his preface to the New Testament), Syriac, etc., Latinizing Greek, or other languages, the clear quotations of Irenceus, etc., according as Divine Providence dispenses its bounty to each generation. We include all these under the title of Codices, which has sometimes as comprehensive a signification.
5. These codices, however, have been diffused through Churches of all ages and countries, and approach so near to the original autographs, that, when taken together, in all the multi tude of their varieties, they exhibit the genuine text.
6. No conjecture is ever on any consideration to be listened to. It is safer to bracket [tutius seponitur~\ any portion of the text, which may haply appear to labour under inextricable difficulties.
7. All the codices taken together, should form the normal stand ard, by which to decide in the case of each taken separately.
8. The Greek Codices, which possess an antiquity so high, that it surpasses even the very variety of reading, are very few in number : the rest are very numerous.
9. Although versions and fathers are of little authority, where they differ from the Greek Manuscripts of the New Testament ; yet, where the Greek Manuscripts of the New Testament differ from each other, those have the greatest authority, with which versions and fathers agree.
10. The text of the Latin Vulgate,1 where it is supported by the consent of the Latin Fathers, or even of other competent witnesses, deserves the utmost consideration, on account of its singular2 antiquity.
countries. The writer in question thinks it probable that this MS. was written by Joannes Scotus, who lived at the court of Charles the Bald, King of France, and was the most celebrated opponent of Gottschalk. The MS., however, could not have been written later than the 9th century ; for, in the beginning of the 10th, the Gottschalk dispute had lost all its import ance. There is a transcript of this MS. in the library of Trinity College, Cambridge, among the books and MSS. left by Dr Bentley, who probably procured it for his intended edition of the Greek Testament. Professor Matthaei published a copy at Meissen, in Saxony, in 1791, in quarto, which was reprinted at the same place in 18 J 8, also in quarto. — (I. B )
1 The Latin Vulgate was corrected with the help of ancient Greek MSS., then in existence, by Jerome, in the fourth century, from a version, known as the Vctus Itala, supposed to have been executed in the second century. -(I- B.)
2 Singular is here used in its strictest sense, q. d. unique. — (I. B.)