in the wisdom of this world, but filled with the Holy Spirit of truth and the powers of the world to
come, were commissioned to preach the glad tidings of salvation to all nations in the strength and
in the name of their glorified Master, who sits on the right hand of God the Father Almighty, and
has promised to be with them to the end of time.
The gospel, accordingly, was first propagated and the church founded by the personal oral
teaching and exhortation, the "preaching," "testimony," "word," "tradition," of the apostles and
their disciples; as, in fact, to this day the living word is the indispensable or, at least, the principal
means of promoting the Christian religion. Nearly all the books of the New Testament were written
between the years 50 and 70, at least twenty years after the resurrection of Christ, and the founding
of the church; and the Gospel and Epistles of John still later.
As the apostles’ field of labor expanded, it became too large for their personal attention,
and required epistolary correspondence. The vital interests of Christianity and the wants of coming
generations demanded a faithful record of the life and teaching of Christ by perfectly reliable
witnesses. For oral tradition, among fallible men, is liable to so many accidental changes, that it
loses in certainty and credibility as its distance from the fountain-head increases, till at last it can
no longer be clearly distinguished from the additions and corruptions collected upon it. There was
great danger, too, of a wilful distortion of the history and doctrine of Christianity by Judaizing and
paganizing errorists, who had already raised their heads during the lifetime of the apostles. An
authentic written record of the words and acts of Jesus and his disciples was therefore absolutely
indispensable, not indeed to originate the church, but to keep it from corruption and to furnish it
with a pure standard of faith and discipline.
Hence seven and twenty books by apostles and apostolic men, written under the special
influence and direction of the Holy Spirit. These afford us a truthful picture of the history, the faiths,
and the practice of primitive Christianity, "for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for instruction
in righteousness."^866
The collection of these writings into a canon, in distinction both from apocryphal or
pseudo-apostolic works, and from orthodox yet merely human productions, was the work of the
early church; and in performing it she was likewise guided by the Spirit of God and by a sound
sense of truth. It was not finished to the satisfaction of all till the end of the fourth century, down
to which time seven New Testament books (the "Antilegomena" of Eusebius), the second Epistle
of Peter, the second and third Epistles of John, the anonymous Epistle to the Hebrews, the Epistles
of James and Jude, and in a certain sense also the Apocalypse of John, were by some considered
of doubtful authorship or value. But the collection was no doubt begun, on the model of the Old
Testament canon, in the first century;^867 and the principal books, the Gospels, the Acts, the thirteen
Epistles of Paul, the first Epistle of Peter, and the first of John, in a body, were in general use after
the middle of the second century, and were read, either entire or by sections, in public worship,
after the manner of the Jewish synagogue, for the edification of the people.
The external testimony of tradition alone cannot (for the Protestant Christian) decide the
apostolic origin and canonical character of a book; it must be confirmed by the internal testimony
of the book itself. But this is not wanting, and the general voice of Christendom for these eighteen(^866) 2 Tim. 3:16. It applies to "every Scripture inspired of God," more immediately to the Old Test., but a fortiori still more to
the New.
(^867) Comp. 2 Pet. 3:16, where a collection of Paul’s Epistles is implied.
A.D. 1-100.