Luke Demonstration, and Trapp on the Gospels.) as a Gentile, writing for the instruction of Gentiles, might with propriety go into the mother's family, which Matthew was precluded doing, as not customary with the Jews. With them it was a rule, that "the family of the mother is not called a family :' but it should be noticed, as Bishop Kidder suggests, that on this very account, possibly, Jesus was ordained to be conceived, not of a free, but of an espoused virgin, that by the family of Joseph, the family of Mary might be known; and he cites Cotelerius in Epist. Ignatii ad Ephes. who hath collected several places to this purpose *. I have now regularly considered the reasons stated in the two notes on St. Matthew, for printing his account of the miraculous conception in Italic characters, as being of doubtful authority. It remains to examine those in the same manner, which accompany the correspondent narrative in St. Luke. Upon these however I need not be so long, as most of them are answered in the replies already given. St. Luke's narrative is equally allowed to be extant in all the MSS. and versions at present known. It is again confidently stated that Herod must have been dead two years before our Saviour was born t, and Lardner is * Having just treated of parentheses, we cannot avoid giving a reading of Luke, i. 26, suggested by the Bishop, and which happens to be supported by the express teftimony of Chrysostom and Nicetas. Instead of " Gabriel was sent to a virgin espoused to a man, whose name was Joseph, of the house of David, and the virgin's name was Mary," he proposes to read, to a virgin (espoused to a man whose name was Joseph) of the house of David," connecting the latter clause with “ virgin ;" which the Greek admits, and for which he gives many good reasons. + It is actually a third time insisted on in a note on Luke iii. 23. again quoted, as it were, in proof of this. Here is some parade of dates in confirmation of the matter, all which are so ably discussed by Lardner, that I can only desire again to join in the reference; begging that no reader will take things upon trust, but examine for himself; for two circumstances are here notoriously assumed, which cannot in any manner be proved. First, that the fifteenth year of Tiberius's reign is to be dated from the death of Augustus, whereas in all likelihood his proconsular authority is to be included*. Secondly, that the date of the death of Herod is capable of being ascertained, which their own indefatigable referee, the learned Lardner, acknowledges he was unable in any manner to determine. The Editors say, the latest period assigned is the spring, A. U. C. 751. Now this is certainly not true. Possinus in his Spicilegium Evangelicum, edited by that great scholar Fabricius, endeavouring to settle as he tells us, " Quo præcisè anno sit defunctus (Herodes)," fixes on the year 754 for the death of Herod, and dates the birth of Christ four years earlier. But why do not the Editors tell us what is true, namely, that Dr. Lardner, in the very place where the date of 751 is assigned for the death of Herod, gives two computations of the birth of our Saviour, each of them falling short of the above date. The one September or October A. U. C. 748; the [See the animadversions on the Improved Version, p. 2. where the adoption of such a mode of computation by Josephus in two instances is very properly adduced as a case in point. See also Dr. Carpenter's Geography of the New Testament, (an authority perfectly Unitarian) where it is expressly stated, that "John the Baptist received his commission probably about the middle of A. D. 27, in the 15th year of the government of Tiberius, reckoning from the commencement of his joint fevereignty with Augustus.] other other September or October 749*. Instead of which and in defiance of their own chosen authority, they again most peremptorily assure the reader, that Herod MUST HAVE BEEN dead two years before Christ was born! Another reference is here made to Grotius, on Luke, iii. 23. who, for all that we can find, says not a word about it. He endeavours certainly to settle the date of our Saviour's entrance on his Ministry, but without the smallest allusion to the death of Herod. We are next cautioned against trusting to the authenticity of these chapters, on the high authority of Marcion, who, we are told, though a reputed heretic, was a man of learning and integrity, for any thing that appears to the contrary. I shall not stop to dispute either his learning or integrity, because the learned may be mistaken, and the honest may be preju This latter date the learned Doddridge prefers, who inclines to adopt Dr. Lardner's calculation, rather than Mr. Manne's, whose elaborate and elegant Dissertation on the Birth of Chrift would alone serve to overset the confident assertion of the Editors. Mr. Manne thinks Christ was born in the spring of 747, and that Herod died about the Paffover, A. U. C. 750, towards the end of March. [I had no opportunity, when the first edition of this work went to the press, of consulting Dr. Hales's very curious, elabo rate, and interesting work on Chronology. I now gladly refer the Reader to his very able Discussion of the Christian Era, vol.i. 188, and to his Table of Gospel Chronology, p. 201.; it will there be seen how little disposed he must be to grant as the result of his own profound researches, that Herod must have been dead," two years before Christ was born. It will there also be seen how many learned men in times past had handled this difficulty, and decided againft the Editors; but the difficulty happened to be of a nature worth reviving for the purposes of their system-nothing less can be said of it, considering the peremptory tone of their decision of matters, in defiance of all that had been advanced to the contrary.] diced, وو diced *. I only know, that, like the Ebionites, he was a most notorious taker-away: as the Ebionites, by the confession of the Editors," took away even the genealogy, (they had previously taken away from the Old Testament, as some allege, all but the books of the Pentateuch, nor did they admit the whole of them) Marcion is said to have taken away all the Old Testament, three of the four Gospels, several Epistles, and altered, abridged, or interpolated whatever he chose to retain. The Editors say he did this "like some moderns." It is fit then surely, that we should keep a strict eye upon such takers-away, for fear their learning and integrity should be of the same predatory nature as Marcion's, and tempt them to commit trespasses as little to be justified. But St. Luke does not mention in his preface to the Acts of the Apostles, that his Gospel contained any *One Unitarian writer does not seem to hold him in much estimation, “absurd as that man shewed himself to be," says Mr.Jones in his Illustrations of the Gospels. [The odd thing is, that let the character of Marcion have been what it might, the Editors apply his authority against himself; one of his dogmata being plainly this; that Clirist was not a man, but a Son of the Supreme God, and probably on this very account it was that he discarded that part of Luke's Gospel which represents him as born a man, while the Editors catch at this very omission to prove that he was not of divine origin. See Mr. Rennell's Animadversions, pp. 3. 4. and Dr. Laurence's third chapter. As to the Ebionites, I am more than ever puzzled to understand what character they really bear with the Unitarian party; in the reply to Dr. Magee already spoken of, and which, if it proceed not from the pen of the principal Editor of the Improved Version, he is much belied, the learned professor is not allowed to raise an argument against the Ebionite omission of the miraculous conception, from the notorious blunder they committed in rejecting three of the Gospels, and all St. Paul's Epistles." It may be so," says the replyer. "Then surely, they would be the more careful of that Gospel which they retained; and this Gospel which alone the Ebionites acknowledged as authentic, this Gospel, any thing more than records of the public Ministry of Christ: he does not allude to the incidents contained in the two first chapters, "which therefore probably were not written by him." As this objection is allowed to reach no higher than to a bare probability, I shall not spend any time upon it, except to observe, that neither are the incidents contained in the third chapter, included in the short Summary; Acts, i. 1. which extends only to what "Jesus began both to do and to teach." The third chapter, however, the Editors account genuine. And the learned author of the Animadversions has found in this very third chapter, a pretty plain allusion to the histories contained in the suspected chapters; I cannot refrain from pointing it out.-St. Luke alone, it is to be observed, gives a detail of the circumstances of the birth of the Baptist, chapter i. in a marked conformity with which, he alone also, of all the Evangelists, in his third chapter, designates John as the "Son of Zacharias," v. 2. I am confident that the conclusion drawn by Mr. Rennell is fair and just. They next tell their readers as before, that "If the account of the miraculous conception of Jesus be true, he could not be the offspring of David and of Abraham, from whom it was predicted, and by the Jews expected that the Messiah should descend." Now this is a downright falsehood! which I may say without rudeness, nay rather with some civility; because the Editors themselves had previously contra which they would upon no account enlarge or curtail, this purest Gospel of Matthew wanted the two chapters."-Is it possible that he should have forgotten that they did, according to the Improved Versionists themselves, actually and positively curtail this Gofpel, and that Gofpel, (as he so emphatically calls it), of the Genealogy, which the Cerinthian and Carpocratian gospel, purer than the purest of the Ebionites, retained?] dicted |