Make, if you will, the most favourable supposition, that these pretended prophets are able and learned: But then, what endless schemes of fraud, of policy, of imposture, may ye not expect from the dextrous management of this faculty! Revolve with yourselves the history of ancient divination, or modern prophecy, when lodged in the hands of artful and designing men; and see, what portentous abuses must needs arise from this commission, and yet what certain disgrace and confusion to the memory of those, to whom it is given.
What blessings will not men, entrusted with this convenient foresight of futurity, lavish on their own friends, or party! And what curses, what terrors, equally belied in the event, will they not scatter over the persons or affairs of rivals and enemies, for the gratification of a present passion or interest!
Suppose them cool enough to distrust the reality of their inspiration, yet the temptation, to make the pretence of it subservient to their own views, would be almost irresistible: Or suppose them, on the other hand, to prophesy with good faith, this genuine enthusiasm might enable them to act their part more naturally indeed, but, in the end, not more successfully.
Had then the Apostles been, each of them, as provident and wise, as their Master himself, and as much persuaded of their own inspiration, as he could desire them to be, they would not, we may be sure, have been encouraged by him, if an impostor only, to think themselves possessed of a prophetic power, when it must have turned to the ruin of his cause, on every supposition; I mean, equally on the supposition of its being regarded as a real or pretended, power; that is, whether the Apostles were guided by the views of a dishonest policy themselves, or were the honest dupes of their Master’s policy. But there is
3. Still more to be said on the improbability of a wise man’s giving such an assurance to men qualified and circumstanced, as the Apostles were, in other words, to men of their PECULIAR character and situation.
1. The character of the Apostles, was that of plain, uneducated, illiterate men; men, totally unacquainted with the world, and with those arts, which are necessary to conduct a great design with ability and success; men, of good sense, indeed, and of honest minds, but, from their singular simplicity, only qualified to report what they had seen or heared, and by no means provident or skillful enough to round and complete a scheme, but half-disclosed by its author, and that half delivered incidentally and by parcels to them, and ill understood.
Yet to these men, Jesus declares, that much was wanting to the integrity of that religious system, which they were appointed to teach: and that all defects in it were to be supplied not by himself, but by a divine spirit, who should hereafter descend upon them, and LEAD THEM INTO ALL THE TRUTH[195]; nay, who should not only instruct them in such parts of his religion, as he had imperfectly, not at all, explained, but should, further, open to their view I know not what scenes of futurity, and SHEW THEM THINGS TO COME.
These magnificent promises, you see, were likely to make a deep impression on the rude minds of the disciples; half-astonished, we may suppose, at the idea of such superior privileges, and more than half-intoxicated with the conceit of that pre-eminence, which those privileges were to bestow.
Their implicit faith, too in a beloved and revered Master, would incline them to expect, with assurance, the completion of these promises: And thus, every principle, whether of simplicity, vanity, or credulity, would make their presumption violent, and leave it without controul.
2. If we turn, next, to the situation of these men, buoyed up with such exalted hopes and expectations, we shall find it apt to create a fanaticism, which, of itself, might drive them, in the absence of their politic Master, into any excess. These simple, over-weening men were, at the same time, poor, friendless, despised, insulted, persecuted; exposed to every injury from the number, power, and malice of their enemies, as Jesus indeed, had honestly forewarned them; yet stung with the desire of founding a temporal kingdom (contrary, it must be owned, to his express declaration) and of rising themselves to the first honours of it. Could any thing flatter their ambition more, than to be told that they had the modelling of their own scheme left to themselves, under the cover of a supernatural direction? Or, could any thing gratify their resentments, all on fire from ill usage, more effectually, than to be assured that the fates of their adversaries, all the secrets of futurity, lay open to their view? How oft has oppression turned faith into fanaticism, and made prophets of those, whom it only found zealots! And do we think that secular ambition, concurring with religious zeal, in the like circumstances, could have any other issue; especially, when the prophetic impulse was looked for by such zealots, and, on the highest authority, actually engaged to them? Or can we, who see the probability, the certainty, of this consequence, conceive so meanly of Jesus, considered in the view of a wise man only, as to imagine that He should not be aware of it?