Rough Notes on the controversy against Geologists. 479 



the original document. Should the argument depend upon 

 such words in the translation into a foreign tongue, as 

 " but," and, " or," &c, or upon whether a member of a sen- 

 tence is to be read along with what precedes, or what 

 follows it, though such a mode of reasoning may be al- 

 lowed in removing alleged contradictions, as proving an 

 affirmative, it is worth literally nothing. He who builds his 

 arguments upon mere verbal niceties of passages of Scrip- 

 ture, is perhaps not aware of the formidable list of various 

 readings which exists, causing uncertainty, or at least giving 

 rise to the suspicion of it, in regard to the petty words 

 upon which he founds. If he trust to an English transla- 

 tion, so much the worse, for in addition to mis-translations, 

 and possible slight errors in the original text translated 

 from, there is a source of petty mistake in the printed 

 copies of that translation, which, when the question of the 

 Bible printing monopoly was agitated, were shewn by com- 

 parison of editions to be more disfigured by gross typogra- 

 phical blunders than almost any other book. At the same 

 time, however, it is admitted, that none of these various 

 readings or mistakes seriously affect the general sense of 

 the whole. 



It has been contended by some, too, that the Scripture 

 ought always to be taken in the sense in which it was under- 

 stood by the writers of it. This, which would at once bring 

 Scripture into collision with several sciences, though a good 

 rule in regard to merely human writings, involves a fallacy 

 as applied to holy writ. There, there are two authors of 

 the work, the mere agent who writes, and the higher being, 

 the Holy Spirit inspiring him. It is easily seen that the su- 

 perior intelligence may have intended to convey to after-times, 

 under the words, a higher and more extended meaning* 

 than was apparent either to the inditer, or to the men of his 



* John xi. 49—53. 



