on _the Councils_, was to me unintelligible. Thus the Bible in its
simplicity became only the more all-ruling to my judgment, because
I could find no Articles, no Church Decrees, and no apostolic
individual, whose rule over my understanding or conscience I could
bear. Such may be conveniently regarded as the first period of my
Creed.


[Footnote 1: It was not until many years later that I became aware,
that unbiased ecclesiastical historians, as Neander and others, while
approving of the practice of Infant Baptism, freely concede that it is
not apostolic. Let this fact be my defence against critics, who snarl
at me for having dared, at that age, to come to _any_ conclusion on
such a subject. But, in fact, the subscriptions compel young men to
it.]

[Footnote 2: I remember reading about that time a sentence in one of
his Epistles, in which this same Cyprian, the earliest mouthpiece of
"proud prelacy," claims for the _populace_ supreme right of deposing
an unworthy bishop. I quote the words from memory, and do not know
the reference. "Pleba summam habet potentatem episcopos seu dignos
eligendi seu indignos detrudendi."]

[Footnote 3: A critic absurdly complains that I do not account for
this. Account for what? I still hold the authenticity of nearly all
the Pauline epistles, and that the Pauline Acts are compiled from some
valuable source, from chap. xiii. onward; but it was gratuitous to
infer that this could accredit the four gospels.]

[Footnote 4: He argues from the Bible, that a victory gained by deceit