Where Mill1 (says Maastricht in the last section of his pro legomena) adduces many Manuscripts, Versions, or Fathers, there, by a slight change in the number of Codices, three or four may, for example, be increased to six or seven : but not even that number ought to establish a various reading, in opposition to a hundred (Ed. ii., the vast majority of} other MSS. or witnesses. We have already spoken of his " hundred" or " vast majority." The difference is very trifling between three or four and six or seven : but the difference is in reality far greater, as any reader may learn, by comparing Maestricht's marginal readings with our Apparatus Criticus, on any disputed passage.
12. A great number of MSS. (twenty or more, for example), establishes beyond question the common reading of the Textus Receptus, provided it be of sound sense. This holds good especially in the case of omission.
A Reading " of sound sense," generally received before the in vention of printing, or even from that time forward, is confirmed by a just number of MSS.; but, from -various causes, a just number may consist sometimes of more, sometimes of fewer MSS. : and the antiquity of witnesses, together with the diversity of their origin, is of more weight than their mere number.
13. The Various Readings adduced by Stephen Courcelles2 must not be admitted as Various Readings, because he does not indicate the Codices from which they are obtained, or whether they are obtained from MSS. or from printed copies. They may even be considered as a single Codex.
I have spoken of Stephen Courcelles in my Apparatus Criti cus, p. 440 (Ed. ii., p. 76).3 Maastricht expresses his astonish-
1 John Mill, D.D. A learned divine. Born at Shap, Westmoreland, 1645. Entered as Servitor of Queen's College, Oxford, 1661. Became Rector of Blechington, Oxon., 1681, Principal of St Edmund's Hall, 1685, and Prebendary of Canterbury, 1704. He died 1707, the same year in which his edition of the Greek New Testament, which had occupied him for thirty years, was published. — (I. B.)
2 Stephen Courcelles, known also as Stephanus Curcellaeus, was born at Geneva, A.D. 1586. He became a follower of Arminius. After residing some time in France, he settled at Amsterdam, where he succeeded Epis- copius as Divinity professor. He died, A.D. 1658. He was an able writer, and a great linguist. — (I. B.)
* sc. Courcelles has seldom admitted anything into his margin, which has