Evidences of Christianity.
By Moses Hull
PAUL, in his letter to the citizens of Rome, described the civilized heathen to whom we refer, as professing to be wise, yet becoming fools, as changing the glory of God into an image like man, and birds and four-footed beasts, and creeping things. He states that they have been given up to uncleanness, through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonor their own bodies, that they change the truth of God into a lie, and worship the creature instead of the Creator; that they have been given up to vile affections, to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient; that they are full of envy, murder, deceit, &c. Please read chap. i, entire. It presents a dark picture, but every word of it can be proved by secular history, and infidel historians have represented it in the same light. It seems that God will have them bear testimony to the state of the world without a revelation. Paul represents them as being "full of envy, murder, deceit," &c. David Hume has borne testimony to the truthfulness of Paul's statement in the following language: "Who can read the accounts of the amphitheatrical entertainments without horror? Or who is surprised that the emperors should treat the people in the same way the people treated their inferiors? One's humanity is apt to renew the barbarous wish of Caligula, that the people had but one neck. A man could almost be pleased, by a single blow to put an end to such a race of monsters."—Note to Essay on the Populousness of Ancient Nations. Again the same writer says, "The horrid practice of poisoning was so common, that during part of a season a prætor punished capitally for this crime alone, three thousand persons in a part of Italy, and found information of this nature still multiplying upon him. So depraved in their private life were that people whom we so much admire."—Essay on Politics. Gibbon, another infidel, has some testimony to the same fact. He says, "Such was the unhappy condition even of Roman emperors, that whatever might be their conduct, their fate was commonly the same; almost every reign is closed by the same disgusting repetition of treason and murder." The eloquent M'Ilvaine says, "Suicide was not only extensively practiced, but advocated as right, and commended as virtuous. Seneca plead for it. Cicero was its advocate. Brutus and Cassius, with many others, both defended and practiced it. Cato is praised by Plutarch for having been his own murderer. These, in their days, were among the lights of the heathen world. What then must have been the awful deeds of darkness among the more ignorant populace."—Evidences, p. 370. We cannot leave Paul's testimony without having it corroborated still further. Paul says they are "without natural affection." Nothing can more glaringly exhibit the entire absence of natural affection, than the cruel custom of parents murdering their own children, and turning their superannuated slaves out to starve or freeze to death; or throwing them into the fish pond for food for their fish. Yet these customs were practiced by the most enlightened heathens of Paul's day. Certainly they needed one to "teach them how to behave toward God and toward man." Smith says, "The exposition, that is, the murder of new-born infants, was an allowed practice in most all the states of Greece and Rome: even among the polite and civilized Athenians, the abandoning of one's child to hunger or to wild beasts, was regarded without blame or censure."—Theory of Moral Sentiments. Hume says, "This practice was very common, and is not spoken of by any author of those times with the horror it deserves, or scarcely even with disapprobation. Plutarch, the humane, good-natured Plutarch, mentions it as a merit in Attalus, king of Pergamos, that he murdered, or if you will, exposed all his own children, in order to leave his crown to the son of his brother Eumenus. It was Solon, the most celebrated of the sages of Greece, that gave parents permission by law to kill their children."—Populousness of Ancient Nations. Mr. Campbell sums up this testimony as follows: "Rome had one hundred and seventeen opinions about the summum bonum in its Augustan age: the Grecian States had almost as many gods as soldiers, and a wit once said, 'It is more easy to find a god than a man at Athens.' But not only did the multiplication of gods and goddesses, exhibit the fooleries of the readers of the volume of nature, but the infamous character they gave their gods, and the crimes they laid to their charge. Their gods were monsters of cruelty, lewdness, and profligacy. The morality learned from this volume was as various and as imperfect as its theology. Human sacrifices were offered upon their altars: their temples were places of prostitution; fornication and drunkenness formed the religious worship of Venus and Bacchus. Plutarch, in some particular instances, recommended as a virtue that which, in many places, was a common usage; viz., to expose infants to death by cold and hunger, or to be devoured by wild beasts. The Grecian sages gave parents permission to kill their children—and suicide was recommended as a virtue. So teaches the volume of nature."—Debate with Owen, p. 63. Reflect on the state of morality when such was the prevailing inhumanity of parents. Public sentiment regarded this as innocent. Philosophers supported it by argument. Plato and Aristotle thought that it should be encouraged by the magistrates; and so it was, insomuch that the blood of infants stained the Roman empire from one end to the other. M'Ilvaine says, "Such was the power of a father by the Roman law, that his adult children might be sent to the mines, sold into slavery, or destroyed at his will. His daughter could be compelled, at his discretion, to forsake a husband whom he himself had approved, while his wife could be dismissed at pleasure, and for certain crimes, some of them of a very trivial nature, she might be put to death. The authority of a father was that of a despot; the subjection of his family was that of slaves."—Evidences, pp. 371, 372. One item more and we are done with Paul's language. He states that they were given up to "vile affections," "covetous," &c. They were not only covetous, but actually departed from all decency. We forbear naming the low crimes which were sanctioned by the Grecian and Roman laws. A certain historian, in speaking of the youth of Cicero's time, says, "Luxury, avarice and pride enslaved them; they wantoned in rapine and prodigality; undervalued their own, and coveted what belonged to others; trampled on modesty, friendship, and continence; confounded things divine and human, and threw off all manner of consideration and restraint." "Men and women laid aside all regard to chastity."—Sallust. Many more historical facts might be given to show that those who were destitute of the Bible were also destitute of morality; but as this chapter has already been extended longer than it was intended, I will not pursue this chain of evidence further. Mr. Patterson sums up the evidence on this point in the following language: "The precepts of even the wisest men, and the laws of the best regulated states, commanded or approved of vice. In Babylon prostitution was compulsory on every female. The Carthaginian law required human sacrifices. When Agarthocles besieged Carthage, two hundred children of the most noble families were murdered by the command of the senate, and three hundred citizens voluntarily sacrificed themselves to Saturn. The laws of Sparta required theft, and the murder of unhealthy children. Those of ancient Rome allowed parents the power of killing their children if they pleased. At Athens, the capital of heathen literature and philosophy, it was enacted 'that infants which appeared to be maimed should be either killed or exposed.'"—Fables of Infidelity, p. 75. Reader, I only boast of the plainness of the subject when I say that the necessity for a revelation from God has been proved. Now let me ask, What boon, what honor, what reward have our opponents to offer to those who embrace their denials of the need of a revelation? When infidels would turn us away from the Bible, to what would they convert us? And when they get us converted, what reward do they offer us? What hope do they present? Echo responds, What? Infidels must answer, None! No reward, no hope, no heaven, no immortality, no prospect before us except that of an eternal sleep. Campbell says of infidels, "They promise to him that disbelieves the founder of the Christian religion; to him that neglects and disdains the salvation of the gospel; to him who tramples under foot the blood of the new institution, and insults the Spirit of favor; to him who traduces Moses, Daniel, and Job; to him who vilifies Jesus, Paul, Peter, James, and John; to him who devotes his soul to the lusts of the flesh; who disdains heaven; who defies his appetite; who degrades himself to a mere animal, and eulogizes philosophy; to this man they promise eternal sleep, an everlasting death. This is the faith, the hope, the joy for which they labor with so much zeal, and care, and pain."—Debate with Owen, p. 17. Reader, may you and I be found "contending earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints."