by citations from them in writings belonging to a period
immediately contiguous to that in which they were published; by the
distinguished regard paid by early Christians to the authority of these
books; (which regard was manifested by their collecting of them into a
volume, appropriating to that volume titles of peculiar respect,
translating them into various languages, digesting them into harmonies,
writing commentaries upon them, and, still more conspicuously, by the
reading of them in their public assemblies in all parts of the world)
by an universal agreement with respect to these books, whilst doubts
were entertained concerning some others; by contending sects appealing
to them; by the early adversaries of the religion not disputing their
genuineness, but, on the contrary, treating them as the depositaries of
the history upon which the religion was founded; by many formal
catalogues of these, as of certain and authoritative writings, published
in different and distant parts of the Christian world; lastly, by the
absence or defect of the above-cited topics of evidence, when applied to
any other histories of the same subject.
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