In fact, to speak correctly, the Old Testament is at this moment the sole true canon of Scripture, acknowledged as such by genuine Christianity; it was the only canon which was acknowledged by Christ, and his immediate Apostles. The books of the New Testament are all occasional books, and not a code or system of religion; nor were they all collected into one body, nor declared by any even human authority to be all canonical till several hundred years after Jesus Christ. They are books written by Christians, and contain proofs of Christianity alleged from the Old Testament, but contain Christianity itself no otherwise, it appears to me, than as explaining, illustrating, and confirming Christianity supposed to be taught in the Old Testament. They are mostly, where they inculcate doctrines, Commentaries on the Old Testament deriving from thence, and giving what the writers imagined to be contained in and hidden under the letter of it. And upon the same principle that the books of the New Testament were received as canonical, so was the Pastor of Hermas, the Book of Enoch, and others, just as highly venerated by the early Christians. But they did not at first, as I apprehend their expressions, rank them with the Old Testament, which was called "the Scriptures," by way of excellence. The Old Testament was in fact supposed by the writers of the New, to contain Christianity under the bark of the letter; and they represent Christianity as having been preached to the ancient Jews under the figure of types, and allegories. See Gal. iii. 8. Heb. xi. and the first Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians, ch. x. In a word, the Apostles professed to "say none ether things than those which the prophets and Moses did say." Acts xxvi. 22,