been noted by the remarks interspersed through the foregoing pages, used these latter writings unhesitatingly, and without a single intimation of suspected authority; while all, if we except the Epistle to the Hebrews, have been uniformly assigned to the writers whose names they bear. On the other hand, it is no less clear, that none of the books received by the first Christian authors have been lost; for with the few slight exceptions above stated, and scarce worth again referring to, they use none but those we now possess. And again, setting aside the undue weight attached in later times to certain writers, as satisfactorily disposed of, and utterly untenable, none have been added:for with the few unimportant limitations before explained, they use all we now receive.

Moreover, in addition to what has been said of the uncorrupted preservation of our manuscripts, it must be further noted, that the full and ample quotations, so copiously sprinkled over the pages of Christian writers of every age, give us the most infallible security against any serious omissions, interpolations, or alterations, in our books; for no trace of any material variation occurs. Nor is the mere verbal coincidence, as far as it goes, between the extract and the sacred text so sure a guard against chicanery, as the object for which the passage is cited, and the context in which it stands; for it will at once be perceived, that an alteration of the words of the quotation in an ancient author, by one who had been tampering with the text of Scripture, if practicable, would often be worse than insufficient: the whole tenor of the argument, perhaps of the treatise itself, must be changed, or the perversion of the sense would at once detect the fraud. The entire agreement between our books and these quotations, can only have arisen from one of these two causes. Either it results from the genuineness of both; or there must have been a universal concurrence among Christians, to obliterate the genuine, and substitute, wholly or partially, some spurious productions. Such a conspiracy, were it not too monstrous an idea to be entertained at all, could not have been entered into in the life time of the apostles;-and even if they sanctioned any change, the new system is still their own, which is all that we are arguing for at present;-and before the removal of the last of them from the scene, there were

churches, at least in every province of the Roman empire, nearly co-extensive with the then known world. In those churches we are sure that in the time of Justin Martyr, that is, within fifty years from the apostolic times, it was an established usage to read these books publicly, and preach from them; and it will not be straining his testimony to carry the practice back to a very early day, nay even to that of the apostles themselves. It follows from this, that no one Church could falsify a single passage, without a protest from the rest; for the wildest imagination cannot conceive it possible that all can have been prevailed on, simultaneously to corrupt treasures so esteemed as were these books; nor could that consent, if attainable, have been so rapidly and universally communicated, as effectually to have blotted out every trace of so complicated a negotiation, and so complete a change. A case in point presents itself in the history of Mahometanism; for the Suffavean monarchs of Persia are said to have so strenuosly and successfully advocated the title of Moussa to be regarded as the seventh Imaum, that no traces of a contrary opinion are now to be found in that country. But the Mussulmen of other countries have not forsaken Ismail, whose adherents numbered among them the Fatamite Caliphs of Egypt, and the much dreaded Assassins: in a solitary province the memory of Ismail was obliterated, but it was beyond the power of a single, though potent dynasty, to prevail upon the professors of their own religion, beyond the limits of their own dominions, and this in a matter not in the least degree affecting the integrity of the Koran; or any leading article of their creed. And if we need an example in the case of our own Scriptures, we may once more bring forward the disputed passage of 1 John v. 7. (pp. 75 and 77.) If this were fraudulently or mistakingly omitted by the Greeks, the Latin churches have entered their protest against its rejection: if it were foisted in by the western Christians, the eastern have protested against its insertion: either way the change, comparatively unimportant as it is, because the doctrine it contains does not depend on it alone, has not passed unnoticed; how, then, could any really fundamental alteration have been effected, in so extensive a field, and no memory of it be preserved?

I pause here; these are our principal witnesses, and such is the manner in which their testimony is given. I have now

to call in the aid of corroborating witnesses, and point out incidental facts, that will further strengthen our position, and fix these writings to the age to which they are assigned. These matters will occupy another section, and close what we have to advance in support of our first proposition. The way will then be open to take up the all important question of the truth of the Christian story.

SECT. III.

CORROBORATING TESTIMONY,

Sectarians and Heretics.-Concessions of adversaries.Julian.-Porphyry.-Celsus.-Heathen and Jewish writers.-Ammianus Marcellinus.-Libanius.-Spanish Inscriptions.-Aurelian.-Dion Cassius.-Ulpian.--Galen.

-Aurelius Antoninus.-Epictetus.-Pliny-Suetonius.—

Martial.-Juvenal.-Tacitus.-The Acts of Pilate.Remarks.-Josephus.-The language of the New Testament.-Its Hebraisms.-Latinisms.-Recapitulation.

My reader will not have forgotten the principle I have so often set before him, that the Christian Scriptures have been committed to the custody of men, and therefore, to a certain extent, have been liable to, and, indeed, have suffered from the accidents and imperfections inseparable from human life. This is nothing more than saying that God has not maintained a series of perpetual miraculous interpositions, to accomplish that which, for every useful purpose, can be effectually secured without them. To the instances already noted, wherein the practical working of this principle has been exemplified, I have now to add, the diversity in religious opinions which has from the beginning distracted, and to a degree disfigured, the Christian Church. If it is true, as we hope to show hereafter that it is, beyond all reasonable doubt, that our books were written under the immediate influence of God himself, it would have been easy for their divine author to have clothed them in such

language, as that no possible room should be left for any real difference of opinion concerning the interpretation of a single passage. It would have been no less easy for him to have secured the whole from the slightest variation; to have guided the pen of every translator, and every interpreter, so that no danger of swerving, but an hair's breadth, from the intended doctrine could have been incurred; and he might have controlled the unruly perversities of those, who from petulance or pride of intellect, have lent themselves to corrupt the faith, so that, when seeking to establish error, they might have found the simple truth. But such was not his purpose: while the language employed by the inspired penmen, to give expression to the thoughts and revelations suggested by the Holy Ghost, was so far chastened that no real ambiguity detracts from the full developement of one solitary article of faith; there are a few words, or combinations of words, concerning the intended acceptation of which a reasonable difference of opinion may be entertained:— while the integrity of our books is as complete, and our translations as accurate, as the full security of every doctrine can demand; there are, as we have seen, some minor variations. Holy men have thus been divided as to the mind of the Spirit, concerning a few unessential points of doctrine and practice; and unholy men have been permitted to draw poison even from the wells of salvation, to wrest the very Scriptures of truth to their own destruction. These writings were not exempted from the secret perfidy of wily traitors, any more than from the attacks of open enemies; from the misunderstanding of the weak and unstable interpreter, any more than from the unwitting errors of the mere transcriber. They were launched upon a wide and boisterous ocean, and have braved the perils of ten thousand storms; their path has been among sunken rocks and treacherous shoals; the wonder is that they still tower aloft in all their stateliness, and have preserved their precious freight undamaged; that they have lost so little, rather than so much, from the rude buffettings they have experienced in their eventful voyage down the stream of time.

But the purpose for which these differences are introduced here, is, to show to what extent the writings of the New Testament were received by those who entertained them. With regard to disputes carried on within the pale of the

Church, such as those concerning Origenism, or the procession of the Holy Ghost, so fruitful a source of dissension between the Greek and Romish churches, nothing need be added to what I have said in the preceding section. The sectarians again, who withdrew from the general church, chiefly on some point of discipline, such as the Novatians, in the third century, and the Donatists, in the fourth, all appealed to our Scriptures as the sole authority concerning the matters in dispute. Nor was the case otherwise with the vast plurality of the heretics, who, as Vincentius testifies, urged the testimony of Scripture explicitly and vehemently. The Arians, in the fourth century, notoriously appealed to it, with professions of the greatest deference and regard, and anathematized those who spake contrary to, what they esteemed, its doctrines. Later still, the Nestorians and Eutychians, and a host of others, defended their notions by the interpretations they put upon its teaching; they neither denied nor corrupted the acknowledged Scriptures; but argued from the phrases and expressions occurring in their pages. There were comparatively few who, like Marcion, disowned or mutilated a portion of our books. Yet even these received the main incidents, all, in fact, that are absolutely necessary to authenticate the religion. Chrysostom asserts that, before his time, many heretics had arisen, holding opinions contrary to what is contained in the Gospels, who yet received them entire, or in part. We do not, of course, go to these opposers of the truth for a full authentication of its sacred repositories; but it is important to know that they ventured to detract so little from their authority, and were willing to concede to them so large a measure of their respect.

Next after those whose aim it was to pervert the religion they dishonoured, I shall adduce the testimony of open enemies. Their works have not survived in the form in which they were originally issued; but we possess large extracts from them, in the answers made by those who undertook to defend Christianity against their cavils. The Emperor Julian is the latest, in order of time, of the three principal writers of this class. His reign was subsequent, by many years, to the establishment of Christianity as the religion of the empire by Constantine; and what we know