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Baptist could not have been earlier than three months before the expiration of the year 751 . But the pretended Luke places it ( ch . i . ver . 5 , &c . ) "in the days of Herod the king of Judea , " who , according to Dr . C , died in March , 750 , a year and nine months at least before the expiration of 751 . Here , then , we meet with some chronological difficulty . The
biography of the baby swaddled in a manner—if a few incoherent and incongruous scraps , every one ot which seems to whisper as we pass it , " I only am escaped alone to tell thee , " * can be called biography—contradicts , by a year and a half at least , the
chronology of the Christian moralist whose name he has usurped , whose miracles he lias caricatured , and whose morality and truth he has abandoned . This is just what we should expect . Fiction is regardless of facts and of dates , of sobriety and moderation , because its object is to strike us dumb like Zacharias , and to make us "
marvel all" ( ch . i . 20 , 63 ) ; and therefore it sets before us " one born out of due time /'' the offspring of a phantom , ushered into the world with dreams ,
and wandering stars , and wise men from the East , worshiping with gold and -frankincense and myrrh , with shepherds abiding in the field , keeping watch over their flocks by night , with hosts of quiring angels , and with all
the machinery of romance ; petrifies us with an account of murders not only so extensive and so savage , that they far " out-herod Herod / ' but so wild , so frantic and so useless withal , that no man could ever have ordered such deeds of follv as well as horror , but a
raving maniac , whose orders would never have been obeyed ; -f soothes and softens us again by extricating the chief object of our solicitude from his perilous situation , not by the aid of God ' s providence , ordinary or
extra-* Job . i . 15—17 , 1 < J . The church in its wisdom has selected this chapter for the evening lesson on St . Luke ' s day .
-T " Infanticidium quod minim est taciturn a Josepho . " .. . . 4 iScd quod paulo ante dixi mirum est tarn belluina : cnulelitutis cxemplum a Josepho pra ^ terituin csse , qui tanta diligentia reliqua sanitise Herodiana * facinora persequitur . " Scalig , Animadvert , in Euseb . Thesaur . Temp . i > . 17 ti-
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ordinary , —that would not have been sufficiently surprising , —but by the sudden appearance of the angel who presides over dreams ; at whose com . mand the child flees into Egypt- by whose information it afterwards learns
( what never could have been known in Egypt without ) the death of Herod , and by whose voice it is " called out of Egypt" again , to fultil a prophecy which was never uttered , and which , without a call , could never have been fulfilled . The little hero of the tale then becomes a miracle of rabbinical learning at twelve years of age ; and then .
" meeting A vast vacuity ; all unawares , Fluttering his pennons vain , plumb down he drops Ten thousand fathom deep " into a yawning chasm , where he is lost , —shall 1 say for 17 years ? That would imply that the son of wonder whom we lose at twelve , were the son
of Joseph who is baptized at 29 . No : where he remains " a thing forbid , '' one " for whom is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever , " one never heard of more . For the Son of man whom we read of in the gospel was not a phantom , nor the son of a phantom , but an ordinary man , superior to the rest of mankind * not in nature
but in virtue only ; who became the son of God , not by supernatural generation , but by moral conduct and by obedience , an obedience unparalleled , an obedience which no temptation could seduce , no provocation disturb , no fear of disgrace could stagger , no painful suffering subdue . For this , God was pleased to set his seal ujxm him , ( Acts ii . 22 : Rom . i . dj Philips"
-8 , <) ; I-Icb . ii . 9 , xii . 2 , ) in order that he might give to all men power to become the sons of God even as Jesus was the son of God , that thus they might have life through his name ; ( John i . 12 , xiii . 15 , xx . 31 ; Ro " - viii . 14 ; Philipp . ii . 15 ; lPot . ii . 21 &e . ;) and for this purpose , that all men might believe , practically -belief this truth ; and for this purpose alo » ' the evangelists have described , not w birth , life , parentage and education , but the ininistrv . the conduct , the
character of their holy Master , and lw c told us , not how he was conceive" « J the womb , but how he went at >«^ doing good . ( Acts x . « 'M—^ )
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258 The Introductory Chapters to Luke ' s Gospel Spurious :
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), May 2, 1822, page 258, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2512/page/2/
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