relation with authenticity, and prove that in the gospels we read not a gradually developed realization of an ideal existing in the minds of a nation or a religious community, but the narration of a real and substantive history. The differences, therefore, which exist between the relations of one evangelist and another, are so far from proving them to be unhistoric and legendary, that, by showing the independence of the sources from which each evangelist drew, they become one of the strongest confirmations of the historic value of the gospels.

The true answer, however, to the whole system which we are considering is, that the gospels were written too early to be a mere collection of gradually developed legends. It was not possible between the time of Christ's passion and the publication of the first three gospels, that the accounts given by the apostles to the churches should have been forgotten, and new and fabulous accounts received instead. This our objector felt to be a difficulty, and therefore endeavours to prove that there is no certain citation of these gospels by name, nor anything to identify them until after the middle of the second century, when he says, it appears from the writings of Irenæus, Clement of Alexandria, and Tertullian, that they were known and acknowledged by the orthodox church as the canonic gospels. It is remarkable that this author, who professes to reject the gospel history because of its inability to stand the test of modern criticism, when he desires

to prove the lateness of its publication, avoids criticism altogether, and merely endeavours to shake the historic testimonies. His own admissions are, however, sufficient to show the falsehood of his hypothesis. He admits, what it is impossible to deny, that the four gospels, to the exclusion of others, were received as canonic in the time of Irenæus, at a period certainly not later than the year 170. What, then, was the cause of the reception? Why was it that the most learned and most distinguished leaders of the Christian church received these four, and ascribed them to the authors whose names they bear, whilst they rejected others; for that there were others he also admits, as that Papias, the hearer of St. John, distinctly refers to a gospel of St. Matthew, and that certain gospels bearing a resemblance to those which we possess, were cited by Celsus, and known to Justin Martyr? What was it, then, that recommended these gospels to the Church to the exclusion of others? Was it their novelty? Did Tertullian and Irenæus, those reverers of antiquity, reject the gospels which they had received from their predecessors because they were old, and adopt other gospels, come no one knows from whence, because they were new? Did Irenæus, in particular, reject the gospels received from Polycarp, his master, for the sake of four new gospels which he had never heard of before? This is, to use the author's own words, contrary to all the laws of possibility; and if incredible in the case

of this one individual, absolutely impossible in that of the whole Christian Church. The testimony of Irenæus alone is sufficient to establish the antiquity of the four gospels. Far from speaking of them as a new discovery-and he was about seventy years old when he wrote his intimate acquaintance with, and numerous citations from, all the four, as well as the certainty with which he speaks of their authors, prove that they were the gospels which he had known and received in his youth; and this brings us to the time of Polycarp, and Polycarp again to that of St. John. The historic testimonies, therefore, admitted even by this critic, are amply sufficient to prove the ancient reception of the four gospels, and thus to invalidate his main argument for the possibility of the development of legendary compilations.

Besides, the omission of all attempt to apply his principles of criticism to prove the novelty of the gospels, is a tacit confession that in the gospels themselves the sharp eye of scepticism could perceive nothing that betokened the product of a later age than that of the apostles. An examination will show that there is much to prove that they could not possibly be written in an age later than the apostolic, else they would not have been received by the Gentile churches. A mere cursory inspec

tion is sufficient to show that the materials of which the gospels are composed are the works of Jewish Christians, and that Palestine is their native land.

But early in the second century the separation between Christians of the circumcision and those of the uncircumcision had become so wide as to make the reception of new gospels composed by the former impossible. The gospels must therefore have been received, and if received, beyond all doubt written before this first great schism had been completed. An extension of this argument will prove that the materials of the gospels were composed before the writing of St. Paul's epistle to the Galatians. I say the materials, because it is evident that St. John's gospel was written long after, and St. Luke tells us that he was only an arranger of materials collected from those who were eye-witnesses and ministers of the word. When St. Paul wrote to the Galatians, the great controversy between the Judaizers and the Gentile churches had already commenced, and fearfully agitated the Christian community, and yet the gospels, evidently the work of Christians of the circumcision, contain no allusion to the controversy, and the evangelists seem not in any wise to have been influenced by controversial feelings in their selection of the materials. St. Matthew, for instance, appears, on the one hand, to take the side of the Judaizers by the passage, 'Think not I am come to destroy the law and the prophets,' and by comparing the Jews to children and the Gentiles to dogsand on the other, to favour the Gentiles by the doctrine, that Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man, but that which cometh out of the

mouth;' and by the declaration, that 'The kingdom of God should be taken from the Jews and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof.' The first three evangelists all recount the command to preach the gospel amongst the Gentiles without any allusion to the controverted point about the continuance of circumcision and the Mosaic law. Indeed it is especially to be noted that the technical use of the terms circumcision and uncircumcision is unknown to the gospels. The term 'uncircumcision' does not occur to all; and circumcision is alluded to only in relating the circumcision of John the Baptist and our Lord, and in one passage of St. John's gospel. And it is equally remarkable that not one of the gospels contains an allusion to idols nor idolaters, nor any precept concerning intercourse with them, a plain proof that the materials were composed before such a state of the Church as is described in the Acts and the epistles of St. Paul made any such precepts necessary. These and many similar observations, for which there is not time at present, show, that if, as infidels suppose, the gospels are the work of uninspired men, the original materials were composed before the controversy with the Judaizers had commenced, that is, before St. Paul's epistle to the Galatians was written.

A comparison with the epistles furnishes many other similar arguments in favour of the early origin of the gospels. As they contain no allusion to the earliest controversy that disturbed the Christian.