204 HORiE PAULINiK. 



CHAPTER XYI. 



THE CONCLUSION. 



In the outset of this inquiry, the reader was directed to 

 consider the Acts of the Apostles and the thirteen epistles 

 ?f St. Paul as certain ancient manuscripts lately discovered 

 in the closet of some celebrated library. We have adhered 

 to this view of the subject. External evidence of every 

 kind has been removed out of sight ; and our endeavors 

 have been employed to collect the indications of truth and 

 authenticity which appeared to exist in the writings them- 

 selves, and to result from a comparison of their different 

 parts. It is not however necessary to continue this suppo- 

 sition longer. The testimony which other remains of con- 

 temporary, or the monuments of adjoining ages afford to the 

 reception, notoriety, and public estimation of a book, form, 

 no doubt, the first proof of its genuineness. And in no books 

 whatever is this proof more complete than in those at present 

 under our consideration. The inquiries of learned men, and, 

 above all, of the excellent Lardner, who never overstates a 

 point of evidence, and whose fidelity in citing his authori- 

 ties has in no one instance been impeached, have established, 

 concerning these writings, the following propositions : 



I. That in the age immediately posterior to that in which 

 St. Paul lived, his letters were publicly read and acknowledged. 



Some of them are quoted or alluded to by almost every 

 Christian writer that followed, by Clement of Rome, by 

 Ilermas, by Ignatius, by Polycarp, disciples or contempora- 

 ries of the apostles ; by Justin Martyr, by the churches of 

 Gaul, by Irenseus, by Athenagoras, by Theophilus, by Clem- 

 ent of Alexandria, by Hermias, by Tertullian, who occupied 

 the succeeding age. Now when we find a book quoted or 

 referred to by an ancient author, we are entitled to conclude 

 that it was read and received in the age and country in 

 which that author lived. And this conclusion does not, in 



