J94- 



ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. Book III. 



believers. He fufFered martyrdom alfo among them, and was raifed 

 from the dead. Yet the apoflJes made many fewer converts among 

 tliem, than among any of the Gentiles : So far, indeed, from be- 

 ing converted themfelves, they oppofed moft vehemently the pro- 

 grefs of the apoftles among the Gentiles, as is evident from many 

 pafTages in the Ads of the Apoftles, and particularly from one, 

 where it is recorded, that when Paul was in Lyftra, a city of Lyca- 

 onia in Afia, and was going on moft fuccefsfuUy in converting the 

 inhabitants, there came Jews from Antioch and Iconium, who raifed 

 the people againft this apoftle, and having ^oned Paul, drew him out 

 of the city, fuppo/ing he had been dead *. And the reafon was, that, 

 being naturally a very dull people, as they are reprefented even by 

 the fathers of the church, and altogether unlearned, they were fo 

 obftinately attached to the Mofaic law, and all its forms and cere- 

 monies, (a yoke, which, as Peter faid, in the council of the apoftles 

 and elders, neither they nor their forefathers were able to bearf , and 

 which was impofed upon them, on account of the hardnefs of their 

 hearts, and their propenfity to idolatry), that they could not bear a 

 religion which laid afide all thofe forms and ceremonies, fo many in 

 number, and required nothing but a worfliip from the heart in fpirit 

 and truth. And there was another dodtrine of Chriftianity, to the 

 belief of which, I am perfuaded, they were averfe; and that was, the 

 immortality of the foul and a future ftate of rewards and puniftiments. 

 This do£lrine was not taught them by Mofes, for the fame reafon 

 that he did not teach them many other things, the hardnefs of their 

 hearts, and the dulnefs of their underftanding, which made them 

 incapable to comprehend how they could live after they were dead. 

 The promifes, therefore, and threatnings in the Legiflation of Mo- 

 fes, are all confined to the things of this life, which they could 

 readily comprehend : Whereas the doctrine of the Gofpel is quite the 



contrary j 



* Afts of the Apoftles, chap. 14. v. 19. 



t Ibid. chap. 15. v, 10. 



