.

6. Dark as are many parts of the Apocalypse and difficult of
interpretation, the book as a whole is radiant with the promise to God's
people of a final and complete victory in their conflict with the
kingdom of Satan. Though long delayed, as we mortals reckon time, it
shall come at last with a splendor above the brightness of the sun, and
the earth be lighted from pole to pole with its glory. "Amen. Even so,
come, Lord Jesus"!

APPENDIX TO PART III.

WRITINGS OF THE APOSTOLIC FATHERS, WITH SOME NOTICES OF THE APOCRYPHAL
NEW TESTAMENT WRITINGS.

1. A wide distinction should be made between the _writings of the
apostolic fathers_ which are acknowledged to be genuine, or the
genuineness of which may be maintained on more or less probable grounds,
and the large mass of spurious works afterwards palmed upon the
Christian world as the productions of apostles or their contemporaries.
The latter constitute properly the _New Testament Apocrypha_, though the
term is sometimes applied in a loose way to both classes of writings.
The writings of the apostolic fathers, though possessing no divine
authority, are valuable as showing the state of the Christian churches
at the time when they were composed in respect to both doctrine and
discipline, as well as the various errors and divisions by which they
were troubled. Their testimonies to the genuineness of the New Testament
have been already considered. Chap. 2, No. 10. Some of the apocryphal
works also, worthless as they are for instruction in the doctrines and
duties of Christianity, throw much light on the religious spirit,
tendencies, and heretical sects of the times to which they belong.
Others of these writings are unutterably absurd and puerile, worthy of
notice only as showing the type of the puerilities current in the age of
their composition.

I. WRITINGS OF CLEMENT.

2. Appended to the Alexandrine manuscript (Chap. 26, No. 5) is an
_epistle of Clement of Rome to the Corinthians_, followed by part of a
so-called second epistle to the same church. The first of these epistles
is acknowledged to be genuine. It was known to the ancient fathers as
the work of Clement of Rome, and highly commended by them. Their
quotations from it agree with the contents of the epistle as we now have
it, nor does it exhibit any marks of a later age; for the author's
reference to the well-known fable of the phoenix as a type of the
resurrection (chap. 25), constitutes no real d