It has been said that “when the cause of a various reading is known, the variation usually disappears(257).” This language may seem extravagant, yet it hardly exaggerates what may be effected by internal evidence, when it is clear, simple, and unambiguous. It is, therefore, much to be lamented that this is seldom the case in practice. Readings that we should uphold in virtue of one canon, are very frequently (perhaps in a majority of really doubtful passages) brought into suspicion by means of another; yet they shall each of them be perfectly sound and reasonable in their proper sphere. An instance in point is Matt. v. 22, where the external evidence is divided. Codd. אΒ (in Δ _secundâ manu_), 48, 198, 583, 587, Origen _twice_, the Ethiopic and Vulgate, omit εἰκῆ after πᾶς ὁ ὀργιζόμενος τῷ ἀδελφῷ ἀυτοῦ, Jerome fairly stating that it is “in quibusdam codicibus,” not “in veris,” which may be supposed to be Origen’s MSS., and therefore removing it from his revised Latin version. It is found, however, in all other extant copies (including ΣDEKLMSUVΔ (_primâ manu_) Π, most cursives, all the Syriac (the Peshitto inserting, not a Syriac equivalent, but the Greek word εἰκῆ) and Old Latin copies, the Bohairic, Armenian, and Gothic versions), in Eusebius, in many Greek Fathers, in the Latin Fathers from Irenaeus downwards(258), and even in the Old Latin Version of Origen himself; the later authorities uniting with Codd. ΣD and their associates against the two oldest manuscripts extant. Under such circumstances the suggestions of internal evidence would be precious indeed, were not that just as equivocal as diplomatic proof. “Griesbach and Meyer,” says Dean Alford, “hold it to have been expunged from motives of moral rigorism:—De Wette to have been inserted to soften the apparent rigour of the precept(259).” Our sixth Canon is here opposed to our first(260). The important yet precarious and strictly auxiliary nature of rules of internal evidence will not now escape the attentive student; he may find them exemplified very slightly and imperfectly in the twelfth Chapter of this volume, but more fully by recent critical editors of the Greek Testament; except perhaps by Tregelles, who usually passes them by in silence, though to some extent they influence his decisions; by Lachmann, in the formation of whose provisional text they have had no share; and by Dean Burgon, who held that “we must resolutely maintain, that External Evidence must after all be our best, our only safe guide” (The Revision Revised, p. 19)(261). We will close this investigation by citing a few of those crisp little periods (conceived in the same spirit as our own remarks) wherewith Davidson is wont to inform and sometimes perhaps to amuse his admirers: