berate, and the nature of these deliberate differences proves that the later writer did not merely copy and embellish the earlier, but had another source with which he compared it, and which in many cases he preferred to follow. Thus, for instance, St. Luke gives a different genealogy from that of St. Matthew, and this difference is so great as to show that there must have been some deliberate reason for the variety. Again, both describe the preaching of John the Baptist in the wilderness. But St. Luke has an addition which shows that he had an independent source. He records the questions of the people, the publicans, and the soldiers, saying- Master, what shall we do?' and the particular instructions which John gave to each class, which St. Matthew omits. Again St. Matthew gives a long discourse of our Lord, commonly called the Sermon on the Mount. St. Luke gives one very similar, and yet there are differences, which prove that one is not a mere copy or abridgment of the other. The former tells us, that Jesus seeing the multitudes, went up into a mountain;' the latter, that after continuing all night on a mountain in prayer, 'he came down with his disciples, and stood in a plain,' and that when the multitude came, he there addressed them. St. Luke also inserts what does not appear in the other, and omits much that is there-and in the twelfth chapter of his gospel inserts much of what he here omits. The circumstances, if we suppose both evangelists to refer to one and the same occasion,

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are more fully related by St. Luke, and it is plain that he did not copy; and yet the exact agreement in the nature, sentiments, and even language of the two discourses proves beyond doubt that they are copies of a real original. Another striking proof of the independency of the testimony of these two evangelists is the account which each gives of the long discourse in reference to the destruction of the temple, and Christ's second advent. In the general outline and in many particulars they exactly agree, but one striking passage is omitted by St. Luke and given on a different occasion. In St. Matthew, after our Lord's declaration, that the day and hour of his advent are unknown, he is represented as referring to the days of Noah, and saying 'As the days of Noah were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark, and knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. Then shall two be in the field; the one shall be taken, and the other left. Two women shall be grinding at the mill; the one shall be taken, and the other left.' This striking passage is omitted by St. Luke in his account of the discourse, and yet evidently not merely for the sake of abbreviation, for he inserts it on another occasion, in the seventeenth chapter of his gospel. 'When he was demanded of the Pharisees, when the kingdom of

God should come, he answered them and said, The kingdom of God cometh not with observation. And he said unto the disciples, The days will come, when ye shall desire to see one of the days of the Son of man, and ye shall not see it. And they shall say to you, See here; or, see there: go not after them, nor follow them. For as the lightning, that lighteneth out of the one part under heaven, shineth unto the other part under heaven; so shall also the Son of man be in his day and as it was in the days of Noah,' &c., and then follows what is omitted in the twenty-first chapter, with an addition, however, of a reference to the days of Lot and the destruction of Sodom. Here, then, granting that St. Luke had seen St. Matthew's gospel, it is plain that he had another and independent source from which he drew, and yet the difference does not prove any irreconcilable contradiction, but is easily accounted for by the supposition that our Lord repeated the chief part of his instructions on various occasions; and St. Luke having given this passage in the seventeenth chapter, thought it unnecessary to repeat it in the twenty-first. The exact agreement of our Lord's discourses in these gospels, the identity of mind and spirit in the two gospels, derived from independent sources, prove incontestably that there is neither legend nor wilful fabrication, but real and authentic history. If it be possible to suppose that theological opinions, prophetic expectations, and local circumstances,

might bring forth two legendary histories of an individual, agreeing in the great outlines, it is utterly impossible that they should produce a series of discourses and moral lessons in two independent recensions so exactly identical, notwithstanding all differences, as those found in the gospels of St. Matthew and St. Luke. They have both been derived from one common and real original, and like two several portraits of one individual, the differences prove that each is an independent picture, the agreement shows that there was an original which was the common archetype. The identity of our Lord's character has justly been considered as in itself furnishing a strong evidence of the historic value of the gospel narratives, and has been admitted to be one of the greatest difficulties in the way of scepticism. Each of the evangelists has something peculiar to himself, either in the way of miracles, discourses, parables, difference of context, occasion, circumstances relating to a certain event or discourse, and yet in each the distinguishing features of our Lord's character and doctrine may be easily recognised, especially that originality which distinguishes him from all the Jewish rabbies of his own time, as well as the apostles and teachers of the primitive Christian Church. When we consider the nature and the value of Christ's doctrine,' ' a doctrine in every says a neologian writer,* respect so far beyond the age in which it was

* Münscher, I. 103.

taught, and the habits of thought of the people amongst whom it arose, it is impossible for the student of history not to desire to know the causes and the means by help of which Jesus so far outstepped his times, and to be acquainted with the circumstances which contributed to the formation of a religious teacher so exalted. Every attempt, however, which has hitherto been made to gratify this wish, by endeavouring to deduce it from the doctrines of the Essenes, or to represent it as a compound of Pharisaism and Sadduceism, rests not only upon arbitrary assumptions, but is negatived by arguments not few in number. There rests, therefore, to this day, upon the origin of Christianity, a sacred obscurity, which has often been urged by its friends as a proof of the divine authority of its founder.' Such is the confession of a neologian. He acknowledges that there is an inexplicable originality about the doctrine of Christ, that there was nothing in the teachers of the times at all like it. Pharisee and Sadducee had alike the stamp of national particularism. Christ, without denying his nationality, inculcated a religion universal in its obligation, and suited to the necessities of all mankind; and this great feature is the same in all the evangelists. Differences there are sufficient to prove independent witnesses; but a general agreement in the outlines of the narrative, an originality and identity in the character of Christ, his discourses and his religion, which stamp their