SECTION II..

Genuineness and Authenticity of the New
Testament.

I. General TITLE of the New Testament.

Every thing we know concerning the belief, worship, manners, and discipline of the first Christians, corresponds with the contents of the books of the New Testament now extant, and which therefore are most certainly the primitive instructions which they received. The collection of these books is known by the appellation of the New Testament, or New Covenant, (because it contains the terms of the new covenant, upon which God is pleased to offer salvation through the mediation of Jesus Christ,) in opposition to the doctrines, precepts, and promises of the Mosaic dispensation, which Saint Paul terms the Old Covenant. (2 Cor. iii. 6.14.)

II. CANON of the New Testament.

The records, thus collectively termed the New Testament, consist of twenty-seven books, composed on various occasions, and at different times and places, by eight different authors contemporary with Jesus Christ, whose history they either relate, together with the first propagation of his religion, or unfold the doctrines, principles, and precepts of Christianity.

III. The GENUINENESS and AUTHENTICITY of the New Testament are proved, not only from arguments which demonstrate that it is not spurious, but also from positive evidence arising from the impossibility of forgery, and from direct external or historical evidence.

Of all the grounds, that either have been or may be assigned for denying a work to be genuine, not one can justly be applied to the New Testament: for

1. No one doubted of its genuineness and authenticity when it first appeared.

2. No antient accounts are on record, whence we may conclude it to be spurious.

3. No considerable period of time elapsed after the

death of the Apostles, in which the New Testament was unknown. On the contrary, it is mentioned not only by their contemporaries, but also by succeeding writers.

4. No arguments can be brought in its disfavour from the nature of its style, which is exactly such as might be expected from the writers of its several books.

5. No facts are recorded, which happened after the death of the apostles.

6. No doctrines or precepts are maintained, which contradict their known tenets,

IV. Positive Evidence ;

1. The absolute impossibility of forgery arising from the nature of the thing itself; because it is impossible to establish forged writings as authentic where there are persons strongly inclined and qualified to detect fraud, as was the case both with Jews and Gentiles.

2. External or Historical Evidence.

[i.] The Books of the New Testament are quoted or alluded to, times innumerable, by a series of Christian writers as well as by adversaries of the Christian faith, who may be traced back in regular succession from the present time to the apostolic age.

[ii.] The Antient Versions of the New Testament are another important evidence for its genuineness and authenticity, as well as of its antiquity; some of them (as the Syriac and several Latin versions) being made so early as the close of the first, or at the beginning of the second century.

3. Internal Evidence of the Genuineness and Authenticity of the New Testament.

[i.] The CHARACTER of the Writers of the New Testament: They are said to have been Jews by birth, and of the Jewish religion, and immediate witnesses of the events which they have recorded. And every page of their writings corresponds with their actual character.

[ii.] The LANGUAGE and STYLE.-The Language is Greek, which was a kind of universal language, just as the French now is: but it is Hebrew-Greek, i. e. Greek intermixed with many peculiarities from the native dialect of the Jews of Palestine, and

consequently such as we might expect from the persons, to whom the several parts of the New Testament are ascribed.

The Style or manner of writing, too, is such as shows that its authors were born and educated in the Jewish religion.

[iii.] The CIRCUMSTANTIALITY OF THE NARRATIVE, and the coincidence of the accounts delivered in the New Testament with the history of those times, are also an indisputable internal evidence of its authenticity.

SECTION III. - On the Uncorrupted Preservation of the Books of the Old and New Testaments.

I. The UNCOrrupted PreSERVATION of the OLD TESTAMENT is proved from the impossibility of its being corrupted: for

1. There is no proof or vestige whatever of any pretended alteration: if the Jews had wilfully corrupted the books of the Old Testament before the time of Christ and his apostles, the prophets would not have passed such an heinous offence in silence: and if they had been corrupted in the time of Christ and his apostles, these would not have failed to censure the Jews. If they had been mutilated or corrupted after the time of Christ, the Jews would unquestionably have expunged or falsified the prophecies concerning Christ, which were cited by him and by his apostles.

2. In fact, neither before nor after the time of Christ could the Jews corrupt the Hebrew Scriptures; for, before that event, any forgery or material corruption would be rendered impossible by the reverence paid to these books by the Jews themselves, the publicity given to their contents by the reading of the law in public and in private, and by the jealousies subsisting between the Jews and Samaritans, and between the different sects into which the Jews were divided. And since the birth of Christ, the Jews and Christians have been a mutual guard and check upon each other.

3. The Agreement of all the Manuscripts.

II. The INTEGRITY and UNCORRUPTNESS of the books of the NEW TESTAMENT is manifest,

1. From their contents; for, so early as the two first centuries of the Christian æra, the very same facts and doctrines were universally received by the Christians, which we at this time believe on the credit of the New Testament,

2. Because an universal corruption of those writings was both impossible and impracticable, in consequence of the early dispersion of copies, which were multiplied and disseminated, either in the original Greek or in translations, as rapidly as the boundaries of the church increased, and also in consequence of the effectual check interposed by the various sects that existed in the Christian church, every one of which received and appealed to the New Testament, as being conclusive in all matters of controversy. Consequently, it was morally impossible that they should falsify or corrupt it in any fundamental article, in order to favour their peculiar tenets, or to erase a single sentence, without being detected by thousands.

3. From the agreement of all the manuscripts, the various readings in which are not only of so little moment as not to affect any article of faith or practice; but they also prove that the books of the New Testament exist at present, in all essential points, precisely the same as they were, when they left the hands of their authors.

4. From the agreement of the antient versions of these books, and the quotations made from them in the writings of the Christians of the three first centuries, and in those of the succeeding fathers of the church.

III, That no canonical books of Scripture have been lost, may be proved by the following considerations; viz.

1. The ordinary conduct of Divine Providence, and the care which the Divine Being has in all ages taken to preserve these books.

2. The zeal of the faithful to preserve their sacred books.

3. The wide dispersion of these books into the most distant countries and into the hands of innumerable per

sons.

IV. With regard to the Old Testament, more particularly, we may conclude, that, if any books seem to be wanting in our present canon, they are either such as are still remaining in the Scriptures, unobserved, under other appellations; or they are such as never were accounted canonical, and contained no points essential to the salvation of man. Consequently they are such, of which we may safely remain ignorant here, and for which we shall never be responsible hereafter.

V. The same observation applies with equal force to the Books of the New Testament; in which some learned men have imagined that they have discovered allusions to writings no longer extant; but, on examination, their conjectures prove to be destitute of foundation. Thus the expression Eygala I have written, in 1 Cor. v. 9., (which has given rise to a supposition that St. Paul had already written an epistle to the Corinthian Church, that is no longer extant,) may probably be put for Ipaqw I write; there being nearly one hundred instances in the New Testament, in which the past tense is put for the present. — So also, the expression ή Επιςολη εκ Λαοδίκειας -the Epistle from Laodicea (Col. iv. 16.), which seems to intimate that the same apostle had previously written. an epistle to the church at Laodicea, is in all probability that which is called the Epistle to the Ephesians, Laodicea being within the circuit of the Ephesian Church.