Presents one of those remarkable circumstances in which divine grace is seen gloriously triumphing over man's sin. "It is evident that our Lord sprang out of Juda." (Heb. vii. 14.) But how? "Judas begat Phares and Zara of Thamar." (Matt. i. 3.) This is peculiarly striking. God, in his great grace, rising above the sin and folly of man, in order to bring about his own purposes of love and mercy. Thus, a little farther on, in Matthew, we read, "David the king begat Solomon, of her that had been the wife of Urias." It is worthy of God thus to act. The Spirit of God is conducting us along the line through which, according to the flesh, Christ came; and in doing so he gives us as links in the genealogical chain, Tamar and Bathsheba! How evident it is that there is nothing of man in this! How plain it is that when we reach the close of the first chapter of Matthew, it is "God manifest in the flesh" we find, and that, too, from the pen of the Holy Ghost! Man could never have devised such a genealogy. It is entirely divine: and no spiritual person can read it without seeing in it a blessed exhibition of divine grace in the first place, and of the divine inspiration of Matthew's gospel in the second place,—at least of his account of Christ's genealogy according to the flesh. I believe a comparison of 2 Sam. xi. and Gen. xxxviii. with Matt. i. will furnish the thoughtful Christian with matter for a very sweet and edifying meditation.