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 collection 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

how few of the events in the histories of Livy, or of Tacitus, had they personal knowledge! With how few of the men, whose lives he wrote, had Plutarch personal acquaintance! In some cases, indeed, — as in the account of the Retreat of the Ten Thousand, or the Commentaries of Cæsar, - we have the story of a person who was present, and saw what he narrates; and no one can fail to feel that the credibility of those accounts is greatly increased by that circumstance. In these cases, however, we have but a single witness, and the writers are the heroes of their own story; and still these writings are received with entire confidence. And this leads me to observe,

Thirdly, that the events recorded in our books are worthy of credit from the number of witnesses. To put this in its true light, let us suppose that there should now be discovered, among the ruins of Herculaneum, the writings of an officer and companion of Cæsar, giving an account of the same campaigns and battles. Let us suppose that there was a substantial agreement, but such incidental differences as to show that the writings were entirely independent of each other; then, if we had before been inclined to call the whole a fiction, or to attribute any thing to the ignorance, or the prejudices, or the vanity, of Cæsar, we should feel all our doubts removed on those points in which the accounts agreed. And if, after this, we should still find another independent manuscript, and still another, differing entirely in style and general manner, and yet agreeing in regard to the facts, if, moreover, there should be found letters written in that day incidentally confirming these accounts by many allusions and undesigned coincidences,-we