astes, and Job are comprehended. I own I cannot agree with him; first, because the opinion rests on no good authority; and secondly, because these three last do not seem to contain any prediction of the Messiah.

"In the law of Moses."] I understand by this specially, the law of sacrifice, which is expressly declared, in the 40th Psalm, to relate to Christ, and to be fufilled in his oblation. Other passages in Moses, relating to Christ,as for instance, where all nations are to be blessed in the seed of Abraham, and perhaps Genesis xlix. 10, say nothing of his death or resurrection.

45." Then opened he their understanding."] The meaning is, he explained to them many passages of the Bible, which were not previously understood.

49. "But tarry e in the city of Jerusalem."] The enemies of Christianity have here found the most glaring and irreconcileable contradiction betwixt that which Luke (Acts i. 4.) relates Jesus to have commanded his disciples "not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Holy Ghost," and the thrice repeated commandment (Matt. xxvi. 32; xxviii. 7-10: Mark xiv. 28; xvi. 7.) to go to Galilee,

where Jesus was to show himself to them upon a certain mountain. If this last were, in reality, impossible, it would only remain a contradiction between Luke and the other evangelists; for in the 21st chapter of John we actually find the disciples in Galilee; although he did not think it necessary to repeat the order which prescribes this journey, in consequence of its being contained in the other evangelists; but he assumes it, as already known from Matthew and from Mark; for otherwise it would be incomprehensible, how five apostles and two disciples could be, all at once, upon the Lake of Tiberias. (John xxi. 1, 2.) John, therefore, an eye-witness of every thing, and who had read the other three evangelists, confirms what Matthew and what Mark have written; and then the error would be entirely on the side of Luke, who was himself no eye-witness; and nothing would be lost to us, but the divine inspiration of this last evangelist, for which, as I have before remarked, we have not the same strong arguments, as for that of Matthew and of John. But independent of this, his error, strictly speaking, would be only one of imperfect narration, and would rest on the omission of various details: "That they were not entirely

to quit Jerusalem, but that, according to the commandment given them to go to Galilee, they were afterwards to return to Jerusalem, and remain there until they received the Holy Ghost." Here, in fact, religion loses nothing, and the credibility of a history cannot suffer, if one who has only heard it from others, relates anything so defectively as to be at variance with an eyewitness. I do not see, however, the necessity of giving up Luke so readily. It is clear that he did not know one thing, which the other evangelists, and even Paul knew; but he has said nothing, as far as I can see, to contradict them.

If a person is commanded to remain in a given city, and to expect the performance of a promise to be fulfilled in that city, he is not necessarily confined to the place, or prohibited from going beyond the walls. We find the apostles, both Luke xxiv. 50, and Acts i. 12, quitting Jerusalem, although, strictly speaking, resident in it. It does not appear that they might not have been absent for a few days, although they were under a command not to change their usual place of residence, or, as in the special case of the apostles, who were to publish the gospel to the whole world, although they were not to proceed upon their mission

without further instructions. Supposing a man of influence to promise a place to a young student at an university, and that he enjoined him to remain, or rather not to quit the university before he sent him an order for his appointment, the student would not be prohibited from going out for his amusement, or even from making an excursion of a few days; he, is only to make the university his more immediate residence, and to wait for the completion of the promise. If Jesus, therefore, as we know from the three evangelists, had ordered all his disciples to go to Galilee, in order that they might bear testimony to him, then the signification of the present injunction would amount to this: "they were not to leave Jerusalem entirely, and commence the preaching of the gospel in the world, until they should have received the Holy Ghost: that they should return to Jerusalem, after their journey into Galilee, and wait for him there." The only thing which astonishes me, is that Luke should have said nothing of the appearance of Galilee, which rests upon the testimony of the other three evangelists, but entirely omits it. Matthew and Mark both contain the order to go to Galilee, where Jesus declared he would be visible to all his disciples; Matthew

relates the appearance itself, and if Mark does not do so, the probability is, that it arose from his being prevented finishing his gospel. John omits, it is true, or rather he assumes as known, what is written by the other evangelists, but we actually find in his twenty-first chapter, the disciples assembled with Jesus at the lake of Tiberias. The silence and ignorance of Luke upon this subject are the more extraordinary, as even Paul, whose travelling companion he so long was, certainly alludes to this appearance, 1 Corinth. xv. 6, an appearance the most convincing, because more than five hundred brethren saw the Lord. We can scarcely account for his silence, except by supposing Luke to have written his gospel before he became the travelling companion of Paul, (or at least, that he did not write by the dictation of Paul,) and, having found no mention made of this appearance in the existing biography of Jesus, of the truth or inaccuracy of which he could only satisfy himself through the medium of others, not to have inquired about, and consequently to have omitted it. If any one can give a better explanation of this extraordinary omission, it will give me great pleasure.