ALLEGED CONTRADICTIONS.

As we. enter upon the subject now before us, a remark previously made must be borne in mind concerning the different designs of the four Evangelists in their different narratives. Let us suppose that four men should undertake to write the Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, but conscious of the magnitude of their task, each should assign to himself a special part of the subject, one aiming to present him to the world chiefly as a great soldier, another as a civil ruler promoting the material interests of France, another exhibiting Him as a legislator providing a code of laws for the Empire, and another portraying him in his more private and domestic relations. It is easy to see that each would range over the entire field of his remarkable history, in order to find proofs and illustrations of the particular point in view, without reference, it may be, to the chronological order of events, and without clashing with the purposes of the other writers. It is easy also to perceive that there might be real agreement in their testimony, where a hasty observer would conclude that he could discover innumerable discrepancies and even irreconcilable contradictions,

Hence Archbishop Whately, in his masterly little treatise called " Historic Doubts Relative to Napoleon," and containing an ironical Dedication to Strauss and two other skeptics, takes up the line of argument pursued by the German infidel in his Life of Jesus, that Henry Rogers well says should be entitled, "A collection of all the difficulties and discrepancies which honest criticism has discovered, and perverted ingenuity has imagined, in the four Evangelists;" and he conclusively shows that according to the reasoning Strauss applies to the credibility of the Gospel history, no such man as Napoleon ever existed. We may go further and affirm that by the same mode of reasoning no event of the past, which has been described in all its features by two or more witnesses, can be established; and that no fact of the present, to which two or more witnesses testify in its details, may not be discredited. If, for example, two witnesses were to come into court, one swearing that he saw the prisoner at the bar shoot a man who was standing, the other swearing that he saw the prisoner shoot the same man when the latter was lying on the ground, without stopping to explain that there were two successive shots; or if one witness should make oath that he saw the prisoner inciting a riot, and another witness should make oath that he saw the prisoner in connection with others inciting the rabble to a riot, it is not unfair to say that Strauss would promptly seize upon these discrepancies to prove a contradiction in the testimony.

Perhaps he was led into such a method of treating the narratives of the four Evangelists by the unhappy attempts of many Commentators and Expositors to construct what they are pleased to name "A Harmony of the Gospels." In one sense there is harmony, for there is not the slightest disagreement in the four separate and independent accounts of the life of Jesus; but in another sense it is absurd to suppose that they should always relate the same events, or present them in the same order; for they were written with different thoughts, to speak after the manner of men, controlling the minds of the different authors. Thus every attentive reader of the Gospels must have noticed that it was the design of Matthew to give us a portrait of Jesus in His special relationship to Israel as King of the Jews, without at all observing the order of history, for events are brought together that were separated by the interval of months, and are frequently recorded as if they had occurred before other events which in fact preceded them. A single illustration out of many will make this plain. In Matthew v. vi. and vii. we have the Sermon on the Mount, and in Matthew viii., we find the healing of the leper. But in Mark i. we learn that this miracle was wrought after the healing of Peter's wife's mother, while Matthew reverses the order, and that it preceded the Sermon on the Mount. But why, it may be asked, must we conclude that Mark was more observant than Matthew of the actual order of events? The answer is, because we perceive in Mark such expressions as "immediately," "forthwith," "straightway," "the same day," "the next day," and other notes of time, that are in keeping with his purpose to furnish a picture of the Lord Jesus as the prompt, obedient, and faithful servant, moving with unceasing alacrity to do the Father's bidding, and to manifest the Father's glory.

But did not Matthew know when the events occurred which he relates? Even admitting that he was an obscure Jew writing a narrative for his own amusement, would it not have been a task a child could accomplish to preserve the order of the various scenes and speeches that made up the public life of Jesus? Then when he had published his story, which was soon read by tens of thousands all over the Roman empire, would it not have been easy enough for the other Evangelists to follow, and to shape their accounts to agree precisely with his own"? Either these Evangelists were the most careless and silly men that ever ventured to write a line, and if so we must account for the sublimity of their conceptions, and for the majestic power of their Gospels, that have commanded for eighteen hundred years the homage of the noblest minds of earth, or they had an object to accomplish in departing from the track of each other's statements. Conceding for a moment that at first they wrote different accounts which contained all sorts of legendary traditions, and were full of mistakes, and forced them face to face in fiat contradiction with one another, it is amazing that on the discover of the mistakes and contradictions, men who were embellishing these legendary traditions in part by inventions of their own, did not at once bring their accounts into nearer correspondence. When we discover that they made no attempt to remove the apparent discrepancies that meet the eye of the superficial observer, it is as rational as it is reverent to conclude that the failure to correct what many suppose to be their mistakes, was not owing to human imperfection, but to divine perfection, in their separate histories. It is, therefore, the total spiritual blindness of Strauss, and others like him who undertake to deal with the word of God, to which so many of the alleged contradictions are due; for they can not see the beautiful design of each inspired writer in his own particular narrative of Jesus and the resurrection.

Another source of alleged contradictions is found in the errors that have crept into the manuscripts, occasioned generally by the striking resemblance of several letters in the Hebrew and Greek alphabets ', and these errors could not have been avoided except by a perpetual miracle preventing the blunders of thousands of transcribers through hundreds of years. Of course it is known to all that previous to the invention of printing in the fifteenth century, books were produced and perpetuated by the laborious process of copying with the pen, and in such a process mistakes would inevitably occur, unless we suppose that God infallibly inspired a vast multitude of mere copyists, of which the Bible itself contains no hint. Perhaps there is not a printed book in the world of any considerable size that is entirely free from typographical errors, and the most careful copy of the most important manuscript will doubtless exhibit defects of some kind. It was a happy thought, therefore, that suggested to the infidels of Germany and Great Britain, long before the days of Strauss, the propriety of a critical and minute examination of all the Hebrew and Greek manuscripts known to be in existence, with the hope that the various readings which they expected to discover would destroy the credibility of the more recent and popular versions of the Bible. Such was their flourish of trumpets that the devout and learned Bengel, who lived a hundred and fifty years ago, was dismayed, and entered upon the study of all the manuscripts of Europe with intense anxiety. At length, after long and diligent search, he wrote in 1721 to a friend, with a joyful and fully confirmed spirit, "Eat simply the bread of the Scriptures as it presents itself to thee; and do not distress thyself at finding here and there a small particle of sand which the millstone may have left in it. Thou mayst, then, dismiss all those doubts which at one time so horribly tormented myself. If the Holy Scriptures — which have been so often copied, and which have passed so often through the faulty hands of ever-fallible men — were absolutely without variations, the miracle would be so great, that faith in them would no longer be faith. I am astonished, on the contrary, that the result of all those transcriptions has not been a greater number of readings."

The skeptics raised a great shout of triumph when it was understood that critical science had detected 30,000 various readings in the different manuscripts; but, as Cardinal Wiseman says, "In all this mass, although every attainable source has been exhausted; although the fathers of every age have been gleaned for their readings; although the versions of every nation, Arabic, Syriac, Coptic, Armenian, and Ethiopian, have been ransacked for their renderings; although manuscripts of every age from the sixteenth upwards to the third, and of every country, have been again and again visited by industrious swarms to rifle them of their treasures; although, having exhausted the stores of the West, critics have travelled like naturalists into distant lands to discover new specimens — have visited, like Scholz, or Sebastiani, the recesses of Mount Athos, or the unexplored libraries of the Egyptian and Syrian deserts — yet has nothing been discovered, no, not one single various reading, which can throw doubt upon any passage before considered certain or decisive in favor of any important doctrine These various readings, almost without an exception, leave untouched the essential parts of any sentence, and only interfere with points of secondary importance, the insertion or omission of an article or conjunction, the more accurate grammatical construction, or the forms rather than the substance of words," (Science and Revealed Religion, Vol. II, pp. 165-6). The result of the conflict so boldly and confidently commenced by the skeptics Michaelis sums up as follows: "They have ceased henceforth to look for anything from those critical researches which they at first so warmly recommended, because they expected discoveries from them that have never been made." This result has been more and more conclusively demonstrated by the more recent investigations of Tregelles, Tischendorf, and other critics, leading us to conclude with Gaussen, "that not only was the Scripture inspired on the day when God caused it to be written, but that we possess this word inspired eighteen hundred years ago; and that we may still, while holding our sacred text in one hand, and in the other all the readings collected by the learned in seven hundred manuscripts, exclaim with thankfulness, I hold in my hands my Father's testament, the eternal word of my God," (The Bible, p. 197).

Another source of the alleged contradictions in the Bible may be traced to a difference in the dates, to which the assertions that are supposed to clash respectively belong, as when it is said at the dawn of creation, "God saw everything that he had made, and, behold, it was very good," (Gen. i. 31); and when it is said fifteen hundred years later, "God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually," (Gen. vi. 5). Or they may be traced to different modes of reckoning time, as both the Jewish and Roman method are mentioned in the New Testament, and as we find even in English history that, according to what is called "Old Style," Washington was born February 11, 1732, or according to the "Kew Style," he was born February 22; but every one can see that there is no contradiction. Or they may be traced to the different positions occupied by the sacred writers with reference to the subject treated or the statement made, as when God is said to repent, and not to repent; as when it is declared that the children of God fear Him, and fear Him not; as when Paul teaches that we are justified by faith alone before God, and James teaches that we are justified by works also before men; as when it is still said in every-day language, "man is mortal," and "man is immortal," both being true. Or they may be traced to the different, and sometimes opposite, meaning of the same word, not only in Hebrew and Greek, but in English, as the word "let "signifies both to permit and to hinder, and the word "prevent "signifies both to go before or precede, and to obstruct or impede. Or they may be traced to mistranslations of the original language, which it is the province of accurate scholarship to correct.

Without any further remarks in regard to the origin of alleged contradictions, enough probably has been said to show a thoughtful "and honest inquirer after truth that there are several considerations which should be carefully weighed before he can wisely determine to find real contradictions in the Bible; and it may be well for him to know that neither can infidelity bring forward anything new along this line of attack, nor can it allege a single contradiction that has not been triumphantly answered again and again. Several years ago, immediately after the appearance of Colenso's book on the Pentateuch, a very intelligent and sincere Christian in this city came in deep distress to a Minister of the Gospel, because as it seemed to him, Colenso had conclusively proved a contradiction in two statements of the Bible about the number of Jacob's descendants that went down into Egypt. The reply wais, "I have not seen Colenso's book, but bring it to me to-morrow, and you will see that the charge he has urged against God's word, whatever it is, has long since been met and refuted by some Christian writer, who will be summoned to testify the moment you let me know definitely what the infidel Bishop asserts." The next day he came, and after reading Colenso's statement, the Minister took from his library a work by Hengstenberg on the "Genuineness of the Pentateuch," and in a few minutes showed precisely the same argument, and so thorough an exposure of its fallacy, that the gentleman quietly placed Colenso's book in the fire, and turned away with an expression of regret that he had suffered himself to be disturbed for a moment. Let us see whether all of the alleged contradictions of any importance mentioned by Strauss may not be as easily explained.

I. We commence with the two genealogies of Jesus given in Matthew and Luke, which Strauss discusses at some length in the beginning of his second volume, pp. 7-19. A very early explanation of the apparent difficulty asserts that the mother of Joseph, the husband of Mary, married two husbands, and that the two genealogies in the two Gospels are the genealogies of these two husbands, Joseph being the son by birth of one, and the son by adoption of the other. But the true explanation, and the one that is in beautiful accord with the different purposes of the two Evangelists, is found in the fact that Matthew gives us the genealogy of Joseph, while Luke gives us that of Mary. It will be observed that the former goes no further back in the genealogy of Jesus than to prove that He was the son of David, the son of Abraham; but Luke continues the line of His ancestry until he reaches Adam, which was of God. The reason for this is obvious. Matthew wrote for the Jew, and to the Jew it was of necessity that Jesus should be the heir, according to the law, of Joseph, who was descended from the royal branch of David's house, of which two lines had come down unbroken to those days; the line of Solomon, and the line of Nathan. If the genealogy of Mary had been given in Matthew without her connection with her husband, no Jew would have recognized the legal right of Jesus to the throne of David, and at once His claim as the Messiah would have been set aside. The Messiah must be born, not merely of a virgin, not only of a virgin daughter of David, but of one legally united, i. e., in the eye of the law, to a lineal descendant, as Joseph was, of the once reigning house of God. But if Joseph had been His real father, it is plain that He could not have been the Saviour; so that in the opening chapter of the New Testament we behold a miracle of divine wisdom in making Him legally the son of Joseph, which was necessary to establish His right to reign, really the son of Mary, which was necessary to His humanity, and in His divine nature the Son of God, which was necessary to our salvation.

Strauss imputes a mistake to Matthew for omitting certain generations from his table, and yet it is a mistake which no school boy of ordinary intelligence could have committed, for even a school boy with the Old Testament before him could copy the list of names and generations found in Genesis, Numbers, Chronicles, and elsewhere. Why did not the German skeptic also find fault with Ezra for omitting seven generations in giving his personal genealogy, and no one will deny that he knew his own descent? The truth is the omissions furnish evidence again of divine wisdom, for it is the seed of the- wicked Athaliah Matthew drops from his genealogy, while the Geutile Eahab and Euth are brought in, just to intimate the tender grace which was to be exhibited to the despised and outcast, in the mission and ministry of Jesus. But as one of these two Gospels was written and published before the other, can not every one see that it would have been a very simple thing for the later Evangelist to copy the genealogy of the former, and is it not certain that he would have done so, if there had not been some special reason for the variation? Let skeptics learn to treat the writers of the Bible with the fairness they show to any other class of authors, and most of their alleged contradictions will instantly disappear. Leaving entirely out of view the guiding hand of the Holy Ghost, we can perceive that it served the purpose of Matthew, in presenting Jesus as the son of David, to trace His lineage back from His reputed and legal father, through the royal line of Solomon; and it served the purpose of Luke, in presenting Jesus as the Son of man, to trace Him back from Mary, by whom He became the Son of man, through the royal line of Nathan, but beyond David, beyond Abraham, beyond Adam, up to God. The correctness of the view here given of the two genealogies is verified by the fact which Lightfoot mentions, that the Jewish Rabbinical writers speak contemptuously of Mary as the daughter of Heli, whom Luke also names; and hence there is no contradiction whatever in the accounts.

II. Perhaps the next contradiction most commonly alleged relates to the death of Judas, of whom Matthew states that he "went and hanged himself," (Matt, xxvii. 5); and Peter states that "falling headlong, he burst asunder in the midst, and all his bowels gushed out," (Acts i. 18). It is needless to say that the two statements do not contradict each other, unless it can be shown either that Matthew asserts Judas did not fall headlong, or that Peter asserts he did not hang himself. Matthew does not deny that Judas, after hanging himself, fell headlong; nor does Peter deny that he hanged himself before falling headlong. Only a short time since the daily papers contained an account of a young man who left this city for Chicago, and there securing' a room in one of the magnificent Hotels, proceeded to commit suicide it is said, by poison, stabbing, hanging, and if these methods had failed he had made arrangements to fulfill his desperate purpose by falling into the bath-tub that he might be drowned. A little while before a man committed a double suicide somewhere in Indiana, partly by poison, it is asserted, and partly by an artfully contrived guillotine; and yet no one thought of alleging a contradiction in the narratives that were published of these events. Why can not the infidel deal with the Bible as with any other written testimony, and admit that Judas might have first hanged himself upon the edge of one of the rocky precipices or terraces abounding near Jerusalem, and then owing to the breaking of the cord, or the decomposition of his body, have fallen headlong upon the sharp stones beneath that would have crushed and mangled the corpse'? Surely any fair-minded skeptic must see in the two statements, not an irreconcilable contradiction, but positive proof of the independence of the two writers, of the absence of all collusion in their narratives, and of their entire freedom from any attempt to make up the Gospel history by inventions of their own.

III. Matthew says that as Jesus departed from Jericho, two blind men who were sitting by the wayside received their sight in answer to their earnest cry, "Have mercy on us, O Lord, thou son of David," (Matt. xx. 30). Mark says that Jesus was going out of Jericho, but speaks of only one blind man, Bartimeus, the son of Timæus, who sat by the highway side, begging, (Mark x. 46). Luke speaks of but one blind man, and says as Jesus was come nigh unto Jericho, the miracle was wrought, (Luke xviii. 35). But observe that he is the only one of the three writers who records the question of the blind man, "Hearing the multitude pass by, he asked what it meant." This question he may have asked as Jesus was entering the city, and learning that the gracious and mighty miracle worker was very near, he may have gone with his companion in blindness and beggary into the city, and waited with the crowd outside the house of Zaccheus until the Messiah appeared, and still followed him with the prayer that was heard and answered. Thus the more carefully the Gospel narratives are scanned, the more clearly- does their perfect consistency appear, and the more certainly are we convinced that in their unstudied simplicity and harmony, they can be traced neither to imposture nor to fanaticism as their source. Or if this explanation, just given of the separate accounts in the three gospels, is rejected as unsatisfactory, there is still another in the fact that the Greek word rendered come nigh in Luke does not necessarily imply more than that He was nigh or near the city, without determining whether he was entering it, or departing from it, at the time of the occurrence related. No intelligent critic will insist that there is a contradiction, because Matthew mentions two blind men, and Mark and Luke speak of but one; for the latter do not say that there was only one, and it served their purpose best to call special attention to the one who was most prominent, while Matthew briefly and incidentally alludes to the two.

IV. "Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremy the prophet, saying. And they took the thirty pieces of silver, the price of him that was valued, whom they of the children of Israel did value; and gave them for the potter's field, as the Lord appointed me," (Matt, xxvii. 9, 10). No such words are found in Jeremiah, but in Zechariah we read, "I said unto them, If ye think good, give me my price; and if not, forbear. So they weighed for my price thirty pieces of silver. And the Lord said unto me, Cast it unto the potter: a goodly price that I was prized at of them. And I took the thirty pieces of silver, and cast them to the potter in the house of the Lord," (Zech. xi. 12, 13). Here, it is confidently alleged, there is a plain contradiction; but apart from the fact that some of the most ancient versions, as the Syriac-Peshito, and Persian, and some of the early MSS., omit the word Jeremiah; apart from the fact that the Jews regarded Jeremiah as the first of the prophets, in a manner including Zechariah, who quotes him more than once; there is nothing forced or unnatural in supposing that Jeremiah had spoken the words, afterwards recorded by Zechariah. Thus Paul tells the Ephesian Elders "to remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he said, It is more blessed to give than to receive," (Acts xx. 35), although these words are nowhere recorded in the four Gospels. So Jude informs us of the words of Enoch, the seventh from Adam, who said, "Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints," (Jude 14), though none of the sayings of Enoch are preserved in the Old Testament. Besides all this, some eminent scholars have thought that the 9th, 10th, and 11th chapters of Zechariah were written originally by Jeremiah; and hence in any view there is no contradiction proved. It would be becoming modesty in those who read the Bible to sit with reverent silence in the presence of a difficulty and wait for further light, rather than cavil where so much is divine and precious.

V. Strauss insists that the two accounts contained in Matt. ii. and Luke ii. of the order of events connected with the infancy of Jesus are incompatible, because Matthew says nothing of the residence at Nazareth previous to the nativity, nor of the circumstances which led Joseph and Mary to Bethlehem, nor of the scenes that transpired in the temple; while Luke says nothing of the visit of the wise men from the East, nor of the slaughter of the young children by Herod, nor of the flight to Egypt. But surely no proof of a contradiction can be furnished by the silence of an author concerning transactions which did not fall within his purpose to narrate, for if this rule of criticism should be established, no series of events that have engaged the attention of two or more historians can be believed. There is no reason whatever for not supposing that Joseph and Mary came from Nazareth to Bethlehem; that there Jesus was born; that within the course of a few days afterwards He was presented according to the law in the temple for circumcision; that then the wise men came on their journey; and this led to the escape of Joseph and Mary from the cruelty of Herod. Nor is there any difficulty in supposing that immediately after the infant Jesus was presented in the temple they returned to Nazareth, and subsequently came back to Bethlehem, from which they lied into Egypt, or that they visited the spot, forever so hallowed in their memory and thoughts, during some one of the great annual festivals. Either supposition can be adopted without the slightest strain, and either is infinitely more natural than the theory that the two writers are in conflict with each other, when it would have been so easy for one to copy from the other. But while the separate accounts show that they have given us independent narratives, the omissions of neither show the least contradiction.

VI. Strauss also alludes to the mistake which he thinks Luke commits in the statement, "This taxing was first made when Cyrenius was governor of Syria," (Luke ii. 2). According to Josephus this Cyrenius was not sent to govern the province until at least ten or eleven years after the birth of Jesus, and hence it is taken for granted that Luke is flatly contradicted by history. But why, it may be asked, are we compelled to believe Josephus rather than Luke? What reason is there for assuming that if one of the writers of the Bible and a Jewish or heathen author come into conflict, the former is manifestly wrong, and the latter is plainly right! Does critical science imagine that all writers except Bible writers are inspired to be correct, and that only those who give us the Scriptures are uninspired? But in the instance now before us there is no need to infer that either Josephus or Luke is in error. The clause to which Strauss objects is a parenthesis, and its literal translation, which he must have known, is as follows: "The first census itself was effacted while Cyrenius was governor of Syria." In other words, having stated that a decree had gone forth from Caesar Augustus that a general tax should be levied, he then wishes it to be known by the verse in the parenthesis, that this decree must not be confounded with the census itself, which was effected under Cyrenius. Or the word first may be rendered, as it is sometimes, "prior to," "before," and the sense would then be, this taxing was before that made under Cyrenius. Or it may be that there were two taxings, in both of which Cyrenius was concerned, for it is a remarkable fact that Justin Martyr, who lived not very long after Luke, asserts three times that Jesus was born under Cyrenius, and the heathen writers of that time did not deny the truth of the statement. Certainly no one who is familiar with the gospel of Luke, and with the Acts of the Apostles, of which also he was the author, can think that he would fall into such an inexcusable blunder, that might have been avoided by the most stupid rustic who lived at that day; and certainly it seems more charitable and more honest to conclude that he knew what he was saying in the narratives, than to hurry to the supposition that a mistake has been found in the Bible.

VII. According to the three first Evangelists Jesus was nailed to the cross at the third hour of the day, that is to say, at nine o'clock in the morning; the sun was darkened at the sixth hour, or noon; and He bowed His head in death at the ninth hour, or three o'clock in the afternoon; but according to John the execution did not commence until the sixth hour, or noon. But let us suppose that John, writing in Asia Minor, used the Roman mode of reckoning time, from midnight, so that the sixth hour would be six o'clock in the morning, and the interval between that hour and nine o'clock would be occupied by the necessary preparations, thus bringing the writers into perfect agreement. Or let us remember that in the Greek MSS. numbers are generally expressed by the letters of the alphabet, and that the two Greek letters which stand for 3 and 6 are strikingly alike; and again they can be brought into agreement by seeing that careless copyists have substituted 6 for 3 in the Gospel of John. This too is just precisely what some of the most distinguished scholars claim, and hence they insist that the proper reading in John is the third hour, as with the other Evangelists. But even if both explanations are judged to be unsatisfactory, it is still possible that the three synoptical Evangelists only meant by the third hour that it was past, using au indefinite expression. and that John only meant by the sixth hour that it was approaching, he too using an indefinite expression. At all events it is easier to accept either explanation than to suppose that four men, three of whom had the writings of the first before them, could fall into so meaningless and useless a blunder concerning the hour of the day when the most stupendous fact of human history occurred. We can at least give these writers credit for possessing common sense.

VIII. According to John the risen Jesus, on His appearance to Mary Magdalene, would not permit her to touch Him, because, He says, "I am not yet ascended to my Father: but go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God," (John XX. 17). According to Matthew, as Mary Magdalene and the other Mary ran to tell the disciples of His resurrection, He met them with a glad recognition; "and they came and held Him by the feet, and worshipped Him," (Matt, xxviii. 9). Here, in order to prove a contradiction, it is assumed that Jesus did not ascend to the Father until the expiration of forty days; but for this view, commonly held even by Christians, there is not the slightest Scriptural authority. His ascension has a two-fold relation, first to His own people, and then to the world at large; for He has entered into heaven, "now to appear in the presence of God for us," (Heb. ix. 24); and He is also "the head over all things to the church," (Eph. i. 22). In like manner on the day of His resurrection He appeared to the disciples, and breathed on them, saying, "Receive ye the Holy Ghost," (John xx. 22), and they did then and there receive Him as the power of an endless life; but on the day of Pentecost the Holy Ghost descended in visible pomp and majesty, as the power of testimony and service, (Acts ii). It was appropriate, therefore, that He should not permit the touch of a human hand before ascending to the Father, for He must fulfill the type of the high priest entering into the holy place on the great day of atonement, when no man could be in the tabernacle, (Lev. xvi. 17); but having ascended. He hastened back, as it were, to satisfy the longing of Mary's anxious and happy heart with the welcoming shout, "All hail!" Forty days later He ascended visibly from the midst of His followers, while His hands were uplifted in priestly benediction to bless them j but it is ignorance of Scripture that leads any to suppose He had not previously ascended, and therefore it is ignorance of Scripture that leads any to suppose there is a contradiction in the two accounts.

Precisely the same remark must be made about the contradiction which Strauss alleges with regard to the second coming of the Lord. "On one occasion Jesus says to His disciples that the Son of Man will return before they shall have completed their Messianic preaching in all the cities of Israel, (Matt. x. 23); another time he says that the second Advent will not occur until the Gospel has been preached in the whole world among all peoples, (Matt. xxiv. 14). Now these are two very different things; Jesus, therefore, must have changed His views very much between the first of these prophecies and the second, or rather it is clear that the one was put into the mouth of Jesus at a time when, and in a circle in which, the kingdom of the Messiah was considered limited to the people of Israel, and the other from a point of view to which the calling of the heathen into that kingdom was already a settled thing," (Vol. I, p. 326). Here again we find utter ignorance of Scripture, that all through the Old and New Testaments teaches the two-fold relation of the second Advent, first to the Jews as an earthly people to be restored to their laud, and second to the Christians of the present dispensation as an heavenly people to be associated with the millennial reign of Jesus over the earth. Think for a moment of a horizontal line representing the Jew, suddenly broken by a circle representing the church, when no note is taken of time, and on the opposite side of the circle the horizontal line commencing again, and you will readily understand these double allusions to the second coming of Christ. So far from finding contradictions, we discover divine wisdom in perfection, tracing that coming in connection with Israel, and then in connection with the Gentile world, and presenting the teachings of Jesus in beautiful harmony. So may all the alleged contradictions which Strauss mentions be easily explained; and as there is no time to consider others, the challenge is here respectfully made to any infidel to show one real contradiction in the Bible from first to last.

IX. None of the alleged contradictions of the Old Testament have been noticed, partly for want of time, and partly because it was thought best to confine attention to the most prominent of those which Strauss imagined he had found in the Gospel history. But there is the less need of turning aside to glance at the Old Testament narratives, because Jesus set the seal of His own divine sanction upon the canon of the Old Testament as a whole, precisely in the form in which we possess it to-day, and especially upon those portions at which infidelity has always delighted to cavil. Thus He expressly recognizes the truth of the story connected with a universal deluge, (Matt. xxiv. 38, 39; Luke xvii. 27); the truth of the story connected with the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, (Matt. xi. 23, 24 • Luke xvii. 28, 29); the truth of the story connected with Jonah, (Matt. xii. 39-41); and the truth of the story connected with Lot's wife, (Luke xvii. 32). It is as if He confronted proud man with the solemn words. It is at thy peril if thou believest not these Scriptures, for if thou believest them not thou believest Me not; "and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him," (John iii. 36). So the Holy Ghost, or, if this expression is offensive to you, the Apostles Peter and Jude and John vouch for the correctness of the narratives concerning the angels that sinned, the flood, the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah, and Balaam, (2 Pet. ii. iii.; Jude 6-11; Rev. ii. 14); and in many other places the Old and the New Testaments are so linked together, that it is impossible to deny the credibility of the former without sweeping the latter out of existence. The Bible comes to us, not to discuss scientific questions from the exceedingly narrow standpoint of feeble human reason and limited human knowledge, but with authority it commands our faith. The only time God condescends to argue is when He approaches the lost sinner with the gentle invitation, "Come now, and let us reason together saith the Lord: Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool," (Isa. i. 18).

X. Neither does it come within the purpose of these lectures to consider the alleged contradictions between the Scriptures and the discoveries of Science; but it is sufficient to say that if it has been proved, or if it can be proved, that the Scriptures contain the word of God, it is impossible to discover a contradiction between their testimony and true Science? There are many who will obtain a little smattering of science by reading one or two books, or by glancing at the Reviews, and then swell with a conceit of their vast erudition, when, perhaps, the next discovery will prick them like a bag of wind. Darwin, Huxley, Tyndall, and such men, may amuse themselves and the world with their theories as much as they please; and it is possible that in the course of time they may reach some result that will be of real value; but the moment they bring their new-fledged theories to contradict the Bible, that has stood the assaults and storms of four thousand years, their science is no longer science, but audacity and impertinence. Their speculations about God, and eternity, and the soul, and prayer, are of no more consequence than the prattling of infancy or the babbling of idiocy, simply because such subjects do not belong to their department of investigation. Human science, if worthy of the name, moves in an orbit of its own, divine revelation moves in another and distinct orbit, both wheeling around the throne of the Eternal without clashing, and vieing with each other in offering a tribute of praise to Him who made the universe, but no less surely made the Holy Scriptures. If science departs from its proper sphere to meddle with revelation, it will certainly have abundant reason sooner or later to deplore its folly and presumption, as inevitable defeat awaits it from the encounter; and if men were not what they are, they would be on their guard against the rash surmises of the scientists; for the pathway of history for the last fifty years is strewn with the fragments of discarded and despised theories that were once most confidently and tenaciously held.

It is said that when Julian the Apostate was summoning the philosophy, and marshalling the military resources of the Roman empire, to crush Christianity, the distinguished divine, Athanasius, calmly remarked to some of his desponding friends, "It is a little cloud; it will pass away." Tradition relates that not long after, when Julian was mortally wounded in battle, he caught the blood Streaming from his breast, and threw it into the air with the cry, "O Galilean, thou hast conquered." Of course Gibbon dismisses the tradition with contempt, but he writes as follows of the closing scene in the life of one whom he greatly admired: "Whenever he closed his eyes in short and interrupted slumbers, his mind was agitated with painful anxiety; nor can it be thought surprising, that the Genius of the empire should once more appear before him, covering with a funeral veil his head, and his horn of abundance, and slowly retiring from the Imperial tent. The monarch started from his couch, and stepping forth to refresh his wearied spirits with the coolness of the midnight air, he beheld a fiery meteor, which shot athwart the sky, and suddenly vanished. Julian was convinced that he had seen the menacing countenance of the god of war;" and his heathen priests having in vain endeavored to dissuade him from exposing himself in battle, when pierced by the fatal javelin, according to Gibbon he exclaimed, "I die without remorse, as I have lived without guilt. I am pleased to reflect on the innocence of my private life; and I can affirm with confidence, that the supreme authority, that emanation of the Divine Power, has been preserved in my hands pure and immaculate," (Milman's Gibbon's Rome, Vol. II. pp. 499, 501). If he really delivered this false and foolish speech, truly the Galilean had conquered; as the Emperor was left to exhibit the utter deceitfulness of the human heart, and the pitiful vanity and weakness of human nature, even amid the solemnities of death; for no man in his senses believes he spoke the truth. Athanasius was right; it was a little cloud, and soon passed away.

So it may be confidently said of the work that has demanded and received our attention during the last few weeks. It engaged the energies of a far more than ordinary intellect for a period of more than thirty years; but after all "it is a little cloud; it will soon pass away." The writings of the heathen and infidel and heretical assailants of Jesus during the first centuries have long since perished, except as they have been partially preserved in quotations by those who wrote in His defence. The writings of the Deists who infested England in the early part of the 18th century have perished. The writings of the French Philosophers of the same time, after starting into action the hellish forces that did bloody work at the close of the century, have perished. Renan's Life of Jesus ran a brief career, and then perished. Thus must it be with Strauss's Life of Jesus, which has ignominiously failed to accomplish its object, like the assaults of those who preceded him in their attempts to destroy "the word of God, which liveth and abideth forever. For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away: but the word of the Lord endureth forever," (1 Pet. 1. 23-25). Jesus has said, in language that would be the height of blasphemy, if He were not divine, "Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away," (Matt. xxiv. 35). Yea, though the world, under the tuition of a Christless culture and a Godless science, is rapidly educated for submission to the Antichrist; though the great mass of the professing Church, faithless to the principles and practices of the New Testament, is soon to be spued out of the mouth of our insulted Lord; Jesus still lives, and His words, that are meeting with a precise fulfillment day by day, still live. "The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord, and against his anointed, saying. Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us. He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh f the Lord shall have them in derision," (Ps. ii. 2-4).

If the Christian finds himself ready to despond, as He witnesses the astounding spread of infidelity, not only outside but inside the Church, let him remember that Jesus was "declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead," (Rom. i. 4). Let him turn his anxious thoughts to the working of God's mighty power, "which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand in the heavenlies, far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come; and hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all," (Eph. i. 20-23). The Church — by which is not meant any particular sect, nor the various denominations together, all of which may go to pieces, by which is not meant those who have a name to live, and are dead, those possessing a form of godliness, and denying the power thereof, but those who are born again, those who are united by the Holy Ghost to the risen Jesus, those who have salvation through faith in His name — the Church is as safe as if already seated by His side upon His throne. "My sheep hear my voice," He says, "and I know them, and they follow me: and I give unto them eternal life j and they shall never perish, neither shall any pluck them out of my hand. My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no one is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand. I and my Father are one," (John X. 27-30). Even in the last days when perilous times shall come, and when the inspired Apostle saw everything in ruins, he adds the cheering assurance, "Nevertheless the foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, The Lord knoweth them that are his. And, Let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity," (2 Tim. ii. 19). Only forget the darkness in looking for the Morning Star that is to usher in His glorious appearing, and nothing can disturb your peace. Blessed be His name, it is for Himself believers who know the truth now watch and wait, without any expectation of the triumph of the church, except as achieved by His visible and personal presence; without any desire to behold the bride reigning on the earth before the coming and coronation of the Bridegroom. Just as heaven would be no heaven but for the sight of Jesus, so the millennium would be no millennium unless He presided in manifested glory over the holy and happy scene. Let skeptical criticism proceed then even to greater lengths than Strauss in its ruthless and ungenerous treatment of His precious word; let skeptical science drift farther and farther away from the written revelation, until the very being of God is denied; let the scoffers of the last days walk after their own lusts, and say with a sneer, "Where is the promise of His coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation," (2 Pet. iii. 4); "when these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads, for your redemption draweth nigh," (Luke xxi. 28). But the redemption of body as well as soul that draweth nigh for believers is but the signal of a time when "the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men, and every bondman, and every freeman, hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains; and said to the mountains and rocks. Fall upon us, and hide us from the face of Him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb: for the great day of His wrath has come, and who shall be able to stand?" (Rev. vi. 15-17). The coming of Christ will flash the light of truth upon all the paltry excuses of unbelievers, and in that light they will refrain from saying as they now do, "we could not believe," but will confess with inexpressible terror, "we would not believe." He who is the truth itself has declared, "This is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil;" "and ye WILL not come to me, that ye might have life," (John iii. 19; v. 40).

Just because infidelity has its seat not in the head, but in the heart, all attempts to convert the skeptic by argument must necessarily fail, and in the face of the most complete demonstration he illustrates the familiar couplet,

"He that complies against his will
Is of his own opinion still."

Men do not want to believe the Bible, because the mind of the flesh is enmity against God, because it lays an arrest upon appetites and passions which they love to gratify, because it utters the stern admonition of a reckoning in the future world for the sins of the present, because it humbles them into the dust by casting the highest not less certainly than the lowest, the most cultivated and refined not less surely than the most ignorant and degraded, upon the grace of God and the atoning sacrifice of Christ for salvation. But let a word of the humblest and poorest, winged by the Holy Ghost, reach the heart, and instantly all objections are answered, all the barriers which unbelief has reared around the soul are swept away, and the proof that the Scriptures are divine shines from every page, like the splendor of the eternal throne. Several years ago a prominent minister of the gospel in Cincinnati delivered a series of carefully prepared discourses on the Evidences of Christianity. Among his hearers were two persons unlike in every respect. One was a highly educated man, the president of an infidel club, who had been commissioned to attend the lectures, and take notes that were subsequently presented for discussion at the meetings of the skeptics; and the other was an old and illiterate colored woman, who attended, not because she understood the arguments, but because she delighted to be where the name of her Saviour was honored. On a certain evening during service, a sleet fell, covering the stone steps of the church building, and as the old woman was leaving at the close of the sermon, she slipped, and might have been severely injured if the infidel, who was descending the steps at the same time, had not caught her and kindly assisted her to the sidewalk. She thanked him, and then said in a low, tremulous voice, "Young master, do you love Jesus"; They parted, but that voice followed him to his room, and started a mighty tide of emotion in his proud heart, and never left him until he had bowed in faith and with tears of adoring gratitude beneath the cross he had despised. The minister hearing that an infidel, who had attended his lectures, was converted, sought his acquaintance, and desired to know what argument had convinced him of his error. "Oh," he replied, "I listened to all of your arguments with unmoved indifference, save when they excited a feeling of intense opposition to the views you advanced: but it was the simple question of an old negro woman, 'do you love Jesus?' that led me to see the cruelty of my conduct towards my best Friend."

Dear, dying hearers, if the poor arguments to which you have listened for several weeks past, so far below the importance of the great subject, have failed to convince any of you who are skeptical that the Bible is the work of God, at least permit me to ask you the searching question, "Do you love Jesus?" If not, why do you not love Him I Has He ever harmed you, or has He ever harmed the world? As Pilate said to the rabble clamoring for His crucifixion, "Why, what evil hath he done?" Would you crucify Him again? Would you grieve His heart, so noble, so good, so loving, by turning away with contemptuous unconcern from His entreating voice? You may forget Him for a time, but you can not always despise His claims upon your confidence and affection. If you continue to neglect Him to the close of your brief mortal existence, God will assuredly shut you up in hell; for He will not permit you to count the blood of His Son a common thing. Other questions may engage your attention now, but sooner or later the question that must be answered, each for himself, is the one propounded by the Roman governor of Jerusalem, "What shall I do then with Jesus, which is called Christ!" (Matt. xxvii. 22).