entirely independent of each other.  Doubts respecting the testimony of one do not affect that of another.  We receive the seven books in question as a part of God’s revelation on grounds which we judge adequate, as will be shown in the introductions to the several books.  But if any one feels under the necessity of suspending his judgment with respect to one or more of these books, let him follow the teachings of the other books, which are above all doubt.  He will find in them all the truth essential to the salvation of his soul; and he will then be in a position calmly to investigate the evidence for the canonical authority of the so-called disputed books.

2.  The diversity of judgment which prevailed in the early churches in respect to certain books of the New Testament, is in harmony with all that we know of their character and spirit.  It was an age of free inquiry.  General councils were not then known, nor was there any central power to impose its decisions on all the churches.  In the essential doctrines of the gospel there was everywhere an agreement, especially in receiving the writings acknowledged to be apostolic, as the supreme rule of faith and practice.  But this did not exclude differences on minor points in the different provinces of Christendom; and with respect to these the churches of each particular region were tenacious then, as they have been in all ages since, of their peculiar opinions and practices.  It is well known, for example, that the churches of Asia Minor differed from those of Rome in the last half of the second century respecting the day on which the Christian festival of the Passover, with the communion service connected with it, should be celebrated; the former placing it on the fourteenth of the month Nisan, the latter on the anniversary of the resurrection Sunday.  Nor could the conference between Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna in Asia Minor, and Anicetus, bishop of Rome, about A.D. 162, avail to change the usage of either party, though it did not at that time break the bond of brotherhood between them.  We need not be surprised therefore to find a like diversity in different regions respecting certain books of the New Testament.  The unanimous belief of the Eastern and Alexandrine churches ascribed to Paul the authorship of the epistle to the Hebrews; but in the Western churches its Pauline authorship was not generally admitted till the fourth century.  The Apocalypse, on the contrary, found most favor with the Western or Latin churches.  It has in its favor the testimony of the Muratorian canon, which is of Latin origin, and also—­as appears from the citations contained in the commentaries of Primasius—­that of the old Latin version.  Other examples see above, No. 1.