tude, where the highest respect and gratitude are due. The dignity of the Society was committed, when we sat patiently by, and saw that gentleman encouraging those very disorders he was elected to restrain; at one time voting in his own cause; at another affecting not to count the balls in a question which was going against him; a third, taking the sense of the body, in direct opposition to a positive statute, by tumultuous acclamation; clinging, in short, like a polypus, to every one of his usurpations; and never (which has driven us to this harsh necessity) never at any one period of the long nine months the contest has now lasted, acknowleging that he might be mistaken, promising that he would amend; or even soliciting a friendly conference of the two parties, authoritatively to settle what might be amiss. Finally, our dignity has been essentially committed, by some of us persisting, against every admonition, and by every artifice persisting, to support acts which it is one of the first and darling distinctions of science to abhor and repress,,acts of arrogance, acts of injustice, acts of inhumanity. These are our real humiliations; these are the true causes, that point the unlearned finger at us. To aim at the cure of such evils, can lessen the dignity of no man, or set of men. On the contrary, it is to the honour of our natures that we have felt, it will long continue our boast and consolation that we have endeavoured to redress them." For entering into so particular detail of these dissentions, our excuse is, that Dr. Horsley has been frequently charged with an overbearing arrogance and an intemperate zeal in the part which he took on the occasion. We are thoroughly convinced that every candid reader will see from this statement, which is in every point accurate, much to admire in the ardour of Dr. Horsley's friendship, in the open and manly avowal of his sentiments, in his liberal regard and support of men of modest merit and real learning, and not less in the dignified superiority of his mind, which scorned to appear in the courtly train of wealthy and pompous pretenders to science. From this time he absented himself from the meetings of the Royal Society, till about a year or two ago, when some alterations for the better having taken place, he again gave his occasional assistance, and at the last anniversary was chosen one of the council. (To be continued.) MISCELLANIES. MISCELLANIES. FOR THE ORTHODOX CHURCHMAN'S MAGAZINE. REMARKS ON THE PREFACE TO ST. LUKE's HA GOSPEL. (Continued from page 195.) AVING now pretty well qualified ourselves to judge how far the professor's hypothesis, concerning St. Luke's motive in writing, is consistent with his concessions, concerning our Evangelist's sundry obligations to those fabulous compositions, and with his brief enumeration of his inaccuracies; let us next endeavour to discover, by means of his own concessions, concerning those early compositions, whether there be any thing like a foundation for the heavy charges which he has brought against them. By what he says at page 94, he seems to afford us no great reason to think, that any of those early Gospels were written in any other but the Hebrew language. Now, by admitting that they were most of them, or rather all, (for he makes no exception,) written in Hebrew, he has not only admitted, that they were written for the benefit of those who understood Hebrew, but that they were written by some inhabitants of the country, when that language was used; that is, they were written in or near the district wherein the transactions, which they contained, happened, by some of the inhabitants of that very district or parts adjacent, for the information of any other inhabitants of the same district and its vicinity. Is it then at all credible, that those many Evangelists, one and all, so far misrepresented any of the facts which they recorded, and that they, one and all, so far misrepresented some of them," as to make it absolutely necessary" for any one to write after them, for the purpose of correcting their inaccuracies, and silencing their idle stories? Surely whatever in probable or idie stories others may have incautiously recorded, those Vol. XI. Charchm. Mag. Nov.1806. Cu who 1 who lived near the place where our Lord's works were wrought, would of all men have been careful not to do so, as they could not have expected to escape detection, and were surrounded by numberless adversaries, ready to avail themselves of the slightest inadvertencies. And as to other countries where the Hebrew language was not understood, if they all wrote in that language, there could have been but little danger of any bad effects arising from their inaccuracies or idle stories in such places. Indeed, that no very bad effects could have been produced by those early narratives, (even though they "contained so much falsehood, that a correction of them was absolutely necessary," as the professor declares) any where, and especially in Judæa, he himself acknowledges at page 109, where he says, "the first verbal accounts which were communicated out of Palestine, were certainly not communicated by the Apos tles: and if the first written accounts were not communicated by them, yet as long as they lived and taught, there was little danger to be apprehended from the erroneous relations of other writers." To this declaration the professor immediately after subjoins, " And, whatever inconveniencies might have followed, yet as soon as the four Evangelists had written their Gospels, those inconveniencies were removed. At least the former erroneous accounts could then do no greater injury, than if they had been written many years afterwards: for the credibility of an historian depends on his character and circumstances, not on the priority of his composition." From the first part of this divided extract, we learn, that "there was very little danger to be apprehended as long as the Apostles lived and taught, from the erroneous relations of other writers," and from the lat ter part, that whatever inconveniences might have followed, were removed as soon as the four Evengelists had written their Gospels." This seems to be reasonable enough; but are there not more coadjutors introduced to our notice, than are necessary to counteract those inconveniences? If those many wrote in Hebrew, was not St. Matthew's much better calculated than any of those other three now extant, to correct their inaccuracies, or rather was it not absolutely sufficient of itself? Surely, if it was written many years before that by St. Luke, and in the Hebrew language (and that "this is a true state of the case" the professor has, we find, acknow ledged ledged to be, in his opinion, "highly probable"), it may at least be supposed to have precluded the "absolute necessity" of a Gospel in the Greek language by that Evangelist, if not of all other posterior Gospels in that language, for the particular purpose of correction, by whomsoever written. And yet this consequence, which flows so obviously from his own decisions, concerning the time when, and the language in which St. Matthew wrote, and is so well adapted in every respect to supersede the necessity of having recourse to the hypothesis, that Luke wrote purposely to correct the inaccuracies, and to silence the idle stories of the many, is unaccountably overlooked by the professor, among all his speculations concerning the contents of those early documents, and St. Luke's motive in writing. If a Gospel was written by an eye-witness, and in the Hebrew language, and under the influence of the Holy Spirit, eight years after the Ascension, would not a Jew in any dubious case whatever, have had recourse to such a document, in preference to any other, and have acquiesced in its decision? And yet our professor seems to expect we should believe, that St. Luke, who, by what he says in the preface, does not appear to have been an eye-witness of any of the facts recorded by him, nor to have written under the influence of the Holy Spirit; and who, by the professor's account, could neither have been one of the circumcision, nor acquanted with the law of Moses, nor with the purport of Hebrew punctuation, undertook "of his own accord, and his own authority, after a lapse of twenty years, to correct, by a Greek publication, the inaccuracies of those many Hebrew writers, and to silence their idle stories, and with a view too to divest a Jewish high-priest in particular, of the prejudices which their erroneous accounts had excited in him, and a highpriest too, it should be observed, whose nearest relatives had been principally concerned in the most important part of the affair which they had recorded, and who, if he had not been in some measure an agent in the affair himself, appears to have been of age sufficient to be interested in it: and strange to say, this unauthorised and unqualified advocate for accuracy and truth, for some reason or other, (an inscrutable one, no doubt,) not only followed their arrangement of facts, notwithstanding it differed from that by St. Matthew, but even adopted one inaccuracy, concerning an important doc U u 2 trine trine from those many, and inserted several others in his work, one of which, if he did not derive it from the many, he must have had from some written document, as it was occasioned by his inattention to Hebrew punctuation!" Such is the account which the professor has given us of St. Luke's motive for writing his Gospel ; and which, inconsistent as it is, both he and some of our learned countrymen seem to expect us to believe. Being still as much at a loss as ever to account for St. Luke's motive for writing his Gospel; let us now try to obtain some satisfactory information concerning this point, by our own researches, and for this purpose let us, agreeably to the professor's proposal, at page 267, have recourse to St. Luke's preface. In the preface, it may be expected, that the Evangelist has given us some general information concerning his reason for writing. And as he begins it with telling us, that many had employed their pens on the same subject, before he undertook to write; it may, of course, be also expected, that he has given us some information relative to this particular point. To what part then of this short introduc tion should we principally direct our attention? The professor it seems was inclined to think, that we need not give ourselves the trouble to look any farther, than just the beginning of it, for all the information on this point necessary. For, after having referred us to it, he tells us that the motive which our Evangelist assigned for writing a Gospel was, " to use his own words, the following” Επειδήπεςπραγμάτων. He seems to have considered these words as forming a perfect sentence. He gives himself no concern to enquire, whether they are connected with any other; nor how they would sound if taken together with the following, viz. xatus 2078. He has not referred us to any other part of the exordium for an explanation of these words. He seems to have thought that full satisfaction as to the point in question, may be derived from these only. And though he seems to admit, that they are not to be considered as an explicit declaration of the Evangelist's purpose, yet he seems to contend, that but one conclusion can be drawn from them, by any reasonable person: viz."that his intention was to correct the inaccuracies of the accounts, which were then in circulation, and to deliver to Theophilus a true and genuine document, in order to silence several idle stories, which might have --- pre |