a clearer evidence and demonstration with it than that, because of those divisions, any depravation of the said records (that is, any material, general, successful, continued depravation)` is altogether impossible; because the one party would be continually declaiming and crying out against the other; and then how would it be espied ?"*

Indeed it may be safely affirmed, that the Christians were never charged by their bitterest enemies with the crime of mutilating their Scriptures, and that these sacred records have suffered less from transcribers, copyists, and translators, than any other documents of a remote antiquity.

"It is true, that in translations, persons have laboured to serve their own purposes, by translating this way and that, as they thought fit. But for alteration of copies, that is what never entered into the mind of any body to attempt; which is a thing so easily spied out, that nothing is more so; and so must needs blast and dissever the cause and interest of that party it was de

* Howe's Work, in one vol., p. 1076.

signed to serve, and therefore could never be. And the impossibility of any such alteration it

is

easy for any man that useth his understanding to apprehend from a similar instance. And thus, do but take any one people that are under the same government, and that have their laws, by which they are governed, digested into some system or other; as, for instance, our statute book; why, suppose very ill-minded men in the nation should have a design to corrupt and alter the statute book, every one would see it to be impossible. Which way would they go to work to impose a false statute book upon a nation, wherein every man's right and property is concerned? And if any such should have such a design, they would soon give it up, as finding it impossible, and a thing not to be done, and therefore a vain thing to attempt. But the difficulty is a thousand times greater of making designed alteration of those sacred books and records that are spread so unspeakably further than a nation, and wherein the concernments of all that have them in their hands are recorded, not temporal only, but eternal. Here is their all

for eternity, another world! So that it must be altogether impossible that there could have been such a thing effected; and therefore it is the most unlikely thing that such a matter should ever be attempted. And then, I say, if there be that plain evidence, that for that reason these books must be the same, that they cannot have been altered with design, and consequently not materially, then it were the most unreasonable thing in all the world to expect that God could confirm it to us otherwise than he hath done, or that the nature of the thing doth admit of it; because, otherwise, there must have been miracles wrought for every one to see and take notice of, nay, that would altogether loose the usefulness and significancy of miracles themselves, because it would make miracles so common in such a case. If every man must have a miracle to prove to him this is God's word, it would take off that particular thing for which they are only significant with men, that is, because they are rare and extraordinary things, and then they would cease to be so. It might as well be expected that every man should have a Bible

reached him down by an invisible hand from heaven, as that there should be a miracle wrought to prove to him that this was the same book that was so and so confirmed and sealed in our Saviour's and his apostles' time. And therefore I reckon that, upon the grounds that have been laid, it is very plain both that these books that were extant under the name of Scriptures in our Saviour's and his apostles' time, were of divine authority, and that the books that we now have in our hands are the same with those books, and therefore are of divine authority."

It is, then, a most animating consideration, that, by a variety of striking providences, it hath pleased Almighty God to preserve to us unmutilated and uncorrupted the very records which the first Christians held to be divine, and upon the doctrines and principles of which they were ready, in the midst of the greatest dangers, to repose their eternal all. It is highly consolatory to those who have but little time and few advantages for research to be informed, upon the most indubi

* Howe's Work, p. 1076.

table evidence, that in their English Bibles they have the same precious document which was read in the first assemblies of the Christian church; and that, in the multiplication of manuscripts and translations, no serious or important alteration has been obtruded into the sacred text. For this fact let the humble and devout Christian bless God; and, in the contemplation of it, let the rejecter of Revelation pause and tremble, lest peradventure he should be found fighting against God.

Let this chapter be fairly weighed in connexion with what has been previously advanced on the subject of the evidences of our holy faith, and let him who still doubts say within himself "Wherefore do I doubt ?" To such a solemn interrogatory, conscience may perhaps supply the ready and faithful response, "How can you but doubt, while sin is blinding your perceptions, and hardening your heart ?"