numerous as their minute and unimportant differences are, their general agreement is of the most satisfactory kind. For, as we have before stated, each and every copy contains the same rule of life, gives us the same course of history, refers to the same prophecies, relates the same miracles, and establishes the same institution.

Is there a copy of the Christian Scriptures in any language, from which the honest inquirer would draw a different system of faith and duty, or a different representation of the divine character and government from that, which he finds in the copy before him; or one in which he might not find the whole system of Christian history, doctrine, and morals? Is there a copy from which a single article of our faith, important to be known, believed, or practised, is absent? It belongs to him, who would weaken your confidence in the sacred writings by suspicions of their corruption, to produce one; to show, that the alterations, which the text has undergone, are such, and the varieties in the different copies of such a nature, as to render our faith, and duty, and hopes, uncertain. Until this is done, we have a right to regard the authority of the Christian Scriptures, and the purity of the text, as firmly established; so that the various readings discovered in the different copies are no reasonable ground of perplexity or alarm, since they furnish no just cause of triumph to the enemy of our faith.

But this is not all that may be said. The various readings, of which we are speaking, are not merely harmless. They serve at once the purpose of ascertaining to us the extent, to which the text has suffered by the hand of time, and of furnishing the means of repairing the injury. Their existence and their publicity show, that these books have passed down the current of time subject to the same casualties, as other ancient writings, and accordingly liable to no peculiar suspicion of having been tampered with by their friends, for the purpose of concealing or disguising their real state. While, therefore, they confessedly furnish proof of change, or if you please, corruption of the original text to a certain degree, they supply also the means of correcting errours in the received text, and of restoring it to its primitive purity. To this use they have been successfully applied, and to this use they are to be still farther applied.

Since the printing of the Greek text of the New Testa

ment, in the sixteenth century, manuscripts of great antiquity, and some of them of great value, have come to light; and together with them also ancient versions, which were at that time but little known, or inaccessible. In these manuscripts and versions, and in quotations from the Scriptures in the writings of the early Fathers, are found the various readings, which the industry of biblical scholars has collected together, and which, at first view, present so formidable an aspect on the margin of every page of the corrected text of Griesbach. It was by the help of these, that a work so desirable to the Christian world was achieved by that indefatigable scholar; that of rescuing the text of the New Testament from those faults, by which the Christian, though his religious views and his system of faith were not essentially affected, often found his understanding perplexed, and his taste offended, and sometimes even his judgment misled.

Of these manuscripts, according to Marsh the learned translator of Michaelis, more than 450 have actually been examined either wholly or in part; and this number makes but a small part of those, which are yet to be drawn forth, if their testimony should be required, either in support of the text, or for its correction. No less than 355 manuscripts were consulted in forming the corrected text of Griesbach. It is however to be observed, that very few of these were complete copies of the whole New Testament. Most of the manuscripts contain only the four Gospels, some of them only the Acts and the Catholick Epistles; others these last together with the Epistles of Paul; a few only contain the Apocalypse; and many are defective, having lost by time, or use, or want of care in their preservation, several parts, which originally belonged to them; and some consist only of a few fragments.*

*This incompleteness of ancient manuscripts is a fact of some importance. The ignorance of it has sometimes led to mortifying mistakes; and a presumption of the ignorance of others has emboldened violent partizans to practice the most impudent imposition for the purpose of supporting a favourite doctrine. An instance of this is related by Wetstein of a French preacher in the Netherlands, who asserted in a public discourse, that the disputed text, 1 John, v. 7, relative to the three heavenly witnesses, was contained in the Codex Cantabrigiensis, whereas the epistle itself is not in that copy. The manuscript consists only of the four Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles.

He mentions also another instance of a similar kind. It was asserted by a writer of some character, that the doxology to the Lord's prayer, which in the received text is found in the 6th chapter of Matthew, was contained in the Alexandrine manuscript, whereas the fact is, that the chapter itself is not there. It is well known that the twenty four first chapters of Matthew are missing from that copy.

There are three circumstances of difference, by which the relative value of manuscripts, for the purpose of ascertaining the purity of the text, or for correcting it, may be estimated. 1st. They are, in the first place, to be distinguished by the materials upon which they are written.

The most ancient copies are on vellum. The only exception is that of a copy of the Gospel of Mark at Venice, written on the Egyptian papyrus, which is believed to be of great antiquity. But how far it makes an exception is uncertain, as its exact age is not known.

Those written on the charta bombycina, a kind of cotton paper, are of considerable antiquity. But these cannot be referred to a period earlier than the ninth century. By far the greatest number of manuscripts are written upon common paper, and are known from that circumstance alone to be of modern date. They were chiefly written, says Wetstein, in Italy, as late as the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and can none of them belong to a period earlier than the thirteenth. 2d. A second important distinction in manuscripts relates to the character in which they are written.

The most ancient are written wholly in what are called Uncial or capital Letters. They are without accents or aspirates, and for the most part without any distinction of words. Whole sentences in succession are written in a continuous manner, without intervals of space between any of the letters, to designate the words of which the passage consists. The oldest of them now extant are supposed by some to have been written as early as the fourth century. By others their date is fixed to the fifth or sixth. The character, in which the most ancient are written, is perfectly simple and unadorned, resembling the inscriptions, which are found on the most ancient Grecian monuments. Of this description are the Alexandrine and Cambridge manuscripts, very excellent copies of which are to be seen in the library of Harvard College.

Those which were written as late as the ninth century appear in a character more rude, and at the same time far more ornamented; partaking very clearly, as is observed, of the taste of a semibarbarous age. By this circumstance criticks are enabled to determine, with a considerable degree of confidence, the age of copies, falling between those periods, by the degree in which they approach, on the one hand, to the

simplicity of the former, or, on the other hand, to the rudeness and cumbrous ornament of the latter.

Those copies, which appear in the small Greek letter, are comparatively modern. The tenth century is the highest antiquity, to which the oldest of them can have any claim.

3d. For the purpose of estimating the relative value of manuscripts, they have again been reduced to several classes, according to the countries from which they were brought. They are traced to four families or editions, from some one of which each of the copies, which have yet been discovered, is supposed to have sprung.

There was, in the first place, the western edition, consisting of those copies, which were used in countries, where the Latin language was spoken. It coincides with the Latin version, which was probably made from it; and its agreement with the more ancient Latin version is said to be still closer, than with the present text of the Vulgate. It corresponds also, as might be expected, with the quotations in the Latin Fathers.

There was, in the next place, the Alexandrine edition, which was the copy used in Egypt, and from which was made the version into the Coptic, or language of Lower Egypt, and probably also into the Sahidic, or the language spoken in Upper Egypt. With this text the quotations in the writings of Origen, Cyril, and other divines of the Alexandrine school, are found also to agree.

There was, in the third place, what is called the Edessene edition, chiefly important as the parent of the ancient Syriac version. We have no certainty that any copy of this edition is now in being. It is however stated, as a remarkable fact, that although the version mentioned above has so completely taken place of the original in the East, where it was made, that the original itself has disappeared; yet Greek copies have been found in the West of Europe, which coincide so closely with the Syriac version, that, however difficult it may be to account for the fact, there can be little doubt, that they belong to the same edition, and were derived from the same copy, from which that version was made. How they came into Europe or when is not known.

In the last place is mentioned the Byzantine edition, which was the copy used at Constantinople, the capital of the East

ern empire. As this was the edition used where the Greek language was spoken, there are many more copies of this edition, than of all the others together. To this edition are to be referred the quotations of Chrysostom, and those of Theophylact, bishop of Bulgaria, as also the Sclavonian or Russian version. And it is finally to be regarded as the basis of our received text, which is often found to agree with this, where it varies from the readings of the other editions.

TRANSIENT GOODNESS.

THE picture, which the pen of inspiration has drawn of transient virtue, as resembling 'the morning cloud and the early dew,' is, we fear, a just picture of the goodness of a large proportion of every Christian community. Of this kind of virtue, we may say, that it blossoms but bears no fruit. It holds out promises, which it does not perform. It is fair in appearance, but it wants reality and substance. When men commence a course of religion, and do not persevere; when they resolve, but fail to execute ; when they are unfaithful to their own purposes and convictions; when their zeal is chilled to indifference, and charity waxes cold, and devotion languishes; when the world with its cares, and pleasure with its allurements; when riches in their deceitfulness, or the lust of other things come and take possession, where religion was preparing itself an abode, then is their 'goodness like the morning cloud and the early dew.'

But to form right views of this short lived virtue, we must distinguish it carefully from hypocrisy, the characteristick of which is, that it assumes the garb of religion without any feeling of its power. The character, here intended, is sincere as far as it goes. It really means what it proposes at the time; and we see, at once, its origin and its danger, in that it yields itself without consideration to the impulse of feeling, and mistakes a passing emotion for the strength and consistency of mature resolution. Peter was not a hypocrite, when he resolved before his Lord, Though I die with thee, yet will I not deny thee.' It was the ardour of his heart, uttering itself