others but a few verses, others but one verse. The improbability of St. Matthew's writing thus. The size of the parchment rolls on which the Jews wrote.

CHAP. XVII.

Mr. Whiston's observation, that our present Greek copies of this Gospel are a translation out of Hebrew, and for that reason more liable to the disorder which he supposes, considered. St. Matthew did not write his Gospel in Hebrew, though it is asserted by all the fathers. The fathers have frequently (one after another) fallen into the same mistake in matters of fact. How they came to fall into this mistake, viz. by taking the Gospel of the Nazarenes and Ebionites for the true authentic Gospel of St. Matthew. The fathers were under a sort of necessity of believing this mistake.

CHAP. XVIII.

The fathers fell into the mistake, that St. Matthew wrote in Hebrew, because none of them, except Origen, Jerome, and Epiphanius, understood that language. They were upon that account unable to compare the Gospel of the Nazarenes with their own Greek copies, and discover its spuriousness. This confirmed by a remark, that none of the fathers, who assert St. Matthew wrote in Hebrew, have cited the Gospel of the Nazarenes, except the three mentioned, who understood that language. The reasons assigned, why they (Epiphanius, Jerome, and Origen) fell into the same mistake. Papias, the first Christian writer who asserts this, was a very fabulous and credulous person; yet was followed by many of the fathers in his mistakes (as Eusebius observes) by reason of his antiquity. His testimony in this matter proved by one part of it to be false.

CHAP. XIX.

probable that St. Matthew The Greek was the most

Several arguments by which it appears did not write his Gospel in Hebrew. common language, and, for that reason, that Gospel was most likely to be useful therein. Supposing it a translation, makes its inspiration dubious. It is not probable that the original Hebrew would ever have been lost. The Hebrew one we have now is certainly a translation out of Greek.

CHAP. XX.

Though St. Matthew's Gospel be supposed a translation out of Hebrew, yet it was not, for that reason, more liable to dislocation or disorder.

CHAP. XXI.

Several arguments to prove that our present Greek copies of St. Matthew are not at all transposed or disordered since that evangelist's first writing. No book ever was thus disordered. It does not seem agreeable to the care which divine Providence always exercised towards the sacred books, to permit this to have happened to St. Matthew's Gospel. No other part of St. Matthew's Gospel disordered, and therefore not this. The dislocations, which Mr. Whiston supposes, could not happen to this Gospel in the apostles' time.

CHAP. XXII.

The disorder Mr. Whiston supposes in the former part of St. Matthew's Gospel could not possibly happen after the apostles' time, because of the great number of copies that were spread abroad in the world in their time. The time when St. Matthew wrote, and the distance between that time and St. John's death, considered. That the Gospels were very much dispersed in the apostles' time, largely proved. Mr. Hobbes, Mr. Toland, and Mr. Dodwell's notion of the Gospels being a long while unknown and concealed, confuted by several arguments.

CHAP. XXIII.

St. Matthew's Gospel, in our present copies, was not disordered and misplaced since the apostles' time, because the Syriac version, which was made in the apostles' time, is in the same order with our present copies. An attempt to prove that the Syriac version was made in that time. Syriac was the language of the Jews in the apostles' time. Great numbers of Jews were converted to Christianity, and therefore needed a version in that language.

CHAP. XXIV.

The Syriac version, which we now have, is the same which was made in the apostles' time. This proved by three arguments. The Syrians, from whom we had it, believed it to be the same. It is improbable the ancient version should be lost; it wants the parts of the New Testament, which were last written.

Α

VINDICATION

OF

THE FORMER PART

OF

ST. MATTHEW'S GOSPEL, &c.

CHAP. I.

The design and principal authors of Gospel Harmonies. The design of the following discourse.

THE difference which there is between the evangelists, in relating several circumstances of the Gospel-history, and particularly their disagreement as to the order of time, in which the things they relate were done, has in all ages of Christianity been objected as an argument against the truth of the history itself. Porphyry, Celsus, and many others, have for this reason reviled both the Gospels, and the religion which they contain. Hence it has been judged necessary by many pious and learned men, to employ themselves in endeavours to reconcile the seeming contradictions of these sacred writers, and to reduce the Gospels to a perfect harmony. Among the ancients, Tatian, the scholar of Justin Martyr, composed a Harmony in some part of the second century a, and after him Ammonius of Alexandria, in the beginning of the third composed another, and after him Eusebius, in the beginning of the fourth b. In the last age great pains was taken in this work by Chemnitius, Gerhard, Calvin, Dr. Lightfoot, and many others. Mr. Le Clerc, Mr. Whiston, and Mr. Toinard, are (I think) the only

a Euseb. Hist. Eccl. 1. 4. c. 29.

b A specimen of which is to be seen in Sixt. Senens. Bib. Sanct. 1. 3.

persons who have done any thing considerable in this matter of late years. To say nothing of the others, the world is exceedingly obliged to Mr. Whiston for the many curious and useful discoveries he has made in his performance on this subject; the propositions he has advanced, are certainly, for the most part, very ingenious and happy expedients to solve the difficulties they are designed for. There are however some of them that do not seem to be so very evident and so fully proved, as others; and in this number is that which I have now undertaken to discuss, viz. c That the former part of St. Matthew's Gospel, in our present copies, is very much misplaced, contrary to the method and order originally intended by the evangelist.

That part of this Gospel which Mr. Whiston supposes disordered and misplaced, is from the middle of the fourth, to the end of the thirteenth chapter; in which small portion of the history there must have been, according to his supposition, at least twenty several disorders and misplacings.

However good Mr. Whiston's design might be in advancing so strange a proposition, I cannot but think he has failed in his proof of it. My business therefore in the following discourse will be, first, to shew the invalidity of Mr. Whiston's arguments, and then offer some reasons, by which it will appear that no such disorder can, without the greatest absurdity, be supposed to have happened to this, or any other part of this Gospel.

CHAP. II.

Mr. Whiston's proof considered. The question thereupon stated. Mr. Whiston's first argument, viz. that St. Matthew designed to observe the order of time, answered. St. Luke's words, chap. i. 1. do not prove that either of the Gospels we now receive were intended according to the order of time.

IN order to establish this new and strange proposition, (as Mr. Whiston himself calls it,) he undertakes to prove,