history, or that short minutes of Christ's life and preaching had been committed to writing, which both had consulted; either of which suppositions will agree with the acknowledged formation of St. Luke's narrative, who professes to have examined original and authentic documents for all his ac

counts.

Q. What is the Gospel of St. John allowed on all hands to be?

A. Strictly an independent testimony. Therefore if any one of the four Gospels be genuine, we have, in that one, strong reason to believe that we possess the accounts which the original emissaries of the religion delivered.

II. Q. In treating of the written evidence of Christianity what are we next to consider? A. Their aggregate authority.

Q. How is this to be considered?

A. In the Evangelical History there is an accumulation of testimony which belongs hardly to any other, but which our habitual mode of reading the Scriptures causes us to overlook-Each gos-" pel is a great confirmation of the others; the Acts of the Apostles forms a most confirmatory supplement to them all; and the various Epistles support the conclusion: but being from our infancy accustomed to regard the N. T. as one book, we see in it only one testimony-the coincidence does not appear to us what it is we lose the weight of successive disclosure and successive confirmation: yet the very discrepancies in the different documents which form our volume, shew

that for the most part they were independent productions.

Q. In the composition of these documents what seems to be the natural progress?

A. Whilst the transaction was recent, and the original witnesses were at hand to relate it; whilst the apostles were busied in, preaching and travelling; and whilst they exercised their ministry in a state of almost continual alarm; it is not probable that, in this unsettled condition they would think immediately of writing histories for the information of the public or of posterity. But it is probable, that emergencies might draw from some of them occasional letters to converts, or to societies with which they were connected; or that they might address written discourses and exhortations to the disciples of the institution at large. 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, prohibiting a personal intercourse with the apostles, and the possible circulation of imperfect or erroneous narratives, would soon teach some amongst them the expediency of sending forth authentic memoirs of the life and doctrine of their Master. When the authorized accounts appeared, other accounts would fall into disuse and neglect; whilst these, standing the test of time, inquiry, and contradiction, might be expected to make their way into the hands of all Christians..

Q. With this progress how do the records in our possession correspond?

A. We have remaining, many letters, preserved with care and fidelity, not indeed written purposely to prove the truth of the Christian religion, nor to convey information of facts, already known. We are not therefore to look in them for any thing more than incidental allusions to the Christian history. We are able, however, to gather from them particular attestations, 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 five direct histories, bearing the names of persons acquainted with the truth of what they relate, and three purporting, in the very narrative, to be written by such persons; of which books we know, that some e were in the hands of contemporaries of the apostles, and that, in the next age, they were in the hands, we may say, of every one, and received by Christians, as such histories, proceeding from such authorities, might expect to be received. They soon superseded other accounts and acquired a character, which does not appear to have belonged to any other.

Q. How is it that the genuineness of the Historical books of the N. T. though undoubtedly a point of importance, is not essential to our argument?

A. The question is, whether the Gospels exhibit the story which the Apostles preached and

for which they acted and suffered. Suppose we only knew that they were written by some of the early disciples of Christianity, but that they were known and read during the time of the original apostles and received in societies founded by them, as containing an authentic account of facts upon which the religion rested; this reception would be a solid proof that these books, whoever were their authors, must have accorded with what the apostles taught. Now their early existence and reputation, is made out by ancient testimonies which do not specify the names of the writers. Two of the four Gospels in the body of the history, fix the time and situation of the writers, one as an eyewitness of the sufferings of Christ, the other as a contemporary of the apostles. The Gospel of Saint John designates the author as witnessing the crucifixion and as having been written by the disciple "whom Jesus loved." The remaining Gospel purports to have been written by the author of the Acts, wherein, he declares himself a contemporary of all, and a companion of one of the original preachers of Christianity.

CHAP. IX.

OF THE AUTHENTICITY OF THE HISTORICAL SCRIPTURES, IN ELEVEN SECTIONS.

Preliminary Observations.

I. Q. What proves that the Scriptures were not of modern contrivance, as well as that they were more sought after in many different countries than any other books?

A. The great number of ancient manuscripts, all anterior to the art of printing, found in widely distant countries, as well as numerous versions in a vast variety of languages.

II. Q. What argument arises from the style and language of the New Testament?

A. It is exactly suited to the age and situation of the apostles, and to that of no other persons. It resembles neither the style of the classic authors, nor of the Fathers, but it is Greek from a Hebrew origin, abounding with Hebrew and Syriac idioms?

Q. How is this peculiarity a strong proof of genuineness?

A. Who should be the forgers? The Christian Fathers were mostly ignorant of HebrewThe few who had a knowledge of it, used a style very different from that of the N. T., and the Na