erable in
Scripture, we shall find either that the errors are of a kind wholly
unconnected with the revelation of what God has done to us, and of what
we are to do towards Him; and therefore are perfectly consistent with
the inspiration of the writer, unless we take that unwarranted notion of
inspiration which considers it as equivalent to a communication of God's
attributes perfectly; (and of this kind are any errors that may exist
either in points of physical science, or of chronology, or of history;)
or if there be any thing else which appears inconsistent with
inspiration, in the sense in which we really may and do apply it to the
Scriptures, namely, that they are a perfect guide and rule in all
matters concerning our relations with God, then we shall find that God
has made some special provision for the case, to remove what it
otherwise might have had of real difficulty.

This merciful care is above all to be recognised with regard to one
point, which otherwise would, I think, have been a difficulty actually
insuperable: I mean the manifestly imperfect moral standard, which in
some cases is displayed in the characters of good men in the Old
Testament. Put the gospel by the side of the law and history of the
Israelites; observe what the law permitted, and public opinion under the
law did not condemn; observe the actions recorded of persons who are
declared to have been eminently good, and to have received God's
especial blessing; and it is manifest that had not our Lord himself
vouchsafed his help, one of two things must have happened--either that
we must have followed the old heresy of rejecting the Old Testament
altogether, or else that our respect for the Old Testament must have
impeded the growth of the more perfect law of Christ. The true solution
I do not think that we could have discovered, or ventured to admit on
less authority than our Lord's. But his express declaration, that some
things in the law itself were permitted, because nothing higher could
then have been borne, and his stating in detail that in several points
what was accounted good or allowable in the former dispensation was not
so really, while at the same time he constantly refers to the Old
Testament as divine, and confirms its language of blessing with respect
to its most eminent characters, has completely cleared to us the whole
question, and enables us to recognize the divinity of the Old Testament
and the holiness of its characters, witho