SECT. 11-13.] THE ONLY TRUE AND PROMISED MESSIAH. 377
sible for us to give, and unreasonable for any other to demand. It was written and published unto all the world by persons of unques- tionable integrity, who had as much advantage to know the truth of the matter about which they wrote as any men ever had, or can have, in a matter of that nature. And this they did, not upon rumours or traditions of former days, but in that very age wherein he lived, and that unto the faces of them whose great interest it was to except against what they wrote, and who would undoubtedly have so done had they not been overpowered with the conviction of the truth of it, Had they had the least suspicion on the contrary, why did they not, in some of their consultations, and in their rage against him and his doctrine, once object this unto himself or his followers, that he was not of the family of David, and so could not be the person he pretended himself to be? Besides, the persons who wrote his gene- alogy sealed their testimony not only with their lives, but with “their eternal condition. A higher assurance of truth can no man give.
12. Two things the present Jews except unto this testimony ;— first, in general, they deny the authority of our witnesses, and deny the whole matter that they assert; secondly, in particular, they say they prove not the matter in question,—namely, that Jesus of Nazareth was of the family of David. For the first, they neither have nor do yield any other reasons but their own will and unbelief. They neither do nor will believe what they [the evangelists] have written. Record, testimony, tradition, or any circumstance contra- dicting their witness they have none; only they will not believe them. Now, whether it be meet that their mere obstinacy and un- belief, wherein and for which they perish temporally and eternally, should be of any weight with reasonable men, is easy to determine. Besides, I desire to know of the Jews whether they think it reason- able that any man, without reason, testimony, evidence, or record, to give him countenance, should call into question, disbelieve, and deny the things witnessed unto and written by Moses? It is known what they will answer unto this demand; and thereby they will stop their own mouths as to the refusal of our record in this matter. So that this exception, which amounts to no more but this, that the Jews believe not the gospel, and that because they will not, needs no particular consideration, it being that which we plead with them about in all these our discourses. “And as unto our own faith, it is secured by all those evidences which we give of the sacred authority of the writings of the New Testament.
13. But, moreover, they except in particular that neither of the evangelists doth either assert or prove indeed that our Lord Jesus did spring from the family of David; for whereas they assert, and Christians believe, that he was born of the Virgin Mary without conjunction of man, and that Joseph was only reputed to be his
378 JESUS OF NAZARETH [EXERC. XVII.
father, because his mother was legally espoused unto him, both genealogies belong unto Joseph alone, as is evident from the be- ginning of the one and the end of the other. Now, the Lord Jesus being not related unto Joseph but by the legal contract of his mother, he cannot be esteemed in his right to belong unto the family of David. This is pleaded by many of them, as also they take notice of the difficulties which have exercised many Christians in the recon- ciliation of the several genealogies recorded by the two evangelists ; unto all which exceptions we shall briefly reply, and take them out of our way :—
14. First, Suppose it granted that the genealogy recorded by Matthew be properly the genealogy of Joseph, what madness is it to imagine, that, avowedly proposing to manifest Jesus Christ to have been of the family of David, and premising that design in the title of his genealogy, he doth not prove and confirm what he hath so designed according to the laws of genealogies, and of the legal, just asserting any one to be of such a tribe or family! No more is re- quired, for the accomplishment of the promise, but that the Lord Jesus should be so of the family of David as it was required by the laws of families and genealogies that any person might belong unto it. Now, this might be by the legal marriage of his mother unto him who was of that family: for after that contract of marriage, whatever tribe or family she was of before, she was legally accounted to be of that family whereinto by her espousals she was ingrafted; _ end of that family, and no other, was he to be reckoned who was. born of her after those espousals. Now, that the reckoning of fami- lies and relations among the Jews, by God’s own appointment, did not always follow natural generation, but sometimes legal institu- tions, is manifest by the law of a man dying without issue; for when the next kinsman took the wife of the deceased, to raise up seed unto him, he that was born of the woman was by law not reckoned to be his son by whom he was begotten, but was to be the son and of the family of him that was deceased, to bear his name and in- herit his estate, Deut. xxv. 5,6. And this legal cognation Luke seems to intimate, chap. i. 27, where he says that the mother of Jesus was “espoused unto a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David,” there being no reason to mention his family, but that the genealogy of his wife’s son was to relate thereunto, And if this were the law of genealogies and legal relations unto tribes and families, as evidently it was, Matthew recording the genealogy of Joseph, to whom the blessed Virgin was espoused before the birth of Jesus Christ, doth record his, according to the mind of him who gave both law and promise; and upon this known rule of genealogies and legal relations may Matthew proceed in his recital of the pedi- gree of Joseph, and. profess thereby to manifest how Jesus Christ