e us prove the doctrine of our faith." (Lardner, Cred.
vol. x. p. 187.)

SECTION XI.

These propositions cannot be predicated of any of those books which are
commonly called Apocryphal Books of the New Testament.

I do not know that the objection taken from apocryphal writings is at
present much relied upon by scholars. But there are many, who, hearing
that various Gospels existed in ancient times under the names of the
apostles, may have taken up a notion, that the selection of our present
Gospels from the rest was rather an arbitrary or accidental choice, than
founded in any clear and certain cause of preference. To these it may be
very useful to know the truth of the case. I observe, therefore:--

I. That, beside our Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles, no Christian
history, claiming to be written by an apostle or apostolical man, is
quoted within three hundred years after the birth of Christ, by any
writer now extant or known; or, if quoted, is not quoted but with marks
of censure and rejection.

I have not advanced this assertion without inquiry; and I doubt not but
that the passages cited by Mr. Jones and Dr. Lardner, under the several
titles which the apocryphal books bear; or a reference to the places
where they are mentioned as collected in a very accurate table,
published in the year 1773, by the Rev. J. Atkinson, will make out the
truth of the proposition to the satisfaction of every fair and competent
judgment. If there be any book which may seem to form an exception to
the observation, it is a Hebrew Gospel, which was circulated under the
various titles of, the Gospel according to the Hebrews, the Gospel of
the Nazarenes, of the Ebionites, sometimes called of the Twelve, by some
ascribed to St Matthew. This Gospel is once, and only once, cited by
Clemeus Alexandrinus, who lived, the reader will remember, in the latter
part of the second century, and which same Clement quotes one or other
of our four Gospels in almost every page of his work. It is also twice
mentioned by Origen, A.D. 230; and both times with marks of diminution
and discredit. And this is the ground upon which the exception stands.
But what is still more material to observe is, that this Gospel, in the
main, agreed with our present Gospel of Saint Matthew. (In applying to
this Gospel what Jerome in the latter end of the fourth century has
mentioned of a Hebrew Gospel, I think it probable that we sometimes
confound it with a Hebr