Annotations on the Apocalypse

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: see the arguments more laYgely developed, and to exercise his critical powers more fully on this question, he must be referred to the Dissertation. The evidence to be examined divides itself into two parts, the external and the internal. The external is that which is derived from credible witnesses, from...
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Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: see the arguments more laYgely developed, and to exercise his critical powers more fully on this question, he must be referred to the Dissertation. The evidence to be examined divides itself into two parts, the external and the internal. The external is that which is derived from credible witnesses, from the early writers and fathers of the Church. The internal is that which results from a perusal of the book. I. Of THE EXTERNAL EVIDENCE. The evidence external, for the authenticity and divine inspiration of the Apocalypse, is to be collected from the testimonies of those ancient writers, who, living at a period at no great distance from the time of its publication, appear, by their affirmations, quotations, or allusions, to have received it as a book of sacred scripture. This was the test by which the primitive Church was accustomed to determine the claims of all writings pretending to divine authority. All such were rejected, which appeared not to have been received by the Orthodox Christians of the preceding ages.1 But to enable us to judge of the force of this evidence, as affecting any particular book of scripture, it is necessary to ascertain the time when that book was written. For if it shall appear to have been written and published in the early period of the apostolic age, we may expect testimonies concerning it, from apostles, or from apostolical men.1 If it can be shown on the contrary, that it was published in the very latest times of that age, it will be in vain to expect any earlier notice of it. tion, he thus writes: ? The testimonies of Justin and Irenseus I have for many years considered as very much to be relied on respecting the author of the Apocalypse, from their having lived so near the time in which it was written; and your work has not only ...