city: yet no such circumstance is so much as once hinted at by Luke, Josephus, nor any of the Roman historians."*

But supposing the part of the story which relates to the virtues of the pool not to have been an interpolation, but that the writer had taken it for granted that the virtues. ascribed to it were real, how does this affect his character? He might have been credulous, in this respect, and yet his history not the less authentic.†

16. Mr. Evanson finds a number of contradictions of his only Gospel of Luke in the circumstances attending our Lord's last passover, and those of his trial, which he enlarges upon in his usual sarcastic way. "The last-named writer we have seen, informs us, that the last supper our Saviour ate with his apostles was the paschal supper, which he told them he had been particularly desirous to eat with them; that at that supper, after instituting the communion of bread and wine, as a rite to be observed by his disciples, merely in grateful remembrance of him, he declared that one of them would betray him; but did not explain who it was. This author, on the contrary, tells us that the last supper he ate with them was before the feast of the passover; and, instead of the institution of the Lord's supper, represents our Savi our as suddenly, after supper was ended, adopting the very unnecessary, useless and unbecoming ceremony of washing his apostles' feet, a species of extraordinary, unmeaning humiliation, which none of them ever imitated; that, after this ceremony, he told them one of them would betray him; and intimated to one apostle, his favourite above the rest, that it was Judas Iscariot, by giving him a sop, though supper was already over. From hence to his being led to Pilate's judgment-hall, this author's narration differs very greatly from that of St. Luke; and there it flatly contradicts him. For, persisting to say that it was the preparation for the passover, though St. Luke assures us the preceding day was the day on which it was necessary to kill the paschal lamb, and that our Saviour accordingly then ate it with his apostles; the author tells us, that the rulers of the Jews themselves did not go into the judgment-hall, for fear they

* Dissonance, pp. 242, 243. (P.) Ed. 2, pp. 291, 292.

† Mr. Evanson, after amplifying the term credulous, as applied to "the apostles," into "ignorant, ill-informed, superstitious, credulous old fools," says to this Young Man, “ I, Sir, and I hope you, expect the chosen messengers of heaven to be men of a very different character from this; which must as effectually destroy all rational confidence in what they have told us, as if they were convicted of wilful falsehood." Letter, p. 82.

should be defiled so as to be prevented eating the passover; and that, for that reason, the Roman governor, with an amazing degree of condescension, went out and in from his judgment-seat to them, and from them to the judgment-seat several times. St. Luke, however, in terms as diametrically opposite as truth to falsehood, affirms that the chief priests and elders of the Jews were present at Pilate's examination of our Saviour, and urged the only accusation against him; and tells us, that after Herod had sent him back to him, Pilate assembled the rulers and people of the Jews, and said unto them, Ye have brought this man unto me, as one that perverteth the people; and behold I having examined him before you have found no fault in him.' When Pilate had consented to gratify them by his crucifixion, this writer says that Jesus himself bare his own cross to the place where he was crucified: St. Luke, that the Jews compelled one Simon, a Cyrenian, to bear the cross after Jesus. St. Luke tells us, that after our Lord's death, Joseph of Arimathea took the body and laid it in a new sepulchre; that the women were present and saw how and where it was laid; and went and prepared spices and ointments to embalm it with, as soon as the sabbath was ended. This writer, on the contrary, informs us, that Joseph and Nicodemus together embalmed the body with an hundred pound weight of myrrh and aloes, and other spices, as the manner of the Jews is to bury;' and then laid it in the sepulchre. St. Luke assures us, that in the evening after our Lord's resurrection, that is, in the beginning of the second day of the week, he appeared to all the eleven apostles and other disciples, who were assembled together with them; and from that time to his ascension was frequently seen by them at Jerusalem; that he then explained to them the meaning of the prophecies concerning himself, instructed them in the nature and purport of the gospel, and bid them tarry at Jerusalem till the day of pentecost, when they were to receive the Holy Ghost, or holy inspiration; that they did so, and never returned again to dwell in their own country, Galilee. The pretended John, in contradiction to all this, tells us, that the evening on which the disciples saw our Saviour was the first day of the week, which shews that he was no Jew, but one who reckoned his time like the Greeks and Romans; that all the eleven apostles were not present; for that Thomas was not with them, and did not see him till eight days after; that instead of telling them to wait till pentecost for the gift of

the holy inspiration, he then breathed on them and said, Receive ye the Holy Ghost.'"*

Now, whatever inconsistency there may be in these respects between John and Luke, nothing can be inferred from it, but that one of them was better informed than the other; and the probability will be that John, who was present, is the more exact of the two. The difficulty about the preparation of the passover, I think I have sufficiently explained in the Dissertations prefixed to my Harmony of the Gospels, where I shewed that it must mean the preparation for that sabbath which fell in the paschal week.†

The washing of the apostles' feet, though ridiculed by Mr. Evanson, appears to me not at all improbable, and a very instructive action; and not being intended to be imitated literally, I am not surprised that we find no mention of the disciples doing it after him. The words before you in Luke, [xxiii. 14,] need not to be understood literally, as every thing that had passed was immediately reported to them; so that they knew it as well as if they had been themselves present. And Jesus might begin to carry the cross, but appearing to be unable to do it, it might have been given to another person. What was done to the body of Jesus by Joseph of Arimathea might not be known to the women, or they might choose to make some addition to it. Luke might not know but that Thomas was present the first time that Jesus appeared to the apostles; or eleven being their number after the defection of Judas, as twelve had been before, the phrase might be used by him though one of them was then absent. The other differences in the accounts have been more or less noticed before.

Upon the whole, I see nothing in these remarks of Mr. Evanson but a determination to undervalue the Gospel of John, as he had done those of Matthew and Mark; but without any more specious ground for it; and with the same predilection for any of these three, he might, with as much plausibility, have cried down the Gospel of Luke.

Such are the reasons for which Mr. Evanson has been "long induced to reject," as he says, "three of the four generally-received Gospels, as spurious fictions of the second century, unnecessary, and even prejudicial to the cause of true Christianity, and in every respect unworthy of the

* Dissonance, pp. 236–239. (P.) Ed. 2, pp. 284–288.

+ See supra, pp. 100-103; on John xviii. 28, xix. 14, 31, Vol. XIII. pp. 847, 354, 364.

Yet see, on John xiii. 14, Vol. XIII. p. 305, Note ††.

regard which so many ages have paid to them."*

And such

are the reasons which lead me to adhere to the hitherto universally-received opinion on the subject. them, and judge for yourself.

Compare

I am, &c.

LETTER X.

Of Mr. Evanson's Objections to the Epistle to the Romans. DEAR SIR,

MR. EVANSON, not content with rejecting three of the four Gospels, has been led, as he says, by "the same train of investigation to reject several of the canonical epistles, upon the sole authority of some of which, several fundamental doctrines of the orthodox church, and of various sects of professed Christians, are confidently taught the people for doctrines of the gospel of Christ. I think it," he says, my duty to add briefly my reasons for expunging also out of the volume of duly authenticated scriptures of the new covenant, the Epistles to the Romans, to the Ephesians, to the Colossians, to the Hebrews, of James, of Peter, of John, of Jude, and, in the book of the Revelation, the Epistles to the seven churches of Asia." He also says, "Not one of these Epistles contains in it that necessary internal testimony of the divine authority of the writer, the spirit of prophecy; whilst St. Paul's Epistles to the Corinthians, Thessalonians, Galatians, and Timothy, have the historic testimony in their favour strongly corroborated by that and every other internal evidence of authenticity."+

Mr. Evanson should say what, in his idea, constitutes a canonical book § of the New Testament. In my opinion it is nothing more than a book written by an apostle, or other person of their age, well acquainted with the circumstances of the promulgation of Christianity, and therefore qualified to transmit an account of it to posterity, and also of so much importance as to deserve the attention of all Christians.

Dissonance, p. 255. (P.) Ed. 2, p. 305.

+ Ibid. pp. 255, 256. (P.) Ed. 2, p. 306. ↑ Ibid. p. 284. (P.) Ed. 2, p. SS6. $"To constitute such a book," replies Mr. Evanson, " in my idea, it is indis pensably requisite, that it should be free from all grounds of reasonable doubt and suspicion; that it should have every possible external testimony in its favour; and contain every necessary internal evidence of its being the work of an apostle or some other primitive disciple of Jesus, commissioned by him, and both naturally and supernaturally qualified to proclaim and teach the religion of the new covenant of the kingdom of God." Letter, p. 83.

Indeed, whatever such persons wrote concerning Christianity would necessarily be entitled to such attention. It is enough, therefore, for us to be satisfied with respect to the genuineness of the Epistles ascribed to Paul or the other apostles; and the ancients had evidently no other object in their inquiries into this subject. Whether when they wrote they had any prophecy to communicate, depended both upon their having such prophecy, and a sufficient reason for communicating it at that time. And there are many proper occasions of writing, both to churches and particular persons, wholly independent of every thing of this nature. However, it happens that the Epistle to the Romans does contain a prophecy, and a very important one, viz. that of the final conversion of the whole of the Jewish nation,* which should have recommended it to the reception of Mr. Evanson. But he has several other objections to it, which I shall not overlook.

1. "In the Epistle to the Romans, the author writes, indeed, in the name of Paul; but he writes to a Christian church already subsisting at Rome, and celebrated for its faith in Christ throughout the whole world, before he himself had been there." He says, "that when Paul arrived at Rome, there was no Christian church there, as, indeed," he says, "it is not at all probable there should have been. -Who, then," says he, "was that other apostle to the Gentiles, who so far preceded St. Paul, as already to have reached Rome, without preaching the gospel to the inhabitants of the intervening countries of Asia Minor and Greece, and to have founded a church there early enough for its being spoken of throughout the whole world, when St. Paul, in the execution of the commission miraculously given to him by Christ himself, had advanced no farther than Macedonia and Greece ?"‡

He says, moreover, that "from the last chapter of the Acts it appears incontestably that they were not Christians but Jews who met Paul at Appii Forum; that his first step, when he arrived at Rome, was to call together the Jews resident there, and exculpate himself for having appealed to the emperor; that those Jews, far from knowing the gospel

* Mr. Evanson replies, "that it is merely a reference to pre-existing prophecies attended with such observations upon the state of the Jewish nation at the time of writing the epistle, as plainly shew that it could not be written by any body till after their final dispersion by the Romans." Letter, p. 84. See, on Rom. xi. 25, Vol. XIV. p. 245.