d incarnation of Christ, if they
do not believe transubstantiation? We have heard much of late about old
and new popery: but if this be the way of representing new popery, by
exposing the common articles of faith, it will set the minds of all good
Christians farther from it than ever. For upon the very same grounds we
may expect another parallel between the belief of a God and
transubstantiation, the effect of which will be the exposing of all
religion. This is a very destructive and mischievous method of
proceeding; but our comfort is that it is very unreasonable, as I hope
hath fully appeared by this discourse."--_Doctrine of the Trinity and
Transubstantiation compared_, at the end.]

It has unfortunately happened that the difficulties of the Scripture
have been generally treated as objections to the truth of Christianity;
as such they have been pressed by adversaries, and as such Christian
writers have replied to them. But then they become of such tremendous
interest, that it is scarcely possible to examine them fairly. If my
faith in God and my hope of eternal life is to depend on the accuracy of
a date or of some minute historical particular, who can wonder that I
should listen to any sophistry that may be used in defence of them, or
that I should force my mind to do any sort of violence to itself, when
life and death seem to hang on the issue of its decision?

Yet what conceivable connexion is there between the date of Cyrenius's
government, or the question whether our Lord healed a blind man as he
was going into Jericho or as he was leaving it; or whether Judas bought
himself the field of blood, or it was bought by the high priests: what
connexion can there be between such questions, and the truth of God's
love to man in the redemption, and of the resurrection of our Lord? Do
we give to any narrative in the world, to any statement, verbal or
written, no other alternative than that it must be either infallible or
unworthy of belief? Is not such an alternative so extravagant as to be a
complete reductio ad absurdum? And yet such is the alternative which men
seem generally to have admitted in considering the Scripture narratives:
if a single error can be discovered, it is supposed to be fatal to the
credibility of the whole.

This has arisen from an unwarranted interpretation of the word
"inspiration," and by a still more unwarranted inference. An inspired
work is supposed to mean a work to which God has communica