availed itself.  It is no reproach to the editors of the primary editions that, with their comparatively scanty materials, they could not accomplish as much as we can with the rich and varied means at our disposal.  The essential integrity of the received text, we do indeed thankfully acknowledge and firmly maintain.  Our fathers had presented to them in this text the same divine and glorious Saviour, the same way of salvation, the same holy system of doctrines and duties, as we now find in the most carefully revised modern text.  Nevertheless, a true reverence for the inspired word must impel us to the diligent use of all the means at our command for setting forth a pure text, that is, a text conformed as nearly as possible to that of the original autographs.  Viewed in this light the modern critical editions of the New Testament must possess a deep interest for all who are able to read it in the original tongue.  But to discuss the merits of these would be foreign to the design of the present work.

Examples of the more important various readings occur in John 1:18; Acts 20:28; 1 Tim. 3:16.  The passage 1 John 5:7, 8, in heaven—­in earth, is generally rejected on the testimony of the manuscripts (see the full discussion in Horne, vol. 4, ch. 36).  Among the passages which are regarded as more or less doubtful may be mentioned John 5:4; 8:3-11; Acts 8:37.  In regard to all these the biblical scholar must be referred to the critical commentaries.  So also for the questions connected with the text of Mark 16:9-20, which are of a peculiar character.

III.  PRINCIPLES OF TEXTUAL CRITICISM.

8.  The end proposed by textual criticism is to restore the sacred text as nearly as possible to its primitive purity (Chap. 7, No. 1).  To this work the biblical scholar should come in a candid and reverential spirit, prepared to weigh carefully all the evidence which is accessible to him, and decide, not as an advocate, but as a judge, in the simple interest of truth.  The three great sources of evidence for the original text of the New Testament are Greek manuscripts, versions, and the citations of the fathers.  Of these, Greek manuscripts hold the first place.  But all manuscripts are not of equal value.  Other things being equal, the oldest manuscripts have the highest authority.  “If the multiplication of copies of the New Testament had been uniform, it is evident that the number of later copies preserved from the accidents of time would have far exceeded that of the earlier, yet no one would have preferred the fuller testimony of the thirteenth to the scantier documents of the fourth century.  Some changes are necessarily introduced in the most careful copying, and these are rapidly multiplied.”  Westcott in Smith’s Bible Dict.; Art.  New Test.  Yet, as the same writer remarks, we may have evidence that a recent manuscript has been copied from one