posed to shew their Lord and master more particular respect, by bowing down before him (for that Mr. Evanson knows to be the proper meaning of the word which we render worship) after he was most unexpectedly risen from the dead, appears to me not at all extraordinary. Mr. Evanfon himself could not behave with his former familiarity, even to an intimate friend in the fame circumstances. He also had not, I fuppofe, obferved that this worshipping of Jefus after his refurrection, is mentioned by Luke as well as Matthew, and in a manner more liable to exception: for it might be even after his afcenfion. Luke xxiv. 51, 52. And it came to pafs while he blessed them he was parted from them, and carried up into heaven. And they worshipped him, and returned to Jerufalem with great joy.

As to the doubts mentioned by the Evangelift, it is by no means probable, though the expreffion rigorously conftrued might imply as much, that Matthew meant to say, that the doubts of these disciples remained after they had seen him; fince he gives no intimation of any remaining doubts. Or, if, like Thomas, they did not believe the evidence of their eyes, they might be convinced, as he was, by that of their other fenfes.

I am, &c.

LETTER

LETTER VII.

Of the things that Mr. Evanfon objects to as unworthy of our Saviour in the Gofpel of Matthew.

I

DEAR SIR,

RESERVE for this Letter the confideration of another clafs of improbabilities that Mr. Evanson finds in the discourses of Jefus recorded in the Gospel of Matthew, they being, in his opinion, fuch as neither Matthew, nor any other perfon who really heard our Lord's difcourfes, could have related of him.

1. According to Matthew, ch. xii. 39, Jefus declared to the Pharifees, who demanded of him a fign from heaven, that no fign fhould be given to that generation, but the fign of the prophet Jonas; for that as Jonas was three days and three nights in the belly of a fifb, fo be bould be three days and three nights in the carth.

"The

On this Mr. Evanfon remarks as follows. "writer ufually called St. Matthew," p. 74, " with" out the leaft reafon or propriety, makes this fimi«litude between Jonas and our Saviour to consist "in the time that the former was in the whale's belly and the latter in the grave; but if the fabu

"lous

"lous interpolation of the two first chapters of the "Book of Jonah, (to which Mendelfohn the late "learned Jew of Berlin, affures us no reasonable

Jew ever pays the leaft regard,) could be true; cc yet whofoever compares the geographical fitua"tion of Nineveh with respect to the Mediterranean "Sea, will be convinced that nothing tranfacted

upon that fea could fall under the notice of the « inhabitants of Nineveh, nor confequently be any "fign to them at all." Again he fays, p. 153, "At verfe 40, the author, not understanding our "Lord's meaning about the fign which Jonas was "to the Ninevites as recorded by St. Luke, not

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only fhews that his credulity easily swallowed the "fabulous legend of the prophet in the whale's "belly; but in order to make out fome kind of "fimilitude between his fituation there and our Sa"viour's, tells us that as Jonas was confined in "that extraordinary prison three nights and three "days, fo the Son of man fhould be three days " and three nights in the heart of the earth. Even "this pretended fimilitude, however, has not one corresponding feature in the two parts; for, in "the first place, our Lord was in the grave only "one day and two nights; and, in the next, Jonas "according to this incredible ftory was alive the "whole time, praying to and praifing God, whereas "Jefus was amongst the dead and buried, of whom "the Pfalmift fays, the dead praise not thee, O "Lord, neither they that go down into filence."

Mr.

Mr. Evanson, therefore, greatly prefers the account of Luke, who contents himself with faying that Jonas was a fign to that generation: "the real fignifica❝tion of which," he fays, "was, that as Nineveh "was to be destroyed forty days, or years, after "the preaching of Jonah, fo would the Jews after "the fame period, if they did not repent."

This, however, is not the interpretation of Luke, who, for any thing Mr. Evanfon knows, would have fuggefted the fame idea that Matthew does, if, like him, he had given any explanation of the fign at all, but that of Mr. Evanfon's. And though Jonah was alive, and Jefus dead, there was fomething very remarkable in their continuing in a state so nearly alike, the fame space of time. Befides, the proper evidence of the divine miffion of Jefus was his refurrection, and not the fulfilment of his prophecy concerning the deftruction of Jerufalem; and what the Pharifees demanded of him was a proof of his miffion. That the phrafe three days and three nights only means the third day, I need not prove to any perfon acquainted with the Jewish phraseology.

2. To the advice of Jefus, not to give that which is boly to the dogs, and not to caft pearls before fwine, Matt. vii. 6, Mr. Evanfon objects in the following extraordinary manner. "In chap. vii. 6, we find a

vulgar proverb," p. 148," antecedent to the mif"fion of Jefus Chrift, converted into a precept of "the Gofpel, Give not that which is holy unto the "dogs, neither caft ye your pearls before fwine, "leaft

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"least they trample them under their feet and turn "again and rent you." If these words have any "meaning in this place, it must be to prohibit the teaching his holy religion and propounding the << valuable doctrines of the Gospel to fuch profligate,

profane, and brutal characters as it was probable "would only treat their inftructions with fcorn and " contempt, and reward their zeal with perfecution "and perfonal violence. Yet fuch a precept is directly contrary to the well-known constant prac"tice of our Lord himself and all his Apoftles, and "utterly repugnant to the most explicit, repeated "leffons of duty urged upon his difciples on other "occafions, the uniform tenor of which is, that in "preaching the gospel they must expect and be prepared to endure odium, contempt and ignominy, "and the most cruel perfecutions of every kind, even unto death."

On the contrary, our Saviour's direction is fuch a dictate of prudence as he gave on other occafions, and fuch as is perfectly right and reasonable in itself. For why fhould a man expofe himself to danger with no profpect of doing any good, but only of receiving harm? Did not Jefus advise his difciples not to expofe themselves to perfecution unne ceffarily, but when they were perfecuted in one city to flee to another; and in general to be wife as ferpents as well as harmless as doves. And if Mr. Evanfon question the authenticity of the books which contain these precepts, did not both himself and the

apostles