1, p.p.

38, 39.
"The Canonical writings (i.e.of the New Testament), lay concealed in the coffers of private churches, or persons, till the latter times of Trajan, or rather perhaps of Adrian; so that they could not come to the knowledge of the church.

For if they had been published, they would have been overwhelmed under such a multitude as were then of apocryphal and suppositious books, that a new examination and a new testimony would be necessary to distinguish them from these false ones.

And it is from this new testimony (whereby the genuine writings of the apostles were distinguished from the spurious pieces which went under their names,) that depends all the authority which the truly apostolic writings have formerly obtained, or which they have at present in the Catholic Church.

But this fresh attestation of the canon is subject to the same inconveniences with those traditions of the ancient persons that I defend, and whom Irenaeus both heard and saw; for it is equally distant from the original, and could not be made except by such only as had reached those remote times.