If they be confined to "the fifteenth year of Tiberius[419]; to the names of the second Cainan[420], Cyrenius[421], Abiathar[422], 'Jeremy the prophet[423];'" to "the sixth hour[424]," and so on;—no great inconvenience truly will result. But the instant you go a step further, the difficulty begins. Many of the quotations from the Old Testament may be made to correspond with the Hebrew, doubtless, without sensible inconvenience: but there are others which refuse the process. However, let it be supposed that all such indications of imperfect memory, or misapprehension of the sense of the Hebrew Scriptures, have been removed; and here and there, that an irrelevant clause in the reasoning has been lopped off, or an unscientific remark expunged.—After all this has been done, I venture to say that the result will be the reverse of satisfactory, even to the theorist himself. He will infallibly exclaim secretly,—I seem to have gained wondrous little by this corrective process. Was it worth while, in order to achieve this, to tamper with the Divine Oracles? The great body of Scripture remains after all, in all its strangeness, all its perplexing individuality. Meanwhile, piety and wisdom modestly suggest,—Is it reasonable to think that Evangelists and Apostles should have stumbled, like children, before dates, and names, and quotations from their own Scriptures? Surely if this be all that can be objected against the Bible, the very slenderness of the charge becomes its sufficient refutation!... The erasures are so few, in fact, that they refute the theory.
But if, on the other hand, the pen be freely used, then the result will be fatal to the theory, because it will be fatal to the record. If an 'Essayist and Reviewer' were to reduce the Gospels to consistency, according to his view of consistency, the Gospels would scarcely be recognizable. If he were to reject from St. Paul's writings every instance of what he thinks fanciful exposition, illogical reasoning, inexact quotation, and mistaken inference; the result would be altogether unmanageable. For any one who attends to the matter will perceive that such things run into the very staple of the Apostle's argument; and therefore cannot be detached without destroying the whole. The householder's reason for not removing the tares, ("lest while ye gather up the tares ye root up also the wheat with them[425],") applies exactly. If St. Paul's exposition of Melchizedek be fanciful and untrustworthy, then does the proof of the superiority of our Saviour's Priesthood over that of Aaron, fall to the ground. If his handling of the story of Sarah and Hagar be an uninspired allegory, then does his argumentation respecting the rejection of the Jews and the calling of the Gentiles disappear. If the furniture of the Temple, and the provisions of the Jewish ritual, were not dictated by the Spirit of God[426], then will the Epistle wherein it is found be reduced to proportions which make it meaningless. If Deuteronomy xxv. 4 has no reference to the Christian Ministry, then the entire context (in two of St. Paul's Epistles) must go at once[427].... It is useless to multiply such instances. Any one familiar with the writings of St. Paul will know the truth of what has been offered; and will admit that the erasures required by the theory before us will become so numerous as to prove,—(to a devout mind at least, or indeed to any one of sense and candour,)—that the theory is altogether untenable.
It cannot escape observation, therefore, that however plausible this view of Inspiration may sound, as long as some few petty historical, chronological, and scientific inaccuracies are all that have to be accounted for;—the theory (unhappily) proves worthless when it comes to be practically applied; inasmuch as in the writings of St. Paul, for example, there is little or nothing of the kind just specified, to be condoned. Erroneous dates, unscientific statements, wrong names, and the like, form no part of the staple of the New Testament. Such instances may be counted on one's fingers; and are to be sufficiently explained to render any special theory of Inspiration in order to meet them, quite a gratuitous exercise of ingenuity.
3. On the other hand, if a wider class of phenomena is to be dealt with by this theory, the reader is requested to observe that we involve ourselves in a gross contradiction; for we forsake the very principle on which it pretends to be built. The theory set out by reminding us that "the office of the Bible is to make men wise unto Salvation,"—not to teach physical Science, nor to deal with facts in chronology and the like: and the plea was allowed. But the theory which was devised to account for one class of phenomena is now most unwarrantably applied to account for another. We have travelled into a widely different subject-matter,—namely, Divinity proper! Let it therefore be respectfully asked,—If the Inspiration which the Apostles enjoyed did not preserve them against unsound inferences in respect of Holy Scripture; and illogical, inconclusive argumentation in things Divine;—pray, of what use was it? We have not been reviewing a set of Geological mistakes on the part of the great Apostle. To Physical Science, he has scarcely so much as a single allusion. He deals with Christian Doctrine; with Divinity, properly so called; and with that only. Pray, was not Inspiration a sufficient guide to him, there?
4. It is high time also to remind the reader that although the office of the Bible, confessedly, is "to make men wise unto Salvation," it does not by any means follow that that is its only office. In other words, we have no right to assume that we know all the possible ends for which the Bible was designed; and to lay it down, as if it were an ascertained fact, that it was not designed to enlighten men in matters of Chronology, History, and the like; seeing, on the one hand, that all the evidence we are able to adduce in support of such an opinion, does not establish so much as a faint presumption that any part of Scripture is uninspired; and seeing that, on the other, as a plain matter of fact, historical details constitute so large a part of the contents of the Bible; and that the sacred volume is the sole depository of the History and Chronology of the World for by far the largest portion of the interval since that World's Creation.
5. In passing, it may also be reasonably declared, that it is to take a very derogatory view of the result of the Holy Spirit's influence, to suppose that imperfections and inaccuracies can freely abound,—nay, can exist at all,—in a Revelation which the same Holy Spirit is believed to have inspired. They ought surely to be demonstrated to exist, before we are called upon to listen to the apologies which have been invented to account for their existence!
6. Let me also advert to a dilemma which seems hardly ever to obtain from a certain class of critics the attention it deserves. If a writing be not inspired, it is of no absolute authority. If a part of a writing be not inspired, that part is of no absolute authority. If a single word in the text of Holy Scripture be even uncertain,—(as, for example, whether we are to read ΟΣ or ΘΕΟΣ in 1 Tim. iii. 16,)—that word becomes without absolute authority. We cannot venture to adduce it in proof of anything. Without therefore, in the remotest degree, desiring to discourage the application of a true theory of Inspiration to the phenomena of Holy Scripture, through fear of the necessary consequences,—may we not call attention to the manifest awkwardness of a theory which no one knows how to apply, and about the application of which no two men will ever be agreed?—the issue of the discussion being, in every case, neither more nor less than this,—whether the portion of Scripture under consideration is Human, and therefore of no absolute authority; or Divine, and therefore infallible!
7. A far more important consideration remains to be offered, and with this I shall conclude. Although, when St. Paul appears to reason inconclusively, some of us do not hesitate to refer the Apostle's (supposed) imperfect logic to his personal infirmity,—yet, common piety revolts against the proposal to apply the same solution to the same phenomenon when it is observed to occur in the Discourses of our Blessed Lord Himself. It seems to have been providentially ordained, however, that the discourses of Christ Himself should supply examples of every one of those difficulties which it is thought lawful to account for,—when an Apostle or an Evangelist is the speaker,—on the hypothesis of partial, imperfect, or suspended Inspiration. Now, since I, at least, shall not be permitted to be either vague or general, I proceed to subjoin the proof of what has been thus advanced:—
α. The well-known difficulty about "the days of Abiathar," is found in one of our Lord's discourses[428]. Here then is a case of what, if an Evangelist or an Apostle had been the author of the statement, would have been called an historical inaccuracy.
β. However unworthy of scientific attention the Mosaic account of the descent of Mankind from a single pair may be deemed,—the universality of 'the Noachian Deluge,'—the destruction of the Cities of the plain,—the fate of Lot's wife,—Jonah in the fish's belly,—and so forth;—to all these (supposed) unscientific statements our Blessed Lord commits Himself unequivocally[429].