Who were his coadjutors in the undertaking,—­the persons into whose hands the religion came after his death?  A few fishermen upon the lake of Tiberias, persons just as uneducated, and, for the purpose of framing rules of morality, as unpromising as himself.  Suppose the mission to be real, all this is accounted for; the unsuitableness of the authors to the production, of the characters to the undertaking, no longer surprises us:  but without reality, it is very difficult to explain how such a system should proceed from such persons.  Christ was not like any other carpenter; the apostles were not like any other fishermen.

But the subject is not exhausted by these observations.  That portion of it which is most reducible to points of argument has been stated, and, I trust, truly.  There are, however, some topics of a more diffuse nature, which yet deserve to be proposed to the reader’s attention.

The character of Christ is a part of the morality of the Gospel:  one strong observation upon which is, that, neither as represented by his followers, nor as attacked by his enemies, is he charged with any personal vice.  This remark is as old as Origen:  “Though innumerable lies and calumnies had been forged against the venerable Jesus, none had dared to charge him with an intemperance.” (Or.  Ep.  Cels. 1. 3, num. 36, ed.  Bened.) Not a reflection upon his moral character, not an imputation or suspicion of any offence against purity and chastity, appears for five hundred years after his birth.  This faultlessness is more peculiar than we are apt to imagine.  Some stain pollutes the morals or the morality of almost every other teacher, and of every other lawgiver.* Zeno the stoic, and Diogenes the cynic, fell into the foulest impurities; of which also Socrates himself was more than suspected.  Solon forbade unnatural crimes to slaves.  Lycurgus tolerated theft as a part of education.  Plato recommended a community of women.  Aristotle maintained the general right of making war upon barbarians.  The elder Cato was remarkable for the ill usage of his slaves; the younger gave up the person of his wife.  One loose principle is found in almost all the Pagan moralists; is distinctly, however, perceived in the writings of Plato, Xenophon, Cicero, Seneca, Epictetus; and that is, the allowing, and even the recommending to their disciples, a compliance with the religion, and with the religious rites, of every country into which they came.  In speaking of the founders of new institutions we cannot forget Mahomet.  His licentious transgressions of his own licentious rules; his abuse of the character which he assumed, and of the power which he had acquired, for the purposes of personal and privileged indulgence; his avowed claim of a special permission from heaven of unlimited sensuality, is known to every reader, as it is confessed by every writer of the Moslem story.

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* See many instances collected by Grotius, de Veritate Christianae Religionis, in the notes to his second book, p. 116.  Pocock’s edition. _________