Lord Jesus Christ.”  These and other passages cannot without violence be interpreted even singly in any other sense; but taking them together, their meaning seems absolutely certain.  Shall we say, then, that St. Paul entertained and expressed a belief which the event did not verify?  We may say so, safely and reverently, in this instance; for here he was most certainly speaking as a man, and not by revelation; as it has been providentially ordered that our Lord’s express words on this point have been recorded—­“Of that day and hour knoweth no man; no, not the angels in heaven.”  Or again, shall we say, that St. Paul advised the Corinthians not to marry, chiefly on this ground; and that this throws a suspicion over his directions in other points?  But again it has been ordered, that in this very place, and no where else in all his writing, St. Paul has expressly said that he was only giving his judgment as a Christian, and not speaking with divine authority;—­the concluding words of the chapter, [Greek:  doko de kago pneuma theou echein] do not signify, as our Version renders them, “And I think also that I have the Spirit of God,” as if he were confirming his own judgment by an assertion of his inspiration in a sense beyond that of common Christians; but the words say, “And I think that I too have the Spirit of God,” “I too as well as others whom you might consult, so that my judgment is no less worthy of attention than theirs.”  But it is his Christian judgment only that he is giving, as he expressly declares, and not his apostolical command or revelation; a distinction which he never makes elsewhere, and which is in itself so striking, that we seem to recognise in it God’s especial mercy to us, that our faith in St. Paul’s general declarations of divine truth might not be shaken, because in one particular point he was permitted to speak as a man, giving express notice at the same time that he was doing so.

Now it is at least remarkable, that in the only two instances in which the existence of any absence of divine authority is to be discerned in St. Paul’s epistles, provision is actually made by God’s fondness to prevent them from prejudicing our faith in St. Paul’s divine authority generally.  And so in whatever points any error may be discoverable in Scripture, we shall find either that the errors are of a kind wholly unconnected with the revelation of what God has done to us, and of what we are to do towards Him; and therefore are perfectly consistent with the inspiration of the writer, unless we take that unwarranted notion of inspiration which considers it as equivalent to a communication of God’s attributes perfectly; (and of this kind are any errors that may exist either in points of physical science, or of chronology, or of history;) or if there be any thing else which appears inconsistent with inspiration, in the sense in which we really may and do apply it to the Scriptures, namely, that they are a perfect guide and rule in all matters concerning our relations with God, then we shall find that God has made some special provision for the case, to remove what it otherwise might have had of real difficulty.