preached, and wrought miracles just as they are said to have done; and had some impostor, knowing this, forged the epistle before us at a considerable distance of time, the adjuration at the end of it must instantly have detected the forgery Every Thessalonian Christian of common sense would have said, 'How came we never to hear of this epistle before? Its author represents himself and two of his friends as having converted us to the faith a very short time before it was written and sent to us, and he charges those to whom it was immediately sent in the nost solemn manner possible, that they should cause it to be read to every one of us; no Christian in Thessalonica would, in a matter of this kind, have dared to disobey the authority of an apostle, especially when enforced by so awful an adjuration; and yet neither we nor our fathers ever heard of this epistle, til now that Paul, and Sylvanus, and Timotheus are all dead, and therefore incapable of either confirming or refuting its authenticity! Such an epistle, if not genuine, could never have been received by any community.

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The same apostie, in his first Epistle to the Corinthians, corrects the abuse of certain spiritual gifts, particularly that of speaking divers kinds of tongues, and prescribes rules for the employment of these supernatural talents; he enters into a particular detail of them, as they existed in the Corinthian Church; reasons on their respective worth and excellence; says that they were limited in their duration, that they were no distinguishing mark of Divine favour, nor of so great importance as faith and virtue, the love of God, and charity to our neighbours. Now, if this epistle was really written by St. Paul to the Corinthians, and they had actually received no spiritual gifts, no power, imparted by extraordinary means, of speaking foreign languages, the proper place to be assigned him were not among impostors, but among those who had lost their understanding. A juggler may deceive by the dexterity of his hands, and persuade the ignorant and the credulous that more than human means are requisite for the performance of his extraordinary feats; but he will hardly persuade those whose understandings remain unimpaired, that he has likewise communicated to his spectators the power of working miracles, and of speaking languages which they had never learned. were they conscious of their inability to perform the one, or to speak the other. If the epistle, therefore, was written during the life of St. Paul, and received by the Corinthian Church, it is impossible to doubt but that St. Paul was its author, and that among the Corinthians were prevalent those spiritual gifts of which he labours to correct the abuse. If those gifts were never prevalent among the Corinthian Christians, and this epistle was not seen by them until the next age, it could not have been received by the Corinthian Church as the genuine writing of the apostle, because the members of that Church must have been aware that if those gifts, of which it speaks, had been really possessed, and so generally dis played by their fathers, as it represents them to have been, some of themselves vould surely have heard their fathers mention them; and as the epistle treats of some of the most important subjects that ever occupied the mind of man, the introduction of death into the world through Adam, and the resurrection of the dead through Christ, they must have inferred that their fathers would not have Becreted from them their children a treatise on topics so interesting to the whole guman race.” (Gleig's Edition of Stackhouse's History of the Bible, vol. iii, Intro. p. 11, &c.)

CHAPTER XIII.

THE UNCORRUPTED PRESERVATION OF THE BOOKS OF SCRIPTUKE.

THE historical evidence of the antiquity and genuineness of the books ascribed to Moses, and those which contain the history of Christ and the establishment of his religion, being thus complete, the integrity of the copies at present received is the point next in question.

With respect to the Scriptures of the Old Testament; the list of Jo. sephus, the Septuagint translation, and the Samaritan Pentateuch, are sufficient proofs that the books which are received by us as sacred, are the same as those received by the Jews and Samaritans long before the Christian era. For the New Testament; beside the quotations from

almost all the books now included in that volume and references to them by name in the earliest Christian writers, catalogues of authentic Scriptures were published at very early periods, which, says Dr. Paley, "though numerous, and made in countries at a wide distance from one another, differ very little, differ in nothing material, and all contain the four Gospels.

"In the writings of Origen which remain, and in some extracts preserved by Eusebius, from works of his which are now lost, there are enumerations of the books of Scripture, in which the four Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles are distinctly and honourably specified, and in which no books appear beside what are now received. (Lard. Cred. vol. iii, p. 234, et seq., vol. viii, p. 196.) The date of Origen's works is A. D. 230.

"Athanasius, about a century afterward, delivered a catalogue of the books of the New Testament in form, containing our Scriptures and no others; of which he says, 'In these alone the doctrine of religion is taught; let no man add to them, or take any thing from them.' (Lard. Cred. vol. viii, p. 223.)

"About twenty years after Athanasius, Cyril, bishop of Jerusalem, set forth a catalogue of the books of Scripture publicly read at that time in the Church of Jerusalem, exactly the same as ours, except that the Revelation' is omitted. (Lard. Cred. vol. viii, p. 270.)

"And, fifteen years after Cyril, the council of Laodicea delivered an authoritative catalogue of canonical Scripture, like Cyril's, the same as ours with the omission of the Revelation.'

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Catalogues now become frequent. Within thirty years after the last date, that is, from the year 363 to near the conclusion of the fourth century, we have catalogues by Epiphanius, (Lard. Cred. vol. viii, p. 368,) by Gregory Nazianzen, (Lard. Cred. vol. ix, p. 132,) by Philas ter, bishop of Brescia in Italy, (Lard. Cred. vol. ix, p. 373,) by Amphi. lochius, bishop of Iconium, all, as they are sometimes called, clean

catalogues, (that is, they admit no books into the number beside what we now receive,) and all, for every purpose of historic evidence, the same as ours. (3)

"Within the same period, Jerome, the most learned Christian writer of his age, delivered a catalogue of the books of the New Testament, recognizing every book now received, with the intimation of a doubt toncerning the Epistle to the Hebrews alone, and taking not the least notice of any book which is not now received. (Lard. Cred, vol. x, p. 77.)

"Contemporary with Jerome, who lived in Palestine, was Saint Au. gustine, in Africa, who published likewise à catalogue, without joining to the Scriptures, as books of authority, any other ecclesiastical writing whatever, and without omitting one which we at this day acknowledge (Lard. Cred. vol. x, p. 213.)

"And with these concurs another contemporary writer, Rufen, presbyter of Aquileia, whose catalogue, like theirs, is perfect and unmixed, and concludes with these remarkable words: These are the volumes which the fathers have included in the canon, and out of which they would have us prove the doctrine of our faith.'" (Lard. Cred. vol. x, page 187.)

This, it is true, only proves that the books are substantially the same ; but the evidence is abundant, that they have descended to us without any material alteration whatever.

"1. Before that event, [the time of Christ,] the regard which was paid to them by the Jews, especially to the law, would render any forgery or material change in their contents impossible. The law having been the deed by which the land of Canaan was divided among the Israelites, it is improbable that this people who possessed that land, would suffer it to be altered or falsified. The distinction of the twelve tribes, and their separate interests, made it more difficult to alter their law than that of other nations less jealous than the Jews. Farther, a certain statec seasons, the law was publicly read before all the people of Israel, Deut. xxxi, 9-13; Joshua viii, 34, 35; Neh. viii, 1-5; and it was appointed to be kept in the ark, for a constant memorial against those who trans. gressed it, Deut. xxxi, 26. Their king was required to write him a copy of this law in a book, out of that which is before the priests, the Levites, and to read therein all the days of his life, Deut. xvii, 18, 19; their priests, also were commanded to teach the children of Israel all the statutes, which the Lord had spoken to them by the hand of Moses, Levit. x, 11; and parents were charged not only to make it familiar to themselves, but also to teach it diligently to their children, Deut.

(3) Epiphanius omits the Acts of the Apostles. This must have been an acci. dental mistake, either in him or in some copyist of his work; for he elsewhere expressly refers to this book, and ascribes it to Luke

xvii, 18, 19; beside which, a severe prohibition was annexed, against either making any addition to, or minution from the law, Deut. iv, 2; xii, 32. Now such precepts as these could not have been given by an impostor who was adding to it, and who would wish men to forget rather than enjoin them to remember it: for, as all the people were obliged to know and observe the law under severe penalties, they were, in a manner, the trustees and guardians of the law, as well as the priests and Levites. The people, who were to teach their children inust have had copies of it; the priests and Levites must have had copies of it; and the magistrates must have had copies of it, as being the law of the land. Farther, after the people were divided into two kingdoms, both the people of Israel and those of Judah still retained the same book of the law and the rivalry or enmity that subsisted between the two kingdoms, prevented either of them from altering or adding to the law. After the Israelites were carried captive into Assyria, other nations were placed in the cities of Samaria in their stead; and the Samaritans received the Pentateuch, either from the priest who was sent by order of the king of Assyria, to instruct them in the manner of the God of the land, 2 Kings xvii, 26, or several years afterward from the hands of Manasseh, the son of Joiada the high priest, who was expelled from Jerusalem by Nehemiah, for marrying the daughter of Sanballat, the governor of Samaria; and who was constituted, by Sanballat, the first high priest of the temple at Samaria. (Neh. viii, 28; Josephus Ant. Jud. lib. xi, c. 8; Bishop Newton's Works, vol. i, p. 23.) Now, by one or both of these means, the Samaritans had the Pentateuch as well as the Jews; but with this difference, that the Samaritan Pentateuch was in the old Hebrew or Phenician charac. ters, in which it remains to this day; whereas the Jewish copy was changed into Chaldee characters, (in which it also remains to this day,) which were fairer and clearer than the Hebrew, the Jews having learn. ed the Chaldee language during their seventy years abode in Babylon The jealousy and hatred which subsisted between the Jews and Sama ritans, made it impracticable for either nation to corrupt or alter the text in any thing of consequence without certain discovery; and the general agreement between the Hebrew and Samaritan copies of the Pentateuch, which are now extant, is such, as plainly demonstrates that the copies were originally the same. Nor can any better evidence be de sired, that the Jewish Bibles have not been corrupted or interpolated, than this very book of the Samaritans; which, after more than two thousand years discord between the two nations, varies as little from the other as any classic author in less tract of time has disagreed from itself by the unavoidable slips and inistakes of so many transcribers. (4)

(4) Dr. BENTLEY'S Remarks on Freethinking, part i, remark 27, (vol. v. p. 141 of BD. RANDOLPH's Enchiridion Theologicum, 8vo. Oxford, 1792.)

"After the return of the Jews from the Babylonish captivity, the books of the law and the prophets were publicly read in their synagogues every Sabbath day, Acts xiii, 14, 15, 27; Luke iv, 17-20; which was an excellent method of securing their purity, as well as of enforcing the observation of the law. The Chaldee paraphrases and the translation of the Old Testament into Greek, which were afterward made, were so many additional securities. To these facts we may add, that the reverence of the Jews for their sacred writings is another guarantee for their integrity so great, indeed, was that reverence, that, according to the statements of Philo and Josephus, (Philo, apud Euseb. de Præp. Evang. lib. viii, c. 2; Josephus contra Apion. lib. i, sec. 8,) they would suffer any torments, and even death itself, rather 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. The Jew. ish doctors, fearing to add any thing to the law, passed their own notions as traditions of explanations of it; and both Jesus Christ and his apostles accused the Jews of entertaining a prejudiced regard for those traditions, but they never charged them with falsifying or corrupting the Scriptures themselves.

"2. After the birth of Christ. For, since that event, the Old Testament has been held in high esteem both by Jews and Christians. The Jews also frequently suffered martyrdom for their Scriptures, which they would not have done, had they suspected them to have been corrupted or altered. Beside, the Jews and Christians were a mutual guard upon each other, which must have rendered any material corruption impossible, if it had been attempted: for if such an attempt had been made by the Jews, they would have been detected by the Christians. The accomplishment of such a design, indeed, would have been impracticable from the moral impossibility of the Jews (who were dispersed in every country of the then known world) being able to collect all the then existing copies, with the intention of corrupting or falsifying them. On he other hand, if any such attempt had been made by the Christians, it would assuredly have been detected by the Jews: nor could any such attempt have been made by any other man or body of men, without exp sure both by Jews and Christians. To these considerations, it may be added, that the admirable agreement of all the ancient paraphrases and versions, and the writings of Josephus, with the Old Testament as it is now extant, together with the quotations which are made from it in the New Testament, and in the writings of all ages to the present time, forbid us to indulge any suspicion of any material corruption in the books of the Old Testament; and give us every possible evidence of which a subject of this kind is capable, that these books are now in our hands genuine and unadulterated.