not what Jesus meant by "thy kingdom "come," and whose weak mind supposed the Almighty Lord of heaven and earth, like human sovereigns, to be pleased with fawning, flattering expressions, and superfluous, verbal acknowledgments of his power and greatness.

In the sixteenth, and following verses, the pretended Matthew represents our Lord as teaching his disciples in what manner they should fast; a doctrine quite inconsistent, not only with what Luke assures us, but even with what this writer himself, c. ix. v. 14, &c. has copied from Luke, viz. that his disciples did not fast at all; and that such formal, carnal observances of the Jewish ritual, were by no means suited to the genius of that new religion, which he came to establish in the world..

In chapter vii. verse 6, we find a vulgar proverb, antecedent to the mission of Jesus Christ, converted into a precept of the Gospel-"Give not that which is holy unto the

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dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before

swine, lest they trample them under their

feet, and turn again and rent you." If these words have any meaning in this place, it must be to prohibit the teaching his holy religion, and propounding the valuable doctrines of the

Gospel to such profligate, profane, and brutal characters, as it was probable would only. treat their instructions with scorn and contempt, and reward their zeal with persecution and personal violence. Yet such a precept is directly contrary to the well-known constant practice of our Lord himself, and all his Apostles, and utterly repugnant to the most explicit, repeated lessons of duty urged upon his disciples on other occasions; the uniform tenor of which is, that in preaching the Gos pel they must expect and be prepared to endure odium, contempt, and ignominy, and the most cruel persecutions of every kind, even unto death.

II. IN the eighth chapter, this writer records the story of the healing the Centurion's servant, but with circumstances directly contradictory to Luke's account of the same miracle; for he tells us that the centurion came to our Lord himself, and conversed with him in person; whereas Luke informs us, that he only sent a deputation to him of the Elders of the Jews, and declared that he did not think himself worthy to come to him, and for that reason did not come himself. Here again one of these historians must relate a

falsehood. It is observable also, that, according to this Gospel called Matthew's, this miracle, in order of time, preceded the healing of Peter's mother-in-law, the calling of Matthew himself, and the choice of the twelve Apostles; whereas Luke tells us that it was subsequent to all the three. Yet Luke assures Theophilus, that having attained perfect information of every thing from the very first, he had written him an account of every transaction in order. Now, he could have received his information only from the Apostles he lived with at Jerusalem, of whom Matthew was one; and, as it is impossible but Matthew must have known whether he was himself with Jesus, when this miracle was wrought, or not, he could not have written that he was not, and have informed Luke that he was; and therefore the writer of this Gospel could not be Matthew, nor any other of the Apostles. To avoid unnecessary repetitions, the reader is desired to consider this as a general remark upon the many instances of contradiction, in the order of the narration, between this writer and Luke, which are both numerous, and obvious to the least degree of attention.

In the conclusion of this chapter, the author has introduced also the miracle of the Demons and the herd of Swine; but having in the second chapter literally out-heroded Herod, he was determined here to out-do the interpolater himself; for he makes two demoniacs instead of one, and, of course, two legions of devils.

In the enumeration of the names of the twelve Apostles in the tenth chapter, the first remarkable circumstance is the author's representing the Apostle Andrew as Simon Peter's brother, which indeed he had prepared us for in the fourth, by telling us expressly that he was so, and that he was called to be an Apostle at the same time, and in the same terms, with Peter. Luke, on the contrary, informs us, that no such person as Andrew was with Peter at the time of his call; that James and John, the sons of Zebedee, were his only partners; and that his destination to be an Apostle, implied in the words," from henceforth thou shalt catch men," was announced to him alone in the singular number, and not in the plural, as this author relates it. Indeed, from both Luke's Histories, as no brother of Peter is once spoken of, it is most obvious, that he

had no brother; and since in the enumeration of the names of the Apostles, in Acts i, James and John intervene before Andrew, it appears that there was no family connexion between him and Peter. The next circumstance deserving our observation* is, that the Apostles James and John are said to be brothers, and sons of Zebedee. Yet, from Luke's Histories, and, from Paul's Epistle to the Galatians, it plainly appears, that James the Apostle was the brother of the Lord Jesus, and that the two sons of Zebedee, were not Apostles, but are the brothers mentioned, Acts xii. v.2; of whom James was put to death by Herod, and the other brother, John, was most probably the same whose surname was Mark. Nothing can be more express than Paul's assertion, that the Apostle James was the Lord's brother; who consequently could not be James, the son of Alpheus, And Luke clearly informs us of the same thing, when telling us, c. xxiii. v. 55, that the women, who came with him from Galilee, beheld the sepulchre, and how his

For this remark of the ignorance, not only of this writer, but also of the pretended Mark and John, respecting the relationship of the Apostle James to the Lord Jesus, which affords such a decisive proof of the spuriousness of these three Gospels, the Author is obliged to Mr. Richard Foster, of Dalton, near Huddersfield, Yorkshire, who, in 1796, favoured him with a letter upon the subject, but who, he is sorry to say, in other respects, still remains an entire stranger to him.