And now, reader, let me ask you this question, has any one of the foregoing prophecies been yet fulfilled, either in the days of Jesus, or ever since?  Thou canst not say it!  Now, then, hear the conclusion, which, in sincerity, and with the hand upon the heart, I am compelled to draw from these precedents.  “Since these distinctive characteristics predicted by the Hebrew prophets, as to be found in their Messiah, were certainly, and evidently, never found in Jesus; and since these conditions and circumstances, and many others beside, which, to avoid prolixity, have been omitted, most assuredly did not take place in the time of Jesus, nor ever since, and since they were according to those prophets, certainly to be expected in the time of their Messiah; therefore, from all this, it seems to be demonstrable (allowing the prophets to be true,) that Jesus of Nazareth was not this true Messiah.”  And I would ask the candid Christian, in which link of this chain of proofs he can find a flaw?  And I would ask him, too, as a moral and honest man, whether any Jew, in his right mind, could, without setting at nought what he conceived to be the word of God, receive him as the Messiah?  The honest and upright answer, I believe, will be, that he could net.  And, accordingly, it is very well known, that the Jewish nation have never done so.  And this their obstinacy, as it is called, will not by this time, I think, appear unreasonable to any sensible man; and he will now be able to appreciate the justice of that idle cant about “the carnal Jews,” and their “worldly-minded” expectation of a temporal prince, as their Messiah.  Certainly, the Jews had very good reason, from their prophecies, to expect no Messiah but a Messiah who should sit on the throne of David, and confer liberty and happiness upon them, and spread peace and happiness throughout the earth, and communicate the knowledge of God, and virtue, and the love of their fellow-men to every people.  Whether this (carnal or not,) would have been better than a spiritual kingdom, and a throne in heaven; together with the ample list of councils, dogmas, excommunications, proscriptions, theological quarrels, and frauds, and an endless detail of blood and murder, I leave to the judgment of those capable of deciding for themselves.

Neither, in fact, is it true, that the Jews were so “carnally minded” as to refuse Jesus as their Messiah, because he was poor and in a low estate.  On the contrary, did they not ask him not to evade, but to speak plainly?  “How long (said they) dost thou mean to keep us in suspense?  If thou be the Messiah, tell us plainly.”  These very men were willing to hazard, in his favour, their fortunes, their families, and their lives, in his cause, against the whole power of the Roman empire.  Nay, so urgent were they, that they were going to make him their king by force, and he concealed himself from the honour.  The evasions he used to avoid their pressing questions upon the subject, are known