Their uneafinefs under the dominion of Rome, their indignation that the people of God fhould live in humiliating fubjection to profane ftrangers, added the impatience of defire to the earnestness of expectation. It will, therefore, readily be admitted, that they were difpofed to liften to the pretenfions of any impoftor, who thought fit to affume the character thus anxiously looked for. But these very prophecies, and this very impatience, as they predisposed the body of the people to hearken to the suggestions of a falfe prophet, operated upon them in a manner directly oppofite, when they came to examine the character and pretenfions of Jefus of Nazareth. For as the prophecies defcribed the future Saviour, under the title of a prince and a deliverer; as he was to be descended from the royal line of David; their carnal and worldly minds appropriated these descriptions chiefly, if not exclufively, to the pomp and grandeur of temporal authority. Hence the very circumftance, which, at the first glance, appears calculated to promote the fuccefs of Jefus, proved in reality to be an obftacle of the most formidable kind. For fince the expectation of fuch a prophet was not a fimple and unconnected sentiment,

but

but combined with a variety of ideas, arifing from affociations of the most acknowledged influence upon the human mind; whoever oppofed and contradicted these ideas, virtually pronounced a sentence against himself, in the judgment of his contemporaries, because he did not appear in a manner confonant with their expectations. The ideas fo excited had, in fact, acquired a greater hold upon their minds, than the expectation in which they originated: and thus, by a process of thought, not very unusual, they infenfibly forgot, that although he did not feem to be the character they expected, yet he certainly might be the character whom they ought to have expected, and whom they ought to have welcomed with Hofannas of exultation, as their King and Redeemer.

Ir then Jefus had been an impoftor, he would undoubtedly have encouraged, to the utmost, the national prepoffeffions, and flattered the national pride; he would have taken care not to offend against any received opinion, or any favourite superstition; he would have courted the leaders of fome prevailing party; he would probably have allied himself to the Pharifaical fect, with marked and active oppofition to the Sadducees; and fecretly, if not avowedly, fomented the general

N

neral animofity against the Romans. - But it would have been utterly impoffible for him to affume a character and deportment, which very few indeed, if any, of the Jews at that time, conceived to be the character of the Meffiah: it would have been impoffible for him to deliver a law, which apparently contradicted, and actually fuperfeded, the law of Mofes: and when all the nation looked to the æra of the Meffiah's advent, as the period, when they were not only to recover, but even outshine, all their former fplendour; it would have been impoffible for him to damp the expectations, which he himself must have held in common with the rest of his countrymen, by repeatedly afferting, that in a very few years, an event would take place, by which the inftitutions of Mofes would be abolished, and the Jewish nation reduced to a moft deplorable state of mifery and bondage. His deportment, in the character thus affumed, would have corref ponded with the ideas formed of it, by the nation at large: more efpecially as fuch a reprefentation of the character fuited the only views he could have had, if his intentions were fraudulent. His object, upon fuch a tion, must have been worldly power, riches, or renown: confequently, he would have

omitted

omitted no art to win the multitude to his purposes; and when he had fucceeded fo far, as to fecure the attachment of any con-. fiderable number, he would joyfully have accepted the offer of becoming their king; and would then have erected his ftandard in oppofition to the Romans. In short, he would have conducted himself in the fame way as the numerous pretenders to the fame character did; he would have acted upon the fame principles, and directed his views to the fame end. It cannot be faid, that, as he had feen the ill fuccefs of fome of their attempts, he chose to support the character in a different manner; becaufe, the inftances of fuch false pretenfions, feem to have occurred but seldom before our Saviour's ministry; and we do not find that any one of the numerous pretenders, who started up afterwards, was deterred, by fuch an apprehenfion, from acting the fame part in the fame manner with those who preceded them;— and befides all this, it cannot be made to appear, that, in the cafe of Jefus, any interested or ambitious purpose would have been promoted, by the affumption of a spiritual character and office, and by the erection of a spiritual kingdom,

UNLESS therefore it can be clearly fhewn, that fome worldly advantage was to be derived from the fuccefs of the gospel scheme, it is folly to arraign it's author as an impoftor; fince a man of this character undoubtedly will not undertake a design, of which the expected advantages are not partially, if not wholly, confined to the present ftate of existence. It will hardly, I conceive, be contended, that Jesus had a view folely to pofthumous fame; that, for the fake of this expectation, he endured the pain and the ignominy of the cross; fince the only fame which he could obtain, would have been that of a falfifier, and deceiver; a deceiver too of his best friends. The cafe of Jefus, indeed, ftands diftinguished from the cafe of other claimants to the character of the Meffiah, by the prophecies, which he repeatedly uttered, of his own refurrection, And furely, the failure of those prophecies, he must have forefeen, would have overwhelmed even his memory with infamy. He would have shared, with other impoftors, the danger of death; and he would have incurred, what other impoftors did not incur, the aggravated reproach of not rifing again, according to his own repeated declarations.

There