REFERENCES TO THE SEVEN EPISTLES OF IGNATIUS.
The Epistles of Ignatius are translated by Archhishop Wake from the text of Vossius. He says that there were considerable difference in the editions; the best tor a long time extant containing fabrications, and the genuine being altered and corrupted. Archbishop Usher printed old Latin translations of them at Oxford, in 1644. At Amsterdam, two years afterwards, Vossius printed six of them in their ancient and pure Greek; andthe seventh, greatly amended from the ancient Latin version, was Printed at Paris, by Ruinart, in 1689, in the Acts and Martyrdom of Ignatius, from a Greek uninterpolated copy. These are supposed to form the collection that Polycarp made of the Epistles of Ignatius, mentioned by Irenæs, Origen, Eusebius, Jerome, Athanasius, Theodoret, and other ancients: but many learned men have imagined all of them to be apocryphal. This supposition, the piety of Archbishop Wake, and his persuasion of their utility to the faith of the church, will not permit him to entertain: hence he has taken great pains to render the present translation acceptable, by adding numerous readings and references to the Canonical Books]
THE EPISTLE OF
POLYCARP TO THE PHILIPPIANS.
[The genuineness of this Epistle is controverted, but implicitly believed by Archbishop Wake, whose translation is below. There is also a translation by Dr. Cave attached to his life of Polycarp.]
CHAP. I.
1POLYCARP, and the presbyters that are with him, to the church of God which is at Philippi; mercy unto you, and peace from God Almighty, and the Lord Jesus Christ our Saviour, be multiplied.
2 I rejoiced greatly with you in our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye received the images of a true love, and accompanied, as it behooved you, those who were in bonds, becoming saints; which are the crowns of such as are truly chosen by God and our Lord:
3 As also that the root of the faith which was preached from ancient times, remains firm in you to this day; and brings forth fruit to our Lord Jesus Christ, who suffered himself to be brought even to death for our sins:
4 [1]Whom God hath raised up, having loosed the pains of death. [2]Whom having not seen, ye love; in whom though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory.
5 Into which many desire to enter; [3]knowing that by grace ye are saved; not by works, but by the will of God through Jesus Christ.
6 [4]Wherefore girding up the loins of your minds; [5]serve the Lord with fear, and in truth; laying aside all empty and vain speech, and the errors of many; [6]believing in him that raised up our Lord Jesus Christ from the dead, and hath given him glory and a throne at his right hand.
7 To whom all things are made subject, both that are in heaven, and that are in earth; whom every living creature shall worship; who shall come to be the judge of
