(as it is called), i.e. without examining the proof, or merits of the cause, as well as falsehood.  What general truth is there, the merits of which all the world, or the one hundredth part has examined?  It is smartly said somewhere, That the priest only continues what the nurse began.  But the life of the remark consists in the quaintness of the antithesis between the nurse and the priest; and owes its support much more to sound than to sense.  For is it possible that children should not hear something of the common and popular opinions of their country, whether these opinions be true or false?  Do they not learn the common maxims of reason this way?  Perhaps every man first learned from his nurse that two and two make four; and whenever she divides an apple among her children, she instills into them this prejudice, That the whole is equal to its parts, and all the parts equal to the whole:  and yet Sir Isaac Newton, (shame on him!) what work has he made, what a building he has erected upon the foundation of this nursery-learning?  As to religion, there never was a religion, there never will be one, whether true or false, publickly owned in any country, but children have heard, and ever will hear, more or less of it from those who are placed about them.  And if this is, and ever must be the case, whether the religion be true or false; ’tis highly absurd to lay stress on this observation, when the question is about the truth of any religion; for the observation is indifferent to both sides of the question.

We are now, I think, got through the common-place learning, which must forever, it seems, attend upon questions of this nature; and are coming to the very merits of the cause.

And here the Gentleman on the other side thought proper to begin with an account of the people of the Jews, the people in whose country the fact is laid, and who were originally, and in some respects principally concerned in its consequences.

They were, he says, a weak superstitious people, and lived under certain pretended prophecies and predictions; that upon this ground they had, some time before the appearance of Christ Jesus, conceived great expectation of the coming of a victorious prince, who should deliver them from the Roman yoke, and make them all kings and princes.  He goes on then to observe, how liable the people were, in this state of things, to be imposed on, and led into rebellion, by any one who was bold enough to take upon him to personate the prince expected.  He observes further, that in fact many such imposters did arise, and deceived multitudes to their ruin and destruction.

I have laid these things together, because I do not intend to dispute these matters with the Gentleman.  Whether the Jews were a weak and superstitious people, and influenced by false prophecies, or whether they had true prophecies among them, is not material to the present question:  it is enough for the Gentleman’s argument if I allow the fact to be as he has stated it, that they did expect a victorious prince; that they were upon this account exposed to be practised on by pretenders; and in fact were often so deluded.