his servants met him, and told him, saying, Thy son liveth. Then inquired he of them the hour when he began to amend: and they said unto him, Yesterday, at the seventh hour, the fever left him. So the father knew that it was at the same hour in which Jesus said unto him, Thy son liveth; and himself believed, and his whole house." Here the vague assertion in Matthew, which gives no particulars, and therefore might seem to be merely the narrator's own inference from the words of Jesus, is very amply filled up in the later narratives. But had the authors of these acquired information of additional facts, or did they merely give an amplified edition of the first story? It is evident that the additions in Luke and John might easily be suggested by Matthew's brief conclusion; but, on the other hand, it seems extraordinary that he, the earliest narrator of the three, should be ignorant of those important circumstances on which the evidence of the miracle rested; or, if knowing them, that he should pass them over in so slovenly a manner, whilst he gives the rest of the story very circumstantially.

Read John's account, and you find a decided and circumstantially related miracle; go back about twenty-five years to Luke, and the miraculous part is reduced to a brief sentence; approach still nearer to the source, and in Matthew the miracle has as much the appearance of being a matter of inference as of knowledge. How can we avoid suspecting that, if earlier testimony could be obtained, all that was known of the matter would be found to end at the words of Jesus, " Go thy way, and as thou

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a centurion, έnaтovтaρxos; John, that he was a certain nobleman or ruler, tıç ßacıλinos. John says that the patient was the applicant's child, TUIS, or son; Matthew uses the same word, TaIÇ. Both agree that Jesus said, "Go thy way," and that the patient was healed in the same hour; and both notice the applicant's faith as remarkable. John, indeed, calls the sickness a fever, but such a variation might easily glide into the story in twenty-five years.

hast believed, so be it done unto thee"? From which it was concluded that the patient was healed.

II. Again, in common life, accounts are sometimes met with, the marvellous part of which is much reduced when we can obtain additional independent testimony concerning the original fact; and when this has been found to be the case in some instances, we look with suspicion on other marvellous accounts coming from the same source.

So it is with Matthew. In some instances Mark serves as a check upon him; for, although Mark for the most part borrowed from Matthew, and in such places shews a manifest disposition to enhance the miraculous by many little exaggerations and improvements; yet, in a few places, he appears evidently, from the nature of the particulars added, to bring information gathered from other sources, possibly from Peter; and in several of these the miracle is rendered very doubtful.

Cure of the Matthew says, in relating the cure of the lunatic. lunatic xvii. 18, " And Jesus rebuked the demon, and he departed out of him: and the child was cured from that very hour." Any one would gather from this that an instantaneous cure was performed; but we want more precise particulars of what was seen to take place; for the departure of the demon was an invisible operation. Mark's account is so different that he seems to have obtained some additional information as to this occurrence: he says,

ix. 25, "When Jesus saw that the people came running together, he rebuked the foul spirit, saying unto him, Thou dumb and deaf spirit, I charge thee, come out of him, and enter no more into him. And the spirit cried, and rent him sore, and came out of him; and he was as one dead; insomuch that many said, He is dead. But Jesus took him by the hand, and lifted him up, and he arose."

All which throws the miracle into doubt; for the fits, which had lasted already some time, did not cease immediately at Jesus' command, but continued so violently, that the falling down might be from mere exhaustion.

Now, since Matthew has related this as an indisputable miracle, he may not have had a better foundation for his other numerous miracles of casting out demons, iv. 24, viii. 16, although, for want of particulars, we cannot judge so well of these. Another passage in Mark, however, confirms the idea that many might be explained in the same way, i. 26, "And Jesus rebuked him, saying, Hold thy peace, and come out of him. And when the unclean spirit had torn him, and cried with a loud voice, he came out of him."

Matthew relates the withering of the barren fig-tree thus:

Barren

fig-tree.

xxi. 19, "And when he saw a fig-tree in the way, he came to it, and found nothing thereon, but leaves only; and said unto it, Let no fruit grow on thee henceforward for ever. And presently (παραχρήμα, usually translated instantly, or on the spot)* the fig-tree withered away. And when the disciples saw it, they marvelled saying, How soon, wapaXpnua, is the fig-tree withered away!"

What must we think of this story, if the fig-tree was only found to be withered the next day? but so it was, according to Mark.

xi. 13, "And seeing a fig-tree afar off, having leaves, he came, if haply he might find any thing thereon; and when he came to it he found nothing but leaves; for the time of figs was not yet. And Jesus answered and said unto it, No man eat fruit of thee hereafter for ever. And his

disciples heard it. And they come to Jerusalem,..... And when even was come he went out of the city. And in the morning as they passed by, they saw the fig-tree dried up from the roots. And Peter calling to remembrance, saith unto him, Master, behold the fig-tree which thou cursedst is withered away. And Jesus answering saith unto them, Have faith in God. For verily I say unto you, that whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed and be cast into the sea: and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass, he shall have whatsoever he saith."

The rejection of the miracle does not require us to suppose a contrivance on the part of Jesus to have the fig-tree withered. The character of Messiah, which he

* Schrevelius, Actutùm, ex tempore, illico, in ipsâ re.

believed himself to possess, would not allow him to stoop to art of so low a kind; but it might allow of his relieving himself from the awkward appearance of disappointment on finding no fruit, and thereby maintaining his dignity in the eyes of his followers, by concluding the matter with a prophetic curse upon the tree. Yet he merely said that no man should hereafter eat fruit of it; which required no immediate change in the tree to save his credit, for no fruit could possibly be found on it before another season, when probably the affair would be forgotten. Nevertheless, the tree being in the highway, was either casually or intentionally injured by some of the crowd; and the next morning, any altered appearance would be enough to suggest a miraculous fulfilment of the curse. Since one principal feature of the miracle in Matthew, the instantaneousness of the withering, is destroyed by Mark, it is reasonable to conjecture that the proof of the miracle put forward by Mark himself, the drying up of the tree from the roots, would, in its turn, be much modified by some still more searching account.

It was the custom of Jesus to take occasion from common-place incidents to utter predictions or other remarkable sayings. When events in any degree corresponded, the predictions were most likely to be preserved, as in the case of the fig-tree. Yet there is one prediction recorded without any corresponding event, viz. the promise of the tribute-money from the fish's mouth, Matt. xvii. 27. Matthew does not say that the fish was taken; and the others do not even allude to the conversation. If any thing of the sort had really been done by Peter, we should have expected some mention of it, at least, from his follower Mark.

Blind man

at

The two stories of the blind men in Matthew Bethsaida. represent them as receiving their sight immediately when their eyes were touched. The story in Mark, of the blind man at Bethsaida, cannot be identified

with either of the former, but it may be compared with them, in order to shew the different aspect which a miracle of this kind may assume when related more circumstantially. For this is evidently a story which Mark had obtained from some other source than from Matthew; since, besides the remarkable character of its particulars, it is introduced in a place where there is nothing corresponding to it in Matthew, although the parts both before and after it agree with the latter.

Mark viii. 22-27, "And he cometh to Bethsaida, and they bring a blind man unto him, and besought him to touch him. And he took the blind man by the hand, and led him out of the town; and when he had spit on his eyes, and put his hands upon him, he asked him if he saw ought. And he looked up and said, I see men as trees walking. After that he put his hands again upon his eyes, and made him look up: and he was restored, and saw every man clearly. And he sent him away to his house, saying, Neither go into the town, nor tell it to any in the town. And Jesus went out, and his disciples, into the town of Cæsarea Philippi."

Here Jesus tries twice before he appears to succeed; which is totally inconsistent with the idea of divine power, but agrees very well with the supposition that the case was one of imperfect amaurosis, and that the walk from the town, the repeated application of the hands to the eyes, and the excitement of imagination produced by the expectation of miraculous aid, acted gradually as stimulants upon the torpid nerves, and permitted a temporary, or possibly a permanent, recovery of sight.*

* Amaurosis, or gutta serena, is a kind of blindness in which the sensibility of the retina and optic nerve is either partly or wholly lost. It is sometimes an intermittent disorder, appearing and subsiding at intervals. When the eye remains at all conscious of light, or retains any power of seeing, it is called imperfect amaurosis. Sometimes during the progress of the disease the sight is cloudy, and the patient can see better in a light than a dark situation; sometimes he sees black specks, net-like appearances, streaks, and snake-like figures. He always sees plainer for