THE

GENERAL AND EFFECTUAL PUBLICATION OF THE GOSPEL BY THE APOSTLES.

(Preached on Ascension Day, 1688.)

into

So then, after the Lord had spoken unto them, He was received up heaven, and sat on the right hand of God. And they went forth and preached everywhere, the Lord working with them, and confirming the word with signs following.-MARK xvi. 19, 20.

In these words you have these two great points of Christian doctrine:

(I.) Our Saviour's ascension into heaven, and exaltation at the right hand of God; "He was received up into heaven, and sat on the right hand of God."

(II.) The effect or consequence of His ascension and exaltation, which was the general and effectual publication of the Gospel; "they went forth, and preached everywhere, the Lord working with them, and confirming the word with signs following." And both these are very proper for this day; but I shall at this time handle the latter point, namely, the effect or consequence of our Saviour's ascension into heaven, and exaltation at the right hand of God; "they went forth, and preached everywhere, the Lord working with them, and confirming the word with signs following."

And these words contain two things in them :

(I.) The general publication of the Gospel by the apostles; "They went forth and preached everywhere."

(II.) The reason of the great efficacy and success of it; namely, the Divine and miraculous power which accompanied the preaching of it; "The Lord wrought with them, and confirmed the Word with signs following."

(I.) The general publication of the Gospel by the apostles; "They went forth and preached everywhere." And, indeed, the industry of the apostles and the other disciples, in publishing the Gospel, was almost incredible. What pains did they take! what hazard did they run! what difficulties and discouragements did they contend withal in this work! And yet their success was greater than their industry, and beyond all human expectation: as will appear, if we consider these five things.

(1.) The vast spreading of the Gospel in so short a space. (2.) The wonderful power and efficacy of it upon the lives and manners of men.

(3.) The weakness and meanness of the instruments that were employed in this great work.

(4.) The powerful opposition that was raised against it. (5.) The great discouragements to the embracing the profession of it. I shall speak briefly to each of these.

(1.) The vast spreading of the Gospel in so short a space. This is represented (Rev. xiv. 6) by "an angel flying through the midst of heaven, and preaching the everlasting Gospel to every nation and kindred, and tongue, and people." No sooner was the doctrine of the Christian religion published and made known to the world, but it was readily embraced by great numbers, almost in all places where it came. And, indeed, so it was foretold in the prophecies of the Old Testament: (Gen. xlix. 10) "That when Shiloh (that is, the Messias) should come, to Him should the gathering of the people be:" and (Isa. i. 2) that "in the last days the mountain of the Lord's house should be established in the top of the mountains, and be exalted above the hills, and that all nations should flow unto it." (Isa. lx. 8) The prophet, speaking of men's ready submission

to the Gospel, and the great number of those that shoud come in upon the preaching of it, they are said "to fly as a cloud, and as the doves to the windows."

So quick and strange a progress did this new doctrine and religion make in the world, that, in the space of about thirty years after our Saviour's death, it was not only diffused through the greatest part of the Roman empire, but had reached as far as Parthia and India. In which we see our Saviour's prediction fully verified, that, before the destruction of Jerusalem, the Gospel should be preached in all the world; (Matt. xxiv. 14) "This Gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world, for a witness unto all nations, and then shall the end come." But this is not all; men were not only brought into the profession of the Gospel; but,

(2.) This doctrine had likewise a wonderful power and efficacy upon the lives and manners of men. The generality of those that entertained the Gospel, were obedient to it in word and deed, as the apostle tells us, concerning the Gentiles that were converted to Christianity (Rom. xv. 18). Upon the change of their religion, followed also the change of their manners, of their former course of life. They that took upon them the profession of Christianity, "did thenceforth not walk as other Gentiles did, in the lusts of the flesh, and according to the vicious course of the world; but did put off, concerning their former conversation, the old man which was corrupt, according to the deceitful lusts; and were renewed in the spirit of their mind, and did put on the new man, which after God was created in righteousness and true holiness." So strange an effect had the Gospel upon the lives of the generality of the professors of it that I remember Tertullian, in his apology to the Roman emperor and senate, challengeth them to instance in anyone that bore the title of Christian, that was condemned as a thief, or a murderer, or a sacrilegious person; or that was guilty of any of

The popular preachers of the Stoic morality were the best of all the philosophic sects, and if any system could have regenerated the society of that period, the Stoics unquestionably would have succeeded. But they failed to do The Christian teachers of the first two centuries did what all the philosophies before the days of Christiauity had failed to do.

those gross enormities, for which so many pagans were every day made examples of public justice, and punished and executed among them.

And this certainly was a very admirable and happy effect, which the Gospel had upon men, to work so great and sudden a change in the lives of those who entertained this doctrine, to take them quite off from those vicious practices which they had been brought up in and accustomed to; to change their spirits and the temper of their minds; and of lewd and dishonest, to make them sober and just, and "holy in all manner of conversation;" of proud and fierce, contentious and passionate, malicious and revengeful, to make them humble and meek, kind and tender-hearted, peacable and charitable.

And that the primitive Christians were generally good men, and of virtuous lives, is credible, because their religion did teach and oblige them to be such; which, though it be not effectual now, to make all the professors of it such, as it requires they should be; yet it was a very forcible argument then, in the circumstances in which the primitive Christians were: for Christianity was a hated and persecuted profession: no man could then have any inducement to embrace it, unless he were resolved to practise it, and live according to the rules of it; for it offered men no rewards and advantages in this world; but, on the contrary, threatened men with the greatest temporal inconveniences and sufferings; and it promised no happiness to men in the other world upon any other terms than of denying "ungodliness and worldly lusts," and "of living soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world."

And besides this consideration, we have the best testimony in the world of their unblamable lives, viz., the testimony of their professed enemies, who did not persecute them for any personal crimes which they charged particular persons withal, but only for their religion, acknowledging them otherwise to be very innocent and good people. Particularly Pliny, in his letter to Trajan the emperor (who had given him in charge, to make particular inquiry concerning the Christians), gives this

honourable report of them: "That there was no fault to be found in them besides their obstinate refusal to sacrifice to the gods; that at their religious meetings it was an essential part of their worship to oblige themselves by a solemn sacrament against murder, and theft, and adultery, and all manner of wickedness and vice." No Christian historian could have given a better character of them than this heathen writer does. But,

(3.) The success of the Gospel will appear yet more strange, if we consider the weakness and meanness of the instruments that were employed in this great. work. A company of plain and illiterate men, most of them destitute of the advantages of education, went forth upon this great design, weak and unarmed, unassisted by any worldly interest, having no secular force and power on their side, to give countenance and authority to them; and this not only at their first setting out, but they remained under these disadvantages for three ages together.

The first publishers of the Christian religion offered violence to no man; did not go about to compel any by force to entertain the doctrine which they preached, and to list themselves of their number: they were not attended with legions of armed men to dispose men for the reception of their doctrine, by plunder and free quarter, by violence and tortures: this modern method of conversion was not then thought of; nor did they go about to attempt and lure men to their way, by the promises of temporal rewards, and by the hopes of riches and honours; nor did they use any artificial insinuations of wit and eloquence to gain upon the minds of men and steal their doctrines into them; but delivered themselves with the greatest plainness and simplicity: and without any studied ornaments of speech, or fine arts of persuasion, declared plainly to them the doctrine and miracles, the life, and death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, promising life and immortality to them that did believe and obey His doctrine, and threatening eternal woe and misery in another world to the despisers of it.

And yet these contemptible instruments, notwithstanding all these disadvantages, did their work effectually, and, by the