1. _The New Testament--Definition:_ "This is the name given in the Western Church, ever since the days of Tertullian [second century A. D.] to the collection of sacred books that were written by certain disciples of Christ at different periods after the planting of the Christian Church, and that were afterwards accepted by the Church as the inspired record of the new dispensation of the grace of God to the world. The expression New Testament is the Latin translation of the expression New Covenant." (The Comprehensive Teacher's Bible Helps, p. 57.) 2. _Origin of the New Testament as Scripture:_ "The institution of the Christian Church was, of course, prior to any record of it. That institution was founded at first, and for long rested, on the merely oral testimony of those who had witnessed, or were otherwise assured of, the life, death, and rising again of its founder, Jesus the Son of God and Savior of the world (Acts ii: 22 seq.; xiii: 31, 32). Except this oral testimony, as confirmed, moreover, by signs and wonders [and the testimony of the Holy Ghost], the first Christian churches had no other evidences of the character and certainty of the events on which their faith was grounded, unless we add the surprising correspondence between these events and the predictions of prophecy--which, in point of fact, we find to be the chief argument insisted on by the Apostles in persuading their countrymen to accept Jesus of Nazareth as the promised Messiah. It was only when controversies arose affecting the first principles of the faith, and misapprehensions and irregularities began to show themselves in certain sections and quarters of the Church, that it was found necessary to have recourse to a literary vehicle in the statement of the facts and doctrines of the gospel." (Comprehensive Teacher's Bible Helps, p. 57.) 3. _The Gospels._ The Gospel narratives record in writing what had previously been propagated by oral teaching respecting the sayings and doings of Christ; and this history appears to have continued to be so propagated till the time when the original ear and eye witnesses were beginning to die out, and some uncertainty to attach to the traditional oral accounts. * * * * * From all this we are not to conclude that the early Christian Church had no sacred scripture; for they had and read the Old Testament scripture, the authority, as well as the significance and importance of which was so enhanced to them by the fulfilment it had received [in part] in the facts of Christianity. (Comprehensive Teacher's Bible Helps, p. 57.)