'selves the imputation of his death. He being thus ab'solved, the zealots raised a loud clamour against those judges, as not understanding the design, for which they had been invested with authority. And two of the most daring of the zealots, falling upon Zacharias in the middle ' of the temple, slew him there."

It may be said then: from hence it appears, that the writers of these books were not acquainted with the affairs of those times these writings therefore do not come from St. Matthew or St. Luke: at least the authors of them did not live at the time they are supposed to have lived; possibly not till long afterwards. How else could they have committed such a blunder, as to make Jesus tell the Jews of his time, in the reign of Tiberius, that they had killed Zacharias the son of Barachias, or Baruch? when Josephus informs us, that he was not killed till the latter end of Nero's reign, above thirty years after these words are said to have been spoken by Christ.

I. To this I answer, in the first place, that the fact related by Josephus does not suit the words of Christ in the evangelists.

For, (1.) the name of the father of Zacharias seems to be different. Whitby observes, that as Baruch in Jeremiah, and the Apocrypha, is always called by the Septuagint Bapex, Baruch, so , Barachiah, is rendered by them Bapaxias, Barachiab, Isa. viii. 2; Zech. i. 1, 7. And in Neh. iii, we find Bapaxias, Barachias, v. 4, and Bapex, Baruch, v. 20, which shows they were not the same name.' (2.) Their characters are not the same. The design of our Saviour's discourse obliges us to suppose, that Zacharias, whom he mentioned, was a prophet: whereas Zacharias in Josephus has not that character from him.

(3.) The place in which they are said to have been slain, is not the same. Zacharias, in the gospels, perished" between the temple and the altar, according to both St. Matthew and St. Luke: but there is no reason to suppose, that Josephus's Zacharias was slain in the inner court, in which the altar stood. The council was not held within that court: and Zacharias seems to have been slain immediately after his absolution by the council. If he was slain in any part of the iepov, temple, that is perfectly agreeable to the words of Josephus; for under that name were comprehended the temple, and all the courts and buildings belonging to it. These several instances of disagreement, I should think, • Δυο δε των τολμηροτάτων, προσπεσοντες εν μέσῳ τῷ ἱερῷ, διαφθείρωσι τον Zaxapiav. De Bell. lib. iv. c. 5. sect. 4. d On Matt. xxiii. 35.

must incline most persons to conclude, that the same Zacharias was not intended by the evangelists and Josephus.

But perhaps this is more than is reasonable to expect should be allowed by an objector. He can easily believe of writers, who are in little credit with him, that they may run far wide of the truth, and really intend a fact that has but a small resemblance with their relation. With such, what hath been said hitherto will have little weight.

I proceed therefore to some other considerations.

II. I say then, that our Lord, in the words we are now considering, instanceth in facts supposed to have been done a considerable time before. The whole tenor and design of his discourse assures us of it.

The Zacharias he mentions is not one, whom they of that age had themselves slain, but rather one of those prophets whose tombs they built.

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The sum of what our Saviour says (if I mistake not) is this: Ye say, " If we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets." This you say ; but, as hereby you own, that you are the children of them that killed the prophets;" so by your conduct, by your malice, your pride, your hypocrisy, your obstinate disobedience to God, you make it appear, that you allow the deeds of your fathers, and are their genuine offspring: you even exceed them in wickedness; you are now filling up, and will still go on to fill up the measure of their iniquity. I am come among you in my 'Father's name, and have done works, which no man ever did, but you do not hearken to me; my words you do not receive, and me you will crucify. God will send among you, as he did to your fathers, prophets and wise men, to instruct you in the most excellent doctrine, to admonish and reclaim you; but ye will kill and crucify them, scourge them in your synagogues, and persecute them from city to city. Hereby you will make the wicked deeds of your fathers your own, and bring the guilt of them upon yourselves; you will hereby deserve, that all the righteous blood, shed from the foundation of the world, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zacharias, should be required of you and verily I say unto you, "it shall be required of this generation."

Our Lord seems to me to remind them of instances of disobedience and cruelty, which they were well acquainted with, which they avowedly condemned, and pretended to see the evil of, but yet did, and would imitate in a most

notorious manner; and hereby would bring the guilt of them upon themselves. And the conclusion of all obliges us to suppose, that the death of the Zacharias he had mentioned, was an act of cruelty committed by their fathers. This is the sense of the words in both the evangelists.

This appears to me so evident, that if there had been no event recorded in any of their ancient writings, which answered to the death of Zacharias here described; yet I should have supposed, that there was some such event that had happened some time before, and which they were then well acquainted with.

e

III. However, we have a fact recorded in the Old Testament, which exactly answers the words of our Saviour. It is in 2 Chron. xxiv. 17-22. " Now after the death of Jehoiada-they left the house of the Lord God of their fathers, —and wrath came upon Judah and Jerusalem; yet he sent prophets unto them to bring them again unto the Lord, and they testified against them: but they would not give ear. And the Spirit of God came upon Zachariah, the son of Jehoiada the priest, which stood above the people, and said unto them, Thus saith God, Why transgress ye the commandment of the Lord? And they conspired against him," and stoned him with stones at the commandment of the king in the court of the house of the Lord. Thus Joash the king remembered not the kindness which Jehoiada his father had done to him, but slew his son; and when he died, he said, the Lord look upon it, and require it."

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This fact is exactly parallel with that described by our Lord. (1.) This Zachariah spoke in the name of the Lord, the Spirit of God came upon him.' It was suitable to our Lord's design to instance in the death of a prophet.' "Ye say, If we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the death of the prophets.—I send unto you prophets, and wise men, and scribes." Abel was a righteous man,' and this Zacharias a' prophet.'

(2.) The place, in which this Zacharias is said to have been killed, answers the description in the evangelists; he was slain in the court of the house of the Lord,' that is, in the court of the priests, the inner court of the temple. In both the evangelists the same place is specified,' between the temple and the altar.' This particular circumstance of so remarkable an event was, doubtless, handed down to them by tradition. According to the account in the ChroSee Whitby, Matt. xxiii. 36.

nicles, he was in the inner court, when he delivered his message from God to them: He stood above the people.' The ground of the inner court was raised above the rest; he stood at the extremity of that, and spoke to the people standing in the next court below him: at the commandment of the king' they rushed in upon Zachariah: he retired, they pursued him, and stoned him with stones,' so that he fell down in the space between the altar of burnt-offerings and the temple.

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(3.) Our Lord subjoins, whom ye slew. The death of Zacharias, in the Chronicles, was the act of the nation, of king and people: this particular is added to this instance with the highest propriety. The death of Abel was the death of a righteous man,' but not committed by them: the death of Zacharias was the act of their ancestors, that is, of that people to whom our Lord was speaking; for a nation is in all ages reckoned the same people. "And he answered and said unto them, what did Moses command you?" Mark x. 3. "Verily I say unto you, Moses gave you not that bread from heaven," John vi. 32. "Did not Moses give you the law?" Ch. vii. 19. See 22.

(4.) Expressions made use of in the history of Zacharias in the Chronicles, and by our Saviour in his discourse to the Jews, put it past doubt, that he intended this fact, and alluded to this very account in that book. "Behold, I send unto you prophets and wise men and scribes." The history in the Chronicles begins thus: "Yet he sent unto them prophets to bring them again unto the Lord, and they testified against them," &c. It concludes: "And when he died, he said, The Lord look upon it, and require it." Our Saviour tells the Jews, that the blood of all the prophets would be required of that generation.'

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(5.) As the fact related in the Chronicles does in all its circumstances answer that described by our Lord, so there is a suitableness in the order in which it stands in our Lord's discourse. Abel is the first righteous man' slain, and the death of Zacharias is the last act of cruelty to a ' prophet' related in the Jewish sacred writings.

IV. It ought to be observed, that there is an exact harmony between the evangelists, in the account they have given of this discourse of our Saviour, though there is no reason to think, that one has copied the other. This ought to satisfy us, that no mistake has been made.

In one particular indeed there is a difference. In St. Matthew Zacharias is styled the son of Barachias, whereas in St. Luke's account it is not said who was his father.

And in this particular the person, whom our Saviour speaks of, seems not to answer to him mentioned in the Chronicles; for there he is called the son of Jehoiada.

There is therefore but one objection against supposing, that our Saviour meant the Zacharias in the Chronicles: but it is such an objection as deserves consideration.

f

It has been observed by divers learned men, that many persons among the Jews were called by two names, especially when their true name happened to have some of the letters of the word Jehovah in it. For this reason Barachias may have been used for Jehoiada, since likewise these two names have much the same meaning.

Other learned men suppose, that Barachias was very early inserted into St. Matthew's gospel by some transcriber. There is the more reason for this supposition, because it is wanting in St. Luke. Or else Jehoiada might have been originally in St. Matthew, but some christian transcriber, not well acquainted with the Jewish history, nor knowing who Jehoiada was, and therefore suspecting that to be a mistake, might pretend to correct it by putting Barachias in the room of Jehoiada. Zachariah, the son of Barachias, whose prophecies form one of the books of the Old Testament, was certainly better known among the christians than Zacharias the son of Jehoiada. It is not at all unlikely therefore, that our not having this name in St. Matthew, may be owing to the ignorance and rashness of some transcriber. This supposition seems to be favoured by what St. Jerom says, who informs us, that in the gospel of the Nazarenes, Zachariah is called the son of Jehoiada.

h

Some have thought, that there is a like instance in Matt. xiii. 35, where we have these words, "That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, saying, I will open my mouth in parables," &c. The words of this quotation are in Ps. lxxviii. 2, the title of which is Maschil of 'Asaph.' St. Jerom says, that in some copies of St. Matthew it was written, That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet Esaias.' He thinks it was originally spoken by the prophet Asaph:' but some transcriber, not knowing Asaph to be a prophet, put Esaias in his room. Afterwards others, perceiving there were no such words as those which follow here, to be found in Esaias, left out his name; and from thenceforward in most

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Vid. Grot. et Whitb. in loc.

8 In evangelio quo

utuntur Nazareni, pro filio Barachiæ, filium Joiada reperimus scriptum. S. Hieron. Comment. Matt. xxiii. 36. h In loc.