ow these
frivolous philosophers suddenly became so zealous about religion; what
implanted the belief of the resurrection of the body and of the judgment
to come in the skeptical minds of these heathen scoffers; and how did
the pagans of Italy, Egypt, Spain, Germany, Britain, come to believe in
the miracles of one who lived hundreds of years before, and thousands of
miles away, or to care a straw whether the written accounts of them were
true or false? According to the Infidel account, the Council of Nice,
and the Emperor Constantine's Bible-making, is a most extraordinary
business--a phenomenon without any natural cause, and they will allow no
supernatural--a greater miracle than any recorded in the Bible.

If we inquire, however, of the parties attending that Council, what the
state of the case is, we shall learn that they believed--whether truly
or erroneously we are not now inquiring--but they believed, that a
teacher sent from God, had appeared in Palestine two hundred and ninety
years before, and had taught this religion which they had embraced; had
performed wonderful miracles, such as opening the eyes of the blind,
healing lepers, and raising the dead; that he had been put to death by
the Roman Governor, Pontius Pilate, had risen again from the dead, had
spoken to hundreds of people, and had gone out and in among them for six
weeks after his resurrection; that he had ascended up through the air,
to heaven, in the sight of numbers of witnesses, and had promised that
he would come again in the clouds of heaven, to raise the dead, and to
judge every man according to his works; that before he went away he
appointed twelve of his intimate companions to teach his religion to the
world, giving them power to work miracles in proof of their divine
commission, and requiring mankind to hear them as they would hear him;
that they and their followers did so, in spite of persecutions,
sufferings, and death, with so much success, that immense numbers were
persuaded to give up idolatry and its filthiness, and to profess
Christianity and its holiness, and to brave the fury of the heathen mob,
and the vengeance of the Roman law; that a difference of opinion having
arisen among them as to whether this teacher was an angel from heaven,
or God, whether they should pray and sing psalms to Him, as Athanasius
and his party believed, or only give Him some lesser honor as Arius and
his party believed, and this difference making all the dif