Let no one at all events obscure the one question at issue, by asking,—“Whether we consider the _Textus Receptus_ infallible?” The merit or demerit of the Received Text has absolutely _nothing whatever to do with the question_. We care nothing about it. _Any_ Text would equally suit our present purpose. _Any_ Text would show the “old uncials” perpetually at discord _among themselves_. To raise an irrelevant discussion, at the outset, concerning the _Textus Receptus_:—to describe the haste with which Erasmus produced the first published edition of the N. T.:—to make sport about the copies which he employed:—all this kind of thing is the proceeding of one who seeks to mislead his readers:—to throw dust into their eyes:—to divert their attention from the problem actually before them:—_not_—(as we confidently expect when we have to do with such writers as these)—the method of a sincere lover of Truth. To proceed, however. II. and III. Nothing has been said as yet concerning the Text exhibited by the earliest of the VERSIONS and by the most ancient of the FATHERS. But, for the purpose we have just now in hand, neither are such details necessary. We desire to hasten forward. A somewhat fuller review of certain of our oldest available materials might prove even more discouraging. But _that_ would only be because it is impossible, within such narrow limits as the present, to give the reader any idea at all of the wealth of our actual resources; and to convince him of the extent to which the least trustworthy of our guides prove in turn invaluable helps in correcting the exorbitances of their fellows. The practical result in fact of what has been hitherto offered is after all but this, that we have to be on our guard against pinning our faith exclusively on two or three,—least of all on one or two ancient documents; and of adopting _them_ exclusively for our guides. We are shown, in other words, that it is utterly out of the question to rely on any single _set_ or _group_ of authorities, much less on any single document, for the determination of the Text of Scripture. Happily, our MANUSCRIPTS are numerous: most of them are in the main trustworthy: _all_ of them represent far older documents than themselves. Our VERSIONS (two of which are more ancient by a couple of centuries than any sacred codex extant) severally correct and check one another. Lastly, in the writings of a host of FATHERS,—the principal being Eusebius, Athanasius, Basil, the Gregories, Didymus, Epiphanius, Chrysostom, the Cyrils, Theodoret,—we are provided with contemporaneous evidence which, whenever it can be had, becomes an effectual safeguard against the unsupported decrees of our oldest codices, A B א C D, as well as the occasional vagaries of the Versions. In the writings of Irenæus, Clemens Alex., Origen, Dionysius Alex., Hippolytus, we meet with older evidence still. No more precarious foundation for a reading, in fact, can