SECTION VI.

1. The Tradition of the Apostles fecured by other excellent inftitutions;

II. But chiefly by the writings of the Evangelifts.

III. The diligence of the Difciples, and first Chriftian converts, to fend abroad thefe writings.

IV. That the written account of our Saviour was the fame with that delivered by tradition:

V. Proved from the reception of the Gospel by thofe Churches which were established before it was written;

VI. From the uniformity of what was believed in the feveral Churches;

VII. From a remarkable paffage in Irenæus. VIII. Records which are now loft, of use to the three first centuries, for confirming the history of our Saviour.

IX. Inftances of fuch records.

1.TH

HUS far we fee how the learned Pagans might apprize themselves from oral information of the particulars

of

of our Saviour's hiftory. They could hear, in every Church planted in every diftant part of the earth, the account which was there received and preserved among them, of the hiftory of our Saviour. They could learn the names and characters of those first missionaries that brought to them thefe accounts, and the miracles by which God Almighty attested their reports. But the Apostles and Difciples of Chrift, to preferve the hiftory of his life, and to fecure their accounts of him from error and oblivion, did not only fet afide certain perfons for that purpose, as has been already shewn, but appropriated certain days to the commemoration of thofe facts which they had related concerning him. The firft day of the week was in all its returns a perpetual memorial of his refurrection, as the devotional exercises adapted to Friday and Saturday, were to denote to all ages, that he was crucified on the one of thofe days, and that he refted in the grave on the other. You may apply the fame remark to several of the annual feftivals instituted by the Apoftles themfelves, or at furtheft by their immediate fucceffors, in memory of the most important partiD 2

culars

culars in our Saviour's history: to which we must add the Sacraments inftituted by our Lord himself, and many of those rites and ceremonies which obtained in the moft early times of the Church. These are to be regarded as ftanding marks of fuch facts as were delivered by thofe, who were eye-witneffes to them, and which were contrived with great wifdom to last till time fhould be no more. These, without any other means, might have, in fome measure, conveyed to posterity, the memory of feveral tranfactions in the hiftory of our Saviour, as they were related by his Difciples. At leaft, the reafon of these inftitutions, though they might be forgotten and obfcured by a long courfe of years, could not but be very well known by thofe who lived in the three first centuries, and a means of informing the inquifitive Pagans in the truth of our Saviour's history, that being the view in which I am to confider them.

II. But left fuch a tradition, though guarded by fo many expedients, fhould wear out by the length of time, the four Evangelifts within about fifty, or, as Theodoret affirms, thirty years, after our

Saviour's death, while the memory of his actions was fresh among them, configned to writing that hiftory, which for fome years had been published only by the mouths of the Apostles and Difciples. The further confideration of these holy penmen will fall under another part of this discourse.

III. It will be fufficient to obferve here, that in the age which fucceeded the Apostles, many of their immediate Difciples fent or carried in person the books of the four Evangelifts, which had been written by Apoftles, or at least approved by them, to most of the Churches which they had planted in the different parts of the world. This was done with fo much diligence, that when Pantanus, a man of great learning and piety, had travelled into India for the propagation of Christianity, about the year of our Lord 200, he found among that remote people the Gospel of St. Matthew, which upon his return from that country he brought with him to Alexandria. This Gospel is generally fuppofed to have been left in those parts by St. Bartholemew the Apoftle of the Indies, who probably carried it with him, before the writings

of the three other Evangelifts were pub lished.

IV. That the hiftory of our Saviour, as recorded by the Evangelifts, was the fame with that which had been before delivered by the Apoftles and Difciples, will further appear in the profecution of this discourse, and may be gathered from the following confiderations.

V. Had thefe writings differed from the fermons of the first planters of Chriftianity, either in hiftory or doctrine, there is no question but they would have been rejected by thofe Churches which they had already formed. But fo confiftent and uniform was the relation of the Apostles, that these hiftories appeared to be nothing else but their tradition and oral attestations made fixt and permaThus was the fame of our Saviour, which in fo few years had gone through the whole earth, confirmed and perpetuated by fuch records, as would preferve the traditionary account of him to afterages; and rectify it, if at any time, by paffing through feveral generations, it might drop any part that was material, or contract any thing that was falfe or fictitious.

nent.

VI. Ac