'The question whether the Gospel records are free from blemishes found
to attach to every other record, has nothing to do with the main issue.
Our _theories_ may require them to be free from such harmless
imperfections; but our _reason_ makes no such demand.
'The memoir of a great man does not lose its use and virtue, because
written by a biographer open to some censure: nor can the life of Christ
fail of its transcendent purpose, because the writers were not in all
things infallible.
'Appearances of harmless human imperfections in the writers do not
invalidate the sacred records. For instance, if it should be found that
those faithful witnesses have given their testimony in exceptionable
Greek,--or that in some matters, not touching their main object, they
are not enlightened above the common standard of their times and
station,--or that they have habits of thought, or speech, or action,
which, though perfectly innocent in themselves, show that they are not
so far advanced in science as some,--if, in a word, it should appear
that the historic writers of the New Testament were really men of the
age in which they lived, and men of the country in which they were born
and educated, subject to the then limitations of general knowledge,--men
of individual tendencies, tastes, temperaments, passions, and even
prejudices,--wherein is the world worse for this, and in what respect
could our reason have wished it otherwise? We protest, we do not see.
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