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UNFAIR TREATMENT OF THE EVANGELISTS.

[SERM.

reconcile them, as they stand. They lean apart in hopeless divergence. In other words, they contradict one another.

Now, these principles are fully admitted in daily life. If your friend comes to you with ever so improbable a tale, the last thing which enters into your mind is to disbelieve him. Is he in earnest? Yes, on his honour. Is he sure he is not mistaken? That very doubt of yours requires an apology: but your friend says, "I am as sure as I am of my existence." "Give it me under your hand and seal then." Your friend begins to suspect your sanity; but the matter being of some importance, he complies. "It must be so then," you exclaim, "though I cannot understand it." . . . . I only wish that men would be as fair to the Evangelists as they are to their friends!

You are requested to observe,-for really you must admit, that any possible solution of a difficulty, however improbable it may seem, any possible explanation of the story of a competent witness, is enough logically and morally to exempt that man from the imputation of an incorrect statement. The illustration which first presents itself may require an apology; but the dignity of the pulpit shall not outweigh the dignity of His Gospel after whose blessed Name this House is called': and I can think of nothing as apposite as what follows.

It is a conceivable case, that, hereafter, three persons of known truthfulness should meet, in a Court of Justice at the Antipodes; where the entire difficulty should turn on a question of time. The case is conceivable, that the first should be heard to declare that at Oxford, on such a day, of such a year, he had seen i See the first foot-note, p. 53.

III.]

SUPPOSED CASE OF TESTIMONY.

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such an one standing before Carfax Church while the clock was striking one :-that the second should declare that he also, on the same day of the same year, had seen the same person passing by St. Mary's, when the clock of that Church was also striking one:-that the third should stand up and assert,-"I also saw the same person on that same day, but it was on the steps. of the Cathedral I met him; and I also remember hearing the clock at that moment strike one."-Now I can conceive that the result of such evidence would be adverted upon in some such way as the following:

"While we are disposed to recognize the substantial agreement, and general conformity in respect of details, among the synoptical witnesses, in their leading external outlines, we are yet constrained,”—and the rest of the impertinence we had before. Whereas you and I know perfectly that the three clocks in question were, till lately, kept five minutes apart: a sufficient interval, (I beg you to observe in passing,) for the individual in question to have been seen by you walking in an easterly direction; and by me due west; and by a third person, due east again. Highly improbable circumstances, I freely grant, every one of them; and yet, by the hypothesis, all perfectly true! Meantime, it is conceivable that Judge and jury would have the indecency openly to tax the three men I spoke of with inexactitude in their statements: and it is conceivable that those three honest men-(the only true men, it might be, in the Colony, after all,)—would carry to their grave the imputation of untruth. Here and there, a generous heart would be found to say to them, I share not in the vulgar cry against you! I nothing doubt that it all fell out precisely as you assert. Either,

F

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THE HOURS OF ST. JOHN.

[SERM. the clocks in Oxford went wrong that day;-or there had been some trick played with the clocks ;—any how, I believe you, for I have evidence that you are marvellously exact in all your little statements; and you cannot have been mistaken in a plain matter like this. I have heard too that you are not the ordinary men you seem. The men make no answer. They care nothing for your opinion, and my opinion. The rashness of mankind may astonish the Angels perhaps; but the Apostles and Evangelists of CHRIST are already safe within the veil !

The difficulty supposed is not an imaginary one. St. John says that when Pilate sat in judgment on the LORD of Glory, "it was about the sixth hour." But since St. Mark says that at the third hour they crucified Him,-the two statements seem inconsistent. The ancients,-(giants at interpretation, babes in criticism,)—altered the text. Peter, Bishop of Alexandria, A.D. 300, says that he had seen it in the very autograph of St. John'. A learned man of our own, however, a hundred years ago, ascertained that, in the Patriarchate of Ephesus, the hours were not computed after the Jewish method: but, (strange to say,) exactly after our own English method. And yet, not so strange either; for the Gospel first came to us from there. You see at a glance that all the four mentions of time of day in St. John", which used to occasion so much difficulty, become beautifully intelligible at once.

St. John xix. 14.

k St. Mark xv. 25.

The passage may be seen in John Bois' Vet. Interpretis cum Beza aliisque recentioribus collatio, (1655,) p. 333.

m See a Dissertation by Dr. Townson at the end of his admirable book on the Gospels.

n Viz. St. John i. 39: iv. 6, 52: xix. 14.

III.]

THE BLIND MEN AT JERICHO.

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To come then to the three samples of difficulty propounded a moment ago. And first, for the blind men of Jericho.

I. The difficulty lies all on the surface. Listen to a plain tale.

Our SAVIOUR, attended by His Disciples and followed by a vast concourse of persons, had reached the outskirts of Jericho. A certain blind man was sitting by the roadside begging. He heard the noise of a passing crowd, and inquired what it meant? He was told that Jesus of Nazareth was passing by. He rose at once,-hastened down the main street through which, in due time, CHRIST perforce must come; joined another blind man, (named Bartimæus, -a well-known character, who, like himself, was accustomed to sit and beg by the road side;) and the two companions in suffering, having stationed themselves at the exit of Jericho, waited till the Great Physician should appear.

The crowd begins to approach; and the two blind men implore the Son of David to have pity on them. So importunate is their suit, that the foremost of the passers-by rebuke them. The men grow more urgent. Our SAVIOUR pauses, and orders that they shall be called. At this gracious summons, both draw near; the more remarkable applicant flinging his outer garment from him as he rises from his seat; but both, when they appear in our SAVIOUR's presence, making the same request. The Holy One, touched with compassion, laid His Hands upon their eyes, and grants their prayer: whereupon they both follow Him in

the way.

Well, (you will ask,)-what then?" What then?" I answer. Then there is no difficulty in the three

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CHARACTERISTICS OF AN

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accounts about which you spoke so unbecomingly a moment ago. Assume this plain, and not at all improbable version of the incident, to be true, and you will find that no difficulty remains whatever. Every recorded circumstance is accounted for, and fits in exactly with it. I wish there were time to enlarge on some of the details, and to make some remarks on the manner of the Evangelists in relating events: but there is no time. Besides,-without a huge copy of the Gospel open before us all, I could not hope to make my meaning understood.

For of course you are to believe that he who would understand the Gospel must first study it. You must ascertain, by some crucial test, confirmed by a large and careful induction, what the character of a narrative purporting to be inspired, is. You have no right first to assume exactly what Inspiration shall result in, and then to deny that there is Inspiration because you fail to discover your assumed result. That were foolish.

I shall perhaps be thought to lay myself open to the rejoinder,-"Neither have you any right to assume that Inspiration will result in Infallibility." But the retort is without real point. I do but assert that, just as every man of honour claims to be believed until he has been convicted of a falsehood,-inspired Prophets, Evangelists, and Apostles have a right to our entire confidence in the scrupulous accuracy of every word they deliver, until it can be shewn that they have once made a mistake.

If you will take the trouble to compare any of the

• And yet, we hear it asserted that we cannot "suppose the Spirit of absolute Truth" "to suggest accounts only to be reconciled in the way of hypothesis and conjecture.”—E. and R., p. 179.