strongest argument: they laid far greater stress upon the prophecies; and their choice in this matter, however unwise it may appear to us, seems justified by the ease with which Celsus thinks that he has disposed of all difficulty, when he has attributed the Christian miracles to a skilful use of magic'. People are easily satisfied when they are willing to be deceived; and a vague reference to such an explanation, though quite as insufficient to an honest inquirer then, as the plea of witchcraft to an enlightened philosopher now, might be enough to divert attention, and resist the first weak impressions of conscientious conviction. Particularly when such a powerful array of immediate interests opposed the strength of evidence, and fortified the prejudices naturally entertained by the votaries and priests of an expiring religion 3.

6 Justin Mart. Apol. i. ch. xxxvii.

7 See, on this subject, Watson's Letters to Gibbon, page 147, &c.

› Much more might be said upon these points; but the question has been so fully and so ably treated, both by Paley and Chalmers, that no reader, I imagine, can require further satisfaction than he may meet with in those writers, respect

The case of Paul illustrates these remarks. Without assuming that he was convinced by a miracle immediately affecting himself, we may argue that he was convinced, and from an enemy became a zealous partisan; from a Jewish persecutor a Christian confessor. Long after his conversion he speaks indirectly of the state of mind under which he had acted; which was no other than that foretold by Jesus, when men should go about to slay his disciples, and think that they were "doing God service"." He "did it ignorantly, in unbelief;" that is, he was so blinded by prejudice that he could not discern the truth; and though he was now too well instructed to think such prejudice innocent; he attributes it to this cause, that God had mercifully pardoned and enlightened him.

We must not, at any rate, allow an objection to divert our minds from the undisputed

ing either the neglect of the heathen philosophers, or the unbelief of the Jews.-See Paley, part iii. ch. iv.; Chalmers's Evid. ch. v.

fact, that a considerable body of the Jewish nation was persuaded to exchange the religion to which they had been attached with proverbial zeal, for a religion which opposed all their sentiments, disappointed all their expectations, and compromised all their exclusive privileges. Now, from our experience of the human mind, we can in some measure understand how a part of the nation might obstinately resist evidence which convinced the rest: but on no experience whatever can we understand how a single individual should have been converted, without that very evidence to which their conversion is ascribed in the history. And this is what I set out with observing. In the account which we have received of the first propagation of Christianity, there is nothing inconsistent with what we know of the human heart, its prejudices, associations, and tendencies ;-supposing that the facts were true; supposing that such a person as Jesus had been really foretold by a series of prophets; supposing that he had indeed risen from the dead; and supposing that

the miracles appealed to had been actually performed. On any other supposition the whole case becomes altogether inexplicable, and the progress of the religion a problem without parallel in the history of mankind.

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CHAPTER XI.

First Reception of Christianity.

IT has been argued in the preceding chapter, that the history contained in the book of "the Acts of the Apostles" gives a probable account of the promulgation of Christianity.

Such a report, without doubt, comes attended by suspicion. The report of those whose veracity is the very matter in question, cannot be received without scruple. But whether we receive their account or not, here is a tangible and acknowledged fact, of which some explanation must be given. There is an edifice existing before our eyes. We may disbelieve the current records of its foundation, but it must have had some builder; and there is no philosophy in refusing to admit the alleged history of its erection, unless we can supply another which is better authenticated or more probable.