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Libertine Imagination, the Effects of Resentmentagainst those Councils in the fourth and fifth Ages,which put an End to all Disputes about this se-cond Epistle of St. Peter. I shall not therefore en-ter into every Particular of this drolling Paragraph.I shall only observe, that our merry Critic greatlywrongs the Truth when he hints, that the Monks were the Men, who established the Canonical Au-thority of the Epistle now in Question . For thatwas the Work of Councils, which consisted of bi-shops that were generally elected, not out of Mo­ nasteries , but out of the Body of Clergy. Whereasthe Monks in those Ages, properly so called, weremere Laymen , that lived together under a peculiarDiseipline, and in perfect Obedience to the Bis opsof their respective Dioceses, but had no Share in theLegifature and Government of the Church.

But further to wipe off the Aspersion that thissacred Book had been entirely rejected in the Daysof Light and Criticism , and at the fame Time tolet the Reader see, how much early Evidence forthe Genuineness of this Epistle has been stifled byour Adversary, I shall lay before him an Accountof the Writers , who during the first four Centurieshave cited it as Canonical Scripture. And first,the Apostle Jude had evidently the second Epistle of St. Peter before him, and from thence has tran-scribed many Things into that Epistle which goesunder his Name, and which makes Part of ourpresent Canon of the New Peflament. I shall shewpresently, that this Epistle was the undoubtedWork of Jude the Apostle: So that his borrowingso largely from the second Epistle of St. Peter isalone decisive for its Canonical Authority. But wa-ving