6. The Epistle of Paul to the Romans, those to the Ephesians, and Colossians, are nearly proved to be apocryphal by Evanson, and about the rest there are some suspicious circumstances. You refer the reader of your Sermons in that note to Paley's Evidences, 9th chapter, for evidence for the authenticity of the rest of the gospels; but if the reader goes there he will find, that all the testimony Paley quotes for the first 200 years after Christ except that of Papias, Irenaeus, and Tertullian, (the value of whose testimony to the authenticity of the gospels, has been considered in the 16th ch. of my work; and which may further appear from these circumstances, that Irenaeus considered the Book of Hermas an inspired Scripture as much as he did the four gospels, and that Tertullian contended stoutly for the inspiration of the ridiculous book of Enoch, one of the most stupid forgeries that ever was seen,) the quotations and supposed allusions in the earlier fathers are uncertain, since it is acknowledged by Dodwell, and also by others, that it cannot be shown with any certainty, whether these quotations and allusions belong to ours or to apocryphal gospels. And to conclude, would you not require as much evidence for the authenticity of the gospels, which relate supernatural events, as we have for most of the classics, and yet if you examine the subject closely, you will be satisfied to your astonishment that we have not so much as we have for the works of Virgil or Cicero; and that we have not by a great deal so much testimony for the miracles of Jesus, which were supernatural events which require at least as great proof as natural ones as we have for the deaths of Pompey and of Julius Caesar, though you seem from your note to think otherwise. As to Celsus, Porphyry, and Julian, if they allowed the gospels to be genuine, they might have done so, and taken advantage of such an allowance to show that they could net, from their contradictions, have been written by men having a mission from the God of Truth. But Sir, is it certain that they did acknowledge it? Since the only fragments of their works upon Christianity we have remaining, are just such parts as their Christian answerers have picked out, and selected; the works themselves were carefully burned. And that these answerers have not acted fairly may be more than suspected, I think from a hint given us by Jerom, (which you will find in Dr. Middleton's Free Enquiry) that Origen in his answer to Celsus, sometimes fought the devil at his own weapons, i.e. lied for the sake of the truth; and it is notorious, that the Fathers of the church allowed this to be lawful, and practiced it abundantly. See the note at the end.