They are known to have occupied their present position for full seventeen hundred years.

There never was a time--as far as is known--- when they were not _where_,--and to all intents and purposes _what_--they now are.

Is it not evident, that no merely ordinary method of proof,--no merely common argument,--will avail to dislodge Twelve such Verses as these?
'Twelve such Verses,' I say.

For it is the extent of the subject-matter which makes the case so formidable.

We have here to do with no dubious clause, concerning which ancient testimony is divided; no seeming gloss, which is suspected to have overstepped its proper limits, and to have crept in as from the margin; no importation from another Gospel; no verse of Scripture which has lost its way; no weak amplification of the Evangelical meaning; no tasteless appendix, which encumbers the narrative and almost condemns itself.