more importance, which this book may contain. For instance; how can I be assured, but that the "Holy Ghost" means the " Holy Priest?" which is more consistent with our understanding than the other: for what do we know about ghosts or invisible things, if they cannot be seen? What idea can we have of them? yet Paul says they are clearly seen! 24 If they were, why should so many of the learned deny their existence?

Now if you will take the trouble to look in Gen. xxxviii, 29, 30, you will find it written thus: Tamar, Zarah, and Pharez. But Mr. Matthew has taken the letter h out of Zarah, and put it into Tamar; besides exchanging the letter z for the letter s in Pharez: although we find, in Rev. xxii. 18, 19, that a severe punishment is denounced against any man, who shall attempt to add or diminish ought to or from that which is written in this book. And who were those aforesaid persons? Why Tamar, we find, was daughter-in-law to Judas; who, after she had enveigled her father-in-law into an adulterous connexion with her, the Lord was graciously pleased to favour in an especial manner by ordaining (for all things were known to God from the beginning) that the holy and immaculate Jesus should spring from the fruit of this incestuous amour!

This "Phares begat Esrom; and Esrom begat Aram," Matthew says; but if we look into those scriptures, which you say were written by divine inspiration, we shall find it written, Hezron and Ram.26

Verse 4, "And Aram begat Aminadab; and Aminadab begat Naasson; and Naasson begat Salmon.”

The same words are quoted by Luke, iii. 32, 33; but in Ruth, iv. 20. we find it written, Aminadab and Nahshon; and in 1 Chron. ii. 11. Salma. These errors, I grant, are but trifling, and very common in the writings of uninspired men; but in those divinely inspired every word should be perfect and consistent. However if we find none greater than those, we will not dispute its divine authority; it being probable that God, not expecting his writings to be criticised in this

manner, grew weary of his job; he being oftentimes subject to weariness! Isaiah i. 14, and xliii. 24. Jer. xv. 6. Mal. ii. 17. &c.

Verse 5. "And Salmon begat Booz of Rachab; and Booz begat Obed of Ruth; and Obed begat Jesse."

This Rachab you acknowledge to have been her who is called Rachab the harlot; who entertained two of God's chosen people at a brothel in Jericho.27 But you say she was not an harlot, only an innkeeper, whỏ got her bread honestly, by keeping an house of entertainment for strangers! Really, Doctor, if you take it upon yourself to pervert words, which are so plain and evident, you had far better make a fresh Bible altogether. For if the word "harlot" means an "innkeeper," perhaps the word sinner means a pot-boy! as we oftentimes find the word sinners annexed to publicans.28 Do you not think that both Paul and James knew what she was as well as you? and they both say she was an harlot. 29 This woman, then, you tell us, was "actually married to Salmon, a Jewish prince." And is it probable, you moreover ask, "that a prince of Judah would have taken her to wife, if she had been such a person, as our text represents ?" Why, Doctor, you would almost make one suppose, that you had never read the Bible thoroughly, or you could never have so far forgot yourself. In the first place, you have no authority for asserting that Salmon was a prince of Judah. His son Boaz, is only described as being a man of wealth:30 and his great-grand-son, Jesse, the father of David, is represented as having been a plain man, a Bethlehemite. 31 Yet, admitting that he was a prince, was it uncommon for princes to take whores or concubines? Witness Solomon, who had 300!32 Neither was it impracticable for a prince to take to wife one who had been an harlot, when we find that David himself took to wife Bathsheba. It is, therefore, more probable that she was only a whore to Salmon, instead of his wife; because they were strictly forbidden to take to them wives from any of these nations.3 3

And who was Ruth? We find that she was a Moab

iteess,34 (one of the descendants of Lot's eldest danghter, when she got herself with child, by her own father!35) that lived in the time of the Judges in Israel ; when the Israelites, having a famine in their own land flowing with milk and honey,36 were obliged to go and sojourn in the land of Moab. This Ruth, the Moabitess, who sprang from the incestuous intercourse of drunken Lot with his daughter, (that just and righteous man, whose soul was vexed from day to day with the unlawful deeds and filthy conversation of the wicked,) in imitation of her ingenious ancestor, Lot's daughter, coveted the embraces of a near kinsman. 3 8 Therefore, she, also, as well as Rachab the harlot, was considered worthy of being the fore-mother to God's only son, Jesus!

Verse 6. "And Jesse begat David the King; and David begat Solomon of her, that had been the wife of Urias."

This David, we are told,was a man of God;39 after his own heart:40 that is, he was full of mercy and goodness; abounding therewith more than any of the chosen people of God. For if required, as a favour, to go and slay one hundred men, he would, to display the mercy and loving kindness of God, go and butcher two hundred! And, moreover, so very modest and obliging, that he would stoop to cut of all their foreskins, to make a present, perhaps, a necklace, for Michal, the daughter of Saul! Further, to convince us of the sure mercies of David,12 we have only to read the tender regard that he had for those creatures, whose souls were in the hand of the Lord,43 when he caused them to pass through brick-kilns, and put them under harrows of iron, under saws, and axes of iron. 4 4 not only possessed those exemplary virtues, but displayed a greatness of mind above all his countrymen : for he dare stand, boldly, before the Priest of God, and tell him a brazen lie to his face; 45 knowing, at the same time, that not only the Priests of God, to the number of eighty five, would be all put to death in consequence thereof, but that all the men, women, children,

He

and sucklings, in the city, would, in like manner, be barbarously slain. 4 7 And, so tenacious was he of his honour, that he would not suffer the husband of any woman to live after he had seduced his wife, lest any man should charge him with adultery! This conduct, we find, displeased his God, who had previously commanded, that if any man committed adultery with another man's wife, he should surely be put to death along with the woman; 48 so he sent him a messenger to acquaint him thereof: which was the cause of much grief to David, who thought nothing of it during the nine months of her pregnancy, until the messenger came. But, lest he should be swallowed up with overmuch sorrow, 49 his God sent him word, at the same time, that he should not die ;50 because the Lord is a God that changeth not,51 and with whom there is no variableness nor shadow of turning:52 for instead of enforcing the penalty of his law upon him and the woman, according to his former decree, he would now set it aside, and punish his other wives and children for his crime! Therefore, being a God of peace, he commanded that the sword should never depart from his house; and because he had formerly forbidden a man to lie with another man's wife, he now ordained that his neighbour should lie with his wives, in the sight of the sun;53 which was accordingly done, shortly after, to the praise and glory of God, by Absalom, his own son, taking them all, ten in number, 54 to the top of the house, where God, whose eyes are too pure to behold iniquity, 5 55 could have a clear view of the nakedness and actions of all these women, and see fair play between them and Absolam !5 6 In short, this good man so followed the Lord in all his ways, and kept his commands, that the Lord was pleased, in his tender mercy towards his chosen people, to move David for to number them, (although the holy men or ghosts, that wrote the book of Chronicles, say, that it was Satan, who provoked David to number the people,58) in order, I suppose, that he might know whether he had not chosen too many. For, we oftentimes read of

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God employing his servants in numbering his people, and doing other little jobs for him. Sometimes we read of a man measuring the length and breadth of a city;60 at others, pourtraying a city upon a tile.6 1 And once or twice he employed men as spies, to go and search the land for him.62 However, it seems, by the census taken, that they were found to be too many by seventy thousand. So the Lord was obliged to send one of his flying soldiers, because he delighteth in mercy, 63 with a drawn sword in his hand, to slay these seventy thousand men. Query were the souls of these men sent to heaven or to hell, as they were not the transgressors, but only the innocent men that were numbered? I never could make out, exactly, the number of these men, in Israel and Judea, which you must acknowledge is necessary that I should know, or why was it written? We are told, in 2 Sam. xxiv. 9, that there were but 1,300,000: while, in 1 Chron. xxi. 5, we find 1,570,000, I should rather suppose of the two, the latter to be most correct, because of the odd seventy thousand, that were slain. But the drawn sword frightened David so much,65 that he knew not what he did, or he never would have given Ornan 600 shekels of Gold, by weight, for the same threshing floor, 6 6 which, we are told, he had bought of Araunah, for fifty shekels of Silver !6 7

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Moreover, this holy man after God's own heart, to convince the people that he was faithful even unto death, while upon his death bed, ordered his son Solomon to remember Joab, his faithful general, and not suffer his hoary head to go down to the grave in peace; as a reward for his friendship and loyalty! Also, to convince Shemei of his forgiveness, which he had formerly sworn to him,69 he commanded Solomon likewise to bring his hoary head down to the grave with blood. Both commands, Solomon, like a dutiful and obedient son, strictly obeyed.71 And, as a stimulus for his posterity, to imitate this good and pious man of God, (for all these things were written for our example, that we might be thoroughly furnished