minute portions of which you reject as erroneous; no other difficulty than a judge or juryman is compelled to confront, who, in taking the sum of evidence, rejects in a similar manner what is contradictory or irreconcilable with the main facts substantiated, while he yet cleaves to his conclusion notwithstanding. Now I say this is more consistent and intelligible than the course you propose, which really is much as if a judge were to say, "Gentlemen, there are some minute facts which seem irreconcilable, and therefore I have nothing to say to you;" or as if the jury were "Till these facts are fully reconciled we can give no

to say,

verdict."

Nor can it be proved that, on such a theory of inspiration as that now implied, God would have done anything (however improbable à priori), out of analogy with His procedure in other cases; as God has placed us in an analogous difficulty in other cases, so, for aught you know, He may in this. To discriminate to judge with candour- -to hold fast what is proven in spite of difficulties may be required of us as part of that exercise of a docile faith, of an unprejudiced reason, which throughout our whole probation He has provided for us here. Indeed, on any theory of inspiration, He has practically involved us in much the same difficulty for even on the theory of the plenary inspiration of Scripture, He has Himself left on the sacred page the traces of apparent discrepancies that perplex and baffle us. Now on the theory that He occasionally allowed human infirmity to introduce error and mistake, He would only have subjected us to much the same discipline.

As to your second inference, that you must, at all events, give up the plenary inspiration - the absolute infallible truth of every syllable of Scripture, I acknowledge that what you prove to be error cannot be inspired; only be sure that it is so proved. That will necessitate your giving up those minute portions to which you can say demonstrated error or palpable contradiction attaches.

Now can you believe, perhaps you will say, that God has commissioned men to declare religious truth to the world-has

inspired them with the knowledge of it, has wrought miracles and uttered prophecy to authenticate it, and yet has left the very messengers to be sometimes misled by ignorance? to misstate fact? to blunder in the very delivery of their message?

Now (mind once again), I do not deny this difficulty, and, in consequence, prefer another method of dealing with the matter, as I shall presently show you; but still, I say, that even such a supposition is perfectly intelligible and consistent, compared with the alternative you propose to yourself—the summary rejection of Christianity!

For, after all, if we admit this theory, does it leave you in greater difficulty than Theism leaves you? Does not the constitution of the world present you with analogous facts? While millions of phenomena attest the divine goodness, do you not every now and then stumble on some which look the other way? Is the plague or the rattlesnake quite intelligible? Do you not, when you meet with such unaccountable phenomena, say, "They are difficulties indeed-things quite inexplicable, but they must not be allowed to override the deductions which the immense majority out of every million of facts will justify?" Do you not say, "I believe there must be good reasons for these ugly things, though I do not know what they are?"

You may perhaps rejoin, "Yes, but after all, a cobra or rattlesnake is God's direct work, and therefore I believe there must be good reasons for it, though I am ignorant of them." I answer, "Very well; and may you not say the same of what is inexplicable in what God permits? Would it be any more wonderful if God should permit human ignorance and infirmity to introduce some trivial errors into His word (mind, I say not it is so) than that His power and wisdom should do what you can in no way comprehend in His works?

But if you will have a precisely analogous case, I can give it you in the moral government of God. There God, every day and every where, permits the remaining follies of the wise and the remaining infirmities of the virtuous to chequer the results of their beneficent action on the world; to mingle much error with

their truth, some evil with their good. And can you prove that it may not have been to some extent thus, even in the construction of a divine revelation? Would not such a course be at least in analogy "with the constitution and course of nature?" If He permitted, though we know not why, His fair creation to be invaded with evil, and "the enemy by night to sow tares among the wheat;" would it be inconceivable, if, in like manner, He should have suffered minute errors to enter into the texture of the Bible?

Recollect, however, what I have said; I do not think this method so eligible as the second of the three courses, or as the third; but this I say it is perfectly intelligible and consistent compared with the coarse application of your Gordian shears.

66

What, then, is your second theory?" you will say. But you must wait till to-morrow. I have well filled my sheet, and I hate crossing. I conclude by begging you to believe me,

Your loving friend,

R. E. H. G.

My dear Youth,

LETTER CIV.

To the Same.

As to my second theory of dealing with the " discrepancies," it is a very simple one, and not less admirable,—namely, to let them alone; to postpone them till further light is thrown upon them; not to anticipate the true theory of them; to refrain from pronouncing them either absolutely insoluble or otherwise.

And the general evidence for the Bible is such as to justify this abstinence from dogmatism. We can afford to wait. A Christian may say with justice-" When I can solve these difficulties, I am glad; when I cannot, I am willing to suspend my judgment; they

do not, they never can (whatever be the solution) shake the substantive credibility of the great facts and main statements of the scriptural documents; adequate evidence against these must be an earthquake which shall subvert the very foundations of the faith, and leave the whole fabric a wreck, not a flash of critical lightning, which grazes, or splinters, or even dislodges a stone or two in some remote turret or ornamental pinnacle. I can wait-I can afford to wait-no one hurries me;—why should I be so incontinent of my opinion as to pronounce before I am sure that I have all the possible data? Whether the discrepancies are ultimately to be disposed of by supposing something less than indefectible inspiration for every particle of canonical Scripture, or by finding that they yield, as so many others have already done, to more accurate recensions of the text, or more severe collation of the Scripture with itself or with profane writers, or unexpected recoveries of fragments of ancient history, I leave for a while; for, either way, the things which must thus be left are but" dust in the balance;" subtracted or added, they will not appreciably affect the result; and so, whether zealous Stephen really confounded the sepulchre which Jacob bought of the father of Shechem with that which Abraham bought of Ephron the Hittite, or not, I shall magnanimously leave to future inquiries, and sleep none the worse for it!

I am fully aware that the infidel deems it infinitely important that such weighty points should be instantly settled; and indeed, from the eagerness with which he introduces, and the pertinacity with which he discusses them, one can hardly help fancying that he, and not Christianity, is the party principally interested in the issue; and in very truth, it is so; for it is of immense importance to him that Christianity should seem false; of little importance to Christianity that such discrepancies should be reconciled.

But there is still a third course, in my judgment still better than the second, and the one to which I myself most incline; it is that of combining, with that abstinence from all dogmatic decision which the second course requires, a reverential remembrance of

the many instances in which discrepancies, once vehemently insisted on, have yielded to further investigation. Hence, a suspicion, at all events founded on induction, that if we will but wait with a little patience, that patience will be rewarded with a satisfactory solution. Just so we act when we meet with phenomena which seem to shock our notions of the divine benevolence, in the department of physical inquiry; we do not foolishly imagine that every difficulty we meet with that we cannot solve is absolutely insoluble, but we wait with confidence for further light. "But is not this an act of unreasoning faith?" you will perhaps say. No, an act of reason; for it is founded on experience of the past. I see that many difficulties which half a century ago were as clamorously proclaimed to be "palpable contradictions" to all history and all probability as those which still perplex us, have been removed. What right then, have I to assume that the same will not happen, if I have but patience, with the remainder? What right have I to suppose that the dogmatism which has been proved so hasty in past times, and in other cases, is never to be proved so any more? Ought I not, on a fair induction (not merely on an à priori conclusion that indefectible truth must belong to all Scripture), to wait not only with patience, but with hope? And I can wait, not merely because so many difficulties have yielded, but because I see so plainly that man has more than a trifle yet to learn; that antiquities, history, ethnology, philosophy, chronology, geology, and half a dozen other sciences, are by no means exhausted; and that their progress will, together with the study of the sacred books themselves, tend more and more to throw light on these subjects.

All this of course is just simply saying that I am not entitled to assume a discrepancy to be absolutely insoluble, so long as I see that others which were thought so, proclaimed so, and rejoiced in as such by infidels half a century ago, are now allowed to be so no longer.

We may well believe the truth of what Butler says of the Word of God, in his celebrated work: "It is not at all incredible that a book which has been so long in the possession of mankind