Armenian, Gothic, and Saxon; nor these only, but all the dispers'd Citations of the Greek and Latin Fathers in a course of 500 years. What wonder then, if with all this scrupulous search in every hole and corner, the Varieties rise to 30000? when in all Antient Books of the same Bulk, whereof the MSS are numerous, the Variations are as many or more; and yet no Versions to swell the Reckoning.

"The Editors of Profane Authors do not use to trouble their Readers, or risk their own Reputation, by an useless List of every small slip committed by a lazy or ignorant Scribe. What is thought commendable in an Edition of Scripture, and has the name of Fairness and Fidelity, would in Them be deem'd Impertinence and Trifling. Hence the Reader not vers'd in antient MSS is deceiv'd into an Opinion, that there were no more Variations in the Copies, than what the Editor has communicated. Whereas, if the like scrupulousness was observ'd in registring the smallest Changes in Profane Authors, as is allow'd, nay requir'd in Sacred; the now formidable number of 30000 would appear a very Trifle.

""Tis manifest, that Books in Verse are not near so obnoxious to Variations, as Prose: the Transcriber, if he is not wholly ignorant and stupid, being guided by the Measures; and hindred from such Alterations, as do not fall in with the Laws of Numbers. And yet even in Poets, the Variations are so very many, as can hardly be conceiv'd without use and experience. In the late Edition of Tibullus, by the Learned Mr. Broukhuise, you have a Register of Various Lections in the close of that Book; where you may see at the first View that they are as many as the Lines. The same is visible in Plautus, set out by Pareus. I my self, during my Travels, have had the opportunity to examin several MSS of the Poet Manilius; and can assure you, that the Variations I have met with are twice as many as all the Lines of the Book. Our Discourser here has quoted Nine Verses out of it, p. 151: in which, though one of the easiest Places, I can shew him XIV Various Lections. Add likewise that the MSS here used were Few in comparison: and then do You imagin, what the Lections would amount to, if Ten times as many (the Case of Dr. Mill) were accurately examin'd. And yet in these and all other Books, the Text is

not made more precarious on that account, but more certain and authentic. So that if I may advise hear more you; when you of this Scarecrow of 30000, be neither astonish'd at the Sum, nor in any pain for the Text.

"'Tis plain to me, that your Learned Whitbyus, in his Invective against my Dead Friend, was suddenly surpriz'd with a Panic; and under his deep concern for the Text did not reflect at all what that Word really means. The present Text was first settled almost 200 years ago out of several MSS by Robert Stephens a Printer and Bookseller at Paris: whose beautiful and (generally speaking) accurate Edition has been ever since counted the Standard, and follow'd by all the rest. Now this specific Text in your Doctor's notion seems taken for the Sacred Original in every Word and Syllable: and if the Conceit is but spread and propagated, within a few Years that Printer's Infallibility will be as zealously maintain'd as an Evangelist's or Apostle's.

“Dr. MILL, were he alive, would confess to Your Doctor, That this Text fix'd by a Printer is sometimes by the Various Readings render'd uncertain, nay is prov'd certainly wrong. But then he would subjoin, That the Real Text of the Sacred Writers does not now (since the Originals have been so long lost) ly in any single MS or Edition; but is dispers'd in them. all. 'Tis competently exact indeed, even in the worst MS now extant: nor is One Article of Faith or Moral Precept either perverted or lost in them; chuse as awkwardly as you can, chuse the worst by design, out of the whole Lump of Readings. But the lesser matters of Diction, and among several synonymous Expressions the Very Words of the Writer, must be found out by the same Industry and Sagacity that is used in other Books; must not be risk'd upon the credit of any particular MS or Edition, but be sought, acknowledg'd, and challeng'd, where-ever they are met with." (Remarks, &c., pp. 64—69, 5th ed., London, 1716.)

CHAPTER IV.

THE CANON OF THE NEW TESTAMENT; OR, WHY ITS BOOKS ARE REGARDED AS AUTHENTIC AND CREDIBLE.

By the canon of Scripture, is meant the list or catalogue of the books that constitute the Scriptures. Etymologically, canon is, in Greek, the mechanic's implement called a rule or square; thence, figuratively, it denotes any rule, or measure, or test, or principle of judgment. Ecclesiastically, a canon of the church is a decree of the church; and in critical theology, the canon of Scripture is the catalogue of books resulting from the real or supposed application of certain tests or rules of selection.

The canon of the Old Testament (in Protestant churches) embraces, as we have before seen (Vol. I. p. 13, &c.), all the remains of Hebrew literature that existed at, and for some time before, the Christian era; the "Books called Apocrypha" being certain Greek Jewish writings of the latter part of the period. The distinction between canonical and apocryphal is there simply of a literary and chronological kind,—the former class including the native Hebrew and more ancient literature of the Jews; and the latter, their more recent Greek literature, chiefly of Alexandrian growth. The Roman Catholic Church, however, disregards these distinctions, and pronounces all the books of the Old Testament and Apocrypha alike canonical, and all of them alike inspired. That any principle of selection or exclusion was ever adopted in forming the canon of the Jewish Scriptures is, to say the least, very questionable. Time alone appears to have been the discriminator, and not invariably to have been guided by the sacredness of the subject-matter in what he has preserved.

The canon of the New Testament, however, belonging as it does to a much lower antiquity, can be shewn to have been formed upon some kind of principles of selec-. tion and rejection. Some books have been, in all periods, regarded by Christians as sacred, and others as not so. Some have been regarded in a more favourable light by certain churches than by other churches, or by certain Christians than by other Christians. Multitudes of books professing to be holy and apostolical, besides those which we recognize as Christian Scriptures, existed in the early ages of the church. St. Luke, in the first verse of his Gospel, expressly says, that "Many have taken in hand to set forth in order a declaration of those things which are most surely believed among us, even as they delivered them unto us, which from the beginning were eye-witnesses and ministers of the word." And, whether he be understood to refer to the labours of his precursors with approval (which seems the obvious meaning of his allusion), or (as some think) with dissatisfaction and with the intention to displace their histories by a more full and accurate one of his own,—the fact is attested by him beyond dispute, that there were already existing many records of the gospel history in part, if not as a whole. That any of these earlier records now exist, we have no reason to believe. The fuller histories by the evangelists may very naturally have thrown the more fragmentary ones into oblivion. But many productions of the first, second and third centuries still exist, and many others now lost are mentioned by ecclesiastical writers, which had assumed the names of various apostles and apostolic men, but were rejected as forgeries, or as not sufficiently important, almost with one consent by the early fathers of the Christian church; while the books now forming our New Testament were accepted as canonical, most of them unanimously, and the rest of them with general,

though not universal, consent. These discriminating testimonies will be presently brought forward.

But first, by way of shewing the reader what kind of books falsely pretending to apostolical authorship, were current in the early Christian church, I shall here quote the titles of those which are enumerated in the decree of Gelasius, who was bishop of Rome 492-496. This decree emanated from a council of seventy bishops meeting at Rome. It enumerates the books of the Old Testament, then those of the New, as we have them. Then it mentions certain ecclesiastical writings which, in due subordination to the Scriptures, the Roman Church permits to be used "for our edification." And then follows this curious catalogue of "apocryphal books which are not received." It is alluded to by Dr. Lardner in his Credibility of the Gospel History" (Works, V. 248), and is quoted by Jones in his "New and Full Method of settling the Canonical Authority of the New Testament" (Vol. I. p. 154), whence I extract it:

66

"The decree of Pope Gelasius concerning apocryphal books. 1. The Travels under the name of Peter the Apostle, which is also called the Eight Books of St. Clemens, are apocryphal. 2. The Acts under the name of Andrew the Apostle, are apocryphal.

3. The Acts under the name of Philip the Apostle, are apocryphal.

4. The Acts under the name of Peter the Apostle, are apocryphal.

5. The Acts under the name of Thomas the Apostle, are apocryphal.

6. The Gospel under the name of Thaddeus, is apocryphal. 7. The Gospel under the name of Thomas the Apostle, which the Manichees use, is apocryphal.

8. The Gospel under the name of Barnabas, is apocryphal. 9. The Gospel under the name of Bartholomew the Apostle, is apocryphal.