the majority of the ancients; and, therefore, that all our present books of the New Teftament (the Apocalypfe perhaps excepted) have stronger proofs for their authenticity, than can be produced for any of the other writings of antiquity, for thofe of Xenophon, Polybius, Tacitus, or Cicero, which nevertheless are received as genuine with fuch confidence, that the whole world pronounced Hardouin infane, when he attempted to call their authenticity in question.-For, in the present cafe, we have not merely a single folitary witness or two, but a great variety. They name these fcriptures not fimply in a cafual way, but relate their hiftory, and make long extracts from them. Thefe witneffes are men, who were intimately acquainted either with the Evangelifts and Apoftles themselves, or their immediate difciples; and lived at fartheft not later than about two generations after their times. They were were very well verfed in every kind of profane literature; they were philofophers and Scholars, who had formed their tafte, and fharpened their judgment by the study of the beft writers of antiquity, of Homer, Euripides, Æfchylus, Plato, and Ariftotle; they were scholars, who had read with attention all the works of the Chriftian authors; who were alfo familiar with the apochryphal writings (of which, in the first century, exifted but few 1), and after i Even here the enemies of Christianity betray themselves. They confound all together; and mistake writings forged in much later times for works which were in circulation foon after the times of the Apostles under their names. Out of a fingle book, with different titles, they make many books. And through these effects of ignorance or dishonesty, the number of apochryphal works is magnified in such an amazing degree, that John Tolland in his Amyntor has filled many pages only with the bare names of them. This error has been moft amply refuted by Mr. Jeremiah Jones, in his New and full method of fettling the canonical authority of the New Teftament,' London, 1726, 3 vol. 8vo. in which he goes through each of thefe after accurate fcrutiny, rejected them. They alfo doubted of the truth of fome of the books of our New Teftament, and thereby established an evident proof that they were by no means credulous. Some of them travelled in perfon purposely to examine into the truth of the books, which made pretenfions to divine infpiration, received accurate information on this point from the communities planted by the Apostles themselves, and in their con thefe apochryphal works feparately, and proves that the ancients rejected them as spurious, and pronounced the Scriptures of our New Teftament exclufively to be the genuine works of the Evangelifts and Apoftles. And this is also testified by Eufebius (Hift. Ecclef. Lib. III. cap. 25) from his own knowledge of the earliest writings. The major part of these apochryphal works were written in the fourth century. They all agree in effential matters with our New Teftament; but they contain also a variety of fables. See thefe writings in Jo. Alb. Fabricii Cod. Apocr. N. T. vol. iii. in 8vo. Compa. Beaufobre Hift. du Manichée, Vol. ii. and Lardner's Credibility of the G. H. Part II. vol. xii. P. 157-174. first edition. troverfies troverfies with the heretics appealed to them with confidence. * Lardner deferves the greatest credit for his la. bours on the proof of the authenticity of the New Teftament. In the fecond part of his Credibility of the Gofpel Hiftory,' (which was originally published in 32 vol. 8vo.) and in the Supplement' (in 3 vol.) he has collected the evidences of the Chriftian authors in a chronological order according to the centuries. |