et ouo ,Fain: 333 Grit; and by confequence all the Faith Of the Saints muff be pendulous and hanging on un- certainties. If the Churches definition be fo momentous to Scripture, let us fee what the Church hash done in it Hath it colled.ed the Canonical Books into a body ? 'Tis probable' Ezra collected the `Books of the Old Tcfla- tríent into a body, and fo think many of the ancient Fathers. And I fappofe St. John col. leded the Books of the New Teftament toge -' ther ; for he lived after all the other Apoflles,. even unto the time of Trajan ; that by his vi -` gilancy the Canon of the New Teftament might be kept pure and unadulterate. When after St. Paul! death there was a Book called, Periodus Pauli c Tecle, fpread abroad under the Name and Title of Paul ; St. John difco,- vered it to be fpurüous, infomuch that the Author of it confeffed that he did it amore" Pauli. And I believe what was done in this collection of the Canon was not done by an ordinary Spirit, but by a Prophetical-Spirit in Ezra, and an Apoftolical one in St. John. In the.mean time it appears not to have been done by an aft of the Church : but leaving this par - ticular,When and how did the Church define the Canon ? Such a momentous thing fhould have been done by the Primo- primitive Church, in the firft Century, whileft the Church of Chrift was a pure Virgin,as Egefp- pus Paid. Thus the School -man Durandus lays Lib, 4, it down, Hoc quod diaum eft de approbation Dill. z x. Scripture per Ecclefiarn," int;llritur Punt de, c3,yef£. A. .Es
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