and SÀVIOUR, JESUS CHRIST, and his APOSTLES, &c. 423 faith, and of right reafon, to give credit to this hiflory. This they did accord- ingly, and, in confequence of it, publifhed the fame truths themfelves, fuffered many aliliaions, and very often death itfelf, in the alfertion of them. But while we af- firm, anhiflorical belief of the aéls of our Saviour might induce thefe learned Pagans to embrace his doarine, we do not deny that there were many other motives, which conduced to it, as the excellency of his precepts, the fulfilling of prophecies, the miracles ofhis difciples, the irreproachable lives and magnanimous fufferings of their followers, with other confiderauonsof the fame nature : but whatever other collateral arguments wrought more or lefs with phi- lolophers of that age, it is certain, that a belief in the hiflory of our Saviour was one motive with every new convert, and that upon which all others turned, as being the very bafis and foundation of Chriftiantty. A learned man of our nation, who exa- mined the writings of our molt ancient fa- thers, refers to feveral paffages in Irenasus, Tertullian, Clemens of Alexandria, Ori- gen, and Cyprian, by which he plainly !hews, that each of thefe early writers afcribed to the four evangelios by name their refpeaive hiftories ; fo that there is not the lealt room for doubting of their be- lief in the hiftory of our Saviour, as re- corded in the gofpels. We !hall only add, that three of the five fathers here men- tioned, and probably four, were Pagans converted to Chrioianity, as they were all of them very inquifitive and deep in the knowledge of Heathen learning and philo- folIt happened very providentially to the honour of the Chriftian religion, that it did not take it's rife in the dark illiterate ages of the world, but at a time when arts and fciences were at their height, and when there were men who made it thebu- .finefs of their lives to fearch after truth, and fife the feveral opinions of philofophers and wife men, concerning the duty, the end, and chief happinefs of reafonable creatures. Several ofthefe therefore, when they had informed themfelves of our Saviour's hif- tory, and . examined with unprejudiced minds the doctrines and manners of his difciples and followers, were fo ftruck and convinced, that they profeffed themfelves of that feEt ; notwithftanding, by this pro- feffion in that junEure of time, they bid farewell to all the pleafures of this life, re- nounced all the views of ambition,.engaged 2 in an uninterrupted courfe of feverities, and expofed themfelves to public hatred and contempt, to fufferings of all kinds, and to death itfelf. Of this fort we may reckon thofe three eatly converts to Chril- tianity, who each of them was a member of a fenate famous for it's wifdom and learning. Jofeph the Arimathean, was of the Jewifh Sanhedrim ; Dionyfius, of the Athenian Areopagus ; and Flavius Clemens, of the Roman fenate ; nay, at the time of his death, conful of Rome. Tertullian tells the Roman governors, that their corporations, councils, armies, tribes, companies, the palace; fenate, and courts of judicature were filled with Chrif- tians ; as Arnobius afferts, that men of the fineft parts and learning, orators, gramma- rians, rhetoricians, lawyers, phyficians, philofophers, defpifing the fentiments they had been once fond of, took up their reft in the Chriftian religion ; and who can imagine, that men of this charaller did not thoroughly inform themfelvesof the hiftory of that perfon whofe doctrines they em- braced? Befides innumerable authors that are loft, we have the undoubted names, works, or fragmentsof feveral Pagan philofophers, which flew them to have been as learned as any unconverted Heathen authors of the age in which they lived. If we look into the greateft nurferies of learning in thofe ages of the world, we find inAthens, Dio- nyfius, Quadratus, Ariftides, andAthenago- ras ; and in Alexandria, Dionyfius,Clemens, Ammonius, and Anatolius, to whom we may add Origen; for though ht's father was a Chriftian martyr, he breathe, without all controverfy, the moll learned and able philofopher of his age, by his education at Alexandria, in that famous feminary of arts and fciences. Heathens of every age, fex, and quality, born in the molt different climates, and bredup under the molt different inflitutions, when they fawmen ofplain fenfe, without the help of learning, armed with patience and courage, inftead of wealth, pomp, or power, expreffing in their lives thol ex- cellent doctrines of morality, which they taught as delivered "to them from our Sa- viour, averring that they had Peen his mi- racles during his life, and converted with him after his death ; when they faw no fufpicion of falfhood, treachery, or worldly intereft, in their behaviour and converfa- tion, and that they fubmitted to the molt ignominious and cruel deaths, rather than retraEt theirteftimony, or even be filent in matters
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