is day, were not Canonicall, nor a Law unto the Jews,
till the renovation of their Covenant with God at their return from the
Captivity, and restauration of their Common-wealth under Esdras. But
from that time forward they were accounted the Law of the Jews, and for
such translated into Greek by Seventy Elders of Judaea, and put into the
Library of Ptolemy at Alexandria, and approved for the Word of God. Now
seeing Esdras was the High Priest, and the High Priest was their Civill
Soveraigne, it is manifest, that the Scriptures were never made Laws,
but by the Soveraign Civill Power.

The New Testament Began To Be Canonicall Under Christian Soveraigns By
the Writings of the Fathers that lived in the time before that Christian
Religion was received, and authorised by Constantine the Emperour, we
may find, that the Books wee now have of the New Testament, were held by
the Christians of that time (except a few, in respect of whose paucity
the rest were called the Catholique Church, and others Haeretiques) for
the dictates of the Holy Ghost; and consequently for the Canon, or Rule
of Faith: such was the reverence and opinion they had of their Teachers;
as generally the reverence that the Disciples bear to their first
Masters, in all manner of doctrine they receive from them, is not small.
Therefore there is no doubt, but when S. Paul wrote to the Churches he
had converted; or any other Apostle, or Disciple of Christ, to those
which had then embraced Christ, they received those their Writings for
the true Christian Doctrine. But in that time, when not the Power and
Authority of the Teacher, but the Faith of the Hearer caused them
to receive it, it was not the Apostles that made their own Writings
Canonicall, but every Convert made them so to himself.

But the question here, is not what any Christian made a Law, or Canon
to himself, (which he might again reject, by the same right he received
it;) but what was so made a Canon to them, as without injustice they
could not doe any thing contrary thereunto. That the New Testament
should in this sense be Canonicall, that is to say, a Law in any place
where the Law of the Common-wealth had not made it so, is contrary to
the nature of a Law. For a Law, (as hath been already shewn) is the
Commandement of that Man, or Assembly, to whom we have given Soveraign
Authority, to make such Rules for the direction of our actions, as hee
shall think fit; and to punish us, when we doe any thing co