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examine into it, that they may perfectly understand. The copies of the Books are so many that they can never be lost, and kept so pure that they cannot be corrupted. This Gospel is safe for ever.
It may not be further changed, said Havilah: — but if some say that it hath been grievously changed already, how can the Christians reply, if they have not counted the words from generation to generation, and if it hath not been promised from Heaven that no letter should be lost?
Because, replied Eber, we discern by the mind whether the spirit of the Books be true and entire: and the spirit alone is from God; the words are those of the men who wrote. This we know by the difference of the language in which the same thoughts are told. I have related to thee how Jesus and his followers ate together on the night when he was betrayed. Peter was heard by them to declare that he would never leave Jesus; and Jesus was heard to reply, that Peter would deny, before the morning came, that he knew him. The four men who wrote the history of Jesus heard and related this thing; but, though the story is the same in the four Books, the words in which it is told are unlike in all. Those also who heard
