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ART. VIII.-Observations on the Genealogies contained in the Gospels of St. Matthew and St. Luke. By W. BEESTON. London: Hearne. 1841.

WE have placed the "observations" of Mr. Beeston at the head of this paper, simply because it is usual to take a published work as the subject of review; but the effort to which we invite attention is THE CHART which accompanies this article, which is one of arrangement merely. Originating in what has been already effected by the learning and industry of another, its primary object is to present to the eye of the biblical student the result of that learning and industry, leaving the arguments by which such a result has been sustained in the volume where they are found, under the disadvantage of being "chiefly extracted from the Prologomena of the Rev. Dr. Barratt's fac simile of a fragment of the Gospel of St. Matthew, from a MS. in Trinity College, Dublin." A glance at the Chart will suffice to show that other purposes are contemplated. The extracts from Dr. Barratt's work relate only to the ancestry of one person; and unequalled in length and renown as is that ancestry, it evidently cannot include the mass of names which the Chart exhibits. Besides the antediluvian "sons of God," and the postdiluvian patriarchs, kings, nobles, and humbler personages of that favoured line, which one evangelist traces downward from Abraham to Jesus, and another upwards from Jesus to God; and besides every name which the Old Testament assigns to the tribe of which our Lord was both "the Lion" and "the Lamb;" the descendants of Adam before the flood, and of Noah afterwards, are given, as far as their generations are revealed in the sacred canon. Jacob's posterity it was impossible, consistently with any moderate dimensions, to include more than the tribe of Judah, and such names of the other tribes as were instrumental to the prolong tribe, or objects of genealogical comparison with it. An inspection of the line of Christ, with the least possible fatigue to the eye, has been, it is hoped, successfully provided for. From God to Thara, and from Nathan to Heli, St. Luke's genealogy of our Lord is exhibited in a straight line. The intermediate names, from Abraham to David inclusive (being common to St. Matthew and St. Luke), occupy a position which enables the reader to discover with ease the commencement of St. Matthew's genealogy, and how far its names coincide with those of St. Luke's. The rest of St. Matthew's genealogy, from Solomon to Mary inclusive, may also be traced down the same straight line, broken, however, by the names of three kings

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after Joram, and one king after Josias, whom St. Matthew omits, but which the books of Kings and Chronicles supply; and by the names of Salathiel and Zorobabel, which, being common to the two evangelists, are intermediately and conspicuously situated. The breaches between the latter name and Abiud, and between Eliakim and Azor, are occasioned by the demands of Dr. Barratt's hypothesis. Even without that hypothesis, a comparison of Scripture with Scripture sufficiently demonstrates the defective character of St. Matthew's genealogy. Joseph and Jesus (the last names common to both evangelists) are placed according to the plan adopted in the similar preceding instances. Tradition supposes Tubal-Cain's sister Naamah to have been united with Noah; Yonah and Tehevita to Terah; and the Susanna of the apocryphal book bearing her name to Jechonias.

Of the antediluvians mentioned by name in the Bible, twelve are of the eldest of Adam's sons, and a similar number of that other seed which God appointed instead of Abel, whom Cain slew. Of the former, three are females, while all the latter are males. Four females entered the ark with Noah and his three sons, but utter darkness conceals from us to what extent any or all of the eight owed their being to the first shedder of human blood. It is recorded that "the sons of Adam saw the daughters of men, that they were fair, and took them wives;" and "corrupt before Jehovah," and "filled with violence," are phrases which seem to mark emphatically the results of such connexions; but, except the mother of us all, not one female is named in the line of the "Seed" that should bruise the serpent's head, until, in Genesis xi. 29, we read, "And Abram and Nahor took them wives the name of Abram's wife was Sarai, and the name of Nahor's wife was Milcah, the daughter of Haran." And in Genesis xx. 12, we find Abraham saying to Abimelech concerning Sarah (the Abram and Sarai of the previous quotation), "And yet indeed she is my sister: she is the daughter of my father, but not the daughter of my mother; and she became my wife." Thus the two first marriages on record since the deluge (both of them essential to the Redeemer's lineage-for the grandson of Abraham and Sarah, and the great granddaughter of Nahor and Milcah, were father and mother of Judah) were contrary to every idea which civilized nations have since formed of a lawful connexion; and this is an objection which has been urged against other links in the chain which connects the first Adam with the last. Man would have preserved the Messiah's lineage pure and spotless in a world altogether corrupt. It is an offence to man to find in that lineage not only matrimonial unions within degrees since forbidden, but

incestuous connexions also of the most startling character. But probably the true state of the case is, that the lineage in question (allowing for its unequalled length) is actually purer than any that could be produced, either from the records of sacred or profane history.

The state of the world, since the Gospel was revealed to it, makes us very incapable judges of these things. Imperfectly as the principles of our faith are understood, and small as is the estimate generally put upon the influence of those principles upon our lives, we know not what we say when we deplore the feebleness of the "great light" in restraining men from evil. Doubtless the idols of our hearts are many, but we know not the gross darkness of nations living without God and without hope; we understand not the confusion of cities openly defying the Majesty of heaven; we can form no picture that comes near the reality of the wickedness and the woe so briefly but so emphatically implied in the song of Deborah and Barak: "They chose new gods: then was war in the gates." It is the very infirmity of our thankfulness-it is the very weakness of our gratitude-for the real blessings of the latter covenant, to reflect with feelings of indignation, which is oft akin to unbelief, on the spots which obscured the Sun of Righteousness, ere it rose above the horizon of a benighted world. We are too remote from the grosser darkness of that world to know the extent to which it must have been dispersed, before men could even discern between good and evil, clean and unclean. If we saw clearly on these matters, we should behold a continual struggle going on between the patriarchs whose blemishes most offend us, and a grievous host of adverse principalities and powers. We should cease to expect perfection in any of "the cloud of witnesses," and should marvel rather that a cloud of such promise could arise at all in such a parching firmament. We should cease to regard the motes of those times of ignorance which God so compassionately beheld; and we should rather marvel that any were found to wrestle successfully against the spirit of disobedience which everywhere exalted itself against the glory of God and the peace of man and instead of astonishment that "the friend of God" should appear before us as the husband of his half-sister, and twice equivocating concerning the latter relationship, we should rather marvel at Abram's constancy in following His guidance who caused him at seventy-five, and Sarah at sixtyfive, to wander from their home through inhospitable countries, not knowing whither they went, and at his frequent building up of altars to Jehovah in a land where "the Canaanite was."

These reflections, digressive as they may appear, are no un

common fruit of the most ordinary attention to the genealogies of those Scriptures, all of which were written for our learning. Besides Sarai, who left Ur with Abram, Hagar and Keturah are named as his wives, and a Concubine named Reumah is assigned to his brother Nahor. When eighty-six years old, and again when an hundred years old, Abraham becomes the father, and Hagar and Sarah the mothers (the latter having completed, or nearly so, her ninetieth year) of Ishmael and Isaac. The well-known words of Abraham, "Shall a child be born unto him that is an hundred years old, and shall Sarah that is ninety years old bear?" (Gen. xvii. 17) afford the earliest hint of the essential difference between the ancient and the modern, or rather between the oriental and the western mode of calculating the age of an individual. It is evident that Abraham could not have been an hundred, according to our way of reckoning, at the period when he spake as above, for from Gen. xxi. we learn that he was an hundred years old when his son Isaac was born unto him.

Every chronologist is acquainted with the canon of Ptolemy, but for which so many notices of time in the books of Kings and Chronicles would be utterly irreconcilable. For example, how could Nadab's reign of two years commence in Asa's second and terminate in Asa's third year, unless we were allowed the benefit of that loose but venerable usage which, in reigns and ages, counted any fragmental portion of a year for a whole year? It is observable in the sacred writings that extreme accuracy is blended with extreme vagueness in the estimate of dates. For instance, the application of Ptolemy's canon to the case of David, of Jehoahaz, and of Jehoiachin, would make David's reign forty-one years, and that of the two latter one year each; whereas in three places (2 Samuel v. 4; 1 Kings ii. 11; and 1 Chron. xxix. 27) forty years only are assigned to David, although at 2 Samuel v. 5, it is written, "In Hebron he reigned over Judah seven years and six months, and in Jerusalem he reigned thirty and three years over all Israel and Judah;" making, to speak accurately, forty years and six months; and, to speak according to the canon, which the reigns of Nadab, of Elah, and of Ahaziah, demand, forty-one years. On the contrary, the reigns of Jehoahaz and Jehoiachin are exactly calculated; the former at three months-the latter at three months, and also at three months and ten days, though the addition of even a shorter period than three months, or three days, to the first year of either of the three kings previously mentioned would be more than enough to swell that first year into two years.

The Chart notices Shem's death on the same line where the