their Master had said unto them." It was a needful provision. No memory could have retained either the things that were done or the discourses which were uttered during the three years when the Apostles accompanied Jesus in his journeys through Judea. Yet if these had not been recorded, and faithfully recorded, the whole purpose would have been frustrated; there could have been no revelation.

It is only by allowing as real the transactions of the day of Pentecost, when three thousand persons were added to the disciples, whose numbers were daily increased and increasing,-that we find a natural explanation of the composition of the Gospels. These new disciples would be in constant intercourse with the twelve, and earnestly inquire from those appointed witnesses the particulars of the ministry which they had attended. Those particulars would be committed to writing, at first in a disjointed form. There, would be occasional differences in circumstantials, together with a general agreement in essentials. The exact order of events was comparatively unimportant. By degrees, these separate memoirs would become numerous, collected from the mouths of the different Apostles; till, in the end, the four Evangelists collected the scattered and fragmentary records, and each produced the Gospel which bears his name. Throughout the whole, the promise of heavenly assistance and superintendence

11 John xiv. 26.

would be fulfilled. We deny the divinity of Jesus altogether, if we do not admit that he provided for the establishment and continued promulgation of his religion. That the Son of God should have taken man's nature; that in that nature he should have lived for man's instruction, and died for man's redemption: and yet have made no provision for an authentic record of his words and actions; this it is impossible to suppose, unless we deny his divinity altogether. And therefore when the record of his words and actions was to be committed to permanent writing, he would supply the defect of the historian's natural powers, and preserve them from material error. Without allowing this, the Christian faith would have no sound or firm foundation.

But, together with an unsound foundation, it would present an insuperable difficulty. It would leave the existence of the five historical narratives unaccounted for. We are told, indeed, that "there is no appearance in their writings that the Evangelists or Apostles had an inward gift, or were subject to any power exterior to them different from that of preaching or teaching, which they daily exercised." But, in fact, the faculty of preaching and teaching, which they daily exercised, is the evidence of an “inward gift;" and we require no other. "What invention of man could have devised discourses which by common consent differ from all sayings of men; 1 Essay vii. p. 345. See Appendix, No. 11.

which possess this character unaltered, notwithstanding their transmission through men of various mental organization; which contain things impossible to be understood or appreciated by their reporters at the time when they profess to have been uttered; which enwrap the seeds of all human improvement yet attained, and evidently are full of power for more."1

For we find concentrated in the Gospels a description of characters which, when they were originally pourtrayed, had no living model, but were to arise out of circumstances in which the conduct of mankind had not hitherto been seen or tried. Without assuming the truth of the Gospel, we may acknowledge that wherever it is received, whether justly or not, as of divine authority, it has placed men in a new situation by discovering to them relations not before apprehended, by opening to them prospects not before known, by awakening faculties not before exercised. But the Gospel displays, within itself, a prophetic insight into the behaviour of men under these new relations and in this untried condition. And, more remarkably still, that insight is commonly shown by allusions and hints not fully developed, but which manifested in the original author of them a perfect acquaintance with circumstances and cases which should arise hereafter. Declarations, warnings, descriptions occur, which require a key. The cha

1 Alford's Greek Test., i. 17.

racters or circumstances which the Gospel has produced, supply that key. But could such men as first set out to preach the Gospel, have possessed this foreknowledge? Could any man have possessed it? If they had ventured to conjecture at all upon a subject so uncertain as human conduct in a case so delicate as religion, would their conjectures have been verified by the subsequent experience of eighteen hundred years? What would have been thought of Columbus, if, instead of merely persevering till he reached a country of whose existence he was assured, he had undertaken to describe the rivers, mountains, or inhabitants which it contained, and the reception he should meet with there? And if he had hazarded such a prophecy, and the event had turned out according to his predictions, we should look upon him as something more than an enterprising adventurer.

The discourses, however, attributed to Jesus, are full of anticipatory warnings and precepts, which show that the whole map of the future proceedings of his disciples was laid, as it were, open to his view. And many of these presumed on consequences from the doctrines to be promulgated, some of which would not have seemed probable beforehand to human expectations, and others would not have been openly declared by an impostor, if they had been foreseen.

I. One instance of this nature was the PERSECUTION which Jesus taught his disciples to expect. It was

not, indeed, unnatural to anticipate that a nation, so bigoted as the Jews, should oppose the introduction of a religion which was to supersede their law; or that even the idolatrous Gentiles, however in their ordinary conduct uninfluenced by religion, should display an attachment to their superstitions when an attempt was made to shake them, which their previous apathy had concealed. Therefore no argument could be justly founded upon the prophecy, if it were merely written in general, "Whosoever will save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the Gospel's, the same shall save it." Some such encouragement as this must be held out by every enthusiast; as it was by Mohammed, when he reserved extraordinary rewards for any proselyte who should fall in battle in defence of his faith.

But the mode in which the persecution of Christians is spoken of, is not in the way of an ordinary command to maintain the faith or support the authority of their Master. It discovers an exact acquaintance with the sort of attack which they would commonly be forced to undergo. "Blessed are they who are persecuted for righteousness' sake." "Blessed are ye when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and say all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake."2 "Blessed are ye, when

1 Mark viii. 35.

1 Matt. v. 10, 11.