The final inference is this--that scriptural truth is endowed with a self-conservative and a self-restorative virtue; it needs no long successions of verbal protection by inspiration; it is self-protected; first, internally, by the complex power which belongs to the Christian _system_ of involving its own integrations, in the same way as a musical chord involves its own successions of sound, and its own resolutions; secondly, in an external and obvious way, it is protected by its prodigious iteration, and secret _presupposed_ in all varieties of form. Consequently, as the peril connected with language is thus effectually barred, the call for any verbal inspiration (which, on separate grounds, is shown to be self-confounding) shows itself now, in a _second_ form, to be a gratuitous delusion, since, in effect, it is a call for protection against a danger which cannot have any existence. There is another variety of bibliolatry arising in a different way--not upon errors of language incident to human infirmity, but upon deliberate errors indispensable to divine purposes. The case is one which has been considered with far too little attention, else it could never have been thought strange that Christ should comply in things indifferent with popular errors. A few Words will put the reader in possession of my view. Speaking of the Bible, _Phil._ says, 'We admit that its separate parts are the work of frail and fallible human beings. We do not seek to build upon it systems of cosmogony, chronology, astronomy, and natural history. We know no reason of internal or external probability which should induce us to believe that such matters could ever have been the subjects of direct revelation.' Is _that_ all? There is no reason, certainly, for expectations so foolish; but is there no adamantine reason against them? It is no business of the Bible, we are told, to teach science. Certainly not; but that is far too little. It is an obligation resting upon the Bible, if it is to be consistent with itself, that it should _refuse_ to teach science; and, if the Bible ever _had_ taught any one art, science, or process of life, capital doubts would have clouded our confidence in the authority of the book. By what caprice, it would have been asked, is a divine mission abandoned suddenly for a human mission? By what caprice is this one science taught, and others not? Or these two, suppose, and not all? But an objection, even deadlier, would have followed. It is clear as is the purpose of daylight, that the whole body of the arts and sciences composes one vast machinery for the irritation and development of the human intellect. For this end they exist. To see God, therefore, descending into the arena of science, and contending, as it were, for his own prizes, by teaching science in the Bible, would be to see him intercepting from their self-evident destination, (viz., man's intellectual benefit,) his own problems by solving them himself.