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SERMΟΝΙ

The miraculous Birth of CHRIST.

[Preached on Christmas-Day.]

МАТТ. 1. 22, 23.

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 shall bring forth a Son, and they shall call his Name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is God with Us.

T is a very ufual Method with SERM.
Unbelievers;----And yet here,

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would at This Time be understood to

SERM. mean, not, men of such a disposition as I. St Thomas was before his Converfion; ra~tional and inquifitive persons, Lovers of

Truth and Virtue, men defirous to know and to obey the Will of God, and careful to keep a Confcience void of Offence both towards God and towards Men; yet, at the same time, sensible of the Difficulties wherewith the Divine Providence has thought fit to permit even very important Truths to be sometimes attended ; and careful, for That Reason, not to be imposed upon, nor to receive things without good Evidence, either of Reason, or of Revelation: These, I say, are not the Unbelievers I would at present be understood to have in View. For concerning fuch perfons as these, our Saviour seems

to speak, when he says, they are not far Mark xii. from the Kingdom of God. But there is another fort of Unbelievers, who, having no right sense of the Liberty of Human Actions, of the natural, and essential Difference of Good and Evil, of the Moral Government of God over the World, of a Judgment to come, and of a Future State of Rewards and Punishments; do there

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fore feek all poffible opportunities, not of SERM. enquiring into, and impartially examining, but of cavilling against the Authority of Chrift and the Truth of his Religion, as being the great Support and Confirmation of these Doctrines of Nature, with the Belief of which all Notions of Fatality or Neceffity, and all Licentiousness either of Sceptical Opinions or of Vicious Practice, is altogether inconsistent.

Now of This fort of Unbelievers, I say, the usual Method is to attack fome particular uncertain Doctrines in the Systems of disagreeing Sects of Christians, and then conclude that they have destroyed Chriftianity itself: Or they set themselves to expose particular Weak Writers ; and then leave it to be supposed, that All Defenders of the Doctrine of Christ are Fools : Or they pick perhaps out of Better Writers some inconclufive Reasonings, and weak Arguments; trusting it will thence be inferred, that there is no Strength in the Strongest: Or they represent Christianity as relying upon some Foundation, upon which it does not rely; and then conclude that it has no Foundation at all: VOL. V.

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Or

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SERM. Or they demonstrate some Facts to be no Proofs of the Truth of the Gospel, which never were intended for Proofs; and then infer, that there is no Proof of it at all: Or they dress up particular Facts or Doctrines, in ridiculous Circumstances; and then represent the Things themselves, as Objects of Ridicule: Or they lay great Stress upon some very obscure, or more difficult Prophecy: and thence infer, that no Stress is to be laid upon Any: Or because, in the nature of the Thing, almost Any fingle Prophecy may possibly be imagined applicable, in some sense or other, to Some Other person; therefore all of them together, centring uniformly in Christ and in Him alone, yet are not rightly in Fact applied to Him.

THE words of my Text are a particular and very remarkable Instance of Some of the Cases in the foregoing Observation. It has been supposed by Many, that this fingular and miraculous Fact, of the manner of our Lord's Birth, recorded thus in the Beginning and first Entrance of the Gospel-History, both by St Matthew and St. Luke; and urged more

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over by St Matthew as an unquestionable S ER M. Verification of an Antient and (at first Sight) as remarkable a Prophecy, as any is to be found in the whole Old Teftament: It has been supposed (I fay) by Many, that This Miraculous Fact, thus circumftantiated, and thus ushering-in the whole following History of the Gofpel, must needs have been intended by the Evangelist, as a primary and fundamenal Part of the Proof of our Lord's divine Commission. Which since in reality it could not possibly be; as being a Fact which, in the nature of things, could not itself be proved, till the Truth of Chrift's Miffion and the Veracity of his Followers had first been clearly established: Hence they have endeavoured to destroy the Authority of the Sacred Writer, as insisting (at the very Beginning of his History) upon a Proof which could not possibly be of any Use towards the Conviction of Unbelievers; and as confirming it by a Prophecy, which they think cannot be shown to be rightly applied, since the Words may be capable of another Interpretation.

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