[291] Acts x. and xv. 7.
[292] An ancient apologist for Christianity seems to think, that, if a sect of philosophy had been persecuted, as Christianity was, it would presently have vanished out of the world. His words are—τὴν μὲν φιλοσοφίαν τὴν Ἑλληνικὴν ἐὰν ὁ τυχὼν ἄρχων κωλύσῃ, οἴχεται παραχρῆμα· [Clemens Alexandr. Strom. L. vi. p. 827. Oxon. 1715.] Perhaps, the learned father was mistaken. But a religion, founded on facts, not on opinions, and persecuted from the beginning, could not have supported itself, if those facts had been false. This is the case of Christianity. The subsequent persecutions, when the truth of Christianity was admitted on the credit of the first martyrs, might tend to advance this religion, even though it had been originally an imposture. The difference of the two cases is palpable. The Apostles shewed, by their sufferings, that they knew what they attested to be a true fact: Succeeding sufferers shewed, that they believed it to be so.
[293] 1 Peter i. 11.
[294] Of Persecution. John xvi. 2.
Of Heresies. Acts xx. 30. 1 Cor. x. 19.
Of Mahomet’s impiety, ix. 1-12. See Mede.
Of the great Apostasy. 2 Thess. ii. &c.
Of these, and other woes still to come. The Revelation, passim.
[295] 1 Peter i. 25.
[296] Matth. vii. 24, 25.