nd that is, the placing of a
distinction between judgment and testimony. We do not usually question
the credit of a writer, by reason of an opinion he may have delivered
upon subjects unconnected with his evidence: and even upon subjects
connected with his account, or mixed with it in the same discourse or
writing, we naturally separate facts from opinions, testimony from
observation, narrative from argument.

To apply this equitable consideration to the Christian records, much
controversy and much objection has been raised concerning the quotations
of the Old Testament found in the New; some of which quotations, it is
said, are applied in a sense and to events apparently different from
that which they bear, and from those to which they belong in the
original. It is probable, to my apprehension, that many of those
quotations were intended by the writers of the New Testament as nothing
more than accommodations. They quoted passages of their Scripture which
suited, and fell in with, the occasion before them, without always
undertaking to assert that the occasion was in the view of the author of
the words. Such accommodations of passages from old authors, from books
especially which are in every one's hands, are common with writers of
all countries; but in none, perhaps, were more to be expected than in
the writings of the Jews, whose literature was almost entirely confined
to their Scriptures. Those prophecies which are alleged with more
solemnity, and which are accompanied with a precise declaration that
they originally respected the event then related, are, I think, truly
alleged. But were it otherwise; is the judgment of the writers of the
New Testament, in interpreting passages of the Old, or sometimes,
perhaps, in receiving established interpretations, so connected either
with their veracity, or with their means of information concerning what
was passing in their own times, as that a critical mistake, even were it
clearly made out, should overthrow their historical credit?--Does it
diminish it? Has it anything to do with it?

Another error imputed to the first Christians was the expected approach
of the day of judgment. I would introduce this objection by a remark
upon what appears to me a somewhat similar example. Our Saviour,
speaking to Peter of John, said, "If I will that he tarry till I come,
what is that to thee?"' (John xxi. 22.) These words we find had been so
misconstrued, as that a report from thence "went