authorized teachers of our faith. Where do you find a church, or sect, which rejects any of the books which we receive, or receives book that we do not. any However much they may

vary in doctrine or discipline, the dispute is not about the authority, but the interpretation, of the books. This concurrence is remarkable and of great weight, especially as it seems to have been the result of private and free inquiry; for we have no knowledge of any interference of authority in the question before the Council of Laodicea in 363; and this decree did not regulate but declare the public judgment already formed.

The genuineness of our present Gospels as we now find them, (and the same may be affirmed of all the books of the New Testament,) is supported by the substantial sameness of the text in all churches and versions. Take those of the Roman Catholic in English, French, Italian, or what tongue you please, and you will find that they are all derived from what is called the Vulgate, that is, the Latin translation of St. Jerome in the fifth century. Take our own, and it will be found to be nearly the same; it differs in some minute points, because it is taken from the original Greek; and if you ask where that is to be found, we say in the many MSS. of it which are still extant, some of which may be as old as the fourth century. These books having always been regarded as authority, from which there is no appeal, they were quoted from the beginning as now, both in the controversial and instructive writings of Christian divines. Some of course have had occasion, or the inclination, to do this at greater length than others. Dr. Mill says of Origen, that if we had all his works remaining, we should have before us almost the whole text of the Bible; and in those of Tertullian, his contemporary, says Lardner, there are more and larger quotations of the small volume of the New Testament, than of all the works of Cicero, by writers of all characters for several ages. Paley justly remarks, that to pursue the detail of proofs throughout, would be to transcribe a great part of Lardner's eleven octavo volumes; and to leave the argument

without proofs, is to leave it without effect; for the persuasion produced by this species of evidence depends upon a view and induction of the particulars which compose it. To his wellknown Evidences I refer for a perspicuous analysis of it, as extending upward from Eusebius beyond Irenæus, to the immediate followers of the Apostles; and upon the theory here maintained it may be carried up to the inspired writers themselves, making Luke bear testimony to Matthew and Mark, and both Luke and Mark to Matthew. These writings are equally accredited by heretics, and by the opponents of Christianity; for the emperor Julian in the fourth century, Porphyry in the third, and Celsus in the second, appeal to the same Scriptures as the orthodox. Books so regarded, which were studied at home, and read out in public, and quoted in controversies, were multiplied both in the original and in translations as early as the second century, so that they became universally known wherever there were Christians, and they were soon found in every province of the Roman empire. It would be therefore an absolute impossibility, at any period, to substitute false gospels for the true, unless we can conceive, that men of different nations, opinions, and languages, that the orthodox heretics and infidels, should all agree to impose upon the world one and the same forgery.

The genuineness of the Gospels having been ascertained, their credibility remains to be established; for, in order to believe the contents of any history, we ought to be satisfied, not only that the person who records it is what he professes to be, but that he has had the opportunity and ability of knowing the truth, and the honesty to relate it. But if these books were written by the persons, and at the time asserted, we may say with Lardner, that their contents must be true; and if they be true, that Christianity is a divine revelation; for if the things therein related to have been done by Jesus and his followers, by virtue of powers derived from him, do not prove a person to come from God, and that his doctrine is true and divine, nothing can.

It has been frequently shown, that the credibility of the

New Testament, though from the nature of the case it cannot be demonstrated, has been proved by moral evidence, which is quite as satisfactory; and that this is more abundant and complete than can be brought in support of any other work. Two of the Evangelists were immediate and the others were competent witnesses of the facts which they attest, and upon which Christianity is founded. They were neither enthusiasts nor fanatics, and therefore could not be deceived; their piety, integrity, disinterestedness, and their sacrifice of their earthly prospects, and their sufferings, are a guarantee that they would not wish to deceive others, and could have no inducement to make the attempt. We might safely accept from men of this character even a narrative intermixed with miracles; but as our hopes are to be built upon what they record, and our conduct to be regulated by their testimony, it is, if not necessary, certainly desirable, that they should be secured against the possibility of error. In modern times, there have been Christians who deny the inspiration of the Bible, and maintain, that allowing the authors to be left to the use of their own faculties, without any supernatural assistance, we have sufficient grounds for believing the accuracy of their report. The evidence may be sufficient to claim our assent, and to render disbelief blameable; still they must concede, that it would be more satisfactory to know that the record which contains the dogmas of our faith, and the history of our Saviour and his Apostles, is the word of God. Such has been from the beginning the belief of the Church, and from this position we deduce the grand Protestant principle of the sufficiency of holy Scripture; so that, to use the language of the sixth Article, "whatsoever is not read therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not to be required of any man, that it should be believed as an article of the Christian faith." The inspiration of the whole of the Old Testament stands upon the authority of St. Paul, who assures Timothy, 2 Ep. iii. 16, that as such it is profitable, able to make the reader wise unto salvation, and to furnish thoroughly unto all good works the Christian minister; and almost every book of it has been cited, as Scripture, by our Lord or his Apostles. Arguing from analogy,

we may fairly affirm, that inspiration may also be predicated of the New, especially when we know that our Saviour promised the Holy Spirit, to guide the Apostles into all the truth, and to bring whatsover he had said unto them to their remembrance. As to Paul's Epistles, he himself asserts, in almost every one, that he speaks by the Spirit of God. St. John says, "We are of God; he that knoweth God, heareth us ;" and St. Peter, who writes with the authority of one who had been an eye-witness of his Lord's majesty, when with him in the holy mount, classes Paul's Epistles with the other Scriptures. Of the inspiration then of this important part of the New Testament, no doubt ought to be entertained; and Michaelis allows, that the two Gospels written by Apostles, were also inspired compositions. Mark and Luke he considers as entitled to rank no higher than other trustworthy historians; the former has so little matter peculiar to him, that the question of his inspiration is of subordinate importance; but since he and Luke convey to us the authority of Apostles, there seems no reason for regarding what Peter and Paul acknowledged as true, as less valuable or certain, than what Matthew and John have recorded.

Inspiration is used by divines in two senses, for that immediate suggestion of the Deity which makes discoveries to the mind, which it could not otherwise have known, and dictates sometimes the very words in which they are to be communicated to others; and for that superintending guidance which leaves an author to express himself in his own way, and merely watches over him to secure him from error. The Epistles to the seven Asiatic Churches, in which St. John was only the secretary of Christ, is an instance of the first kind; but for the historical books we only claim the lower degree of inspiration. And this will admit of imperfections in style and method; "for if," as Dr. Doddridge observes, "such works are not intended as exact standards for oratory, but only to teach us truth in order to its having a proper influence on our temper and actions; such human imperfections as may mingle with it would no more warrant our rejecting it, than the want of a ready utterance or a musical voice would excuse our disregard

of a person who should bring us competent evidence of his being a messenger from God to us." "We believe then that the Spirit of God directed the Apostles not only in their addresses to their contemporaries, but in their Epistles, which were meant as a legacy to the Church for ever; and that each Evangelist was guided to select and omit as would best suit his immediate object in writing, and the edification of believers to the end of time. Every line, therefore, of the New Testament we believe to be stamped with unerring truth, and to be the voice of God speaking in the language of men "."

SECTION IV.

On the Text of the Gospels.

THE arguments which establish the genuineness and authenticity of the books of the New Testament, are no less satisfactory in proving the substantial integrity of the text. In writings so highly valued, read by many at home, and heard by more in the congregation, and existing in so many distant places in manuscripts and versions, it is hard to conceive that important variations could ever have been generally introduced. If the text had been corrupted by negligence or design in one country, its falsifications would have been detected by the copies of another. Let it be observed, however, that it is only the substantial integrity that is maintained; the absolute identity of the most approved manuscripts with the autograph of the original authors, is an untenable position. In fact, the Bible has been left by Providence to the care of fallible men; and it is now allowed, that no one perfect copy of either Old or New Testament is extant, and that the text must be collected from a critical examination of all.

The more copies are multiplied, and the more numerous the transcripts and translations from the originals, the more

a Rennel in reply to Hone.

E