the truth of his own fufferings as the Meffiah, O fools, and flow of heart to believe all which the prophets have spoken! Ought not Chrift to have fuffered thefe things?' I must also beseech you to note another remarkable inftance of harmony between the accomplishment of an event, respecting the certainty that Jefus was the Meffiah, recorded by Luke, and the prediction of that event by David. This royal Pfalmift, prophetically fpeaking of the Meffiah, fays, 'Thou,' God, 'wilt not leave my foul in hell,' in the grave, ‘neither wilt thou fuffer thine holy one to fee corruption.' Now Luke, in his fecond chapter of the Acts of the apoftles, citing this prophecy, adds, 'He,' David, seeing this before, fpake of the refurrection of Chrift.' Accordingly the flesh of Jesus did not fee corruption, for God raised him up on the third day, before putrefaction took place; and therefore this is an additional irrefragable proof, that this Jefus was the Meffiah, and that the prophecy received its completion in him. To Chriftians I must inculcate this fundamental maxim, that in all points refpecting the nature or person of Chrift, no credit should

be

be given to affertions made in what are ftiled the canonical Scriptures of the new, which are not authenticated by proofs drawn from the prophecies of the old, Teftament, thofe infallible divine evidences of the truth of the Chriftian religion, uncontrovertibly confirming the credibility of its human teftimony, or, in the language of the Apocalypfe of John xix. 10. The teftimony of Jefus is the spirit of prophecy,' or rather, to tranflate the original more intelligibly, the spirit of prophecy is the testimony of Jefus. If the great 'Son of David,' Jefus, the Chrift, or Meffiah, had defcended from his loins by the mother's fide only, and had not been generated by an human father, I firmly believe this extraor dinary regulation of his future birth would have been pre-fignified in express unequivocal terms, by God to the Jewish prophets. But no fuch extraordinary regulation is predicted by them. I therefore declare, that, if an angel from heaven preach any other Gospel than that, which is foretold by the divinely-inspired prophets in the Old Teftament, or fix on their predictions a different interpretation from that, which D 2 they

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they will, without manifeft perverfion, bear, I am bound to reject him as an impofGenuine Chriftian Scripture is fo far from countenancing the merely maternal birth of Chrift, that it fpeaks of him, as "a man, of the feed of David,' Of this man's,' David's, feed hath God according to his promife, raised unto Ifrael, a favior, Jefus,' Acts xiii. 23. These very expreffions imply, that his mother conceived and bare him, in confequence of a previous carnal knowledge of her husband Jofeph, a man lineally defcended, as was his wife, Mary, from that King of Ifrael.

But it may be objected, is it not plainly revealed in Ifaiah,vii. 14.‘a virgin fhall conceive and bear a fon, and shall call his name Immanuel?' We must not be too hafty in applying this prediction to the merely maternal birth of Chrift, for, in the first place, the Hebrew word no means any young woman; and, fecondly, if we examine the context, we shall find it points at a totally different event, to be fulfilled in the reign of Ahaz, king of Judah, when Isaiah prophefied, and not long after the deli

very

very of the prophecy; The Lord himself fhall give you a fign, behold! a virgin' or young woman, fhall conceive, and bear a fon, and shall call his name Immanuel. Butter and honey fhall he eat, that he may know to refufe the evil, and to choose the good; for, before the child shall know to refuse the evil, and to choose the good, the land, that thou abhorreft, fhall be forfaken of both her kings,' namely, Rezin, king of Syria, and Pekah, King of Ifrael, who we are informed, in the firft verfe of the fame chapter, went up towards Jerufalem. to war against it, but could not prevail against it.' Accordingly we learn from 2 Kings xvi. 9. that Tiglath-Pileser, king of Affyria, at the intreaty of Ahaz, 'went up against Damafcus, took it, and flew Rezin,' and in 2 Kings xv. 30. we are told, that 'Hofhea made a confpiracy against Pekah, and flew him.' The compiler indeed of the Gospel, denominated Matthew's, applies this prophecy to the event of the fuppofed miraculous nativity of Jefus; but with what femblance of truth this faithful representation of the event, to which it evidently refers, is fufficient to determine. I cannot take my leave of this extract, without

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without informing you, that Mr. Harmer, in his Obfervations on different paffages of Scripture,' fuppofes, that the words of the prophecy "Butter and honey fhall he eat, that he may know,' in the original, to

refuse the evil, and choose the good,' should be thus tranflated, Butter and honey shall he eat, when he shall know to refufe, &c.' that is, as he judiciously explains it, though now Judah be terribly harraffed, and that occafions fcarcity, when this child shall be grown up to be able to distinguish between good and evil, both thefe kings shall be cut off, and this country enjoy fuch plenty, that he shall eat butter and honey'

I now proceed to corroborate the preceding arguments in support, as well of the generation of Chrift by a man, as of his parturition from a woman, with additional. proofs, deduced from Scripture and reason.

God, in his infinite wisdom, feems to have permitted the plain truth, as it is in Jefus, to be tranfmitted down to us, intermixt, in the inftance of a few interpolated paffages in the writings of the New Teftament, with the abftrufe errors of the vain philofophy'