Here was a Gospel which contained a harmony of the history, moral
teaching, and doctrine of all the four. As we have seen, it contained an
account of the miraculous Birth and Infancy, embodying in one narrative
the facts contained in the first and third Gospels. It contained a
narrative of the events preceding and attending our Lord's Death, far
fuller and more complete than that of any single Gospel in the Canon. It
contained a record of the teaching of Christ, similar to our present
Sermon on the Mount, embodying the teaching scattered up and down in all
parts of SS. Matthew and Luke, and in addition to all this it embodied
the very peculiar tradition, both in respect of doctrine and of history,
of the fourth Gospel.

How could it possibly have happened that a record of the highest value,
on account both of its fulness and extreme antiquity, should have
perished, and have been superseded by four later and utterly unauthentic
productions, one its junior by at least 120 years, and each one of these
deriving from it only a part of its teaching; the first three, for no
conceivable reason, rejecting all that peculiar doctrine now called
Johannean, and the fourth confining itself to reproducing this so-called
Johannean element and this alone? It is only necessary to state this to
show the utter absurdity of the author's hypothesis.

But the marvel is that a person assuming such airs of penetration and
research [63:1] should not have perceived that, if he has proved his
point, he has simply strengthened the evidence for the supernatural, for
he has proved the existence of a fifth Gospel, far older and fuller than
any we now possess, witnessing to the supernatural Birth, Life, Death,
and Resurrection of Jesus.