hath difpofed them. In the paraphrafe and obfervations, the doctor has departed, where neceflary, from the common tranflation. Where the different parts of a work are fo clofely interwoven with each other as in this, it is fcarcely poffible to fix upon any detached paffage that may give an adequate fpecimen: we therefore fubjoin the conclufion. St. Paul mentions five appearances of Chrift to his difciples, between his refurrection and afcenfion. "He was feen of Cephas: then of the twelve: after that he was feen of above five hundred brethren at once; of whom the greater part remain unto this prefent; but fome are fallen afleep: after that he was feen of James: then of all the apoftles." I Cor. xv. 5-7. "Of these appearances all but the fourth may be reduced to those that are recorded in the Gospels. "1. He was feen of Cephas;" on the day of the refurrection; Luke xxiv. 34. "2. Then of the twelve;" on the evening of that day and of the Sunday following; John xx. 19 and 26. upon which latter occafion the apostles by the prefence of St. Matthias would be literally twelve. "3. After that of above five hundred brethren at once;" on the mountain in Galilee," where Jefus had appointed them," accord ing to St. Matthew xxviii. 16. For it is generally thought that he and St. Paul here speak of the fame appearance. It was about twenty-fix years after the refurrection, as chronologers compute, when St. Paul faid, "Of whom the greater part remain unto this prefent." 66 4. After that of James;" of James the lefs, as it is reputed; fo called to diftinguifh him from James the fon of Zebedee and bro ther of John. The Gofpels are filent concerning this appearance: St. Paul places it after that to the five hundred. "5. Then of all the apoftles." We may prefume that after the return of the apoftles out of Galilee to Jerufalem, our Lord fhowed himself not only to thein, at different times, but to others of his faithful followers; and that all thefe were witneffes of his afcenfion in particular. For St. Paul does not confine the name of apoftles to the twelve, but extends it to others who were of note in the church. In this place it may comprehend all thofe, on whom the fpirit defcended on the day of Pentecoft. The Gospels give us no intimation that our Lord's continuance on earth after his refurrection was forty days. St. John, who seems to extend it the furtheft, relates only one appearance that did not fall within the first eight days. St. Matthew does not go beyond the appearance on the mountain in Galilee, which he feems to place Y 2 early. early. And on reading St. Mark, nay even St. Luke, we should be apt to conclude, that the afcenfion quickly followed the refurrection. Yet St. Luke, and doubtlefs every one of the evangelifts, had an exact knowledge of the time when Chrift "was parted from them and carried up into heaven." If they do not always obferve the real order, or note the precife time, of certain facts which they mention, it is no proof that they were not perfectly acquainted with both. The variations, which are fuppofed to abound particularly in this part of their writings, are among the proofs that we have the hiftory of our Lord's refurrection in its original state. Changes made in it would have been fuch as were imagined best suited to reduce their narrations to a greater agreement with each other. We learn indeed from St. Jerom, that fuch things had been practifed in the Latin verfions of the Gofpels. Portions of these were read in the public fervice of the church; and the collections of them were called evangeliaria; or, if they contained all that was read in every service, evangelia plenaria. In different places they might have been tranflated from the Greek verity, to ufe St. Jerom's own expreffion, by different perfons, and modeled as he relates. And one would be inclined to think that his tragical complaints of the confufion introduced into the Latin Gofpels, refpected these books principally if not folely. For there was a Latin tranflation of the fcriptures, received long before his time into the western and African churches, called the Italic; to which St. Auguftin gives the preference before other verfions, as adhering more clofely to the words of the original, and with greater clearness of diction: and on this he feems to have grounded his interpretations when he compofed his treatife of the Confent of the Evangelifts; where not only his references and quotations agree with our prefent Greek text, but his own remarks upon it fuppofe it to have been exactly as we now have it; except in one or two immaterial articles, in which he agrees more with the vulgate. I am here freaking particularly of the Hiftory of the Refurrection. Whatever feeming difcordances of fact or expreffion, interpreters of the original, or expofitors of tranflations from it, now labour to harmonize, the very fame had St. Auguftin to contend with in the work just mentioned: fo that the evangelical hiftories of the refurrection, deemed to contain greater difficulties to conciliate than any other part of the New Testament, continue precifely as he found and had received them from the church of elder mes. In this traft St. Auguftin obferves, that "the evangelifts bear witness mutually to each other, even in fome things which they themselves do not relate, by fhewing that they knew them to have been spoken." We may add, that they bear the like witness to each other in other things which they themselves do not record, by fhowing that they knew them to have been done. The parts of their w.itings writings which we have been confidering are not without proofs of the truth of the obfervation. St. Matthew, who mentions no appearance of Chrift to his difciples, prior to that on the mountain of Galilee, yet teftifies that this was not the first. He fays, "Then the eleven difciples went away into Galilee, into a mountain where Jefus had appointed them," xxviii. 16. When had he made this appointment with them? Not in his prom fe before his paffion, Matth. xxvi. 32. Not in his meffages to them after his refurrection, Matth. xxvii. 7. and 10. The allurance given them in all thefe places, as far as appears, is only that they should fee him in Galilee. He names no particular fpot of it in any. Yet fuch a place had been apppointed by him, as St. Matthew informs us. Thus he fignifies, that our Lord had fhowed himself to his difciples before they left Jerufalem; and had there directed them to the precife fpot in Galilee, to which they fhould repair that they might fee him again. St. Mark, who defcribes Mary Magdalene as going with two others to the fepulchre, and then relates the appearance of the angel to the women, fays foon after, that Jefus appeared first to Mary Magdalene;" that is, to her fingly. Although, therefore, he has taken no notice that the left her two friends at the fepulchre while the ran to Peter and John, by this he fhows plainly, that he knew of the feparation that had taken place for a while between her and them. Having told us that our Lord appeared first to Mary Magdalene, he fays, "After that he appeared in another form unto two of them as they walked and went into the country." How in another form? He has not intimated that there was any change from our Lord's ufual appearance, either when Mary Magdalene or thefe two difciples first faw him. He alludes therefore to circumstances, which he does not stay to relate, but leaves to be explained by fucceeding evangelifts; of whom St. John tells us, that our Lord feemed to Mary Magdalene the gardener when he first spoke to her; St. Luke, that when he joined the two difciples on the way to Emmaus, they took him for a stranger going from Jerufalem. St. Luke fays of St. Peter at the fepulchre, "Stooping down he beheld only the linen clothes (the Othonia) lying." He had told us before, that Jofeph of Arimathea having taken down the body of Christ from the crois, wrapped it in a findon: in which only, for any thing that he fays about the interment, it might have been depofited in the fepulchre. Yet now he fpeaks of the othonia, and fhows that he was acquainted with a circumstance long after related by St. John, that Jofeph and Nicodemus wound the body with the fpices in these othonia. He fays of the women, "They found the ftone rolled away from the fepulchre :" ne manner St. John of Mary Magdalene, "She fee.h the stone akn away from the fepulchre." Neither of Y 3 thefe thefe evangelifts had informed us in what manner the fepulchre had been clofed. They fuppofe the fact related by St. Matthew and St. Mark, that Jofeph of Arimathea had secured the fepulchre by rolling a great stone to the door of it; and thus attefts its reality. St. John reprefents Mary Magdalene, when fhe ran to St. Peter and himself, as faying to them, "They have taken away the Lord out of the fepulchre, and we know not where they have laid him ;" but as replying to the queftion of the two angels, "Woman, why weepest thou," by faying, "Because they have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid him." To the apostles fhe expreffed the concern of her two friends as well as her own, and there faid, "we" know not; to the angels whofe queftion was perfonal to her, fhe was to account for her own tears, and here said, "I" know not. In this inftance we find St. John defcribing her as alone; in the other bearing witnefs that the had gone with company to the fepulchre. If we took a larger view of this fubject, we should perceive it opening upon us, and a variety of examples juftifying the remark, that "the evangelifts bear witness mutually to each other, even in fome things which they do not relate by fhowing that they knew them." • Thefe and fuch like documents as thefe, interwoven with the facred text, muft help to convince a careful and candid inquirer, that we have the hiftory of Chrift juft as the evangelifts wrote it, and to fatisfy him, on what grounds and with what qualifications they compofed their gofpels. They allude, as we have feen, to things which they do not mention, fometimes to fuch as had been written, frequently to thofe which had not been recorded. In both cafes it is done, as perfec mafters of a fubject glance at circumftances of it, which they do not ftop to explain. 'On fome occafions they see fit to adopt much of the language and recital one of another. But on comparing them it will be found, that he who succeeds, relates things as a well-inftructed independent witnefs of the fame facts, not as a copyer of the other. Each of them has a peculiarity of method and defign in treating the fame arguiment; contracting or enlarging, omitting or adding, and fetting the fame object in a different point of light, as his own propofed method and defign led him. Yet a fpirit of accurate confiftency runs through their works thus diverfified: fo that fitly framed together by a skilful hand they uhite into a body of hiftory that is harmonious in all its conftituent parts. And to what can this be afcribed but to the energy of the original before them? But there is no original or pattern to the first authors of hiftorical relation to bring and keep them to this perpetual confent under different different views, and in the finall and less obfervable, as well as ftrik ing features of that which is delineated by them, except the real existence of it. Such, therefore, that is, facts really exiftent in time, place, and manner, as they are described, were, with the other parts of this holy hiftory, the refurrection, the appearances, and the afcenfion, of our Lord Jesus Christ. To him be praise and glory and adoration, in all the churches of the faints. Amen.' The biographical account of the author, is drawn up, as an act of gratitude for his patronage, by Mr. Churton of Brafen Nofe; and, would our limits allow, many citations might be advantageously prefented from it: a few, however, we cannot omit. There is an epigram of Martial, which, as critics in general allow, relates to the Chriftians. It alludes to the perfecution in which the humanity of Nero, to fpeak of him in Mr. Gibbon's words, caufed them to be wrapt in pitched tunics or fhirts, and burnt by way of torches. The epigram is this: In matutina nuper fpectatus arena Mucius, impofuit qui fua membra focis; Ure manum; plus eft dicere, non facio.' Having read this epigram more than once without being able to conftrue the laft two lines, though the drift of them is intelligible, I confulted Dr. Lardner's Collection of Teftimonies, where I found it thus tranflated, vol. i. p. 355: You have, perhaps, lately feen acted in the theatre Mucius, who thruft his hand into the fire. If you think fuch an one patient, valiant, ftout, you are a mere fenfelefs dotard. For it is a much greater thing, when threatened with the troublesome coat, to fay, I do not facrifice, than to obey the command, burn the hand.' The doctor, not quite fatisfied with his verfion of the conclufion, which indeed is rather a paraphrafe, gives another: For it is a much greater thing, when threatened with the troublesome coat, you are commanded to burn your hand, to fay, I will not.' This is more literal, but does not remove the difficulty; for the alternative proposed to the Chriftian, was not, either burn your hand, or burn in this fhirt; but, either burn fome incenfe, to the statue of the emperor perhaps, or burn in this shirt. In fpite, therefore, of all the editions of Martial that I have feen, I have no doubt that he wrote, instead ofure manum,' as we now read, ure manu,' ure aliquid thuris manu, and escape this dreadful Y 4 |