the son of Lamech, 37 Reflections on the genealogy of Christ. SECT. ix. Luke 61 of Sem, which was the the son of Noah, with whom he was preserved son of Noe, which was in the ark, and it is well known that Noah was Which was the son of the son of Lamech. The son of Methusaleh, Mathusala, which was the son of Enoch, who was translated without. III. 37. the son of Enoch, which dying, and was the son of Jared, the son of Which was the son of Ma Mahalaleel, the son of Cainan. The son of Enos, 33 leleel, which was the son the son of Seth, the son of Adam, who, being of Cainan, 38 Which descended from no human parents, but formed which was the son of by the immediate power of a Divine Creating Seth, which was the Hand, might, with peculiar propriety, be calledSon of Adam, which [the son of God, in his original state, the heir of was the son of God. immortality and glory. was the son of Enos, IMPROVEMENT. & seq. When we survey any such series of generations, it is obvious Mat. to reflect how like the leaves of a tree, one passeth away and another 1. cometh; yet the earth still abideth, and with it the goodness of the Lord, which runs on, from generation to generation, the common hope of parents and children. & seq. Of those who formerly lived upon earth, and perhaps made the most conspicuous figure among the children of men, how many have there been whose names have perished with them! and how many of whom nothing but their names are remaining! Thus are we passing away, and thus shall we be shortly forgotten. Mat. Happy if, while we are forgotten of men, we are remembered i. 13. by God, and our names are found written in the book of life! There they will make a much brighter appearance than in the records of fame, or than they would do even in such a catalogue of those who were related to Christ according to the flesh; whose memory is here preserved, when that of many, who were once the wonder and terror of the mighty in the land of the living, is lost in perpetual oblivion. Luke iii. 24. & seq. We observe, among these ancestors of Christ, some that were Mat. i. 3, Heathens, and others that, on different accounts, were of infamous 5,6. characters; and perhaps it might be the design of Providence that we should learn from it, or at least should, on reading it, take occasion to reflect that persons of all nations, and even the chief equally clear, whether we reckon Salah as the immediate descendant of Arphaxad, or whether we consider him as his grandson by Cainan.-And much less reason is there to object to the apparent difference there is between the names that Luke has given us and those we meet with of the same persons in the Old Testament: This is no more than what is usual when the same names are mentioned in a different language; nor will the Greek admit them to be so expressed as to agree exactVOL. VI. of ly with the Hebrew. 'But to avoid con- a All 62 ix. A general enrolment of the Jews. SECT. of sinners amongst them, are encouraged to trust in him as their Saviour. To him therefore let us look even from the ends of the Mat. earth, yea from the depths of guilt and distress, and the consequence will be happy beyond all expression or conception, i. 3. 5, 6. Luke Adam, though originally the son of God, lost that inheritance of iii. ult. life and glory, which, in consequence of such a relation, he might reasonably have expected; but the second Adam repairs the loss which we had sustained by the transgression of the first. We are now predestinated to the adoption of children by Jesus Christ, and raised by him to the hope of a fairer inheritance than the terrestrial Paradise. Let it be our daily labour to secure this invaluable blessing; that so, as we have borne the image of the earthly Adam, we may in due time bear the image of the heavenly, and at length attain to the perfect manifestation of the sons of God, SECT. X. Luke II. 1. SECT. X. Christ is born at Bethlehem, and his birth revealed by an angel to some shepherds in the neighbourhood of that town; and he is circumcised on the eighth day. Luke II. 1-21. LUKE II. 1. LUKE II. 1. in those days, that be taxed. NOW it came to pass in those days, or about AND it came to pass the time in which John the Baptist was there went out a decree born and Christ conceived in the manner re- from Cæsar Augustus, lated above, that the Roman Emperor, Augustus that all the world should Cesar, published an edict, or decree, that all the land of Judea, which was then united under one prince and governed by Herod, should be publicly enrolled; or that the number of its inhabitants, both male and female, with their families and estates, should be registered. This he ordered, as a token of his particular displeasure against Herod their king, and as an intimation that he intended quickly to lay them under a tax. 2 And here we may observe by the way, that this was the first enrolment of the Jews, and was committed to the care of Cyrenius, or, as the Latins write it, Quirinius, a Roman senator; who, being [afterwards] governor of Syria, made a 2 (And this taxing was first made when Cyrenius was governor of Syria. All the land.] Though on doth of Gosp. Hist. Part I. Vol. I. page 542 undoubtedly sometimes signify the whole and Vol. II. p. 574, & seq.) It is with world (Acts xvii. 51. Rom. x. 18. and peculiar propriety called the whole land, Heb. i. 6,) and sometimes probably the as it was soon after dismembered; and Roman empire (as more especially in Nazareth, where Christ's parents dwelt, Rev. iii. 10. and xvi. 14.) see Elsner, in was in a different division from Bethleloc. yet I think the learned and ingeni- hem, as Dr. Lardner well observes.--That ous Dr. Lardner hath fully proved that anoуpan signifies a public enrollment, it is to be taken in a more limited sense Elsner, on this text, hath evidently shewn. both here and Acts xi. 28. as it plainly b And this was the first enrolment of is, Luke xxi. 26. (See Lardn. Credib. Cyrenius, 3 And all went to be taxed, every one into his own city. 4 And Joseph also went up from Galilee, Joseph and Mary come from Nazareth. 63 SECT. X. Luke a second enrolment or taxation, which was so And thus the parents of Christ were provi-4 out dentially brought to Bethlehem, the place where Curenius, afterwards governor of Syria. Aula anoyçapn wpwly eyevelo nysμl της Συρίας Κυρηνία.] The worthy person whom I mentioned above, Dr. Lardner, in his unequalled criticisms on this text, (Part I. Vol. II. page 718. & seq.) has given the reasons at large which determined me to prefer that literal version I have inserted. Our own is plainly mistaken, and is indeed hardly intelligible. The words might perhaps have been rendered, This enrolment was before Cyrenius was governor of Syria; which, to be sure is a true assertion, and may perhaps, after all, be vindicated; but I think the original expresses something more. Others have chosen to render it, And the taxation that was consequent upon this enrolment was first executed when Cyrenius was governor of Syria.-If none of those solutions proposed could be allowed (as I think, either of these justly may), it would be a thousand times more reasonable to suppose a word omitted by some early transcriber, (perhaps n dipa, after tyvi,) than to think that so accurate a writer as Luke, were he to be considered only as a common historian, should make such a gross mistake as to confound this enrolment, in the reign of Herod, with that taxation which happened, several years after, on the banishment of his son Archelaus. A fact of this kind was too obvious, and, I may add, too mortifying to the whole Jewish nation to be so soon forgot; not to say that so strict a Pharisee as St. Paul, (who probably reviewed this gospel,) educated by Gamaliel, would be sure to remember it with some peculiar emotion. -Of the tumults that happened in the days of the taxing, which was afterwards made by Cyrenius, (when, on the banishment of Archelaus, Judea was reduced to the form of a province, and annexed to Syria under the government of Cyrenius,) the in opposition to which a disturbance was raised by Judas of Galilee, see Joseph. Antiq. Jud. lib. xvii. in fin. lib. xviii. cap. 1.§ 1. Bel. Jud. lib. ii. cap. 8. § 1. and Acts v. 37. c Where his paternal inheritance lay.] Some have conjectured that Joseph might have a small estate here: but that is, at best, very uncertain; at least it is improbable that Jesus inherited it (Mat. viii. 20,) or that his mother enjoyed it during her widowhood. See John xix. 26, 27. -It is true, indeed, that had the original settlement of the divine law been duly regarded, estates in the land of promise would have been unalienable; and every male descended from Jacob, and not of the tribe of Levi, must have been born heir to a certain portion of land allotted to some of his ancestors when the division was first made; on which, however it might have been mortgaged, he must, if his father were dead, have entered at the next jubilee, if he lived to see it. But things were now fallen into confusion. The small remains of the ten tribes, who were brought back at all, were, after their return from the captivity, incorporated together in the neighbourhood of Judea, while strangers were in possession of large tracts of land once theirs; and the whole country of Samaria was in the hands of those whom the Jews looked upon as the vilest kind of Gentiles, that is, the Sumaritans.—All that appears as to the circumstances now before us is, that every one was obliged to be enrolled at the place to which his family belonged; and the obedience of the Jews to this decree is a plain proof that they were now dependant on the Romans, and the sceptre was departing from Judah. See Lightfoot's Harmony on Luke ii. 1. and compare Gen. xlix. 10. and Numb. xxiv. 24. 64 SECT. X. Jesus Christ born of the Virgin Mary. the Messiah was to be born, without leaving any out of the city of room to suspect them of artifice and design: for, unto the city of David, Nazareth, into Judea, Luke being thus obliged by the emperor's authority, which is called Beth11. 4. Joseph went up from Galilee, even out of the city lehem, (because he of Nazareth, where he then dwelt, into the land was of the house and lineage of David,) of Judea, most properly so called, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, which was the town where his ancestors had formerly been settled: (for, notwithstanding Joseph was reduced so low as to follow the trade of a carpenter, yet he was originally of the family and royal household of David :) It was to Bethlehem therefore 5 that he went up to be enrolled; and thither he took with him, by divine direction, Mary his espoused wife, who was now big with child, and very near the time of her delivery. 5 To be taxed with his espoused' Mary, wife, being great with child. 6 And so it was, that while they were But the town was so crowded on this occasion, that they were obliged to lodge in the stable of a public house; though, in her present circumstances, it was so very inconvenient for her. 6 And so it was that, while they were there, either waiting for the proper officer who was to register there, the days were the people, or staying till their own turn came, accomplished that she the days of her pregnancy were fulfilled, and the should be delivered: 7 time came that she should be delivered. And she brought forth her Son, even him that justly bears Son, and wrapped him the character of the First Bornf; that glorious in swaddling-clothes, and excellent Person, who was the First-born of every creature, and the Heir of all things. And she no sooner was delivered, but immediately she swathed him; being so miraculously strengthened by God, in this hour of extremity, as to be able to perform that office herself; and, having d Of the family and royal household of David.] I have here rendered x family, and walpia household; because I apprehend, with Grotius, that it may refer to the divisions of the tribes into families and households. Compare Numb i. 18. & seq. and Josh. vii. 17, 18. In this sense of the words, after having told us that Joseph was of the house of David, it would have been very unnecessary to add he was also of his family; but it was not at all improper to say he was of his family and household too: for all the descendants of Eliab and his other brethren, if there were any such remaining, would have been of David's family, yet not of his household, If the word lineage only signified descendants, it would be exceeding proper to give Luke's sense; but, as I apprehend it includes collateral branches, I thought fit to change it. no 7 And she brought forth her first-born and. e By divine direction.] One could hardly imagine he would otherwise bave exposed her to the hazards of such a journey at so unseasonable a time; for, whatever the Emperor's commands were, such a case as Mary's must, to be sure, have been admitted as an excuse for her not complying with it. f The First-born.] See before the paraphrase and note fon Mat. i. 25. Sect. 8. g Being so miraculously strengthened, &c.] I had, in the first edition, here and in many other places, inserted the word probably in the paraphrase: but, on the whole, considering that in all such performances the author, and not the paraphrast, is supposed to speak, I judge it more proper here to remind my reader (as I have elsewhere intimated) that he is to take it for granted I do not pretend in this instance, and a great many others, to An angel appears to the shepherds. 65 SECT. X. and laid him in a no other conveniency near, she laid him in a manger, because there was no room for them manger which belonged to one of the stalls there; because (as we have just now said) there' was no room for them in any of the chambers II. 7. belonging to the inn. in the inn. 8 And there were in herds abiding in the night: 9 And lo, the an Found about them; and Luke And there were some shepherds in that country 8 the same country shep- who were then lying out in the field and watchfield, keeping watch ing, in their turns, over their flocks by night; over their flock by which it was necessary they should do, to guard against the wolves and other beasts of prey which were common there. And, behold, on ag gel of the Lord came sudden, an angel of the Lord came upon them, upon them, and the and appeared in a visible form, standing in the glory of the Lord shone air over their heads; and their eyes were immethey were sore afraid. diately directed to it by the glory of the Lord, which shone round about them with such incomparable lustre, as had in former ages been the usual symbol of the Divine Presence: And they were exceedingly terrified at so uncommon and so 10 And the angel awful an appearance. And, while they stood 10 said unto them, Fear in silent amazement, the angel said unto them, in not; for behold, I bring the mildest and most condescending manner, Be great joy, which shall not affrighted, O ye shepherds! for the design you good tidings of be to all people: 11 For unto you is Born this day, in the viour, which is Christ city of David, a Sa the Lord. of my appearance to you hath nothing terrible to speak confidently; but that the different character, which distinguishes the divine text from my fallible, though upright attempts to illustrate it, must guide him in determining what is certain, and what only probable, and perhaps, after all, very doubtful. A manger which belonged to one of the stalls there.] Though Heinsius has learnedly proved that pain sometimes signifies a stall, yet it is certain that more frequently it signifies a manger; and the manger was the most proper part of the stall in which the Infant could be laid. If (as tradition says) this stable was cut out of a rock, the coldness of it must, at least by night, have greatly added to its other inconveniences. i Watching in their turns over their flock by night.] The original pukassoms pa*AS THE WA, might more literally be rendered, keeping the watches of the night; k For 1 Saviour, which intimates their taking it by turns to k There is born unto you.] That one of Glory |