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THE

A

METHOD

FOR

SETTLING THE CANON

OF THE

NEW TESTAMENT.

PART IV.

A general Differtation, or Proof, concerning the Canonical Authority of the Four Gofpels.

EFORE I enter upon the proof of the Canonical autho

BE

rity of each of the Gospels in particular, it will be very ferviceable to my defign to obferve and fhew, that the primitive Chriftians have expressly acknowledged only four Gofpels ; and thofe four Gofpels which we now receive under the names of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, to be genuine and Canonical. I fhall produce the feveral teftimonies which I have obferved, according to the order of time in which the writers lived; and among these it will not be amiss to place,

VOL. III.

1. St.

1. St. JOHN.

I. The teftimony of St. John the Apoftle; concerning whom we are told by Eufebius a, That when the three Gospels (of Matthew, Mark, and Luke) were published and known to every body, St. John at length faw them, approved them, and confirmed the truth of them; but (owned) that they were defective as to the account of those things which were done by our Saviour at the beginning of his miniftry-For which reafon John, being defired by his friends, supplied the defects of the three others, and wrote his Gospel to inform us of that time, and the things which were done by our Saviour in it, viz. before the imprisonment of John the Baptift. Now hence it follows;

1. That before St. John wrote his Gospel, the Christians of that first age owned and received no other than the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke; although it is certain there were many other false Gospels extant at that time, as I have elsewhere proved.

2. That these three were univerfally received and approved. 3. That they were with just reason fo approved, because St. John alfo did approve them....

Besides this teftimony of Eufebius, I find in a very old book, intitled, Μαρτύριον Τιμοθέω τοῦ ̓Αποςόλε, i. e. The Martyrdom of Timothy the Apostle, of which we have an extract in Photius (Cod. ccliv.); "That when, after the death of Domitian, "Nerva became Emperor, John returned to Ephesus, from "which place he had been banished by Domitian, he then "took the feveral books which contained the hiftory of our "Saviour's fufferings and miracles and doctrines, and were "now tranflated into feveral different languages, reviewed "them, rectified them, and joined himself to the former three Evangelifts (by writing his Gospel)." I confefs I cannot

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Τῶν προαναγραφέντων τριῶν εἰς πάντας ἤδη καὶ εἰς αὐτὸν Δία δεδου μένων, ἀποδέξασθαι μὲν φασὶν ἀλή θειαν αὐτοῖς ἐπιμαρτυρήσαντα μό την δὲ ἄρα λείπεθαι τῇ γραφὴ τὴν περὶ τῶν ἐν πρώτοις καὶ καὶ ἀρχὴν τῶ κηρύγματος ὑπὸ τοῦ Χρισᾶ πεπραγ μένων διήγησιν -- Παρακληθέντα δὴ

ἦν τούτων ἕνεκα φησὶ τὸν ἀπόςολον Ἰωάννην, τὸν ὑπὸ τῶν προτέρων εὐας γελισῶν παρασιωπηθέντα χρόνον, καὶ τὰ κατὰ τῦτον πεπραγμένα τῷ Σωτῆρι (ταῦτα δ ̓ ἦν τὰ πρὸ τῆς τοῦ Βαπτιςοῦ καθείρξεως) τῷ κατ ̓ αὐτὸν εὐαγγελίῳ παραδῆναι. Hift. Eccl. 1. 3. c. 24.

certainly

certainly determine the age of this book. There is a book extant, intitled The Martyrdom of Timothy, which goes under the name of Polycrates, a Bifhop of Ephefus, in the latter end of the fecond century, out of which Photius feems to have made this extract; and if this be true, it makes the history more valid: but it must be owned that several learned men are of opinion this book was not made by Polycrates, into which it is not my business here to enquire.

2. St. POLYCARP.

II. The testimony of Polycarp, who, according to Irenæus *, was not only inftructed by the Apoftles, and acquainted with many who had feen Chrift, but placed by the Apostles in Afia, as Bishop of Smyrna, whom, says he, I also faw when I was young. He (Polycarp) exprefsly mentions together our four Gofpels and their authors thus: "It was not without "reason that the Evangelifts began their Gospels different

ways; though the defign of each of them was the fame. " Matthew, because he wrote to the Hebrews, began with the "genealogy of Chrift, that he might evidence Chrift to be "descended of that family, which all the Prophets had foretold " he should defcend from. John being fixed among the "Ephefians, who as Gentiles were ignorant of the law, be"C gan his Gofpel with an account of the cause of our redemp→ tion, viz. that God would have his Son become incarnate

* Καὶ Πολύκαρπος δὲ οὐ μόνον ὑπὸ ἀποςόλων μαθητευθείς, καὶ συνανατραφεὶς πολλοῖς τοῖς τὸν Χρισὸν ἑωρακόσιν, ἀλλὰ καὶ ὑπὸ ἀποσόλων καταςαθεὶς εἰς τὴν ̓Ασίαν ἐν τῇ ἐν Σμύρνη ἐκκλησία ἐπίσκοπος, ὃν καὶ ἡμεῖς ἑωράκαμεν ἐν τῇ πρώτη ἡμῶν xia. Adv. Hærei. 1. 3. c. 3. et apud Eufeb. l. 4. c. 14.

Rationabiliter Evangeliftæ principiis diverfis utuntur, quamvis una eademque evangelizandi eorum probetur intentio. Matthæus, ut Hebræis fcribens, genealogiæ Christi ordinem texuit, ut oftenderet ab ea Christum descendiffe progenie, de

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qua eum nafciturum univerf Prophetæ cecinerant. Joannes autem ad Ephesum conftitutus, qui legem tanquam ex Gentibus ignorabant, a caufa noftræ redemptionis Evange lii fumpfit exordium; quæ caufa ex eo apparet, quod filium fuum Deus pro noftra falute voluit incarnari. Lucas vero a Zachariæ facerdotio incipit, ut ejus filii miraculo nativitatis, et tanti prædicatoris officio, Divinitatem Chrifti gentibus declararet. Unde et Marcus antiqua prophetici myfterii competentia adventui Chrifti declarat, ut non nova, fed antiquitus prolata ejus Prædicatio probaretur.

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"for our falvation. Luke begins with the priesthood of Za"charias, that by the account of his fon's miraculous birth, ❝ and his being so considerable a preacher, he might evidence "the divinity of Chrift to the Gentiles. Mark began his "Gospel with the explication of fome antient prophecies re"lating to the coming of Chrift, that his Gospel might ap << pear no new thing, but the fame as had been of old." For this fragment of Polycarp we are obliged to Feuardentius, who in his notes on Irenæus, 1. 3. c. 3. published it with fome other fragments of Polycarp out of a very antient manuscript of Victor Capuanus's Catena, upon the four Evangelifts, which Catena he there promises to publish; but whether he did or no, I know not. Victor Capuanus lived, according to Feuardentius, in the year of Chrift 480. Johan. Jacob. Grynæus (Præfat. in Orthodoxographa) places him sooner, viz. A. D. 455; but Bellarmine a, and Dr. Cave", place him near a hundred years later, viz. in the year 540, and 545, as alfo does Dr. Mill c.

3. TATIAN.

III. That there were only the four Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, received in the middle part of the fecond century, is evident from Tatian's Harmony, which was made about that time. He was a fcholar of Juftin Martyr, and συνάφειάν τινα καὶ συναγωγὴν ἐκ οἶδ' ὅπως τῶν εὐαγγελίων συνθεὶς, τὸ διὰ τεσσάρων τοῦτο προσωνόμασεν· ὁ καὶ παρά τισιν εἰσέτι νῦν φέρεται (Eufeb. Hift. Eccl. lib. 4. c. 29.) compiled a certain harmony of the Gospels, and called it, The Gospel of the Four; which is even to this day in the hands of fome. The fame account is also in Epiphanius, Hæref. 46. n. I. There can be no reasonable doubt but that these four were the Gofpels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John; for not only the number agrees, but these were the only four Gofpels that ever were reduced to a harmony. Befides, if the above-mentioned Victor Capuanus is to be credited, the Harmony of Tatian is still extant; for that which he published in the fifth or fixth cen

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