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trees he made fruitful, but the dry and withered he converted into fuel.

Olympas. What means the phrase "wrath to come," as used by the Harbinger, William?

William. The vengeance promised to the wicked Jews in Malachi, last chapter, and afterwards explained by our Saviour. I presume reference is had to the final destruction of the nation of Israel. This was the impending judgment from which baptism alone could save them.

Susan. But if John baptized to save men from impending vengeance, why was Jesus baptized? William. To honour every institution of God; for so he expressed himself when John at first declined the honour of baptizing him.

Thomas. Have we any intimation that John spake on any other topics than those enumerated by the Evangelists?

Olympas. Yes: Luke adds, "and many other things in his exhortation preached he unto the people." And hence it came to pass that he reproved Herod the tetrarch of Galilee for having taken the wife of his half brother Philip while he yet lived. This caused his imprisonment, and finally cost him his head. In consummation of the crimes of Herod, he added this above all, that "he shut up John in prison." And in this unfortunate perdicament we are sorry to leave him for the present.

You will study the genealogy of Jesus, as given by Luke, for the next lesson.

CONVERSATION XXVII.

THE GENEALOGY OF THE MESSIAH.

LUKE and Matthew's account of the genealogy being read, the conversation commenced on Matthew's account of the descent of the Messiah.

Olympas. Through whom, William, does Matthew trace our Lord's connexion with David and Abraham?

William. Through Joseph, his mother's husband.

Thomas. But as our Lord had no lineal connexion with Joseph, why should the relationship between Joseph and David be traced with so much accuracy?

Olympas. There is both a legal and a natural relation and right where thrones and governments are in question. Matthew, therefore, chooses that which primarily affected the Messiah as heir of the throne of David in virtue of his law established father.

Thomas. I have found difficulties in making out the forty-two generations.

Olympas. Let us hear your difficulties.

Thomas. I have none in the first fourteen: they are Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Judah, Pharez, Hezrom, Ram, Aminadab, Naashon, Salmon, Boaz, Obed, Jesse, David. These I can make out variously, but very satisfactorily from the first and second chapters of the first book of Chronicles. There is some difficulty in the second fourteen. They are as follows: Solomon, Rehoboam, Abia,

Asa, Jehoshaphat, Joram, (Azariah, Jotham, Ahaz, Hezekiah, Manasseh, Ammon, Josiah, Jehoiakim.

But here are seventeen persons, beginning with Solomon and ending with Jehoiakim, or the King of the Captivity. This line I collect from 2 Chron. ix. 10-15.

William. It has two defects-first, there are seventeen generations; and, in the second place, you want one mentioned by Matthew-viz. Uzziah.

Thomas. As to Uzziah I find no difficulty. In the fourteenth chapter of 2 Kings, and other Scriptures, I find that Azarias and Uzziah are two names for the same king. But I cannot so easily dispose of the three supernumeraries. I confess myself unequal to the task of a satisfactory solution.

Olympas. Many commentators fail here. Some admit the fact of seventeen generations as to persons, but contend that the generations mean ages -i. e. in counting so many years for a generation. But that is forced and unnatural. The most satisfactory exposition is, that three of these kings, marked in the parenthesis, were by the mother's side of the house of Ahab, which house in all its branches was denounced by a curse, 1 Kings xxi. 21, 22, and again repeated 2 Kings ix. 9-11. While, then, there were seventeen generations in fact, three being erased from the roll of Messiah's ancestry, as Dan is from the twelve tribes in the Apocalypse, and five descents from Meraioth (Ezra vii., 1 Chron. vi.) there are fourteen in the register accredited by all the Jews. Now as none of the opponents of the pretensions of Jesus ever raised an objection against the lineage given either

in Matthew or Luke, evident it is that this arrangement had been accredited by the nation.

Charles Thompson, in his way, solves this difficulty by asserting that the elder branch of Joram's family having become extinct at the death of Amaziah, the line of succession passed from Joram to Azarias, alias Ozias making the regular generations fourteen. The reason of this is not, however, quite so apparent. There is no difficulty in the third fourteen as given by Matthew. Reuben. But why divide these generations from David into fourteen each?

Olympas. There is reason for this besides aiding the memory. The ancestors of our Lord in the first fourteen were not kings, but judges, prophets, and subordinate rulers; under the second fourteen they were all princes of a royal line; under the last fourteen they were degraded and served under the Asmonean priests and inferior officers of the Roman Empire.

Thomas. I find a difficulty in the last fourteen. Josiah was not the father of Jechonias, as stated Matt. i. 11., but the grandfather. Again Jechonias had no brethren mentioned in the Bible. Josias, moreover, died twenty years before the Captivity, and consequently his brethren could not have been begotten about that time, as reported. Olympas. Well, I am glad you have called this up. Son is frequently equivalent to descendant; and, therefore, includes grandsons. But this fact is not necessary here. There is a reading of this verse in Griesbach of much authority, which removes all these difficulties at once-" Josias begat Jehoiakim, or Joakim, and Joakim begat Jechonias." Jehoiakim is sometimes called Elia

kim and Joakim. His brethren were Johanan, Zedekiah, and Shallum, 1 Chron. iii. 15. These were the sons of Josiah. The fourteen of the last series were, Jechonias, Salathiel, Zerubbabel, Ahiud, Eliakim, Azor, Sadoc, Achim, Eliud, Eliezer, Matthan, Jacob, Joseph, and Jesus.

On the whole narrative of Matthew it may be observed that the rolls of lineage being carefully kept in all the tribes, as is evident from the case of Zacharias and Elizabeth, Paul, Anna the saint, and various others whose families or tribes are mentioned; and also being public property, and much depending on the strict conformity of the genealogy of Jesus with the family register, and no one appearing against the details of the Evangelists as far back as all history reaches, we have every reason to be satisfied with its accuracy strict agreement with the registers of that day.Which branch of the family of Jesus is traced in Luke's genealogy, Reuben?

and

Reuben. His mother Mary. She, his natural and blood ancestor, is traced to David through a more numerous ancestry, though not a longer line in point of time. Nay, Luke gives us seventy three names from Adam to Jesus, making the Messiah the seventy-fifth of human kind.

Olympas. How does he make out this list?

Reuben. In the first place he goes up to the son of Jesse by another family register. He traces Mary up to David, in the line of Nathan the full brother of Solomon by Bathsheba. His whole line is from Adam to Abraham, twenty; from Abraham to David, thirteen; from David to Zerubbabel, twenty-two; and from Zerubbabel, where the regal line of Solomon ends, to Mary the

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