Luke 21:17

And ye shall be hated of all men— See on Matthew 10:22.—That not only the apostles, but all the primitive Christians, were in general more hated and persecuted than any other body of people, is most notorious to all who are acquainted with ecclesiastical history; a fact which might seem unaccountable, when we consider how inoffensive and benevolent their temper and conduct were, and how friendly an aspect their tenets had on the security of any government underwhich they lived. One grand reason of this opposition was, that while the different pagan religions, like the confederate demons honoured by them, sociably agreed with each other, and were linked together by the principle of intercommunity, the gospel taught Christians not only, like the Jews, to bear their testimony to the falsity of them, but also, with the most fervent zeal, to urge the renunciation of them as a point of absolute necessity, requiring all men, on the most tremendous penalties, to embrace the gospel, to believe in Christ, and in all things to submit themselves to his authority; a demand which bore so hard, especially on the pride and licentiousness of the princes, and the secular interests of their priests, that there is no wonder it brought upon them the bloody storms which followed, and occasioned Christians to be branded with the epithets of unsocial and unfriendly, and to be universally misrepresented by the heathens as having a hatred and aversion to all mankind. And as they preached that the law of Moses was abrogated, this enraged the Jews also, who united with the heathens in their hatred of the Christians, and stimulated them greatly to the persecution of them.