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would have been looked upon as another sacrilegious Uzzah- This , it is true , like many other absurdities grown veuerable by tlieir antiquity , is not insensible to 1 he effects of time , which bv slow and imperceptible , but
certain degrees , crumbles rocks into decay , and unveils the ebon face of falsehood . Men of learning and candour begin now generally to admit the possibility of possessing a sure ground of faith , without having recourse to that incommunicable
attribute of divinity , infallibility , though but a short period has elapsed since the greatest critics asserted the immaculate purity of the Hebrew text of the Old Testament . Soanie Jenyns has very justly remarked that the Bible is not itself a
revelation , but the history of a revelation ; a distinction which , for want of adverting to , has occasioned many of the erroneous opinions and difficulties which have existed respecting the scriptures . It is a record of all those divine manifestations which have been
granted to mankind throughout the various ages of the world , and therefore , though containing the precise words of the revelation itself , can properly be considered by us only as matter of history . That all those parts of scripture which purport to be a divine revelation were originally
communicated by inspiration , can admit of no doubt , and as they were committed to writing by holy men , who were incontestibiy under the influence of the divine spirit , their
authority is as great as any writings transmitted by human agency can fiossibly be . Moses , David and the prophets , were so notoriously employed as messengers between God and man , that it cannot be conceived
they were capable of being deceived themselves in matters of such paramount importance , much less can it be possible that men who were admitted to such an intimacy with the Most High , could deceive others . Neither can the books which are
attributed to the sacred historians by the uninterrupted testimony of a long series of ages , be more disputed to be their own genuine compositions , than the reputed works of any historian or philosopher that the world ever produced . The historical parts of the New Testament were drawn op b y eye
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and ear witnesses of the facts which they relate , and consequentl y needed no other influence than what thev appeared to possess in an eminent degree , namely , an impartial love of truth . That in their primary enunciation of the Christian doctrine , thev were guided by supernatural impulse when it was necessary , may readily be allowed , since their great Master promised thut the spirit of truth should be communicated unto then for the purpose of guiding them into all truth , and from the miraculous powers which they exercised , it i «
evident they were the medium of divine agency , Thus , though we inav consider the sacred volume as only an historical record of divine revelation compiled by human agents , yet those persons being the authorized and ac credited messengers of the Beitv , it is
not reasonable to suppose that they would be able to transmit any thing to posterity as the word of God , but pure and uncontaminated truth . In this , I presume , consists the in . spiration of the scriptures , that they contain a collection of revelations ,
committed to writing by persons specially employed by God in originally communicating , orally , his messages to mankind . Afterwards they were entrusted to the guardianship of those who feared God in every succeeding age , from whom we have received them in a manner similar to that in
which other ancient works have been preserved . If , in their transmission through the hands of countless generations , these precious memorials of the unchangeable beneficence and paternal superintendence of the Governor of tJie Universe , should not have
contracted-some portion of that error and imperfection which time has attached to all other literary relics of antiquity , it would have been a miracle of the most stupendous natu re , which neither reason nor scripture authorizes us to exnect .
To render our Bibles infallible , the exertion of a constant succession 01 miracle * would have been necessary . Not only the orig inal author , but ever ) transcriber , every translator and . evm printer must have been equally h subject of complete insp iration , Jthose who are conversant witn Orientel or the Greek tongu ^ J who know who * essential J ^ Tj may be caused by tljte wnaffiW w
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414 On the Inspiration and Infallibility of the Scriptures .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), July 2, 1815, page 414, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1762/page/14/
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