04.05. Attacks.

Attacks. Of course, like other books of Scripture, it has been attacked, both in ancient and in modern times. The Ebionites, Severians, Marcionites, and Manichseans quarrelled with it, because it failed to support their special tenets, but were unable to shake the general belief in its genuineness and authenticity. In modern times writers have risen up to question, and more than question, its right to be in the sacred canon as part of inspired Scripture. Yet the Acts remains in the estimation of most as a genuine and inspired history, and really written by Luke. Like a rock in the sea, around which the waves dash themselves only to be broken, whilst the rock remains immovable, so is it with Scripture. It has withstood, and will withstand, all the efforts of men to dislodge it from its position and annul its claim to be a written revelation from above. At times it may have seemed as if its credibility was shaken - like the rock momentarily hidden from view by the spray of the waves which have broken over it. But as that reappears unshaken, whatever has been the violence of the waters, so Scripture will emerge from all siftings and critical examinations as what it really is - the Word of our God. If the attempts of men in early days, soon after the apostolic age, failed to dislodge the Acts from its position as inspired Scripture, attempts in these days of a similar kind will surely fail. Living near the time of the writer, with men still on the earth who had been conversant with the Apostles, or with those who had enjoyed personal acquaintance with them, the early opponents had an advantage to which modern ones can lay no claim. Yet they failed ; and modern attacks on the Acts are witnesses of that. These, then, in their turn will fail, and the book will remain unscathed as long as the Church of God is here below.