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    bably , it was only introduced lest , having spoken of the decree for taxing , the person he addressed , and for whose information he wrote , might otherwise suppose that the actual taxing was immediately consequent thereupon . Yet the opinion of Dr . S ., as to the degree of credibility which the two first chapters in Matthew and ii \ Luke are entitled to , is moderation itself when contrasted with the overwhelming demolition of Mr . Thomas Belsham , who tells us , in his " Calm Inquiry , " 2 d edition , p . 8 , that " from Luke iii .

    1 , compared with verse 23 , it appears that Jesus was born fifteen years before the death of Augustus ; that is , at least two years after the death of Herod ; a fact which completely falsifies the whole narrative contained in the preliminary chapters of Matthew and Luke . " Here , then , are not less than 176 verses , relating chiefly to the birth of our blessed Saviour , rooted out of the sacred volume by a single superlative stroke of our " Calm Inquirer ' s " magical weedhook ! This is , in verity , the very loftiest sublimity of critical legerdemain ; no petty carping at a phrase ; no puny wrangle about a date ;

    but , taking the field of controversy , like a great literary tactician , he at once leaped to his resolve ; and , by one transcendent master-dash of generalship , consigned to reprobation as base impositions , all those statements concerning our Lord's nativity , which the Christian world has for ages received and reverenced as authentic and pure . Let it henceforth be imbibed as an axiom , that where , in one of two histories , independent also of each other , there happens to be a date which is apparently at variance with the period at which they are stated to commence , the whole of those histories for the

    next thirty years must necessarily be utterly false ! Let not the reader exclaim with Partridge , that is a non sequitur , for we have the authority of a professor of divinity as to its logical accuracy . Critics , possessing a daring Jess lofty , or more sobriety of thought , would probably think it not unreasonable to presume , that there might be some mistake in one of the two figures which represent the age alluded to , rather than gratuitously to assume { he correctness of that ; and upon that assumption alone , imperiously

    pronounce 176 verses to be " completely falsified : " more especially where mention of the age is preceded by a word ( about thirty ) indicating that the person using it was not positive as to the exact age ; and more especially also , when , in all likelihood , the very accounts respecting Herod in these identical histories , supplied the Evangelist with the only data for computing such age .

    _ The narrative , however , relating to the birth of Jesus as contained in the preliminary chapters of Matthew and Luke , will , it is believed , be found not only to accord perfectly well with his alleged age , but to be established pn too firm a basis to be shaken either by $ ie author of the Calm Inquiry , or any other of its oppugners . To the young reader , it may perhaps be of some use to attempt to set the , point in question in a more perspicuous position . It must be borne in mind , then , that the birth of Jesus is stated in the preliminary chapters of

    Matthew and Luke to have been in the days of Herod the King , and also , that Augustus , the predecessor of Tiberius Ceesar , died A . U . 767 : therefore , say they , the 15 th of Tiberius mentioned in Luke iii . 1 , must have been fifteen years more , or A , U . 782 . If , then , as stated in Luke iii . 23 , Jesus was thirty in A . U . 782 , he must have been bom thirty years before , or in A . U . 752 , and consequently not in the days of Herod the King , because Herod died in A . U . 750 or 751 at the latest ; and , therefore , ( they continue , ) there cannot be any tru ^ h in tho se accounts which , like the preliminary chapters , represent Jesujj to have been born in the days of Herod

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    St . Luke's Gospel . 175

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  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), March 2, 1827, page 175, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1794/page/15/