Page Spanish Armada 204 Gunpowder Plot Irish Massacre of the Protestants Religious Rites, Opinions, &c. of the N. American Indians 206 211 214 African Colonies at Sierra Leone and Liberia 298 302 - 304 306 AN OUTLINE SKETCH OF CHURCH HISTORY, FROM THE CHRISTIAN ERA. FIRST CENTURY. WHEN Jesus Christ made his appearance on earth, a great part of the world was subject to the Roman empire. This empire was much the largest temporal monarchy that had ever existed; so that it was called all the world, Luke ii. 1. The time when the Romans first subjugated the land of Judea was between sixty and seventy years before Christ was born; and soon after this, the Roman empire rose to its greatest extent and splendour. To this government the world continued subject till Christ came, and many hundred years afterwards. The remote nations, that had submitted to the yoke of this mighty empire, were ruled either by Roman governors, invested with temporary commissions, or by their own princes and laws, in subordination to the republic, whose sovereignty was acknowledged, and to which the conquered kings, who were continued in their own dominions, owed their borrowed majesty. At the same time, the Roman people, and their venerable senate, though they had not lost all shadow of liberty, were yet in reality reduced to a state of servile submission to Augustus Cæsar, who, by artifice perfidy and bloodshed, attained an enormous degree of power, and united, in his own 9 person, the pompous titles of emperor, pontiff, censor, tribune of the people; in a word, all the great offices of the state. As most of those valuable documents which could be depended upon, concerning the success and extent of the gospel among the Gentiles, in this early age of Christianity, were destroyed either by the pagan persecutors, or Gothic barbarians, it is impossible to ascertain the precise limits of the kingdom of Christ. It is quite certain, however, that through the instrumentality of St. Paul, the Christian religion was received both in Athens and Rome; the former of which beheld his triumph in their seats of learning and justice, and the latter saw the banner of the cross on the palace gates of their emperor. From the Acts of the Apostles, which is the only account that can be relied upon, it appears that by the preaching of Christ crucified, the worship of heathen deities in many parts of Asia and Europe was entirely abolished. In the year 64, Nero, the Emperor of Rome, a cruel and bloody tyrant, commenced a furious persecution against the church of God. It is probable that this persecution raged as far as the Roman authority itself extended; the number of the victims, therefore, must have been immense. After this tyrant had lived for some time under the horrors of his guilty conscience, he was condemned, by the senate, to be put into the pillory, there to be scourged to death; but in the year 68, after several pusillanimous efforts, he put an end to his life. During the reign of Vespasian, the year 70, Jerusalem was taken by his son Titus. Domitian, who was nearly equal to Nero in cruelty, renewed the persecution in the year 94; but it was of short duration, as he was put to death by his own soldiers. In the reign of Domitian, St. John the Apostle was banished to the isle of Patmos. It is a melancholy reflection, that error soon reared its hundred heads in the church of God, and the Epistles of St. John were particularly directed against those |