that is to come (see verses 27, 28 of the same chapter): "For the Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father, with his angels, and then shall he render unto every man according to his deeds. Verily I say unto you, there be some of them that stand here, which shall in no wise taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom." See also Matt. xix. 28. "In the regeneration when the Son of man shall sit on the throne of his glory, ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel." This was uttered, according to the first Gospel, on the last journey to Jerusalem.

In the twenty-fourth chapter of Matthew, twentyninth and thirtieth verses, this coming is stated by Jesus to be immediately after the destruction of Jerusalem, for, after predicting its overthrow, he says, “ Immediately after the tribulation of those days, the sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken and then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory."

:

Even at last, at the culminating point, when adjured by the high priest to say whether he claims to be the Christ or not, and Jesus, for the first time, claims Messiahship in other ears than those of his disciples, it is still virtually only the Messiah to be, for (see Matt. xxvi. 64) "Henceforth ye shall see the

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Son of man sitting at the right hand of power, and coming on the clouds of heaven."

But in the fourth Gospel there is nothing of all this. That Gospel is occupied, not with a Christ that is to come from heaven, but with one who has come from heaven-The Incarnate Logos. The Baptist speaks of Jesus as "he that cometh from heaven," and Jesus speaks of himself as having come from heaven (John vi. 33). "The bread of God is that which cometh down out of heaven, and giveth life to the world." Comp. ver. 35: "I am the bread of life." Also see John viii. 58, " Before Abraham was, I am;" and vi. 51, “I am the living bread which came down out of heaven." Again, John xvii. 5: "And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was.”

We appeal, therefore, to “the common sense of Englishmen," in opposition to the Boyle Lecturer for 1870,* and ask, Is it not clear that, as to Jesus' teaching respecting the most fundamental doctrine of

*The Rev. Stanley Leathes, M.A., Prof. of Hebrew, King's College, London, who says, in those Lectures entitled "The witness of St. John to Christ," p. 71, "It is one of the rash and baseless assertions brought against the Synoptical Gospels" (he refers, as we see by footnote, to "Albert Reville, Reveu des Deux Mondes," vol. lxiii. p. 93), "that, according to their account, our Lord did not commence this ministry in the character of the Messiah, but that the conception was one which grew upon him by degrees, Simon Peter being the first to originate, and apparently to suggest it to his Master. On the other hand, it is alleged with truth that in the fourth Gospel Jesus appears as the Messiah from the very commencement. We can hardly imagine that the common sense of Englishmen will readily accept this as an instance of disagreement in the evangelistic narratives.”

Christianity-the cardinal point of belief, the Messiahship of Jesus-the differences existing between the fourth Gospel and the others are so many and of such a nature as to preclude all attempts at reconcilement ? He who tries to harmonize the teachings (whether of Jesus or of John) occurring in the fourth Gospel with those occurring in the Synoptical Gospels, attempts an impossible task. The differences are radical and thorough. They are such as almost to compel the belief that the author of the latest Gospel wrote for the distinct purpose of confuting the previous writers. The contradictions are too many and too obvious to be otherwise accounted for.

The first Gospel does not contradict itself; from beginning to end there is a gradual progress in the development of the Messianic doctrine (except that the episode of the two blind men is once out of place, being doubtless only a duplicate), and the teachings of John and of Jesus are in harmony.

So likewise are they in the fourth, but on quite another plane. Each Gospel, though radically contrary to the other, is throughout consistent with itself. Are they, then, mutually destructive? One certainly destroys the other. It remains to be ascertained. whether the fourth Gospel is to be condemned as unhistorical, or whether the Synoptics are to undergo that fate. There is no middle course. The combination of the acid of the one with the alkali of the other will produce but a savourless, neutral salt, fit only to be cast out and trodden underfoot of men.

Between truth and falsehood there is no golden

mean.

Being driven, then, to the necessity of rejecting either the first three Gospels or the fourth, we proceed to ascertain which must go. We have already noticed the dependence of Matthew on Mark, (but more probably that of Mark on Matthew, and most probably of both on a common source or sources,) so that we cannot say the evidence of the Gospels themselves is in favour of the synoptical view, as opposed to that of the fourth Gospel, in the ratio of three to one. Still, there is, if we had nothing else to determine our judgment, surely a preponderance in favour of the first three, from the fact of their plurality.

But there are other considerations which will guide us to the same conclusion, a second and a more important one being the fact formerly alluded to-of the later origin of the last-placed Gospel. We have already noticed the fact that the fourth is generally admitted to be about thirty years later than the first Gospel. That is to say, it was written at least at about thirty years greater distance from the time in which Jesus lived, and probably not till one hundred years after his death (see chap. iii.). Another consideration, which ought to have a legitimate weight with us, is that the tendency of modern criticism is decidedly against the credit of the latest Gospel.* Neander, Ewald, and similar great names, could have been quoted

*Keim said: "The historical weakness of the fourth Gospel is every day more decidedly and also more universally admitted."

some thirty years since, in favour both of its Johannine origin and of its value as history, but no names equal to those now appear on that side. A Dr. Lightfoot may be deemed "an ocean of learning" (as Chalmers, we believe, termed the Methodist, Adam Clarke), but what can we think of his critical acumen when we find him attaching such undue importance to the fact that Irenæus, when a boy, saw and heard the venerable Polycarp, the disciple of John (who lived in Ephesus), "the disciple of the Lord?" If this John of whom Polycarp was a disciple had been really the Apostle John, still the testimony of the credulous Irenæus would have been worth little; but it has been shown conclusively and with great clearness by Keim, that Irenæus confused a certain Presbyter John, of Asia Minor, with the Apostle, of whose connection with Asia Minor we know nothing. "We are quickly able," says Keim ("Jesus of Nazara,” vol. i. p. 216), “to trace the delusion of Irenæus, as he disastrously transferred it from his youth to his manhood, and as it has imposed upon the so-called apologists of modern times down to Tischendorf, as if it were a sacred truth."

The external evidence for this Gospel is weaker than that for either of the others. We have no evidence that it was attributed to John till the last quarter of the second century.

Again, it should be remembered that all those who have claimed that the fourth Gospel is an authentic record from the pen of the Apostle John, have also