they tend to show that the New Testament is a contemporaneous, honestly written record of the events to which it alludes; and, if the reader will only give a patient and thoughtful perusal to the pages which are to follow, we are not without a hope that they may enable him more thankfully, piously, and intelligently to study both the Old and New Testaments.

E-PAUL'S ARGUMENT IN 1 COR. XV. 19, 32.

We shall only further illustrate this part of our subject by drawing attention to what we regard as a strongly marked case of mixed moral and religious error in the writings of one who was a vigorous upholder of Inspiration, and a bright example of its glorious effects. It is in the first Epistle to the Corinthians, and in the midst of an elaborate discussion of a most solemn religious subject, the resurrection of the dead, that the Apostle to the Gentiles puts forth the notion, "If in "this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men "most miserable;" and "if, after the manner of men, I have "fought with beasts at Ephesus, what advantageth it me if "the dead rise not? Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we "die."

Now, let it be gravely and piously asked, what do these passages state, and what do they teach? They state that, on the supposition of there being no compensation or reward in an after world, the persecuted life of a holy man-whose motto is, Overcome evil with good-is more unhappy than the existence of the most vicious or the most base, who escapes detection and flourishes in the sordid luxury of an unhallowed prosperity. They teach that, apart from the hope of reward and the dread of punishment, a life like that of Sardanapalus, or of Tiberius at Capreæ, is preferable to that of Paul. On these principles, men who, like the Sadducees, had no firm grasp of a belief in the spirit world, should have set themselves to gratify their animal desires and propensities, and would only have been carrying out the maxim which became them as rational beings who were to end their existence after a while! But, surely, to do good and patiently to endure, being buffeted for it, must always, under all circumstances that can be conceived, be a nobler and a happier course for

man, than to batten on the grossest enjoyment of vice, or to glide self-condemned and self-despised through life, amid the smiles of flatterers and the scorn of the discerning. And surely, too, Paul was no stranger to the satisfaction of being "fully persuaded in his own mind." Paul could depict the present torment of an evil conscience, and the bliss of a selfapproving conscience was not unknown to him. Surely Paul knew better than this, his hypothetical teaching. Surely he had not forgotten that the gain of a holy man, such as the Christian Paul himself was, was an hundredfold, in this life, whatever he had lost for truth and righteousness' sake, even though that gain were held in the midst of persecution. Paul assuredly knew, and habitually taught, better than this exceptional and conditional teaching which he wrote to the Corinthians. If, however, you persist in supposing, contrary to and in spite of all evidence, that Paul's moral and religious doctrine, when written, was always infallible, then you involve yourself in the painful position of being compelled to maintain that, in the absence of hope for a future world, the abominations of a pampered profanity are a wiser philosophy-if not a deeper piety-than bravely to endure affliction in the cause of such partial light and truth as man can see in this world. But, on the other hand, grant what all the history and all the science and much of the morality of the Bible do manifestly show-namely, that, even when holy men are under the purifying and exalting influence of the Spirit of God, they still are men, and therefore they and their writings still are fallible -grant this and then, in these mournful utterances of the Apostle, you only find that even he was wellnigh overcome by evil, and for a moment was induced to write unadvisedly, when he laboured under the vexatious questioning, and opposed the worldly-minded unbelief and want of spirituality, of those lucre-loving Corinthians.

SECTION 2.-The Conclusion, an Answer to the Question of this Book.

GRANT this, we say; but in making this, as we think, inevitable concession, and in remembering the very numerous and sometimes serious errors in Scripture, of which a few examples have been given in these pages, let us know that

we are solving the problem proposed to us. Let us look on our position and see that, whatever else and however excellent may be the meaning of Inspiration, we are forced by the bearings of truth, as witnessed to by the Bible itself, to the conclusion, that neither with reference to Science, History, Morality, nor Religion, does the Bible permit us to regard its teaching as infallible, or free from all error.

BOOK II.

WHAT REASON IS THERE FOR EXPECTING THE BIBLE TO BE INFALLIBLE?

INTRODUCTION.

THE SELF-CONSISTENCY OF TRUTH, IN ITS BEARINGS ON THIS QUESTION.

HAVING, in the preceding pages of this Essay, recognised the untenableness of the popular belief that the Bible is, by its inspiration, guaranteed as an infallible book, let us now proceed to examine the grounds on which this erroneous dogma is maintained. Painful, indeed, will be our mental struggle, if, with the evidence of facts already laid before us as contradicting the notion of Biblical infallibility, we shall discover that there is a strong array of countervailing testimony which goes in support of such infallibility; for the task must then be undertaken, of weighing the monstrously opposed masses of evidence, in order to decide for ourselves on which side the existence of truth is indicated by a preponderance. The unnatural question would then arise-Must we be guided by our senses and our reason, which show us Scriptural inaccuracies and self-contradictions, and thereby witness that Scripture is not infallible? or,-Must we bow to an overwhelming pressure of authority, and, even at the risk of stultifying reason and bidding defiance to the senses, must we acknowledge an inaccurate and self-contradictory document to be infallible? Thus, if, on examination, we find the alleged proofs of inspirational infallibility to be at all as weighty as the evidence showing the presence of errors in the Bible is palpable, there

must lie before us, indeed, an agonizing-a maddeningconflict between the pious inclination to submit to religious teaching, and the inevitable propensity to believe on conviction. If, on the other hand, however, the alleged proofs, which we are about to examine, should appear shadowy and unsubstantial, then our course of faith and of reason, with reference to Scriptural infallibility, will be plain.

Thus, it is impossible to avoid feeling that, as truth is always consistent with itself, and as one unmistakeable part of truth has already shown us, by the facts of the case, that the Bible is not infallible, we shall probably find that there exists no valid reason for the popular expectation of infallibility in the inspired volume. This feeling of anticipation, accompanied by a certain desire that we may be able to discover plainly the self-consistency of truth, with reference to our present subject, is unavoidable; but, whatever may be the result of our inquiry, it is assuredly our duty to scrutinize the proofs in question very closely, and with a pious care proportioned to the importance and improbability attaching to the conclusion in which they are supposed to involve us.