city of the fcriptures, and found your doubts, either on the obscurity of some passages, or the mifapplication of fome prophecies, or the numberlefs texts, relating to Chrift's humanity. In this walk, 1 take the liberty of attending you, step by step; and shall avoid, as much as pos fible, any long digreffion; left we may ftray too far from the path.

OBSCURITY.

You affirm, that the first chapter of St. John, in which the Divinity of Chrift is afferted, "In "the beginning was the Word; and the "Word was with God; and the Word was "God;" is intricate and obfcure. It is quite the reverse; and Chrift's Divinity cannot be read in more legible characters. You understand by the Word, "the Man Jefus, whom "God raised up in time, and to whom God im"parted extraordinary gifts." In understanding by the Word, the Man Jefus, you are in fimilar circumftances with king Agrippa, who faid: "Paul, Paul, you have made me almost a "Chriftian." You would be entirely a Chriftian, if you added to "the Man Jefus, whom "God raised up in time," the God Jefus, who was begotten from eternity: according to the faying of the pfalmift, " Before the morning"ftar I have begotten thee:"-words which Chrift

D

Chrift applies to himself. Or you understand by the foregoing words, "In the beginning was "the Word," &c. truth and righteousness, coeternal with the Divinity. Permit me to tell you, that you explain one obfcurity by another; and that, notwithstanding all your shifts, either the evangelift did not know what he was saying, or you must abfolutely allow an eternal and preexiftent principle, united to human nature, "in "the fulness of time."

To prove what I advanced, I fhall adopt your interpretation, and place Truth in the room of Word. "In the beginning was the i. Truth: and the Truth was with God: and "God was the Truth." Remark, here, that God and the Truth are identified: God was the Truth. In the fame chapter, it is faid: "The "Word was made flesh, and dwelt amongst

us." In adopting your interpretation, it will be-"The Truth was made flesh, and dwelt "amongst us," viz. the fame Truth of which he faid before, that it was God himself,--and then the entire fenfe will be-God, the Truth, was made flesh, and dwelt amongst us. Upon the whole, you are to acknowledge an eternal, pre-existent principle, affuming human nature; or to reject this chapter as fuppofititious, which no Arian or Socinian ever did.

You

You accufe the English tranflators of fome defign, in tranfpofing these words, Kai Os Λόγω, "And God was the Word," which they have Englished, "And the Word was "God," as if they intended to promote the Christian cause by an artful tranfpofition.

I fee no advantage you can derive from fo fevere and injurious an intimation. Whether we fay, "God was the Word," or "the Word. 66 was God," the fense is the fame: for, in all languages, it is the nature of the copulative verb (is) to identify the predicate and the subject, if it be not followed by fome exclufive particle or negative word. Peter was or is that man: tranfpofe the words, and fuch will be the refult of the tranfpofition: that man was or is Peter. The fenfe is the fame in both cafes; and the fame may be faid, and is true, whether we say, "God was the "Word," or "the Word was God."

This chapter is as clear as the first chapter of St. Paul's epiftle to the Coloffians, wherein he fets forth and extols the qualities of our divine Redeemer," by whom were made all things in "Heaven and on earth, vifible and invisible; "whether thrones, or dominations, or princi

palities, or powers: all things were created "by him and in him: and he is before all : and "all things fubfift in him."*.

* Verse 16, 17.

If all things, that are, were made by him, he himself was not made: and his divine power is fignified, when it is faid, "all things subsist," or are preferved by him.

Further Critics lay down a general rule, whereby to elucidate the fenfe and meaning of authors, viz. to know the time in which they lived; the circumftances in which they wrote; and the adverfaries with whom they were engaged. The application of the rule evinces the literality of the first chapter of St. John, which puzzled and perplexed the Arians and Socinians, and exhausted the metaphyfics of the subtle Crellius. St. John wrote his gofpel at the requeft of the Afiatic bishops, in oppofition to the falfe doctrine of Ebion and Cerinthus, whó denied the Divinity of the Son of God. Motives, circumstances, the nature of the question, the doctrine of his adversaries, all concur to prove that he is to be understood in a literal fense: a fenfe fo free from any myfterious obfcurity, that the Platonic philofophers, according to St. Auftin, discovered, in this chapter, the Divinity of the Son of God. "But they were too proud," fays this father, "to acknowledge the lowness of his humanity."

SECOND OBSCURITY.

To invalidate our belief of Chrift's conception in a virgin's womb, you oppose St, Mat

thew,

thew, who fays," that Jacob was father to Jofeph, the husband of Mary," to St. Luke, who fays, "that Heli was Jofeph's father." But this feeming contradiction vanishes, if we pay attention to the manner in which the Jews fometimes traced their genealogy. In Deuteronomy, the law declares," that if one brother "dies without children, the furviving brother "shall marry his relict, in order to raise up "iffue for the deceased," which issue was to bear his name. Hence, a twofold genealogy amongst the Jews; the one legal, the other natural. Jacob and Heli were brothers. Heli died without iffue. Jacob married his relict, and begot Jofeph, the husband of Mary. Thus, when St. Luke calls Heli " Jofeph's father," he means, his father, according to the law and when St. Matthew calls Jacob "Jofeph's fa"ther," he means, his father, according to nature and by this means, the evangelists are eafily reconciled. Other folutions are given to this difficulty, and you are at your option to give the preference to which you choose. The Jewish records and their family-regifters have been burnt with the archives of their temple. We live at too great a distance to settle the genealogies of their families. The evangelifts, befides the gift of inspiration, had every information: as they were nearer the times. In certain coun

* Chap. xxv.

tries,