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ciples made by John the Baptift, and Jefus. But for this, as not being capable of abridgment, we muft refer our Readers to the treatise itself.

In our Review for Feb. p. 83 and 85, we took notice of, what appeared to us, the strongest objections urged by Dr. Priestley against the common opinion, that our Lord's miniftry continued three years and a half. We fhall now lay before our Readers part of the reply which Dr. Newcome makes to them.

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I have given,' fays his Lordfhip, feveral inftances of chafms in the Gofpels, difcoverable by a comparison of them with each other. The three firft Evangelifts record events fcattered through the whole of our Lord's public miniftry; and the largeft † omiffions are those from the Temptation to the Preaching in Galilee immediately after John's imprisonment, and thofe of the period during which our Lord attended the Feafts of Tabernacles and Dedication. St. John furnishes some of the intermediate events in both these intervals: and in his fupplemental Gospel has great omiffions, and § one of about a whole year. However the mode of writing ufed by Matthew, Mark, and Luke, is not uncommon in the beft writers of antiquity. And what was the end of their writing? That we might believe that Jefus is the Chrift the Son of God; and that believing we might have life through his name. What you fay concerning the order of time, is jult as applicable to notations of time. "The capital ufes of the Gospel ¶ did not require them." der the immediate object of the Apoftles and Evangelifts in preaching Chrift, namely to make their hearers good men, to affect mankind with a fenfe of the truth and greatness of his character, that they might live in the firm belief and expectation of his fecond coming, we fhall not wonder at their not being folicitous about [noting the time of] incidents in their history; for this was a circumftance that had little apparent tendency to produce that effect **."

"If we confi

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In regard to Dr. Prieftley's fuppofition, that the greater part of our Lord's time was as fully employed as, according to the accounts of the Evangelifts fome very thort periods appear to have been, &c. the Bishop obferves, the Evangelifts fhew that there were large portions of ++ leifure and retreat in Jefus's life; and, if we except the laft week of it, that he generally with

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drew himself after its bufy periods, which indeed occur only four or five times. Enlarging the duration of Chrift's miniftry beyond a year, is not multiplying his miracles: it is only diftributing the fame miracles through a more extended period: which is giving fcope for wifdom to difplay itself in occafionally avoiding the notice, and foftening the refentment of enemies. And we may cease to wonder at any degree of perverfe opposition and hardened incredulity in the Jews, when we confider the conduct of their + forefathers in the Wilderness, the infatuation of their Rulers in afcribing Jesus's miracles to Satan, and the national infidelity after the effufion of the Spirit, when the Apoftles communicated extraordinary spiritual gifts to every believer, and thus multiplied miracles exceedingly.'

To invalidate the objection which Dr. Prieftley urges fo frongly against the common opinion, from Herod's ignorance who Jefus was, his Lordship obferves, that Herod may not have refided in his tetrarchy during the time in queftion, or may have refided chiefly in Perea beyond Jordan; that Herod was very attentive to the Romans, and confequently a vifit to a Roman Governor at Cefarea or Damafcus, or a journey to Rome, might engage him during a great part of our Lord's miniftry; that he might be employed in training his forces for war; that the peaceable and prudent behaviour of Jefus prevented him from giving umbrage to the civil power; and that others befides Herod, when they heard of Jefus, thought that John was risen from the dead. The Bishop further afks, whether Dr. Priestley's fcheme is not as ftrongly affected by this difficulty as the common one? We answer, No: the ignorance of Herod will be a difficulty upon every fcheme; but increases in magnitude. in proportion to the length of time that we fuppofe Jefus to have preached. His Lordfhip concludes, I am little concerned about the inattention or avocations of Herod and his friends ; about the strange doubts of caprice, or the ftrange refolves of a guilty confcience,' This, we muft obferve, is evading the difficulty, not removing it.

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Dr. Priestley had given it as his opinion, that a single miracle wrought at Chorafin, and at Bethfaida, would juftify all the denunciations of our Lord against those places. Upon this Dr. Newcome has the following judicious remarks.

'From our Lord's mention ‡ of Chorafin and Bethfaida as the fcene of most of his mighty works, and of fuch as would have

* Mark i. 35. iv. 35. vi. 1. John vi. 15. After healing great numbers, and preaching the Sermon on the Mount, he entered Capernaum, and went the next day to Nain. Luke vii. 1. 11.

+ Acts vil. 54.

‡ Matth. xi. 20—22,
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convinced Tyre and Sidon, I conclude that they had repeated, as well as ample, means of conviction.'

I think that Jefus often vifited thefe places from, Capernaum; and that he both taught in their fynagogues, and wrought miracles in their ftreets. Cities twice § mentioned with Capernaum seem to have enjoyed like means of reformation with that favoured city and the adopters of an hypothefis fhew themfelves embarraffed, who must almoft neceffarily recur to "a fingle miracle publicly performed," or to "as much as was tranfacted at Capernaum in the evening of a fingle day," as fufficient grounds for fuch awful declarations concerning the impenitence and punishment of these cities.'

To Dr. Prieftley's obfervation on the improbability that our Lord would neglect to attend on the four public annual feafts, at which every Jew was bound to appear, his Lordship replies, 'It was not because Jefus had not otherwise fufficient time to discharge the proper duties of his miniftry, but for reafons of ex-. pediency and prudence, that he did not ftatedly go up to Jeru-: falem at the four annual feftivals: he knew what was in man; the fecularity and narrow prepoffeffions of the Jewish Rulers, and their infidious and captious jealoufy when alarmed by the moft indirect claims to the Meffiahfhip: and he intermitted his attendance on thofe feafts which paffed between John ii. 13. and ch. v. I. principally becaufe at thofe feafons he could not have exercised his office, and published his credentials as the Chrift, with the neceffary degree of freedom and fortitude, without ob-. ftructing the courfe of his miniftry. After fome further remarks in fupport of this argument, his Lordship adds, ' We learn from the Gofpels how neceffary this precaution was: for both at the Feast of Tabernacles, fix months before his death, and at the Feast of Dedication, three months before it, he was compelled to preferve his life by miracle: facts which strongly illuftrate his prudence in abfenting himself from other feftivals, as: I conclude from the filence of St. John, who feems particularly intent on relating our Lord's actions at Jerusalem.'

We purpofely omit our Author's remarks on the manner of our Lord's preaching, and the time that was requifite to answer the purpose of his miffion and miniftry, as the Bishop's fentiments on this fubject nearly coincide with thofe we offered to the Public in our Review of Dr. Priestley's Harmony +.

There are many other particulars in this curious and entertaining treatise, which we could willingly lay before our ReadBut as we fhall have occafion to refume the fubject, when

ers.

Matth. xi. 21-23. Luke x. 13-15.
John viii.
59. X. 39.

Letter, p. xvi.

† See Review for Feb. p. 86.

we take Dr. Prieftley's fecond letter to the Bishop into confideration, we fhall here clofe this article, with recommending the whole of the controversy to the attention of Scripture critics in general. It is with pleasure we can affure them, that in the prefent work, they will meet with the fame ingenuity, candor, and liberality of difpofition, which, with fo much reafon, we noticed and applauded in his Lordship's former publication.

ART. XI. PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS of the Royal Society of London, Vol. LXX. For the Year 1780. Part I, and II. continued from Page 278, Rev. for April, and concluded.

MATHEMATICAL and ASTRONOMICAL.

Art. 1. Calculations to determine at what Point in the Side of a Hill its Attraction will be greateft, &c. By Charles Hutton, LL. D. and F. R. S.

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HE great fuccefs of the experiment lately made on the hill Schehallien, to determine the universal attraction of matter, may probably, Dr. H. fays, give occafion to experiments of the fame kind to be made elfewhere: and as all poffible means of accuracy and facility are defireable, in fp delicate and laborious an undertaking, he has added this by way of fupplement to his former paper on the fubject; fince this beft point of obfervation has never, that he knows of, been determined before, but has been varioufly gueffed at, it being fometimes accounted at 2, and fometimes at of the height of the hill. In this paper he confiders the hill as a prismatic solid, and finds the point of greatest attraction, according to the principles before made ufe of by Clairaut, Maclaurin, &c. to be in general at about of the altitude of the hill from the bottom. Art. 5. An Appendix to the Paper in the Philofophical Tranfac tions for 1778. No. XLII. p. 902, & feq. &c. By Francis Maferes, Efq; F. R. S. Curfitor Baron of the Exchequer. In the paper to which this is an appendix, is fhewn a method of extending Cardan's Rule, under fame limitations, to the irreductible cafe of cubic equations, that is to the cafe, to the folution of which it has generally been deemed inapplicable. Thefe limitations are, firit, when the fquare of half the known fide of the equation, being affirmative, is greater than the cube of of the negative coefficient, of the unknown term of the equation that has unity for its exponent; and fecondly, when it is lefs than the faid cube, but greater than its half. And in this Appendix for this latter limitation, is given a feries for the root that converges fafter than that in the former paper; for it seems as if the rule could not be applied at all to this limitation, without throwing one of the furds into an infinite feries, which makes

it a very operofe and troublesome bufinefs; and the roots of any cubic equation may be much more readily found by means of the tables; viz. all the varieties of the irreductible cafe, by means of the tables of fines, and the other cafes by logarithms, by the method given by Mr. Cotes, at p. 29 of his Harmonia Menfurarum, and which is well explained, and illuftrated with examples by Dr. Saunderfon, at p. 718 of his Algebra, Vol. II.

BARON MASERES moreover tells us, that he does not know any method of extending Cardan's rule, to the limit, when the fquare mentioned above is alfo lefs than half the cube-But, he adds, I have been informed by my learned and ingenious friend Dr. Charles Hutton, Profeffor of Mathematics in the Royal Academy at Weolwich, that he has difcovered fuch a method. Art. 12. A Conjecture concerning the Method by which Cardan's Rules for refolving Cubic Equations, were probably discovered by Scipio Ferreus of Bonona, or whoever else was the first Inventor. By the fame.

This gentleman fuppofes that the firft inventor of these rules tried a great variety of methods of reducing thefe equations to a lower degree, or to a more fimple form, by fubftituting various quantities for the unknown one, in hopes that some of the terms arifing from fuch fubftitutions, might be equal to others of them, and, having contrary figns prefixed to them, might destroy them, and thereby render the new equation more fimple and manageable than the old one. And, among other trials, it seems natural to imagine, that he would fubftitute the fum or difference of two other quantities, inftead of the unknown one fought, as being the moft fimple and obvious fubftitutions that could be made: and by doing this, the rules would of courfe come to be difcovered, as well as the limitation of them....... We allow that the rules might poffibly be difcovered in this manner, which is indeed the most ufual method by which authors give their inveftigation. There is however another very natural way of effecting the fame thing, from the obvious properties of the wellknown expreffion for the cube of a fimple binomial, which not only inveftigates the rules, but alfo the method of fubftitution mentioned above, and that without trials. As may be feen in the 12th chapter of the 4th fection of Euler's Algebra. Art. 17. Theorems for computing Logarithms. By the Rev. John Hellins.

Thefe Theorems are an improvement of the method given in Mr. T. Simpfon's Trigonometry.

Art. 18. (Numbered 17 by Miftake.) Connoiffances Effentielles, &c. i. e. Requifites, effential to form a Judgment of any new Kind of Mill for Sugar Canes, that may be propofed. "By Munf. Cazaud, F. R. S.

M. Cazaud, having as he tells us, made many very chargeable, and at the fame time ufelefs experiments himself, here cautions

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