In forming the New Testament, selections were made at different councils; but from all we have been able to learn, it was principally at that of Nice that the compilation was put into form, after it had been decided upon _by vote_, what should be, and what should not be, the word of God! In order to get rid of the unpleasant truth, that this decision was made by a majority of votes, it has been pretended that the selection was made under supernatural agency, thus:--the whole collection of story, anecdote and fable, was placed upon a great table, and a prayer was addressed to the Holy Ghost, that he would be pleased to cause the apocryphal books to jump under the table, and they did so with prompt obedience, whilst the genuine canonicals proudly kept their stations above. This mode of trial was fair enough, as the Holy Ghost would surely know his own writings. This ridiculous story is recorded in the appendix to the proceedings of the Council of Nice. A philosopher of the present day has compared the Christian Testament to Lord Chancellor Eldon's silk stocking, that was darned all over with worsted until there was no silk remaining; so, in like manner, it is now impossible to say with certainty what this book was originally, or by whom, where, or when, its component parts were written; and equally futile would it be to attempt to ascertain the number of alterations, additions, varying translations,* and forged interpolations which from time to time it has undergone. Capellus informs us that he was engaged for thirty-six years in writing the book in which he detects the numerous errors and frauds of the Protestant Bible; and even the venerable Calmet, that profound Bible critic, declares that the 7th and 8th verses of the 5th chapter of John's 1st Epistle, "_are not in any ancient Bible_." This interpolation was a bold stroke to strengthen the Trinity. Thirty years' researches upon the New Testament alone, enabled that most learned English divine, Dr. John Mill, to detect the enormous number of 80,000 different readings of that book, after a laborious examination of all the manuscripts, translations, and the many languages in which it is to be found. Can anything match the stupidity and monstrous credulity of calling such a book the word of God? * A ludicrous instance of false translation appears in Mark x., 25, where, according to the learned, the word in the original means a cable-rope, not a camel. In the notion of a cable going through the eye of a needle, an association of ideas is preserved, but the other meaning is forced and ridiculous.