They are founded upon it, and assume or allege its facts on every page.

Were the gospels lost, we could collect a good account of the birth, teaching, death, resurrection, ascension, and almighty power of the Lord Christ from Paul's Epistles; and these letters are just as confident in alleging the miraculous part of the history as the gospels themselves.
Neither can you gain any advantage by saying, "I accept the gospels, but reject the letters," for there is not a doctrine of the New Testament which is not taught in the very first of them, the Gospel by Matthew.
Further, the gospels contain the most solemn authentication of the commissions of the apostles, so that whoever rejects their teaching, brings upon himself guilt equal to that of rejecting Christ himself.
"Lo, I am with you alway"-- "He that receiveth you receiveth me, and he that receiveth me, receiveth him that sent me"-- "Whosoever will not receive you, nor hear your words, when ye depart out of that house or city, shake off the dust of your feet.

Verily I say unto you, it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment, than for that city." It is, if possible, more absurd to attempt to dissect the morality of the gospel from its history, and to say, "We are willing to receive the Christian code of morals as a very excellent rule of life, and to regard Jesus as a rare example of almost superhuman virtue, but we must consider the narrative of supernatural events interwoven with it as mythological," _i.

e._, false.

Which is much the same as to say, "We will be very happy to receive your friend if he will only cut his head off." Of what possible use would the Christian code of morals be without the authority of Christ, the lawgiver?
If he possessed no divine authority, what right has he to control your inclination or mine?
And if he will never return to inquire whether men obey or disobey his law, who will regard it?
Do you suppose the world will be turned upside down, and reformed, by a little good advice?
Nay, verily, the world has had trial of that vanity long enough.