TEXTS OF SCRIPTURE.

517

i. 22, where Stephens is again filent, Beza telis us of the word™E t H rl E

a

(j.ovov, " Ego in omnibus noftris vetuftis libris inveni And fo,where Stephens in the margin had noted the teftimony of " the“ Three in heaven” to be wanting in leven manulcripts, hethinks that, in reading the text of Stephens’s collated book, hereads it in the reft; and fo telis us, " Legimus et nos in nonnullis“ Roberti Stepbani codicibus E This he did in the firft edition ofhis annotations. Afterwards, when he had got two real raanu-fcripts, the Claromontan, and that, wliich at length he prefentedto the Univerfity of Cambridge (in both which the canonica!epiftles are wanting); in the epiftle to his fourth edition, inreckoning up the books he then ufed, he puts only thefe two,and the feventeen of Stephens; and, in his fifth edition, he writesfummarily, that he ufed nineteen manufcripts, joining with thofetwo real ones the collations of Stephens, as if in thofe he hadfeventeen otliers; which fufficiently explains his way of fpeakingin his annotations. But whilft he had not the manufcripts them-felves to reae! with his own eyes, it was too hard and unwarrant-*ahle a way of fpeaking to teli us, " Legimus et nos in nonnullis" Roberti Stepbani codicibus? and therefore, in his later editions,he corredfs himfelf, and telis us only, that the reading dotli" Extare in nonnullis Stepbani veteribus libris? Thus Beza ar-gues from Stephens’s book of collations ; and the fame inferencehas been made by Lucas Brugenfis, and others, ever linee fromStephens's forementioned edition of that book. " For,” fay they," Stephens had fifteen manufcripts in ali, and found the teftimo-“ ny of the Lhree in heaven wanting but in feven ; and therefore" it was in the other eight; and fo being found in the greater“ part of his manufcripts, has the authority and manufcripts on" its fide.” Thus they argue; and this is the great argumentby wliich the printed Greelc has hitherto been juftified.

XXVI. But if they pleafe to conlider the bufnefs alittle better,they will lind themfelves very much miftaken. For though Ste-phens had fifteen manufcripts in ali, vet all of them did not con-tain all the Greek Teftament. Four of them noted <y, <r, «T,.

“ ercet poteftatem, cx con;e£luris mutando et interpolando textum facrum pro lubitu.” WaltoaJSrolegom. lF. Sed, 15. in Bili. Polyglatt.

2 had

IN HEAVEN.

i'