nothing at liberty save his tongue to confess with. Two men were at this moment examining this frightful throne. One was the executionerthe other the Capitoul David, who, from his intense hatred of the Protestants, took a fearful interest in the preparations for the torture. He chose to see, touch, and try. He seated himself in the great arm chair: he put on the accompaniments; and the executioner, by his order, had tightened the boot until it extorted a cry from and what was all that apparatus-what were all those accompaniments? The apparatus was called the wedges-the only one or nearly the only one that was then in use in the kingdom. Nothing could be more simple-four planks, a rope, a dozen wedges, and a hammer. Each leg was placed between two planks; the whole fastened together; and the wedges driven in one by one between the two middle planks. The ordinary torture was six wedges-the extraordinary, six more. At the first one driven in, the pain was bearable; at the second, it began to be horrible; at the twelfth, when they went so far, the legs were pounded. At the peremptory orders of the Capitoul, the executioner had greased the whole of the twelve wedges, when the noise of many footsteps was heard, at first compressed, then regular, like those of a considerable procession on the march. That procession was approaching.'

Into the details that follow we would not enter; but that very execution to which they allude sealed the fate of the Jesuits in France; and Voltaire made full use of the cruel injustice and barbarity of the incident to excite a very general ill-will against the Catholic priests who could so remorselessly pursue a perfectly innocent man to death-and to a death the most horrible and painful that torture could inflict.

A Lecture on the Historic Evidence of the Authorship and Transmission of the Books of the New Testament; delivered before the Plymouth Young Men's Christian Association, October 14th, 1851. By S. P. Tregelles, LL.D. London: Bagster. 1852.

"Ita ut interrogati, cujus quisque liber sit, non hæsitemus, quid respondere

debeamus."

THE subject of this lecture could not have fallen into better hands than those of Dr. Tregelles, whose attention has been directed for many years to the investigation of analogous questions in preparing a critical edition of the Greek Testament by the collation of the oldest manuscripts and versions, so as to bring the text as nearly as possible into that state of purity and perfection in which the sacred penmen left it, or "as nearly as possible in the words in which the Holy Ghost gave it forth"a work which will soon be ready for the press.

We think there are few points on which it is more important that correct information should be generally diffused than that brought before us in this lecture; for the truth is assailed on

both sides-by infidels, who deny the authorship or genuineness of Scripture on the one hand-and by Romanists who add the traditions of men to the word of God, and deny that we have any better authority for Scripture than tradition, in order to place both on the same level; and since it is well known that false Gospels, and false Acts, and false Epistles, were written in the first ages of the Church, and were rejected as spurious by the faithful, it becomes us, in corroboration of our faith, in these last and perilous times, to ascertain by what means the early Christians distinguished the true from the spurious writings, so as to receive the former as the word of God and reject the latter as the inventions of men; and necessarily wicked men, as no good man will practice falsehood.

It must first be a fixed principle in our minds that the genuine Scriptures are not of human composition, but are the word of God; for all Scripture is given by inspiration of God (2 Tim. iii. 16), and came not in old time by the will of man; but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost (2 Pet. i. 21). Yet, while we assume that all Scripture is given by inspiration, we must have the means of proving that the books which we call "Scripture" are really such-or, in other words, were written by the holy men whose names they bear; and the authorship and transmission of the bocks of Scripture is to be determined by the same means used to determine the writings of Plato and Aristotle, of Cicero and Varro.

Faustus, the Manichoean, in the time of Augustine, denied that the Gospels were really written by those whose names they bear. St. Augustine applies the same kind of argument to that controversy which was going on between him and Faustus:

"Why should I go back to things long past? Look at those very letters which we hold in our hands; and, if some while after we shall be dead, any should deny those to be Faustus's, or these to be mine, whence will he be convinced except through those who now know these things-transmitting, by continued succession, their acquaintance with these facts to posterity" (Cont. Faust. i. 33).

Though we are accustomed to regard the New Testament as one book, and it is to be regarded as such from the fourth century, since which time it has been received by the Church as the volume of inspiration, to which nothing can be added, and from which nothing may be taken away; yet, we must remember that it is composed of many books, written at different times, each one of which has to be authenticated by evidence similar to that referred to by St. Augustine-namely, by those who lived at the time these books were written, transmitting their acquaintance with these facts to posterity.

In the Diocletian persecution, which began A.D. 303, the Christians were required to give up their sacred books in order to be destroyed, this being regarded as the surest and only effectual means of exterminating Christianity. Those who did so, even under fear of death, were regarded as betrayers of Christ little inferior in guilt to Judas the Traitor, and were branded with the name of Traditores, or Traitors, and subjected to severe ecclesiastical discipline before they were re-admitted into the communion of the faithful. Many refused to give up the Scriptures to be destroyed; and for the refusal suffered imprisonment, tortures, slavery, and death. And, if any could show that the books which they had given up were not the Scriptures, they were exempted from ecclesiastical censure. This was a common case; for the Christians were so numerous at that time, and so well conducted in general, that those employed in searching for books had little zeal in the cause, and little knowledge of what the Scriptures were; and, therefore, took any books that were delivered to them, without enquiring or caring greatly whether they were the Christian Scriptures

or not.

But to the Christians themselves it became a very important point to distinguish between the books which were on no account to be surrendered, and those which might be given up and be destroyed without incurring ecclesiastical censures; and it was shortly after this time that we learn from Eusebius the books that were universally received as the inspired Scriptures -what were received by some but doubted by others—and what were rejected by all as spurious: or, if not spurious, as uninspired.

The books universally received were, the Four Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, the Epistles of St. Paul, with the exception of that to the Hebrews, which was doubted of by some, though received by others; and all admitted the first Epistle of St. John, and the first of St. Peter; but many doubted of the second and third of St. John, the second of Peter, the Epistles of James and Jude, and the Book of Revelations. Amongst the spurious writings he reckons the Acts of Paul, the Shepherd of Hermas; the Apocalypse of Peter; and also the Epistle of Barnabas, and what are called "Instructions of the Apostles." We know, from other sources that there were spurious Gospels and many other writings rejected by the primitive Church.

Thus, a careful discrimination was exercised at a very early period as to what books were to be received into the New Testament collection, and so scrupulous were they of admitting

none but such as were universally received, and about which there could be no possible doubt, that they erred rather on the side of rejecting too much than receiving too much; for few persons would now scruple to receive the epistle to the Hebrews or the second of Peter, or those of James and Jude; and least of all, the last book of Holy Scripture," the Revelation of St. John the Divine."

The books thus acknowledged as Scripture by Eusebius may be traced backwards even to the apostolic age. Origen lived about A.D. 185-254; and from his writings, which are extant, citations of nearly two-thirds of the New Testament might be extracted, and a very large proportion of his voluminous writings has perished. Eusebius refers to Origen as attesting the Four Gospels, and the other books which are declared by Eusebius to have been universally received; and Origen adds to these the Apocalypse as universally received, and as the work of the Apostle John, who also wrote the Gospel and the first Epistle that bear his name. Tertullian and Irenæus carry up the testimony still higher; and there is an earlier document published by Muratori, the author of which is unknown, but which from internal evidence must have been written about A.D 140; and which shows that even thus early the books of the New Testament were collected as in the time of Eusebius, together with the Apocalypse of St. John. And this writer speaks of spurious works which were rejected saying, "It is not fitting to mix gall with honey;" and he admits the epistle of Jude and the second and third of John among the Catholic writings. This writer speaks of the "Shepherd of Hermas" as a work of his own time, written by a brother of Pius, who was then Bishop of Rome. These incidental notices furnish us with the approximate date of the "Shepherd of Hermas," and the age in which this anonymous author wrote; which must have been about A.D. 140, for that is nearly the time when Pius was Bishop of Rome:

"We are thus able to trace back lists of New Testament books almost to the apostolic age, the author of the canon in Muratori living in the days of some who had been in part contemporaries of the Apostle John. We know from the natural course of events that this must have been the case; and we need not rely on deductions, however certain; for we know as a fact that Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna, who had himself personally known St. John, laid down his life at a very advanced age as a martyr for Christ about the year 168. Polycarp visited Rome, the place at which the author of this list seems to have lived and written, after the middle of the second century.. We have thus proof that the New Testament books, in general, were n use as authoritative Scripture in the days of those who had lived in

........

the apostolic age-that they were ascribed to the same writers to whom we attribute them-and that several of them were classed together as being, though not as yet one collected volume, yet at least in some measure a collection" (20).

Another question of no less importance to us immediately follows-How do we know that the books which we now possess are those which are spoken of by Eusebius? And how do we ascertain that they have been transmitted unimpaired to us? To this the same answer may be given as in the former case. Examine into the evidence there is of their safe transmission. All ancient books have come down to us through manuscripts, either in the language in which they were originally written or in translations. The New Testament has come down to us both in the original Greek, and in Syriac, Coptic, Ethiopic, Armenian; besides the old Latin and the Vulgate of Jerome used by the Roman Church. Some of these manuscripts mount up to the fourth century, and are of every intermediate age down to the invention of printing.

The Syriac and old Latin versions were probably made in the second century; the Coptic as well as a Gothic version and the Vulgate of Jerome were made in the fourth and fifth centuries; and the Ethiopic and Armenian in periods immediately subsequent. All these serve as so many checks or corroborations of the sense of the original Greek; while, by the collation of the numerous manuscripts, literal and verbal accuracy may be regarded as quite guaranteed. There is not such a mass of transmissional evidence in favour of any classical work. The existing MSS. of Herodotus and Thucydides are modern when compared with some of those of the New Testament; and thus also every country, into the language of which the New Testament books were translated in early times, is a witness to us of their safe transmission.

It is the boast of the Church of Rome that she has handed down the Scripture to us, and that therefore we ought to receive her interpretations of the same. Never was there boast more vain-never were pretensions more unfounded put forth; for Rome has only handed down to us one of the numerous translations in the Latin Vulgate, and has done all in her power to keep this even from the people. And supposing that she had transmitted the original, this would not constitute her the sole and true interpreter of its meaning. As well might the Jews maintain that, because the Old Testament was committed to their keeping (which it was far more truly and exclusively than was the New to the Roman Church)-that, therefore, none but Jews could interpret the Old Testament, and that we