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doubt at all. (Hear, hear.) It has seemed to me for many years that this is 
the work of all works which needs to be done for our Christian faith. I 
greatly deplore that our learned universities do not give us men who would 
bring to the Scriptures the same sort of historical and critical faculty which 
'similar men from the same universities have brought to bear on a number 
of what we call the profane historians of the ancient world. I hope that 
before long we shall have something of this sort done, and then we shall 
make no mountain of these difficulties, which are greatly and studiously 
exaggerated. If there had been any such thing done with regard to the 
Pentateuch, many men would not have been led to despair of the truth 
of the Old Testament from such writings as those of Dr. Colenso. 
Rev. Mr. Titcomb. — Some of the remarks which I had intended to 
make have been already anticipated. I fully agree with Dr. Rigg as to the 
great desirableness of further elucidating the great difficulties which we have 
to encounter in these matters ; although I think he rather underrates the im- 
portance of those works which do already exist upon the subject. I fear the 
whole of this discussion must have given pain to some here present, and if 
not to them, that it will give pain to a large circle of religious people outside. 
At this stage of the debate, therefore, as well as from my own position as a 
clergyman, it may be well to try and throw a little comfort into the minds 
of those whose thoughts may have been disturbed. The popular mind no 
doubt is completely wedded to the thought that the Bible is of no use unless 
every syllable is infallibly correct as it stands in the English language. I 
fully concur with Dr. Thornton in the utter impossibility of holding that view. 
Now that may be a shock to many persons’ feelings. Yet why should it 
be ? For the real truth is that the infallible character of Scripture rests 
on the original autographs, and not upon their translations. I think Dr. 
Thornton would, therefore, have worded the title of his paper better if, instead 
of calling it “ On the Numerical System of the Old Testament,” he had called 
it “On the Numerical System of the Hebrew Text of the Old Testament.” 
That would have made the whole thing plainer, and would have put it in 
a position in which those who hold such strong views would not have felt the 
same difficulty which they may now feel. The grand truth that the infalli- 
bility of the inspired writers in the original autographs is one thing, and 
the possible fallibility of the present English text is quite another thing, no 
reasonable man can deny; indeed it is so transparent, not only in regard 
to numbers, but in other things, that any one of ordinary learning will admit 
it in a moment. It is, however, attended with this great difficulty, though 
it is no difficulty to me, that if one syllable in the English Bible be not true, 
an uneducated man who wants advice may say, “ How am I to know that 
the rest is true ? ” But out of that difficulty no man on earth can get us. 
We cannot resist facts. For example, it is stated in the first verse of the 
sixth chapter of the first book of Kings, that the interval of time between 
the Exodus and the building of the Temple was 480 years. That is plainly 
stated in the English Bible, and the date is given as in the fourth year of 
Solomon’s reign. But St. Paul says, in the 13th chapter of the Acts, that 
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