evidence demonstrative? Who can withftand it? He must be of all men moft obftinately bent upon his own deftruction, who fhould attempt to hold out against it; he must prefer darkness to light, falfehood to truth, mifery to happiness, hell to heaven, who would not thankfully embrace so great falvation.

Let us now apply what has been faid to the appearance of that perfon, whom the Christian church believes to have been the true Meffias of God, and let us examine the evidences, upon which we affert the divinity of his miffion and the completion of it's purposes.

In what form and after what manner was he fent amongst us? was it by natural or præternatural means? if his firft appearance is ufhered in by a miracle, will it not be an evidence in favour of God's fpecial revelation? If he is prefented to the world in fome mode fuperior to and differing from the ordinary course of nature, fuch an introduction must attract to his person and character a more than ordinary attention: If a miraculous and myfterious Being appears upon earth, fo compounded of divine and VOL. III. human

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human nature as to furpafs our comprehenfion of his immediate effence, and at the fame time fo levelled to our earthly ideas, as to be visibly born of a human mother, nót impregnated after the manner of the flesh, but by the immediate Spirit of God, in other words the fon of a pure virgin, fhall we make the myfterious incarnation of fuch a præternatural being a reason for our disbelief in that revelation, which without a miracle we had not given credit to? We are told that the birth of Chrift was in this wife; the fact refts upon the authority of the evangelifts who defcribe it: The Unitarians, who profefs Chriftianity with this exception, may difpute the teftimony of the facred writers in this particular, and the Jews may deny their account in toto, but ftill if Chrift himself performed miracles, which the Jews do not deny, and if he rofe from the dead after his crucifixion, which the Unitarians admit, I do not fee how either should be staggered by the miracle of his birth for of the Jews I may demand, whether it were not a thing as credible for God to have wrought a miracle at the birth of Mofes for inftance, as that he should

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afterwards

afterwards empower that prophet to perform, not one only, but many miracles? To the Unitarians I would candidly fubmit, if it be not as easy to believe the incarnation of Chrift as his refurrection, the authorities for each being the fame? Let the authorities therefore be the teft!

I am well aware that the filence of two of the evangelifts is ftated by the Unitarians amongst other objections against the account, and the non-accordance of the genealogies given by Saint Matthew and Saint Luke is urged against the Christian church by the author of Lingua Sacra, in a pamphlet lately published, in the following words-The Evangelift Saint Matthew in the first chapter of his gofpel gives us the genealogy of Chrift, and Luke in the third chapter of his gofpel does the fame; but with fuch difference, that an unprejudiced person would hardly think they belonged to one and the fame perfon; for the latter not only differs from the former in almost the whole genealogy from Jofeph to David, but has alfo added a few more generations, and likewife made Jefus to defcend from Nathan the fon of David instead of Solomon.—(Levi's Letter to Dr. Priestley, p. 81.)

The learned Jew is founded in his obfervation upon the non-accordance of thefe pedigrees, but not in applying that to Christ, which relates only to Jofeph. Saint Matthew gives the genealogy of Joseph, whom he denominates the husband of Mary, of whom was born Fefus, who is called Chrift, C. 1. v. 16. Saint Luke with equal precifion fays, that Jefus himself began to be about thirty years of age, being, as was fuppofed, the son of Jofeph. Now when it is thus clear that both thefe genealogies apply to Joseph, and both these evangelifts expressly affert that Jefus was born of an immaculate virgin, I do not think it a fair statement to call it the genealogy of Chrift for the purpofe of difcrediting the veracity of these evangelifts in points of faith or doctrine, merely because they differ in a family catalogue of the generations of Jofeph, one of which is carried up to Adam, and the other brought down from Abraham. The gospel historians, as I understand them, profefs feverally to render a true account of Chrift's miffion, comprifing only a fhort period of his life; within the compafs of this period they are to record the doctrines he preached, the

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miracles he performed, and the circumftances of his death, paffion, and refurrection; to this undertaking they are fairly committed; this they are to execute as faithful reporters, and if their reports fhall be found in any effential matter contradictory to each other or themselves, let the learned author late mentioned, or any other opponent to Chriftianity point it out, and candour must admit the charge; but in the matter of a pedigree, which appertains to Jofeph, which our church univerfally omits in it's fervice, which comprifes no article of doctrine, and which, being purely matter of family record, was copied probably from one roll by Matthew, and from another by Luke, I cannot in truth and fincerity fee how the facred hiftorians are impeached by the non-agreement of their accounts. We call them the infpired writers, and when any fuch trivial contradiction as the above can be fixed upon them by the enemies of our faith, the word is retorted upon us with triumph; but what has inspiration to do with the genealogy of Jofeph, the fuppofed, not the real, father of Jefus? And indeed what more is required