on the subject.]

[Footnote 4: The same may probably be said of all the apostles, and
their whole generation. If they had looked on the life of Jesus with
the same tender and human affection as modern Unitarians and pious
Romanists do, the church would have swarmed with _holy coats_ and
other relics in the very first age. The mother of Jesus and her
little establishment would at once have swelled into importance. This
certainly was not the case; which may make it doubtful whether the
other apostles dwelt at all more on the _human personality_, of Jesus
than Paul did. Strikingly different as James is from Paul, he is in
this respect perfectly agreed with him.]

CHAPTER IV.

THE RELIGION OF THE LETTER RENOUNCED.

It has been stated that I had already begun to discern that it was
impossible with perfect honesty to defend every tittle contained in
the Bible. Most of the points which give moral offence in the book of
Genesis I had been used to explain away by the doctrine of Progress;
yet every now and then it became hard to deny that God is represented
as giving an actual _sanction_ to that which we now call sinful.
Indeed, up and down the Scriptures very numerous texts are scattered,
which are notorious difficulties with commentators. These I had
habitually _overruled_ one by one: but again of late, since I had been
forced to act and talk less and think more, they began to encompass
me. But I was for a while too full of other inquiries to follow up
coherently any of my doubts or perceptions, until my mind became at
length nailed down to the definite study of one well-known passage.

This passage may be judged of extremely secondary importance in
itself, yet by its remoteness from all properly spiritual and profound
questions, it seemed to afford to me the safest of arguments. The
_genealogy_ with which the gospel of Matthew opens, I had long known
to be a stumbling-block to divines, and I had never been satisfied
with their explanations. On reading it afresh, after long
intermission, and comparing it for myself with the Old Testament, I
was struck with observing that the corruption of the two names Ahaziah
and Uzziah into the same sound (Oziah) has been the cause of
merging four generations into one; as the similarity of Jehoiakim to
Jehoiachin also led to blending them both in the name Jeconiah. In
consequence, there ought to be 18 generations where Matthew has given
as only 14: yet we cannot call this on