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    on the subject to the multitude and to his disciples ; as to actions , his whole life was a contradiction to those views , which his followers still strove to persuade themselves that he would yet fulfil . Now let us turn to the c Human Origin of Christianity / as deduced from this part of our Lord's history . The facts , I do say , are grossly perverted , some gratuitous assumptions are made , and , after all , the conclusion is not necessarily deduced from the as sumed premises . ( See the Chapter entitled c The Kingdom of

    Heaven , &c ., ' p . 34 ) . Jesus , according to the . author , / was imbued with the popular belief of the approach of the kingdom of heaven ; " * yet the author does not imagine that , ' at the commencement of his public preaching , he had the conviction that he himself was the expected Messiah . ' He then alleges , what is quite true , that Jesus did not * openly avow himself to be the Messiah wherever he went ; ' and in the same connexion , as if a matter of

    necessary coincidence , he alleges what is quite false , that Jesus did not ' urgently and distinctly discountenance the prevailing opinion , that his kingdom was to be of this world . ' He puts the subject interrogatively , and answers , ' the actual mode adopted by Jesus in his teaching was quite the reverse of this . * He proceeds to quote several orthodox passages from grave divines , tending to mystify , as much as possible , our Lord ' s purpose in allowing , rather than asserting , his claim to the Messiahship , or

    Godhead , which he takes to be identical ( p . 37 ) , and supposes would have excited prejudice if broadly declared . He declares , as a true Trinitarian , that the people at large did not consider him as the Messiah , because , when they saw the cure of the palsy , ' ¦ they glorified God who had given such power unto men . ' Had they thought him the Messiah and God , there would have been no room for their woncler . ' Perhaps the wonder or admiration arose from their supposing him the Messiah , while quite ignorant , I errant , of his deity . And the declaration of Peter ,

    when our Lord questioned his disciples as to the prevailing opinions respecting his claims , that some took him to be John the Baptist , some Elijah , and so forth , does not prove , as our author thinks ( p . 37 ) , that the people in general had no idea of his claiming the Messiahship : their first and general impression was , that he was the Messiah ; they doubted it , and adopted the other various theories , only when he failed of * fulfilling their

    expectations respecting that exalted character . Let the reader judge , then , of the truth or falsity of the following declarations . It appears , then , that whatever prejudices might have been excited by the broad declaration of his being the Messiah and God ( I must blot out the orthodox gloss ; it is foreign to the question ) , Jesus did not lay himself open to them !' ( p , 37 . ) * Neither did Jesus contradict this favourite article of popular belief ( the earthly dominion pf the Messiah ) ! ( p . 48 . )

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    No . 71 , 3 H

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    Orthodoxy and Unbelief . 285

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Nov. 2, 1832, page 785, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1824/page/65/