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this , and for this alone , they have faithfully and without exaggeration , for our conviction , recorded the miracles that convinced themselves ; miracles , not like the wonders of profane history , nor of fable , no , nor of counterfeit evangelists ; not miracles of astonishment but of instruction ;
miracles neither extravagant , nor unworthy , nor unwanted , but distinguished from ail others by their propriety , by their being worthy of him who alone worketh miracles , by their being wrought to declare his will , upon occasions where man from his ignorance
or superstition has become blind to it , or from his wickedness wilfully disregards it , occasions which have occurred much more rarely than is commonly supposed , even by those who allow no miracles but what they find ,
or fancy , in the Scriptures : * miracles , lastly , which are neither dumb ( like all others , dumb as to morals at least ) nor intended to strike us dumb
with stupid admiration , but miracles which speak—which speak a language understood by all , and which every where proclaim , and call upon us to proclaim , that God would " have mercy and not sacrifice . "
What then saith the Scripture ? Cast out the phantom and its son , for the son of the phantom shall not be heir with the son of God . But let us return to our chronology . Dr . Carpenter seems to think that he gets rid of the difficulty abovestated , by " supposing- " that Jesus at his baptism , in 7 ^ - , was not yet
thirty-ow ^ years of age , which , " says he , St . Luke's words ( iii . 23 ) appear clearl y to imply . " To me these words are so far from appearing clearly to
imply this , that they appear clearly fo imply the contrary , and to assert , w the way I have explained above , that Jesus at the time of his baptism , was not yet thirty years of age . The
* Ye who reverence the Scriptures , who value their solid , sterling worth , and prefer their virgin modesty and native charms , to the leer of invitation , the loose and wanton attire , the tinselled K'are and gaudy paint ( 1 Pet . iii . 3 ) with which established or fanatic fashions have "jsguiaed and tricked them to their in-^ iest or their fancy , —remember , " all lh ; « glisten is not gold . "
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Doctor , however , concluding that he completed his thirty-first year before the expiration of 782 , places his birth in 751 . Still , even if he were born before the end of 751 , the difficulty , though diminished , does not vanish . Even
upon that supposition , if we adhere to the commonly-received date of 25 th December , for the birth of Jesus , John ' s conception could not have taken place till six months after Herod ' s death ; and not till three months after , if we adopt the earlier date of Joseph Scaliger , * Lightfoot , f
* " Quare natalis Chris . ti competeret circiter finem Septembrks diebus crvtvpoicriyiot , $ . " So says Scaliger in . his notes upon some Greek fragments at the end of the last edition of his work " De
Emendatione Temporum , " p . 59 , Colon . Allohr . 1629 , fol . But in his prolegomena to the same edition , p . xxii ., speaking of the year of Christ ' s birth , he calls it " annus Julian us 43 , in cujus xxv Decembris natus fuerit Dominus . " In
the body of the same work ( Book vi . p . 551 ) he says , < c Christus natus anno periodi Julianse 4711 in fine , aut 4712 in principio . " And again , ( p . 545 , ) " De anno autem ita censuerunt veteres , et recte : Christum uatum anno xxviii
Actiaco . Hoc est natalein Chris ti circa ultimos menses anni Juliani conferunt a cujus anni Juliani Augusto inivit vicesimus octavus annus Actiacus . " And in
his edition of Eusebius ' s Chronicle , or Thesaurus Temporum , Anist . 1658 , fol . p . 306 " , mid . he says , " Natalis Domini incident circiter Octobrem ineuntem , plus , minus . " Here is considerable
fluctuation of opinion . Probably , September was the month in which he finally acquiesced , as the edition of his book De Emendatione , to which the Greek fragments are annexed , was a posthumous publication , and as he speaks of the fragments as throwing light upon some of the darkest parts of Scripture chronology .
• f- Ligbtfoot ' s Harmony of the New Testament , Sect . vi . on second chapter of Luke , Vol . 1 . p . 4 , [ 204 , errataj ; ibid . Sect . ix . p . 8 , [ 208 , ] and p . 10 [ 210 ] ; also Sect . viii . of ih « Prolegomena to his Harmony of the Four . Evangelists , Vol . 1 . p . 3 i > 0 , , aud Harmony itself on Luke ii . 7 . p . 427 ; and again , pp . 452 , 477 , 455 , [ 487 j . See also his Heb . and Talmud . Exercitat . on Matt . ii . 1 , Vol . II . pp . 106 , 107 , and on Matt . iii . 16 , Vol . II . p . 128 ,
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their Chronology inconsistent with Truth and with itself . 259
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), May 2, 1822, page 259, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2512/page/3/
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