Matthew 10:34-36

Think not that I am come, &c.— "Because the prophets have spoken glorious things of the peace and happiness which shall flourish under the Messiah, whom they have named, for that reason, the prince of peace; you may imagine that I am come to put the world into that happy state immediately: but this is far from being the case; for though the nature of my government be such as might produce abundant felicity, inasmuch as my religion breathes nothing but love, men will not lay aside their animosity, nor will they exercise a mutual friendship among themselves, as soon as the Gospel is preached to them. No; such is their weakness and wickedness, that they will make the Gospel itself an occasion of such bitter dissensions, that it will seem as if I came on purpose to sow the seeds of discord among the children of men. These bad consequences, however, are not to be considered as peculiar to Christianity; and therefore must not be imputed to it, but to the wickedness of men. The Deists indeed boldly affirm, that thediversity of opinions and worships, which prevailed among the heathens, never produced either bloodshed or disorder, nor disturbed the peace of mankind. But their assertion is false. It is true, we are not so well acquainted with the religious disputes of the heathens, as we are with our own: not because no such disputes were ever known, but because the historians of those times did not think them worthy of being transmitted to posterity. Some flagrant instances, however, are accidentally preserved, by which we may judge of the rest. Socrates, one of the best of the heathens, and the wisest and most learned of all the Greeks, was put to death bythe Athenians, for teaching the unity of God, and the spirituality of the worship due to him. Aristotle the philosopher was also impeached for his opinions, and obliged to fly from Athens, lest he should have incurred the fate of Socrates. Antiochus Epiphanes raised a most violent and bloody persecution against the Jews, in their own country, on account of religion, in which many thousands perished, for refusing to submit to the idolatrous worship which he had set up in the temple at Jerusalem. The emperor Claudius banished the Jews from Italy for their religion, pretending that they were seditious. The religious quarrels of the Egyptians, the fury with which they prosecuted them, and the disturbances that they occasioned, are well known. And, to name no more, was there ever any persecution raised by Christians, either against one another, or against infidels, more bloody, cruel, and extensive, than the ten persecutions carried on by the Roman emperors, at the instigation of the philosophers? It is to no purpose to reply, that these were persecutions of men, who set themselves to overturn the established religions of the countries where they lived: for while those men attacked them with the force of argument only, they ought to have been repelled by no other weapon; and if they could not be thus quelled, their adversaries, instead of persecuting them, ought to have yielded to truth. While the accounts of those persecutions stand on record, it must not be a little assurance which is able to bear the Deists out in affirming, that the ancient heathen religions never inspired their votaries with a spirit of persecution. Yet it will not reflect any dishonour on Christianity, though it should be allowed to have occasioned more disturbances than any other religion. On the contrary, it is rather a proof of its superior excellency; for if Christianity animates the persons who believe it with greater zeal for truth, it is because it approves itself better worth the contending for. Its evidence was clearer, and its tendencies better than those of any false religion, and therefore no wonder that men have espoused its interests more heartily. See Macknight, and Bishop Hoadley's sermons on the text.