hus infallible. Unless it
is, there can be no moral obligation to accept the facts which it
records; and though there may be intellectual error in denying them,
there can be no moral sin. Facts may be better or worse authenticated;
but all the proofs in the world of the genuineness and authenticity of
the human handiwork cannot establish a claim upon the conscience. It
might be foolish to question Thucydides' account of Pericles, but no
one would call it sinful. Men part with all sobriety of judgment when
they come on ground of this kind. When Sir Henry Rawlinson read the name
of Sennacherib on the Assyrian marbles, and found allusions there to the
Israelites in Palestine, we were told that a triumphant answer had been
found to the cavils of sceptics, and a convincing proof of the inspired
truth of the Divine Oracles. Bad arguments in a good cause are a sure
way to bring distrust upon it. The Divine Oracles may be true, and may
be inspired; but the discoveries at Nineveh certainly do not prove them
so. No one supposes that the Books of Kings or the prophecies of Isaiah
and Ezekiel were the work of men who had no knowledge of Assyria or the
Assyrian Princes. It is possible that in the excavations at Carthage
some Punic inscription may be found confirming Livy's account of the
battle of Cannae; but we shall not be obliged to believe therefore in the
inspiration of Livy, or rather (for the argument comes to that) in the
inspiration of the whole Latin literature.

We are not questioning the fact that the Bible is infallible; we desire
only to be told on what evidence that great and awful fact concerning it
properly rests. It would seem, indeed, as if instinct had been wiser
than argument--as if it had been felt that nothing short of this literal
and close inspiration could preserve the facts on which Christianity
depends. The history of the early world is a history everywhere of
marvels. The legendary literature of every nation upon earth tells the
same stories of prodigies and wonders, of the appearances of the gods
upon earth, and of their intercourse with men. The lives of the saints
of the Catholic Church, from the time of the Apostles till the present
day, are a complete tissue of miracles resembling and rivalling those of
the Gospels. Some of these stories are romantic and imaginative; some
clear, literal, and prosaic; some rest on mere tradition; some on the
sworn testimony of eye-witnesses; some are obvious fables; s