sometimes cite passages which it is most certain are not in the present gospels.  From hence, therefore, it is evident that no difference was yet put between the apocryphal and canonical books of the New Testament, especially if it be considered, that they pass no censure on the apocryphal, nor leave any mark whereby the reader might discern whether they attributed less authority to the spurious than to the genuine gospels; from whence it may reasonably be suspected, that if they cite sometimes any passages conformable to ours, it was not done through any certain design, as if dubious things were to be confirmed only by the canonical books, so as it is very possible that both those and the like passages may have been borrowed from other gospels besides these we now have.  But what need I mention books that are not canonical, when indeed it does not appear from those of our canonical books which were last written, that the church knew any thing of the gospels, or that the clergy made a common use of them.  The writers of these times do not chequer their works with texts of the New Testament, which yet is the custom of the moderns, and was also theirs in such books as they acknowledge for scripture; for they most frequently cite the books of the Old Testament, and would, doubtless, have done so by those of the New, if they had then been received as canonical.”

So far Mr. Dodwell, and (excepting the genuineness of the writings of Barnabas and the rest, for they are incontestably ancient,) it is certain that the matters of fact with regard to the New Testament are all true.  Whoever has an inclination to write on this subject, is furnished from this passage with a great many curious disquisitions wherein to show his penetration and his judgment, as—­how the immediate successors and disciples of the apostles could so grossly confound the genuine writings of their masters with such as were falsely attributed to them; or since they were in the dark about these matters so early, how come such as followed them, by a better light; why all those books which are cited by the earliest fathers with the same respect as those now received, should not be accounted equally authentic by them; and what stress should be laid on the testimony of those fathers, who not only contradict one another, but are often inconsistent with themselves, in relating the very same facts; with a great many other difficulties, which deserve a clear solution from any capable person.

I have said the ancient heretics asserted that the present gospels were forgeries.  As an example of this, take the following, from the works of Faustus, quoted by Augustine, contra Faustum Lib. 32, c. 2.  “You think, (says Faustus to his adversaries,) that of all the books in the world the Testament of the Son only, could not be corrupted; that it alone contains nothing which ought to be disallowed; especially when it appears, that it was not written by the apostles, but a long time after them, by certain obscure persons,