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 ovulov-not to them that believe, but to them that believe not." It appears, likewife, that those infpired men valued themselves, each upon his own particular gift, and despised 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 thofe 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, spoke at the fame time, though it is evident that the prophets, the Speakers with tingues, 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-as nulov-for a fign to Balak; or than the general conduct of those, of whom we are affured 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." §

There was,

The gift of tongues, like every other miraculous endowment, was bestowed, not for the fake of him who received it, but is no for a fign to the unconverted; but that it might operate in this way, there was no neceffity that every man, on whose mind the words of a foreign language had been miraculously impreffed, should be at the fame time endowed with more than common wisdom. 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 beftowed 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 study 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 commu

nicated.

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 you, or books of undoubted authority; αντιλεγόμενα, γνώριμα δ' ουν όμως τοις πολλοις "doubtful, but acknowledged by the moft to be genuine," and Nofa, or fpurious. Among the books which he reckons doubtful are the Apocalypfe, the Epifle to the Hebrews, the Second Epistle of St. Peter, the fecond and third Epiftles of St. John, and the Epistle 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 becaufe fuch doubts were entertained by Eufebius, and other eminent writers of the antient church.

"Our prefent inquiry will be confined to the Homologoumena, not in refpect to each book in particular, a matter belonging to the fecond part of this work, but in respect to these writings in general. Thele Homologoumena we receive as the genuine works of Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and Paul, for the fame realons as we believe the writings to be genuine, which are afcribed to Thucydides, Xenophon, Polybius, Cicero, Cæfar, Livy, &c. namely, becaufe 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 smallest sus picion of the contrary. In fact, this argument, when applied to the facred writings, is much stronger than when applied to the greatest part of profane writers, fince the teftimonies alledged to fupport the authenticity of the New Teftament come much nearer to the times in which its authors lived, than thofe adduced in favour of many Greek and Roman claffics, whose authority was never doubted. And thefe were read originally only by a fingle nation, and in a fingle corner of the world, while the New Teftament was read, and received as genuine in three quarters of the globe, by its adverfaries as well as by its friends, in countries the most remote, and most different from each other in language and manners, acknowledged in every Chriftian community as a work of the Apoftles and Evangelifts, not only by the orthodox Christians, but also by thote who diffented from the established rule of faith, with this only difference, that the latter, at the same time that they acknowledged the writings in general to be genuine, contended that certain paffages were corrupted: till a fect arose 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, because the precepts of the Gospel 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 earlieft evidence for their authenticity, how was it poffible to introduce them at once into the various Chriftian communities,

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

! it

"It is generally thought fufficient to thew the writings of a claffic author to be genuine, if fome one among the antients has merely fpoken of the work, as Cicero, Hirtius, and Suetonius have done of Cæfar's defcriptions of his own campaigns, without quoting paflages from the book itlelf. But may be objected, It is poflible, indeed, that Cæfar may have written fuch a treatile, 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 circumftance 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: præærepta, non præbita facultas fcriptoribus videtur? Could thefe Commentaries have exifted in the days of Florus, who likewise deforibes the battle of Pharfalia, and estimates the number in both armies at three hundred thoufand, befides the auxiliaries, when the number given in the Commentaries is fo confiderably inferior? Could Florus have been better acquainted with the state of the army than Cæfar, and would he have neglected to derive his intelligence from the beft poffible accounts, had fuch accounts at that time existed?'

Objections like thefe to the authenticity of Cæfar would be answered by every critic in clathical literature not with a serious reply, but with a fmile of contempt. Yet weak and trivial as thefe 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 tranfinitted to us under that title." (PP. 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 fhould be compelled to pafs over more curforily than we had intended, fome 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 Christian writers of the first centuries. For a more complete detail of thofe 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 Corinthiaus, the authenticity of which he calls in question on the moft frivolous grounds, as his editor and tranflator very clearly fhews,

Εμε

But though Mr. Marth oppofes his opinion with ref, ect to the first epistle of St. Clement, he feems to coincide with him in rejecting as fpurious all the other writings of the apoftolical fathers.

"Not only the adverfaries, but also the friends of Chriftianity, have fufpested the authenticity of the writings afcribed to the apoftolic fathers, notwithstanding the immente erudition beltowed on them by Cotelier, Uther, Pearfon, Le Clerc, and others, at the end of the laft, and beginning of the prefent century. Lardner has clearly fhewn that all the works of Clement are fpurious, except his first epiftle to the Corinthians, but even that is fufpected by our author; and Dr. Semler, who has made a more particular study of ecclefiaftical hiftory perhaps than any man that ever lived, doubts the authenticity of all the writings afcribed to the apoftolic fathers." (P. 360.)

Of Dr. Semler's writings, referred to by Mr. Marth, we know nothing; but if they really weaken the reafoning of Bishop Pearfon fo much, as, with unprejudiced minds, to bring into doubt the authenticity of the fhorter epiftles of Ignatius, which were published by Voffius, we do not fay that we fhall be forry for the confequence, for we trust that truth is the first and most important object of all our pursuits. In that cafe, however, we fhall certainly be tempted to question the authenticity of a great part of the New Testament, and a much greater part of the Old. That the adverfaries of Christianity ever questioned the authenticity of thefe epiftles is a piece of information quite new to us; but we have long known that, among believers, prefbyterians and independents have wished to question their authenticity, and that, when they faw that Pearfon's arguments could not be anfwered, they have come forward with the loud, though abortive, cry of interpolation. The reafon of this is very obvious. No man can admit the authenticity of the epifties of Ignatius, and call in question the apoftolical inftitution of diocefan epifcopacy. This is the real caufe of the objections urged by our antagonists to the authenticity of thefe epiftles, but they dare not directly avow it, left they should be convicted of the grofleft prejudice. They change, therefore, the mode of their attack. "Without pretending, fay they, to afcertain precifely what was the original conftitution of the Christian church, we are, at least, fure that its government is not more important than its faith; but Ignatius, in the writings which are now afcribed to him, infifts upon obedience to the bishop with fuch inceffant zeal that it seems to be, in his opinion, by far the most important, if not the only, duty of a Chriftian." This feems to them. fo very abfurd, that reverence, as they pretend, for the memory of an apoftolic father, compels them to conclude that the epiftles of Ignatius, if not abfolute forgeries, have been grofsly interpolated, and are unworthy of regard.

*

* See Dr. Campbell of Aberdeen's Lectures on Ecclefiaftical History.

But

But this is not a fair account of the contents of Ignatius's epiftles. He infifts, indeed, ftrenuously on the duty of obedience to the bishop, because otherwise the people could not have "one fupplication, one mind, one hope, &c." and fuch exhortations were peculiarly proper at that period, when the title of Bishop was firft given exclufively to the highest order of the Chriftian priesthood. Hitherto the governors of churches had been called αποστολοι, or αγγελοι, and the churches of Afia Minor had been under the fuperintendance of St. John the Apostle, and seven angels or bishops, as appears from the Apocalypfe. St. John died about the beginning of the fecond century, when, as we learn from Theodorite, it was refolved to drop the title of apoftle, and substitute that of bishop in its place; and as the people had been accuftomed to call their fpiritual governor αποστολος, oι αγγελος, it be came Ignatius, who had been, for forty years, honoured with thefe titles himself, and whofe influence must have been great on account of his age and his approaching martyrdom,† to convince thofe to whom he wrote, that the reverence due to the office was not diminished by the change of its name. This is, indeed, fo very obvious, that what has been usually urged as an objection to the epifties of Ignatius, appears to us internal evidence of their authenticity, for if credit be due to Theodorite's account of the refolution entered into on the death of St. John, exhortations more feasonable could not have been given.

From the testimonies of Hæretics, and especially of Marcion, who lived in the beginning of the fecond century, our author infers, in the feventh fection, that in all the countries which lay between Sinope and Rome, the books, which he calls Homologoumena, were acknowledged to be genuine. The teftimonies of this kind, which afford fuch pofitive evidence, have not been collected with the fame diligence as thofe of the orthodox fathers; though they are certainly entitled to equal credit. In the eighth fection much ftrefs is defervedly laid on the teftimonies of Jewish and Heathen writers, more efpecially of Celfus and Porphyry, two enemies of the Christian name, and, therefore, witneffes the moit unexceptionable of the authenticity of the New Testament. In the ninth fection it is fhewn that there were versions of the New Testament in Syriac and Latin in the end of the first or beginning of the fecond century; and, in the tenth fection, the internal evidence of the authenticity of the Homologoumena is stated with great perfpicuity and force.

Among the incidental obfervations unnoticed by Mr. Marsh in his general view of the first part of this work, one occurs in the eleventh fection which throws light on a particular part of St. Paul's conduct, of which we do not remember to have any where else seen a rational

In 1 Tim. Cap. iii.

+ Our learned readers need not be informed that Ignatius was under fentence of death when he wrote the epiftles in queftion.

account,