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and, with becoming deference to learning, genius, and integrity, cautioning our readers against fuch hypotheses as appear to us unfupported or dangerous.

In the first chapter, which treats "of the title ufually given to the writings of the New Covenant," the only thing of importance is the reafon affigned why the Apostles, who fo often quote the writings of the Old Teftament, rarely quote thofe of the New. "They were, at that time," fays Michaelis, "too recent, and too little known to the Chriftians, in general, to form a fubject of quotation, fince otherwife St. Paul would hardly have omitted, in writing his first epiftle to the Corinthians, to quote, in the fifteenth chapter, the Gofpel of St. Matthew, whofe writings bore teftimony to the refurrection of Jefus."

But this remark," as Mr. Marsh obferves, "pre-supposes that the Gospel of St. Matthew was written before the first epistle to the Corinthians, which is affirmed by Dr. Owen, but denied by Fabricius, Mill, Lardner, and Semler. Befides, if St. Matthew wrote in the dialect of Palestine, as our author fuppofes, it would have been uselefs to refer the Corinthians to a work written in a language to which they were utter ftrangers." (Vol. I. p. 347.) To this may be added, that St. Paul could hardly quote with propriety the gospel of St. Matthew as bearing teftimony to the refurrection of Jefus. In the beginning of the fifteenth chapter he fays to the Corinthians; "I delivered unto you first of all, that which I alfo received, how that Chrift died for our fins, according to the Scriptures: and that he was buried, and that he rofe again the third day, according to the Scriptures; and that he was feen &c." but the Apostle every where declared, and appealed to "the demonftration of the Spirit and of power, with which he preached," that "he neither received the gofpel (of which the refurrection of Jefus was a most important article) of man, neither was taught it, but by the revelation of Jefus Chrift.*", Some ground would have been afforded for calling the truth of these declarations in question, had he referred to any man, even to St. Matthew, as an authority; and, therefore, fuch reference is with great propriety omitted.

The fecond chapter, which treats of the authenticity of the New Teftament, is divided into twelve fections, of which the first is employed in evincing the importance of the enquiry.

"Its influence is fuch as to make it a matter of furprise, that the adverfafies of Chriftianity have not conftantly made their first attacks upon this quarter. For, if they admit these writings to be as antient as we pretend, and really compofed by the perfons to whom they are afcribed, though we cannot from these premifes alone immediately conclude them to be divinely

* 1 Cor. ii. 4, and Gal. i. 12.

1

inspired,

inspired, yet an undeniable confequence is the truth and divinity of the religion itfelf. The apofties allude frequently in their epiftles to the gift of miracles, which they had communicated to the Chriftian converts by the impofition of hands, in confirmation of the doctrine delivered in their fpeeches and writings:-but to write in this manner, if nothing of the kind. had ever happened, would require fuch an incredible degree of effrontery, that he, who poffeffed it, would not only expofe himself to the utmost ridicule, but giving his adverfaries the fairest opportunity to detect his impofture, would ruin the caufe, which he attempted to fupport." (PP. 4, 5.)

On this account Michaelis thinks that the epiftles, if allowed to be genuine, whether written by inspiration or not, afford evidence of the divine origin of our religion fuperior even to that which the gofpels contain; but for this diftinction we perceive no ground. The four Gfpels, together with the Acts of the Apofiles, record fo many miracles of Chrift publicly performed among a people who abhorred his name and his doctrine, that if thefe books be allowed to be genuine, it is impoffible to question the origin of Christianity

*

We have in this fection a very impertinent hypothefis of Dr. Semler, to which Mr. Marth feems to pay infinitely greater regard than it deferves. He fuppofes, forfooth, that, in the 12th, 13th, and 14th chapters of his first epistle to the Corinthians, St. Paul alludes "not to fupernatural gifts, but merely to certain offices in the church, the exercise of which required only natural knowledge and ability; and that the gift of tongues refpects those foreigners who were employed as minifters in the Corinthian church, in order that strangers who frequented the city, whether Syrians, Arabians, or Egyptians, might hear the gofpel in their native language." (PP. 7, 8.)

In the work before us Michaelis treats this hypothefis with merited contempt; but it seems he had lived to change his opinion, as appears from his commentary on the epiftle, which was published in 1791.t He does not, indeed, even there adopt the hypothefis of Semler, which still seems to him extremely improbable; but he thinks that the number of enthufiafts who, in the church of Corinth, imagined themfelves poffeffed of the gifts of the Holy Ghoft, were fuperior to thofe who had really fuch endowments. He founds this opinion, in part, "on the ridiculous diforder which prevailed in the Corinthian community in the use of the gift of tongues;" a diforder which he greatly aggravates, unless he derived his information from fome other fource than the firft epiftle to that community; and then he triumphantly afks: "Are talents like these the gifts of the Holy Ghoft?"

In reply both to our author and to Semler, it is to be observed,

See this argument clearly, though concifely ftated, at the end of Dr. Gleig's Sermons, lately published.

+ See Mr. Marsh's note at P. 350.

B 3

that

that St. Paul exprefsly writes of the gift of tongues in the church of Corinth as of a miraculous gift; for he claffes it with "the gift of healing, and the working of miracles," and fays that "tongues are for a fign-as ovalov-not to them that believe, but to them that believe not." It appears, likewife, that those inspired men valued themselves, each upon his own particular gift, and defpifed in comparison with it the gifts of others; that in confequence of this mutual contempt and jealoufy, charity was completely violated among the Corinthian converts; that there was then no regular fubordination in their church; and that those who were gifted with tongues, upon the appearance of an unconverted heathen in the affembly, were ready to interrupt the prophets or preachers who were edifying the believers. But it does not appear that the whole affembly, as Michaelis feems to have fuppofed, fpoke at the fame time, though it is evident that the prophets, the Speakers with tongues, and the interpreters of tongues, often spoke all at once, contending each for "his own pfalm, his own doctrine, his own tongue, his own revelation, &c." as the most important to be attended to. This was, indeed, very improper conduct; but it was not more improper than the conduct of Balaam, who yet prophefied by the fpirit of God-eis one-for a fign to Balak; or than the general conduct of thofe, of whom we are allured there have been many," who have prophefied in the name of Chrift, and in his name have caft out devils, and done many wonderful works, who were yet fuch workers of iniquity, that, at the day of judgment, they fhall be difmiffed with, Depart from me, I never knew you."§

The gift of tongues, like every other miraculous endowment, was bestowed, not for the fake of him who received it, but as parov, for a fign to the unconverted; but that it might operate in this way, there was no neceffity that every man, on whofe mind the words of a foreign language had been miraculously impressed, should be at the fame time endowed with more than common wifdom. There was, indeed, an evident propriety in the cafe being occafionally far otherwife. St. Paul fpake with tongues more than all the Chriftians of Corinth, but had that gift been bestowed on none but fuch as he, it would have been attributed by unbelievers, not to the miraculous influence of the Holy Ghoft, but to the fame kind of ftudy by which foreign languages are ufually learned. This could hardly be done, when it was perceived to be in the poffeffion of men, who evinced by their own conduct in the inftruction of others, that they knew not

+1 Cor. xiv. 22.

1 Cor xii. 9, 10. That unbelievers, at that period, went occafionally into the affemblies of Chriftians, has been obferved by Grotius, and is, indeed, evident from Acts xiii. 44.

§ St. Mat. vii. 22.

how

how knowledge of any kind is either to be acquired or communicated.

In the fecond fection of this chapter the objections which have been urged against the authenticity of the books of the New Teftament, by Lord Bolingbroke and others among the moderns, and by Fauftus the Manichæan among the antients, are confidered, and completely refuted. In the third fection, our author, after Eufebius, divides the books of the New Teftament into hoyous, or books of undoubted authority; αντιλεγόμενα, γνώριμα δ' ουν όμως τοις πολλοις “doubtful, but acknowledged by the most to be genuine," and Nox, or fpurious. Among the books which he reckons doubtful are the Apocalypfe, the Epistle to the Hebrews, the Second Epistle of St. Peter, the fecond and third Epiftles of St. John, and the Epiftle of St. Jude. His general proofs, therefore, of the authenticity of the New Teftament, are confined to the books of undoubted authority; and from these are excluded, at leaft, in this chapter, the Catholic Epiftle of St. James, not because he himself has any doubt either of its authenticity, or of its having been written by an apostle, but because such doubts were entertained by Eufebius, and other eminent writers of the antient church.

"Our prefent inquiry will be confined to the Homologoumena, not in respect to each book in particular, a matter belonging to the fecond part of this work, but in respect to thefe writings in general. Thefe Homologoumena we receive as the genuine works of Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and Paul, for the fame reafons as we believe the writings to be genuine, which are afcribed to Thucydides, Xenophon, Polybius, Cicero, Cæfar, Livy, &c, namely, because they have been received as fuch, without contradiction, from the earliest ages, when it was easy to obtain the best information, and because they contain nothing which excites the fimalleft suspicion of the contrary. In fact, this argument, when applied to the facred writings, is much ftronger than when applied to the greatest part of profane writers, fince the teftimonies alledged to fupport the authenticity of the New Testament come much nearer to the times in which its authors lived, than those adduced in favour of many Greek and Roman claffics, whose authority was never doubted. And these were read originally only by a fingle nation, and in a fingle corner of the world, while the New Testament was read, and received as genuine in three quarters of the globe, by its adver faries as well as by its friends, in countries the most remote, and moft different from each other in language and manners, acknowledged in every Chriftian community as a work of the Apofiles and Evangelifts, not only by the orthodox Chriftians, but also by thole who diffented from the established rule of faith, with this only difference, that the latter, at the fame time that they acknowledged the writings in general to be genuine, contended that certain paffages were corrupted: till a fect arofe in the eastern part of Asia, a fect ignorant of the Grecian literature and language, which thought proper to pronounce the New Teftament to be fpurious, becaufe the precepts of the Gofpel contradicted the tenets of their philofophy. But if thefe writings were forged in the period that elapfed between the death of the Apoftles, and the earliest evidence for their authenticity, how was it poffible to introduce them at once into the various Chriftian communities,

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whose connexion was intercepted by diftance of place, and difference of language? And those difciples of the Apoftles which were still alive would furely not have failed to detect and confute fo glaring an impofture.

"It is generally thought fufficient to fhew the writings of a claffic author to be genuine, if fome one among the antients has merely spoken of the work, as Cicero, Hirtius, and Suetonius have done of Cæfar's descriptions of his own campaigns, without quoting paffages from the book itself. But it may be objected,' It is poffible, indeed, that Cæfar may have written fuch a treatife, but how can we be certain that the Commentaries, which we afcribe to him as their author, were the fame which Cicero, Hirtius, and Suetonius read? Is it credible that Cæfar was the author of a history in which fo frequent remarks are interfperfed to the difparagement of the Germans, remarks which excite even a fufpicion of their timidity, when it is faid in the very beginning of the work, that the Gauls themselves acknowledged the Germans to be their fuperiors in bravery? Can fufpicions like thefe proceed from a general who was in a great measure indebted to his German auxiliaries for the victory of Pharfalia, a circumstance again omitted to be mentioned in the Bellum Civile? Are these the Commentaries fo commended by Cicero and Hirtius, and to which the latter applied the obfervation: prærepta, non præbita facultas fcriptoribus videtur? Could thefe Commentaries have exifted in the days of Florus, who likewise defcribes the battle of Pharfalia, and estimates the number in both armies at three hundred thousand, befides the auxiliaries, when the number given in the Commentaries is fo confiderably inferior? Could Florus have been better acquainted with the ftate of the army than Cæfar, and would he have neglected to derive his intelligence from the best poffible accounts, had fuch accounts at that time existed?'

661

Objections like these to the authenticity of Cæfar would be answered by every critic in claffical literature not with a ferious reply, but with a fmile of contempt. Yet weak and trivial as these arguments may appear, they are ftronger than fuch as can with juftice be applied to the writings of the New Teftament, which is not only mentioned by the earliest fathers as being written by thofe Apoftles and Evangelifts, to whom we afcribe them, but quoted and explained at fuch confiderable length, as leaves no poffibility of a doubt, that the writings, to which they allude, are the very fame with thofe which have been tranfmitted to us under that title." (Pr. 24—26.)

The force of this reasoning will be a fufficient apology to fuch of our readers as we are most defirous to pleafe, for the length of the extract, though we should be compelled to pafs over more curforily than we had intended, some of our author's lefs important conjectures. In the fourth and fifth fections, though effential parts of the chapter, there is nothing that calls for particular attention; but in the fixth we have a very fatisfactory, though rather a confined, view of the evidence arifing from the teftimonies of the fathers and other Chriftian writers of the first centuries. For a more complete detail of those teftimonies, the author, with great propriety, refers to Lardner; from whom, however, as from all other divines, he differs refpecting St. Clement's first epistle to the Corinthians, the authenticity of which he calls in queftion on the most frivolous grounds, as his editor and tranflator very clearly fhews,

But

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