And surely by this time enough has been said to explain why these Scriptures should have been made a battle-field during some centuries, and especially in the fourth; and having thus been made the subject of strenuous contention, that copies of them should exhibit to this hour traces of those many adverse influences.

I say it for the last time,--of all such causes of depravation the Greek Poets, Tragedians, Philosophers, Historians, neither knew nor could know anything.

And it thus plainly appears that the Textual Criticism of the New Testament is to be handled by ourselves in an entirely different spirit from that of any other book.
Sec.

2.
I wish now to investigate the causes of the corruption of the Text of the New Testament.

I do not entitle the present a discussion of 'Various Readings,' because I consider that expression to be incorrect and misleading[13].