“III. When the genuineness of some other writings which were in circulation, and even of a few which are now received into the canon, was contested, these were never called into dispute. Whatever was the objection, or whether, in truth, there ever was any real objection to the authenticity of the Second Epistle of Peter, the Second and Third of John, the Epistle of James, or that of Jude, or to the book of the Revelations of St. John, the doubts that appear to have been entertained concerning them, exceedingly strengthen the force of the testimony as to those writings, about which there was no doubt; because it shows, that the matter was a subject, amongst the early Christians, of examination and discussion; and that, where there was any room to doubt, they did doubt. “What Eusebius hath left upon the subject is directly to the purpose of this observation. Eusebius, it is well known, divided the ecclesiastical writings which were extant in his time into three classes; the ‘αγαγτιρῥητα, uncontradicted,’ as he calls them in one chapter; or ‘scriptures universally acknowledged,’ as he calls them in another; the ‘controverted, yet well known and approved by many;’ and ‘the spurious.’ What were the shades of difference in the books of the second, or in those of the third class; or what it was precisely that he meant by the term _spurious_, it is not necessary in this place to enquire. It is sufficient for us to find, that the thirteen epistles of St. Paul are placed by him in the first class without any sort of hesitation or doubt. “It is further also to be collected from the chapter in which this distinction is laid down, that the method made use of by Eusebius, and by the Christians of his time, _viz._ the close of the third century, in judging concerning the sacred authority of any books, was to enquire after and consider the testimony of those who lived near the age of the apostles[32].