to all who have read the evangelists; and so timed was he in acknowledging himself as the Messiah, that he did not do so, till Simon Peter told him that he was.  And can any candid man, after all this, wonder at, or condemn, “the blindness,” as it is called, of the Jews? or can he refrain from smiling at the frothy declamations in which divines load that nation with so much unmerited reproach?  These Jews had just reason, we think, to doubt his Messiahship; and they had a right to satisfactory and unambiguous proof of his being so:  even the proofs laid down, by their prophets.  And this, it must be now acknowledged, they wanted; and, certainly, the wise and learned of the Jewish nation, might be allowed to have understood their sacred books upon the subject, as well, at least, if not better, than the illiterate apostles, who manifestly put new interpretations upon them, and those, confessedly, not agreeable to the obvious and literal meaning of those books; but contrary to the sense of the Jewish nation.  And for this scepticism they might plead the example of the apostles themselves, who, at first, like other unbelieving Jews, expected a temporal prince; and did disbelieve Jesus to be the Messiah on account of his death, notwithstanding his miracles.  And they continued in these thoughts, till it seems they come to understand the spiritual sense of the scriptures; which spiritual sense, it is said, they obtained by “the traditionary rules of interpretation in use among the Jews.”  Yet, it is rather inconsistent and singular, that they should place so much dependence upon these traditionary rules, and yet pay so little regard to the traditionary explication of the scriptures, with respect to the temporal kingdom of the Messiah—­inconsistent and singular is it, that they should “cry aloud” for that which would support their peculiar views, but reject it when militating against these views.*

CHAPTER IX.

On the character Of Jesus of Nazareth and the
weight to be allowed to the argument Of
martyrdom as A test of truth in this question.

I am now about to consider a subject, to which, notwithstanding the harsh ness of my language in some of the preceding chapters, I approach with feelings of great respect.  Far be it from me to reproach the meek, the compassionate, the amiable Jesus; or to attribute to him, the mischiefs occasioned by his followers*.  No, I look upon his character with the respect which every man should pay to purity of morals:  though mingled with something like the sentiments which we naturally feel for the mistaken enthusiast.  Jesus of Nazareth appears to have been a man of irreproachable purity, of great piety, and of great mildness of disposition.  Though the world has never beheld a character exactly parallel