as, I think, denied
it, and the author of the gospel of Thomas certainly did. 2. The
Jewish Christians, the disciples of the twelve apostles, never
received, but rejected every individual book of the present New
Testament. They held in especial abomination the writings of Paul,
whom they called "an apostate;" and there is extant, in "
Cotelerius' Patres Apostolici," a letter ascribed to Peter, written to
James at Jerusalem wherein he complains bitterly of Paul, styling
him "a lawless man," and a crafty misrepresenter of him (Peter,)
and his doctrine, in that Paul represented, every where, Peter as
being secretly of the same opinions with himself; against this he
enters his protest, and declares that he reprobates the doctrine of
Paul. (See Appendix B.) 3. It is certain, that from the beginning,
the Christians were never agreed as to points of faith; and that the
apostles themselves, so far from being considered as inspired, and
infallible, were frequently contradicted, thwarted, and set at naught
by their own converts: and there were as many sects, heresies, and
quarrels, in the first century, as in the second or third. 4. Jesus and
his apostles were no sooner off the stage, than forgeries of all kinds
broke in with irresistible force: Gospels, Epistles, Acts,
Revelations without number, published in the names, and under the
feigned authority, of Jesus and his apostles, abounded in the
Christian church; and as some of these were as early in time as any
of the writings in the present canon of the New Testament, so they
were received promiscuously with them, and held in equal credit
and veneration, and read in the public assemblies as of equal
authority with those now received. 5. The very learned and pious
Dodwell, in his Dissertations on Iraeneus avows, that he cannot
find in ecclesiastical antiquities, (which he understood better than
any man of his age,) any evidence at all, that the four Gospels were
known or heard of, before the time of Trajan, and Adrian, i.e.
before the middle of the second century, i. e. nearly a hundred
years after the apostles were dead. (See Appendix C.) Long before
this time, we know that there were extant numbers of spurious
gospels, forged, and ascribed to the apostles; and we have not the
least evidence to be depended on, that those now received were not
also apocryphal. For they were written nobody certainly knows by
whom, or where, or when. They first appeared in an age of
credulity, wh