"We have not received the knowledge of the way of our salvation by any others than those by whom the Gospel has been brought to us. Which Gospel they first preached, and afterward by the will of God, committed to writing, that it might be for time to come the foundation and pillar of. our faith. For after that the Lord rose from the dead, and they [the apostles] were endowed from above with the power of the Holy Ghost coming down upon them, they received a perfect knowledge of all things. They went forth to all the ends of the earth, declaring to men the blessings of heavenly peace, having all of them, and every one alike, the Gospel of God. Matthew then, among the Jews, wrote a Gospel in their own language, while Peter and Paul were preaching the Gospel at Rome, and founding a church there; and after their exit, Mark also, the disciple and interpreter of Peter, delivered to us in writing the things which had been preached by Peter; and Luke; the companion of Paul, put down in a book the Gospel preached by him (Paul). Afterward John, the disciple of the Lord, who also leaned upon his breast, he likewise published a Gospel while he dwelt at Ephesus, in Asia."
Nor is this writer less explicit respecting the book of the Acts of the Apostles.
The force of the testimony we have considered will be strengthened by remembering that it is the testimony, and the concurring testimony of writers who lived in countries remote from each other. Clement flourished at Rome; Ignatius at Antioch, and Irenaeus in France.
I deem it unnecessary to pursue this inquiry further, and shall close by remarking that Clement of Alexandria, one of the most voluminous of Christian writers, follows Irenaeus at a distance of but sixteen years. In the works of Clement which remain, the four gospels are repeatedly quoted by the names of their authors, and the Acts of the Apostles is expressly ascribed to Luke. This brings us to the year 194 A. D. Tertullian joins on to Clement, and is no less explicit in his reference to the New Testament than the writers who preceded him. Then follow numerous writers, among them Origen, A. D. 230; Eusebius, 315; and Jerome, A. D. 392.
So numerous are the references to scripture, in the writings of these men, that were our books of scripture lost, some aver, that they could be reproduced from the works of these writers alone. From the date last given, there can be no question as to the existence of our New Testament or of its acceptance by the whole of Christendom, as containing the account of those events on which Christianity was founded.
[CHAPTER XII.]
FAITH—THE NEW TESTAMENT.
I now come to the tenth allegation of Dr. Paley, viz.: "Formal catalogues of authentic scriptures were published, in all of which our present sacred histories were included."
In the writings of Origen which remain, and in some extracts preserved by Eusebius, from works of his which are now lost, there are enumerations of the books of scripture, in which the four Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles are distinctly and honorably specified, and in which are no books beside what are now received. The date of Origen's works is 230 A. D.
Athanasius, about a century afterwards (330 A. D.), delivered a formal catalogue of the books of the New Testament, containing our scriptures and no others; of which he says, "In these alone the doctrine of religion is taught; let no man add to them, or take anything from them."
About twenty years after Athanasius (350 A. D.), Cyril, bishop of Jerusalem, sent forth a catalogue of the books of scripture, publicly read at that time in the Church of Jerusalem, exactly the same as ours, except that the book of Revelation is omitted.