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XIV.

PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.

ferred to the council for determination, under the communion table in a church, they besought the Lord that the inspired writings might get upon the table while the spurious ones remained underneath, and that it happened accordingly." A commentator (a) on this legend suggests that nothing less than such a sight could sanctify that fiery zeal which breathes throughout an edict published by Constantine, in which he decrees that all the writings of Arius should be burned and that any person concealing any writing composed by him, and not immedi ately producing it, and committing it to the flames, should be punished with death. (6) Let us, with the illustrious Jortin, (c) consider a council called, and rresided over by this Barbarian Founder of the church militant: by wnat various motives the various Bishops may have been influenced; as by reverence to the Emperor or to his counsellors and favourites, his slaves and eunuchs; by the fear of offeuding some great prelate, as a Bishop of Rome or of Alexandria, who had it in his power to insult, vex, and plague all the bishops within and without his jurisdiction; by the dread of passing for heretics, and of being calumniated, reviled, hated, anathematised, excommunicated, imprisoned, banished, fined, beggared, starved, if they refused to submit; by compliance with some active leading and imperious spirits; by a deference to the majority; by a love of dictating and domineering, of applause and respect; by vanity and ambition ; ty a total ignorance of the question in debate, or a total indifference about it; by private friendships; by enmity and resentment; by old prejudices; by hopes of gain; by an indolent disposition; by good nature; by the fatigue of attend. ing, and a desire to be at home; by the love of peace and quiet; and a hatred of contention, &c. (d) Whosoever takes these things into due consideration will not be disposed to pay a blind deference to the authority of general councils but will rather be inclined to judge that "the council held by the Apostles at Jerusalem was the first and the last in which the Holy Spirit may be affirmed to have presided." (e)

(a) Mace's N. Test., p. 875.

(b) Socrates, Schol. Eccl. Hist. b. 1. c. 9.

(c) Rem. on Eccl. Hist. vol. ii. p. 177. (d) These considerations are more or less natu.al on becoming acquainted with the proceedings of every council, from that of Nice to that of Trent, in the year 1515, which, Father Paul says, was for divers ends and by divers means, procured and hastened, hindered and deferred, for two and twenty years; and, for eighteeen years more, was sometimes assembled and sometimes dissolved. Brent, a translator of l'aul's History of that Council says, "it would be infinite to relate the tratagems the bishops of Rome used to divert the council before it began, their postings to and fro, to hinder the proposing of those things which they thought would diminish their profit or pull down their pride: and their policies to enthral the prolates, and to procire a majority of voices."

It is stated by Guicciardini, that, as the priests were raised step by step to earthly power, they cared less and loss for religious precepts. Using their spiri tual only as an instrument of their temporal authority, their business was no more Banctity of life, increase of religion, and love and charity towards their neighbours but fomenting wars among Christians, and employing all arts and snares to scrape money together, and making new laws against the people. Hence they were no longer respected, although, by the powerful name of religion, they maintained their authority, being helped therein," says Guicciardini, "by the faculty which they have of gratifying princes."-Guicciardini's Hist. b. i

(e) Jortin's Rom. on. Eccl. Hist. vol ii p. 177.

PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.

V.

In accommodation to this opinion, the Church of England compels her clergy subscribe to the following among the thirty-nine "Articles of Religion." (a) "When general councils be gathered together, forasmuch as they be an amein bly of men, whereof all be not governed with the spirit and will of God they way err, and sometimes have erred, even in things pertaining unto God; wherefore things ordained by them as necessary to salvation have neither strength nor authority, unless it may be declared that they be taken out of the Holy Scriptures."

After eighteen centuries of bloodshed and cruelties perpetrated in the name of christianity, it is gradually emerging from the mystifying subtleties of fathers councils and hierarchies, and the encumbering edicts of soldier-kings and papal decretals. Charmed by the loveliness of its primitive simplicity, every sincere bunan heart will become a temple for its habitation, and every man become a priest unto himself. Thus, and thus only, will be established the religion of Him, who, having the same interest with ourselves in the welfare of mankind, left us, for the rule of our happiness, the sum and substance of his code of peace and good will-" Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do y even so to them."

By some persons of the multitude, commonly known by the name of Chris tians, and who profess to suppose they do God service by calling themselves so, the Editor has been attacked with a malignity and fury that would have graced the age of Mary and Elizabeth, when Catholics put to death Protestants, and Protestants put to death Catholics, for the sake of him who commanded man kind to love one another. To these assailants, he owes no explanation; to the craft of disingenuous criticism, he offers no reply; to the bolt of the Bigot, and the shaft of the Shrinemaker, he scarcely condescends the opposition of a smile.

(a) Art. xxi.

ORDER OF ALL THE BOOKS OF THE APOCRYFHAL NEW TESTAMENT.

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Authorities. See also the authorities more al large in the Notices before each Book.

In the works of St. Jerome, a Father o the Church, who died A.D. 420.

Postellus brought the MS. from the Levant, translated it into Latin, and caused it to be printed at Zurich, in 1552. 38 Received by the Gnostics, a set of Christians in the second Century, and translated into English by Mr. Henry Sike, Oriental Professor at Cambridge, in 1697. 60 Printed by Professor Cotelerius,in a note tohis works of the Apostolic Fathers, from a MS. in the King of France's Library, No. 2279, and Bishop of Cæsarea, A.D. 315. Preserved by Eusebius, one of the Council of Nice in his Ecclesiastical History, Book I. chap. 13.

62

63

91

Published by Professor Grynæus, in the Orthodoxographia, 1555, tom. ii. p. 643.

Without the articles of Christ's Descent into Hell and the Communion of Saints. See it thus handed down in Mr. Justice Bailey's Edition of the Book of Common Prayer, Svo, 1813, p. 9, note. Also in Bingham's Antiquities of the Christian Church, folio, 1726, B. 10. c. 4. s. 12.

93 In the Book of Common Prayer of the Church of England.

94

From Ancient MS8. in the Sorbonne and the Library of Joannes a Viridario at Padua. See also Poole's Annotations on Col. iv. 16. and Harl. MSS. Cod. 1212. 95 Jerome ranks Seneca on account of these Epistles among the holy writers of the Church. They are preserved by Sixtus Senensis, in his Bibliotheque, p. 89, 90. 99 From the Greek MS. in the Bodleian Library, copied by Dr. Mills, and transmitted to Dr. Grabe, who edited and printed it in his Specilegium.

24 111

5

These are "The GENUINE EPISTLES of 138 the Apostolic Fathers: being, together with 15 143 the Holy Scriptures of the NEW TESTAMENT, 163 a complete collection of the most primitive An

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169 tiquity for about a hundred and fifty years

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172 after CHRIST. Translated and published with`

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175 a large preliminary discourse relating to the

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179 several Treatises by the most Reverend

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182 Father in God, William (WAKE) Lord

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I. Hermas-Visions

II. Hermas-Command III. Hermes Simili. tudes.

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4 189 bishop of Canterbury. The authorities and 294 proofs adduced by this erudite and honest 12 209 prelate will be found in great number in the introduction and discourses to the

10 225 Edition of the Archbishop's Translation of these Epistles, published in 1817, by Mr. BAGSTER, Paternoster Row.

NOTE.-Column 1 contains the proper names of the Books; col. 2 the No. of chapters in each; col. 3 the page whereon each Book commences; col. 4. the authorities for each briefly stated.

THE

Apocryphal New Testament.

The GOSPEL of the BIRTH OF MARY.

In the primitive ages there was a Gospel extant bearing this name, attributed to St. Matthew, and received as genuine and authentic by several of the ancient Christian sects. It is to be found in the works of Jerome, a Father of the Church, who flourished in the fourth century, from whence the present translation is made. His contemporaries, Epiphanius, Bishop of Salamis, and Austin, also mention a Gospel under this title. The ancient copies different from Jerome's, for from one of them the learned Faustus, a native of Britain, who became Bishop of Riez, in Provence, endeavoured to prove that Christ was not the Son of God till after his baptism; and that he was not of the house of David and tribe of Judah, because, according to the Gospel he cited, the Virgin herself was not of this tribe, but of the tribe of Levi; her father being a priest of the name of Joachim. It was likewise from this Gospel that the sect of the Collyridians established the worship and offering of manchet bread and cracknels, or fine wafers, as sacrifices to Mary, whom they imagined to have been born of a Virgin, as Christ is related in the Canonical Gospel to have been born of her. Epiphanius likewise cites

passage concerning the death of Zacharias, which is not in Jerome's copy, viz. "That it was the occasion of the death of Zacharias in the temple, that when he had seen a vision, he, through surprise, was willing to disclose it, and his mouth was stopped. That which he saw was at the time of his offering incense, and it was a man standing in the form of an ass. When he was gone out, and had a mind to speak thus to the people, Woe unto you, whom do ye worship? he who had appeared to him in the temple took away the use of his speech. Afterwards when he recovered it, and was able to speak, he declared this to the Jews, and they slew him. They add (viz. the Gnostics in this book), that on this very account the high-priest was appointed by their lawgiver (by God to Moses) to carry little bells, that whensoever he went into the temple to sacrifice, he, whom they worshipped, hearing the noise of the bells, might have time enough to hide himself, and not be caught in that ugly shape and figure."—The principal part of this Gospel is contained in the Protevangelion of James, which follows next in order.]

CHAP. I.

The parentage of Mary. 7 Joachim her father, and Anna her mother, go to Jerusalem to the feast of the dedi cation. 9 Issachar the high priest reproaches Joachim for being childless. THE blessed and ever glorious

the royal race and family of David, was born in the city of Nazareth, and educated at Jerusalem, in the temple of the Lord.

2 Her father's name was Joa chim, and her mother's Anna. The family of her father was of

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The family of her mother was of Bethlehem.

3 Their lives were plain and right in the sight of the Lord, pious and faultless before men. For they divided all their substance into three parts:

4 One of which they devoted to the temple and officers of the temple; another they distributed among strangers, and persons in poor circumstances; and the third they reserved for themselves and the uses of their own family.

5 In this manner they lived for about twenty years chastely, in the favour of God, and the esteem of men, without any children.

6 Butthey vowed, if God should favour them with any issue, they would devote it to the service of the Lord; on which account they went at every feast in the year to the temple of the Lord.'

7 ¶And it came to pass, that when the feast of the dedication drew near, Joachim, with some others of his tribe, went up to Jerusalem, and at that time, Issachar was high-priest;

An Angel appears, and

11 But Joachim being much confounded with the shame of such reproach, retired to the shep herds who were with the cattle in their pastures;

12 For he was not inclined to return home, lest his neighbours, who were present and heard all this from the high-priest, should publicly reproach him in the same manner.

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for some time, on a certain day when he was alone, the angel of the Lord stood by him with a prodigious light.

2 To whom, being troubled at the appearance, the angel who had appeared to him, endeavouring to compose him said:

3 Be not afraid, Joachim, nor troubled at the sight of me, for I 8 Who, when he saw Joachim am an angel of the Lord sent by along with the rest of his neigh-him to you, that I might inform bours, bringing his offering, des- you, that your prayers are heard, pised both him and his offerings, and your alms ascended in the and asked him, sight of God.'

9 Why he, who had no children, would presume to appear mong those who had Adding, that his offerings could never be acceptable to God, who was judged by him unworthy to have children; the Scripture having said, Cursed is every one who shall not beget a male in Israel.

10 He further said, that he ought first to be free from that curse by begetting some issue, and then come with his offerings into the presence of God.

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4 For he hath surely seen your shame, and heard you unjustly reproached for not having children: for God is the avenger of sin, and not of nature;

5 And so when he shuts the womb of any person, he does it for this reason, that he may in a more wonderful manner again open it, and that which is born appear to be not the product of lust, but the gift of God.

6 For the first mother of your nation Sarah, was she not barren

Acta, x. 4.

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