The other explanation: that Zacharias’s silence was not from any physical impediment, but from a notion, to be psychologically explained, that he ought not to speak, is in direct contradiction to the words of Luke. What do all the passages, collected by Paulus to show that οὐ δύναμαι may signify not only a positive non posse, but likewise a mere non sustinere, [136] prove against the clear meaning of the passage and its context? If perhaps the narrative phrase (v. 22), οὐκ ἠδύνατο λαλῆσαι αὐτοῖς might be forced to bear this sense, yet certainly in the supposed vision of Zacharias, had the angel only forbidden him to speak, instead of depriving him of the power of speech, he would not have said: καὶ ἔσῃ σιωπῶν, μὴ δυνάμενος λαλῆσαι, but ἴσθι σιωπῶν, μηδ’ ἐπιχειρήσῃς λαλῆσαι. The words διέμενε κωφὸς (v. 21) also most naturally mean actual dumbness. This view assumes, and indeed necessarily so, that the gospel history is a correct report of the account given by Zacharias himself; if then it be denied that the dumbness was actual, as Zacharias affirms that actual dumbness was announced to him by the angel, it must be admitted that, though perfectly able to speak, he believed himself to be dumb, which leads to the conclusion that he was mad: an imputation not to be laid upon the father of the Baptist without compulsory evidence in the text. Again, the natural explanation makes too light of the incredibly accurate fulfilment of a prediction originating, as it supposes, in an unnatural, over-excited state of mind. In no other province of inquiry would the realization of a prediction which owed its birth to a vision be found credible, even by the Rationalist. If Dr. Paulus were to read that a somnambulist, in a state of ecstasy, had foretold the birth of a child, under circumstances in the highest degree improbable; and not only of a child, but of a boy; and had moreover, with accurate minuteness, predicted his future mode of life, character, and position in history; and that each particular had been exactly verified by the result: would he find such a coincidence credible? Most assuredly to no human being, under any conditions whatsoever, would he concede the power thus to penetrate the most mysterious workings of nature; on the contrary he would complain of the outrage on human free-will, which is annihilated by the admission that a man’s entire intellectual and moral development may be predetermined like the movements of a clock. And he would on this very ground complain of the inaccuracy of observation, and untrustworthiness of the report which represented, as matters of fact, things in their very nature impossible. Why does he not follow the same rule with respect to the New Testament narrative? Why admit in the one case what he rejects in the other? Is biblical history to be judged by one set of laws, and profane history by another?—An assumption which the Rationalist is compelled to make, if he admits as