perhaps a few individuals of the Jews, specially enlightened in the prophetic declarations of the Old Testament scriptures. The Jewish religion was indeed sufficiently exclusive; but in its external organization it was neither designed nor adapted for extensive promulgation. Nothing could have been more perfectly foreign to all the reigning opinions, prejudices, and dispositions of that insulated nation, in the days of the apostles, than the thought of attempting to convert even a single city of the Gentiles to their system of religion. Their zeal was indeed extremely energetic in behalf of whatever involved the security and honor of their faith; but in regard to other nations, it was the zeal of jealousy to keep them at a great distance, rather than of invitation to bring them. to a participation in their superior privileges.

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The charge of the Saviour to his apostles was, if possible, still more novel to the Gentiles than the Jews. Heathenism had never been propagated from place to place. In its innumerable forms, it had grown up out of the depraved dispositions of human nature all over the world, as thorns and thistles, though never sown by the husbandman, are found. everywhere on the face of the earth. Without a creed, it was without principle; and therefore it had nothing to contend for but the privilege of assuming any form, worshipping any idol, practising any ritual, and pursuing any absurdity, which the craft of the priesthood or the superstitions and vices of the people might select. It never was imagined by any description of pagans, that all other forms of religion

were not as good for the people observing them, as theirs were for them; or that any dictate of kindness or common-sense should lead them to attempt the subversion of the gods of their neighbors, for the sake of establishing their own in their stead. So that nothing could have been more perfectly new, surprising, or offensive to the whole gentile world, than the duty laid upon the first advocates of Christianity, to go into all nations, asserting the exclusive claims of the gospel, denouncing the validity of all other religions, and laboring to bring over every creature to the single faith of Christ. Had Christianity been content to stand, without urging its right to stand alone, the heathen nations might have allowed it as much toleration as they were accustomed to yield to the various systems of idolatry among themselves. An altar would perhaps have been vouchsafed in many an idoltemple, to the Christian's God, and an image in honor of Christ might have been permitted a place among the divinities of the Pantheon. But its character being rigidly exclusive, and yet its spirit universally benevolent, the apostles must have seen at once that they were charged with a work not only perfectly new, but which would necessarily bring them into conflict with all the institutions, passions, customs, prejudices, and powers of all nations of the world.*

2. But the difficulties to be surmounted by the

* A religion under which all men could unite with one another appeared to the ancients an impossibility. "A man must be very weak," said Celsus, "to imagine that Greeks and barbarians, in Asia, Europe, and Lybia, can ever unite under the same system of religion."

apostles were not confined to the novelty of their enterprise, and the exclusiveness of their faith. In the whole character of the gospel, as a system of religious doctrine and a rule of heart and life, there was a barrier in the way of its progress, which to human wisdom and power would have rendered their cause perfectly desperate. To propagate any religion at the expense of every other would have been to them, in their own strength, destitute as they were of all earthly auxiliaries, a hopeless task; but to propagate the religion of the gospel was unspeakably more difficult. A system of doctrine partaking in the least degree of any of its characteristic qualities, was a thing entirely unimagined among the heathen, and scarcely thought of by one in ten thousand of the degenerate posterity of Abraham. Religion, among the Gentiles, was a creature of the state; it consisted exclusively in the outward circumstance of temples, and altars and images, and priests and sacrifices, and festivals and lustrations. It multiplied its objects of worship at the pleasure of the civil authorities; taught no system of doctrine, recognized no system of morality, required nothing of the heart, committed the life of man to unlimited discretion, and allowed any one to stand perfectly well with the gods, on the trifling condition of a little show of respect for their worship, to whatever extent he indulged in the worst passions and lowest propensities of his nature. Heathen religion, in all its forms, was the most perfect contrast to every thing spiritual, holy, humbling, self-denying. Nothing could have been more foreign to every habit

of thought, in the mind of a native of Greece or Rome, than the scripture doctrine of the nature and guilt of sin, of repentance, conversion, faith, love, meekness, and purity of heart. Their languages had scarcely expressions sufficiently approximated to these subjects to admit of their explanation, without the coinage of new words for the purpose. And in many respects the whole race of the Jews, degenerate as they were in the time of the apostles, were as little prepared for a spiritual, heart-searching religion, as any people of the Gentiles.

Then imagine the incipient effort of the disciples of Christ to gain over the nations to the obedience of the gospel. What could they say to them by way of conciliation, of all their systems of religion and habits of living, to which from time immemorial they had been accustomed? Nothing but unqualified, uncompromising reprobation. What could they offer as a substitute, and with what recommendations could they propose it? The unity of God, to the extermination of all idolatry; the fall of man and his entire ruin and condemnation by sin, to the utter subversion of all their proud conceit of their own merit, and of the dignity of their degraded nature; the necessity of a new heart, including repentance and holiness and humility, and the diligent pursuit of all godliness of living, to the complete breaking up of all their philosophy, the mortification of all their pride, and the direct prohibition of all those unbridled passions and odious vices which then held such universal dominion in the world. It was no aid to the work of

the apostles, that besides the above unwelcome truths and requisitions, the gospel stipulated for a habit of secret prayer, a life of faith, a heart animated with patience, gentleness, forgiveness, and benevolence to all mankind; and above all, a single reliance for peace with God upon the death and intercession of One who had been crucified as a malefactor, despised and rejected even by the despised nation of the Jews.

It is easy to perceive from this brief sketch of some of the peculiarities of the gospel, in contrast with all that was loved and practised and gloried in by the nations of the earth, that while a new religion, willing to make terms with the habits and corruptions of men, might, if aided by the fascinations of eloquence, the enticements of worldly interest, and the arm of secular power, have gained some advancement, Christianity, with its uncompromising spirit, its holy requirements, and its twelve unlettered and despised apostles for its whole earthly strength, must have perished in its infancy, had not the mighty Ruler of the universe been its friend.

3. From what has been said, it is manifest that the enterprise of the apostles must have arrayed against it all the influence of every priesthood both among Jews and heathens. In the beginning of Christianity, the priests of the Jews were not only very numerous and degenerate, but exceedingly influential in their nation. They were, in reality, the nobility of Judea. The power of the magistracy was in a great measure in their hands. The people were educated under their charge. They held the reins of