Critical Examination of the Life of St. Paul

"[...]accept, and cause to be accepted as authentic, and of rejecting as apocryphal, such books as suited their interest, or did not agree with the prevailing doctrine. But were we even sure of the authenticity of the books, which the church of this day adopts, we are nevertheless, without any other guarantee of the authority of the scriptures than the books themselves. Is there a history which has the right to prove itself by itself? Can we rely upon witnesses who give no other proof of what they advance than their own words? Yet the first Christians have rendered themselves famous by their deceptions, their factions, and their frauds, which are termed pious when they tend to[...]".