ONE GENERATION SHALL PRAISE THY WORK3 TO ANOTHER. —Ps. 145: 4.

WE find ourselves in possession of a book, called the Bible, claiming to be inspired truth. As we have held this book in our possession from our earliest recollections, we may naturally inquire for its origin. Certainly, it was not originated by our own minds, neither was it coeval with the world's existence.

For all information of this character, we must resort to human testimony, though by so doing we are not to relinquish our own judgment, since it is our judgment that determines what testimony is worthy of credence, and what is not.

Our own reason determines that the general accounts we have of England, and that Bancroft's History of the United States are substantially true, and the same faculty determines that fictitious histories of fairy lands are not

true. A reliance upon human testimony does not, therefore, imply a renunciation of our own rational faculties, which we must ever regard as the standard by which we are to examine all subjects.

If we consider any department of knowledge, we shall find ourselves greatly indebted to our predecessors. The Phoenecians were the inventors of alphabetic writing, the Arabians of figures, and the Chaldeans of astronomical tables; and this book, which purports to be a revelation from heaven, has been handed down to us by our ancestors.

Now if in showing how we have come into possession of the Bible, we give only such proofs as no sane mind would think of rejecting in any other case, we shall sufficiently refer it to the tribunal of the individual judgments of its readers.*

Let us now proceed to trace the Bible back to its original

source.

1. Our first step in the process, is this; Our Bible is the self-same book, which was first printed under that

name.

The Latin Bible, called the Vulgate, from the fact of its being translated into the language of the common people, was translated by Jerome A. D. 405, and was printed A. D. 1450-55. This was the first printed edition of the Bible.

The Bible was printed in Spanish, in 1478; German, 1522; French, 1535; Sweedish, 1541; Danish, 1550; Dutch, 1560; Russian, 1581; Hungarian, 1589; Polish, 1596.

* See Lecture on the Standard by which the Bible is to be examined.

The Bible was first translated into English by John The Old Testament of this trans

Wickliffe, A. D. 1360. lation was never printed.

The first entire Bible, printed in English, was by Tyndal A. D. 1532. This Bible was revised by Coverdale and John Rogers, the martyr, and published A. D. 1537, being dedicated to Henry VII., and printed at Hamburgh. This is known by the name of Mather's Bible. It was printed by authority in England A. D. 1540; two years after which it was suppressed by the popish bishops, restored by Edward the VI., suppressed again by Mary, and again restored by Elizabeth.

Some English exiles at Geneva, made a new translation of the Bible, and published it A. D. 1560. This is called the Geneva Bible.

Archbishop Parker engaged learned men to make a translation of the Bible, which was published A. D. 1568. This is called the bishop's Bible.

The Roman Catholics published a translation of the New Testament Vulgate at Rheims A. D. 1584, and a translation of the Old Testament Vulgate A. D. 1609, at Doway. This is called the Doway Bible.

The last English Bible emanated from Hampton Court, under the patronage of James I., A. D. 1611. Fifty-four learned men were appointed by the King for this work A. D. 1604, but forty-seven of them, however, entered upon the work A. D. 1607, and their translation was published A. D. 1611. This is allowed by the learned of all countries to be one of the best, and most correct versions of the Bible.

Now many of these first printed Bibles are extant, and

are precisely the same as those we are accustomed to read. The coruption of the Bible, therefore, within the past two hundred and filty years, would have been a thing impossible. It could only have been done by great rogues, understanding all the languages in which the Bible had been printed, at a very great expense, with no adequate motive, and managed so dexterously, that its thousands of readers and admirers did not know of the change. Such an idea is so manifestly preposterous, that we should not have alluded to it at all. had it not been for the purpose of establishing a method of argument to be pursued throughout this discourse.

2. We are now prepared to take our second step in tracing the Lible to its original source. The Bible, which was first printed in our, and in other languages, is substantially the same as that acknowledged by the early Christians.

The Massonites, a sct of learned Jews of the school of Tiberias flourished, it is supposed, about the sixth century -certainly not far fiom that time. These men carefully numbered all the verses, words and letters of the Old Testament. This may, indeed, appear to be a very idle work, but the difficulty of adding to, or diminishing from a book, whose words and letters had been thus carefully numbered, may be readily conceived.

The agreement of the ancient manuscripts, from which our Bible was translated, shows that the primitive Church must have had the same Old Testament we possess. Upwards of three hundred and fifty manuscripts were collected by Griesbach for his critical edition of the Old Testament,

and about eleven hundred and fifty in all have been found, Thirteen manuscripts of the Samaritan Pentateuch have also been found.

The Old Testament was also translated into various languages at a very early age. In the Syriac-Peshito as early as A. D. 100; Vulgate 400; Coptic about 450; Ethiopic about 450; Georgiac 600; Anglo-Saxon 706. Copies, in these several translations, were multiplied and widely distributed.

Now imagine the difficulty of supplying a spurious or corrupt versions, from which ours and other modern translations were made. In order for this forgery, it would have been necessary for all the manuscripts in Hebrew, and other ancient versions to have been collected and destroyed, and then for a false book to have been put into the hand of the Church, either with or without their consent. We apprehend that the judgment of every sound mind, will not hesitate to decide that such a forgery could not have been practiced at any period between the primitive Church, and the time when the Bible was printed. Added to this, the Jews held the Old Testament in the highest veneration, and would not have allowed the Christians to corrupt it, without exposure; and any attempt at corruption on the part of the Jews, would not have escaped the exposal of the Christians. In like manner, the different Christian sects, served as a constant check upon each other. They began to arise in the days of the Apostles, and though they greatly disagree, all venerate the Old and New Testament Scriptures, and the Christian fathers, in their controversies, make such a complete transcript of the New Testament, as to occasion the remark,