show very clearly that the New Testament has not been altered, but that it is to all intents and purposes the same volume which was in the hands of the first Christians and their opposers, containing the same accounts that it did when first written.

SECTION V.

VARIOUS READINGS-THEIR CHARACTER, AND THEIR RELATION TO THE INTEGRITY OF THE TEXT OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. INTERPOLATIONS-HOW DETECTED.

1. IN the preceding section we have endeavored to show, that the books of the New Testament have not been corrupted or altered, so as to affect any essential portion of the text, or render doubtful or obscure any point of faith or practice. This being established, it seems just and proper to devote some space to the subject of “ various readings," and the few known additions to the text, that it may be seen these do not conflict with the argument of that section.

2. The number of various readings amounts, perhaps, to over one hundred thousand. More than three-fourths of these are to be set aside from the discussion at once; first, because they are found in so few authorities, many in only a single manuscript or father; and second, because it is perfectly easy to explain their origin. And the remainder, with the exception of a very few, are entirely unimportant as respects either criticism or faith. They consist of different spellings of the same word; different tenses of the same verb, or cases of the same noun, not affecting the sense; omission or addition of particles, as and, for, if, as, so, &c; a change or omission of marks

or accents; insertion or omission of an article, or a word, or a letter; interchange of the singular and plural, where either is correct, a substitution of a word for its equivalent or synonym; the transposition of words; the change of a capital for a small letter, a compound word for a simple, or a proper noun for the corresponding pronoun; the change of "Jesus" for "Christ," or the addition of one to the other; &c, &c.

3. Now it is easy to see how such readings or differences might be multiplied, by a close examination of even a dozen manuscripts of any considerable work. But these various readings of the New Testament are the results of repeated minute study and comparison of one hundred and fifty manuscripts, some containing all, and some part of the New Testament books; of all the ancient versions, Lyriac, the earlier and later Latin, Ethiopic, Arabic, Coptic, Armenian, Gothic, Saxon, &c; of all the Greek and Latin fathers for a period of five hundred years or more! Is it very strange that, with such an extended and protracted ransacking of every "hole and corner 99 of the earth, there should be found many thousands of such slight variations or differences as we have named? So far from this, it would be wonderful, considering the carelessness of transcribers, and the multitude of copies, if it were not exactly as we find it. And if it were not so, the New Testament would be an exception to all other ancient books. And this brings me to say, what is kept out of sight by those who make so much talk about the various readings of the New Testament, viz: that the same thing is equally true of other ancient works, before the discovery of printing; and indeed since too, as will be found on examination.

4. Take Terence as an example, whose text is in as pure condition probably as any of the old classics. Bentley says, "I have seen twenty thousand various leesions

(readings) in that little author, not near so big as the whole New Testament; and am morally sure, that if half the number of manuscripts were collated for Terence with that niceness and minuteness which has been used in twice as many for the New Testament, the number of the variations would amount to fifty thousand." The same writer says that the edition of Tibullus by Broukhuise, shows as many readings as there are lines; and adds a like remark of Plautus edited by Parens. Of course poetry is less liable to alterations than prose, because the measure prevents it, where the transcriber is not irredeemably careless and stupid. Again, Bentley says, "I have examined several manuscripts of the poet Maulius, and can declare that the variations I have met with are twice as many as all the lines of the book!"

5. I remarked that these variations were not confined to manuscripts only, or to the period prior to printing. The edition of Lucretius by Wakefield, shows, by a rough summary of the table at the end, a collection of about twelve thousand variations of the text, collected from only five printed copies; and this exclusive of differences in spelling, which makes so considerable a portion of the various readings of the New Testament! An edition of Longinus on the Sublime, a work about the size of Mark's Gospel, gives three thousand readings from only eight manuscripts and two printed editions. Bekker furnishes about seven hundred and eighty closely printed octavo pages of variations from his text of Plato, making considerable more than sixty thousand; and these gathered from an average of thirteen manuscripts.* When, therefore,

* See Norton's Genuineness of the Gospel, vol. i. Additional Notes, A. Sect. iii. He quotes from Bentley on "Free Thinking." Gerard in his Institutes has given an excellent summary of the sources and kinds of various readings, Part II. chapt. i. pp. 211— '

we consider the large number of manuscripts of the New Testament, amounting to several hundreds; and add to these the manuscripts of numerous versions, and the quotations from the Greek and Latin fathers for several hundred years, citing from memory as many of them did-how this question of various readings, about which so much has been said, dwindles into smallest possible dimensions; and leaves untouched the argument of the previous section.

6. It remains to speak of Interpolations, or additions to the text of the New Testament. In a few instances this has been done accidentally; and possibly, in one or two cases, intentionally, with or without evil design. But the facility with which such addition may be detected by the difference in style, break in the narrative, the witness of manuscripts, versions, &c, forbids the possibility of important alterations. A single example will illustrate this. I select, as the most remarkable of the kind, the passage known as 1 John v. 7. This is undoubtedly an interpolation, as the following facts will show; while they will at the same time, unfold to the reader the method or process of discovering these additions.

269. It is easy for any one who writes to explain much of this. For example omitting the cross of the t, tone becomes lone, and tame lame, &c. A slight carelessness in making the s, and sight becomes right, or night. A hair line added to the c makes ear of car, or eat of cat; and wail is easily made mail. A slight flourish at the end of the t converts hat into hate; and it is easy to see how note, vote, rote may be mistaken one for the other. The lower part of B written faintly bebomes P, and u in the same way becomes v or r; and we can readily see how g, y, q may be interchanged, and k taken for h, d for a, m for n, &c. In this very manuscript I was sometime puzzled by mistaking "show" for "slow," in consequence of faintly writing the lower part of the h. The reader should write out these examples rapidly, for illustration.