It is true, in one sense of the term, that we are indebted to the Church for the New Testament, and not to the New Testament for the Church. It is true, because the Church was in existence before the books composing the New Testament were written; because these books were written by apostles and evangelists who were members of the Church; because to members of the early Church we are indebted for our historical evidence of the canonicity of these books; and because the Church has preserved the New Testament from age to age.
On the other hand, there is a sense in which we are indebted to the New Testament for the Church. It was by means of the facts and truths embodied in the New Testament that the Church was brought into existence, and it is by means of the same facts and truths that its existence has been continued until this day. Had the New Testament writings been lost, the Church would long since have lost its identity. Everything good and true within the Church today has been derived from the New Testament, and this has been the case ever since the hearers of the original preachers passed away.
But in all the above there is nothing conceded to those who, in the Roman Catholic sense of the terms, are constantly reiterating the declaration that we are indebted to the Church for our New Testament. They mean that Protestants are indebted to the Roman Catholic Church for the New Testament, that this Church, by her councils, settled the canon of the New Testament by deciding between the genuine and the spurious books which claimed a place in the sacred list. The reader will recollect that this Romish pretense was put forward in the Christian Quarterly by the writer whose article on Ecclesiastical Polity was recently reviewed in this paper. He went so far as to affirm that "even as late as A.D. 325, the Council of Nice was compelled to settle the canon, and decide between the genuine writings of the apostles, and the flood of spurious Acts, Gospels, and Epistles, which were everywhere circulating, and in many places accepted as parts of the Holy Scriptures." The writer betrays in this affirmation the same want of accuracy which marks his entire article. The fragmentary history of the Council of Nice which has come down to us, contains no account of any action at all on the subject. The question was not even brought before this Council. The Greek Council of Laodicea was the first Council of bishops which took any action at all on the canon, and it convened A.D. 363. This Council published among its decrees a catalogue of the canonical books as they are now received, with the exception of Revelation.
But it was not the authority of this or of subsequent councils that settled the canon for early Christians, or that enables modern scholars to distinguish the spurious from the genuine books of the New Testament. The canon had already been settled in the minds of the great mass of Christians, and catalogues of the genuine books had been published before the meeting of the Council of Laodicea, so that all this council did in the matter was to recognize the canon which was already received by the churches at large. The first of these catalogues was Origen's, published about A.D. 225; the second, that of Eusebius, A.D. 315; the third, that of Athanasius, A.D. 326; and the fourth that of Cyril of Jerusalem, A.D. 348. These catalogues, running back more than a hundred years beyond the action of the councils on the subject, show how utterly fabulous is the conception that to these councils we are indebted for the settlement of the canon.
The truth is that the student of the present generation has the same means of determining this question that were in possession of the bishops assembled in the council of Laodicea. The latter lived too late to know anything at all of the subject except through the testimony of those who lived within and near to the apostolic age. By the writings of those earlier disciples, called the Apostolic Fathers, the question was settled then, and by the same writings it is settled now. Indeed, Origen, Eusebius, Athanasius and Cyril, made out their catalogues on the authority
of those who lived before themselves, and the scholars of the present age can quote the very words of men who lived within the age of inspiration for the canonicity of twenty out of the twenty-seven books of the New Testament. See an epitome of this evidence in Milligan's Reason and Revelation.
From this very brief statement of facts the reader can see the pretense of Romanists, and of shallow imitators of Romish writers, that Protestants are dependent on the testimony and authority of Roman Catholic Councils for the canon of the New Testament, is utterly baseless and shameless. It is so far from being true, that, instead of even listening to such evidence, the Protestant feels constrained to go back beyond the earliest of all the Ecumenical Councils, in order to find evidence on the subject that is worthy of the name.
We would be in a sorry predicament if we had to depend for our knowledge of this subject on a church which, by her councils of later date, has dared to pronounce cononical the very defective Latin translation of the Scripture, and to add to the canon of the Old Testament the Apocrypha, which even the Jews themselves never regarded as inspired. Let us be done with this driveling nonsense about our indebtedness to Rome. The debt which we owe to the old Mother of Harlots is one of a very different kind, and our Lord will pay it for us in his own good time.-The Apostolic Times, Lexington, Kentucky, May 15, 1873