THE CANON OF THE NEW TESTAMENT,

Both the Greek and Latin languages have the word canon, and in both it means a rod, a reed, a measure, a rule. It occurs five times in the New Testament, and four times it is rendered rule, once it is translated line. About the age of Jesus and His Apostles it was in use among heathen writers to denote literary works which were regarded as standards of excellence; and soon it was employed by Christian writers to signify the entire scope of doctrine set forth in the word of God as the rule of life; and finally it was applied to the list of the books that comprise the Sacred Scriptures. Only in this last sense is it to be understood now, and the discussion will be confined to the books of the New Testament; partly because they form the principal point of attack by Strauss and other infidels, and partly because their authenticity and genuineness, if fully established, will perfectly secure the canon of the Old Testament.

It is at least worthy of notice that Strauss begins his assault by referring to the labors "for more than a hundred years" of those who had preceded him in their rejection of the Gospel history, and speaks of the issue of these attempts as "each more unfortunate than the other," (p. 5). Further on he says, "such are the lame issues of Schleiermacher's Life of Jesus," (p. 25); and again, "Hase self-complacently calls his 'Manual,' first published in 1829, an essay towards a really scientific life of Jesus; contrasting with it my own work six years later in date, which he calls critically one-sided, and therefore erroneous, or at least useless," (p. 26). His wounded vanity leads him to retort upon his fellow worker in the cause of infidelity by alluding to "the giddiness incidental to the frail footing afforded by his lucubrations," (p. 27), and by pronouncing his view of Jesus "a hopelessly problematical caprice," (p. 28). "I felt satisfied with none of them," he declares;" all seemed to have in some respect failed," (p. 33). Then he comes forward with his own theory, assuming that all supernaturalism of miracle, of prophecy, of inspiration by the Holy Ghost, must be rigidly excluded from the Gospel history, and asserting that its narratives throughout are to be considered, "not the accounts of eye-witnesses, but only fragmentary notes recorded by men who lived at a distance from the events, and who, though they penned down many authentic notices and speeches, collected also all sorts of legendary traditions, and embellished them in part by inventions of their own," (p. 125).

This is the theory that will pass under review; and first of all we must glance at the structure of the New Testament. We find that it is composed of twenty-seven books or treatises, written, as is alleged, at different times and places, and by eight different authors, named Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Paul, James, Peter, and Jude. How do we know that these men wrote the books ascribed to them? The question conducts us at once to another. How do we know that Strauss wrote his first Life of Jesus twenty-nine years before the second and larger edition, or that Sir Isaac Newton wrote the Principia, or that Bacon wrote Novum Organum, or that Milton wrote Paradise Lost, or that Caesar, Sallust, Tacitus, Livy, Virgil, Horace, Cicero, Thucydides, Zenophen, Aristotle, Plato, Herodotus, wrote the books attributed to them?

Leaving entirely out of view at present the internal evidence of the authenticity and genuineness of the sacred writings, and commencing with the weakest argument, the reply to both of the foregoing questions is precisely the same. We trace the various books mentioned up to the time when they are said to have been written, and no further. We discover a line of witnesses in unbroken succession affirming that the authors named wrote the books, that no one during their life-time disputed their authorship, that no one since, except it be some stray lunatic, has denied it, and that in many instances at least, as Paradise Lost, and the Principia, and the Novum Organum, and Cicero's Orations, no other person or persons could have written such works.

With this accumulated evidence, only a madman, or one in a more deplorable condition than a madman, if he perversely and willfully shuts his eyes to the truth, would persist in saying that the books were not the productions of their reputed authors; for we are so constituted that we are compelled to accept credible testimony. When witnesses who are thoroughly competent in every respect to form and express an opinion, and are shown by their whole character and conduct to be thoroughly incompetent to utter a falsehood, make a deliberate and repeated assertion touching any question that falls within the domain of their personal observation, any question of history or of geography, of facts that can be reached only by the highest attainments of human knowledge or of events that occur in the daily rounds of ordinary life, — when there is no conceivable motive tempting them to make the assertion unless it is true, and when it can not be disproved after the most careful investigation and searching criticism, — of necessity we receive their word, and place it among the things that are positively known.

Most of the knowledge we possess is due wholly to testimony, for not one of us knows anything whatever of the past up to the period of our own childhood, except by testimony. Not one in ten thousand, nor one in a million, knows anything whatever apart from testimony of the statements that are found in the school books, and are universally accepted as the truth, which come to us through the spoken or written word of travellers and of explorers in the lofty and distant fields of science. Yet if we did not receive such testimony, the world would stand still. If all could be induced to take seriously the position, thoughtlessly assumed by so many when speaking of the Bible, that they will believe nothing that lies beyond the range of their own observation, and nothing that is in conflict with their very brief experience, and nothing that refuses to come down to the level of their low apprehension, and nothing that admits the intervention of God's hand in the affairs of God's world, the courts of justice would be closed, the wheels of commerce would stop their movement, the very foundations of society would be rent as with an earthquake, and men would become more suspicious and ferocious than the wild beasts.

Now in studying the canon of the New Testament, nothing more is asked than that credence to perfectly trustworthy testimony, which would be accorded if it were given upon any other subject; and it may be well to remind you that precisely the same sources of information, from which Strauss drew his weapons for attack, have furnished an armory to Christians for a complete and triumphant defence. Where one Strauss has assailed the faith of the best men and women of eighteen centuries, a hundred believers have promptly sprung forward to meet him, not less acute in intellect, not less accomplished in learning, not less pure, conscientious, disinterested, and useful in their lives; and they have hurled back his arguments upon him with crushing force. Sir Isaac Newton, for example, does not hesitate to say, "I find more sure marks of authenticity in the New Testament than in any profane history whatever." Why not believe his testimony here, as we receive his testimony upon other questions that called forth the investigations of his powerful mind? The learned Gaussen of Switzerland, who is certainly the peer of Strauss in every respect, writes after thirty years of close and constant study, "We can fearlessly maintain that in the whole compass of ancient literature there is not a book to be at all compared to our first canon, [twenty of the twenty-seven books] as to the complete demonstration of its authenticity. History does not present a similar instance of literary evidence. Should any doubt the accuracy of this assertion, let him mention a single book in favor of the authenticity of which a tenth part of the same proof can be produced. 'The testimony to its genuineness,' says Michaelis, 'is infinitely superior, and that in numerous respects, to anything that ancient literature could present to us in favor even of the most abundantly attested books.' "So say thousands of godly men and ripe scholars, who have carefully examined every foot of ground over which Strauss journeyed to find objections to the authenticity and genuineness of the books that compose the New Testament. Even he writes as follows, "Thus much is certain that towards the end of the second century after Christ, the same four Gospels as we still have are found recognized in the Church, and quoted in many ways as the writings of the Apostles and disciples of Apostles whose names they bear, by the three most eminent ecclesiastical teachers — Irenaeus in Gaul, Clement in Alexandria, and Tertullian in Carthage," (Vol. I. p. 56). Again lie writes, "In Justin Martyr we gain firmer ground, inasmuch as the genuineness of his most important writings is exposed to no doubt, and the period at which he flourished as an author was, at all events, that of the reign of Antoninus Pius, 138-161, A. D." Strauss then admits that Justin Martyr declares the Gospels "were composed by the Apostles of Jesus and their companions," (pp. 69, 70). Again he writes, "A number of Gospels, and among them without doubt our Matthew and Luke, were known to the heathen philosopher Celsus, who wrote against the Christians about the middle of the second century, and he used their differences from one another, e. g., in the account of the resurrection, as a proof against the truth of Christianity," (p. 75). Again he writes in referring to a work of Origen, "Basilides, about 125 A. D., seems to have already known and recognized the Gospel of John," (p. 84). Again he writes, "It is well known that of all the Canonical books of the Kew Testament, the Revelation of John is the one the date of which we can determine most accurately from internal evidence," and afterwards he says, John "wrote the Apocalypse in Asia Minor in the year 68," (pp. 94, 100), though further on, he seems to doubt its authenticity, (pp. 373, 380).

These are remarkable admissions from such a quarter. Formerly it was the fashion of a very coarse and very blasphemous and very ignorant infidelity to deny even the existence of Jesus. Now however all infidels acknowledge His existence and that of His Apostles, and then bend their intellectual energies to what they call a natural and rational explanation of the phenomena of their lives in the history of our race. They also confess, as we have just seen, in the quotations from Strauss, that the four Gospels were known in various portions of the Roman Empire, and attributed by friend and foe to the authorship of the Apostles and their companions, 25 years, or at the most 50 years after the death of the Apostle John. But Strauss does not tell us how these four Gospels, if they were not written by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, came to be received as genuine in so short a time by thousands of Christians and Churches scattered over the civilized world.

A little further investigation will account for this singular fact. "The Peshito," says Gaussen, "is of all versions of the New Testament the most ancient, the most celebrated, and the most valued. . . . Michaelis, who, with many other eminent scholars, considers it of the first century, or, at the latest, of the second, pronounces it the best of all known versions in regard to ease of expression, elegance, and fidelity. All who have studied it admire the good sense, the erudition, the independence, and the accuracy of the translators." That this version is very ancient may be proved by the fact that the Aramaean-speaking Christians were the first to receive the gospel, that their churches were very numerous, not only in Syria, but on the banks of the Euphrates and of the Tigris, and through the intervening country, and that "their literature was then in a high state of advancement." It was from this version Hegesippus, the most ancient ecclesiastical historian, quoted, according to Eusebius, who says that he lived under Hadrian, from 117 to 138 A. D.; and consequently "Jerome in his 'List of Ecclesiastical Writers' places him before Justin Martyr, who was born in 103, and died in 167. These facts prove the high antiquity of the Peshito version."

"Various other circumstances furnish additional evidence on the same point. The Syrian Christians, from the earliest period to the present time, have with one accord gone so far as to maintain that the Peshito was the original of the Kew Testament. . . . What further serves to establish the venerable antiquity of this version is the fact of its being unanimously used by the various sects into which the Syriac Christians are divided — Nestorians, Jacobites, Romanists, all employ it in their respective services. Although, according to Wiseman, there are as many as twelve Syriac versions of the Old Testament, and three of the New, none of these has ever supplanted the Peshito in the services of the Church. It must, therefore, have been adopted universally before the appearance of these various sects."

"This version contains the whole of our canon, with the exception merely of the Apocalypse and the four smaller and later epistles of Jude, Peter, and John." The reason for the omission of these will subsequently appear, but it is certainly a striking and suggestive fact that in this most ancient version, running back very nearly at least to the days of the Apostles, we not only mark the absence of every non-canonical book, and we not only find, with the exceptions just named, all the books of the New Testament as we have them to-day, but the arrangement of the books is the same that exists in all of the best and oldest Greek manuscripts. "First, we have the four Gospels, according to their invariable order, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John; then the Acts of the Apostles; then the Catholic Epistles; and, lastly, the fourteen epistles of Paul in their usual order, Romans, First and Second Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, First and Second Thessalonians, First and Second Timothy, Titus, Philemon, Hebrews."

We next come to the well known catalogue of Origen, who was born A. D. 185, and was martyred at the age of sixty-eight in 253. This remarkable person who, in the immensity of his labors and his power of endurance, was called "the man of adamant," wrote hundreds of books in commentaries and homilies upon the New Testament; and though the larger part of these no longer exists, his works that are still extant consist of four folio volumes. He travelled everywhere to obtain the most authentic copies of the Scriptures that could be found, and as the result of his careful examination, He gives the canon of the New Testament, precisely as we have it, embracing the whole of its twenty-seven books. It is true he distinguishes the First Epistle of Peter, as uncontroverted, from the Second Epistle, in regard to which some doubted; and he also states respecting the two brief epistles of John that all did not consider them as genuine. In relation to the Epistle to the Hebrews, he remarks that some doubted, not its canonicity, but whether it was a production of the Apostle Paul; and then adds, "if any Church receives it as an epistle of Paul, it ought to be held in honor even on that very account, for it was not on light grounds that the early Church has handed it down as a production of Paul's."

Next follows the catalogue of Eusebius born A. D. 270, the favorite of the Emperor Constantine, and assigned by him to the chief place of honor at his right hand in the famous Council of Nice that assembled in the year 325. Of course he had access to all the libraries of the vast Roman Empire, and there is extant a letter of the Emperor entrusting to his care the task of furnishing copies of the Sacred Scriptures. His splendid literary attainments and facilities will not be questioned by any, whatever may be thought of his vacillating character and unsoundness of faith. In his great history he divides the New Testament into books recognize and books controverted, placing in the first division only "the Scriptures universally, unrestrictedly, and uniformly recognized from the first as Divine by all Churches and all ecclesiastical writers." In this class he ranks, "because," as he says, "all ancient teachers and the ancient churches had uniformly regarded them as divine," twenty-two of the twenty-seven books of the canon of the New Testament, or 7,738 out of 7,959 verses that make up the inspired volume. Of the five brief Epistles not put in this class, the Second of Peter, James, Jude, and the last two of John, he says, "These scriptures which have been controverted, though received by most people, and recognized by most ecclesiastical writers, and publicly read along with other Catholic epistles in most churches, have experienced some opposition, and are less quoted by ancient writers."

Succeeding this important testimony of Eusebius we have eleven distinct catalogues in the same century, nine by distinguished "fathers "as they are called, and two by Councils. First, Cyril, patriarch of Jerusalem twenty-four years after the council of Nice, recognizes the canon as we possess it, except the Apocalypse which had not been restored to the. canonical rank it held for 200 years. Second, Gregory of Nazianzus, surnamed "the Divine" gives our present canon entire with the same exception. Third, Philastrius, Bishop of Brescia, agrees fully with the two former. Fourth, Athanasius, perhaps the greatest Theologian of the age, only twenty-six years younger than Eusebius; followed by Epiphanius, only a few years younger than Athanasius; followed by Jerome, bishop of Rome, thirty-five years younger than Epiphanius; followed by Rufinus, an intimate friend of Jerome; followed by Augustine, bishop of Hippo, besides a father whose writings have been preserved, but not his name, all give us the twenty- seven books of the New Testament precisely as they have been held for fifteen hundred years by all the churches of every denomination in all the earth.

In addition to these we have the deliberate decision and decree of two Councils, that of Laodicea, which assembled in the year 364, and that of Carthage which met in the year 397, both presenting as the true canon of the New Testament all of the books as we now read them day by day. Were not the men who composed the Councils better prepared to determine what had been the voice of the Church than Strauss in the nineteenth century? They were more familiar with the writings of those who had preceded them, and self-interest, if no higher motive, would lead them to be exceedingly cautious in announcing their conclusion concerning the books that were to be received as the genuine productions of the Apostles and their companions. The fact that some doubted and disputed for a long time the canonicity of a few of these books is conclusive evidence of the care that was taken, and is sufficient to satisfy a sincere inquirer after truth, that nothing but the most thorough conviction of their Apostolic origin could have led to their final and unhesitating reception.

A moment's reflection will show how the doubt and dispute arose in relation to the Apocalypse, the epistle to the Hebrews, that of James, the Second of Peter, the last two of John, and that of Jude. With regard to the book of Revelation, nothing can be more fully proved than its universal reception at first; but as the hope of the Lord's Second Coming began to decline in the increasing power and progress of the Church, it began to be denied on account of its miliennarian teachings. With regard to the epistle to the Hebrews, like the Apocalypse no one thought of calling in question for a considerable period its right to a place in the canon; but at length it declined in favor with some, because it was supposed to favor the heresies of the Montanists and Novatians, though like 'the Apocalypse again many of the first men in the Church always maintained its canonicity. With regard to the epistle of James, while the Eastern Church from the beginning received it as authentic, its inspired author never quitted Jerusalem, and because it was addressed "to the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad," Gentile prejudice was slow to acknowledge its authority, like the inconsiderate zeal of Luther, who once spoke slightingly of its claims to authenticity on the ground of its imaginary conflict with the doctrine of justification by faith. With regard to the four brief epistles, they were written at too late a date to become current previous to the close of the Apostles' labors, and hence required patient investigation before they were admitted to a permanent position in God's most holy word.

But all this will only carry demonstration to a candid mind, both of the profound reverence with which the Scriptures were cherished, and of the extreme caution that was manifested until each book could assert its high demands upon the faith of Christians with divine and incontestable authority. It is not true, therefore, as sometimes ignorantly affirmed, that the canon of the New Testament was settled by a few men, or by the vote of councils, but its determination was simply the result of the same sort of knowledge that leads Germany to receive as authentic Strauss' Life of Jesus, to say nothing of the guidance of the Holy Spirit, and the result of concurrent testimony following from all parts of the widely extended Church and from the hearts of believers. As Le Clerc in his Ecclesiastical History well says, "There was no occasion for a council of grammarians to declare authoritatively which are the genuine works of Cicero or of Virgil. In like manner, the authenticity of the Gospels was established and maintained without any decree of the rulers of the Church. The same remark applies to the Apostolic epistles. They owe all their authority, not to the decision of any ecclesiastical assembly, but to the concurrent testimony of all Christians, and to the tenor of their contents."

If we look a little further we shall see that the canon of the New Testament was largely determined in the days of the Apostles, and that it went forth under their sanction. Even Strauss admits (pp. 65, 66), that the sacred writers quote from each other, and in these quotations, as previously shown, they place each other's writings among the Scriptures which they affirm are given by inspiration of God. Let any one with a good Reference Bible read the Epistles, and he will be surprised, if the study is new to him, at the number of manifest allusions to the words of the Lord Jesus and of the different Apostles, the latter being put on a level of authority with the former, and with the holy men of God in old time who spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. Thus Peter in his last Epistle refers to all the epistles of Paul, and declares that the unlearned and unstable wrest them, as they do also the other scriptures, to their own destruction. So Jude refers to this last Epistle of Peter when he says, "Beloved, remember ye the words which were spoken before of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ; how that they told you there should be mockers in the last time, who should walk after their own ungodly lusts." It is obvious, therefore, that the canon of the i^ew Testament passed almost, if not altogether, under the inspection of the Apostles themselves, some of whom lived thirty, forty, fifty, and even sixty years after the crucifixion of our Saviour.

Let us suppose that Strauss, having personally superintended the successive editions of his Life of Jesus during the i^ast forty years, and finding no one to dispute his claim of authorship, goes at last, as indeed he has gone, for judgment before Him whose word he has labored so earnestly to overthrow. Let us suppose that his admirers a hundred years hence, if it please the Lord to tarry so long, and if Strauss should have any admirers then, discover that the authenticity of the book is called in question — would they not be surprised and indignant at the effrontery of skepticism in the face of such evidence? But the proof that he wrote the Life of Jesus falls far short of the evidence both external and internal that Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John wrote the four Gospels, and that Paul, James, Peter, and Jude wrote the Epistles ascribed to them. Not only were the writers spared in the midst of incessant dangers for forty, fifty, and one of them for nearly seventy years; not only did they severally and jointly superintend the preservation and dissemination of their writings, and thus guarantee their genuineness; but these writings were in the hands of an innumerable multitude scattered over the world', and hence it was absolutely impossible that they could be changed as Strauss imagines by the addition of "all sorts of legendary traditions and inventions," without instant detection and exposure.

In the first place, we have the undoubted testimony of heathen writers, as Tacitus and Pliny, concerning the amazing spread of Christianity. The former, speaking of the burning of Rome by Nero, and his cruel attempt to fasten the crime upon the followers of Jesus, says, "Those who avowed themselves to be Christians were first taken up, and, afterwards, on their depositions, an immense multitude, convicted, less of having been implicated in burning Rome, than of hating all mankind." "The most obstinate skepticism," says Gibbon, is compelled to respect the truth of this extraordinary fact, which is further confirmed by the accurate Suetonius, for that historian likewise mentions the punishments inflicted by Nero on the Christians." This was while Paul, and Peter, and John, and other Apostles were still preaching the Gospel. Pliny, an intimate friend of Tacitus, and governor of Bythinia, having received direction from Trajan to punish Christians, writes to his imperial master, '^What must I, then, do? The case appears to me very serious, especially on account of the vast number of persons of both sexes, of every rank and age, who are already or will be under persecution. It is not merely in the cities that this superstition has spread, but also in the towns and villages, and even in the rural districts."

Justin Martyr, a little later, reminds the Jew that "there are some countries in which none of his nation ever dwelt; but there is not so much as one nation of men, whether Greek or barbarian, Scythian or Arabian, amongst whom prayers and thanksgivings are not offered up to the Father through the name of Jesus Crucified." Tertullian, only a few years later, writes to the Roman authorities, "We are but of yesterday, and we have filled your empire — all that is yours — towns, islands, fortresses, municipal towns, market-places, the senate, the forum. We have only left you the temples. We can make war upon you without taking arms; it is enough not to live with you; for if the Christians, who compose so great a multitude, should abandon you and retire into some other country, it would be the ruin of your power, and you would be terrified at your own solitude." Again he says, "The Gothic nations, the various Moorish tribes, all the regions of Spain and Gaul, and places in Britain inaccessible to the Romans, have been subjected to Christ, as well as the Sarmatians, Dacians, Germans, Scythians, and nations yet unknown." What a stretch of credulity it must require to believe that all these countless Christians, found over the whole world, permitted all sorts of legendary traditions and forgeries to be added to the sacred books in their hands, and then persisted with unvarying unanimity in asserting that they possessed the very writings of the inspired Apostles! Well might Thiersch say, "We must avow, that incredulity in reference to the first canon, when persisted in, requires the' admission of such incredible and preposterous things, that, in comparison with such gullibility, the blindest belief of some Christians in certain miraculous legends is a mere trifle."

In the second place, no fact in history is better attested than the public reading of the New Testament in these innumerable and widely- scattered assemblies. Such indeed was the direction of the Apostles themselves, as when Paul says to the Thessalonians, in the first Epistle he wrote, "I charge you by the Lord, that this epistle be read unto all the holy brethren," (1 Thess. v. 27), and to the Colossians, "When this epistle is read among you, cause that it be read also in the church of the Laodiceans; and that ye likewise read the epistle from Laodicea," (Col. iv. 16). Accordingly Justin Martyr, in his Apology to the Emperor Antoninus, describing the Christian assemblies, says, "On the day called Sunday, there is a gathering to the same place of all who live either in the towns or country, and then the memoirs of the Apostles, or the writings of the prophets, are read as long as the time allows. Then, when the reader has finished, the president, by an address, makes an exhortation and an appeal to prompt to an imitation of these noble examples." Such was the universal custom, as formed by Jewish Christians in the synagogues, as taught by the positive command of the Apostles, as arising from the nature and necessity of the early gatherings of believers, as kept up by God's people to this day; and surely no sane man will assert that it would have been possible to introduce fictions, and forgeries, and all sorts of traditionary legends, into writings that were publicly read, at least every week, in thousands of different places. Such a thing could not be done now in any country of Christendom, and certainly it could not have been done then in all the countries of the known world, without discovery.

In the third place, not only were copies of the four Gospels and the Epistles found everywhere throughout the Roman empire, but they were so constantly quoted by contemporary and subsequent writers as to justify the remark of Lardner, that were we to collect all the passages of the New Testament cited in the works of Tertullian alone, who wrote in the second century, "their amount would be greater than all the quotations made from Cicero during two thousand years by all writers that are known to exist." Polycarp, for example, a disciple of the Apostles, in a letter whose authenticity is not denied, written only four years after the death of John, quotes extensively and accurately from the Gospels and nearly all the Epistles. Ignatius, who was of John's hearers, does the same thing. Papias, who was also one of John's hearers, directly attributes the Apocalypse to the Apostle. Clement, of Rome, who is mentioned by Paul in his Epistle to the Philippians, wrote a long letter, which has been preserved, and which is full of references to the various books of the New Testament.

The extent to which these quotations were made in the early ages of the Church may be inferred from the following striking fact stated in the Memoirs of Robert Haldane, a Scotch gentleman of wealth and learning, and withal an eminent Christian: "There is an interesting anecdote, which was related by the late Rev. Dr. Walter Buchanan, with reference to the means which seems to have been provided in order to secure the Kew Testament either from interpolation or corruption: 'I was dining,' said Dr. Buchanan, 'some time ago, with a literary party at old Mr. Abercromby's, of Tulloby, (the father of Sir Ralph Abercromby, who was slain in Egypt), and we spent the evening together. A gentleman present put a question which puzzled the whole company. It was this: Supposing all the New Testaments in the world had been destroyed at the end of the third century, could their contents have been recovered from the writings of the three first centuries? The question was novel to all, and no one even hazarded a guess in answer to the inquiry.'

"About two months after this meeting I received an invitation to breakfast with Lord Hailes next morning. He had been of the party. During breakfast he asked me if I recollected the curious question about the possibility of recovering the contents of the New Testament from the writings of the three first centuries? 'I remember it well, and have thought of it often without being able to form an opinion or conjecture on the subject.' 'Well' said Lord Hailes, What question quite accorded with the turn or taste of my antiquarian mind. On returning home, as I knew I had all the writers of those centuries, I began immediately to collect them, that I might set to work on the arduous task as soon as possible.' Pointing to a table covered with papers, he said, 'There have I been busy for these two months, searching for chapters, half chapters, and sentences of the New Testament, and have marked down what I found, and where I have found it, so that any person may examine and see for himself. I have actually discovered the whole New Testament, except seven or eleven verses (I forget which), which satisfies me that I could discover them also. Now,' said he, 'here was a way in which God concealed, or hid, the treasures of His word, that Julian, the apostate Emperor, and other enemies of Christ who wished to extirpate the Gospel from the world, never would have thought of; and though they had, they never could have effected their destruction!' Again it may be asked, could a book so revered, so loved, so quoted, so guarded, so universally and constantly and publicly read, become corrupt by the addition of forgeries and all sorts of legendary traditions? Impossible.

In the fourth place, the early heathen and heretical writers never thought of denying the authenticity of the books of the New Testament. Celsus, who wrote against Christianity in the first half of the second century, or less than fifty years after the death of John, boasted that he would bring all his arguments from the Scriptures, and not only quoted plentifully from the four Gospels, but from the Epistles. If these Gospels had been formed from time to time by all sorts of legendary traditions and inventions of various and unknown writers, would not the keen intellect of Celsus have instantly discovered it? Would not the calmer and more philosophic Porphyry, who wrote in the next century against the Christians, have known it? Would not the bitter and vindictive Julian, who wrote in the succeeding century, have taunted the Christians with the worthlessness of their records? But on the other hand, they bear witness to the genuineness of the Gospel history by never questioning the authorship of its books. In like manner the various heretical sects, that soon appeared to the number of more than thirty, led on by Marcion, Tatian, Valentine, Heracleon, Basilides, and others, are unanimous in certifying to the existence of the canon as we have it, and to its divine authority in the churches. They might object to this and that book on account of teachings that were in conflict with their own views, but they did not pretend to deny that all of the books of the New Testament were written by the men to whom they are ascribed; nor did they dream of the theory which now calls these sacred books "myths."

In the fifth place, the style of the canonical books can be distinguished in an instant by its solemnity and sublimity and heavenly influence and commanding authority, from all that is spurious and legendary. In the earlier part of the present century, William Hone brought out, in London, a cheap edition of The Apocryphal Gospels, which was afterwards reprinted in this country. He was known as "the arch-blasphemer." For thirty years he was an Atheist, "as," he declares, "I believe every consistent reasoner must be, who rejects Christianity." He attained great popularity as a writer, and acquired immense influence by his advocacy of radical reform. At length he was prosecuted by the government for blasphemy, but he conducted his own defense for three days before Lord Ellenborough, in the presence of vast crowds; and such was his consummate ability that, despite the earnest efforts of the crown, he was acquitted amid the applause of the people. "When I found," he remarked to a friend, "what an outcry there was against me on account of the Apocryphal Gospels, I set to work to read the canonical Gospels, and, oh! what a flood of light burst in upon me! And thus I became a convert to Christianity from conviction." From that time until he fell asleep in Jesus, at an advanced, age, his faith and hope and love never forsook him, and the following verses, written on the fly-leaf of his precious Bible, contain his confession:

"The proudest heart that ever beat,
     Hath been subdued in me;
The wildest will that ever rose
To scorn Thy word, or aid Thy foes,
     Is quelled, my God, by Thee.

Thy will, and not my will be done;
     My heart be ever Thine!
Confessing Thee, the mighty 'Word,'
I hail Thee, Christ, ray God, my Lord,
     And make Thy name my sign."

In the sixth place, the language of the New Testament, and its constant and minute references to persons, places, customs, and historical facts, still further establishes its authenticity. Its language is Hebraic-Greek, or Greek intermixed with Hebraic peculiarities and idioms, such as was spoken in Palestine. It is not the pure and elegant Greek of the classic writers, but precisely the language we would expect from those who are the reputed authors of the book. "We may go still further, and assert not only that the language of the Greek Testament accords with the situation of the persons to whom it is ascribed, but that it could not have been used by any person or persons who were in a different situation from that of the Apostles and evangelists. It was necessary to have lived in the first century, and to have been educated in Judea, or in Galilee, or in some adjacent country, to be enabled to write such a compound language as that of the Greek Testament." So we find the writers referring, without the slightest hesitancy, and in the most undisguised manner, to various localities, and historical events, and prominent individuals, as Augustus, Herod, Agrippa, Pilate, Festus, Felix, Cornelius, Julius, a centurion of Augustus' band; yet with the single exception of the statement about the taxing of the Jews under Cyrenius, so far as now remembered, the perfect accuracy of their testimony is not even questioned. Indeed, many books have been written, by Paley and others, setting forth the "undesigned coincidences "that have been gathered by comparing the sacred writers with each other, and that leave upon an unprejudiced mind no shadow of doubt concerning their honesty and strict truthfulness, even in the minutest particulars. Is this the custom of men who are guilty of forgery, and are offering to the world a narrative of pretended facts that are only inventions of their own'? Yet the distinct charge of Strauss is, that the four Gospels are "not the accounts of eye-witnesses, but only fragmentary notes recorded by men who lived at a distance from the events, and who, though they penned down many authentic notices and speeches, collected also all sorts of legendary traditions, and embellished them in i^art by inventions of their own." It is far easier to believe the most stupendous miracle recorded in the Bible than such nonsense as that.

Let us suppose that a book is published the present year, purporting to contain the speeches and acts of Congress that met one hundred years ago, while it is made up of all sorts of legendary traditions and inventions of the writer or writers. What would be the probability of its success? None whatever. The judges, and lawyers, and politicians, and learned men, would instantly say, it was never heard of before, and they would dismiss it with merited contempt. But this is only a feeble illustration of the impossible thing which Strauss asks us to believe without the slightest evidence. We have already seen that twenty-two of the books of the New Testament, just as we have them, were widely disseminated and read during the life-time of the Apostles, and extensively quoted by various writers immediately after the death of John. Yet according to the theory of Strauss, we must suppose that men, who lived at a distance from the events narrated, succeeded so easily and so universally in imposing all sorts of legendary traditions and inventions of their own upon all the Christians, that their forgeries were not even perceived. We must suppose that, notwithstanding the intense love exhibited by the early disciples for their sacred writings, notwithstanding the watchful jealousy that led some of them to hold in abeyance a few of the minor books of the New Testament until their authenticity was established by the most conclusive evidence, so immediately and completely did these spurious productions sweep away all that had been previously accepted and revered as genuine, that no question was ever raised concerning them by friend or foe. Finally we must suppose that the forgery was so perfect, it has never been detected by the keenest criticism of eighteen hundred years, a criticism far more searching and unsparing than was ever bestowed upon any book, or all the books of the world. He who can believe this can believe the most astounding miracle, not only without testimony, but in the face of all testimony.

In the seventh place, if the Gospel narratives were written by persons who lived at a distance from the events, who collected all sorts of legendary traditions, and embellished them in part by inventions of their own, the history of the world during the past fifteen centuries is founded on a lie, for the history of the Church is the history of the world. All the mighty stimulus to the intellect confessedly found in the New Testament, all of its stirring incentives to enterprise and progress, all of its emancipating power from the bondage of terror, all of its associations with liberty, all of its elevating and hallowed influence upon home and society, all of its attractiveness that has won the admiration of the noblest minds, all of its sweet consolations that have ministered so long and so often to the hearts of the sinful and sorrowing, all of the examples it has furnished of superhuman courage, and unselfish devotion, and of willing sacrifice for the good of our race, and of sustained holiness amid temptations and trials, all of the joy it has brought to the dying, as the name of Jesus has caused the pallid lip to smile, and the dim eye to kindle, all, all is a delusion, or the triumph of forgery! Surely the skeptic who is so fond of exalting the laws of nature that he attempts to dethrone nature's Law-giver, must see that if Strauss is correct, the laws of nature that govern the human mind have been constantly violated, under the government of a righteous God, to sustain a monstrous fraud and falsehood.

Only a short time since, Joseph Barker died in the faith of the Gospel, trusting simply in the blood of Christ to wash away his deep and accumulated guilt. For many years he was a leading Deist, lecturing throughout Great Britain and the United States, perfectly familiar with the arguments of Strauss and other infidels, and challenging every minister, whose attention he could engage, to public discussion. On one occasion when he was leaving his house to stand before the people as an ambassador of Satan, his little child followed him to the door and said, "God bless you, Papa." That little voice, he afterwards declared, kept ringing in his heart. "God bless me!" he exclaimed; "God bless me for what? God bless me in what? For hating His Son? In seeking to destroy His word?" Nor could he get rid of that voice until he bowed at the feet of the crucified but risen Jesus, and found pardon and salvation for the chief of sinners.

Dear friends, may the voice of some little child, a voice it may be you will hear no more, reach to-night any who are skeptical, and echo the gentle and entreating voice that still says, "Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." But whether you heed the voice of Jesus, or turn away from it in unbelief and indifference; whether you accept at last His own word, that all your hatred can not change His pity nor chill His love, or persist in your enmity to One who has never wronged you; whether you permit Him to make you happy here and hereafter, or choose to go your own way into a dark eternity, let His unworthy servant say in all sincerity and affliction, "God bless you, God bless you."