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say, that, where his predecessors have failed in any instance, the superior information of John rectifies their narration. We should find hereafter, sufficient examples of this assertion, especially, where they tend to illustrate; some few, where mistakes are rectified. every reader must judge for himself, and I am not desirous of forestalling judgment. To give one instance, and yet, without wishing to prejudice the reader, compare John vi. 21. with the parallel passages in the other evangelists, and inquire, whether the eye-witness, and a most accurate observer of facts, and the subsequent reader of the gospels of the other writers does not here make some, although a very slight correction?

If that, which I have said in this treatise, with a view to obviate the objection, "that Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea, having already embalmed Jesus at his burial, it was singular, that the women, according to Luke and Mark, should be also desirous of embalming him, and the more so, when a guard was purposely placed before the grave;" if this, I say, gives my reader no satisfaction, and he exclaims, my doubts, or rather the contradiction still remains, then, I repeat, let it remain, and

the contradiction of John will resolve itself into one of these mild and minor corrections.

J

Mark and Luke, who were not eye-witnesses, will then have only committed a very slight error, and the language of John is then "Other biographers of Jesus have heard something of embalming, and have not clearly understood it. The women did not wish to embalm Jesus; they wished once more to see his grave, he was already embalmed by Nicodemus." He could decidedly give more accurate information, than any other disciple, because he alone of all the disciples remained at the cross, and the mother of Jesus was with him in the house. The reader, however, must decide for himself. But in this case, this gentle correction of a statement of his predecessors is not to me so probable as the answer, which is given in the book itself. The charge which has been brought against Christianity by its enemies is singular and untenable: "The evangelists come forward, as witnesses, or rather historians of what they had seen and heard, and who have arranged with one another, but who have forgotten to arrange a complete history." Certainly if they had made this arrangement, they would not have been charged with ten contradictions,

which, after all, are mere quibbles, and only prove, even under a perfect impossibility of explanation, that they had not made a previous arrangement. It would appear like an early history, correct as to the main point, but not investigated with critical or judicial acuteness; and this is the case with all the first narrations of any fact, which is, in substance, true, but in effect, wonderful and extraordinary. But here are writers, who wrote many years after one another, and of whom the latest (Luke alone excepted) had read the writings of his predecessor, so that it was only necessary, if they wished to write falsehoods, that Mark should dress by Matthew, and for John, who had read them all, to contradict no one, and not even in the mildest manner to rectify him. But they certainly do not appear in the light of historians, who had entered into any previous agreement.

35

BURIAL AND RESURRECTION OF

JESUS.

I. JESUS IS ACTUALLY FOUND DEAD UPON

THE CROSS, AND PIERCED.

JOHN, XIX. 31-37.

31. "The Jews, therefore, because it was the preparation, that the bodies should not remain upon the cross on the sabbath-day, (for that sabbath-day was an high day,) besought Pilate that their bones might be broken, and that they might be taken away.

32. "Then came the soldiers, and brake the legs of the first, and of the other, which was crucified with him.

33. "But when they came to Jesus, and saw that he was dead already, they brake not his legs.

34. "But one of the soldiers with a spear pierced his side, and forthwith came thereout blood and water.

35. "And he that saw it, bare record, and his record is true, and he knoweth that he saith true, that ye might believe.

36. "For these things were done, that the Scriptures should be fulfilled, a bone of him shall not be broken.

37. "And again another Scripture saith, they shall look on him, whom they pierced."

This history is entirely in the manner of John, who loves to supply, what the other evangelists have omitted. He was, as he himself says, an eye-witness of the event, and stood by the cross. To him it appeared in a most striking point of view, on account of the fulfilment of two passages in the Old Testament, and to us, who live in later times, it becomes still more important in another, to which probably John did not advert at the time, namely, it obviates one objection to the resurrection of Jesus, that he might not have been really dead, but only in a fit ;-who, therefore, can be surprised, that he who in other respects, is so accustomed to minute additions, should add this fact, which was neither seen nor noted by others? The silence of the other evangelists is no contradiction, for what historian relates every thing? Besides, it is evident from the other evangelists, that something of this kind must actually have occurred. He who reads them will naturally imagine that the bodies of the two thieves

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