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Testament. 5. Nor do they appear in any catalogue 6. Nor were they alleged by different parties, in their controversies, as of authority. 7. Nor were they the subjects of commentaries, or versions, or expositions. 8. Nor were they ever received by Christians of after ages, but were almost universally reprobated by them.

And, now, is not this point proved? I suppose I have been uninteresting; but is not the point proved? Is it not fully established that these books were written by the men whose names they bear, and at the time when they purport to have been written?

I close by a very brief reference to a single point more, which properly belongs here. How do we know that the integrity of the books of the New Testament has been preserved? I answer, first, we know it from the nature of the case. Augustine, in the fourth century, reasoning with a heretic, puts this well. "If any one," says he, "should charge you with having interpolated some texts alleged by you, would you not immediately answer, that it is impossible for you to do such a thing in books read by all Christians-and that, if any such attempt had been made by you, it would have been presently discerned and defeated, by comparing the ancient copies? Well, then, for the same reason that the Scriptures cannot be corrupted by you, they cannot be corrupted by any other people." We know the same thing, secondly, from the agreement of our books with the quotations in the works of the early Christian fathers. These quotations are so abundant that almost the whole of the New Testament might be gathered from them; and

yet, except in six or seven verses, there is an agreement in all material respects between those quotations and the corresponding parts of our books. We know it, thirdly, from the entire agreement of our books with ancient versions. The old Syriac version, called Peshito, was certainly in use before the close of the second century. This was not known in Europe before the close of the sixteenth century. It came down by a line perfectly independent of that by which our Greek Testament was received; yet, when the two came to be compared, the difference was altogether unimportant. Is it possible that evidence should be more satisfactory?

The subject of various readings was at one time so presented as to alarm and disquiet those not acquainted with the facts. When a person hears it stated that, in the collation of the manuscripts for Griesbach's edition of the New Testament, as many as one hundred and fifty thousand various readings were discovered, he is ready to suppose that every thing must be in a state of uncertainty. A statement of the facts relieves every difficulty. The truth is, that not one in a thousand makes any perceptible, or at least important variation in the meaning; that they consist almost entirely of the small and obvious mistakes of transcribers, such as the omission or transposition of letters, errors in grammar, in the use of one word for another of a similar meaning, and in changing the position of words in a sentence. But, by all the omissions, and all the additions, contained in all the manuscripts, no fact, no doctrine, no duty prescribed, in our authorized version, is rendered either obscure or doubtful.

There was a time when the rubbish of antiquity did

gather around these pillars of our evidence. The keen eye of the infidel saw it, and he hoped to show that they rested upon rubbish alone. But, like every similar attempt, at whatever point directed, a full examination has served only to show how firm is the rock upon which that church rests which is "the pillar and ground of the truth."

LECTURE X.

CREDIBILITY OF THE BOOKS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT.

OUR subject this evening, as will have been anticipated, is the credibility of the books of the New Testament; and I proceed directly to the discussion. This question is purely one of historical evidence; and if there is left for me very little that is new, either in the matter or in the manner of presenting it, I shall yet hope for the attention of the audience, from the important place which this point holds, and always must, in the Christian argument.

And the first consideration which I adduce in favor of the credibility of these books is their authenticity. It was because I regarded every testimony adduced, in the last lecture, to prove the authenticity of the gospel histories as also a testimony to their truth, that I dwelt so fully on that subject. The fathers did not quote so largely from those books because they were written by apostolical men, but because they regarded them as true, and as having an authority paramount to all others. The testimony of antiquity, therefore, thus given to the authenticity of these books, is equivalent to its testimony to the reality of the facts which they contain.

Moreover, when men publish an account of facts under their own names, especially of facts that are within the immediate knowledge of the most of their readers, and facts, too, that have excited great attention, they must either publish what is substantially true, or wilfully, and without motive, sacrifice both character and reputation. There is no instance on record of the publication by any one, under his own name, of an account purporting to be of facts that were public, and recent, and concerning which a deep interest was felt by the community, which was not mainly true. But here are four men who claim to have been witnesses of most of the events which they relate, or, if not, to have had a perfect knowledge of them. These events must have been known, at the time the books were published, to thousands of others, both friends and foes, as well as to them. Nothing could have prevented the instant detection of any falsehood; and yet these men published their histories at the time, in the face of the world, and on the spot where the transactions took place. This consideration alone ought to be decisive, and in any other case it would be.

But, secondly, these books are credible because the authors of them had the best possible means of knowing the facts which they state. For the most part, they had a personal knowledge of them. Compare our evidence, in this respect, with that for other ancient events. The main facts were not such as were concealed in cabinets, or in the intrigues of a court, but were few, and such as all might know. But of the events of the life of Alexander, we have no contemporary historian; and yet they are not doubted. Of

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