There is an impression existing, and it is one encouraged by infidel writers, that the acceptance of the books now comprising the New Testament, was the arbitrary action of a council of bishops three or four hundred years A. D. This I believe to be a wrong impression. I do not think the list of books that now constitute the New Testament was made up in an arbitrary manner, at one time, or by any single council. It can be shown that the books and epistles now in the collection known as the New Testament, were accepted as inspired writings by the Christian churches, before the councils of the church undertook any discussion of the subject; and even when this question was before those councils, they merely decided what books before-time had been regarded by the churches as inspired. The first council which undertook to pronounce a decision on the subject was that of Laodicea in the year 363 A. D. "Probably the decree of this council," as Archdeacon Paley remarks, "rather declared than regulated the public judgment, or, more properly speaking, the judgment of some neighboring churches, the council itself consisting of no more than thirty or forty bishops of Lydia and the adjoining countries;" and after this council the question, "What books were entitled to be received as Scripture?" was discussed with great freedom, and without any reference to the declaration made by the council of Laodicea.[H] [Footnote H: Paley's Evidences, Part I, ch. ix.] The list of inspired books of the New Testament, as we have them now, was accepted by the council of Hippo, held 393 A. D. The third council of Carthage, 397 A. D., and also the sixth of Carthage, 419 A. D., confirmed the decisions of the first. Thus, from that early date, the authorship and inspiration of the books of the New Testament may be said to have been fixed. True, certain early Christian writers doubted the inspiration and authenticity of some of the books now in the New Testament; II Peter, the Epistle to the Hebrews, the Epistle of James and the Apocalypse[I] being among those whose inspiration and authenticity were questioned; and some Bible scholars since those days have held the same doubts; but the preponderance of evidence is in favor of the inspiration of all the books of the New Testament, and of their being the productions of the men accredited in those early days, and by the councils named, with having written them. [Footnote I: Revelations of St. John.]