I also, with much effort and no profit, read the Apostolic Fathers.  Of these, Clement alone seemed to me respectable, and even he to write only what I could myself have written, with Paul and Peter to serve as a model.  But for Barnabas and Hermas I felt a contempt so profound, that I could hardly believe them genuine.  On the whole, this reading greatly exalted my sense of the unapproachable greatness[5] of the New Testament.  The moral chasm between it and the very earliest Christian writers seemed to me so vast, as only to be accounted for by the doctrine in which all spiritual men (as I thought) unhesitatingly agreed,—­that the New Testament was dictated by the immediate action of the Holy Spirit.  The infatuation of those, who, after this, rested on the Councils, was to me unintelligible.  Thus the Bible in its simplicity became only the more all-ruling to my judgment, because I could find no Articles, no Church Decrees, and no apostolic individual, whose rule over my understanding or conscience I could bear.  Such may be conveniently regarded as the first period of my Creed.

[Footnote 1:  It was not until many years later that I became aware, that unbiased ecclesiastical historians, as Neander and others, while approving of the practice of Infant Baptism, freely concede that it is not apostolic.  Let this fact be my defence against critics, who snarl at me for having dared, at that age, to come to any conclusion on such a subject.  But, in fact, the subscriptions compel young men to it.]

[Footnote 2:  I remember reading about that time a sentence in one of his Epistles, in which this same Cyprian, the earliest mouthpiece of “proud prelacy,” claims for the populace supreme right of deposing an unworthy bishop.  I quote the words from memory, and do not know the reference.  “Pleba summam habet potentatem episcopos seu dignos eligendi seu indignos detrudendi.”]

[Footnote 3:  A critic absurdly complains that I do not account for this.  Account for what?  I still hold the authenticity of nearly all the Pauline epistles, and that the Pauline Acts are compiled from some valuable source, from chap. xiii. onward; but it was gratuitous to infer that this could accredit the four gospels.]

[Footnote 4:  He argues from the Bible, that a victory gained by deceit is more to be esteemed than one obtained by force; and that, provided the end aimed at be good, we ought not to call it deceit, but a sort of admirable management.  A learned friend informs me that in his 45th Homily on Genesis, this father, in his zeal to vindicate Scriptural characters at any cost, goes further still in immorality.  My friend adds, “It is really frightful to reflect to what guidance the moral sentiment of mankind was committed for many ages:  Chrysostom is usually considered one of the best of the fathers.”]