to the most and best MSS., in the other Books of the N. T. to the best printed editions. But the Exegesis (which is the subject at present principally under consideration), is based, and that rightly, upon the genuine Reading, as far as it can be as certained up to the present time, whether I have placed that Reading in the Text or the Margin : which was what I under took to show in Sections VIII and IX. On the other hand, a true Exegesis will show, that the selection of an edition of the Greek New Testament, with a text correctly revised, is not a question of mere curiosity.
There is great advantage in distinguishing, without dividing, the text into greater and smaller sections, which was first made clear by Anthony Blackwall,1 and his laborious editor, Christo pher Wollius.2 — See Sacred Classics, Vol. II. Part ii., chap. i. With that view I have, in my edition, distinctly marked the beginnings of the greater Sections, whilst leaving the Sections themselves continuous, and unbroken. I have revised with great care the full stops, colons, commas, accents, and breathings (concerning which I have made some very essential remarks in my annotations on Rev. i. 5), according to the meaning of the words themselves. Many editors promise these things, few perform them. Hence, as I fancy, it arises, that no reliance is now placed even on the word of one, who affirms it with truth. He who has fairly observed, in the daily use of my edition, the greater and lesser divisions (examples of which are to be found in the sixth section of the Preface to my small edition of the
1 Anthony Blackwall, an elaborate and learned writer, was born in Derby shire, 1674, and educated at E. College, Cambridge, where he took his degree of M.A. in 1698. Soon afterwards, he became master of the Free School, Derby, and in 1772 of the Grammar School, Market Bosworth. He became Rector of Clapham, Surrey, in 1726, and died 1730. The work here alluded to, is, " The Sacred Classics Defended and Illustrated ; or an Essay proving the Purity, Propriety, and True Eloquence of the Writers of the New Testament." 2 vols. 8vo, 1727-1731. — (I. B.)
2 Christopher Wollius, a Lutheran divine, and philologist, born at Leipsic 1700, died 1761.— (I. B.)