essential truths
taught, or which shall cloud the reason or sully the moral sense.

'But it is not right or prudent to infer from the Biblical statement of
inspiration, that it makes provision for the very words and sentences;
that it shall raise the inspired penmen above the possibility of
literary inaccuracy, or minor or immaterial mistakes. It is enough if
the Bible be a sure and sufficient guide to spiritual morality and
rational piety. To erect for it a claim to absolute literary
infallibility, or to infallibility in things not directly pertaining to
faith, is to weaken its real authority, and to turn it aside from its
avowed purpose. The theory of verbal inspiration brings a strain upon
the Word of God which it cannot bear. If rigorously pressed, it tends
powerfully to bigotry on the one side, and to infallibility on the
other.

'The inspiration of holy men is to be construed, as we construe the
doctrine of an over-ruling and special Providence; of the divine
supervision and guidance of the church; of the faithfulness of God in
answering prayer. The truth of these doctrines is not inconsistent with
the existence of a thousand evils, mischiefs, and mistakes, and with the
occurrence of wanderings long and almost fatal. Yet the general
supervision of a Divine Providence is rational. We might expect that
there would be an analogy between God's care and education of the race,
and His care of the Bible in its formation.

'Around the central certainty of saving truth are wrapped the
swaddling-clothes of human language. Neither the condition of the human
understanding, nor the nature of human speech, which is the vehicle of
thought, admits of more than a fragmentary and partial presentation of
truth. "For we know in part, and we prophesy in part." (1 Cor. xiii. 9.)
Still less are we then to expect that there will be perfection in this
vehicle. And incidental errors, which do not reach the substance of
truth and duty, which touch only contingent and external elements, are
not to be regarded as inconsistent with the fact that the Scriptures
were _inspired of God_. Nor will our reverence for the Scriptures be
impaired if, in such cases, it be frankly said, '_There_ is an insoluble
difficulty.' Such a course is far less dangerous to the moral sense than
that pernicious ingenuity which, assuming that there can be no literal
errors in Scripture, resorts to subtle arts of criticism,
improbabilities of statement, and violence