s which are proved to have subsisted in
that age and country. The one was their expectation of a Messiah of a
kind totally contrary to what the appearance of Jesus bespoke him to be;
the other, their persuasion of the agency of demons in the production of
supernatural effects. These opinions are not supposed by us for the
purpose of argument, but are evidently recognised in the Jewish writings
as well as in ours. And it ought moreover to be considered, that in
these opinions the Jews of that age had been from their infancy brought
up; that they were opinions, the grounds of which they had probably few
of them inquired into, and of the truth of which they entertained no
doubt. And I think that these two opinions conjointly afford an
explanation of their conduct. The first put them upon seeking out some
excuse to themselves for not receiving Jesus in the character in which
he claimed to be received; and the second supplied them with just such
an excuse as they wanted. Let Jesus work what miracles he would, still
the answer was in readiness, "that he wrought them by the assistance of
Beelzebub." And to this answer no reply could be made, but that which
our Saviour did make, by showing that the tendency of his mission was so
adverse to the views with which this being was, by the objectors
themselves, supposed to act, that it could not reasonably be supposed
that he would assist in carrying it on. The power displayed in the
miracles did not alone refute the Jewish solution, because the
interposition of invisible agents being once admitted, it is impossible
to ascertain the limits by which their efficiency is circumscribed. We
of this day may be disposed possibly to think such opinions too absurd
to have been ever seriously entertained. I am not bound to contend for
the credibility of the opinions. They were at least as reasonable as the
belief in witchcraft. They were opinions in which the Jews of that age
had from their infancy been instructed; and those who cannot see enough
in the force of this reason to account for their conduct towards our
Saviour, do not sufficiently consider how such opinions may sometimes
become very general in a country, and with what pertinacity, when once
become so, they are for that reason alone adhered to. In the suspense
which these notions and the prejudices resulting from them might
occasion, the candid and docile and humble-minded would probably decide
in Christ's favour; the proud and obstina