him as a powerful prince, who should fave and protect his people and overcome his enemies, and which fpeak in magnificent terms of the peace and profperity of his happy reign.

But it is easy to fhew that these objections against our Saviour were not sufficient to excuse their unbelief.

For, though the Law promised temporal bleffings to the good, yet the Jews knew by long experience that those promises had not been fulfilled at all times, and to all perfons. Extraordinary interpofitions in behalf of the righteous were grown lefs frequent, which was an intimation of a future ftate, and an argument by which it might be proved. The Jews therefore had no reason to judge of the characters and merits of men by their ftation and circumstances in this life, or to imagine that fortunate and virtuous were the fame thing.

They might have found examples of good men who had undergone much trouble, and had received here below no reward of their obedience.

They

f

They might have learned from the Prophets that the Meffias, to whom so much power and profperity and fplendor was promifed, was alfo to be a man of forrows, and acquainted with grief, and that his foul was to be an offering for fin; and they might have seen, in the sufferings of Christ, and in his refurrection, the accomplishment of these seemingly irreconcileable predictions.

Lastly; if fome particular prophecies concerning the reign of the Meffias appeared to them unfulfilled, they ought not upon that account to have rejected Christ: they should have rested satisfied with the various proofs which he gave them of his divine power, and have concluded, either that they did not understand the true sense of those prophecies, or that the time of their completion was not yet come.

They were offended at him, because, as they said, he profaned the Sabbath-day, that is, did not obferve it according to their fuperftitious manner.

f Some of them feem to have known and believed it. See Whitby on Ephef. i. 4.

But

But Chrift, as the great Prophet, and a worker of miracles, according to the example of other prophets, and according to the decifions of the Jews themfelves, had a power of fetting afide the ceremonial rest of the Sabbath, or any other ritual law. Thus Joshua commanded that the ark of God fhould be carried round Jericho, the armed men going before and after it, seven days together, one of which must have been a Sabbath; thus Elijah and Elifba touched and handled dead bodies, to restore them to life, and did not account themfelves legally unclean; thus Samuel and Elijah offered facrifices, though neither of them were priests, and in places where, as fome think, facrifices could not be offered according to the law. In a word, it appears that many ceremonial laws were at

8 J. Hales Sermon on John xviii. 36. p. 160. Le Clerc on 1 Sam. vii. 17. Grotiis on Luke vii. 14. It is certain that the Sabbatic years and the Jubilees were greatly neglected by the Jews, as probably were many other ceremonial laws. Yet we learn from Jofephus i. p. 657 and 741. Ed. Havert. that in the Days of Herod the Great, and fome time at least, before, the Sabbatic years were observed. See Prideaux in the Pref. to his Connect. who has not taken notice of this.

certain

certain times generally difufed, and not observed by very good men.

They were offended, fome of them at leaft, because he did not live in a way more auftere, and in their opinion more becoming the dignity which he affumed; because he condefcended to converse with people of bad reputation, with Publicans and fin

ners.

h

Some were offended at him, because, faid they, we know whence he is, but when Chrift cometh, no man knoweth whence he is.

Some were offended, because he was not of Bethlehem, where it was foretold that the Meffias fhould be born. A little inquiry would have fet them right, if they had taken any pains to find out the truth.

They were offended at him because he had dwelt in Galilee, out of which place no prophet could ever arise, as they foolishly fuppofed.

Chrift had dwelt at Nazareth till he entered into his office; his relations dwelt there; the inhabitants of that place were

See the Comment. on Joh. vii. 27.

acquainted

i

acquainted with his person, and remembered his education; they knew that he had had no opportunity of acquiring the learning which could qualify him to be a teacher. When they heard the force and the wisdom with which he fpake, and were informed of his mighty works, and faw some of them, they were astonished, and yet they could not pay him a due refpect; they flighted him, because they knew him, and the poverty of his family, and the obfcurity in which he had lived amongst them, and having long viewed him as their equal, they could not submit to fhew him the veneration due to a prophet. It is very likely that fome envy was mixed with their prejudice. Whence, faid they, hath this man this wisdom, and these mighty works? Whence could he have his power of working miracles unless from

So the Egyptians at first despised their king Amafis, on account of his extraction and former condition; là μèv sù πρῶτα καλώνοντο τὸν ̓Αμασιν Αιγύπτιοι, καὶ ἐν ἐδεμίη μοίρη μεγάλη ἦγον, ἅτε δὴ δημότην Τοπρὶν ἐόντα, καὶ οικίης

x xiqavios. Inter initia quidem Amafin Ægyptii contemfere, nec ullius fane momenti duxerunt, ut qui plebeius paulo ante fuiffet, nec infigni familia ortus. Herodot. ii. 172. P. 155.

God?