ment, in his Notes on 1 Cor. vi. 5, that Courcelles should alone have been cited by the Oxford Editors, although Mill was in possession of thirty Manuscripts. It escapes him, therefore, that such things occur frequently, as, for example, on Matt. v. 48, and James ii. 18. Those even, who are devoid of the sense of sight, may ascertain, by the touch, that the Oxford Excerpts, which Maestricht has subjected to his Canons, are utterly unsuit able to them ; and also that he has not collated the editions with proper care. For he imagines that Courcelles is cited alone, or almost alone, where Courcelles quotes the text of printed editions, and sometimes the best text, as in Rom. vii. 6, 1 Peter ii. 21, and Rev. xxii. 15.
14. Even the most ancient versions, when differing from edi tions and Manuscripts, should not establish a Various Reading, as neither should printed books ; but they rather show the careless ness of the translator, or the corruptness of the copy, which he employed. The first Complutensian Edition, that of 1514, being extremely exact, and printed from various MSS. (resembling even in its type the ancient MSS. of Scripture), is of nearly as great authority as an actual Manuscript : on which account its various readings are indicated in the Oxford edition of 1675.
What may be the weight of Versions, where they agree with editions and Manuscripts, with some of them at least, we do not learn from this Canon. They certainly far surpass in an tiquity the Greek MSS. which we at present possess, and scarcely ever agree in supporting a manifestly corrupt reading. They are therefore of the very greatest weight where the Greek MSS. differ from each other. The Oxford margin cites a single Coptic version, with some Gothic fragments, and that only to the Gospels. This is a great defect. Nor, again, should printed books be denied the privilege of establishing a various reading,
not already been given by the first editors, or Grotius. Wherever he has in troduced anything new, he may be supposed to have obtained it from the MSS. which he mentions in his preface. He placed, however, his conjectures not in the Margin, but in the Appendix, certainly in his first edition, and dis tinguished them from various readings. He is, therefore, very unjustly accused of having placed them on a footing of equality, or mixing them together.— (I. B.)