interesting in itself, will not affect their testimony with {73} regard
to the subject before us[20]. They were all in existence before the
Council of Nicæa; and we shall probably not be wrong in assigning to the
first two a date at the very lowest computation not less remote than the
middle of the second century; somewhere, it may be, at the furthest,
about one hundred years after the death of our Lord. (A.D. 130-150.)
With all their errors and blemishes and interpolations taken at the
worst, after every reasonable deduction for defects in matter, taste,
and style, the writings which are ascribed to the Apostolic Fathers are
too venerable for their antiquity, too often quoted with reverence and
affection by some who have been the brightest ornaments of the Christian
Church, and possess too copious a store of genuine evangelical truth,
sound principle, primitive simplicity, and pious sentiment, to be passed
over with neglect by any Catholic Christian. The few extracts {74} made
here will, I am assured, be not unacceptable to any one, who holds dear
the religion of Christ[21].

[Footnote 20: I do not think it suitable in this address to
enter upon the difficult field of inquiry, whether all or which
of these works were the genuine productions of those whose names
they bear; and whether the Barnabas, Clement, and Hermas to
which three of them are ascribed, were the Barnabas, Clement,
and Hermas of whom express mention is made in the pages of Holy
Scripture. I have determined, in conducting my argument, to
affix to them in each case the lowest proposed antiquity. The
edition of Archbishop Wake, (who maintains the highest antiquity
for these works, though I have not here adopted his
translation,) may be consulted with much profit.

Did the question before us relate to the genuineness and dates