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    elusive ?—I conceive that the case 19 not . exactly in point , for the following reasons : -id-. The Christian religion had the support . of the civil power in those

    countries ; but ¦* when the government fell * t > he Church , deprived of its accustomed prop , was of course shaken . It might , perhaps , have fared better had it stood alone : at any rate , Christianity , so far as it was destroyed by the Mahometan invasion * suffered

    notwithstanding , and in spite of , the support of the civil power . 2 . The power which succeeded was of a peculiar character ; a military despotism , the chief of which was also

    the successor of the pretended Prophet , and the head of the new faith ; the Christians were at once despised as a conquered people , and odious as unbelievers . No wonder that their

    numbers dwindled . The instance is not one of a government , neutral or indifferent as to religion , and extending its protection equally to all its subjects of every persuasion , which is what the enemies of religious establishments contend for ; but of a barbarous power

    decidedly hostile , on grounds both political and religious . In fact , the melancholy picture of degradation , which Mr . Belsham has so forcibly drawn , has been the result of political oppression , even more perhaps than of religious intolerance .

    3 . Some of the towns which Mr . Belsham has enumerated as the seat of flourishing churches in ancient times , no longer exist . What is Carthage now but a heap of ruins ? We shall look in vain in modern maps for Hippo or Antioch ; whilst Alexandria and Jerusalem are but shadows of their

    former state . ' If the professors and advocates of the Christian religion are cut off , " asks Mr . B ., " what becomes of Christianity itself ? " The answer is obvious . but it only proves that there is a degree of oppression which neither Christianity nor human nature can survive , not that religion will not stand if left to itself , *

    * " Many important towns of antiquity have sunk into villages , and even the villages often into a mass of rubbish , under the destructive domination of the Turks , perhaps the only people whose sole occu-

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    " Let us now , " continues Mr . Belsham , t € turn our eye 3 to Europe . In that favoured region we behold Christianity almost every where triumphant . Whence originates this glorious dis ^

    tinction ? Under Providence , it is entirely owing to the protection and patronage of the civil power . " And certainly , if the same barbarous conquerors who prevailed in Asia and Africa had over-rit ^ Europe , similar calamities , political SfJd religious , would

    have been the consequence . But did the Governments of Europe fight for the preservation of the Christian religion ? They fought for their own existence . The Crusades , indeed , had a religious object , which , however , was not attained ; they were finally

    unsuccessful . An effectual stand against the formidable enemy was at last made on the banks of the Danube , the coasts of the Adriatic , and the mountains of Spain ; to which , though Christianity is greatl y indebted , yet it was benefited only incidentally , by the performance of what is on all hands

    allowed to be the first duty of every government , the protection of its people from foreign invasion , independently of any concern for religion . 80 that Mr . Belsham does not seem here to have exercised his accustomed discrimination .

    Moreover , there is another striking historical fact connected with this argument , which Mr . Belsham has entirely overlooked ; namely , the destruction of the Roman empire by the Northern barbarians .

    But Christianity did not fall with her imperial protectors ; the Pagan conquerors were themselves conquered and civilized by the mild and persuasive energy of gospel truth .

    Nor are instances wanting in modern times to shew that religion may subsist independentl y of the civil power . The existence of the Catholic Church in Protestant countries , arid of Dissenting sects in general , and the example of the United States of America ,

    pation has been to destroy . The maps are crowded with many names now only known by miserable hamlets . The ancient and celebrated city of Jerusalem is reduced to a mean town , chiefly ; existing : by the piety of pilgrims . " Pirikerton ' a Geography .

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    666 A Dissenter s Remarks on Mr . Belsham ' s Three Sermons .

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Nov. 2, 1820, page 656, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2494/page/28/