A discourse concerning liturgies

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.

But, if they were not known (as is manifest by the premisses they were not) for so many Ages; then, neither were they extant, and so, owe not their Original to the Apostles, or any near their times. For it is impossible, that, if they had been extant, and composed by the Apostles, for the constant and daily use of the Churches, they should not be known to the generality of Christians, supposed to have so used them: Or, if any will say, the Churches used them not, he must condemn them as highly impious, living in wilful disobedience to the Apostles orders, and open contempt of their Authority, from Generation to Generation: And further, if they were not known to be Apostolical, before the Seventh or Eighth Ages, there's no way left to know it after. Innate Arguments there are none, in those pieces, to evidence it, but many which show the contrary; no features or lineaments truly Apostolical, but much of the scurf and luxuriousness of corrupt and decrepit Ages. So that there is nothing but testimony to rely on; and he that will admit writings to be Apostolical, upon the testimony of times, wherein delusion and degeneracy prevailed, without the least attestation of the First Churches, and so many intermediate Ages, is well disposed to be deluded, or delude others.