bited with her, was impregnated by the Spirit of God." Such is the manner in which men, who were wicked in every respect, have endeavoured to explain away the well established notion, that our Saviour was the son of Joseph. The clause, that Joseph being a just man was not willing to make her a public example, implies, first, that had Mary been with child, in consequence of adultery with some other man, he would have been unjust, or, in other words, would have violated the law if, after the discovery, he married her secondly, that it was in his power to expose her to public shame, or as the original term (Tagadelyμatioa) more exactly imports, to deliver her up to public justice or capital punishment; and that it was owing to his clemency, that he did not thus punish her. But both these implications, I contend, are false, as contradictory to the Jewish laws and customs. The words of the second law (Deuter. xxiv. 1.) expressly permitted Joseph to retain Mary, if she pleased him, or if she found favour in his sight. Could he then have been unjust for doing what the law permitted him to do. So far from being unjust or lenient in not punishing his wife, he could not have done this, had he been so inclined: for his inclination in this respect the law plainly restrained; and sheltered Mary from punishment by only giving her a bill of divorcement, and sending her out of his house. This is confirmed by the authority of Lightfoot. "So far," says he, "was the law mollified, that I say not weakened, by the law of giving a bill of divorce, for that the husband might not only pardon his adulterous wife, and not compel her to appear before the Sanhedrim, but scarcely could, if he would, put her to death." The relation then of the supposed Evangelist, as it respects Joseph and Mary, cannot be true; but it is strictly true in reference to a case at Rome, thus related by Tacitus. "In the same year the lust of the women was restrained by a severe decree of the senate, prohibiting any from living by prostitution, whose grandfather, father, or husband was a Roman knight: for Vistilia, born of a noble family, had divulged among the ædiles the licentiousness of her conduct. But they did not punish her, thinking that a sufficient punishment was inflicted on the unchaste by the very nature of the prostitution which they professed. It was, however, demanded of Titidius Labeo, the husband of Vistilia, why he did not avail himself of the vengeance of the law against his wife, manifestly detected of such flagitiousness. And, while he pretended that the sixty days allowed him for enquiring into her conduct, were not yet expired, they decreed that the enquiry already made furnished sufficient evidence of her crime. And she absconded to the island of Seriphos." VII." And she will bring forth a son, and thou shalt call him Jesus, for he will save them from their sins. Thus was fulfilled the word of the Lord by the Prophet, saying, Behold a vir. gin will be with child, and will bring forth a son, and he will be called Emmanuel, which means God with us." The impious perversion of the words of the Prophet in this place has often been demonstrated, and the most intelligent advocates of this wild tale, allow, that the quotation is only an accommodation. "Now all this was done, that it might be fulfilled, which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, Behold! a virgin shall be with child, and bring forth a son.' The deceivers were aware, that the reader might put the question, What end is answered by this strange event? In order to obviate it, they quoted from Isaiah the above prediction, which, as is well known, refers to Hezekiah, and that they might meet the question in its full extent, they plunged themselves in an abyss of absurdity. "All this," say they, "was done, that it might be fulfilled," &c. The events gone before, which are included in the term all, are these; Mary is with child by the Holy Spirit; Joseph suspects her of adultery, and determines to put her away privily; but is afterwards prevented by an angel appearing to remove his suspicion. And all these, it seems, are accomplished by the prophecy, that a young woman should conceive and bear a son. The words of the Prophet in their original import respect Ahaz, assuring him that he should have a son, and that before this child knows to refuse the evil, and choose the good, the land by whose two kings he was straightened, would be forsaken. Of the primary application of these words to Hezekiah, no doubt can be entertained. But it is said that they bear a secondary applica tion to Christ. But how can a prophecy, which in its original sense, imports that a child should be born by means of a natural father, should in a secondary sense intimate that Jesus would be born without a natural father. Thou shalt call his name Jesus, in order to fulfil the prophecy, "And they shall call his name Emmanuel." İs this the reasoning of an Angel or the sophistry of a deceiver who sought to justify fraud and falsehood by remote analogies? The Angel gives Joseph the interpretation of the word Emmanuel, telling him that it signifies God with us. He must therefore have been aware, that Joseph, a Hebrew, did not understand his own tongue. A forger, indeed, writing among a people ignorant of it, might justly entertain such an apprehension, and therefore interpret its meaning. "Then Joseph being raised from sleep, did as the Angel of the Lord had bidden him, and took unto him his wife; and knew her not, till she had brought forth her first born." The fabricators of the story were aware that, as Mary became pregnant after her espousal to Joseph, she had become so by her husband. In order therefore to give some colour of probability to the fiction, that she had conceived by the Holy Spirit, and not by the man to whom she had been espoused, they said that she had no children afterwards; and, that the brethren of our Lord were the offspring of Joseph by a former wife. This opinion, however, is overthrown in the above paragraph; Jesus is said to be the first born of Mary. The only child of a mother has never yet been called her first born. Juvenal's celebrated satire on women, is a piece well known to the classic scholar, though perhaps he may not be aware, that the persons, who have so powerfully called forth his indigna tion and ridicule, were those women of rank and fortune, whom Tacitus stigmatizes, as restrained from lust by a decree of the senate, that is, those who had embraced the Gospel in Rome. In the number of these the Paulina or Fulvia of Josephus makes a prominent figure under the name of Hippia. The disgraceful story which the Jewish historian relates of her as a devotee of Isis, is recognised in its principal parts by the Roman satirist and he gives us the additional important information that she, or some other of the same class, fled to Egypt under pretence of a dream from the goddess Isis. This fact is implied in lines 82, 85, which are thus translated by Owen: "Hippia, who to a Senator was wed, Forsook her husband, and to Egypt fled." "Should Isis bid, obsequious would she run With Heavenly converse in the hours of rest." It is reasonable to suppose that many of the Roman ladies, with Paulina and Vistilia in the number, left Rome, and accompanied the Jews and Egyptians into their own country. This is the foundation of Juvenal's indignant satire, and undoubtedly of the following fiction in Matthew, "And when the magi were departed, behold the angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream, saying, Arise and take the young child and his mother, and flee into Egypt. Why should Joseph be directed to flee to so remote a place as Egypt? Was this country more likely than any other to afford security to |