240 APPENDIX. 



edge. Now, when they report, as each of them frequently do, that he 

 took upon himself the authority and omniscience proper only to God, in 

 instructing and governing them ; when they make him declare that in 

 that life of his flesh was the Spirit of God manifest, they must have so 

 understood him. He probably meant them to, and as he was a wise, 

 good, and true man, we can have reasonable faith that, in some fair and 

 honest understanding of the words, it was so. What if there is room 

 for some difference of opinion, as to the precise meaning of language, 

 so written in a narrative, two or three times translated, and that 

 through heathen tongues, and God only knows how many times copied 

 by humanly imperfect hands. I am willing you should understand 

 it as seems, on the whole and in sincerity, most natural to you. I say 

 that I do not believe it will make any very essential difference in 

 your idea of God, but that you will still see him, through Christ, a God 

 of eternal Truth, Justice, Love a Father worthy of your deepest rever 

 ence and affection.&quot; 



&quot; Suppose I did ; and when you ve done and said all, what good is it ? 

 But I tell you, you don t convince me of the inspiration of the Bible.&quot; 



&quot; I don t now undertake to convince you of it. If it does not appear 

 evident to you on the face of it that it is an inspired production, I don t 

 think I can bring you to it by argument. All I ask of you now is to look 

 upon those three men, Matthew, Luke, and John, simply as honest 

 biographers. Suppose Hume, Gibbon, or Jared Sparks had described 

 such a character, made such a character to appear in the life of some 

 historical personage with regard to whom they had had facilities to be 

 particularly well informed, would you not respect, honor, love yes, 

 and worship &quot; 



&quot; No, no ! I d worship nothing human.&quot; 



&quot; But you would worship divine qualities, and, so far as these go to 

 make up the character of a man, you would worship them in him &quot; 



&quot; Yes, the divine qualities, not the human.&quot; 



&quot; Not the human purely human ; nobody asks you to. But here is a 

 man who, in all his actions for thirty years, you cannot suppose to have 

 been governed by any motives inconsistent with justice, magnanimity, 

 and benevolence. His life is described with a good deal of minute de 

 tail, but you cannot find that he ever said, or thought, or did a single 

 mean, unmanly, ungentlemanly thing. A man who avoided kingly 

 honors ; who did not labor for riches ; who neither sought nor avoided 

 the luxuries of life ; who endured to ba forsaken of his friends ; who 



