difference between truth and forgery.
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Amongst the proofs of the truth of our proposition, viz. That the story
which we have now is, in substance, the story which the Christians had
then, or, in other words, that the accounts in our Gospels are, as to
their principal parts, at least, the accounts which the apostles and
original teachers of the religion delivered, one arises from observing,
that it appears by the Gospels themselves that the story was public at
the time; that the Christian community was already in possession of the
substance and principal parts of the narrative. The Gospels were not the
original cause of the Christian history being believed, but were
themselves among the consequences of that belief. This is expressly
affirmed by Saint Luke, in his brief, but, as I think, very important
and instructive preface:--"Forasmuch (says the evangelist) as many have
taken in hand to set forth in order a declaration of those things which
are most surely believed amongst us, even as they delivered them unto
us, which, from the beginning, were eye-witnesses and ministers of the
word; it seemed good to me also, having had perfect understanding of all
things from the very first, to write unto thee in order, most excellent
Theophilus, that thou mightest know the certainty of those things
wherein thou hast been instructed."--This short introduction testifies,
that the substance of the history which the evangelist was about to
write was already believed by Christians; that it was believed upon the
declarations of eye-witnesses and ministers of the word; that it formed
the account of their religion in which Christians were instructed; that
the office which the historian proposed to himself was to trace each
particular to its origin, and to fix the certainty of many things which
the reader had before heard of. In Saint John's Gospel the same point