Testament which we are now reading was word for word the same as the New Testament which the Christians of the fifth century were reading. Any tampering with the text, if such there were, would be immediately revealed by the microscope. When we appeal to what is written in a book accessible to all, we know what we are about. Whereas, if we refer men to an oral tradition, they ask us where they are to find it, and we have no definite reply. "In the writings of the Fathers" would be a bewildering answer to most; "in the living voice of the Church' would be still less definite. Whereas, even in those early centuries, when tradition might be thought a far more trustworthy guide than now, the Christian Churches seem to have agreed with one consent in all their Councils to bring all matters of faith and morals to the test of God's Word written.

Athanasius, in the fourth century, begins his discourse against the Gentiles by laying down this broad principle: "The holy and inspired Scriptures are sufficient in themselves for the declaration of the truth;" again, in his 39th Festal Epistle, he writes: "These" (the Books of the Old and New Testament, which he has been enumerating)" are the fountains of salvation; so that he who is athirst may be satiated with the oracles therein contained. In this alone is the doctrine of our religion set forth. Let no one add thereto or take therefrom." Then he goes on to distinguish the uncanonical books as of lower value, though profitable for instruction-just as St. Jerome does in the pasages above quoted.

Thus it clearly appears that our English Church is abundantly warranted in asserting that all that is

necessary for salvation may be found in Holy Scripture, without any addition thereto from tradition. The great value of tradition, as we proceed to show, is in determining what is Scripture.

II. We now come to the second point insisted on in this Article that our Church receives certain specified Books as canonical, that is, inspired and authoritative in matters of doctrine. And here we find at once a most interesting illustration of that principle of the appeal to antiquity which, as we have seen, our Church recognises.

On what grounds does our Church venture to make this distinction between canonical and uncanonical Books? On the ground that certain Books of both Old and New Testament have our Lord's sanction, and others have not. And how can it be ascertained what books have, and what books have not, this sanction? By an appeal to antiquity.

This needs further explanation. And first, What do we mean by saying that certain Books of the Old and New Testament have our Lord's sanction?

We mean this, that we find our Lord and His Apostles very evidently accepting a certain number of Books called "the Scriptures," or called otherwise by a threefold designation, "The Law, the Psalms, and the Prophets," as of divine authority. So much for the Old Testament. And, for the New Testament, we find our Lord no less distinctly giving His sanction and authority to a certain group of men called Apostles to record His own ministry and doctrine for the instruction of His Church.

It may suffice to indicate very briefly that this is so.

First, for the Old Testament, we find that Christ and His Apostles were accustomed to refer to certain received scriptures already written as of divine authority :

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Beginning at Moses and all the Prophets, He expounded unto them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself." "All things must be fulfilled which were written in the law of Moses, and in the Prophets, and in the Psalms concernig Me" (Luke xxiv. 27, 44).

"They have Moses and the Prophets; let them hear them” (Luke xvi. 29).

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Search the Scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life; and they are they which testify of Me" (John v. 39).

"The Scriptures must be fulfilled" (Mark xiv. 49). St. Paul calls them "The oracles of God" (Rom. iii. 2); and speaks of "the Holy Scriptures" as "able to make" Timothy "wise unto salvation;" for “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness” (2 Tim. iii. 15, 16).

Thus clearly is a certain collection of Old Testament Scriptures recognised by our Lord and His Apostles as of divine authority.

And how for the authority of what the Apostles wrote, i.e. of the New Testament. Inspiration for this purpose is clearly promised to them and claimed by them; "The Comforter Which is the Holy Ghost, Whom the Father will send in My Name, He shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you." "He will guide you into all truth, and show you things to come" (John

xiv. 25, xvi. 13). "It is not ye that speak, but the Holy Ghost" (Mark xiii. 11). Accordingly the Apostles claim that the deep things of God are revealed to them by His Spirit; that they speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth (1 Cor. ii. 10, 13); that the mystery of Christ, which in other ages was not made known to the sons of men, was now revealed to the Apostles and Prophets by the Spirit (Eph. iii. 4, 5).

So much for the Divine sanction being accorded to a certain collection of Old Testament Scriptures which were already written, and to a certain collection of New Testament Scriptures which were to be written.

But how do we know that the collection of Scriptures, Old and New, which we now authorize, is identically the same as the collection, Old and New, thus stamped with Divine authority? This brings us to the appeal to antiquity and tradition.

First, as regards the Old Testament :-Was the collection to which our Lord referred the same as the collection given in our English Bible?

The collection, as given in our English Bible, is the collection given by St. Jerome, and not the collection authorized by the Council of Carthage (A.D. 397).

The Church of Carthage preferred to receive all the Books found in the Greek Bible of the Septuagint, in number about twenty-eight, what we call the Apocryphal books being included. But Jerome said they were wrong, and that the Hebrew Canon only contained twenty-two Books, excluding the Apocrypha.

St. Jerome gives us his list of twenty-two, and it

1 How these later Greek books of the Jews came to be called by the name Apocrypha is not clear.

agrees with ours,-Judges and Ruth are reckoned as one book; so are the two Books of Samuel, the two of Kings, the two of Chronicles; so also are Ezra and Nehemiah; Jeremiah's Prophecies and Lamentations; and the Minor Prophets. Thus our thirty-nine are in his list reduced to twenty-two, the number of the letters in the Hebrew alphabet.

The question then arises, Which was right, the provincial Council of Carthage, whose list (including the Apocrypha) was adopted by the Church of Rome at the Council of Trent, or St. Jerome, whose list, excluding the Apocrypha, is adopted by the English Church?

We think we have good reason to believe that St. Jerome's list was the list adopted by the Jews at the time of our Lord's ministry. And our reason is this. We can trace St. Jerome's list—nearly always divided into Law, Psalms, and Prophets-backwards up to the time of the Apostles. Ruffinus gives it in the year 398, Gregory of Nazianzum gives it, 376, so does the Council of Laodicea, 364, so do Cyril of Jerusalem, Hilary of Poictiers, Athanasius, 340-360; Melito1 (160) went to Palestine on purpose to ascertain what books were reckoned as canonical by the Jews, and gives the same list as Jerome. Josephus, who was born only a few years after the Crucifixion, though he gives no list, speaks of the Books being in number twenty-two (Jerome's number) and in three classes, the Law, the Prophets, and Hagiographa. Philo, contemporary with the Apostles, gives the same threefold classification, and, as we have seen from the 24th chapter of St. Luke, our Lord spoke of the Scriptures under the very same threefold classification also. One more

EUSEB., Ecc. Hist. iv. 26.