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    not seem fortunate in the selection of his instances . He asks , * ' What , can be more impracticable than all attempts to reconcile Luke iv . 22 , and Matt , xiii . 55 , both proving that Jesus was the son of Joseph and Mary , with Matt . L . 18 , and John L 9 , 14 ? " Now ,

    admitting the fact of the miraculous conception , the text , Luke iiL 23 , 4 < being , as was supposed 9 the son of Joseph , " whether we read the word supposed or reg'ister&d , at once removes this exceedingly trifling' objection . With regard to John L 9 , 14 ,

    the objector first begs the question , that the texts can only be explained in his own manner , and then decides that they cannot be reconciled with the testimony of Jesus being the son of Joseph . How Christ being the true light , " ( ver . 9 , ) is inconsistent with his being the son of Joseph , he does not condescend to say ; but as to the €

    * word being made flesh , " ( ver . 14 , ) he must know that the original may be rendered " the word was flesh ;" and that in this case , so far from any impracticability of reconcilement , the texts literally , coalesce ; and if , as I have before proved , the word in Jewish

    phraseology was a mere periphrasis for God himself , operating by his wisdom and power , " the word becoming flesh , " however foreign to our mode of expression , means no more than the man Christ Jesus being " the power of God and the wisdom of God , ' * or

    anointed with his wisdom and power , and is equally consistent ( admitting the fact ) with Jesus being the son of Joseph . The words , on either scheme of interpretation , form a significant

    refutation of the phantomist heresy , and , as harmonizing with passages to the same effect in the acknowledged writings of the Apostle John , carry with them their own evidence of

    authenticity . That no gospel of apostolical authority was extant at the period when Luke wrote his , ( which Lardner has , I think , satisfactorily shewn , ) may be

    the office . He was not aware that he was also removing one of the strongest supports of Christianity , —the argument from the independence of testimony . Had the jgogpete concurred in the choice and particularity of focts , we should then fcave bfcen told of a plan of conceited imposture .

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    allowed without leaping to the very summary conclusion , that no other gospel was written afterwards . It is said , that of Matthew's having written any gospel , " the only testimony we have is that of Papias : " but , if this

    were so , what is there to impugn the testimony of Papias ? He is thought to have been acquainted with John , the Apostle : but Irenaeus , who knew John ' s disciple , Polycarp , bears also testimony to Matthew ' s having written a gospel 3 and the same writer gives a similar attestation to the fact of Mark

    and John having each written a gospel , and quotes , as a part of the gospel written by John , the opening of the very proem which so much perplexes and astounds the detecter of Spurious Christianity— " In the beginning was the Word . "

    It is one of the strong holds of Unitarian Christianity , that three out of the four evangelists afford no intimation of the deity of the Son of God . The conclusion follows , that any thing

    in the fourth gospel which should appear to introduce doctrines incompatible with the simple humanity of the Messiah , must have been intended by the writer in some different sense : for

    this is not the addition of any omitted fact , but the addition of a stupendous revelation , altering the whole basis both of the Jewish and Christian systems . As Matthew was himself a disciple , and as Mark and Luke transcribed the things related by Peter and Paul , the latter of whom heard the

    history of Jesus from the older apostles , the thrfce first evangelists must have been qualified to tell whatever was known respecting the person and character of Jesus ; and the supposition

    that John declared something omitted by them , in an article affecting the very essence of Christianity , is both disparaging to the former apostles and incredible m itself . The more so as ,

    since the gospels were not written for the original promulgation of Christianity , but for the purpose of recording the facts and discourses which had already been promulgated by preaching , hail

    the apostles preached the literal doctripe of a deity or a super-angelical spirit incarnate in the human nature of JeBua of Nazareth , the people of the churches Which they founded would necessarily be astonished that all the tfctfte evangelists should fcave over-

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    710 The Canonical Gospels thesupport of Unitarian Christianity

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Dec. 2, 1820, page 710, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2495/page/22/