the event, I hope, thefe probabilities will be found mutually to give light and strength to each other, though neither of them fhould of itself be fufficient to fupport the conclufion I aim at.

But, my Lord, that I may not fright you from my correfpondence, I will promise you, for the future, not to burthen my letters with reflections of this kind, but barely to ftate to your Lordship any point where I stick, and defire your affiftance in it, and particularly that you would put the objections that offer themselves to you on fuch heads in the ftrongest light poffible.

And indeed, my Lord, though I have wandered into feveral reflections, yet my chief intention, when I fat down to write this letter, was to confult your Lordship on a particular head, the time of writing St. John's Gofpel. After having maturely weighed ever thing that lies within my reach, I cannot but conclude, that what has been faid about his writing it in his extreme old age must be a mistake, and that he certainly publifhed it before the deftruction of Jerufalem.

One of my reafons for being of this opinion is, that I obferve little or nothing in this Gofpel,

1 Gofpel, relating to that destruction; which, I think, would not have been the cafe, if it had been written after it. It is particular to St. John, after he has recited the prophetic fayings of our Lord, to explain them, by mentioning the event to which they refer. This he has done in various cafes; i. 21. vi. 70, 71. vii. 38, 39, xii. 22, 23. xxi. 18, 19. Nor do I remember, that any of the Evangelifts have done it befide him.

Is it credible, therefore, if he had written after that great event, that he would not have recollected fome fayings of Christ relating to it, and omitted by the other Evangelifts; and have taken occafion from thence, after his usual manner, to apply them to the fact they were intended to forefignify, and which had then happened?

He feems to have added a chapter to his Gofpel, for this reafon, among others, that he might explain and apply what Christ had faid relating to St. Peter's death (as well as his own), which, he tells us there, had happened accordingly. Would he not have told us the fame alfo concerning the destruction of Jerufalem, if that remarkable event had

2

hap

happened before the publication of his Gofpel? We fee the other three Evangelists are full of our Lord's prophetic difcourfes on this head and doubtlefs it was a fubject he often difcourfed of; and there was room for additions on this head, as well as on many others.

Nay, it is farther obfervable, that in fome places of his Gofpel, where he mentions words of our Saviour that carry hints of this kind, he never explains them by the event, as he does in other cafes. For instance, iv. 21. The bour cometh, &c. And even in that last chapter, which he seems, I fay, to have added to his Gofpel after it was finifhed, and where he actually explained, by what had then happened to Peter, what our Saviour had faid of him; yet what our Saviour at the fame time faid, and he there relates, concerning his coming to vifit Jerufalem (for that doubtlefs is the fense of those words-" If I will "that he tarry till I come)" he does not explain, but leaves the words of our Saviour in the fame latitude he fpake them, without any application of them; which, I fay, confidering his manner of writing, he would not

have

have done, if the writing of his Gofpel, or even of this part of it, had been subsequent to the deftruction of Jerufalem.

Pardon me, my Lord, for multiplying words. My meaning is only to fhew you my thought in this case, to ask your judgement of it, and (if you think it has weight) your help towards improving it: for though the date of the other Gofpels depends not on the time of writing St. John's, yet I am willing (for feveral reasons) to be able to prove, that even his Gospel was written before the deftruction of Jerufalem.

It is time to end this long letter, with repeated thanks to your Lordship for what you fent me, and affurances that I am, with a very hearty respect, my Lord, your affectionate brother, and very humble fervant,

FR. ROFFEN.

LET

LETTER CXXXIX,

From Bp. POTTER.

Cuddefden, July 6, 1722.

MY LORD,

I A

AM highly obliged to your Lordship for favouring me with fo many of your thoughts on the fubjects now in debate between us. But, to omit farther ceremony, your Lordship takes occafion from these words of my laft letter, "Such of the Ancients as "are for St. Luke," to enquire whether any of the Ancients, befide Theodoret, apply St. Paul's words, 2 Cor. viii. 18. to any other perfon but St. Luke; to which I reply, in the words of St. Chryfoftom, that "fome under

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ftand them of St. Luke, and fome of Bar"nabas ;" and in thofe of Oecumenius, that many understand them of Luke, and

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"

many of Barnabas." Both thefe writers incline to Barnabas rather than Luke: and if your Lordship pleafe to turn to their com

ments