98

EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY.

[LECT. IV. Christian evidences the particular burden which it is designed to support.

And thus the simple proposition of the apostle in our text, to which I again advert for an instant in concluding the discourse, will join on with all the links in that mighty chain of proof which binds and sustains the Christian doctrine. The salutation of the apostle with his own hand, as his token in every epistle, will appear only the first of that series of testimonies to the authenticity of the sacred books which we have been considering generally now, and which we shall resume in the next lecture; and on the contemplation of which we may well exclaim, in holy admiration: "Yes, blessed and only Potentate, we praise Thee for handing down to us in thy wonderful providence, the attestations to the divine writings which we trace in every age; we acknowledge the tokens in every epistle and gospel of thy divine word; and we pray for thy grace so to receive and obey thy will, that we may ourselves have the indications of truth in our own hearts and lives, that we may ourselves be faithful witnesses of thy genuine word, that we may ourselves be, as it were, AUTHENTIC EPISTLES, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of Thee, the living God; not on tables of stone, but on fleshly tables of the heart!"

LECTURE V.

THE DIRECT PROOF OF THE AUTHENTICITY OF THE NEW TESTAMENT.

ACTS xxvi. 26.

For the king knoweth of these things, before whom also 1 speak freely; for I am persuaded that none of these things are hidden from him; for this thing was not done in a corner.

WE offered in the last Lecture some general observations by which the argument for the authenticity of the New Testament might be brought down to the plainest understanding. The proofs on which those observations ultimately rest, together with other arguments in support of the same conclusion, are now to be adverted to. Our discourse will, therefore, be of a different character from the preceding; though touching on many of the same topics. We then confined ourselves to a few remarks addressed to the common sense and feelings of men. We now come to a more calm statement of some of the proofs which lie at the foundation of these appeals.

Let me beg your attention.

I. The testimony to our sacred books can be TRACED UP

STEP BY STEP FROM THE PRESENT TIME TO THE DAYS OF THE APOSTLES.

We asserted this in our general observations. How the proof stands will now be seen.

Let us take first our own country. No one can for an instant doubt that the books which we receive in the year 1828, as the genuine writings of the apostles, were so received 300 years before, at the period of Cranmer and Ridley, and the other reformers.

I go back a century and a half from that time, and ask whether they were not acknowledged just as universally in the days of John Wickliffe, in the fourteenth century, who translated these very books into the English language?a The fact is undeniable.

I ascend next to the time of Grosseteste, the celebrated Bishop of Lincoln, and the opponent of Pope Innocent III. in 1240; or to the days of Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury under William Rufus, who wrote a treatise against those who mocked at the inspiration of the scriptures; and I ask, were not the same books universally admitted to be authentic then?

I go up to the reign of Alfred the Great, who founded or restored the University of Oxford, and translated the Old and New Testament into Saxon, in the ninth century. I suppose the very fact of translating our books will be allowed as a proof of the admission of their genuineness.

I find myself next at the age of the Venerable English Presbyter Bede, born in the year 672, whose fame filled the whole Christian world, and who has left comments on the epistles of St. Paul;-from him we come to Gregory the Great in 590, who sent over Augustine and his companions for the conversion of our ancestors, on the footing of the authenticity of the scriptures. This brings us up to the reception of the books by the Christian churches on the Continent through Gregory, Theodoret, and Fulgentius, in the sixth century; St. Austin, Jerome, and Chrysostom, in the fifth; Ambrose, Athanasius, and Eusebius, of the fourth; Cyprian, Origen, and Tertullian, of the third; till we reach Irenæus, (from A.D. 97 to 202,) who was the disciple of Polycarp, the follower of St. John.

(a) Wickliffe died in the year 1384.

Thus the testimony from the present time up to the very days of the apostles, is notorious to all mankind, an unbroken chain, where each link is distinctly visible.

And not only so, but several different series of testimonies may be traced up in the various countries of Christendom; each independent of the rest. One series in Italy, through Gregory up to Clement of Rome, in the first century. A second in France, through Hilary to Irenæus, Bishop of Lyon. A third in Africa, through Fulgentius, Austin, and Cyprian, to Clemens Alexandrinus and Tertullian. A fourth in Syria, through Ephrem Syrus to Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch in 107. A fifth in Asia Minor, through Anatolius and Pamphilus to Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna, martyred in 168. All these witnesses testify, not merely that they received our books from their immediate ancestors, but received them as the authentic writings of their respective authors, acknowledged in all the Christian churches from the age of the apostles, and acted upon from that very time, as the rule of faith and practice. The force of this testimony is irresistible to a fair and candid mind.

II. But I proceed to notice THE PROGRESS of the settleMENT OF THE SACRED CANON, as a further proof of the authenticity of the New Testament.

For if we can discern care and discrimination in the reception of the books of the New Testament; if we find they were gradually admitted from deliberate conviction and as circumstances naturally called for a decision, we shall have a further ground of confidence in the testimonies we have adduced.

The twenty-seven books of the New Testament, composed by eight different authors, during a space of about sixty years, would require some considerable time to reach all the various churches in every part of the known world; es

(b) Born about the year 150.

(c) See Lardner, Less, Michaelis, Paley, &c. for the authorities. To the same authors, and to the admirable and laborious T. H. Horne in particular, I refer for many of the materials which I have employed in the present and following Lectures. (d) The Gospel of St. Matthew was published about the year 38, the revelation of St. John about 96.

pecially considering the poverty of the first Christians, the state of persecution in which they frequently were placed, and the wars which separated kingdoms and nations.

In the fathers therefore of the first age who were contemporaries with the apostles, the references to these books are less formal and less numerous than in the succeeding ones, when education had entwined the language of the New Testament around all the habits and associations of thought in Christians. All the books are not specifically referred to. There is no design in the references made to provide materials of proof for a future age. The testimony is unintentional, incidental, given in the simplicity of the heart for direct practical purposes, and therefore far more decisive to us of the authentic origin of our books, than a professed dissertation would have been. The quotations and allusions, however, in the six apostolical fathers amount to more than two hundred and twenty, and recognize nineteen or twenty of the sacred books.

In the second century the testimony is more express, more full, more in the way of defence of the gospel against heretics or open adversaries. The quotations are So numerous, that a large part of the New Testament might be collected from them. We have thirty-six writers of this age, part of whose works have come down to us. In Justin Martyr (born A. D. 89, died 164) there are about two hundred citations. In Irenæus (A. D. 97-202) "there are (says Dr. Lardner) more and larger quotations from the small volume of the New Testament, than of all the works of Cicero, though of such uncommon excellence for thought and style, in the writers of all characters for several ages." The list of quotations in Tertullian occupy nearly thirty folio pages. The testimony of this age begins also to widen by the public reading of the sacred books in the churches, by the collection of them into volumes, by the construction of harmonies, and towards the close of the century, by translations into other languages, as the Latin and Syriac.

In the third and fourth centuries the progress of the testimony brings us to the settlement of the canon. We have