the other three in respect to time.  It must have been written several years later than the last of them; perhaps not less than fifteen years.  If, now, we look to its relation in regard to character, we must say that it differs from them as widely as it well could while presenting to our view the same divine and loving Saviour.  Its general plan is different.  For reasons not known to us, the synoptical gospels are mainly occupied with our Lord’s ministry in Galilee.  They record only his last journey to Jerusalem, and the momentous incidents connected with it.  John, on the contrary, notices his visits to Jerusalem year by year.  Hence his materials are, to a great extent, different from theirs; and even where he records the same events—­as, for example, the miracle of the loaves and fishes, and the last supper—­he connects with them long discourses, which the other evangelists have omitted.  Particularly noticeable are our Lord’s oft-repeated discussions with the unbelieving Jews respecting his Messiahship, and his confidential intercourse with his disciples, in both of which we have such treasures of divine truth and love.  How strikingly this gospel differs from the others in its general style and manner every reader feels at once.  It bears throughout the impress of John’s individuality, and by this it is immediately connected with the epistles that bear his name.  It should be added that in respect to the time when our Lord ate the passover with his disciples there is an apparent disagreement with the other three gospels, which the harmonists have explained in various ways.

The essential point of the above comparison is this:  Notwithstanding the striking difference between the later fourth gospel and the earlier three, it was at once received by all the churches as of apostolic authority.  Now upon the supposition of its genuineness, both its peculiar character and its undisputed reception everywhere are easily explained.  John, the bosom disciple of our Lord, wrote with the full consciousness of his apostolic authority and his competency as a witness of what he had himself seen and heard.  He therefore gave his testimony in his own independent and original way.  How far he may have been influenced in his selection of materials by a purpose to supply what was wanting in the earlier gospels, according to an old tradition, it is not necessary here to inquire; it is sufficient to say that, under the illumination of the Holy Spirit, he marked out that particular plan which we have in his gospel, and carried it out in his own peculiar manner, thus opening to the churches new mines, so to speak, of the inexhaustible fulness of truth and love contained in him in whom “dwelleth all the fulness of the godhead bodily.”  And when this original gospel, so different in its general plan and style from those that preceded, made its appearance, the apostolic authority of its author secured its immediate and universal reception by the churches.  All this is very plain and intelligible.