in our other virtues;—­when we consider that his instructions were delivered in a form calculated for impression, the precise purpose in his situation to be consulted; and that they were illustrated by parables, the choice and structure of which would have been admired in any composition whatever;—­when we observe him free from the usual symptoms of enthusiasm, heat and vehemence in devotion, austerity in institutions, and a wild particularity in the description of a future state; free also from the depravities of his age and country; without superstition amongst the most superstitious of men, yet not decrying positive distinctions or external observances, but soberly calling them to the principle of their establishment, and to their place in the scale of human duties; without sophistry or trifling, amidst teachers remarkable for nothing so much as frivolous subtleties and quibbling expositions; candid and liberal in his judgment of the rest of mankind, although belonging to a people who affected a separate claim to Divine favour, and in consequence of that opinion prone to uncharitableness, partiality, and restriction;—­when we find in his religion no scheme of building up a hierarchy, or of ministering to the views of human governments;—­in a word, when we compare Christianity, as it came from its Author, either with other religions, or with itself in other hands, the most reluctant understanding will be induced to acknowledge the probity, I think also the good sense, of those to whom it owes its origin; and that some regard is due to the testimony of such men, when they declare their knowledge that the religion proceeded from God; and when they appeal for the truth of their assertion, to miracles which they wrought, or which they saw.

Perhaps the qualities which we observe in the religion may be thought to prove something more.  They would have been extraordinary had the religion come from any person; from the person from whom it did come, they are exceedingly so.  What was Jesus in external appearance?  A Jewish peasant, the son of a carpenter, living with his father and mother in a remote province of Palestine, until the time that he produced himself in his public character.  He had no master to instruct or prompt him; he had read no books but the works of Moses and the prophets; he had visited no polished cities; he had received no lessons from Socrates or Plato,—­nothing to form in him a taste or judgment different from that of the rest of his countrymen, and of persons of the same rank of life with himself.  Supposing it to be true, which it is not, that all his points of morality might be picked out of Greek and Roman writings, they were writings which he had never seen.  Supposing them to be no more than what some or other had taught in various times and places, he could not collect them together.