wisest and mightiest men of the world, and command the wonder and admiration of the multitude, will be conceded by every candid reader of the narrative of his life by the evangelists; and it is as plain that the state of his nation, in his age, was peculiarly favourable to men of daring courage and ambitious views. The Jews panted for national liberty and independence, and enthusiastically hailed any one who promised to lead them to victory, freedom, and triumph. Nor is it doubtful that they would have gladly placed themselves under John as their supreme chief and leader, and rushed to the field of battle against their civil rulers. He attained the highest degree of popularity, and many earnestly desired tha: he should assume the authority and dignity of the king of the Jews. But instead of this, he showed himself to Israel as the humble and self-denied prophet of the Lord, clothed in the coarsest garments, and sustained by the meanest fare. His manner of life was entirely conformed to that of a Nazarite, who abstained from all the ornaments and luxuries of life; and his constant avowal was, that he regarded it as his most exalted privilege and honour to be the servant of the Messiah, whom he had baptised and solemnly recommended to the confidence of the people.

The assumption of authority to baptise all his disciples, was a remarkable indication that he was appointed to introduce a new constitution for the government of the worshippers of God. No priest or prophet, from the days of Moses, required their disciples to submit to baptism, The observance of this rite was a solemn consecration by washing to the service of the Most High. The duties of the office of all former prophets and priests were limited to the enforcement of obedience to the institutes of Moses; but John called all to believe that the promised Sovereign was come, and he demanded all who received his testimony publicly to confess their repentance and belief by baptism, the well-known symbol_of consecration to holy services, that they might be prepared to enter his kingdom, which was really, and not merely, ceremonially holy.

When Jesus, the son of Mary, was thirty years old, about the seventh or eighth month of John's ministry, he made himself known in Nazareth, the place of his residence, as the great Prophet of Israel predicted by Isaiah, and by consequence the promised and expected Saviour of the world. “And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up; and, as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the sab

bath-day, and stood up for to read. And there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet Esaias; and, when he had opened the book, he found the place where it was written, The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised; to preach the acceptable year of the Lord," Luke iv. 16-19. Though the Nazarenes discovered that he was endowed with unparalleled and marvellous qualifications to instruct, yet the exalted character which he assumed seemed to them incompatible with his reputed descent; and, instead of calmly and carefully investigating the validily of his claims, the multitude who had witnessed his progress from infancy to manhood, envious of the sudden rise of his reputation, and indignant at what they conceived his presumption and blasphemy, were enraged, and, with all the impetuosity of beasts of prey, attempted to take his life. They looked on him. merely as the son of Joseph the carpenter. Had they fully inquired into the past history of Jesus, and, with minds sincerely in search of the truth, vigilantly observed the future developments of his character, they would certainly have adopted the sentiments entertained of him by his most enlightened disciples, and concluded that he was the Jewish virgin's son, the heir of David, the Son of the Living God, the Saviour of Jews and Gentiles, and the Lord of all, predicted by all the prophets.

The first promise of the Conqueror and Victor of Satan, and the destroyer of his dominions, represented him as "the seed of the woman," not the seed of the man; and the second most distinct promise respecting him, intimated that he was to descend from Abraham. These promises were incontrovertibly accomplished in Jesus of Nazareth. The evangelists satisfactorily show that he was born of a virgin, a daughter of Abraham; and that his human body was immediately created by the energy of the Holy Spirit. This statement alone accounts for the purity and dignity of his character, by which he was manifestly separated from the whole human race, although evidently a partaker of the human constitution. In him were all the capacities and sensations which characterise man, without the least trace of moral defect, which are inseparable from the seed of Adam, all of whom prove themselves to be alienated from God and from one another. Every temper which he discovered, every word which he uttered,

and every action which he performed, demonstrated that his heart was the seat of perfect moral excellence. None of his kindred who were disaffected to his claims, none of his friends who deserted or betrayed him, nor any one of his numerous, powerful, active, and implacable enemies, attempted to convict him of sin. All who knew him were the reluctant or zealous witnesses that divine love supremely ruled over all his affections and passions, and that he only lived for the present and eternal welfare of all; that "he went about doing good." He was thus manifestly the only man on whom the Holy One of Israel could look with entire complaisance; and he was therefore not of this world, although a sojourner in it: for every one of Adam's race has proved himself a sinner, justly deserving the divine displeasure; they are all by nature the children of wrath. It is impossible for any one to adduce a satisfactory reason for the perfect moral purity of the Son of Mary, the Jewish virgin-mother, unless the truth of the sacred record be admitted, that he was formed by the Holy Spirit in his mother's womb, and was therefore justly called the Son of God.

The Jews were possessed of ample evidence that Jesus was the proper, legitimate heir of David. He was so, whether he was regarded as the son of Mary or of Joseph, his reputed father; for the national records attested that they occupied the chief place in the register of David's family. It is indeed uncertain if they were not the only survivors of that distinguished race; for though they had relations, yet these, as far as the record informs us, were intermixed with other families and tribes in Israel; and if so, Jesus was the only remaining sprout of the root of Jesse. Genealogical registers of the chief families are common in every country; but in the East they appear in all ages to have been kept with great care by all families. The family register was indispensable among the Jews while they possessed the Holy Land; for if they neglected it, they might find it difficult, if not impossible, to show their rights to their lot or inheritance The royal and the priestly families had more powerful motives than any others to preserve their respective genealogy. How diligently and faithfully the national register of tribes and families was kept, may be learned from the second chapter of the book of Ezra, and the seventh chapter of the book of Nehemiah.

That the genealogical tables were carefully constructed by the Jews down to the times of Christ and his apostles, is obvious from several allusions to them in the New Testament.

Thus we read that Anna the prophetess was of the tribe of Asher, and Paul of the tribe of Benjamin. Josephus says that he transcribed his own pedigree from the public register of the priesthood. That the evangelists transferred their genealogies of Jesus from those admitted to be correct by the Jews, we have no reason to doubt; for we never find his descent from David questioned by any of his enemies. Difficulties or obscurities in the lists given by the evangelists are therefore not to be ascribed to them, but to the compilers of the tables from which they copied; and it deserves to be remarked, that the general accuracy of these lists is not rendered in the least doubtful, on the supposition that the names of certain persons may have been designedly omitted, or even erazed, from causes which cannot now be ascertained. Some individuals may have proved themselves during life unworthy of the place in the family register in which their names were inserted at the time of their birth. This circumstance, however, would not occasion any doubt respecting the descent of their heirs or successors in the register. That no other tables of the_genealogy of David than those made and approved by the Jews, would have, however perfect, been regarded by them, we may be assured; and hence it was at once necessary and divinely proper that the evangelists should appeal, in proof of the descent of Jesus, to those genealogies of the descendants of David which were preserved in the national archives. This mode of proceeding was in harmony with the rule which the first ministers of Christ uniformly followed, of testifying none other things than Moses and the prophets said should come; and every Jew had, in consequence of the plan acted on by the evangelists, an opportunity of judging the truth of their statement, the claims of Jesus to be heir of David, by comparing it with their own acknowledged registers. Nor would friends or enemies fail to do this. While no instance is recorded of the latter accusing Christ's followers of falsehood, when they every where proclaimed him the son of Abraham and of the race of Judah, and the heir of David, the former in all countries were familiar with this regular descent of their Master according to the flesh. Thus Paul, writing to the Romans, evidently views it as a well known and received fact, that Jesus" was made of the seed of David according to the flesh;" and he reminds the Hebrews to whom he wrote. that "it is evident that our Lord sprang out of the tribe of Judah."

We conceive it inexpedient to attempt here to reconcile the discrepancies or differences supposed to exist between the genealogies of Jesus recorded by Matthew and Luke. The learned have speculated much on this subject; but the candid reader will be sufficiently satisfied that the difficulties are not momentous, after perusing the following extract from Mr. Watson's Exposition of the Gospels:-"For a full investigation of the questions which have been raised on the genealogies of Christ given by St. Matthew and St. Luke, recourse may be had to Grotius, Hammond, Le Clerc, Lightfoot, Bishop Kidder, Whitby, Dr. Barrett, and others who have written at large upon them. The genealogies coincide from Abraham to David; and then so entirely differ, except in two descents, that they must be regarded as two distinct tables; and the opinion now generally admitted is that of Lightfoot, that St. Matthew gives the genealogy of Joseph, whose adopted son Jesus was; and St. Luke that of his virgin mother. This derives strong confirmation from the circumstance that the Jewish Rabbins in their writings call Mary the daughter of Eli. This distinction in the genealogies also serves to explain the reason why St Luke begins his genealogy with stating that Jesus was the supposed son of Joseph, 'who was the son of Eli.' The natural father of Joseph was, as Matthew states, Jacob; but Mary being the daughter of Eli, Joseph became his son-in-law; or simply, according to the vague way in which the Hebrews used such relative terms, his son; which is further confirmed by another instance of a son-in-law being called a son in the same table, namely Salathiel, who is called 'the son of Neri,' that is, his son-inlaw; his natural father being Jechonias, 1 Chron. iii. 17. The only point of real importance, however, in this question is, whether Mary as well as Joseph was of the house of David, because the Christ was indubitably to be of the seed of David according to the flesh,' which our Lord was not by mere virtue of his being the adopted son of Joseph, and entered as such in the Jewish genealogies. Now, though there seems sufficient reason to conclude that Mary married Joseph as next of kin, and though the very silence of the Jews, who, upon the promulgation of the doctrine of Christ's miraculous conception, at whatever period that was first made known, whether during our Lord's life, or immediately after his ascension, must have raised this fatal objection, if Mary had not been a descendant of David as well as Joseph, proves that this fact was a subject of public notoriety; yet