OBSERV. IV.

That though it be a Matter of fo great Difficulty and Importance, to determine the Canonical Authority of the Books of the New Teftament, and though the generality of Chriftians are fo very ignorant in this Matter; yet very little has been done by learned Men on this Subject.

T is indeed ftrange, that in fo great a variety of books' of all forts, fo few or none should have been published on this fubject. It must be remembered, that I am now speaking only of the New Teftament; for about the Canon of the Old, Chamier, Whitaker, Dr. John Reynolds, Dr. Cofin, Spanheim, Bishop Burnet, and many others, have written much, and to good purpose. Mr. Du Pin is the only one I know, who has wrote purposely on the Canon of the New; befide what has been wrote occafionally in the Prefaces and Prolegomena of commentators on particular books, and the Reflections of Mr. Nye, Mr. Richardson, and Dr. Clarke on Toland's Amyntor. The first of these is reckoned the most confiderable; though, in my judgment, the other leffer pieces have done much more to establish the Canon than this larger work of Mr. Du Pin: For,

1. The greatest part of the work is upon fubjects very different from the Canon ; fuch as, the purity of the Greek text, the antient manuscripts, various readings, Latin and Oriental verfions, the divifion of the New Testament into titles, chapters, &c.

2. There is in it but very little said to establish the Canonical authority of the books, and answer what is objected against the controverted pieces; viz. the Epiftle to the Hebrews, of James, Jude, the fecond Epiftle of Peter, the fecond and third of John, and the Revelations. In that place where he proposes to establish them, he does not spend much above one page in doing it; and though, for the proof of the authority of these books, he names fuch and fuch Fathers who cited them, yet he neither informs the unlearned reader at what time these Fathers lived, nor the learned, in what part of their works VOL. I. they

C.

they do cite them: so that the former must neceffarily be ignorant of the force of his argument, as the latter will be of the truth of it.

3. His fixth chapter, which is all he has wrote of the Apocryphal books of the New Testament, is wretchedly defective, both in the enumerating and confuting them; befides that he has given us fcarce any of their fragments, and indeed has said scarce any thing of them.

A

METHOD

FOR

SETTLING THE CANON

OF THE

NEW TESTAMENT.

PART I.

CHA P. I.

What the Word Canon fignifies: How and when it came to be applied to the Books of Scripture.

THE infinitely good God, having favoured mankind with

a revelation of his will, has thereby obliged all thofe, who are bleffed with the knowledge thereof, to regard it as the unerring rule of their faith and practice. Under this character, the Prophets, Apoftles, and other writers of the facred books, published and delivered them to the world; and on this account they were dignified above all others with the titles of the Canon and Canonical. The word Canon is originally Greek, and did in that language (as well as in the Latin afterwards) commonly denote that which was a rule or ftandard, by which other things were to be examined and

judged a. And inasmuch as the books of divine inspiration contained the most remarkable rules, and the most important directions of all others, the collection of them, in time, obtained the name of the Canon, and each book was called Canonical. At what time they were first thus called, is not very easy to determine. Some imagine St. Paul himself to have given this title to the facred books extant in his time, Gal. vi. 16. and Phil. iii. 16. But the Apostle seems in those places rather to speak of the doctrine of the Gospel, than any books which contained it; although it is very probable that St. Paul's ufing the word Canon in these places, was the occafion of its afterwards being affixed to the books themselves. This feems the most genuine account of the original of this appellation; nor do I know of any other that has been, or can be affigned, befide that of Mr. Du Pin and Mr. Whif

ton.

C.

The former fuppofes the word Canon to denote the fame as Catalogue, and the inspired books to be called Canonical, only because the catalogue of them was ftyled the Canon. But, in answer to this, it will be fufficient to observe, that the Greek word is never used in that fenfe, which he supposes, in any prophane writers, nor even among the Chriftians till the fourth century; before which time the word was certainly applied to the facred volume.

Mr. Whiftond imagines the Canon of Scripture, or the Canonical books of the Old and New Teftament, are thofe, and only thofe, which are inferted into the last Apoftolical Canon, and were so styled by the antients only on that account.

But the fpuriousness of these pretended Apoftolical Canons being a matter fo universally agreed on, and in itself so very certain, as I fhall fhew hereafter, I need now fay no more to difprove this opinion; only will obferve these two or three things: viz.

1. That if the antients styled the facred books Canonical, because they are recited in the eighty-fifth Canon of the Apoftles, then it will moft undeniably follow, that all and every one of the books recited therein muft equally have been reputed or called Canonical. But the contrary to this is fufficiently known; nor can any one fingle instance be produced out of any of the firft writers of Chriftianity, in which either the Book of Judith, the three Books of the Maccabees, the Wisdom of Syrach, among the books of the Old Testament; or the two Epiftles of Clemens, or the Apoftolical Constitutions of Clemens, among those of the New, were reputed Canonical; yet are each of these inserted in the forementioned Canon, which goes under the Apoftles' names: an argument fufficient of itself to prove the fpuriousness of these Canons; the books therein recommended being not only evidently fictitious, but in many things contrary to the known doctrine of the Apostles.

2. On the other hand, if the books were called Canonical on account of their insertion in this Canon of the Apostles, then it seems utterly inconceivable, how any book or books could be ever reckoned Canonical, which are not found in it. How, for inftance, could the book of Revelations be reckoned Canonical, which is not inferted in this Canon? And yet we find it expressly mentioned under this title by the antients very early for Origen, reckoning up the sacred books (ròv Êxxλnosasınòv Quλáslav navóva, reciting the Canonical books, as Eufebius phrases it) among these mentions the Revelation written by John. Now if only the books mentioned in this Apoftolical Canon were called Canonical, how came this book, not mentioned there, to be called fo? How came this by the name, as well as the reft mentioned there? To fay a book is Ca

Orig. Comment. in Matt. Procem. et Eufeb. Hift. Eccl. l. 6. c. 25.