awful a claim on their acceptance, were received by the infant churches as of a quality equal to that of the old “Bible;” placed alongside of its older books as an additional part of the one law of God; and read as such in their meetings for worship—a practice which moreover was required by the apostles (1 Thess. 5:27; Col. 4:16; Rev. 1:2). In the apprehension, therefore, of the earliest churches, the “Scriptures” were not a closed but an increasing “canon.” Such they had been from the beginning,