Thus the refrain would agree exactly with the two that follow (ver. 11 and 43:5). Yet this conjecture, however plausible, is uncertain, since we do not know that the sacred writer sought exact uniformity in the three refrains. 9. _General remark_ on the various readings of the sacred text. As a general rule, the various readings with which textual criticism is occupied have respect to minor points--for the most part points of a trivial nature; and even where the variations are of more importance, they are not of such a character as to obscure, much less change, the truths of revelation in any essential respect. Biblical critics tell us, for example, that the Samaritan Pentateuch agrees with the Septuagint version in more than a thousand places where they differ from the Masoretic Hebrew text. Chap. 16, No. 7. Yet these three texts all exhibit the same God, and the same system of doctrines and duties. Revelation does not lie in letters and syllables and grammatical forms, but in the deep and pure and strong and broad current of truth "given by inspiration of God." Reverence for the inspired word makes us anxious to possess the sacred text in all possible purity. Yet if we cannot attain to absolute perfection in this respect, we have reasonable assurance that God, who gave the revelation contained in the Old Testament, has preserved it to us unchanged in any essential particular. The point on which most obscurity and uncertainty rests is that of scriptural chronology; and this is not one that affects Christian faith or practice. SECOND DIVISION: PARTICULAR INTRODUCTION. CHAPTER XVIII. THE BOOKS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT AS A WHOLE.