Referring to his preparatory studies for the execution of that work,
he says, "As I believed, and as I still believe, that the propagation
of the Gospel and the triumph of the Church are inseparably connected
with the decline of the Roman monarchy, I weighed the causes and
effects of the revolution, and contrasted the narratives and apologies
of the Christians themselves with the glances of candour or enmity
which the pagans have cast on the rising sects. The Jewish and heathen
testimonies, as they are collected and illustrated by Dr. Lardner,
directed without superseding my search of the originals, and in an
ample dissertation on the miraculous darkness of the Passion I
privately drew my conclusions from the silence of an unbelieving age."
Here we have the argument which concludes the sixteenth chapter
distinctly announced. But the previous travail of spirit is not
indicated. Gibbon has marked with precision the stages of his
conversion to Romanism. But the following chapters of the history of
his religious opinions he has not written, or he has suppressed them,
and we can only vaguely guess their outline.
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