trine of Chrift? As for us,' fays this great author, in another part of his book againft Celfus, when we fee every day thofe events exactly accomplished which our Saviour foretold at fo great a distance, that his Gofpel is preached in all the world," Matt. xxiv. 14. that "his difciples go and teach all nations," Matt. xxviii. 19. and that thofe who have received his doctrine are brought, for his "fake, before governors and before kings," Matt. x. 18. we are filled with admiration, and our faith in him is confirmed more and C more. What clearer and ftronger proofs can Celfus afk for the truth. of what he spoke?' .. V. Origen infifts likewife with great ftrength on that wonderful prediction of our Saviour concerning the deftruction of Jerufalem, pronounced at a time, as he obferves, when there was no likelihood nor appearance of it. This has been taken notice of and inculcated by fo many others, that I fhall refer you to what this Father has faid on this fubject in the first book against Celfus; and as to the accomplifhment of this remarkable prophecy, fhall only obferve, that whoever reads the account given us by Jofephus, without knowing his character, and compares it with what our Saviour foretold, would think the hiftorian had been a Chriftian, and that he had nothing elfe in view, but to adjust the event to the prediction. VI. I cannot quit this head, without taking notice that Origen would fill have triumphed more in the foregoing arguments, had he lived an age longer, to have feen the Roman emperors, and all their governors and provinces, fubmitting themfelves to the Chriftian religion, and glorying in its profeffion, as fo many kings and fovereigns ftill place their relation to Chrift at the head of their titles. How much greater confirmation of his faith would he have received, had he feen our Savior's prophecy ftand good in the deftruction of the temple, and the diffolution of the Jewish economy, when Jews and Pagans united all their endeavours, under Julian the apoftate, to baffle and falfify the prediction! The great preparations that were made for rebuilding the temple, with the hurricane, earthquake, and eruptions of fire, that deftroyed the work, and terrified thofe employed in the attempt from proceeding in it, are related by many hiftorians of the fame age, and the fubftance of the ftory teftified both. by Pagan and Jewith writers, as Ammianus Marcellinus, and Zamath David. The learned Chryfoftom, in a fermon against the Jews, tells them this fact was then freth in the memories even of their young men, that it happened but twenty years ago, and that it was attefted by all the inhabitants of Jerufalem, where they might ftill fee the marks of it in the rubbish of that work from which the Jews defifted in fo great a fright, and which even Julian had not the courage to carry on. This fact, which is in itself fo miraculous, and fo indifputable, brought over many of the Jews to Chriftianity, and fhews us, that, after our Saviour's prophecy against it, the temple could not be preferved from the plough paffing over it, by all the care of Titus, who would fain have prevented its deftruction; and that, inftead of being re-edified by Julian, all his endea H 2 vours vours towards it did but ftill more literally accomplish our Saviour' prediction, that not one stone fhould be left upon another.' The ancient Chriftians were fo entirely perfuaded of the force of our Saviour's prophecies, and of the punishment which the Jews had drawn upon themselves, and upon their children, for the treatment which the Meffiah had received at their hands, that they did not doubt but they would always remain an abandoned and difperfed people, an hiffing and an aftonishment among the nations, as they are to this day; in fhort, that they had loft their peculiarity of being God's people, which was now transferred to the body of Chriftians, and which preferved the church of Chrift among all the conflicts, difficulties, and perfecutions, in which it was engaged, as it had preferved the Jewish government and economy for fo many ages, whilft it had the fame truth and vital principle in it, notwithstanding it was fo frequently in danger of being utterly abolished and deftroyed. Origen, in his fourth book against Celfus, mentioning their being caft out of Jerufalem, the place to which their worship was annexed, deprived of their temple and facrifice, their religious rites and folemnities, and fcattered over the face of the earth, ventures to affure them with a face of confidence, that they would never be re-ftablifhed, fince they had committed that horrid crime against the Saviour of the world. This was a bold affertion in the good man, who knew how this people had been fo wonderfully re-established in former times, when they were almost swallowed up, and in the most defperate state of defola tion, as in their deliverance out of the Babylonifh captivity, and the oppreffions of Antiochus Epiphanes. Nay, he knew that within lefs than a hundred years before his own time, the Jews had made fuch a powerful effort for their re-establishment under Barchocab, in the reign of Adrian, as fhook the whole Roman empire. But he founded his opinion on a fure word of prophecy, and on the punishment they had fo juftly incurred; and we find by a long experience of 1500 years, that he was not mistaken, nay, that his opinion gathers ftrength daily, fince the Jews are now at a greater diftance from any probability of fuch a re-stablishment, than they were when Origen wrote. I. The lives of the primitive Chriftians, another means of bringing learned Pagans into their religion. II. The change and reformation of their manners. III. This looked upon as fupernatural by the learned Pagans; IV. And strengthened the accounts given of our Saviour's life and history. V. The Jewish prophecies of our Saviour an argument for the Heathens belief: VI. Purfued: I. THERE was one other means enjoyed by the learned Pagans of the three first centuries, for fatisfying them in the truth of our Saviour's history, which I might have flung under one of the fore going heads; but as it is fo fhining a particular, and does fo much. honour to our religion, I fhall make a diftinct article of it, and only confider it with regard to the subject I am upon: I mean, the lives and manners of thofe holy men who believed in Chrift during the firft ages of Chriftianity. I fhould be thought to advance a paradox, fhould I affirm that there were more Chriftians in the world during those times of perfecution, than there are at prefent in these which we call the flourishing times of Chriftianity. But this will be found an indifputable truth, if we form our calculation upon the opinions which prevailed in thofe days, that every one who lives in the habitual practice of any voluntary fin, actually cuts himself off from the benefits and profeffion of Chriftianity, and, whatever he may call himself, is in reality no Chriftian, nor ought to be efteemed as fuch. II. In the times we are now furveying, the Christian religion fhewed its full force and efficacy on the minds of men, and by many examples demonftrated what great and generous fouls it was capable of producing. It exalted and refined its profelytes to a very high degree of perfection, and fet them far above the pleafures, and even the pains, of this life. It ftrengthened the infirmity, and broke the fierceness of human nature. It lifted up the minds of the ignorant to the knowledge and worship of Him that made them; and inspired the vicious with a rational devotion, a ftrict purity of heart, and an unbounded love to their fellow-creatures. In proportion as it fpread through the world, it seemed to change mankind into another fpecies of beings. No fooner was a convert initiated into it, but by an eafy figure he became a new man, and both acted and looked upon himself as one regenerated and born a second time into another state of existence. III. It is not my bufinefs to be more particular in the accounts of primitive Christianity, which have been exhibited fo well by others; but rather to obferve, that the Pagan converts, of whom I am now fpeaking, mention this great reformation of thofe who had been the greateft finners, with that fudden and furprifing change which it made in the lives of the moft profligate, as having fomething in it fupernatural, miraculous, and more than human. Origen reprefents this power in the Christian religion, as no lefs wonderful than that of curing the lame and blind, or cleanfing the leper. Many others reprefent it in the fame light, and looked upon it as an argument that there was a certain divinity in that religion which fhewed itfelf in fuch ftrange and glorious effects. IV. This, therefore, was a great means not only of recommending Chriftianity to honeft and learned Heathens, but of confirming them in the belief of our Saviour's hiftory, when they faw multitudes of virtuous men daily forming themfelves upon his example, animated by his precepts, and actuated by that Spirit which he had promifed to fend among his difciples. V. But I find no argument made a ftronger impreffion on the minds of these eminent Pagan converts, for ftrengthening their faith in the hiftory of our Saviour, than the predictions relating to him in thofe old prophetic writings, which were depofited among the hands of the greatest enemies to Christianity, and owned by them to have been extant many ages before his appearance. The learned Heathen converts were affonifhed to fee the whole hiftory of their Saviour's life published before he was born, and to find that the Evangelists and Prophets, in their accounts of the Meffiah, differed only in point of time, the one foretelling what should happen to him, and the other deferibing thofe very particulars as what had actually happened. This our Saviour himself was pleased to make use of as the ftrongeft argument of his being the promised Meffiah, and without it would hardly have reconciled his difciples to the ignominy of his death, as in that remarkable paffage which mentions his converfation with the two difciples on the day of his refurrection, St. Luke xxiv. 13. to the end. VI. The Heathen converts, after having travelled through all human learning, and fortified their minds with the knowledge of arts and fciences, were particularly qualified to examine thefe prophecies with great care and impartiality, and without prejudice or prepoffeffion. If the Jews, on the one fide, put an unnatural interpretation on these prophecies, to evade the force of them in their controverfies with the Chriftians; or if the Chriftians, on the other fide, overftrained several paffages in their application of them, as it often happens among men of the beft underftanding, when their minds are heated with any confideration that bears a more than ordinary weight with it; the learned Heathens may be looked upon as neuters in the matter, when all these prophecies were new to them, and their education had left the interpretation of them free and indifferent. Befides, thefe learned men among the primitive Chriftians knew how the Jews who had preceded our Saviour, interpreted thefe predictions, and the feveral marks by which they acknowledged the Meffiah would be difcovered, and how thofe of the Jewish Doctors who fucceeded him had deviated from the interpretations and doctrines of their forefathers, on purpose to ftifle their own conviction. VII. This fet of arguments had therefore an invincible force with thofe Pagan philofophers who became Chriftians, as we find in moft of their writings. They could not difbelieve our Saviour's hiftory, which fo exactly agreed with every thing that had been written of him many ages before his birth, nor doubt of thofe circumftances being fulfilled in him, which could not be true of any perfon that lived in the world befides himself. This wrought the greateft confufion in the unbelieving Jews, and the greateft conviction in the Gentiles, who every where speak with aftonishment of thefe truths they meet with in this new magazine of learning which was opened to them, and carry the point fo far as to think whatever excellent doctrine they had met with among Pagan writers, had been ftolen from their converfation with the Jews, or from the perufal of thefe writings which they had in their cuftody. DESTRUC DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM. JOSEPHUS, with his teftimony at large to the fulfilment of our Saviour's predictions concerning the deftruction of the temple, and the city of Ferufalem, and the miseries coming upon the Jewish people. I. JOSEP HIS TIME, WORKS, AND CHARACTER. OSEPHUS, fon of Matthias, of the race of the Jewish Priefts, and of the first courfe of the four and twenty, by his mother defcended from the Afmonean family, which for a confiderable time had the fupreme government of the Jewish nation, was born in the first year of the reign of Caligula, of our Lord 37*. He was educated together + with Matthias, who was his own brother by father and mother, and made fuch proficience in knowledge, that when he was about fourteen years of age, the high-priefts and fome of the principal men of the city came frequently to him to confult him about the right interpretation of things in the law. In the fixteenth year of his age, he retired into the wilderness, where he lived three years an abfterious courfe of life in the company of Banus. Having fully acquainted himself with the principles of the three fects, the Pharifees, the Sadducees, and the Effens, he determined to follow the rule of the Pharifees. And being now nineteen years of age, he began to act in public life. Felix, when procurator of Judea, fent fome priefts of his acquaintance for a trifling offence to Rome, to be tried before Cæfar. Jofephus, hearing that they behaved well, resolved to go to Rome, to plead their caufe. But he had a bad voyage; the fhip was wrecked; and out of 600 perfons, not more than eighty were faved. Soon after his arrival at Rome, he became acquainted with Aliturias, a Jew by birth, but a ftage-player, in favour with Nero. By him he was introduced to Poppéa, the emperor's wife, by whofe intereft he procured that the priests fhould be fet at liberty. Jofephus, who never omits what may be to his own honour, adds, that § befide that favour, he alfo received from Poppéa many valuable prefents. And then he returned home. This voyage was made,, as he fays, in the 26th year of his age, which must have been in the 62d or 63d year of ** Chrift. Upon his return to Judea he found things in great confufion, many tt being elevated with hopes of advantage by a revolt from the Ro * Jofeph. in vita fua, cap. i. H 4 mans † Ἔτι δὲ παῖς ὧν, περὶ τεσσαρεσκαιδέκατον ἔτος . . . συνιόνων ἀεὶ τῶν ἀρχιερέων καὶ τῶν τῆς πόλεως πρώτων ὑπὲρ τῶ παρ ̓ ἐμᾶ περὶ τῶν νομίμων ἀκριβέςεξόν τι γνώναι. Cap. 2. · μεγάλων δὲ δωρεῶν πρὸς τῆ ευεργεσίᾳ τάυτη τυχὼν παρὰ Πιππήιας. Cap. 3. Μετ' εἰκοσὸν καὶ ἕκλον ἐνιαυτὸν εἰς Ρώμην μοι συνέπισεν ἀναβῆναι. Ib. *Felix muft have been removed from his government fome while before that; which may be thought to create a difficulty in this account. But it may be obferved, that Jofephus had heard of the good behaviour of those priefts at Rome before he left Judea: confequently, they had been fome while at Rome before he fet out on his journey. ††•. κ πολλὲς ἐπὶ τῇ Ῥωμαιων ἀποφάσει μέγα φρονέλας. Vit. c. 4. |