XIII. We must further obferve, that there was not only in those times this religious converfation among private Christians, but a constant correspondence between the Churches that were established by the Apostles or their fucceffors, in the feveral parts of the world. If any new doctrine was ftarted, or any fact reported of our Saviour, a ftrict enquiry was made among the Churches, especially those planted by the Apostles themselves, whether they had received any fuch doctrine or account of our Saviour, from the mouths of the Apostles, or the tradition of thofe Chriftians, who had preceded the prefent members of the Churches which were thus confulted. By this means, when any novelty was published, it was immediately detected and cenfured.

XIV. St. John, who lived fo many years after our Saviour, was appealed to in these emergencies as the living Oracle of the Church, and as his oral teftimony lafted the first century, many have observed that, by a particular providence of God, feveral of our Saviour's Difciples, and of the early converts of his religion, lived to a very great age, that they might perfonally convey the truth of the Gofpel to thofe times, which were very remote from the first publication of it. Of thefe, befides St. John, we have a remarkable instance in Simeon, who was one of the seventy fent forth by our Saviour, to publifh the Gospel before his crucifixion, and a near kinfman of the Lord. This venerable perfon, who had probably heard with his own ears our Saviour's prophecy of the deftruction of Jerufalem, prefided over the Church esta

blished

blished in that city, during the time of its memorable fiege, and drew his congregation out of those dreadful and unparalleled calamities which befel his countrymen, by following the advice our Saviour had given, when they should fee Jerufalem incompaffed with armies, and the Roman ftandards, or abomination of defolation, fet up. He lived till the year of our Lord 107, when he was martyr'd under the Emperor Trajan.

SEC

SECTION VI.

I. The tradition of the Apoftles fecured by other excellent inflitutions;

II. But chiefly by the writings of the Evangelifts. III. The diligence of the Difciples and firft 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 passage in Irenæus. VIII. Records which are now loft, of ufe to the three first centuries, for confirming the history of our Saviour.

IX. Inftances of fuch records.

I.

TH

HUS far we fee how the learned Pagans might apprife themselves from oral information of the particulars 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 preferved among them, of the hiftory of our Saviour. They could learn the names and characters of thofe firft miffionaries that brought to them these

accounts,

accounts, and the miracles by which God Al-
mighty attefted their reports. But the Apostles
and Difciples of Christ, to preferve the history 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
fhewn, but appropriated certain days to the
commemoration of those facts which they had
related concerning him. The first day of the
week was in all its returns a perpetual memorial
of his refurrection, as the devotional exercifes
adapted to Friday and Saturday, were to denote to
all ages that he was crucified on the one of those
days, and that he refted in the grave on the other.
You may apply the fame remark to several of the
annual feftivals inftituted by the Apostles them-
felves, or at furtheft by their immediate Succef-
fors, in memory of the most important particulars
in our Saviour's hiftory; to which we must add
the Sacraments inftituted by our Lord himself,
and many of those rites and ceremonies which
obtained in the most early times of the Church.
These are to be regarded as standing marks of
fuch facts as were delivered by those, who were
eye-witneffes to them, and which were contrived
with great
wisdom to laft till time should be no
more. Thefe, without any other means, might
have, in fome measure, conveyed to pofterity, the
memory of several transactions 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 those who lived in the three first Cen-
turies, and a means of informing the inquifitive
Pagans in the truth of our Saviour's hiftory,

that

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 mouth of the Apoftles and Difciples. The further confideration of thefe holy penmen will fall under another part of this difcourfe.

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 perfon 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 Chriftianity, about the year of our Lord 200, he found among the remote people the Gospel of St. Matthew, which upon his return from that country he brought with him to Alexandria. This Gofpel is generally fuppofed to have been left in thofe parts by St. Bartholomew the Apoftle of the Indies, who probably carried it with him before the writings of the three other Evangelifts were publifh'd.

IV. That the hiftory of our Saviour, as record-. ed by the Evangelifts, was the fame with that which had been before delivered by the Apostles and Difciples, will further appear in the profecu