sent, the weight of this successive confirmation is, in a great measure, unperceived by us. The evidence does not appear to us what it is; for, being from our infancy accustomed to regard the New Testament as one book, we see in it only one testimony. The whole occurs to us as a single evidence; and its different parts, not as distinct attestations, but as different portions only of the same. Yet in this conception of the subject we are certainly mistaken; for the very discrepancies among the several documents which form our volume, prove, if all other proofs were wanting, that in their original composition they were separate, and most of them independent productions.3

What Paley remarks, that we are accustomed to regard the New Testament as "one book," is quite true; but he has not assigned the real reason of it. The feeling arises, not from the canonical writings forming usually one volume, but from the doctrine of inspiration connected with them. We speak of the volume as Scripture," or "the Word of God," as a unity in itself, because we regard the Holy Spirit as the real author, to whatever extent He may have made use of human agency, and conveyed Divine truth through various channels. Each writer of the New Testament preserves his peculiarities of thought and style, and dwells more upon one aspect of Christianity than another; but their writings are all knit together, and occupy a level of their own, by the fact that the authors wrote as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. Hence it jars upon the Christian mind to speak of Paul or John as authors in the same sense in which Tacitus and Josephus are. Yet this natural feeling must not lead us to overlook the circum

If we dispose our ideas in a different order, the matter stands thus:-While the transaction was recent, and the original witnesses were at hand to relate it; and while the Apostles were busied in preaching and travelling, in collecting disciples, in forming and regulating societies of converts, in supporting themselves against opposition; while they exercised their ministry under the harassings of frequent persecution, and in a state of almost continual alarm, it is not probable that, in this engaged, anxious, and unsettled condition of life, they would think immediately of writing histories for the information of the public, or of posterity. But it is stance on which Paley insists, that, apart from their inspiration, the testimony of the Evangelists is that of trustworthy and independent witnesses. And this must be especially impressed on the unbeliever, who does not admit the inspiration of Scripture. In his case, if we are not allowed to claim greater authority for Matthew or John than for Tacitus or Josephus (and yet we might do so, for the fact that Matthew and John became Christians in consequence of the evidence which they have recorded adds to, instead of detracting from, its value), at least we may challenge him to show cause why we should not place them on the same level.-EDITOR.

This thought occurred to Eusebius: "Nor were the Apostles of Christ greatly concerned about the writing of books, being engaged in a more excellent ministry, which is above all human power."-Eccles. Hist., 1. iii. c. 24. The same consideration accounts also for the paucity of Christian writings in the first century of its era.

very probable, that emergencies might draw from some of them occasional letters upon the subject of their mission, to converts, or to societies of converts, with which they were connected; or that they might address written discourses and exhortations to the disciples of the institution at large, which would be received and read with a respect proportioned to the character of the writer. Accounts in the mean time would get abroad of the extraordinary things that had been passing, written with different degrees of information and correctness. The extension of the Christian society, which could no longer be instructed by a personal intercourse with the Apostles, and the possible circulation of imperfect or erroneous narratives, would teach some among them the expediency of sending forth authentic memoirs of the life and doctrine of their Master. When accounts appeared, authorized by the name, and credit, and situation of the writers, recommended or recognized by the Apostles and first preachers of the religion, or found to coincide with what the Apostles and first preachers of the religion had taught, other accounts would fall into disuse and neglect; while these, maintaining their reputation (as, if genuine and well founded, they would do) under the test of time, inquiry,

and contradiction, might be expected to make their way into the hands of Christians of all countries of the world.5

This seems the natural progress of the business; and with this the records in our possession, and the evidence concerning them, correspond. We have remaining, in the first place, many letters of the kind above described, which have been preserved with a care and fidelity, answering to the respect with which we may suppose that such letters would be received. But as these letters were not written to prove the truth of the Christian religion, in the sense in which we regard that question; nor to convey information of facts, of which those to whom the letters were written had been previously informed; we are not to look in them for any thing more than incidental allusions to the Christian history. We are able, however, to gather from these documents, various particular attestations which have been already enumerated; and this is a species of written evidence, as far as it goes, in the highest degree satisfactory, and in point of time perhaps the first. But for our more circumstantial information, we have, in the next

* Paley's remarks on the origin of the Gospels are substantially correct; but they need supplementing from more recent researches. As no compression could bring the subject within the compass of a note, the reader is referred for some observations upon it to Appendix II.-EDITOR.

place, five direct histories, bearing the names of persons acquainted, by their situation, with the truth of what they relate, and three of them purporting, in the very body of the narrative, to be written by such persons; of which books we know, that some were in the hands of those who were contemporaries of the Apostles, and that, in the age immediately posterior to that, they were in the hands, we may say, of every one, and received by Christians with so much respect and deference, as to be constantly quoted and referred to by them, without any doubt of the truth of their accounts. They were treated as such histories, proceeding from such authorities, might expect to be treated. In the preface to one of our histories, we have intimations left us of the existence of some ancient accounts which are now lost. There is nothing in this circumstance that can surprise us. It was to be expected, from the magnitude and novelty of the occasion, that such accounts would swarm. When better accounts came forth, these died away. Our present histories superseded others. They soon acquired a character, and established a reputation, which does not appear to have belonged to any other; that, at least, can be proved concerning them, which cannot be proved concerning any other.

But to return to the point which led to these