6

on Judaism, but not on all the Jewish books? Why 'fhould the Song of Songs be held more facred among us, than the fables of the Talmud? The anfwer is, because we have included it in the Hebrew C canon. And what is this fame canon? It is a col•lection of authentic works. Well, and must a work of course be divine, for being authentic? For instance, a history of the kings of Juda, and of Si⚫ chem, what is it but a history? A ftrange prepofeffion, indeed! We defpife and abhor the Jews; and yet we infift, that all fuch of their writings which we have collected, bear the facred ftamp of divinity. Never was fuch a contradiction heard of!' I have beftowed some attention upon this paragraph already, and fuggefted then the true reason of our veneration for their books. I therefore only now add, the greater displeasure and averfion Chriftians had at the Jews, it is plain, they would be less ready to receive Jewish books as divine oracles, without fatisfactory evidence that Jefus and his apoftles honoured them as fuch; even, as it is evident, the more keen the malice and hatred of the Jews against Christianity, they would be less forward to corrupt or alter their facred books, so as to serve its cause and intereft. The circumftance, therefore, of the abhorrence of Chriftians at them, may rather be improved to the confirmation and establishment of our faith in the antient Scriptures.

*

Part 1. fection 6. page 34.

SECTION V.

Of his infinuation that Mathew's Gofpel was not written till after the taking of Jerufalem by Titus, from the mention of Zacharias's death.

6

IN his Philofophical Dictionary, speaking of learned perfons*, he says, They obfervet, that, in St. Matthew, Jefus Chrift fays to the Scribes and Pharifees, that upon them should come all the innocent blood fhed on the earth from the blood of righte'ous Abel to that of Zacharias the fon of Barac, whom they flew between the temple and the al

tar.

In all the history of the Hebrews, fay they, we ⚫ meet with no fuch perfon as Zacharias killed in the 6 temple before the coming of the Meffiah, nor in

his time; but Jofephus, in his history of the siege ' of Jerufalem, (chap. 19. book 4.) mentions a Zacha'rias the fon of Barachias, who was killed in the 'middle of the temple by a faction of the Zelotes. • This has given rife to a fupicion, that St. Matthew's Gospel was not written till after the taking of Jeru'falem by Titus. But if we consider the infinite difference there must be between books divinely in

fpired,and fuch as are merely human,all these doubts, 'difficulties and objections immediately vanish.'

But what learned men ever expressed such a fuf

* See article Christianity, page 98.

Thus the reader must have obferved, it is his frequent manner to put objections in the mouths of others, which, it cannot be doubtad, he himself approves, and triumphs in as unanswerable.

picion as Mr. Voltaire afcribes to them! Indeed there have not been wanting fome, and among thofe a perfon of no less critical ability and reputation than Grotius, who fuppofed Zacharias the fon of Baruch, whom Jofephus *represents to have been flain in the middle of the temple, by two of the moft daring of the Zelotes, only about the end of Nero's reign, and a little before Jerufalem was invested by the Roman armies, to be intended in the paffage of St. Matthew, chap. xxiii. v. 35. But then they never drew the conclufion which he mentions from it, that St. Matthew's Gospel was a compofition of a later date. No. They reckoned † our Lord spoke of his murder here by way of anticipation, through that power of prophecy which refided in him, and enabled him to forefee and foretell future contingencies even more diftant, as appears from his hiftory. They therefore still agreed with other critics about the age of this work, who, however they have differed concerning its precife time, fome of them placing it eight, fome fifteen, and some, upon the testimony of Irenaeus, that it was written when Peter and Paul were preaching at Rome, fo late as 28 years after Chrift's afcenfion into heaven, have univerfally judged that it, as well as the Gospels of Mark and

t

De Bello, 4. 5. 4.

Thus Grotius on the place writes, Videri hic Chriftum adlu'dere ad veterem historiam, 2 Paralip. 24. 17—22. ut simul infit ejus verbis futuri praefagium. Nam virorum bonorum atque infigni

um ultimus ab Hierofolymitis trucidatus, et quidem in ipfo templo, 'dictus itidem eft Zacharias, et quidem filius Baruchi, quod cum Bara❝ chiae nomine idem haberi potest; cujus caedem ftatim fecuta eft obfidio, ut apud Jofephum videre eft.'

Luke, was published a confiderable while not only before the taking of Jerufalem by Titus, but before the commencement of its fiege. And truly this may be argued from the manner of the Evangelift himfelf, which adds ftrength to the harmonious tradition of antient Chriftians about its fo early appear

For he does not drop the leaft intimation, where he records our Saviour's prediction of the spread of the Roman armies through the land of Judea, and the desolation of its capital and temple by them, that it had been verified by the event, any more than these other facred hiftorians do, who were his companions in the kingdom of God. On the contrary, like them, by the expreffion, Let him that • readeth, understand,' he calls upon all difciples of Jefus in that country, into whofe hands his narrative might come, to be attentive to the figns that were declarative of the approaching distress and ruin, and inferts admonitions and warnings to them, to provide for their own safety.

But is there, after all, fufficient reafon to imagine, that the Zacharias was meant, whofe death Josephus there relates, as our author takes for granted, while he appears to every reader of penetration, willing to improve it into an evidence, that Matthew's Gospel was written after that event happened, and rather to deride the hypothesis which confiders it as an inftance of Chrift's extraordinary knowledge? I apprehend not. I do not infift for fhewing this, that the Zacharias of the gospels is flain between the temple and the altar; whereas the Zacharias of Jofephus, in the period referred to, is killed in the middle of the temple. For I doubt

whether this difference can be of any force to perfuade that another perfon was intended by the evangelifts, fince Jofephus might have fatisfied himself with fo general an account of the scene of his death, though it had happened in the inner court, in which the altar of burnt-offering ftood; as indeed he hath done in his narrative of the excision of a more antient Zacharias, at the * command of Joafh, which is admitted to have been tranfacted in the fame court, about which he only fays, The king ordered that he fhould die by ftoning in the temple.'

There are other differences which seem to me of greater weight to evince the point. In Matthew, the Zacharias fpoken of, is called the son of Barachias; but the Zacharias in Jofephus, is ftiled the fon of Baruch, which is a different name from the former, small as the variety betwixt these words is. For in the Greek verfion, Bapex Baruch, is always used to translate the Hebrew 7 Baruch, but Bαpaxias Barachias is applied with the fame uniformity to render the Hebrew ' Berechiah. Compare Ifai. viii. 2. Zechar. i. 17. Nehem. iii. 4, 20, Jerem. xliii. 3, 6. xlv. 1, 2, &c. And the example of this verfion is followed by Jofephus himself, as may be found by looking into his Antiquities, where he gives an account of the remonftrance of † Berechiah and other princes of Ifrael, to their brethren that returned from the war, against detaining the numerous captives they had made in Judah, from 2 Chron. xxviii. 1 2. and, again, where he mentions the actions and ufage of Baruch, from the book of Jeremiah.—

* J. Antiq. 9. 8. 3. and 2 Chron. xxiv. 17,—22. Antiq. 9. 12. 2. and 10. 6. 2. &c.