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be found in the other; many discussed with the minuteness 

 of detail, in the book of Kings, and merely alluded in the 

 parallel passages of the corresponding history; because the 

 evidence of each is independent and sui generis; because 

 they are separate records by separate authors, and in many 

 places, evidently derived from distinct sources; because the 

 very parallel verse referred to by the learned author, differs 

 in other points, from the contested text, as well as in the 

 omission of the interval from tlie exod, which sufficiently 

 shews it was not intended to be even a partial transcript, 

 much less a collated copy: It is redundant, for it adds, " and 

 on the second day of the month," which is not in the con- 

 *^ested text; it is deficient, for it does not mention the name 

 of the month, which is assigned in the book of Kings. But 

 His in vain to reason against a point so inconclusive and in- 

 defensible ; let any person compare the parallel passages of 

 *^hose books referred to, in the margins of tiie text, and he 

 will then acknowledge, that a casual om'ssion is not to be 

 received as evidence of an intentional disagreement; tliat the. 

 absence of literal exactness, is the I)cst test of unstipulated 

 and unbought conformity ; and that the; jiurpcfees of fraud 

 lifanyhad been intended) would have been more ])er!'cctly 

 attained by the addition, equally facile of the omitied num- 

 ber in tlie parallel verse, than by leaving it to critical acumen, 

 and unhesitating scepticism, like that of the learned author's, 

 10 reject with unscrupulous contempt, a passage of one bunk 



as 



