IV.

MATT. ix. 9.-"And as Jesus passed forth from thence, he saw a man named Matthew, sitting at the receipt of custom : and he saith unto him, Follow me; and he arose and followed him. And it came to pass, as Jesus sat at meat in the house, behold many publicans and sinners came and sat down with him."

How natural for a man speaking of a transaction which concerned himself, to forget for a moment the character of the historian, and to talk of Jesus sitting down in the house; without telling his readers whose house it was! How natural for him not to perceive that there was vagueness and obscurity in a term, which to himself was definite and plain! Accordingly we find St. Mark and St. Luke, who deal with the same incident as historians, not as principals, using a different form of expression. "And as he passed by," says St. Mark, " he saw Levi, the son of Alpheus, sitting at the receipt of custom, and said unto him, Follow me and he arose and followed him.

And it came to pass, that as Jesus sat at meat in his house," ii. 15.

"And Levi," says St. Luke, "made him a great feast in his own house," v. 29.

It may be further remarked, that a number of publicans sat down with Jesus and his disciples upon this occasion; a fact for which no reason is assigned, but for which we discover a very good reason in the occupation which St. Matthew had followed.

I think the odds are very great against the probability of a writer preserving consistency in trifles like these, were he only devising a story. I can scarcely imagine that such a person would hit upon the phrase "in the house," as an artful way of suggesting that the house was in fact his own, and himself an eye-witness of the scene he described; still less, that he would refine yet further, and make the company assembled there to consist of publicans, in order that the whole picture might be complete and harmonious.

V.

AKIN to this is my next instance* of consistency without design. Matt. x. 2. "Now the names of the twelve apostles are these: the first Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother; James, the son of Zebedee, and John his brother; Philip and Bartholomew; Thomas, and Matthew the publican; James, the son of Alpheus, and Lebbeus, whose surname was Thaddeus: Simon the Canaanite, and Judas Iscariot, who also betrayed him."

This order, as far as regards Thomas and Matthew, is inverted in St. Mark and St. Luke. "Philip and Bartholomew, and Matthew and Thomas," is the succession of the names in those two Evangelists, (Mark, iii. 18. Luke, vi. 15,) and by neither of them is the odious, but distinctive, appellation of "the publican" added. This difference, however, in St. Matthew's catalogue, from that given by St. Mark and St. Luke, is precisely such as

* In this argument I am indebted to Nelson, (Festivals and Fasts, p. 229,) who advances it, however, for a different end, to prove the humility, not the veracity of St. Matthew.

might be expected from a modest man when telling his own tale: he places his own name after that of a colleague who had no claims to precedence, but rather the contrary; and, fearful that its obscurity might render it insufficient merely to announce it, and, at the same time, perhaps, not unwilling to inflict upon himself an act of self-humiliation, he annexes to it his former calling, which was notorious at least, however it might be unpopular. I should not be disposed to lay great stress upon this example of undesigned consistency were it a solitary instance, but when taken in conjunction with so many others, it may be allowed a place; for, though the order of names and the annexed epithet might be accidental, yet it must be admitted, that they would be accounted for at least as well by the veracity of the narrative.

VI

MATT. xii. 46.-"While he yet talked, behold his mother and his brethren stood without, desiring to speak with him."

WHAT his mother's communication might be, the Evangelist does not record. It seems to

have been made privately and apart, and was probably not overheard by any of his followers. But, in the next chapter, St. Matthew very undesignedly mentions, that "when he was come into his own country, he taught them in the synagogue," xiii. 54. Hence then we see, that the interview with his mother and brethren was shortly succeeded by a visit to their town. The visit might, indeed, have nothing to do with the interview, nor does St. Matthew hint that it had any thing whatever to do with it, (for then no argument of veracity, founded upon the undesigned coincidence of the two facts, could have been here advanced,) but still there is a fair presumption that the visit was in obedience to his mother's wish, more especially as the disposition of the inhabitants of Nazareth, which must have been known to Christ, was unfit for his doing there any mighty works.

VII.

THE death of Joseph is nowhere either mentioned, or alluded to, by the Evangelists; yet, from all four of them, it may be indirectly inferred to have happened whilst Christ was yet alive; a circumstance in which, had they been