The Jewish people at that time were oppressed and despised; the
prophets of the Old Testament had taught them to believe that at
a time when their oppressions should be at their height, their
Messiah should appear. Of consequence the appearance of such
a man as Jesus Christ, at that time when they considered
themselves as crushed under the Roman yoke, possibly led them
or some of them to believe that he might be their expected
deliverer. But the Jewish nation at that time were unworthy of such
a deliverance. They longed for their Messiah, not for
righteousness, but for vengeance sake; not to hail him as the
benefactor of the human race, but as the avenger of their wrongs
upon all the world who had crushed and despised them.

Such a people were not the lawful candidates for the happiness of
the eternal kingdom; and they afterwards learned, by the event of
their struggle with the Romans, that they must not expect
deliverance till they had become less unworthy of it.

Jesus, by preaching against the traditions of the elders, by not
observing the Sabbath day so rigidly as the Pharisees, by
denouncing them as hypocrites, tithers of mint anise and cummin,
washers of plates and platters, and neglecters of the weightier
matters of the law, justice, judgment, and mercy, as serpents, a
generation of vipers, whited sepulchres, and what not, had
enraged these superstitious fanatics to the last degree. But they
could not wreak their vengeance, because he was protected, by
the people whom the gospels represent as expecting with the
most anxious impatience, that he would announce himself as their
deliverer.[fn100] But when repeated importunity, accompanied by
an attempt to seize upon him and by compulsion oblige him to
head them, terminated only in causing Jesus to escape and
withdraw himself from their wishes [fn101] the people were
disgusted, and abandoned him.

The Chief Priests and Pharisees took advantage of this
abandonment, to seize him and deliver him to the Roman
governor as a dangerous man, who either was willing to head the
people against the Romans, or who might be made the pretext of
an insurrection, as the people had shown a disposition to
recognize him as the Messiah. [fn102] Such I believe to be as
near an approximation to the true history of Jesus Christ, as can
be made at this day.

Let us now review the points I have endeavoured to establish in
this work.

1. I have endeavoured to show that the miracles, su