ferent from any of the rest; and it was indirect. We only discover Christ's conduct through the upbraidings of his adversaries. But all this strengthens the argument. I had rather at any time surprise a coincidence in some oblique allusion, than read it in broad assertions.

VI. In our Lord's commerce with his difciples, one very observable particular is the difficulty which they found in understanding him, when he spoke to them of the future part of his history, especially of what related to his paffion or refurrection. This difficulty produced, as was natural, a wish in them to ask for further explanation; from which, however, they appear to have been sometimes kept back, by the fear of giving offence. All these circumstances are distinctly noticed by Mark and Luke, upon the occasion of his informing them (probably for the first time) that the son of man should be delivered into the hands of men. "They understood not," the evangelists tell us, "this saying, and it was hid from them, that that they perceived it not; and they feared to ask him of that saying." Luke ix. 45. Mark ix. 32. In St. John's gospel we have, upon a different occasion, and in a different instance, the same difficulty of apprehenfion, the same curiofity, and the same reftraint :-" A little while and ye shall not see me, and again a little while and ye shall fee me, because I go to the Father. Then said fome of his disciples among themselves, What is this that he faith unto us ? A little while and ye shall not see me, and again a little while and ye shall fee me, and because I go to the Father? They said, therefore, What is this that he faith, a little while? We cannot tell what he faith. Now Jesus knew that they were defirous to afk him, and faid unto them," &c. John xvi. 16 et feq.

VII. The meekness of Christ during his last sufferings, which is confpicuous in the narratives of the three first evangelists, is preserved in that of St. John under separate examples. The answer given by him, in

St.

T

St. John*, when the high priest afked him of his disciples and his doctrine, " I spake openly to the world, I ever taught in the synagogue, and in the temple, whither the Jews always resort, and in secret have I faid nothing; why askest thou me? Afk them which heard me, what I have faid unto them;" is very much of a piece with his reply to the armed party which feized him, as we read it in St. Mark's gospel, and in St. Luke's †: "Are ye come out as against a thief with fwords and with staves to take me? I was daily with you in the temple teaching, and ye took me not." In both answers we difcern the same tranquillity, the same reference to his public teaching. His mild expostulation with Pilate upon two several occafions, as related by St. John †, is delivered with the same unruffled temper, as that which conducted him through the last scene of his life, as described by his other evangelifts. His an

swer, in St. John's gospel, to the officer

who struck him with the palm of his hand,

"If I have spoken evil, bear witness of the

יי? *

evil, but if well, why smitest thou me
was such an answer, as might have been
looked for from the person, who, as he pro-
ceeded to the place of execution, bid his
companions (as we are told by St. Luke †)
weep not for him, but for themselves, their
posterity, and their country; and who,
whilst he was suspended upon the cross,
prayed for his murderers, " for they know
not (faid he) what they do." The urgency
also of his judges and his prosecutors to ex-
tort from him a defence to the accusation,
and his unwillingness to make any (which
was a peculiar circumstance) appears in St.
John's account, as well as in that of the
other evangelifts ‡.

There are moreover two other correfpondencies between St. John's history of the

* xxviii. 23.

† xxiii. 28,

† See John xix. c. Mat. xxvii. 14. Luke xxiii. 9.

tranf

transaction and theirs, of a kind somewhat different from those which we have been now mentioning.

The three first evangelists record what is called our Saviour's agony, i. e. his devotion in the garden immediately before he was apprehended; in which narrative they all make him pray, "that the cup might pass from him." This is the particular metaphor which they all ascribe to him. St. Matthew adds, "O my Father, if this cup may not pass away from me, except I drink it, thy will be done*." Now St. John does not give the scene in the garden; but when Jesus was seized, and some resistance was attempted to be made by Peter, Jesus, according to his account, checked the attempt with this reply: "Put up thy sword into the sheath; the cup which my Father hath given me, shall I not drink it †?" This is something more than consistency: it is coincidence: because it is extremely