the epistles and gospels, and are evidently mixed up with the journals of real adventures of some travelling missionaries, they are not mentioned with the epistles and gospels which had constituted the ancient writings of the Therapeuta. Chrysostom, Bishop of Constantinople, (A. D. 393), informs us, that at that time, "this book was unknown to many and by others it was despised."

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5. MILL, one of the very highest authorities in biblical literature, tells us, "that the gospels were soon spread abroad, and came into all men's hands: but the case was somewhat different with the other books of the New Testament, particularly the Acts of the Apostles, which were not thought to be so important, and had few transcribers.”

6. And BEAUSOBRE acknowledges, that the book of the Acts had not, at the beginning, in the eastern churches, the same authority with the gospels and the epistles.

7. LARDNER, (vol. 2, p. 675), would rather give St. Chrysostom the lie, than surrender to the pregnant consequence of so fatal an admission. The gospels were soon received, for they were ready before the world was awake. The ACTs were a second attempt. Where we should look for marks of distinction, as definite as those which must necessarily and eternally exist between truth and falsehood-between divine wisdom and human weakness-between what man knew by the suggestion of his own unassisted shrewdness and what he only could have known by the further instruction of divine revelation, not only find we no such lines or characters of distinction, but, alas! in the stead and place thereof, we find the most entire and perfect amalgamation, and entire surrender of all challenge to distinction-a complete capitulation, going over, and "hail-fellow-well-mer" conjunction, of Jesus and Jupiter. Christianity and Paganism are frankly avowed to have been never more distinct from each other than six from half-a-dozen-never to have been at variance or divided, but by the mere accidental substitution of one set of names for the other, and the very trifling and immaterial misunderstanding that the new nomenclature had occasioned.

"Some of the ancientest writers of the church have not scrupled expressly to call the Athenian SOCRATES, and some others of the best of the heathen moralists, by the name of CHRISTIANS, and to affirm, that as the law was as it were a schoolmaster to bring the Jews unto Christ, so true moral philosophy was to the Gentiles a preparative to receive the gospel."-Clarke's Evidences of Natural and Revealed Religion, p. 284.

8.*"And those who lived according to the Logos, (says Clemens

* Και οι μετα λόγε βιώσαντες, χριστιανοι εισι, κ'αν άθεοι ενομίσθησαν οιον εν Έλλησι μεν Σωκρατης και Ηρακλειτος και οι ομοιοι αυτοίς. -Clemens. Alex. Strom

Alexandrinus) were really Christians, though they have been thought to be Atheists, as Socrates and Heraclitus were among the Greeks and such as resembled them."

9.† For God, says Origen, revealed these things to them, and whatever things have been well spoken.

10. And if there had been any one to have collected the truth that was scattered and diffused, says Lactantius, among sects and individuals, into one, and to have reduced it into a system, there would, indeed, have been no difference between him and us.

11.* And if Cicero's works, says Arnobius, had been read as they ought to have been by the heathens, there would have been no need of Christian writers.

12.§ That, in our times, is the CHRISTIAN RELIGION, (says St. Augustin); which to know and follow is the most sure and certain health, called according to that name, but not according to the thing itself, of which it is the name; for the thing itself, which is now called the CHRISTIAN RELIGION, really was known to the ancients, nor was wanting at any time from the beginning of the human race, until the time when Christ came in the flesh, from whence the true religion, which had previously existed, began to be called Christian; and this in our day is the Christian religion, not as having been wanting in former times, but as having in later times received this name."

13. "What then? and do the philosophers recommend nothing like the precepts of the gospel ?" asks Lactantius. Yes, indeed, they

† Ο θεός γαρ αυτοις ταυτα, και όσα καλως λέλεκται εφανέρωσε.—Orig. ad Cels. Bib. 6.

↑ Quod si extitisset aliquis qui veritatem sparsam per singulos, per setasque diffusam colligeret in unum, ac redigeret in corpus, is profecto non dissentiret a nobis-Lactant. lib. 7.

* So quoted and translated by Tindal, in his "Christianity as Old as the Creation," p. 397.

§ Ea est nostris temporibus Christiana religio, quam cognoscere ac sequi securissima et certissima salus est: secundum hoc nomen dictum est non secundum ipsam rem cujus hoc nomen est: nam res ipsa quæ nunc Christiana religio nuncupatur erat et apud antiquos, nec defuit ab initio generis humani, quosque ipse Christus veniret in carne, unde vera religio qua jam erat cæpit appellari Chris tiana. Hæc est nostris temporibus Christiana religio, non quia prioribus temporibus non fuit, sed quia posterioribus hoc nomen accepit.-Opera Augustini, vol. 1, p. 12. Basil edit. 1529.

Quid ergo, nihil ne illi (philosophi) simile præcipiunt? Immo permulta et ad veritatem frequenter accedunt. Sed nihil ponderis habent ila præcepta, quia sunt humana, et auctoritate majori id est divina, illa carent. Nemo igitur credit; quia tam se hominem putat esse qui audit, quam est ille qui præcipit.-Lactant. lib. 3, ut Citat Clarke, p. 301.

do very many, and often approach to truth; only their precepts have no weight, as being merely human, and devoid of that greater and divine authority; and nobody believes, because the hearer thinks himself as much a man, as he is who prescribes them.

14. Monsieur Daillée, in his most excellent treatise, called La Religion Catholique Romaine, institutée par Numa Pompile, demonstrates, that "the Papists took their idolatrous worship of images, as well as all other ceremonies, from the old heathen religion," and

15. Ludovicus Vivus, a learned Catholic, confesses, that "there could be found no other difference between Paganish and Popish worship before images, but only this, that names and titles are changed."Quoted in Blount's Philostratus, p. 133, 114.

16.* Epiphanias freely admits, of all the heretical forms of Christianity,—that is, of all that differed from his own-that they were derived from the heathen mythology.

17. The Manichees, the most distinguished of all who dissented from the established church, and unquestionably the most intelligent and learned of all who ever professed and called themselves Christians, boasted of being in possession of a work called the Theosophy, or the Wisdom of God; (and such a work we actually find quoted by St. Paul, 1 Corinth. 2,) in which the purport was to show,† that Judaism, Paganism, and Manicheeism, i. e. as they understood it, Christianity, were one and the same religion, and

18. Even our own orthodox Bishop Burnet, in his treatise De Statu Mortuorum, purposely written in Latin, that it might serve for the instruction of the clergy only, and not come to the knowledge of the laity, because, as he says, "too much light is hurtful for weak eyes," not only justifies, but recommends the practice of the most consummate hypocrisy, and that, too, on the most awful of all subjects; and would have his clergy seriously preach and maintain the reality and eternity of hell torments, even though they should believe nothing of the sort themselves.‡

What is this, but an edition, by a Christian Bishop, of the very sentiment which Cicero reproves in Pagan philosophers:-" Quid? ii qui dixerunt totam de Diis immortalibus opinionem fictam esse ab hominibus sapientibus, Reipublicæ causâ, ut quos Ratio non posset, eos ad

* Εκ γαρ ελληνικων μύθων πασαι αι αιρεσεις συνάξασαι εαυταίς την πλάνην xαTECaλov.-Hier. 26. n. 16, p. 98, D.

† Εν η πειραται δεικνύναι τον ιυδαισμον και τον ελληνισμον και τον μανιχαίισμόν By Elyal Maι TO AUTO Soypa.-Fabricius, tom. 1, p. 354.

↑ Si me tamen audire velis, mallem te pænas has dicere indefinitas quain infinitas. Sed veniet dies, cum non minus absurda, habebitur et odiosa hæc opinio quam transubstantiatio hodie.-De Statu Mort. p. 304.

officium Religio duceret, nonne omnem religionem funditus sustulerunt."-De Nat. Deor. lib. 1, ch. 12, p. 405.-Can there be any doubt that Bishop Burnet, with all his cant about converting the Earl of Rochester, was himself an Atheist ?

19. Dr. Mosheim, among his many and invaluable writings, published a dissertation, showing the reasons and causes of suppositious writings in the first and second century. And all own, says Lardner, that Christians of all sorts were guilty of this fraud; indeed, we may say, it was one great fault of the times.*

20. "And in the last place, (says the great Casaubon), it mightily affects me to see how many there were in the earliest times of the church, who considered it as a capital exploit, to lend to heavenly truth the help of their own inventions, in order that the new doctrine might be more readily allowed by the wise among the Gentiles. These officious lies, they were wont to say, were devised for a good end. From which source, beyond question, sprung nearly innumerable books, which that and the following age saw published by those who were far from being bad men,‡ (for we are not speaking of the books of heretics), under the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and of the apostles, (and other saints."

The reader has only to satisfy himself with his own solution of the question emergent from such an admission. If those who palmed what they knew to be a lie, upon the world, under the name and sanction of a God of truth, are to be considered as still worthy of our confidence, and far from being bad men, who are the bad men? Illud me quoque ́vehementer movet.

21. "There is scarce any church in Christendom at this day, (says one of the church's most distinguished ornaments) which doth not obtrude, not only plain falsehoods, but such falsehoods as will appear, to any free spirit, pure contradictions and impossibilities; and that with the same gravity, authority, and importunity, as they do the holy ora cles of God."-Dr. Henry Moore.

* Lardner, vol. 4, p. 524.

+ "Postremo illud quoque me vehementer movet, quod videam primis ecclesiæ temporibus, quam plurimos extitisse, qui facinus palmarium judicabant, cælestem veritatem, figmentis suis ire adjutum, quo facilius nova doctrina a gentium sapientibus admitteretur. Officiosa hæc mendacia vocabant bono fine excogitata. Quo ex fonte dubio procul, sunt orti libri feré sexcenti, quos illa ætas et proxima viderunt, ab hominibus minime malis, (nam de hæreticorum libris non loquimur) sub nomine etiam Domini Jesu Christi et apostolorum aliorumque sanctorum publicatos."-Casaubon, quoted in Lardner, vol. 4, p. 524.

✰ Mosheim treats these holy forgers with the same tenderness: "they were men (he says) whose intentions were not bad."-Eccl. Hist., vol. 1, p. 109.

Here again emerge the anxious queries-Why should not a man have a free spirit? and what credit can be due to the holy oracles of God, standing on no better evidence of being such, than the testimony of those, who we know have palmed the grossest falsehoods on us with the same gravity and as of equal authority with those holy oracles? and

22. "This opinion has always been in the world, that to settle a certain and assured estimation upon that which is good and true, it is necessary to remove out of the way whatsoever may be an hindrance to it. Neither ought we to wonder, that even those of the honest, innocent primitive times made use of these deceits, seeing for a good end they made no scruple to forge whole books."-Daillie, on the Use of the Fathers, b. 1, c. 3.

What good end was that, which needed to be prosecuted by the forgery of whole books?

23. "But if our unrighteousness commend the righteousness of God, what shall we say ?"-Rom. iii, 5. "For if the truth of God hath more abounded through my lie, unto his glory, why yet am I also judged as a sinner ?"-Rom. iii, 7.

24. The apostolic father, Hermas, who was the fellow-labourer of St. Paul in the work of the ministry; who is greeted as such in the New Testament; and whose writings are expressly quoted* as of divine inspiration by the early fathers, ingenuously confesses, that LYING was the easily-besetting sin of a Christian. His words are

"O Lord, I never spake a true word in my life, but I have always lived in dissimulation, and affirmed a lie for truth to all men, and no man contradicted me, but all gave credit to my words." To which the holy angel whom he addresses condescendingly admonishes him, that " as the lie was UP now, he had better keep it up, and as in time it would come to be believed, it would answer as well as the truth.”

25. Even Christ himself is represented in the gospels as inculcating the necessity, and setting the example of deceiving and imposing upon the common people, and purposely speaking unto them in parables and double entendres, "that seeing, they might see, and not perceive; and hearing, they might hear, but not understand."-Mark iv., 12.

26. And divine inspiration, so far from involving any guarantee that

* The words of the text are," Now thou hearest, take care from henceforth, that even those things which thou hast formerly spoken falsely, may, by thy present truth, receive credit. For even those things may be credited; if, for the time to come, thou shalt speak the truth, and by so doing thou mayst attain unto life."-Archbishop Wake's Genuine Epistles of the Apostolic Fathers, in loco. See this article, where HERMAS Occurs in the regular succession of apostolic fathers, in this DIEGESIS.