Evangelift is the only one who hath related them -and because they evince the care he had taken

to trace his subject to its fource. The reader will be pleased with the following character of this Evangelift, as a writer, by an excellent fcholar, and one of the beft judges in polite literature, which the present age hath produced t." St. Luke is pure, copious, and flowing in his language, and has a wonderful and moft entertaining variety of felect circumftances in his narration of our Saviour's divine actions.-Both in his Gofpel and apoftolical Acts he is accurate and neat, clear and flowing, with a natural and eafy grace; his ftile is admirably accommodated to the defign of history. The narrative of the Acts of the Apoftles is perfpicuous and noble; the difcourfes inferted, emphatical, eloquent, and fublime. He is justly applauded for his politeness and elegance by fome critics, who feem to magnify him, in order to depreciate the reft of the Evangelists.

St.

* Plurima enim et magis neceffaria Evangelii per hunc cognovimus: ficut Joannis generationem, et de Zacharia historiam, et adventum Angeli ad Mariam, et exclamationem Elizabeth, et Angelorum ad paftores defcenfum, et ea quæ ab illis dicta funt, et Annæ et Simeonis de Chrifto telti·monium, et quòd duodecim annorum in Hierufalem reli&tus fit, et baptifmum Joannis, et quot annorum Dominus, et quià in quinto-decimo anno Tiberii Cæfaris.-Omnia hujus modi per folum Lucam cognovimus, et plurimos actus Domini per hunc didicimus. Irenæus, lib. 3. cap. 14. Oxon 1702, Grabe.

+ Blackwall's facred Claffics, Vol. 1. 295. 12mo.

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The

St. Luke's stile has a good deal of resemblance with that of his great mafter Paul; and like him he had a learned and liberal education. I believe he had been very converfant with the best claffic authors; many of his words and expreffions are exactly parallel to theirs." St. Luke, on many occafions, feems to have had St. Matthew's gofpel before him, and to have transcribed from that Evangelift many paffages, with very few alterations or variations, almoft word for word. fimilarity and coincidence is too great to be a cafual and accidental thing. Several examples of this transcription are produced in Dr. Owen's observations on the four gofpels, and to fave the reader the trouble of collating the two gospels, a fpecimen of the copy and the original, contrafted in two oppofite columns, is exhibited in one of the tables annexed to this volume. We are indebted to this hiftorian for feveral difcourfes and parables of our Lord, not recorded in the other Evangelifts-particularly for two distinguished parables, which moft illuftriously fhew our Saviour's understanding and powers to be more than human, that he could, as incidents arofe, and occafions prefented themselves, invent and deliver extempore fuch elegant and admirable apologues as

1

thefe

This is juftly remarked, and finely represented, by the ingenious Mr. Bourn of Norwich, in his excellent difcourfes on the parables. Vol. 3d, Introduction sub. fin.

thefe-the most difficult fpecies of compofitionfo finely contrived, fo well connected, fo striking and so instructive in their several parts, rifing with fuch greatness to their conclufion, concluding with fo useful a moral, and forming fuch a beautiful and confiftent whole-and they alfo eminently fhew how well adapted our Saviour's method of inftruction was to reclaim and to inftruct mankind, to awaken and to imprefs them, fince dry didactic precepts are foon loft to our remembrance, while fhort moral stories, fuch as our Saviour's parables were, delivered by a prophet invefted with a divine authority, would never be forgot. The twa distinguished parables I mean, for which we are indebted to St. Luke, are the parable of the prodigal fon, and the parable of the rich man and Lazarus. The first containing fuch a variety of incidents, narrated in fo artlefs and affecting a manner, awakening in our bofoms a thoufand different paffions and fenfibilities by turns, indignation, forrow, fympathy, joy, placing him, as in a theatrical reprefentation, before our eyes, in a great diversity of fortune, and producing the ftrongest emotions the heart can feel the other prefenting to our view the miferies that await the Juxurious voluptuary, and the hard-hearted unfeeling mifer, in a future world, and the bleffednefs that will crown indigent and fuffering virtue, A diffuse and paraphraftic verfion of thefe

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two

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two parables, to which it is impoffible for me to do adequate juftice, concludes this account of the distinguished merit of this Evangelift, as a most elegant and claffical writer.

Parable of the prodigal fon. Luke xv. 11.

A GENTLEMAN of a fplendid family and opulent fortune had two fons.-One day the younger approached his father, and begged him, in the most soothing and importunate terms, to make a partition of his effects betwixt himself and his elder brother. The indulgent parent, overcome by his blandifhment, immediately divided all his fortune between them.-A few days after the younger brother converted all the eftates that had been thus affigned him into ready money-left his native foil-and fettled in a foreign country-where by a course of debauchery and profligacy, and every expensive and fashionable amusement and pleasure, in a very fhort time he fquandered it all away. Soon as he had diffipated his fortune, and was now reduced to extreme indigence, a terrible famine vifited the country in which he refided, and raged with fuch dire and universal devaftation, that he was in want even of the common neceffaries of life.-Finding himself now destitute of bread, and having nothing to fatisfy a raging appetite, he went to an opulent citizen of that

country,

country, and begged him in the most fupplicant terms, that he would employ him in any menial drudgery. The perfon hired him, and fent him into his fields to feed fwine.-Here he was fo dreadfully tormented with hunger, that he envied even the fwine the hufks which he faw them greedily devour, and would willingly have allayed, with thefe, the dire fenfations he felt, but none of his fellow fervants would permit him.—But reflection, which his vices had kept so long in a profound fleep, now awoke.-He now began to review the past scenes of his life, and all the plenty and happiness, in which he had once lived, rushed into his mind.-What a vast number of fervants, faid he, hath my father, who riot in fuperfluous abundance and affluence, while I am emaciated and dying with hunger!-I am determined to go to my dear aged parent, and endeavour to excite his tenderness and compaffion for me. I will kneel before him, and accoft him in thefe pathetic terms.-" Beft of parents! with the deepest contrition I acknowledge myself an ungrateful creature to heaven and to you!-I have rendered myself, by a course of many shameful vices, unworthy of the name of your child; condescend to hire me into your family in the capacity of the meanest flave!"-Having formed this refolution, he travelled towards home, without cloaths, and without fhoes, with all the hafte

that