Epistle of Paul to the church at Rome was judged of as authentic by that church, without any reference to the Epistle to the Ephesians. If, therefore, the New Testament is a forgery, it is not an instance of a single successful forgery, but of twenty-seven separate ones, imposed upon intelligent men whose interests were all involved in detecting the fraud. If, now, we consider how seldom literary forgeries are undertaken- that they are, in fact, nearly or quite unprecedented, unless they come out under the shadow of some great name that no possible motive can be assigned for the forgery of such books; if we consider the difficulty of it in any case, and the moral impossibility of it in reference to books of such pretensions, and that have, in fact, commanded the reverence of the civilized world, —I think we shall feel that twenty-seven successful forgeries, within the space of sixty years, is a supposition not to be entertained for a moment.

Not one mark of spuriousness. Once more: the reasons which render the authenticity of a work suspicious are thus laid down by Michaelis: 1. When doubts have been entertained, from its first appearance, whether it was the work of its reputed author. 2. When the immediate friends of the author have denied it to be his. 3. When a long series of years has elapsed, after his death, in which the book was unknown, and in which it must have been mentioned or quoted, had it been in existence. 4. When the style is different from his other writings, or, in case no others remain, from what might be reasonably expected. 5. When events are recorded which happened later than the time of the pretended author. 6. When opinions are advanced contradictory to those which he is known. to have advanced in other writings. Of these marks of spuriousness, not one can be attached to a single book of the New Testament.

Contrasted with other books. I observe, finally, that this evidence is, if possible, heightened by the contrast in all respects between our books and those which have been regarded as spurious. The fact that such books existed is sometimes made use of to create the impression that they were once of nearly equal authority with ours, and that there was difficulty and uncertainty in making the distinction. Nothing can be farther from the truth. For, 1. There is no evidence that those spurious or apocryphal books existed during the first century; indeed, they all were manifestly forgeries of a later age. 2. No Christian history, besides our Gospels and the Acts, is quoted by any writer now known within three hundred years after the birth of Christ. 3. None of these apocryphal writings were read in the churches. 4. None of them were ever admitted to the volume of the New Testament. 5. Nor do they appear in any catalogue. 6. Nor were they alleged by different parties, in their controversies, as of authority. 7. Nor were they the subjects of commentaries, or versions, or expositions. 8. Nor were they ever received by Christians of after ages, but were almost universally reprobated by them.

And, now, is not this point proved? Is it not fully established that these books were written by the men whose names they bear, and at the time when they purport to have been written?

Integrity. I close by a very brief reference to a single point more, which properly belongs here. How do we know that the integrity of the books of the New Testament has been preserved? I answer, first, we know it from the nature of the case. Augustine, in the fourth century, reasoning with a heretic, puts this well. "If any one," says he, "should charge you with having interpolated some texts alleged by you,

would you not immediately answer, that it is impossible for you to do such a thing in books read by all Christians and that, if any such attempt had been made by you, it would have been presently discerned and defeated, by comparing the ancient copies? Well, then, for the same reason that the Scriptures can not be corrupted by you, they can not be corrupted by any other people." We know the same thing, secondly, from the agreement of our books with the quotations in the works of the early Christian fathers. These quotations are so abundant that almost the whole of the New Testament might be gathered from them; and yet, except in six or seven verses, there is an agreement in all material respects between those quotations and the corresponding parts of our books. We know it, thirdly, from the entire agreement of our books with ancient versions. The old Syriac version, called Peshito, was certainly in use before the close of the second century. This was not known in Europe before the close of the sixteenth century. It came down by a line perfectly independent of that by which our Greek Testament was received; yet, when the two came to be compared, the difference was altogether unimportant. Is it possible that evidence should be more satisfactory?

Various readings. The subject of various readings was at one time so presented as to alarm and disquiet those not acquainted with the facts. When a person hears it stated that, in the collation of the manuscripts for Griesbach's edition of the New Testament, as many as one hundred and fifty thousand various readings were discovered, he is ready to suppose that every thing must be in a state of uncertainty. A statement of the facts relieves every difficulty. The truth is, that not one in a thousand makes any perceptible, or at least important variation in the meaning; that they consist almost entirely of the small and obvious mis

takes of transcribers, such as the omission or transposition of letters, errors in grammar, in the use of one word for another of a similar meaning, and in changing the position of words in a sentence. But, by all the omissions, and all the additions, contained in all the manuscripts, no fact, no doctrine, no duty prescribed, in our authorized version, is rendered either obscure or doubtful.

There was a time when the rubbish of antiquity did gather around these pillars of our evidence. The keen eye of the infidel saw it, and he hoped to show that they rested upon rubbish alone. But, like every similar attempt, at whatever point directed, a full examination has served only to show how firm is the rock upon which that church rests which is "the pillar and ground of the truth."

LECTURE X.

ARGUMENT TWELFTH; CREDIBILITY OF THE BOOKS OF THE

NEW TESTAMENT.

OUR next subject, as will have been anticipated, is the credibility of the books of the New Testament; and I proceed directly to the discussion. This question is purely one of historical evidence; and if there is left for me very little that is new, either in the matter or in the manner of presenting it, I shall yet hope for attention, from the important place which this point holds, and always must, in the Christian argument.

Authenticity. And the first consideration which I adduce in favor of the credibility of these books is their authenticity. It was because I regarded every testimony adduced, in the last lecture, to prove the authenticity of the gospel histories as also a testimony to their truth, that I dwelt so fully on that subject. The fathers did not quote so largely from those books because they were written by apostolical men, but because they regarded them as true, and as having an authority paramount to all others. The testimony of antiquity, therefore, thus given to the authenticity of these books, is equivalent to its testimony to the reality of the facts which they contain.

Moreover, when men publish an account of facts under their own names, especially of facts that are within the immediate knowledge of the most of their