However solid these answers may appear to the faithful, they are not capable of convincing the incredulous, who exclaim against the injustice of making an innocent God suffer, and loading him with the iniquities of the earth. Neither can they conceive by what principle of equity the Supreme Being could make the human race responsible for a fault committed by their first parents, without their knowledge and participation. Finally, they contend that it would have been wiser to have prevented man from committing sin, than to permit him to sin, and make his own son die to expiate man's iniquity.
With respect to the journey to Bethlehem, we cannot discover the necessity of it. The place where the saviour of the world was to be born, seems a circumstance perfectly indifferent to the salvation of mankind.
As for the prophecy announcing the glory of Bethlehem, in having given existence to the "Leader of Israel"--it does not appear to agree with Jesus, who was born in a stable, and who was rejected by the people whose leader he was to be. It is only a pious straining that can make this prediction apply to Jesus. We are assured, that it had been foretold Jesus was to be born in poverty; while, on the other hand the messiah of the Jews is generally announced by the prophets as a prince, a hero, and a conqueror.--It is necessary to know then which of these prophecies we ought to adopt. Our doctors tell us "the predictions announcing that Jesus would be born and live in indigence and meanness, ought to be taken _literally_, and those which announce his power and glory ought to be taken _allegorically_." But this solution will not satisfy the incredulous; they will affirm, that by this manner of explanation, we may always find in the sacred writings whatever we may think we stand in need of. They will conclude that the scripture is to Christians, what the clouds are to the man who imagines he perceives in them whatever figures he pleases.
ADORATION OF THE MAGI AND SHEPHERDS--MASSACRE OF THE INNOCENTS;--AND OTHER CIRCUMSTANCES, WHICH FOLLOWED THE BIRTH OF JESUS.
Of the four historians of Jesus adopted by the church, two are wholly silent on the facts we are to relate in this chapter; and Matthew and Luke, who have recorded them, are not at all unanimous in particulars. So discordant are their relations, that the ablest commentators do not know how to reconcile them. These differences, it is true, are less perceptible when the evangelists are read the one after the other, or without reflection; but they become particularly striking when we take the trouble of comparing them. This is, undoubtedly, the reason why we have hitherto had no concordance of the gospels which received the general approbation of the church. Even those which have been printed have not been universally adopted, though it must be acknowledged that they contain nothing contrary to faith. It is, perhaps, from judicious policy that the heads of the church have not approved of any system on this point. They have, probably, felt the impossibility of reconciling narratives so discordant as those of the four Evangelists; for the Holy Spirit, doubtless with a view to exercise the faith of the saints, has inspired them very differently. Besides, an able concordance of the gospels would prove a dangerous work:--it would bring together facts related by authors, who, far from supporting, would reciprocally weaken each other--a circumstance which could not fail to stagger at least the faith of the compiler.