religion; the persecution of its followers; the miraculous conversion of Paul; miracles wrought by himself, and alleged in his controversies with his adversaries, and in letters to the persons amongst whom they were wrought; finally, that MIRACLES were the signs of an apostle.* In an epistle bearing the name of Barnabas, the companion of Paul, probably genuine, (1) certainly belonging to that age, we have the sufferings of Christ, his choice of apostles and their number, his passion, the scarlet robe, the vinegar and gall, the mocking and piercing, the casting lots for his coat,+ his resurrection on the eighth, (that is, the first day of the week,)‡ and the commemorative distinction of that day; his manifestation after his resurrection, and lastly his ascension. We have also his miracles generally but positively referred to in the following words: "Finally, teaching the people of Israel, and doing many wonders and signs among them, he preached to them, and showed the exceeding great love which he bare towards them."§ In an epistle of Clement, a hearer of St. Paul, although written for a purpose remotely connected with the Christian history, we have the resurrection of Christ, and the subsequent mission of the apostles, recorded in these satisfactory terms: "The apostles have preached to us from our Lord Jesus Christ from God:-for having received their command, and being thoroughly assured by the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, they went abroad, publishing that according to the law." Again, Heb. xiii. 10. "We have an altar, whereof they have no right to eat which serve the tabernacle." "Truly the signs of an apostle were wrought among you in all patience, in signs, and wonders, and mighty deeds." 2 Cor. xii, 12. (1) The genuineness of this Epistle has also been much disputed. It is quoted often by Clement of Alexandria, and twice by Origen. Eusebius says, that Clement wrote a commentary on it, as also on the Revelation of St. Peter. In another place he reckons it among those which are spurious, by which Lardner understands him to mean only, not canonical. Vossius, Pearson, Cave, Dupin, Archbishop Wake, and Lardner, suppose it to be genuine. Cotelerius inclines to reject it, as do also more decidedly, Laud, Mosheim, Basnage, Jones, Neander, Winer, and many others. The objections against its authenticity, from internal evidence, appear quite decisive. Barnabas was not merely a companion of St. Paul, but a feilow apostle, higher in rank than either Mark or Luke, whose writings are a part of the canon. A letter, really sent by him to any church, could not fail to have been included in the canonical Scriptures. The whole tone of the epistle is unlike that of an apostle of Christ. It is not even clear, from any internal mark, that the writer claimed to be St. Barnabas. It seems most probably to have been written near the close of the first century, by some early Christian, and afterwards ascribed to St. Barnabas, when other more direct forgeries began to appear.-EDITOR. + Ep. Bar., c. vii. the kingdom of God was at hand."* We find noticed, also, the humility, yet the power of Christ,† his descent from Abraham, his crucifixion. We have Peter and Paul represented as faithful and righteous pillars of the church; the numerous sufferings of Peter; the bonds, stripes, and stoning of Paul, and, more particularly, his extensive and unwearied travels. In an epistle of Polycarp, a disciple of St. John, though only a brief hortatory letter, we have the humility, patience, sufferings, resurrection, and ascension of Christ, together with the apostolic character of St. Paul, distinctly recognised.‡ Of this same father we are also assured, by Irenæus, that he (Irenæus) had heard him relate "what he had received from eye-witnesses concerning the Lord, both concerning his miracles and his doctrine."§ In the remaining works of Ignatius, the contemporary of Polycarp, larger than those of Polycarp, (yet, like those of Polycarp, treating of subjects in nowise leading to any recital of the Christian history,) the occasional allusions are proportionably more numerous. The descent of Christ from David, his mother Mary, his miraculous conception, the star at his birth, his baptism by John, the reason assigned for it, his appeal to the prophets, the ointment poured on his head, his sufferings under Pontius Pilate and Herod the tetrarch, his resurrection, the Lord's day called and kept in commemoration of it, and the eucharist, in both its parts are unequivocally referred to. Upon the resurrection, this writer is even circumstantial. He mentions the apostles' eating and drinking with Christ after he had risen; their feeling and their handling him; from which last circumstance Ignatius raises this just reflection: They believed, being convinced both by his flesh and spirit: for this cause they despised death, and were found to be above it."|| Quadratus, of the same age with Ignatius, has left us the following noble testimony: "The works of our Saviour were always conspicuous, for they were real; both those that were healed, and those that were raised from the dead; who were seen not only when they were healed or raised, Ep. Clem. Rom., c. xliii. but for a long time afterwards; not only whilst he dwelled on this earth, but also after his departure, and for a good while after it, insomuch that some of them have reached to our times."* Justin Martyr came little more than thirty years after Quadratus. From Justin's works, which are still extant, might be collected a tolerably complete account of Christ's life, in all points agreeing with that which is delivered in our Scriptures; taken indeed, in a great measure, from those Scriptures, but still proving that this account, and no other, was the account known and extant in that age. The miracles, in particular, which form the part of Christ's history most material to be traced, stand fully and distinctly recognised in the following passage: "He healed those who had been blind, and deaf, and lame from their birth; causing, by his word, one to leap, another to hear, and a third to see; and, by raising the dead, and making them to live, he induced, by his works, the men of that to know him."t age It is unnecessary to carry these citations lower, because the history, after this time, occurs in ancient Christian writings as familiarly as it is wont to do in modern sermons; occurs always the same in substance, and always that which our evangelists represent. This is not only true of those writings of Christians which are genuine, and of acknowledged authority; but it is, in a great measure, true of all their ancient writings which remain; although some of these may have been erroneously ascribed to authors to whom they did not belong, or may contain false accounts, or may appear to be undeserving of credit, or never indeed to have obtained any. Whatever fables they have mixed with the narrative, they preserve the material parts, the leading facts, as we have them; and, so far as they do this, although they be evidence of nothing else, they are evidence that these points were fixed, were received and acknowledged by all Christians in the ages in which the books were written. At least it may be asserted, that, in the places where we were most likely to meet with such things, if such things had existed, no reliques appear of any story substantially different from * Ap. Euseb. H. E., l. iv., c. 3. Just. Dial. cum Tryph., p. 288. (Ed., Thirl.) the present, as the cause, or as the pretence, of the institution. Now that the original story, the story delivered by the first preachers of the institution, should have died away so entirely as to have left no record or memorial of its existence, although so many records and memorials of the time and transaction remain; and that another story should have stepped into its place, and gained exclusive possession of the belief of all who professed themselves disciples of the institution, is beyond any example of the corruption of even oral tradition, and still less consistent with the experience of written history: and this improbability, which is very great, is rendered still greater by the reflection, that no such change as the oblivion of one story, and the substitution of another, took place in any future period of the Christian era. Christianity hath travelled through dark and turbulent ages; nevertheless it came out of the cloud and the storm, such, in substance, as it entered in. Many additions were made to the primitive history, and these entitled to different degrees of credit; many doctrinal errors also were from time to time grafted into the public creed but still the original story remained, and remained the same. In all its principal parts it has been fixed from the beginning. : Our Thirdly The religious rites and usages that prevailed amongst the early disciples of Christianity, were such as belonged to, and sprung out of, the narrative now in our hands; which accordancy shows, that it was the narrative upon which these persons acted, and which they had received from their teachers. Our account makes the Founder of the religion direct that his disciples should be baptized: we know that the first Christians were baptized. account makes him direct that they should hold religious assemblies we find that they did hold religious assemblies. Our account makes the apostles assemble upon a stated day of the week we find, and that from information perfectly independent of our accounts, that the Christians of the first century did observe stated days of assembling. Our histories record the institution of the rite which we call the Lord's supper, and a command to repeat it in perpetual succession: we find, amongst the early Christians, the celebration of this rite universal. And, indeed, we find concurring in all the above-mentioned observances, Christian societies of many different nations and languages, ' removed from one another by a great distance of place and dissimilitude of situation. It is also extremely material to remark, that there is no room for insinuating that our books were fabricated with a studious accommodation to the usages which obtained at the time they were written; that the authors of the books found the usages established, and framed the story to account for their original. The Scripture accounts, especially of the Lord's supper, are too short and cursory, not to say too obscure, and, in this view, deficient, to allow a place for any such suspicion.* Amongst the proofs of the truth of our proposition, namely, that the story which we have now, is, in substance, the story which the Christians had then, or, in other words, that the accounts in our Gospels are, as to their principal parts at least, the accounts which the apostles and original teachers of the religion delivered, one arises from observing, that it appears by the Gospels themselves, that the story was public at the time; that the Christian community was already in possession of the substance and principal parts of the narrative. The Gospels were not the original cause of the Christian history being believed, but were themselves among the consequences of that belief. This is expressly affirmed by St. Luke, in his brief, but, as I think, very important and instructive preface: "Forasmuch (says the evangelist) as many have taken in hand to set forth in order a declaration of those things which are most surely believed amongst us, even as they delivered them unto us, which from the beginning were eye-witnesses, and ministers of the word; it seemed good to me also, having had perfect understanding of all things from the very first, to write unto thee in order, most excellent Theophilus, that thou mightest know the certainty of those things, wherein thou hast been instructed.' This short introduction testifies, that the substance of the history which the evangelist was about to write, was already believed by Christians; that it was believed upon the *The reader who is conversant in these researches, by comparing the short Scripture accounts of the Christian rites above mentioned, with the minute and circumstantial directions contained in the pretended apostolical constitutions, will see the force of the observation; the difference between truth and forgery |