faid that he was not fincere in what he writ, or did not believe it? for if fo, would not they have told us he would have embraced Christianity? This was, indeed, the cafe of this excellent man he had fo thoroughly examined the truth of our Saviour's hiftory, and the excellency of that religion which he taught, and was fo entirely convinced of both, that he became a profelyte, and died a martyr.

IV. Ariftides was an Athenian philofopher, at the fame time famed for his learning and wisdom, but converted to Christianity. As it cannot be queftioned that he perufed and approved the apology of Quadratus, in which is the paffage just now cited, he joined with him in an apology of his own to the fame Emperor, on the fame fubject. This apology, though now loft, was extant in the time of Ado Vinnenfis, A. D. 870, and highly esteemed by the most learned Athenians, as that author witneffes. It must have contained great arguments for the truth of our Saviour's hiftory, because in it he afferted the divinity of our Saviour, which could not but engage him in the proof of his miracles.

V. I do allow that, generally fpeaking, a man is not fo acceptable and unquestioned an evidence in facts which make for the advancement of his own party. But we must consider, that in the cafe before us, the perfons to whom we appeal were of an oppofite party, till they were perfuaded of the truth of thofe very facts which they report. They bear evidence to a history in defence of Chriftianity, the truth of which history was their motive to embrace Chriftianity. They atteft facts which they had heard while they were yet heathens, and had they not found reason to believe them, they would still have continued heathens, and have made no mention of them in their writings.

VI. When a man is born under Chriftian parents, and trained up in the profeffion of that religion from a child, he generally guides himself by the rules of Chriftian faith, in believing what is delivered by the Evangelists: but the learned Pagans of antiquity before they became

Chriftians

Chriftians, were only guided by the common rules of hiftorical faith; that is, they examined the nature of the evidence which was to be met with in common fame, tradition, and the writings of those perfons who related them, together with the number, concurrence, veracity, and private characters of thofe perfons; and being convinced upon all accounts that they had the fame reason to believe the hiftory of our Saviour, as that of any other person to which they themselves were not actually eye-witneffes, they were bound by all the rules of hiftorical faith, and of right reafon, to give credit to this hiftory. This they did accordingly, and in confequence of it published the fame truths themfelves, fuffered many afflictions, and very often death itself, in the affertion of them. When I fay that an hiftorical belief of the acts of our Saviour induced thefe learned Pagans to embrace his doctrine, I do not deny that there were many other motives which conduced to it; as the excellency of his precepts, the fulfilling of prophecies, the miracles of his difciples, the irreproachable lives and magnanimous fufferings of their followers, with other confiderations of the fame nature: but whatever other collateral arguments wrought more or lefs with philofophers of that age, it is certain that a belief in the hiftory of our Saviour was one motive with every new convert, and that upon which all others turned, as being the very basis and foundation of Christianity.

VII. To this I must further add, that we have already feen many particular facts which are recorded in Holy Writ, attefted by particular Pagan authors: the teftimony of those I am now going to produce, extends to the whole hiftory of our Saviour, and to that continued feries of actions which are related of him and his dif ciples in the books of the New Teftament.

VIII. This evidently appears from their quotations out of the Evangelifts, for the confirmation of any doctrine or account of our Bleffed Saviour. Nay, a learned man of our nation, who examined the writings of our moft ancient fathers in another view, refers to feveral paffages

paffages in Irenæus, Tertullian, Clemens of Alexandria, Origen, and Cyprian, by which he plainly fhews, that each of thele early writers infcribed to the four Evange. lifts by name their refpective hiftories; fo that there is not the leaft room for doubting of their belief in the hiftory of our Saviour, as recorded in the Gofpels. I shall only add, that three of the five fathers here mentioned, and probably four, were Pagans converted to Chriftianity, as they were all of them very inquifitive and deep in the knowledge of heathen learning and philosophy.

SECTION IV.

I. Character of the times in which the Chriftian Religion was propagated.-II. And of many who embraced it.-III. Three eminent and early inftances.-IV. Mul titudes of learned men who came over to it.-Belief in our Saviour's history the first motive to their converfion.VI. The names of feveral Pagan Philosophers, who were Chriftian converts.

I. IT happened very providentially to the honour of the Chriftian religion, that it did not take its rife in the dark and illiterate ages of the world, but at a time when arts and fciences were at their height, and when there were men who made it the bufinefs of their lives to fearch after truth, and fift the feveral opinions of philofophers and wife men, concerning the duty, the end, and chief happinets of reafonable creatures.

II. Several of thefe, therefore, when they had informed themfelves of our Saviour's hiftory, and examined with unprejudiced minds, the doctrines and manners of his difciples and followers, were fo ftruck and convinced, that they profeffed themfelves of that fect; notwithstanding, by this profeffion in that juncture of time, they bid farewel to all the pleafures of this life, renounced all the views of ambition, engaged in an uninterrupted courfe of feverities, and expofed themfeives to public hatred and contempt, to fufferings of all kinds, and to death itself.

III. Of this fort we may reckon thofe three early converts to Chriftianity, who each of them was a member of a fenate

a fenate famous for its wisdom and learning. Jofeph the Arimathean was of the Jewish Sanhedrim; Dionyfius, of the Athenian Areopagus; and Flavius Clemens, of the Roman Senate; nay, at the time of his death, conful of Rome. Thele three were fo thoroughly satisfied of the truth of the Chriftian Religion, that the first of them, according to all the reports of antiquity, died a martyr for it as did the fecond, unless we disbelieve Ariftides, his fellow-citizen and contemporary; and the third, as we are informed both by Roman and Chriftian authors.

IV. Among thofe innumerable multitudes, who in most of the known nations of the world came over to Christianity at its first appearance, we may be fure there were great numbers of wife and learned men, besides those whofe names are in the Chriftian records, who, without doubt, took care to examine the truth of our Saviour's history, before they would leave the religion of their country and of their forefathers, for the fake of one that would not only cut them off from the allurements of this world, but fubject them to every thing terrible or difagreeable in it. Tertullian tells the Roman governors, and their corporations, councils, armies, tribes, companies, the palace, fenate, and courts of judicature, were filled with Chriftians, as Arnobius afferts, that men of the finest parts and learning, orators, grainmarians, rhetoricians, lawyers, phyficians, philofophers, defpifing the fentiments they had been once fond of, took up their reft in the Chriftian religion.

V. Who can imagine that men of this character did not thoroughly inform themfelves of the hiftory of that perfon whofe doctrines they embraced? for, however confonant to reafon his precepts appeared, how good foever were the effects which they produced in the world, nothing could have tempted men to acknowledge him as their God and Saviour, but their being firmly perfuaded of the miracles he wrought, and the many atteftations of his divine miffion, which were to be met with in the hiftory of his life. This was the groundwork of the Chriftian religion; and, if this failed, the whole fuperftructure

Lunk

funk with it. This point, therefore, of the truth of our Saviour's hiftory, as recorded by the Evangelifts, is every where taken for granted in the writings of thofe, who from Pagan philofophers became Chriftian authors, and who, by reafon of their converfion, are to be looked upon as of the strongest collateral teftimony for the truth of what is delivered concerning our Saviour.

VI. Befides inumerable authors that are loft, we have the undoubted names, works or fragments of feveral Pagan philofophers, which fhew them to have been as learned as any unconverted heathen authors of the age in which they lived. If we look into the greateft nurfèries of learning in those ages of the world, we find in Athens, Dionyfius, Quadratus, Ariftides, Athenagoras; and in Alexandria, Dionyfius, Clemens, Ammonius, and Anatolius, to whom we may add Origen; for though his father was a Chriftian martyr, he became, without all controverfy, the moft learned and able philofopher of his age, by his education at Alexandria, in that famous feminary of arts and fciences.

SECTION V.

I. The learned Pegans had means and opportunities of informing themselves of the truth of our Saviour's history. -II. From the proceedings,-III. The Character fufferings,-IV. And miracles of the persons who published it.-V. How thefe first Apostles perpetuated their tradition by ordaining perfons to fucceed them.-VI. How their fuccellors in the three first centuries, preferved their tradition. -VII. That five generations might derive this tradition from Chrift to the end of the third century.-VIII. Four eminent Chriflians that delivered it down fucceffively to the year of our Lord, 254.-IX. The faith of the four above mentioned perfons the fame with that of the churches of the Eaft, of the Weft, and of Egypt.-X. Another perfon added to them, who brings us to the year 343, and that many other lifts might be added in as direct and short a fucceffion.XI. Why the tradition of the three first centuries more authentic than that of any other age, proved from the converfation of the primitive Chriftians,-XII. From the manner

of