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in those Churches, as an Event of the tenth Cen-*tury, which was really the Æra of its second uni-versal Reception there. For after the Book firstcame abroad, for one entire Age it passed withoutControul all over the Ens. And tho’ it fell un-der some Suspicions afterwards, the Greeks neverwholly rejected it: But it had always a considera-ble Party among them. The tenth Age gave thefinishing Stroke to these Confess, tho’ ’tis proba-ble, that, excepting the Consantinopolitan Church,the Easerti ones came into it, a Century or twobefore. The Men of those Times had no Occa-sion for new Lights to determine them in Favourof the Revelations. For they had the Monumentsof their own Countrymen from the earliest Anti-quity, and with great Reason preferr’d the Deci-sions of the second and third Centuries to thePrejudices of remoter Days. Lastly the Search ofthe Fathers of Laodicea into the Archives and“Tradition of the Church of Ephejus for the Au-thority of the Apocalypse , is our Author’s ownsplendid Fidlion. Perhaps the canonical Meritsof that Book never came before them. And if ithad, the general Voice of the Fathers in the se-cond Century, is a better Authority in such aCase, than the Determination of a Council in thefourth.
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