of the people.  Why was not this opportunity laid hold on to seize the kingdom, or at least to secure himself from the ignominious death he expected?  For whose sake was he contented to die? for whose sake did he contrive this plot of his resurrection?  Wife and children he had none; his nearest relations gave little credit to him; his disciples were not fit even to be trusted with the secret, nor capable to manage any advantage that could arise from it.  However, the Gentleman tells us, a kingdom has arisen out of this plot, a kingdom of priests.  But when did it arise?  Some hundred years after the death of Christ, in opposition to his will, and almost to the subversion of his religion.  And yet we are told this kingdom was the thing he had in view.  I am apt to think the Gentleman is persuaded, that the dominion he complains of is contrary to the spirit of the gospel; I am sure some of his friends have taken great pains to prove it is so.  How then can it be charged as the intention of the gospel to introduce it?  Whatever the case was, it cannot surely be suspected that Christ died to make Popes and Cardinals.  The alterations which have happened in the doctrines and practices of churches, since the Christian religion was settled by those who had an authentick commission to settle it, are quite out of the question, when the inquiry is about the truth of the Christian religion.  Christ and his Apostles did not vouch for the truth of all that should be taught in the church in future times; nay, they foretold and fore warned the world against such corrupt teachers.  It is therefore absurd to challenge the religion of Christ, because of the corruptions which have spread among Christians.  The gospel has no more concern with them, and ought no more to be charged with them, than with the doctrines of the Alcoran.

There is but one observation more, I think, which the Gentleman made under this head.  Jesus, he says, referred to the authority of ancient prophecies to prove that the Messias was to die and rise again; the ancient books referred to are extant, and no such prophecies, he says, are to be found.  Now, whether the Gentleman can find these prophecies or no, is not material to the present question.  It is allowed that Christ foretold his own death and resurrection; if the resurrection was managed by fraud, Christ was certainly in the fraud himself, by foretelling the fraud which was to happen:  disprove therefore the resurrection, and we shall have no further occasion for prophecy.  On the other side, by foretelling the resurrection, he certainly put the proof of his mission on the truth of the event.  Whether it be the character of the Messias, in the ancient Prophets, or no, that he should die, and rise again; without doubt Jesus is not the Messias, if he did not rise again:  for, by his own prophecy, he made it part of the character of the Messias.  If the event justified the prediction, it is such an evidence as