calculated to rectify; yet we find traces of its being fondly cherished by the faithful disciples after the descent of the Spirit had enlarged their views, and confirmed their faith. That Gamaliel should have fallen into an error universally prevalent among his countrymen, cannot be deemed improbable. He had just seen the apostles miraculously delivered from the hands of their enemies; as he obviously discerned, in the shield of divine providence encompassing them, that grand criterion of the coming age, viz. superiority to death, he naturally inferred that they were the auspicious heralds of the Messiah's reign, and that the persons who sought to destroy them, were impi ously impugning not only the will, but the power of God. Considered in this view, his speech will be found full, forcible, and even decisive; and it may be thus paraphrased, "Theudas pretended to be that great personage, who shall confer on the Jewish nation the privilege of eternal life on the earth. But his speedy dissolution evinced the falsehood of his claims. The fate of the impostor of Galilee also proved that he

was neither himself immortal, nor had he the power of conferring immortality on others. The destruction of these deceivers affords us a fair criterion to judge of the pretensions of the men before us... Unlike Theudas and the Galilean Judas, they seem superior to all opposition from men. Your united strength and wisdom are not able to take away their lives, to frustrate their views, or to scatter their followers. Leave them, therefore, to their fate; any further interference on your part would be but an impious resistance to the will of heaven*."

* Εαν η εξ άνθρωπου η βουλη αυτή, η το έργον του. τον καταλυθήσεται, ΕΙ ΔΕ ΕΚ ΘΕΟΥ ΕΣΤΙ ου δύνασθε καταλύσαι αυτο. V. 38, 39. That the conjunction # in Greek or si in Latin, when connected with a verb in the indicative mood, signifies since, is well known. The reason is, that the verb then conveys an assertion unconditional and certain. What grammarians say of conjunctions governing sometimes an indicative, and sometimes a subjunctive mood, is sufficiently absurd. The fact is, that when the writer expresses a positive signification, he uses the former; when a conditional or hypothetical sense, he employs the latter mood. The sense of the verb then governs the conjunction, and not the conjunction the mood of the verb.

The author of the Recognitions asserts, that Gamaliel

Now, let us suppose that two sensible and well disposed men, like Nicodemus and Gamaliel, who, though converts to the gospel, must still have retained a considerable portion of the prepossessions which distinguished the Jewish rulers, had been called upon in different situations to give to the world some account of their countrymen, from the advent of Jesus to the destruction of Jerusalem, it may be useful to imagine, in what way they would endeavour to pro

was a convert to the faith; but that he continued among the Pharisees by the advice of the apostles, in order by this means to defend them before the rulers, and to give them secret information, in case their enemies should adopt any plan to destroy them. He represents Peter as using this language respecting the Jewish doctor Qui latenter noster frater erat in fide, sed consilio nostro inter eos erat. On this saying Cotelerius justly remarks, Vulpinum hoc consilium apostolis indig num est, Recog. lib. i. 65. With respect to Gamaliel, it is well known that his name has descended to posterity in the number of the Jewish converts. Lardner, indeed, (Vol. VII. p. 119-146.) controverts this fact. According to some ancient writers, he was baptized by Peter and John. Tillemont, Vol. I. p. 268. Chrysostom says, that his speech was the means of converting the priests mentioned by Luke in the subsequent chapter.

mote the interests of the gospel, and how they would defend Christ and his fol lowers.

In the first place, their prejudices as Jews would lead them, though now the disciples of Christ, still to consider themselves as the disciples of Moses; and in this prejudice,{ they would have reason on their side. For the religion of Christ was the religion of Moses improved, divested of its grosser parts, namely its rites and ceremonies, which fitted it to the Jews only, and rendered a more pure and comprehensive system adapted to all nations. They would not fail to remark, that Jesus professed not to teach a new doctrine, but to finish and perfect the old; not to set aside, but to fulfil, the law and the prophets. It is evident then, that the two men I am supposing would never in their writings designate the gospel under the term christianity, by which it is known among all modern christians; but they would call it Judaism, or, in reference to its superior refinement, the philosophy of Moses, the wis dom of the Jewish laws. By appellations

of this kind, while acting agreeably to their own prepossessions, they would obviate two very material inconveniences, namely, the odium which its enemies attached to christianity, and the objection which was soon made to it, as a new and recent religion, on the part of those who opposed it among the Gentiles.

Moreover, the same writers, in speaking of the Jewish christians, would be led by the same prejudices, or rather by the same just views, to speak of them not as a recent, subordinate, or an heretical sect, but as a predominant and ancient order of Jews, who alone, or who chiefly, comprehended the spirit, and practised the high virtues, of the Jewish religion; who had flourished from ancient days, and whose founders were the patriarchs and the prophets. This we might expect would be their representation, though liable to be mistaken by modern christians, who are in the habit of considering Christ and his apostles as the only founders of christianity, and who suppose the Jewish believers to be a then recent. sect of Jews.