If the reader will consult Toland's Amyntor, he will find appended to that work, a list of the names of I think about a hundred Gospels, Epistles, and Revelations, forged by the Gentile Christians in the first centuries of the Christian Era. The Celebrated Semler, so distinguished for his knowledge in Biblical criticism and ecclesiastical antiquities, has said, as Mr. Everett allows, p. 464 of his work, that the general Epistles of James, Peter, and John and Jude, and the book of Revelations, contained in the New Testament at present, must be also placed upon the long list of pious frauds, fabricated in the first ages of Christianity.] [fn12 It is an allowed principle of liberal criticism, that when the expressions of an author are capable of two senses, one of which would make him contradict himself, and the other would leave him consistent, it is but fair to suppose that he meant to be consistent, and therefore should be interpreted in the sense which would exclude self contradiction. How has the liberal Mr. Everett acted on an occasion of this kind? I had said in my first work "the Jewish Christians, the disciples of the twelve Apostles, NEVER received, but rejected every individual book of the present New Testament." I had also maintained, that the Gospels were forged after the middle of the second century. Now any reasonable man would I believe understand me as using the expressions, "Jewish Christians, the disciples of the twelve Apostles," in the same sense as when we speak of the followers of Plato, Whitfield, or Wesley, by the name of Disciples of Plato, Whitfield, or Wesley, without confining the expression to signify their immediate disciples; the insertion of the words, "never received," also suggests that this must have been my meaning. Nevertheless Mr. Everett, in order to bring me in contradiction with myself in order to serve a turn of his own, remarks upon my words, "without presuming to decide upon the opinions of a writer, so keen in detecting dissonances as Mr. English, I do presume to think, that if every individual book, of the present New Testament, was rejected, by the disciples of the twelve Apostles, that they must have been in being at the time they were rejected, and therefore could not have been forged, a century after that period. I am not conscious of any wish to weaken the force of Mr. English's arguments, by affecting to speak of them in contemptuous terms, I would, as I have, answered them fairly, or not at all." p.445.] [fn13 If so, what becomes of all Mr. Everett's laboured argument upon Jesus' prophecy of the destruction of Jerusalem contained in p. 401 et seq. of his work; if it be true that the prophecy was written, after the events predicted took place!]