I
believe universally acknowledged as such by learned Christians.

There are also, two other passages which for ages have been
cited as proofs of the Divinity of Jesus (viz. "The Church of God
which he has redeemed with his own blood," Acts ch. xx. 28. and
"God was manifested in the flesh," in the first Epistle to Timothy,
ch. iii. 16.) which the same Critic has proved to have been altered
from their original reading to favour the same doctrine, and it is
impossible to say how many more frauds of a similar nature might
be detected, if the learned and candid Christians before-
mentioned were in possession of the primitive manuscripts of the
New Testament.[fn15]

All these enormities Mr. Everett, who has a light hand in writing
upon some subjects, comprizes with great tenderness in the
following expressions, "our copies of the New Testament by the
lapse of time, have suffered some literal alterations, which may
have fallen occasionally on the quoted texts (he is trying to justify
the writers of the New Testament, for quoting the Old Testament
otherwise than it is written) and thus made them to differ from the
reading of the Old Testament," p. 279.

I have supposed that a reasonable and reasoning man, desirous
to ascertain the truth of the religion of the Christians, and in the
hope of finding it well founded, in the course of his examination of
the testimony for the authenticity and authority of the books of the
New Testament, comes to the knowledge of all these
circumstances. If the reader be such a man, I would ask him, if he
can rationally rest his belief in the moral attributes of God and his
faith in a future life, upon a foundation composed of such
materials?

Mr. Everett observes "that as prophecy and miracle are equally
divine works, it is impossible that they should contradict each
other. They are equally the works of the God of truth, and
whatever contradiction there appears to be between them, must
be but apparent. If a person of whatever pretensions proposes to
work miracles in support of those pretensions, in which
nevertheless he is contradicted by express prophecy, one of these
things is certain--that the prophecy is a forged one--or that we
have mistaken the meaning of it--or that the miracles are not real,"
p. 3. of Mr. Everett's work.

Granted--upon this ground I think that Mr. Everett can fairly be
brought to issue. I presume that he will hardly persist in
maintaining that the Gospels are a su