Fifteen years after Cyril (365 A. D.), the council of Laodicea delivered an authoritative catalogue of Canonical Scripture, like Cyril's, the same as ours, with the omission of Revelation.[A]
[Footnote A: I have taken the preceding paragraphs of this chapter entire, from Paley's Evidences of Christianity Part I., chap, ix, sec. 10]
About thirty years later, that is, in 393 A. D., followed the council of Hippo, which delivered a catalogue of the books of the New Testament, which agrees with that now in our common English version. This was followed by the third council of Carthage, in 397 A. D., and by the sixth of Carthage 415 A. D., both of which confirmed the list of sacred books made out by the council of Hippo.
It seems to me that proving these two propositions selected from Dr. Paley's list, is sufficient to make out a case for the authenticity of the books of the New Testament; but when the reader remembers that the nine other allegations we quoted in chapter eleven can also be sustained by undeniable proofs, the case is made out so clearly that there can be no room for doubt.
Then the Book of Mormon comes in also as a witness for the New Testament as well as for the Old. Not so much a witness for the authenticity of the books composing it, however, as for the correctness of what is contained in them. —The writers in the Book of Mormon who bear a direct testimony as to what the New Testament scriptures contain, and in that way indirectly establish their authenticity and credibility may be divided into two classes, prophetic and historical. By the former, I mean those who by the inspiration of heaven foresaw the birth and mission of Jesus Christ as it all, afterwards came to pass; by the latter, I mean those who lived at the time and were witnesses to the personal ministrations of Messiah, on the western hemisphere, and made a record of those things they saw and heard.
Of the first class, the prophetic, the first Nephi stands out most prominently; for he gives such a vivid description of the leading outlines of Messiah's life and labors on the earth, that it makes one feel in very deed that "prophecy is but history reversed," for had he lived and written in the first century of the Christian are instead of the fifth century preceding it, I feel sure that he could not have been more vivid or exact in writing the life, mission and doctrines of the Son of God;[B] and all that he predicts is in strict accord with what is contained in the New Testament.
[Footnote B: For the remarkable prophecies which foretell the events here alluded to, I refer my readers to the xi, xii, xiii and xvi chapters of I. Nephi, Book of Mormon.]
Next to Nephi we may place King Benjamin, whose testimony is found in the book of Mosiah, chapter iii, and next to him, Abinadi, whose prophecies in relation to the coming and mission of Jesus, are contained in the thirteenth, fourteenth, fifteenth and sixteenth chapters of Mosiah; and, lastly, Samuel, the Lamanite prophet, whose testimony is in the fourteenth chapter of Helaman.
All these prophets give the outlines of the life and mission of Jesus Christ, and, as before stated, what they say is in strict accord with what is written in the New Testament, by those who witnessed the events that these prophets of the Western hemisphere foretold.
On the other side of the line, that is, of the historical witnesses, they who lived at the time Jesus visited the western hemisphere and wrote an account of what took place, the III Nephi, the one whom the Lord made the chief of the apostles, is most conspicuous. He records the fact of Messiah's visit to the Nephites, after his resurrection and departure from his disciples in Judea; and gives a most particular account of the several visits of Jesus to his people, and of his organizing a church, after the pattern of the one organized in Jerusalem; also of the doctrines and moral precepts which he taught; in all of which there is a substantial agreement with what is recorded in the New Testament.[C]