The field opened by a comparison of the gospels and epistles is too wide to be adequately cultivated in a lecture of this kind, and too minute a detail of particulars would perhaps be wearisome in this place, but there is one more chronological propriety which is of importance, and to which I would, in conclusion, direct your attention, that is, the manner in which our Lord Jesus Christ is spoken of in the gospels and in the epistles. Of the cotemporaries and companions of our Lord we should expect that they would speak of him as he was spoken of by his countrymen of his own age and time, that is, as Jesus of Nazareth, as a rabbi or teacher. Of subsequent writers it is natural to suppose that they would write of him according to the views and doctrines of the then existing Christian community, that is, as of the Lord, the Christ, the Son of God, the Saviour of the world. If therefore the evangelists were cotemporaries we should expect the former simple style of designation; if the epistles were subsequently written we should expect a more reverential mention of the Lord-and this expectation is fully realized by an examination of these two classes of sacred Scripture. In the gospel narrative, for instance, our Lord is commonly spoken of by his name Jesus without any addition either of Lord or of Christ in the epistles almost never. The Apostle Paul usually speaks of him as the Lord Jesus, Jesus Christ, or our Lord Jesus Christ. In the gospels there is a variety in the use of expression ὁ Κύριος, the Lord. Thus, in the gospel of St. Matthew, it

is never used of Christ in the narrative part. In the gospel of Mark only twice, v. 19; xvi. 19, 20, whereas in the gospels of St. Luke and St. John, the evangelists, as might be expected, constantly speak of Christ as the Lord, and the same is observable in the epistles; and from the manner in which this formula is used of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, a strong argument may be deduced for his divinity. Only once in the gospels, and that the gospel according to St. Luke, one, therefore, not written by a cotemporary of our Lord, we find the words Lord and Jesus joined together, Luke xxiv. 3; where the evangelist speaks of the women at the sepulchre, he says, 'They entered in and found not the body of the Lord Jesus,' whereas in the epistles it is common. The expressions, 'the Lord Jesus Christ,' or 'our Lord Jesus Christ,' occur not in the gospels at all, whereas they are usual in all the epistles. St. Paul generally says 'our Lord Jesus Christ.' St. James calls himself 'a servant of God and the Lord Jesus Christ,' and elsewhere speaks of Christ as the Lord, as when he says, 'Be patient to the coming of the Lord.' St. Peter says, 'Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.' St. John also St. John also says, 'Grace be with you, mercy, and peace, from God the Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ.' The reverential style occurs, therefore, just where we might expect to find it in those writings which were composed when the great doctrines of Christ's dignity and deity were fully established in the minds of the Church and of his

immediate disciples. The less reverential in those accounts of his life and ministry where the minds of eye-witnesses would be carried to the first impressions which they had received of Christ and of his character. These and such like chronological proprieties are sufficient to show that the gospel materials were either composed before the epistles were written, or had for their authors cotemporaries and companions of the Lord Jesus Christ, and satisfactorily demonstrate that they could not have been written when the cotemporaries of our Lord were all dead-when the first impressions of Christ's character and person were lost, and when Christians knew him only as represented in the doctrines of the apostles, that is, as their Lord and their God, their Saviour and their Judge. The external testimonies therefore admitted by the objector, and the internal evidence which, though otherwise forming the groundwork and substance of his whole book, he here prudently declines to examine, prove that the gospels were known to and received from the Apostolic Church-that the materials were composed before the writing of St. Paul's epistles-and that therefore the earliness of their origin makes it impossible that they can be anything else but faithful narrations of true and authentic history, and consequently, that when compared with the prophecies, they may be received as safe testimony to prove that the predictions, as having been accomplished, are true, and that Jesus of Nazareth is the Messiah.

LECTURE III.

LUKE XXIV. 46.

Thus it is written, and thus it behoved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day.

THE object of the present course of lectures has been to prove, by the fulfilment of certain prophecies, that their authors must have been divinely inspired, and that Jesus of Nazareth is the true Messiah. For this purpose the prophetic announcements were compared first with the existing state of things, and from the undeniable coincidence between prophecy and event, our faith both in the Old Testament and the New, was proved to be well-founded. The next step ought to have been to show the perfect agreement between the predictions and the narrative of the evangelists. We stopped, however, to consider some modern objections recently urged against the authenticity of the gospels; and to these objections replied that, even if well founded, they do not in the least degree weaken the Christian faith, because the events recorded by St. Paul in his epistles, are themselves sufficient to establish the authenticity of the gospel history, and the truth of prophecy; and, secondly,

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that a comparison of the gospels with the epistles would prove that the materials of which the gospels are composed, must have been written by eye-witnesses, and before the epistles, and consequently that they must be both genuine and authentic.

If, therefore, we had no other proof, this would be sufficient to warrant our faith in Jesus of Nazareth. He who wrought such miracles, and performed such mighty deeds, gave the best possible proof of the justice of his claims. The authenticity of the gospel history, however, opens to us another and confirmatory line of argument. We can compare the circumstances of the life of Christ with the prophecies, and if they agree, the predictions themselves must be real, and he who fulfilled them the Messiah. To develop this argument is our purpose this day, so far as can be done without entering into critical disquisitions, unsuited for this place. In order to prove the truth of a prophecy by its fulfilment, it is necessary, in the first place, to show that the coincidence between the events and the predictions is real. Some of the more modern Jews deny that the hope of a Messiah is to be found in the Hebrew Scriptures, and cite as an authority a Talmudic passage, which says, 'Israel has no Messiah to expect, for they enjoyed him in the days of Hezekiah.' Modern gentile infidelity also asserts that the Old Testament contains only vague anticipations and general hopes of a redemption, but no definite predictions of a personal Mes