliest information of the existence of Jesus Christ, had such a person ever existed; their ignorance or their wilful silence on the subject, is not less than outrageously improbable. Whatever might be their dispositions with respect to the doctrines of Jesus; the miraculous darkness which is said to have accompanied his crucifixion, was a species of evidence that must have forced itself upon their senses. "Each of these philosophers in a laborious work, has recorded all the great phenomena of nature, earthquakes, meteors, comets, and eclipses, which his indefatigable curiosity could collect; neither of them have mentioned, or even alluded, to the miraculous darkness at the crucifixion."-Gibbon. Alas! the Christian is constrained to own that omnipotence itself, is not-omnipotent. IV. Those who were less likely to allude to the Christians, yet must have gone somewhat out of their way, on purpose to avoid doing so; wrote about: A.D. 63 Aneneus Lucanus 64 Petronius Arbiter Poets. Observe too, that in the Corpus Juris, or, whole body of Roman law, there is not extant one word against the Christians. In apology for this tremendous deficiency of evidence -Dr. Lardner pleads in mitigation of judgment, the following instance of a similar deficiency of historical evidence, in cases where the fact is nevertheless held to be unquestionable. 1. Velleius Paterculus is mentioned by no ancient writer except Priscian, though that historian certainly lived and wrote at the time of Tiberius. 2. M. Annæus Seneca, the father of the philosopher is almost unknown. 3. Lucianus has never mentioned Cicero in his encomium on Demosthenes. 4. Maximus Tyrius (who wrote in the time of Antoninus Pius,) has no reference to the Roman History. To this we may add :— That Herodotus and Thucydides have never mentioned the Romans. Here is distress indeed! To pursue the evidences of the Christian religion, after we have seen its incomparably most learned and able advocates thus striking on the shoals of reckless sophistry: after we have driven the strugglers for a grasp on historical fact, to the last trick of gathering together such thousand miles off may-be's of mere possible allusion, and then shewing us the lettered backs of their huge collections as "Volumes of Evidence ;"-would be driving the drift. If the evidences of the Christian religion, are presumed to be, its divine effects upon the dispositions and conduct of its professors; the peculiar generosity and liberality of Christians towards the enemies and opposers of their faith; their willingness to have its foundations thoroughly sifted and examined; their readiness at all times to acquaint themselves with all the objections that can be brought against it, by whomsoever, or in what manner soever, those objections may be urged; their abhorrence of all acts of slander and defamation, for the sake of excusing themselves from the trouble of enquiry; their immaculate innocence, not only of persecution direct and overt-but of the dispositions that could possibly lead to persecution; their more rational piety, their more exalted virtue, their more diffusive benevolence. Alas! where are those evidences? We have looked for historical evidences which might justify a rational man to himself, in believing the Christian religion to be of God. And there are none—absolutely none. We enquired for the moral effects which the prevalence of this religion through so many ages and countries of the world, has produced on men's minds, and we find more horrors, crimes, and miseries, occasioned by this religion and its bad influence on the human heart, more sanguinary wars among nations, more bitter feuds and implacable heart burnings in families; more desolation of moral principle; more of every thing that is evil and wicked, than the prevalence of any vice, or of all vices put together, could have caused: so that the evidence which should make it seem probable that God had designed this religion to prevail among men, would only go to show that he had designed to plague and curse them. But not so; Christian, hold first! and ask thine own heart if thou hast not charged God foolishly. Ask thine own convictions, whether, if a religion were the wickedest that ever was upon earth, and as false as it was wicked, God himself could give thee any more likely or fairer and sufficient means to emancipate thy mind from it, than the means thou hast here (if thou wilt use them) to discover the real origin, character, and evidences of Christianity. If thou believest there is any God at all, at any rate, thou should also believe that he is a God of truth, and so sure as he is so, so sure it is, that the pertinacious belief of any thing as true, which we might by the free exercise of our rational faculties, come to discover to be false, is the greatest sin that man can commit against him; implicit faith is the greatest of crimes; and the implicit believer is the most wicked of mankind. In the Royal Library at Written, probably, by the Some of the leaves are wanting; Unitarian editors of The Cambridge," Perhaps of all In the University Li-Theodore Beza used it for his Uncial letters; no intervals be-Unitarian editors, & |