istent advocate
of Christianity not only must admit--not only may safely admit--the
existence of discrepancies, but may do so even with advantage to his
cause. he must admit them, since such variations must be the result of
the manner in which the records have been transmitted, unless we suppose
a supernatural intervention, neither promised by God nor pleaded for by
man: he may safely admit them, because--from a general induction from
the history of all literature--we see that, where copies of writings
have been sufficiently multiplied, and sufficient motives for care have
existed in the transcription, the limits of error are very narrow, and
leave the substantial identity untouched: and he may admit them with
advantage; for the admission is a reply to many objections rounded on
the assumption that he must contend that there are no variations, when
he need only contend that there are none that can be material.

But it may be said, 'May not we be permitted, while conceding the
miraculous and other evidences of Christianity, and the general
authority of the records which contain it, to go a step further, and
to reject some things which seem palpably ill-reasoned, distasteful,
inconsistent, or immoral?' 'Let every man be fully persuaded in his
own mind.' For ourselves, we honestly confess we cannot see the logical
consistency of such a position; any more than the reasonableness, after
having admitted the preponderant evidence for the great truth of Theism,
of excepting some phenomena as apparently at variance with the Divine
perfections; and thus virtually adopting a Manichaean hypothesis. We
must recollect that we know nothing of Christianity except from its
records; and as these, once fairly ascertained to be authentic and
genuine, are all, as regards their contents, supported precisely by the
same miraculous and other evidence; as they bear upon them precisely
the same internal marks of artlessness, truth, and sincerity; and,
historically and in other respects, are inextricably interwoven with one
another; we see not on what principles we can safely reject portions as
improbable, distasteful, not quadrating with the dictates of reason;'
our 'intuitional consciousness,' and what not. This assumed liberty,
however is, as we apprehend, of the very essence of Rationalism; and
it may be called the Manichaeism of interpretation. So long as the
canonicity of any of the records, or any portion of them, or their true
interpretat