APPENDIX.

1. Remarks on fome Paffages in Mr. Evanfon's Letter to the Bishop of Worcester.

SINCE the preceding fheets were printed, I have once more perufed Mr. Evanfon's Letter to the BiShop of Worcester, of which, from having read it at its first publication only, I had but an imperfect recollection. I only remembered that I was then much pleased with the general object of the work, though offended at the manner in which the author treated fome of the books of the New Teftament, and that I was diffatisfied with his idea of the nature of historical evidence, which led him to lay fuch an undue stress on that of prophecy.

Speaking of miracles, he fays, p. 9, "The full "force of this kind of preternatural evidence " rates only on the eye-witneffes of the miraculous ope"facts. To fucceeding generations its weight is " continually decreafing, in proportion to the length "of time clapfed from the wonder working period." This, however, is by no means agreeable to reafon, or experience. Our belief of facts of which we ourselves were not witneffes, depends upon our conviction that other perfons, on whofe judgment and integrity we could depend, were witneffes of them;

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and

and this perfuafion once established no more admits of any change than a perfuafion of any other kind. It is now more than two thousand years fince the invafion of Greece by Xerxes; but can it be faid that the evidence of this fact is fenfibly leffened? No perfon will pretend to fay that it is.

The fame is the cafe with respect to the deliverance of the Ifraelites from Egypt, with their paffage through the Red Sea, and the river Jordan; for the miraculous nature of the facts makes no difference in the cafe, if the original evidence be proportionably ftrong, fo that if the facts were credible in the first inftance, they will always remain fo; and our latest posterity will have the fame reason to be satisfied with refpect to them that we now have. If even all the histories, of which we are now in poffeffion fhould be destroyed, there will always be fufficient evidence that we, their ancestors, were in poffeffion of them, and that will fatisfy them.

That, in the view of divine Providence, miracles are fufficient to convince not only thofe who are themselves witneffes of them, but all fucceeding generations, is evident from what the Divine Being faid to Mofes previous to the grand exhibition from Mount Sinai, Exod. xix. 9. And the Lord faid unto Mofes, Lo I come unto thee in a thick cloud, that the people may bear when I fpeak unto thee, and believe thee for ever. And this actually proved to be abundantly fufficient to convince, not that generation only, but every fucceeding generation of Jews to this day;

nor

nor is there the least prospect of their faith failing in any length of time.

That one part of the testimony of Jefus, as we read Rev. xix. 10, is the Spirit of prophecy, is what no Christian will deny; but it is by no means exclufively fo. And it is remarkable that when Jefus himself appeals to three modes of proving his divine miffion, in the fifth chapter of John, he fays nothing of prophecy. What he appeals to are the voice from heaven at his baptifm, the testimony of John, and the miracles that his Father enabled him to do. Though among these the prophecies he was enabled to deliver, were, no doubt, included, there is no feparate mention of them, as Mr. Evanson, from the stress that he lays upon this circumstance, would, I imagine, have expected.

In order to expose the Gospel of Matthew, Mr. Evanfon fays, p. 92, that according to it, the women who went to fee the fepulchre of Jefus, were there at the fame time with the foldiers, and confequently must have been prefent during the earthquake, and at the refurrection; because in speaking to them, and faying, Fear ye not, the writer uses the perfonal pronoun, vues, ye, and not merely the second perfon plural of the verb. This, he says, must have been by way of contrast to the fear of the foldiers, whom

they must therefore have seen terrified and flying. But there are several inftances in which the pronoun us υμεις,

yes is used without any particular emphasis, or contrast:

as when our Saviour fays, Matt. v. 48, Be ye perfect

even as your Father who is in heaven is perfect. Matt. xiii. 18, Hear ye therefore the parable of the Jower. Where is the contrast here? However, as the women might perceive that the guards were fled (feeing perhaps fome marks of their flight) and might suppose it was from fome caufe of fear, the angel might allude to that, in bidding them not to fear. It is fufficiently evident that, according to this evangelift, the women did not fee Jesus in the act of rifing, and therefore could not have been present at the earthquake, or the flight of the foldiers. For the angel fays to them, v. 28, I know that ye feek Jefus who was crucified. He is not here, for he is rifen. Come and fee the place where the Lord lay: so that the refurrection was evidently over before they came.

In this Letter Mr. Evanson's preference of the Gospel of Luke may be easily perceived, and also his rejection of that of Matthew; but he feems at that time to have retained his refpect for that of John, as of equal authority with other canonical books of the New Teftament. For, fpeaking of what is there faid of the converfation of our Lord with Nicodemus, he fays, p. 90, "I have fre"quently confidered this paffage with that atten"<tion wherewith it is the duty of every public

teacher, and indeed of every Chriftian, to con"fider those parts of fcripture especially upon "which any effential doctrines of our religion are "founded."

2. Of the Date of Luke's Gofpel.

Some have thought that Paul refers to a written Gospel in his epiftles to the Corinthians, and to Timothy, that this Gospel was that of Luke, and that if Matthew or Mark had seen this Gospel they would not have written any. Confequently the works that bear their names are fpurious compofitions.

The paffages in which Paul is fupposed to allude to a written gospel are the following. I Cor. ix. 9. It is written in the law of Mofes, Thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn. V. 14. Even fo bath the Lord ordained that they who preach the gospel fhould live of the Gospel. Tim. v. 18. For the fcripture faith, Thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn; and the labourer is worthy of his reward. Now I think it is evident that the writer quotes the paffage from Mofes only as fomething written, and scripture, and not the faying of our Lord correfponding to it.

If the Gospel of Luke had preceded any other gofpel fo long as this hypothefis requires, viz. eight or nine years, it would have acquired fo much reputation, that fome preference would have been given to it in Christian tradition; no fimilar work, not well known to be written by an apostle, or fome perfon equally qualified, could ever have been ranked with it; and it could never have been fuppofed by any of the ancients that the Gospel of Matthew was prior

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