the time in which they were given to the world as possessed of divine authority. They were spoken of as “ divine oracles, the Scriptures of the Lord." Secondly, They were at a very early period read and expounded in the assemblies of Christians. Justin Martyr, in the account which he gave to the emperor (about 140) of the worship of the Christians, observes, that "the memoirs of the apostles or writings of the prophets are read, according as the time allows." Thirdly, In the primitive ages of the church translations of the sacred writings were made into different languages. One of these, the old Syriac, is as early as the first century. Fourthly, The church was agreed as to what really were the genuine and authentic books of the New Testament. The earliest catalogue of these books, namely, that which was furnished by Origen, exactly accords with our New Testament list. Tertullian, who was born about the middle of the second century, has long quotations from nearly all the books of the New Testament: and, as Lardner has remarked, the quotations from that small volume 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. He quotes from the writings of the New Testament as books universally received as genuine and authentic. Fifthly, Heretics admitted their genuineness and authenticity as well as the orthodox; and both appealed to them in their controversies.

The genuineness of the books of the New Testament is evinced "by citations from them in writings belonging to a period immediately contiguous to that in which they were published; by the distinguished regard paid by early Christians to the authority of these books (which regard was manifested by their collecting of them into a volume, appropriating to that volume titles of peculiar respect, translating them into various languages, digesting into harmonies, writing commentaries upon

them, and, still more conspicuously, by the reading of them in their public assemblies in all parts of the world); by a universal agreement with respect to these books, while doubts were entertained concerning some others; by contending sects appealing to them; by the early adversaries of the religion not disputing their genuineness, but, on the contrary, treating them as the depositaries of the history upon which the religion was founded; by many formal catalogues of these, as of certain and authoritative writings, published in different and distant parts of the Christian world; lastly, by the absence or defect of the above-cited topics of evidence, when applied to any other histories of the same subject.'

CHAPTER IV.

THE CONSISTENCY OF THE SCRIPTURES WITH THEMSELVES, AND WITH CONTEMPORARY AUTHORS.

1. THERE are two circumstances by which the Scriptures are characterized, which greatly aid us in deciding the question of their genuineness and authenticity. First, A great portion of these writings consists of a narrative of facts, of a history which is continued with few interruptions from the creation of man till the time of Malachi the last of the prophets, and from the birth of Christ till the diffusion of Christianity, and the formation and enlargement of the Christian church. As the doctrines contained in the Old Testament are closely connected with its history, so the doctrines contained in the New are confirmed by a reference to the facts narrated in the Jewish and Christian revelations. This is a peculiarity which exclusively

* Paley's Evidences, vol. i. p. 307.

belongs to Scripture. Of no other religion which has ever offered itself to the attention of men could its truth be inferred from a consistent narrative of facts. Mohammedanism will not abide this test. But if we admit the truth of the history of the Jewish nation, and of the Christian religion and church, as recorded in the Scriptures, it will be impossible to deny the divine origin of the religion therein taught.

2. For it is obvious, that God alone could have brought to pass the events which the Bible records. We have therefore, in confirmation of the truth of the doctrines which these events were designed to convey, not merely the miracles which were wrought directly in attestation of the doctrines, but the whole series of miraculous interpositions narrated in the Scripture history. And then, by this method of communicating religious instruction, the means of confirming truth, or of detecting error, are greatly enlarged. The adoption of a method of conveying divine knowledge, so admirably adapted to men of all ranks, and all ages of the world, and which furnishes infallible means of exposing falsehood, is a strong presumption of the truth of that system of which it is characteristic. The religion of the Bible is so closely interwoven with the history of the Bible,-the former is so necessarily connected with the latter,-that if we can prove the truth of the Scripture narrative, we in fact establish the divine origin of the religion founded upon it.

3. Secondly, The other circumstance which greatly aids us in deciding the authenticity of the sacred writings, is the number of persons concerned in their composition. The Bible is a collection of books written at different times by different individuals. The New Testament is the work

of eight different authors, "who wrote without any appearance of concert, who published in different parts of the world, and whose writings possess every evidence, both internal and external, of being independent productions. Had only one author exhibited the same minute accuracy

of allusion, it would have been esteemed a very strong evidence of his antiquity. But when we see so many authors exhibiting such a well-sustained and almost unexcepted accuracy through the whole of their varied and distinct narratives, it seems difficult to avoid the conclusion, that they were either the eyewitnesses of their own history, or lived about the period of its accomplishment."Bearing these two important considerations in mind, we shall now direct our attention to the internal evidence of the genuineness and authenticity of Scripture.

4. (I.) The books of Scripture are consistent in regard to style, language, and other particulars, with the alleged character of the writers. That this is the case with the writers of the Old Testament is obvious to every one who is competent to read their compositions in the tongue in which they wrote. The eight persons who were the authors of the several books of the New Testament, were Jews, and witnesses of the events which they record. Accordingly, throughout their writings there are numerous allusions to the rites of the Jewish religion-to the phraseology of the Old Testament Scriptures-to the modes of thinking, and forms of expression, common among the Jews,-and to times, places, and persons which, on the supposition of the truth of their history, must have been known to them. They wrote like persons who were themselves eyewitnesses of the events which they record.

5. The language, too, in which they wrote was Greek; but Hebraic-Greek, that is, the Greek language intermixed with Hebrew and Syriac idioms,-tongues which were at that time spoken by the Jews of Palestine. It is the dialect which persons would have used who had been educated in a country where Chaldee or Syriac was the vernacular tongue, and whose knowledge of the Greek language was acquired. Thus, an Englishman who spoke or wrote French, could scarcely escape the introduction of some Anglicisms; or, a Highlander, whose native language is Gaelic, and to whom that language is most fami

liar, would be apt to mix Gallicisms with his conversation or writing in English. But the writers of the New Testament were not only Jews, they were also, with one exception, unlearned men, in humble stations; and they would therefore have little opportunity of acquiring, and be little solicitous to acquire, exemption from the idiomatic phraseology of their native dialect. We find, accordingly, that the language of the New Testament is such as we might expect from persons in these circumstances; and not only so, but such as could not have been used by persons in a different situation from that of the apostles and evangelists; unless, as Bishop Marsh observes, some oriental dialect had been familiar to the persons who wrote the several books of the New Testament, they would not have been able to write that particular kind of Greek by which those books are distinguished from every classic author. Nor would this kind of language have appeared in the several books of the New Testament, even though the writers had lived in Judea, unless they had lived also in the same age with the apostles and evangelists. Judea itself could not have produced in the second century the compositions which we find in the New Testament. The destruction of Jerusalem, and the total subversion of the Jewish state, introduced new forms and new relations, as well in language as in policy. The language, therefore, of a fabrication attempted in the second century would have borne a different character from that of writings composed in the same country before the destruction of Jerusalem. And even if the dialect of a former age could have been successfully imitated, no inhabitant of Judea in the second century would have made the attempt. The Jews, who remained in that country, will hardly be suspected of such a fabrication; and the only Christians who remained there in the second century were the Nazarenes and the Ebionites. But the Nazarenes and the Ebionites used only one gospel, and that gospel was in Hebrew. They will hardly be suspected therefore of having forged