GENUINENESS AND AUTHENTICITY OF SCRIPTURES

The genuineness of a book consists in its having been written by the author whose name it bears. The word has relation only to authorship. Is it the production of its reputed author, or is it forged and spurious? We have in our possession a Bible consisting of sixty-six different productions purporting to have been written by certain authors. These different productions have been collected by the early Fathers of the Church and bound together in one volume, called The Bible. Is it a genuine book?

I. Consider the Old Testament.

1. It existed in the days of Christ, as we have it now. Josephus so describes it as to make the number of the books agree with our Old Testament.

2. The books of The Old Testament were translated into the Greek language for the use of the Alexandrian Jews, two hundred and eighty-seven years before Christ. So the book then existed.

3. The claim is put forward that Moses did not write the Pentateuch and that it and most of the other books were written hundreds of years after they were claimed to have been written, and not by their accredited authors. But the Jews existed very anciently as a nation. And it has been an uninterrupted tradition among them that Moses led them out of Egypt and first gave them their system of laws and religion. The history of that event and the giving of their laws is recorded in the Bible as by Moses.

Now this "book of the Law of Moses, which the Lord had commanded to Israel," was openly read to the people in the time of Nehemiah (Neh. 8: 1). In Ezra's time they "built an altar to offer burnt offerings as it is written in the law of Moses the man of God" (Ez. 3: 2, 6: 18). So Ezra did not write the books. The Pentateuch was known in his time.

4. But the Pentateuch was acknowledged as the book of Law, and they worshiped according to its directions, when they served God at all, both in the ten tribes and the two tribes. It follows that the book was known before the kingdom was divided, about 970 B. C.

5. The great temple of Solomon was built and sacrifices were offered in harmony with Moses' teaching in his books. David continually referred to it in his Psalms.

6. Samuel, in his teaching referred to the main points of the nation's history and mentioned Moses and Aaron in connection with bringing the fathers out of the land of Egypt. See 1 Sam. 12. So he did not write the books and palm them off on the people as ancient history. The people in Samuel's time had the ark made by Moses' direction, and the table of the law and the other furnishings, all witness to the Story of the Pentateuch and Moses its author.

7. Joshua, the companion of Moses, mentioned in the 24th of Joshua the same facts recorded by the books of Moses. It was in a public address to the people as matters of fact with which all were acquainted.

All this history is uncontradicted by the historic records of other nations. The genuineness of the books can not be shaken except on principles of Skepticism that would equally shake the foundation of all history.

II. Consider the New Testament.

1. Quotations from the books of the New Testament are found in the writings of the Church Fathers.

(1)Clement. The Epistle ascribed to Clement is an epistle from "The Church of God Sofourning at Rome to the Church of God Sofourning at Corinth." Irenaeus says it was written by Clement, "Who had seen the blessed Apostles, and conversed with them, who had the preaching of the apostles still sounding in his ears, and their traditions before his eyes." Dionysius, bishop of Corinth, about 170 A. D. bears witness that Clement's Epistle had been read in that church from ancient times. It has quotations from, or evident allusions to eight books of the New Testament, and expressly names Paul's First Epistle to the Corinthians. Clement says: "Remember the words of the Lord Jesus, 'Woe to that man by whom offenses come; it were better for him that a millstone should be tied about his neck, and that he should be drowned in the sea, than that he should offend one of these little ones.'"

(2) Ignatius, bishop at Antioch, suffered martyrdom about the year 107, quotes from two Gospels and four Epistles and expressly names the epistle to the Ephesians.

(3) Polycarp, a companion of Ignatius, was a bishop at Smyrna. Irenaeus, who in his youth had seen him, says, "I can tell the place in which the blessed Polycarp sat and taught, and his going out and coming in, and the manner of his life, and the form of his person, and the discourses he made to the people, and how he related his conversation with John, and others who had seen the Lord, both concerning his miracles and his doctrines, as he had received them from the eyewitnesses of the Word of life; all of which Polycarp related agreeably to the Scriptures," In one short epistle that has survived, there are clear allusions to fourteen books of the New Testament, and he names the epistle to the Philippians.

(4) Papias was a companion of Polycarp. Eusebius quotes from a work of his in which he ascribes their respective Gospels to Matthew and Mark. All the above were contemporaries with some of the Apostles, and quote from, or allude to, most of the books of the New Testament, and uniformly treat them with the reverence due to inspired books.

(5) Justin Martyr, born 105, died 160. He was for half a century a contemporary of Polycarp, a convert from heathenism after he had arrived at mature age, and was distinguished as a philosopher, a Christian, and a writer. We have of his writings two Apologies, one to the Emperor Titus Antoninus, and one to Marcus Antoninus, and His Dialogue with Tripho the Jew. In these he made thirty-five quotations from Matthew alone. He either quotes or clearly refers to the Acts of the Apostles and nearly all the Epistles, and says expressly that the Revelation was written by John. He calls the Gospels and The Acts, "Memoirs composed by the Apostles and their companions." There is almost a complete history of Christ, and yet he mentions only two circumstances not found in the Gospels.

(6) Tatian comes next. About 170 he composed a Harmony of The Gospels, which he called "Diatessaron," showing that there were then four, and only four, Gospels.

(7) Irenaeus. Born about 130 A. D. Was bishop of Lyons, 177 A. D. He was a disciple of Polycarp. Of his writings only five books against heresies remain. He was only one step removed from the Apostles, and wrote within one hundred years of the publication of the early Gospels. He mentions the code of the New Testament as well as the Old, and calls both The Oracles of God. His testimony is full and explicit to all the books of the New Testament, except of Jude. He appeals to the books as the ground of the Christian faith in these words: "We have not received the knowledge of the way of salvation by any other than those by whom the gospel has been brought to us; which gospel they first preached, and afterward, by the will of God, committed to writing, that it might be for time to come the foundation and pillar of our faith...

For, after our Lord rose from the dead, and they were endued from above with the power of the Holy Ghost, coming down upon them, they received a perfect knowledge of all things. They then went forth to all the ends of the earth, declaring to men the blessings of heavenly peace, having all of them, and everyone alike, the Gospel of God.

Matthew, then, among the Jews, wrote a Gospel in their own language, while Peter and Paul were preaching in Rome and founding a Church there. And after their exit, Mark, also the disciple and interpreter of Peter, delivered to us in writing the things that had been preached by Peter; and Luke, the companion of Paul, put down in a book the gospel preached by him. Afterward, John, the disciple of the Lord, who also leaned upon His breast, he likewise published a gospel, while he dwelt at Ephesus, in Asia."

Could testimony be more explicit or more satisfactory? And he wrote this no farther off in time from the last years of the apostle John and the composition of his Gospel than we are removed from the brilliant days of Daniel Webster in the United States' Senate, and the early years of Queen Victoria's reign! The truth is during the first century, nineteen books of the New Testament are referred to incidentally; in the second century thirty-six writers refer to these books; and in the third and fourth centuries over a hundred writers. Nearly the entire New Testament could be reproduced from their quotations.1 1. Hopkins' "Evidences of Christianity," pp. 247-262.

Those early fathers manifestly did not doubt the genuineness of the books of the New Testament.

2. Catalogues of the New Testament books were made early by different authors, from which we learn that the books which are now received, were in existence then, and were believed to be genuine. The first catalogue is that of Origen, made 210 A. D. He omitted only James and Jude, but acknowledged both epistles in his other writings. That was as near to the death of the Apostle John as we are to the death of George Washington. He evidently had ample opportunity to know what he was writing about.

3. The Syriac version was probably made early in the second century, and the first Latin versions almost as early. The New Testament must have existed and been received before these translations were made.

III. The Integrity of the Scriptures.

By the Integrity of the Scriptures is meant their uncorrupted preservation.

1. The Integrity of the Canon. The Canon means in theology, the authorized collection of the Sacred Writings. The Old Testament Collection doubtless began to be made by the leading men and priests under the supervision or leadership of Ezra and Nehemiah, to which Zechariah and Malachi and some other later books were added, as they were written.

But the Septuagint Translation of all was made B. C. 287, and has come down to us from that time.

2. The Canon or collection of the New Testament was made by degrees. First the Four Gospels were brought together in the early part of the second century, and in the third century were accepted throughout the Christian world. They were prefixed to the other books of the New Testament, because the history of Jesus was considered the basis of all Christian doctrine; just as the historical writings of Moses were prefixed to the Old Testament as the basis of the Jewish faith. The epistles were collected somewhat later than the gospels, and all were brought together by the beginning of the third Christian Century, or within one hundred years of the Apostle John.

3. The integrity of the separate books will appear from the fact that there were many checks and hindrances to their corruption. The profound regard which the Jews had for their sacred books, and the large numbers of copies of them widely circulated over the world rendered their corruption impossible.

The Law of Moses was the deed by which the land of Canaan was divided among the tribes and families of Israel. Every one was directly interested in keeping the records unaltered. Then the upper and lower Kingdoms were both jealously watching each other, and later the Samaritans and the Jews, were guarding the same sacred books, and protecting them from alteration. So the Jews and the Christians have been a check upon each other.

During the Christian Centuries the Eastern Church-with its center at Constantinople-and the Western Church, circling around Rome jealously guarded the Bible from any intended corruption by either party.

Moreover, the Christians were persecuted and scattered over the earth, and they took copies of their sacred books with them. These were copied by hand, and recopied, again and again, times without number. By no possibility could any one have gathered up all these copies of the scriptures and altered any single verse in all of them.

4. Variations in Readings.

Let it be remembered that printing is a modern invention only about four hundred years old. Had the Bibles of the early church been printed with infallible accuracy, all exactly alike, we should not have had so many various readings. But the ancient books were all written in solid lines of letters with no divisions of words or sentences, and the ancient Hebrew did not even have any vowels. When a new book was wanted; it had to be laboriously copied by hand. The manuscripts were, transcribed with great caution and exactness. The alteration of a letter if noticed would often condemn the copy to the flames. It is said that the Jews recorded the number of letters in each manuscript, and marked the middle letter as a safeguard against corruption. Without a doubt the copies of scripture were made with most watchful, religious care.

But, nevertheless, the transcribers would make mistakes. Letters would sometimes be omitted, or their places would get changed; or one letter would get substituted inadvertently for another, in cases where they were very nearly alike; or some little mark would be omitted, that changed the meaning. When such a mistake was once made, it might be repeated by a score or a hundred transcribers. Thus by the negligence or inaccuracy of the copyists, through the many centuries, in hundreds of manuscripts, there came to be ten thousand various readings in the Old Testament, and one hundred and fifty thousand in the New Testament, as the eminent scholars tell us, who have spent their lives in the critical examination of these ancient writings.

But even this did not destroy the essential accuracy of our Bible. The various copies would correct one another, so that the scholars were nearly always able to determine the true reading. They assure us that not one doctrine of the church has been in the least shaken by these various readings. ''In all essential points they perfectly agree, and in no degree whatever, affect the general credit or integrity of the sacred text." Says the noble commentator, Bengel, to his pupil: "Eat the scripture bread in simplicity, just as you have it, and do not be disturbed if here and there you find a grain of sand, which the mill-stone may have suffered to pass. If the Holy Scriptures which have been so often copied, were absolutely without variations, this would be so great a miracle that faith in them would be no longer faith. I am astonished, on the contrary, that from all these transcriptions there has not resulted a greater number of various readings." Another scholar says: "The integrity of the Holy Scriptures is substantiated by evidence tenfold more various, copious, and conclusive than that which can be adduced in support of any other ancient book, even the most highly prized Greek and Latin classics. If, therefore, the facts relating to the origin, nature, and progress of Christianity are not established, nothing in human history can be believed."

IV. The Authenticity of Scriptures.

An authentic book is one that truthfully relates matters of fact as they really happened. We have shown the genuineness and integrity of the books of the Bible. We now need to inquire whether they are authentic, and deal with facts, or whether they are collections of fictions and myths and folk-lore tales, or forgeries and inventions of imaginative and ambitious writers of some other age.

We contend that the Bible, barring a few inconsiderable and manifest interpolations and errors of copyists, is a most truthful book. The events recorded, and the truth and doctrines are so interdependent and interwoven, that they stand or fall together.

The authenticity of the Scriptures may be discussed under the following heads:

1. The matters of history in the Bible.

The historic parts of the Bible must be judged by the rules of historical evidence like any other book, such, for example, as the histories of men and national life recorded by Moses. Was he the leader and law-giver of the Jewish people? Did he lead them out of Egypt, and bring them into part of their inheritance? Is the subsequent history of the nation under Joshua and the Judges and the Kings true? Are the histories of the Patriarchs truthful accounts of real men or are they legends of imaginary heroes. Was David the progenitor of a dynasty of kings? Was Jesus, on the human side, one of his descendants? Are the events recorded in the life of Christ, from His birth to His ascension, true?

We will only suggest here that these histories in our Bible have come down to us from the most ancient times, some of them being certainly much more than three thousand years old. These records have always been accepted by the Jews as their national history, and this people must be accounted for; for in many respects they have been for millenniums the most remarkable people our race has ever produced. The account of them, given by Moses was written when hundreds of thousands of eye-witnesses of the events and participants in them, were still living. It would have been impossible for a fictitious narrative of public events to be accepted as true by the generation who participated in them. And a false and unheard-of history could not have been palmed off upon the nation at any later date.

The authenticity of the Scripture history in general is proved by manifold evidence, some internal, and some external and corroborative.

Here we may appropriately mention an argument for the credibility of the facts contained in our sacred books "which never has been and never can be answered. Infidels have been repeatedly challenged to answer it, but they have never made the attempt."1 It is the argument of Leslie in his "Short Method with the Deists." 1. Hopkins' "Evidences of Christianity," p. 279.

This argument rests upon the peculiarity of our religion, the truth of which is indissolubly connected with certain history and matters of fact, which could originally be judged of by the senses, and also upon the fact that there exist today in the world ordinances and institutions commemorative of the facts. The object of Leslie is to show, from the nature of the case, that the matters of fact could not have been received at the time unless they were true, and that the observances could never have originated except in connection with the facts. In showing this he lays down four rules, and asserts that any matter of fact in which these four rules meet, must be true, and challenges the world to show any instance of any supposed matter of fact, thus authenticated, that has ever been shown to be false.

Leslie's Four Rules.

1. "That the matter of fact be such that men's outward senses, their eyes and ears, may be judges of it."

2. "That it be done publicly, in the face of the world."

3. "That not only public monuments be kept up in memory of it, but some outward actions be performed."

4. "That such monuments, and such actions, or observances, be instituted, and do commence from the time that the matter of fact was done."

"The first two rules make it impossible for any such matter of fact to be imposed upon men at the time, because every man's eyes and ears and senses would contradict it." For instance, could the population of any city in the world be made to believe, that they walked yesterday across a swollen river on dry ground with the water piled up before their eyes threatening to engulf them, if the thing did not happen?

No more could the children of Israel of the time of Moses, have believed that the Death Angel passed over Egypt and touched not the homes shielded by the blood, or that they marched out of Egypt and through the Red Sea, or went out and gathered manna every morning, or drank water from the rock, or that the law was given amidst the thunderings of Sinai, as described in the Bible, if these things did not happen.

Not less impossible was it that the five thousand should have believed that they were fed by Christ; or that the relatives and friends of Lazarus should have believed that he was raised from the dead, or the five hundred who saw Christ after his crucifixion, and heard him speak and saw him ascend up into heaven, should have believed in his resurrection and ascension if the events did not take place. The great historic facts of our religion are of such a nature that, if they never took place, it is impossible that they should have been believed at the time.

"Therefore it only remains that such matter of fact might have been invented some time after, when the men of that generation wherein the thing was said to be done are all past and gone, and the credulity of after ages might be imposed upon to believe that things were done in former ages which were not actually done.

"Now the last two rules guard against just such a deception. For, whenever such a matter of fact came to be invented, if not only monuments were said to remain of it, but likewise that public actions and observances were constantly used ever since the matter of fact was said to be,done, the deceit must be detected by no such monuments appearing, and by the experience of every man, woman and child, who must know that no such actions or observances were ever used by them."

Now with these tests in mind, could the books of Moses or the New Testament, have been invented and imposed upon the world at a later age? Moses tells about the plagues in Egypt and the passing over of the death angel, and the institution of the Passover in commemoration of it, and the crossing of the Red Sea and the giving of the law at Sinai, and the two tables on which they were engraved, and the Ark and Tabernacle, and the Manna that fell from heaven, and fiery serpents and the serpent of brass. A Pot of Manna, and The Two Tables of The Law, and the Brazen Serpent were preserved as memorials. They had the account of the Laws, and Priesthood and Tabernacle service. Now could Samuel have invented these stories hundreds of years after these supposed events occurred, and made the people of Israel believe it was their national history, and that they had always observed the annual Passover, and had always had the Ark, and The Tables of the Law, and The Pot of Manna, and the Brazen Serpent, when nobody, up to that time, had ever heard of them? Could a whole nation of men be thus imposed upon, and made to believe that they had always had certain civil and religious institutions and ordinances, and annual feasts, and laws and memorials, when they knew to a man, that it was all an invention?

Such a question answers itself. But the same is true of the New Testament. We have the four Gospels, giving the account of the Life, Death, and Resurrection of Jesus, and The Formation of the Christian Church. We have memorials and monumental witnesses to the truths of the history.

The Gospels tell us that Jesus gave us the sacraments of baptism and the Lord's Supper, to be observed to the end of time; that a ministry was appointed and a Church established. We still have the sacraments and the ministry, and the Church that is taking possession of the world. We have two monuments to the resurrection of Jesus: the Annual Easter Memorial, and the weekly change of the sabbath from the seventh to the first day of the week.

These memorials can be traced in line clear back to the time of Christ, and to his death and resurrection from the dead, and no further.

This matchless history never could have been invented and foisted upon any later age. We have, therefore, visible signs and pledges of the truth of our religion and the Authenticity of Bible handed down, independently of written testimony, from age to age; and the force of which, age has no tendency to diminish.

2. We may inquire as to the authenticity of the Scriptures when they narrate public occurrences of a supernatural order; e. g., the miracles. Here, indeed, Leslie's rules apply with special force. If these books or accounts were written and published while multitudes were alive who must have witnessed the facts, had they really transpired, it is manifestly impossible that any narrative of these events could have been received which was not strictly true.

3. Are the Scriptures authentic in their account of the acts and teachings and sayings of the Bible characters, Moses and the prophets, Christ and the apostles? Here we have abundance of ground for confidence in the truthfulness of our Scriptures. In spite of all the minor difficulties, insignificant in character and few in number, that the acutest critic can point out, the record as a whole commands and deserves unbounded faith. And this for many reasons. Confining our remarks to the New Testament we observe:

(1) The witnesses and writers were in a position to judge accurately of the things which they relate. They were the select companions and familiar friends of Jesus. They had free access to him at all times; they heard both his public and private discourses; were with him night and day, as inseparable attendants and servants from the beginning to the close of his public ministry. No authors ever had a greater opportunity to know all the facts about their hero than the disciples had to know Jesus.

(2) Their character was such as to preclude any rational suspicion of fraud or untruthfulness. They lived holy, unselfish lives, as became professed disciples of the holy Son of God. Their purity and virtue and self-denial forbid the supposition that they spent their lives industriously witnessing to falsehoods in the name of God. As a great educator has stated it, "It is not in human nature, there is no example of it, for even one man to persevere through a long life, in undergoing labors and sufferings, and finally die, in attestation of what he knew to be false; much less can we suppose that twelve men did it, yea, that hundreds and thousands, could do this. The character of Christ and his apostles in other respects, and the nature of the religion which he taught, forbid the supposition that they were deceivers. To suppose that men, teaching a morality more perfect than any other ever known, and exemplifying it in their conduct, living lives of great simplicity, and self-denial, and benevolence, enforcing truth and honesty, by the most tremendous sanctions of a future life, should, without any possible advantage to themselves, die as martyrs in attestation of what they knew to be false, is practically absurd."1 Deceivers would not teach holiness, much less live it. 1. Hopkins' "Evidences of Christianity," pp. 276, 277.

(3) Granting, now, that they were not intentional deceivers, neither could they have been deceived. They could not have been deceived about Jesus feeding the five thousand, for they passed the bread around and helped eat it; they witnessed a hundred miracles under every conceivable circumstance; they saw Christ crucified, and buried; they saw Him for forty days after His resurrection; received His rebuke, and reproof, and commission, and promise of blessing, and then saw Him ascend into heaven. They could not be mistaken about these things, and about their receiving the Pentecostal blessing, and power to bless other lives. They wrote and testified to these events, and sealed their testimony with their lives.

(4) These writers and disciples and early Christians had no conceivable motives for deceiving the world. Men may have motives for being impostors, but they can have none for being imposed upon, especially when the imposition costs them all that the natural heart prizes and men usually hold dear. The earthly rewards which the apostles of our Lord did obtain for their devotedness to His cause are graphically described by St. Paul as follows: "Even unto this present hour we both hunger and thirst, and are naked, and are buffeted, and have no certain dwelling place; we are made as the filth of the world, and are the off-scouring of all things unto this day" (1 Cor. 4: 11-13). Their Master had faithfully warned them of persecution and martyrdom, in the daily expectation of which they lived. To submit to the endurance of such evils, from which human nature revolts, and to which no sane man, that could help it, would expose himself without compensation, in the interest of fraud and deceit, is against reason, and contrary to the conduct of mankind. At the same time, in the very doctrines they promulgate, if their testimony is false, they doom themselves, as conscious liars and hypocrites, to the damnation of hell. Manifestly, they never did it. It is unthinkable.

(5) The Gospel writers gave us books that bear every stamp of credibility. They are written in the most perfect simplicity and candor. The general air of truth and sincerity in the narratives is unmistakable. The utter artlessness of the style is above all art, even of the most consummate skill. We look in these writings in vain for any signs of superstitious weakness or enthusiastic fervors. There is nothing in their character, aside from their narration of miracles and their maintaining their testimony at all hazards, that bears any mark of fanaticism. On the contrary, they are everywhere marked by good sense and sobriety. There are no extravagant expressions, no indication of excessive emotion, no high wrought description, no praise, and no censure. There is a simple Statement of the facts of the life of Christ, and a record of his discourses. They do not make the slightest effort to adorn their history. They record the most momentous and astonishing events that ever transpired on our planet, in as common place a manner and with as much dispassionate coolness, as if they had been the commonest transactions of every-day life.

(6) This is not all. The sacred writers are conspicitous above all others for their flawless integrity. Impostors never proclaim to the world the defects of their own characters. But these men detailed their own errors and faults without the slightest attempt at concealment or extenuation. They inform us of their lowliness and poverty, their dulness of apprehension, and of their unholy ambitions, and warm contentions among themselvees. They even tell us how basely they deserted their Master, when he was seized by His Enemies; and that, after his crucifixion, they returned to secular life, abandoning the cause to which they had been devoted. Although Peter was the early leader of the Apostolic band, his base denial of Jesus was published as fully as the betrayal of Judas, or the injustice of Pilate. So absorbed are these authors in bringing out the truth of their story, that all personal considerations sank out of sight. However it may reflect on their characters or blight their reputation, they give a truthful history without a thought of its effect upon themselves. "What surer mark of an honest narrator can exist," says Professor Fisher, "than a willingness to give a plain, unvarnished account of his own mortifying mistakes, and the consequent rebuffs, whether just or not, which he has experienced? . . . Men are not likely to invent anecdotes to their own discredit."1 1. Fisher's Theistic Belief, pp. 313, 314.

(7) Their testimony was in the highest degree circumstantial. They were most minute in their narratives, giving dates, names of persons, places, references to persons then living, many of whom were people of consequence. Had there been any intent to deceive, or any fabrication of the story, all such things would certainly have been omitted, since everyone of them supplied facilities for detection. If what they wrote had not been true, they would have been contradicted; and if contradicted on good evidence, the authors would have been overwhelmed with confusion.

(8) This argument is enforced by the consideration that "these things were not done in a corner." The age was not dark and illiterate and prone to accept myths and fables. The Jewish, the Grecian, and the Roman civilizations, with all their wealth of literature and culture, by a most extraordinary combination of circumstances, were brought together, to unite their combined rays upon the cradle of Christianity. There had never been anything like it before, nor has there been since. As one has said, "No other people of antiquity can be named, upon whose history and sentiments there falls this triple flood of historic light; and upon no period in the history of this one people do these triple rays so precisely meet as upon the moment when the voice of one was heard in the wilderness of Jordan, saying, 'Prepare ye the way of the Lord." . . . "It was perhaps the only place on earth where a Roman governor would have called the three languages which contain the literature of ancient civilization into requisition, to proclaim at once the accusation and the true character of Christ. 'And Pilate wrote a title, and put it on the cross. And the writing was -Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews- And it was written in Hebrew, and Greek, and Latin!'" It was a mixed community of strong prejudices, and bitter rivalries between conflicting religions and civilization, cultured and critical to the last degree. Of all times that was the least opportune, and of all places that was precisely the one most unfavorable for launching religious forgeries, to make a new religion, that would supplant all others, and possess the earth. The New Testament had to be genuine and truthful to the last degree, and Christ had to be the very Person the Book presents to us, or Christianity was doomed to failure from its very birth.

(9) The truthfulness of the Scriptures is further shown by the willingness of the authors to picture the human weakness of Christ. As Professor Fisher says, "The manifestations of human infirmity in Jesus, infirmity which does not involve sin, are referred to in the plainest manner, and without the least apology or concealment. These passages occur side by side with the accounts of miracles. Had there been a conscious or latent disposition to glorify their Master at the expense of truth, it is scarcely possible that they would have spread out these illustrations of human weakness. It is only necessary to remind the reader of the record of the agony of Jesus in the garden. We are informed that He was overwhelmed with mental distress. He sought the close companionship of the three disciples who were most intimate with Him. He prostrated Himself on the earth in supplication to God. As He lay on the ground, one of the evangelists tells us-if we adopt the accepted reading-that the sweat fell from His body, either actually mingled with blood, or in drops like drops of blood. . . . 'My soul,' thus He had spoken to the three disciples, 'is exceeding sorrowful unto death.' In the presence of passages like these, how can it be thought that the Apostles were enthusiasts, oblivious or careless of facts, and bent on presenting an ideal of their own devising, rather than the life of Jesus just as they had seen it."1 1. Fisher's Theistic Belief, pp. 315, 316.

(10) There is not a mark of spuriousness in these sacred Scriptures. The reasons which render the authenticity of a book suspicious are thus laid down by Michaelis: 1. When doubts have been entertained, from its first appearance, whether it was the work of its reputed author. 2. When the immediate friends of the author have denied it to be his. 3. When a long series of years has elapsed, after his death, in which the book was unknown, and in which it must have been mentioned and quoted, had it been in existence. 4. When the style is different from his other writings, or, in case no others remain, from what might be reasonably expected. 5. When events are recorded which happened later than the time of the pretended author. 6. When opinions are advanced contradictory to those which He is known to have advanced in other writings. "Of these marks of spuriousness, not one can be attached to a single book of the New Testament."1 1. Hopkins' "Evidences of Christianity," p. 26S.

If these writings are not authentic and true they must have been forgeries; and they are of such a character, and purport to have been written under such circumstances, as to render a forgery impossible. Here, for example, are no fewer than nine letters which claim to have been written to numerous bodies of men, and received by them; and can any man believe that such letters, often containing severe reproof, could have been received and read, as we know these were, by the early Christians, if they were forgeries?

And if the New Testament is an untruthful book, and a forgery, bear in mind, it is not an instance of a single successful forgery, but of twenty-seven separate ones, imposed upon intelligent men, in an age of wide-spread culture, inclined to be both critical and skeptical, all whose interests were involved in detecting the fraud. In fact the theory that our Bible is an unreliable book, and that the Christian Church, the greatest institution in the world, and Christianity, that produced the greatest moral revolution of the ages, were both the product of untruthful writings is a theory, so beset with difficulties, so wild and so unreasonable, that it should not be entertained for a moment, by an honest mind.

To sum up the facts: 1. We have a New Testament, containing five histories, four of them separate lives of Christ, written by four different persons, who were themselves eyewitnesses, or learned from others who were, the things which they relate. 2. We also have in it original letters, written at the time, both to churches and to individuals, containing a great variety of indirect, and therefore of the very strongest, testimony. 3. We find the books bearing every mark of honesty. 4. We find the facts of such a nature that the witnesses could not have been deceived, and we find them laying down their lives to testify that they did not deceive others. 5. We find institutions now existing, and rites observed which hold such a relation to the facts of Christianity, as given in the books, that the books must be true. 6. We find, moreover, no other account, nor the vestige of any of this greatest revolution the world has ever known, while our accounts are perfectly simple, and natural, and satisfactory. Christianity is here, and it started in the first century. It is to be accounted for. Our Bible tells us how it came into being. If the New Testament is not a true history, then no one can tell us how it originated. In short, the truth of our Bible is supported by overwhelming evidence. It has commanded the reverent faith of the centuries. To cast discredit upon it, at this late date, and then lend a listening ear to the conjectures and guesses of infidel critics is stupendous folly.