abundantly fufficient to establish his divine miffion.

-5. Mr. Evanson has two other objections to this Gospel of Mark on the fubject of prophecy. "The only prophecies," p. 28, "that I have obferved: peculiar to this Gospel attributed to St. Mark, are, first, ch. x. ver. 30, where he makes our Lord pre-> "dict, that whofoever hath forfaken houses, lands or "friends, for his fake and the Gofpel's, fhall receive

not only eternal life in the world to come, but now in "this time the very fame articles multiplied an bun-: "dred fold, with perfecution. As perfecution can be "exerted only upon a perfon's property, liberty, or,

life, it feems inconceivable how poffeffions of any "kind fhould be fo greatly multiplied in a state of "perfecution; and the very terms of the prediction,

appear to imply in them a manifeft contradiction:, "but howfoever they may be interpreted, the whole "hiftory of religious perfecution, from the illuftrious, "meffenger of the new covenant to the prefent hour, proves the prophecy to be abfolutely falfe, and the "writer of it altogether unworthy of credit.

"The fecond is, the prediction refpecting St. Pe "ter's denying his Master, c. xiv. ver. 30, where, in "direct contradiction to both the writings, he had be"fore him, he makes our Lord tell him, that before, "the cock should crow twice, he would thrice deny "him. Accordingly, ver. 68-72, he fays, the cock, "crew as foon as Peter had once denied him, and "after he had repeated his denial twice more, with "oaths and curfes very unbecoming a chofen difci

"ple of Jefus Chrift, the cock crew a fecond time. "This relation is fo abfolutely irreconcileable with "what is given us in the Gospel according to St. " Matthew, and that with the circumstances of the "fame event recorded by St. Luke, that two out of "the three must inevitably be false: and which those "are, the judicious reader will decide as he thinks fit."

A perfon used to the figurative language of fcripture, and especially that of our Saviour, might have spared himself the former of these remarks, by fuppofing that, the literal sense being impoffible, fome other must have been intended; and it is not very unnatural to suppose that, instead of the actual poffeffion of houses and lands, the chriftian deprived of them by perfecution would have more than an equivalent fatisfaction of another kind; or he might have fuppofed a very few words to have been inferted by an error of the tranfcriber. I wonder that the fagacity of Mr. Evanfon did not find another, and much ftronger objection to this paffage, viz. that a man who had loft one mother by perfecution, fhould be rewarded with two or more, and one antient verfion has fathers as well as mothers. On this topic Mr. Evanfon might have difplayed as much ingenious farcafm as on any other, on which he has with fo much seeming fatisfaction enlarged the moft. I wonder that he omitted the opportunity. The flight difference about the cock crowing needs no answer; at leaft it cannot be faid, that the account which fuppofes two cock crowings was an abridgment of that which made only one.

7

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6. The

Upon the whole there is fo little that Mr. Evanfon objects to the Gofpel of Mark, that, the external evidence being the fame for both, I do not fee why he might not have made this his only genuine Gofpel, and have thrown that of Luke into the clafs of apocryphal ones. The paffages he objects to in Luke he fuppofes to be interpolations, and those in Mark to be the compofition of the writer. But this is perfectly arbitrary. He might just as well have ridiculed Luke for the abfurdities he finds in his Gofpel, and have fuppofed the few things he objects to in Mark to have been interpolations. That the

Gospel of Luke is written in a better style and manner, is with me far from being any evidence of its not being a later fabrication, by a person more used to compofition.

I am, &c.

LETTER IX.

Of Mr. Evanfon's Objections to the Gospel of John.

DEAR SIR,

MR. EVANSON finds much more to object to the Gofpel of John than to that of Mark, nor do I wonder at it. There are many striking peculiarities in his Gofpel. But all that can be juftly inferred from this circumstance is, that he is an originaļ writer, and did not copy from any other, though antiquity fays that he had seen the works of the other evangelifts. On this account he has not many things in common with them, and when he does go over the fame part of the hiftory, he appears to me to have done it for the fake of greater exactnefs. For in all thofe cafes he is remarkably circumftantial; as in his account of the feeding of the four thousand, and of Peter denying his master. These parts, as well as every other in his Gospel, bear more internal unequivocal marks of being written by an eye-witness, than any other writings whatever, facred or profane. His view feems to have been, without directly faying that the other Gospels were not fufficiently exact, to relate the ftory in a more correct manner. But this is no impeachment of the veracity,

veracity, or general good information, of the other evangelifts.

It is evident also that the Gofpel of John was not compofed as one continued or complete work; and it is probable that it was written at different times, and through the inattention of the writer, or his friends, who might affift in putting the parts of it together, they are not always properly arranged, the fifth chapter, as Mr. Mann has fhewn, being evidently out of its proper place. The laft chapter may be confidered as a kind of fupplement, added after the rest of the work had been formally concluded in the preceding chapter. Critics have alfo difcovered fome interpolations in this Gofpel, but they are pretty easily distinguished. These things, however, by no means affect the authenticity of the work in general, which was received by all the primitive Christians as unquestionably the writing of the apofile.

1. Mr. Evanson objects to the style of this Gofpel as remarkably different from that of the Revelation. It is not, however, more different from it than the style of fome of the epiftles of Paul is from that of others; and the fame persons, in different circumstances, and on different fubjects, write in a very different manner. Befides, the apoftles not being native Greeks, might be affifted in the compofition of their writings, and by different perfons at different times.

As there is an uniform tradition in favour of the apostle John being the author of the Gospel, and of I 2

the