1. It is altogether unaccountable, if this be indeed a true account of the matter, how it has come to pass that in no single MS. in the world, so far as I am aware, has this conformity been successfully achieved: for whereas the Septuagintal reading is [Greek: engizei moi ho laos outos EN to stomati AUTOU, kai EN tois cheilesin AUTON TIMOSI me],--the Evangelical Text is observed to differ therefrom in no less than six particulars. 2. Further,--If there really did exist this strange determination on the part of the ancients in general to assimilate the text of St. Matthew to the text of Isaiah, how does it happen that not one of them ever conceived the like design in respect of the parallel place in St. Mark? 3. It naturally follows to inquire,--Why are we to suspect the mass of MSS. of having experienced such wholesale depravation in respect of the text of St. Matthew in this place, while yet we recognize in them such a marked constancy to their own peculiar type; which however, as already explained, is _not_ the text of Isaiah? 4. Further,--I discover in this place a minute illustration of the general fidelity of the ancient copyists: for whereas in St. Matthew it is invariably [Greek: ho laos outos], I observe that in the copies of St. Mark,--except to be sure in (_a_) Codd. B and D, (_b_) copies of the Old Latin, (_c_) the Vulgate, and (_d_) the Peshitto (all of which are confessedly corrupt in this particular,)--it is invariably [Greek: outos ho laos]. But now,--Is it reasonable that the very copies which have been in this way convicted of licentiousness in respect of St. Mark vii. 6 should be permitted to dictate to us against the great heap of copies in respect of their exhibition of St. Matt. xv. 8? And yet, if the discrepancy between Codd. B and [Symbol: Aleph] and the great bulk of the copies in this place did not originate in the way insisted on by the critics, how is it to be accounted for? Now, on ordinary occasions, we do not feel ourselves called upon to institute any such inquiry,--as indeed very seldom would it be practicable to do. Unbounded licence of transcription, flagrant carelessness, arbitrary interpolations, omissions without number, disfigure those two ancient MSS. in every page. We seldom trouble ourselves to inquire into the history of their obliquities. But the case is of course materially changed when so many of the oldest of the Fathers and all the oldest Versions seem to be at one with Codexes B and [Symbol: Aleph]. Let then the student favour me with his undivided attention for a few moments, and I will explain to him how the misapprehension of Griesbach, Tischendorf, Tregelles and the rest, has arisen. About the MSS. and the Versions these critics are sufficiently accurate: but they have fatally misapprehended the import of the Patristic evidence; as I proceed to explain.