Peter i. 16-18; 1 John i. 1-3. The burden of these passages is summed up in the last one--"That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you." The truth or otherwise of the supernatural events recorded professes thus to rest on the testimony of human eyes and human ears, however divinely guided and enlightened. 9. Assuming, then, that the books of the New Testament were written by those whose names they bear, what is known of the narrators? Their character for honesty and trustworthiness among their neighbours and contemporaries there is no voucher for. Yet, while no one who knew them has left aught on record to their credit, there is nothing to the contrary. True, they themselves confess that neither the miraculous pretensions of Jesus himself, nor their own testimony with reference to the supernatural events of his life, met with any credit from by far the greater part of those living at the time, who had the means of satisfying themselves of their truth or falsehood--means which no one at the present day possesses. The people of Capernaum, consigned by Jesus to hell for unbelief, or his own brothers and sisters, may, for all that any one now can tell, have been as competent and truthful, in every respect, as the publican Matthew, or the fishermen Peter and John. The Roman governors, the Jewish high-priests, Gamaliel and the other rabbis, why are they to be accounted less trustworthy, less able to discern truth from pretence, than Paul and Luke? The following particulars, with reference to its writers, are to be gleaned from the New Testament:-- (1.) Matthew, whose name the first Gospel bears, was a tax-gatherer, sitting at the receipt of custom (Matt. ix. 9), in the thirty-first year of Jesus' life, when he became a follower of Jesus. Whether they knew each other previously is not mentioned. He was alive after the crucifixion, but no separate mention is made of him subsequent to Acts i. 13.