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which is rationsl, natural, and coherent with prophecy, and rejecting that which is irrational unnatural, and incoherent with it.

Luke's evangelic hiftory, with a very few exceptions, and his other valuable treatise, the Acts of the Apostles, accord with the divine predictions of the Old Teftament concerning the literal manhood of Chrift. The fame may be affirmed of the great apostle Paul's Epiftles to the Romans, Corinthians, and Theffalonians, in general, and of his excellent Epiftles addreft to Timothy and Titus in particular. Luke therefore and Paul exhibit a written teftimony, that Jefus was the Chrift, fo very unexceptionable, fo convincingly fupported by the concurrent external pofitive evidence of prophecy and miracles, that, when united with that internal strong prefumptive proof, the excellency of his moral doctrine and example, it will justify us in declaring our opinion, that he, who can be an infidel, in defpight of such irrefiftible complicated evidence, must be either

either corrupt from the heart, defective or difordered in his intellects, or, laftly, fo blinded by the early prejudices of a misdirected education, as to be incapable of difcerning the truth. But the injudicious friends of Christianity, whofe zeal is not according to knowledge, are its worst enemies. Their hyper-metaphyfical hypotheses tend to confirm Deifts, Jews, Mohammedans, and Gentiles, in their infidelity, who with merited derifion reject their various impoftures. You, my Jewish friends, may well, with a becoming indignation, exclaim what ⚫ have we to do with these imaginary Mef• fiahs,the creatures of the difordered brains of Athanafians, Arians, and Socinians It is only by reprefenting Jefus, conformably to the coincident teftimony of genuine Christian Scripture, and Jewish prophecy, as a man of the feed of David, begotten by a man, and born of a woman, his wife, both of the house and lineage of David, I can hope to convince you of the reality of the first past advent of your Meffiah. As they have not thought proper to confine their respective unintelligible opinions concern

ing the effence of Jefus within their own' breafts, but have published them to the world; and one in particular has, in the disguise of a converted Jew, made his Arian or Apollinarian fyftem of the pre-existent little Godhead of Jefus the ground-work of his fuppofed apology to his friends for embracing Christianity, (SeeMordecai's apology) my unfeigned concern for the intereft of that divine religion compels me to regard it as a duty incumbent upon me to expose their futile arguments in fupport of their refpective hypotheses, and thus counteract the differvice, which they have thereby rendered to the cause of that true religion, which they intended to promote; differvice I fay; for not one of you, my unconverted friends, whether learned, or unlearned, who are instructed by your prophecies to confider your Meffiah as a man of the feed of David, and an actual man, in the ordinary and only true meaning of the word, can be brought to acknowledge any one of their feveral Pfeudo-Meffiahs, fuppofedly fprung from a virgin's womb previously unimpregnated with the feed of man.

However,

However, the publication of their opinions is worthy of commendation, as their advocates hereby evince their fincerity, who have given me an opportunity of examining them at the bar of truth, that teft, by which I wish my own opinion concerning the abfolute unequivocal manhood of Jefus fhould be tried. Hereafter,

in some separate publication, I propose to refute the arguments fuppofedly deduced from the Chriftian Scriptures, which are contained in the aforefaid apology, in favor of the Arian, or Apollinarian, scheme of the pre-existence and fubordinate Jehovahship of Jefus, because, though it was profeffedly written with the laudable view of converting you to the faith that Jesus was the Meffiah, yet the author's fuppofed converfion being founded on that abfurd hypothefis, it is abfolutely calculated to defeat its own great purpose, and, instead of promoting, to retard your converfion. At present I shall rest satisfied with remarking, that the truth refpecting as well the nature, perfon, or effence, and birth, as the character, of the Meffiah, can only be obtained

by

by ufing great caution in admitting every paffage as genuine, which is found inferted in the received canon of the New Testament, and by diligently comparing the relations therein contained with the prophecies of the Old Teftament. They exhibit the fole infallible criterion, whereby you can distinguish the true Meffiah of God from the Pfeudo-Meffiahs of men.

The chimerical wonder-working nativity of Jefus, fuppofedly fprung, in an unintelligible ineffable manner, from the womb of a virgin alone, exhibits a striking fpecimen, into what intricate labyrinths of mysterious abfurdity Christians will be infenfibly betrayed, who, in investigating the Meffiah, defert the safe and faithful guide, prophecy.

The divine predictions, contained in the Old Testament, respecting the nature, perfon, and character of the Meffiah, are termed in the Chriftian Scriptures, the fure word of Prophecy;' and fo fure is it, that we should place no dependence on

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