count for this. Or fuch a sentence as this might have been originally written in the margin of fome valuable copy, and afterwards have been inferted in the text, which no critic denies to have been the cafe with fimilar expreffions in other books.

The writer of the Gospel ascribed to Matthew, Mr. Evanfon fays, p. 23, "did not understand the "prophecies of the Jewish fcriptures." But, furely, it does not follow from this, that the writer might not be an apostle. Peter mifapplied the fcriptures in his famous fpeech on the day of Pentecoft, as evidently as the writer of this Gospel, whoever he was. I am furprised at fuch an argument as this from a man who, in other respects, thinks fo freely as Mr. Evanson does.

Some of the groffeft of thefe mifapplications of fcripture occur in the two first chapters of Matthew, which contain the account of the miraculous conception of Jefus. But was it right in Mr. Evanfon to take it for granted that these two chapters were written by the author of the rest of the book, when it must be known to him, that many perfons think they have good reason for concluding that they were not; especially as the Gospel used by the Jewish Christians, which was the fame in fubftance with that of Matthew, had not these two chapters? With a flight variation this Gofpel has a natural and regular beginning at the third chapter, which is also the cafe with that of Luke, without the change of a fingle

word; though there is not so much external evidence of this Gospel having been originally without its prefent introduction.

Mr. Evanson has fuggefted feveral new and valuable arguments against the miraculous conception, for which I and others think ourselves greatly obliged to him. But we do not apprehend that he has by this means at all invalidated the authenticity of the reft of the Gofpels of Matthew or Luke, which in their present state contain that account. Mr. Evanfon himself is but too ready to suppose interpolations of paffages in those books the genuineness of which he admits. But that a paffage is weak and injudicious is no good reason why it might not have been written in the age of the Apoftles, or by fome of the Apostles themselves. He admits the epistle of Clemens Romanus to be genuine; but he says, p. II, "it is evidently corrupted by the inter"polation of the abfurd Pagan fable of the Phenix." But abfurd, and Pagan, as it is, what proof has Mr. Evanson that Clemens might not believe it? I have no doubt but he did; and I fee no reason why any other person, who must have been a Chriftian, fhould have inferted it. If the perfon who made the interpolation believed the ftory, why might not Clemens himself have believed it?

In the fame arbitrary manner Mr. Evanfon fup, poses the writings of Luke himself to have been interpolated. "There are some others," he says, p. 25, "in this hiftory, which are liable to much " reasonable

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"reasonable diftruft. Such, for inftance, in this

Gofpel, is the ftory of the demoniac poffeffed by

a legion of demons, and in the Acts of the Apof"tles, the paffage which fays that diseases and luna"cies were cured by handkerchiefs and aprons brought from Paul's body."

If every person was thus at liberty to pick what he pleafed out of antient writings, as the young wife in the fable pulled up all the gray hairs out of the husband's head, and the old wife all the black ones, nothing might be left. If Mr. Evanson had fcrutinized the Gospel of Luke with the fame severity with which he has gone over thofe of Matthew, Mark, and John, he might have found fo many objectionable paffages, as to have pronounced them all equally fpurious. For at prefent the difference is only in degree, the three Gofpels being, according to Mr. Evanfon, abfolutely fpurious, because, in his opinion, they contain many objectionable paffages, and that of Luke only interpolated, though it contains a confiderable number of them. But he fhould give fome good reafon for fuppofing that fuch writers as the Apostles, and other unlearned primitive Chriftians, could not have written as they have done. That Mr. Evanfon himself would not have written as they have done, is no evidence at all.

I am, &c.

LETTER

LETTER. V.

Of Mr. Evanfon's Objections to particular Paffages in the Gofpel of Matthew, as contradictory to Paffages in the Gospel of Luke.

DEAR SIR,

MIGHT have contented myself with the preceding general answer to Mr. Evanfon's objections to the authenticity of the Gofpels of Matthew, Mark, and John. But to fhew that I fee nothing at all formidable in any of them, I fhall fairly recite them all, not with a view to maintain the strict propriety of every thing that he objects to, for that is the bufinefs of the writers themselves, or their profeffed advocates, but to fhew that, notwithstanding all his objections, they might have been written by the perfons to whom they are ufually ascribed.

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These more particular objections to the Gospel of Matthew being numerous, I fhall divide them into three heads, and make them the fubjects of three feparate Letters. The first shall comprize the paffages that Mr. Evanfon objects to as inconfiftent with the Gofpel of Luke, the fecond fuch as he conceives to be improbable in themselves, and the third fuch of these articles as he thinks are par ticularly unworthy of our Saviour. Concerning the

first, however, it is obvious to remark, that the contradictions no more affect the authenticity of the Gospel of Matthew, than they do that of Luke; but I do not think that they in the leaft affect that of either of them.

1. Instead of Judas the brother of James, as in Luke, Matthew has Lebbeus furnamed Thaddeus, which is faid, as Mr. Evanfon obferves, p. 151, to be" a word of the fame fignification with Judas." But whether this be the cafe or not, or whether we can discover any reason for it or not, we know it was no uncommon thing for the fame persons to have more names than one, as Matthew and Levi, and what is not improbable, though on this Mr. Evanson founds an objection to the Gospel of John, Nathanael and Bartholomew. According to Mr. Evanfon, Silas must have been called Luke, though no antient writer tells us fo.

2. "The whole ftory," Mr. Evanfon fays, p. 132, "of the removal of Jefus from Nazareth to dwell "at Capernaum, is in direct contradiction to the "Gofpel of Luke. For he affures us, chap. iv. "that the reafon of our Lord's leaving Nazareth "was because the inhabitants, offended with his "discourse to them, drove him out of the city; "when he went down to Capernaum, where he

preached to the people for a fhort time-but was "fo far from taking up his dwelling there, that, though the inhabitants entreated him to stay, and "not depart from them, he left them, faying, he "muft]

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