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man fpake like this Man,' &c. &c. And yet his being the Son of Man,' is very confiftent with his being the Son of God.' He might be emphatically denominated the Son of Man, by way of distinction from all his fellow men, as being the only man who lived and died without fin, thereby demonstrating, that though God had thought fit, in the exceeding riches of his grace, or favor, love and mercy, not only to forgive mankind their fins, which they, in their respective Jewish and Gentile states, had committed, on their faith in Jefus as the Meffiah, or the anointed of God, to reveal his will to them, but farther to erect a moft glorious difpenfation of grace, far furpaffing all preceding difpenfations in means, privileges, and profpects, at the head of which, in reward of his complete obedience to his will, even unto death, he fet this perfectly holy and good man, yet men were capable of acting up to the moral law written on their hearts, a truth, which he had exemplified in his own person, and that it was not the imperfection of that law, but the imperfection of man, who refused to obey that law, which made an efpecial divine revelation neceffary, and evinced

evinced the exuberant goodness of God in vouchfafing it. His title to the glorious diftinguithing appellative of the Son of God; feems to originate in God's particular favor, in choofing him for the man to publish his will to mankind, and is likewife founded on his being the first fruits from the dead, declared to be the Son of God with power, by the refurrection from the dead.' Hence, agreeably to this juft conception of the matter, though God be the father of all men, and in that fenfe all men are fons of God, (a poet of your own', fays Paul to the heathen, has faid, we are his offspring,') God is emphatically ftiled his father;' and this was a mode of expreffion familiar to your ancestors in their facred writings. God fays of Solomon, the fon of Chrift's great progenitor, David, I will be to him a father, and he fhall be to me a fon.' This means no more, than that Solomon was under God s particular favor and protection, and not, that God was his father, in the different abfurd hyper-metaphyfical [fenfes, in which Athanafians and Arians erroneously fuppofe him to be the father of Jesus. This Jefus, who, agreeably to the predictions, which went before concerning him,' was

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of the feed of David,' being the fon of Jofeph and Mary, who were both lineally defcended from David, was your promised Meffiah, who, in conformity to the prediction of Ifaiah, was to be brought as a lamb to the flaughter' to be 'numbered with the tranfgreffors,' and to give his foul an offering for fin,' before he was to fee his feed, and prolong his days,' &c. Accordingly, these prophecies received their completion in his crucifixion between two thieves, in his refurrection to life eternal, and, fubfequently to his afcenfion into heaven, in the converfion of many Gentiles and fome Jews, through the ministry of his infpired apoftles. But indeed this latter event will be, in its utmoft extent accomplished, when the fulness of the Gentiles fhall be come in,' and accompanied with 'the gathering together of the dispersed of Judah, and the outcafts of Ifrael, from the four corners of the earth,' and the confequent promised restoration of them to their own land, when, the veil taken off from their hearts,' your whole nation fhall plainly fee, and gratefully acknowledge, their long-neglected Meffiah, or the Chrift of God.' Moreover, the time, when the Chriftians

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Chriftians alledge that Jefus fuffered, feems to correspond exactly, in point of chronology, with the expiration of the seventy weeks' of years, when, agreeably to Daniel's prediction, the Mefliah was to be cut off.' This indeed is fo evident, that you, when pushed hard by the Christians, about the sufferings of the Meffiah, and the time of his first advent, not venturing to gainfay the prophecies, are reduced to the miferable shift of fuppofing two Meffiahs, a suffering Jefus, Ben-Jofeph, and a triumphant Lord, for which you cannot produce a fingle voucher, either from Moses or from the prophets; manifeftly mistaking the first fuffering advent, and the fecond glorious advent, of the fame Meffiah, for the advents of two different Meffiahs.

But, as the Chriftians in general, as far as I can judge of their leading tenets, virtually acknowledge this Jefus to be, either an incomprehenfible third part of the selfexiftent Jehovah, whom we know to be, as well without parts as without paffions; or according to the erroneous Arian hypothefis, a pre-existent fubordinate God, and a postexiftent preternatural God-man; or lastly, according

according to the Socinian fyftem, an undefinable woman-fprung creature, born from the womb of a woman, unimpregnated by the previous inftrumentality of masculine generation; it is impoffible to reconcile these respective abfurd hypothefes concerning the effence of Jefus with the prophetic description of the Meffiah, as given by Mofes and the prophets. But, as I before obferved, they are abundantly refuted by the whole tenor of genuine Chriftian Scripture, which uniformly represents the Chrift of God, as a man, and supports the ftrict literal manhood of Jefus, and his lineal defcent from David, in conformity to the predictions of Mofes and the prophets; and Luke in particular speaks of his parents,' which he could not have done, if he had been deftitute of an human father. And again he introduces Mary faying to her fon Jefus, thy father and I have fought thee forrowing.' I muft beg leave to particu larly recommend it to your ferious confi→ deration, that this Jefus, the son of Joseph, and defcendent of David, after his refurrection, appeals, in the following reprimand of his difciples, contained in the faid Luke's Gofpel, to your prophecies in teftimony of

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