JOHN BROWN
OF HADDINGON
ON THE AUTHENTICITY OF PRINTED COPIES
Printed copies of our Bible are of as much authority as any manuscripts extant, or any other not taken from the autographs of the prophets and apostles.
Scarce ever a transcriber took the tenth or twentieth part of care and pains, in comparing copies, or in correcting his work, which hath been taken on the principal editions of the Hebrew and Greek Testaments.
To promote their own gain and in the case of private writs, securing civil property, which may be easily corrupted, lawyers do not admit copies of copies as authentic. But that can by no means prove, that copies of the most public and incorruptible copies of writings, which relate to the most public interests, should not be sustained as authentic.
If such copies be not admitted proofs of correspondent original, and the mistakes of one copy allowed to be corrected from others more exact, every ancient writing in the world, and most of the modern ones must pass for forgeries; as few can produce, or even swear that they saw the originals.
Source: John Brown, A Compendius View of Natural and Revealed Religion, Book I, Ch. 3, Pg. 71.
