ART. V. Remarks on Michaelis's Introduction to the New Testament, Vols. III. IV. translated by the Rev. Herbert Marsh, and augmented with Notes. By way of Caution to Students in Divinity. Second Edition, with a Preface and Notes, in Reply to Mr. Marsh. 8vo. pp. 122. 2s. 6d. White.

ART. VI. Letters to the anonymous Author of Remarks on Michaelis and his Commentator, relating especially to the Dissertation on the Origin and Composition of our three first canonical Gospels. By Herbert Marsh, B.D. F. R.S. Fellow of St. John's College, Cam bridge. 8vo. PP. 39. IS. Rivingtons.

BETWEEN free inquiry and implicit faith, no middle path

can in fact be taken; and when examination is restrained by a timid caution, we must not look for any satisfactory result. Such half measures may wear the appearance of calmness and moderation: but they are not flattering to Truth, who, being of a strong and vigorous constitution, dares her enemies to the utmost, and shuns no conflict to which she is invited. When the maxim is " Inquire not too deeply," suspicions will arise; and apologies, thus prefaced, will be more injurious to revelation than scepticism itself. Justin Martyr, in recommending the cause of religion to the Gentiles, reminds them of the necessity of accurate research:

Των πραγμάτων ἀκριβὴς εξέτασις, (says he) και τὰ δόξαντα καλῶς ἔχειν, πολλάκις αλλοιότερα δείκνυσιν, ακριβεςέρα πέρα ταληθές βασανίσασα.

The evidences of the Gospel are so broad and stable, that we need be under no apprehension for those Students in Divinity who will take the pains of examining them to the bottom; and as to researches into the history of the sacred text, we by no means agree with the author of the present Remarks,' that these 6 may be pursued too far, and attended with some danger.' In explaining the origin and composition of the first three Gospels, Mr. Marsh's hypothesis of a common written document may be liable to some objections, and is certainly a fair subject of public discussion among biblical scholars but we think that Mr. M. has some ground of complaint against his opponent, for the unhandsome, not to say illiberal, insinuation conveyed in his title page; as if the learned translator and commentator of Michaelis had proceeded unfairly, and, by derogating from the character of the sacred books, was in fact their enemy, while he pretended to hold them in veneration. Had the Remarks' been published merely as an Examination of Mr. M.'s Dissertation, and not by way of caution' against it, Mr. Marsh could have taken no offence, and would probably have been less irritated in his reply.-The author of the 'Remarks' is of opinion that Mr. M.'s hypothesis of a written document

prior to the Evangelists is inadmissible, and affords no reasonable account of the several particularities (which Mr. M. affectedly enough terms phænomena,) belonging to them: but he especially objects to it as derogating from the Inspiration and credibility of the Gospels.

Though we cannot accord with the anonymous author in all his strictures, yet some parts of his examination, and particularly the subjoined notes, are intitled to Mr. Marsh's consideration: but if a belief in the Inspiration of the Gospels be necessary to their authenticity and credibility, we apprehend that Students in Divinity ought as well to be cautioned against these Remarks, as against those of Michaelis and his commentator; and the writings of both may be alike reprobated as having a mischievous tendency.'

It is difficult for us to enter into the precise ideas which the author of these Remarks' entertains on the subject of Inspiration. He strenuously contends that the Evangelists wrote under its influence; and yet, when he explains himself, he asserts only a low degree of Inspiration,' which appears to us to be very little preferable to no Inspiration. We are informed p. 10. that the Evangelists may be conceived to have been at liberty to transpose ad libitum, or at least within certain limits;' and at p. 14. that the Evangelists were left [in minute circumstances] to their own recollection, and to the common variations of memory among men ;' yet this anonymous author repeatedly quotes the promise of the Holy Spirit to the Apostles, who was to bring all things to their remembrance. It is presumed, however, that this promise must be taken with some limitation, in as much as plenary Inspiration would be a great waste of Inspiration;' and it is even admitted that perfect identity of narrative was not necessary for the purposes of Providence.'

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We will not say that this account is ludicrous, but it is completely unsatisfactory. What sort of Inspiration is that which leaves the writer, who is under its powerful influence, ad libitum; which sometimes assists him to recollect, and at others allows him to fall into mistakes; which will not enable him to produce a book perfect in all its details, but only a book bearing a near resemblance to Xenophon's Memorabilia ?' When a writer is left to the common variations or slips of memory, he in fact is not inspired; and when perfect identity of narrative in the Gospels is asserted to be unnecessary, it is an admission that Inspiration is unnecessary, and that the concurrence of four upright historians in all the material facts relative to the life of Christ and all his doctrines must form a satisfactory transmission of them to posterity. Little discrepancies

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in the Gospel-narratives, respecting immaterial circumstances, so far from affecting the credibility of the sacred historians, are proofs of their having written independently of each other: but discordance, even in little facts, must affect the hypothesis. of Inspiration, since the Holy Spirit, in assisting the Evange lists to any particular circumstance in the life of Christ, could not instruct one to record that it happened before such a period, and another that it occurred afterward. Thus if Matthew and Luke both wrote under the same divine illumination, one could not report our Saviour's miracle performed on blind Bartimeus to have taken place" as he went out of Jericho," and the other that it happened "as Christ was come nigh to Jericho." It certainly makes no difference to our faith in the event, whether the miracle was worked at this or that season: but it is a question whether, if the infallible Spirit of God were present to the minds of the historians, this even trifling disa

greement could have possibly occurred. Can the Deity be peculiarly present to aid the recollections of two authors narrating the same event, and allow one to be exact, and the other to be incorrect?

The author of Remarks' will say that, if the superintendance of the Spirit secured the Evangelists from material error, and suggested every thing necessary for the instruction of a Christian, the real end of Inspiration is answered; and that this is the proper rule of the extent and degree of it.' It will be allowed that the true object of such documents as the Gospels is accomplished, if material errors are prevented, and lessons necessary for the instruction of the Christian ́are communicated but it may be asked, is any Inspiration necessary to produce this effect; and, if it be necessary, can we suppose the Spirit of God to aid the memories of the Evangelists to recollect that which they may have seen and heard, with different degrees of accuracy?

With divine interposition, more must be accomplished than the mere faculties of man can perform; and the errors to which he is liable must then be excluded. After all, do the Evangelists assert that they were inspired? Does any thing like this appear in St. Luke's preface; and do not divines embarrass themselves by maintaining it, as well as impose on the Deity works of supererogation; for one Gospel perfectly written in all its parts, under the influence of Inspiration, must have superseded the necessity of the rest?

Harmonies are liable to objecion, in the judgment of the author of Remarks,' as giving a propensity of forcing every thing in the Gospel history into an exact method, even those parts which were not contrived by the authors

to fall into it.' We can never suppose that the Evangelists had any contrivance or idea of this kind: but, having alike undertaken to write the memoirs of our blessed Lord, we see no reasonable objection to their respective Gospels being subjected to the harmonizing process; nor against exhibiting the different narratives in parallel columns, so as to place their agreement and dissonance at once under the eye. How can an excessive use be made of this practice?' Can scripture critics and interpreters be too attentive in arranging and methodizing? Granting that the Evangelists were not scrupulous in observing chronological order, that there are some passages in their writings of which it is perfectly indifferent at what time and place they were said;' that each Evangelist had his own reasons for the mode and place of their insertion; that he introduced them as there occurred a fit opportunity in his own particular work, or with reference to his own particular view in writing;' yet it is allowable for the Biblical student who peruses these different accounts, to force them into as exact a method as they are capable of assuming. Should the Evangelists be considered as neither historians nor biographers,' (a strange position) still truth and religion have nothing to fear from the labours of the harmonizer.

The Remarker observes that he knows no work of classical antiquity, which bears so near a resemblance to the Gospels. as Xenophon's Memorabilia, where the history is only a vehicle of the doctrines or discourses of the Grecian sage, and in which the exact order of time is not observed. Supposing, however, that four Memorabilia of Socrates, on nearly the same plan, but composed by different authors, had descended to us, should we ,abstain from comparing them together, or should we object to their being submitted to the most rigid harmonizing test? Why then insinuate any thing to the discredit of Gospel harmonizing? The reason here is obvious; because it will embarrass the Remarker's theory of Inspiration, by throwing more difficulties in its way than he can possibly remove. He attempts, however, to effect his object, by hinting that the differences are perhaps capable of being reconciled, even though the solution be not known to us,' and may depend on various readings: but this effort will not serve his purpose; for of what use to us are unknown solutions? Why, moreover, this caution in the use of Harmonies? Who demands an entire agreement in matters of inferior consequence, where it is not necessary? Not the harmonizer. He only endeavours to shew wherein the Evangelists agree and wherein they differ. -We shall dismiss this topic by observing, in the words of the author of the Remarks,' that it disturbs not our faith, if the sacred historians have been suffered to recollect, with some

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little variation, the attendant circumstances of each fact, or to fall into a different manner of telling one and the same story.'

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From the general subject of Gospel inspiration, we proceed to the particular case of St. Luke; and to consider whether he was a mere compiler, or wrote from some degree of personal knowlege. Against the former position, the Remarker argues that the word wannoλeruws, in Luke's preface, certainly means the being present with or accompanying a person or things;' and he adduces authorities for this acceptation of the term. Mr. Marsh, however, maintains in his Letters' that there is the strongest reason for believing that this expression, especially when taken with the context, implies the contrary;' and he quotes authorities adduced by Raphelius, to shew that napanonade, coupled with angiews, signifies mente atque intelligentia consequi, or must be taken in the sense of making diligent inquiries. In the notes to the 2d edition of the Remarks, the author, though he seems to yield to the justness of Mr. Marsh's stricture, by not contending positively for rendering the words in Luke's preface having had an exact personal knowlege of all things,' &c. yet maintains that this Evangelist, if not an eye-witness, at least stands in the next rank;' that he was an author of the same time and country, known to the Apostles, and certainly the associate of St. Paul; and therefore (the sentence concludes) he has a right to be considered as an original inspired author.' The premises do not warrant this conclusion. Luke's preface shews that many spurious-accounts of the Life of Christ were circulated before he wrote; that he was qualified to give a correct account by deriving his information from the purest channels, viz. from those who had been eye-witnesses and ministers of the word, and by his having bestowed on the subject the most diligent examination. Further this deponent saith not.

Mr. Marsh's account of the origin of the three Gospels of St. Matthew, St. Mark, and St. Luke, is represented by the Remarker as tending to degrade them: but that this was not his intention every candid reader will allow. His object is to explain difficulties; and, if his hypothesis fails, it has the merit of great ingenuity. It must be remembered that our blessed Lord was born in Judea; that he employed no other language in his preaching than Hebrew, or, to speak more correctly, a dialect of the Hebrew; that his apostles were his countrymen; and in course that their accounts of their master must have been delivered in the language of Judea. Hence a two-fold question arises; How has it happened that all our authentic narratives of the life of Christ are conveyed in the Greek language? and how are we to account for the striking coincidence of expression which is apparent in the se

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