evidences. Now, first, it is indisputable, that the primitive publishers of Christianity wrote books containing an account of the life and doctrine of their master, several of which bore the names of the various books which now constitute the New Testament; and, farther, passages cited from those books by very early writers, are found in the copies now existing of the respective books. Secondly, the early Christians had as good opportunities of satisfying themselves as to the genuineness of these books, as other ancients had with regard to the genuineness of books on other subjects which they received: and since the new religion required considerable renunciations, and exposed its professors to heavy persecutions, it is unreasonable to suppose they would adopt it without a due examination. Thirdly, there were many books issued under the names of the Apostles, which were, notwithstanding, rejected by the primitive Christians; which proves that they were not very open to deception. Fourthly, we do not find that either the Jews or the Heathens, with whom the early Christian apologists were engaged, ever called in question the genuineness of the records to which their attention was called. Fifthly, the books of the New Testament were, in very early times, collected into a distinct volume. Thus, EUSEBIUS says that Quadratus and others, the immediate successors of the apostles, carried the Gospels with them in their travels. MELITO speaks of the Old Testament, as in contradiction to the collection called the New Testament. TERTULLIAN divides the Christian Scriptures into the Gospels and Apostles, and calls the whole volume the New Testament 25.

But, farther, the principal books of the New Testament are quoted, or alluded to, by a series of Christian writers, in regular succession from the apostolic times. IGNATIUS, for example, became bishop of Antioch

25 See on this, and connected subjects, Eusebius, Hist. Eccles. lib. ii. cap. 23; lib. iii. cap. 3, 4. 25. 39; lib. v. cap. 8. 24; lib. vi. cap. 21. 23; lib. vii. cap. 25, &c.

thirty-seven years after Christ's ascension. In his most interesting Epistles are undoubted allusions to the Gospels of Matthew and John, though they are not marked as quotations.

POLYCARP, who had been taught by the Apostles, and conversed with many who had seen Christ, has nearly forty allusions to the New Testament in one short epistle, several of them quoted, without hesitation, as the words of Christ. He obviously quotes from Matthew, Acts, Romans, 1st and 2d Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, 1st and 2d Thessalonians, 1st and 2d Timothy, 1st Peter, and 1st John.

JUSTIN MARTYR, who died at latest about the year 163, has several distinct and copious extracts from the Gospels and the Acts: and by his calling Jesus Christ the Son of God and “ Apostle," which is no where done in Scripture but in Hebrews iii. 1, it would seem that he was acquainted with that Epistle. In all his works there are but two instances in which he refers to any thing, as said or done by Christ, which is not related in the Gospels now extant. All his references suppose the books notorious, and that there were no other accounts of Christ received and credited. He also says expressly, that the "Memoirs of the Apostles (which elsewhere he calls the Gospels) are read in public worship."

HEGESIPPUS, a converted Jew, who flourished thirty years after Justin, says, that in his journey from Palestine to Rome," in every city the same doctrine was taught, which the law, and the prophets, and the LORD teacheth."

POTHINUS, bishop of Lyons about 170, then ninety years old, sent an epistle to Asia containing an account of the sufferings of that Church. In this epistle he makes exact references to the Gospels of Luke and John, and to the Acts of the Apostles.

IRENEUS, successor to Pothinus, and who asserts that he had seen Polycarp," gives positive testimony to most of the books of the New Testament. He does not, however, quote Jude: but from the book of Revelation he makes frequent and large quotations. He

asserts, that the story which the Gospels exhibit is that which the Apostles told, and that the Gospels were written, " as the foundation and pillar of our faith." He then describes the authors, traces the origin, and defends the genuineness of their histories. He affirms also, that in his time there were four, and only four Gospels, which by his references appear to be those we now have 26.

These persons, it should be remarked, though their

26 Words can scarcely be framed to declare more clearly the authenticity of the four Gospels, than the following from the Third Book of Irenæus, against Heresies:-" We have not received," says this Father," the knowledge of the way of our salvation by any other than those by whom the Gospel has been brought to us; which Gospel they first preached, and afterwards by the will of God committed to writing, that it might be for time to come the foundation and pillar of our faith. For after our Lord rose from the dead, and they (the Apostles) were endued from above with the power of the Holy Ghost coming down upon them, they received a perfect knowledge of all things. They then went forth to all the ends of the earth, declaring to men the blessing of heavenly peace, having all of them, and every one alike, the Gospel of God. Matthew then, among the Jews, wrote a Gospel in their own language, while Peter and Paul were preaching the Gospel at Rome, and founding a church there. And after their exit (death, or departure), Mark also, the disciple and interpreter of Peter, delivered to us in writing the things that had been preached by Peter and Luke, the companion of Paul, put down in a book the Gospel preached by him (Paul). Afterwards John, the disciple of the Lord, who also leaned upon his breast, he likewise published a Gospel while he dwelt at Ephesus, in Asia. And all these have delivered to us, that there is one God, the Maker of the heaven and the earth, declared by the law and the prophets, and one Christ, the Son of God." "The Word," says he again, "the former of all things, who sits upon the cherubim and upholdeth all things, having appeared unto men, has given us a Gospel of a fourfold character, but joined in one spirit.-The Gospel according to John, declares his primary and glorious generation from the Father, In the beginning was the Word.-But the Gospel according to Luke being of a priestly character, begins with Zacharias the priest offering incense to God.-Matthew relates his generation, which is according to man, The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the Son of David, the Son of Abraham.-Mark begins from the prophetic spirit which came down from above to men, saying, The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, as it is written in Esaias the prophet." Adv. Hæres. lib. iii. c. 11, et apud Grabe, p. 221; vide Lardner's Credibility, vol. ii. p. 159, edit. Kippis.

testimonies concur, lived in countries remote from one another. Ignatius flourished at Antioch; Polycarp at Smyrna; Justin Martyr, in Syria; Pothynus and Irenæus, in France.

ATHENAGORAS, who lived between 166 and 178, and before his conversion was an Athenian philosopher, wrote an able Apology for Christianity, which he addressed to the emperors Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, and Lucius Commodus. In this, and in his discourse on the Resurrection, he quotes Matthew, Luke, John, Acts, Romans, 1st and 2d Corinthians, Galatians, and 1st Timothy. He seems also to refer to passages in James, 2d Peter, and Revelation.

TERTULLIAN, presbyter of Carthage, flourished at the end of the second and beginning of the third century. In his works, which are numerous and still well known, he expressly quotes all the books of the New Testament, except James, the second epistle of Peter, and the third of John. It has been remarked, that there are more quotations from the New Testament in his writings, than from the various writings of TULLY in all the ancient books in the world. This writer intimates, that the actual autographs of the Apostolic writings, or at least some of them, were preserved till the age in which he lived, and were then to be seen 27.

After Tertullian, the successive, though in part cotemporaneous writers, HIPPOLYTUS, Origen, GREGORY, DIONYSIUS, CYPRIAN, ARNOBIUS, &c. all of whom furnish strong and decided testimonies, bring us to the time of EUSEBIUS, who flourished about the year 315, and was the most accurate historian among the ancient Christian writers. He mentions it as a fact well known, and asserted by Origen and others, his predecessors, that the four Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, the Epistles of St. Paul, one of Peter, and one of

27 Age jam, qui voles curiositatem melius exercere in negotio salutis tuæ, percurre Ecclesias Apostolicas, apud quas ipsæ adhuc cathedræ Apostolorum suis locis præsident, apud quas ipsæ Authenticæ Literæ eorum recitantur. De Præscript, adversus Hæreticos.

John, were UNIVERSALLY received by the Church. He says Origen calls them ευαγγελια αναντίρρητα and ομολογέμενοι, as not being able to find that they had ever been disputed. And, though the Acts are not expressly mentioned by Origen in this catalogue, Eusebius himself declares that he has no scruple concerning that book; nay, even Origen, in another place, mentions the Acts as written by Luke, and pays the same regard to them as to the other books of the New Testament. Origen, in fact, quotes from twenty-nine books of the Old Testament, from all in the New but the Epistle to Philemon, 2 John, and Jude; and his quotations correspond very accurately with our present text. As to those seven books of the New Testament, i. e. the Epistle to the Hebrews, the Epistle of James, the 2d of Peter, the 2d and 3d of John, Jude, and the Revelation, which had been disputed, and were therefore called by Eusebius avriλeyouevo; even he asserts, that they were at length introduced into the Canon, that is, into the number of those books which Christians regard as the rule of their faith and practice, and which they distinguish from other books written by persons whom they thought less eminently under the divine direction, whatever their sanctity might be 28.

From the time of Eusebius, the works of Christian

28 Euseb. Eccles. Hist. 1. iii. c. xxv. Jerom also affirms that the Epistle to the Hebrews" has been received as the Apostle Paul's not only by the eastern churches, but by all the ancient churches." Besides this, let it be remarked, that St. Peter's reference in his 2d Epistle, iii. 15, 16, is, evidently, to the Epistle to the Hebrews. Bishop Kidder has an observation relative to this epistle, richly worth transcribing :-"Of all the books of the New Testament, I know not any, where the mystical senses of the passages of the Old Testament, and applications of them to the Messias (current among the Jews), are so frequent as in the Epistle to the Hebrews. This is a probable argument (independent of all others) that it was written by St. Paul; who, having been brought up by Gamaliel, a famous doctor, may be presumed to be well versed in the mystical sense of the places of the Old Testament. And he might use the greater liberty in this way, because he wrote to the Hebrews, who were much used to that way of interpretation, and were best able to judge