They were wrought at Jerusalem, under the eyes of the rulers, who did their utmost to detect them, and could not; but in frenzied despair, plotted to kill Lazarus.

How different from the frequently vague and wholesale statements of the other gospels concerning events which happened where no enemy was watching to expose delusion! many of them in distant and uncertain localities.
But it became the more needful to ask; How was it that the other writers omitted to tell of such decisive exhibitions?
Were they so dull in logic, as not to discern the superiority of these?
Can they possibly have known of such miracles, wrought under the eyes of the Pharisees, and defying all their malice, and yet have told in preference other less convincing marvels?
The question could not be long dwelt on, without eliciting the reply: "It is necessary to believe, at least until the contrary shall be proved, that the three first writers either had never heard of these two miracles, or disbelieved them." Thus the account rests on the unsupported evidence of John, with a weighty presumption against its truth.
When, where, and in what circumstances did John write?
It is agreed, that he wrote half a century after the events; when the other disciples were all dead; when Jerusalem was destroyed, her priests and learned men dispersed, her nationality dissolved, her coherence annihilated;--he wrote in a tongue foreign to the Jews of Palestine, and for a foreign people, in a distant country, and in the bosom of an admiring and confiding church, which was likely to venerate him the more, the greater marvels he asserted concerning their Master.

He told them miracles of firstrate magnitude, which no one before had recorded.

Is it possible for me to receive them _on his word_, under circumstances so conducive to delusion, and without a single check to ensure his accuracy?
Quite impossible; when I have already seen how little to be trusted is his report of the discourses and doctrine of Jesus.
But was it necessary to impute to John conscious and wilful deception?
By no means absolutely necessary;--as appeared by the following train[23] of thought.

John tells us that Jesus promised the Comforter, _to bring to their memory_ things that concerned him; oh that one could have the satisfaction of cross-examining John on this subject! Let me suppose him put into the witness-box; and I will speak to him thus: "O aged Sir, we understand that you have two memories, a natural and a miraculous one: with the former you retain events as other men; with the latter you recall what had been totally forgotten.