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the Acts of the Apoftles, proves an hittorian worthy of all credit. His narration is verified by an appeal to prophecy, but that of the pretended Matthew is falfified by it. Luke then, who, as he truely affures his friend, Theophilus, to whom he addressed his two treatifes, had perfect understanding of all things from the very first,' having received his account from the apostles themfelves, and was, moreover, the companion of Paul in his apoftolic travels, I regard as a genuine evangelift, who gives a faithful relation of Christ, and of his Gofpel, as preached by Chrift himfelf, and by his apoftles in general, and by Paul in particular: Not but that a dif cerning eye, and an attentive mind, by comparing a paffage or two of his Gospel, with the fure word of prophecy,' the ununerring test of the veracity of evangelifts, may discover very fufpicious tokens of Christian Platonists, blending their vain philofophy with his Gofpel fimplicity, in order to make Luke fpeak the fame language with the juftly exceptionable parts of what is called, the Gospel according to Matthew.

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That Jefus was the real fon of Jofeph, or Son of Man, and confequently himself a man, in oppofition to those who alledge, that Jefus was only so stiled, and was merely the nominal, not the real fon of Jofeph, is capable of proof from this circumstance, that no fuch modification is affixt by the evangelifts to this point of their doctrine, one paffage, as I before obferved, out of four excepted; which is fo far from amounting to a proof that the remaining three should be so understood, that, on the contrary, thefe being free from fuch modification furnish a strong prefumptive argument in favor of the fpuriousness of the fourth paffage, which contains it.

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This prefumptive argument is corroborated by the opinion of a valuable corre fpondent, whofe well-founded doubts, respecting the authenticity, not only of the parenthefis, as was fuppofed,' which occurs in Luke iii. 23. but also of the whole genealogy contained in that chapter, I shall tranfcribe for your ferious confideration. They were fent to me in answer to fome fufpicions, which I had expreffed, in a letter to him, of the faid extraordinary pa

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zenthefis as an interpolated forgery. His words are, The parenthefis you mention

in Saint Luke, is, without difpute, exceedingly fufpicious: And, for my own part, I fufpect the whole of the genealogy, which is furely very oddly placed, as well as moft abruptly introduced. Saint Luke, we know, was the friend and * companion of Saint Paul; and what Saint Paul's opinion was about fuch genealogies we learn very clearly from 1 Tim.i.4. andTitus iii.9.which makes it highly improbable, that any of his intimates should attempt to trace out any genealogy at all. Before the Babylonifh captivity, the Mofaic law against the alienation of their patrimony made it both neceffary and easy to preferve correct genealogies of every Jewish family; but that event muft inevi tably have occafioned fuch confufion, and even deftruction, among both their public and private records, that, in the times of the apoftles, difputes about their precife genealogies must have been, as Saint Paul calls them, "vain and endlefs," Had the Jewish magiftrates been inclined to acknowledge the completion of the prophecies, in the perfon of our Savior, E 2

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in other refpects, they were perhaps the only people that could, if any could, have fettled his authentic genealogy; but their incredulity made them regardless of that circumftance, and it can be of no ufe or importance to any other people. Befides, why fhould Saint Luke carry carry the genealogy any higher than David? Nobody could doubt his defcent from Adam. Yet had that useless half of the genealogy been omitted, nobody could have received the leaft degree of fatisfaction from it. The proofs of our Lord's Meffiahship. brought both by Luke and Paul, are abundantly fufficient to convince us, that even the genealogical circumftançe of the prophecies, was literally fulfilled in him, without either the real, or pretended teftimony of human records, whofe truth and authenticity muft ever remain liable to doubt.

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To thefe judicious remarks on the doubtful authority of this portion of Luke's Gof«pel, I shall fubjoin my own obfervations on the expreffion. her feed, Gen. iii. 15. which, in private converfation, has been objected to me as conveying an idea, that

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Chrift

Chrift was to be born from a woman alone, unbegotten by a man. In the first place I

fee no reason for fuppofing, that the expref

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fion, her feed, relates to the birth of Christ at all, much lefs to his fuppofed merely maternal birth. The expreffion is general, and confequently applicable to all fucceeding generations of men, Eve's pofterity in the aggregate. Secondly, I apprehend, that the propagation of the human fpecies by the feed of man, depofited, impregnated, gradually matured to a perfect feetus, in the womb of woman, and in that state proceeding from it, is fufficient to denominate the offspring, either the feed of man, or the feed of woman, and to justify me in regarding it as Her feed, till it pleafe God that human creatures be generated without the concurrent inftru mentality of child-bearing women.“ Bel fides, the fitnefs of this expreffion in the paffage referred to is felf-evident. It is there faid, 'I' God, will put enmity between thee, the ferpent, and the woman :' It is therefore more natural to add, and between thy feed and her feed,' than between thy feed and the feed of man, in a paffage where the man is not mentioned.

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