tentionally omitted by St. Mark.... But his most regular omissions are in the account of Our Saviour's discourses, where, in a Gospel composed, as his was, for the instruction of Gentile converts, especially in the account of Our Lord's moral discourses, it was a priori to be expected he would have been the most full.

VII. The verbal coincidences which are found in the text of these two Evangelists, are so numerous, that, in a Harmony duly arranged, they may be discovered in every page. What is most to be observed, they appear in the simple narrative part, as well as in the account of discourses. ... It is observable also, that these verbal coincidences are much more perceptible between St. Matthew and St. Mark, than between either and St. Luke; the best proof of which is, that, even where all the three are going along together, St. Mark may still be found adhering verbatim to St. Matthew, when St. Luke departs from both... Nor can I discover any very striking idiom of St. Matthew, which may not be found also in St. Mark.'—Vol. I. pp. 24–28.

In combating the objections which may be urged against this view of the supplementary character of the Gospels of St. Mark and St. Luke, Mr. Greswell adverts to the verbal disagreements, which equally require to be accounted for. Had a later Evangelist seen and transcribed from an earlier, it may be thought that he would have retained what he transcribed, without any verbal alterations. This objection, Mr. Greswell replies, assumes, that a later Evangelist might not be as independent an authority as an earlier; and that a prior Gospel must have recorded the whole of what was said, exactly as it was said. But, as regards Our Lord's discourses, every account contained in the Gospels, is a translation of what was actually said; and in the terms of a translation, alterations affecting the language, but not the sense, might be freely made.

If St. Matthew's Gospel was written in the language which Our Saviour spoke, it is possible that it might often have retained the very words which he spoke. But, in the present Gospels, there are only three pure and unmixed instances of which this assertion would hold good:-Talitha cumi (Mark, v. 41); Ephphatha (Mark, vii. 34); and Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani (Matt. xxvii. 46.; Mark, xv. 34). If St. Mark, then, retains the language of St. Matthew in some respects, and deviates from it in others, it must be remembered, that he deviates from a translation of what was actually spoken; and whether, in so doing, he approaches nearer to, or recedes further from, the original, no one now can undertake to say. The same would be true of St. Luke, who, in such instances, where he differs from St. Mark, differs from St. Matthew also. Yet, among all these examples of occasional verbal differences amidst remarkable verbal agreements, it is easy to discover that, while the sense remains the same, some new beauty, force, or propriety is introduced by the change: in which case, it is hardly to be considered as an objection, that the original, in some minute respects, was not already so perfect, so elaborated ad umbilicum, that it could admit of no improvement from the copy.' [After

adducing several examples, Mr. G. adds:] By far the greater part of the variations in question are resolvable into the principle of ellipsis, or the supplement of fresh matter; many are purely synonymous; many, the fruit of mere compendium of speech; others, on the contrary, of amplification. Even where the difference is greatest in words, there is still an agreement in the sense.' Vol. I. pp. 43, 44.

Our limits will not allow us to detail the whole of the ingenious criticisms and reasonings which are adduced in support of the Author's hypothesis. That St. John's Gospel is of a supplemental character, will be readily admitted; and if so, he must have been acquainted with the preceding ones, although he does not specifically refer to them as authorities. The silence, then, of St. Mark with regard to the first Gospel, and of St. Luke with respect to those of Matthew and Mark, is no objection. The Gospel of St. John consists entirely of independent matter; and 'what St. Mark possesses akin to St. Matthew's, abounds in so much more of detail, compared with that, that even in their common ' narrations it may be said to go along by itself. Yet, had the later Evangelists seen the writings of their predecessors, it may be urged, that they would have avoided all appearance of contradiction or discrepancy. Mr. Greswell replies to this objection, that the existence of such discrepancies is a gratuitous assumption; that the appearance of contradiction has, in many instances, been produced by confounding together distinct, though similar transactions; in which case, the blame attaches not to the ambiguity of the Evangelist, but to the hallucination of the critic; and that, admitting the supplemental character of the later Gospels, 'what appears to be contradiction, is seen to be really explanation, and, instead of confusing and perplexing, clears up ' and ascertains.'

The writers of these common accounts were too well aware of their mutual agreement and consistency, to be afraid of the effects of collision they neither apprehended it themselves, nor supposed it would be imputed to them by others. In all such instances, they either borrow light, or they communicate it; they are as critically adapted to each other in what they omit, as in what they supply; sometimes presupposing the circumstances already on record, preliminary to their own accounts; at other times, connecting, separating, or defining the old by additional particulars. That they have done this without professing to be doing it, ought to be no objection.' Vol. I. p. 38.

Account for it as we may, Mr. Greswell remarks, there are transpositions in St. Matthew's Gospel, from which a later 'Evangelist would be at liberty to depart, which may be ad'mitted without injury to the credibility of St. Matthew, but 'which cannot be denied without the utmost danger to the au'thority of St. Mark or of St. Luke.' It is no more necessary to assume, that, because a prior Evangelist was an eye-witness or

ear-witness of what he records, he would give an account of it in strict chronological order, than to suppose that one who was not an eye-witness would do the contrary. But, if St. Matthew's immediate object, and the structure of his Gospel, did not require him to observe chronological exactness, it is the more probable that those who came after him, and whose object was to set forth the facts relating to the life and ministry of Our Lord "in order", would be found to deviate from his inexact order; nor is it likely that they would depart from it with sufficient reason and evidence. The following remarks claim transcription.

"In short, it cannot be denied, that the Gospel of St. Matthew exhibits the evidence of two facts; one, of great scantiness of detail in the purely narrative parts; the other, of great circumstantiality in the discursive. In the former, then, there was clearly room for supplementary matter; but, in the latter, except on one supposition-that much of what had been so minutely related by him once at a certain time and place, came over again at another-there was little or none. Now, in favour of this supposition, it is a remarkable coincidence, first, that all those parts, or nearly all, in the Gospel of St. Luke, about whose identity with corresponding parts in St. Matthew's a question is commonly raised, are the accounts of discourses as such: secondly, that they all, or nearly all, occur in parts of the Gospel of St. Luke, the corresponding periods to which in the Gospel of St. Matthew, are total blanks. Now where was matter omitted by St. Matthew from its resemblance to what he had recorded before, so likely to have been omitted as here? And what reason was so likely to have produced the blanks in his Gospel as this-because it did occur, and might best be omitted, here? Where, on the other hand, was a supplementary Gospel so likely to abound in fresh matter as here also?" Vol. I. pp. 45, 6.

The reader will perhaps have to complain, on this and other occasions, of a want of clearness in Mr. Greswell's style; and this fault is rendered more conspicuous by the defective punctuation. With regard to the conclusiveness of his reasonings, we reserve our decision, till we shall have brought under the reader's notice, the application of the Author's principles to the text of the Evangelists, in the Harmony itself. This must be reserved for a future article. In the mean time, we may remark, that Mr. Greswell's hypothesis has at least this great advantage in its favour; that it satisfactorily accounts for our having four Gospels, and only four. Admit that, on any account, St. Matthew's Gospel was not a complete history of the Christian ministry, and we explain the origin of St. Mark's: admit that even both were not sufficient, and we assign a reason for St. Luke's: ad'mit that all the three contained omissions, and we account for 'the addition of St. John's. But why, it may be asked, was the first Gospel left so incomplete? It seems to us, that Mr. Greswell would have strengthened his argument, had he shewn that

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each Gospel bears the internal marks of adaptation to a specific period and purpose, in reference to which it is complete and sufficient. For, though it may be objectionable to consider the final end of any of the Gospels as purely temporary, and to ' account for its structure upon that ground,' it is perfectly allowable and rational to regard the primary purpose as related to the circumstances and object of the writer, and to account for its structure by its adaptation to that immediate design. Mr. Greswell does not, he says, deny that each of the Gospels must have 'sufficed for its proper purpose."

But if in this position it is implied, that the proper purpose of any one of the Gospels was, to be complete and sufficient independently of the rest, it assumes the point at issue: for this proper purpose may have been just the reverse,-to be complete along with the rest, and not to be independent of them, but to presuppose them. And either of these cases, à priori, was just as possible as the other. No one could undertake to say for what particular use and purpose any one of the Gospels was written, unless this use and purpose had been previously declared by the Gospel itself; which is actually true of St. Luke's Gospel only, and even virtually, of none but St. John's besides.' p. 55.

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Here the learned Writer has, we think, suffered his eagerness to establish the main hypothesis, to betray him into rash and inconsequential assertion. It is surely quite possible to determine, if not with certainty, yet with high probability, from internal evidence, the use and purpose for which each Gospel was primarily intended; so as to judge of its completeness and sufficiency for that purpose, and to account for its structure on that ground. There would be no presumption in undertaking to explain and illustrate that primary purpose. Nevertheless, as the Author afterwards contends, though a particular Gospel might be written for a particular purpose, this would not invalidate the pos'sible truth of its supplementary relation to others'; (the first excepted;) nor would it prove that the instruction of a contemporary, and the perpetual benefit of future ages, might not 'both be consulted in the same provision.' But the specific purpose of the Writer is one thing; and the design of Divine Providence in overruling the specific purpose of each writer for a common final end, is another thing. We might as well suppose that St. Paul, in writing his first Epistle to the Corinthians, did not immediately consult the benefit of the Church of Corinth, but constructed his letter with the express design, that that Epistle might, together with the second and the other canonical epistles, written or to be written, form a complete provision for the necessities of the Church in all ages: we might as rationally suppose this, as that St. Matthew wrote his Gospel, not immediately for the benefit of the Christian believers in Palestine, but

to meet the necessities of the Church in later ages; conscious that it would be insufficient or incomplete without supplements from other hands. The Author's reasoning implies this absurdity; and yet, his argument does not require it. Absolute completeness does not attach to either of the Gospels, nor to all four collectively. The relative completeness of each, can be judged of only in reference to its specific purpose. If that purpose had a supplemental relation to a prior document, then its completeness must be judged of in connexion with that previously incomplete history. But, though not complete, each might be sufficient for its particular purpose, and perfectly adapted to that purpose; while the concurrent accounts, mutually illustrative and in a sense supplemental, are sufficient for the common and final end for which the Holy Spirit overruled the immediate purpose of the sacred writers.

That St. Mark should not have seen St. Matthew's Gospel, is so utterly incredible, that we are surprised how such a notion should have been seriously maintained. Having seen it, it is equally incredible that he should not have consulted it. And that he should have done so, and made use of it, is surely a more natural supposition, and not less compatible with the credibility, independence, and inspiration of St. Mark, than that Matthew, Mark, and Luke drew their materials, independently and without concert, from an imaginary #ewTevayyéniov, or from floating, unarranged, unauthoritative documents. Upon this point, Mr. Greswell's observations are, we think, quite conclusive.

It is considered as no objection to the credibility of St. John, even when he goes along with the first three Gospels, that he had seen and was acquainted with them; and I would inquire of those who feel any alarm on this score, whether, if they knew that St. Mark had repeatedly heard or conversed with St. Matthew, they would think him, on that account, less competent to write a Gospel. Instead of this, they must say he would be more so. I would inquire again, then, what difference there could be between hearing and conversing with St. Matthew, and reading his work? Would not the one be as good and as authentic a source of information as the other? Is the credibility of St. Mark increased, the more of the original eye-witnesses and ear-witnesses of the Gospel he had personally seen and heard? Is it all at once impaired, if he had perused a Gospel by any of them? The truth is, unless every one of the first three Gospels was composed at the same time and in different places, it would be a moral impossibility, that St. Matthew's Gospel could actually have been in existence before St. Mark wrote his, and yet not be known to him; and equally so, that, if known to him before he wrote his own, it could have been deliberately disregarded by him when he was writing it. The same impossibility will hold good of St. Luke; so that, except on the supposition before mentioned, we could not, however much we might consider it necessary, keep a later Evangelist in ignorance of