ON

OUR LORD'S CONDUCT

AS A

DIVINE INSTRUCTOR:

AND ON THE EXCELLENCE

OF

HIS MORAL CHARACTER.

By WILLIAM NEWCOME, D. D.

ARCHBISHOP OF ARMAGH.

THE SECOND EDITION, CORRECTED.

LONDON:

PRINTED FOR J. JOHNSON, ST. PAUL'S CHURCH-YARD.

•BODI

PREFACE.

THE following work is defigned to affist fpeculative inquiry, and pious meditation: it proposes to the lover of truth and goodness the doctrines of Chrift in their native fimplicity; and his character, as it arifes from facts recorded by the evangelifts: it states those evidences for our Lord's divine miffion to which he himself appealed: and it contains a difcuffion of many difficulties relating both to the phrafeology and to the fubject - matter of the gospel history.

My quotations from the evangelical writers are large; and the diftribution of my subject requires that the fame paffage should be placed in different lights. My reader will hence derive the benefit of reviewing, in a A 2 great

great measure, thofe ineftimable writings which furnish my materials; and of thus becoming more converfant with the most important part of the most important book. Though in these extracts I have made the English verfion my ground-work, I have freely departed from it; not indeed with the ftrict and uniform attention of a tranflator, but as it occafionally feemed to admit of improvement. For notwithstanding its intrinfic merit, which we cannot but think extraordinary when we confider the age in which it was produced, every competent judge will acknowledge that a fober and accurate revifal of it would effentially serve the caufe of religion; as it would facilitate and recommend a perufal and study of the fcriptures, many parts of which at present abound with invincible difficulties to the English reader.

It should be constantly recollected that the doctrines and precepts which our Lord himfelf delivered do not conftitute the whole of what his religion teaches on any particular fubject. It is true that to every ferious Christian they must appear peculiarly authoritative and affecting but the words of Chrift's infpired difciples reft on the fame

:

divine authority with his own: and the difcoveries of God's perfections, and the general leffons of religion and morality, which occur in the Hebrew fcriptures, are parts of that grand system which Christianity invites all mankind to embrace.

In the prosecution of my present subject many learned and excellent men have gone before me. The industry of fome has comprehended the whole of our Lord's hiftory; while the object of others has coincided with my own, in exhibiting to their readers only felect parts.

a

Bishop Taylor's "Exemplar of Sanctity in the Hiftory of Chrift" is a pious, eloquent and learned work: but, notwithstanding much weighty inftruction, and occafional emanations of a fublime genius, its diffuse and digreffive manner is alone fufficient to disgust readers of no very faftidious taste.

b

The sketches of our Lord's life by Dupin,

a This book has gone through many editions.

The Life of our bleffed Saviour Jefus Chrift, &c. Written in French by the learned L. E. du Pin, and Englished by a divine of the church of England with additions. London. 1711.

8vo.