6. Let me also advert to a dilemma which seems hardly ever to obtain from a certain class of critics the attention it deserves. If a writing be not inspired, _it is of no absolute authority_. If a part of a writing be not inspired, that part is of no absolute authority. If a single word in the text of Holy Scripture be even uncertain,--(as, for example, whether we are to read ΟΣ or ΘΕΟΣ in 1 Tim. iii. 16,)--_that word becomes without absolute authority_. We cannot venture to adduce it _in proof_ of anything. Without therefore, in the remotest degree, desiring to discourage the application of a _true_ theory of Inspiration to the phenomena of Holy Scripture, through fear of the necessary consequences,--may we not call attention to the manifest awkwardness of a theory which no one knows how to apply, and about the application of which no two men will ever be agreed?--the issue of the discussion being, in every case, neither more nor less than this,--whether the portion of Scripture under consideration is Human, and therefore _of no absolute authority_; or Divine, and therefore _infallible_! 7. A far more important consideration remains to be offered, and with this I shall conclude. Although, when St. Paul appears to reason inconclusively, some of us do not hesitate to refer the Apostle's (supposed) imperfect logic to his personal infirmity,--yet, common piety revolts against the proposal to apply the same solution to the same phenomenon when it is observed to occur in the Discourses of our Blessed LORD Himself. It seems to have been providentially ordained, however, that the discourses of CHRIST Himself should supply examples of every one of those difficulties which it is thought lawful to account for,--when an Apostle or an Evangelist is the speaker,--on the hypothesis of partial, imperfect, or suspended Inspiration. Now, since _I_, at least, shall not be permitted to be either vague or general, I proceed to subjoin the proof of what has been thus advanced:-- =1=. The well-known difficulty about "the days of Abiathar," _is found in one of our LORD'S discourses_[428]. Here then is a case of what, if an Evangelist or an Apostle had been the author of the statement, would have been called an historical inaccuracy. =2=. However unworthy of scientific attention the Mosaic account of the descent of Mankind from a single pair may be deemed,--the universality of 'the Noachian Deluge,'--the destruction of the Cities of the plain,--the fate of Lot's wife,--Jonah in the fish's belly,--and so forth;--to all these (supposed) unscientific statements our Blessed LORD commits Himself unequivocally[429].