The Spirit of the Bible, Or, the Nature and Value of the Jewish and Christian Scriptures Discriminated (Volume 2); The Apocrypha and the New Testament (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos, missing text or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1855. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... their origin, in many instances, to the artifice of the enemies of Christianity, rather than to the superlative folly of its friends. A clever unbeliever might burlesque the infancy of the Saviour, by ascribing to it miracles of puerile precocity, and miracles of boyish mischief and malice; but how any disciple of Christ could think to honour the Gospel by such wretched fancies, surpasses modern imagination. The result certainly is, what the unbeliever would make his object, --to degrade Christianity. The canon of the New Testament, then, comes out clearly thus: it contains all books known or widely believed (though not universally believed) to be written by apostles of Christ; together with a Gospel by Mark, and a Gospel and history of the Acts of the Apostles by Luke, both of them companions of apostles, and believed to be competent historians of the origin of Christianity. No other existing books answer either of these descriptions; while, as regards some even of these, the evidence of their belonging to the rank of apostolic writings is less clear than in other cases, and must be taken in each case on its own merits, when we read the respective books. CHAPTER V. THE BELATION OF CHRISTIANITY TO JUDAISM, AND OF THE NEW TESTAMENT TO THE OLD. Every Christian feels that there is a close connection between the Scriptures of the New Testament and those of the Old, implying a corresponding relation between the Christian Revelation and the Jewish, of which they are respectively the records. The Law is continually referred to by the first preachers of the Gospel in terms of the highest respect and reverence, even while they vindicate their own freedom and that of their converts from its obligations, as being superseded by the Gospel. The New-Testament Scriptures abound..