they were bound to nothing but the general records, traditions, and opinions of their age and nation. Yet these are the very points which they oppose.

There existed in their country, men of power and authority, who were reverenced as oracles in matters of religion. These they make no attempt to conciliate; but expose, without hesitation, to contempt and reprobation.

Their countrymen expected a temporal prince; and were, at the time, suffering under a foreign yoke, which they bore with great uneasiness and impatience. Yet they persisted in asserting, that the Messiah's kingdom was not of this world.

It was a favourite belief among the Jews, confirmed by the whole course of their history, that their nation enjoyed the exclusive regard and protection of the true God. But the first principle of the Christian religion tended to dislodge the Jews from these high pretensions, and to admit all other nations indiscriminately within the pale of God's church.

These men had been educated in a belief, that a strict compliance with the Mosaic law was prescribed by the command of God, as an indispensable condition of his favour. Yet they set this law aside, both with respect to its supposed efficacy, and its prescriptive obligation.

The city of Jerusalem was universally believed to be secure under the especial care of God, as being

the seat of the only true religion; and its temple was consecrated to his peculiar service, by divine institution, and ancient usage. Yet these men declared, that total destruction was quickly approaching both the temple and the city.

Now we find an equal difficulty meeting us, whether we consider the improbability of men bred up in these prejudices, becoming, by some unknown process of reasoning, superior to them all; or whether we consider the impolicy of fabricating a religion which ran counter to these well-known prepossessions in the minds of those to whom it was proposed. Yet they did that which, to every common apprehension, must appear most impolitic; and they succeeded in that which, according to every known principle, must appear equally improbable.

For it must be remembered, that these were not unfounded or unreasonable prejudices, such as a superior understanding might be expected to sweep away. The hope of a temporal deliverer rested on the interpretation of prophecy, which had represented the Messiah under the character of a conqueror and a king. The reliance on exclusive favour was supported by the express word of God, who had avouched the Jews to be a holy and peculiar people unto him, to keep his statutes, and his commandments, and to hearken unto his voice. The attachment to the Mosaic law was founded on its divine

1 Deut. xxvi. 18, &c.

appointment: the reputed sanctity of the temple on the positive command, that worship should be regularly offered there by all who professed the Jewish faith.

All this renders any attempt to abolish these opinions more bold and extraordinary. I do not desire to assume the actual authority of those sacred records to which the Jews appealed. It is enough for my present purpose, that the Jews had no doubt of that authority; they considered it indisputably divine.

But it is material to remark, though I shall not here dwell upon the argument, that from the moment when we admit the authors of the Christian religion to be what they pretend to be, the instruments of God, all that has been hitherto pointed out as so improbable, is reasonably accounted for, and exactly accords with our natural expectations.

It would be very extraordinary if a divine person, visiting the world under the character assumed by Jesus as the Messiah, should have proposed the present evil world, and not a future and better dispensation, as the final object of his coming. Nothing is more intelligible to us, than that the scribes and pharisees had fallen into the natural error of substituting the form and ceremony for the spirit and reality of religion. Nothing was more to be expected, than that a final revelation of the will of God to mankind, such as the Gospel professes to be, should

be intended and adapted for the whole human race, rather than a single country. And if so, the abrogation of the Jewish law naturally follows: it had performed its purpose with regard to that particular nation, and was little calculated for more general reception. Neither was it extraordinary that a people, which had been always placed under a very peculiar dispensation, should be visited with a punishment so signal as the ruin of their country, when they persisted in rejecting the message of God, and the blessings which he brought within their power.

That, therefore, which is altogether inexplicable, if we consider the Evangelists to have acted on their own authority as the inventors of a new religion, is precisely what we should expect and deem most probable, if they were indeed the instruments and ministers of God.

CHAPTER III.

ORIGINALITY OF THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINES.

Ir was argued in the preceding chapter, that several of the leading doctrines taught by Jesus and his followers, are such as could not be expected to originate from Jews. This appears on the surface. The Jews desired a Messiah who should be conspicuous and powerful: the Christian Messiah was humble and unknown. The Jewish religion was national and unsocial: the Christian religion is open and universal. The characteristic of the Jewish religion was its ceremonial strictness: the characteristic of the Christian religion is spirituality. The Jews adored their city: Jesus foretold its destruction. So that Christianity cannot be said to have grown up out of Judaism, though it was grafted upon a Jewish stock; its character was entirely new, and as much opposed to the opinions commonly existing among Jews, as to the habits of polytheism.

If we examine the matter further, we shall find much more that is equally surprising. Let me again remind the reader, that unless Christianity was of divine origin, it was a system invented by human