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The object of the first gospel preachers, which was "to preach Jesus Christ," could be very well accomplished without their taking the time and pains necessary to hunt up and collate an amount of testimony concerning our Lord's sayings, doings, and sufferings, that would enable them compendiously to present the whole in the exact order in which the events occurred. And later, when it became desirable to write the Gospel History, the requisite collection and comparison of testimony had come to be impossible, or well-nigh so, from the scattered condition of the disciples, and from other circumstances; and so the work seems not to have been attempted at least to any considerable extent. Accordingly, in various passages where the writers may seem, at first view, to be professedly giving a history of events in the order of their occurrence, it will be found, on an attentive examination, that it is only each particular group of events in which the order of events is even attempted to be given; and that the several groups are presented in the order best suited to the narrator's plan of writing, which, in some instances, almost seems to have been the order in which those groups happened to come into mind.

In Paul's synopsis of his Gospel, as he had preached it to the Corinthians, I conceive that, for the most part, where he seems to be declaring the order of Christ's appearings after His resurrection, he is simply recounting the order in which himself had "delivered" certain separate accounts of such appearings.

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"I delivered to you, first of all," says he, "that Christ died, ..... was buried,. was seen by Cephas," (which is to say, Peter,) &c. Now when he goes on further to say, "After

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that, he was seen &c., I can not but consider his meaning to be, "After that, I delivered that he was seen by above five hundred...... After that, that he was seen by James," &c. "And last of all, that he was seen by me." (See Chap. xxxvi.)

It is manifest also, that when he says, "the twelve", he simply means, the apostles; and he seems to have explained to the brethren that not all of even the eleven apostles were present at the particular interview mentioned; for he afterward uses the expression, "all the apostles," that is, the eleven.

In the accounts which the different evangelists give of the announcements of Christ's resurrection to the female disciples, at his tomb, on Sunday morning, there are several apparent discrepancies, not necessary to be mentioned here; and, in regard to the movements of Mary Magdalene, there is one real one. Yet in the narrative of Mark, who in writing his Gospel is supposed to have sometimes conferred with Peter, there occurs a statement in harmony with the narrative of John, who, as also Peter, was personally cognizant of her movements on that morning; and by means of these, we are enabled not only to get at the actual facts of the case, but also to fully account for the said discrepancy, showing that it arose in the most natural manner, and thus that its existence detracts nothing from the credibility of the evangelists, it clearly evincing the entire absence of any collusion among them. Thus,

Mark makes an isolated statement that Christ "appeared first to Mary Magdalene ", and that "she went and told those who had been with him." John narrates, at some length, that she went to the sepulcher or tomb very early, and seeing it open, ran and told Peter and him that Christ's body had been taken away; that Peter and he visited the

tomb, found that His body was gone, and then returned home; that she came back, saw two angels, and then saw Jesus; that Jesus gave her a message to His "brethren "; and that she accordingly went and told what she had seen and heard to "the disciples " in general.

According to Matthew, Mary Magdalene and "the other Mary" went to the tomb together; and an "angel of the Lord" announced to them Christ's resurrection, and directed them to go and tell his disciples of it. According to Mark, this announcement and message were received not only by Mary Magdalene and an other Mary, but also by a woman named Salome; and he makes mention of other 66 women," and of "many other women," but does not explicitly say that more than three visited the tomb. Luke relates that the women "who followed" Christ "from Galilee," " and certain others with them," visited the tomb, received a like announcement from two angels, and then returning, "told all these things to the eleven, and to all the rest." And seeing that he immediately adds, "It was Mary Magdalene, and Joanna, and Mary the mother of James, and other women that were with them, who told these things to the apostles," he therefore seems to say that all the women he had mentioned, perhaps several tombfuls of them,— were within the tomb on the same occasion, and all at the same time; and that they all saw the two angels standing among them, &c.

The only real discrepancy which I perceive in all this, or at least the only one of any importance, is between the statement of John, that Mary Magdelene went to the sepulcher, but immediately returned to inform Peter and him that the body of Jesus had been taken away,- and the concurrent

statements of Matthew and Mark, that she went into the sepulcher accompanied by one or more, and there shared in the angelic communication as to Jesus' resurrection. But seeing she had agreed to be at the tomb on that morning, along with the other women; and seeing she actually did arrive there, in company with at least "the other Mary;" and seeing she became conspicuous among those who spread the news of His having arisen; it is easy to see that the mistake of the first two evangelists was a perfectly natural one, and that it does by no means invalidate the testimony for His actual resurrection.

In this and the three following chapters, references to Scripture texts are for the most part omitted. Every reader ought to be familiar with the Scripture accounts of our Lord's apprehension, examination, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension; and every Bible reader is presumed to know that those accounts are to be found mostly in the closing portions of the four Gospels, the first chapter of Acts, and the beginning of 1st Cor. 15th. And will my reader read over those accounts in connection with this and the three chapters following?

CHAPTER XXXII.

OUR LORD'S CRUCIFIXION,

WITH VARIOUS PRELIMINARY AND ATTENDANT EVENTS.

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JESUS is in Bethany, near Jerusalem. The feast of the Passover is approaching. On Sunday morning, the first day of Passover week, he rides into Jerusalem in the style of the first kings of Israel, and an immense assemblage of people, most of whom have come out from the city on purpose to meet him, hail "the Prophet of Galilee as the son of David, and King of Israel, and some of them even spread their clothes upon the ground before Him. It is a proud day for those who believe in him; since they are entirely confiduet that He is now about to ascend the throne of David, and thus to free their nation from Roman dominion, if not to make Judea the mistress of the world.

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* It is Thursday. Though on His entrance into the city, four days ago, he took it upon him to correct sundry abuses in regard to traffic within the temple; though every day since then he has "taught openly" therein; though he has held discussions with the Sadducees and others, putting them all to silence; yea, though he has unveiled the hypocrisy, and of course inflamed the enmity of the ultra religionists of that

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