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( Continued from p . 314 . ) Near the close of our last article , it was observed , that , in the circumstances of the case , St . Luke could not have compiled his Gospel in closely chronological order ; and that it presents internal indications that his arrangement is not strictly chronological . The obvious character of St . Luke ' s
mind would lead him to adopt an orderly mode of composition j and it cannot be doubted that he would not , without due notice , intentionally depart from the order of time ; but those who have considered the circumstances of that part of our Lord ' s Ministry which immediately followed the imprisonment of the Baptist—so crowded with occurrences , and these so constantly changing in their locality—will have no difficulty in perceiving ,
that nothing but personal attendance , and even contemporaneous records , could enable a person to retrace a comprehensive view of that period in the exact order of events . Of short portions , such a view might be given by persons residing where the occurrences took place , or who had attended our Lord in particular parts of his progresses ; and by diligent inquiry , some general idea might be formed , by a person not present , of the train of events , which would serve as a guide in framing an orderly narrative . St . Luke
obviously possessed records of such portions ; and all that could then be learnt as to the succession of events , he would undoubtedly learn , in order to frame his narrative . But for this purpose he had not such advantages as he possessed for his subsequent " treatise . " In the latter , the series of events extended over a space of many years , and the events themselves often occurred at far distant places , and at like intervals of time : what is still more important , he was himself a personal s witness during a large portion of
his history . But in retracing the occurrences of a few months—commonly unconnected with each other , except in their effects on the bodies or the souls of those who were the objects of them , and , in various instances , occurring in the same places , after short intervals in which our Lord had been absent from them—he must often , when framing his narrative , have had no other guidance than the connexion of place and of subject . This invaluable historian followed , in every instance , we doubt not , the best system of arrangement which the circumstances of the case presented : and though the
gospel annalist of the present day has advantages which St . Luke did not possess , for framing a chronological arrangement of the whole of our Lord ' s Ministry ; and , in some respects , superior advantages , in reference to the succession of events , even in that part of it which Luke peculiarly records ;* yet one important result has probably followed from his not having closely bound himself to the ( often unattainable ) order of time—that he has recorded various discourses and sayings of our Lord , the precise date of which could not have been ascertained , and which , from his wider range of knowledge , he alone had the power to record .
Two circumstances contributed to that wider range : the one , that his inquiries would naturally extend into the eastern part of the dominions of Herod , where our Lord spent several weeks during ( we may reasonably suppose ) the absence of the Twelve ; the other , that , from his profession
* We can scarcely be misunderstood , but deem it best to specify that we refer to the possession of St , John ' s Gospel , ami St , Matthew ' s .
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C 381 >
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ON THE CHRONOLOGY AND ARRANGEMENT OF THE GOSPEJL NAR- " JRATIVES .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), June 2, 1831, page 381, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2598/page/21/
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