It follows therefore,--and this is the point to which I desire to bring the reader and to urge upon his consideration,--that the number of 'various readings' in the New Testament properly so called has been greatly exaggerated.

They are, in reality, exceedingly few in number; and it is to be expected that, as sound (sacred) Criticism advances, and principles are established, and conclusions recognized, instead of becoming multiplied they will become fewer and fewer, and at last will entirely disappear.

We cannot afford to go on disputing for ever; and what is declared by common consent to be untenable ought to be no longer reckoned.

That only in short, as I venture to think, deserves the name of a Various Reading which comes to us so respectably recommended as to be entitled to our sincere consideration and respect; or, better still, which is of such a kind as to inspire some degree of reasonable suspicion that after all it may prove to be the true way of exhibiting the text.
The inquiry therefore on which we are about to engage, grows naturally out of the considerations which have been already offered.

We propose to ascertain, as far as is practicable at the end of so many hundred years, in what way these many strange corruptions of the text have arisen.