vol. ii. p. 743.) yet no objection is from thence
taken to the respective credit of their histories. We have in our own
times, if there were not something indecorous in the comparison, the
life of an eminent person written by three of his friends, in which
there is very great variety in the incidents selected by them; some
apparent, and perhaps some real contradictions; yet without any
impeachment of the substantial truth of their accounts, of the
authenticity of the books, of the competent information or general
fidelity of the writers.
But these discrepancies will be still more numerous, when men do not
write histories, but memoirs: which is, perhaps, the true name and
proper description of our Gospels: that is, when they do not undertake,
nor ever meant to deliver, in order of time, a regular and complete
account of all the things of importance which the person who is the
subject of their history did or said; but only, out of many similar
ones, to give such passages, or such actions and discourses, as offered
themselves more immediately to their attention, came in the way of their
inquiries, occurred to their recollection, or were suggested by their
particular design at the time of writing.
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