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THE NARRATORS SHOW NO ILL WILL

David, Jesus wished to intimate to those around him his own Messiahship! I cannot but regard it as an ejaculation, wrung from him by the intense suffering of the moment. How does it enhance the beauty and pathos of the piety-the forgiveness, the filial affection which he manifested in that terrible hour, when we consider that these touching qualities were evinced by one so acutely sensible of pain-of a temperament so susceptible, that, for a moment, he was overwhelmed by the frightful agonies of crucifixion!

But the circumstance that arrests my attention and impresses me most powerfully, is the artless and honest brevity with which the narrators have put this exclamation of pain and despair on record. Had they not been raised above every thought of embellishing the character of Christ, they never would have mentioned a circumstance of this kind, at least without some explanation.

As the narrators are thus free from any design to show off, and exaggerate the great subject of their narratives, so is it equally clear, on the other hand, that in the composition of these stories, they were unconscious of any angry or malignant feeling towards the opposers of Jesus. They betray no desire to excite the passions of the reader against those who persecuted him. This point has been happily illustrated by Dr. Campbell, in the Dissertations preliminary to his translation of the Four Gospels. The absence of all bitterness, in the minds of these historians, is shown by their indifference about the names of the enemies and persecutors of Jesus. It is remarkable, as Dr. Campbell has observed,* that the names of the High Priest and his coadjutor, of the Roman Procurator, of the tetrarch

* The Four Gospels, &c. by G. Campbell, D. D., Diss. 3. Sec. 22.

TOWARDS THE ENEMIES OF JESUS.

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of Galilee, and of the treacherous disciple, are all that are mentioned of the many who, no doubt, took an active part in the prosecution and death of Jesus. In regard to the first four, the omission of their names could have made no difference, for their offices were so public and eminent, that the official title was equivalent to the designation of the individual. And the part that Judas took was altogether too prominent and notorious, to admit the suppression of his name. "Whereas of those Scribes and Pharisees, who bargained with Judas, of the men who apprehended Jesus, of the officer who struck him, of those who afterwards spat upon him, buffeted, and mocked him, of those who were loudest in crying,' Away with him, crucify him—not this man, but Barabbas;' of those who supplied the multitude with the implements of their mockery, of those who upbraided him on the Cross with his inability to save himself; or of the soldier who pierced his side with a spear, no name is given by any of the historians." It may be said, that the names of these individuals were not known to them. It is very probable they were not. But had the narrators been acting the part of partisans, in the accounts they have left us, had they been conscious of any angry or vindictive feeling, they would have sought the names of those who made themselves prominent in these cruel and disgraceful acts.

"This reserve, in regard to the names of those who were the chief instruments of the sufferings of Jesus, is the more observable, as the names of others, to whom no special part is attributed, are mentioned without hesitation. Thus Malchus, whose ear Peter wounded, and who was, immediately after, miraculously cured by Jesus, is named by John; but nothing further is told of him, than that he was present when our Lord was seized, and that he was a servant of the High Priest. Simon the Cyrenian, who carried the Cross, is named

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NAMES OF FRIENDS GIVEN BUT NOT OF FOES.

by no fewer than three of the Evangelists;* but we are also informed that in this service he did not act voluntarily, but by compulsion. Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus are the only members of the Sanhedrim, except the High Priest, who are mentioned by name; but they were the only persons of that body who did not concur in condemning the Son of God, and who, though once fearful and secret disciples, assumed the resolution to display their affection, at times when no one else ventured openly to acknowledge him.

"Of the Scribes and Pharisees who watched our Lord, and on different occasions, dissembling esteem, assailed him with captious and ensnaring questionsof those who openly ascribed his miracles to evil Spirits, called him a madman, a demoniac, and, what they esteemed worse than either, a Samaritan, who accused him of associating with the profligate of Sabbathbreaking of intemperance and blasphemy, and of many others who put themselves in attitudes of opposition to Jesus, no names are ever mentioned, nor is the young, but opulent magistrate named, who came to him with the question, What shall I do to inherit eternal life,' for, though there were some favourable symptoms in his case, yet as by going away sorrowful, he betrayed a heart wedded to the world, the application did not terminate to his honour. But of Simon the Pharisee, who invited our Lord to his house, of Jairus and Bartimeus and Zaccheus and Lazarus and his sisters Mary and Martha, and some others, of whose faith, repentance, gratitude, love and piety, the most honourable testimony is given, a very different account is made.

6

"As to the disciples of Jesus, in recording their

There appears to have been a particular reason for mentioning this individual. He was the father of Alexander and Rufus, the latter of whom appears at a subsequent period to have been a Christian of some eminence at Rome.-See Rom. xvi. 13.

NO ANXIETY ABOUT APPEARANCES.

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faults, no secret is made of their names. Of this, the intemperate zeal of the sons of Zebedee on one occasion, and their ambition and secular views on another, the incredulity of Thomas, the presumption of Peter, and his lamentable defection in the denial of his Master, not to mention the prejudices and dulness of them all, are eminent examples. These particulars are all related with the same undisguised plainness which they use in relating the crimes of adversaries, and with as little endeavour to extenuate the former, as to exaggerate the latter."

And yet, after all, there is nothing studied in the style of these narrations, no appearance of care or pains taken to suppress one name, or introduce another. There is throughout an impressive forgetfulness of effect. It is common to speak of the authors of the four Gospels, as witnesses. But the idea of a witness conveys the impression of one speaking guardedly, as upon his oath, and as in the presence of individuals ready to cross-examine, and to doubt. But there is no appearance of this kind about these historians. When the mind is fully impressed and completely filled with any truth, whether of opinion, sentiment or fact, we find it impossible to think that others cannot see things just as we have seen them. What is so obvious and present to us, we imagine must be equally so to all. This appears to have been the predominant feeling in the minds of the writers of the Christian narratives. To them, the reality of the facts they record, was as indisputable as that of the sun in heaven, and abidingly filled with this conviction, they could not sympathise with the doubting, and the incredulous. They lived, and moved, and spoke, and wrote, with the truth of the things they relate filling and surrounding their minds like an atmosphere.

CHAPTER VI.

THE CONSISTENCY OF THE GOSPELS.

"I should have laid little stress upon the repetition of actions substantially alike, or of discourses containing many of the same expressions, because that is a species of resemblance, which would either belong to a true history, or might easily be imitated in a false one. Nor do I deny, that a dramatic writer is able to sustain propriety and distinction of character, through a great variety of separate incidents and situations. But the evangelists were not dramatic writers; nor possessed the talents of dramatic writers; nor will it, I believe, be suspected that they studied uniformity of character, or ever thought of any such thing in the person who was the subject of their histories. Such uniformity, if it exists, is on their part casual."

PALEY.

In these histories there is one personage who holds the first place, and of whose words and acts and sufferings they are obviously sketches. There are other individuals introduced more or less conspicuously. And they are as easily distinguishable as so many personal acquaintances. Now it is the remarkable peculiarity of these writings that the vivid and consistent ideas which they give us of the persons whom they mention, are communicated without the least appearance of design, or even of consciousness on the part of the narrators. They do not seem to be in the slightest degree aware that they are enabling the reader to form clear conceptions of the personal characters of those of whom they speak. This is a characteristic of these writings, which admits of copious and striking illustrations, and which to my mind establishes their authority as true