FIFTH CLASS OF PROOFS. — A NEW ASSEMBLAGE OF FACTS RELATING TO THE NEW TESTAMENT,

520. It will be seen that we can as confidently invoke the testimony of history for this second portion of the Scriptures as for the first; for the new assemblage of facts will demonstrate to us what other facts of the same kind have already so manifestly established for the Old Testament — namely, that the faithfulness of God, always wakeful, protects the Scriptures that were first given to His Church; and that if, to accomplish this work for His first oracles, it chose the Jewish people, thirty-four centuries ago, it has set apart, for a similar purpose, for His last oracles, the collective body of all the churches, good or bad, throughout Christendom,

SECTION FIRST,

THE UNANIMITY OF ALL THE CHURCHES,

521, The First Fact — Among the astonishing and enduring facts which reveal this supreme hand, there is one which surpasses all others. We refer to the marvellous, universal, unshaken unanimity with which all the churches in the world have continued, for fourteen or fifteen centuries, to present us with one and the same collection of twenty-seven books, one and the same Greek Testament — its four Gospels, its one-and-twenty epistles, its Apocalypse, and Book of the Acts, without the difference of a single word, since none of the churches have formed a separate school on the question, otherwise so little important, of the various readings.

No doubt, in every age, and in our own times more than ever, learned men are to be seen taking the greatest liberties with our sacred books, bringing in question their authority, imagining a thousand systems about their history, doubting of one, rejecting another, and even denying the divine inspiration of the canon altogether. But, at all times, these have been isolated persons, and instances of individual temerity.

Never, since the epoch when the canon was definitely dieters and formed in all the churches, for more than fourteen centuries, by the free action of men’s minds, and under the invisible government of Divine Providence — never has any general council, any synod, any particular church, Arian or Trinitarian, Romanist or Reformed, Free or National, been seen to profess, in its decrees or its catechisms, that it rejected any of the books of the New Testament, or even to express publicly its doubts respecting any of them. And this in the age of Alaric, as in the times of the Reformation, or in modern days; in Europe, as in the East, or as in the United States; at Rome, as in that Germany, where, from day to day, so many audacious systems are fabricated, and where the infidelity, of the schools has go sadly prevailed.

522. Such, then, under the agency of Providence, is the admirable, and, I venture to call it, the divine unanimity of Christendom on the twenty-seven books of its sacred code. This unanimity is continuous, œcumenical, unalterable, and not less persistent than that of the Jews for their own canon. It is even a unanimity still more astonishing, since the prodigy we admire in that family of Israel, which has always guarded its sacred oracles, for thirty-four centuries — this same prodigy we have to admire here in all the families of nations, who have equally guarded their New Testament, in the midst of their most ardent controversies, and widest divisions; they guard it in the rudest churches, in spite of their ignorance; in the most idolatrous, in spite of their traditions; as well as in those who lay the greatest claims to science, spite of their sceptical literature, and all the aberrations of their men of learning. Finally, this unanimity is more striking, because it is found among them only on this point; while, on every other, they set themselves in ardent opposition, church against church,

Seek for any other dogma on which they have been agreed for fourteen centuries, on which they are agreed in the present day, you will not find it. Seek, again, on the other hand, for any point more important, and more fundamental — any point, at the same time, more delicate, and more likely to excite discussions than this, — you will not find it. And yet it has never been possible for the levity of the human mind, for the temerity of learning, for the excesses of party spirit, for all the malice of Satan, to set them at variance on this single dogma — a dogma _ the most important of all, we say, and the most delicate, the most fundamental, and the most likely to excite discussion!

Search the whole earth — search from age to age, for a church where this disagreement, so easy, so probable, has made its appearance, — you will not find it. .

523. So evident it is that a secret but almighty hand has interposed, and that the Head of the Church watches in silence over His new oracles, as He watched over the old, — preserving them, from age to age, from human foolishness, because He has promised to preserve the Church itself for ever from “the gates of hell.”

In this work it has pleased God constantly not to discover His holy arm, leaving the churches, under His secret influence, to act with a constant feeling of their free-will and independence; and this not only without any sensible pressure of His hand being felt by them, but also without any intervention of human authority to constrain their will, as we shall soon shew. And thus He has led, by His Spirit, their common liberty to this marvellous result, in order that, from a multitude of human wills, we should receive, during so many ages, only one and the same scripture of the New Testament.

524. But if we cannot help studying and admiring this prodigy of the Divine wisdom, which watches over the sacred deposit, need we be astonished — we who have seen it at work during thirty-three centuries to maintain the people of Israel infusible and indestructible in the midst of the nations — and who have seen it, during these same centuries, maintain, in the midst of this same people, an inflexible will in relation to the Old Testament, — need we be astonished if the same hand, always invisible, and always powerful, has also succeeded in making all the Christian churches in. the world, in spite of their dissensions and backslidings, the incorruptible depositaries of His new oracles?

525. No one will think of opposing to this universal testimory of the churches the Ethiopian manuscripts discovered by the missionary Gobat in the unexplored districts of Abyssinia, nor the Syriac manuscripts shewn to Dr Grant, in the high mountains of Koordistan, by those interesting Nestorians whom he discovered there, and who, for so many ages, have lived apart from the rest of the Christian world. “The Apocalypse, and two or three of the shorter epistles,” he says, but without naming them, were still wanting to these isolated Christians, who had not rejected them, but were ignorant of them until they were eager to range themselves, with the other Syrian churches, on the side of the universal canon.

526. Let us, then, give the utmost attention to this baa fact, so manifestly providential — this striking testimony offered to the world for so many ages.

ALL THE CHRISTIAN CHURCHES THROUGHOUT THE WORLD HAVE ONLY ONE SACRED TEXT — -the Greek New Testament, with its twenty-seven books — such as would be presented to you alike by the priests at Moscow, by the ministers at Geneva, by the Propaganda at Rome, or by the Bible Society in London. “To them have been intrusted the oracles of God.”

In whatever age or country I might be living, since the days when the canon was completely formed solely by the action of men’s consciences in the Church,¹ everywhere and always the same Scriptures would be presented to me; in the times of Theodosius, as in that of Bonaparte; among Papists, as among Protestants; among the Eastern Hees as among those of the West during the thousand years of their reciprocal schism. I might have asked for it, 1400 years ago, of the Nestorians of Asia, as of the Council of Ephesus, by whose orders their books were destroyed. I might have addressed myself, three centuries later, to 850 Greek bishops, who declared at the Council of Nice that the worship of images was “holy, just, and useful,” or to 300 Latin bishops who, seven years after, condemned it at Frankfort to the Albigenses of the thirteenth century, who were burnt for wishing to read it, as well as to the inquisitors, bent on destroying them by fire and sword; to the Bohemians of the fifteenth century, as well as to the fathers of the Council of Constance, who put them to death; to the Reformers of the sixteenth century, as well as to the bishops of France who exterminated them. And this very year, if I wished to procure a Greek New Testament, pure and complete, I might ask indifferently for the edition of the Catholic Scholz, or that of the Protestant Tischendorf, — everywhere its twenty-seven books complete! — everywhere this book guarded by God as it had been given by Him — everywhere the churches conducted infallibly but freely to unity by an invisible power — everywhere their unconscious obedience leading them to preserve the sacred collection of books, as it had led them at first to receive it, — everywhere God giving testimony to the world that, “having spoken to the fathers by the prophets, and then to their children, by His own Son, by whom also He made the worlds, He has never ceased, and never will cease, to watch over His Divine Word; He will preserve the deposit from age to age, until He comes to judge the living and the dead by the same Word,”

In explaining at some length this first fact, which takes the lead of all the rest, and-proclaims to us so loudly the divine certainty of the canon, we could not help making some allusions, by anticipation, to other circumstances, not less providential, which accompanied it. These we must now bring forward and explain in their turn.

SECTION SECOND.

THE EXCEPTIONAL LIBERTY WHICH ALWAYS PRESIDED OVER THE DESTINIES OF THE CANON,

527. The Second Fact. — Another characteristic not less providential, since, contrary to all probability, it has never ceased to reappear from the apostolic times to the blessed Reformation, and down to our own day — the altogether exceptional rule of liberty under which all the destinies uf the canon have been accomplished in the Christian Church. At first its original formation, then its completion, then at last its perfect and continual preservation.

528, Whence, but from God, could come that surprising and entire absence of all pressure from without, while this threefold process was silently going on in the Church, and leading everywhere without dispute to the same result? How can it be explained, without this agency from above, that every act of authority, every synodal decree, and every intervention of the powers of the state, has been continually suspended, in reference to the most important and yet the most delicate of questions?

We have already noticed this extraordinary fact; but it is so unique of its kind in the history of the churches, that it has a claim on our most serious attention, inasmuch as it attests with irresistible force the constant agency of the divine Power in the | formation, the completion, and the preservation of our sacred canon.

We see here the same Spirit who at first caused our sacred books to be written as they are, and who afterwards superintended all those second causes which were destined to make their depositaries receive them and then guard them during 1500 years.

For how, without the agency of this Spirit, can you explain that, through so many ages, and in all the Churches of Christendom, such freedom had been left to consciences on the very question in relation to which we could expect the least — on the dogma from which all others would proceed — on the fixation of the eternal code — on the judge of controversies — on the dogma of dogmas? How was there so much liberty in relation to this one point when, in relation to all others, there was so little? — when decrees were multiplied on objects of the least importance — when all the churches of the East and West, jealous (often beyond measure) for purity of doctrine, exacted from one another public professions, explanations, adhesions, or retractations in regard to all other parts of their creed — when they hurled anathemas against the least errors, and when, in the second century, Victor, bishop of Rome, in the pure days of Irenæus, was seen to excommunicate the whole Eastern Church for the single fact of keeping Easter on the fourteenth day of March instead of the following Sunday? Were not councils everywhere held against the heretics of the day? — eighty in the fifth century against the Pelagians, Nestorians, Eutychians, and Acephali; eighty-six in the fourth against the Arians, Donatists, and Collyredians; eighteen in the third against the Novatianists, Origenists, Sabellians, and Manicheans, — to say nothing of those in the second in Asia, in Rome, in Pontus, and in Gaul?

It is, then, an astonishing fact, and manifestly providential, that on this point we can find nowhere in the records of history any public constraint, any collective action of bishops, any decree of councils, any prescription of emperors, although, from the fourth century, they mixed themselves with everything in the Church of God. In one word, we cannot find any act of human authority which intervened to impose on the churches the acceptance of any sacred code, or to force any individual conscience to receive into the canon a single one of the twenty-seven books of which at the present day the New Testament is composed.

Examine, and you will see with a constantly-increasing admiration that, if this affair has been left, alone among all others, to individual inquiry and the regular development of the life of the Church, it was in order that we might all recognise in the invariable and wonderful result of this unshackled exercise of men’s consciences through so many ages, the inscrutable guidance of the Holy Spirit.

529. It is thus that the sacred deposit of the Scriptures has been formed without noise, pure, harmonious, and complete, as may be seen in chemistry, when, from a confused mixture, a regular, transparent, and perfect crystal is deposited at the bottom of an undisturbed vessel, in exact accordance with the principles of the science. How comes it to pass that every atom, in silent obedience, not only to the common law of gravitation, but certain inexplicable attractions, should take its proper place with mathematical precision in this brilliant and mysterious unity? The philosopher will point you to the laws of nature, and to the omnipotent Creator who maintains them from age to age. Well! it is thus that the Christian from whom you ask how this lasting deposit of the sacred books has been made in the Universal Church, and how it has been completed, will point you to the privileges of the Church, and to the mighty Redeemer who watches over these revelations to the end of time. He will call upon you to notice with admiration that the examination of the primitive Christians with respect to the second canon lasted nearly three centuries — that it was always carried on, contrary to all expectation, under the exceptional and mysterious rule of mutual support — that, during all this time, every Christian teacher, perfectly independent, could freely publish his doubts. Nor were the churches ever known to criminate one another on this question, and when at last the crystallisation was completed, the marvellous invariableness never ceased for fifteen centuries more, all the congregations of Christendom exhibiting a miraculous agreement on this single point.

The crystal, once formed, remains unaltered, and thus this assemblage of facts, in the midst of liberty so constant, impresses on our sacred collection the dignified and unquestionable character of a divine sanction.

530. When the whole of Christendom, convoked by the voice of the Roman emperors, assembled at Nice in 325, and at Constantinople in 381, the four Gospels were placed on a throne of gold in the midst of the assembly, to indicate the supreme authority of the Sacred Word. The first canon of the homologoumena was then acknowledged by all the fathers by a tacit agreement; but opinions still varied freely among them on the subject of the second canon and on the second-first. No one raised his voice to complain of this, and the important question was reserved. We have shewn above that it was settled almost universally from the date of this council by the free assent of men’s consciences, without any decree relating to it having been even proposed in this assembly. And afterwards, towards the end of the century, you might hear the Council of Laodicea (in 364) and of Carthage (in 397) prepare in different ways the catalogue of books which might be publicly read in Christian assemblies; you would discover that this was on their part simply an arrangement of discipline, since their only object was, as they said, to regulate in this way the offices of worship, and not to determine dogmatically the number of the inspired Scriptures. It is a proof of this (as we have said elsewhere) that not only these two catalogues were not identical, and that no one complained of their not being so, at Carthage, but that, long after these two councils, the church teachers continued to exercise the most perfect liberty of judgment on this matter, without any of them feeling himself bound by these decrees, or ever having appealed in their writings to these two assemblies, either to attack or ‘to defend any one of the controverted books.

Unquestionably, in this fact, doubly strange, of a liberty of fifteen centuries, combined with an agreement always unchangeable among all the Churches, even those most opposed to one another in Christendom, every one must recognise a manifest attestation of the Providence that watches secretly over the canon. In order that no one might fail to perceive it, it has caused all the depositaries of the Word to arrive at unity, and to maintain it from generation to generation, without its being possible to perceive in this astonishing harmony the trace of any fallible authority — the pressure of any human hand.

We infer, then, once more, that the God of the holy prophets has taken care that His new oracles of the New Testament should be intrusted as securely to the new people of God as those of the Old Testament were to the Jews.

SECTION THIRD.

THE PROGRESS OF MINDS IN A WAY REVERSE OF THEIR NATURAL DIRECTION.

531. Third Fact. — We have here a general and permanent fact, which cannot be explained by the sole action of natural causes, and which marks the wonderful agreement to which Providence has led, as to the second canon, ali the Churches in the world. I refer to the striking contrast which the progress of minds offers on this point to what it has always been on other subjects. In this affair you see them going, for eighteen centuries, in a direction the reverse of what they have always followed when left uncontrolled. In all other: questions of doctrine, discipline, and government, have you not always seen them begin with unity, to end, if compulsion has not been used, with divergencies constantly more marked, and with divisions springing up without end? But here, as to the second canon, the most delicate and complicated subject of any, with respect to which they were always left to the most entire liberty, what do you see? You see them begin with divergence, to end in unity; and yet no one can tell you by what mysterious mental process this has been accomplished! We have shewn before how the primitive churches had received, by the nature of things, notions and impressions relative to the five short later epistles, and how a reciprocal support left them free on this point for several centuries. But what was the issue? All the churches during this process, controlled and inclined without being aware of it by an invisible Power, arrived everywhere, after little more than two centuries of expectation and research, at a marvellous unanimity; and having had occasion, at the council of Nice, to compare their experiences more closely, they perceived that they had all arrived at agreement on this point. By a slow, calm, silent conveyance, becoming more settled every day, they had reached that œcumenical, immovable, and humanly inexplicable unanimity, in which-we see them all at the present day!

SECTION FOURTH.

DURING THE TWO CENTURIES AND A HALF IN WHICH THE ANCIENT CHURCH STILL HESITATED RESPECTING THE ANTILEGOMENA SHE NEVER RECEIVED A SPURIOUS BOOK INTO THE CANON.

532. This is a fourth fact, well fitted to shew the powerful Providence that presided at the first formation of our canon, as it watched over its destinies from that time.

In the two first centuries and a half of its existence, the ancient Church, already in full possession of its first canon, but more or less hesitating in different places respecting the second, held in her hands, to examine their titles, not only the five small later epistles, but also all the other books, whether authentic, or forged, or apocryphal, which were offered for her examination. It is, then, very remarkable that, during so long a time, she never admitted into the canon any book of which, afterwards, she had to acknowledge the spuriousness. It entered into God’s design that she should examine for a long time, and with constant liberty, but never that she should be deceived in her choice. She hesitated, more or less, in some of her congregations respecting the five books of the second canon. Even after a first and long admission of the second-first canon, she listened for a time to doubts raised in different places respecting the two canonical books of which it is composed; but never, we repeat, has it ever happened to her to admit into the canon any book about which she had afterwards to acknowledge herself mistaken.

This is an invaluable fact, which we have already had occasion to notice;² and we recommend it to the attention of the reader.

SECTION FIFTH.

THE ASTONISHING INDEPENDENCE OF THE CHURCH IN REFERENCE TO ITS LITERARY OPPONENTS (L’ ÉCOLE) ON THE SUBJECT OF THE CANON.

533. Fifth Fact. — A fifth characteristic, indicating the agency of God in this affair, is the astonishing independence which the Church has, in every age, shewn of its literary opponents, (l' école;) and the constant powerlessness of the latter against our Scriptures, however eloquent, however learned, however numerous their adherents, however bold their negations, and however violent their attacks.

554. Look at the Judaisers and Ebionites in the first century. In vain did their doctors set themselves in such numbers against all the epistles of Paul; in vain they equally rejected the two books of Luke; amidst the noise of this fierce opposition, the first canon of the New Testament, composed of twenty books, or rather, we may say, the sacred collection of the twenty-two homologoumena, might be seen forming itself peaceably, and with the most admirable firmness, in all the churches throughout the world, and forming itself for ever.

535. Observe also, in the second century, the great noise made round the Church by the schools of the Gnostics and all their sects. Far more formidable than the Ebionites, and far more audacious, they attempted to combat our canon in the name of science and philosophy; they opened schools in the most distant parts of the empire, and especially in its capital, under the Antonines, under Commodus, and under Septimius and Alexander Severus, who allowed them all the most entire liberty. They drew around them a number of ardent youths, full of enthusiasm for their eloquence and boldness. They formed schools, especially at Alexandria and Rome, the two centres of philosophy; — Basilides, Isidore, and Carpocrates, in Alexandria; Cerdo, Marcion, Valentine, and Theodotus, in Rome. They harassed alike the churches in the Hast and in the West, reverencing none of the books of the canon, rejecting here one and there another, wresting their meaning, corrupting their text, and associating them with spurious writings. But what came to pass after all? Nothing was done; but the God of the Scriptures put forth His gracious and powerful hand. He did not constrain human wills; He did not even close by human violence the mouths of the false teachers. For the greater final honour of His Word, He allowed them free course; He only deprived them of reputation. And while the faithful men of the second and third century entered a powerful protest against them — while an Irenæus, a Clement, a Tertullian, an Origen, and a Hippolytus — exposed by learned writings these heresies to the vigilance of their flocks, the heresiarchs mutually discredited themselves, and their denials of the truth in different directions neutralised one another, so that, in spite of the commotion they raised, these schools, after all, exerted but little direct influence on the Churches of God. They unhappily led astray, no doubt, a great number of young men into the paths of unbelief and death; but they did not hinder the work of the Holy Spirit within the pale of the churches; and if they agitated the surface, they allowed the Sacred Word to produce its effects in the depths below, and the judgment of the Church on the canon was formed and settled in peace.

536. Thus, in spite of all that great tumult of the second and third century, not only was the truth of the first canon settled, better than ever, and settled for ever; but the universal acceptance of the five small later epistles, and the perfect disengagement of the genuine from the spurious books, were seen to be preparing slowly, and without noise, in all the churches of God. This acceptance and this disengagement were consummated in the first quarter of the fourth century,³ as we see in metallurgy the wonderful separation of silver and gold effected from an alloy of the baser metals.

537. But look again, a thousand years further, at what passed in Europe during the agitated age of the Renaissance. At that time, the friends of literature and truth, led to a legitimate scepticism by so many recent discoveries, which had revealed to them imposture or error on all sides, in so many traditions hitherto held sacred, so many forged books, forged legends, forged decretals, and forged texts, — at that time, the friends of truth believed themselves required to call in question the claims of certain books to keep their place in the New Testament. Had they not been already obliged, by the authority of God, to eject the apocryphal books from the temple of the Old Testament? Was it not, then, very natural to fear that, with good intentions, the theologians of the time, still imperfectly informed, would believe themselves required to recommence the examination of our sacred books, and of applying the touchstone even to the gold of the canon? Unquestionably, the moment was one full of peril. Sacred criticism might easily err, and the cause of the canon might seem once more to be seriously compromised. But what ‘came to pass? On the contrary, it came forth more firmly established than ever from this new mental commotion, and, in spite of the labours of a criticism sometimes indiscreet, not a single church could be found which was then disposed to reject any book of the New Testament, or to admit a new one into it.

538. But what are all these trials, to which the ancient school of criticism has subjected our Scriptures during the first, second, third, fifteenth, or sixteenth centuries, compared to those reserved for them by the learned doctors of modern theology? We speak of the most illustrious universities in Protestant Europe, and especially in learned and indefatigable Germany, during the latter half of the eighteenth and the first half of the nineteenth century. One might suppose Cerdo, Marcion, and Basilides risen from their graves. The revolt of criticism, for a time, seemed universal; and it might have been apprehended that, before the new investigations of science, the greater part of the books in our canon must vanish. The youth of the schools were fascinated; professors the least negative shrugged their shoulders at the sight of our simple-hearted confidence in the integrity of the ancient text; and you might hear them repeating that it was all over with our canon.

539. But, to give a more exact and precise idea of this war, let us not confine ourselves to general terms. Let us examine more closely, for example, what all the Protestant doctors in Germany, who, during a hundred years, had constituted themselves the guides of youthful theologians, have taught on this point. For this purpose we cannot do better than pass rapidly in review “the literature of the introductions to the New Testament,” contained in Hertuig’s Tables,⁴ published in 1849. Let us ask, then, what all these guides respecting the canon, all these introducers (introducteurs) of the German youth to this sacred study, from the time when John David Michaëlis was appointed professor in the University of Göttingen, in 1751, and Solomon Semler, in Halle, in 1760, to our own days — Michaëlis, Semler, Kichhorn, Hug, Haenlein, Schmidt, Feilmoser, Bertholdt, De Wette, Guericke, Scholt, Credner, N eudecker, Reuss, Baur, Schwegler, — I only pass over in this list Hug and Feilmoser, because they are Roman Catholics, and Haenlein, because Hertwig, who never cites him, has placed this remark against his name — “Of little importance.”

540. What, then, is the result of the studies of these coryphaei in German science during-a hundred years? They have all, without exception, attacked the canon, yet without coming to any agreement on the points assailed; one receiving what the other rejects.⁵

I ask, then, what would have become of our sacred canon, such as God has maintained in all the churches throughout the world for 1400 years, if it had been abandoned, during the course of the last hundred years, to any conclave of German sceince? Let us go over the long list of these “introducers.”

541. (1.) The most ancient, and, perhaps, the most illustrious, John David Michaëlis,⁶ professor at Göttingen for forty years, expressed doubts of the canonical value of the Epistle to the Hebrews, (vol. iv., p. 248,) of the Epistle of James, (p. 302,) of the Epistle of Jude, (p. 418,) and of the Apocalypse, (p. 506.)

(2.) Solomon Semler, in 1757, in his Apparatus ad Liberalem N. T. Interpretationem, traced the road of rationalism for his age. At the same time, he denied the authenticity of many books of our canon; among others, of the Apocalypse, (1769,) and of the Epistle to the Hebrews. He made three epistles of the second to the Corinthians.

(3.) John Gottfried Eichhorn, professor at Göttingen, from 1804 to 1827, denied, in his Introduction, the authenticity of the two first chapters of Luke’s Gospel, the two last chapters of the Epistle to the Romans, the First and Second Epistle of Peter, the two Epistles to Timothy, and the Epistle to Titus.

(4.) Christian Schmidt, in 1804, in his Historical and Critical Introduction to the New Testament,⁷ attached himself to the school of Semler. He denied the authenticity of the Second Epistle of Peter, the First Epistle to Timothy, of the two first chapters of Luke’s Gospel, and of the Second Epistle to the Thessalonians.

(5.) Leonhardt Bertholdt, in 1826,⁸ doubted of the Second Epistle of Peter, like Ullman and Olshausen; but, like them, he did not reject it.

(6.) W. M. Leberecht de Wette. This illustrious and learned professor of Bale, so faithful an interpreter in his admirable translation of the Scriptures — so exact in his expositions, and so rich in his materials, is, neverthless, among the learned men who have expressed most doubts respecting the canon. He has expressed them on the authenticity of the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, of the Acts of the Apostles, of the First and Second Epistles of Peter, of the Epistle to the Hebrews, of the Epistles to Timothy, of the Epistle to the Ephesians, and of the Apocalypse.⁹

(7.) Ferdinand Guericke,¹⁰ in 1828 and in 1843, had expressed, in his Beiträge, like Bertholdt, doubts on the authenticity of the Second Epistle of Peter; but in his new Introduction, of the date 1854,¹¹ he has explicitly retracted them.¹²

(8.) Augustus Schott, in 1830,¹³ in his Isagogue, denies the authenticity of the Apocalypse, of the end of the Gospel of Mark, (xvi. 9-20,) of the Epistle of James, and of the Epistles to Timothy and Titus, which he attributes to Luke.¹⁴

(9.) Augustus Credner, in his Introduction, published at Halle in 1836, adopted the principles of De Wette, and pursued the same course. “The attacks of Credner and the new Tubingen school against the authenticity of Mark,” says Guericke,¹⁵ “result from a hypercriticism, without a historical foundation.” He also denies the authenticity of the two epistles to Timothy, of the Apocalypse, and of the Second Epistle of Peter.

(10.) Gottlieb Neudecker, who published his Introduction in 1840,¹⁶ follows in Credner’s footsteps, and denies the authenticity of the Gospels of Matthew and Mark, of the Epistle to the Hebrews,¹⁷ and of the Second Epistle of Peter.¹⁸

(11.) Edward Reuss, professor of theology at Strasburg, who lately published (1853) at Brunswick a History of the Holy Scriptures,¹⁹ of which the first edition appeared at Halle in 1842, also published, in 1840, An Introduction to the Gospel of John. The pretended Gospel of Matthew (he says) is taken in part from the Hebrew original, which contained the discourses (not the facts) reported in the actual Gospel. That of Mark is a revision of a true Gospel, and as to those which are called Luke’s and John’s, we have no assurance that Luke wrote the one or John the other. The narrative of Paul’s journeys is by another hand than the rest of the Book of Acts; and in the Gospel called John’s the sentiments attributed to Jesus belong as to their form to the compiler, who only makes use of Him to propagate his personal views. ‘These are, together with those of James and Paul, opposite types of Christian thought. He admits a Johannean Theology by the side of a Jewish-Christian and a Pauline Theology.²⁰ He strove equally between the Jewish Christianity of James, and the liberal Christianity of Paul. As to the Epistle to the Hebrews, its tendency is Jewish-Alexandrine, and the idea it expresses on the priesthood of Jesus is not that of Paul. The Second Epistle of Peter is long after Peter’s time, and as to the First, the part which Peter took in it cannot be established. The authenticity of the Second and Third Epistles of John is uncertain, while the Apocalypse, which is not by him, is only a poetic representation of the hopes of the persecuted Church, and “confines itself entirely within the circle of the concrete and material hopes of the synagogue.”

(12, 13.) Christian Baur, in 1845 and 1847, and Schwegler in 1846, both doctors of the new Tubingen school, against which Guericke has so honourably set himself, have both published Introductions; the former, in 1845, on St Paul, under the title of Critical Inquiries on the Canonical Epistles;²¹ the latter, in 1846, under the title of The Post-apostolic Age.²² These doctors and their adherents have pushed their attacks much further than any other school in Germany in our day. In their eyes the Gospels are documents without authority, and yet contradictory documents, which aim at propagating the divergent doctrines of their respective authors. They both reject St Paul’s three Pastoral Epistles and his Epistle to the Philippians, which belonged in its tendency to the pretended John, whose Gospel Schwegler attributes to Montanism. Baur calls in question too the two Epistles to, the Thessalonians the Epistle to Philemon and the two last chapters of the Epistle to the Romans. Schwegler considers the Epistle of James to have been composed late in the second century, and denies the authenticity of that of Jude, as well as of that to the Hebrews. Both reject the Epistle to the Colossians, and place the First Epistle of Peter in the second century, as being a production designed to reconcile the respective partisans of the two apostles. This school recognises as authentic, among Paul’s epistles, only the Epistle to the Romans, (curtailed of the two last chapters,) the two Epistles to the Corinthians, and the Epistle to the Galatians; because the others do not bear traces sufficiently - clear of the opposition which must exist between the respective theories of Peter and of Paul.

542. Such, then, has been the voice of the leaders of theological science for a century among the Germans. ‘There is not one book of the New Testament, the Epistles to the Corinthians and to the Galatians excepted, which their Introductions have not attacked; as there is not one of these guides, unless, perhaps, Haenlein, who has not in his turn lifted up his voice against some part of the canon.

Against Matthew — Schultz, (1814;) Schleiermacher, (1832;) Schneckenburger, (1832;) Lücke, (1832;) Neudecker, (1840;) De Wette, (1848;) Reuss, (1853;) and we may perhaps add Neander, (Life of Jesus.)

Against Mark — Neudecker, (1840;) Credner, (1836;) Schwegler, (1846;) Reuss, (1848;) and others.

Against Luke — Schmidt, (1804;) Eichhorn, (1827;) Schleiermacher, (1832;) De Wette, (1818, 1834;) Baur, (1845-1847;) and others.

Against John — Vogel, (1801;) Cludius, (1808;) Bretschneider, (1820;) De Wette, (1830, 1834;) Schwegler, (1846;) and others.

Against the Acts — De Wette, (1818;) Credner, (1836;) Baur, (1845;) Schwegler, (1846;) Reuss, (1853;) and others.

Against the Epistle to the Romans — (the two last chapters) — Semler, (1767;) Eichhorn, (1810;) Schultz, (1824;) Baur, (1845.)

Against the Epistles to the Corinthians — the unity only has been denied. Semler (1767) makes several epistles of the second; Paulus makes three, and Michel Weber makes two, (1798, 1806.)

Against the Epistle to the Philippians — Schrader, (1880,) against the chapters iii, iv. 9; Baur, (1845;) Schwegler, (1846.)

Against the Epistle to the Ephesians — De Wette, (1818;) Baur, (1845;) Schwegler, (1846,) of the Tubingen school.

Against the Epistle to the Colossians — Mayerhoff, (1838;) Baur, (1845;) Schwegler, (1846.)

Against the First Epistle to the Thessalonians — Baur, (18451847.)

Against the Second Epistle to the Thessalonians — Schmidt, (1804, 1805;) De Wette,²³ (1818;) Baur, (1845, 1847.)

Against the First Epistle to Timothy — Schleiermacher, (1807;) Eichhorn, (1812;) De Wette, (1826;) Schott, (1830;) Neander, (1832;) Credner, (1836;) Baur, (1845;) Schwegler, (1846.)

Against the Second Epistle to Timothy — Kichhorn, (1812) De Wette, (1826;) Credner, (1836;) Baur, (1845;) Schwegler, (1846.)

Against the Epistle to Titus — Hichhorn, (1812;) De Wette, (1826;) Baur, (1845;) Schwegler, (1846.)

Against the Epistle to Philemon — Baur, (1845.)

Against the Epistle to the Hebrews — Semler, (1767;) Schulz, (1818;) De Wette, (1826;) Schwegler, (1846;) and others.

Against the Epistle of James — De Wette, (1826;) Schott, (1830;) Kern, (1835;) Schwegler, (1846.)

Against the First Epistle of Peter — Cludius, (1808;) Eichhorn, (1812,) believes it was digested by Mark; Schwegler, (1846,) and the Tubingen school, reckon this epistle among the productions of the second century, designed to reconcile the partisans of Peter and of Paul; De Wette, (1818,) and Reuss, (1853,) think it not to be in harmony with the history or character of Peter.

Against the Second Epistle of Peter — Schmidt, (1804;) Hichhorn, (1812), Olshausen, (1822;) Ullman, against the second and third chapters, (1821;) Bertholdt, against the second chapter, (1826;) Guericke, (1828;) De Wette, (1818;) Mayerhoff, (1835;) Credner, (1836;) Neudecker, (1840;) Huther, (1852;) Reuss, (1853.)²⁴ But Guericke has explicitly retracted the doubts he at first expressed.

Against the First Epistle of John — Lange, (1797;) Cludius, (1808;) Bretschneider, (1820,)²⁵ see in it Docetic notions, and attribute this epistle, and the following ones, to John the Presbyter.

Against the two short Epistles of John — Paulus, (1829,)²⁶ and Credner, (1836,) believe the author to be a different person from the apostle.

Against the Epistle of Jude — Dahl, (1807;) Schwegler, (1846;) and others.

Against the Apocalypse — Semler, (1771;) Lange, (1797;) and Cludius, (1808;) De Wette, (1818;) Bretschneider, (18205) Ewald, (1828;) Schott, (1830;) Credner, (1836;) Neander,²⁷ Lücke, (1852;) Reuss, (1853) Diesterdick, (1860.)

543. I ask now, whether it was not to be expected that, at the voice of all these masters of scientific inquiry, issuing from these influential universities, many persons would come forward to request and obtain from the Churches a severe revision of the canon? For more than a hundred years there had been publicly resounding in the ears of the German nation so many bold negations, so many fantastic hypotheses, so many arbitrary systems, so many doubts, so many contemptuous accusations against this or the other book of the New Testament, against their authenticity, against their harmony, against their infallibility, against their wisdom — what do I say? — against their veracity! . . . . Was it not to be expected that, in the course of this long period, and after all the labours of these learned men, many persons would be heard, in different places, among their innumerable disciples, who, in their turn, had become pastors of all the German congregations, who would ask for the publication of revised New Testaments, as, elsewhere, the Old Testament, freed from its apocryphal books, has been published with so much zeal and unanimity? I ask, what would become of the canon of the New Testament in the hands — I do not say of Semler, of De Wette, of Schwegler, of the Tubingen school, — but in the hands of Michaëlis, or Schleiermacher, or Reuss, or even of Neander?

544, And, consequently, I ask, is it not deserving of admiration, not only to behold our Testament, with its twenty-seven books, coming out of its long probation scathless, entire, and fixed more firmly in all our churches; but that, precisely at the time when the Holy Scriptures have been most rudely assailed in our seats of learning, the Lord has been pleased to magnify them more than ever, not only in Germany, but to the very ends of the earth!

Is it not in this very age, when scholars and critics have so fiercely attacked the Bible, that the Scriptures have been honoured and glorified, more than in any other, by the great deeds they have accomplished, the conversions they have effected, the souls they have renewed, the barbarous nations they have been the instruments of raising to civilisation and the Christian life? Do you not see powerful societies formed among all Protestant nations to translate the thirty-nine books of the Old Testament, and the twenty-seven of the New, into all the languages spoken under the sun; to place them within reach of all ranks, high and low; and to send them across all seas, to the farthest parts of the world? And has it not been, during this same period, that all our churches have witnessed other associations, equally powerful, springing up by hundreds, to proclaim this same Word, with its sixty-six books, among all nations, even the least known; to send ministers and missionaries to teach it in churches and schools, in private houses, and in streets?

May it not be said, that if the nineteenth century, to the middle of which we have arrived, ought to be designated in the history of human learning (l'histoire de l'école) as the age specially of rationalism, and of attacks on the canon, this same nineteenth century ought ever to be admired in the Church of the future and designated specially the age of missions, and of the Bible?

Never, since the days of the apostles, have so many missions carried the gospel far and wide, and never has humanity beheld a spectacle so grand and catholic, and withal so simple, pacific, and powerful, as that astonishing Bible Society, which, in Europe and America, has achieved, in fifty-six years, incomparable wonders. It has covered the whole earth with Bibles. It has risen noiselessly, like the sun, to pour on the world a flood of light. It publishes and circulates only one book; but that book it publishes and circulates in all languages spoken by men. It desires to leave not a nation under heaven destitute of it; it has translated it into 158 languages; it has already given it to tribes who had never before known a written language; and thus it continues to spread peacefully over the whole earth, from Labrador to Terra del Fuego, and China, by millions, the Old Testament of God, without any Apocrypha, and the New Testament of God, consisting of twenty-seven inspired books; holding forth its fraternal hand to all missionaries to spread everywhere with them the name of that Saviour to whom the whole earth is destined to belong.

Say, ye men of Christian benevolence, ye men of faith, if the contrast of the apparent triumphs of critical science, taking to pieces the Sacred Volume, book by book, bit by bit, and the real triumphs of religion, circulating it at the same time with so much reverence and love over the whole habitable globe — say, if this contrast is not greatly to the glory of God, and of His sacred canon. Say, if you do not recognise in it that Jesus Christ reigns at the right hand of the Father, and that He still watches over His Word, as in the days when He gave it. Say, if you do not see in these striking facts the manifest accomplishment of what John beheld in Patmos — “The angel flying in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach to them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people,” (Rev. xiv. 6.)

Never has anything like this been seen on earth!

545. But in this general movement of return to the Scriptures and to the truth of God, do not imagine that Germany herself has remained behind. On the contrary, see pious pastors resettled on the basis of faith, preaching with zeal to their roused and sympathizing flocks the word of grace. See in how many places the mists of rationalism, which had so long obscured the German soil, have vanished before the rays of the Sun of righteousness, and allowed us to admire the dawnings of a beautiful day. See, while so many students have quitted the universities full of prejudices against this or the other of our sacred books, — see a multitude of young servants of God, wholly devoted to Jesus Christ, issuing from the institutions of Bremen, Leipsic, Dresden, Berlin, and Hermansberg, who, bidding farewell to their fatherland, have sailed from the ports of Germany with the book of God in their hands, to preach it amidst the snows of Greenland, or on the burning soil of the Antilles, China, and India. Look only at the Missionary Society at Bale pursuing its labours for fifty-four years, lending its noble labourers to other societies in England, Holland, and the north of Germany, while it maintains its own missionaries in the Indian stations of Canara, the Mahrattas, and Malabar, in towns of Africa almost unknown to geography, and in the Chinese stations of Hong-Kong and Canton.

I have, then, reason to say that if the New Testament with its twenty-seven books has never been so ill-treated before in the schools of human learning, never has it been so exalted by the piety of the churches, and the blessing of God. Human learning has thrown it into the lions’ den, but it has come forth like Daniel on whom “no hurt was found;” it has been thrown into the fiery furnace, but it has come forth like the three Hebrew youths, “upon whose bodies the fire had no power, nor was a hair of their head singed.” It has suffered no harm; the smell of fire has not passed upon it; the flames have only consumed the bonds with which it was bound, and “the form of the Son of God may be seen walking with it in the midst of the flames.” Truly, O Lord, wonderful are Thy ways; and when to our weak and short sight Thy Word appears weak, it is then strong, and performs its mighty works.

Let us, then, acknowledge that the same God of the Scriptures, who watched over the canon for so many ages, has protected it more than ever in the age that has just expired.

546. Yet, before concluding about the fortunes of the Holy Book in Germany, that interesting and noble country of intellectual labour and erudition, it is needful I should say, that if in this land of literary freedom criticism has given scope to all its worse fancies, and if there is not one of our twenty-seven books which it has not attacked, there is not one which the same science has not defended. For every book there has been a host of learned men on one side, and a host on the other. It is not science that has formed the canon, nor can science alter it; but it can at least contribute powerfully to defend it. I might pass under review those men of science who, in the schools of Germany, defend the different parts of the canon which others assail. By the side of Neander disputing the Apocalypse, and of the learned men such as Semler, Schott, Ewald, De Wette, Reuss, or Credner, who vied in attacking it, I could name its numerous advocates — Storr, Häulein, Hartwig, Lüderwald, Lange, Eichhorn himself, Schwegler, Bertholdt, Hävernick, (1834,) Ebrard, (1845,) Olshausen, Hengstenberg, Guericke, (1854.) By the side of Schmidt, Eichhorn, De Wette, Credner, Mayerhoff, attacking the Second Epistle of Peter, I could name Pott, Augusti, Thiersch, Dietlein, and Guericke who defend it. I could name Storr, Meyer, Paulus, Olshausen, Gelpke, Stendel, who defend the Epistle to the Hebrews; Storr, Gabler, and even Eichhorn, and Credner, as well as Guericke, who defend the Epistle of James.

But, if we have admired that manifest Providence which among Protestants, with all their irreverent freedom, has not ceased to preserve in its integrity the volume of the New Testament, we shall receive testimonies of the same Providence no less striking, if we proceed to consider the course of things in the Church of Rome,

1) See Propp. 52-54, 312, 527-530,

2) Propp. 393-397. If, in the Sixth Chapter of the First Part, we have spoken at length about the Apocrypha of the New Testament, our readers must not be surprised that we have said nothing of the Sibylline oracles. They did not seem to us to be of sufficient importance to occupy our attention. Yet it is not uncommon to find in the fathers, especially in Lactantius, mention made of these apocrypha, written in Greek verses. What remains we have of them have been published by Gallaeus, (1689,) by Cardinal Mai, (1817,) and by C. Alexandre, (1841.)

According to the investigations of Dr Bleek and Dr F, Lücke, (Linleitung in die Offenbarung Johannis, Bonn., 1832, §§ 10, 14,) the most ancient parts of the collection date from the second century before Christ; the most recent, from the fifth of our era. The ruin and succession of empires form their habitual theme. Some pieces begin with the fictions of the Greek mythology, and end about the epoch of the Ptolemies, by their palpable allusions to the reign of those princes. A pagan of Alexandria might be the first author of a forgery, which Jewish and Christian interpolators did not hesitate to turn to account. In spite of the gross incoherence of such a medley, they hoped to be able to gain over unbelievers. But Augustin said, very properly, there is a much surer method of convincing pagans, and attracting them to us, for “they will always think that these writings were invented by Christians, (a Christianis esse confictae;) for this reason nothing is more efficacious than to quote the predictions concerning Christ contained in the sacred books of the Jews,” (Ideo nihil est jirmius ad convincendos quoslibet alienos . . . . nostrosque fauciendos . . . . quam ut divina praedicta de Christo ea proferantur, quae in Judacorum seripta sunt codicibus.)

3) See Prop. 54, Book L., Chap. VIII., Sect. 2.

4) Literatur der Einleitungswissenschaft. Tabellen zur Hinleitung ins Neue Testament, Berlin, 1849.

5) I ought not to except from this statement the respected Guericke; because, in his Betträge, he denied the authenticity of the Second Epistle of Peter, though he afterwards nobly retracted this opinion. It is gratifying to read the beautiful expressions at the end of his preface. It required courage thus to return to the ancient truth. The author, in his first work, applied himself to the laborious task of combating De Wette’s Lehrbuch. In the last, he refutes what has been called the new Tubingen school.

6) Binleitung in die göttlichen Schriften der Neuen Bundes, Göttingen, 1788. Translated by Dr Herbert Marsh.

7) Giessen, 1804, 1805.

8) Historische Brit., Einleitung in die Schriften des N. T., 1826. 2 vols.

9) I do not here speak of his innumerable negations on the Old Testament, (Lehrbuch der Einl. in die Bucher des A. T. Funfte Ausgabe, Berlin, 1840.) As to the Pentateuch, it has, according to him, many indications of popular legends, (§ 146;) the miracles did not occur as they are narrated, (§ 145;) Deuteronomy and Numbers present contradictions to the preceding books; Genesis was written between the time of David and that of Joram; Leviticus betrays the epoch of the captivity of the ten tribes, and Deuteronomy that of Josiah, (§ 160;) the opinion expressed in the New Testament, that Moses was the author of the Pentateuch, is of no value for criticism, (§ 163;) as to the book of Joshua, its recitals have a mythological character, (§ 166;) as to the book of Judges, it was compiled long after that of Joshua, ($175;) as to the book of Kings, it is more a moral poem than a historical narrative, (§ 184;) as to the books of Chronicles, they are compiled in a spirit of partiality to the priesthood, (§ 192;) as to the Book of Ruth, it is posterior to the epoch of David, (§ 194;) as to Isaiah, the twenty-six last chapters cannot be authentic, (§ 208;) as to Jeremiah, many passages in the book could not have been written by him, (§ 216;) as to Ezekiel, many of the prophecies it contains are only literary productions, (§ 228;) as to the history of Jonah, it is borrowed from a popular tradition, (§ 229;) as to Daniel, he was not the author of the book that bears his name; and that book, which has some relation to that of the Maccabees and the Sibylline books, is of the age of Antiochus Epiphanes, (§ 255;) as to the Psalms, many of them are only simple imitations, (§ 270;) and as to the Song of Songs, Ecclesiastes, and the Proverbs, probably Solomon was not the author. Lastly, as to Job, it is a production of the captivity, (§ 291.)

10) Beiträge zur histor. krit. Einleitung ins N. T. Halle, 1828. Leipzig, 1843.

11) Gesammtgeschichte des N. T. Leipzig, 1854.

12) “Den ich hiemit wiederholt retractire,” p. 483.

13) Isagogue Historico-crit. in Lib. Nov. Fed. Jena, 1830.

14) Guericke, § 24, p. 396, names also Schott as having adopted Hichhorn’s hypothesis, that the Pastoral Epistles were composed after Paul’s death.

15) Gesammtgeschichte des N. T., 1854, (2d ed.,) p. 147.

16) Lehrbuch der historisch kritischer Einleitung. Leipzig, 1840.

17) That is, he believes it to have been written by a Jewish Christian of Alexandria versed in the philosophy of Philo.

18) Hertwig, Introd. p. 2, without taking any other notice of Neudecker, simply says, “Steht ganz auf Credner’s Schultern.” But see in the original work. Matthew, § 27; Mark, § 32; 2 Peter, § 134; Hebrews, § 114.

19) Die Geschichte der heiligen Schriften. Brunsw., 1853. 3d, ed., 1860.

20) Reuss is not mentioned by Hertwig, except in p. 2, in the list of authors of Introductions. But we believe that we have correctly expressed his views, according to his writings. See §§ 92,196 on Matthew, § 189 on Mark, § 211 on Luke, §§ 219, 226, 229, on John. Théologie Chrétienne au Siecle Apostolique, liv. v., ch. ii, xvii. On the Epistle to the Hebrews, § 151; on 1 Peter, § 149; on 2 Peter, § 255; on James, Theol. Chrét., liv. vi., ch. 4; on the Apocalypse, § 161.

21) Paulus, der Apostel Jesu Christi. Stuttgard, 1845. Kritische Untersuchungen iiber die kanonischen Evangelien. Tubingen, 1847,

22) Das nachapostol, Zeitalter. Tubingen, 1846,

23) In the latter days of his life he has defended it in his commentary on 2 Thess. Introd., pp. 2, 3.

24) Geschichte der heiligen Schriften, §§ 269 and 161.

25) Probabilia de Evangelie et Epistolarum Indole, Lips., 1820, p. 166.

26) Die drei Lehrbriefe von Johannes, p. 260, (Heidelb., 1829.)

27) In his Geschichte der Pflanzung und Leitung der christlichen Kirche, (2 vols., 4th ed., Hamburg, 1847,) — History of the Planting and Training of the Christian Church. Translated by J. E. Ryland. 2 vols, London, 1851, (Bohn.) Vol. i, p. 396.