Note 260 — Chapter VII · THE PARTICULAR EVIDENCE FOR CHRISTIANITY.

[Alexander, in his Evidences, and several other writers have placed this argument in a very convincing light. Arnobius, one of the earliest Christian writers, asks, “Shall we say that the men of those times were inconsiderate, deceitful, stupid, and brutish enough to feign having seen what they never saw? and that when they might have lived in peace and comfort, they chose gratuitous hatred and obloquy?”The rejection of Christianity by so many in the first age was the result of the continued action of personal and hereditary prejudice and depravity, capable of resisting any supposable evidence. The reception of Christianity by multitudes, under the same evidences, and to their immediate personal damage, shows strongly that there was enough evidence to produce those effects. Thus the rejection by some does not countervail the acceptance by others.]