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feemed to follow, not to lead, the public opinion.

It may help to convey to us fome notion of the extent and progrefs of Christianity, or rather of the character and quality of many early Chriftians, of their learning and their labours, to notice the number of Chriftian writers who flourished in these ages. St. Jerome's catalogue contains fixty-fix writers within the three first centuries, and the fix first years of the fourth; and fifty-four between that time and his own, viz. A. D. 392. Jerome introduces his catalogue with the following juft remonftrance :-" Let those who say the church has had no philofophers, nor eloquent and learned men, obferve who and what they were who founded, established, and adorned it; let them cease to accufe our faith of rufticity,. and confefs their mistake*." Of these writers, feveral, as Juftin, Irenæus, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, Origen, Bardefanes,

*

Jer. Prol. in Lib. de Ser. Ecc.

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Hippolitus,

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Hippolitus, Eufebius, were voluminous writers. Christian writers abounded particularly ́ about the year 178. Alexander, bishop of Jerufalem, founded a library in that city A. D. 212. Pamphilus, the friend of Origen, founded a library at Cefarea A. D. 294Public defences were also set forth, by various advocates of the religion, in the course of its three first centuries. Within one hundred years after Chrift's afcenfion, Quadratus and Ariftides, whofe works, except fome few fragments of the firft, are loft; and, about twenty years afterwards, Justin Martyr, whose works remain, presented apologies for the Chriftian religion to the Roman emperors; Quadratus and Ariftides to Adrian, Justin to Antoninus Pius, and a fecond to Marcus Antoninus. Melito bishop of Sardis, and Apollinaris bishop of Hierapolis, and Miltiades, men of great reputation, did the fame to Marcus Antoninus twenty years afterwards*: and ten years after this,

Eufeb. Hift. lib. iv. c. 26. See alfo Lardner, vol. ii.

p. 666.

Apollonius,

Apollonius, who fuffered martyrdom under the emperor Commodus, composed an apology for his faith, which he read in the fenate, and which was afterwards published *. Fourteen years after the apology of Apollonius, Tertullian addreffed the work which now remains under that name, to the governors of provinces in the Roman empire; and, about the fame time, Minucius Felix compofed a defence of the Chriftian religion, which is ftill extant; and, fhortly after the conclufion of this century, copious defences of Christianity were published by Arnobius and Lactantius.

*Lard. vol. ii, p. 687.

SEC.

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SECTION II.

Reflections upon the preceding Account.

IN viewing the progress of Chriftianity,

our first attention is due to the number of converts at Jerufalem, immediately after its founder's death; because this fuccefs was a fuccefs at the time, and upon the spot, when and where the chief part of the history had been tranfacted.

We are, in the next place, called upon to attend to the early establishment of numerous Chriftian focieties in Judea and Galilee, which countries had been the scene of Chrift's miracles and ministry, and where the memory of what had paffed, and the knowledge of what was alledged, must have yet been fresh and certain.

We are, thirdly, invited to recollect the

fuccefs

uccefs of the apoftles and of their companions, at the feveral places to which they ame, both within and without Judea; be

ufe it was the credit given to original witneffes, appealing for the truth of their accounts to what themselves had feen and heard. The effect alfo of their preaching ftrongly confirms the truth of what our hif tory positively and circumftantially relates, that they were able to exhibit to their hearers fupernatural atteftations of their miffion.

We are, laftly, to confider the fubfequent growth and spread of the religion, of which we receive fucceffive intimations, and fatiffactory, though general and occasional, accounts until its full and final establishment.

In all these feveral ftages, the history is without a parallel; for it must be observed, that we have not now been tracing the progrefs, and defcribing the prevalency, of an opinion, founded upon philofophical or critical arguments, upon mere deductions of

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