-"for the rest of
your time," or "for the future." And that he asked them "whether
they slept for the future"? which appears to be just as rational as
to have asked, "how they do to-morrow"?!!

Jo. viii. 51, "Verily, verily.(said Jesus) I say unto you, if a man
keep my saying, he shall never see death "Reader, what dost thou
think of this saying? Has believing in the Christian religion, at all
prevented men from dying as in afore time? And should we be at
all astonished at what the Jews said to him, when they heard this
assertion--"Then said the Jews unto him. Now we know that thou
hast a demon [i. e. art mad.] Abraham is dead, and the Prophets,
and thou sayest if a man keep my saying, he shall never taste of
death?" So said the Jews, and if in our times, a man was to make a
similar assertion, should we not say the same?

Many instances might also be given of strange and inconsequent
reasoning; but I shall only adduce the following. He reproaches the
Pharisees, Luke xi. 47, 48, for building and adorning the
sepulchres of the Prophets, whom their wicked fathers slew; and
says to them, "Your fathers slew them, and ye build their
sepulchres," and he adds, "that thus they showed that they
approved the deeds of their fathers!" Surely this is absurd! Did
the Athenians by setting up a statue to Socrates after his unjust
death, show to the world that they "approved" the deed of them
who slew him? did it not show the direct contrary? and was it not
intended as a testimony of their regret, and repentance?

Again, "Upon you (says Jesus to the Jews) shall come all the
righteous blood that has been shed upon the earth, from the blood
of Abel the righteous, to the blood of Zechariah," &c. Now, herein
is a marvellous thing! how could a man really sent from God,
assert to the Jews, that of them should be required the blood of
Abel, and of all the righteous slain upon the earth? Did the Jews
kill Abel? or did their fathers kill him? No! he was slain by Cain,
whose posterity all perished in the deluge; how then could God
require of the Jews who lived four thousand years after the murder,
the guilt of it; nay more, "of all the righteous blood that had been
shed upon the earth," were they guilty of all that too? If such
assertions, and such reasonings do not prove what I asserted, what
can?

It is said, that Jesus, by giving himself up to suffer death, proved
the truth of his mission and doctrines, by his readiness to die for
them.