A discourse concerning liturgies

2. Undoubtedly they would have been generally admitted, as other Apostolical Writings were. None would have seen reason, to have composed other Liturgies, nor would any other have been preferred before them.

3. Finally, none would have presumed, or would have been suffered without control, to have enlarged, curtailed, inverted them, and made all kind of alterations therein, as some have done, so as they are quite transformed from what they were once; insomuch as their Favourers can show us no one part of them, which may with any assurance be ascribed to the first Authors, whoever they were. This is acknowledged, and said to be done in several Ages, by the Guides of those Churches, where they had entertainment: Who by thus using them, evidently declared, either that they did not believe them to be Apostolical, nor would have had them so accounted; or else, that themselves were impious wretches, in making so bold with that which should have been preserved inviolable as the Scripture; and wretched Impostors too, who would thrust their own patches, and others no better than their own, upon Christians, under Apostolical names: And so, one of these ways, all the credit is lost, upon which they are recommended to the World as Apostolical.

3. Finally, none would have presumed, or would have been suffered without controul, to have inlarged, curtailed, inverted them, and made all kind of alrerations therein, as some have done, so as they are quite transformed from what they were once; insomuch as their Favourers can shew us no one part of them, which may with any assurance be ascribed to the first Authors, whoever they were. This is acknowledged, and said to be done in several Ages, by the Guides of those Churches, where they had entertainment: Who by thus using them, evidently declared, either that they did not believe them to be Apostolical, nor would have had them so accounted; or else, that themselves were impious wretches, in making so bold with that which should have been preserved inviolable as the Scripture; and wretched Impostors too, who would thrust their own patches, and others no better than their own, upon Christians, under Apostolical names: And so, one of these ways, all the credit is lost, upon which they are recommended to the World as Apostolical.