But, going beyond this case, take that of a man who can enter with sufficient care into the literary evidences of the truth of the Bible. If skilled in its languages, he will go at once to the printed editions of the originals. Then he must inquire, from what manuscripts the received text was printed? And he will find it stated, that that of the New Testament, for instance, is one of about the year eleven or twelve hundred. And for that fact he has to rely on the critical skill of certain scholars and editors, some of whom saw the manuscript, and thought it to be of that age. But next comes the question: where are the ORIGINAL manuscripts? And it then appears that they are _lost_. Then where are the copies first taken? or even _soon_ taken, from the manuscripts? and it seems that these are _lost_ too. How then is he to prove that the manuscript from which our New Testament is translated is a faithful copy of what was written nearly eighteen hundred years before, and so unfortunately lost? He has thereupon a laborious task before him. He must trace, for instance, the various quotations in the writings of the Fathers of the Church; and then compare them with some early translations. In connexion with which, he might observe the reverence with which Holy Scripture is always treated in the primitive writings; and that the exact names of all the Sacred Treatises are preserved alike, in various places. And by pursuing these and kindred methods, he will at length arrive at a strong probable conclusion as to the genuineness and authenticity of the Holy Volume: a conclusion continually accumulating in power and becoming at last morally irresistible, and practically equivalent to a demonstration. He sees, in fact, that there are certain phenomena which can be explained by one hypothesis, and one only, and that therefore that one must be admitted. The actual state of Christian literature can only be explained on the supposition of the existence of some such Divine treatises as our New Testament at the close of the first century.