twofold form; some notices of his miraculous
conception; an account of his birth and circumcision, with the
visions and prophecies connected with them; a history of his
preservation from Herod's attempt to destroy him; the subsequent
residence of his parents in Nazareth, with a single incident of
his childhood. Luke 2:40-52. All these particulars have, in one
way or another, a bearing on his divine mission and work as the
Son of God. The apocryphal gospels on the contrary, as, for
example, the Gospel of the Infancy, and the Gospel of Nicodemus,
abound in frivolous stories relating to our Lord's infancy and
later life, which have no connection with the great work of
redemption.

9. The peculiarities of the fourth gospel, as well as its relation to
the three preceding gospels, will come up for consideration hereafter.
At present we only remark that John wrote many years after the
appearance of the synoptic gospels, and that, whatever reference he may
have had to them, his gospel constitutes, in the plan of revelation, a
_true complement_ to the other three. For (1) if we except the narrative
of our Lord's passion, it covers, for the most part, ground not occupied
by them. They give mainly the history of the Saviour's ministry in
Galilee (Luke also, at some length, that of his last journey to
Jerusalem); the scene of much of John's gospel, on the contrary, is
Jerusalem and its near vicinity. (2) John unfolds more fully the nature
of our Lord's person, and his peculiar relation to the Father and to his
church. This he does, more especially, in his prologue (chap. 1:1-18);
in the record of the Saviour's discussions with the Jews (chaps. 3,
5-12); and in that of his discourses addressed in private to the circle
of the apostles, chaps. 13-17. Thus John's gospel is emphatically that
of Christ's _person_, as illustrated by his works and words; while the
three earlier evangelists give rather the gospel of his _public
ministry_, through which his divine person everywhere shines forth. This
deeper view of our Lord's person and office which the gospel of John
unfolds met the wants of the primitive church in a more advanced stage,
when false teachers were already beginning to sow the seeds of those
errors which, in the next generation, brought forth such a rank and
poisonous harvest. The same great characteristics adapt it to the wants
of the church in all ages. Without the fourth gospel s