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which lay equally against many others of the Ca-?tholic Epistles, tho’ he does not object: 'againstthem. Nor had he in all Likelihood passed thisCensure on the second of St. Peter , but for the Dis-like he had to the DoSirine of the third Chapter,'concerning the new Heavens and the new Earth.But the Annotator makes a further Use of this Te-stimony. It strews, he fays, that the Canons ofthe Laodicean Council, at least the Sixtieth Ca-non, where this Epistle is mentioned, is a mereForgery. His Argument is this: The Council ofLaodicea , supposed to have been hold zn Anno 365,in its last Canon, ascribes this second Epistle to St.Peter, and reckons ir among the Canonical Booksof the New Testament . But Didymus , who diedAn. 39x, affirms that it was not in the Canon:therefore that Council , or at least its Sixtieth Ca-non, is a mere Forgery. To which I answer first,that tho’ Didymus died An. 391, he might possiblyhave written his Enarrationes before the Council ofLaodicea established the Canonical Authority ofSt. Peter's second Epistle . For at that Time hewas Fifty six Years of Age, and had then been forsome Time considerable in the Church. His Affir-mation therefore that the said Epiflle was not inthe Canon , whatever Sense we put upon that Ex-pression, does not necessarily contradict the Cano-nization of that Book by the Council of Laodicea ,or argue that Council to have been a Forgery , inwhole or in part. And of this our Adversary wasbut too sensible, who therefore has supplied us withthe Time of Didymus s Death, rather than that ofhis flourishing State as a Writer. Designing topass it upon his Readers for certain Truth, that
Didymus ,