great gravity also, and much respected on account of the austere dignity of his life and manners, was commanded by God to proclaim to the people the coming of the Messiah, that had been promised to their fathers. This extraordinary man called himself the forerunner of the Messiah. Filled with a holy zeal and a divine fervour, he cried aloud to the Jewish nation to depart from their transgressions, and to purify their hearts, that they might thus partake of the blessings, which the Son of God was now come to offer to the world. The exhortations of this respectable messenger were not without effect; and those who, moved by his solemn admonitions, had formed the resolution of correcting their evil dispositions and amending their lives, were initiated into the kingdom of the Redeemer by the ceremony of immersion or baptism." Christ himself, before he began his ministry, desired to be solemnly baptized by John, in the waters of Jordan, that he might not, in any point, neglect to answer the demands of the Jewish law. All The life of IV. It is not necessary to enter here into a particular detail of the life and actions of Jesus Christ. Christians must be perfectly well acquainted with Christ. them. They must know, that, during the space of three years, and amid the deepest trials of affliction and distress, he instructed the Jewish nation in the will and counsels of the Most High, and omitted nothing, in the course of his ministry, that could contribute either to gain the multitude, or to charm the wise. Every one knows, that his life was a continued scene of the most perfect sanctity, and the purest and most active virtue; not only without spot, but also beyond the reach of suspicion. And it is also well known, that by miracles of the most stupendous kind, and not more stupendous than salutary and beneficent, he displayed to the universe the truth of that religion which he brought with him from above, and demonstrated the reality of his divine commission in the most illustrious manner. of the apostles, v. As this divine religion was to be propagated to the utmost ends of the earth, it was necessary that The election Christ should choose a certain number of persons, and of the ixx to accompany him constantly through the whole disciples. course of his ministry; that thus they might be faithful and respectable witnesses of the sanctity of his life, and the Matt. iii. 6. John i. 22 grandeur of his miracles, to the remotest nations; and also transmit to the latest posterity a genuine account of his sublime doctrines, and of the nature and end of the gospel dispensation. Therefore Jesus chose, out of the multitude that attended his discourses, twelve persons, whom he separated from the rest by the name of Apostles. These men were illiterate, poor, and of mean extraction, and such alone were truly proper to answer the views of the divine Saviour. He avoided making use of the ministry of persons endowed with the advantages of fortune and birth, or enriched with the treasures of eloquence and learning, lest the fruits of this embassy, and the progress of the Gospel, should be attributed to human and natural causes. These apostles were sent but once to preach to the Jews during the life of Christ." He chose to keep them about his own person, that they might be thoroughly instructed in the affairs of his kingdom. That the multitude, however, might not be destitute of teachers to enlighten them with the knowledge of the truth, Christ appointed LXX disciples to preach the glad tidings of life eternal throughout the whole province of Judea.' ber of the apostles was and that of the disciples to lxx. VI. The researches of the learned have been employed to find out the reason of Christ's fixing the numWhy the num- ber of the apostles to twelve, and that of the disfixed to isciples to seventy; and various conjectures have been applied to the solution of this question. But since it is manifest, from the words of our Saviour himself, that he intended the number of the xii apostles as an allusion to that of the tribes of Israel; it can scarcely be doubted, that he was willing to insinuate by this appointment, that he was the supreme lord and highpriest of these twelve tribes, into which the Jewish nation was divided. And as the number of disciples answers evidently to that of senators, of whom the counsel of the people, or the sanhedrim, was composed, there is a high degree of probability in the conjecture of those, who think that Christ, by the choice of the seventy, designed to admonish the Jews that the authority of their sanhedrim was now at an end, and that all power, with respect to religious matters, was vested in him alone. VII. The ministry of the divine Saviour was confined g1 Cor. i. 21. Luke x. i. b Matt. x. 7. * Matt. xix. 26. Luke xxii. 36. be to the Jews; nor while he remained upon earth did he permit his apostles or disciples to extend Christ's fame their labours beyond this distinguished nation.. yond Judea. At the same time if we consider the illustrious acts of mercy and omnipotence, that were performed by Christ, it will be natural to conclude, that his fame must have been very soon spread abroad in other countries. We learn from writers of no small note, that Abgarus king of Edessa, being seized with a severe and dangerous illness, wrote to our blessed Lord to implore his assistance; and that Jesus not only sent him a gracious answer, but also accompanied it with his picture, as a mark of his esteem for that pious prince." These letters are still extant. But they are justly looked upon as fictitious by most writers, who also go yet farther, and treat the whole story of Abgarus as entirely fabulous, and unworthy of credit." I will not pretend to assert the genuineness of these letters; but I see no reason of sufficient weight to destroy the credibility of the whole story which is supposed to have given occasion to them." of Christ's VIII. A great number of the Jews, struck with those illustrious marks of a divine authority and power, that shone forth in the ministry and actions of The success Christ, regarded him as the Son of God, the true ministry. Messiah. The rulers of the people, and more especially the chief priests and Pharisees, whose licentiousness and 1 Matt. x. 5, 6. xv. 24. m Euseb. Hist. Eccl. lib. i. cap. xiii. p. 21. Jo. Albert Fabric. Codex Apocryphus, N. T. tom. i. p. 317. n See Basnage, Histoire des Juifs, vol. i. cap. xviii. p. 500. As also Theoph. Sigf. Bayerus, Historia Edessena et Osroena, lib. iii. p. 104. Jos. Simon Assemanus, Biblioth. Oriental. Clement Vaticanæ, tom. i. p. 554. There is no author who has discussed this question, concerning the authenticity of the letters of Christ and Abgarus, and the truth of the whole story, with such learning and judgment, as the late Mr. Jones, in the second volume of his excellent work, entitled, A new and full method of settling the canonical_authority of the New Testament. Notwithstanding the opinions of such celebrated names as Parker, Cave, and Grabe, in favour of these letters, and the history to which they relate, Mr. Jones bas offered reasons to prove the whole fictitious, which seem unanswerable, independent of the authorities of Rivet, Chemnitius, Walther, Simon, Du Pin, Wake, Spanheim, Fabricius, and Le Clerc, which he opposes to the three above mentioned. It is remarkable that this story is not mentioned by any writer before Eusebius; that it is but little taken notice of by succeeding writers; that the whole affair was unknown to Christ's apostles, and to the Christians, their contemporaries, as is manifest from the early disputes about the method of receiving Gentile converts into the church, which this story, had it been true, must have entirely decided. As to the letters, no doubt can be made of their spuriousness; since, if Christ bad written a letter to Abgarus, it would have been a part of sacred Scripture, and would have been placed at the head of all the books of the New Testament. See Lardner's Collection of Ancient Jewish and Heathen Testimonies, vol. i. p. 297, &c. It must be observed in behalf of Eusebius, that he relates this story, as drawn from the archives of Edessa. VOL. I. hypocrisy he censured with a noble and generous freedom, laboured with success, by the help of their passions, to extinguish in their breasts the conviction of his celestial mission; or, at least, to suppress the effects it was adapted to produce upon their conduct. Fearing also lest the ministry of Christ should tend to diminish their credit, and to deprive them of the advantages they derived from the impious abuse of their authority in religious matters; they laid snares for his life, which for a considerable time were without effect. They succeeded at length by the infernal treason of an apostate disciple, by the treachery of Judas, who discovered the retreat which his divine master had chosen for the purposes of meditation and repose, and thus delivered him into the merciless hands of a brutal soldiery. Death of IX. In consequence of this, Jesus was first brought before the Jewish high-priest and sanhedrim, before whom he was accused of having violated the law, and blasphemed the majesty of God. Dragged from thence to the tribunal of Pilate the Roman prætor, he was there charged with seditious enterprises, and with treason against Cæsar. Both these accusations were so evidently false and destitute even of every appearance of truth, that they must have been rejected by any judge, who acted upon the principles of common equity. But the clamours of an enraged populace, set on by the impious instigations of their priests and rulers, intimidated Pilate, and engaged him, though with the utmost reluctance, and in opposition to the dictates of his conscience, to pronounce a capital sentence against Christ. The divine Saviour behaved with inexpressible dignity under this heavy trial. As the end of his mission was to make expiation for the sins of men, so when all things were ready, and when he had finished the work of his glorious ministry, he placidly submitted to the death of the cross, and with a serene and voluntary resignation, committed his spirit into the hands of the Father. His resurrec tion. x. After Jesus had remained three days in the sepulchre, he resumed that life which he had voluntarily laid down; and rising from the dead, declared to the universe, by that triumphant act, that the divine justice was satisfied, and the paths of salvation and immortality rendered accessible to the human race. He conversed with his disciples during forty days after his resur rection, and employed that time in instructing them more fully concerning the nature of his kingdom. Many wise and important reasons prevented his showing himself publicly at Jerusalem, to confound the malignity and unbelief of his enemies. He contented himself with manifesting the certainty of his glorious resurrection, to a sufficient number of faithful and credible witnesses; foreseeing, perhaps, that if he appeared in public, those malicious unbelievers who had formerly attributed his miracles to the power of magic, would now represent his resurrection, as a phantom or vision, produced by the influence of infernal powers. After having remained upon earth during the space of time above mentioned, and given to his disciples a divine commission to preach the glad tidings of salvation and immortality to the human race, he ascended into heaven, in their presence, and resumed the enjoyment of that glory of which he was possessed before the worlds were created. CHAPTER IV. CONCERNING THE PROSPEROUS EVENTS THAT HAPPENED TO THE CHURCH DURING THIS CENTURY. filled with I. JESUS being ascended into heaven, soon showed his afflicted disciples, that, though invisible to mortal eyes, he was still their omnipotent protector, and The apostles their benevolent guide. About fifty days after Holy Ghost his departure from them, he gave them the first proof of that majesty and power to which he was exalted, by the effusion of the Holy Ghost upon them according to his promise. The consequences of this grand event were surprising and glorious, infinitely honourable to the Christian religion and the divine mission of its triumphant author. For no sooner had the apostles received this precious gift, this celestial guide, than their ignorance was turned into light, their doubts into certainty, their fears into a firm and invincible fortitude, and their former backwardness into an ardent and inextinguishable zeal, which led them to undertake their sacred office with the utmost intrepidity and alacrity of mind. This marvellous event was attended with a variety of gifts; particularly the gift of tongues, so indispensably necessary to qualify the apos P Acts ii. 1, &c. |