4. In the caution and hesitation of the early churches with respect to the books in question, we have satisfactory evidence that, in settling the canon of the New Testament, they acted with great deliberation and conscientiousness, their rule being that no book should be received whose apostolic origin could not be established on solid grounds. Did the early history of the Christian church present no such phenomenon as that of the distinction between acknowledged and disputed books, we might naturally infer that all books that professed to have emanated from the apostles, or to have had their sanction, were received without discrimination. But now the mature and final judgment of the churches is entitled to great consideration. This judgment, let it be remembered, was not affirmative only, but also _negative_. While it admitted to the canon the seven books now under consideration, it excluded others which were highly valued and publicly read in many of the churches. On this ground it is entitled to still higher regard. It is not, however, of binding authority, for it is not the decision of inspired men. We have a right to go behind it, and to examine the facts on which it is based, so far as they can be ascertained from existing documents. But this work belongs to the introduction to the several books. Three books alone "obtained a partial ecclesiastical currency, through which they were not clearly separated at first from the disputed writings of the New Testament." Westcott on the Canon, Appendix B, p. 550. This was on the ground that they were written, or supposed to be written, by the immediate successors of the apostles. The oldest known codex of the Bible is the _Sinaitic_, discovered at mount Sinai by Tischendorf in 1859, and which belongs to the fourth century. This contains the whole of the epistle of Barnabas, and the first part of the work called the Shepherd of Hermas. The Alexandrine codex, belonging to the fifth century, has appended to it the first epistle of Clement of Rome to the Corinthians, the genuineness of which is admitted, and also a portion of the second or apocryphal epistle, the remainder of it being lost. The explanation is, that these three books were read in some at least of the churches when these codices were formed. But they never obtained any permanent authority as canonical writings, and were excluded from the New Testament "by every council of the churches, catholic or schismatic." Tertullian, as quoted by Westcott, p. 551. CHAPTER VII. INSPIRATION AND THE CANON