make selections for him from the Law and the Prophets concerning the Saviour and the faith generally, and furthermore desired to learn the accurate account of the Old [------] Books;' 'having gone therefore to the East,' Melito says, 'and reached the spot where [each thing] was preached and done, and having learned accurately the Books of the Old Testament, I have sent a list of them.' The mention of 'the Old Books'--'the Books of the Old Testament,' naturally implies a definite New Testament, a written antitype to the Old; and the form of language implies a familiar recognition of its contents."(1) This is truly astonishing! The "form of language" can only refer to the words: "concerning the Saviour and the faith generally," which must have an amazing fulness of meaning to convey to Canon West-cott the implication of a "familiar recognition" of the contents of a supposed already collected New Testament, seeing that a simple Christian, not to say a Bishop, might at least know of a Saviour and the faith generally from the oral preaching of the Gospel, from a single Epistle of Paul, or from any of the [------] of Luke. This reasoning forms a worthy pendant to his argument that because Melito speaks of the books of the Old Testament he implies the existence of a definite collected New Testament. Such an assertion is calculated to mislead a large class of readers.(2) The fragment of Melito is as follows: "Melito to his 1 On the Canon, p. 193. [In the fourth edition Dr. Westcott omits the last phrase, making a full stop at "Old." p. 218.] 2 It must be said, however, that Canon Westcott merely follows and exaggerates Lardner, here, who says: "From this passage I would conclude that there was then also a volume or collection of books called the New Testament, containing the writings of Apostles and Apostolical men, but we cannot from hence infer the names or the exact number of those books." Credibility, &c., Works, ii. p. 148. {171}