arly ages of Christianity.

Fourthly, he will learn too that the Christians most distinguished
for their learning on this subject, for instance, Michaelis, Semler,
Lessing, Eichorn, and the erudite Bishop Marsh, do allow and
maintain in their works, that the Gospels according to Matthew,
Mark and Luke were compiled from accounts of the life and
doctrines of Jesus which became, after different additions,
revisions and translations, the BASIS of our present Gospels; from
such separate materials, which had gone through different hands,
and had acquired a variety of text and context, from the different
transcripts and translations in which they circulated, though for the
most part they were copied verbatim from one another, several
Gospels, among which were our three first Matthew Mark and
Luke, were composed AFTER [fn13] the destruction of Jerusalem,
and designated some by the names of the readers for whom they
were designed, and others by the names of their authors and
compilers. (See the life of Semler in Eichorn's Universal Library,
as quoted by Mr. E. p. 465. of his work.)

These Gospels then, in the opinion of these learned Christians,
were originally compiled from anonymous writings, which had
gone through different hands and been variously altered, and
added to in the passage, before they became the BASIS,!! of our
present Gospels.[fn14]

Lastly, he will discover, that since their construction from such
nameless materials, they have been further altered and
interpolated. Celsus accuses the Christians of his time (the latter
part of the 2nd century) of "continually altering their Gospels;" and
the ancient Christian sects accuse each other of the same fact.
That these accusations were well founded, is evident from
Griesbach's edition of the Greek Testament, where besides the
notice of some hundred thousands of various readings, we find
not only single words, but whole phrases, and verses, and even
entire paragraphs rejected as corruptions and interpolations.
Neither have all these corruptions been accidental; for as much as
the strongest text in the New Testament, in support of the doctrine
of the Trinity and the Divinity of Jesus Christ, which is to be found
in the first Epistle, called of John ch. v. 7, "there are three that
bear witness in Heaven. The Father, the Word, and the Holy
Ghost and these three are one," has been struck out of the text by
Griesbach, himself a Trinitarian, as a pious fraud, and is now