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.

9 1 Tim. i. 13.

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.

Ir 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.

This edifice is Christianity. The witnesses to its foundation are the Christians, who, between seventeen and eighteen centuries ago, appeared in the world. If these did not become Christians through indisputable evidence of the divine origin of their religion, how did they become so? What was the occasion of that extraordinary change, that moral revolution which took placé, when the native of Asia, or Greece, or Italy, confessed himself a Christian?

What the morals of the world were, at the period when Christianity was first preached, we know from unquestionable authority. We know that the only divine worship practised at all, was idolatrous worship; and that this idolatrous worship was commonly attended with profligacy of the most debasing kind, and often with heinous cruelty. We know that no restraint was laid upon the evil passions of our nature, except by public laws and public opinion. But public laws never did or can extend to many of the worst vices; and. public opinion, judging from experience, in order that it may become