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    fjrst evangelists have not recorded a single sentence of the discourses of our Lord which occur in the gospel of John from the second ta the end of the seventeenth chapter . Will their silence then be

    fatal to every argument drawn from those discourses in support of any doctrine contained in them ? Or do they contain no important doctrines ? The doctrine of a general resurrection of the

    dead and a future judgment is one of the most important and distinguishing doctrines of the Christian dispensation . This doctrine is most clearlv and explicitly

    taught in those discourses ; but where is that doctrine clearly taught in the three first evangelists ? Our Lord ' s reasoning with the Sadducecs , some of our commentators and critics ^ have

    contended , was designed to prove the doctrine of the immortality of the soul , and that of the resurrection only by inference ; and as to the figurative representation in the close of tfoe 25 th of Matthew , stronsr doubts have been

    enteretained by some of its having any relation to that subject . Where then is this important doctrine clearly revealed in those evangelists , and will their siience be fatal to every argument in support of it from the gospel of John ?

    John has recorded at large the promise of our Lord , that he would send the holy spirit down uf > on his disciples alter his ascension into heaven . The discourse

    in which this promis&is contained occupies three whole chapters of his gospel . Neither of the other evangelists records any partof that discourse , or makes any allusion

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    to- the promise of the spirit con ^ tained in it , except in those words of our Lord recorded by Lukef , < fc Behold , f send the promise of

    my Father upon 30 U ; but tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem , until ye be endued with power from on high . ' ' Now should any one contend , that that interposition of the divine power , by which the mission of Jesus , his

    resurrection from the dead and subsequent glory were fully ascertain- * vd and eonfirnied r was a fulfilment of a prediction ami promise of Jesus Christ , a ^ id appeal i / ra proof of it to the > gospel of John , would the silence of the three

    other evangelists res peefi&g it h& fatal to that argument ?\ Thai promise was made to the disciples of Jesus , of whom Matthew was owe , and all the evangelists were witnesses of the fulfilment of it by the gift of

    tongues , by the numerous miracles which were wrought in their presence , a » nd by the rapid spread of the gospel in consequence oi it ; they must therefore have known

    of that promise when they wrote their respective histories * Was it possible then for tforee of those evangelists " knowing the fact , to sit down and write the life 0 $

    so extraordinary a person , and pass it over in total silence ? " Of shall we from their silence , conclude that no such discourse was ever delivered , or any such promise made by Jesus Christ ?

    If Mr . B / s reasoning be just , would it be safe to cite that gospel in support $ > f any one of the ? doctrines of Christianity , except the mere fact of the death ani resurrection of Jesus : for what

    * Sec Hammond , Dod ( fridge , Campbell , &c , f Chap , xxiv . 4 f »

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    380 Mr . Marsonis Dtfence of the Fre-e * istence 0 / Christ .

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), July 2, 1808, page 380, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2394/page/28/