The Christian faith was contrary to all existing opinions, religions, and habits; and decidedly opposed to the natural propensities of the human heart. Its teachers were Jewish fishermen, tent-makers, and tax-gatherers, poor and illiterate men,[147] unskilled in artifice. They preached not merely amongst men as simple as themselves, they taught at Athens and Rome, the very seats of learning and philosophy; they had to contend with men skilled in science, and were opposed by long-established customs and habits. The disciples had no eloquence to convince, no power to awe, no wealth to bribe; they were opposed by Jewish pride, Grecian philosophy, and worldly power; yet the gospel flourished rapidly over all opposition and persecution: ancient prejudice fell before the religion of Jesus; though it offered no worldly recompense to its followers, yet it spread, notwithstanding the kings and nobles of the earth set themselves in array against it. "The stone cut out without hands is become a great mountain, and shall fill the whole earth." The standard of the cross has been planted on every land. Nations, barbarous and learned, have bowed before it; may it go on "conquering and to conquer," till all nations and people call our Immanuel blessed. [147] Acts iv, 13. CHAPTER LXXI. The LORD said unto my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool.--Psalm cx. 1. We here find Jehovah, _the_ LORD, in the person of God the Father, addressing the Adonai, my Lord, in the person of God the Son, Christ Jesus _our_ Lord.[148] It is he, and he only, who shares the throne of Deity.[149] He who tabernacled on earth, "a man of sorrows and acquainted with griefs," is now seated "on the right hand of the Majesty on high. Far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but in that which is to come." "To which of the angels said he at any time, Sit on my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool?" "But unto the Son he saith, Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever; a sceptre of righteousness, is the sceptre of thy kingdom." "This is he that liveth, and was dead, and behold he is alive for evermore; and hath the keys of hell and of death. He is Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty;" "whom the heaven must receive, until the times of restitution of all things, which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began." "The LORD said unto my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool." "For he hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness, by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead." "For the Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all