salonica at that time especially on their guard against an Epistle which had been circulated "as from him", and by which therefore he must have thought it possible that they might be misled. And again, it is evident from St Luke's Preface to his Gospel, that he contemplated a serious danger from spurious gospels being mistaken for genuine ones, and accordingly drew up one for his friend Theophilus (who, he felt, would be aware that what he should write would come from authority), “in order that he might know the certainty of those things." It is clear therefore, I think, that the Evangelists and Apostles did not consider internal feeling and internal evidence alone (however it might confirm other evidence,) to be in itself enough to determine the Canon of Scripture. The Fathers after them held the same opinion, and accordingly Eusebius regards the Acts of Peter, the Gospel, the Preaching and Revelation of Peter, to be apocryphal, "because none of the writers of the Christian Church, ancient or modern, had in their writings taken any of their testimonies out of them;" and on the other hand, the first Epistle of Peter to be genuine, "because the most ancient Christian writers before his time made continual use of it in their writings, as

3 32 Thess. ii. 2.

an undoubted book'."

For on these occasions,

some would know the author's hand; some would have heard the author acknowledge the document; some would be aware of circumstances which necessarily fixed the authorship upon him; some would be able to speak to the supposed author never having disclaimed the work, though perfectly informed that it was ascribed to him, and conscious of the damage to the Church which apocryphal writings effected. Thus would the authority of the document be at first established, and when once admitted into the Canon, it would be handed down from generation to generation as the production of the inspired man originally proved to be the parent of it.

The Church of England then does not profess to be governed by any other principle than this, in her declaration of the Canon of Scripture. She rests it upon the tradition of the Church; affirming in her 20th Article, that "the Church is a keeper of Holy Writ:" in her 6th Article, that "in the name of the Holy Scripture we do understand those Canonical Books of the Old and New Testament, of whose authority was never any doubt in the Church;" and again, in the same, that "all the Books of the

1 Euseb. E. H. III. c. 3.

* See Dodwell Dissert. in Irenæum, 1. § 35.

New Testament as they are commonly received, we do receive, and account them canonical."

It is the province of the Fathers to inform us very mainly what the Church has held on this subject; to tell us what books it has kept; of what books it never did doubt; what books have commonly been received; nor is there any one thing which gives the Fathers such value as this: and that the Church of England considers this to be their province, we may argue from an expression which she drops still in the same 6th Article, where speaking of the Apocryphal Books, she adds, "and the other Books, as Hierome saith, the Church doth read for example of life.” Accordingly, Jones on the Canon, the standard work on that subject, lays down this proposition on the very threshold of his book, "that the main and principal method, by which we are now able to determine the canonical authority of any book or books, is by searching into the most ancient and authentic records of Christianity, and finding out the testimony or tradition of those who lived nearest the time in which the books were written. concerning them "."

The manner in which the Fathers fulfil this province, may be seen in the 24th and

3 Vol. 1. p. 39.

25th Lectures of Bishop Marsh, which are expressly devoted to the subject; and where it is treated with that clearness and precision which distinguish all his writings. The argument of the 24th Lecture, which is that where the question is discussed at length, is summed up in the beginning of the 25th. Of course, you will consult the Lectures themselves, but the summary will suffice to illustrate my reasoning, and to give some idea of the authority of the Primitive Church and the worth of the Fathers, in settling our Canon. I should observe, that in thus investigating the formation of the Canon, Bishop Marsh finds it convenient to reverse the usual order of proceeding, and beginning with the fourth century, when it had become fixed, to trace it up to the age of the Apostles.

“It appears,” says he, "from the preceding Lecture, that all the books of the New Testament which we receive at present, were received in the fourth century as the works of the authors to whom they are ascribed. They were received as such by Jerom, the most learned of the Latin Fathers: and if the testimony of Jerom required support from a contemporary in the Latin Church, we might add the catalogue which Augustine has given in his treatise of Christian Doctrine, and in

which he distinctly enumerates every book which is now contained in the New Testament. Among the Greek Fathers of the fourth century, we have seen that Athanasius and Epiphanius have likewise given complete catalogues of the books of the New Testament: and if the catalogue which is given by Gregory of Nazianzum contains not the Book of Revelation, the omission may be rather considered as an act of deference to the Greek Church, which then rejected the Book of Revelation, than as expressive of the opinion entertained by Gregory himself.-When we ascend from the fourth to the third century, we find Origen the most learned of the Greek Fathers, who, as appears from the preceding Lecture, received all the books of the New Testament which constitute our present Canon. When we further ascend from the third to the second century, we find Irenæus in the West, and Clement of Alexandria in the East, bearing ample testimony to the books of the New Testament. The Epistle to Philemon', the

'It may be remarked, however, that there is a probable allusion to the Epistle to Philemon, v. 11, in Theophilus, who was rather earlier than Clemens (ad Autolycum, B. 1. § 1); and a probable allusion to 2 Pet. iii. 8, in Irenæus, who again was rather before Clemens (B. v. c. xxiii. § 2): the passage in Irenæus being nearer to that of St Peter, than to the corresponding one of the Psalms (xc. 4)-that the 2d Ep. of

St