ing any fixed abode. This was not a vain exaggeration; but a certain and notorious fact, which he advanced in the presence of emperors, and in the face of all the world. St. Ireneus comes a little after, and then we see the number of churches increase.Their unity was admirable; what was believed in the Gauls, in the Spains, in Germany, was believed in Egypt, and in the East; and as "there was but one sun in "the whole world, the same light of truth "shone in the whole church from one end "of the earth to the other †."

If we advance but a little farther, we shall be astonished at the progress we see. In the middle of the third century, Tertullian and Origen ‡ shew in the church whole nations, who, a little before, were not admitted into it. Those whom Origen excepted, who were the most remote of the known world, are admitted a little after by Arnobius. What could the world have seen, that it should surrender so readily to JESUS CHRIST? If it saw miracles, God had a visible hand in the work, and if it was possible that it had seen none, "would it not "be a new miracle," greater and more incredible than those which men will not believe," to have converted the world without "a miracle §," to have made so many of the ignorant enter into mysteries so high, to have inspired so many of the learned with an

*Iren. i. 23. + Ibid.

Tertull. adv. Jud. Apolog. 37. Orig. T. 28. in Mat,
Hom. 4. in Ezech. Arn. lib. ii.

§ August. xxi. de Civ. 7. xxii. 5.

humble submission, " and to have persuad"ed unbelievers of so many incredible "things?"

But the miracle of miracles, if I may so speak, is, that together with faith in the mysteries, the most eminent virtues, and most painful practices, spread themselves over all the earth. The disciples of JESUS CHRIST followed him in the most difficult paths. To endure all things for the truth was an usual exercise among his children; and to imitate their Saviour, they ran to torments with greater ardour than others did to pleasures. It is impossible to enumerate the instances of the rich, that made themselves poor to relieve the poor; of the poor that preferred poverty to riches; of the virgins, that imitated upon earth the life of angels; or of the charitable pastors, who made themselves all things to all men, ever ready to bestow upon their flocks, not only their watchings and labours, but their very lives. What shall I say of penitence and mortification? Judges do not exercise justice more severely on a criminal, than did penitent sinners upon themselves. Nay more, the innocent punished in themselves, with an incredible rigour, that strong propensity we have to sin. The life of St. John the Baptist, which seemed so surprising to the Jews, became common among the faithful; the deserts were peopled with his imitators, and there came to be so many anchorets, that the more perfect of them were obliged to seek for deeper solitudes: so much did

people fly the world, so much was the contemplative life enjoyed.

Such were the precious fruits which the gos pel was to bring forth. The church is no less rich in examples than in precepts, and the holiness of her doctrine appeared by its producing an infinite number of holy per sons God, who knows that the strongest virtues spring up amidst sufferings, had founded her by martyrdom, and he kept her three hundred years in that state, without allowing her a single moment's respite. After he had shewn, by so long experience, that he stood in no need of human help, or of earthly powers, to establish his church, he at length called Emperors into her, and made Constantine the Great an avowed protector of Christianity. From that time kings came from every quarter into the church, and all that was written in the prophecies concerning her future glory, was accomplished be, fore the eyes of the whole earth.

But if she hath been invincible against all efforts from without, she is no less so against intestine divisions. Those heresies, so much foretold by JESUS CHRIST and his apostles, came to pass, and the faith persecuted by the emperors, suffered at the same time from heretics a more dangerous persecution. But this last was never more violent than at the time when that of the heathens was observed to cease. Hell exerted then its utmost efforts to destroy that church by her own hand, which the attacks of her declared enemies had served but to confirm. Scarce had she begun to breathe a little through the peace

which Constantine afforded her, when behold, Arius, that unhappy priest, excites greater troubles than she had ever suffered. Constantius, the son of Constantine, seduced by the Arians, whose doctrine he espouses, harasses the catholics through the whole earth, becoming a new persecutor of Christianity, and so much the more formidable, that under the name of JESUS CHRIST, he made war upon JESUS CHRIST himself. To crown her misfortunes, the church thus divided falls into the hands of Julian the apostate, who set every engine at work to destroy Christianity, and finds no means more ef fectual than fomenting the factions with which it was torn. After him comes a Valens, as much attached to the Arians as Constantius, but more violent. Other emperors protect other heresies with a like fury. The church learns by so much experience, that she has no less to suffer under the Christian, than she had suffered under infidel emperors; and that she must shed her blood to defend not only the whole body of her doctrine, but even every particular article. And indeed there was not one that she did not see attacked by her own children. A thousand sects and a thousand heresies coming out of her own bosom, set themselves up against her. But if she saw them all arise according to the predictions of JESUS CHRIST, she saw them all likewise fall according to his promises, though often supported by emperors and kings. Her true children were known, as St. Paul says,

by this trial: the truth did but gain new strength whenever it was contested, and the church remained unshaken.

VIII. Particular Reflections on the Punishment of the Jews, and on the predictions of Jesus Christ.

WHILE I have endeavoured to shew you, without interruption, the progress of the counsels of God, in the perpetual duration of his people, I have been obliged to hurry over a number of facts which merit profound reflection. Allow me therefore here to resume them, that you may not lose things of so great consequence.

And in the first place, Sir, I must beg of you to consider with a more particular attention the fall of the Jews, all the circumstances of which bear testimony to the Gospel. Those circumstances are explained to us by infidel authors, by Jews, and by Heathens, who, without perceiving the connection of the counsels of God, have related to us those important facts whereby he hath been pleased to make it manifest.

We have Josephus, a Jewish author, a most faithful historian, and very well acquainted with the affairs of his nation, whose antiquities he has illustrated by an admirable work. He has written the last war wherein it perished, having been an eyewitness of the whole, and having himself