kind. So that to the question, How ought it to be received by the succeeding generations of the human family? we reply, without hesitation, exactly in the same manner as would have been received those previous revelations of the divine will which were attended with supernatural phenomena. The Bible contains the words of God, though we hear not the voice from heaven that utters them: and every precept therein is equally binding upon the man who, at any period, shall have its meaning and its sanctions presented to his understanding, as it was upon him in the circumstances of whose life the revelation originated, whose ear heard the accents of the voice of God, whose eyes beheld the vision of angels. We have only to consider how a revelation would be received and regarded, by the person to whom it was vouchsafed, and we have the exact measure of the duty of every man regarding the Holy Scriptures. This obligation arises from the circumstances of the case, and is of universal authority. It was as binding upon the apostolic men as upon the men of this generation; and it will be equally binding upon mankind a thousand years hence, (should the present dispensation continue so long,) as it is upon us. The time that may have elapsed between the revelation, and the existence of the individual who is made acquainted with it, is no element of the question. All this is sufficiently apparent, and we never find any difficulty in carrying the argument forward; we can readily comprehend that, if we afford to our children the same religious advantages as we ourselves enjoy, their obligations, as to the mode in which they shall receive the Scriptures and bow to their authority, are exactly the same as our own; and we easily follow it out to any number of succeeding generations. But a difficulty certainly does arise, when we come to pursue these reasonings retrospectively; and the more remote the period to which we carry our enquiry, the more formidable does the difficulty become; until we discuss the mode in which the New Testament Scriptures ought to have been received and interpreted by the apostolic fathers, when it would appear that we have raised a question of considerable intricacy. It is, however, essential to our present enquiry that we should endeavour to enter fully into the merits of it. Let us, then, consider, whether Clement, Barnabas, Ignatius, and Polycarp, (the only apostolic men of whose writings any thing remains to us) had or had not advantages over their successors, whereby they were liberated from that obligation to defer entirely to the authority of the New Testament which we ourselves acknowledge. There are, apparently, two circumstances in which these advantages might have consisted. Of these an obvious one, of which we may suppose them to have been possessed, is the gift of inspiration. If this be the case, the authority of their epistles must, of course, be equal to that of any of the canonical writings; and whatever we find of novelty in them, whether they be new truths or doctrines, or new modes of stating truths or doctrines with which we were already acquainted, we must accept all such as further revelations vouchsafed to their authors. The only remaining circumstance in their favour is that they were the cotemporaries of the first propagators of Christianity, and therefore had the opportunity of listening to the instructions of inspired apostles, and possibly of our Lord himself. From one or other of these they must have derived their advantages, if they really possessed them. The discussion of both will involve questions of great and grave importance, which have already engaged the attention of the Christian church to a considerable extent. It shall be our endeavour in treating them, strictly to confine ourselves to those matters which are indispensable to the subject in hand; upon no occasion to lose sight of it, for the purpose of stating opinions on points in debate: and here, as well as elsewhere, to substantiate the facts upon which we may ground our arguments, by quotations from cotemporary authors; thus availing ourselves rather of the materials which the talents and industry of the learned have provided, than of the opinions and speculations they may themselves have advanced upon them. CHAPTER II. THE WRITINGS OF THE APOSTOLICAL FATHERS WERE NOT INSPIRED. IN denying that the Apostolical Fathers derived any assistance in their writings, from direct inspiration, we are met, at the threshold of the subject, with a circumstance which naturally enough presents itself to the mind as a difficulty of some magnitude. The Epistles of Clement and Barnabas were written from twenty to thirty years before the completion of the New Testament canon, and those of Ignatius and Polycarp a very short time afterwards. Now, of Barnabas, we know that he was for a long period the companion and fellow-labourer of the apostle St. Paul. The constant tradition of the Church regarding Clemens Romanus is, that he was the individual of whom the same apostle informs us, Phil. iv. 3., that his name was in the book of life:-and from the same authority we learn, that Ignatius was ordained bishop of Antioch, and Polycarp of Smyrna, by St. John Theologus. Plainly, therefore, they flourished at the period when the miraculous gifts of the Holy Spirit were bestowed upon the church of Christ:-were not they, as well as the canonical writers, favoured with the gift of inspiration? We can only ob 1 Euseb. Hist. lib. 3. viate this difficulty, by opening a perplexing question ;that of the cessation of miracles. At what precise period the thaumaturgic gifts were withdrawn from the church, and the advance of Christianity was left to the ordinary operations of the Holy Spirit and to the intrinsic powers of its own verity, is a point which has been frequently argued, but upon which no satisfactory conclusion has yet been arrived at. I do not, therefore, presume to offer any opinion of my own upon it, without, in the first instance, laying before the reader the evidence upon which I conceive it to be founded. I gather, from Clement's Epistle to the Corinthians, that, when he wrote, the extraordinary influences of the Holy Spirit were no longer enjoyed by that church: he expressly mentions the schism he rebukes as the occasion of their departure; and all parties appear to have consisidered it as final, for he never once directs them to pray for more than the ordinary influences. There appears to be strong evidence, in the same epistle, that they had likewise ceased from the church of Rome, at whose request it was written. I infer this from his entire silence upon the subject: it would have so powerfully served the writer's purpose as an illustration, that I feel persuaded he would not have failed to take advantage of it, had he been able. This epistle was probably written before the fall of Jerusalem,3 A. D. 71, and certainly after the martyrdom of Peter and Paul, A. D. 66.4 There is the same absence of all allusion to the present existence of miraculous powers in the church, in the Epistle of Barnabas, which appears to have been written 3 Idem, § 23, 41. 2 Clem. Rom. ad Cor. I., § 1, 2. |