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because it is treating the subject with much greater indifference than the nature or importance of it will admit; and, as if the cafe was quite otherwife than what it really is, it is treating those books as if they had been written by the finger of God, and had come to us immediately from him; or else, that they had come from God to us through fuch a medium as rendered it impossible for them to have sustained any injury through the conveyance; whereas the truth is, they were written by fallible peccable men, and they have paffed to us through a most dangerous medium; and therefore, the cafe most evidently requires that they should be cautiously admitted, and under proper limitations. Such a prudent conduct is allowed to be proper, and even necessary, in all other cafes where our intereft is concerned ; and therefore, it must be much more fo in this; and accordingly, it is practifed in cases of infinitely lefs concern; especially fuch caution seems to be neceffary to us, the unlearned, who may be fuppofed to be more expofed to danger, and therefore we ought to be fo much the more upon our guard: Tho', indeed, the most learned (according to fome learned men) cannot attain to any great fatisfaction.

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faction. Their learning will inform them, that there was such a collection of books as the New Teftament, so far back as our most ancient manuscripts were written; it will likewise inform them, that those several books have been quoted and referred to, by many Chrif tian writers, in many parts of Christendom, in times more remote, perhaps, up to the fecond century but then, fuch learning will farther inform them, that, in those early times, there were a great number of other books, befides those we have, that were afcribed to the Apostles, and were received as fuch by fome party of Christians or other; that the books we have were not selected, but mixed with the croud of writings then in being, fome of which were supposed to be forged and spurious; that the genuineness of those books we have was controverted, or, at least, this was the cafe with fome of them; that whilft one Church or party of Chriftians maintained one to be genuine, another party maintained the contrary; so that who was the real author could not be determined with any certainty; and if that was the cafe in thofe early days, then much lefs can greater certainty be attained now. And tho', when this affair was in the con

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fufed perplexed state as abovementioned, a prevailing party did, by their bishops in council, collect the books we now have into a volume, and thereby feparate them from the reft; and did likewife ftamp the character of being genuine upon them, which has been fince called fettling the Canon of the New Teftament; yet this was done wholly by their own authority, who do not appear to have been better qualified for that work than other men ; who, probably, (if of a different faction) would have made a different collection from this, according as their party views would have directed them, had they entered upon fuch an undertaking; nor does it appear that these collectors had any other rule, whereby to distinguish books that were genuine, from those that were forged and spurious, but as they favoured the tenets of the prevailing party, or the contrary; party zeal being then carried to a very great height. Thus ftands the cafe with refpect to the books themselves, as fome men, learned in antiquity, have maintained; and as to the subject matter of those books, the great variety and contrariety that appears from the multitude of copies, tranflations, verfions, &c. now in being, this fhews the great uncertainty the I 3 mot

most learned must be under, with respect to what was originally written by those authors. And, fuppofing the books we have to be a true tranfcript of the most ancient manufcripts now in being, which, I think, fome learned men do not admit; yet this will yield very little fatisfaction ; because our most ancient manuscripts were not written 'till after the man of fin, or the mystery of iniquity had appeared, and had, as it were, triumphed over all oppofition; and therefore, poffibly, (if not probably) not till after the books referred to had been greatly corrupted and depraved. So that, whether we regard who were the real authors of thofe books, or what was originally written by those authors, very little certainty feems to attend the cafe; and this, furely, ought to be a reafon, as well to the learned as the unlearned, to admit them with caution, and under proper limitations. But, admitting that those books were written by the authors refpectively whofe names they bear, and that the books we have are a true transcript of what was originally written by those authors; then the question will be, whether those authors (may they have been Apostles or otherwife) were proper for

us abfolutely to rely upon. Where fuch confidence as this is properly repofed, there are two things that are the proper grounds of it, except where the neceffity of the case requires it to be otherwife, viz. that the confidant should be abfolutely secure from error in judgment himself, and that he should be abfolutely fecure from impofing upon others; and where these are, there fuch high trust is properly placed. The authors referred to were part of a species of beings called men, who, in the grofs, are both fallible and peccable, are liable to think wrong and act wrong; and if this be the case of the species at large, then it must be supposed to be so of each individual, until the contrary is proved; but whereas the contrary cannot be proved of thofe authors, therefore they feem to be improper objects of fuch confidence as is referred to. Befides, the author of the history of the Acts of the Apostles has informed us, that when the Apostles entered upon their ministry, they both thought wrong and acted wrong; they founded Christianity upon fuch principles as they themselves afterwards plucked up and deftroyed. The fame hiftorian alfo informs us, that St. James and the Elders proposed,

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