As we have set out with believing the Scriptures as the basis of all argument, let us briefly review this story, and we must acknowledge, if it be true, that this Jesus never could be the son of Joseph: his mother was pregnant of him before her marriage; and another Evangelist tells us he knew her not,* till she brought forth her first born Son. What then is the inference to be drawn from it? even that which St. Luke asserts to be the truth: "The "holy spirit shall come upon thee Mary, "and the power of the Highest shall over"shadow thee, therefore also, that holy thing "that shall be born of thee, shall be called "(is) the Son of God. He shall be great, "and shall be called the Son of the Highest, "thou shalt call his name Jesus, because,

*Luke i. 34. As to rejecting this chapter upon mere supposition, though it is found in all the copies now 66 extant," "it is the most unwarrantable attempt I ever read of.

"as the Prophet of old declared, he is Im"manuel,* that is God with us." The second passage to be noticed, is that question of our Saviour to the Jews, contained in the 22d chapter of St. Matthew's Gospel, "What think ye of Christ, whose sont "is he? they say unto him, The son of "David. He saith unto them, How then "doth David in spirit call him Lord? say

ing, in the 110th Psalm, The Lord said

"unto my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand, "till I make thine enemies thy foot-stool. "If David then call him Lord, how is he "then his son ?"

Now first let us remark, that this was undoubtedly a quotation from a psalm written by David, and that it clearly al

* An attempt has lately been made to apply this prophecy to Hezechiah; but let any man read the 2d verse of the 16th chapter of the 2d book of Kings, and compare it with the 2d verse of the 18th chapter of the 2d book of Kings, and he will find it impossible; for Hezechiah must be nine years old when the prophecy was uttered.

luded

luded to the Messiah; otherwise the Jews would have denied the quotation, as having been composed by some one else, or as having no reference at all to the Messiah. Next, the word Lord does most commonly signify God, is frequently applied by the Jews to the Supreme Being, and is a translation of the word Jehovah; as, for instance, "Then the Lord rained upon So

"dom and Gomorrhah fire and brimstone "from the Lord out of heaven," where both these words are Jehovah in the Hebrew, and so the word is rendered four or five times in the same chapter. And this passage is further elucidated by St. Peter, in the Acts of the Apostles, ii. 34, "For David is not as❝cended into the heavens; but he saith

himself, The Lord said unto my Lord, "Sit thou on my right hand, till I make thy "foes thy footstool." The declarations of St. John, in the 1st chapter of his Gospel,

respecting

respecting the eternity of the word, and of his being absolutely God, have been, and are so often made use of, in proof of what we are here asserting, that it is hardly necessary to repeat them; they are irrefragable, and their genuineness and authenticity have never been called in question.*

The words of the text are surely a downright proof of the incarnation; for, after declaring that this Word was God, the Evangelist tells us, "That he became flesh, "and took up his abode amongst us, and 66 we beheld his glory, the glory as of the "only begotten of the Father, full of grace " and truth." In the 3d chapter of the same Evangelist, and at the 13th verse, our Saviour speaks of himself, as having at some time or other ascended into

* An attempt, however, is made, to render ó Logos, the Word; and Theos, a God.

"Heaven, as being in Heaven, and as "having come down from Heaven." If our Saviour possessed proper humanity without any divinity, what he here says could not be true, for he affirms, "That "no man hath ascended up into Heaven; "and yet he says except the Son of Man, "who descended or came down from Hea66 ven, and who still more is in Heaven." That the Son of Man means the Messiah or Christ, is evident, both from Daniel, and from the very next verse of this chapter, where Jesus alludes to his own Crucifixion; and we have no account in the Evangelists, that the body of Christ ascended up into Heaven, till after that Crucifixion. "He says to the the woman, "Touch me not, I am not yet ascended "to my Father." How then the Son of man could be in Heaven, or have come

down