LUKE, XII.. 35. Let your loins be girded about, and your lights burning. 36. And ye yourselves like unto men that wait for their lord, when he shall return from the wedding; and that when he cometh and knocketh, they may open unto him immediately. 37. Blessed are those servants, whom the lord when he cometh shall find watching: verily I say unto you, that he shall gird himself, and make them to sit down to meat, and will come forth and serve them. 38. And if he shall come in the second watch, or come in the third watch, and find them so, blessed are those servants. 39. And this know, that if the good-man of the house had known what hour the thief would come, he would have watched, and not have suffered his house to be broken through. : 40. Be ye therefore ready also for the Son of man cometh at an hour when ye think not. The reader is now enabled to decide the point, from a comparison of the passages themselves; and certainly, if any thing were needed to show how firmly the 42d verse in St Matthew is bound to the 43d and 44th, the quotation from St Luke would supply it. In St Luke, vv. 35-38 are manifestly introductory to the 39th and 40th; and so in St Matthew, v. 42, which exhibits the purport of Luke xii. 35-38 in a compressed form, leads as clearly to vv. 43, 44; which contain the concluding verses of St Luke almost without a change of expression...Kuinoel moreover proceeds to state in his note, that, in St Matthew's narrative, various interlocutions and interrogatories on the part of the disciples, to which v. 43 had respect, are omitted. With regard to this view of the subject, I here, after attentively examining the point, venture to pronounce Kuinoel's conjecture to be the result of as strange an hallucination as ever took possession of any man's mind. We have now ascertained the grounds on which Kuinoel has thought proper to dislocate the passage of St Matthew; and I feel content that the reader should judge of their validity. I might, therefore, immediately proceed to the case of Rosenmüller, next adduced by Dr Wiseman ; but my love of truth compels me previously to mention the only instances I am aware of, in which somewhat of a similar attempt has been made, to tamper with the same passage. A person engaged in carrying an extended system into effect is seldom scrupulous about the means employed. The truth of this remark might be copiously exemplified in Harmonies of the Gospels; in which the connected train of thought in an individual Evangelist is too often sacrificed to the general plan.... Le Clerc's Harmony is well known. The author found it convenient to insert the 42d verse of Matt. xxiv. between the 36th and 37th verses; and there accordingly the verse is placed. The bearing of the verse upon what followed was considered as nothing....Again, Whitby, finding vv. 43, 44 recorded, in nearly the same words, by St Luke (xii. 39, 40) as spoken by our Lord on another occasion, seems to suppose, with Lightfoot, that St Matthew added them, not because they had been again spoken, but because they well agreed with the general intention of the discourse. Of such conjectures, by whomsoever sanctioned, I should condemn myself if I were to write otherwise than in the strongest terms of disapprobation*........ From these instances, which are all that have occurred to me, I conclude that external causes must have been in operation, apart from the study of our Lord's discourse as related by St Matthew, whenever we discover a disposition to separate the 43d verse from the 42d. I now go on to examine the case of Rosenmüller, to whose notions Dr Wiseman appears to have paid great attention; for, after referring to Bloomfield's Recensio Synoptica Annotationis Sacra, we find him thus writing: "Rosenmüller, whom Bloomfield quotes as coinciding in opinion with Kuinoel, differs essentially from him. His words. are, Equidem omnia, quæ a cap. xxiv. 42, usque ad c. xxv. 30, dicuntur, ad utrumque Christi adventum referenda puto.' (D. Jo. Geor. Rosenmülleri Scholia in N.T. Ed. 6ta Norimb. * This is Whitby's note. Matt. xxiv. 42, 44. “ Διὰ τοῦτο καὶ ὑμεῖς yíveσde étoiμoi. Watch therefore, v. 42. Therefore be ye also ready. It is probably conjectured by Dr Lightfoot, that the discourse of Christ upon this subject ended at v. 42 or 44, as in St Mark and St Luke it seems to do; and that the words following, were, as St Luke places them (xii. 39), spoken at another time, and upon another occasion: but, because they well accord also with this place and this occasion, and do there, as well as here, follow the exhortation given, v. 43, St Matthew hath added them to this chapter." 1815. vol. 1. p. 495), so that he considers this portion of the discourse as intermediate and common to both the others." (p. 46 note.) It is undoubtedly true that Rosenmüller, in the place here referred to—which, I would observe, is the introduction to the 25th chapter-interprets the portion contained between xxiv. 42 and xxv. 30, of the double advent; and yet the author of the Recensio Synoptica may say this for himself -namely, that at Matthew xxiv. 42, where he naturally expected to find Rosenmüller's opinion, the preference seems to be given to the notion that the portion in question relates to the general judgment.... There is however another mistake, which, as Dr Wiseman had undertaken the office of corrector, he would have done well to rectify. When Rosenmüller mentions the portion between c. xxiv. 42 and c. xxv. 30 or 31 as belonging to the double advent, where exactly did the learned lecturer understand the point of reckoning to commence- at the 42d verse, or at the 43d verse? The fact, which indeed seems too obvious to escape any one, is this-that Rosenmüller's expression in the introduction to the 25th chapter, and his note attached to Matt. xxiv. 42, show beyond all controversy that he agrees with the great body of commentators in fixing the change at the beginning of the 42d verse: It is singular that *His words at v. 42 are, "Videntur hæc, quæ sequuntur usque ad c. xxv. 31, spectare ad reditum Christi ad judicium extremum, vel ad utrumque ejus reditum." Dr Wiseman, with all his acuteness, should have failed to perceive so glaring a discrepancy between Rosenmüller's opinion and his own. Dr Wiseman lastly mentions the author of the Recensio Synoptica, as supposing the transition to take place at the 43d verse. Now, I conclude that Dr Bloomfield was not considering, when he wrote the note in that work, the exact point of transition; for he not only quotes Kuinoel and Rosenmüller, as agreeing in opinion on the subject, when in fact they do not so agree, but afterwards transcribes the manifestly different sentiments of Doddridge (already given p. 37) in confirmation of the same views. To this conclusion I the more strictly adhere, because I find, in his Greek Testament subsequently published, the following note on Matthew xxiv. 42: "Some of the best commentators ancient and modern are agreed that our Lord's discourse on the destruction of Jerusalem terminates at v. 41, and that what follows, being so peculiarly applicable to the final advent of our Lord, forms, as it were, the moral of the prophecy, and its practical application to his disciples of every age."... And thus, the author of the Recensio is directly at variance with the learned lecturer; whose appeal to commentators in this case is, I really think, one of the most unfortunate on record. To declare, without reserve, my decided opinion of that portion of the Lecture which relates to |