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John knows nothing of this; but represents the betrayer as forming his vile determination at the last supper. John has also a statement of which, on their side, the first three evangelists know nothing that Judas was indignant at what he affected to regard as a waste of ointment, which he observed might have been sold for the poor,---but really wishing to purloin the money---for he was a "thief and had the bag." It is not easy to account for the omission of this last relation by three of the evangelists, if it were true. Then again, John and the three differ respecting Christ's foreknowledge of the treachery of Judas. According to the three, Jesus first manifests his knowledge at the last supper, consequently at a time in which (according to them) the deed of Jesus had virtually been perpetrated. According to John, Christ declares before the last passover but one---that is to say a year earlier---that one of the twelve is a devil,---meaning, John says, his betrayer Judas (6 ch. 70 v.) Nay, according to this evangelist "Jesus knew from the beginning who should betray him" (5 ch. 64 v.) But what a strange character is then presented to us of Christ! Encouraging sin, by entrusting the 'bag' to a covetous man---placing the weak in the very fire of temptation! How could he, then, have taught his disciples to pray Lead us not into temptation'? Besides, Matthew (19 ch. 21 v.) tells us that a short time before the last supper, Jesus promised all the Twelve, without exception, that they should sit on twelve thrones judging the tribes of Israel! What contradictions are these? Who can avoid classing this account of Christ's foreknowledge of Iscariot's treachery as a legend? Doubtless it arose out of the tendency to glorify Jesus: that Judas should have betrayed him and he nothave known of it beforehand, would lessen him, it was conceived: that he should not have known Iscariot's real character before he chose him, would lessen him; and so he must have known it 'from the beginning' ---and the act of Judas was all predetermined in the Divine councils! Ought not orthodox people to be ashamed of these councils which are thus attributed to the Divinity?

I need only remind you that innumerable treatises have been written on the character of Judas: many of you, no doubt, are acquainted with that fact. It has been maintained that he did not expect Jesus would be put to death, but that he would deliver himself from his foes; and that Judas believed he should only hasten the accomplishment of the Messiah's kingdom in the person of his master, by betraying him. Christ's words-" What thou doest, do quickly"---are interpreted as an actual encouragement to the execution of Iscariot's design, by this class of writers. Other hypotheses have been framed respecting the character of Judas; but it is sufficient to remark that covetousness alone is assigned as the motive of his treason, in the gospels. Perhaps one of the most striking divarications in the entire New Testament is to be found in the accounts of the death of Judas. Matthew (27 ch. 3 v.) describes him as smittten with remorse on hearing that Jesus was condemned to death, and as hastening to the chief priests and elders to return to them the thirty pieces of silver, with the declaration that he had betrayed an innocent person; they scornfully retort that on him alone rests all responsibility for that deed, and Judas cast down the money in the temple, and goes and hangs himself: they, holding it unlawful to put the money into the treasury, since it was the price of blood, buy with it a potters-field to bury strangers in. Matthew adds two remarks: that from this mode of purchase the ground was called 'the field of blood' up to this time; and, secondly, that by these transactions an ancient prophecy was fulfilled. The rest of the evangelists are

silent concerning the end of Judas. But in the Acts of the Apostles (1 ch. 16 v.) Peter is made to contradict Matthew very essentially according to this new statement it is not the chief priests and elders who buy the field with the money when Judas has returned it and gone to hang himself---but Judas himself purchases the field with the reward of his iniquity.' And again, Judas is not said to hang himself at all---but falls headlong, bursts asunder in the midst, so that all his bowels gush out---and from this being known in Jerusalem, the field is called 'the field of blood'---not because it was bought with the blood-money' which the traitor returned to the priests and elders! Matthew makes Judas a suicide: Peter is made to describe his death as a kind of divine visitation. In brief, the divarication is glaring ; nor have all the thousands of pages which have been written with the endeavour to reconcile Matthew and the Acts, tended to smooth the difficulty. It remains---and where then again is the 'plenary inspiration' of the writers of the New Testament ---and which account is the true one? If we are to be sentenced to eternal perdition for not believing the narratives---how can we avoid asking "For not believing which ?"

Even the Last Supper itself is surrounded with difficulties in these narratives. John hot only knows nothing of Jesus sending any of his disciples to bespeak a place where they might keep the passover, and of the man they would find bearing a pitcher of water-but he differs entirely from the other evangelists, both respecting the meal, and the time at which it took place. According to John, Jesus was crucified on the day in the evening of which the Passover was held, and the Last Supper was on the evening before. According to the first three evangelists, the Last Supper is the Passover itself!

Let no one suppose that I am representing this divergency between the Fourth and the other Gospels to be greater than it is. Take the case in the three gospels, first :

The day on which the disciples were directed by Jesus to prepare for the meal was "the first day of unleavened bread, when the passover must be killed" (Matthew, 26 ch. 17 v.) The disciples ask Jesus "Where wilt thou that we prepare for thee to eat the passover ?" (Matthew, 26 ch. 17 v.) Then it is said of the disciples, " And they made ready the passover;" (19 v,) and of Jesus, "Now, when the even was come, he sat down with the twelve." (20 v.) Luke, also, makes Jesus open the repast with the words, "With desire I have desired to eat this passover with you;" (22 ch. 15 v.) and Mark, in his narrative, repeats the word "passover," in describing the Last Supper, and the preparations for it.

John, on the contrary, commences his narrative of the Last Supper with the words, "Before the feast of the passover ;" and when he says to the traitor Judas, "What thou doest do quickly"-and this is after the meal-the words, the Fourth Evangelist tells us, are misunderstood by the rest of the disciples to mean, "Buy those things that we have need of against the feast" -that is to say the paschal meal, or passover. Then, it is said, (John 18 ch. 28 v.) that, on the following morning, the Jews would not enter the Gentile prætorium "Lest they should be defiled; but that they might eat the passover"so that he means the passover was yet in prospect. And this day, on which he says Jesus was crucified is-still more pointedly-called, by him, the preparation of the passover."

The passover then, according to John, was on the evening of the day on which Christ was crucified: the Jews were eating the paschal larab at the

time of his burial. But, according to the first three Evangelists the passover was on the evening before, and Christ partook of the feast with his disciples. There can be no mistake about the identity of the meal, as the Last Supper for the incidents of Christ's announcement of the treason of Judas, and of Peter's denial, occur in each description of the meal.

Commentaries without number have been written with the intent to clear up this difficulty-but no one can answer us whether John, or the first three evangelists, be the proper authority-whether Christ ate the Last Supper on the evening of the passover, or the evening before-whether he was crucified before the passover evening, or after. Can inspiration' contain contradiction ?-or which is the inspired' authority-the authority that we are bound to believe on pain of eternal perdition?

But it is not only in relation to the time of the last meal of Jesus, but in the narrative of what passed on that occasion, that there is considerable divergency between the Evangelists. The chief difference here, lies again between John and the first three evangelists; but, on a closer scrutiny, it is found that only Matthew and Mark closely agree;-and that Luke diverges from these two considerably, though he is more accordant with them than with John. John, only, has long-very long discourses-pronounced by Jesus, at the meal; and he, alone, has the incident of Christ washing the disciples' feet. Luke differs from Matthew and Mark in making Christ institute the supper, as a commemorative feast, before the betrayal by Judas, instead of after; and in making Jesus announce Peter's denial in the supper room, instead of on the way to the Mount of Olives. In the last circumstance he agrees with John; but John has not any mention of the institution of the supper. And is not this strange that this Evangelist omits an incident so vitally important in the whole scheme of Christianity-according to orthodoxy? Are we to understand that he corrects the other three writers and that Christ did not institute the Sacrament' as we popularly, and by pre-eminence, term it, in Protestant England-but that the real incident was the washing of the disciples' feet? Who shall determine this difficulty for us? Can this be inspiration' which speaks in puzzles?

The Agony in the Garden is a picture which we approach with the greatest solemnity of feeling-both from its awful character and our early associations; -but again we are startled with difficulty, for the Agony is not in John, nor does he leave any room for it,-since he makes the arrest of Jesus follow immediately on the arrival in the garden! Read the first dozen verses in the 18th chapter of our translation of John's Gospel-and you will see that he leaves no room for the Agony-nor ever gives the slightest intimation that it occurred.

But the narratives of the Agony, by the first three Evangelists are not in unison. According to Matthew and Mark, Jesus takes the three favourite disciples with him, and three several times retires from them to repeat the prayer that the cup of suffering may pass from him: according to Luke (who has not this double figure of three) Jesus retired from all the disciples, and but once. Luke, however, has one most marvellous feature, peculiar to himselfthat while Jesus prayed an angel appeared to strengthen him; and that, during the Agony, "his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground." Even with the orthodox belief of the union of divinity and humanity in Christ, we feel shocked with the statement that it was necessary for Christ to have a strengthening angel sent to him. Without any belief in orthodoxy, we ask-What an angel is? Where is the witness for

the angel's apearance? How the disciples saw the angel if they were asleep? How it happens that neither Matthew. nor Mark say one word about the angel's appearance,-nor, especially, John who is described as one of the three (by Matthew and Mark) chosen by Jesus to accompany him in the garden?

Concerning the bloody sweat' orthodoxy herself, according to Epiphanius, had very early doubts. And, even now, the "as it were" is laid hold of by many to shew that blood was not mingled with the sweat. If so, as Strauss observes, it would have been "drops," simply, in the text. The possibility, however, of a bloody sweat is confirmed by many authorities, from Aristotle to our own times-but it can only occur in extremely rare cases, and in disease. But whether drops of blood, or drops like blood-where, again, is the witness for such an occurrence? If the disciples were asleep they could not see it; and even if they awoke, how could they, at a distance and in the night, discern the falling of the drops? Who can imagine that Jesus himself detailed all these circumstances of horror, with minuteness, to his disciples? If Luke received the details by inspiration,' how is it that neither Matthew, Mark, nor John were favoured with the same supernatural communication? (To be continued in next number.)

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THE time is come when those who are real democrats, both in and out of the House, should stand resolutely by their principles, and unflinchingly follow out their convictions. Reformers have dallied quite long enough with the Dalilah of expediency. They have sacrificed to satiety at the altar of compromise. They have worshipped, too long for their moral and political health, before the idols of Parliamentary parties. It is time now to break the images before whom they have bowed, and to stand erect in their simple faith in the truth of democracy, and the conviction that it must prevail.

The question for discussion, and for action after discussion, is,-How long shall we endure the Whigs? To my thinking, the Whigs, and Whiggism, are the great obstacles to progress. The Whigs are the moderate men. They do not believe that honesty in politics is even the best policy. They conciliate; that is, they believe that the best mode of advancing true principles, is to cleverly adulterate them with false principles. They have the knack of stump-oratory; and, what is worse, their oratory of the stump inspires their legislation with its own windiness and falsity. Yet we tolerate the Whigs! Radical members vote with them, or do not vote against them; and we are told to respect them as Whigs and as 'gentlemen.'

Far be it from me, to breathe one word against the private character of any member of the Whig party. I have only to speak of them, only to deal with them, only to denounce them as Whigs. They may be 'gentlemen:' I know them not as such. I only know them as a party existing on false pretences, and who throw dust in the eyes of John Bull before they ease him of his purse. I only know them as the advocates of political purity, and the maintainers of electoral corruption. I only know them as the reformers who emasculated the Reform Act; as the cunning intriguers who taxed the Newspaper Press so as to strangle the people's journals in their birth. I only know them as the economists who would, if they could, have imposed a fixed duty on corn, as they imposed a fixed duty on newspapers. I only know them as the employers of spies with a free commission to traffic in the blood of the people; I only know them as the secret

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