That Irenæus, who was by birth a Greek, was in a posi tion to certainly form a correct judgment of these matters, is evident from some remarks, as quoted from his writings by Eusebius, which he addressed to a former friend who had embraced the tenets of the Gnostics :-" These opinions, those presbyters who preceded us, and who were conversant with the apostles, did not hand down to thee. For, while I was yet a boy, I saw thee in lower Asia with Polycarp, distinguishing thyself in the royal court, and endeavouring to gain his approbation. I can even describe the place where the blessed Polycarp used to sit and discourse, his going out, too, and his coming in; his general mode of life and personal appearance, together with the discourses which he delivered to the people; also how he would speak of his familiar intercourse with John, and with the rest of those who had seen the Lord; and how he would call their words to remembrance. Whatsoever things he had heard from them respecting the Lord, both with regard to His miracles and His teaching, Polycarp, having thus received information from the eye-witnesses of the Word of Life, would recount them all in harmony with the Scriptures." Here we have proof that the four Gospels and the other books of the New Testament, of which he elsewhere speaks, were recognized as "the Scriptures," not only by Irenæus himself, who was separated by but one link from the Apostles, but also by Polycarp, who had been conversant "with John and with the rest of those who had seen the Lord," and who afterwards recounted what he had heard from them before public assemblies, and "in harmony with the Scriptures"-the then existing Scriptures, as known and described by Irenæus.

1 Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. v. 20.

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These Scriptures, then, including the four Gospels which Irenæus, and therefore Polycarp, ascribed to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, could not have been originated and palmed upon the world in the names of the Apostles and Evangelists at a later date, as some modern "rationalists" have most unreasonably conjectured. The great work of Irenæus is still extant, and from his day to the present the sacred writings have been recognized and preserved with jealous care by the Church their genuineness and authenticity are therefore indisputable; and the legendary additions of which Renan speaks, have thus been most effectually provided against. Although not at all essential to the argument, we may further add—which will probably be regarded by some as an important consideration-that as the Samaritans and ancient Israelites were to each other in reference to preserving from alteration the sacred text of the Pentateuch, which they each possessed; so did the Gnostic heretics and the orthodox Christians, in their doctrinal disputes, act from the earliest age of the Church, as a mutual guard to the sacred text of the New Testament Scriptures. One doctrinal party could not have materially altered the original text without immediate detection by the jealous eye of the other. But it is evident that while good, Christian men may have exercised a holy jealousy in this respect, they themselves needed no such check.

The letters of Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch, written to some of the Christian Churches a little before his martyrdom at Rome, and which bear testimony to the truth of the religion. of the Gospel, are still extant. Now this Bishop was educated under the apostle John, and was intimately acquainted in early life with St. Peter and St. Paul, and afterwards with Polycarp. He was Bishop of Antioch for

upwards of forty years, extending from about the time of the destruction of Jerusalem to the early part of the second century. He and Polycarp may therefore be regarded as connecting links between the Apostles of our Lord and the subsequent Fathers of the Church. They both died as martyrs. The venerable Ignatius nobly despising the sentence of death by wild beasts which had been passed upon him, exclaimed: "I thank Thee, O Lord, that Thou hast condescended to honor me with Thy love, and hast thought me worthy, with Thy apostle Paul, to be bound in iron chains." And in a letter to the Christian Church at Rome, he said: "Now I begin to be a disciple; nor shall anything move me, whether visible or invisible, that I may attain to Christ Jesus. I would rather die for Jesus Christ, than rule to the utmost ends of the earth. Him I seek who died for us; Him I desire that rose again for us." The venerable Polycarp, who was for more than eighty years pastor of the Church of Smyrna, and who expired at the stake, A.D. 166, on being urged by the proconsul to blaspheme Christ, answered, “Eighty-six years have I served Him, during all which time He never did me injury; how then can I blaspheme my King and my Saviour." When further urged, his answer was, I am a Christian!" When threatened. with wild beasts, he said,

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Bring them forth." When with fire, he reminded them of the eternal fire that awaited the ungodly. Thus did they, with the noble army of apostolic and primitive martyrs, seal their testimony to the truth of the religion of the cross with their blood; and in this we have another irrefragable argument for the truth of Christianity and the authenticity of the New Testament Scriptures; for these men were not mere blind enthusiasts, but men of strong minds, good sense and discernment, as

were the Apostles who had sealed their testimony with their blood before them.

To what has been already said in proof of the antiquity and genuine authorship of John's Gospel, much more might be added, such as the well-known fact that it not only existed before the close of the first century, but that quotations were made from it by very early writers; as, for example, the quotations made from John as a Scripture authority by Justin Martyr (A.D. 138,) relative to the doctrine of the new birth,' which proves that this Gospel must not only have existed, but must have been accepted as canonical by the Christian world at the time the quotation was made, and for some time before it. Also the reference made by Irenæus in the concluding chapter of his work "Against Heresies," to the elders or presbyters that preceded him, as having quoted John xiv. 2 in support of their opinions in reference to the future state—a quotation that must have been made immediately after the close of the first century, as Irenæus himself was born not later than the year 140, and some of the "elders" that preceded him must, as were Polycarp and Papias, have been cotemporary with the apostle John himself. These last named, in fact, are the very elders Irenæus refers to as having quoted from John, as they did also from the other Gospels. But enough has been already adduced to prove that John's Gospel is quite as much entitled to a place in the sacred canon as either of the others, as Origen and the other Fathers of the Church, with Irenæus and therefore Polycarp, the disciple of John, and hence John himself, has indisputably given it. It has thus been made to clearly appear from the writings

1 Apol. I. 61. The quotation is made from Jn. iii. 3, 5.

2 Irenæus was in early life a disciple of the venerable Polycarp, by whom he was sent to preach the Gospel to the Gauls.

of the Christian Fathers, as well as from references to the writings of heathen authors, that the Gospels, not excepting the last, with the other books of the New Testament, were recognized from the very first as of Apostolic origin; and thus, therefore, was the palming of a forgery or spurious Gospel upon the world in the name of either of the Apostles or Evangelists, at any period of the Church's history, rendered impossible. Polycarp, Papias, Justin, Irenæus, the immediately succeeding, and all the subsequent Fathers of the Church, were, in the providence of God, successively raised up to act as the conservators of His truth, and served as an effective guarantee to all successive generations of Christians, that the sacred books of the New Testament are the authentic, genuine, and uncorrupted productions of the inspired authors whose names they bear.