of his mission be denied, he must inevitably be pronounced either the one or the other of these two characters.

Such being the case, the point to be considered is, whether, from the historical documents which have come down to us, we have any sufficient evidence to esteem Christ either an impostor or an enthusiast.

1. Perhaps there never was a period, which offered more tempting invitations to the projects of a designing impostor, than that, during which the prophet of Nazareth exhibited himself as a teacher sent from God.

The Jews, highly elated by their religious privileges and exulting in the character of being the peculiar people of Jehovah, bore with extreme impatience and dissatisfaction the Roman yoke which had been imposed upon them. Their eagerness to throw off this yoke was increased by a very remarkable but perfectly well-attested circumstance. From calculating the numbers specified in one of their ancient prophecies, they had, for some years before the birth of Christ, been in full expectation of a mysterious personage; who had been repeatedly announced by the seers of their nation, as a mighty deliverer and a powerful sovereign:* and this expectation continued in full force, until the sacking of Jerusalem by Titus; which occurred about thirty-seven years after the death of Christ. That such an expectation was generally prevalent shortly before the birth of Christ, is evident from the language used by the evangelist Luke respecting Anna the prophetess. Having herself beheld the infant Jesus, and having acknowledged him as the promised deliverer, she spake of him, we are told, to all them that looked for redemption in Jerusalem. And, that the knowledge of this expectation was both diffused to a very

wide extent, and that the expectation itself continued to operate until the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus, we are positively assured, both by the Jewish historian Josephus, and by the two Roman historians Tacitus and Suetonius. In truth, the belief in question was one main cause of the obstinacy with which the Jews held out against the armies of Titus: for, as we learn from Josephus, many impostors confidently taught the people that they might expect assistance from heaven; and one of them, even at the very last, declared, that God himself had commanded them to ascend to the temple where they should assuredly receive a miraculous token of their safety.*

Such being the state of the public mind, it is clear, that there never could be a season more favourable to the projects of a politico-theological impostor. The ground was, as it were, ready prepared for him. Nothing was necessary, save, with a reasonable degree of worldly prudence and address, to avail himself of already existing circumstances.

(1.) How, then, if we may judge from the ordinary springs of human conduct, would a sagacious impostor have acted during the period which has been described?

An impostor, as an impostor, must doubtless have purposed his own honour and advantage and aggrandizement: for never either did, or (in the very nature of things) could, an impostor act on other principles or from other motives. The Jews, from a literal and gross interpretation of their ancient prophecies respecting the Messiah, fully believed, that he would be a mighty and warlike temporal prince, who would liberate them from the Roman yoke, confer

*Joseph. de bell. Jud. lib. vi. c. 5. §. 4. p. 1283. §. 2. p. 1281. edit. Hudson. Tacit. Hist. lib. v. §. 13. Sueton. in vit. Vespasian. c. iv. p.

280.

upon them an extraordinary abundance of prosperity, and exalt them to be the head of the nations: they believed, in short, that he would be a character not very dissimilar to that, which, some six centuries afterward, the Arabian impostor Mohammed exhibited with so much success to a proud and sensual and ambitious world. An artful miscreant, therefore, who wished for his own ends to personate the expected Messiah, would doubtless have availed himself of the popular notions respecting that exalted personage. This he would obviously do for two several reasons: he could not rationally hope for success, if he appeared in a character wholly different from that which had been anticipated; and he could promise to himself no advantage, if he declined to avail himself of those preconceptions which had such an evident and natural and necessary tendency to promote the aggrandizement of an interested adventurer. Hence an impostor, unless he were destitute of every grain of common sense, could not but have acted in the following manner. Giving himself out to be the promised and then eagerly expected Messiah, and having prepared the way by a judicious arrangement with some few trusty and able and determined followers, he would invite the whole nation to rise as one man and to court assured victory under the banners of a heaven-commissioned leader. The Pharisees he would flatter by a decorous approbation of their specious piety: the Sadducees he would entice by the hopes of those temporal blessings, which alone they affected; and the whole nation he would dexterously draw after him, by striking in with all their prejudices, and by confirming all their expectations. As the predicted Messiah was destined to be a prince, he would claim to be received as the temporal king of Israel: and, when he had attained that elevation, he would seek to establish himself in it, partly by inducing the

chief men of the country to accept offices under him, and partly by a wise and diligent preparation to meet the formidable armies of Rome whenever they should be brought to act against him.

These, with others of a kindred description, would clearly be the measures taken by an impostor, who, in the reign of Tiberius, wished, for the sake of his own aggrandizement, to play the part of the expected Messiah.

In reality, we can form no idea of an impostor, under such circumstances, acting differently: and absolute matter of fact has shewn the estimate to be just. Broken as the Jews had been by the power of Titus, their rebellious spirit was still unsubdued, and their hope of a temporal deliverer was still unrepressed. In the reign of Adrian, the smothered flame burst forth. Coziba, the chief of a band of robbers, was the leader of the insurgents. To facilitate his project, he assumed the name of Bar-Cochab or the son of the star, in allusion to the prophecy of Balaam respecting the Messiah: and, in that character, according to their perverted conceptions of the promised Saviour, he was readily acknowledged by his infatuated countrymen. Having thus procured the recognition of his claim, he engaged to deliver his nation from the Roman yoke and to restore its ancient liberty and glory. The famous Rabbi Akibha, being chosen by him for his precursor, espoused his cause, afforded him the sanction of his name, publicly anointed him as the Messiah, placed a diadem on his head as king of the Jews, caused money to be coined in his name, followed him to the field at the head of twenty thousand of his disciples, and acted in the capacity of master of his horse. By calling on all the descendants of Abraham to assist the hope of Israel, an army of two hundred thousand men was soon raised, who repaired to Bither, a city near Jerusa

lem, chosen by the impostor for the capital of his new kingdom.*

To pursue the narrative any farther is superfluous: we have here a practical exemplification of the measures, which had been previously laid down from the mere abstract necessity of the case and the general nature of things. An impostor, during the period of which I am treating, could not, upon any conceivable principle of action, have conducted himself differently from Coziba.

(2.) If then Christ were an impostor, he could not but have acted as Coziba did: and, doubtless, when we consider the condition of the Jews during the reign of Tiberius in contrast with their condition during the reign of Adrian, he would, humanly speaking, have had a much more flattering prospect of success. But how, in effect, did Christ act? We find him adopting a line of conduct, which was the very opposite to that of Coziba and of every other impostor similarly circumstanced; a line of conduct, which had a necessary tendency to baffle every hope entertained by an ambitious adventurer; a line of conduct too, which common sense itself might foresee could not but prove fatal to all such hopes.

The Messiah was announced by the prophets as a king: Jesus therefore, claiming to be the Messiah, of necessity claimed also the regal character. But in what manner did he claim it? In a sense favourable to ambition; the very sense in which it was understood by the Jews? Or in a sense perfectly hostile to ambition; a sense, which the worldly-minded Jews never once dreamed of? dom, said he, is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight, that I should not

* Basnage's Hist. of the Jews. p. 515.

My king