These MSS.

omit so many words, phrases, sentences, verses of Scripture,--that it is altogether incredible that the proximity of like endings can have much to do with the matter.

Inadvertency may be made to bear the blame of some omissions: it cannot bear the blame of shrewd and significant omissions of clauses, which invariably leave the sense complete.

A systematic and perpetual mutilation of the inspired Text must needs be the result of design, not of accident[17].
[It will be seen therefore that the causes of the Corruptions of the Text class themselves under two main heads, viz.

(I.) Those which arose from Inadvertency, and (II.) Those which took their origin in Design.] FOOTNOTES: [10] 2 Kings xxii.