they were distributed, there can be no doubt. Sufficient, however, that we have all that an Almighty Superintending Providence deemed necessary-copies from the original preserved and handed down to us; and through which we may all, if we will, be made wise unto salvation, and become children of God, through faith in Him "Who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification."

Speaking of the various readings of the ancient manuscripts, the "American Religious Encyclopedia" says: "Comparatively few are of any importance to the sense of the passages in which they occur. The very worst manuscript that is known to exist contains every doctrine of faith, every precept of morality, and every essential fact and circumstance of history, that is to be found in the best. The variations are more in letters than in words; and even where the words differ, it is more in sound than in sense." And, referring to the same subject, Dr. Adam Clarke says: "The reader must not imagine that in the manuscripts and versions which contain the whole of the sacred text, there is any essential defect in matters that relate to the faith and practice, and consequently, to the salvation of the Christian. There is no such manuscript, there is no such version. So has the Divine Providence ordered it, that not one essential truth of God has been injured or suppressed. In this respect all is perfect."1

But even though we had no manuscript copies of the Scriptures, either in the original tongue, or from ancient translations, so numerous were the quotations made from them by writers at different times and for different purposes, some friendly, some hostile, that they might be gathered, as Dr. Plumer remarks, from books, still extant, which were written within three hundred years of the Ascension of our

1 "Dr. Clarke's Commentary," Introduction.

Lord. Happily, however, in the providence of God, we are not dependent on such sources for our knowledge of the Gospel; but these very numerous and substantially agreeing quotations, dating, as many of them do, close upon Apostolic times, should, nevertheless, be regarded as strongly confirmatory of the argument for the genuineness and authenticity of the sacred writings.

Like the works of Celsus, Porphyry, and Julian, heathen writers who flourished, respectively, in the second, third, and fourth centuries, and wrote against the Christian religion, quoting largely from the Gospels, the Acts, and the Epistles, and thereby undesignedly furnishing important testimony to the truth and authenticity of the books of the New Testament, which have come down to us in the names of their authors, respectively, as quoted by these heathen writers; like the infidel works of these men, it is a consolation to the true believer to know that those of M. Renan and his rationalistic coadjutors, will but tend in the end to further the cause of the true religion of Christ, by their having provoked from various writers, living in different parts of the world, replies which expose the shallowness of their arguments, and the remarkable weakness of their sophistical reasonings.

Tertullian wrote five books against the famous heretic Marcion, who figured between A.D. 130 and 160, but there is nothing in them indicating that in their day the Gospels were suspected to be of uncertain date and authorship, as they have been represented to be, by the enemies of the truth, in the present day. The books also, of the heathen philosopher Celsus,1 were answered by the celebrated Origen, who

1 The testimonies furnished by Celsus, Porphyry, and Julian, heathen writers against Christianity, prove that neither Celsus in the second, Porphyry in the third, nor Julian in the fourth century, suspected the authenticity of these books, or even insinuated that Christians were

wrote in the early part of the third century, the date of his birth being A.D. 185, and of his death A.D. 253. This distinguished Father, whose extensive biblical knowledge highly qualified him to form a correct judgment in reference to the canon of Scripture, has furnished us also with a catalogue of the books of the New Testament, as recognised by the Church, in that early day. It is true that the names of two books (James and Jude) are omitted in his catalogue, as transmitted to us, but the omission is evidently an accident, for in other parts of his writings, he acknowledges these Epistles as a part of the canon. And in his enumeration of the books, none are included but those which are in the present canon, "which proves," as a writer in the "American Religious Encyclopedia," remarks, "that in his time the canon was well settled among the learned, and that the distinction between inspired writings and human compositions was as clearly marked as at any subsequent period."

About a century afterwards, catalogues of the sacred books were published by Eusebius and Athanasius, both including all the books in our present canon, and no others; and of which Athanasius says, "In these alone the doctrine of religion is taught; let no man add to them, or take anything from them."

Speaking of the reverence with which the Jews had been taught to regard their sacred writings, Dr. Paley remarks: "According to the statements of Philo and Josephus, they would suffer any torments, and even death itself, rather

mistaken in the authors to whom they ascribed them. Not one of them expressed an opinion upon this subject different from that which is holden by Christians. And when we consider how much it would have availed them to cast a doubt upon this point, if they could, and how ready they showed themselves to take every advantage in their power, and that they were men of learning and inquiry, their concession, or rather their suffrage upon the subject, is extremely valuable."

than change a single point or iota of the Scriptures. A law was also enacted by them, which denounced him to be guilty of inexpiable sin, who should presume to make the slightest possible alteration in their sacred books." To which we may add, so careful were they to correctly preserve the sacred text, that when a copy was made out, not only the number of words, but even the number of letters in it was counted, and compared with the original in order to prevent mistakes.

The "popular elaborations" of the Gospels and unscrupulous tampering with them, of which M. Renan speaks, could not possibly have been made without immediate detection and exposure; for not only were there copies of the New Testament Scriptures "dispersed before the death of their authors among the different communities of Christians who were scattered throughout the then known world, but in all the churches-some of which were formed in the principal cities of the Roman empire within twenty years of the ascension-the books of the New Testament, especially the four Gospels, were read as a part of their public worship, just as the writings of Moses and the Prophets were read in the Jewish synagogues. Moreover, we have an unbroken' series of testimonies for the genuineness and authenticity of the New Testament, which can be traced backwards to the very time of the Apostles: and these testimonies are equally applicable to prove its uncorrupted preservation."

"The agreement of the ancient versions and quotations from the New Testament which are made in the writings of the Christians of the first three centuries, and in those of the succeeding fathers of the Church, and from which (as has been frequently observed) the whole body of the 1 Paley.

Gospels and Epistles might be compiled, is another irrefragable argument of the purity and integrity with which the New Testament has been preserved.'

1

"These sacred records being universally regarded as the supreme standard of truth, were received by every class of Christians with peculiar respect, as being divine compositions, and possessing an authority belonging to no other books. Whatever controversies, therefore, arose among different sects, the Scriptures of the New Testament were received and appealed to by every one of them, as being conclusive in all matters of controversy: consequently it was morally impossible, that any man or body of men should corrupt or falsify them in any fundamental article, should foist into them a single expression to favour their peculiar tenets, or erase a single sentence, without being detected by thousands."

A single passage, among many, from Irenæus, Bishop of Lyons, may serve to confirm the foregoing statements in reference to all the primitive sects appealing, from the first, to the one common standard of truth, the New Testament Scriptures. In the treatise which he wrote and published in the second century " Against Heresies are these words: "So firm is the ground upon which these Gospels rest, that the very heretics themselves bear witness to them, and starting from these, each one of them endeavours to establish his own peculiar doctrine." He also speaks of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, as the universally acknowledged authors of the four Gospels, and says of them: “It is not possible that the Gospels can be either more or fewer in number than they are."

1 Horne.

2 See Watson's "Institute," Paley's Evidences," and Horne's "Credibility."

8 Irenæus, Book III. xi. 7.