favoured with the teaching of Paul, became much more general among the Gentiles, who knew little or nothing of Jewish ceremonies. That the writer of this Gospel had such disciples chiefly in view, is very plain to every reader of discernment.

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8. THOUGH Simplicity of manner is common to all our Lord's historians, there are evident differences in the simplicity of one compared with that of another. One thing very remarkable in John's style, is an attempt to impress important truths more strongly on the minds of the readers, by employing, in the expression of them, both an affirmative proposition, and a negative. Thus : All things were made by it (the word), and without it not a single creature was made. He acknowledged and denied not, but acknowledged". Pleonasms are very frequent in this Gospel "1: This man came as a witness to testify concerning the light: tautologies also, and repetitions. Thus it follows 22: He was not the light, but came to testify concerning the light. Again 23: In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God. This was in the beginning with God. See also the verses marked in the margin 24.

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9. HEBRAISMS are to be found in all the Evangelists; though it may be remarked, that some

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abound more with one sort of Hebraism, and others with another. A Hebrew idiom, very frequent with this writer, is the repetition or introduction of the personal pronoun in cases wherein it is perfectly redundant. Thus 25: Ep' ov av iồng to пvevμa xɑταβαινον και μενον επ' αυτον, literally, On whomsoever thou shalt see the Spirit descending, and remaining upon him. And ", Ου εγω εκ ειμι άξιος να λυσω αυτό τον ιμαντα τε υποδήματος. Here both the pronouns ou and avrov are employed in relation to the same person, an idiom which it is hardly possible to express intelligibly in a modern language. As to other particularities in this writer, I shall only observe, that the conjunction xau is not so frequently used by John for coupling sentences, as by the rest. The introduction of any incident with the phrase nai ɛyɛveto, generally rendered in the common translation, and it came to pass; in which the verb is used impersonally, though common in the other Gospels, never occurs in this.

10. THE introduction of either facts or observations, by the adverb d8, behold, is much rarer in this Gospel than in the rest. But in the change (or, as rhetoricians term it, enallage) of the tenses, so frequent with the Hebrews, John abounds more than any other of our Lord's biographers. He is peculiar in the application of some names; as of o 2oyos, the word, and 'o povoyevns, the only-begotten, to the

Lord Jesus Christ, and of o rapaxλnts, the monitor, or, as some render it, the advocate, and others, the comforter, to the Holy Spirit. He is peculiar also in some modes of expression, which, though inconsiderable in themselves, it may not be improper to suggest in passing. Such is his reduplication of the affirmative adverb Auny; for he always says, Αμην αμην λεγω ύμιν, Verily verily I say unto you. It is never used but singly by the rest. Upon the whole, John's style is thought to be more idiomatical, and less conformable to the syntactic order, than that of any other writer in the New Testament. There is none whose manner more bespeaks an author destitute of the advantages which result from letters and education.

§ 11. It is manifestly not without design that he commonly passes over those passages of our Lord's history and teaching, which had been treated at large by the other Evangelists, or, if he touches them at all, he touches them but slightly, whilst he records many miracles which had been overlooked by the rest, and expatiates on the sublime doctrines of the pre-existence, the divinity, and the incarnation of the Word, the great ends of his mission, and the blessings of his purchase. One of the most remarkable passages of our Lord's history, related by all the evangelists except John, is the celebrated prophecy of the destruction of Jerusalem, the Jewish temple, and state, about forty years before it happened. The three other historians published it be

fore the accomplishment, when their narratives could answer two purposes of the utmost importance, one was, to prove in due time, to impartial inquirers, an irrefragable evidence of our Lord's mission; the other, to serve to his disciples not only for the confirmation of their faith, but as a warning how to conduct themselves when the signs of an immediate completion should appear. Now neither of these purposes could be answered by the account of a prediction not written till after its accomplishment, when it might be speciously objected, if conformable, that the terms of the prediction were adjusted to the events; and as a warning, every body must see that it was too late to warn when the danger was past. Providence has disposed matters infinitely better, producing Christians who had the best opportunity to know what their master predicted, to attest the prophecy, many years before there was the remotest appearance of its completion, and a Jewish witness not a friend but an enemy to christianity to attest its fulfilment. Such was the historian Josephus, who probably knew nothing of the prediction; but had the very best opportunity of knowing circumstantially what was accomplished by the Romans, and who, by his faithful and accurate narrative of the facts, has unintentionally rendered an eminent service to the Christian cause. He has shown the exact conformity of those then recent and terrible transactions which he had witnessed, to what our Lord had foretold, and his evangelists recorded at a time when there was not the shadow of any revolution, much

less of such a total overthrow of the country. For an example, on the contrary, of a fact related by John, but omitted by all the rest, the most striking by far is the resurrection of Lazarus, than which none of our Lord's miracles was greater in itself, or more signalized by the attendant circumstances. At first it appears astonishing that an action so illustrious as the resuscitation of a man who had been four days dead and buried, the most public too, in what may be called a suburb of the capital, in open day, the spectators numerous, as the paschal solemnity approached, which always drew an immense concourse to Jerusalem, and (which made it still more remarkable) a little before Christ's crucifixion; circumstances so impressive as to render it morally impossible that a fact so memorable should have escaped any christian historian of the time. But how happily does the circumstance remarked by Grotius, as suggested in the sequel of this evangelist's narrative, remove every appearance of negligence in the sacred penmen, and account in the most rational manner for the profound silence they had observed on this article! A great number of the Jews, says John "7, knowing that Jesus was in Bethany, in the house of Lazarus, flocked thither, not on account of Jesus only, but likewise to see Lazarus whom he had raised from the dead. The chief priests, therefore, determined to kill Lazarus also; because he proved the occasion that many Jews forsook them, and believed

27 xii. 9, 10, 11.

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