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upon the Principles and Arrangement of a Harmony of the Gospels" are likely to afford them the information they may desire to obtain from the work; and partly as a justification of some of our strictures in our former article.

Subjoined to the Preface is a "Synopsis of the Preliminary* Dissertations," which is designed to "facilitate the comprehension of their mutual coherency, and to give the reader a clearer perception of the number and variety of the topics discussed." The work, the author says he is aware, must at first sight appear "irregular and unconnected;" but he maintains that there is, in reality, an intimate relation between the several subjects of the Dissertations, and the order in which one follows or precedes another."

Notwithstanding the aid of the Synopsis, however, it seems by no means feasible to frame any thing like a consistent, orderly whole from the treatises forming this work; and nothing that appears in it countenances the belief that Mr. Greswell's whole plan was laid before he commenced the execution of it. Even if method and coherency can be discovered in the general arrangement of the work, there is often a great want of unity in the parts of the several Dissertations. And separate from the author's extreme diffuseness, and immethodical style of writing, there is much which, for the object, is totally irrelevant, having no further connexion with it than that which earnestness of investigation sometimes establishes in the mind of the inquirer, by magnifying distant parts till they appear to him at least contiguous, while, in reality, they have little or no relation to each other.

The fundamental principle" of his work, he states (p. xiii), _rests "on the truth of the following propositions: 1. That the three last Gospels are regular compositions: 2. That St. Matthew's Gospel is partly regular and partly irregular: 3. That each of the Gospels was written in the order in which it stands 4. That the Gospels last written in every instance were supplementary to the prior." Mr. G. means to assert, in the last proposition, that each Gospel is supplementary to those preceding it in the order of composition; which order, he maintains, is the same as that in which we find the Gospels in the common text; so that Mark was supplementary to Matthew, Luke to Matthew and Mark, and John to all the three. That the Gospel of Mark was supplementary to the Gospel of Matthew is obviously inconsistent with the phenomena of each; and that Mr. G. should burden the system of his Harmony with so gratuitous a difficulty, must be truly surprising to those who have not observed that, by the strength of his conviction, and the facility with which he overlooks difficulties, he often contrives to transmute objections against his opinions into imposing arguments for them.

The "fundamental principle" to which Mr. Greswell refers, we have not discovered; unless, indeed, it consists of the four propositions on which it rests: but this is not improbable, as there runs throughout his work a hasty vagueness of expression, by which, we apprehend, he has often deceived himself, and may mislead some of his readers.

The first volume consists of thirteen Dissertations, "with a number of Appendixes, or Supplementary Dissertations, where the nature of the case required them." "The first three (the author says) are all subservient to the fundamental principle of the work, considered as preparatory to a Har

* This epithet, no where else employed, refers to the Harmony which was framed agreeably to the Dissertations.

mony of the Gospels ;" and they are intended to support the four propositions already stated.

In so extensive and voluminous a work, we might reasonably expect to find a good Alphabetical Index of subjects: but all the aid of this kind is at Table of Contents; and though this seems intended for an analysis of the Dissertations, it is so inadequate to the object, that it gives no intimation of various topics in them which we had marked for consideration.

The titles of the three first Dissertations are, "On the Regularity of the Gospels, and on their Supplemental Relation to each other-Historical Investigation of the Times [Dates] and Order of the Three First Gospels-On the Irregularity of St. Matthew's Gospel." Maintaining, in the course of them, several positions which are incapable of proof, and some which are inconsistent with each other, and arguing from these as if they were established by his reasonings, there is little on which the mind can rest with the satisfaction which the author obviously feels in his own conclusions; and, indeed, in various cases the reasoning itself appears destitute of solidity. When we come to consider the "peculiar texture of each gospel"—our second division-we shall have occasion to advert to some of Mr. Greswell's opinions on the subject: here we will only point out two or three of those positions which afford an exemplification of some of our strictures.

The author sets out with maintaining (p. 3), that "no history, as such, whatever be the subject to which it relates, can, consistently with its own nature and purposes, disregard the order of time." He also maintains the inspiration and infallibility of the gospels; and yet speaks of St. Mark (p. 34) as rectifying the transpositions of St. Matthew, and supplying his deficiencies; and in vindication of the original and equal authority of the former, he afterwards appeals (p. 23) to his "rectification of the order of St. Matthew where that was inverted and irregular." He even asserts, (p. 40,) that "it is just and reasonable, and necessary to the joint authority of all, that we should allow to each a separate and an equal weight. Admit their common inspiration, (he adds,) and we have no other alternative."

What, then, can we say to the case where, according to St. Matthew (ch. viii. 5-10), the centurion came to Jesus, and himself intreated him to heal his servant; while St. Luke's narrative (ch. vii. 6, 7) expressly shews that the centurion did not come to him? Each account cannot have an equal weight, because both could not be the fact. No difficulty whatever exists, if we allow that each recorded the occurrence according to the best of his knowledge; and it is easy to perceive how that of St. Matthew may have originated, (especially if he were not himself an eye-witness,) from the transaction as recorded by St. Luke with circumstantial detail. It was the custom in the East for the messenger to deliver his message in the very words of his employer; and the words of the centurion thus delivered would naturally be referred to the centurion himself as present, by those who did not themselves hear the details from accurately-informed eye-witnesses; and might be so referred even by some of those eye-witnesses.

As to the instructions of Christ, the apostles surely stood upon a different footing from others; since they received from their Lord (John xiv. 26) the promise of miraculous aid in the recollecting of his declarations. This does not require us to suppose that the very words were brought to their recollection; but it affords solid ground for a perfect reposing confidence in their record, as it respects the import of his declarations. But in recording his actions, and the events which befel him, where is there even a plausible reason for the supposition that they or the other evangelists were inspired?

The hypothesis that all were inspired, and equally so, is alike gratuitous, and baneful to the credibility of the whole. The doctrine of the Inspiration of the Scriptures at large, has made more unbelievers than any other cause, except the vices of professing Christians.-Mr. Greswell seems prepared to admit every thing. "The consequence of a common inspiration," he adds to the passage already quoted from p. 40, " is a common infallibility-and, in a common infallibility, there can be no difference in degree nor variety of kind—all must be alike infallible, or none could be so."-He must have written and even printed this before he entered into all the minutia which the construction of his Harmony brought before him. In many parts he writes as those may who are not burdened by so groundless an hypothesis.

We may observe before we proceed, that when giving (p. 46) coincident passages in Matthew and Luke which, he contends, were not identical in time, he quotes the Received Text of Luke xi. 2-4. There seems to us no room to doubt that the prayer in Luke was delivered at an earlier period than the Sermon on the Mount, in which the prayer according to which we are to pray was delivered; and that the two prayers were not identical, we entirely agree with Mr. Greswell; but when he was pointing out coincidences, he should surely have employed a text which, as every critic must allow, at least approaches more nearly to the original than the Received Text. In this case, the differences between the prayer in Matthew and that in the amended text of Luke strike the mind more than their agreement. In the following parallel we arrange St. Matthew's text according to the plan adopted by Mr. Greswell in p. 47, and throughout his Harmony; employing Griesbach's text in Luke.

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The conclusions to which the author comes near the close of the Third Dissertation-" On the Irregularities of St. Matthew's Gospel"-are stated in the following paragraph; and this gives a fair specimen of the system of assertion and inference which too much pervades the work:

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"It cannot, then, now be doubted whether St. Matthew's Gospel is safely to be made, throughout, the basis of a Harmony for the rest-or not. argument of those learned men [who they are, Mr. G. does not give his readers the means of knowing] who contend that, because he would write as

an eye-witness, he would write the most regularly of all, however plausible in theory, is completely false in fact. Nor, indeed, is it difficult to retort the argument; for one, like St. Luke, or St. Mark, who, though not an eyewitness, yet proposed to write an account of the same things-it might natu rally be supposed, even humanly speaking, would take so much the greater pains to remedy this very defect; both to acquire a perfect knowledge of his subject, and to verify, in every instance, the order of his facts. [How could he, thirty years after their occurrence, when most of the facts, before the last portion of the history, were necessarily so independent of each other? With respect to Luke and Mark, the order of information must, in some cases, have been solely that of place or of subject.] Meanwhile, if St. Matthew, in particular, though he must have written as an eye-witness, has yet written at all irregularly, this may be a good presumptive evidence that he must have written early, while the recollection of the facts was still unimpaired-and among, and for, eye-witnesses as well as himself, whose own knowledge, or possibilities of knowledge, would supply omissions, or rectify transpositions, for themselves. [This sentence has not been quoted by us, though it might have been, as a specimen of the confused and careless style of writing which pervades a great proportion of the work; but we cannot avoid leading our readers to notice the addition possibilities of knowledge,' which must have been inserted in the copy, currente calamo, and which gives us to understand that St. Matthew left such of his readers as were eye-witnesses, to rectify omissions by possibilities of knowledge. Well for the author that his anomalies are surrounded with the lustre of academic halls! He concludes the paragraph thus.] Whether his Gospel was written first or not, I think there can be little doubt; [true, for there is only one other supposition, which has not been advanced by any one-that it was written at the same time with the others;] but whether it was written all at once, or at different times, and in the order of the divisions pointed out, may very reasonably bear a question." -P. 186.

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The suggestion in the last sentence would have been very reasonable, had it been applied to St John's Gospel; but St. Matthew's narrative— however irregular the establishment of St. Mark's order would oblige us to consider it-bears clear indications of having been intended for a continuous history.

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But we proceed with our outline of the contents. The Fourth Dissertation discusses the date of the Passover succeeding our Lord's Baptism (John i. 13); and Mr. Greswell maintains that the 20th verse means forty-six years hath it taken to build this temple, nor is it yet completed." Following this interpretation, he fixes upon A. D. 27 for the year of that Passover. On the best consideration we can give the subject, we agree with Mr. C. Benson (Chronology, p. 232) in regarding the common version as perfectly exact-" Forty-six years was this temple in building;" which leaves the date of the Passover to be determined by other considerations, except that it must have been later than A. D. 26. Mr. Benson considers the tense and meaning of woon as "directly adverse" to the interpretation which Mr. Greswell maintains; and we had come to the same conclusion independently of the opinion of that judicious critic. Mr. Greswell, according to his usual system, makes no reference to Mr. Benson's section on the subject.

To this Fourth Dissertation the author annexes three Appendixes. The first contains a detailed investigation to prove that Josephus, when he speaks of Herod's beginning to rebuild the Temple in the 18th year of his reign, dates from the time when he became sole king by the capture of Antigonus, A. D. 37, and not from his appointment, three years before, by the Roman Senate. If there had been any question, in the present day, respecting the

date of the commencement of Herod's reign, there might have been good reason for this investigation; but even then the minute induction which he gives, would have been needless for the author's leading purpose; and it has so much chaff in it, that it is extremely difficult to discern the grains that may be really productive. At the close he comes to a conclusion, as to the year of Herod's death, which we deem correct, but to which the previous reasonings did not seem to be pointing; and from this conclusion, as it seems, he draws an inference which Dr. Whately could not have taught him. The reader will judge :

"The result of all our reasonings, hitherto, [i. e.. in the thirty pages preceding, designed, as it appeared, to shew Josephus's computation of the date of Herod's accession to the throne,] is to this effect; that the death of Herod cannot be placed either earlier or later than the spring quarter of A.U. 751. [B. C. 3.] The building of the temple, therefore, which was begun in the eighteenth year, and, being completed in a year and six months afterwards, coincided with the annual recurrence of a feast of Tabernacles, must have been begun about the time of a feast of Passover. It was begun, then, about the time of the Passover in the eighteenth year of his reign," &c.

This series of inferences our readers will find in p. 223 of the first volume of Mr. Greswell's work. It is quite unnecessary to analyze it; and we shall only add that it is but a specimen of a large class which might be selected from this production of the Clarendon Press.

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Next follows an Appendix respecting the reigns and succession of the Maccabean princes," which has the merit of being very short. For its insertion in this work we see no sufficient reason.

The Third Appendix is "On the Time of the Deposal of Herod Antipas, ⚫ AND on the Eclipse before the Death of Herod" [the great]. The first portion is introduced, because there is a coin of Herod Antipas, which, (the author argues,) if the time of his deposal could be ascertained, would be of use in fixing the year of his father's death. As this was done, by direct means, in the first Appendix, surely this disquisition of sixteen closelyprinted pages might have been dispensed with; but, it appears, after the close of the investigation, that the author's object must have been to parry an objection which might be derived from this coin against the date he has assigned to Herod's death, viz. A. U. 751, or B. C. 3.

"It is not, however, my intention," he says, (p. 245,) "to reckon up all the objections which might be produced against this opinion, and to shew how insuperable they would be: I have noticed, or shall notice, only the two most plausible of the arguments in its favour-the testimony of the coin of Antipas, which we have hitherto been considering-and the supposed date of the eclipse, which Josephus proves [he means the statements of Josephus prove] to have some time or other preceded the death of Herod."

The attentive reader has presumed that the critic has misrepresented his author, and that "this opinion" refers not to 751 but to 750. In our vindication we must quote the preceding sentence. Mr. Greswell begins the paragraph with observing, that the opinions of the learned have not much fluctuated except between 750 and 751; and that some strong arguments which might be adduced for this latter date, he passes by for the present. Arguing summarily, he maintains, presuming the time of the Council of Berytus to be 749, that it is "absolutely impossible that the death of Herod could have happened so soon after it, as at the Passover of A. U. 750: it could not have happened before the Passover of A. U. 751, at the

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