personal ministry, even His apostles were only imperfectly acquainted with His theology; but, shortly before His death, He gave them an assurance that, in due time, He would disclose to them more fully the nature and extent of the great salvation.  He said to them—­“The Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you. [177:1]....  He will guide you into all truth.” [177:2]

The resurrection poured a flood of light into the minds of the apostles, and they forthwith commenced with unwonted boldness to proclaim the truth in all its purity and power; but, perhaps, no part of the evangelical history was written until upwards of twenty years after the death of our Saviour. [177:3] According to tradition, the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, then appeared in the order in which they are now presented in our authorised version. [177:4] It is certain that all these narratives were published several years before the tall of Jerusalem in A.D. 70; and as each contains our Lord’s announcement of its speedy catastrophe, there is much probability in the report, that the exact fulfilment of so remarkable a prophecy, led many to acknowledge the divine origin of the Christian religion.  The Gospel of John is of a much later date, and seems to have been written towards the conclusion of the century.

Two of the evangelists, Matthew and John, were apostles; and the other two, Mark and Luke, appear to have been of the number of the Seventy. [177:5] All were, therefore, fully competent to bear testimony to the facts which they record, for the Seventy had “companied” with the Twelve “all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among” them, [178:1] and all “were from the beginning eye-witnesses and ministers of the word.” [178:2] These writers mention many miracles performed by Christ, and at least three of the Gospels were in general circulation whilst multitudes were still alive who are described in them as either the spectators or the subjects of His works of wonder; and yet, though the evangelists often enter most minutely into details, so that their statements, if capable of contradiction, might have been at once challenged and exposed, we do not find that any attempt was meanwhile made to impeach their accuracy.  Their manner of recording the acts of the Great Teacher is characterised by remarkable simplicity, and the most acute reader in vain seeks to detect in it the slightest trace of concealment or exaggeration.  Matthew artlessly confesses that he belonged to the odious class of publicans; [178:3] Mark tells how Peter, his friend and companion, “began to curse and to swear,” and to declare that he knew not the Man; [178:4] Luke, who was probably one of the two brethren who journeyed to Emmaus, informs us how Jesus drew near to them on the way and upbraided them as “fools and slow of heart to believe all that