cated prophecies foretold they would do, have prevailed so greatly against the true church of Christ, that a very small number of its members is any where to be found. And should any be inclined to think, as without doubt many do, that the orthodox church itself is the true church of Christ, yet ask Asia, Africa, and the south-east of Europe, whether Mahomedanism has not prevailed against her? And with respect to the latter part of the prediction, the very nature of the Gospel Covenant, as well as the whole history of Peter and the other Apostles, shews us, that neither he nor any of them had the power of forgiving or retaining sins; and that neither the whole college of Apostles, nor even Jesus Christ himself, ever have been or will be able (if it were possible to suppose them willing) to admit one vicious, unreformed person into, nor to exclude one virtuous, benevolent man out of, the kingdom of heaven. Indeed the whole conversation, of which this prophecy makes a part, is so exceedingly different from that which Luke tells us our Saviour held on the same occasion, that it cannot be entitled to any degree of credit, except with those, if any such can be, who think fit rather to reject the Gospel of Luke.

The twenty-fourth chapter is one entire long prophecy concerning the destruction of Jerusalem, and, as the author expresses it, the end of the world, composed of two separate prophecies of that event recorded by Luke, with a few alterations and additions. From some of these, one is led to think, the author must have intended to allude to the final day of judgment; but since he has adopted the very words of Luke, that the generation living in our Saviour's time should not pass away till all those predictions were fulfilled, we must suppose him to mean only the destruction and desolation of Jerusalem and the Jewish nation, and the commencement of the end of the world, as signifying the last dispensation of the New Covenant of the Gospel, by the actual abolition of the Old Covenant of Moses. But then one addition which he has made to these prophecies is manifestly false; for he says, v. 14, "This Gos

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pel of the kingdom shall be preached in all "the world for a witness unto all nations, and "then shall the end come:" yet the Gospel was so far from being preached to all the nations of the world, before the destruction of Jerusalem, that there are still many amongst whom it is utterly unknown even at this day.

-At v. 9, he has directly contradicted Luke, at the time he was copying from him; for he tells us, that "then" (after the civil wars and great natural evils, which were to precede the destruction of Jerusalem,) "the Christians "should be persecuted, killed, and universally "hated;" all which our Lord, according to Luke, expressly said would come to pass, before all these things: and the whole Christian history demonstrates that the fact was as he has stated the prediction.-There is also another remarkable difference between these two writers in stating this prophecy: Luke informs us, that our Lord told his disciples plainly, that they needed not apprehend the ruin of the Jewish nation, at the beginning of the insurrections and wars in Palestine, for it would be some years afterwards before that calamity would take place; but that when they should see Jerusalem itself invested with armies, then the fatal period was arrived, and they should lose no time in saving themselves from the general ruin, by a speedy flight out of the devoted country; and there is every reason to believe, that the Christians actually profited by this plain and timely admonition: but this writer makes our Lord tell them to flee out of Judea, when they shall see the abomi

nation of desolation spoken of by Daniel stand in the holy place; words to them absolutely unintelligible without an explanation, and which must, therefore, have rendered the prophetic warning entirely useless to them. And what could the author mean by adding, v. 22, that, except those days should be shortened, "there should no flesh be saved; but that for "the elect's sake those days should be shorten"ed?" To what circumstances, in the destruction of Jerusalem and the ruin of the Jewish nation, can such a sentence refer?

CHAPTER V.

GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MARK.

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SECTION I.

ET us next examine what internal evidence of authenticity is to be found in the Gospel according to Mark; and compare that also with the Evangelical history of Luke. This is the more necessary, because the author himself no where pretends to be Mark; and nothing can be slighter or less satisfactory than the external testimony or historic evidence in its favour; as every candid inquirer will be convinced, who attentively peruses the collection of those testimonies prefixed to the best editions of this Gospel, the chief of which, respecting a revelation to Peter of Mark's having written it, &c. are manifestly fabulous.

If we pursue the plan adopted with the two others, and begin by examining the style in which this history is composed, we shall