378 



CHRISTIAN 1 IT V. 



' dtt J, by the change and progression of natural appear- 

 ances, and he ushers in thu illustration with the follow- 

 ing sentence : " I^t us consider, my beloved, how the 

 Lord ihowi ut our future resurrection perpetually, of 

 which ho made the Lord Je*u$ Christ the first fruits, 

 by raising him from the dead." Thi incidental way of 

 bringing in the fact of our Lord's resurrection, appears 

 to us the strongest possible form in which the testimony 

 of Clement could hare come down to us. It is brought 

 forward in the most confident and unembarrassed maniu r. 

 He does not stop to confirm this fact by any strong as- 

 severation, nor does he carry, in his manner of announ- 

 cing it, the mot rrmote suspicion of its being resisted 

 by the incredulity of those to whm he is addressing him- 

 self. It wears the air of an acknowledged truth, a thing 

 understood and acquiesced in by all the parties in this 

 correspondence. The direct narrative of the evangelists 

 gives us their original testimony to the miracles of the 

 gospel. The artless and indirect allusions of the aposto- 

 lic fathers, give us not merely their faith in this testi- 

 mony, but the faith of the whole societies to which they 

 write. They let us see, not merely that such a testimony 

 \ra* given, b it that such a testimony was generally belie- 

 ved, and that too at a time when the facts in question 

 Isy within the memory of living witnesses. 



120. In another part, speaking of the apostles, Clement 

 sayi, that " receiving the commandments, and being filled 

 with full certainty by the resurrection of Jesus Christ, 

 and confirmed by the word of God, with the assurance of 

 the Holy Spirit, they went out announcing the advent 

 of the kingdom of God." 



121. It was no object, in those days, for a Christian wri- 

 ter to come over the miracles of the New Testament, with 

 the view of lending his formal and explicit testimony to 

 them. This testimony had already been completed to 

 the satisfaction of the whole Christian world. If much 

 additional testimony has not been given, it is because it 

 was not called for. But we ought to see, that every 

 Christian writer, in the fact of his being a Christian, in 

 his expressed reverence for the books ot the New Tes- 

 tament, and in his numerous allusions to the leading 

 points of the gospel history, has given as satisfying evi- 

 dence to the truth of the Christian miracles, as if he had 



eft behind him a copious and distinct narrative. 



122. Of all the miracles of the gospel, it was to be sup- 

 posed, that the resurrection of our Saviour would be of- 

 tenest appealed to ; not as an evidence of his being a 

 teacher, for that was a point so settled in the mind of 

 every Christian, that a written exposition of the argu- 

 ment was no longer necessary, but as a motive to con- 

 stancy in the Christian profession, and as the great pillar 

 of hope in our own immortality. We accordingly meet 

 with the most free and confident allusions to this fact in 

 the early fathers. We meet with five intimations of this 

 fact in the undoubted epistle of Polycarp to the Philip, 

 pians : a father who had been educated by the apostles, 

 and conversed with many who had seen Christ. 



123. It is quite unnecessary to exhibit passages from 

 the epistles of Ignatius to the same effect, or to pursue the 

 examination downwards through the scries of written 

 testimonies. It is enough to announce it as a general 

 fact, that, in the very first age of the Christian church, 

 the teachers of this religion proceeded as confidently 

 apon the reality of Christ's miracles and resurrection in 

 their addresses to the people, as the teachers of the pre- 

 !ay : Or, in other words, that they were as little 

 afraid of being resisted by the incredulity of the people, 

 t a time when the evidence of the facts was accessible to 

 all, and habit and prejudice were against them, ai we 



are of being resisted by the incredulity of an unlettered 

 multitude, who listen to us with all the veneration of a 

 hereditary faith. 



124. There are five apostolic fathers, and a series of 

 Christian writers who follow after them in rapid succession. 

 To give an idea to those who arc not conversant in the 

 study of ecclesiastical antiquities, how well sustained the 

 chain of testimony is from the first age of Christianity, 

 we shall give a passage from a letter of Irenxus, preser- 

 ved by Etucbiut. We h?ve no less than nine composi- 

 tions from different authors, which till up the interval 

 betwixt him and Polycarp ; and yet this is the way in 

 which he speaks, in his old age, of the venerable Poly- 

 carp, in a letter to Florinua. " I saw you, when I was 

 very yuung, in the Lower Asia with Polycarp. For I 

 better remember the affairs of that time than those 

 which have lately happened : the things which we learn 

 in our childhood growing up in the soul, and uniting 

 themselves to it. Insomuch, that I can tell the place in 

 which the blessed Polycarp sat and taught, and his go- 

 ing out, and coming in, and the manner of his life, and 

 the form of his person, and his discourses to the people ; 

 and how he related his conversation with John, and 

 others who had seen the Lord ; and how he related their 

 sayings, and what he had heard from them concerning 

 the Lord, both concerning his miracles and his doc- 

 trines, as he had received them from the eye-witnesses 

 of the Word of Life : all which Polycarp related agree- 

 ably to the Scriptures. These things I then, through 

 the mercy of God toward me, diligently heard and at- 

 tended to, recording them not on paper, but upon my 

 heart." 



125. Now is the time to exhibit to full advantage the 

 argument which the different epistles of the New Testa- 

 ment afford. They are, in fact, so many distinct and 

 additional testimonies. If the testimonies drawn from the 

 writings of the Christian fathers are calculated to make 

 any impression, then the testimonies of these epistles, 

 where there is no delusion, and no prejudice in the mind 

 of the inquirer, must make a greater impression. They 

 are more ancient, and were held to be of greater autho- 

 rity by competent judges. They were held sufficient 

 by the men of these days, who were nearer to the 

 sources of evidence ; and they ought, therefore, to be 

 held sufficient by us. The early persecuted Christians 

 had too great an interest in the grounds of their faith, to 

 make a light and superficial examination. We may safe- 

 ly commit the decision to them ; and the decision they 

 have made, is, that the authors of the different epistles 

 in the New Testament, were worthier of their confidence, 

 as witnesses of the truth, than the authors of those 

 compositions which were l.-ft out of the collection, and 

 maintain, in our eye, the form of a separate testimony. 

 By what unaccountable tendency is it, that we feel dis- 

 posed to reverse this decision, and to repose more faith 

 in the testimony of subsequent and less esteemed writ- 

 ers ? Is there any thing in the confidence given to Pe- 

 ter and Paul by their cotemporarieF, which renders them 

 unworthy of ours ? or, is the testimony of their writings 

 less valuable and less impressive, because the Christian* 

 of old have received them as the best vouchers of their faith? 



126. It gives us a far more satisfying impression than 

 ever of the truth of our religion, when, in addition to se- 

 veral distinct and independent narratives of its history, we 

 meet with a number of contemporaneous productions ad- 

 dressed to different societies, and all proceeding upon the 

 truth of that history, as an agreed and unquestionable 

 point amongst the different parties in the correspondence. 

 Had that history been a fabrication, iu what manner, wo 



They leut 

 the mind 

 bAck to 



the number 

 and weight 

 of tlu- origi- 

 nal tcjtiiiv.-- 



