16 And Jacob begat Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ.

17 So all the generations from Abraham to David are fourteen generations; and from David until the carrying away into Babylon are fourteen generations; and from the carrying away into Babylon unto Christ are fourteen generations.

Matthew makes this circumstance still more prominent by the designation of Bathsheba, ' of her that had been the wife of Urias,' in order to point to the wondrous leadings of God in the arrangement of the Messiah's lineage. As examples of the election of grace, of renovation by repentance and faith, and of being received out of heathen families among the people of God, the persons named are noticed even by the Rabbins (see Wetstein's N. T. on verse 3, compared with Hebrews xi. 3). If it had not been St. Matthew's intention to point out these dealings of God, he would have preferred the mention of the renowned names of Sarah, Rebecca, Leah in the genealogy of the Messiah."

The Incarnation. The verses which succeed this genealogy (verses 18 to end) form the Gospel for the Sunday after Christmas Day. They contain a short and very concise notice of the greatest event that has ever happened in the universe, the coming of God amongst His creatures as one of themselves. The Evangelist, in giving this account, evidently takes it for granted that they for whose benefit he is writing, are under the instruction of the Church; for the whole account as given by him is simply a text, as it were, on which to graft this instruction. It is more true of this short notice than it is of St. Luke's fuller account, that it is written that we may "know the certainty of those things in which we have been instructed."

The Birth of Jesus Christ, &c. The word "birth" here should rather be rendered "genesis," which latter view includes what precedes the birth; and the succeeding verses have more to do with the miraculous conception than with the birth.

v. 18. "Now the birth.... she was found with child of the Holy Ghost." Here on the first page, so to speak, of the Book of the New Covenant-on its very front-is the Fact on which all in the Covenant rests-rather the root from which it all springs, and which imparts of Its own infinite and supernatural dignity and

18

Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise: When as his mother Mary was espoused to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Ghost.

18. "Birth" (yawnrıç) read by E., K., L., M., other later Uncials, almost all Cursives; but N, B., C., some later Uncials, and some Cursives read, "genesis" (yéver) as in first verse (A., F., G., H. wanting.)

"Espoused;" rather, "betrothed;" cum esset desponsata, Vulg.

power to everything which the Book reveals: so that this assumption of the manhood by God is the measure of all that comes after the standard by which it is all to be judged: the Doctrine, the Church or Fellowship, the Sacraments, the Ministry, the renewal of the Christian's soul, the present holiness of his very body and the future Resurrection of that body, all spring from this Fact of the Incarnation as their root, and without It would not exist, but with It and because of their origin from It are Divine.

If the Fact revealed in this verse be true, then all the rest of the dispensation is, in the eye of faith, in the highest order of the Supernatural; its miracles, its mysteries, its urgent and impressive demands on body, soul, and spirit, on faith and love and reverence, are all to be accepted as from God, and what we have to do is to veil our faces-to fall down and worship.

If it be not true, then we are at liberty to criticize the Book as any other book of myths, and to class the Religion it reveals as one amongst many developments of the religious instinct, for it cannot be a Revelation of the God of Truth if its first and greatest Fact, the Fact which rules all the rest, be false.

But we will not thus profanely handle these holy things, we will rather fall down and worship, we will adore in the words which our Mother has taught us, "Because Thou didst give Jesus Christ Thine only Son to be born as at this time for us; Who by the operation of the Holy Ghost was made very man of the substance of the Virgin Mary His mother; and that without spot of sin, to make us clean from all sin. Therefore with angels and archangels, and with all the company of heaven, we laud and magnify Thy glorious name." The mystery of these Divine words is well expressed by our Bishop Pearson, "I assent unto this as a most necessary and infallible truth that the only-begotten Son of God, begotten by the Father before all worlds, very God of very God, was conceived and born,

19 Then Joseph her husband, being a just man, and not * Deut. xxiv. 1. willing to make her a publick example, was minded to put her away privily.

and so made man, taking to Himself the human nature, consisting of a soul and body, and conjoining it with the Divine, in the unity of His Person. I am fully assured that the Word was in this manner made flesh, that He was really and truly conceived in the womb of a woman, but not after the manner of men, but by the singular, powerful, invisible, immediate operation of the Holy Ghost, whereby a virgin was, beyond the law of nature, enabled to conceive, and that which was conceived in her was originally and completely sanctified. And in this latitude I profess to believe in Jesus Christ, WHICH WAS CONCEIVED BY THE HOLY GHOST."

"When as his mother Mary was espoused [betrothed] to Joseph." By this previous espousal or betrothal a protector was given by God to Mary and her Offspring, which could hardly have been if there had been no such previous engagement. The interval between the formal betrothal and the completion of the marriage by the bridegroom bringing the bride home in procession to his own house was sometimes considerable.

v. 19. "Then Joseph . . . . away privily."

....

This is to be understood as if it read, Then Joseph her husband, being a just man, and so a strict observer of the law, and so not suffering himself to take as a wife one who was under such suspicion, and yet a merciful man and kind-hearted man, and so not willing to make one whom he had long reverenced for her purity and devotion a public example, was minded to put her away privily, i.e., by a secret divorce. Chrysostom has admirable remarks on this place, explaining his conduct as a foretaste of the higher grace of the Gospel, "Whereas to keep her in his house seemed like a transgression of the law, but to expose and bring her to trial would constrain him to deliver her to die; he doth none of these things, but conducts himself now by a higher rule than the law. For grace being come, there must needs henceforth be many tokens of that exalted citizenship. For as the sun, though as yet he show not his beams, doth from afar by his light illumine more than half the world, so likewise Christ, when about to rise from that womb, even before He came forth shone all over the world." Again, in Jeremy Taylor's

20. But while he thought on these things, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a dream, saying, Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife: "for that which is † conceived in her u Luke i. 35 is of the Holy Ghost.

21 And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name || JESUS: for he shall save his people from their sins.

+ Gr. begotten.

Luke i. 31. Saviour, Heb.

I That is,

y Acts iv. 12. & v. 31. & xiii. 23, 38.

21. "He shall save ;" ipse enim salvum faciet; “He Himself shall save." The pronoun "He" much more emphatic than it sounds in the Authorized.

"Life of Christ:" "It was an exemplar of charity, and reads us a rule for our deportment towards erring and lapsed persons, that we entreat them with meekness and pity and fear; not hastening their shame, nor provoking their spirit, nor making their remedy desperate, by using of them rudely, till there be no worse thing for them to fear if they should be dissolved into all licentiousness."

20. "While he thought on these things," whilst he was in this state of doubt and, in all probability, deep distress and anguish of heart at the thought of blasted hopes, "The angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a dream." Mary herself could not have made the supernatural cause of her state known to him. He would not have believed her for a moment. He would have believed himself made a laughing-stock, there would have been a still more bitter estrangement, which, humanly speaking, the message of the angel might not have healed; but, "The angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a dream, saying, Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife: for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost."

"Thou son of David."

Thus was he reminded that he was one of that special family of promise in which (how soon he knew not) the great Son of David was to appear; holy number who at that time were Jerusalem."

probably he was one of that looking for redemption in

"And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name JESUS: for he shall save his people from their sins." [The "He" in the original is very emphatic.] JESUS. The name which is above every name, and yet a human name, a somewhat common name among the people of God. By His bearing this name is

22 Now all this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying,

emphasized the sharing of our nature on the part of the Eternal Son. As He took upon Him the nature, so He took the name of a man, not the name of an angel, but one borne by others of his nation.

That the name was given to Him because of His work of salvation is also declared by the angel.

Of course the Christian reader knows that the name is the same as Joshua, and means "Jehovah the Saviour." Joshua who first bore the name is the especial type of Christ, doing for the people of God what Moses his predecessor, as representing the law, could not do, in putting them in possession of the land of Canaan, the type of the heavenly inheritance.

Amongst the many typical resemblances between Joshua and his temporal deliverance of the people of God, and our Saviour Jesus Christ and His spiritual and eternal deliverance, one has been singled out as especially foreshadowing the Salvation by free grace and faith which the Saviour brought in. This is the act of grace extended by Joshua to Rahab the harlot. "As Joshua had the name, so did he exercise the office also of our Lord, and his first act is one of mercy. Before he enters the land, while he and she (Rahab) are yet a great way apart, she does an act of faith, and he, by his representatives, an act of grace. And so when he comes to the city of evil, and encompasses it with trumpets, and takes and destroys it utterly; in that day of doom she has bound the scarlet line across her window, and her house becomes a church, and she and all who take refuge in it are saved."-Newman's Sermon on "Joshua a Type of Christ and His followers."

All true practical Christianity is wrapped up in our realizing belief in the Name of Jesus. If we "believe in His Name" we shall come to Him that He may do in us that which His Name assures to us. We shall come to Him for salvation; but it will be salvation from sin-not in sin, but from sin. All false views of religion in these latter days amongst us are in their root antinomian-that, in some way or other, He saves us in our sins: whereas His salvation would be no real salvation, reaching to the very heart of our misery, unless He saves us from them, from their power and dominion, as well as from their punishment. His salvation is not a mere matter of imputation, but of life (Rom. v. 10, 18): He gives us, not a robe, which