In p. 81 of the Introductory Discourse, he says, "Let us consider then in the next place what light these same forgeries [those of the Fathers of the fourth century] will afford us in looking backwards also into the earlier ages up to the times of the Apostles. And first, when we reflect on that surprising confidence and security with which the principal fathers of this fourth age have affirmed as true what they themselves had either forged, or what they knew at least to be forged; it is natural to suspect, that so bold a defiance of sacred truth could not be acquired, or become general at once, but must have been carried gradually to that heighth, by custom and the example of former times, and a long experience of what the credulity and superstition, of the multitude (i.e. of Christians) would bear." "Secondly, this suspicion will be strengthened by considering, that this age [the 4th century] in which Christianity was established by the civil power, had no real occasion for any miracles. For which reason, the learned among the Protestants have generally supposed it to have been the very era of their cessation and for the same reason the fathers also themselves when they were disposed to speak the truth, have not scrupled to confess, that the miraculous shifts were then actually withdrawn, because the church stood no longer in need of them. So that it must have been a rash and dangerous experiment, to begin to forge miracles, at a time when there was no particular temptation to it; if the use of such fictions had not long been tried, and the benefit of them approved; and recommended by their ancestors; who wanted every help towards supporting themselves under the pressures and persecutions with which the powers on earth were afflicting them.'' "Thirdly, if we compare the principal fathers of the fourth with those of the earlier ages. We shall observe the same characters of zeal and piety in them all, but more learning, more judgment, and less credulity in the later fathers. If these then be found either to have forced miracles themselves, or to have propagated what they knew to be forged, or to have been deluded so far by other people's forgeries as to take them for real miracles; (of the one or the other of which they were all unquestionably guilty) it will naturally excite in us the same suspicion of their predecessors, who in the same cause, and with the same zeal were less learned and more credulous, and in greater need of such arts for their defence and security.