es, one called
the "Gospels or Scriptures of the Lord," the other the "Apostles, or
Epistles of the Apostles" (Lardner, Cred. vol. iv. p. 846.)

VIII. Eusebius, as we have already seen, takes some pains to show that
the Gospel of Saint John had been justly placed by the ancients, "the
fourth in order, and after the other three." (Lardner, Cred. vol. viii.
p. 90.) These are the terms of his proposition: and the very
introduction of such an argument proves incontestably, that the four
Gospels had been collected into a volume, to the exclusion of every
other: that their order in the volume had been adjusted with much
consideration; and that this had been done by those who were called
ancients in the time of Eusebius.

In the Diocletian persecution, in the year 303, the Scriptures were
sought out and burnt:(Lardner, Cred. vol. vii. pp. 214 et seq.) many
suffered death rather than deliver them up; and those who betrayed them
to the persecutors were accounted as lapsed and apostate. On the other
hand, Constantine, after his conversion, gave directions for multiplying
copies of the Divine Oracles, and for magnificently adorning them at the
expense of the imperial treasury. (Lardner, Cred. vol. vii. p. 432.) What
the Christians of that age so richly embellished in their prosperity,
and, which is more, so tenaciously preserved under persecution, was the
very volume of the New Testament which we now read.

SECTION IV.

Our present Sacred Writings were soon distinguished by appropriate names
and titles of respect.

Polycarp. "I trust that ye are well exercised in the Holy
Scriptures;--as in these Scriptures it is said, Be ye angry and sin not,
and let not the sun go down upon your wrath." (Lardner, Cred. vol. i. p.
203.) This passage is extremely important; because it proves that, in
the time of Polycarp, who had lived with the apostles, there were
Christian writings distinguished by the name of "Holy Scriptures," or
Sacred Writings. Moreover, the text quoted by Polycarp is a text found
in the collection at this day. What also the same Polycarp hath
elsewhere quoted in the same manner, may be considered as proved to
belong to the collection; and this comprehends Saint Matthew's and,
probably, Saint Luke's Gospel, the Acts of the Apostles, ten epistles of
Paul, the First Epistle of Peter, and the First of John. (Lardner, Cred.
vol. i. p. 223.) In another place, Polycarp has these words: "Whoever
perverts the Oracles of the