INTRODUCTION. Xl

ia the tabernacle, temple, or synagogue. The later wars and domestic revolu-
tions, suffered by the Jewish nation, involved to a great extent the destruction
of their homes, their cities, their sanctuaries, and hundreds of thousands of
lives; but their Holy Books were preserved amidst the common ruin. When
Antiochus Epiphanes captured Jerusalem he attempted to destroy every copy
and fragment of the Jewish Scriptures. A few copies, however, escaped the
ravages of the “ Desolater,” and were carried away by the captive Jews.
During their long captivity in a heathen land, their forms of worship were
interrupted and their national institutions destroyed; but the Providence of
God watched over the Holy Scriptures and preserved them unharmed.

Another fact, bearing on the evidence that these Sacred Writings are of su-
perhuman origin, is their being preserved unaltered. Other writings have been
mutilated and changed from their original form. Not so the Bible. The
Jews cherished such profound reverence for their Sacred Books, that the
utmost care and pains were taken by copyists to avoid the slightest mistake or
alteration in the copies they made. The omission or addition of a single letter,
if discovered, would vitiate the manuscript, and cause it to be condemned.
Some three hundred years before Christ the Old Testament was, by order of
Ptolemy Philadelphus, an Egyptian king, translated from the Hebrew into
Greek, on which work seventy scholars were employed. This ancient version,
quoted often by the apostles, on being compared with the original, and also
with our version as now received, is found to agree with the same in all impor-
tant particulars. There have been collected from many quarters several
hundred manuscripts, some of them written as early as the fourth century, one
of the oldest being very recently discovered in the convent of Mount Sinai, all
which, on being critically examined and compared, are found to agree with
each other in all essential. points, as it respects history and doctrine. Thus
may the care of a protecting Providence be clearly recognized in the circum-
stances which have prevented all such changes in the text of the Scriptures, as
would obscure, or render doubtful the original reading. While cotemporary
works, embodying the productions of human wisdom and learning, have long
since been irrecoverably lost, or so changed as to make them worthless, the
Bible has been wonderfully preserved from loss, mutilation, or alteration,
through thousands of years down to the present time. As another has said,
“Cities fall, kingdoms come to nothing, empires fade away as the smoke. But
that the Bible no tyrant should have been able to consume, no tradition to
choke, no heretic maliciously to corrupt; that it should unto this day, amid
the wreck of all that is human, without the alteration of one sentence, so as to
change the doctrine taught therein ; surely here is a very singular Providence,
claiming our attention in a most remarkable manner.” How true, that “the
Word of the Lord endureth forever.” .

The evidence for the Divine authority of the Holy Scriptures is confirmed by
the fact of the harmony of their teachings and statements. It is known that
they were written by many men, who lived in different provinces, and in differ-