preference other less convincing marvels? The question could not
be long dwelt on, without eliciting the reply: "It is necessary to
believe, at least until the contrary shall be proved, that the
three first writers either had never heard of these two miracles, or
disbelieved them." Thus the account rests on the unsupported evidence
of John, with a weighty presumption against its truth.

When, where, and in what circumstances did John write? It is agreed,
that he wrote half a century after the events; when the other
disciples were all dead; when Jerusalem was destroyed, her priests
and learned men dispersed, her nationality dissolved, her coherence
annihilated;--he wrote in a tongue foreign to the Jews of Palestine,
and for a foreign people, in a distant country, and in the bosom of
an admiring and confiding church, which was likely to venerate him the
more, the greater marvels he asserted concerning their Master. He
told them miracles of firstrate magnitude, which no one before had
recorded. Is it possible for me to receive them _on his word_, under
circumstances so conducive to delusion, and without a single check to
ensure his accuracy? Quite impossible; when I have already seen how
little to be trusted is his report of the discourses and doctrine of
Jesus.

But was it necessary to impute to John conscious and wilful deception?
By no means absolutely necessary;--as appeared by the following
train[23] of thought. John tells us that Jesus promised the Comforter,
_to bring to their memory_ things that concerned him; oh that one
could have the satisfaction of cross-examining John on this subject!
Let me suppose him put into the witness-box; and I will speak to him
thus: "O aged Sir, we understand that you have two memories, a natural
and a miraculous one: with the former you retain events as other men;
with the latter you recall what had been totally forgotten. Be pleased
to tell us now. Is it from your natural or from your supernatural
memory that you derive your knowledge of the miracle wrought on
Lazarus and the long discourses which you narrate?" If to this
question John were frankly to reply, "It is solely from my
supernatural memory,--from the special action of the Comforter on my
mind:" then should I discern that he was perfectly truehearted. Yet
I should also see, that he was liable to mistake a reverie, a
meditation, a day-dream, for a resuscitation of his memory by the
Spirit. In short, a writer who believes s