The Gospel History [pp. 592-616]

The Gospel History.
With respect to all these ends, it is sufficient that the Harmony be used as a book of reference, and this we take to be its
legitimate use. Its abuse consists in substituting this artificial
arrangement for the gospels in their proper form, in the habitual
reading of the scriptures. This would be inadmissible even if
the narratives were identical in plan and purpose, because their
admission to the canon would still show that they were meant
to be separately used. How much more is this the case when
each has a distinctive character, the unity of which must be
destroyed by mixture with the rest. We have seen reason to
conclude that the gospels are not mere histories but historical
arguments. This is particularly true of John and Matthew.
Each, as a whole, was intended and adapted to produce a definite impression, which can only be marred and falsified by a
mechanical amalgamation.
The necessity of this effect has been exemplified i; English
literature and within a very few years. Few books in our language have acquired greater popularity than Boswell's Life ot
Johnson. However little respect may be felt by the reader for
the writer, the work itself is universally regarded as a masterpiece of personal history. Nay the very defects of the author
contribute to its excellence, by making it as correct a picture of
himself as of his subject. The book has perfect unity. From
the beginning to the end we find the same Johnson and the same
Boswell. After the work had been a favourite of the public
more than forty years, a distinguished public man, of more
reading than good taste, John Wilson Croker, prepared a new
edition, in which all the other histories of Johnson are incorporated piecemeal into Boswell's text. The result is that the
amount of curious information is perhaps more than doubled,
but the charm of the biography is gone; its unity and individuality are utterly destroyed; and the final compound, though
invaluable as a storehouse of facts, is almost unreadable. This
recent and familiar case may serve to illustrate the effects which
must arise from a sheer substitution of the best digested harmony for the four gospels as the Holy Spirit gave them, and
the canon of Scripture has preserved them. Let them still be
read as independent narratives intended to produce their own
distinct impressions, whatever aid we may derive from harmonies in proving their consistency or in expounding their contents.
[OCTOB.ER,
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