By the foregoing quotations, as by many other passages, we learn that the Jews expected the Messiah would establish his character as a prophet like unto Moses and others, and also that Jesus did in reality a multitude of miracles more than the prophets did. Now is it not evident, that if the miracles of Jesus were supposed to be impositions, they were dependant on those of Moses and the prophets for any power to impose on the people? Just so are all miracles wrought or pretended to be wrought since Christ, dependant on his miracles for any imposing power which they possess. If our religion had not been first propagated by the means of those miracles which are recorded in the New Testament, of what use would any pretended miracles be to any sect of Christians? 2d. What you say of the greater evidence of the resurrection which would have been furnished by Christ's continuance on earth until now, or by his making his appearance in every generation since his time, appears to me to be rather wanting in its merits by which it claims a reply.--Why should you neglect to delineate some special reasons for your suppositions, by showing how wide the difference would have been from the evidence we now have, and how that difference would have recommended your scheme?--You have left me to conjecture the particular features of your argument, and if I mistake them, you will reply that I understand you incorrectly. However, this is the way I must proceed. We will suppose then that Jesus, in room of ascending into heaven, had remained on earth. Would this have done any good, unless he had made himself known to all the people? Well, we will suppose he had made himself known after his resurrection, to the whole house of Israel, would the people not have believed? They would have believed most assuredly, or his making himself known to them would have done no good. If they had all believed they would not have persecuted the religion of Christ, all would have embraced it at once being convinced by their eyes, that Jesus who was crucified, had actually rose from the dead, and was not subject to death any more. All this would have been as evident to the Roman government as to the Jewish hierarchy, and the whole would have been christianized at once. How long would all this remain a wonder? Jesus remains on earth from generation to generation. How long ago would the conjecture have arisen, that this man who has lived through so many ages, had always been here on earth, and that the tradition of his once having been mortal like other men, was nothing but a superstition gotten up in some age of antiquity beyond our reach? There would have been no occasion of preserving any records of the wonderful works of Jesus in the days of his flesh, for as the whole would become immediately connected to christianity, there would have been no necessity nor excitement to write and preserve the accounts we have in the gospel, or if they had been written, they