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no less than if Christ in the flesh had been speaking to him; and to the writings of the apostles, whom he esteemed as the presbytery of the whole Christian church." It must be observed, that about eighty years after this we have direct proof, in the writings of Clement of Alexandria, that these two names, "Gospel," and "Apostles," were the names by which the writings of the New Testament, and the division of these writings, were usually expressed.

Another passage from Ignatius is the following: "But the Gospel has somewhat in it more excellent, the appearance of our Lord Jesus Christ, his passion and resurrection"."

And a third: "Ye ought to hearken to the Prophets, but especially to the Gospel, in which the passion has been manifested to us, and the resurrection perfected." In this last passage, the Prophets and the Gospel are put in conjunction; and as Ignatius undoubtedly meant by the Prophets a collection of writings, it is probable that he meant the same by the Gospel, the two terms standing in evident parallelism with each other.

This interpretation of the word "Gospel," in the passages above quoted from Ignatius, is confirmed by a piece of nearly equal antiquity, the relation of the martyrdom of Polycarp by the church of Smyrna. "All things," say they, "that went before, were done, that the Lord might show us a martyrdom according to the Gospel, for he expected to be delivered up as the Lord also did." And in another place, "We do not commend those who offer themselves, forasmuch as the Gospel teaches us no such things." In both these

2

Lardner, Cred. vol. ii. p. 516. 4 Ignat. Ep. c. i.

3 Ib. p. 182.
5 Ib. c. iv.

places, what is called the Gospels seems to be the history of Jesus Christ, and of his doctrine.

If this be the true sense of the passages, they are not only evidences of our proposition, but strong and very ancient proofs of the high esteem in which the books of the New Testament were holden.

II. Eusebius relates, that Quadratus and some others, who were the immediate successors of the apostles, travelling abroad to preach Christ, carried the Gospels with them, and delivered them to their converts. The words of Eusebius are: “Then travelling abroad, they performed the work of evangelists, being ambitious to preach Christ, and deliver the Scripture of the Divine Gospels. Eusebius had before him the writings both of Quadratus himself, and of many others of that age, which are now lost. It is reasonable, therefore, to believe, that he had good grounds for his assertion. What is thus recorded of the Gospels took place within sixty, or, at the most, seventy years after they were published: and it is evident, that they must, before this time (and, it is probable, long before this time), have been in general use, and in high esteem in the churches planted by the apostles, inasmuch as they were now, we find, collected into a volume; and the immediate successors of the apostles, they who preached the religion of Christ to those who had not already heard it, carried the volume with them, and delivered it to their converts.

III. Irenæus, in the year 1787, puts the evangelic and apostolic writings in connexion with the Law and the Prophets, manifestly intending by the one a code or collection of Christian sacred writings, as the other 7 Ib. vol. i. p. 383.

6 Lardner, Cred. part ii. vol. i. p. 236.

expressed the code or collection of Jewish sacred writings. And,

IV. Melito, at this time bishop of Sardis, writing to one Onesimus, tells his correspondent3, that he had procured an accurate account of the books of the Old Testament. The occurrence, in this passage, of the term Old Testament, has been brought to prove, and it certainly does prove, that there was then a volume or collection of writings called the New Testament.

V. In the time of Clement of Alexandria, about fifteen years after the last quoted testimony, it is apparent that the Christian Scriptures were divided into two parts, under the general titles of the Gospels and Apostles; and that both these were regarded as of the highest authority. One, out of many expressions of Clement, alluding to this distribution, is the following:-" There is a consent and harmony between the Law and the Prophets, the Apostles and the Gospel"."

VI. The same division, "Prophets, Gospels, and Apostles," appears in Tertullian10, the contemporary of Clement. The collection of the Gospels is likewise called by this writer the "Evangelic Instrument";" the whole volume, the "New Testament;" and the two parts, the "Gospels and Apostles'

12 "

VII. From many writers also of the third century, and especially from Cyprian, who lived in the middle of it, it is collected, that the Christian Scriptures were divided into two codes or volumes, one called the Gospels, or Scriptures of the Lord," the other the Apostles, or Epistles of the Apostles 13."

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Lardner, Cred. vol. i. p. 331.

10 Ib. p. 631.

12 Ib.

p. 632.

9 Ib. vol. ii. p. 516. " Ib. p. 574.

13 Ib. vol. iv. p. 846.

VIII. Eusebius, as we have already seen, takes some pains to show, that the Gospel of St. John had been justly placed by the ancients "the fourth in order, and after the other three 14 " These are the terms of his proposition: and the very introduction of such an argument proves incontestably that the four Gospels had been collected into a volume to the exclusion of every other; that their order in the volume had been adjusted with much consideration; and that this had been done by those who were called ancients in the time of Eusebius.

In the Dioclesian persecution, in the year 303, the Scriptures were sought out and burnt 15: many suffered death rather than deliver them up; and those who betrayed them to the persecutors were accounted as lapsed and apostate. On the other hand, Constantine, after his conversion, gave directions for multiplying copies of the Divine Oracles, and for magnificently adorning them at the expense of the imperial treasury 16. What the Christians of that age so richly embellished in their prosperity, and, which is more, so tenaciously preserved under persecution, was the very volume of the New Testament which we now read.

SECT. IV.

Our present Sacred Writings were soon distinguished by appropriate names and titles of respect.

POLYCARP. "I trust that ye are well exercised in the Holy Scriptures:-as in these Scriptures it is said, Be ye angry and sin not, and let not the sun go 15 Ib. vol. vii. p. 214, et seq.

14 Lardner, Cred. vol. viii.
p. 90.
16 Ib. vol. vii. p. 432.

down upon your wrath." This passage is extremely important; because it proves that, in the time of Polycarp, who had lived with the apostles, there were Christian writings distinguished by the name of "Holy Scriptures," or Sacred Writings. Moreover, the text quoted by Polycarp is a text found in the collection at this day. What also the same Polycarp hath elsewhere quoted in the same manner, may be considered as proved to belong to the collection; and this comprehends St. Matthew's, and, probably, St. Luke's Gospel, the Acts of the Apostles, ten epistles of Paul, the First Epistle of Peter, and the First of John. In another place, Polycarp has these words: "Whoever perverts the Oracles of the Lord to his own lusts, and says there is neither resurrection nor judgment, he is the firstborn of Satan3."-It does not appear what else Polycarp could mean by the " Oracles of the Lord," but those same "Holy Scriptures," or Sacred Writings, of which he had spoken before.

II. Justin Martyr, whose Apology was written about thirty years after Polycarp's epistle, expressly cites some of our present histories under the title of GOSPEL, and that not as a name by him first ascribed to them, but as the name by which they were generally known in his time. His words are these: "For the apostles in the memoirs composed by them, which are called Gospels, have thus delivered it, that Jesus commanded them to take bread, and give thanks." There exists no doubt, but that, by the memoirs above mentioned, Justin meant our present historical Scriptures; for throughout his works he quotes these, and no others.

III. Dionysius, bishop of Corinth, who came thirty years after Justin, in a passage preserved in Eusebius

'Lardner, Cred. vol. i. p. 203.
3 Ib. p. 222.

2 Ib. p. 223.
4 Ib. p. 271.

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