Book Description

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1831 edition. Excerpt: ...internal evidence is as strong in favour of the Gospels under consideration, as of any other books of the New Testament. There is no reason to think that Mark or Luke were capable of writing with such perfect simplicity and propriety, without the aid of inspiration, or the assistance of inspired men. If we reject these books from the Canon, we must give up the argument derived from internal evidence for the inspiration of the Sacred Scriptures altogether. It is true, the learned professor, whose opinions we are opposing, has said, "The oftener I compare their writings (Mark's and Luke's) with those of St. Matthew and St. John, the greater are my doubts." And speaking in another place of Mark, he says, " In some immaterial instances he seems to have erred," and gives it as his opinion, "That they who undertake to reconcile St. Mark with St. Matthew, or to show that he is nowhere corrected by St. John, experience great difficulty, and have not seldom to resort to unnatural explanations." But the learned professor has not mentioned any particular cases of irreconcileable discrepancies between this evangelist and St. Matthew; nor does he indicate in what statements he is corrected by St. John. Until something of this kind is exhibited, general remarks of this sort are deserving of no consideration. To harmonize the Evangelists has always been found a difficult task, but this does not prove that they contradict each other, or that their accounts are irreconcileable. Many things which, at first sight, appear contradictory, are found, upon closer examination, to be perfectly harmonious; and if there be some things which commentators have been unable satisfactorily to reconcile, it is no more than what might be...