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by companions or disciples of apostles, Mark and Luke. These gospels, he says, were read and expounded in the solemn assemblies of the Christians, as the books of the Old Testament were; and as they had been before in the Jewish synagogues. Whether any other books of the New Testament were so read, he does not inform us. This reading of the gospels, he mentions in his first Apology to Antoninus the Pious. He must have been well assured of the truth of what he says; and, it is likely, knew it to be the ordinary custom of the Christian churches he had visited in his travels. If it had not been a general practice, or had obtained in some few places only, he must have spoken more cautiously, and made use of some limitations and exceptions. For if there were Christian churches, in which the "memoirs" he speaks of, were not read; upon enquiry made by the emperor, or his order, he had run the hazard of being convicted of a design to impose upon all the majesty of the Roman empire; and that not in an affair incidentally mentioned, but in the conduct and worship of his own people, concerning whom he professeth to give the most just information. The general reading of the gospels, as a part of divine worship at that time, about the year 140, or not very long after, is not only a proof that they were well known, and allowed to be genuine, but also that they were in the highest esteem. These gospels were not concealed. Justin appeals to them in the most public manner, and they were open to all the world; read by Jews and others."

The next we shall notice is Irenæus, who succeeded the martyr Pothynus in the bishoprick of Lyons, about the year 170, or perhaps a few years later. In his youth he was the disciple of Polycarp, therefore his testimony is of great value. He wrote many works, but his five books against heresies are all that remain. In these, he has shown himself to be well acquainted with the heathen authors, and the absurd and intricate notions of the heretics, as well as the Scriptures of the Old Testament. The books of the New Testament he quotes as the Divine Oracles, the Scriptures of the Lord, and his works show that he had an intimate knowledge of the gospels, the acts, and the epistles. Concerning the gospels he says: "We have not received the knowledge of the way of our salvation, by any others than by 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 that our Lord arose from the dead, and they (the apostles) were endowed from above with the power of

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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 blessings 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, Mark, also the disciple and interpreter of 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, likewise published a gospel while he dwelt at Ephesus in Asia." In this passage we have most satisfactory evidence that the gospels were written and published during the first age of Christianity, and by the persons whose names they bear, and from one who lived within a century of the apostolic age, and possessed ample means of ascertaining the truth upon this subject. In the language of Paley: "The correspondence in the days of Irenæus, of the oral and written tradition, and the deduction of the oral tradition through various channels from the age of the apostles, which was then lately passed, and, by consequence, the probability that the books truly delivered what the apostles taught, is inferred also with strict regularity from another passage of his works. The tradition of the apostles,' this father saith, hath spread itself over the whole universe; and all they who search after the sources of truth will find this tradition to be held sacred in every church. We might enumerate all those who have been appointed bishops to these churches by the apostles, all their successors down to our days. It is by this uninterrupted succession, that we have received the tradition which actually exists in the church, as also the doctrines of truth, as it was preached by the apostles.' The reader will observe upon this, that the same Irenæus, who is now stating the strength and uniformity of the tradition, we have before seen recognizing in the fullest manner, the authority of the written record; from which we are entitled to conclude that they were then conformable to each other." *

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Irenæus, in one of his works, attempts to show that there could be neither more nor fewer than four gospels. With his fanciful argument we have nothing to do; yet it is evident from the position itself, that four, and only four gospels, were at that time publicly read and acknowledged. He mentions how Matthew begins his gospel, how Mark begins and ends his, and their supposed reasons for so doing.

Paley's
's Evidences, ix. sec. 1.

He enumerates at length the several passages of Christ's history in Luke, which are not found in any of the other evangelists. He states the particular design with which John composed his gospel, and accounts for the doctrinal declarations which precede the narrative. To the book of the Acts of the Apostles, its author, and credit, the testimony of Irenæus is not less explicit. Referring to the account of St. Paul's conversion and vocation in the ninth chapter of that book, "Nor can they," says he, meaning the parties with whom he argues, "show that he is not to be credited, who has related to us the truth with the greatest exactness." In another place he has actually collected the several texts in which the writer of the history is represented as accompanying St. Paul; which leads him to deliver a summary of almost the whole of the last twelve chapters of the book. And, in an author, thus abounding in references and allusions to Scripture, there is not one to any apocryphal Christian writing whatever. "This," says Paley, "is the broad line of distinction between our sacred books, and all others."

Passing over Athenagoras, a philosopher who is said to have been the most polished and eloquent author of Christian antiquity; and Theophilus, bishop of Antioch, the first of whom quoted the gospels of Matthew and John, the epistles to the Romans, and the two epistles to the Corinthians, and the other alluded to the gospels of Matthew and John, the epistle to the Romans, and the epistle to Timothy, we come to Tertullian, a presbyter of the church of Carthage, who was born in the year 160, and died about the year 220. He uniformly recognizes the four gospels, as written by the evangelists, distinguishing Matthew and John as apostles, and Mark and Luke as apostolic men. His works are filled with quotations by name, and with long extracts from all the writings of the New Testament, except the epistle of James, the second epistle of Peter, and the second and third epistles of John. But as he did not profess to give a catalogue of the books of the New Testament-the fact that he neither quoted nor mentioned these books, is no evidence that they did not then form a part of the sacred Canon.

Dr. Lardner has observed, that the quotations from the small volume of the New Testament by Tertullian, are both longer and more numerous than the quotations are from all the works of Cicero, in writers of all characters for several ages. From what is said in his works, it appears that so early as his time there was a Latin version of the New Testament, and also, that the Scriptures were open to the inspection of all the world, both Christians and heathens.

In the following passage, quoted from his writings by Lardner, Tertullian speaks emphatically of the apostolical epistles, and of the testimony then borne to their authenticity and genuineness. "Well, if you be willing to exercise your curiosity profitably in the business of your salvation, visit the apostolical churches, in which the very chairs of the apostles still preside in their own places, in which their very authentic letters are recited, sounding forth the voice, and representing the countenance of each of them. Is Achaia near you? you have Corinth. If you are not far from Macedonia, you have Philippi, you have Thessalonica. If you can go to Asia, you have Ephesus. But if you are near to Italy, you have Rome, from whence you may also be easily satisfied." There are now existing manuscript copies of the New Testament, older by many centuries, than the original writings then were, and their preservation for a century and a half is not to be wondered at when the great veneration in which they must have been held is considered. Copies of them, from what has been already stated by Tertullian, were doubtless to have been seen in every other church, as quoted by every Christian writer, and transcribed into Latin, and, as intimated by him, they were thus used by the multitude. But all that was then necessary to enable any one to see the chairs of the apostles standing in their own places, and to hear their very authentic letters recited, was to visit the churches to which they had been respectively addressed.

Clemens of Alexandria was contemporary with Tertullian. He gives an account of the order in which the four gospels were written, and he quotes almost all the books of the New Testament. In one place, after mentioning a particular circumstance, he adds these remarkable words; "We have not this passage in the four gospels delivered to us, but in that, according to the Egyptians, which puts a marked distinction between the four gospels, and all the other histories, or pretended histories of Christ." In another part of his work, the perfect confidence with which he received the gospels, is signified by these words; "That this is true appears from hence, that it was written in the gospel according to St. Luke." And again, "I need not use many words, but only to allege the evangelic voice of the Lord."*

The satisfactory testimony of Irenæus, Clemens, and Tertullian to the genuineness and authenticity of the New Testament Scriptures will

Paley's Evidences, ch. ix. sect. 1.

be appreciated by an examination of the following table, which gives a list of the quotations contained in each of their writings.

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We now descend to the third century, and passing over a number of Christian writers, such as Julius Africanus, Ammonius, Caius Romanus, Cyprian, and many others, we single out the most learned and laborious of all the Christian fathers who lived during that century, the celebrated Origen of Alexandria, of whose writings, it has been justly observed, that in quantity, they exceeded the most laborious of the Greek and Latin authors. He was born in Egypt, A. D. 184, or 185, and died about the year 253. He was held in high estimation, not only among the Christians, but also among the heathen philosophers, some of whom, as Eusebius informs us, dedicated their works to him, and submitted them to his revisal. "He wrote a threefold exposition of all the books of the Scripture, viz, Scholia, or short notes, tomes or extensive commentaries, in which he employed all his learning, critical, sacred, and profane, and a variety of homilies and

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