PHI LOS 0 P H Y . - Classic Works of Apologetics Online

itS stated in the Scripture&\. ~~::~
iJy force; nor can we judge wh:t r;~ply the Apostles
~Nould have made to this sel,'ond que~tion, if it had
been proposed to them, from any thing they have
delivered upon the first; any more than in the two
consultations abo\'e de~cribed, it could be kI10~!ln beforehand,
what I would ~ay in the latter, from the
answer which I gave to the former.
The only defect in this account is, that neither the
scriptures, nor any ~;ubs fquent history of the early
ages of the church, furni;\h any direct attestation of
the existence of such disaffected sentiments amongst
the primitive converts. TheV supply indeed some
circumstances, which render probable the opinion,,­
that.extravagant notions of th ... political rights of the
Chri~tian state were at that tjm~ entertained by tnany
proselytes to the religion. From the question proposed
to Christ, "Is it lawful to give tribute unto
Cresar ?" it may be presumed that doubts had been
started in the Je\vish schools concerning the obliga ..
tion, or even the lawfulness, of submission to the Ro­
Inan yoke. The accounts delivered by Josephus, of
various insurrectiollS of the Jews of that and the following
age, excited by this principle, or upon this
pretence, confirm the presumption. Now, as the
Christians \vere at first chiefly taken from the Jews~.
confounded ,vith them by the rest of the world, and,
from the affinity of the t\VO religions~ apt to intermix
the doctrines of both, it is not t~ be wondered
at, that a tenet, so flatteIing to the self.importance of
tl10se wIlo embraced it, should have been con1ffiuni.
cated to the new institution. Again, the teacllers of'
Cllristianit y, am{)ngst the pri\rileges \\~ hich their religion
cOllfcrred upon its professors, \~~ere wont to
extol the" liberty into which they were callcd"-" in
which Christ had m~de them free." This liberty,
whic.h \vas intended of a delivet ance from the various
servitude, in which they had llcretof()re lived
to the domination of sinful passions, to the superstition
of the Genti~e idolatry, Qr the incumbered ritu.
al of the Jewish dispensation, might by some be in·
tcrpreted to signify an emancipation from all rt"'.