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THE

AUTHENTICITY,

UNCORRUPTED PRESERVATION,

AND

CREDIBILITY

OF THE

NEW TESTAMENT.

BY

GODFREY LESS,

LATE PROFESSOR IN THE UNIVERSITY OF GOTTINGEN, &C.

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PRINTED FOR F. C. AND J. RIVINGTON, No. 62, st. pauL'S
CHURCH-YARD; J. HATCHARD, NO. 190, RICCADILLY;
DEIGHTON, AND NICHOLSON, CAMBRIDGE; AND COOKE,
HANWELL, AND PARKER, OXFORD;

By Bye and Law, St. John's Square, Clerkenwell,
1804.

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TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE.

THE fubject of the work now offered to the public in an English tranflation is an examination of the following queftions: Whether the books of the New Teftament were really written by the perfons to whom they are ascribed; Whether they have defcended to us perfectly uncorrupted in all effential matters, as they left the hands of their authors; And, laftly, Whether they contain a narration of events which did actually take place.

That this inquiry is of the greatest confequence, and demands our most impartial attention, will be evident from thefe confiderations:-That if we cannot anfwer the above queftions in the affirmative, then is the Chrif tian Religion a cunningly devifed fable:--but, on the contrary, if in refult of the examination, it fhould be found that the New Teftament is both genuine and authentic,-then it a 2 will

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will require but few arguments to fhew that the miracles contained in it, are true, that the writers were infpired perfons, and that our holy faith is a revelation of the will of God.

On this fubject the learned author of the following work, Dr. Lefs, had himself entertained doubts during many years of his life: for his own private fatisfaction he inftituted a fevere and rigid inquiry: the refult is exhibited to the Public in the prefent treatise; and to himself the confequence was a folid, rational. and fatisfactory conviction. The Original was put into my hands, during my refidence in Germany, by a person of distinguished worth: on perufal it appeared to me extremely well calculated, from its concifeness, perfpicuity, and feverity of examination to produce the fame effect on others, and to be of service to the Chriftian caufe; as I cannot conceive it poffible for any man, who honestly and impartially, feeks after truth, to read it with the attention which the fubject demands, without receiving the fame conviction which the author himself obtained. This opinion of the original work firft led me to form the defign of tranflating it into my native language.

Few

Few are the writers who have exprefsly treated on the Authenticity of the books of the New Teftament, and fewer ftill who have done it in a manner always fatisfactory to the reader. Du Pin is miferably defective: and Jones feems to have been anxious rather to shew that certain writings are Apocryphal, than to prove that the books of the New Teftament are Canonical. Indeed he has paffed over all the Epiftles and the Apocalypse without paying the least regard to them.

But fince his time Dr. Lardner has employed immenfe labour and profound erudition on the fame fubject: nor do I know any man to whom the Chriftian world has more obligations than to the author of the Credibility of the Gofpel-Hiftory. He appears to have almost exhausted his fubject, and to have rendered any subsequent undertaking of a fimilar nature perfectly unneceffary. Inftead of giving my own opinion on the difference between the present treatise and the voluminous work of Lardner, I will lay before the reader the fentiments of the great Michaelis and of the Rev. Herbert Marsh, one of the most accurate Theological scholars that any age or country has ever produced. The best treatises" fays Michaelis upon

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