A man full of the Holy Spirit, and especially a man who had received of its influences without measure, would be sure to exhort men to be very wise and very harmless; but he might use a form of words in his exhortation which had originated in the misconception that serpents were wiser than any other animals, and that doves were more harmless than any other birds. Yet the exhortation would be good in substance; and even the form, being in accordance with the views prevailing in his times, would be unobjectionable; and both would be consistent with the fullest inspiration of the Holy Spirit. A great, good man, speaking under divine impulse, urging his son in the Gospel to resist false and immoral teachers, might say, 'Now as Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses, so do these also resist the truth; but their folly shall be made manifest unto all men, as theirs also was.' Whether the men who withstood Moses were really called Jannes and Jambres or not, I do not know. The Old Testament does not say they were. The probability is, that Paul rested his illustration on a Jewish tradition. But as the tradition was received as true by his people, his lesson was just as good as if it had rested on some unquestionable fact stated in authentic history. And so with regard to illustrations and incidental statements and allusions generally. Though they may rest on misconceptions, the moral lessons and spiritual revelations into the service of which they are pressed, may be God's own oracles, and the book in which they appear may, as a whole, be given by divine inspiration, and be profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for instruction in righteousness, and conducive to all the great and desirable ends so dear to God. There is no such thing as absolute perfection with regard to books. There is no authorized standard, no test, no measure of absolute perfection for books; and if there were, no man could apply it. Of a thousand different books each may be perfect in its way, yet none of them be absolutely perfect. Each may have some great good end in view, and be adapted to answer that end; and that is the only perfection of which a book admits. And it is perfection enough. And this perfection the Bible has. It has the best, the highest, the most glorious objects in view, and it is adapted to accomplish those objects; and that is sufficient. They that undertake to prove that it has any other perfection, will fail, and both bring discredit on themselves, and suspicion on the Bible. The Bible may be more grievously wronged by unwise praise, than by unjust censure.