The Jews were a weak superstitious people, and, as is common among such people, gave great credit to some traditionary prophecies about their own country.  They had, besides, some old books among them, which they esteemed to be writings of certain Prophets, who had formerly lived among them, and whose memory they had in great veneration.  From such old books and traditions they formed many extravagant expectations; and among the rest one was, that some time or other a great victorious prince would rise among them, and subdue all their enemies, and make them lords of the world.  In Augustus’s time they were in a low state, reduced under the Roman yoke; and as they never wanted a deliverer more, so the eagerness of this hope, as it happens to weak minds, turned into a firm expectation that he would soon come.  This proved a temptation to some bold, and to some cunning men, to personate the prince so much expected.  And “nothing is more natural and common to promote rebellions, than to ground them on new prophecies, or new interpretations of old ones; prophecies being suited to the vulgar superstition, and operating with the force of religion.”  Accordingly, many such imposters rose, pretending to be the victorious prince expected; and they, and the people who followed them, perished in the folly of their attempt.

But Jesus, knowing that victories and triumphs are not things to be counterfeited; that the people were not to be delivered from the Roman yoke by sleight of hand; and having no hope of being able to cope with the Emperor of Rome in good earnest, took another and more successful method to carry on his design.  He took upon him to be the prince foretold in the ancient Prophets; but then he insisted that the true sense of the prophecies had been mistaken; that they related not to the kingdoms of this world, but to the kingdom of heaven; that the Messias was not to be a conquering prince, but a suffering one; that he was not to come with horses of war, and chariots of war, but was to be meek and lowly, riding on an ass.  By this means, he got the common and necessary foundation for a new revelation, which is to be built and founded on a precedent revelation.

To carry on this design, he made choice of twelve men of no fortunes or education, and of such understandings, as gave no jealousy that they would discover the plot.  And, what is most wonderful, and shews their ability, while the master was preaching the kingdom of heaven, these poor men, not weaned from the prejudices of their country, expected every day that he would declare himself a king, and were quarreling who should be his first minister.  This expectation had a good effect on the service; for it kept them constant to their master.