Part 3 — CONCLUSION.

The apology that a certain degree of variance is a proof of independent testimony is quite beside the present question, and so is the argument of Dr. Whately about Napoleon. No doubt half-a-dozen correspondents describing any event in the late war would dwell on different incidents, and see matters from different stand-points; one would have a bias towards the French and another towards the Prussians, one would be cast in a Tory mould and another would have Radical proclivities, one would see with military eyes and another with the eyes of a civilian, one would look towards the end and another would limit his vision to the present action; but who claims for these correspondents divine inspiration? who believes that they are all baptized into one spirit, and that the spirit which guides them has guaranteed that they shall speak the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? They write as human beings, with fallible judgments, and all the prejudices of caste, education, interest, and special advocacy; with so many things to bias judgment, no doubt there will be considerable variety of statement, but all this in no wise applies to the Bible writers—they are not supposed to write from any of these motives, but to be guided and directed by one and the same motive, and all to be led by the Spirit of unerring truth. With such writers there may be considerable verbal difference, but no substantial variety; there may be shades of variety, and different incidents may strike different eye-witnesses, but there can be no positive contradiction, and the same incident cannot be described as two antagonistic facts. If Samuel was right when he affirmed that David took from the king of Zobah 700 horsemen, the chronicler was wrong when he said the number was 7000. If the chronicler was correct in saying that Jehoiachim was only eight when he ascended the throne, his brother chronicler was in error when he declared that he was eighteen. If Jesus was the son of Joseph and Joseph a descendant of David, then Jesus was of the lineage of David; but if he was the son of quite another line he was not of the line of David. If the writer of the book of Kings was right in saying that no vessels of gold and silver were made of the money collected in the temple by Jehoash, the writer of the book of Chronicles could not be correct in saying that all sorts of gold and silver vessels were made therefrom. If Matthew was right in saying that the soldiers arrayed Jesus in a “scarlet robe,” Mark and John were wrong in pronouncing it to be a “purple garment;” and if Jesus said to Peter, before the cock crow thou shalt deny me thrice, he did not say before the cock crow twice thou shalt deny me thrice. If the writers were eye and ear witnesses, and if the guiding Spirit of God brought to their remembrance what Jesus said and did, such discrepancies could not have occurred.

These contradictions, and their number is legion, are not the shades of variety, the verbal differences of independent writers of truth, they are irreconcilable statements, one of which must be wrong, and if both claim to be guided by the Spirit of Infallible Truth, their claim cannot be allowed. It cannot be true that 22 is 42 and 7000 the same as 600; but give up inspiration and place the Bible on the same platform as any other ancient record, then everyone is at liberty to weigh its statements and to hold fast just so much as is consistent with the advanced knowledge of science, the general scope of experience, and the harmony of history.