The Grounds of Christianity Examined by Comparing The New Testament with the Old eBook

George Bethune English
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 271 pages of information about The Grounds of Christianity Examined by Comparing The New Testament with the Old.

The Grounds of Christianity Examined by Comparing The New Testament with the Old eBook

George Bethune English
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 271 pages of information about The Grounds of Christianity Examined by Comparing The New Testament with the Old.
Apostolici,” a letter ascribed to Peter, written to James at Jerusalem wherein he complains bitterly of Paul, styling him “a lawless man,” and a crafty misrepresenter of him (Peter,) and his doctrine, in that Paul represented, every where, Peter as being secretly of the same opinions with himself; against this he enters his protest, and declares that he reprobates the doctrine of Paul. (See Appendix B.) 3.  It is certain, that from the beginning, the Christians were never agreed as to points of faith; and that the apostles themselves, so far from being considered as inspired, and infallible, were frequently contradicted, thwarted, and set at naught by their own converts:  and there were as many sects, heresies, and quarrels, in the first century, as in the second or third. 4.  Jesus and his apostles were no sooner off the stage, than forgeries of all kinds broke in with irresistible force:  Gospels, Epistles, Acts, Revelations without number, published in the names, and under the feigned authority, of Jesus and his apostles, abounded in the Christian church; and as some of these were as early in time as any of the writings in the present canon of the New Testament, so they were received promiscuously with them, and held in equal credit and veneration, and read in the public assemblies as of equal authority with those now received. 5.  The very learned and pious Dodwell, in his Dissertations on Iraeneus avows, that he cannot find in ecclesiastical antiquities, (which he understood better than any man of his age,) any evidence at all, that the four Gospels were known or heard of, before the time of Trajan, and Adrian, i.e. before the middle of the second century, i. e. nearly a hundred years after the apostles were dead. (See Appendix C.) Long before this time, we know that there were extant numbers of spurious gospels, forged, and ascribed to the apostles; and we have not the least evidence to be depended on, that those now received were not also apocryphal.  For they were written nobody certainly knows by whom, or where, or when.  They first appeared in an age of credulity, when forgeries of this kind abounded and were received with avidity by those whose opinions they favoured, while they were rejected as spurious by many sects of Christians, who asserted that they were possessed of the genuine apostles, which, however, those who received “the four,” denied. 6.  All the different sects of Christians, without a known exception, altered, interpolated, and without scruple garbled, their different copies of their various and discordant gospels, in order to adapt them to their jarring and whimsical philosophical notions, Celsus accuses them of this, and they accuse each other.  And that they were continually tampering with their copies of the books of the New Testament, is evident from the immense number of various readings, and from some whole phrases, and even verses, which for knavish purposes were foisted into the text, but have been detected, and exposed
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The Grounds of Christianity Examined by Comparing The New Testament with the Old from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.