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him unsatisfactory, or founded on mistake, he will dismiss that number from the argument, but without prejudice to any other. He will also please to remember this word un designedness, as denoting that upon which the construction and validity of our argument chiefly depend; and which, it is hoped, will be sufficiently apparent from the instances themselves, and the separate remarks with which they are accompanied. It should also be observed, that the more oblique or intricate the comparison of a coincidence may be the more circuitous the investigation is, the better; because the agreement which finally results is thereby further removed from the suspicion of contrivance, affectation, or design. And it should be remembered, concerning these coincidences, that it is one thing to be minute and another to be precarious; one thing to be unobserved, and another to be obscure; one thing to be circuitous or oblique, and another to be forced, dubious, or fanciful. These are distinctions which ought to be always retained in our thoughts.

THE GOSPEL OF ST. MATTHEW.

No. I.-Chap. x. 2—4.

"Now the names of the twelve apostles are these; the first, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother; James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother; Philip, and Bartholomew; Thomas, and Matthew the publican; James the son of Alpheus, and Lebbeus, whose surname was Thaddeus; Simon the Canaanite, and Judas Iscariot, who also betrayed him."

In this passage the twelve apostles are enumerated in pairs; a mode of arrangement adopted by no other evan. gelist, though the same order is in some measure preserved. The reason for the adoption of such an arrangement is not immediately obvious. Consanguinity might justly be assigned as the cause in the cases of Simon Peter and Andrew his brother, James the son of Zebedee and John his brother, and James the son of Alpheus and Lebbeus or Thaddeus, also called Judas the brother of James (Luke vi. 16.); and if Bartholomew be the same with Nathaniel, as some have supposed, he might with propriety be associated with his friend Philip, who first introduced him to a knowledge of the Saviour. John i. 43-46. But there appears no reason why Thomas, a fisherman of Galilee (John xxi. 1—13.),

should be united with Matthew the publican; nor why Simon the Canaanite, or Zelotes (i. e. the Zealous, Luke vi. 15.) should be associated with Judas Iscariot, the betrayer of our Lord.

If it be said, that as there were but four of the Apostles who remained to be classed, it was immaterial which of the two possible modes of arrangement were adopted, and that there might be no reason why the present one was chosen, the possibility is readily conceded: though apart from every other consideration, it seems more probable, that the association of persons so different in their ordinary avocations as Thomas and Matthew, and so dissimilar in their characters as Simon Zelotes and Judas Iscariot, was not a fortuitous circumstance, but the effect of choice, grounded upon some determinate reason of preference. In fact, it appears, that neither consanguinity nor friendship, nor yet the blind direction of chance, was the proximate cause of this arrangement; for Simon, who was the third son of Alpheus, and brother of James and Lebbeus or Judas, (Matt. xiii. 55.) is disjoined from them, and united with Judas Iscariot, in consequence of this mode of arranging in pairs having been adopted. A circumstance, however, related by St. Mark, we conceive, furnishes us with the true reason why St. Matthew has thus enumerated them. He relates, that our Lord having "called unto him the twelve," "began to send them forth by two and two." (Mark vi. J.) From this statement we at once clearly perceive why St. Matthew should have thus arranged them in pairs. It also satisfactorily accounts for every circumstance connected with this arrangement; our Lord having, as a pious man remarks, "united by grace those who were bofore united by nature; and intending, perhaps, to counteract the timidity and unbelief of Thomas by the firmness and faith of Matthew, and the worldly-mindedness of Judas Iscariot, by the zealous fervour of Simon.

Now this minute and striking coincidence between the accounts of these Evangelists, appears on the very face of it, to be wholly undesigned; and consequently, clearly proves that they wrote independently of each other, and establishes the truth of their respective relations. Had St. Mark possessed a copy of St. Matthew's Gospel, and merely abridged his larger history, as some have imagined, it can scarcely be conceived that he would have concluded from St. Matthew's

arrangement that our Saviour sent out his twelve apostles "two and two;" and, if we can suppose that he could have inferred this, yet it is highly improbable that he would have been content with merely stating the fact, without giving the order in which they were sent out. But, so far from this being the case, where he does enumerate the Apostles, he not only does not arrange them in pairs, but differs materially in the order of the names; interposing James the son of Žebedee, and John his brother, between Simon Peter, and Andrew his brother, adding, that our Lord called the former two "Boanerges, which is, the sons of thunder," and placing Matthew before Thomas. (Mark iii. 16-18.) On the other hand, if St. Matthew had had St. Mark's gospel before him, (which, we believe, has never been imagined,) it will scarcely be supposed that he drew up his arrangement of the Apostles from the simple assertion of St. Mark, that Jesus sent out his disciples "two and two;" or, that, if he did so, he would omit, as he does, the statement of the fact. As, therefore, neither of these suppositions can be admitted, it must be inferred, that each of these sacred writers wrote independently of the other, and related in their own manner the circumstances of an act with which they were well acquainted; and the reality of which cannot consequently be questioned, being thus confirmed by two writers who agree respecting it in the most minute and undesigned particulars. London. .W. G.

The Inquisition. From The Wesleyan Methodist Magazine. Oct. and Nov. 1827.

The Inquisition was given into the hands of the Dominicans about 1217. It was more fully authenticated and formed in 1227, in the Pontificate of Gregory IX., who had been the protector of Dominic. It was introduced into Spain in 1232, which from that time became its chief seat. In 1486 a new model of the Inquisition was sanctioned by Innocent VIII; a royal council was created; its inferior tribunals received authority; a new code of horrible laws began; and, with Torquemada at its head, the Inquisition of Spain, the most powerful of European kingdoms, and about

to assume the sovereignty of the new world, planted its branches in the most remote dependencies of the empire, and became the scourge of mankind.

The slaughters committed by the Inquisition are now beyond any accurate calculation; but they stand a fearful rivalry with the most prodigal expenditure of blood by war. The tribunal went on its course of plunder, imprisonment, torture, and burning, for six hundred years! During the last century, the common feeling of mankind had so far penetrated even within the walls of the Inquisition, that the chief cruelties were kept from the public eye. Yet a Nun was burnt alive by the Spanish Inquisition so late as the year 1781. But what calculation of the slain can give us the true estimate of the evil, the myriads of the broken hearts of orphans, widows, parents deprived of their children, families banished and beggared; the life of perpetual fear in the presence of a tribunal against which no man at any hour was secure; in whose hands torture, death, or an imprisonment of a length and severity that made after-life useless, and from which no man came, but as hardly escaped from the grave? And what are we to think of the religion that could create, sanction, and triumph in this tribunal? What of the abject and desperate prostration of mind which that religion must labour to produce, before it could venture to lay the weight of Inquisition on the world? What of the hideous repulsion of all the principles of Christianity, in the establishment of this formal and cold-blooded system of murder? We may presumptuously doubt, if we will, the Scripture that declares the existence and hostility of the evil spirit; but on what other conception can human reason account for the horrors of the Inquisition? We are driven back to the revealed word, and forced to see, in this triumph of torture and death, a cruelty beyond man, the form of the Fiend enveloped and enthroned in the circle of agony and flame.

The spiritual supremacy of Rome had, almost in the moment of its birth, been disowned, even in Italy. The arch-diocese of Milan, consisting of the seven provinces, Liguria, Æmilia, Flaminia, Venetia, the Cottain and Greek Alps, and Rhetia or the Grisons, the ancient government of the Lieutenant of the Western Prætorian Præfect, had

long pursued their own ritual, and established the Ambrosian Liturgy.

But their first open separation from Rome was in the year 553. It became still more distinct in 590, when nine of the bishops rejected the communion of the Pope as a heretic, and refused obedience to the command of the Emperor Mauritius to be present at a council at Rome, denying that they could communicate with Gregory the First.

A. D. 817. The Prelates of the Milanese had struggled, at the council of Frankfort, against the general corruption of Papacy. But an eminent man suddenly arose to embody their resistance, and to take the lead equally in enlightening the church, and breaking down the Romish supremacy. Claudius, a Spaniard, had been one of the Chaplains of Lewis the Pious; who, on his accession to the German empire, had appointed this able and learned man to the bishopric of Turin. The rank was high, for Turin was a metropolitan see; though the title of Archbishop was not yet introduced. The Romish idolatry had made rapid advances in the north of Italy; and the appointment of Claudius was the honourable testimony to talents and virtues which made him the fittest champion of the truth. He instantly unsheathed that only legitimate and irresistable sword, which is put into human hands by the Spirit; he spread the Scriptures. He wrote for the people successive explanations of Genesis, St. Matthew, the Epistle to the Galatians, the Ephesians, Exodus, and Leviticus. The chief points of his teaching were all in direct opposition to the Papal theology. He declared that,

Christ is the only Head of the Church;-the Apostles were all equal,-and the only primacy of St. Peter consisted in his having had the sacred honour of founding the Church among the Jews and Gentiles;-the Romish doctrine of merits is altogether unfounded in Scripture ;-tradition in religion is of no value ;-man is to be saved only by faith in the Saviour's sacrifice;-the church among men is liable to error ;-prayers for the dead are useless ;—image-worship is sin.

The reputation and doctrines of this great man soon spread through Italy, and even into Spain. The Papal court, not yet daring to persecute the favoured Bishop of the Emperor, turned its pen upon him; and the chief me

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