correct in some other once disputed
instances. Is it not fair to suppose that many apparent discrepancies of
the same order may be eventually removed by similar evidence?

____

Very forgetful of this have the advocates of infidelity usually been:
nay, (as if they would make up in the number of objections what they
want in weight,) they have frequently availed themselves not only of
apparent contrarieties, but of mere incompleteness in the statements
of two different writers, on which to found a charge of contradiction.
Thus, if one writer says that a certain person was present at a given
time or place, when another says that he and two more were there; or
that one man was cured of blindness, when another says that two were,--
such a thing is often alleged as a contradiction; whereas, in truth, it
resents not even a difficulty--unless one historian be bound to say
not only all that another says but just so much, and no more. Let such
objections be what they will, unless they prove absolute contradictions
in the narrative, they are as mere dust in the balance, compared with
the stupendous mass and variety of that evidence which confirms the
substantial truth of Christianity. And even if they establish real
contradictions, they still amount, for reasons we are about to state,
to dust in the balance, unless they establish contradictions not in
immaterial but in vital points. The objections must be such as, if
proved, leave the whole fabric of evidence in ruins. For, secondly, we
are fully disposed to concede to the objector that there are, in the
books of Scripture, not only apparent but real discrepancies,--a point
which many of the advocates of Christianity are, indeed, reluctant to
admit but which we think, no candid advocate will feel to be the less
true. Nevertheless, even such an advocate of the Scriptures may justly
contend that the very reasons which necessitate this admission of
discrepancies also reduce them to such a limit that they do not affect,
in the slightest degree, the substantial credibility of the sacred
records; and, in our judgment, Christians have unwisely damaged their
cause, and given a needless advantage to the infidel, by denying that
any discrepancies exist, or by endeavouring to prove that they do not.
The discrepancies to which we refer are just those which, in the course
of the transcription of ancient books, divine or human, through
many ages,--their constant transcription by different ha