_b_ _c_ _f_ _ff_ _i_ _l_ _q_, whereof _f_ mostly goes with the Vulgate (_hiant a e_), the Bohairic, Peshitto, Curetonian, Harkleian Syriac (the Jerusalem not containing this week-day Lesson), and the Ethiopic versions. So far as this side as stated is weak at all, it lacks Patristic evidence (which cannot now be investigated for our purpose), and the balance of internal evidence is decidedly adverse to it. 4. The student may try the same experiments on two other passages often urged in this debate, Matt. v. 22, for which he will find the materials above, p. 255, and Matt. xix. 17, which will be discussed in Chap. XII. We freely admit that these are but a few out of many cases where the statements of ancient writers about whose date there can be no question are borne out by the readings of the more ancient codices, especially of א or B, or of the two united. Undoubtedly this circumstance lends a weight and authority to these manuscripts, and to the few which side with them, which their mere age would not procure for them: it does not entitle them to be regarded as virtually the only documents worthy of being consulted in the recension of the sacred text; as qualifying to be sole arbiters in critical questions relating to the New Testament, against whose decision there can be no appeal. Yet nothing less than this is claimed in behalf of one or two of them by their devoted admirers. In a court of justice, we are told, when once the evidence of a witness has been thoroughly probed and tested, it is received thenceforth as true, even on those points where it stands alone, and in the face of strong antecedent improbabilities. Now reasoning in metaphor has its advantages, as well for the sake of clearly expressing our meaning, as of making an impression on those we address; but it is attended with this grave inconvenience, that, since the analogy between no two things that can be compared is quite complete, we are sorely tempted to apply to the one of them properties which appertain exclusively to the other. In the present instance, besides the properties wherein documentary can be assimilated to oral testimony, such as general accuracy and means of information, an important element is present in the latter, to which the former has nothing parallel, namely, moral character, that full persuasion of a witness’s good faith and disinterested integrity to which a jury will often surrender, and rightly surrender, all earlier impressions and predilections. Of this we can have nothing in the case of the manuscripts of Scripture which we now possess. In the second century we have seen too many instances of attempts to tamper with the text of Scripture, some merely injudicious, others positively dishonest; but all this was over long before the scribes of the fourth and fifth centuries began their happy task, as simple and honest copyists of the older records placed before them. Let their testimony be received with attention at all