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Untitled Article
to all who were willing to be his hearers . * I ask , Sir , what in this narra * tive makes it evident that there was not now a Christian church at Rome ?
It is perfectly understood that Luke ' s object , in drawing up his second history , was not to present the world with a compleat relation of the travels , labours and sufferings of Paul , but only to
exhibit sufficient evidence of this apostle ' s faithfulness , zeal and courage in his ministry , and to shew , generall y ^ in what manner and to what
extent Christianity was published in its earliest age . f There are facts of which he takes no notice ^ J yet by an acquaintance with which curiosity would have been gratified . Shall we infer then from his omissions that , where he is silent , he means to intimate either a doubt
or a contradiction ? No history couW stand the test of such criticism , which would go indeed to the overthrow of ail human testimony : and a comparison of what Luke has said , and of what he has not ssaid , with Paul ' s Epistles , will establish at once the credibility of the narrative and the genuineness of the letters .
Attentive readers of this book , will be sensible of the author ' s solicitude to represent the labours of the apostles in the first instance for the conversion of the Jews and afterwards of the Gentiles , In conformity with his practice , he enlarges , in his concluding chapter , on the pains employed by Paul for
* Acts xxviii . 16 . f Benson on the Epistles , vol . i- 570 . Note . i JLardner ' s Worlw . vol . * i « JL 45—156 .
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subduing the prejudices of hfa countrymen resident in Rome , Their answer implies their know - ledge of the existence and the
unpopularity of Ghristiaas : nor is it at all improbable that they gained this knowledge from what they had seen and heard in the city where they lived .
Two opposite opinions have been delivered in respect of the state of Christianity at Rome in the apostolic age . Some writers imagine that converts were extremely nu ^ merous there : others , that ( here
were scarcely any , or , at best , that they were few and inconsiderable . The truth , I believe , is , they were flourishing in point of faith and virtue , * without constituting
either a large or an . affluent body , Nothing more is signified by the Epistle . Their knowledge and their goodness were their most honourable distinction . It was a
distinction which , as we may conclude from similar cases in modern times , could not be unknown to their fellow professors of the gospel in distant regions : it was , in fact , a subject of notoriety ,
" throughout the whole world , " that is , as every fair critic will interpret the phrase , the whofle Christian worid . But it was not likely to attract the attention of
the mass of the citizens , and much lees that of jthe imperial court . ' It is iwt at all probable , '' jaccording to Mr . E . that there shpuW have been a Christian church at
Rome in the reiga of Nerp , " because Paul was the apostle particularly chosen and delegated for that purpose , and he accordingly first , preached ihje gospel to the distant Gentiles , as recorded in the
• Roito 4 i . 8 , xv . 14 .
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S 98 An early Christian Church at Rome .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), June 2, 1813, page 398, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2429/page/42/
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