Lectures on the Evidences of Christianity [pp. 250-294]

. Early Controversies of C7iristianity.
no amount or concentration of pressure can prevent from
ascending.
The first form of outward hostility which the gospel encoun tered was determined, therefore, by the antagonism of its spirit
and its tendency, with reference to the evils and abuses of the
existing governments of the world. The persecutions which it
endured, in consequence, drew out the apologies of its profes sors, addressed for the most part to the Roman Emperor, in the
early ages of its history. These were chiefly explanatory and
defensive, and were designed to rescue from calumny and misrepresentation the true nature of its rites, and doctrines, and
spirit. But while the apologies of the early Christians were
denying and refuting these absurd and malignant slanders, the
spirit of the gospel had already entered into conflict with the
Judaism on the one hand, and the paganism on the other, which
supported the despotic governments, under which it went forth
to battle. It was the living might with which it shook these
pillars of absolute authority, that awoke the bitter and fanatical hatred of their respective adherents. The question of its
evidence was, therefore, raised on two sides at once. It was
compelled to exhibit and vindicate its title to credibility against
the prescriptive and acknowledged institutes of Judaism and
the countless forms of pagan worship and belief. And as the
dominant paganism of Rome was instinct with the life and
power of the old philosophies and the arts of Greece, it is evident that the Christian controversy would necessarily involve
a reaction upon the whole ground work of that philosophy.
Christianity, as a rule of life, contains new and diyine provisions for determining the leading questions of social and public
life. The power of the gospel, therefore, cannot be introduced
-into the bosom of a man or a community, without furnishing
new solutions of the practical ethics of society, and new modes
of meeting and discharging the great duties which spring out of
the common nature and relations of humanity. Now the solution of these problems is the precise province of ethical philosophy; and to furnish such a solution on rational grounds without the suggestion of a divine revelation, or to set the solution
furnished by such a revelation in philosophic relation with the
true elements-of humanity, involves an analysis and study of
1852.]
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