GENUINENESS OF OUR INSPIRED BOOKS.
THE Christian may rest in perfect assurance, and on evidence of the highest and most incontestable character, that the books of the Bible, which claim to be the inspired revelation of God to man, are the genuine writings of the men whose names they bear. No ancient writings have one-quarter of the proof which the manuscripts of the Holy Scriptures can claim. The writings, for instance, of Herodotus have been found in less than twenty manuscript copies in various ancient libraries, evidently about eight hundred years old; and yet scholars accept without question their genuineness. But we find no less than six hundred manuscript copies of the Greek New Testament, some of them more than sixteen hundred years old; and more than twice as many of the Hebrew Scriptures—nearly two thousand in all—and these not eight hundred years old. These have not been found in one place, or under circumstances which could render it possible for them to have been designedly copied from each other, but some of them are from the Vatican, some from Alexandria, some from Mount Sinai, some from Syria. Some of these were written in the tenth century, some in the ninth, some in the eighth, some as early as the third and fourth, and some of the Hebrew copies are evidently older than the Christian era. All these manuscripts substantially agree, although they have never met before, and it is manifest that they must have been copied from a still more ancient volume. We find also numerous editions of the same old volume in various languages. From Russia comes a Slavonic version 1,000 years old. From Egypt comes a Coptic version 1,200 years old. From Ethiopia comes an Ethiopic version 1,300 years old. From Persia comes an Armenian version over 1,000 years old. From Italy comes the Latin or Vulgate version, 1,400 years old. From Africa comes the Hexapla of Origen, 1,500 years old. From Syria comes the Peshito, or Syriac version, 1,800 years old. From Rabbinical libraries there came the Targums, or Paraphrases of the Bible, still older. From Alexandria comes the old Septuagint or Greek version of the Old Testament, 285 years older than the Christian era. All these manuscripts substantially agree. The first volume contains the same thirty-nine books written by the same twenty-nine authors, whose lives covered a period of 1,000 years. The second volume contains the same twenty-seven books, written by the same ten men. The variations between the different copies are so slight as not to affect any essential fact or doctrine. Where in all literature is there a parallel to such a volume? Who can doubt that these ancient writings are what they claim to be, the veritable writings of Moses and David, Isaiah and Ezra, Paul and John, Matthew and Peter?—Christian Work.