nd to preach the
gospel to Jews and Gentiles--a record not, indeed, complete, but
sufficient to show the manner and spirit in which the work was
performed. Some truths, moreover, of the highest importance the Saviour
gave only in outline, because the time for their full revelation had not
yet come. John 16:12, 13. Such were especially the doctrine of his
atoning sacrifice on Calvary with the connected doctrine of
justification by faith; and the divine purpose to abolish the Mosaic
economy, and with it the distinction between Jews and Gentiles. We have,
partly in the Acts and partly in the epistles, an account of the
unfolding of these great truths by the apostles under the guidance of
the Holy Spirit, and of the commotions and contentions that naturally
accompanied this work. The practical application of the gospel to the
manifold relations of life, domestic, social, and civil, with the
solution of various difficult questions arising therefrom, was another
work necessarily devolved on the apostles, and performed by them with
divine wisdom for the instruction of all coming ages. The book of Acts
and the epistles ascribed to the apostles being such a natural sequel to
the Redeemer's work, as recorded by the four evangelists, a briefer
statement of the evidence for their genuineness and authenticity will be
sufficient.

I. _The Acts of the Apostles._ 2. According to Chrysostom, First Homily
on Acts, this book was not so abundantly read by the early Christians as
the gospels. The explanation of this comparative neglect is found in the
fact that it is occupied with the doings of the apostles, not of the
Lord himself. Passing by some uncertain allusions to the work in the
writings of the apostolic fathers, the first explicit quotation from it
is contained in the letter heretofore noticed, chap. 2:4, from the
churches of Vienne and Lyons in Gaul, written about A.D. 177, in which
they say: "Moreover they prayed, after the example of Stephen the
perfect martyr, for those who inflicted upon them cruel torments, 'Lord,
lay not this sin to their charge.'" Irenaeus, in the last part of the
second century, Tertullian in the last part of the same century and the
beginning of the third, Clement of Alexandria about the end of the
second century and onwards--all these bear explicit testimony to the
book of Acts, ascribing it to Luke as its author; and from their day
onward the notices of the work are abundant. We may add the concurrent