(1.) Our first attempt then must be, to establish the origin of these books from Apostles or Apostolic men,—which is the sole ground for affirming their infallibility. The method by which their origin must be ascertained is admitted to be similar to that which would be employed in the case of any work not sacred. It is an enquiry altogether historical or antiquarian;—a process of literary identification. We must collect, and dispose along an ascending chronological line, the various writers who have quoted and mentioned the New Testament writings; call each, in turn, into the court of criticism, to speak to the identity of the work he cites with that which we possess; and if the series of witnesses be complete,—if, in following into antiquity the steps of their attestation, we find ourselves in contact with the Apostolic age, and near the seats of Apostolic labours, we justly conclude that we have the genuine and original productions. By the help of this foreign testimony, almost all the books of the New Testament may be traced perhaps to the middle of the second century; the remaining fifty or sixty years to the death of St. John, and eighty or ninety to that of the Apostle of the Gentiles, must be filled up by arguments showing, that this chasm is too small for the possibilities of forgery and mistake to take effect. The results of this process are not fit matter for detailed criticism here; I will simply state, in general, that they yield a preponderating probability in favour of the general reception, in the second age of the church, of all the New Testament writings, under the names of their reputed authors; and that it would be unreasonable to expect more precise external evidence of authenticity than this. It is indeed much easier to prove in this way the origin, from the founders of our religion, of the books which we receive, than to disprove a like authority with respect to others which we disown, or whose memory (for many of them are lost) we dishonour. The equal antiquity of some of these repudiated works, it is scarcely possible to deny; their inferior authority we are obliged either to conclude from their intrinsic character, (a reason, often abundantly satisfactory,) or to assume on the word of a set of ecclesiastical writers, not generally distinguished for sound judgment or tranquil passions, nor always trustworthy, even in matters of fact; and who notoriously formed their estimate of Christian books, less from enquiry into their genuineness, than from the supposed orthodoxy of their contents. The Christian Fathers, on whose statement the whole case rests, were undoubtedly guilty of that which, at all events, with far less justice, is charged on Unitarian authors: they threw away many a writing as spurious, because they did not like its doctrines; testing the work by their own belief, instead of their own belief by the work. The zone of proof which encircles the books within