dwell on the
many other points of internal evidence: it is sufficient to say that
those who are most familar with such inquiries, and who best know how
little any external testimony can avail in favour of a book where the
internal evidence is against it, are most satisfied that the principal
writings of the New Testament do contain abundantly in themselves, for
competent judges, the evidence of their own genuineness and
authenticity.

That the testimony of the early Christian writers goes along with this
evidence and confirms it, is matter indeed of sincere thankfulness;
because more minds, perhaps, are able to believe on external evidence
than on internal. But of this testimony of the Christian writers it is
essential to observe, that two very important points are such as do
indeed affect this particular question much, but yet do not confer any
value on the judgment of the witness in other matters. When a very early
Christian writer quotes a passage from the New Testament, such as we
find it now in our Bibles, it is indeed an argument, which all can
understand, that he had before him the same Bible which we have, and
that though he lived so near to the beginning of the gospel, yet that
some parts of the New Testament must have been written still nearer to
it. This is an evidence to the age of the New Testament, valuable indeed
to us, but implying in the writer who gives it no qualities which confer
authority; it merely shows that the book which he read must have existed
before he could quote it. A second point of evidence is, when a very
early Christian writer quotes any part of the New Testament as being
considered by those to whom he was writing as an authority. This, again,
is a valuable piece of testimony; but neither does it imply any general
wisdom or authority in the writer who gives it: its value is derived
merely from the age at which he lived, and not from his personal
character. And with regard to the general reception of the New Testament
by the Christians of his time, which, in the case supposed, he states as
a fact, no doubt that the general opinion of the early Christians,
where, as in this case, we can be sure that it is reported correctly, is
an authority, and a great authority, in favour of the Scriptures:
combined, as it is, with the still stronger internal evidence of the
books themselves, it is irresistible. But it were too much to argue
that, therefore, it was alone sufficient, not only when desti