either St. Matthew or St. Mark. Their Gospels, between the commencement of our Lord's Public Preaching in Galilee and his Last Journey to Jerusalem, are confined to Galilee and the region east of it, not even referring to any transactions in the eastern half of the Tetrarch's dominions: whereas Luke's inquiries would naturally extend into the Peræa, where our Lord spent several weeks during, we may reasonably suppose, the absence of the Twelve; and we have abundant reason to believe that they did, from his exclusively recording the Mission of the Seventy, which could not therefore have been exercised in Galilee, and which was not likely to have been directed to the scene of the Apost'es' service. Besides this, it is reasonable to believe that St. Luke, from his profession and education, would have access to a class in society superior to that of the Fishermen and Publicans of Galilee. To the latter cause may be attributed his knowledge of various occurrences at the houses of the rich, which are not recorded by St. Matthew or St. Mark; and also of those connected with the household or with the jurisdiction of Herod : to the former, his knowledge of discourses, parables, &c., which were delivered in the Peræa, or at least recorded by believers who resided there, and probably but little known in Galilee. It is not likely that St. Luke would have much access to Apostles, most of whom must have left Judæa, and of whom one alone is mentioned in the latter part of St. Paul's history, Acts xxi. 18: but many of the Seventy must have been still living; and from their recollections, as well as from those records, which either from personal knowledge, or from the preachings of the Apostles, would be early drawn up, of our Lord's transactions or discourses in particular portions of his Ministry, he must have had sources of information beyond what any single Apostle could have supplied.

Commencing, as in the case of Matthew's Gospel, (p. xliii.), at the Ministry of the Baptist, the Gospel by Luke may be divided into the six following Parts, which, to avoid confusion, may be designated by letters.

PART A. The Ministry of the Baptist, with the Baptism and Temptation of Christ; ch. iii. 1-iv. 13.

PART B. The Ministry of Christ in Galilee, till the Death of the Baptist : ch. iv. 14-viii. 56.

PART C. From the Death of the Baptist, till the close of Christ's Ministry in Galilee: ch. ix. 1-62. To this Luke, as Mark, prefixes a view of the Mission of the Apostles.

PART. D. A Miscellaneous Collection of Discourses and other Occurrences: ch. x. 1-xvii. 10.

PART E. Occurrences during the Last Journey: ch. xvii. 11—xix. 28.

PART F. Occurrences from our Lord's Entry into Jerusalem until his Ascension : ch. xix. 29-xxiv. 53.

Part A., so completely corresponds with Part I. of Matthew, that the two Evangelists must have had corresponding documents before them. St. Matthew's occupations would of course prevent his being a personal attendant on the Ministry of John, though he may have been baptized by him.

Part B., does not commence, as Part II. does both in Matthew and in Mark, with the statement of John the Baptist's Imprisonment, which they distinctly represent as the cause of our Lord's then commencing his preaching in Galilee. This leaves it uncertain whether Luke may not have recorded some of the occurrences preceding the Imprisonment of John; and in the following Harmony, one of his narratives is so arranged, viz. the visit to Nazareth.

The whole that St. Luke specifically records, in Part. C., as occurring between the Mission of the Twelve and the commencement of our Lord's finally setting out for Jerusalem, is contained in the ninth chapter; in which he narrates, with great brevity, the Mission of the Twelve, the anxiety of Herod the Tetrarch on hearing of Christ, the Return of the Apostles, the miracle of the Five Thousand, the avowal of Peter, the Transfiguration, the cure of the Epileptic Child, and some declarations of Christ before he left Galilee. This chapter, the first six verses excepted, contains the whole of St. Luke's record of the period which in Matthew and Mark occupies Part IV. In the account of the Transfiguration, ver. 31, he relates that Moses and Elijah spake to Christ respecting 'his departure, έξοδος, which he was about to fulfil, ἣν εμελλε πληρουν, at Jerusalem.' In ver. 51, the Evangelist also states, that the days being now fulfilled for his being received up, Jesus steadfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem'; and he records his purposing to go into a village of the Samaritans, where, however, they would not receive him. The chapter closes with circumstances which occurred as they were journeying', but which St. Matthew records in a different part of the History. See Harm. p. 76.

Part E. appears to take up the narrative where Part C. left it; first relating that our Lord, as he was going to Jerusalem, passed between Samaria and Galilee, (i. e., along the confines of the two countries, Harm. p. 168), and then cured the Lepers. The remainder of this Part corresponds with Part V. of Matthew and Mark-recording occurrences on

the Last Journey, in the Peræa, and till our Lord approached Jerusalem, several of which are common to the three Evangelists.

Between Part C. and Part E. the Evangelist has inserted a very remarkable Collection of Discourses and other Occurrences, some of which obviously belong to the Last Journey; but several of which cannot, with any probability, be referred to a period when we know, from the preceding Gospels, that the Apostles were with our Lord, and when this Evangelist himself represents him as traveling steadfastly towards Jerusalem. This representation precludes the supposition that our Lord now made a circuitous progress, or a long sojourn, in the Peræa. His direct course through it would not much exceed forty miles; and two or three days would be abundantly sufficient for this part of his journey. During it he might work many miracles, and extensively communicate his heavenly instructions to the multitudes, and to his disciples; but there is nothing in the general train of circumstances, or in the records of the other Evangelists, which allows us to suppose that after our Lord had set his face steadfastly to go to Jerusalem to finish his great work, the Seventy were sent forth by him, executed their mission, and returned to him. See Harm. p. 100, note †.

St. Luke alone records the Mission of the Seventy; and, taking into account the entire silence of the Apostle Matthew, and of Mark the companion of the Apostle Peter, respecting not only this fact in our Lord's Ministry, but also all occurrences in the Peræa previous to his Last Journey through it to Jerusalem, two inferences may be reasonably drawn, against which no opposing considerations present themselves: first, that the Mission of the Seventy occurred during the absence of the Twelve on their Mission; and secondly, that if the Seventy were not, in general, inhabitants of Peræa, the region where the Baptist executed much of his Ministry, they were sent thither in execution of their service, and there prepared for a future residence of Christ. The Evangelist says, ch. x. 1, that the Lord sent these Seventy, two by two, 'into every city and place whither he himself was about to come'; and such residence did take place, after the Feast of Dedication. See John x. 39-42.

With these views, the Gnomology, or Collection of Discourses and other Occurrences, in the tenth and following chapters of St. Luke's Gospel, may be represented as consisting of records derived originally from some or other of the Seventy; and as having been obtained, by the diligent search of the Evangelist, partly from oral communication with such of those disciples as still survived, and partly from written memorials of various discourses and parables, that could scarcely fail to have been made by some or other of the hearers of our Lord's heavenly instructions.

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The Evangelist introduces the Gnomology with an account of the Mission of the Seventy. Harm. p. 100. To this he subjoins a record of their Return; which seems to present one instance of that system of method or orderly arrangement which he had marked out for himself, and to which the tendencies of his mind inclined: so he also says, in connection, all that he thinks necessary respecting the Ministry of the Baptist, and respecting the Mission and Return of the Twelve. As to the other records contained in the Collection, it is a matter of mere conjecture, whether particular portions were received in their connected state by the Evangelist, or whether he received accounts of all the separate occurrences independently of each other, and arranged them together. Particular portions, however, of the Collection, appear to have some closer bond of connection than others have. The fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth chapters, all which are peculiar to Luke, mainly consist of Parables; and they form one division of the Collection which no Harmonist would willingly separate, though he might reasonably have uncertainty to what precise period he should refer them. The same may be said of the portion beginning with ch. xi. 14 and ending with ch. xiii. 9, which Lachmann, from the structure of the parts, makes one paragraph, and which I now refer wholly to Galilee.

Luke inserts this Collection after relating the commencement of our Lord's setting out on the Last Journey, when he had been rejected by the Samaritan village. When the Evangelist returns again to the regular narrative of that Journey, we find our Lord, ch. xvii. 11, passing along the confines of Samaria and Galilee; and we know from the other Gospels that he crossed over into the Peræa.+ What could be a fitter place to introduce a Miscellaneous Collection, several parts of which seemed to be connected with the Last Journey, as others were with the Peræa, and all of which occurred before our Lord's arrival at Jerusalem? Our Lord

It is somewhat remarkable that his Gospel gives no account of the death of the Baptist, and only makes allusion to it, in connection with the return of the Twelve.

Nothing that St. Luke has recorded after ch. xvii. 11, till our Lord's arrival at Jericho, has any indications of locality: and we could not have certainly known that these occurrences took place in the Peræa, but for the Gospels of Matthew and Mark. Distinct indications of locality, as elsewhere observed, are not frequent in Luke's Gospel ; though local connection must have guided in the arrangement of the memorials which he collected. It will hereafter appear, that, except in leading periods, it was scarcely possible for him to have obtained any certain knowledge of the exact succession of events at any rate minute chronological accuracy was of vastly less moment than accuracy in fact.—Mr. Greswell considers the Gospels generally as having much more of an anecdotal character than I do; but as respects St. Luke's this is almost a necessary feature.

has directed his face to the closing scene of his Ministry; and the Evangelist now introduces a series of memorials which he had no means of assigning to their chronological position, but which, even with the possession of the other Gospels, we feel to be an invaluable portion of the whole.*

SECT. V. On the General Preferableness of St. Matthew's Order, in the Chronological Arrangement of Events.

It must be evident to every attentive reader of the Gospel history, and will be obvious on inspection of the Table prefixed to the Harmony, that the arrangement of events by Matthew, and the arrangement by Luke, cannot both be in the order of time; that from the miracle of the Five Thousand, the arrangement and the substance of Mark's Gospel accords with Matthew's; and that the arrangement of events in Mark before that period, closely accords with that in Luke, while, nearly in the same degree with Luke's, it leaves that of Matthew. We have nothing but internal evidence, and the consideration of the respective circumstances of the Evangelists, to guide us in the choice of our general authority for determining the succession of events.

Partly from the expression employed by St. Luke in his Introduction, declaring his purpose to write to Theophilus in order,' кa≈ežne, and partly from the exclusive accordance of St. Mark's arrangement of events with his, in the portion of the history preceding the miracle of the Five Thousand, many Harmonists have fixed upon St. Luke's arrangement as their basis. It is readily admitted that the expression in order' would

For the knowledge of the general nature of this portion of St. Luke's Gospel, I was originally indebted to Bishop Marsh's “Dissertation on the Origin and Composition of our First Three Canonical Gospels"; but those who are acquainted with the view stated in the Dissertation, as to the origin and the extent of this portion, will readily perceive that the conclusions to which I have come considerably differ from it. As to the latter, I consider it as commencing with the tenth chapter, and ending with the 10th verse of the seventeenth. Bishop Marsh makes it include from ch. ix. 51, to xviii. 14; but this extent was defined by the supposed source of it.—In another respect I differ essentially from that acute and profound critic, who thinks that St. Matthew has a great part of the matter contained in Luke ix. 51-xviii. 14. That this opinion is erroneous, will readily be seen by inspection of the Analysis in Appendix II.

+ Others, however, have, with great decision, followed St. Matthew's order. "In this Harmony," says Lieberkühn, "we have made the Evangelist Matthew our rule as to the order of time, and we have herein chiefly followed the late Dr. Bengelius and his just Harmony of the Four Evangelists; and he had many learned men who were his forerunners in this method."--Bishop Marsh also mentions Bertling, Eichhorn, Sir Isaac Newton, and Bishop Pearce, as adopting the same opinion: his own is alike decided.