ture is the Word of God, is inspired, infallible, cannot be broken or remain unfulfilled; of supreme authority, as it cannot be neglected without peril to the souls of men. Such was the Jewish faith in the authority of Scripture, not of the Pharisees only, but of the authors of the New Testament, an authority precise, determinate, and unambiguous, any thing but vague and indefinite.

10. The faith of the early Christian Church was very similar, if not identical, with that of the Jews. And here, to obviate all cavil, we adduce, first, the testimonies of the Germans as to the primitive faith respecting the Divine authority and inspiration of Scripture. Augusti says:

“The conviction that the Holy Scriptures of the Old Testament were of Divine origin, i. e. that they were to be regarded not only as to matter, but also as to form, as the very word of God, passed over from the Jews to the Christians, and is found clearly expressed not only in the New Testament', but also in the writings of the eldest Church Fathers 8. After Justin Martyr

Lehrbuch der Christlichen Dogmengeschichte, p. 221226. Leipzig, 1835.

7 Matt. v. 17, 18. John x. 35. 2 Tim. iii. 16. Acts ii. 25-31. 2 Pet. i. 21.

8

* Justin Martyr, Cohortat. ad Græcos, § 13. Clem. Alex. Strom. i. 288. 342. Tertullian, Apolog. c. 18.

and Theophilus of Antioch, Irenæus, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, and others, also ascribe to the New Testament a divine origin. If they regarded books useful for edification as inspired, this arose from the fact that the canon of the New Testament was not yet fixed. According as the close of this canon approached, so much the more definite appear the ideas of inspiration. This is shown by that great Bible friend, Origen, who first treated the doctrine of inspiration dogmatically, though he sometimes confounds the Divinity of the doctrine with the Divine inspiration of the books. After him Chrysostome, Augustine, Junilius, Gregory the Great, &c. make the authors of the sacred Scriptures instruments of the Holy Ghost. This view of the dogma remained even through the scholastic period, so little favourable to the regard due to the Bible."

In like manner Strauss says, "According to what the Holy Scripture says of itself, it is God who spake by the mouth of the prophets (Acts

'Just. M. Dial. c. Tryph. § 308. Theoph. Ant. ad Autol. ii. c. 31; iii. c. 11. Iren. adv. hæres. ii. c. 28; iii. c. 1, 2. 9. 34, 35, 36. Clem. Alex. Cohortat. ad Gent. § 68. 71. Strom. vii. 894. Tertull. Apolog. c. 31; de anima, c.

28. Adv. Marc. i. c. 19-21.

1 Glaubenslehre, vol. i. p. 116-118.

i. 16; iv. 24, comp. Matt. i. 22; ii. 15, &c.), and as the discourses of the holy men of God came not of their own will, but from the impulse of the Spirit of God (2 Peter i. 21), so their writings also are inspired of God (2 Tim. iii. 16), and that verbally, as St. Paul builds a dogmatic proof upon the singular number of a word (σπέρματι hot σπέρμασι). In like manner Jesus directed His disciples not to be anxious, when they were obliged to give an answer for His sake, for in the same hour it should be given them what to say; not they, but the Spirit of God should speak in them (Matt. x. 19, &c.). He also promised that the Spirit should remind them of all that He had said, and guide them into all truth.... In conformity with this teaching, the Scriptures of the Old Testament, and, as they came into use, the Scriptures of the New Testament, were regarded by the earliest Christian Church as inspired through the Spirit, or the λóyos,—an inspiration, which, as in the case of the Old Testament Scriptures it was attributed not only to the prophets strictly so called, but also to the historic books, so also in the New Testament, was assigned not only to the Book of Revelation, and to the apostolic epistles, but also to the narrative books"."

2 "See the passage from Irenæus in Note 18, and Origen, homil. in Luc. i. 'Matthæus et Marcus et Johannes et

But similar testimonies had been collected long before by our own divines. Whitaker, Cosin, Whitby, and others, had already noticed the passages referred to, and given many others. Thus in Whitaker's Disputation on Holy Scripture 3, p. 57, we read:

3

"Athanasius says in his Synopsis', 'Our whole Scripture is divinely inspired, and hath not books infinite in numbers, but finite and comprehended in a certain canon.' There was, therefore, at that time a fixed canon of Scripture. He subjoins, 'Now these are the books of the Old Testament.' Then he enumerates ours, and none others, and concludes: 'The canonical books of the Old Testament are twoand-twenty, equal in number to the Hebrew Lucas, non sunt conati scribere, sed Spiritu Sancto pleni scripserunt Evangelia.' Chrysost. homil. in Matt. i. 'Ap οὗ καὶ ὁ Ματθαῖος τοῦ πνεύματος ἐμπλησθεὶς ἔγραψεν ἅπερ ypayev." See also Münscher, Handbuch i. 306, and Wegscheider, Institutiones, p. 173, &c. Neander's Christliche Dogmengeschichte, Part i. p. 94.

3 "A Disputation on Holy Scripture against the Papists, especially against Bellarmine and Stapleton, by William Whitaker, D.D., Regius Professor of Divinity, and Master of St. John's College, Cambridge,” translated and edited by the learned Dr. Fitzgerald, now Bishop of Killaloe.

4"Ab hodiernis criticis unanimi fere consensu Athanasio abjudicata: quod si tamen Athanasii non sit, satis vetusti Scriptoris opus est.” Cave.

letters.' But, in the mean time, what did he determine concerning the rest? Why, he plainly affirms them to be uncanonical. For thus he proceeds: But besides these there are non-canonical books of the Old Testament, which are to be read only to the catechumens.'"

Whitby quotes a passage from a paschal epistle of Athanasius, which confirms what is affirmed by the author of the Synopsis:

"Because some dare to mix apocryphal books with the Divine Scriptures, of which we are fully assured from the tradition of them to the Fathers, by those who were eye-witnesses and ministers of the word; it seemed good to me, being exhorted by the orthodox brethren, and having learnt them from the beginning, to declare in order which are the canonical books, delivered as such by tradition, and believed to be of Divine inspiration 5. To the same purpose, Whitaker (p. 58) cites Cyril:

"Cyril of Jerusalem, in his fourth catechetical discourse, hath written many prudent and pious directions upon this matter. this matter. 'Do thou,' says he, 'learn carefully from the Church what are the books of the Old Testament. Read the Divine (Oeías) Scriptures, the two-and-twenty books.'" (θείας)

5 Treatise on Tradition, Part i. c. 3, p. 45. See also Cosin's Scholastic History, c. vi. sections 55, 56.