Gregory Thaumaturgus, an hugger-mugger miracle, faid to be performed on the body of a virgin betrothed to a man, in direct violation of the law of Mofes, and in a corner, in the dark; and therefore, being known only to the unknown Platonistic miracle-monger himself, is totally unworthy of credit. If it be urged, that this miracle was, in its very nature, incapable of occular demonftration, I appeal to the unbiaffed judgment of every unfystematic Chriftian to determine, whether that circumftance alone be not an irrefragable teftimony of its falfhood.

That Chrift could not be born of a woman alone is farther evident, from the known circumftance recorded of Mary, that her state of pregnancy was of the fame duration with that of other women, or, as the women exprefs themfelves, she went her full time with him.' This is implied in the expreffion, when the days were accomplished that she should be delivered, she brought forth her first-born fon,' &c. This certainly convicts the advocates for a fupernatural conception, of the maintenance of an imposture. In order to clinch one forgery

forgery with another, they ought to have amplified the miracle, by extracting him from his mother's womb, not merely without obftetrical aid, but without the common previous formality, and tedious. length, of a nono-menfial or nine-month's travail.

Moreover, Mary's compliance with the Mofaic ceremony of purification, upon the fuppfition that he brought forth Jefus, without a previous carnal knowledge of a man, would have been needlefs and impertinent; for how could she have contrac ted the legal impurities, directed to be washed away by an obfervance of that fleshly ordinance, if her delivery of the child, Jefus, had not been preceded by carnal copulation with her husband Jofeph? And yet her purification is recorded as a matter of fact, in Luke ii. 22. confequently, the man, Jofeph, was as much concerned in begetting Jefus, as the woman, Mary, was in bringing forth this her firft-born fon, the child of her virginity, in this one known and true acceptation of the words.

It

It is in vain to expect, that men of common fense among Jews, Mohammedans, Deifts, and Heathens, fhould embrace Christianity, till they be convinced, that genuine Scripture will, as it actually does, fupport me in afferting that the Jefus of the Christians was a very man, that is, manbegotten, and woman-born, as other men are. The witty Dean Swift humorously remarks, that'a nice man is a man of nafty ideas.' With equal juftice it may be obferved, that the said rare wonderful metaphyficians, who invented the merely maternal origin of Jefus, thofe Spiritual men, were men of carnal ideas.

I have indeed heard it plaufibly advanced, in private converfation, that the miraculous. or, as it is ufually ftiled, the immaculate conception, an epithet, which indirectly ftigmatizes the common connubial conception, as maculate, or defiled, feems to be neceffary, in order to give folemnity and dignity to the perfon, office, and character of the Mediator of the New Covenant, and thereby more powerfully attract the attention

of mankind to the important doctrines he preached.

To this I answer, that his perfon, office, and character, become more exalted in the eyes of men from the confideration, that he as a mere man lived and died without fin, than if he be regarded as the undefinable miraculous progeny of a virgin alone, a fpecies of intelligent creature, which being altogether new, whatever name men may invent for it, cannot however be denominated a man. But the Athanafians, or rather the modern Pfeudo-Athanafians, pretend, that Jefus was the incarnate felf-existent Fehovah, and the Arians, in conformity to their pre-exiftent fcheme, affert your Meffiah to be a God man, confequently, the first deprive him of the whole of the merit of his moral conduct, and the last annihilate half of that merit, which he would be intitled to, if.confidered in the light of a mere man; for it is felf-evident, that, by beftowing on him a complete apotheofis, as fupreme God in the one cafe, and in the other, by humanizing, or abafing, one half, of the effence of his compound nature to a man, and by deifying, or exalting, the other

half

half, to a God, thofe deftroy the whole, and these fink half, of the excellence of his finlefs character as a man.

If good men among modern Athanafians and Arians could be prevailed on to confider well the unavoidable confequences of their respective fanciful hypotheses, they would foon deliver themfelves from the fhackles of system, and reverently acknowledge with me the admirable example of complete moral rectitude, confpicuous in the life, fufferings, and death of that perfect man, the man Christ Jefus, which it is their and my duty and intereft to imitate, agreeably to the express injunction of him, our lord and mafter, to the extent of our abilities, in every particular, and on every occafion, throughout life. But, though Jefus, your Meffiah, was a very man, begotten by an husband on the body of his wife, yet the faculties of his mind were inlarged by that immeasurable degree of infpiration, which God bestowed on him for the beneficial purpose of preaching his merciful Gospel difpenfation to mankind, accompanied with a power to work miracles in confirmation of the truth of his divine miffion. But, as you have been long blind to your own diG 2 vine