9.  “The disagreement of the most ancient authorities often marks the existence of a corruption anterior to them.”

10.  “The argument from internal evidence is always precarious.”  This canon he illustrates by several examples:  “If a reading is in accordance with the general style of the writer, it may be said on the one side that this fact is in its favor, and on the other that an acute copyist probably changed the exceptional expression for the more usual one,” &c.

11.  “The more difficult reading is preferable to the simpler.”  This canon rests on the obvious ground that a copyist would be more apt to substitute an easy reading for a difficult than the reverse.

12.  “The shorter reading is generally preferable to the longer.”  Because of all corruptions of the text, additions from parallel passages, or to meet its supposed wants, are the most common.

13.  “That reading is preferable which explains the origin of the others.”

CHAPTER XXVII.

FORMATION AND HISTORY OF THE NEW TESTAMENT CANON.

1.  Respecting the canon of the New Testament there are two distinct but related fields of inquiry.  The first has reference to the origin and gradual accumulation, of the materials which enter into the canon; the second, to the collection of these materials into a volume or series of volumes possessing cooerdinate authority with the books of the Old Testament, and constituting with them the sum of written revelation.  The first of these questions has been already discussed in great measure.  In Chs. 2-4, the genuineness, uncorrupt preservation, authenticity, and credibility of the four gospels were shown at some length; in Ch. 5 the same was done in respect to the Acts of the Apostles and the acknowledged epistles; in Ch. 6 was considered the position of the disputed books in respect to the canon; and in Ch. 7 the inspiration of the canon was demonstrated.  Connected with these inquiries were some general notices respecting the date of the several books of the New Testament; but the fuller consideration of this latter question is reserved for the second division of the present Part—­that of Particular Introduction.  It will be sufficient to state here in a general way that, if we leave out of account the writings of the Apostle John, the remaining books of the New Testament were written somewhere between A.D. 45-70 (according to the commonly received opinion, between A.D. 50-70); while the most probable date of John’s writings is A.D. 70-100.  The composition of the books of the New Testament, then, spreads itself over a period of about half a century.

2.  Turning our attention, now, to the second question, that of the collection and arrangement of these writings in a volume or series of volumes cooerdinate in authority with the books of the Old Testament, we have a succession of periods, not sharply separated from each other, but each of them possessing, nevertheless, its prominent characteristics in relation to the canonical writings.