"record that he is analyzing, the history of the Son of God that he is "illustrating." The first edition of this work was completed at the close of 1835. More subscribers' names were given in, than I could supply from the number of copies printed; and it was not published. I published, however, a small impression of the Dissertations separately; and copies of these, and still more of the Harmony, I transmitted to Clergymen, and Dissenting Ministers, whose attention, I supposed, might have been directed to the subject; soliciting the statement of any objections to my Arrangement which they deemed of weight. I hoped that some or other of them would undertake to review the work in the British Critic, the Eclectic Review, or other theological publications. In this last expectation, I have hitherto been disappointed; and I have had few strictures on my Arrangement. I have received from several quarters, out of my own religious denomination, expressions of great satisfaction with the argument in the First Dissertation; but as yet I have seen no examination of the Harmony, except in those periodicals from which a favourable opinion was most to be anticipated. Whatever has been suggested by these, or by private communications, has received my thankful attention. My brethren in Boston and its neighbourhood had, before the completion of this work, been prepared to give it a favourable reception. The Introduction to the Geography of the New Testament, first published in 1806, in which I had given an outline of our Saviour's Ministry on the principles developed in this volume, had been repeatedly reprinted in the United States; and in 1830, the Rev. Dr. Palfrey, now Professor of Biblical Literature in Harvard University, at Cambridge, near Boston, published a Harmony of the Gospels, expressly founded on that arrangement. At a To one of these, the Rev. T. Hartwell Horne, I am indebted for the knowledge of a remarkable work published at Copenhagen, Quatuor Evangeliorum Tabulæ Synopticæ, by H. N. Clausen, Professor of Theology in that University. The sections are arranged according to the Author's judgment of the order of events; and there are numerous observations which the biblical student would find worth consulting. The Preface, containing a view of the history of Harmonies, of the use of such works, and of the encouragement to undertake them, is very interesting and valuable. I retain a grateful sense of Mr. Horne's liberal-minded urbanity, in his communications respecting Clausen's work, and his long-continued loan of it. later period, the Rev. Dr. Henry Ware, Jun., Professor of Pastoral Theology in the Divinity College of that University, made it the foundation of his interesting and instructive Life of the Saviour, reprinted in this country. And when my first edition was just completed, I saw another indication of the extensive reception of my arrangement among scripturalists in the United States, in the adoption of it in Questions on Select Portions of the Four Evangelists, by the Rev. Joseph Allen, of Northboro', Mass. 6th Ed. Boston: 1834.-I thankfully rejoice in all this; for I believe that the effect of my system of arrangement on the minds of intelligent scripturalists, at least if not pre-occupied by any other system, will generally correspond with that expressed to me by my much valued American friend, the Rev. F. W. P. Greenwood, Minister of King's Chapel, Boston. "I am", he says, "a firm believer in the Bipaschal system, which I "admire for its simplicity, and delight in for its distinctness. It gives me clear view of the course of our Saviour's ministry, and has in this way "added much to my spiritual happiness." So it has to my own. 66 a I have, at different times, been occupied in drawing up narratives, some extending over a life, others involving the guilt or innocence of individuals in particular circumstances, and one respecting a most eventful and crowded period of a few days; and, in the latter case especially, from a variety of conflicting documents, and other sources of evidence; and I cannot but believe that the habits of judging, on such subjects, to which I have thus and otherwise been trained, have been, in this work, of peculiar aid for the attaining of an accordance with reality. In the leading, and indeed in all essential points, I have a strong conviction that I have attained that accordance. I cheerfully hope that this volume will aid others in the contemplation, and lead some to the dutiful study, of the work and character of him, whom to know, as we may know, is to love and to revere: under a sense of responsibility to him, I have pursued this, the most interesting labour in which I was ever engaged, and have already had an ample reward and I now humbly commend it to the blessing of his God and Father. Bristol, June 13, 1838. Notice of the Variations between this and the First Edition. Whatever alterations in the translation, or in the arrangement of the passages for comparison, the Author thought likely to render his work more useful to the Scripturalist, he has deemed it a duty to make; and in every other way in which he believed he could improve it, whether in the Harmony itself, or in the Dissertations, he has done all in his power to bring it into a state in which he might leave it, with satisfaction to himself, to prepare other works which he has for many years had in contemplation. He is solicitons, therefore, that the present Edition should be regarded as the basis for critical strictures. Nevertheless the essential advantages, both of the Harmony and the Dissertations, remain unaffected; and he has printed separately, for the Subscribers to the former Edition, a Supplement containing such altered portions as could be so given, with a statement of the leading changes made in the present Edition. As far as respects the arrangement of the evangelical records, these are sufficiently noticed in pp. 40 and 188, with one exception, viz. the transfer of Luke xxii. 17, 18, from the Section on the Lord's Supper, to its position in the Gospel, for the reason stated in note §, p. 236. Among the additional matter, given in the above-mentioned Supplement, are the Notices of the Seasons and Weather in Palestine, contained in the following Dissertations, p. cxxviii. When the main principles of the subsequent Arrangement were ascertained, their adaptation to the facts stated in that page was not at all considered : indeed several of the most important, in relation to the intensity of the summer heat, were not then known to the Author. In the First Dissertation various passages have been omitted which seemed to be of a temporary nature, and to partake too much of the character of personal controversy: these principally respect the Dissertations upon a Harmony of the Gospels, by the Rev. Edward Greswell, M. A., and The Chronology of our Saviour's Life, by the Rev. C. Benson, M. A. It has been the Author's solicitous aim to adapt the work to general and permanent usefulness, having great confidence that, directly or indirectly, it will eventually produce a material change in the views of Scripturalists on the topics which it embraces. CONTENTS. PRETACE Notice of the Variations between this and the First Edition Corrections and Emendations, and Errata.. ..... View of the Opinions of the Early Christian Writers General Considerations respecting the direct Scriptural Evidence ...... DISS. III. ON THE POLITICAL AND GEOGRAPHICAL STATE OF PALESTINE lxxvii Route through SAMARIA from Judæa to Cana of Galilee View of the Lake from the heights near Bethsaida of Galilee............. хсіх Diss. IV. ON THE SUCCESSION OF EVENTS RECORDED IN THE GOSPELS. BASIS of the following Chronological Arrangement........ 1. Fundamental Positions regarded by the Author as established 2. Mode of arranging the Occurrences between the Festivals.... Consideration of the OBJECTION to this Arrangement, arising OUTLINE VIEW OF OUR LORD'S MINISTRY, arranged in Ten Parts, corresponding to those in the following Harmony ... APPENDIX TO THE FOURTH DISSERTATION. |