I have said that the testimony of Irenaeus in favour of our Gospels is exclusive of all others.  I allude to a remarkable passage in his works, in which, for some reasons sufficiently fanciful, he endeavours to show that there could he neither more nor fewer Gospels than four.  With his argument we have no concern.  The position itself proves that four, and only four, Gospels were at that time publicly read and acknowledged.  That these were our Gospels, and in the state in which we now have them, is shown from many other places of this writer beside that which we have already alleged.  He mentions how Matthew begins his Gospel, bow Mark begins and ends his, and their supposed reasons for so doing.  He enumerates at length the several passages of Christ’s history in Luke, which are not found in any of the other evangelists.  He states the particular design with which Saint John composed his Gospel, and accounts for the doctrinal declarations which precede the narrative.

To the book of the Acts of the Apostles, its author, and credit, the testimony of Irenaeus is no less explicit.  Referring to the account of Saint Paul’s conversion and vocation, in the ninth chapter of that book, “Nor can they,” says he, meaning the parties with whom he argues, “show that he is not to be credited, who has related to us the truth with the greatest exactness.”  In another place, he has actually collected the several texts, in which the writer of the history is represented as accompanying Saint Paul; which leads him to deliver a summary of almost the whole of the last twelve chapters of the book.

In an author thus abounding with references and allusions to the Scriptures, there is not one to any apocryphal Christian writing whatever.  This is a broad line of distinction between our sacred books and the pretensions of all others.

The force of the testimony of the period which we have considered is greatly strengthened by the observation, that it is the testimony, and the concurring testimony, of writers who lived in countries remote from one another.  Clement flourished at Rome, Ignatius at Antioch, Polycarp at Smyrna, Justin Martyr in Syria, and Irenaeus in France.

Xi.  Omitting Athenagoras and Theophilus, who lived about this time; (Lardner, vol. i. p. 400 & 422.) in the remaining works of the former of whom are clear references to Mark and Luke; and in the works of the latter, who was bishop of Antioch, the sixth in succession from the apostles, evident allusions to Matthew and John, and probable allusions to Luke (which, considering the nature of the compositions, that they were addressed to heathen readers, is as much as could be expected); observing also, that the works of two learned Christian writers of the same age, Miltiades and Pantaenus, (Lardner, vol. i. p.413, 450.) are now lost:  of which Miltiades Eusebius records, that his writings “were monuments of zeal for the Divine Oracles;” and which Pantaenus,