ded the open profession of it; and they could not find in
themselves courage enough to bear them to disoblige their friends and
family, to ruin their fortunes, to lose their reputation, their liberty,
and their life, for the sake of the new religion. Therefore they were
willing to hope, that if they endeavoured to observe the great
principles of morality which Christ had represented as the principal
part, the sum and substance of religion; if they thought honourably of
the Gospel; if they offered no injury to the Christians; if they did
them all the services that they could safely perform, they were willing
to hope that God would accept this, and that He would excuse and forgive
the rest." Jortin's Dis. on the Christ. Rel. p. 91, ed. 4.
_________

Christianity, however, proceeded to increase in Jerusalem by a progress
equally rapid with its first success; for in the next chapter of our
history, we read that "believers were the more added to the Lord,
multitudes both of men and women." And this enlargement of the new
society appears in the first verse of the succeeding chapter, wherein we
are told, that "when the number of the disciples was multiplied, there
arose a murmuring of the Grecians against the Hebrews because their
widows were neglected;" (Acts v. 14; vi. 1) and afterwards, in the same
chapter, it is declared expressly, that "the number of the disciples
multiplied in Jerusalem greatly, and that a great company of the priests
were obedient to the faith."

This I call the first period in the propagation of Christianity. It
commences with the ascension of Christ, and extends, as may be collected
from incidental notes of time, (Vide Pearson's Antiq. 1. xviii. c. 7.
Benson's History of Christ, b. i. p. 148.) to something more than one
year after that event. During which term, the preaching of Christianity,
so far as our documents inform us, was confined to the single city of
Jerusalem. And how did it succeed there? The first assembly which we
meet with of Christ's disciples, and that a few days after his removal
from the world, consisted of "one hundred and twenty." About a week
after this, "three thousand were added in one day;" and the number of
Christians publicly baptized, and publicly associating together, was
very soon increased to "five thousand." "Multitudes both of men and
women continued to be added;" "disciples multiplied greatly," and "many
of the Jewish priesthood as well as others, became obedient t