the tree to produce fruit out of feafon and act against it's nature; for if the time of figs be the gathering or harvest of figs, it was more reafonable to expect fruit from this tree before the time of plucking, than after it; and as this fruit was no fmall article in the produce and traffick of Judæa, we may well conclude the time of figs, mentioned by Saint Mark, was like the vintage in the winecountries; and I apprehend it would not be an unreasonable expectation to find a cluster of grapes on a vine, before the time of vintage was come. This conftruction of the words will feem the more reafonable, when we remark that Saint Matthew, who records the miracle, takes no account of this circumftance, and that Saint Mark, who states it, ftates alfo that Chrift in his hunger applied to the tree, if haply he might find any thing thereon, which implies expectation.

But our Jew hath suggested a better method of performing the miracle, by commanding fruit from a withered tree instead of blafting a living one; which, fays he, if Jefus had done, it would have been fuch an inftance of his power, as to have rendered the proof of the miracle indifputable.

Here

Herc let him ftand to his confeffion, and I take him at his word: I agree with him in owing that the miracle, as he states it, would have been indifputable, had Christ given life and fruit to a withered tree; and I demand of him to agree with me, that the miracle was indifputable, when the fame Chrift gave breath and life to dead La

Zarus.

But alas! I can hardly expect that the raifing a dead tree to life would have been thus fuccessful, though even infidelity afferts it, when the miracle of reftoring a dead man to life hath not filenced his cavils, but left him to quibble about hogs, and figs, and even in the face of his own confeffion to arraign the Savior of the world as unjust and irrational through the channel of a Chriftian prefs: Neither am I bound to admit, that his correction of the miracle would in any refpe&t have amended it; for, as an inftance of Chrift's miraculous power, I I can fee no greater energy in the act of enlivening a dead tree, than in deftroying a living one by the fingle word of his command.

I muft yet afk patience of the reader, whilft

I

whilst I attend upon this objector to another cavil started against this miracle of the figtree, in the account of which he fays there is a contradiction of dates between Saint Matthew and Saint Mark, for that in the former it appears Chrift firftft the buyers and fellers out of the temple, and on the morrow curfed the fig-tree; whereas according to Saint Mark it was tranfacted before the driving them out of the temple, and fuch a manifeft contradiction must greatly affect the credibility of the hiftory.

Whether not a day's difagreement in the dates would fo greatly affect the credibility of the hiftory we are not called upon to argue, because it will be found that no fuch contradiction exifts.

Saint Mark agrees with Saint Matthew in faying, that Jefus entered into Jerufalem and into the temple, and on the morrow curfed the fig-tree; he then adds that he returned to Jerufalem, and drove the buyers and fellers out of the temple: Again, the next morning he and his difciples paffed by the fig-tree and faw it dried up from the roots: This is told in detail.

Saint Matthew agrees with Saint Mark in

faying Jefus went into the temple the day before he destroyed the fig-tree, but he does not break the narrative into detail, as Saint Mark does; for as he relates the whole miracle of the fig-tree at once, comprising the events of two days in one account, fo doth he give the whole of what paffed in the temple at once also.

Both Evangelifts agree in making Christ's entrance into the temple antecedent to his miracle; but Saint Matthew with more brevity puts the whole of each incident into one account, Saint Mark more circumftantially details every particular: And this is the mighty contradiction, which David Levi hath discovered in the facred hiftorians, upon which he exultingly pronounces, that he is confident there are a number of others as glaring as this; but which he has not at prefent either time or inclination to point out.

These menaces I fhall expect he will make good, for when his time ferves to point them out, I dare believe his inclination will not ftand in the way.

In the meantime let it be remembered, that David Levi ftands pledged as the author of an unfupported charge against the veracity

veracity of the Evangelifts, and let every faithful Chriftian, to whom thofe holy records are dear, but most of all the proper guardians of our church, be prepared to meet their opponent and his charge.

But our caviller hath not yet done with the Evangelifts, for he afferts that they are not only contradictory to each other, but are inconfifient with themselves; for what can be more fo than Matthew i. 18. with Matthew xiii. 55.?

Now mark the contradiction! The birth of Fefus was on this wife; When as his mother Mary was efpoufed to fofeph, before they came together, he was found with child of the Holy Ghoft, Chap. i. 18. The other text is found

in Chap. xiii. 55:

Is not this the carpenmother Mary? and his

ter's fon? is not his brethren James and Fofes and Simon and Judas?

Need any child be told, that in the first text Saint Matthew speaks, and in the feCond the cavilling Jews? who then can wonder if they disagree? as well we might expect agreement between truth and falfehood, between the Evangelift and David Levi, as between two paffages of fuch oppofite chaVOL. III. E racters.