Fourthly, as these differences of version arise often tinder the _same_ reading of the original text; but as, in the meantime, there are many _different_ readings, here a fifth source of possible error calls for a fifth inspiration overruling us to the proper choice amongst various readings. What may be called a 'textual' inspiration for _selecting_ the right reading is requisite for the very same reason, neither more nor less, which supposes any verbal inspiration originally requisite for _constituting_ a right reading. It matters not in which stage of the Bible's progress the error commences; first stage and last stage are all alike in the sight of God. There was, reader, as perhaps you know, about six score years ago, another _Phil._, not the same as this _Phil._ now before us (who would be quite vexed if you fancied him as old as all _that_ comes to--oh dear, no! he's not near as old)--well, that earlier _Phil._ was Bentley, who wrote (under the name of _Phileleutheros Lipsiansis_) a pamphlet connected with this very subject, partly against an English infidel of that day. In that pamphlet, _Phil._ the first pauses to consider and value this very objection from textual variation to the validity of Scripture: for the infidel (as is usual with infidels) being no great scholar, had argued as though it were impossible to urge anything whatever for the word of God, since so vast a variety in the readings rendered it impossible to know what _was_ the word of God. Bentley, though rather rough, from having too often to deal with shallow coxcombs, was really and unaffectedly a pious man. He was shocked at this argument, and set himself seriously to consider it. Now, as all the various readings were Greek, and as Bentley happened to be the first of Grecians, his deliberate review of this argument is entitled to great attention. There were, at that moment when Bentley spoke, something more (as I recollect) than ten thousand varieties of reading in the text of the New Testament; so many had been collected in the early part of Queen Anne's reign by Wetstein, the Dutchman, who was then at the head of the collators. Mill, the Englishman, was at that very time making further collations. How many he added, I cannot tell without consulting books--a thing which I very seldom do. But since that day, and long after Bentley and Mill were in their graves, Griesbach, the German, has risen to the top of the tree, by towering above them all in the accuracy of his collations. Yet, as the harvest comes before the gleanings, we may be sure that Wetstein's barn housed the very wealth of all this variety. Of this it was, then, that Bentley spoke. And what _was_ it that he spoke? Why, he, the great scholar, pronounced, as with the authority of a Chancery decree, that the vast majority of various readings made no difference at all in the sense. In the _sense_, observe; but many things _might_ make a difference in the sense which would still leave the doctrine undisturbed.