LIBRARY 
 
 OP THE 
 
 Theological Seminary 
 
 PRINCETON, N. J. 
 
 Shelf, yCC32- 
 Book, , 
 
THE INSPIRATION 
 
 OF 
 
 THE HOLY SCKIPTUKES 
 
 Ejje Bairti lecture for 1873 
 
 BY 
 
 EOBEET JAMIESON, D.D. 
 
 MINISTER OF ST PAUL'S PARISH CHURCH, GLASGOW 
 
 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS 
 
 EDINBURGH AND LONDON 
 MDCCCLXXIII 
 
Excerpt from the Deed of Trust by James Baird, 
 Esq., in favour of the Trustees of the 'Baird Trust.' 
 
 ' Whereas, at the Meeting of the General Assembly of the 
 Church of Scotland, held in May 1872, I declared my intention 
 to found a Lectureship, to be called "The Baird Lecture," for the 
 illustration and the defence of the vital truths hereinbefore re- 
 ferred to, as well as for the promotion of Christian knowledge 
 and Christian work generally, and for the exposure and refutation 
 of all error and unbelief, under which foundation the Reverend 
 Robert Jamieson, D.D., lately Moderator of the General Assembly, 
 was to be the first Lecturer, and that for the spring of the year 
 1873 ; Therefore, and for the endowment of the said Lectureship, 
 I appoint my said Trustees to hold an annual sum of £220 out of 
 the revenue of the funds under their charge for the purposes of 
 said Lectureship; and I direct that the following shall be the 
 conditions and terms on which my said Trustees shall carry out 
 my foundation of said Lectureship : — 
 
 ' 1. The Lecturer shall be a minister of the foresaid Church 
 of Scotland who shall have served the cure of a parish for not 
 less than five years, or a minister of any other of the Scottish 
 Presbyterian Churches who shall have served as pastor of a con- 
 gregation for a similar period in his own Church ; and in making 
 the appointment, care shall be taken by the Trustees to choose a 
 man of piety, ability, and learning, and who is approved and 
 reputed sound in all the essentials of Christian truth, as set 
 forth in the statement hereinbefore written of what is meant by 
 sound religious principles. 
 
 ' 2. The Lecturer shall be appointed annually in the month of 
 April by my said Trustees, and the appointment shall be made 
 at a meeting of the Trustees to be called for the purpose, and held 
 in Glasgow. 
 
 ' 3. The Lecturer shall deliver a course of not less than Six 
 Lectures on any subject of Theology, Christian Evidences, Chris- 
 tian Work, Christian Missions, Church Government, and Church 
 Organizations, or on such subject relative thereto as the Trustees 
 shall from year to year fix in concert with the Lecturer. 
 
IV EXCERPT FROM DEED OF TRUST. 
 
 ' 4. The Lectures shall be duly advertised to the satisfaction of 
 the Trustees, at the cost of the Lecturer, and shall be delivered 
 publicly at any time during the months of January and February 
 in each year, in Glasgow, and also, if required, in such other one 
 of the Scottish University towns as may from time to time be 
 appointed by the Trustees. 
 
 ' 5. The Lectures of each year shall be published, if possible, 
 before the meeting of the next General Assembly, or at latest 
 within six months of the date when the last of the course shall 
 have been delivered. Such publication to be carried out at the 
 sight and to the satisfaction of the Trustees, but by the Lecturer 
 at his own cost and risk, and to the extent of not less than 750 
 copies, of which there shall be deposited, free, two copies in the 
 Library of each of the Universities of Glasgow, Aberdeen, Edin- 
 burgh, and St. Andrews, two copies in the Library of the General 
 Assembly of the Church of Scotland, and one copy in each of the 
 Theological Libraries connected with the said Universities, and 
 twenty copies shall be put at the disposal of the Trustees. The 
 price of publication to be regulated by the Trustees in concert 
 with the Lecturer.' 
 
PEEFACE. 
 
 These Lectures, which were orally delivered in the 
 early part of the year, are now given to the public 
 in a printed form. The author was not laid under 
 any of the restrictions as to the time of publica- 
 tion which have been laid down since in Mr. 
 Baird's Deed of Bequest; and various circum- 
 stances, which it is unnecessary to mention, have 
 occasioned its postponement till this date. 
 
 The choice of a subject was left entirely to the 
 judgment and taste of the Lecturer ; and being the 
 first of a series intended to expound and establish 
 the great fundamental truths of Christianity, it 
 appeared to him that no theme could be so ap- 
 propriate as a short treatise on the divine cha- 
 racter and authority of the Book which forms " the 
 only rule that God has given to teach us what we 
 are to believe concerning Him, as well as what is 
 the duty He requires of man." Besides, a con- 
 
VI PREFACE. 
 
 densed view of the arguments which prove the 
 Scriptures to be the inspired word of God is greatly 
 needed in the present day, when the public mind 
 is, from various causes, agitated on religious 
 matters, and the foundations of old beliefs are 
 eagerly examined ; and it is hoped that some aid 
 may be afforded by the following Lectures to honest 
 and anxious inquirers, who long to rest their faith 
 in the inspiration of the Scriptures on a sound and 
 solid basis. 
 
 The Author deems it a high honour that he was 
 requested to commence a Lectureship which, he 
 fondly trusts, will in the future series reflect credit 
 on Scotland, by contributing to stimulate the study 
 of Theology amongst her clergy, and thereby to 
 promote the cause of Christ. 
 
 Glasgow, December 1873. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 LECTURE I. 1 
 
 LECTURE II 61 
 
 LECTURE III 156 
 
 LECTURE IV 247 
 
 LECTURE V 303 
 
 LECTURE VI 344 
 
 NOTES 377 
 
THE INSPIKATION 
 
 OF 
 
 THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 
 
 LECTURE I. 
 
 Titles of the Bible — Supreme Importance of its Contents — Lofti- 
 ness of its Character and Tone — Hereditary Eeverence for the 
 Scriptures — Happy Influence of them — Assaults of Infidelity 
 — Peculiar Character of Scepticism in the Present Day — In- 
 spiration a Subject of Vital Interest and Importance — Word 
 of God existed in the World before it was embodied in a 
 Written Form — Meaning of Inspiration — Necessity of Inspi- 
 ration — Inspiration of the Scriptures coUectively — Evidence 
 furnished by the Faithful Custody of the Old Testament by 
 the Jews — And of the New by the Early Christians — Evidence 
 of their Inspiration given by the Testimony of Christ and of 
 the Apostles — Meaning of Canon — Formed by Ezra — Account 
 of the Old Testament Books by Josephus — Charge against 
 Christ and the Apostles of speaking regarding the Scriptures 
 in accommodation to the Prejudices of their Countrymen — 
 Groundlessness of such a Charge — AH Scripture given by In- 
 spiration — Doubts regarding some Books, as Esther and Song 
 of Solomon — Objections answered — Infallible Authority aris- 
 ing from Inspiration — Scriptures an Organic Whole. 
 
 The Bible is a communication from God to man ; 
 and the transcendent importance of its contents is 
 significantly indicated by the various titles applied 
 
2 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 to it. This sacred volume is called " the Bible," 
 i.e. the Book, and the Scriptures, i.e. the Writings, 
 as being incomparably more valuable than all the 
 volumes which, in a written as well as printed 
 form, have ever appeared in the world. It is called 
 also " the oracles of God," as containing heavenly- 
 responses on matters of highest concern to man's 
 peace and happiness, and " lively oracles," as point- 
 ing out the way to his enjoyment of spiritual and 
 eternal life ; " the word of reconciliation," as hold- 
 ing out the hope as well as the means of securing 
 favour and acceptance with his greatly offended 
 Maker ; " the word of truth," as affording clear and 
 certain information for guidance in faith and prac- 
 tice ; and " the word of God," as, though conveyed 
 in the language of man, it was divine in its origin, 
 and carries a divine authority along with it. These 
 different names describe the distinctive properties 
 of the Bible, which occupies the same high rank 
 amongst books as did the sheaf of Joseph, to which 
 the sheaves of his father and brethren were seen to 
 bow. The Scriptures are distinguished from all 
 other books, not only by containing a greater mass 
 and variety of matter than is to be found within 
 the same compass in any other book, but by the 
 character of their contents. They are the most 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 3 
 
 ancient of all books in the world, and tell us of 
 events and transactions in the earliest ages of which 
 we can obtain the knowledge from no other source. 
 But it is not their venerable antiquity, their oriental 
 dress, their picturesque delineation of patriarchal 
 manners, that form their great value, or that recom- 
 mend them pre-eminently to our notice. It is be- 
 cause they communicate information on matters of 
 surpassing interest and importance ; matters bearing 
 directly on the welfare of man, both in this world 
 and that which is to come. Moreover, the slightest 
 acquaintance with them is sufficient to show that 
 they are unique in their character, and, viewed 
 generally, bear so little resemblance to any known 
 productions of man, as to create a strong presump- 
 tion that he is not the author. The style is so much 
 more dignified and commanding than the greatest 
 or boldest of mortals would have dared to assume ; 
 the discoveries made in the Scriptures stretch for- 
 ward in a direction so remote from the course which 
 all human researches have uniformly taken ; the 
 principle that pervades them is so humiliating to 
 the native pride of man, and the whole of the de- 
 tails are of a kind, to the invention of which the 
 natural powers of humanity are so manifestly un- 
 equal, that every intelligent and reflecting person 
 
4 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 must be convinced that it has had a higher than 
 human origin. Moreover, considered in their inter- 
 nal character and leading aim, the Scriptures are 
 found to breathe a spirit of such exalted purity ; 
 they display such stern opposition to every form 
 and degree of iniquity and vice ; they make such 
 an effectual provision for the banishment of all 
 evils, and for the growth and establishment of all 
 true excellence ; their tendency is so strong and so 
 well fitted to elevate this fallen world to the pure 
 condition of heaven, and to renew man in confor- 
 mity to the moral image of God, as affords conclu- 
 sive evidence that they contain His revealed scheme 
 of grace for the moral and spiritual regeneration 
 of the human race. 
 
 In this land of Christian knowledge and obser- 
 vance, we are born and bred with a feeling of here- 
 ditary reverence for the Scriptures. This book 
 awakens in the minds of all far other sentiments 
 than those connected with a venerable antiquity ; 
 and though it presents only the same common ap- 
 pearance, and is composed of the same common 
 materials with other books, its very name is a 
 symbol of sacredness, greater than what is attached 
 to any of the highest productions of human genius 
 or learning. Nor is this feeling of veneration con- 
 
THE HOLY SCKIPTURES. 5 
 
 fined only to classes of people who may be actuated 
 by blind superstition on the one hand, or pietistic 
 enthusiasm on the other. It is a sentiment which 
 animates the inhabitants of this country generally, 
 the origin of the popular belief being traceable to 
 the influence of early impressions. And happy it 
 is that this idea is engraven on the tablets of the 
 youthful mind ; that the persuasion is intertwined 
 with its tenderest associations ; and that the first 
 elements of knowledge imbibed are usually those 
 simple but sublime and interesting truths, that are 
 taught as the leading principles of the sacred 
 volume. I say, happy it is that childhood and 
 youth are imbued with such strong prepossessions 
 in favour of the divine character and authority of 
 the Scriptures ; for every intelligent and candid 
 observer will admit that the use of the Bible for 
 centuries in our national system of education has 
 been one main cause of the superior intelligence 
 that distinguishes bur countrymen generally. In 
 numberless instances it must have produced a 
 beneficial influence in training the pupils to the 
 love and practice of good ; and while the remem- 
 brance of its precepts and solemn sanctions must 
 have exercised a secret but powerful restraint on 
 the passions of many who were not accustomed 
 
G THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 to take it as their governing principle of action, 
 multitudes who drank its spirit, and cherished its 
 benign influence, have looked to it as their polar 
 star in regulating the daily course of their lives ; 
 and felt that, to part with it, would be to de- 
 prive themselves of a hope and belief essential to 
 their comfort, and inwrought into their very being. 
 By its direct and indirect influence amongst all 
 classes, it has long moulded the national faith ; and 
 the happy effects of it upon the people are seen in 
 all the pursuits of social life and the arrangements 
 of civil society, making them high in civilisation, 
 advanced in the cultivation of the arts and sciences, 
 refined in their manners, correct in their morals, 
 pure in the administration of justice, and always in 
 a state of progress. It must needs be, however, 
 that offences come ; and persons whose attachment 
 to the Scriptures has grown with their growth, and 
 strengthened with their strength, are liable to have 
 their cherished feelings frequently shocked by the 
 assaults that are made on what they have been 
 taught to regard and are accustomed to revere as 
 sacred. At all times there have been secret or 
 open enemies, who have doubted or denied the 
 claims of the Bible, from the determined infidel 
 who scouts the idea of an external revelation 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 7 
 
 through a book, deeming the inward light of reason 
 and conscience sufficient, up to the rationalist who, 
 while admitting the Scriptures to contain the will 
 of God, subjects all its statements to the ordeal of 
 reason. The age in which we live is no exception: 
 for although the virulent spirit with which the 
 Deistical controversy was last century waged has 
 long ago ceased ; although a Voltaire and a Paine 
 have happily no imitators in the present day, their 
 place has been occupied by successors like Strauss 
 and Eenan, whose philosophical or romantic theories 
 are as wild and mischievous as the scoffing cavils of 
 the one or the vulgar ribaldry of the other. The 
 old hypothesis, indeed, which represented the sacred 
 books as forgeries has been abandoned as untenable, 
 its abettors having been discomfited by force of 
 superior learning and well-applied argument. But 
 although knowledge has changed the mode of war- 
 fare, and refinement tempered the asperity of oppo- 
 sition, infidelity is so far from being extirpated, 
 that from special causes, connected chiefly with the 
 scientific character and critical tendencies of the 
 age, a quiet but settled scepticism prevails to a 
 wide extent among the higher class of society ; 
 and it has been reserved to the present day to 
 witness the strange phenomenon of professed Chris- 
 
8 THE INSINUATION OF 
 
 tians declaring their conviction that the Bible is a 
 merely human production. While recognising the 
 fact of a supernatural revelation having been given, 
 they assert that the men who received the com- 
 munication gave an honest account of it so far as 
 they knew, understood, or remembered it, but that, 
 through national prejudices or personal frailties, 
 misapprehending or misstating its meaning, their 
 records are so imperfect, erroneous, often self-con- 
 tradictory and false, that no confidence can be 
 placed in them ; and that even where they are 
 correct and coherent, the grains of divine truth 
 are so blended with a mass of poetical myths, of 
 legendary fables, and popular traditions, that reason 
 and the higher criticism must be employed to test 
 the credibility of the narrative, and admit only what 
 approves itself to the moral intuition. This habit 
 of thought, which has long prevailed in Germany, 
 and given rise to a large proportion of the errors 
 into which the divines of that country have fallen, 
 has been imported into Britain, and is producing its 
 natural fruits. The old recognised boundaries of 
 inspiration have been broken down : some contend 
 for a partial inspiration ; others reject the idea of 
 inspiration altogether as unreasonable, or reduce it 
 to a minimum. So that the dignity and authority 
 
THE HOLY SCEIPTURES. 9 
 
 of the divine sanction are almost wholly withdrawn 
 from the sacred volume ; and critics feel themselves 
 at liberty to discuss both the Bible itself, and the 
 contents of its various books, with no other restraint 
 than they would feel in the examination of the 
 most ordinary publication. How greatly does it 
 tend to lower the character and destroy all confi- 
 dence in the sacred volume, when, instead of receiv- 
 ing implicitly its statements as the word of God, 
 an active and constant exercise of judgment is 
 required to extract the precious ore from the 
 earthly accretion with which it is encrusted — to 
 select the divine from the human, and to determine 
 in what portions God is addressing us ! How 
 directly does it tend not only to destroy the feeling 
 of veneration due to the pure and holy word of 
 God, but to keep the mind of the reader in a state 
 of painful doubt and uncertainty as to whether, in 
 the portion accepted, his faith is resting on the 
 word of man or the word of God ! In these circum- 
 stances, the subject of inspiration is invested with 
 immense importance. It has become one of the 
 vital questions of the times ; and while it may be 
 expedient to examine the grounds of our faith 
 generally, as we are living in an age when the 
 foundations of all old beliefs are being upturned and 
 
10 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 sifted, it is imperatively necessary, from its bearing 
 upon all our religious principles and practice, to 
 have full confidence in the breadth and solidity 
 of the basis on which we rest our persuasion of 
 the divine character and supreme authority of the 
 Scripture. 
 
 To set before you the evidences of this mo- 
 mentous fact, that the Scriptures of the Old and 
 New Testaments are the revealed word of God, and 
 the only supreme rule of faith and manners, is 
 the object of the following Lectures. But before 
 entering upon the discussion of this subject, it 
 may be proper to premise, that in one point of 
 view the word of God long preceded the Bible. 
 For the gracious declaration of God concerning 
 a Eedeemer of fallen man was announced in sub- 
 stance many centuries before the earliest of the 
 sacred writers was born. The antediluvian patri- 
 archs, Adam, Enoch, Noah, and others, as well as 
 the first post-diluvian patriarchs, Shem, Melchi- 
 zedek, and Job, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, were 
 not in possession of a Bible. And yet they had 
 the word of God, communicated to them in various 
 ways, and containing the essence of " the gospel 
 which is now preached unto us." Nay, the very 
 day that man became a sinner, the word of God 
 
THE HOLY SCEIPTUEES. 11 
 
 came to him, convincing him of sin, and relieving 
 his despondency or despair by the announcement 
 of a remedial scheme of salvation which divine 
 grace had provided. That word, thus early given, 
 was repeated by peculiar manifestations to many 
 good men, and maintained in the world for a 
 while by oral tradition, till, in the course of time, 
 the revelations it embraced, and what information 
 relating to the origin and early condition of 
 mankind would be subservient to their religious 
 instruction, were embodied in the permanent form 
 of a book. That book has during four thousand 
 years been wonderfully preserved amid the greatest 
 vicissitudes ; and while myriads of other books, 
 once well known and held in high estimation, have 
 become entirely obsolete, or been long ago lost 
 in the gulf of oblivion, it still continues abreast, 
 or rather in advance of the age, — as suitable to the 
 character and condition of mankind in the nine- 
 teenth century as in the earliest times. If, then, 
 God has spoken of Himself and His purposes 
 of grace to our fallen humanity, what He has 
 said must be authoritative, and all our specula- 
 tions on these subjects must be superseded by 
 the transcendent utterances of the divine oracle. 
 But to the mind of every intelligent and reflect- 
 
12 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 ing person, it must appear that, in such a case, 
 the proper initiative is to satisfy ourselves that 
 the Scripture is the word of the Most High God ; 
 and then, with that "as a light that shineth in 
 a dark place," to explore our way into the regions 
 of faith and duty. 
 
 Now all that constitutes Christianity as a 
 scheme, separate from all other religious systems 
 ever known in the world, is contained in this 
 book, which sets forth its distinctive peculiarities 
 in a series of facts, doctrines, and duties, accom- 
 panied with a record of miraculous interpositions, 
 which are God's attestations to those truths and 
 duties. Assuming, as on the present occasion 
 we must do, that the record is authentic and 
 genuine, we lay down, and shall endeavour to 
 establish, the position that it is also inspired. In 
 other words, our purpose is to show that the 
 Bible, though consisting of matter written in the 
 language and traced by the pen of mortals, frail 
 and fallible as other men, yet bears the impress 
 of a divine origin and character ; consequently, 
 is of supreme, infallible authority. Inspiration 
 signifies " a breathing into ;" and although it is 
 not, strictly speaking, a scriptural term, the 
 phraseology is borrowed from the act of the 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 13 
 
 Creator, who breathed into the nostrils of the 
 newly formed man the breath of life ; and the 
 same act was repeated by our Lord after His 
 resurrection, when He breathed on His disciples, 
 saying, " Eeceive ye the Holy Ghost." By this 
 significant act, He announced to them in a meta- 
 phorical way that a power was imparted to them, 
 by which they were to be supernaturally en- 
 lightened in the knowledge and guided in the 
 exhibition of divine truth, — a power exercised 
 over them by the Holy Ghost, which caused the 
 things which they wrote to be of absolute autho- 
 rity. It might or might not be accompanied by 
 a revelation of facts, or of principles of truth pre- 
 viously unknown ; but in either case, inspiration 
 was equally needed. For else, how could a man, 
 however holy or wise, write authoritatively? and 
 how could he rightly know what should be a 
 record conducive to the instruction and profit 
 of God's people in all ages ? In the course of 
 our Lectures, we propose to consider the subject 
 first in reference to the Scriptures collectively, 
 and afterwards to the separate books, taking up 
 in succession, though not formally, such points 
 as the following : What is the kind as well as 
 amount of evidence which can be adduced to 
 
14 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 prove the inspiration of the Bible ? Does this 
 supernatural quality characterize the whole Scrip- 
 tures ? Does it pervade the sacred volume in an 
 equal degree throughout ; or does a higher degree 
 attach to some portions, while an inferior measure 
 only is imparted to others ? Is the nature and 
 extent of this inspiration sufficient to stamp upon 
 the Bible the broad seal of divine and infallible 
 authority, as the only standard of faith and duty ? 
 This summary of topics seems sufficiently com- 
 prehensive to cover the whole field of inquiry 
 relating to the subject ; and we are persuaded 
 that a candid, enlightened, and full considera- 
 tion of them will lead to the important result 
 of establishing the Scriptures to be the word of 
 God. 
 
 Now, with regard to the inspiration of the Old 
 Testament, where can we look for the evidence 
 of the fact so naturally and properly, as to the 
 people who were appointed to be the depositaries 
 of the divine will, and who executed their im- 
 portant trust with a fidelity worthy of the highest 
 praise ? It does not appear that the Almighty 
 gave any written declaration of His will until 
 He had separated the Jewish people from the rest 
 of the nations for a time, to be His witnesses, and 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 15 
 
 at the same time custodiers of the various revela- 
 tions which were to be made in the progressive 
 development of His scheme of grace. From the 
 commencement of their national history, they 
 were placed under the superintendence of a 
 human leader, who had received a divine lega- 
 tion, and who, in discharging the duties of his 
 high mission, was admitted to the privilege of 
 frequent and direct communication with his Divine 
 Master, for the purpose of receiving instructions 
 how he should introduce and establish that system 
 of polity which was designed for the government 
 of the people. During the whole existence of 
 their peculiar economy, God was pleased to main- 
 tain a close and constant superintendence of the 
 Jewish people by extraordinary messengers, sent 
 from time to time to communicate His will ; and 
 although numbers of false prophets appeared, who 
 counterfeited the true, and by their artful address 
 gained a temporary ascendency in deluding and 
 misleading the people, certain plain and palpable 
 criteria were given, by which all classes might 
 easily determine the character of the men who 
 spoke to them in the name of the Lord. The 
 tests of a false prophet were these — the speedy 
 failure of his predictions, or the infliction upon 
 
16 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 himself 1 of some sudden judgments of Heaven ; 
 and by the application of those marks the youngest 
 and simplest might have been enabled to decide 
 whether and how far the persons who appeared 
 amongst them assuming the prophetic character 
 were worthy of confidence. As the special dis- 
 pensation which God established with that nation 
 necessitated His frequent and direct interposition 
 in their affairs, so that miraculous incidents were 
 occasionally intermingled with the ordinary course 
 of their history, we are prepared to expect a class 
 of inspired men who were ambassadors of God in 
 communicating His will; and by this divinely 
 contrived system of agency, the light of truth was 
 preserved in the land which God had chosen to 
 put His name there. Nor was this all ; for oral 
 discourses would have produced a very transient 
 impression on a rude and ignorant people, and 
 therefore some permanent means were provided 
 for the religious instruction of the people. The 
 communications which Moses received from God 
 he was commanded to record in a book, which 
 was deposited, not only for perfect security, but 
 as the protest against the national breach of the 
 covenant in future times by idolatry, beside the 
 1 Jer. xxviii. 17. 
 
THE HOLY SCKIPTUEES. 17 
 
 ark in the sanctuary. 1 This book was increased 
 by successive additions made in the progress of 
 the Jewish nation, such as the record of Joshua, 2 
 and other portions of the Scripture, 3 with a collec- 
 tion of Proverbs, and perhaps of Psalms. 4 At a 
 later period, " the book of the Lord " is mentioned 
 by Isaiah as a general collection for religious in- 
 struction ; 5 and " the book of the law," " the former 
 prophets," and " the books," are referred to by 
 Zechariah and Daniel. 6 The popular belief of 
 the Jewish church ascribed to Ezra, on the return 
 from the Babylonish captivity, the honourable 
 undertaking of collecting the isolated books of 
 Scripture for the use of the resuscitated Jewish 
 church. That protracted exile led to a complete 
 revolution of the Jewish mind ; for, from that 
 time, the Jews being effectually cured of their 
 infatuated propensity to idols and idolatry, began 
 to cherish a devoted reverence for the God of 
 their fathers, and an adherence to the religious 
 institutions of their native country. The church 
 was reorganized ; and to aid the celebration of 
 public worship, the sacred canon of the Old Testa- 
 
 1 Deut. xxxi. 25 ; 1 Kings viii. 9 ; 2 Kings xxii. 8. 
 
 2 Josh. xxiv. 26. 3 1 Sam. x. 25. 4 Prov. xxv. 
 5 Isa. xxix. 18. 6 Zech. vii. 12 ; Dan. ix. 2. 
 
 B 
 
1 8 THE INSPIKATION OF 
 
 ment was formed under the auspices of Ezra and 
 " the great synagogue," so that part of the divine 
 word was read every Sabbath-day in the syna- 
 gogue, and the people acquired thereby a feeling of 
 reverential regard for it, which time tended only 
 to deepen and confirm. This was the great ad- 
 vantage of the Jews, that " to them were committed 
 the oracles of God," and their whole subsequent 
 history showed how highly they prized the sacred 
 treasure. No lapse of time, no distance of place, 
 no reverse of fortune, could cool their zeal or 
 superinduce a spirit of indifference about the pre- 
 servation of the sacred books. At home or abroad, 
 in freedom or in exile, in Judea no less than in 
 Babylon or Persia, in times of national independ- 
 ence, or during the prevalence of Eoman ascend- 
 ency, their conservative tenacity to the Scriptures 
 formed one of the prominent features of the Jewish 
 character. Amid all the aberrations and crimes 
 with which the Jews were chargeable, an imputa- 
 tion of treachery in the guardianship, or of designs 
 upon the integrity, of the sacred books was never 
 raised against them; and rather than surrender 
 them at the mandate of a persecuting tyrant, they 
 were prepared to encounter death in its most re- 
 volting forms. Nay, even though destitute for 
 
THE HOLY SCKIPTURES. 19 
 
 the most part of a right apprehension of their 
 meaning, and strangers to their spirit, they cher- 
 ished a superstitious veneration for the letter of 
 the Scriptures ; and it rests upon the clearest 
 historical testimony, that they maintained a con- 
 stant jealous vigilance over their sacred books, 
 extending their scrupulous care even to an enu- 
 meration of the words and letters contained in 
 each book, — a bibliolatry which has often been 
 the occasion of exposing them to ridicule. Indeed, 
 it is very remarkable that, divided as they were, 
 in our Lord's time, into several hostile sects, there 
 never was any difference amongst them respecting 
 the character and status of the Scriptures, even 
 though these Scriptures were unsparing in con- 
 demnation of their ways. In fact, it is the grand 
 redeeming feature in the character of this singular 
 people, that they watched with such unvarying 
 scrupulosity over the written word ; and the trans- 
 mission of the sacred books from age to age, pure, 
 uncorrupted, and unmutilated, affords to the church 
 a satisfactory guarantee not only for the authen- 
 ticity and genuineness, but for the divine origin 
 and authority, of the Old Testament. 
 
 As the books of the Old Testament were com- 
 mitted to the Jews, so were those of the New 
 
20 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 committed to the Christians ; and although they 
 were not deposited in the inaccessible crypt of 
 a sanctuary, they were kept in the secure custody 
 of churches or societies of pious servants of Christ, 
 who set the highest value upon them as sacred 
 treasures. As no part of the ancient Scriptures 
 existed in a written form till the providence of 
 God had selected a nation to preserve them, so 
 no book of the later Scriptures was brought out 
 in a permanent form till the organization of 
 churches, in which they were carefully kept. 
 And as the Old Testament existed in separate 
 books till an advanced period in the history of 
 the Jewish nation, when they were formed into 
 a general collection ; so the Gospel histories of 
 Christ, and the Epistles of counsel and pastoral 
 direction, were in private circulation a consider- 
 able time before the New Testament catalogue 
 was made out as at present. Some of them 
 were compiled in particular localities, and some 
 of the epistles were addressed to churches or 
 private individuals, so that they were not gene- 
 rally known to the church. But wherever 
 writings were found, and ascertained on thorough 
 inquiry to be the work of apostolic men, they 
 were recognised by the Christians as sacred 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTUEES. 21 
 
 books. Amid all the heresies and corruptions 
 which rose with such rank luxuriance in the 
 first centuries, the books which were inspired 
 were universally received by the churches with- 
 out a dissentient voice. If doubts were enter- 
 tained respecting some of them, and a strict 
 investigation made into their origin, these very 
 circumstances contributed to establish their cha- 
 racter as the compositions of apostolic writers, 
 and diffused throughout the church a settled 
 opinion in their favour. Their inspired character 
 was certified by the common consent of the most 
 intelligent Christians, who were very numerous 
 in the second century, and not by the decision 
 of an ecclesiastical council ; for the Council of 
 Laodicea, held in 363, which was not of ex- 
 tensive authority, "rather declared," as Paley 
 remarks, "than regulated the public judgment 
 on the subject of the New Testament canon." 
 
 The word canon denotes a rule ; and, applied 
 to the Bible, signifies that the books compre- 
 hended in the Old and New Testaments were 
 regarded as an authoritative rule for regulating 
 faith and practice. The canon of the Old Testa- 
 ment was, as we have seen, according to the 
 uniform tradition of the Jewish church, formed 
 
22 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 by the united counsels of Ezra, Haggai, Zechariah, 
 and Malachi, at a time when the spirit of inspi- 
 ration had ceased, and the minds of the people, 
 instead of anxiously looking for new revelations, 
 were directed exclusively to the anticipated ad- 
 vent of the great Messiah. As these four men 
 were prophets, who were each honoured to take 
 a prominent part in the reorganization of the 
 church or the rebuilding of the temple after 
 the restoration, as well as to contribute inde- 
 pendent portions to the volume of Scripture, 
 their pious labours in carefully collecting, arrang- 
 ing, and revising a general edition of the sacred 
 books, were received by their countrymen as a 
 work of inspired authority, binding them to re- 
 ceive it as comprising a series of precious revela- 
 tions with which their nation had been favoured 
 from the God of their fathers. From that time 
 the Old Testament was regarded as the standard 
 of the national religion, the confession of the 
 Jewish faith, the liturgy of the Jewish church, 
 the venerable authority to which the Jews ap- 
 pealed for the origin and sanction of their 
 peculiar polity and distinctive institutions. "We 
 learn from Josephus that it consisted of precisely 
 the same contents, book for book, and word for 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 23 
 
 word, as are found in the copies of the Old 
 Testament possessed by ourselves. "Every one," 
 says he, " is not permitted of his own accord to 
 be a writer, nor is there any disagreement in 
 what is written; they being only prophets that 
 have written the original and earliest accounts 
 of things, as they learned them of God Himself 
 by inspiration ; and others have written what 
 hath happened in their own times, and that in 
 a very distinct manner also. For we have not 
 an innumerable multitude of books among us, 
 disagreeing from and contradicting one another 
 (as the Greeks have), but only twenty-two books, 
 which contain the records of all the past times, 
 which are justly believed to be divine. And of 
 them five belong to Moses, which contain his 
 laws, and the traditions of the origin of mankind 
 till his death. This interval of time was little 
 short of three thousand years. But as to the 
 time from the death of Moses till the reign of 
 Artaxerxes King of Persia, who reigned after 
 Xerxes, the prophets who were after Moses wrote 
 down what was done in their times in thirteen 
 books. The remaining four books contain hymns 
 to God, and precepts for the conduct of human 
 life. It is true, our history has been written 
 
24 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 since Artaxerxes very particularly, but has not 
 been esteemed of the like authority with the 
 former by our forefathers, because there hath not 
 been an exact succession of prophets since that 
 time ; and how firmly we have given credit to 
 these books of our own nation, is evident from 
 what we do : for, during so many ages as have 
 already passed, no one has been so bold as either 
 to add anything to them, or to take anything 
 from them, or to make any change in them ; but 
 it is become natural to all Jews, immediately 
 and from their very birth, to esteem these books 
 to contain divine doctrines, and to persist in 
 them, and if occasion be, willingly to die for 
 them. For it is no new thing for our captives, 
 many of them in number, and frequently in time, 
 to be seen to endure racks and deaths of all 
 kinds upon the theatres, that they may not be 
 obliged to say one word against our laws, and 
 the records that contain them." 1 The Old Tes- 
 tament then appears, on the testimony of the 
 Jewish historian, to have been exactly the same 
 in his day as it is in ours ; and as the canon 
 was formed by the authority of prophets who were 
 
 1 Josephus, Contra Apion, vol. iv. Book i. sec. 8, Winston's 
 translation. See Note A. 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 25 
 
 universally acknowledged to be inspired messengers 
 of God, it must be regarded as inspired also. 
 
 Similar remarks are applicable to the canon 
 of the New Testament. Without entering into 
 the detailed history of its formation, which is too 
 complicated a narrative to be undertaken here, 
 it may suffice to say, that although the three first 
 Gospels were compiled for the use, and for a 
 considerable time known within the confines, of 
 particular localities only ; although many of the 
 Epistles, which occupy a large portion of the 
 New Testament, were occasional and fragmentary, 
 the collection of these isolated documents to an 
 extent that forms a complete system of doctrine, 
 duty, and discipline, exhibits a striking proof of 
 the watchful providence which presided over the 
 development of the early Christian church. Doubts 
 were entertained respecting some of the epistles, 
 viz. that to the Hebrews, 2 Peter, 2 and 3 John, 
 and Jude. But the researches of many learned 
 and pious fathers, who earnestly and patiently 
 traced out their apostolic origin, established the 
 claims of these epistles to be the genuine pro- 
 ductions of the authors whose names they bear ; 
 and the general consent with which all the 
 western churches especially have united in re- 
 
26 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 cognising the canon of the New Testament, is 
 a fact which must be considered as tantamount 
 to an acknowledgment of its inspiration. Now, 
 such an acknowledgment rests upon the basis 
 of tradition, and may be considered on that ac- 
 count as a doubtful or unsound conclusion. But 
 it is one thing to recognise the use of tradi- 
 tion as authoritative; it is a totally different 
 thing to admit it in the way of testimony; and 
 while we decidedly object to the elevation of 
 ecclesiastical tradition to a place of authority in 
 regulating our faith, we value it exceedingly, 
 when it is pure, uninterrupted tradition, as attest- 
 ing a historical fact of great importance, viz. the 
 unanimity of the early church in ratifying the 
 canon of the New Testament. 
 
 We have now advanced the first stage in our 
 treatment of the subject of these Lectures. For, 
 considering the persons by whom, as well as the 
 grounds on which, the canon both of the Old 
 and the New Testaments was constituted, the 
 admission of any book into the number of the 
 canonical books is a virtual recognition of its 
 inspiration. Canonical becomes synonymous with 
 inspired ; and every one book which has obtained 
 a place amongst the sacred books, is presumably 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 27 
 
 worthy to constitute a component part of the 
 word of God, and to demand the faith and sub- 
 mission of believers. 
 
 But canonical authority, though a strong, is 
 only a presumptive, argument in favour of inspi- 
 ration ; and therefore we proceed to adduce " a 
 nobler Witness still," in the person of our Saviour, 
 followed by His apostles, who bore the most un- 
 equivocal testimony to the divine character and 
 authority of the Old Testament. In His frequent 
 rebukes of the lifeless formalities and gross cor- 
 ruptions of His age, as well as in His exposition of 
 the principles and blessings of the gospel dispen- 
 sation, our Lord was necessarily led to speak of 
 the Scriptures ; and whether the strain of His 
 discourse required Him to appeal to them in sup- 
 port of an argument or in fulfilment of a prophecy, 
 He represented these sacred books as containing 
 the will of God, and constituting the only autho- 
 ritative standard of truth. When He exhorted His 
 hearers to " search the Scriptures," or, as it is 
 sometimes rendered, commended them for doing 
 so, He referred to the collection of religious 
 documents which, according to the testimony of 
 Josephus, the Jews held to be of divine authority. 
 When He put to them the question, Did ye never 
 
28 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 read in the Scriptures, The stone which the builders 
 despised, the same is made the head of the corner? 
 He meant the Scriptures which were publicly read 
 in their synagogues, and contained in these words 
 an inspired prediction of His rejection as Messiah. 
 When, in His memorable conversation with the 
 disciples at Emmaus, He expounded to them in all 
 the (Old Testament) Scriptures the things con- 
 cerning Himself; and when, on a later occasion, 
 He said to them, " These are the words which I 
 spake unto you while I was yet with you, that all 
 things must be fulfilled which are written in the 
 law of Moses, and in the Prophets, and in the 
 Psalms, concerning me," — He described the Old 
 Testament according to that triple arrangement of 
 the sacred books which popular usage had intro- 
 duced. When He appealed to " Moses and the 
 prophets," and to " all the law and the prophets," 
 as containing the fundamental principles of pure 
 and undefiled religion, He was employing another 
 common and familiar form of speech for the Old 
 Testament Scriptures, and appealing to them as the 
 tribunal to which all controversies about doctrine 
 and practice must be brought. Nay, He not only 
 bore testimony to the inspired character of the Old 
 Testament in general, but at different times, and 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 29 
 
 in different ways, vouched for the inspiration of 
 the writers separately. He attested the truth and 
 divine authority of the books of Moses ; l of the 
 books of Samuel; 2 of the books of Kings and 
 Chronicles ; 3 of the book of Psalms ; 4 of the 
 prophets generally ; 5 of the book of Isaiah ; 6 of 
 the book of Daniel ; 7 of the book of Hosea ; 8 of 
 the book of Jonah ; 9 of the book of Micah ; 10 
 and of the book of Malachi. 11 These and several 
 others of the prophets were quoted by our Lord as 
 possessing in their writings the authority of the 
 word of God. Perhaps no higher attestation to 
 the divine character of the ancient Scriptures was 
 given than what is furnished by the fact, that 
 the weapons with which He encountered and van- 
 quished the tempter in the wilderness were taken 
 from the armoury of the Old Testament; and it 
 
 1 Matt. v. 17, 18, xv. 1-6, xxii. 31, xxiii. 1, 2 ; Mark vii. 8-13, 
 xx. 26; Luke xvi. 29, 31, xx. 37 ; John iii. 14, v. 45, 47. 
 
 2 Matt. xii. 1-5 ; Luke vi. 3, 4. 
 
 3 Cf. 1 Kings x. 1-13, 2 Chron. ix. 1-12, with Matt. xii. 42. 
 
 4 Cf. Ps. viii. 2 with Matt. xxi. 15, 16, and Ps. ex. 1 with 
 Matt. xxii. 41-46, Mark xii. 35-37. 
 
 5 Luke xxiv. 44-46. 
 
 6 Matt. xiii. 13-15, xv. 7-9, xxi. 13 ; Mark vii. 6, 7 ; 
 Luke iv. 17-21. 
 
 7 Matt. xxiv. 15 ; Mark xiii. 14. 
 
 8 Cf. Hos. vi. 6 with Matt. ix. 13, xii. 9. 
 
 B Matt. xxii. 39-41, xvi. 4 ; Luke xi. 29-32. 
 
 10 Cf. Mic. vii. 6 with Matt. x. 35, 36. 
 
 11 Cf. Mai. iii. 1, iv. 5, 6, with Matt. xi. 10, Luke vii. 27. 
 
30 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 may be noticed that the last act in the tragic 
 scene of the crucifixion was the fulfilment of the 
 only remaining prophecy connected with His 
 personal history : " My tongue cleaveth to my 
 jaws, and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to 
 drink." 1 Nay, further, He has ratified that class 
 of facts which appear to human reason to stand 
 most in need of confirmation, and are pronounced 
 by rationalistic critics fatal to the idea of inspira- 
 tion. The deluge, the overthrow of Sodom, the 
 fate of Lot's wife, the burning bush, the brazen 
 serpent, and the manna ; these miracles He au- 
 thenticated as actual facts, and inferentially bore 
 testimony not only to their truth, but to the 
 inspired character of the books which narrated 
 them. 
 
 In like manner, the apostles bore testimony to 
 the divine authority of the Old Testament Scrip- 
 tures collectively. "When Paul, according to his 
 custom, went into the synagogue of Thessalonica, 
 and reasoned three successive Sabbaths out of the 
 Scriptures," the book referred to was, of course, 
 those ancient writings of "Moses and the prophets," 
 for which those foreign Jews professed so great a 
 regard, and to which, in common with that people, 
 i Ps. xxii. 15, lxix. 21 ; John xix. 28. 
 
THE HOLY SCEIPTURES. 31 
 
 the apostle appealed as his divine authority for his 
 Christian teaching. 1 When Paul reminded the 
 Corinthians of the fundamental principle of his 
 gospel, that Christ died, was buried, and rose again, 
 according to the Scriptures, 2 he virtually claimed 
 inspiration for those ancient books, which so truly 
 predicted those great crises in the Saviour's his- 
 tory. When this apostle, in his pastoral letter 
 to Timothy, alluded to his young friend having 
 known the Holy Scriptures from his childhood, 
 there could be no doubt that he was referring 
 to those Scriptures which were universally received 
 by the Jews, and to which was ascribed the divine 
 quality of " making wise unto salvation through 
 faith in Christ Jesus." And when another apostle 
 ranked the Epistles of Paul with "the other 
 Scriptures," and employed terms of severe rebuke 
 to those ignorant and unstable men who "wrested 
 both to their own destruction," he drew a line 
 of demarcation around the books of the sacred 
 volume, that separated them from all literary 
 productions of ordinary men, as the cordon that 
 was drawn around the base of Sinai separated its 
 holy heights from all earthly objects around. 
 While the apostles thus bore testimony to the 
 1 Acts xvii. 2. 2 Isa. liii. 6, 12 ; Dan. ix. 26 ; Ps. xvi. 10. 
 
32 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 divine authority of the Scriptures collectively, 
 they also spoke in the same strain of the sacred 
 writers separately. Thus Paul says i 1 " The Scrip- 
 ture, foreseeing that God would justify the 
 heathen through faith, preached before the gospel 
 unto Abraham, saying, In thee shall all nations 
 be blessed." The same apostle writes : 2 " The 
 Scripture saith, Thou shalt not muzzle the ox that 
 treadeth out the corn," — referring to a precept in 
 the book of Deuteronomy, and to that book as 
 one of divine authority. The author of the Epistle 
 to the Hebrews 3 refers to Ps. xcv. 7 in this 
 manner : " Wherefore, as the Holy Ghost saith, To- 
 day, if ye will hear His voice, harden not your 
 hearts." The same author says : 4 " God, who at 
 sundry times, and in divers manners, spake in time 
 past to the fathers by the prophets." Peter, in 
 a discourse spoken in the primitive church, 5 said, 
 in allusion to Ps. xvi., " Men and brethren, let me 
 freely speak unto you of the patriarch David, 
 that being a prophet, he seeing this before, spake 
 of the resurrection of Christ, that His soul was 
 not left in Hades, neither did His flesh see corrup- 
 tion." This apostle says : 6 " The prophets inquired 
 
 1 Gal. iii. 8. " 1 Tim. v. 18. 3 Heb. iii. 7. 
 
 4 Heb. i. 1. 5 Acts ii. 29-31. 6 1 Pet. i. 10-12. 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. So 
 
 and searched diligently, who prophesied of the 
 grace that should come unto you ; searching what, 
 or what manner of time, the Sjnrit of Christ which 
 was in them did signify, when it (the Spirit of 
 Christ which was in them) testified beforehand the 
 sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should fol- 
 low." And this same apostle declares in a similar 
 strain: 1 "Prophecy came not in old time by the 
 will of man, but holy men of God spake as they 
 were moved by the Holy Ghost." 2 
 
 The writers of the New Testament themselves 
 adopt the same style as the ancient prophets in 
 claiming submission to their instructions as the 
 word of God ; 3 and their claim to inspiration also 
 was attested by our Lord, 4 who, by various 
 expressions of His, virtually and absolutely gave 
 the sanction of His high authority to their 
 instructions, whether in oral discourses or in 
 writings. Such, then, is the claim to inspiration 
 made for the writers of the Old and New 
 Testaments ; and resting, as that claim does, on 
 the unchallengeable testimony of our Lord, as 
 
 1 2 Pet. i. 21. 
 
 2 See other passages : Rom. iii. 2 ; 2 Tim. iii. 16, 17 ; 
 1 Pet. iii. 19-21. 
 
 3 1 Cor. vii. 40 ;. 1 Tliess. iv. 6, 8 ; 2 Pet. iii. 1-4, 16 ; 
 1 John iv. 6. 
 
 4 Luke xii. 12 ; John xiv. 17, 26. 
 
 C 
 
34 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 well as their own high character as men of 
 truth and piety, it would be sufficient, inde- 
 pendently of all other considerations, to entitle 
 them to our faith and confidence. It is an attesta- 
 tion to the divine authority of the Old Testament, 
 of the most positive, unqualified nature ; and, 
 therefore, all who recognise the unerring authority 
 of the New Testament, will admit the full weight 
 and value of such a declaration, made by Him 
 whom all Christians regard as * the Prophet of the 
 Highest." But this conclusion is not universally 
 assented to ; for those modern critics who deny 
 the genuineness and authenticity of several por- 
 tions of the Old Testament, and at the same time 
 profess their faith in the Christian Scriptures, do 
 not hesitate, in order to evade the irresistible force 
 of evidence derived from the testimony of Christ 
 and His apostles, to characterize their declarations 
 as a mere accommodation to Jewish errors and 
 prejudices. " They maintain," to use the word's of 
 an excellent writer, " from Le Clerc downwards, 
 that it formed no part of the mission of Christ and 
 His apostles to instruct the Jews in matters of 
 criticism ; not considering that, though they may 
 not have been teachers of criticism, yet they were 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 35 
 
 certainly, as Witsius remarks, ' teachers of truth,' 1 
 and of criticism too, — if the term is allowable, — 
 when the current criticism and interpretation 
 were opposed to truth. How utterly unsupported 
 this pretended accommodation is, must be evident 
 to every impartial reader who considers the pas- 
 sages adduced above, and particularly John v. 
 46, 47, where belief in the writings of Moses and 
 in Christ's own words is so intimately related, 
 that the divinity of the Eedeemer's mission is so 
 connected with the divine authority of the law, 
 as to constitute with it one whole." 2 In short, 
 this is a line of argument which no sincere and 
 enlightened Christian can for a moment adopt. To 
 maintain that our Lord, in the course of His 
 sermons and conversations, was in the habit of 
 accommodating His language and views to the 
 reigning notions of His country and age, is at 
 variance with the whole character of His ministry; 
 to concede that He possessed no better knowledge 
 than the rest of His countrymen, is a dishonour 
 to the character of Him to whom " the Spirit 
 was given without measure;" to suppose that, 
 through the mere influence of traditional iinpres- 
 
 1 Miscell. Sac. 115. 
 
 2 Macdonald, Introduction to the Pentateuch, i. 366. 
 
36 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 sions, He represented books as worthy of credit 
 which comprised only a collection of legends, 
 false miracles, forged prophecies, and gross ex- 
 aggerations of real events, is a libel on Him 
 who is emphatically called "the Truth;" above 
 all, to allow that He was fallible, or mistaken in 
 applying passages from the Old Testament as 
 inspired predictions of His advent and ministry, 
 would naturally lead to the conclusion that He 
 was equally liable to err in His interpretation of 
 other parts of Scripture, and thus, by throwing 
 doubt and uncertainty upon all the texts He 
 cited as evidences of His Messiahship, the in- 
 evitable result would be a disturbance of that 
 complete harmony between the Old and New 
 Testaments, on which depends the truth of 
 Christianity as the fulfilment of the old covenant. 
 Such are the consequences which apparently follow 
 from the hypothesis that Christ " shared the com- 
 mon views of the Jews in His day, in regard to 
 points ethically and doctrinally unimportant." 1 To 
 adopt it, therefore, as a way of determining the 
 value and extent of His testimony to the divine 
 authority of the Old Testament, and to represent 
 Him as speaking of that early portion of the Bible 
 1 Davidson's Introduction. 
 
THE HOLY SCKIPTURES. 3 7 
 
 in conformity with the current notions of His time, 
 is a perilous argument, from which all sound 
 Christians will shrink. His attestation must be 
 regarded as that of the great infallible Prophet of 
 the Church ; and although a certain class of critics 
 have declared against its enlistment into this 
 argument, as inconsistent with the principles of 
 scientific criticism, believers must receive His ver- 
 dict as decisive upon the point. 
 
 The apostles were in this respect, as in all 
 others, "the followers of Christ;" and being en- 
 dowed with an extraordinary effusion of His 
 Spirit, they acted upon the same principle of 
 appealing to the Old Testament as a divine 
 authority. So far from showing a loose and 
 temporizing accommodation to the prejudices of 
 their countrymen in their interpretation and ap- 
 plication of the ancient Scriptures, they assumed 
 a firm and unyielding attitude in maintaining 
 that " they spake none other things than Moses 
 and the prophets did say should come;" and the 
 language of Paul, " Though we or an angel from 
 heaven preach any other doctrine than that which 
 has been preached unto you, let him be accursed," 
 would have been that employed by all his apos- 
 tolic brethren in reference to any party who 
 
38 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 should have asserted that the gospel which they 
 taught was not the just development of the 
 scheme of grace which had been progressively 
 revealed in "the law and the prophets." This 
 conclusion is expressed by Paul in the classical 
 passage in the Epistle to Timothy, — "All Scrip- 
 ture is given by inspiration of God," — a passage 
 containing an affirmation which, according to the 
 direct literal import of the words as they stand, 
 is applicable to the whole contents of the sacred 
 volume. The correctness of the translation, how- 
 ever, has been called in question, and various 
 renderings have been proposed and supported. 
 One of these, " Every Scripture divinely inspired 
 is also profitable," is strenuously espoused by 
 the opponents of plenary inspiration, as it im- 
 plies that there are some parts not inspired. 
 Another, " the whole Scripture divinely inspired," 
 limits it to the books which the Jews received 
 as canonical, founding on the assumed position that, 
 at the time when the apostle wrote to Timothy, 
 no part of the New Testament had been pub- 
 lished. But that is a mistaken idea ; and hence 
 Coleridge, with a manly frankness that did him 
 honour, made this declaration : " Here I renounce 
 any advantage I might obtain for -my argument 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 39 
 
 against plenary inspiration, by restricting our 
 Lord's and the apostle's words to the Hebrew 
 canon. I admit the justice, I have long felt 
 the force, of the remark, 'We have all that the 
 occasion allowed.' And if the same awful autho- 
 rity does not apply so directly to the evangelical 
 and apostolical writings as to the Hebrew canon, 
 yet the analogy of faith justifies the transfer. 
 If the doctrine be less decisively scriptural in 
 its application to the New Testament or the 
 Christian canon, the temptation to doubt it is 
 likewise less." * The fact is, to translate the pas- 
 sage in the manner proposed, not only does 
 violence to the grammatical structure of the 
 sentence, but to the course of argument pursued 
 by the apostle, who, having urged Timothy to 
 adhere to the teaching of the Holy Scriptures, 
 by ascribing to them the noblest of all powers, 
 viz. being "able to make wise unto salvation," 
 lest he might be charged with an exaggerated 
 eulogium, reminds his beloved son in the faith, 
 that every part of them is inspired of God. 
 "Every portion of them," says Bengel, "is in- 
 spired of God, 2 i.e. not merely when written, 
 
 1 Coleridge's Confessions, p. 30. See Note B. 
 
 2 hivviurros. 
 
40 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 God breathing through, the writers, but also when 
 read, God breathing through the Scriptures, and 
 the Scriptures breathing Him." This famous 
 passage, in which the divine inspiration of the 
 Scriptures is dogmatically asserted on the high 
 authority of an apostle, may seem decisive on 
 the point; and were there no other from which 
 we could discover the real character and claims 
 of the Bible, this declaration of Paul, it might 
 be supposed, would be considered final and con- 
 clusive in determining that the book is divine 
 in its origin, and possessed of infallible authority. 
 But critics of no mean name and authority con- 
 tend, that to view it as susceptible of so un- 
 limited application, is to extend it beyond the 
 range which the circumstances of the case will 
 warrant. They allege, that as the word " all " 
 is used frequently by the sacred writers in a 
 restricted sense, " all " Scripture must be con- 
 sidered as so limited here ; and that especially, 
 as there is reason to believe that interpolations 
 have been made by later hands on the original 
 text of the historical books, it falls within the 
 legitimate province of reason to separate what 
 is divine from what is merely human, or to 
 winnow the spurious matter that may have been 
 
THE HOLY SCEIPTUKES. 41 
 
 intermixed with the text. And they maintain 
 further, that as there is no catalogue of the 
 canonical books, nor any express declaration made 
 in the sacred volume concerning the inspiration 
 of each particular book, it is quite possible that 
 there may be some books which, although un- 
 doubtedly genuine and authentic, may possess 
 but slight or doubtful claims to be regarded as 
 written under the influences of the Holy Spirit, 
 and forming a part of the rule of faith. In the 
 number of such disputed works they place the 
 book of Esther and the Song of Solomon; the 
 former of which is noted for the extraordinary 
 omission of the name, or any allusion to the 
 name, of God from beginning to end, — an omis- 
 sion unaccountable, if this book emanated from 
 a divine source ; and the latter of which abounds 
 with strange scenes and indelicate images, while 
 it is pervaded throughout by a strain of gross and 
 undisguised sensuousness, which it is impossible 
 to adapt to the purposes of moral and religious 
 edification. These books, it is alleged, are little 
 in accordance with the rest of the Old Testa- 
 ment; and their title to be regarded as inspired 
 productions is by no means so clear or strong 
 as that it should be required of all Christians, 
 
42 THE INSPIEATION OF 
 
 under a penalty of ostracism as heretics, to be- 
 lieve in their inspiration. To all such objections 
 satisfactory answers are at hand. Admitting 
 that a few chronological or archaeological explana- 
 tions were inserted by Ezra or his prophetic 
 colleagues in the historical books, the addition 
 of such supplementary notes is never considered 
 as affecting the intrinsic character or value of 
 the original composition; and so far as relates 
 to the integrity of the Old Testament books, and 
 the fact of their comprising the identical same- 
 ness of contents as of old, the extreme scrupulo- 
 sity of the Jews, and the jealous vigilance of 
 their rival sects, afford the fullest guarantee for 
 their inviolable purity before the destruction of 
 Jerusalem. Since that momentous era there has 
 been no opportunity, from the opposing attitude 
 of both Jews and Christians, of attempting, had 
 the wish been cherished, any corruptions on the 
 state of the Old Testament text. The Christians 
 who appeal to the writings of Moses, the Pro- 
 phets, and the Psalms, in proving that Jesus of 
 Nazareth was the promised Messiah, would not 
 have permitted the Jews to lay the daring hand 
 of innovation upon any portion of them ; while 
 the Jews, on the other hand, inheriting the re- 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 43 
 
 verential feelings of their ancestors for the letter 
 of Scripture, still cling with fond tenacity to 
 " the oracles of God which were committed to 
 them," and thus unconsciously exhibit the most 
 extraordinary instance which the history of the 
 world presents, of a whole people preserving 
 with marvellous fidelity national documents which 
 hold up continually before their veiled eyes the 
 great sin which was the occasion of their ruin 
 and dispersion. With regard to the book of 
 Esther, the omission of the divine name may 
 be considered as sufficiently accounted for by 
 its being an excerpt from the Persian archives. 
 The design of it is to record one of the most 
 signal deliverances which the providence of God 
 ever wrought for His imperilled people ; and on 
 this account, it has not only been incorporated 
 with the history, but forms an indispensable 
 link in the chain of records that pertain to the 
 captivity of the ancient church. It is a book, 
 therefore, of great importance. Its canonical 
 authority was never doubted ; and the Jews, 
 who valued it next to the Pentateuch, placed it 
 amongst the Chetubim or Hagiographa, i.e. "Holy 
 Writings," which constituted the first in their 
 threefold division of the Old Testament. The 
 
44 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 objection to the Song of Solomon is the amatory 
 strain of the poem, which seems incongruous with 
 the character of the divine word. But it has 
 always formed a portion of the sacred canon ; and 
 the Christian church has, from the beginning, re- 
 garded it as a divine allegory, descriptive of the 
 mutual love that is cherished between Christ, the 
 heavenly Bridegroom, and the church, which is 
 the Bride, the Lamb's wife. The figure which 
 pervades the book is a favourite one with the 
 sacred writers ; for the books of Ezekiel and Hosea, 
 particularly the forty-fifth Psalm, which is descrip- 
 tive of the glories of Messiah, furnish eminent 
 examples of the same luxuriant imagery. The 
 leading idea of the Song is the exhibition of 
 religion as a divine affection, a lively union be- 
 tween Christ and His people, with all the senti- 
 ments, emotions, and warm language expressive of 
 human attachment. It is entirely in unison with 
 Oriental taste to represent moral and religious 
 truths in such a figurative garb ; so that, however 
 strange it appears to our European views of pro- 
 priety and taste, the strain of this Song exactly 
 accords with the style of sentiment and feeling 
 that prevails in the countries of the East. How- 
 ever mystical it may be, and difficult to apply in 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 45 
 
 the way of spiritual improvement, that obscurity 
 is no reason in itself against the inspiration of 
 the book, any more than against parts of Ezekiel, 
 Daniel, and the Eevelation. It may be expected 
 to become clearer and better understood as time 
 rolls on, just as light has been thrown on various 
 portions of the sacred volume in these latter days. 
 Upon the whole, the objections urged against these 
 two books, as well as against some parts of others, 
 cannot outweigh the uniform testimony of the 
 church, which has always regarded them as in- 
 cluded in the sacred canon. As they formed part 
 of the Scriptures which were read in the syna- 
 gogues every Sabbath-day, we must consider them 
 as constituting a portion of divine truth ; and we 
 lay it clown as a fundamental principle in the 
 exercise of Christian judgment, that every book in 
 the Old Testament must be considered inspired, if 
 Xthere is clear historical evidence that it was ranked 
 amongst the Jewish Scriptures at the time when 
 our Lord set His seal on them. The fact that " all 
 Scripture is given by inspiration of God " stamps 
 it as divine truth, and at the same time invests 
 it with infallible authority. Such authority is 
 indispensable in the matter of revealed religion, 
 otherwise the benefits it was intended to confer 
 
46 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 will not be realized. If God was pleased to give 
 to man a special revelation of His will, and yet 
 allowed the agents He selected for communicating 
 it to the world to make it known in what manner 
 and terms they pleased, mankind must have been 
 involved in painful doubt and uncertainty whether 
 they really possessed a true and perfectly reliable 
 expression of the divine mind — whether in matters 
 of the greatest interest and importance they were 
 informed of the exact truth, or whether it might be 
 safe for them to follow the counsels of men, who, 
 however wise, were liable to err, and however 
 benevolent, might undesignedly mislead. But the 
 assurance that we have in the Scriptures, not only 
 a revelation of the divine will, comprising all that 
 we are to believe concerning God, and all the 
 duty He requires of us, but an unerring record of 
 that revelation, imparts an incomparable value to 
 that sacred volume, and raises the authors of its 
 several books to a supremacy above all other 
 instructors of the world. It was not by the force 
 of their natural talents, nor by means of profound 
 study and extensive erudition, nor even through 
 the influence of rare advancement in piety, they 
 became what they were. Not one, nor all these 
 qualities combined, could have placed them above 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 47 
 
 the condition of fallible men, and enabled them to 
 speak the momentous truths of religion without 
 some admixture of error. Many learned and good 
 men have been raised up in different ages of the 
 church to undertake the office of religious teachers, 
 — Augustine, Calvin, Luther, and a host of others 
 in early as well as later times, — who, by their oral 
 discourses, performed good service while living, 
 and left behind them in their published writings, 
 memorials of their zeal and usefulness, by which, 
 though "being dead, they yet speak." None of 
 them, however, were free from error, can be followed 
 implicitly as guides, or were possessed of authority 
 to demand submission. But when we go to the 
 writers of the Scriptures, we have instructors and 
 guides in whom we can repose the fullest con- 
 fidence, and who were possessed of commanding 
 authority. And how were they so pre-eminently 
 qualified ? Who or what enabled them to teach 
 the highest doctrines and duties of religion un- 
 mixed with error ? It was because they spoke 
 and wrote " by the inspiration of God ; " because 
 they were favoured with such extraordinary and 
 supernatural measures of light and assistance, as 
 made them fully instructed in all the truth which 
 they required themselves to know, or were called 
 
48 THE INSPIKATION OF 
 
 to communicate to others — the truth, the whole 
 truth, and nothing but the truth. But it is not 
 doing justice to the penmen of the Scriptures, to 
 represent them in the light merely of teachers 
 or guides to the discovery of truth. The extra- 
 ordinary messengers, or ambassadors of God, fur- 
 nished with credentials of a divine mission, they 
 professed to declare truths which men could not 
 discover by their natural faculties, and to be the 
 bearers of intelligence which could be known only 
 through their testimony. They made no preten- 
 sions to penetration or foresight superior to other 
 men, or claimed credence on the ground of ex- 
 tensive knowledge and conscious intellectual and 
 moral greatness. The only claim to the attention 
 and confidence of men they put forth, was that 
 they were the messengers of God ; and appealing, 
 in support of that claim, to the preternatural 
 powers with which they were endowed, they de- 
 manded the reception due to men who, by the 
 miracles they wrought, gave unequivocal evi- 
 dence that " they were teachers come from God." 
 They did not propound the doctrine which they 
 taught as recommended by the prestige of illus- 
 trious names, or accordant with the principles of 
 sound philosophy : they rested it exclusively on 
 
THE HOLY SCMPTTJKES. 49 
 
 the ground that it was divine, and urged it on 
 the acceptance of men, not because it was true 
 and good, and therefore, as might be reasonably 
 thought, came from God, but because it came from 
 God, and therefore was true and good. This was 
 the uniform tone they assumed, the authoritative 
 manner in which they spoke. They laid no stress 
 on their personal characters and positions as en- 
 titling them to attention, but put all their claim 
 to confidence on the fact that they were com- 
 missioned legates, who uttered the words which 
 God had bidden them. 
 
 Thus each of the sacred writers performed his 
 allotted part ; and as " God at sundry times and 
 in divers manners spake unto the fathers by the 
 prophets," those various revelations were adapted 
 with divine wisdom to the state and capacities 
 of the church in successive ages, being clearer 
 and fuller as the people were able to bear them. 
 If Moses wrote his laws, and Isaiah recorded his 
 evangelical predictions, if David indited his de- 
 votional songs, and Paul his pastoral epistles, they 
 contributed, along with their prophetic and apos- 
 tolic brethren, to the completion of the sacred 
 volume. There is no evidence that they had 
 received any revelation beyond what is embodied 
 
50 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 in the Scriptures ; and there is good reason for 
 concluding that they were favoured with none : 
 for if any new or unknown truths had been com- 
 municated to one or another of those men of God, 
 the knowledge of which would have proved bene- 
 ficial to the church, we may be assured that they 
 would have been incorporated with " the volume 
 of the book." But the era of sensible manifesta- 
 tions, or revelations in visions and dreams, has 
 long ago passed away ; the spirit of inspiration 
 has been withdrawn ; and since John, in the Apo- 
 calypse, completed what Moses began, there is 
 every reason to believe that we have the mind 
 of God as fully disclosed in the Scriptures as it 
 was His pleasure that it should be in the present 
 state and economy of providence. The Spirit, in- 
 deed, is still with the church, and we have a 
 divine assurance that He will permanently abide 
 with her. But instead of pouring His super- 
 natural light directly into the minds of Christians 
 now, as He did of old into those who were the 
 chosen agents in revealing the will of God, He 
 shines with beams reflected from the pages of 
 the written word ; and while we anticipate that, 
 in the church of the future, religious knowledge 
 will be greatly increased by the development of 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 51 
 
 latent and yet unperceived truths lying in the Bible, 
 just as men have become richer in the world since 
 its mineral wealth has been discovered, and chemi- 
 cal science has shown us the method of applying 
 its products to the useful and liberal arts, no new 
 revelation is to be expected beyond what is con- 
 tained in the Scriptures of the Old and New 
 Testaments. These comprehend the whole word 
 of God, which has been revealed for our salvation. 
 There is an entire harmony between them as to 
 the main purpose of revelation : the one is the 
 germ, the other is the full-grown plant ; the one 
 is the promise, the other the fulfilment ; the one 
 is the dawn of the early or advancing morn, the 
 other the light of the full day ; the one gives 
 the history of the preparation for the kingdom of 
 God, while the other exhibits its establishment. 
 In this view there is a close and indissoluble con- 
 nection between the Old and New Testaments,— 
 the one is incomplete and disjointed without the 
 other ; and an enlightened perception of the rela- 
 tive importance of the various books of Scripture, 
 as well as of their collective bearing on the system 
 of divine truth, is indispensable to a full apprecia- 
 tion of the value of the revealed word. So re- 
 markable is the unity of the Scriptures, so strongly 
 
52 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 are the same great characteristics impressed upon 
 them, that the wondrous drama which it contains, 
 beginning in Eden, and closing with the New 
 Jerusalem, though divided into various scenes, 
 consisting of many successive and diversified acts, 
 is one organic whole. The dramatis personal, if 
 we may say so, are the same throughout. Thus 
 the opening scene describes God as having created 
 all things in the world very good : Adam formed 
 out of the earth, and Eve taken from his side ; 
 the serpent in paradise ; man tempted, — seduced 
 from his allegiance to his Maker, and exiled from 
 Eden; the way of the tree of life guarded by a 
 flaming sword ; and a gracious promise made most 
 seasonably to the fallen pair, " that the seed of 
 the woman should bruise the serpent's head." The 
 closing scene bears a striking correspondence to 
 the opening portion of the book. The objects that 
 were withdrawn from view after the fall are re- 
 produced upon the scene ; paradise is regained, 
 the ends of the sacred history are united, and the 
 glorious circle of revelation completed. The tree 
 of life, whereof there were but faint reminiscences 
 in all the intermediate time, again stands by the 
 river or water of life, but no longer an interdicted 
 object, and access to it guarded by a flaming 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 53 
 
 sword. God is there seated on His throne, and 
 represented as the object of universal adoration ; 
 Christ the second Adam, and Eve in the charac- 
 ter of the church, His bride ; the dragon, that old 
 serpent, in the deadly contest with whom Christ 
 had been wounded in the heel (His humanity), 
 and slain ; but He " liveth for evermore, and hath 
 the keys of hell and of death ; " He has now 
 bruised the serpent's head ; and having chained 
 him, opens the bottomless pit, and casts him into 
 the lake of fire and brimstone, there to remain 
 for ever. But though there is this unity between 
 the early and the concluding scenes of the won- 
 drous drama of this world's history as contained 
 in the Scriptures, " a great advance has been made 
 during the interval. Even the very differences 
 of the forms under which the heavenly kingdom re- 
 appears are characteristic, marking, as they do, not 
 merely that all is won back, but won back in a 
 more glorious shape than that in which it was lost, 
 because won back in the Son. It is no longer 
 paradise, but the New Jerusalem, — no longer the 
 garden, but now the city of God, which is on 
 earth. The change is full of meaning : no longer 
 the garden, free, spontaneous, and unlaboured, 
 even as man's blessedness in the state of a first 
 
54 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 innocence would have been ; but the city, costlier 
 indeed, more stately, more glorious, but at the 
 same time the result of toil, labour, and pain, 
 occupied not by a single human pair, but by a 
 vast multitude, ' whom no man can number,' reared 
 into a nobler and more abiding habitation, yet 
 with stones which, after the pattern of ' the elect 
 corner-stone,' were each in his time laboriously 
 hewn and painfully squared for the places which 
 they fill." (Trench.) >> 
 
 Such is the completed form of the divine 
 scheme of grace that is revealed in the Scrip- 
 tures ; and when we consider its nature and pro- 
 visions, the manner in which it was given out 
 by small and detached communications, and the 
 lengthened period occupied in its progressive de- 
 velopment, till the mystery hid from ages was 
 disclosed, we must perceive the absolute necessity 
 there was, that the men successively employed in 
 announcing it should be inspired. How would 
 an earthly government do, in conducting a diplo- 
 matic correspondence with a foreign state, when 
 about to transmit a despatch on some delicate 
 and important matter that has disturbed or broken 
 their amicable relations ? Would they entrust the 
 preparation of the document that contains . their 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 55 
 
 proposals of adjustment to inferior persons, who 
 should be at liberty to communicate it in what- 
 ever manner they chose ? Would not the master 
 mind of the ruler, if he did not dictate the pre- 
 cise terms, take good care that it should accu- 
 rately and fully convey the views entertained by 
 himself or cabinet ? And when God, in the ful- 
 ness of His mercy and love to His fallen and 
 sinful creatures, provided a scheme of grace which 
 He chose special ambassadors to announce to man, 
 in the language of man, would not the same 
 paternal wisdom and goodness guard against error 
 in a case of such moment to their highest interests, 
 by guiding His messengers to speak the truth, 
 the whole truth, and nothing but the truth ? We 
 are thus led on by the principles of reason to be- 
 lieve in the necessity of inspiration. And when 
 we look to the character of the Scriptures,- — their 
 veracity, their fidelity, their spirit of purity, their 
 penetrating foresight and comprehensive wisdom, — 
 we are led to believe also in the fact of inspira- 
 tion : the Scripture is a witness of its own inspi- 
 ration. Were a rude and ignorant peasant to 
 produce a work of profound intelligence, such 
 as Butler's Analogy, elucidating the profoundest 
 subjects in the philosophy of religion, we should 
 
56 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 revert to his antecedents, and consider now far 
 they justified a belief that he was equal to so 
 great an intellectual achievement. And in re- 
 viewing all that history, observation, or experience 
 has taught us of what men have done, what they 
 are or have been, is there the smallest ground 
 for believing that they were, by their unaided 
 powers, equal to the composition of a Bible which 
 ''^Carlyle has pronounced " the greatest work of 
 literature in the world " ? And then, when we 
 take into account its fitness for its purpose, its 
 precious truths, its supernatural doctrines, its in- 
 sight into the hearts of men, its selection of sub- 
 jects, its manner of teaching them, its complete 
 adaptation to the character and wants of men, 
 together with the miraculous testimony it bears 
 to its own truth, and the numerous prophecies 
 to be found in every part of the Bible, — many of 
 them fulfilled, some in the course of fulfilment, 
 and others remaining to be fulfilled, — what are 
 all these, but cumulative proofs of the heavenly 
 origin, the divine inspiration of the sacred books 
 X. which constitute the Scriptures ? In this view, 
 the Scriptures, in their collective capacity, appear 
 to be the word of God ; and their authority does 
 not depend on the fact whether this prophet or 
 
THE HOLY SCEIPTUKES. 5 7 
 
 that wrote a particular book or parts of a book; 
 whether a certain portion was derived from the 
 Elohist or Jehovist; whether Moses wrote the 
 close of Deuteronomy, Solomon was the author 
 of Ecclesiastes, or Paul of the Epistle to the 
 Hebrews ; but on the fact that a prophet, an in- 
 spired man, having the credentials of his high 
 commission, wrote them, and that they bear the 
 stamp and impress of a divine origin. Since this, 
 then, is the general character of the Scriptures, 
 it sufficiently exposes the folly and presumption 
 of Eationalism, the object of which is to eliminate 
 everything of a supernatural character from the 
 sacred volume, by denying all miracles and pro- 
 phecy, and even expunging from the historical 
 records every fact and incident different from the 
 natural course of things, as the fabulous legends 
 of an ignorant and a credulous age. But those 
 who allow themselves thus to decide what are the 
 truths which it is fit for God to reveal, and what 
 it is worthy of human reason to receive, invest 
 their fallible judgment with an authority to which 
 it is totally inadequate, and for which it never 
 was designed. In assuming this high preroga- 
 tive, they are chargeable with daring presump- 
 tion ; they act on the supposition that they are 
 
58 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 perfectly capable of judging as to the nature and 
 degree of that illumination which God may be 
 pleased to communicate, and that He will not 
 reveal any truths to His intelligent offspring, 
 whose meaning is not obvious to their compre- 
 hension. But the Bible is the record of revela- 
 tion, — of a scheme of grace for the pardon and 
 salvation of sinful men, who can obtain the know- 
 ledge of it from no other source ; it exhibits the 
 hand of Jehovah, announcing, superintending, and 
 directing the development of this scheme in all 
 ages of the church. It must therefore be received, 
 not as men may think it ought to be, but as the 
 Eevealer Himself has described it in the Scrip- 
 tures ; and the only way to know this is to 
 search the Scriptures, endeavouring to discover 
 the import of their language according to the 
 most approved principles of interpretation. Most 
 invaluable is the knowledge they communicate ; 
 for from this book, and from it alone, we obtain 
 information on the most important subjects which 
 it concerns us to know and believe, — on the 
 origin of man, the introduction of sin into the 
 world, the method of redemption, the reality and 
 retributions of a future world, the pure society and 
 the perfect form of God's moral government there. 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 59 
 
 Of these and numerous other subjects, — which are 
 of the highest interest and of vital importance to 
 man, and utterly beyond the reach of our natural 
 means of intelligence, nay, respecting which we 
 do not possess the means of forming even a faint 
 conjecture without the guiding light of revelation, 
 — we know nothing, and have not the means of 
 knowing anything, except they be shown to us 
 by the Eevealer. Those who acknowledge the 
 Scriptures to be the word of God, are bound to 
 bow to their sovereign authority in all matters of 
 faith and duty. It is the only divine and per- 
 fect standard by which the value of all things 
 in the world is determined ; by which all charac- 
 ters are judged, all actions are weighed, and the 
 lawfulness or excellence of all pursuits is tried. 
 It is the common source from which all sects 
 derive their distinctive principles, the ultimate 
 tribunal to which all sects appeal for the settle- 
 ment of their differences. On every work which 
 emanates from the mind of a mere human author, 
 we may sit in judgment with perfect propriety, — 
 may canvass its principles or reject its conclusions 
 at pleasure. But towards a book which bears 
 the stamp and impress of a heavenly origin, we 
 are bound to cherish no other sentiment than 
 
60 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 that of reverence for its character, as well as sub- 
 mission to its authority ; and, yielding to the 
 supremacy of its utterances in all matters beyond 
 the grasp of our reason, the language of our 
 hearts should be, " Let God be true, and every 
 man a liar." 
 
 We have thus endeavoured to show the inspira- 
 tion of the Scriptures collectively, first, from the 
 testimony of the ancient Jewish church, which 
 reckoned the same books of the Old Testament as 
 we have in their sacred canon; secondly, from 
 the repeated appeals to them made by our Lord 
 and His apostles as the word of God ; and 
 thirdly, from the internal evidence of their con- 
 tents. The testimony of our Lord, independently 
 of all other considerations, is, or ought to be, a 
 decisive authority ; for it is the testimony of Him 
 who spoke with perfect and infallible knowledge, 
 and therefore it would be the height of presump- 
 tion to subjoin evidence additional to His for 
 the purpose of confirming the position that the 
 Scriptures are given by inspiration of God. But 
 it may be interesting and useful to trace the ap- 
 plication of this principle in the separate books or 
 classes of books of Scripture ; and this we purpose 
 to do in the following two Lectures. 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 61 
 
 LECTUEE II 
 
 A large Portion of the Old Testament in the Form of History — 
 Sources of Information, Divine and Human — All the Histori- 
 cal Books connected as a Whole — Composed under Inspira- 
 tion — Leading Characteristics of Sacred History. — I. Reli- 
 gious — Selection of Subjects and pervading Spirit entirely 
 different from ordinary Human History — A Record of God's 
 Providence and His Moral Government. — II. Typical — The 
 Old Testament Dispensation foreshadowed the New — In 
 Persons, Institutions, Events. — III. The Element of the 
 Promise — The Stream of History directed through the 
 Channel of Seth's Descendants — Definite Renewal of the 
 Promise to Abraham — Separation of the Heirs of the Promise 
 — Poetical Books — Prophetical Books — Religious Teaching 
 the Stated Work of the Prophets — Writings — Predictive 
 Element — Insulated Prophecies — Prophecies relative to the 
 Jews, and the Nations connected with them — Progressive 
 Prophecies concerning Christ. 
 
 A large proportion of the Old Testament is 
 historical; and the information contained in it 
 might be obtained by the writers from monu- 
 ments, from public archives, or from their personal 
 knowledge of the facts they relate. Whatever 
 views we may entertain of the manner in which 
 the spirit of inspiration operated on the minds 
 of the sacred penmen, one thing is clear, that it 
 did not supersede the exercise of their natural 
 
62 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 faculties with regard to matters within the reach 
 of human knowledge ; and hence we may con- 
 clude that Moses, the author of the opening 
 history, would be left at liberty to avail himself 
 of such oral testimony or written documents as 
 might be accessible to him. In regard to his 
 account of creation and the fall of man, that 
 must have been a divine communication, being 
 probably derived by tradition from Adam, whose 
 knowledge of the origin of himself, as well as of 
 all creatures and all things, was doubtless com- 
 municated to him by a heavenly instructor; and 
 though it would be presumptuous to affirm any- 
 thing with dogmatic confidence upon the subject, 
 it appears in the highest degree reasonable to 
 believe, that the imparted intelligence regarding 
 the order and results of the creative process, given 
 by his condescending Maker in conversations with 
 the primeval man, is embodied in the early 
 chapters of Genesis. Accordingly it may be safely 
 asserted, that the first portion of that book con- 
 tains a condensed epitome of aboriginal history, 
 which no forger, no late compiler, could have 
 invented ; and consequently that its very origin- 
 ality is a pledge of its divine origin and inspired 
 truth. With regard to the later details of this 
 
THE HOLY SCEIPTUKES. 63 
 
 book, relating to the increase, degeneracy, and 
 dispersion of mankind, together with the most 
 striking dispensations of providence during the 
 first two thousand years, Moses doubtless derived 
 his materials from human sources that were ac- 
 cessible to him. Writers of history avail them- 
 selves of every means and opportunity of obtaining 
 reliable information, whether from oral testimony, 
 ancient monuments, public archives, or private 
 journals ; and according to the zeal, assiduity, and 
 judgment with which they ransack latent stores 
 of knowledge, and consult the most proper 
 authorities upon their subject, will their work 
 contain a collection of trustworthy and varied 
 facts, and themselves be esteemed interesting and 
 valuable historians. Moses acted in this manner. 
 His history in the first ten chapters is evidently 
 derived from tradition, for it bears all the cha- 
 racteristics of that kind of knowledge which is 
 limited to some striking or memorable facts ; and 
 considering that, from the longevity of the ante- 
 diluvian and early post-diluvian patriarchs, the 
 tradition must have passed through a very few 
 hands, the source whence the knowledge of those 
 facts he has recorded came to Moses, indepen- 
 dently of divine superintendence, was direct and 
 
64 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 pure. When he comes down to the time of 
 Abraham, there is a manifest change on the cha- 
 racter of the history, which becomes much more 
 copious and connected, descending into minute 
 and circumstantial details, and recording incidents 
 in personal and family experience, of which there 
 is no similar trace in the earlier portion of the 
 book. A still greater change appears in the tenor 
 of the history when the narrative is brought down 
 to the time of the exodus ; for it then assumes 
 the character and form of a journal, containing a 
 record of the chief and most important transac- 
 tions of the passing time. It was not a voluntary 
 labour that Moses thus imposed upon himself; 
 for, however natural and interesting it might have 
 been for the leader of a young and independent 
 nation to keep a record of the events that marked 
 its early history, this duty was not left to his 
 own option or sense of its utility. It was 
 enjoined upon him by the high authority that 
 invested him with his divine legation ; and by 
 the successive additions made to this public re- 
 gister, as the human incidents occurred, or the 
 divine communications were made, the document 
 rose to the magnitude it attained at the close 
 of the great legislator's career, comprising in its 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTUKES. 65 
 
 chequered pages narratives of trie natural inter- 
 mingled with the supernatural, as might be ex- 
 pected to characterize a history of the establish- 
 ment of a divine economy amongst the chosen 
 people. * This is the Pentateuch, the first por- 
 tion of the sacred history. The book of Joshua 
 follows. It holds an indispensable place in the 
 sacred canon, as it is the only authoritative 
 document which shows the faithfulness of God 
 in accomplishing His promises made to the patri- 
 archs and to Moses, by giving that people a 
 permanent possession of the land ; and it was 
 stamped, in the eyes of the Hebrew people, with 
 great value, as recording the original distribu- 
 tion of property among the tribes of Israel, and 
 the early provision made for the ordinances of 
 the true religion. Joshua was called by the 
 express authority of God to undertake the com- 
 mand of the Hebrew people in the war of invasion 
 which was about to commence in Canaan ; and 
 having been their leader in the conquest of the 
 promised land, it is natural to think that he would 
 preserve a record of all the great occurrences and 
 acquisitions that marked so memorable a period in 
 
 1 Deut. xxxi. 10, 11, 26, 27, xvii. 14, 18 ; Ex. xxiv. 7 ; Deut. 
 xxviii. 58-61. 
 
 E 
 
66 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 the national history of God's people. Several cir- 
 cumstances lead to the conclusion that it was com- 
 posed by Joshua himself, or under his direction. 1 
 It was added by him, to the booh of the law of 
 the Lord, and it is frequently alluded to as a 
 sacred book in other parts of Scripture. 2 The 
 succeeding book of Judges is not to be considered 
 a regular and complete history of the period, but 
 only as a link connecting the narrative of Joshua 
 with the historical books which follow, and fur- 
 nishing selected details in proof of its leading 
 object, which was to show that, whenever the 
 Israelites apostatized from God, they were over- 
 taken by war or fell into servitude, and, on the 
 other hand, whenever they returned to His service, 
 and continued in dutiful allegiance, they enjoyed 
 a course of national peace and prosperity. Its 
 author is, on good grounds, believed to have been 
 Samuel, and various references are made to it 
 both in the Old and New Testaments. 3 Euth was 
 regarded by the ancient church as a part of 
 Judges, and the importance of the book consists 
 
 1 Josh. v. 1, xxiv. 26. 
 
 2 1 Kings xvi. 34 ; Ps. xliv. 2, lxviii. 12 ; Hab. iii. 12 ; Acts 
 vii. 45 ; Heb. xi. 30, 31 ; Jas. ii. 25. 
 
 3 1 Sam. xii. 3 ; 2 Sam. xi.21 ; Ps. lxxxiii. 11, xcvii. 5 ; Matt. 
 ii. 23 ; Acts xiii. 20 ; Heb. xi. 32. 
 
THE HOLY SCEIPTURES. 67 
 
 in contributing to show the ancestry of David, 
 and consequently the genealogy of a greater than 
 David. The books of Samuel are exceedingly 
 interesting, as they abound with circumstantial 
 and varied details relative to the religious and 
 political state of the Israelites under the two last 
 judges and the two first kings ; especially as they 
 show the preservation of the church of God 
 amidst all the vicissitudes of the Jewish govern- 
 ment, the promises made to David respecting the 
 continuance of the royal authority in his family, 
 and Solomon's peaceful reign as a type of 
 Messiah's, universal kingdom, the establishment of 
 the national worship on Mount Zion, and the per- 
 manent erection of God's temple in Jerusalem. 
 Facts and statements in these two books are re- 
 ferred to in many portions of the Scriptures. The 
 two books of Kings comprise a succinct account 
 of the reigns of the later kings of Israel and 
 Judah. The subjects they relate are of great 
 interest and importance, such as the building and 
 dedication of the temple, the partition of the 
 nation into the two separate kingdoms of Israel 
 and Judah, the introduction and prevalence of 
 idolatry, the ministrations of many prophets, the 
 Egyptian and Assyrian invasions, and the captivity, 
 
68 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 first of Israel, afterwards of Judah. Repeated 
 allusions are made to these books in the New Tes- 
 tament -, 1 and the allusions which our Lord, as 
 well as the Apostle James, has made to the won- 
 derful miracles they relate, and to the prophecies 
 they contain, particularly that relating to Josiah, 2 
 attest their divine inspiration. The books of Ezra 
 and Nehemiah relate occurrences that fell under 
 their observation, and of which they took respec- 
 tively a leading direction. But the movements 
 which they commenced or conducted were mani- 
 festly under the guidance of Providence ; and 
 therefore the books which relate those occurrences 
 are so essential to the progressive development of 
 the state of things which was to bring about " the 
 fulness of time," when the true oracle, " the Word/ 5 
 and the great High Priest, was to appear, that 
 the insertion of both forms important links in the 
 chain of the sacred history. Of Esther we have 
 taken notice already ; and it remains only to say a 
 few words regarding the two books of Chronicles. 
 They comprise genealogical lists, which must have 
 been regarded as of great interest after the cap- 
 
 1 Matt. i. 7-12, vi. 29. xii. 42 ; Luke iv. 25-27 ; Acts ii. 29, 
 vii. 47-50 ; Jas. v. 17, 18. 
 2 1 Kings xiii. 2. 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 69 
 
 tivity ; details of the governments of David and 
 Solomon, which throw great light on the succinct 
 accounts contained in the books of Samuel and 
 Kings ; and also of the dismemberment of the 
 kingdom under Rehoboam, and of many transac- 
 tions relating to the two severed portions of the 
 kingdom, the history of Judah being minutely 
 recorded. The object of the sacred historian 
 was, by dwelling particularly on the peculiarities 
 of the national constitution, — such, for instance, as 
 related to the temple worship, together with the 
 prosperity which would lighten up the country 
 by a faithful adherence to the service of the true 
 God, and the public calamities that would be 
 entailed by apostasy, — to furnish a directory, after 
 the restoration from the captivity, for the instruc- 
 tion and guidance of the people. That they were 
 compiled after the period of exile had terminated, 
 is evident from references made to facts connected 
 with the return of the exiles, particularly the 
 decree of Cyrus, which, from the conclusion of the 
 book, and some peculiar forms of expression, be- 
 token that the writer had been in the habit of 
 using the Chaldee language. The two books of 
 Chronicles, which are essentially one, form a most 
 important addition to the sacred writings. They 
 
70 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 were the latest in being introduced into the 
 ancient canon; and though they are allowed by 
 scholars to be the most corrupted in point of text, 
 they are of the greatest use for obtaining an ac- 
 curate knowledge of the tribal or family history 
 of the Jews. Moreover, they are of a character 
 which fully harmonizes with the other sacred 
 books : for, amid the somewhat dry details of 
 genealogical and geographical facts, there are inter- 
 spersed many passages containing narratives, dis- 
 courses, parables, and prayers, which no reader of 
 sensibility, and, above all, of piety, can read with- 
 out emotion and lively interest. 
 
 All these books are separate and in themselves 
 complete compositions, yet they form a continuous 
 and progressive chain of historical information 
 relating to the character and condition of the 
 Jewish people during the greater part of their 
 temporary dispensation ; and they are so closely 
 connected, that here, as well as elsewhere, " the 
 Scripture cannot be broken." They do not, how- 
 ever, constitute a series of books, like those of a 
 cabinet or family library, in which portions of 
 literary work are assigned to different contem- 
 porary authors, and the volumes, prepared and 
 issued in succession, form a general collection, 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 71 
 
 which is designed to embrace the whole range of 
 a nation's history. The Old Testament histories 
 were written by men who lived in times widely 
 remote, and their several contributions describe 
 diversified periods in the progress of the Jewish 
 Church and State. But the writers, with one 
 exception, begin their respective works with a 
 formula which clearly intimates that what they 
 drew up was to be conjoined, as an integral part, 
 with the sacred books which the Holy Ghost had 
 moved others before them to compose. The copu- 
 lative conjunction, And, 1 is the link by which each 
 author unites his book with those of preceding- 
 Scriptures. And as such a particle, or its equiva- 
 lent, serves the same purpose in all languages, — 
 that of being the means or sign of connection, — 
 the systematic use of it by the Old Testament 
 historians demonstrates that their several narra- 
 tives were intended to form one connected whole. 
 It joins the second, third, and fourth books of 
 Moses to the first, — the last being only a reca- 
 pitulation of the former ; it continues the history 
 through Joshua, Judges, Ruth, the books of 
 Samuel and Kings ; and though the seventy years' 
 captivity made a long interruption, the historical 
 
 1 Sometimes in our translation rendered Now. 
 
72 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 thread is resumed, and Ezra, Nehemiah, and the 
 writer of Esther commence their post -exilian 
 narratives precisely in the same manner as the 
 preceding historians. The books of Chronicles 
 occupy an exceptional position : for, being filled 
 chiefly ' in the early part with genealogical regis- 
 ters, which begin with the first man, Adam, and 
 supplying in the later portions many things which 
 were omitted in the former books of the sacred 
 history, they did not make a contribution of new 
 and additional matter ; and therefore, though 
 serving the purpose of appendices to the books of 
 Samuel and Kings, they could not be introduced 
 as a sequel to the preceding books. It is evident, 
 then, that so remarkable a uniformity in the style 
 of commencing these histories indicates design on 
 the part of the authors ; and their common em- 
 ployment of the connecting particle which in all 
 languages serves to join things together, can be 
 regarded in no other light than as signifying that 
 all these books constitute one continuous history. 
 
 The authors of these books must have been de- 
 pendent upon testimony for the facts they narrate, 
 and they are very free and unreserved in their 
 reference to the documentary sources whence they 
 derived the information which they embody in 
 
THE HOLY SCEIPTUEES. 73 
 
 their narratives. Thus, both Joshua and Samuel 
 quote the book of Jasher, 1 an anthology, or collec- 
 tion of national songs. Frequent appeals also are 
 made to the narratives of Nathan, Ahijah, and 
 Iddo, 2 of Jehu, 3 and others, who wrote memoirs of 
 detached periods and annals of successive reigns ; 
 for in the courts of Israel and Judah, as in those 
 of all Oriental countries, there was a recorder, 
 or historiograj)her, whose special duty it was to 
 register the most interesting and prominent occur- 
 rences of every passing day. Accordingly, no 
 documents are more frequently referred to than 
 the books of the chronicles of the kings of Israel 
 and Judah ; 4 and, in fact, the later historical 
 books of the Old Testament are to a great extent 
 an abridgment of, or extracts from, the records 
 made by those royal secretaries. Now it cannot, 
 in the mind of an intelligent and reflecting person, 
 affect the character of the sacred history, that the 
 materials of which it consists have been derived 
 from many different sources, and compiled from 
 private records or public archives. There is not a 
 more erroneous idea than to conceive of the books 
 
 l Josh. x. 13 ; 2 Sam. i. 18. * 2 Chron. ix. 29. 
 
 3 2 Chron. xx. 34. 
 
 4 1 Kings xiv. 19 ; 1 Chron. xxvii. 24 ; also Esth. vi. 1. 
 
74 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 of Scripture as containing nothing but matter that 
 has been directly revealed. For although, in com- 
 mon and familiar language, the Scripture is called 
 the volume of revelation, because it contains all 
 that God has been pleased to reveal of His will 
 to man, it comprehends also a great variety of 
 subjects that are of merely human origin and 
 secondary importance. All Scripture, therefore, is 
 not revelation, but all Scripture is given by inspira- 
 tion of God. Let its contents have been derived 
 from sources ever so diversified, — from the direct 
 and immediate communications of God, from the 
 suggestions or cogitations of the authors, from 
 
 DO O ' 
 
 ancient traditions, from private memoirs or na- 
 tional registers, — yet, having been accepted by the 
 Spirit of truth, and incorporated in that Book 
 which expresses the divine mind, they have been 
 brought under the influence of inspiration, have 
 been appropriated to divine purposes, and must 
 be regarded as bearing the stamp and impress of 
 truth. In other words, it is an inspired history. 
 This is a principle of the greatest importance, and 
 we propose to expound it at length in the present 
 lecture, by directing attention to the leading cha- 
 racteristics of the sacred history, religious, typical, 
 and pervaded by the element of a divine promise. 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTUEES. 75 
 
 I. Religious. — Between the Scripture historians 
 and the ordinary historians of the world, there is 
 a remarkable difference in the subjects they select, 
 in the characters that figure at full length in their 
 pages, and which they respectively hold up to 
 the esteem and admiration of their readers. In 
 the one, it is the statesmen who have guided the 
 counsels of the senate, the warriors who have 
 fought the battles of their country, the monarchs 
 who have swayed the sceptre of a powerful and 
 extensive empire, — whose hands have held the 
 balance of power between rival states, and whose 
 government has given a tone and character to 
 their age. In the other, the characters held up 
 to our view are those who, though moving in the 
 vale of private or buried in the obscurity of 
 humble life, were yet the sincere and devoted 
 servants of God, — those who, by their faithful- 
 ness and fortitude, maintained the cause of truth, 
 who spent their lives in diffusing the knowledge 
 and influence of religion, or were bright exemplars 
 of the virtues and graces of piety. In the one, 
 the records given in full detail of the men of 
 power, science, or military renown, have been 
 often made to lend a false splendour to other 
 qualities which have no claims on our moral 
 
76 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 esteem. In the other, while faults and blemishes 
 are delineated with a faithful and impartial hand, 
 the deeds of humble piety, the achievements of 
 faith, the power of religion, are always brought 
 conspicuously before us. In the one, though 
 genius has strained her utmost efforts, and elo- 
 quence poured forth her noblest strains, to per- 
 petuate the memory of great men and ensure 
 them a deathless fame, they have in time either 
 been consigned to total oblivion, or they have 
 remained but the empty shadows of a name. In 
 the other, the ancient worthies of the church 
 are preserved in the Bible, as in an ark, from all 
 the destructive ravages of time ; and when its re- 
 cords of eternal truth shall be diffused over the 
 whole world, " that which they did shall be every- 
 where spoken of as a memorial of them." In the 
 one, the object aimed at is, to narrate the doings 
 of man in his individual or collective capacity ; 
 to describe the progress of society, the discoveries 
 of science, the inventions in art, the measures 
 adopted to develope the material resources of a 
 country, or to reform and improve the political 
 institutions of a nation. In the other, the grand 
 pervading object is to reveal the character and 
 the will of God. All the other matter which ' the 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 77 
 
 Scriptures contain is subordinate to this design, — 
 lias been introduced merely from being connected 
 in some way or other with the progress or ex- 
 tension of true religion in the world, or from its 
 being calculated to illustrate and enforce its pro- 
 visions. So that, in order to perceive the cha- 
 racter and enter into the spirit of the Scriptures, 
 one must ever keep in mind the peculiar design 
 for which they were written. And just as, in 
 perusing a work of any human author, we must 
 direct our minds, amid the occasional notices of 
 other things we may meet with in the volume, 
 to the principal subject on which it professes to 
 give information ; as, in taking up a medical book, 
 for instance, we are prepared, from its character, 
 to obtain from it chiefly an account of the symp- 
 toms and treatment of disease ; or, in reading a 
 history of Scotland, we expect to find, amid in- 
 cidental allusions to foreign powers, with whom 
 it may have been in amicable relations, that the 
 main stream of the narrative will be directed 
 towards the affairs and institutions of our native 
 country ; so, in reading that book which was 
 dictated by the Spirit, and which pre-eminently 
 claims to give an historical detail of the progres- 
 sive development of the scheme of grace for the 
 
78 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 recovery of fallen man, we are led to consider 
 particularly the character of Him who provided 
 and announced this peculiar method for the moral 
 and spiritual education of the world. The sacred 
 history gives us an account of His dealings with 
 that people whom He selected for a time to be 
 the depositaries of His will ; and in the estab- 
 lishment of that people in the land of promise, 
 as well as in the direct and constant superintend- 
 ence He maintained over them, we have an in- 
 structive view of the maintenance of a divine 
 providence over all the course of the world and 
 the affairs of men. 
 
 God appears in almost every part of their 
 national history, — not only on signal occasions, 
 when interposing in a miraculous manner for their 
 deliverance from Egyptian oppression and danger, 
 and for their final establishment in the land of 
 promise, but in the ordinary course of their ex- 
 perience in that country ; and while they lived 
 and acted as people have done always and every- 
 where, forming their plans, prosecuting their 
 labours, and pursuing with energy and persever- 
 ance the most promising means of success in 
 every department, God is represented as working 
 with them and for them in all their undertakings. 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 79 
 
 He gave thern laws and institutions adapted to 
 the special duty they were selected to promote ; 
 so that, while other people have to wait the slow 
 progress of time, ere they attain the perfection 
 of their social and political system, the Israelites 
 rose at once to the dignity of a free, independent, 
 regularly constituted, but peculiar people ; for they 
 had God for their King and Leader, and their 
 historians write as if His presence were constantly 
 felt among them. In time of war, He goes with 
 them to the battle, arrays the hosts for the con- 
 test, stimulates the onset, devises stratagems, de- 
 fends or demolishes the walls, delivers the enemy 
 into their hands, sometimes overthrowing them 
 without the stroke of a sword, and secures the 
 relinquished property or conquered territories for 
 His people. In time of peace, He makes them 
 enjoy the highest measure of prosperity attendant 
 on that righteousness which exalteth a nation. 
 He builds the house, keeps the city, gives them 
 the early and the latter rain, sows the seed into 
 the soil, blesses the springing thereof, and crowns 
 the year with His goodness. On the other hand, 
 when they did evil, and broke their allegiance 
 to Him, " the anger of the Lord was hot against 
 Israel," and He sold them into the hands of foreign 
 
80 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 conquerors. Nay, not only is He described as 
 exercising this vigilant superintendence over the 
 nation generally, but as extending His provi- 
 dential care in the minutest manner over the 
 lives and interests of individuals. Not a personal 
 movement did any one make, nor a domestic 
 occurrence take place ; not an honour did any 
 one receive, nor an office was he appointed to 
 fill; but it is traced directly to the divine foun- 
 tain of all good. If Jacob prospered, Laban is 
 made to say, " I have learned by experience that 
 the Lord hath blessed me for thy sake ;" if Joseph 
 rose in favour with his master, it was " because 
 Potiphar saw that the Lord was with him;" if 
 Job recovered from his various and protracted 
 afflictions, and was restored to personal health and 
 domestic felicity, " it was the Lord who blessed 
 his latter end more than his beginning ; " if David 
 triumphed in the unequal contest with the Philis- 
 tine, " it was the Lord who inspired the stripling's 
 heart with courage, and directed his arm against 
 the foe ;" if Solomon was endowed with extra- 
 ordinary wisdom, it was " the Lord who gave him 
 a wise and understanding heart;" if Elijah per- 
 formed the laborious duty of a courier before the 
 king in his hurried journey to Jezreel, it was 
 
THE HOLY SCEIPTUEES. 81 
 
 because " the hand of the Lord was strong upon 
 him ;" and if Daniel and his three friends made 
 extraordinary proficiency in their Chaldee studies, 
 it was because " God gave them knowledge and 
 skill." Nay, as the God of providence, His king- 
 dom ruleth over all, and all the kings of the 
 earth are subordinate to His will. He raiseth up 
 one, and setteth down another; He laid the tower- 
 ing pride of Nebuchadnezzar in the dust, and 
 enlisted Cyrus as the instrument of accomplishing 
 His destined restoration of the Hebrew exiles. 
 Further, He is represented as holding all the 
 elements of nature in His hand, and wielding 
 them now in mild and benign influences for the 
 happiness of a people, at another time " turning 
 the fruitful land into barrenness, for the wicked- 
 ness of them that dwell therein." In short, the 
 agency of God is kept in view and acknowledged 
 in every occurrence, — in events the most trivial 
 and minute, as well as the most important ; and 
 thus the whole of the sacred history furnishes a 
 continuous commentary on the doxology of the 
 apostle, who, animated with devout admiration of 
 the divine perfections as displayed in the king- 
 doms both of nature and grace, exclaims, " Of 
 
 Him, and through Him, and to Him are all 
 
 F 
 
82 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 things ; to whom be glory for ever, Amen." Men 
 may talk of the reign of law, and that certain 
 events take place as the necessary results of 
 natural causes ; they may philosophically descant 
 on the rise and fall of empires, ascribing them 
 to accident, or to causes merely of a political 
 nature. But although there is admittedly a 
 subordinate operation of secondary causes, the 
 sacred historians never forget to look beyond, and 
 ascribe them to the direct influence of Him who 
 is the Governor among the nations, and the great 
 First Cause of all things. How peculiar their 
 phraseology ! how different from the style in use 
 amongst mere men of the world ! An ordinary 
 historian, if describing the rise and progress of 
 a nation, would have enlarged on the profound 
 sagacity, the broad and liberal views of the 
 statesmen who laid the foundations of their social 
 or political institutions, or improved and adapted 
 them to the character and condition of an ad- 
 vanced age. If narrating a victory, he would have 
 extolled, the military skill and tactics of the 
 general who formed the plan of the engagement, and 
 the gallant bearing or daring courage of the troops 
 who fought under his banner. Or if, having to 
 speak of the dangerous illness of a royal person- 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 83 
 
 age, and his happy recovery from the verge of 
 the grave, he would have dwelt on the great and 
 widespread satisfaction which the unexpected in- 
 telligence diffused throughout the kingdom ; and 
 while he paid a compliment, it may be, to the 
 skill and assiduity of the medical attendants, 
 never made an allusion to that high unseen Power 
 that suggested thoughts to the physician's mind, 
 and imparted a healing virtue to all the remedial 
 treatment he prescribed. How different the style 
 of the Bible history ! It is so composed, that we 
 never rise from the perusal of it full of admira- 
 tion for man, but always full of admiration for 
 God. Where ordinary historians would rear a 
 memorial of eulogistic praise to man, the sacred 
 writers raise a monument of glory to God ; and 
 when we think that the large collection of his- 
 torical tracts which the Scriptures comprise is 
 written throughout in this style of pious acknow- 
 ledgment of God, — a style so widely different 
 from the prevailing tone and uniform tendency 
 of all human writings, — we are irresistibly led to 
 the conclusion that the sacred history, though 
 traced by the pen and expressed in the language 
 of man, is of a higher origin than the product 
 of any human mind. 
 
84 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 II. A second characteristic of the sacred history 
 is its typical nature. — A type properly denotes 
 a rude draught, or an imperfect representation of 
 an object, in order to a more accurate and com- 
 plete delineation of it. " To constitute one thing 
 the type of another/' says Bishop Marsh, " as 
 the term is generally understood in reference to 
 Scripture, something more is wanted than mere 
 resemblance. The former must not only resemble 
 the latter, but must have been designed to re- 
 semble the latter. It must have been so designed 
 in its institution. It must have been designed 
 as something preparatory to the latter. The type 
 as well as the antitype must have been pre- 
 ordained ; and they must have been pre-ordained 
 as constituent parts of the same general scheme 
 of divine providence. It is this previous design 
 and this pre-ordained connection which con- 
 stitute the relation of type and antitype. Where 
 these qualities fail, where the previous design 
 and the pre-ordained connection are wanting, the 
 relation between any two things, however similar 
 in themselves, is not the relation of type to anti- 
 type. The existence, therefore, of that previous 
 design and pre-ordained connection must be 
 clearly established, before we can have authority 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 85 
 
 for pronouncing one thing the type of another. 
 But we can establish the existence of that pre- 
 vious design and pre-ordained connection, by 
 arguing only from the resemblance of the things 
 compared. For the qualities and circumstances 
 attendant on one thing may have a close resem- 
 blance with the qualities and circumstances 
 attendant on another thing, and yet the things 
 themselves may be devoid of all connection. 
 How, then, it may be asked, shall we obtain the 
 proof required ? By what means shall we deter- 
 mine, in any given instance, that what is alleged 
 as a type was really designed as a type ? Now 
 the only possible means of knowing that two 
 distant, though similar, historic facts were so 
 connected in the general scheme of divine pro- 
 vidence that the one was designed to prefigure 
 the other, is the authority of that work in 
 which the scheme of divine providence is un- 
 folded. Destitute of that authority, we may 
 confound a resemblance subsequently observed 
 with a resemblance pre-ordained ; we may mis- 
 take a comparison founded on a mere accidental 
 parity of circumstances, for a comparison founded 
 on a necessary and inherent connection. There 
 is no other rule, therefore, by which we can 
 
86 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 distinguish a real from a pretended type, than 
 that of Scripture itself. There are no other pos- 
 sible means by which we know that a previous 
 design and a pre-ordained connection existed. 
 Whatever persons or things, therefore, recorded 
 in the Old Testament, were expressly declared by 
 Christ or by His apostles to have been designed 
 as prefigurations of persons or things relating 
 to the New Testament, such persons or things so 
 recorded in the former are types of the persons 
 or things with which they are compared in the 
 latter. But should we assert, that if a person 
 or thing was designed to prefigure another person 
 or. thing, where no such prefiguration has been 
 declared by divine authority, we make an asser- 
 tion for which we neither have, nor can have, 
 the slightest foundation. And even when com- 
 parisons are instituted in the New Testament 
 between antecedent and subsequent persons or 
 things, we must be careful to distinguish the 
 examples where a comparison is instituted merely 
 for the sake of illustration, from the examples 
 where such a connection is declared as exists 
 in the relation of a type to its antitype." 1 These 
 are the true principles of typical interpretation ; 
 1 Lectures on tlie Bible. 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 87 
 
 and as many writers have allowed a lively fancy 
 to discover resemblances which are only apparent 
 or very doubtful, we shall not admit any into 
 our argument but what are sanctioned by scrip- 
 tural authority. Now the whole of the ancient 
 dispensation was a shadow of good things to 
 come ; and the wisdom of God ordained that 
 the people who were chosen for a time to be 
 the depositaries of divine truth, should be 
 so modelled as, in their name and by their 
 institutions, to prefigure the permanent spiritual 
 church of the future which was to be established 
 in all parts of the world. The names of Israel 
 and the seed of Jacob are designations still 
 applied to the people of God in the Christian 
 church ; and in the constitution of their peculiar 
 society as a theocracy, God ruling them, and 
 dwelling as King in the midst of them, was 
 adumbrated the spiritual kingdom of Christ. 
 All the regulations that were made for the 
 education and government of that people ; the 
 character they were to sustain as a " kingdom 
 of priests and a holy nation ; " the privileges 
 conferred on them, the ordinances established 
 amongst them, as well as the leading persons 
 who held civil and ecclesiastical office amongst 
 
88 THE INSPIKATION OF 
 
 them, bore a typical reference,, and pre-intimated 
 something in the life, character, or work of Christ. 
 Of the personal types in the Old Testament 
 there were very many, both before the law and 
 under the law ; and as, for the sake of brevity, 
 we must limit ourselves to the notice of a few, 
 we select only two of the former, viz. Isaac and 
 Melchizedek. The most memorable event in the 
 life of Isaac was his being surrendered by his 
 father at the command of God, who thereby put 
 the faith of the patriarch to the severest trial ; 
 and what was the meaning of this extraordinary 
 act appears manifest from the words of our Lord, 
 "Abraham rejoiced (rather, vehemently desired, 
 earnestly longed) to see my day ;" 1 and it is 
 generally believed that this scene was arranged 
 by God for the purpose of showing the pious 
 patriarch, by a symbolical action, the office which 
 the promised Saviour was to perform. That the 
 transaction was pre-eminently typical, appears from 
 the close analogy between the whole details and 
 corresponding circumstances in the history of the 
 Eedeemer. The pre-intimation of the birth of 
 Isaac to his mother, his miraculous conception, 
 his name fixed by the angel previous to his 
 
 1 Luke x. 24. 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 89 
 
 birth, his commanded sacrifice, the selection of 
 the Mount Moriah — not by chance or for con- 
 venience, but by divine appointment — his being 
 the sole victim, his carrying the wood, his being 
 three days doomed to die, and his resurrection 
 (iv irapa(3o\r]) in a figure or similitude, all pre- 
 figured the leading events in the life of the 
 Saviour. Melchizedek was another type before 
 the law, and the point in the Saviour's character 
 he typified was the union of the kingly and 
 priestly offices. Melchizedek, according to the 
 general opinion, was a Canaanitish prince, an 
 eminently pious and religious man, whose genea- 
 logy was perhaps designedly veiled in mystery, 
 that he might be in this, as in other things, a 
 type of Christ. He is mentioned in the sacred 
 history as a contemporary of Abraham, and also 
 in the 110th Psalm as well as in the Epistle to 
 the Hebrews, where the apostle, aiming to show 
 the pre-eminence of Christ's priesthood over that 
 of Aaron, avails himself of the somewhat remark- 
 able coincidences which happened to subsist 
 between what is here related of Melchizedek, 
 who combined in his own person the dignity both 
 of king and priest. This fact enabled him to 
 illustrate more strikingly to the Jewish Christians 
 
90 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 to whom he was writing the union of the same 
 offices in Christ, who sits a Priest upon His throne. 
 Again, as far as appears from the sacred record, 
 Melchizedek was a priest not by inheritance. 
 Though, as a man, he doubtless had a father and 
 mother, and was born and died like other men ; 
 yet, as nothing is said on these points by the 
 historian, the apostle, holding him forth precisely in 
 the light in which he is represented in the history, 
 and in no other, says that he was without father, 
 without mother, without descent, having neither 
 beginning of days nor end of life, but, made like 
 unto the Son of God, abicleth a priest continually ; 
 that is, he derived his office from no predecessor, 
 and delivered it to no successor, but stands before 
 us in the sacred record single and alone, consti- 
 tuting himself an order of priesthood. In this 
 respect he was made eminently " like unto the 
 Son of God," who was also a priest, not after 
 the manner of the sons of Aaron, by descent 
 from their predecessors, but after the similitude 
 of Melchizedek, that is, by an immediate divine 
 institution. These are the grand points of resem- 
 blance between Melchizedek and Christ; and we 
 think it by no means unlikely that Moses, penning 
 his narrative under divine guidance, was moved 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 91 
 
 to omit the various particulars respecting the 
 birth and parentage of Melchizedek, and the 
 commencement and close of his priesthood, and 
 to introduce him so briefly and abruptly into 
 the thread of his history, for the very purpose of 
 affording to uninspired penmen in after ages the 
 means of very pertinently and forcibly illustrating 
 this sublime feature of Christ's official character. 
 These two are isolated types, as were all the 
 other personal types before the law — Adam, 
 Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Jacob, and Joseph. The 
 types under it were more numerous as well as 
 diversified. — Indeed, as has already been remarked, 
 in all the various ordinances which God made 
 known to His people through the medium of 
 Moses, we everywhere find a Saviour significantly 
 pointed out under the different characters which 
 he bore. Among these various typical represen- 
 tations of His office and ministry, the high-priest- 
 hood holds a conspicuous place. Of what order of 
 being He was to be, the apostle to the Hebrews 
 informs us, by saying that " He was to be taken 
 from among men ; " He must be a man, one of 
 ourselves, a partaker of our nature, and in all 
 respects like to us. 
 
 For man, having become a sinner, could not 
 
92 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 approach God except through the mediation of a 
 high priest who was to be taken from among men. 
 Aaron and his posterity were appointed to that 
 office, and that not of themselves, nor of the will 
 of man ; for says the apostle, " No man taketh this 
 honour unto himself, but he that is called of God, 
 as was Aaron." The leading characteristic of the 
 priesthood was holiness. An order of men, the 
 sons of Levi, was set apart for this express purpose, 
 separated from every secular work to the service of 
 the sanctuary ; and the great mark of their cha- 
 racter engraven on the mitre of Aaron, " Holiness to 
 the Lord," — the solemn ceremony of consecration,- — - 
 the splendid habiliments of his sacred office, — 
 the holy oil that was poured on his head, sym- 
 bolical of the Holy Spirit, to qualify him for his 
 great work, — the purpose for which he was or- 
 dained, viz. to offer a continual burnt-offering, — 
 the offering of a bullock every day for a sin-offer- 
 ing, and a lamb every morning and evening, and 
 the gifts or freewill-offerings of the people ; — the 
 whole of these, both gifts and sacrifices, were to be 
 presented by the priest as a confession of sin, an 
 acknowledgment of divine favour, and a supplica- 
 tion of divine mercy. In the days of Aaron and 
 his sons, the mediation between God and man 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 93 
 
 "was carried on by means of sacrifices and offer- 
 ings ; and of such importance were they, that the 
 whole book of Leviticus, except a few verses, is 
 occupied in describing their form and nature. 
 Besides the appointed sin-offerings for particular 
 persons and on peculiar occasions, we find one 
 stated sacrifice in which the whole nation was 
 concerned. The entire service of that day was 
 committed to the high priest, who was never to 
 enter the inner part of the tabernacle, called the 
 Holy of Holies, except on that day, dressed not 
 in his rich pontifical costume, but in pure white 
 linen. He had to bring a sin-offering and a 
 burnt-offering for himself; and having offered the 
 first, he was to go within the veil with some of 
 the blood, and sprinkle it before the mercy-seat. 
 The high priest, by his mediation between God and 
 the people, when the functions of the sacerdotal 
 office were faithfully discharged, obtained for them 
 the blessings of mercy, pardon, and peace. The 
 heavy judgments which God had declared against 
 the transgressors of His law were prevented when 
 the high priest had made the customary offer- 
 ings, and by means of them God was reconciled 
 to His offending people. In short, the substitution 
 of an animal in place of the sinner, — the im- 
 
94 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 position of hands on the head of the victim, — the 
 victim legally subjected to the curse, — atonement 
 made by blood, the worship of the church con- 
 sisting largely of sacrifice ; — every one of these 
 circumstances has its antitype in the atoning and 
 intercessory work of Christ, as is amply explained 
 by the apostle to the Hebrews. Other personal 
 types under the law were Moses, a typical me- 
 diator, Joshua, Samson, David, Solomon, Elijah 
 in his ascension, Jonah in his living entombment 
 for three days and three nights, Zerubbabel and 
 Jehosh.ua, — in the • history of all of whom, did 
 space permit, we might show typical resemblances 
 of a striking nature. But passing these, it may be 
 proper to give a sample of types from the institu- 
 tions under the law ; and the most remarkable is 
 the tabernacle. That sacred edifice itself, together 
 with its splendid successor, the temple, the ap- 
 pointed meeting - place between God and His 
 people ; the ark placed in it, with the testimony, 
 i.e. the two tables of stone containing the ten 
 commandments, and a copy of the rest of the law, or 
 divine communications made through Moses to the 
 people ; the mercy-seat or propitiatory, a cover- 
 ing of pure gold, spread over the ark, in which 
 the tables of the law were kept, covering it 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTUEES. 95 
 
 exactly, and thereby bearing a deeply interest- 
 ing and important signification ; the Shechinah, 
 or symbol of the divine presence, resting on the 
 mercy-seat, and indicated by a cloud, from the 
 midst of which responses were audibly given when 
 God was consulted on behalf of His people ; the 
 shew - bread, a symbol of the full and never- 
 failing provision which is made in the church for 
 the spiritual sustenance and refreshment of 
 God's people ; the candlestick, with its seven 
 branches, denoting the perfect light or knowledge 
 the church would afford ; the golden censer ; the 
 brazen pillars, Jachin and Boaz ; — these and various 
 other articles and vessels, too numerous to be 
 specified, constituted the prescribed furniture of 
 the tabernacle ; and it is impossible to account for 
 the extraordinary care which God took in the 
 erection of this tabernacle, especially for His con- 
 descending to such minute details, except on the 
 assumption that this tabernacle was to be of a 
 typical character, and eminently subservient to 
 the religious instruction and benefit of mankind, 
 by shadowing forth, in its leading features, the 
 worship and grand characteristics of the Christian 
 church. The Epistle to the Hebrews illustrates 
 this typical character of the Old Testament. 
 
96 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 Besides the tabernacle, there were many other 
 typical institutions, such as the passover, the feasts 
 of pentecost and of tabernacles, the feast of 
 trumpets and the feast of expiation, the burnt- 
 offering, the sin-offering, the day of atonement. 
 But passing these, it may be proper to specify 
 some memorable events in the history of Israel 
 that were eminently typical, such as the deliver- 
 ance from Egypt, the passage through the Red 
 Sea, the manna, the brazen serpent, the pillar of 
 cloud by day and of fire by night ; the frequent 
 temporary appearance of the Lord in a human 
 form, prelusive of His future incarnation, and pre- 
 figured to Abraham by the smoking furnace and 
 the burning lamp, by Jacob's ladder, the burn- 
 ing bush, the cloud of glory ; and His miraculous 
 birth foreshadowed by various instances of con- 
 ception beyond the ordinary course of nature. No 
 reader of the New Testament can doubt the typical 
 character of these events : for in several parts of 
 the epistles they are spoken of; and particularly 
 in the tenth chapter of the First Epistle to the 
 Corinthians, the apostle, having recorded the 
 miraculous passage through the Eed Sea, and 
 alluded to some memorable transactions in the 
 wilderness, says : " Now all these happened to 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 97 
 
 them for ensamples, 1 and they are written for our 
 admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are 
 come." "Whatsoever things were written afore- 
 time, were written for our learning." 2 The writer 
 whose duty it was to record these things in the 
 course of his narrative, had a work to perform to 
 which a man even of the highest natural ability 
 and consummate thoughtfulness must have been 
 unequal. He could not, for instance, have antici- 
 pated the dogmatic use which the apostle made 
 of Jacob and Esau, or the allegory on Sarah and 
 Hagar. An omission, a defective description, or a 
 derangement in placing the furniture of the sanc- 
 tuary, would have vitiated his record as a reliable 
 history. One of these things, which prefigured 
 
 1 Tlie terms which denote a type are in Scripture numerous 
 and varied. Tvvas is the common word. It occurs once in its 
 natural and proper sense in the speech of Thomas, eh rov tvkov 
 tuv '■nXidv — in the print of the nails (John xx. 25) ; but it is fre- 
 quently used in its secondary signification, which we give it (Rom. 
 v. 14 ; 1 Cor. v. 16 ; Col. ii. 17). In Heb. viii. 5, x. 1, the word 
 used is o-Kik, shadow, and along with it occurs the phrase iirehiy- 
 parx, patterns or figures. The apostle employs the word vrupa- 
 fioXh, a parabolic figure (Heb. ix. 9, xi. 19). Elsewhere the word 
 employed is aWvyopovptva,, allegories (Gal. iv. 24), and o-tppay'tl*, 
 seals (Rom. iv. 11). As to the antitype, the word ivrirwrov is 
 found in 1 Pet. iii. 21. In the passage of Colossians where o-xia, 
 shadow, is used, the antitype is called the eZpa., the body, as it 
 is called in Heb. x. 1, uxm ; also y.iXXovruv a.ya.6Zv, and ttlt olpxvoi; 
 (Heb. ix. 23). 
 
 2 Rom. xv. 4. 
 
98 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 events in the life of Christ, or connected with 
 Christianity in the distant future, would have 
 been regarded as evincing a divine pre-ordination ; 
 but when not one or two instances only, but a 
 whole institution, with all its appendages, and a 
 peculiar dispensation, with the leading events 
 which happened during its continuance, bore this 
 typical reference to the worship and the church of 
 a new and remote economy, the historian who 
 recorded this complex system of types so exactly 
 that they all suited their antitypes, executed a 
 work which required more than human wisdom. 
 
 III. TJie third characteristic of sacred history 'is, 
 that there runs through it the clement of a divine 
 promise to he fulfilled in the distant future. — A 
 favourite subject of study in our day is the state 
 of the aboriginal inhabitants of the world. Some 
 writers of a speculative turn are directing their re- 
 searches into prehistoric times, and on the basis of 
 some vague conjectures, suggested by collections of 
 artificial flints and groups of antique relics, are 
 endeavouring to form elaborate theories respecting 
 the character and primitive state of man. The 
 sacred history proceeds upon a totally different 
 principle ; and although it gives in the beginning 
 but a few detached facts, it has a definite object in 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 99 
 
 view, which it pursues with undeviating steadiness. 
 That object is not to describe man in his physical 
 any more than in his intellectual and social pro- 
 gress ; for it tells us very little of Adam. The 
 actual information it gives us respecting his state 
 in paradise is small indeed — not more than a few 
 obscure statements necessary towards an under- 
 standing of the subsequent change. "We are 
 informed that he was good at his creation, subject 
 to God, happy in himself, and invested with 
 dominion over the earth and the lower creatures. 
 But we are told nothing beyond these simple facts. 
 Even the fall is briefly and obscurely related, 
 although the painful certainty is clearly brought 
 out, that the first pair abused their privileges, 
 became disobedient, and died. For rescuing them 
 from that state of sin and misery into which they 
 had fallen, there was forthwith announced a hope 
 of deliverance, which, though expressed in vague 
 and indefinite terms, was sufficient to save them 
 from despair ; and the announcement of that 
 deliverance, winch was to be effected by a human 
 descendant, forms the real starting-point of the 
 sacred history ; for the great object of revelation 
 is to record the progressive development of the 
 means by which mankind were to be regenerated 
 
100 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 and saved. The Scriptures, in short, contain 
 the history of redemption ; and they adhere 
 to this main design with a unity of purpose, 
 never interrupted nor broken by all the variety 
 of secondary and secular subjects which are in- 
 troduced. The minds of men — at least of the be- 
 lieving and pious portion of them — in all succeed- 
 ing generations were directed to this promise of 
 a deliverer ; and it became a subject of constantly 
 increasing interest, from the progressive communi- 
 cations made to those to whom God was pleased 
 to reveal His gracious will. Those revelations 
 were not made all at once, in the mature form 
 and to the full extent in which we now find 
 them. He who knew the nature and capacities 
 of man unfolded His purposes simply and gra- 
 dually, as the recipients were able to bear them ; 
 and in that progressive method of making known 
 the system of revealed religion, we recognise a 
 clear, unmistakeable proof of its having emanated 
 from the all- wise God. Thus one single object 
 only was first announced ; when that had been 
 left for a sufficient length of time to fix itself in 
 the mind of the privileged receiver, a new com- 
 munication was made ; and that, again, at a 
 certain interval was followed up by the addition 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 101 
 
 of other circumstances, each of which tended to 
 give a clearer and fuller view of the original 
 announcement, as well as contributed to sustain 
 and invigorate the exercise of faith. The sacred 
 historians, therefore, were not left, like ordinary- 
 writers of history, — a Hume or a Eobertson, a 
 Macaulay or a Burton, — to record all the events 
 and transactions of the ancient world at their dis- 
 cretion. Their minds were led by the guidance 
 of the Spirit to the deliberate selection of those 
 facts which tended to a definite purpose — the 
 important purpose of tracing the onward course 
 of the promise. Thus, instead of giving a full 
 and detailed history of the primeval family, the 
 narrative is confined to the one episode of Cain 
 and Abel; and this episode is introduced with 
 a view to explain that the promise was to run 
 in the line of Seth. And the insertion of the 
 genealogical register was to trace the direct de- 
 scent from him. The blessing pronounced on 
 Shem was recorded to point out the privileged 
 destiny of his descendants ; and it was in accord- 
 ance with the same unity of design, that after 
 a general account of the dispersion, showing the 
 common descent of all mankind, — " for God hath 
 made of one blood all nations to dwell on the 
 
102 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 face of the earth/' — the historian enters on the 
 family history of Abraham. In the course of the 
 narrative, he successively drops out of view all 
 the patriarch's relatives who were not in the 
 direct line of the promise. First, Lot is detached 
 from the selected family ; next Ishmael is lopped 
 off as a rejected branch, and Isaac acknowledged 
 as the heir ; then Esau is deprived of his primo- 
 geniture, and Jacob receives the patriarchal legacy 
 by benediction. Nay, not only is this peculiar 
 plan adopted in recording the descending line of 
 the Hebrew patriarchs ; but a number of incidents 
 are recorded, of a very trivial, some of a selfish 
 and vindictive, others of a most offensive cha- 
 racter, — giving unmistakeable evidence of what 
 coarse materials the Divine Architect wrought out 
 the sanctifying process. But the relation of those 
 trivial incidents and revolting crimes was made, 
 because it had in every instance a necessary or 
 an important bearing on the future history of 
 Israel in connection with the divine scheme of 
 grace. " I see," says an excellent writer, " the 
 promise all through Genesis. I confess myself 
 wholly at a loss to explain the nature of that 
 history on any other principle, or to unlock its 
 mysteries by any other key. Couple it with this 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 103 
 
 consideration, and I see the plan of Eevelation 
 proceeding with beautiful uniformity, — a unity of 
 plan connecting (as it has been well said by 
 Paley) the chicken roosting upon its perch with 
 the spheres revolving in the firmament ; and a 
 unity of plan connecting in like manner the 
 meanest incidents of a household with the most 
 illustrious visions of a prophet. Abstracted from 
 this consideration, I see in this book details of 
 actions, some trifling, others odious, pursued at a 
 length (when compared with the whole) singu- 
 larly disproportionate; while things which the 
 angels desire to look into are passed over and 
 forgotten. But this principle once admitted, and 
 all is consecrated, — all assumes a new aspect : 
 trifles that seem at first not bigger than a man's 
 hand occupy the heavens. And wherefore Sarah 
 laughed, for instance, at the prospect of a son ; 
 and wherefore that laugh was rendered immortal 
 in his name ; and wherefore the sacred historian 
 dwells on a matter so trivial, whilst the world 
 and its vast concerns were lying at his feet, I can 
 fully understand. For then I see the hand of 
 God shaping everything to His own ends; and 
 in an event thus casual, thus easy, thus unimpor- 
 tant, telling forth His mighty design of salvation 
 
104 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 to the world, and working it up into the web of 
 His noble prospective counsels. I see that no- 
 thing is great or little before Him, who can bend 
 to His purposes whatever He willeth, and convert 
 the light-hearted and thoughtless mockery of an 
 aged woman into an instrument of His glory, 
 effectual as the tongue of the seer which He 
 touched with living coals from the altar. Bear- 
 ing this master-key in my hand, I can interpret 
 the scenes of domestic mirth, of domestic strata- 
 gem, or of domestic wickedness, with which this 
 history abounds." * Thus the sacred history, while 
 it records the transactions of the past, points at 
 the same time to the future ; for it has a constant 
 reference to Him who is " the end of the law," the 
 substance of all its shadowy ceremonies. Moses, 
 indeed, was specially privileged : for with him 
 the Lord spake mouth to mouth, even apparently, 
 and not in dark speeches ; and he knew more of 
 the mind of God than perhaps any of the writers 
 of the Scriptures. Yet it is impossible to conceive 
 that he could have written not only without error, 
 but in the direct line of revelation, and with per- 
 fect truth and accuracy, concerning the character 
 and work of the great Prophet whom God was to 
 
 1 Blunt's Scripture Coincidences, p. 25. 
 
THE HOLY SCEIPTUEES. 105 
 
 raise up like unto him a thousand years after, 
 had he not been enlightened, superintended, and 
 directed by Him who gave him a divine commis- 
 sion at the burning bush. In the same way, did 
 our limits allow, we might show that the later 
 historical books are pervaded to a greater or less 
 extent by the same element of the divine promise. 
 Passing over the books of Joshua, Judges, and 
 Euth, in which, though it is not expressly men- 
 tioned, it is manifestly implied, we go to the books 
 of Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles, which are his- 
 tories of past events, but at the same time are 
 prophetic histories, preparing the way for a more 
 advanced view of the work of Christ — His kingly 
 and priestly office. The histories of David and 
 Solomon, which form the principal subjects of the 
 two books of Samuel, form one continuous nar- 
 rative. There is no interruption — no gap caused 
 by the death of the former and the subsequent 
 accession of the latter : for Solomon is appointed 
 to the throne while his father is still living ; 
 David, the man of war, is conjoined with the 
 Prince of Peace. And this twofold character of 
 Christ is represented in David, the mighty king, 
 who went forth conquering and to conquer, reign- 
 ing till all his enemies are laid submissive at his 
 
106 THE INSPIEATION OF 
 
 feet ; and in Solomon, the builder of the temple — 
 the founder and the head of the spiritual temple, 
 the church. In the books of Kings, a similar 
 reference is strikingly contained in the continuous 
 history of the two great prophets Elijah and 
 Elisha, — the former merging at once into his suc- 
 cessor by the transmission of his prophetic mantle, 
 and the infusion of his spirit, — so that the conse- 
 cutive ministries of those two prophets, so closely 
 united in their sacred office, pointed to the un- 
 broken continuance of Christ working after His 
 ascension by His word and Spirit in the church. 
 Lastly, in the historical books of Chronicles we 
 see the influence of the prophetic element. They 
 consist to a large extent of genealogies, than which 
 few things are less interesting. But even the 
 spirit of the genealogical register, as well as that 
 of prophecy, is the testimony of Jesus. It was 
 predicted that the great deliverer should be " the 
 seed of the woman." The promise was, after the 
 lapse of centuries, restricted to the posterity of 
 Abraham, afterwards to the tribe of Judah, and 
 at last to the family of David. Had not God 
 ordained that genealogical records should be kept 
 in all the Jewish tribes, and that unremitting 
 vigilance and care should be taken to keep faith- 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 107 
 
 fill registers, there could have been no means of 
 ascertaining that Jesus "was a scion of the royal 
 house of David, and connected with the tribe of 
 Judah. It was equally necessary that the genea- 
 logy of Abraham should be traced up to Adam, 
 in order that clear, unchallengeable evidence might 
 be possessed to prove that the Saviour was de- 
 scended " from the mother of all living ;" and 
 thus of the same nature, " of one blood," with 
 those whom He came to redeem. The enemies 
 of Jesus often vilified Him for being a Nazarene, 
 the inhabitant of a contemptible village, but they 
 never 'attempted to deny that He was of David's 
 royal line. 
 
 Thus the Scripture history is unique, unlike all 
 other histories. It differs from them in character, 
 inasmuch as it contains a narrative of God's pro- 
 cedure in the early ages of the world, and con- 
 stantly acknowledges the reality of His moral 
 government, — not as Colenso charges Moses with 
 doing, like Minos, Lycurgus, and Numa, bringing 
 Jehovah dramatically on the scene of human affairs, 
 but tracing with pious feeling every event in the 
 experience both of nations and individuals to the 
 agency of Him whose providence ordains whatso- 
 ever comes to pass. It differs in character from 
 
108 THE INSPIEATION OF 
 
 all ordinary histories still further, that it describes 
 a preparatory dispensation, which was perfect in 
 its adaptation to an early age of the church, but 
 the leading personages, events, and institutions of 
 which were arranged so as to pre-intimate or fore- 
 shadow the most important phases of another and 
 permanent economy that was to succeed it. And 
 it differs from all other histories in its object, 
 inasmuch as, while they refer exclusively to the 
 past or the present, the sacred history has an ele- 
 ment pointing to the future, which, like a thread 
 of gold, runs through the whole of it, bearing upon 
 events not to be realized till its close. No one 
 who duly considers this remarkable structure of 
 the Scripture history, can believe that its writers 
 would have been able, by their own unaided 
 powers, to preserve its leading characteristics con- 
 sistently and fully through all the successive stages 
 of the old dispensation. Moreover, the sacred 
 history is peculiar not only in its character and 
 object, but also in its form and contents. It 
 might have been naturally expected, that in a 
 professed communication from God, as the Scrip- 
 ture is, nothing would be found but the purest and 
 loftiest sentiments, conveyed in a dignified and 
 expressive style becoming the majesty of its Divine 
 
THE HOLY SCMPTUKES. 109 
 
 Author ; and that its main design — the develop- 
 ment of a scheme of grace and salvation — would 
 be kept prominently and uninterruptedly in view 
 from the beginning to the end. But neither of 
 these anticipations is realized by the actual cha- 
 racter of the record. Instead of serving only as 
 a channel for the transmission of sublime truths, 
 the contemplation of which would keep the reader 
 in direct and constant communion with heaven, 
 the early portion of it is occupied largely with an 
 account of worldly affairs relating to man : instead 
 of assuming an unwonted elevation of style, it 
 embodies its statements in plain and simple, some- 
 times in the most familiar and humble, forms of 
 expression : instead of a continuous, regular, and 
 complete exposition of the various subjects intro- 
 duced, it consists of brief and fragmentary notices, 
 abruptly broken, sometimes by the interpolation of 
 rolls of names, of trivial incidents and domestic 
 details, which are apparently unmeaning and use- 
 less ; at other times, by the insertion of lengthened 
 biographies of individuals, who seem to have had 
 little or no claim to a place in such a record : and 
 instead of carrying out the great object of revela- 
 tion in a clear, undeviating manner, it not only 
 enters into a description of the state, manners, and 
 
110 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 politics of the Jews, but diverges into foreign 
 regions, giving reports of strange and exciting 
 scenes, which tend to disturb and obscure the view 
 of Scripture truth. Such features appear in a 
 marked degree to distinguish the early books of 
 the Old Testament ; and considering whose word 
 those books contain, we are led to conclude that 
 those peculiarities were stamped upon them by 
 the influence of divine inspiration. If the globular 
 figure was determined upon by the all-wise Creator 
 as the best adapted for the functions of the world, 
 it could not be a matter of secondary importance 
 in the eyes of the same infinite wisdom what 
 should be the form of that sacred book which is 
 the most valuable gift of His providence to man ; 
 and since the early portion of the Bible has been 
 cast into the historic mould, we may be assured 
 that this form was chosen as the most subservient 
 to the purpose for which the Scripture was given. 
 No method of communication that can be imagined 
 — neither proclamation, nor promise, nor prophecy 
 — could have been so efficient in influence, so con- 
 ducive to cheer the hearts and sustain the faith of 
 mankind in the predicted interposition of a gracious 
 Deliverer, as practical evidences that the Mediator 
 had already entered on His office, and was pro- 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. Ill 
 
 securing His work for man's restoration to his 
 original destiny. Those practical evidences are con- 
 veyed through the medium of history, and consist 
 of recorded facts ; they were given in the divine 
 revelations made to the patriarchs, in the emanci- 
 pation from Egypt, the subsequent establishment 
 and national institutions of the chosen people in 
 Palestine. But it was not in one country and at 
 one period only the proof was given that the 
 gracious interposition for man has been made. 
 The sacred history shows, in the different scenes 
 to which the narrative changes, progressive traces 
 of the Mediator's agency in all ages and in various 
 parts of the world, — in Egypt, and the countries 
 bordering on Palestine, in Assyria, Babylon, Persia, 
 Greece, and Borne, — not only by the most striking 
 manifestations of power and wisdom on behalf of 
 His people, but by pre-intimating the character of 
 the great world-empires which rose in succession, 
 and were designed to serve as pioneers in prepar- 
 ing the way for the introduction of that " kingdom 
 that should not be moved." So deep and power- 
 ful was the impression produced by those practical 
 manifestations, that throughout all the East an ex- 
 pectation prevailed of a King to be born who was 
 destined to rule the world. 
 
112 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 The other feature of the sacred history which 
 remains to be noticed is, that whereas all other 
 historians, from Herodotus down to those of the 
 present day, have described people by a generalized 
 view of their qualities, or by a philosophical ex- 
 position of the causes which contributed to their 
 progress and prosperity or occasioned their decline 
 and fall, the Scripture history proceeds upon a 
 totally different principle. It "selects one or two 
 salient traits or outstanding acts, which, though 
 insignificant of themselves, yet, when grouped to- 
 gether, serve as indications of character ; and this is 
 now acknowledged to be not only the true method 
 of writing biography, but the best suited for the 
 purpose of ascertaining the principles and motives 
 of men. Thus we obtain a more vivid idea of 
 the unsettled and uneasy state of the Israelites 
 in the time of the judges, by notices of the many 
 guerilla attacks made upon them from various 
 quarters by the Arab borderers, than any historical 
 sketch could convey. We learn more of the pious 
 habits of the country inhabitants of Judea from 
 the glimpses afforded us into the households of 
 Manoah, Elkanah, and Jesse, and of their devoted 
 adherence to the institutions of Moses from the 
 honest independence of Naboth, than we could 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 113 
 
 from any general view of society at those periods. 
 And if we are apt to be surprised at the minute 
 descriptions given of the conquests of David, as 
 well as of the Oriental display and commercial 
 undertakings of Solomon, and the apparently dis- 
 proportionate space which the account of these 
 have been allowed to occupy in the sacred history, 
 a little reflection will enable us to discover the 
 reason, viz. that these were the occasion and pre- 
 cursors of that gradual departure from the ancient 
 constitutional order of things which led to the final 
 overthrow of the nation. 
 
 But this feature of the sacred history — its deal- 
 ing much in personal and domestic incidents — is 
 deserving of attention in another point of view, as 
 bearing directly on the great purpose of revelation, 
 — that of training man to be a fellow-worker with 
 God in his moral regeneration. It is in private 
 life, and amid the discipline of daily occupations, 
 that the spirit of religion is to be cherished, the 
 habit of religion is to be strengthened, and the 
 power of religion is to be established. In this 
 view the Scripture history "is profitable for cor- 
 rection as well as instruction in righteousness," 
 inasmuch as in its domestic details and biographi- 
 cal sketches it furnishes abundance of models for 
 
114 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 imitation as well as of beacons for warning; since 
 every type of character, every variety of experi- 
 ence, every condition of life, is, in its essential 
 features, represented there. Human nature is the 
 same in every age and all the world over ; and in 
 the transactions recorded by the sacred historians, 
 though connected with a form of society long ago 
 extinct, every intelligent and reflecting reader may 
 perceive, by the light which they reflect, the sure 
 tendency of all the circumstances in which he is 
 placed, and of every course he pursues in his indi- 
 vidual probation. In short, the lessons taught by 
 the Scripture history, as they are calculated, so 
 they were evidently designed, to be universally 
 useful ; and seeing that providence has, through 
 means of modern discoveries, not only thrown light 
 upon many portions of it that long were obscure 
 and apparently insignificant, but that researches 
 are being made at present in Bible lands which 
 promise to afford still more interesting and im- 
 portant illustrations of the sacred page, it would 
 be rash and presumptuous to pronounce any part 
 useless or unmeaning. What is passed over by 
 one, may have interest for another ; and thus all 
 portions may be adapted for the benefit of the 
 immensely diversified minds of mankind, when the 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 115 
 
 word of God shall be circulated in all the world. 
 All this about the Scripture history — the pecu- 
 liarity of its structure and of its contents, so en- 
 tirely different from those of all other histories, 
 its adaptation for universal usefulness, and the yet 
 unexplored depth of the mine in which its trea- 
 sures of instruction are deposited — proves that the 
 Scripture was not a mere human production, — 
 that it was framed upon principles, and meant to 
 subserve purposes, above and beyond the ordinary 
 range of the human mind, — and consequently that 
 it is inspired. 
 
 The Poetical Books. — The Old Testament 
 abounds with poetry. Many beautiful fragments 
 of songs and poetical effusions are found inter- 
 spersed throughout the Pentateuch, and in the 
 books of Judges and Samuel. But the books which 
 are properly poetical in character, language, and 
 form, are Job, the Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, 
 and the Song of Solomon. These books exhibit the 
 well-known features of Hebrew poetry, which is 
 distinguished by this great peculiarity, that the 
 poetical age of the Hebrews differed from that of all 
 other nations, in being not mythical, but always 
 historic ; and with the solitary exception of David's 
 
116 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 Elegy, all the poetical compositions we possess 
 are consecrated to the service of religion. Poetry- 
 being so attractive a vehicle of truth, it is an evi- 
 dence of divine wisdom that the Scriptures, which 
 were designed for universal use, contain so many- 
 books cast into a poetical mould ; He who knew 
 what was in man, thus graciously communicating 
 His will in a form calculated to gain the attention 
 of multitudes, who feel didactic works in prose to 
 be uninteresting and insipid. Since the art of 
 poetry, then, was cultivated by writers under divine 
 inspiration, and the Spirit of God chose it as a 
 proper channel for conveying to the world a know- 
 ledge of divine truth, all who are capable of reflec- 
 tion will set a due value upon compositions which, 
 besides being in the highest sense poetical, possess 
 the still more important quality of being inspired. 
 — This inspiration belongs to Job. 
 
 "We do not enter into the various questions that 
 have been agitated in regard to this book : whether 
 Job was a real or a fictitious person ; whether the 
 book is an account of actual conversations, or is 
 merely an allegory; whether it was composed by 
 Job or some other author. The probability is, 
 that it was founded on fact — on the circumstance 
 of an eminently great and good Arabian Emir 
 
THE HOLT SCRIPTURES. 117 
 
 having been overtaken by a succession of heavy- 
 afflictions, and visited by friends who came to 
 condole with him in his calamitous condition. 
 According to the usage of their country, after 
 sitting for a time in the indulgence of silent grief, 
 they engaged in social discourse, their conversation 
 turning on points of great speculative difficulty in 
 religion. The views advanced by the different 
 speakers were afterwards embodied and expanded 
 in a poetical composition, enriched with an exu- 
 berance of beautiful imagery, and great variety of 
 illustration from natural scenery, as well as the 
 vegetable and animal products of Idumea and 
 Egypt. And as this work had become known to 
 Moses during his forty years' sojourn in Northern 
 Arabia, he, having under divine guidance put it 
 into its present form, introduced it as a sacred 
 writing to the Israelites, to whom, during their 
 prolonged privations in the wilderness, the patience 
 and restoration of Job were calculated to afford a 
 seasonable and instructive example. With the ex- 
 ception of a prosaic prologue and epilogue, which 
 shed the interest of a living history upon the piece, 
 it consists of a series of poetical dialogues on the 
 mysterious features of the divine government as 
 displayed in the calamity of Job. But passing all 
 
118 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 other views of the poem, the only point with 
 which we are concerned here is the question of its 
 inspiration ; and that it is possessed of an inspired 
 character, is established by the authority of our 
 y Lord, who quotes it. 1 Further, it is attested by 
 Paul, who introduces an extract from it with the 
 formula, " It is written," 2 and by similar refer- 
 ences on the part of other apostles. 3 On such 
 high attestations, the book must be regarded as 
 possessed of divine authority — as an undoubted 
 portion of inspired truth. But being the record of 
 a religious debate in a poetical form, it must be 
 viewed as a whole, not as disintegrated and in 
 parts ; for while it abounds throughout with noble 
 and sublime descriptions, it is impossible to ap- 
 prove of many sentiments propounded by the 
 various friends, and even by Job himself, who, 
 under the influence of excited feeling, was misled 
 so far as to curse the day of his birth. Especially, 
 it is impossible to appeal in support of doctrinal 
 truth to the views of those angry disputants, who 
 not only contradict each other, but whom the 
 divine oracle declared to have in many respects 
 
 1 Matt. xxiv. 28, compared with Job xxxiv. 30. 
 
 - 1 Cor. iii. 11 with Job v. 13. 
 
 3 Jas. iv. 10, 1 Pet. v. 6, with Job xxii. 29. 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 119 
 
 spoken erroneously. They gave forth their own 
 sentiments, which were partial, prejudiced, and 
 often wrong : for they were not inspired. But the 
 author who embodied their sayings in this splendid 
 poem, giving unity, expansion, and an artistic 
 form to their conversational thoughts, was in- 
 spired. He had a moral purpose to promote, of 
 great importance to the faith and comfort of man- 
 kind ; and his hook, as vouched for by the high 
 authority of Christ and His apostles, is entitled 
 to be ranked with the other Scriptures that were 
 given by inspiration of God. But in order rightly 
 to perceive the purport of it, the book must be 
 read with discriminating intelligence. The sue- 
 cessive dialogues in the drama, though each essen- 
 tial to a full view of the subject under discussion, 
 and exhibiting different phases of it, are to be 
 considered only as accessories to the denouement, 
 preparing the way for the solution of the important 
 problem given in the speech of Elihu, seconded 
 and confirmed by the utterances of the divine 
 speaker. 1 In those utterances the kernel of truth 
 is contained; and all who, like Job's friends, 
 wander in mazy labyrinths lost, perplexed by the 
 apparent discordance of circumstances in human 
 1 Ch. xxxviii.-xlii. 
 
120 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 life and the course of the world with the prin- 
 ciples of infinite rectitude and benignity, will 
 find the grand invaluable lesson which this book 
 was designed to teach is this, that instead of the 
 afflictions which befall the righteous being the 
 punishment of secret extraordinary sins, " whom 
 the Lord loveth He chasteneth, and scourgeth 
 every son whom He receiveth." 
 
 The Psalms, as the Hebrew name (Tehillim) 
 indicates, was used as the title of a book com- 
 prising a large collection of hymns or songs for 
 divine worship and praise. They were required 
 for that elaborate system of vocal and instrumental 
 music introduced into the public service of the 
 sanctuary by David, who from his imaginative 
 genius and devout feelings furnished the senti- 
 ments and words of the songs, as, with his exquisite 
 knowledge and taste for music, and skill in the 
 mechanical arts, he also formed the instruments 
 which accompanied the psalmody. They are com- 
 monly designated " The Psalms of David," as he 
 composed the greater part of them, and he is the 
 only author mentioned in the New Testament. 1 
 His name appears in the titles of the psalms more 
 
 1 Luke xx. 42. 
 
THE HOLT SCKIPTUKES. 121 
 
 frequently than that of any other; and many 
 psalms which appear anonymous are proved, both 
 by external and internal evidence, to have been 
 his compositions — such as Ps. ii. 1 and xcv. 2 The 
 mission of David as a lyric poet was to embody 
 and invest with charms of verse sacred truths 
 which had been previously revealed : in other 
 words, it was not only to contemplate the grand 
 and beautiful in nature with feelings of devout 
 admiration and gratitude, but to draw forth from 
 under the typical forms of legal services their 
 latent meaning and spirit, adapting them to the 
 various spiritual exigencies of individuals and the 
 church. Accordingly, the doctrinal and spiritual 
 truths which had long floated down the channel 
 of the ancient church in the formality of a compli- 
 cated ritual, received through him a living spirit 
 and power, and being incorporated with the songs 
 used in public worship, became the common and 
 established faith of the ancient church. Through 
 his instrumentality, religious worship acquired a 
 spiritual character before unknown amongst the 
 Hebrew people. Associated with him, as writers 
 of the Psalms, were a noble band of leaders, " the 
 sons of Korah," including Heman, Asaph, Jeduthun, 
 1 Acts iv. 25. 2 Heb. iv. 7. 
 
N 
 
 122 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 and Ethan, who were endowed with talents for 
 the kindred arts of poetry and music, and being 
 moved by the Holy Spirit, consecrated their gifts 
 to the production of compositions similar to those 
 of their royal patron. Solomon also, and Moses, 
 are to be ranked amongst the psalmists ; and a few 
 are considered on internal evidence, or on critical 
 grounds, to date after the return from the captivity. 
 But the whole collection, as we have them, was 
 completed in the time of Malachi, upwards of 
 four hundred years before Christ. 1 It is of no 
 importance to our present purpose who wrote this 
 or that particular psalm, except for establishing 
 the fact by the early date, that this devotional 
 book was honoured with the testimony of Christ 
 and His apostles, which is given no less than 
 seventy times in the New Testament. No book, 
 indeed, in the sacred canon is .so fully certified as 
 this ; and although the evidence already adduced 
 in favour of its inspiration does not need any 
 confirmation, it may be not irrelevant to add, that 
 a strong additional evidence for its inspired cha- 
 racter is afforded by its universal adaptation to 
 the feelings and the circumstances of God's people 
 in every age, — an adaptation which no hymns 
 1 See Note C. 
 
THE HOLY SCEIPTUEES. 123 
 
 of mere human composition, however admired, for 
 poetic beauty, have ever equalled or approached. 
 They are very various in their character aud spirit. 
 Some of them are purely devout effusions, dedi- 
 cated to the praise of the Divine Being and His 
 works, or to thanksgiving for blessings received. 
 Some consist of private and personal prayers — 
 for mercy to pardon or grace to help ; while others 
 are intercessory for the peace, prosperity, and ex- 
 tension of the church. Some contain the records 
 of religious experience, describing the lights and 
 shadows of spiritual life, with all its hopes and 
 fears, its comforts and victories. Some psalms are 
 historical, giving an epitomized narrative of the 
 most memorable events in the Jewish church, 
 with a view to stimulate the national sense of 
 gratitude to their heavenly King and Head, as 
 well as to foreshadow the far higher objects of a 
 spiritual nature, which the Egyptian bondage, the 
 exodus, the Red Sea, and the travels through the 
 wilderness typified. Some are imprecatory against 
 the enemies of God and the church ; while others 
 are obviously and exclusively prophetic, containing 
 many interesting and most striking predictions of 
 Christ and His church. The objection often 
 brought against the inspiration of this book, that 
 
124 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 many of the psalms breathe a spirit of fell re- 
 venge, is deprived of all weight when it is consi- 
 dered against whom the imprecations are directed — 
 certainly not against private and personal enemies. 
 A malicious and vindictive spirit is not only con- 
 demned with severity in various parts of the Old 
 as well as of the New Testament ; but David him- 
 self was so far from being actuated by implacable 
 feelings against his unrelenting persecutor, that 
 he more than once saved the life of Saul, when 
 it was in his power to have taken it. On the 
 other hand, pious men have always desired and 
 prayed that all obstacles to the diffusion of the 
 truth, as well as to the peace and prosperity of the 
 church, might be removed; and if these obstacles 
 were presented in the persons of infidels or per- 
 secuting tyrants, that they might be overthrown, 
 and the wickedness of the wicked brought to an 
 end. The psalmist, who was filled with zeal for 
 the divine glory, sympathized so strongly with 
 these views, that he could say, "Do not I hate 
 them, Lord, that hate Thee ? and am not I 
 grieved with those that rise up against Thee ? I 
 hate them with perfect hatred ; I count them mine 
 view is essenl 
 
 1 Ps. cxxxLs. 21, 22. 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 125 
 
 appreciation of this book ; and accordingly Bishop 
 Horsley remarks, that " the misapplication of the 
 Psalms wholly and exclusively to the literal David 
 has done more mischief than the misapprehen- 
 sion of any other parts of the Scriptures, amongst 
 those who profess the belief of the Christian 
 religion." 
 
 David, besides his sacred lyrics, consecrated to 
 the service of the sanctuary, was endowed with 
 the prophetic gift ; and although he was not called 
 frequently or on an extensive scale to exercise the 
 office of a prophet, he did compose psalms which 
 contained very striking predictions of the Saviour, 
 such as the second, the eighth, sixteenth, the 
 twenty-second, and the hundred and tenth. At 
 an advanced period of life he introduced another 
 prediction in this remarkable manner : " David 
 the son of Jesse said, and the man who was raised 
 up on high, the anointed of the God of Israel, 
 and the sweet psalmist of Israel, said, The Spirit 
 of the Lord spake by me, and His word was in 
 my tongue." * The word here rendered said is a 
 very peculiar and solemn expression, intimating 
 to speak by divine inspiration; and standing as it 
 does associated with his designation as "the sweet 
 
 1 2 Sam. xxiii. 1, 2. 
 
126 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 psalmist of Israel," the announcement that " the 
 Spirit spake by him" would seem to imply a 
 direct claim on his part to the guiding and elevat- 
 ing influences of inspiration in the composition of 
 all those devotional songs which he had prepared 
 for the service of the church. But the probability 
 is, that this declaration referred not to his psalms, 
 but to the last of his utterances as a divinely in- 
 spired prophet, in which, as a farewell testimony, 
 he made a solemn profession of his faith in that 
 great promise which had been made to him 
 through Nathan, regarding the perpetuity of his 
 dynasty in the person of the great Messiah. It 
 is a remarkable prophecy, showing how clearly 
 he perceived the typical character of his own king- 
 dom, and the spiritual, ever-enduring kingdom of 
 Christ. It is frequently referred to in the New 
 Testament. 1 But any further remarks on the 
 character of David as a prophet are postponed, in 
 order to be comprehended under the general head 
 of the prophetical writings. 
 
 The Book of Proverbs is the first in the Bible 
 to which the author's name is prefixed, and it 
 has been, with scarcely an exception, the uniform 
 1 Matt. xxii. 43 ; Acts ii. 29, 30, iv. 25, xiii. 33-37. 
 
THE HOLY SCKIPTUEES. 127 
 
 opinion of the church that that author was Solo- 
 mon. As Eastern monarchs were in ancient times 
 always attended by a secretary, whose duty it was 
 to chronicle not only every interesting and im- 
 portant incident that occurred, but all the remark- 
 able sayings he uttered in conversation, there can 
 be little doubt that Solomon, who was so fond of 
 oriental display, would have an officer of this de- 
 scription amongst his royal retinue; and it may 
 well be supposed that the memoranda of sage 
 remarks and oracular observations made on all sub- 
 jects, human and divine, by a person of such 
 extraordinary wisdom, and kept during his ex- 
 tended reign, would amount to an immense collec- 
 tion. Accordingly, it is recorded * that " he spoke 
 three thousand proverbs;" and out of this vast 
 number a selection was made and embodied in the 
 present collection, apparently under the superin- 
 tendence of Solomon himself. The latter portion, 
 from the twenty-fifth chapter, was transcribed from 
 an unpublished manuscript of Solomon's by order 
 of Hezekiah, and added to the previously existing 
 book, most probably forming part of those measures 
 of religious reformation which that pious king 
 adopted, by the encouragement and aid of the 
 
 1 1 Kings iv. 32. 
 
128 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 prophets Isaiah, Hosea, and Micah, who are be- 
 lieved to be " the men of Hezekiah " referred to. 
 As the Psalms are called the Psalms of David 
 because he was the principal author, so this book 
 is called the Proverbs of Solomon, although the 
 two concluding chapters are ascribed to other 
 authors. Their names are obviously symbolical, 
 signifying, Agar = collector or teacher, Lemuel = 
 devoted to God ; and they delivered their massa 
 or oracle to their pupils, not by their own wisdom, 
 but by the Holy Spirit, as that term implies a 
 claim to divine inspiration. The Hebrew word 
 rendered proverb (Mashal) denotes a comparison, and 
 this name " proverb " was probably given to it be- 
 cause the form or matter of the proverb involved a 
 comparison. It was called also by the Hebrews a 
 parable when expanded into details ; and it was a 
 favourite mode of expressing their thoughts, as it is 
 to this day, not only amongst the nomadic tribes of 
 Arabia, but amongst the Persians, the Chinese, and 
 other people of the East, who delight in sententious 
 sayings and proverbial philosophy. Sometimes, in 
 order to aid the memory, they were thrown into 
 a poetical form ; and so are these Proverbs of 
 Solomon, which, being arranged in couplets, triplets, 
 and other modifications of versification, exhibit all 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 129 
 
 the varieties of that parallelism which is a pecu- 
 liar feature in Hebrew poetry. The book is in- 
 teresting, not only from its poetical form, but 
 for the invaluable treasures of practical wisdom it 
 contains ; and, as has been often remarked, having 
 been in existence five centuries before " the seven 
 wise men of Greece," and seven centuries prior to 
 Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, its early age pre- 
 cludes the idea of the wisdom with which it is 
 replete being drawn from any of those famous 
 sources of human philosophy. A slight comparison 
 also will suffice to show that it is immeasurably 
 superior in spirit as well as in execution to the 
 apocryphal books of Wisdom and Ecclesiasticus : 
 and we are led to the conclusion that he whom 
 God was pleased to endow with the gift of extra- 
 ordinary wisdom, was " moved by the Holy Spirit " 
 to make a selection of his oracular sayings for the 
 benefit of his fellow-men. It was recognised by 
 the ancient church as a canonical book, and its 
 inspiration is established by the highest testimo- 
 nies, numerous quotations being made from it in 
 the New Testament. And although, in the pro- 
 gressive development of divine truth, it is inferior 
 to the pure and high-toned morality of the Ser- 
 mon on the Mount, the book of Proverbs occu- 
 
130 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 pies an important rank amongst tlie books of 
 Scripture. 
 
 Whether the book of Ecclesiastes was written 
 by Solomon or by some later author, who adopted 
 that royal voluptuary as the leading character or 
 hero of his didactic poem, it does not fall within 
 our province to inquire. The grand object of the 
 piece is, by a general survey of earthly scenes, to 
 contrast the vanity of human pursuits, when looked 
 to as the chief end of life, with the blessedness of 
 true wisdom or religion. This is its scope ; and 
 although there is considerable difficulty in inter- 
 preting some passages, which seem here to incul- 
 cate sensual epicurism, 1 and there to lean towards 
 fatalism and scepticism, 2 yet these anomalies are 
 only apparent, arising from the discursive nature 
 of the poem ; and the writer, guided by a better 
 philosophy than that of the schools, shows that 
 the chief good — the happiness which all men are 
 pursuing, but which so few succeed in obtaining 
 — is the attainment of heavenly wisdom : that is 
 the grand end, and all other things are only the 
 means towards its acquisition. Accordingly, after 
 his poetical tour through all the diverse scenes of 
 human life and occupation in an experimental 
 1 Cli. iii. 12, 13, 22. 2 Ch. vii. 16, ix. 2-10. 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 131 
 
 search after true happiness, he arrives at the grand 
 " conclusion " of the " whole " inquiry, — that since 
 "worldly good does not yield solid satisfaction to 
 a human soul, and there is a future judgment, 
 which will rectify all the seeming disorders of the 
 present state, " man's whole duty is to fear God 
 and keep His commandments," by a faithful dis- 
 charge of the duties, and a sober, thankful enjoy- 
 ment of the blessings of life. The title of Eccle- 
 siastes to be ranked amongst the sacred books 
 cannot be doubted. It was received into the 
 canon by Ezra and his prophetic colleagues, when 
 a general collection was made under their inspired 
 direction, after the return from the captivity. It 
 is included in the Septuagint version, which was 
 made before the Christian era ; and although no 
 passage is quoted, no allusion is made to it in 
 any part of the Old or New Testament, it un- 
 doubtedly composed one of the books of divine 
 authority which our Lord called tcls 7pa<£ri?, the 
 Scriptures. 
 
 The Song has been previously noticed in Lec- 
 ture I. 
 
 The Prophetical Books, which come next after 
 
 1 Matt. xxii. 29. 
 
132 THE INSPIKATION OF 
 
 the historical and poetical, form the third division 
 of the Old Testament, and occupy an important 
 place in the sacred volume. Viewed in their true 
 and proper character, as containing the revelation of 
 a connected series of events in the remote history 
 of the world and the church, they present a col- 
 lective body of evidence, which cannot be gainsaid, 
 attesting the divine truth and inspiration of the 
 Scriptures. 
 
 ' ' Heaven from all eyes lias closed the book of fate, 
 All but the passing page, the present state." 
 
 As to the great mass of occurrences which are 
 destined to chequer their own personal history, 
 men know nothing ; and although individuals may 
 be able in a few instances to trace the course of 
 events, because experience or a far-seeing sagacity 
 enables them to penetrate a little further than 
 others, yet mankind are universally ignorant of 
 what is to happen in time to come. They cannot 
 see, if we may say so, above a yard or two before 
 them ; and they are as incapable of describing the 
 transactions of to-morrow, as they are of writing 
 the records of eternity itself. "Were a person, then, 
 to foretell with clear and unhesitating confidence, 
 an event which would produce deep and lasting 
 effects on the physical condition or the social and 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 133 
 
 moral interests of a people, and his prediction to 
 be verified in all respects, we should be disposed 
 to regard that person as endowed with a faculty 
 of foresight above the reach of ordinary men ; and 
 were a succession of persons to appear, predicting 
 not one event only, but a multitude of events, 
 which would overthrow certain specified nations 
 existing at the time of the prediction, describing 
 the exact order and manner in which those na- 
 tional vicissitudes would take place, and represent- 
 ing them all as merely preparatory to the advent of 
 a universal king, and the establishment of a new 
 form of society, which would extend all the world 
 over, — and these oracular utterances were to be 
 realized by the accomplishment of the principal 
 of these events, so exactly in time, place, and 
 character, as to give a sure and reliable pledge 
 of the whole being fulfilled in due course, — the 
 conclusion would be forced upon thoughtful minds, 
 that the persons capable of diving so far into the 
 dark and unknown depths of futurity, were gifted 
 with a foreknowledge above the natural powers 
 of humanity, — in other words, that they were in- 
 spired. Now this is precisely the case with the 
 authors of the particular class of books we are now 
 approaching. The predicting of future events 
 
134 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 was not, indeed, the primary or the stated duty 
 of their office. The name for a prophet in the 
 original is Ncibhi, a sjieaker ; and it is applied in 
 the Old Testament Scriptures, sometimes to de- 
 signate the patriarchs as men who were in close 
 relations with God, and whose intercessory influ- 
 ence as His friends was of great avail in obtaining 
 His favour ; x at other times, to describe a person 
 employed to communicate some revelation from 
 God ; and as such a one, in delivering his message, 
 spoke of necessity under the influence of divine 
 inspiration, he was called " man of God" by the 
 sacred historians, 2 and "man of the Spirit" and 
 "messenger of the Lord" by the prophets, 3 while 
 the utterance made by him was called " the word 
 of the Lord ; " 4 and on different occasions it is 
 used also as an appellative of men who were 
 supernaturally moved to pour forth poetical and 
 highly figurative effusions about God and divine 
 things in a bold energetic manner, 5 and to pro- 
 phesy things to come. In addition to Nabhi, two 
 
 1 Gen. xx. 7 ; Deut. xxxiv. 10 ; Ps. cv. 15. 
 
 2 1 Sam. ii. 27, ix. 6 ; 1 Kings xiii. 
 
 3 Ezek. ii. 2 ; Hos. ix. 7 ; Hagg. i. 13. 
 
 4 Num. xxiv. 3 ; 2 Sam. xxiii. 1 ; Ps. xxxvi. 1 ; Prov. xxx. 1 ; 
 Jer. xxix. 31. 
 
 6 Ex. xv. 20, 21 ; Num. xi. 29 ; 1 Sam. x. 5, 10-15 ; Luke i. 
 6 Amos iii. 7, 8. 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 135 
 
 other words occur in the historical books, — Roeh, 
 a seer, an ancient term, nearly though not wholly 
 confined to Samuel; 1 and the other Chozeh, which 
 is found in the later books. All three terms are 
 used in one passage to distinguish different phases 
 of the prophetical character. 2 It would be en- 
 tirely out of place here to trace the origin and 
 progress of this sacred office. Suffice it to observe, 
 that while there were " prophets since the world 
 began," — Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Jacob, and Moses, 
 — in the time of the judges the prophets began to 
 come into prominence, as occupying the functions 
 of religious teachers, which the priests were un- 
 willing or unable to perforin ; and that under the 
 auspices of Samuel, who founded or established 
 seminaries for the education of young persons 
 qualified to undertake the duties, a regular supply 
 of prophets was provided, who were of the greatest 
 use in contributing to preserve the interests of 
 sound morality and genuine religion during the 
 declining period of the monarchy, and some of 
 whom exercised an influence of extraordinary power 
 over the court as well as the nation. The pro- 
 phets were the preachers of their day ; and by 
 the peculiarities of their dress and manner, as 
 
 1 2 Chron. xvi. 7, 10 ; Isa. xxx. 20. 2 1 Chron. xxix. 29. 
 
136 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 well as by the impressive and solemn character 
 of their utterances, they produced effects on the 
 character of their age unequalled by the greatest 
 pulpit orators of modern times. Men of burning 
 zeal for the glory of God, and for the maintenance 
 of the cause of righteousness, they were accus- 
 tomed, in the earnest discharge of their sacred 
 functions, to encounter opposition, and to brave 
 difficulties from which other men would have 
 shrunk ; and it was mainly, or rather solely, through 
 their indomitable energy that the true religion 
 was preserved or revived in that land which God 
 had chosen as its sanctuary or asylum in ancient 
 times. But it is not so much in the character 
 of teachers of righteousness that we are to view 
 them, as in that of rebukers of unrighteousness, 
 who denounced God's judgment on the idolatries 
 and sins, whether of His own sinful people or of 
 the nations who unrighteously executed the just 
 judgments of Heaven upon them. They predicted 
 many future events ; and the nearer of these, by 
 the fulfilment of their prophecies, accredited to 
 those who would listen to their proclamations, the 
 events that were more distant; while to us, the 
 then more remotely future, the prophecies relating 
 to Christ, which are now fulfilled in the gospel 
 
THE HOLY SCULPTURES. 137 
 
 history, or to the extension of the church in all 
 parts of the world, which has taken place in 
 modern times, confirm the credibility of the earlier. 
 The four great prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, 
 and Daniel, stand by themselves in our version ; 
 while the twelve prophets at the head of whom 
 stands Hosea, were called "the minor prophets," 
 not from the less importance of their prophecies, 
 compared with those of the preceding four, but 
 from the smaller space and extent of their pro- 
 phecies. The whole collection of their prophecies 
 does not equal in bulk the prophecies of Isaiah 
 alone : for God, who in His wisdom determined 
 that no prophecy of the earlier prophets, such as 
 Samuel, Elijah, Elisha, and others, should be com- 
 mitted to writing, willed also that a very small 
 fragment of what the later prophets had spoken 
 in His cause should be preserved. Their collected 
 writings, which were comprised in one prophetic 
 roll, have been reckoned, both in the Jewish and 
 Christian church, as forming one book ; and they 
 themselves, like the apostles, were called " the 
 twelve." Shortly after the close of the memorable 
 services of Elijah and Elisha, the latter of whom 
 flourished in the time of Joash, " there arose in 
 the next reign, that of Jeroboam il, the first of 
 
138 THE INSPIEATION OF 
 
 that brilliant constellation of prophets, whose light 
 gleamed over the fall of Israel and Judah, shone 
 in their captivity, and set at last with the pre- 
 diction of him who should precede the Sun of 
 Eighteousness. Then Hosea, Amos, Jonah, pro- 
 phesied in the kingdom of Israel. Joel was 
 probably called at the same time to prophesy in 
 Judah, and Obadiah to deliver his prophecy as to 
 Edom ; Isaiah a few years later. Micah began his 
 office in the following reign of Jotham, and pro- 
 phesied, together with Isaiah, to and in the reign 
 of Hezekiah ; Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel, on 
 the eve of and during the captivity in Babylon. 
 The order, then, of ' the twelve ' was probably 
 altogether an order of time. We know that the 
 four greater prophets are placed in that order, as 
 also the three last of the twelve. Of the five first, 
 Hosea, Amos, and Jonah were nearly contem- 
 porary ; Joel was prior to Amos ; and of the four 
 remaining, Micah and Nahum were later than 
 Jonah, whom they succeed in order." 1 Now, the 
 most remarkable feature in the writings of those 
 prophets is, that they comprise a continuous series 
 of prophecies directed against the countries bor- 
 
 1 Pusey, Introduction to the Minor Prophets ; also Henderson's 
 Minor Prophets. 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTUKES. 139 
 
 dering on Judea, or connected with God's ancient 
 people by political relations. There were isolated 
 prophecies contained in the earlier books of Scrip- 
 ture of a specific character, referring to individuals 
 and their posterity, and arising out of particular 
 circumstances, — such as that which related to the 
 sons of Noah; 1 that respecting the descendants 
 of Abraham, their affliction in Egypt, their extorted 
 deliverance from the power of tyrannical oppres- 
 sion, and their final establishment in the promised 
 land at a specified period ; 2 Ishmael, who was 
 destined to be the ancestor of a powerful nation, 
 whose secluded state and wild irregular character 
 are still exemplified in the Arabs ; 3 Esau, whose 
 family " should be cut off," till there should be 
 " none remaining of the house of Esau ; " 4 Judah, 
 that the sceptre would depart from him ; 5 David, 
 that he would be elevated to the throne of Israel, 6 
 — that a succession of heavy disasters would befall 
 his royal house, 7 and yet that his dynasty would 
 retain the royal authority; 8 Josiah; 9 Cyrus, and 
 his edict for the restoration of the captive Jews ; 10 
 
 1 Gen. ix. 25-27. 2 Gen. xv. 13-16. 
 
 3 Gen. xvi. 10-12, xvii. 20. 4 Jer. xlix. 17. 
 
 6 Gen. xlix. 10. 6 2 Sam. iii. 18. 
 
 7 2 Sam. xii. 11. 8 2 Chron. xxi. 7. 
 
 8 1 Kings xiii. 2. 10 Isa. xliv. 28. 
 
140 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 Nebuchadnezzar and his extraordinary affliction ; * 
 the birth of the Baptist; 2 Peter and his uncommon 
 form of martyrdom ; 3 and that which concerned 
 the last of the apostles. 4 All these were prophecies 
 delivered at a time and in circumstances when 
 there was no indication in the course of things 
 that the predicted issues would take place, and 
 when the result could not be ascribed, on any 
 ground of reason, to the penetration of great saga- 
 city or a shrewd conjecture. There are prophecies 
 respecting countries, places, and nations, which 
 were doomed as a punishment for the sins and 
 provocations of their inhabitants, some to long, 
 others to perpetual desolation or destruction : such 
 as Amalek, the remembrance of whom was to be 
 utterly put out from under heaven; 5 Nineveh, 
 whose destruction was to be complete; 6 Babylon, 
 that it should be a desolation for ever, a posses- 
 sion for the bittern, and pools of water ; 7 Tyre, a 
 place for fishers to spread their nets upon ; 8 Egypt, 
 a bare kingdom — the basest of the kingdoms ; 9 
 Jerusalem, that it should be trodden down of the 
 Gentiles, 10 and the whole coast of Judea laid deso- 
 
 1 Dan. iv. 19, 36. 2 Luke i. 3 John xxi. 19. 
 
 4 John xxi. 22. s Ex. xvii. 14. 6 Nahum iii. 
 
 7 Isa. xiii. xiv. 8 Ezek. xxvi. 4, 5. 
 
 9 Ezek. xxix. 14, 15. 10 Luke xxi. 25. 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 141 
 
 late ; x Iduniea, and its famous capital Petra ; 2 
 Amnion, 3 Moab, 4 Bashan and Gilead, that their 
 pastures should fade and their oaks be destroyed. 5 
 Modern travellers have in great numbers visited 
 those localities ; and in the accounts they have 
 published, the descriptions they have given of the 
 gloomy desolation and widespread ruin that mark 
 the scenes, they have used — in many cases uncon- 
 sciously — the very terms in which the ancient 
 prophets denounced the doom. Striking as is the 
 correspondence between the denunciations of pro- 
 phecy and the blasted appearance of those once 
 busy and populous but anathematized places, none 
 are more wonderful than the prophetic descriptions 
 of the four universal empires which were to arise 
 in succession, and the ten kingdoms into which 
 the last was to be subdivided — comprehending the 
 rise, progress, characteristic government, and over- 
 throw of each of them in turn ; — these are so 
 graphic and minute, that they may be said to 
 embrace the general history of the world for 
 several centuries. Besides these prophecies which 
 have long ago been accomplished, there are various 
 
 1 Lev. xxvi. 31-33 ; Isa. vi. 10-12 ; Jer. ix. 11, xix. 15 ; Mic. 
 v. 11-14. 
 
 2 Jer. xlix. 7-22. 3 Jer. xlix. 1-5. i Isa. xvi. 14. 
 5 Nalmni i. 4 ; sa. xi. 12 ; Zech. xi. 2. 
 
142 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 others which are in the course of being fulfilled in 
 the present day, respecting the dispersion of the 
 Jews, their grievous and protracted sufferings, their 
 continued isolation from all other people, and their 
 obstinate unbelief ; * respecting the extension and 
 universal establishment of Christianity ; 2 the apos- 
 tasy, tyranny, and idolatries of the Church of 
 Borne ; and respecting a period of millennial glory. 3 
 Such predictions are found in the prophetic books 
 respecting the state and destiny of all the contem- 
 porary nations, which came into contact with the 
 Jewish people while fulfilling God's purposes in 
 Palestine, which seduced them by their idola- 
 tries, or oppressed them by their insatiable ambi- 
 tion for the acquisition of territory and power. 
 They are not single and detached predictions, ut- 
 tered by one individual or at distant intervals, and 
 either expressed with the ambiguity of oracular 
 responses, or arresting attention by marvellous 
 glimpses into futurity. On the contrary, they 
 were delivered by various messengers who were 
 commissioned for the purpose ; and they consti- 
 tuted part of a scheme of revelation, by which 
 
 1 Lev. xxvi. 38, 39 ; Deut. xxix. 62, 67 ; Ezek. v. 10, 15 ; 
 Hos. iii. 4. 
 
 2 Ps. ii. 8 ; Isa. liv. ; Mai. i. 11. 
 
 3 1 Tim. iv. 1, 3 ; Rev. xiii. xvii. 
 
THE HOLY SCEIPTUEE8. 143 
 
 God taught His ancient people to know that He 
 was Governor among the nations. Joined together, 
 they form a continuous chain of prophetic inti- 
 mations, which, read in the light of their fulfil- 
 ment, are virtually a record of ancient history ; 
 and by their minute graphic pictures of the cha- 
 racters of the people against whom they are 
 directed, of the physical productions of their 
 country, of their grovelling superstitions and vices, 
 of the causes of their decline and fall, and the 
 death-like silence and desolation which for the 
 wickedness of their inhabitants should reign for 
 ever in those spots which were once teeming with 
 life and activity, they furnish striking proofs of 
 the reality and retributions of a superintending 
 Providence. They occupy a large, though not the 
 principal, portion of this third division of the Old 
 Testament. For, parallel with this line of pre- 
 dictions, there runs another line, longer, more 
 connected, and more important in its bearings 
 upon us, relating not to the vicissitudes of worldly 
 kingdoms, but to the progressive development 
 and universal establishment of the kingdom of 
 God in Christ. "The spirit of prophecy is the •* 
 testimony of Jesus ; " and from the moment that 
 the interposition of a Saviour became necessary, 
 
144 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 till the appointed period for His advent in the 
 world, there was a series of prophetic announce- 
 ments, at the times and in the circumstances 
 which appeared to infinite wisdom the fittest to 
 stimulate the faith and hopes of the church by 
 additional revelations. Not to dwell on the vague 
 ^ promise that He was to be a partaker of human 
 nature, peculiarly " the seed of the woman," the 
 first definite announcement was that He should 
 descend from them, in the line of Abraham; then 
 that He was to spring from the tribe of Judah, 
 and afterwards from the lineage of David. His 
 office was prophetically described — His union of 
 priest and king — the virgin state of His mother 
 — the lowliness of His parentage — the obscurity 
 of His station — the time of His appearance — 
 the place of His nativity — His entrance upon His 
 public ministry — His miracles of power and bene- 
 ficence — the attributes of His character as a man 
 and as a King of Zion — the opposition made to 
 Him — His expiatory sufferings — the fulfilment of 
 minute circumstantial predictions at His death 
 — the extension of His gospel — the prevalence 
 of universal peace and righteousness under His 
 reign; — all these, and various other features of 
 His character and work, are announced by one 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTUEES. 145 
 
 or other of the prophets, who employ all the 
 pomp of language, and enlist all the harmony of 
 poetic numbers to portray in fitting strains the / 
 glories of Messiah. This is more or less the 
 burden of all the larger prophetic books ; and more 
 especially of him who, from the number, variety, 
 and clearness of his predictions, has been styled 
 the Evangelical prophet. While, in common with 
 the rest of his prophetic brethren, he occasion- 
 ally touches upon subjects of contemporary in- 
 terest ; forewarns his countrymen of the home 
 disasters or the foreign captivities which their vices 
 and apostasy would entail; and describes in awful 
 terms the vicissitudes that would lay some ancient 
 kings and kingdoms in the dust, or denounces 
 the curse that doomed the land of others to per- 
 petual sterility and desolation, — the predominant 
 topic that occupies the mind of Isaiah is the 
 character and office of the great Redeemer. That 
 forms the chief burden of his prophetic song ; and 
 never is the fulness of his genius and inspiration 
 brought out into stronger activity ; never does his 
 harp send forth livelier or more elevated notes ; 
 never does his glowing fancy, in its range through 
 nature, collect such a group of rich and splendid 
 imagery, as when, transporting himself into the 
 
 K 
 
146 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 visioned future, he contemplates the glories of the 
 King of Zion. Several portions, indeed, of Isaiah's 
 prophecies give an account of the Saviour's per- 
 sonal history, with reference more especially to the 
 tragic events that were to mark its close, so plain, 
 so circumstantial, and so discriminating, that, with 
 a slight change from the future to the past tense, 
 it might stand for one of the narratives written 
 by the evangelical biographers. 
 
 So large a collection of prophecies, relating to 
 such a variety of subjects, as that which is con- 
 tained in the Scriptures, would form, it might be 
 supposed, a basis for the ascription of a divine 
 origin and character to the Book which could 
 not be easily shaken or undermined. Notwith- 
 standing, the attempt has been made by the school 
 of modern Eationalists, who endeavour in several 
 ways to eliminate the predictive element from 
 the sacred volume. 1 In general, they fritter down 
 prophecy into nothing more than the shrewd con- 
 jectures of sagacious men. But they apply this 
 principle differently. Some, for instance, contend 
 that insulated prophecies were introduced into the 
 place where they stand after the events, 2 — a 
 polite way of rejecting them as forgeries or fic- 
 1 Note C. 2 Davidson, i. 198, 338, 428. 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTUKES. 147 
 
 tions. Of this description are Jacob's prophetic 
 delineation of the future fortunes of his sons ; 1 
 Balaam's prophecy regarding Israel ; 2 the anathema 
 denounced on the rebuilder of Jericho ; 3 Samuel's 
 account of the style and exactions of the future 
 king ; 4 Isaiah's prophecies regarding Hezekiah 
 and Sennacherib. 5 Allowing that some of these 
 might have been spoken, it is insinuated that the 
 speaker lived long enough to correct his prophecies 
 by the light of later events, and thus imparted 
 to those which referred to proximate occurrences 
 a definiteness they did not exhibit when he gave 
 them utterance ; or that if the events were so 
 remote as to put this solution of the difficulty 
 out of the question, they allege that the predic- 
 tion was actually given so near to the occurrence, 
 that human sagacity could easily anticipate it, and 
 thus what ignorant credulity exalted into a pre- 
 diction, was nothing more than the foresight of 
 observant and reflecting men. Of the former kind 
 is Ezekiel's account of the grovelling supersti- 
 tions practised in Jerusalem, which, though pur- 
 porting to have been obtained in prophetic vision, 
 
 1 Gen. xlix. 2 Num. xxii.-xxiv. 
 
 3 Josh. vi. 26 ; cf. 1 Kings xvi. 34. 4 1 Sam. viii. 11. 
 5 Isa. x.-xiv. 
 
148 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 was really derived from the reports of persons 
 who brought him the intelligence direct from 
 that capital ; and of the latter kind — that is, the 
 prophecies which were afterwards modified and 
 adapted to the actual state of things — are Moses' 
 predictions in Deuteronomy, 1 Isaiah's prophecy of 
 Arabia and of Tyre, 2 and Jeremiah's prophecy of 
 the seventy years' captivity. 3 There is no weight in 
 such objections as these. For in regard to Jacob's 
 dying prophecy, which is pronounced by those 
 critics a vaticinium post eventum, it is a ground- 
 less assertion, since there is distinct evidence that 
 important integral parts of this prophecy, — viz. the 
 separation of Levi for the priesthood, 4 and the 
 appointment of Joseph's two eldest sons to be 
 heads of tribes, — were accomplished before the 
 settlement in Canaan. In regard to Balaam's pro- 
 phecy, it was delivered, as well as his death 
 recorded; 5 and Moses' prophecies regarding the 
 localization of the tribes, and the future rejection 
 of the unbelieving Jews, were uttered and de- 
 posited in the ark, before the entrance into the 
 promised land. The other prophecies mentioned 
 
 1 Davidson, i. 383, iii. 15, 19, 98. 
 
 2 Ch. xxi. xxiii. 3 Ch. xxix. 10. 
 
 4 Ex. xxxii. 29 ; Num. i. 49 ; Deut. x. 8, 9, xviii. 1. 
 
 5 Num. xxxi. 8. 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 149 
 
 above are treated in a similar manner or assumed 
 to be spurious, and on the ground of bold assump- 
 tions rejected. Other Eationalists resort to a 
 different explanation of the prophecies, particu- 
 larly those relating to the changes and disasters 
 which befell the countries bordering on Palestine, 
 ascribing them to political foresight, and consi- 
 dering them as parallelled by Seneca's supposed 
 intimation of the discovery of America, Dante's 
 anticipation of the Eeformation, Burke's of the 
 Trench Eevolution, and others of the disruption 
 from this country of the United States. 1 Such 
 a view of the prophecies is scarcely deserving of 
 notice ; for it degrades the Scriptures to the level 
 of an ordinary book, and represents those events 
 as mere political changes which God denounced 
 as His judgments upon the nations for their ac- 
 cumulated sins. 2 A third class of Eationalists 
 
 1 Stanley's Jewish Church, p. 463, first series ; Strachey's 
 Hebrew Politics. 
 
 2 The language of Scripture is directly antagonistic to this 
 view: "Remember the former things of old : for I am God, and 
 there is none else ; I am God, and there is none like me ; declaring 
 the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things 
 that are not yet done. " "Seek ye out of the book of the Lord, and 
 read ; no one of these shall fail, none shall want her mate : for 
 my mouth it hath commanded, and His Spirit it hath gathered 
 them" (Isa. xxxiv. 16, xlvi. 9, 10). "Though I make a full end 
 of all nations whither I have scattered you, I will not make a full 
 end of you" (Jer. xxx. 11). 
 
150 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 labour to expunge the Messianic element out of 
 the prophetic books, and apply all that is com- 
 monly interpreted as realized in Christ to Heze- 
 kiah; the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah they con- 
 sider a personification of the suffering Jews of the 
 captivity, or a historical sketch of the persecutions 
 of Jeremiah. 1 Most triumphantly have all these 
 infidel views been overcome, and the truth estab- 
 lished. It is established not only on the soundest 
 principles of criticism, but by the steady and here- 
 ditary attitude of the Jewish nation, who, though 
 blinded by their engrossing idea of a temporal 
 king, have uniformly viewed these prophecies as 
 pointing to a Messiah ; and so thoroughly did 
 their faith in His appearance, as predicted, mould 
 their character and aspirations, that, while all 
 other people have looked back with admiring de- 
 light to some patriot king in the past history of 
 their nation, the Jews alone looked forward to 
 a golden age, when a perfect Euler would rise up 
 from amongst themselves to govern the nations. 
 
 Since the prophetic books then contain, beyond 
 all controversy, direct, clear, and striking predic- 
 tions of future events, the important fact to be 
 
 iJer. xi. 19, 23, xviii. 18-23, xx. 10, xxiii. 33-40, xv. 10, 
 xxxvii. 13-15, xxxviii. 4-20. 
 
THE HOLY SCKIPTURES. 151 
 
 ascertained is, that they were publicly known in 
 a written form at a date sufficiently distant from 
 the event as to preclude the possibility of ascrib- 
 ing the prophecies to the penetration of natural 
 sagacity. No difficulty can be felt on this point, 
 when it is recollected, that it is to men of the 
 prophetic order we owe the whole of Old Testa- 
 ment literature, and that previous to the reign 
 of Josiah the prophets confined their moral and 
 religious instructions to the oral discourses they 
 addressed to their contemporaries. At that time, 
 which has been called the Assyrian period, from 
 the circumstance of the frequent allusion made by 
 the prophets to the Assyrian invasions of Pales- 
 tine, Joel, Hosea, Isaiah, Amos, Micah, Nahum, 
 Jonah, flourished ; and from the time of Josiah, 
 which, from similar allusions to the captivity, has 
 been called the Chaldean period, appeared Zepha- 
 niah, Huldah, Jeremiah, Habakkuk, Ezekiel, Oba- 
 diah, Daniel ; and after the return from the cap- 
 tivity, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi. " It was 
 the golden age of the prophets in the capacity of 
 writers. Those of the Assyrian period were poets. 
 Isaiah is without an equal ; and as for Joel and 
 Nahum, all effort to commend them to readers of 
 taste would be useless. In the other prophets there 
 
152 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 are passages of great splendour ; and in all of them 
 there is such a lofty tone of piety and zeal for 
 God and His honour, with such inflexible morality, 
 as almost transports the reader into New Testament 
 times." * The publication of their works was not 
 their own voluntary doing, for they were enjoined 
 by their heavenly Master to commit their mes- 
 sages and visions to writing ; and as prediction 
 was frequently followed by hortatory discourses, 
 so the insertion of both in the record will account 
 for the miscellaneous character of the prophetic 
 books. 2 And all of them were publicly known 
 and acknowledged by the Jewish nation as 
 canonical works before and at the period when 
 Malachi, the last of the prophetic class, lived, 
 about 400 B.C. As a further evidence of these 
 books being in general circulation, we may state 
 that later prophets frequently allude to and quote 
 from the works of their predecessors : cf. Nahum 
 i. 15 with Isa. lii. 1, 7 ; iii. 7 with Isa. li. 19; 
 iii. 4, 5, with Isa. xlvii. 5, 9 ; Hab. ii. 18, 19, 
 with Isa. xliv. 19, 20. Jeremiah's prophecy is 
 
 1 Moses Stuart on the Canon, p. 92. 
 
 2 Isaiah was commanded to write his visions, viii. 1, 16-18 ; 
 in one book, xxx. 8. Jer. xxx. 2, 17, 18, 23, 29, xxxvi. 2, 17, 
 18, xlv. 1, li. 60 ;' Ezek. ii. 9, 10, iii. 1, 3, xxiv. 2, xliii. 11 ; 
 Dan. xii. 4 ; Zech. v. 1 ; Hab. ii. 2. 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 153 
 
 interspersed with quotations from the latter part 
 of Isaiah, particularly in ch. L, li., which consist 
 almost wholly of extracts from that prophet. "When 
 the second book of Chronicles was written, the 
 Prophecies was a well-known work (2 Chron. xxxii. 
 32), and Daniel learned from the study of Jere- 
 miah that the appointed duration of their capti- 
 vity had expired (cf. Dan. ix. 2 with Jer. xxv. 
 11, 12). Thus the date of the prophetic books col- 
 lectively is sufficiently ascertained ; and though we 
 should admit that some of the prophecies respecting 
 contemporary nations were really the anticipations 
 of political sagacity, there are prophecies in abun- 
 dance scattered throughout the Scriptures which 
 cannot be accounted for on any natural principles, 
 — prophecies uttered at a very remote period, and 
 which, independently of all intermediate contin- 
 gencies, were yet literally verified. Of such a cha- 
 racter was the prophecy regarding Cyrus ; and no 
 laboured attempt to prove that this portion of the 
 book was written by a younger Isaiah, who was 
 personally acquainted with the Persian monarch, 
 and knew his secret politics, can remove the 
 marvellous mystery of this passage. 1 Of such a 
 character is the prophecy of Moses concerning the 
 
 1 Isa. xlv. 1. 
 
154 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 desolations of Palestine, which are so widespread 
 and so striking as to extort from the French 
 infidel Volney an unconscious acknowledgment of 
 its fulfilment : " From whence proceed such melan- 
 choly revolutions ? For what cause is the fortune 
 of those countries so strikingly changed ? Why 
 are so many cities destroyed ? Why is not that 
 ancient population reproduced and perpetuated ? 
 A mysterious God exercises His incomprehensible 
 judgments ; He has doubtless pronounced a secret 
 malediction against the land." "Wherefore hath 
 the Lord done thus unto this land ? What meaneth 
 the heat of His great anger ? " x The fulfilment of 
 these and . many other remarkable prophecies, ut- 
 tered at a time which entirely precludes the idea 
 of human prevision, establishes not only the truth 
 and authenticity, but the inspiration, of the Scrip- 
 tures.' In predicting events so remote, depending 
 upon so many unforeseen contingencies, and so far 
 beyond the reach of human knowledge, the He- 
 brew prophets must have been indebted for the 
 miraculous power of penetrating the mysteries of 
 the future to the guidance of Him who "knows 
 the end from the beginning ; " and every unpre- 
 judiced and reflecting mind will be convinced that 
 1 Deut. xxix. 22-24. 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 155 
 
 the only conclusion to be come to is, " that pro- 
 phecy came not in old time by the will of man, but 
 holy men of God spake as they were moved by 
 the Holy Ghost." * 
 
 1 See Note D, 
 
156 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 LECTUEE III. 
 
 Promise of the Spirit's Aid to the Disciples when hrought before 
 Magistrates and Synagogues — Specific Promise of the Spirit 
 to be with them in their Apostolic Mission ; to bring all 
 things to their Remembrance, and to lead them into all the 
 Truth. — The Composition of the Gospels — Comprising a Re- 
 cord of the staple Topics of the Apostles' Ministry — Qualifi- 
 cations of the Evangelists— Gospels of Mark and Luke — 
 Causes of the Variety in the Gospels — Each drawing from the 
 Stores of his Personal Knowledge, and each writing for the 
 Instruction of different Classes of People — The Contents of 
 the Gospels afford a strong Argument for their Inspiration — 
 Record of lengthened Discourses, Parables, and Prophecies, 
 of numberless Miracles — Wonderful Harmony — Our Lord 
 probably employed the Greek Language — Apparent Discre- 
 pancies — Incidents of a Supernatural Character — The Star — 
 The Day of the Nativity — The Heavenly Voices— The Trans- 
 figuration — The Acts of the Apostles — Descent of the Spirit 
 — Rapid Propagation of the Gospel — Book complete. — Epistles 
 — Authors of them — Paul the Author of most of them — All 
 the Writers supernaturally qualified — Supposed Disclaimer 
 of Inspiration by Paul — General Deductions — Quotations 
 from the Prophecies. 
 
 Our Lord had chosen from the general body of 
 His followers a select band of disciples, in num- 
 bers corresponding to the twelve patriarchs of the 
 Jewish church, whom He kept constantly near 
 His person, with a view to their being trained 
 to future usefulness in advancing His cause, and 
 
THE HOLY SCEIPTURES. 157 
 
 becoming the fathers of the Christian church. 
 As soon as they appeared sufficiently prepared 
 for the duty, He despatched them on a prepara- 
 tory mission throughout Judea, to announce the 
 approaching advent of the kingdom of God. On 
 the eve of their departure, He apprised them fully 
 of the difficulties and perils they would have to 
 encounter. In particular, He gave them distinct 
 premonition that they would be summoned before 
 magistrates and synagogues on account of their 
 connection with His cause, and counselled them 
 on such emergencies not to be overwhelmed with 
 anxiety, nor to make a formal preparation for 
 their defence, but to rely on seasonable assistance 
 from above (Matt. x. 19, 20; Mark xiii. 11; 
 Luke xii. 11, 12, xxi. 14, 15). These four pas- 
 sages record counsels given by our Lord to His 
 disciples, it would appear, on different occasions ; 
 but all of them contain an assurance of divine 
 aid, suited to any exigencies that might arise in 
 the course of the mission. And they prohibit, 
 not what it is naturally impossible altogether to 
 avoid, — the considerate forethought which every 
 prudent and reflecting person takes before he 
 speaks, — but only such a disquieting concern 
 about what and how they should give their testi- 
 
158 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 mony, by which people brought into new and 
 untried circumstances are often distressed and 
 overwhelmed. Most men become excited, tremu- 
 lous, and lose their self-control ; nay, some, hold- 
 ing a high rank in literature, have been known, 
 when summoned to compear as witnesses before 
 a judicial court, to fall into errors and inconsist- 
 encies which covered them with shame, and seri- 
 ously damaged the cause in which they were 
 engaged. 1 As the apostles were men of humble 
 condition, and had little, if any, beyond ordinary 
 education before their call to the service of Christ, 
 they would naturally be nervous and abashed 
 when appearing at a public tribunal, especially 
 in the character of accused persons, called pub- 
 licly to testify for Christ ; but in the prospect of 
 such trying occasions, their Master fortified them 
 with an assurance of divine aid, according as their 
 exigencies might require. The promise made to 
 them is similar to that held out to Moses when 
 excusing himself from undertaking the mission to 
 Pharaoh, on the ground that " he was not eloquent, 
 
 1 Pope, when called to appear as a witness in a judicial court, 
 spoke only a few sentences full of false grammar and incoherent 
 statements. And it is well known that Cowper's mind was un- 
 hinged by the prospect of his being appointed to a public office 
 in the House of Lords. 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 159 
 
 but slow of speech, and of a slow tongue." The 
 Lord said unto him, " Who hath made man's mouth? 
 Have not I, the Lord ? Now therefore go, and 
 I will be with thy mouth, and teach thee what 
 thou shalt say" (Ex. iv. 11, 12). And so Jesus 
 said to His apostles, " It shall be given you in 
 the same hour what ye shall speak. For it is 
 not you that speak, but the Spirit of your Father 
 which speaketh in you." Or, as it is said in 
 another place, " It is not ye that speak, but the 
 Holy Ghost." " Settle it therefore in your hearts, 
 not to meditate before what ye shall answer. For 
 I will give you a mouth and wisdom, which all 
 your adversaries shall not be able to gainsay nor 
 resist." An instance of the fulfilment of this 
 promise is furnished on the occasion of Peter and 
 John appearing before the Sanhedrim, after their 
 cure of the lame man at the Beautiful gate of the 
 temple (Acts iv.). Though they were in the pre- 
 sence of a venerable court, of which they had all 
 their lifetime heard the fame, and to which, in 
 common with their countrymen, they had been 
 taught to look up with mingled sentiments of awe 
 and submission, they were neither daunted nor 
 perplexed ; and when commanded not to speak 
 nor teach in the name of Jesus, firmly replied, 
 
160 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 " Whether it be right in the sight of God to 
 hearken unto you more than unto God, judge ye." 
 The promise was fulfilled still further in the dis- 
 course of Stephen before the council (Acts vii.) ; 
 of Paul before Felix, who trembled in the secret 
 consciousness of guilt (Acts xviii. 12, xxiv. 10-25, 
 xxvi. 1-29), and also of the same apostle before 
 Agrippa. The circumstances anticipated in the 
 four passages referred to were altogether extra- 
 ordinary ; and neither the counsel of Christ nor 
 the promise of imparted aid is applicable to ordi- 
 nary times and conditions of the church. Both of 
 them were given in prospect of the first mission, 
 which was confined to the lost sheep of the house 
 of Israel. Both of them were exclusively personal 
 to the apostles, and bore special reference to the 
 difficulties and perils to which " the witnesses for 
 Christ " would be exposed in their own country 
 during the first period of the church's history. 
 Another and a very different promise was needed 
 as well as given, when the apostles were invested 
 with the commission to go into all the world and 
 teach (disciple) all nations. 
 
 In the interesting and solemn discourse which 
 our Lord addressed to His disciples at the close 
 of the last supper, He informed them, amongst 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 161 
 
 other things, that they were destined to be His 
 ambassadors in proclaiming His religion through- 
 out the world, 1 and that they would be furnished 
 with supernatural qualifications for this arduous 
 duty. The apostolic office to which He was going 
 to appoint them was designed to supply the want 
 of His personal presence, — was, in fact, to be the 
 continuation and the complement of His own 
 ministry. And as Christ Himself had the Spirit 
 resting upon Him without measure, He now pro- 
 mised to bestow the extraordinary gifts of the 
 Spirit upon those who were to be His substitutes 
 or representatives in the organization of the early 
 church. " I will pray the Father," said He, " and 
 He shall give you another Comforter, that He may 
 abide with you for ever, even the Spirit of truth, 
 whom the world cannot receive. He shall teach 
 you all things, and bring all things to your 
 remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you. 
 He will guide you into all truth. He will show 
 you things to come. He shall glorify me ; for He 
 shall take of mine, and shall show it unto you." 2 
 This promise, given in such special circumstances, 
 comprehends several particulars, which it is of the 
 greatest importance carefully to consider. First, 
 
 1 John xx. 21. 2 John xiv. 16, 17, 26, xvi. 13, 14. 
 
 L 
 
162 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 the presence and aid of the Spirit of truth. The 
 apostles could not have so long breathed the atmo- 
 sphere of the Saviour's society without catching the 
 tone and sentiment of His holy circle. They had 
 felt it to be pervaded by an air of sacredness, and 
 they had caught a sympathetic glow of sanctity ; for 
 they were all, with the exception of Judas, good 
 men, and advanced to some extent in religious 
 knowledge and perception, as is evident from the 
 confession made by Peter, in their common name, 
 that they had penetrated the mystery of their 
 Master's nature : " Thou art the Christ, the Son 
 of the living God." * But they had not yet gotten 
 a key to the spiritual character of His kingdom, 
 though they were now about to obtain it. And 
 surely the necessity of the Holy Spirit in con- 
 ducting them to this attainment must be obvious 
 to all who are acquainted with the gospel history. 
 The disciples were to be " witnesses of Christ " 
 in all the world, i.e. to bear a public testimony 
 amongst both Jews and Gentiles concerning His 
 doctrines, His miracles, and His doings. At that 
 time, when their future destination was announced 
 to them, they were totally incapable of discharg- 
 ing such an office. They had, indeed, attended 
 
 1 Matt. xvi. 16. 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 163 
 
 their Master during the whole of His public life, 
 and witnessed all that He had said and done. 
 But many of the events which had marked the 
 ministry of Christ, as well as many of His most 
 important discoveries of Himself, were imperfectly 
 or not at all understood by them, and appear to 
 have been effaced from their minds as rapidly as 
 the waves of the sea obliterate the footprints of 
 the sand ; so that, however earnest and desirous 
 the apostles might be of doing honour to their 
 Master, by bearing testimony to all the things 
 He had spoken and done, they would, in their 
 state of ignorance and unfitness, have been able 
 to say little of Him after His departure, beyond 
 the fact of their having seen and heard Him. 
 They required, then, in the first instance, to be 
 enlightened and guided into a knowledge of what 
 was right and necessary to teach ; and this was 
 the first part of the promise : " He (the Spirit of 
 truth) shall teach you all things." " He shall 
 guide you into all truth." Not, of course, all 
 truth in a literal sense, comprehending moral 
 truth, historical truth, scientific truth, and politi- 
 cal truth, for none of these constitute the truth 
 referred to. However useful and interesting these 
 may be in the several departments to which they 
 
164 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 belong, they dwindle into utter insignificance in 
 comparison with that which, in regard to its divine 
 origin and its paramount importance, is emphatically 
 denominated " the truth." It was this truth, the 
 truth as it is in Jesus, into which the Spirit was 
 ■ to guide the disciples. " He shall bring all things 
 to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto 
 you." The facts of which they were to be wit- 
 nesses as relating to Christ, they already in part 
 knew, for most of these had been matters of sense 
 and personal experience. But very faint and 
 obscure must have been the impression of what 
 had occurred at a distant period ; and of much 
 which they had seen or heard during the early 
 parts of His ministry, few or no traces would 
 remain. The fact is, that the first disciples were 
 plain, uneducated men, unaccustomed to conti- 
 nued efforts of intellectual attention, and much 
 occupied with secular work, like the average de- 
 scription of hearers in our churches, who remem- 
 ber very little of the texts and sermons they have 
 heard from ministers ; and so we may reasonably 
 conclude, that, from misunderstanding or misap- 
 plying the drift of their Master's daily teaching, 
 through the influence of their Jewish prejudices, 
 they would retain but a very vague and indis- 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 165 
 
 tinct impression of all that they had heard since 
 they joined His company. Circumstances, indeed, 
 might tend to perpetuate the remembrance of 
 some things. In a certain state of mental excite- 
 ment, the memory is wonderfully active ; so that 
 facts and conversations are revived which had 
 dropped out of mind ; and every one is conscious 
 from experience, that at unexpected moments, and 
 in an unaccountable manner, things that had long 
 fallen into oblivion are revived, — nay, a whole 
 train of ideas, objects, and associations are often 
 called suddenly up to mind, as it were by a con- 
 juror's wand. As the minds of the disciples, then, 
 would be intensely excited by the transactions 
 relating to the death and resurrection of Christ, 
 their vivid impression of these momentous events 
 would touch other links of association, and recall 
 former incidents of His ministry, which lay dor- 
 mant in their minds. The general course of His 
 history, with many of the outstanding circum- 
 stances of their connection with Him, would start 
 up in vivid remembrance ; and had they made a 
 written record of these things as they rose in 
 succession to their minds, they might, from a mere 
 natural exercise of memory, have been able to 
 give an honest account of the most prominent 
 
166 THE INSPIEATION OF 
 
 scenes in their Master's history. But such sudden 
 mental excitement was not sufficient for the cer- 
 tain and full recollection of all that He had said 
 and done in detail, especially for authentic reports 
 of controversial discussions between Christ and 
 opponents, as well as of long-connected discourses, 
 and their spiritual import. For enabling the 
 apostles to accomplish this, the Lord promised 
 them the Spirit of truth, not only to aid them by 
 a seasonable and distinct revival of old and for- 
 gotten truths, and of all things essential to the 
 full publication of the gospel, but still further to 
 make known to them things the announcement of 
 which they could not bear as yet. Moreover, the 
 Holy Spirit, with whose divine influences they 
 were thus to be favoured, was to " abide with them 
 for ever." This would constitute a marked dis- 
 tinction between them and the ancient prophets, 
 on whom the Spirit fell only occasionally. Such 
 permanent assistance was absolutely indispensable 
 for the duties of their mission. For circum- 
 stances might call them to give a particular ex- 
 position of one portion of Christian truth here, 
 and of another portion there ; but as it was to 
 be their duty to teach all things relating to the 
 doctrine of Christ in all quarters of the world, — 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 167 
 
 as it was of vital importance that they should 
 not fall into the smallest error, either through 
 misapprehending or misstating the gospel, it was 
 necessary that they should be rendered equal 
 to every occasion by the constant inspiration of 
 the Spirit of truth. In this memorable promise, 
 then, made by the Divine Founder of the church, 
 was comprehended all that was necessary to con- 
 stitute complete inspiration (John xvii. 6-8, xx. 
 22,2 3), — a full and perfect knowledge of the sub- 
 jects which the Saviour had plainly and repeatedly 
 communicated to His disciples during His personal 
 ministry, as well as of many important things in 
 which He had not as yet so thoroughly indoctri- 
 nated them (Luke xxiv. 49 ; Acts i. 8). This 
 promise began to be fulfilled to them on the day 
 of Pentecost; and from that time they gave un- 
 mistakeable evidence both of extraordinary gifts of 
 religious knowledge, and of mental energy far 
 above the common level of humanity. The pro- 
 cess of preparation had long been slowly and 
 progressively carried on under the immediate 
 superintendence of Christ. But now the Spirit 
 began His work of spiritual enlightenment ; and 
 just as the inflammable fluid, that is conducted 
 in pipes under ground of a city, lies dark and 
 
168 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 hidden in those subterranean repositories, until 
 the hand of man applies the torch, — when the 
 dark shades of night are suddenly illuminated 
 with a brightness that rivals the splendour of the 
 day, — so the apostles, who up to the day of 
 Pentecost were in the darkness and perplexity of 
 ignorance 1 and national prejudice, were suddenly 
 introduced into the full light and joy of spiritual 
 knowledge. The truth that had lain unknown or 
 dormant in their breasts was brought home to 
 them with demonstration of the Spirit and with 
 power. From that moment their dreams of ambi- 
 tion in that temporal kingdom Christ was expected 
 to erect disappeared ; for they now understood it 
 in its spiritual nature and its spiritual blessings. 
 Links of association were touched, which brought 
 up the whole chain of the Saviour's life and 
 ministrations to their memory ; while incidents 
 and parables, admonitions and promises made by 
 Christ directly, as well as the whole character and 
 design of the Old Testament, seen in a new light, 
 were found to have a meaning and to carry a 
 force which could never have been discovered 
 without the aid of that Spirit who brought all 
 
 1 They did not understand their Master at the Last Supper 
 (John xix. 16-18). 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 169 
 
 things to their remembrance, and taught them the 
 nature and relative connection of gospel truths. 
 What an astonishing difference in the intellectual 
 perception and reigning desires of the apostles 
 took place during the short period that elapsed 
 between the resurrection of Christ and the day 
 of Pentecost ! It could not be the subjective 
 elevation of the minds of all the disciples at one 
 and the same time ; for that is not in accordance 
 with the ordinary course of nature. It was a 
 change objectively produced by the supernatural 
 influence of the Divine Spirit • and being simul- 
 taneous, it must be concluded to have been 
 produced in fulfilment of the Saviour's promise. 
 It might be, that after they had been furnished 
 with the key to the spiritual character of Christ's 
 kingdom, their knowledge of the constituent prin- 
 ciples of the gospel was gradual ; for, like other 
 men, the disciples differed in natural abilities 
 and in degrees of natural acuteness, and some of 
 them might " grow in grace and in the knowledge of 
 their Lord and Saviour " more rapidly than others. 
 The Sun of righteousness had shone into their 
 hearts ; but, like the light of the natural sun, it 
 might advance only by a gradual course into the 
 fulness of the perfect day. And the inspired re- 
 
170 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 cords of the primitive church clearly show, 1 that 
 even after the descent of the Holy Spirit, there 
 were some things about the new dispensation 
 which they were not yet able to bear. But 
 whether they were made perfect in knowledge at 
 once through the Spirit, or their progress, though 
 rapid, was progressive, it is of no consequence 
 to inquire : for of this great fact we are sure, 
 that they were all completely equipped for their 
 apostolic work before the first Gospel was pub- 
 lished, — reckoned to have been eight years subse- 
 quent to the ascension of Christ, — and that they 
 were miraculously preserved not only from error 
 and intellectual obscurity, but from any diversity 
 of views on the great doctrines of faith and duty 
 which they were specially appointed to teach. 
 
 Now the promise of Christ, thus fulfilled by the 
 endowment of the apostles with the gifts of the 
 Spirit, doubtless included the power of writing as 
 well as speaking with certain truth and infallible 
 authority. Such a medium of instruction was 
 evidently implied in their office as witnesses of 
 Christ. For surely their divine commission, to 
 "go into all the world, and teach the gospel to 
 every creature," was not limited to their lifetime; 
 
 1 Acts x. 9-47. 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 171 
 
 nor could it be meant that those truths should 
 be made known to mankind only by their oral 
 addresses. Nay, our Lord expressly said to them, 
 " Lo, I am with you alway, even to the end of the 
 world ; " and unless they had all of them been 
 endowed with an earthly immortality, His declara- 
 tion must have signified that He would accom- 
 pany their writings as well as their oral discourses 
 with His Spirit and blessing. It cannot be sup- 
 posed, that if, as teachers of religious knowledge, 
 they were supernaturally aided in addressing 
 groups of people on the great themes of the 
 gospel, they would not enjoy the same divine 
 assistance in their written instructions to the 
 churches ; or that all needful aid would be im- 
 parted to them in the use of their tongues, when 
 occasion demanded, to deliver themselves from 
 danger, but would be withheld from them in the 
 exercise of their pens, though the unguarded or 
 ignorant employment of these might imperil the 
 spiritual safety of others. No such distinction is 
 made or hinted at ; and the fact is, that if a dis- 
 tinction had been intended, it was more important 
 that the apostles should be qualified to write well 
 than to speak well. An error committed in their 
 oral preaching would be local only in its effects, or 
 
172 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 limited to a particular group of hearers ; whereas 
 an unsound statement, or an omission of some 
 important truth, if conveyed in a written commu- 
 nication, might disseminate the seeds of error far 
 and wide, and perpetuate its baneful influence in 
 every church, in every country, and in every age 
 till the end of time. As the commission of the 
 apostles bore that they were to be the organs of 
 religious instruction to the whole world, and they 
 equally with other men were mortal, shortlived 
 creatures, the necessity of their performing part of 
 their allotted work through the medium of written 
 compositions was imperative ; and they must have 
 entered upon this department of their duties with 
 feelings of painful doubt and anxiety, if they had 
 reason to anticipate that the preternatural aid 
 they enjoyed in the delivery of their public 
 discourses, would be withheld the moment they 
 began to cast their instructions into a written 
 form. But the promise of Christ already adverted 
 to, that " the Spirit of truth would teach them all 
 things, would bring all things to their remem- 
 brance, and abide with them for ever," implied no 
 such limitation : it was given in the most general 
 and comprehensive terms; and it offered a full 
 security to the Christian church in all future time, 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 173 
 
 that the apostles, whom the Lord delegated at His 
 departure to " go into all the world, and disciple 
 all nations," were furnished with intellectual, moral, 
 and spiritual powers to communicate religious in- 
 struction to the world, whether by the tongue or 
 the pen. 
 
 The New Testament was written entirely by 
 men furnished with those extraordinary endow- 
 ments of the Spirit, and consequently they were 
 inspired writers. The Gospels occupy the first 
 portion; and as it was needful to possess a faithful 
 record of the sayings and doings of Christ, the 
 church has received in these evangelical biogra- 
 phies memorials of His highly interesting and 
 instructive life, which are worthy of her fullest 
 confidence. A Plato or a Xenophon might be at 
 liberty, in writing memorabilia of Socrates, to feign 
 many things of their master, which a profound 
 devotion to his memory, or a romantic admiration 
 of his philosophy, might suggest as imparting a 
 higher or more attractive interest to their subject ; 
 but the evangelists could not indulge in such 
 fictitious embellishments, as they were under the 
 influence of a controlling Guide, who did not 
 permit them to err in the way either of improper 
 omission on the one hand, or of fictitious additions 
 
174 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 on the other. And if there is any feature in the 
 Gospel narratives more admirable than another, 
 it is the union of unimpeachable fidelity, of trans- 
 parent truthfulness, and of the most artless sim- 
 plicity, in relating scenes and deeds of more than 
 mortal grandeur, which ordinary historians would 
 have employed the most elaborate terms in de- 
 scribing. No express command, indeed, was given 
 to preserve memorials of the Saviour, nor was any 
 injunction needed. Gratitude and devotion to the 
 memory of a revered Instructor would naturally 
 prompt many of His followers to draw up remi- 
 niscences of Christ ; and it is well known, that in 
 the first century multitudes of what have been 
 called spurious Gospels sprang into existence, and 
 courted the honour of being received into the 
 number of the church's sacred books. Some of 
 these might be amongst the biographies to which 
 Luke especially alludes in the beginning of his his- 
 tory, and which, though truthful in the main, were 
 written by ordinary teachers or obscure men in 
 the church. But the most vigilant caution was 
 exercised in admitting no books into the canon, 
 except such as were the works of an apostle or 
 inspired man ; and it was through such a process 
 of jealous, careful examination, the Gospels of 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 175 
 
 Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were admitted by- 
 universal consent into the canon. Their contents 
 had formed the burden of the apostolic testimony, 
 the cycle of oral teaching by the " witnesses for 
 Christ" in the assemblies of the first converts ; and 
 carrying with them the special power of the Holy 
 Spirit, which rested on the apostles while speaking 
 them, their embodiment in a permanent form 
 was hailed as a precious privilege by the early 
 church, and has always been recognised as part of 
 that Scripture which is given by inspiration of 
 God. One Gospel, written under the superintend- 
 ence of that Spirit who brought all things to the 
 historian's remembrance, might singly have been 
 profitable for instruction and correction in right- 
 eousness. But divine wisdom has given to the 
 church the benefit of four Gospels ; and as it was 
 a principle of the ancient law, that out of the 
 mouth of two or three witnesses every word should 
 be established, it is a boon for which we have the 
 greatest reason to be thankful, that there are so 
 many separate and independent memoirs of a life, 
 the knowledge of which is so unspeakably pre- 
 cious, and the truth of which, to be received, must 
 rest upon the immoveable foundation of apostolic 
 authority. Mark and Luke, indeed, were not in 
 
176 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 the number of the original disciples to whom the 
 promise of the Spirit was made. But neither the 
 name of apostles, nor the supernatural influence of 
 the Spirit, was exclusively confined to the twelve; 1 
 for many of the disciples in the first age were 
 favoured with the extraordinary gift. Amongst 
 the number, there are the strongest reasons for 
 believing that Mark and Luke possessed the super- 
 natural endowments of the Spirit ; and that, 
 being advantageously situated for access to the best 
 information, as the personal friends and constant 
 associates of apostles, — Mark of Peter, and Luke of 
 Paul, — they wrote the evangelical narratives which 
 bear their respective names under the immediate 
 inspection and with the sanction of those apostles. 
 Mark's is the briefest of the Gospels, written, as 
 the early records of the church affirm, under the 
 eye of the Apostle Peter, and with a special view to 
 circulation in Italy and amongst the Eomans gene- 
 rally. It contains numerous proofs of original and 
 independent knowledge possessed by the writer. 
 The very opening words proclaim the good confes- 
 sion of Peter upon which Christ builds His church, 
 viz. His eternal Sonship. Various incidents are 
 related and divine utterances recorded in this 
 
 1 Acts xiv. 4, 14 ; Rom. xvi. 7 ; 2 Cor. viii. 23 ; 1 Thess. ii. 6. 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 177 
 
 Gospel which are not found in the others ; 1 and 
 as the author uses the present tense more fre- 
 quently than the other evangelists, appearing to 
 realize the transactions as actually before his eyes, 
 reciting often the words of Christ in the original 
 Aramaean dialect as if the very sound of that divine 
 voice were still ringing in his ears, and noticing the 
 very expression of the Saviour's aspect, as if the 
 features of that blessed countenance were indelibly 
 engraven on his memory, he impresses the reader 
 with a belief that he has recorded the very words 
 that he heard from the inspired lips of Peter, and 
 thus confirms the saying that was common in 
 the first centuries, that this Gospel, though called 
 Mark's, as he was the historiographer, was really 
 Peter's. With reference to Luke, though his name 
 is not expressly mentioned, he has been univer- 
 sally believed to be the author of the third Gos- 
 pel. There is a strong confirmation of this belief 
 furnished by the words of Paul, "We have sent 
 with him (Titus) the brother whose praise is IN the 
 Gospel through all the churches." 2 From a care- 
 ful inquiry who was the associate of Paul here 
 intended, there is a probability, amounting almost 
 to a certainty, that it was Luke ; and then the 
 
 1 Oh. xiv. 37, xv. 43, xvi. 7. 2 2 Cor. viii. 18. 
 
 M 
 
178 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 emphatic words, in the Gospel, refer beyond doubt 
 to his written narrative of our Lord's life. Luke 
 is further mentioned by Paul as " the beloved 
 physician ; " * as one of his fellow-labourers ; 2 and 
 shortly before his martyrdom, as his sole companion 
 (" only Luke is with me " 3 ) ; and, as some think, is 
 also pointed to by " the true yoke-fellow." 4 Now, 
 feeling as he did an intense interest in everything 
 relating to Christ, Luke was desirous to impart a 
 reliable account of Him to the church. Instead of 
 being satisfied, like many who had written ephe- 
 meral memoirs of Jesus, from information taken 
 up at second-hand, from incidental conversations 
 or floating traditions, he had made it his business, 
 his principal and long-continued study, to collect 
 materials for an evangelical history ; and if a his- 
 torian who, with a competent share of natural and 
 moral qualifications, has enjoyed access to every 
 available source of information, does possess a 
 strong claim to the confidence of the public, Luke 
 is well entitled to the highest credibility as a 
 biographer of Jesus, inasmuch as he recorded what 
 had been delivered to him by " eye-witnesses and 
 ministers of the word." But his claims to our 
 confidence rest on stronger grounds than even his 
 1 Col. iv. 4. 2 Philem. 24. 3 2 Tim. iv. 11. 4 Phil. iv. 3. 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 179 
 
 constant and familiar intimacy with those who had 
 been from the beginning " eye-witnesses and mini- 
 sters of the word." He had received his intelli- 
 gence not only by tradition, in common with the 
 " many " who had previously undertaken to write, 
 but from the inspired lips of Paul confirming that 
 tradition, and securing him from any error or 
 mistake in the record of it. It appears from Acts 
 xvi. 1 that he joined the company of that apostle 
 at Troas, on the eve of his sailing for Europe, and 
 from that time he was seldom if ever separated 
 from his society. Now, from their frequent and 
 daily conversations about the subject which was of 
 paramount interest to both of them, Luke could 
 not fail to imbibe the sentiments and profit by 
 the heaven-derived knowledge of the apostle ; and 
 that the Pauline influence is clearly traceable in 
 the composition of his Gospel, may be shown by 
 appealing to two passages only, where the coinci- 
 dence is so striking between them and parallel 
 statements in the Epistle to the Corinthians, that 
 no doubt can exist as to the source whence the 
 evangelist drew his information. 1 Luke, then, could 
 say with the greatest propriety and force of mean- 
 
 1 Cf. Luke xxii. 19, 20, with 1 Cor. xi. 23, 26 ; also Luke xxiv. 
 31 with 1 Cor. xv. 4, 5. 
 
180 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 ing that lie "had a perfect understanding of all 
 things ; " and hence, possessing such full and un- 
 erring information on all things relating to the life 
 and ministry of the Saviour, it seemed good to him, 
 it was right and proper, it was a high and impera- 
 tive duty in him, to communicate this knowledge to 
 the church ; for a talent so important and useful 
 was not given to be hid or buried in the ground. 
 From these considerations, then, it is clearly de- 
 ducible that Mark and Luke were evangelists, 
 probably in the number of the seventy disciples ; 
 that, at all events after the ascension of Christ, 
 they both moved habitually in apostolic circles ; 
 and that, as the information they embodied in their 
 respective narratives was, according to the general 
 testimony of the early Christian church, submitted 
 to the revision and published with the sanction of 
 Peter and Paul, their Gospels are to be regarded as 
 stamped with inspired authority as much as those 
 of Matthew and John. 
 
 The advantage of having so many collateral 
 Gospels is obvious ; for, as they are not complete 
 but fragmentary records, containing such portions 
 of history only as fell within the notice of the 
 writers, or was obtained from documents in posses- 
 sion of the early church, — suppose one evangelist 
 
THE HOLY SCKIPTURES. 181 
 
 to have omitted a particular incident, or passed it 
 over with a slight notice, another would not. In 
 fact, the very source of the dramatic interest in the 
 New Testament scenes must be looked for in the 
 total want of collusion amongst the evangelists. 
 There is no evidence which can lead to the con- 
 clusion that Mark and Luke had consulted the pre- 
 ceding Gospel of Matthew. Each, drawing from the 
 stores of his personal knowledge, writes in his own 
 characteristic style, and laying hold of outstanding 
 memories that were entwined round the roots of 
 his inner nature, required as little to consult a 
 fellow-witness, as a man needs, in rehearsing the 
 leading circumstances in the life and death scenes 
 of a parent or a child, to seek collateral vouchers 
 for his facts. Hence it was, that, left to them- 
 selves, and unmodified by each other, the evangel- 
 ists attained so much variety in the midst of 
 inevitable sameness. One writer was impressed by 
 one circumstance, another by a different event ; and 
 thus the preservation of the individual character of 
 the four, while traversing the beaten track of the 
 evangelical history, contributed, through the pre- 
 siding influence of the Holy Spirit, to ensure the 
 accuracy and completeness of the Gospel record. 
 There was another cause which led to the variety 
 
182 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 which is discernible in the character and structure 
 of the Gospels, viz. the circumstance of each of the 
 evangelists writing for the instruction of different 
 classes of people, and consequently being influenced 
 in the selection of materials introduced into his 
 history with reference to that leading design. Thus 
 Matthew, who composed his Gospel for the benefit 
 of the Jewish converts in Palestine, designed to 
 exhibit Christ as the long-expected Messiah ; and 
 accordingly the tenor of his inspired narrative is 
 principally, though not exclusively, directed towards 
 the establishment of that important truth. It is 
 with this view the genealogy of Jesus is traced from 
 Abraham and David, and his close connection with 
 a Jewish family is shown at length. It is with 
 the same view that traits in the character as well 
 as incidents in the history of Christ are frequently 
 pointed out as direct fulfilments of prophecy; and 
 amongst the closing scenes of His life, his entrance 
 into Jerusalem in the character of the King of 
 Zion, seated upon an ass, and His rejection by the 
 rulers and people in that caj>acity, together with 
 many detached references to the Messianic king- 
 dom, are brought into prominence as all contribut- 
 ing to establish the claim of Jesus to the character 
 and honours of " Him that was to come." The 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 183 
 
 second Gospel was written by Mark for the Eoman 
 converts ; and the leading design of it being to 
 exhibit Christ the Son of God in the form of a 
 servant, a prophet on earth, the choice of incidents 
 and discourses that form the staple of the narra- 
 tive was made with a view to sustain that special 
 representation of His character. Luke compiled 
 his Gospel for the benefit of the churches in Greece 
 and Asia Minor, which he had visited in company 
 with Paul ; and in subserviency to his grand design 
 to exhibit the magnitude and extent of divine 
 grace in the scheme of salvation consummated by 
 Christ, who appeared an incarnate Saviour, he 
 delineates the true humanity of the Saviour, by 
 ■giving not only an account of His birth, infancy, 
 and quiet residence with His parents at Nazareth, 
 but tracing His descent as "the seed of the woman" 
 from Adam the first man, and by recording many 
 instances of His having engaged in prayer, parti- 
 cularly on the eve of great crises in His life, His 
 baptism, His choice of the twelve apostles, His 
 transfiguration and suffering. A special feature of 
 this Gospel is the method which Luke proposed 
 to observe in the composition of his history : " It 
 seemed good to me to write to thee in order." 1 
 
 1 Luke i. 3. 
 
184 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 Certainly not in exact and consecutive order of 
 time ; for there are several parts of this Gospel in 
 which the evangelist breaks in upon the chrono- 
 logical succession, and groups together a number 
 of minor details, merely from their occurrence in a 
 certain place or district that had been mentioned. 
 The " order " in which he intended to write, was 
 not a succession of time, but of events which he 
 connects chiefly according to their moral bearing, 
 of which his narrative of the temptation may be 
 adduced as an early example, obliging him to omit 
 the stern repulse, " Get thee behind me, Satan." 
 In short, Luke's object was to arrange events in 
 such an order as would mark great and progressive 
 stages in the life and ministry of Christ. Accord- 
 ingly, it is commonly remarked that he has divided 
 his history into five large and distinct sections, 
 which are easily traceable : the first embracing a 
 narrative of the birth of Christ, ushered in by a 
 record of the circumstances which preceded, at- 
 tended, and immediately followed that auspicious 
 event ; the second relates the incidents which 
 marked the period of His infancy and youth ; the 
 third is dedicated to a brief account of the preach- 
 ing of John, preparatory to an account of the 
 baptism and genealogy of Jesus; the fourth con- 
 
THE HOLY SCBIPTURES. 185 
 
 tains a full and varied narrative of the public mini- 
 stry of Christ ; and the fifth comprises the details 
 of His last journey to Jerusalem, and all the excit- 
 ing incidents connected with His trial, crucifixion, 
 resurrection, and ascension. From this vidimus, it 
 is evident that an orderly method characterizes the 
 Gospel of Luke, which is entirely wanting in the 
 more simple and artless narratives of the two pre- 
 ceding evangelists ; and it was the more necessary 
 for the author to observe a well-digested plan, as 
 he wrote his Gospel for the use of the enlightened 
 and cultivated people of Greece and Asia Minor, 
 who were accustomed to the artistic style and 
 method of the classic historians. The difference of 
 the fourth Gospel from all its predecessors is this : 
 that while the other evangelists, each with different 
 views, wrote a history of the Saviour's life, John 
 set himself to compile a history of His person and 
 office, with an unexpressed but unmistakeable refer- 
 ence to some dangerous errors that were prevalent 
 in the church. Accordingly, the knowledge of this 
 design will account for various striking peculiarities 
 which distinguish his Gospel, as well as for the 
 omission of not a few events of greatest interest 
 and importance in the personal history of the man 
 Christ Jesus. Thus, for instance, he commences 
 
186 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 his Gospel with a sublime view of the Saviour in 
 His pre-existent state before the creation, or the 
 commencement of any providential dispensations in 
 the world ; then he represents the Word as stooping 
 from the majesty of His uncreated nature to taber- 
 nacle with man on the earth ; and omitting all 
 mention of His birth, parentage, or youth, introduces 
 Him on the stage of time as actually engaged in 
 His prophetic office. He discards genealogies, as 
 not belonging to that official character; throws the 
 Jews out of view, as rejected at the late date of his 
 narrative ; takes no notice either of the agony in 
 Gethsemane, or the cry of desertion on the cross, — 
 all these, as belonrrin" to the nature and weakness 
 of humanity, are passed over in this Gospel ; while, 
 on the other hand, he gives prominence to other 
 things omitted by the preceding evangelists — things 
 which tend to illustrate the Saviour's glory, and de- 
 velope the latent grandeur of His official character. 
 Not to dwell on the marvellous episode of the 
 restoration of Lazarus, the most stupendous of all 
 the miracles of Christ, John has recorded other 
 incidents demonstrating the superhuman power and 
 unparallelled graces of the Saviour in greater number 
 and to a higher degree in the close, perhaps, than at 
 an earlier period of his life ; and in the exclamation 
 
THE HOLY SCEIPTUEES. 187 
 
 of Christ when the traitor left the paschal table, 
 "Now is the Son of man glorified, and God is 
 glorified in Him," — in the calm majesty of de- 
 meanour, which awed and overwhelmed His captors 
 in the garden, — in His miraculous restoration of 
 Malchus' ear,— in the piercing glance by which He 
 upbraided Peter for his apostasy, — in His unmur- 
 muring submission to all the indignities connected 
 with His mock trial and condemnation, — in His filial 
 attention to His mother, even when He hung upon 
 the cross, — in the virtues which then irradiated the 
 setting of the Sun of Eighteousness, — and in the 
 circumstantial details given of His resurrection 
 life, culminating in the ascension, — he who had 
 evidently the most spiritual apprehension of his 
 Master's character, has brought out the moral glory 
 of Christ more fully than the earlier historians. 
 Not that any component attribute of the Saviour's 
 character was overlooked or entirely omitted by 
 any of them. But one view of the divine subject 
 was made more prominent by one evangelist, 
 another by another; and every parable, every 
 miracle, and every incident recorded by them all, 
 gave a more attractive aspect to the infinite glory. 
 Thus the variations and omissions found in the 
 Gospels, and on which rationalistic criticism has 
 
 S 
 
188 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 so much insisted as objections fatal to the inspira- 
 tion of the evangelical narratives, serve, when 
 viewed in the light of the design contemplated in 
 their composition, to furnish proofs that the authors 
 were guided by the Spirit of truth ; and the many 
 different aspects in which they were led to exhibit 
 the character and glory of Christ, contribute to 
 establish the beauty, excellence, and perfection of 
 the divine word. 
 
 The contents of these books, viewed collectively, 
 furnish strong internal evidence of the inspiration 
 of the writers. It is true that most of the events 
 relating to Christ, which the evangelists have 
 recorded, had fallen under their own observation. 
 " That which was from the beginning, which they 
 had heard, which they had seen with their eyes, 
 which they had looked upon, and their hands 
 had handled of the Word of life, that declared 
 they " in their Gospels. But in relating the vast 
 variety of scenes and occurrences which the event- 
 ful ministry of Jesus embraced, — His journeys by 
 land and His voyages by sea, His interviews with 
 the different sects and parties of His country, His 
 dignified reproofs and crushing replies to the 
 scribes and Pharisees, His implacable enemies, and 
 the series of instructive conversations held with His 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 189 
 
 disciples, — the most retentive memory would have 
 been wanting in some and have erred in other 
 things, had it not been for the promised aid of the 
 Spirit. With reference only to His reported dis- 
 courses, let any one try to recall a public discourse 
 on miscellaneous topics heard some years before 
 from the lips of a person of note, and commit to 
 writing his recollection of the sentiments and 
 language employed by the speaker,- — he will find 
 that, after the utmost efforts, he will not be able 
 to reproduce more than a few short and detached 
 fragments of the address, which had strongly 
 riveted his attention and interest at the time of 
 delivery. It is true that, in a state of society 
 where there are no means of diffusing and trans- 
 mitting knowledge beyond oral instruction, no 
 books, no periodicals, no written documents, the 
 human mind has always exhibited a strong capacity 
 to apprehend and preserve the precise words of 
 admired or respected teachers. The memory is 
 wonderfully tenacious ; and not only striking say- 
 ings and doings are handed down by popular tra- 
 dition from generation to generation, but treasures 
 of legendary tales and national poetry are thus 
 fondly kept and repeated with little variation from 
 father to son. In this way, it is probable that the 
 
190 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 Iliad of Homer was at first preserved by the re- 
 hearsal of the strolling bards of ancient Greece, as 
 we know that Italian story-tellers are to this day 
 in the practice of reciting long passages of their 
 country's songs. The minstrelsy of the Scottish 
 border was taken down in writing by Sir Walter 
 Scott from the lips of the Liddesdale peasantry ; 
 and the rhapsodical lays of Ossian were known to 
 have been floating in the memories of the Scottish 
 Highlanders long before Macpherson introduced 
 them in a collected form to the knowledge of the 
 literary world. Kenan says, that " the Vedas, the 
 ancient poetry of Arabia, have been preserved by 
 memory for ages, and yet those compositions 
 present a precise and delicate exactitude of form." 
 The same writer asserts that the Talmud, which 
 was floated down the stream of time for centuries 
 in the popular traditions, is still possessed of a 
 reliably historical character ; and he is consequently 
 led to concede the same quality of historical 
 verity to the evangelical biographies. But it can 
 require no great amount of thought and considera- 
 tion, to see that there is a vast difference between 
 the mental efforts of preserving in memory col- 
 lections of light and attractive ballads, with the 
 adventitious aid of versification and rhyme, and 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 191 
 
 of remembering incidents, conversations, and dis- 
 courses connected with different times and places, 
 especially when the meaning or object of these 
 was imperfectly or not at all understood. Amongst 
 the contemporaries of our Lord, who had heard His 
 addresses or seen His miracles, multitudes would 
 retain a vivid impression of them, and describe 
 both to eager listeners wherever they went. But 
 as memory might fail or become less exact in course 
 of time, imagination would be enlisted to supply 
 the missing links : and hence it was natural for 
 the followers of Christ, in their desire to possess 
 permanent and reliable memorials of Him whom 
 they revered as their Saviour and their Lord, to 
 look for such narratives to those who " from the 
 beginning had been eye-witnesses and ministers 
 of the Word." Now, when it is considered that 
 long didactic discourses, spoken variously by Christ 
 on the shores of the lake, on the slope of the 
 mountain, and in the cities of Palestine, are reported 
 at length in close verbal connection, such as the 
 sermon on the mount, 1 addressed at an early period 
 of His ministry to a promiscuous crowd, unfolding 
 principles and breathing a strain of sentiment no 
 less elevated than original ; His address to the 
 
 1 Matt, v.-vii. 
 
192 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 disciples in prospect of their first mission ; x His 
 numerous discussions about the Sabbath ; His 
 earnest and impressive dissuasive against giving 
 offence to any of the faithful, 2 evidently preserved 
 verbatim and with its rhythmical cadences ; His 
 representation of spiritual blessings under the 
 highly metaphorical form of the bread and water of 
 life, and of His own flesh and blood, imperfectly 
 understood at the time by the hearers ; the exhorta- 
 tion at the communion-table, and the impressive 
 prayer before leaving, which was not embodied by 
 John in his Gospel till half a century afterwards, 
 yet is so full, so coherent, so worthy of the 
 speaker, and so suited to the solemnity of the oc- 
 casion, — it is impossible to resist the alternative 
 conclusion, either that the evangelists composed 
 speeches, and, like the classical historians, put them 
 into the mouth of their Master,— an hypothesis 
 which no genuine Christian can for a moment en- 
 tertain, — or that their memories were supernatu- 
 rally quickened and invigorated by the Spirit of 
 truth, who brought all things to their remembrance. 
 There is the record of various prophecies uttered 
 by the Saviour, which it was necessary to record 
 in their minute and circumstantial details, — that, 
 1 Matt. x. 2 Mark x. 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTUEES. * 193 
 
 for instance, concerning His own death and resurrec- 
 tion, the temporary desertion of all His disciples, 
 the fall and eventual martyrdom of Peter, — the 
 destruction of Jerusalem, so minute and circum- 
 stantial in details, — the dispersion of the Jews, 
 and the propagation of His gospel throughout the 
 Eoman empire previous to the termination of the 
 Jewish polity, — all of them spoken at a time and 
 in circumstances when there was no apparent 
 ground to anticipate those predicted events ; and 
 the faithful record of each prophecy, with an exact 
 account of the occasion when it was delivered, 
 compared with the accomplishment, must be re- 
 garded as a clear proof of the inspired character 
 of the recorders. There is also the relation of 
 numerous parables, — spoken in the country, in the 
 city, and at the sea-side ; — some of them bearing 
 on rural or pastoral life, some relating to the social 
 manners of opulent citizens, some taken from the 
 sea; and others, particularly those uttered towards 
 the close of His ministry, descriptive of the treat- 
 ment He Himself received from the rulers of His 
 country, and prophetic of their doom ; and when it 
 is considered that, as the moral of a parable always 
 depended on the minutest points in the framework 
 being exactly fitted in, — and every one of the 
 
194 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 parables recorded in the Gospel histories is admir- 
 able for its beauty, aptness, and symmetry of parts, 
 — the reader must be persuaded that the evangelists 
 have recorded these illustrative stories faithfully 
 as our Lord told them, and not written " cunningly 
 devised fables " of their own invention. Nor is 
 this all. Our Lord did as well as said many 
 remarkable things during His personal ministry ; 
 and it cannot be supposed, to use the words of 
 Alford, "that the light poured by the Holy Spirit 
 upon the sayings of the Lord would be confined to 
 them, and not extend itself over the other parts of 
 the narrative of His life on earth. Can we believe 
 that those miracles, which, though not uttered in 
 words, were yet acted parables, would not be, under 
 the same gracious assistance, brought back to the 
 minds of the apostles, so that they should be placed 
 on record for the teaching of the church ? " The 
 remark is important, and founded on a just view 
 of the life and ministry of Christ, of which miracles 
 formed an essential part. These miraculous dis- 
 plays of almighty power were not isolated facts, 
 nor accidental occurrences, that were embraced 
 by Him, when some happy opportunity presented 
 itself of performing them. Though apparently 
 fortuitous and rising out of particular circumstances, 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 195 
 
 they were all foreseen by His omniscient mind 
 and met by His unerring wisdom, as transactions 
 which not only afforded a general proof of His 
 divine character, but were fitted in every particular 
 case to illustrate the grand blessings of His gospel. 
 In other words, they not only furnished a collec- 
 tive body of evidence sufficient to convince candid 
 and reflecting observers like Nicodemus, that He 
 who performed them was a teacher come from 
 God, but to serve as emblems of the spiritual 
 benefits His religion would confer upon mankind. 
 They were precisely the kind of miracles which 
 it had been predicted the Messiah, when He came, 
 would perform. 1 Hence it was essentially neces- 
 sary for the honour of our Lord, both as " the 
 Prophet who was to come " and as the Saviour of 
 the world, that a full and accurate report of those 
 wonderful works should be preserved for the 
 benefit of the church. They were performed in an 
 almost infinite variety of ways ; — by a touch, a 
 word, or the secret emanation of healing virtue from 
 His person ; on patients sometimes near, at other 
 times at a distance from, the spot where the Saviour 
 was ; on the bodies of the sick, the paralytic, and 
 the dead, no less than on disordered minds, afflicted 
 1 Cf. Matt. xi. 4, 5, with Isa. xxxv. 5, 6. 
 
196 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 with malignant and mysterious forms of disease, 
 which no known type of lunacy can parallel. 
 Moreover, some of them, which were designed to 
 carry an important significance, were repeated j 1 
 and at each repetition, several circumstances were 
 varied in a manner that unmistakeably indicates 
 a moral design — the inculcation of an interestinc; 
 and instructive lesson to the believer. 2 Minute 
 accuracy, therefore, in recording this diversity of 
 circumstances was essential, otherwise the full 
 object of the miracle could not have been under- 
 stood ; and as the disciples, when they saw those 
 miracles performed, were not aware of their em- 
 blematical character, — did not perceive that the 
 divine power so mercifully exerted in relieving 
 man from physical evils was symbolical of the 
 Saviour's ability to free him from the far more 
 deeply seated spiritual evils that have afflicted 
 humanity ever since the fall,— it is clear that the 
 evangelists couid not have been even correct his- 
 torians of these wondrous works, had they not been 
 superintended by " the Spirit of truth, who not only 
 brought all things to their remembrance, but taught 
 them all things, and guided them into all truth." 
 
 1 Matt. xiv. 13 ; Mark vi. 39 ; Luke ix. 16. 
 
 2 John vi. 5-14 ; Luke v. 4-6 ; John xxi. 11. 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 197 
 
 In the relation of those discourses, parables, and 
 miracles, there is a beautiful harmony pervading 
 the three first Gospels,— a harmony all the more 
 wonderful, when it is considered that the evan- 
 gelists seem to have written independently of each 
 other. And as this harmony extends in many 
 passages to the employment of the same phrase- 
 ology, there is no way of accounting for this 
 similarity of expression, under the presiding in- 
 fluence of the Holy Spirit, so probable as by 
 adopting the theory advocated by Hug and Roberts, 
 that in all the principal scenes of His ministry our 
 Lord spoke in Greek, which was almost universally 
 spoken and understood both in and out of Pales- 
 tine. 1 Still, with all this harmony, there are some 
 minor discrepancies, arising partly from the want 
 of completeness and chronological arrangement in 
 the evangelical narratives, and partly from the 
 circumstance of our Lord having apparently re- 
 peated some of His most important sayings at 
 different times, and in connection with different 
 events. These discrepancies have been paraded 
 by hostile critics as fatal to the inspired character 
 of the evangelists, and therefore it may be expe- 
 dient to advert to a few of them, in order to show 
 1 See Note D. 
 
198 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 how they admit of a satisfactory reconciliation. 
 For instance, in Matt, xxiii., mention is made of 
 Zacharias. Who this Zacharias was, is a point on 
 which interpreters are not agreed. Zacharias, or 
 Zechariah, the prophet who wrote the book bearing 
 his name, states himself to be the son of Barachiah ; 
 but of the manner of his death we have not any 
 account in the Old Testament history. But there 
 was another Zacharias, who is said in 2 Chron. 
 xxiv. to have been slain in the manner described 
 by the command of Joash. This Zacharias, how- 
 ever, is spoken of as the son of Jehoiada. Some 
 suppose that his father Jehoiada bore also the 
 name of Barachias ; and in point of fact there did 
 exist in the days of Jerome, in the fourth century, 
 a Hebrew copy of Matthew's Gospel, in which the 
 name Jehoiada stands instead of Barachias. On 
 the whole, it is probable that he is the person 
 intended. . Matthew (viii. 28-34), relating our 
 Lord's voyage to the country of the Gadarenes, 
 says, " There met Him two demoniacs ;" whereas 
 Mark and Luke make mention only of one. 
 Something peculiar in the circumstances or in 
 the maniacal fierceness of one of those persons 
 may have rendered him more prominent, and 
 led the two latter evangelists to specify him 
 
THE HOLY SCKIPTUKES. 199 
 
 more particularly. The three first evangelists 
 relate a miraculous cure of the blind, performed 
 by our Lord in His passage through Jericho 
 to Jerusalem. Matthew mentions two blind men 
 without naming them ; while Mark and Luke 
 mention only one, whose name Bartimeus they 
 give most probably on account of his being a 
 noted beggar. His usual station might be at 
 the entrance of the town, on the northern side ; 
 and hence Luke, describing our Lord's journey 
 from Galilee, says, " As He came nigh unto 
 Jericho." Then, hearing that Jesus of Nazareth 
 was passing by, and not being able to reach Him 
 through the dense crowd, he was hastily led to 
 the opposite gate of the town, where he was joined 
 by a companion in misery in making a common 
 application for mercy ; and hence Matthew and 
 Mark say, that " as Jesus went out of Jericho, 
 two blind men came to Him." * Then Jesus, as 
 Matthew relates, had compassion on them both, and 
 touching their eyes, healed them. Luke, by antici- 
 pation, as is common with all historians, " relates 
 the whole transaction, when he first introduces it, 
 rather than by cutting it into two parts, to preserve 
 a more painful accuracy, yet lose the effect which 
 
 1 Matt. xx. 29-34 ; Mark x. 46 to end ; Luke xviii. 36-43. 
 
200 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 the whole narrative related at a breath produces." 1 
 Matthew represents Pilate as proposing Barabbas, 
 while according to Luke the proposal emanated 
 from the people. Mark clears up the difficulty, 
 by stating that while the people hinted at the 
 usual custom, Pilate yielded to their wishes in this 
 particular case. The inscription on the cross is 
 given variously. But the main fact was, "The 
 King of the Jews," and that is recorded by all the 
 evangelists. In his account of the resurrection, 2 
 Mark describes one angel at the sepulchre sitting, 
 where Luke specifies two standing, and being sud- 
 denly present before the women. The discrepancy 
 in this case may be traced to the narratives re- 
 ferring to a different time in the account of the 
 heavenly apparition. Such is a specimen of the 
 discrepancies that occur in the evangelical narra- 
 tives ; and were we fully acquainted with all the 
 circumstances, we should most probably find that 
 other discrepancies are in like manner apparent 
 rather than real, affecting neither the great and 
 glorious portrait of our Lord, nor the inspired 
 character of His biographers. 
 
 There are incidents of a different kind, of a 
 supernatural character, the introduction of which 
 1 Bengel. 2 Mark xvi. 5 ; Luke xxiv. 4. 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTUEES. 201 
 
 into the Gospel narrative is considered by some in 
 the present day to invalidate the writers' claims 
 to inspiration. Amongst these are the star that 
 appeared in the east, and that stood over Beth- 
 lehem ; the song of the nativity, and the other 
 attendant circumstances of the Saviour's birth and 
 infancy ; together with the voice from heaven, 
 which on three occasions attested His dignity, and 
 the transfiguration scene. These, it is alleged, 
 cannot be considered admissible within the region 
 of sober history. No doubt it was a common 
 device in ancient times, and amongst idolatrous 
 people, to represent the birth of eminent persons 
 as marked by various prodigies, and distinguished 
 by the descent of deities, which were supposed to 
 prognosticate the future greatness of the child of 
 destiny. How different is the sacred narrative of 
 the birth of Christ ! The incidents which it details 
 are completely consistent with the most enlight- 
 ened ideas of the perfections of the Almighty, and 
 the relation of them is stamped with the most 
 evident characters of truth. They took place in 
 a manner too public for the introduction of an 
 imposture, and in an age too enlightened to admit 
 of the circulation of any fabricated tale of wonders. 
 Moreover, they are in perfect unison with the 
 
202 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 more than mortal dignity of Him whose advent 
 they attested and proclaimed. Nay, further, so 
 much are those early incidents that marked the 
 birth of Christ of a piece with the extraordinary 
 course of His life and ministry, that they recipro- 
 cally prove and establish each other. The miracu- 
 lous incidents, like the heralds of an earthly monarch, 
 serve to usher in with due honour the arrival of 
 Him who exhibited such unmistakeable signs of 
 incarnate Divinity ; while, on the other hand, the 
 unequalled purity and devotion of His character, 
 and the sublimely comprehensive benevolence of His 
 aims, were worthy of being celebrated by heavenly 
 choristers in a song so superlatively grand, and 
 well suited as a birthday ode to inaugurate a new 
 dispensation of Providence. There are who rank 
 this song of the nativity amongst the poetical 
 myths found in the early traditions of all people, 
 and thus not coming within the legitimate pro- 
 vince of history. But this song is infinitely 
 superior to the highest efforts of human genius ; 
 it was utterly beyond the conception of a Jewish 
 mind ; especially, it was a song to the invention 
 of which neither the shepherds, nor Joseph, nor 
 Mary, were equal ; and as it cannot be supposed a 
 forgery by a man of truth and piety as Luke was, 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 203 
 
 the narrative of which it forms a part must be 
 accepted as related by the evangelical historian. 
 The voice from heaven has been classed with 
 " the airy tongues that syllable men's names," and 
 scouted as a popular form of superstition to which 
 the Jews were exceedingly prone. But of the 
 reality of this voice no believer in the Scriptures 
 can doubt ; and it was uttered on three occasions, 
 each forming new stages in the course of our 
 Lord's ministry sufficiently momentous to justify 
 so extraordinary an attestation. The first was at 
 His baptism ; and the voice from heaven, contain- 
 ing a direct allusion to the Messianic prophecy, 
 " Behold my Servant, whom I uphold ; mine elect, 
 in whom my soul delighteth," r was designed to 
 signalize Christ's entrance on His public ministry, 
 and seems to have been heard only by John. 2 
 The second was at His transfiguration, — a symboli- 
 cal scene, enacted for the benefit of His disciples 
 at the commencement of His last suffering stage. 
 The words, " Hear ye Him," were added on the 
 disappearance of Moses and Elias, who had de- 
 scended from heaven, as it were, to resign their 
 legislative and prophetic commissions at His feet ; 
 and they were so audible, that Peter, in language of 
 1 Isa. xlii. 1. 2 John i. 32-34. 
 
204 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 peculiar strength and grandeur, appeals to them as 
 affording an incontestable evidence of the divine 
 origin and authority of the gospel. 1 The third 
 occasion when the voice from heaven was heard, 
 was after Christ's last entrance into Jerusalem, 
 and when His spirit was deeply agitated in the 
 immediate prospect of His sufferings. The voice, 
 referring to its former declaration, both at His 
 baptism and His transfiguration, announced, in a 
 strain even more exalted and extensive than be- 
 fore, that " glorification of His name " which was 
 yet to take place. 2 Then, as to the transfiguration 
 scene, which some have the hardihood to allege is 
 a fiction of the evangelists, it was so utterly be- 
 yond their power to imagine the splendid drama, 
 that the actual spectators were at first bewildered 
 and afraid by what they saw and heard, although 
 its sublime disclosures produced a most animating 
 and indelible impression on their minds of the 
 truth of Christianity. The Apostle Peter makes 
 a special reference to this memorable incident in 
 a passage of his second epistle, where he expresses 
 an earnest desire not only that his instructions 
 might be always remembered, but that the Chris- 
 tians of his own and every future age might know 
 1 2 Tet. i. 17, 18. 2 Jolmxii. 28. 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 205 
 
 the solid, immoveable foundation on which his 
 faith in the gospel rested, — not on the traditional 
 authority of the church, — not on the deductions of 
 human philosophy, — not on the mere opinions of 
 any man however eminent, or any body of men 
 however learned or w T ise, but on the testimony of 
 witnesses regarding what their eyes had seen, 
 their ears had heard, their hands had handled of 
 the Word of life, — a testimony in bearing which 
 they had already encountered persecution and 
 sufferings in various forms, their adherence to the 
 truth of which had already been tested by the 
 death of some, and would ere long be tested by 
 the martyrdom of more. In this passage Peter 
 indicates his thorough immoveable faith in the 
 truth and certainty of that which he had preached, 
 intending thus to hint, that they to whom he 
 wrote might feel the same confidence, as resting 
 on the basis of undoubted verity. In proof of 
 this he alludes to the transfiguration, — a transac- 
 tion which formed a remarkable exception to the 
 usual state of humiliation in which the Saviour 
 lived on earth ; and omitting to notice the attend- 
 ance of two glorified saints, who had for ages been 
 enjoying the felicities of the invisible world, and 
 who then descended to the earth, arrayed in the 
 
206 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 splendid costume of their better country, seen in 
 earnest colloquy with the Son of God, holding one 
 of the most extraordinary interviews that ever 
 took place on earth, he directs attention to a 
 mightier phenomenon, viz. the honour and glory 
 which was conferred upon the Saviour by the 
 sensible tokens of the divine presence, — in the 
 words of commendation that were borne to His 
 character and office by Heaven itself. This won- 
 derful, this unparallelled fact, the apostle declares 
 that he and his brother disciples — James and 
 John — all three heard distinctly with their ears, 
 as they all three saw with their eyes the radiant 
 robe of glory with which the person of Christ was 
 invested ; intimating by this declaration that there 
 was as much certainty of the gospel, even in a 
 human way, as could possibly be obtained of any- 
 thing that is done in the world, since men cannot 
 have a stronger assurance of anything than by the 
 evidence of their senses, both their sight and their 
 hearing. Accordingly, such was the very effect 
 which this supernatural scene produced upon the 
 minds of Peter and his brother disciples ; for 
 although, perhaps, they did not perceive all its im- 
 port and its bearings till after the resurrection, we 
 find them ever after appealing to the transfigura- 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTUKES. 207 
 
 tion as affording an incontestable evidence of 
 Christ's divine majesty. 1 Peter adds, " We have 
 also a more sure word of prophecy, whereunto ye 
 do well that ye take heed ; " and it is strangely 
 maintained by Eationalist writers, that the apostle 
 intends in these ' words to represent " the word of 
 prophecy " as far more trustworthy than any tran- 
 sient, ambiguous sounds heard in the air. The 
 very reverse is the case ; for the apostle, in con- 
 templating the irresistible proof of the divinity of 
 the Saviour's mission which was afforded by the 
 heavenly declaration, proceeds to state that thereby 
 was supplied an additional confirmation of the 
 truth of the Old Testament Scriptures, one of the 
 prominent features of which was the chain of pre- 
 dictions contained in them respecting the Messiah 
 and His kingdom. And now that the most im- 
 portant of these prophecies had received their 
 fulfilment in the appearance, sufferings, and glori- 
 fication of the Saviour, their certainty was con- 
 firmed ; they were made, as it were, " more sure ; " 
 and their authority heightened in the minds of 
 believers. In themselves, " the prophecies " could 
 not be rendered " more sure ; " they could receive 
 no increase of certainty, being the words of Him of 
 
 1 Johni. 14; 2 Pet. i. 16, 17. 
 
208 THE INSPIKATION OF 
 
 whom it is declared, " Hath He said it, and shall 
 He not do it ? Or hath He spoken, and shall He 
 not make it good ? " But subjectively, or as re- 
 ceived by men, they were susceptible of higher 
 degrees of assurance, in proportion as subsequent 
 predictions threw light upon those which had been 
 previously given, and especially as the events 
 transpired to which they pointed. 
 
 The Acts of the Apostles follow the Gospels 
 in the order of the New Testament books, as in the 
 narrative of the recorded facts, although the com- 
 position and publication of the history preceded by 
 a considerable period those of the fourth Gospel. 
 External as well as internal evidence attests Luke's 
 authorship. The dedication to Theophilus — the 
 same person whose name appears in the introduc- 
 tion of the third Gospel — implies that the author 
 meant to represent this new work as a continuation 
 of the former historical record ; while the similarity 
 of the language as well as the style tends strongly 
 to confirm this impression of its origin. And a 
 lengthened chain of testimony proves l that the 
 general voice of Christian antiquity ascribed it to 
 
 1 Eusebius, Eccl. Hist. iii. 25, v. 1 ; Irenseus, Advers. Hceres. L. 
 iii. c. 14, 15 ; Tertullian, Dejejunio, c. 10 ; Clement, Strom. L. 5. 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 209 
 
 Luke. It was natural that one who felt so deep 
 an interest in the origines sacrce of Christianity, and 
 who had shown such patient and persevering dili- 
 gence in tracing out the certainty and order of the 
 minutest facts relating to the life and ministry of 
 Jesus, should evince a corresponding desire to per- 
 form a similar service in recording the subsequent 
 progress of the Saviour's cause ; and enjoying, as 
 we formerly showed that Luke did, access to the 
 best and purest sources of information, there was 
 no one in apostolic circles who was so well quali- 
 fied by circumstances to chronicle the most inte- 
 resting and memorable transactions which marked 
 the first age of the church. With regard to the 
 latter part of the book, — from ch. xvi. 10, where 
 he begins to use the first person, and writes as a 
 constant companion and fellow T -traveller with Paul, 
 — there is no doubt it is unreasonable to suppose 
 the intervention of a new and different hand ; 1 
 and as to the first portion of the history, his 
 sojourn along with Paul's retinue in Jerusalem 
 and Cesarea, 2 where he would mingle in the so- 
 ciety of the Christian inhabitants most eminent 
 for rank and intelligence, must have brought to his 
 knowledge whatever facts are mentioned in this 
 
 1 See Note E. 2 Acts xxi. 15, xxi. 8-10, xxvii. 1. 
 
 O 
 
210 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 history which Paul himself could not communicate. 
 The same reasons, then, that induced us to admit 
 the credibility of Luke's Gospel, necessitate a similar 
 reception to the Acts ; and the general character 
 of that history, as a record of supernatural facts, 
 prepares us to anticipate a continuation of similar 
 miracles in this evangelical sequel. The course of 
 it is precisely what we should look for. In the 
 close of the Gospel history, we find our Lord 
 promising to His disciples that He would send the 
 Holy Spirit to supply the want of His bodily 
 presence ; and we naturally expect that a book 
 which is professedly a sequel of the evangelical 
 history, will furnish some evidence of the fulfilment 
 of that important promise. Accordingly, the first 
 part of the Acts is occupied with a record of the 
 descent of the Spirit, and of the mighty change 
 which was consequently effected on the character 
 and views of the disciples, who were thenceforth 
 qualified at once, and in a degree which they could 
 never have attained by ordinary means, for the 
 functions and the exigencies of their apostolic 
 mission. They were to be witnesses of Christ to 
 the world — to bear a public testimony to Jews 
 and Gentiles concerning His doctrines, His miracles, 
 and His death. But at that time they were totally 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 211 
 
 incapable of discharging such an office, and " they 
 were to tarry in Jerusalem until they received the 
 promise of the Father." Without entering on the 
 reasons which rendered it expedient that this 
 promise should be fulfilled in Jerusalem, the fact 
 is, that on the day of Pentecost, when the disciples 
 were assembled, this miraculous event took place, 
 by the visible descent of the Spirit upon each of 
 them ; and the effect was, that " they were endued 
 with power from on high." Knowledge is power ; 
 and the mere fact of the apostles being spiritually 
 enlightened in the knowledge of the truth, made 
 them " endued with power : " for from that moment 
 we see them united in a holy confederacy that 
 could not be broken, displaying a spirituality of 
 views, a devotedness to truth, a sanctity of purpose, 
 a unity of sentiment, which can be accounted for 
 in no other way than by tracing it to the impulse 
 and energy of the Spirit's teaching. From being 
 totally in the dark as to the ultimate designs of 
 their Master, how suddenly was a light from heaven 
 shed on their ignorant and prejudiced minds ! From 
 being timid and wavering followers of Christ, how 
 animated were they with a spirit of bold and reso- 
 lute confidence, that carried them dauntless into 
 the presence of kings and rulers ! From being easily 
 
212 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 discouraged and prone to despondency, how were 
 they, even amid perils or in prisons, lighted up 
 with a perennial joy ! From being selfish and 
 narrow - minded Jews, who looked with proud, 
 supercilious contempt on all other people, how 
 were their bosoms filled with a spirit of expansive 
 benevolence, that reached to the farthest limits of 
 the world, and laboured for the salvation of all 
 mankind ! 
 
 But besides the enlightening influences of the 
 Spirit, the disciples on this occasion received also 
 extraordinary endowments, consisting in the gift of 
 tongues and the power of working miracles. These 
 were the seals of apostleship ; and the disciples 
 took every fitting opportunity of declaring that 
 they derived those extraordinary powers from 
 Christ. 1 They were vouchers of their high com- 
 mission, credentials of their might, as well as of 
 their ability to perform the extraordinary services 
 they had to render in the proclamation and exten- 
 sion of the truth as it is in Jesus. The narrative 
 is simple, natural, and, like the Gospel history, 
 entirely free from the use of exaggerated terms, 
 even in the recital of the most striking events or 
 the most stupendous miracles. It is most interest- 
 1 Acts iii. 6, iv. 10, etc. 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 213 
 
 ing and most valuable as a record of the organiza- 
 tion of the Christian church, and of the principles 
 on which that new and spiritual society was 
 founded ; for it enables us to see the first germs 
 of what was afterwards developed in the several 
 epistles which were addressed to the Christian 
 churches of the primitive age. It is in one point 
 of view an incomplete history ; for while it opens 
 with a general account of the apostolic proceedings, 
 and carries on in the same style till that great 
 crisis when the apostles became convinced that 
 the distinction between Jew and Gentile was 
 henceforth to cease, it begins from that point to 
 narrow its course, and, instead of chronicling the 
 movements of each of the apostles, confines itself 
 to a record of the travels and labours of Paul. 
 But in another point of view it is a complete his- 
 tory : for as Christ declared that, previous to His 
 coming at the destruction of Jerusalem, " the gospel 
 must first be preached among all nations ; " so, by 
 tracking the voyages of Paul, it shows us its intro- 
 duction into all the most populous and influential 
 parts of the Roman Empire, till it was at length 
 established in Eome itself, the capital of the world. 
 The objections brought against it are not such as 
 seriously to affect the truth and authenticity of the 
 
214 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 history. The gift of tongues, that is, the power of 
 speaking foreign languages in a manner intelligible 
 to the natives of those countries, is certainly de- 
 scribed as a reality ; 1 and whether it was bestowed 
 only for the pentecostal occasion, or was intended 
 for continued use in propagating the gospel, it was 
 a miracle that cannot be explained on natural 
 principles. But it is not more incredible on that 
 account, than the instantaneous bestowment of the 
 faculty of speech on persons who had been born 
 deaf and dumb. The historic difficulties in the 
 speech of Stephen, as well as in the accounts of 
 Paul's conversion, have been often removed ; but we 
 must refer the reader to the Biblical commentaries, 
 within whose province an explanation of them 
 properly falls. And a knowledge of the discourse 
 of Peter in the upper room, of the counsel of Gama- 
 liel to the Sanhedrim when that court was alone, 
 of the letter of Claudius Lysias to Felix, and of 
 the private conference betM^een Agrippa and Felix 
 about Paul, could have been obtained by Luke 
 through the numerous Christians who were members 
 of the supreme council in Jerusalem or officials of 
 the provincial court at Cesarea. Having seen good 
 reason for admitting the inspiration of the Gospel 
 1 Ch. ii. 7-11. 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 215 
 
 by Luke, we feel constrained by a logical necessity 
 to acknowledge the inspired character of this 
 history also, which is the proper sequel of it ; and 
 we believe that the Spirit, who saw in the evan- 
 gelist the qualifications of a competent recorder, 
 " moved the holy man " to compile this history, 
 which occupies an essential place in the canon of 
 the New Testament. 
 
 The authors of the various epistles contained 
 in the New Testament are James, Peter, John, Jude, 
 and Paul. When the authenticity as well as genuine- 
 ness of their several compositions has been satis- 
 factorily established, their inspiration and divine 
 authority must be acknowledged as a matter of 
 course, since the four first-named writers were 
 amongst the select few to whom the Spirit was 
 originally promised by the Saviour, and in whose pos- 
 session the early church saw His supernatural gifts 
 most liberally displayed. As the miraculous powers 
 with which they were endowed showed that God 
 was with them, and that they really were what 
 they professed to be, His messengers to their 
 fellow-men, the way was prepared for the welcome 
 and respectful reception of whatever instruction 
 they might deem it their duty to administer to the 
 
216 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 church. Accordingly, we find them claiming a 
 submissive deference to the exhortation they gave, 
 on account of its being invested with divine 
 authority. Thus, Peter said to the Christians 
 whom he addressed : " This second epistle, beloved, 
 I now write to you, that ye may be mindful of the 
 words which were spoken before by the holy 
 prophets, and of the commandments of us the 
 apostles of our Lord and Saviour." John, writing 
 with a similar view, asserts : " "We are of God : he 
 that knoweth God, heareth us ; he that is not of 
 God, heareth not us. Hereby know we the Spirit 
 of truth and the spirit of error." And the same 
 apostle, at the commencement of his apocalyptic 
 visions, says : " I was in the Spirit on the Lord's 
 day, and heard behind me a great voice, as of a 
 trumpet, saying, I am Alpha and Omega, the first 
 and last : what thou seest, write in a book, and send 
 it unto the seven churches which are in Asia." 
 For men to express themselves in this manner, who 
 were conscious of being under the direct and un- 
 erring guidance of God, was natural ; and known 
 as they universally were to have been appointed 
 apostles of Christ, the certified appearance of their 
 name and official designation in the inscription of 
 any epistle addressed to the churches being con- 
 
THE HOLY SCKIPTUKES. 21 7 
 
 sidered a guarantee for its inspiration, ensured its 
 reception into the sacred canon. Paul is the 
 writer of the greater number of the epistles ; and 
 as he was not associated with the eleven when 
 they were appointed to the apostleship, nor did he 
 enjoy the benefits of the Saviour's earthly ministry, 
 it is necessary to remark, that his appointment to 
 the apostolic office emanated from as high authority, 
 and was established by as indubitable evidence, as 
 any of the others. He had all the signs of an 
 apostle : for he had seen Christ Jesus ; was en- 
 dowed with the gift of tongues and the power of 
 working miracles, and had received a commission 
 directly from the Head of the church, with all the 
 qualifications requisite for discharging the duties 
 of the ministry among the Gentiles. At the time 
 of his remarkable conversion, the Lord said to 
 Ananias, who was dubious about the fact : " Go 
 thy way : for he is a chosen vessel unto me, to bear 
 my name before the Gentiles, and kings, and the 
 children of Israel." x And no great time elapsed 
 ere he was fully qualified for this mission. So far 
 as preparation for the apostolic work was concerned, 
 he had received neither encouragement nor aid from 
 any of the earlier disciples. But though he had 
 1 Acts ix. 15. 
 
218 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 acquired Christian instruction in a manner very 
 different from his brethren, the Divine Agent who 
 imparted spiritual life and light to him was the 
 same. What he wanted in opportunities of pro- 
 gressive training by human teaching, had been 
 supplied by immediate revelation from Christ ; and 
 when, after a retirement of three years for Scrip- 
 ture study and communion with God, he issued 
 from his Arabian solitude to enter upon his ap- 
 pointed mission, he was as fully equipped in a 
 knowledge of spiritual things, and in ability to 
 teach the saving truths of the gospel, as any of his 
 brethren. He uniformly asserts that his religious 
 knowledge was miraculously furnished : " I certify 
 you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached 
 of me is not of men. For I neither received it of 
 man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation 
 of Jesus Christ." * " If ye have heard of the dis- 
 pensation of the grace of God which is given to me 
 to you- ward : how that by revelation He made 
 known to me the mystery (as I wrote afore in few 
 words)." 2 " For I delivered unto you first of all that 
 which I also received, how that Christ died for our 
 sins according to the Scriptures ; and that He was 
 buried, and that He rose again the third day ac- 
 
 1 Gal. i. II, 12-20. 2 Eph. iii. 2, 3. 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 219 
 
 cording to the Scriptures." 1 While he thus traces 
 all his knowledge of the nature and provisions 
 of the gospel directly to divine instruction, he is 
 equally explicit in placing his claims to teach it on 
 the ground of his being invested with the apostolic 
 commission : " Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, 
 called to he an apostle, separated unto the gospel 
 of God." 2 " Paul, called to be an apostle through 
 the will of God." 3 " We have received grace and 
 apostleship — to all that be in Eome." 4 And to- 
 wards the close of the epistle he asserts his divine 
 right to admonish the Roman Christians : " I have 
 written the more boldly unto you in some sort, as 
 putting you in mind, because of the grace that is 
 given of God, that I should be the minister of 
 Jesus Christ to the Gentiles, ministering the gospel 
 of God." 5 " My speech and my preaching was 
 not with enticing words of man's wisdom ; that 
 your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, 
 but in the power of God." 6 " God hath revealed 
 them unto us by His Spirit." 7 " Which things 
 we speak, not in words which man's wisdom 
 teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth." f 
 
 1 1 Cor. xv. 3, 4. 2 Rom. LI. 3 1 Cor. i. 1. 
 
 4 Rom. i. 5. 5 Rom. xv. 15. 6 1 Cor. ii. 4. 
 
 7 1 Cor. ii. 10. 8 1 Cor. ii. 15. 
 
220 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 " But we have the mind of Christ." 1 " Let a man 
 so account of us as ministers of Christ, and 
 stewards of the mysteries of God." 2 "I received 
 of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you." 3 
 " God hath set some in the church, first, apostles." 4 
 " Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as 
 though God did beseech you by us : we pray you 
 in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled unto God." 5 
 " I write these things being absent, lest being 
 present, I should use sharpness, according to the 
 power which the Lord hath given me for edifica- 
 tion." 6 " Paul, an apostle, not of men, neither by 
 man, but by Jesus Christ, and God the Father, 
 who raised Him from the dead." 7 " Paul, an 
 apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God." 8 Thus, 
 in writing to the churches, he begins by asserting 
 his apostolic office as conferring upon him a right 
 to give them pastoral counsels and instruction ; 
 and while in the smaller and purely practical 
 epistles, or in those addressed to churches where 
 the course of things was smooth and tranquil, he 
 was content to style himself " a servant of Jesus 
 Christ," in the other epistles, which are dedicated, 
 
 1 1 Cor. ii. 16. 2 1 Cor. iv. 1. 3 1 Cor. xi. 23. 
 
 4 1 Cor. xii. 28. 5 2 Cor. v. 20. 6 2 Cor. xiii. 10. 
 
 7 Gal. i. 1. 8 Eph. i. 1. 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 221 
 
 like those to the Eomans and Ephesians, to an 
 exposition of the peculiar doctrines of Christianity, 
 or addressed, as that of the Corinthians was, to 
 a church torn by dissension and disorder, he as- 
 sumed the high tone of " an apostle," — one who 
 had received a special commission to speak in the 
 name and announce the will .of his divine Master, 
 — whose appointment to the apostleship was not 
 owing to his having passed through a course of 
 educational training for his high office, as the 
 prophets and other apostles did for theirs, — nor to 
 his having been promoted to it by the collective 
 suffrages of the Christian brethren, — but who had 
 been called to it by the immediate will of God. 
 And that will was made known not merely by his 
 miraculous conversion, which was a matter of 
 universal notoriety, but by the rare and exalted 
 endowments of which he was possessed, and which 
 afforded indisputable evidence that he had received 
 the afflatus of divine inspiration. In his Epistle to 
 the Colossians, where he also asserts his claim to 
 be " an apostle," he designed further to show, that 
 by virtue of his divine appointment he was in- 
 vested with direct authority, not only to teach 
 what ought to be believed in the way of doctrine 
 and done in the way of duty, but what ought to 
 
222 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 be received and submitted to as the form and 
 discipline of the church ; that, in fact, he was a 
 minister of Christ, armed with full power to exer- 
 cise the keys of the kingdom of heaven, by virtue 
 of that part of the promise to the apostles : " What- 
 soever ye shall bind on earth, shall be bound in 
 heaven ; and whatsoever ye loose on earth, shall 
 be loosed in heaven." x 
 
 In the Epistle to the Thessalonians, the first in 
 order of time of the Pauline epistles, and in which 
 the writer pours out his feelings in all the fulness 
 of pastoral earnestness and love, Paul declares that 
 he " thanks God without ceasing," not in selfish 
 pride that his apostleship had been universally 
 owned and honoured in that church, but for a 
 higher and purer reason : " Because, when they re- 
 ceived the word of God which they heard of him, 
 they received it not as the word of man, but (as it 
 is in truth) the word of God." 2 This is a statement 
 of great significance as to the divine origin and 
 authority of the gospel. Such high qualities as Paul 
 had displayed were naturally calculated to win for 
 their possessor a high name and ascendency over the 
 Thessalonian people ; and there can be no doubt 
 that such a concentration of excellences as was 
 1 See also 2 Cor. xiii. 10. 2 1 Thess. ii. 13. 
 
THE HOLY SCEIPTURES. 223 
 
 exhibited in his conduct, had in the first instance 
 prepossessed the minds of the Thessalonians in 
 favour of the doctrines which he taught. What 
 came from so good a man, they were prepared to 
 receive with a favourable ear ; what he urged upon 
 them with disinterested earnestness, they were 
 disposed to regard, on his declarations, as a dis- 
 covery of great importance and value. But grati- 
 fied as he might have been with this proof of their 
 esteem and confidence, of what avail would it have 
 been to them, if they had assigned to Paul the 
 palm of superiority to all the philosophers, and if 
 they had preferred his system of morals to all the 
 rules which were so eloquently expounded in the 
 schools of Greece ? They would in that case have 
 received it only as the word of a man, who was 
 perhaps the wisest and holiest of men they had 
 ever seen, but still as no more than the word of 
 a man ; and therefore Paul thanked God without 
 ceasing, " that when they received the word which 
 they had heard of him, they received it not as the 
 word of man, but (as it is in truth) the word of 
 God." This statement is brief, but it is very 
 significant ; and it intimates that the occasion of 
 the apostle's thankfulness was on account not only 
 of the fact, but the manner, of their receiving the 
 
224 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 gospel. It would have been but a slender ground 
 of congratulation and joy, that the Thessalonians 
 had entertained it on the mere ipse dixit of a 
 stranger, however pious, intelligent, and disinterested 
 he might have seemed to be. Their adherence to 
 it would have been nothing more than simple and 
 childish credulity, based on no solid or rational 
 foundation, and resting only on the testimony of 
 a single individual, irrespective of the intrinsic 
 claims of the gospel ; they would have been little 
 able to satisfy their own minds, or to give to others 
 a reason of the faith that was in them. The 
 Thessalonians acted in a more enlightened and 
 praiseworthy manner : they did not take the gospel 
 simply on trust, sometimes doubting and disputing 
 it, or receiving it only with a human faith, upon 
 grounds of reason as the dictates of philosophy, or 
 on account of the persuasive eloquence and great 
 learning of the preacher ; but they examined its 
 claims. For the word " received," 1 in the former 
 part of the verse, signifies to entertain, to take into 
 consideration, to put upon trial ; and so, being, after 
 earnest, dispassionate, and full inquiry into the 
 nature of the gospel, convinced that it was " no 
 cunningly devised fable," but all true and of divine 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 225 
 
 origin, they " received it not as the word of man, 
 but (as it is in truth) the word of God," — with a 
 divine faith, a ready subjection of their minds to 
 its supreme authority, and with devout, reverend 
 attention to it as a communication made directly 
 from Heaven. 
 
 If the pious and benevolent heart of the apostle 
 was filled with gratitude and delight by the en- 
 lightened and unanimous reception the church of 
 the Thessalonians gave to the gospel as a divine 
 message, we may be sure that he would be pro- 
 portionally grieved and pained by its rejection or 
 corruption in other quarters ; and accordingly, we 
 are not surprised at the strong terms of reproof he 
 employed in writing to the church of the Gala- 
 tians, which had embraced and openly supported 
 perversions of the truth which entirely altered 
 or destroyed its nature : " I marvel that ye are so 
 soon removed from him that called you unto the 
 grace of Christ into another gospel. But though 
 we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other 
 gospel unto you than that which we have preached 
 unto you, let him be accursed." * Now this strong 
 language does not imply the possibility of an 
 angel proclaiming any new scheme of salvation, 
 
 1 Gal. i. 8. 
 
 p 
 
226 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 any more than of Paul's contradicting the doctrine 
 he had formerly taught. The apostle resorts to 
 such extreme suppositions only to exhibit in the 
 most emphatic manner the immutable character of 
 the truth which had been delivered to the church ; 
 truth which, coming from God, could not be altered 
 by any authority, human or angelic, without ex- 
 posing the presumptuous innovator to the curse 
 denounced against those who add to, or take from, 
 the divine revelations. Would the apostle have 
 ventured to indulge in such vehement expressions 
 of condemnation, if he had taught only his own 
 private sentiments ? Would a man of such pro- 
 found humility and piety as Paul, who never 
 thought of his own things, but uniformly of those 
 of Christ Jesus, have allowed himself to be trans- 
 ported by such energy of feeling, as to pronounce 
 even an angel accursed who should make the 
 smallest change on the gospel which he preached, 
 had he not been convinced, on the strongest and 
 most irresistible evidence, that it was not the word 
 of man, but the word of God ? Would he have 
 assumed so solemn a tone of remonstrance with 
 the Galatians for their rejection of him who had 
 " called them unto the grace of Christ for another 
 gospel," if he had sustained no higher character 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 227 
 
 than that of an ordinary human teacher of religion ? 
 He was " an ambassador of God," who had come 
 " beseeching them in Christ's stead to be reconciled 
 to God," * — a minister plenipotentiary, duly ac- 
 credited by the extraordinary gifts of the Spirit ; 
 and in that capacity he had to be true and faithful 
 to the Prince who sent him : he was not at liberty 
 to deviate from his instructions, or to shape them 
 according to the fashion which his own taste or 
 the fancy of his hearers might suggest ; he was 
 bound by the authority he owned, and the apostolic 
 character he bore, to deliver the message entrusted 
 to him, without adulterating it with any impure 
 mixture, or enervating it by any human addition. 
 In this respect, his teaching possessed a co-ordinate 
 authority with that of Christ, as the Saviour had 
 said, " He that receiveth you, receiveth me ; and he 
 that receiveth me, receiveth Him that sent me." ' 
 " He that heareth you, heareth me ; and he that 
 despiseth you, despiseth me ; and he that despiseth 
 me, despiseth Him that sent me." 3 Paul himself 
 also declared to the Corinthians, respecting the 
 things peculiar to Christianity, that " God had re- 
 vealed them unto us (the apostles) by His Spirit. 
 We have received the Spirit which is of God, that 
 1 2 Cor. v. 20. 2 Matt. x. 40. 3 Luke x. 16. 
 
228 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 we might know the things which are freely given 
 to us of God ; which things we speak in the words 
 which the Holy Ghost teacheth. We have the 
 mind of Christ." x " We are to some a savour of 
 life unto life, and to others a savour of death unto 
 death." In these passages the apostle makes for 
 himself and his associates a direct claim to divine 
 inspiration. And in the Epistle to the Thessalo- 
 nians, he says regarding those who contemptuously 
 rejected the apostolic teaching : " He that despiseth, 
 despiseth not man, but God, who hath also given 
 unto us His Holy Spirit." 2 If despising the 
 apostles' doctrine was tantamount to despising God, 
 there could not be a stronger proof that their 
 doctrine was divine. To show that his oral dis- 
 courses were exactly in the same strain with his 
 writings, he said to the Corinthians : " Moreover, 
 brethren, I declare (by letter) the gospel which I 
 preached unto you (by word of mouth), which also 
 ye received, and wherein ye stand ; by which also 
 ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached 
 unto you." 3 " Hold fast the traditions which ye 
 have been taught, whether by word or our epistle." 4 
 In these two passages the apostle puts his preach- 
 
 i 1 Cor. ii. 9~] 6. 2 1 Thess. iv. 8. 
 
 3 1 Cor. xv. 1, 2. 4 2 Thess. ii. 15. 
 
THE HOLY SCULPTURES. 229 
 
 ing and his writing on the same level j his epistles 
 recapitulated the sentiments his discourses had ex- 
 pressed. What a source of unspeakable comfort it 
 is, that we have still the guidance of this inspired 
 apostle of Christ ! We have not, indeed, the bene- 
 fit of his living presence ; but we have his instruc- 
 tions recorded in his epistles to the churches. 
 There are some who affect to disparage the epistles 
 of Paul, — to represent them as written by a pious 
 and excellent, but still a frail and fallible man, — 
 and who insist on assigning them a rank amongst 
 the books of holy writ greatly inferior to that of 
 the Gospels. Once adopt this style of sentiment ; 
 once withhold from Paul the character of inspira- 
 tion ; once regard him merely as an ordinary 
 minister of the church, who had to ascertain the 
 mind of the Spirit by the same natural means of 
 study and research as those in the present day, 
 and who, in imparting religious instruction, indulged 
 in that rabbinical mode of allegorizing comment 
 which was prevalent in later times ; and we shall 
 become unsettled in our views of the most im- 
 portant articles of Christian truth. Some parts 
 will be rejected as mystical, others treated as 
 abstract or doubtful speculations ; and all will be 
 brought to the tribunal of reason, as the sovereign 
 
230 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 umpire in all that we are to believe and do. 1 But 
 let us carry along with us the lively conviction 
 that Paul enjoyed the direct aid, the extraordinary 
 gifts, of the Spirit, to preserve him from error and 
 to guide him into all truth ; and then we shall feel 
 that, in placing ourselves at the feet of Paul, we 
 are sitting under one who was " an apostle by the 
 will of God." All that is contained in the epistles 
 of Paul will come to us invested with equal 
 authority, and entitled to equal submission, as what 
 fell from the lips of the Lord Himself; and we 
 shall be persuaded that, in believing him, our faith 
 rests on a sure foundation, being built " not on the 
 wisdom of man, but on the word of God." 
 
 Such is the light in which we are to regard the 
 inspired authority of Paul ; and accordingly his 
 epistles are regarded by the vast majority of Chris- 
 tians not only as a most precious and important 
 part of the Bible, but as the direct development 
 and full extension of Christian doctrine. The 
 epistles are, as it were, the cope-stone of revelation, 
 so far as it makes known the will of God for our 
 duty and salvation. Christ Himself, during His 
 personal ministry, laid down the fundamental prin- 
 ciples ; but He employed Paul and the other 
 1 See Note F. 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 231 
 
 apostles to show their application in the system 
 of Christian truth, such as the doctrines of the 
 death and resurrection of Christ. The fact of His 
 death was attested, but not the end for which He 
 died; and His resurrection was recorded in the 
 Gospels, but it did not imply by logical necessity 
 the resurrection of any one else; and therefore it 
 was reserved for Paul to show that Christ died to 
 take away the sins of the world, and that Christ 
 was become " the first-fruits of them that slept ; " 
 that as surely as the first-fruits are a proof of the 
 harvest, so is the resurrection of Christ a proof of 
 that of all believers, who are the members of His 
 spiritual body. Besides, the apostles had new 
 truths to communicate; for the Saviour declared 
 that He had many things to say to the disciples, 
 but they could not bear these yet. These would 
 be imparted by the Spirit of truth when the proper 
 time for their promulgation had come, such as the 
 overthrow of the Jewish polity, and the union of 
 all men in Christ Jesus. Then there was the 
 development of the peculiar doctrines of Chris- 
 tianity, — such as the atonement, justification by 
 faith, the fatherhood of God, the intercession and 
 the sympathy of Christ, a future state, judgment 
 by Christ. Thus it appears that the epistles hold 
 
232 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 an important place in the sacred volume. As con- 
 taining truths, the revelation of which could not 
 be made known till the Saviour was " glorified," 
 they are indispensable ; they throw a flood of light 
 on many of the sayings and doings of Christ ; and 
 as the authors of them wrote under inspiration, 
 their epistles are entitled to be received with the 
 same faith and submissiveness that are shown to 
 the earlier books of Scripture. 
 
 It has been alleged, however, that this conclu- 
 sion is not applicable universally to the epistles of 
 Paul, and that there are passages in which he 
 seems to doubt the fact of his own inspiration, 
 or to disclaim all title to the possession of the 
 heavenly power. So far is this allegation from 
 being true, that the very passages which are ad- 
 duced in support of it, furnish in reality proof to 
 the contrary. Paul says, in reference to a subject 
 of great delicacy, " I speak this by permission, and 
 not of commandment ; " 1 and again, " I have no 
 commandment of the Lord, yet I give my judg- 
 ment (in that particular case) as one that hath 
 obtained mercy of the Lord to be faithful." 2 The 
 matter to which the apostle refers formed no part 
 of religious principle or practice ; it pertained 
 1 1 Cor. vii. 6. 2 Ver. 25. 
 
THE HOLY SCKIPTUKES. 233 
 
 neither to Christian doctrine nor Christian duty : 
 it was a merely prudential recommendation, aris- 
 ing out of the peculiarly difficult position of the 
 early church ; and as the opinion of the apostle had 
 been requested, he gave his friendly counsel as to 
 the best course to be pursued. At the same time, 
 he evinced a proper solicitude that his opinion 
 should be viewed in its true light, — only as a 
 friendly advice, not as an oracular response given 
 with apostolic authority ; and by the insertion of 
 this caution, he left the inquirers at liberty to act 
 in the circumstances as they felt disposed. But 
 the statement of the apostle, that in this special 
 affair he acted " by permission, and not by com- 
 mandment," evidently implies that in other mat- 
 ters, viz. those of a purely Christian character, he 
 did speak and write by commandment. An ex- 
 ception is acknowledged to prove the general rule. 
 And accordingly, in the same chapter which con- 
 tains the passages above referred to, when from 
 a prudential counsel he proceeds to expound the 
 principle of Christian law, the words, " I com- 
 mand, yet not I, but the Lord," put forth a claim, 
 as strong as language can express it, to the cha- 
 racter of one who, as minister or apostle of Christ, 
 was employed to reveal His will to the church. 
 
234 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 From a conjunct view of the various topics dis- 
 cussed in the preceding pages, and from a com- 
 parison of all the points embraced in the promise 
 of divine aid to the apostles, with the bestowment 
 of the extraordinary gifts of the Spirit which their 
 subsequent history attests, we are warranted to 
 draw various important conclusions, the principal 
 of which, reserving others to be noticed in a sub- 
 sequent lecture, are the following : — 
 
 1. That the apostles were completely enlight- 
 ened in the knowledge of all the doctrines, duties, 
 and promises of the Christian faith. No doubt or 
 obscurity clouded their views of the truth as it is 
 in Jesus after the day of Pentecost. Once had 
 they been in darkness, thenceforth they were light 
 in the Lord ; and though that light had been pro- 
 gressive, they had, as apostles, learned the way of 
 God perfectly. 
 
 2. Deduction is, that being under the infallible 
 guidance of the Spirit of truth, they were qualified 
 to be unerring instructors of the world in all that 
 sinners are required to believe concerning God, as 
 well as in all the duties required of men. Whether 
 called to address the church in oral discourses, or 
 to write for the Christian instruction of mankind 
 in all future ages, they were preserved by the in- 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 235 
 
 fluence and direction of the Holy Ghost from error 
 or misapprehension on the one hand, and from 
 omission or defect on the other. That they are 
 entitled to the most implicit credit in all their 
 expositions of Christianity, must be inferred from 
 that part of our Lord's promise which gave them 
 a pledge that they " should be guided into all (the) 
 truth ; " and as " the Spirit of truth was to abide 
 with them for ever," what stronger evidence conld 
 be furnished that they were infallible guides in 
 the inculcation of religious sentiments and duties ? 
 To suppose that they could err in their public 
 teaching, would imply, either that they had been 
 imperfectly acquainted with the nature of the 
 gospel, or that they had forgotten the views of it 
 they had formerly obtained. But either supposi- 
 tion is plainly precluded by the promise of divine 
 guidance and aid which was to be commensurate 
 with the lives of all of them. 
 
 3. Observation is, that the admission of their 
 inspiration is essential to their credibility as his- 
 torians, or even honest, truthful men. They claim 
 to be inspired ; they assure us in every varied form 
 of expression, that the promise was fulfilled in 
 their experience, that they spoke by inspiration. 
 There is therefore no medium : we must admit 
 
2 3 6 THE INSPIKATION OF 
 
 that they were inspired, or conclude that they 
 were impostors. But on this latter hypothesis, 
 it is impossible to account for the phenomena that 
 mark the history of the apostles, particularly the 
 complete and continued unanimity of their doctrinal 
 teaching, which is clearly traceable to the con- 
 trolling influence of the Spirit of truth. How 
 soon did a variety of opposing sects spring up in 
 the primitive church, many of the early converts 
 retaining an irrepressible attachment to the law of 
 Moses, and ranging themselves under the leader- 
 ship of the Judaizing teachers, who endeavoured to 
 blend the institutions of the Jewish with the ordi- 
 nances of the Christian church, or, through personal 
 predilections for particular preachers, as the Corin- 
 thians, dividing into rival partisans of Paul and 
 Apollo s ! How soon did the confederate reformers 
 in the sixteenth century come into collision upon 
 points of doctrine and discipline that separated 
 Luther from Calvin and Zuingle I How soon did 
 religious discord break out between Whitfield and 
 Wesley, and the great religious revival of the last 
 century was marred in its progress by the doctrinal 
 differences of those eminent men ! But no dis- 
 crepancy of doctrinal sentiment ever disturbed the 
 college of the apostles ; and considering the in- 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 237 
 
 firmities, the passions, and the prejudices of men, 
 in connection with the many discordant elements 
 which existed in the primitive church,, it is evident 
 that the unbroken reign of doctrinal harmony 
 amongst the first teachers of Christianity was due 
 to the enlightening and guiding influence of the 
 Spirit of truth. Nor is this all. There was not 
 only a perfect unanimity amongst the apostles 
 themselves in their doctrinal teaching, but there 
 is a similar unity of doctrine between them and 
 the prophets of the Old Testament with reference 
 to Christ. Paul describes the church as "built 
 upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, 
 Jesus Christ Himself being the chief corner-stone." 1 
 The apostles are here put upon an equality in 
 official dignity with the prophets ; and both were 
 guided by the influences of the same Spirit, who 
 through their agency made the doctrine of the 
 ancient church harmonize with the new. If Isaiah 
 foretold of one who should be wounded for our 
 transgressions and bruised for our iniquities ; if 
 David foretold of one who should not be left in 
 the grave, nor see corruption, the apostles travelled 
 through all the world, testifying that in Jesus 
 these predictions were verified, He having borne 
 1 Epli. ii. 20. 
 
238 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 our sins in His own body, having " died the just 
 for the unjust," having burst the fetters of death, 
 for it was not possible He could be holden of it, 
 and being set down at the right hand of God, till 
 n^. all enemies should be put under His feet. Thus 
 John, Paul, and Peter confirmed the testimony of 
 David, Isaiah, and Daniel; and Jesus is shown 
 to be the chief corner-stone, in whose person and 
 character the Scriptures of the Old and New Testa- 
 ment are united in one harmonious structure of 
 truth. This wonderful harmony of doctrine could 
 never have been attained, had not the same Divine 
 Spirit that inspired the prophets of the Jewish 
 also given its inspiration to the apostles of the 
 Christian church. 
 
 It is objected that the apostles make often very 
 loose and far-fetched applications of the ancient 
 prophecies to features and events in the life of 
 Christ. And it must be admitted that they do 
 apply many passages out of the Psalms and other 
 books of the Old Testament, which, if we had not 
 been assured on their high authority, we should 
 have hardly imagined to have any reference to 
 Him. Nor is it probable that they enumerated all 
 the predictions of the Messiah which are to be 
 found in the prophetic writings, but only a very 
 
THE HOLY SCKIPTUKES. 239 
 
 small part of them, while they often assure us 
 that all the sacred writings principally centre in 
 Him. As an instance of a loose accommodation 
 of prophecy, reference is made to a passage in 
 Isaiah : " The land of Zebulun and Nephthalim, 
 by the way of the sea, beyond Jordan, Galilee of 
 the Gentiles ; the people which sat in darkness 
 saw a great light, and to them which sat in the 
 region and shadow of death light is sprung up." x 
 The passage had an immediate reference to the 
 temporal prosperity of the cities in the northern 
 part of Judea, and held out to them the prospect 
 of deliverance from the galling yoke of Syrian 
 bondage, when the return of more happy and 
 prosperous times would, after their protracted exile, 
 be no less exhilarating and joyous than the cheer- 
 ing beams of the sun after a dark and stormy 
 night. But as many actions and incidents in the 
 lives of eminent persons under the Mosaic economy 
 are held forth as types of Christ, and as we are 
 led by apostolic example to consider many pro- 
 phecies of the Old Testament, which both in the 
 intention of the speaker as well as in the sense of 
 the hearers had a reference to Jewish affairs, as 
 receiving their full accomplishment in the events 
 
 1 Isa. ix. 1, compared with Matt. iv. 12-16. 
 
240 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 of the gospel ; so the evangelist Matthew instructs 
 us to regard this prophecy, which in the first 
 instance pointed only to the emancipation of 
 Zebulun and Naphtali from the tyranny and op- 
 pression of Benhadad and his successors, as then 
 only completely fulfilled, when Jesus, the great 
 spiritual deliverer of His people, appeared on their 
 territory as the Sun of Eighteousness, dispelling by 
 His glorious beams a worse than Egyptian dark- 
 ness. He had fixed His headquarters at Caper- 
 naum, which, being the metropolis of Galilee, and 
 situated in the immediate vicinity of the Lake of 
 Tiberias, was peculiarly suited to His design of 
 preaching in the surrounding districts the gospel 
 of the kingdom. While, in selecting Capernaum 
 as His headquarters, our Lord followed the dictates 
 of His own wisdom, He was fulfilling at the same 
 time the remarkable prediction of Isaiah, the full 
 accomplishment of which was realized by His 
 ministry who was " the light of the world." An- 
 other instance of a similar application of ancient 
 prophecy is furnished by the words : " When 
 Israel was a child, then I loved him, and called 
 my son out of Egypt." * Nothing is more evident 
 than that this passage is historical, referring to an 
 1 Hos. xi. l. 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 241 
 
 early period in the past condition of the Hebrew 
 nation, and that it was not the intention of the 
 prophet to give it a prospective reference to any 
 future event. But Israel was a type of Christ; 
 and for the sake of Him who was to be the most 
 eminent seed of Israel, the nation was called " my 
 son," and the deliverance from Egypt was effected. 
 The exodus in the one dispensation was typical of 
 the safe restoration in the other ; and hence the 
 words of Hosea were rightly viewed by Matthew 
 as receiving their full accomplishment in the safe 
 return of the infant Jesus to the land of Judea. 
 A different mode of applying an Old Testament 
 prophecy occurs in reference to the passage in 
 2 Sam. vii. 1 1-1 7 : " I will set up thy seed after 
 thee, which shall proceed out of thy bowels, and 
 I will establish his kingdom. He shall build an 
 house for my name, and I will establish the throne 
 of his kingdom for ever. I will be his father, and 
 he shall be my son." This is the oath which God 
 by His holiness sware to David, the covenant which 
 He made with him respecting the perpetuity of 
 his royal seed and kingdom. 1 This promise had a 
 twofold aspect : the one pointing to David's fleshly 
 seed and temporal kingdom, the other to the Mes- 
 
 1 Ps. lxxxix. 3, 4, 35, 36. 
 
242 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 siah and the kingdom of God. In respect to the 
 former it was conditional, for it contains a threaten- 
 ing against such of his royal descendants as should 
 commit iniquity. 1 The spiritual and eternal part 
 of the promise respected the Messiah only, who 
 was to come of the seed of David according to the 
 flesh, but who was to be raised from the dead to 
 sit for ever on His heavenly throne. In respect to 
 Him it was absolute, and had its full accomplish- 
 ment. That David himself understood its ulterior 
 application to the Messiah, may he inferred from 
 his words ; 2 but it is declared certain by the 
 Apostle Peter, who said, " The patriarch David, 
 being a prophet, and knowing that God would raise 
 up Christ to sit upon his throne." 3 And the 
 author of the Epistle to the Hebrews quotes the 
 words of God to David : " I will be his father, and 
 he will be my son." * Doubtless the prophecy as 
 well as the promise had a primary and subordinate 
 reference to Solomon. But it was germinant, 
 and had its full accomplishment in Christ. A 
 third way of applying Old Testament prophecies 
 followed in the New may be exemplified by Matt, 
 ii. 23 : " He came and dwelt in a city called 
 
 1 2 Chron. vii. 7, 18. 2 2 Sam. xxiii. 5. 
 
 s Acts ii. 29, 30. 4 Heb. i. 5. 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTUBES. 243 
 
 Nazareth, that it might be fulfilled which was 
 spoken by the prophets, He shall be called a 
 Nazarene." The evangelist uses the plural num- 
 ber, " the prophets," — not any particular prophet. 
 The general testimony of ancient prophecy was 
 that the Messiah should be despised and rejected 
 of men. The opprobrium which was attached to 
 His chosen place of residence was extended to 
 Him, the inhabitant; for a Nazarene was a pro- 
 verb, a byword. The predictions were thus ful- 
 filled. And the evangelist, in stating the fact, 
 contents himself with a summary of their common 
 import. He gives not the words of any prophet, 
 but the general sense of all of them. 
 
 It is further alleged, that in making quotations 
 from the books of the prophets, the writers of the 
 New Testament implicitly follow the Septuagint, 
 which is often obscure, erroneous, and widely 
 divergent from the Hebrew in the prophetic books 
 generally, and in Isaiah especially. For instance, 
 the prophetic words, "Mine ears hast Thou opened," 1 
 are reridered in the Septuagint, as quoted in the 
 New Testament, " A body hast Thou prepared for 
 me." 2 In other cases, the prophets' words are 
 rendered correctly, though not literally, as Isaiah 
 1 Ps. xl. 6. 2 Heb. s. 5. 
 
244 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 says of Christ, " Surely He hath borne our griefs 
 and carried our sorrows," x which are quoted from 
 the Septuagint thus : " He hath taken our infirmi- 
 ties and carried our diseases." 2 And the words of 
 the same prophet, " He was brought as a lamb to 
 the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers 
 is dumb, so He openeth not His mouth. He was 
 taken from prison and from judgment ; and who 
 shall declare His generation ? " 3 are rendered from 
 the Septuagint, "As a sheep He is led to the 
 slaughter ; and dumb as a lamb before his shearer, 
 so openeth He not His mouth. In His abasement ' 
 the judgment (exercise of justice) was taken from 
 Him ; but who shall narrate His generation ? for 
 His life is taken from the earth." 4 The Septuagint 
 was the translation in common use in the apos- 
 tolic age, and therefore most familiar to the Jews 
 of that time ; so that it was as natural for the 
 apostles to avail themselves of that version as it is 
 for us to make use of our authorized version, which 
 is no more inspired than that of the LXX., and 
 susceptible, it is now admitted, as well as the 
 Greek translation, of emendation and improvement 
 in rendering the sense of the original. But it is 
 
 1 Isa. liii. 4. 2 Matt. viii. 17. 
 
 3 Isa. liii. 7, 8. 4 Acts. viii. 30-33. 
 
THE HOLY SCKIPTUEES. 245 
 
 not a correct statement to make, that all the quota- 
 tions from the Old Testament contained in the 
 New are made from the Septuagint. It has been 
 ascertained by accurate examination, that there are 
 eighty-eight verbal quotations in the New Testa- 
 ment from the Septuagint ; sixty from other quota- 
 tions, with variations ; thirty-seven where the sense 
 only is given, but not the words ; sixteen differing 
 from it, and approximating more nearly to the 
 Hebrew original ; and twenty-four which, differing 
 from the present Hebrew text and the Septuagint, 
 have yet been proved by the researches of learned 
 men to be supported by the testimony of the oldest 
 versions and manuscripts, but in which the sacred 
 penmen have given not a quotation, but a para- 
 phrase, to render the sense of the Old Testament 
 more plain and obvious. Well-directed and ex- 
 tensive researches on this point tend only the 
 more clearly and strongly to establish the spiritual 
 intelligence of the writers of the New Testament ; 
 and thereby to satisfy every humble and sincere 
 Christian, that he has a solid foundation on which 
 to rest, when he implicitly accepts the New Testa- 
 ment interpretations of the Old. Since the pro- 
 cess of revelation culminated in the ministry of 
 Christ, and the appointment of His apostles to 
 
246 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 continue His ministry by acting as the divinely 
 qualified instructors of the church in all matters 
 pertaining to faith and duty, we must look to them 
 not only as teachers of new and unknown truths, 
 but as expositors of the Old Testament, from whose 
 interpretations there is no appeal. Carrying the 
 seal of their commission in the possession of the 
 extraordinary gifts of the Spirit, the apostles, 
 when acting in their official capacity, must be con- 
 sidered as expressing " the mind of Christ," — in- 
 spired men, who, both in applying the words of 
 ancient prophecy and exhibiting the spiritual 
 aspect of facts in the life of Christ, communicated 
 the word of God ; and therefore it is the duty of 
 all earnest followers of the Saviour to study their 
 writings, to learn what "the Spirit saith unto the 
 churches." 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 247 
 
 LECTUEE IV. 
 
 Collateral Proofs of the Inspiration of the Scriptures. 1. Ex- 
 ternal : Unity, Unsystematic Arrangement, Universal Applica- 
 tion, Impartiality, and Reserve of the Scriptures on Matters 
 not profitable. 2. Internal : True Idea of God given only 
 in the Scriptures — Sublime Descriptions of the Divine Cha- 
 racter — Anthropomorphisms— Prelusive Manifestations of God 
 — Repentance ascribed to God — Cruelty ascribed to God — ■ 
 Mediation of Christ — Moral Character of Christ — Idea of Sin 
 and Holiness — Proofs of the Inspired Character of the Sacred 
 Books. 
 
 I. The Unity of Scripture. — The Jewish Scrip- 
 tures, or the Old Testament, is the most marvellous 
 monument of ancient literature in the world : for 
 that sacred book contains, in its simple and primi- 
 tive annals, an account of the origin of society, 
 government, and the arts ; is enriched with many 
 poetical effusions, which no efforts of uninspired 
 genius have ever surpassed ; abounds with traits 
 of men and manners different altogether from any- 
 thing observable in our western hemisphere ; and, 
 in short, comprehends a treasure of the most varied 
 and valuable matter, far greater than can be found 
 anywhere else in the same compass. But although 
 
248 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 the Scriptures do contain these and many other 
 things of equal or superior interest, it is not on 
 this account it is to be regarded as the best and 
 most precious book in the world. Its grand 
 peculiarity and distinguishing excellence is, that 
 it is addressed to mankind as fallen creatures, to 
 discover to them their state of sin and misery, and 
 at the same time to point out the only efficient 
 remedy for that condition. All the other matter 
 it contains is subordinate to this main design, — 
 has been introduced merely from being connected 
 in some way or other with its progress and exten- 
 sion in the world, or being calculated to illustrate 
 and enforce its provisions. The unity of its design 
 is one of the most prominent features of the book ; 
 and this unity is all the more remarkable, consider- 
 ing the detached manner of its composition, the 
 lengthened period during which it was in progress, 
 and the many authors enlisted in its preparation. 
 Individually they made their contributions, whether 
 in plain history or animated song, whether in 
 visioned pictures of a glorious future, or in didactic 
 discourses about faith and duty, — each performing 
 his part without foreseeing the great result he 
 was helping to accomplish, or comprehending the 
 gracious scheme which he was instrumental in 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 249 
 
 advancing ; and yet how marvellous, and unpre- 
 cedented in the history of human workmanship, 
 the composite structure they severally assisted in 
 rearing, appears in its finished state, complete in 
 every part, redundant or defective in none. In 
 other words, the Scriptures, as we possess the sacred 
 volume, was not the product of one writer in a 
 single age : it consists of a large collection of mis- 
 cellaneous books or tracts, written by forty different 
 authors, who, so far from being of a priestly pro- 
 fession, or even moving in the same social circle, 
 belonged to the most opposite extremes of society ; 
 and so far from having concerted one common plan 
 of action, were separated, some of them, from one 
 another by the distance of many centuries : kings 
 and priests, shepherds and herdsmen, warriors and 
 fishermen, a tentmaker, a physican ; persons in high 
 life and a humble condition, — -enjoying various 
 advantages of education, bred under different forms 
 of government, possessing each his peculiar cast of 
 mind, taste, and natural temper, who wrote amid 
 great diversity of circumstances, of prosperity and 
 adversity, of freedom and captivity, and of the 
 outer influences which would affect intellectual 
 exertion in the treatment of a subject, or the senti- 
 ments and views they might entertain and express ; 
 
250 THE INSPIKATION OF 
 
 and yet there runs through the whole book, from 
 beginning to end, one grand principle or leading 
 design — the development of a scheme of grace for 
 the recovery and salvation of men. Thus were the 
 several books of the Scriptures composed by men 
 differing from one another in point of time, place, 
 talents, learning, and many other advantages and 
 outward circumstances of social position. And is 
 it possible that those forty authors could have 
 produced a book so completely consistent with all 
 the truth which reason teaches concerning the 
 being and perfections of God, and so powerfully 
 commending itself to the understandings, the con- 
 sciences, and the hearts of the wise and good in 
 all ages ? The thing is incredible — an impossible 
 achievement. The same uninspired author is not 
 always consistent with himself. Men of probity 
 and erudition, who have lived in distant periods 
 and places, have often differed most materially 
 on the same subject, nay, flatly contradicted and 
 opposed each other ; and some have even un- 
 consciously contradicted their former sentiments. 
 But here is a book, the latest penman of which 
 lived fifteen hundred years after the first, — a book 
 composed on a great variety of occasions, by per- 
 sons differing exceedingly in natural abilities, in 
 
THE HOLY SCULPTURES. 251 
 
 education, in dispositions, and indulging from taste 
 and habit in the utmost diversity of style ; persons 
 trained under different influences, and owing to their 
 separation both in place and time, having no means 
 nor opportunity of acting in concert. And yet 
 this book which they wrote is perfectly consistent 
 with natural theology and with itself ; giving the 
 same views of God, of Christ, of salvation, — of man 
 in his primitive, fallen, restored, and glorified state, 
 — the same view of the things of time and eternity. 
 Its universal harmony, its unbroken consistency, is 
 one of the wonders of the world. And how is so 
 singular a phenomenon to be accounted for ? Only 
 on this principle, that the penmen of this book 
 were under the influence and guidance of the un- 
 erring Spirit. 
 
 II. The Unsystematic Arrangement of the 
 Scriptures. — -The Bible is not a large book ; it is 
 very small compared with many other books, as 
 well as with the great number, variety, and import- 
 ance of the matter it contains. But had it been 
 arranged in the most methodical manner, and been 
 one connected chain of ratiocination from beginning 
 to end, what would have followed ? The whole 
 must have been read, and closely studied, before 
 
252 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 the reader could have obtained any just and com- 
 prehensive knowledge of it as a whole, or of many 
 of its parts, and derived much spiritual benefit to 
 his soul. The premises and their soundness, the 
 consecutive prosecution of the reasoning, the connec- 
 tion and bearings of all the parts, must have been 
 perceived and assented to before any spiritual 
 benefit could have been obtained. But where, in 
 this case, is the Christian in many hundreds or 
 thousands, to whom the Bible could have been of 
 any use ? Vast multitudes have not sufficient 
 time thus to peruse the Bible, and far more have 
 not the requisite ability to comprehend its plan, to 
 understand its reasoning, and to feel the force of 
 its demonstrative arguments. Had the Bible been 
 written in this artistic form, it is easy to perceive 
 that numbers of the saints now in heaven, and 
 numbers on the way to its beatific mansions, were 
 and are so deficient in mental capacity, in learning, 
 and in the habit of study, that they never could 
 have derived any real and permanent advantage 
 from its perusal. In that case, like many books 
 of human composition, written by men pre-eminent 
 for talents and erudition, it would have been 
 almost useless to the great majority of mankind, 
 and, like those able and learned tomes, might have 
 
THE HOLY SCKIPTUKES. 253 
 
 been confined to the libraries of the studious re- 
 cluse, or appreciated only by people of education 
 and intelligence. But in the desultory form im- 
 parted to it, the Bible is the book that is suited to 
 all classes of men — to the king and to the subject, 
 to the learned and to the unlearned, to the old and 
 to the young. Here is enough to employ the 
 talents of the most accomplished and acute ; while 
 the great truths, most necessary to be known, are 
 revealed in so plain and familiar a manner, that the 
 ignorant, the weak, even young children, may learn 
 and derive advantage from the knowledge of them. 
 There is strong meat for those that are of full age, 
 and milk for babes. 
 
 Every part of the Bible, it is true, is not 
 destitute of methodical arrangement ; for the books 
 of Job and Ecclesiastes, as well as the Epistles to 
 the Eomans and the Hebrews, are remarkable 
 specimens of regular, continuous, and even elaborate 
 composition. But the sacred volume, viewed in 
 its general aspect, is not a book of artistic reason- 
 ing or of abstract doctrines, but a record of facts, 
 a collection of maxims, illustrative of the divine 
 procedure towards man. The love of God is 
 exhibited in the marvellous fact that He gave His 
 Son to be the propitiation for the sins of mankind ; 
 
254 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 the love of the Son in the fact that He humbled 
 Himself, and became obedient unto death, even the 
 death of the cross ; the doctrine of divine pro- 
 vidence in the narrative of the divine government 
 of Israel; and the necessity, the pleasures, and 
 advantages of piety, in the examples, songs, and 
 prayers of ancient worthies of the church. These 
 things are scattered, like Orient pearls at random 
 strung, over the whole extent of the sacred volume ; 
 they are placed without order or any artificial 
 arrangement — here a little, and there a little. Like 
 the objects of the material world, which are found 
 everywhere in great profusion, and cognizable by 
 the senses of all, so the truths of Scripture are 
 level to the apprehension and instruction of every 
 one ; and a uniform experience has proved, that 
 from such short and plain statements of great 
 principles, the majority of mankind derive all 
 their knowledge and impressions of religion. They 
 open the Bible, and read a psalm, a chapter, a 
 parable, a short notice of some patriarch, prophet, 
 or apostle, a part of the history of Christ, or some 
 sententious passage embodying the sum and sub- 
 stance of the law or the gospel; and from these 
 divine summaries they derive more light, more 
 conviction, and more instruction in righteousness, 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 2o5 
 
 than they could do from whole volumes of demon- 
 strative reasoning, however clearly and logically 
 conducted, however skilfully and artistically ar- 
 ranged. 
 
 III. The Universal Application of the Scrip- 
 tures. — It gives us a just and full delineation of 
 all men in all ages. Some lived about six thou- 
 sand years ago, and vast multitudes of them in all 
 intervening ages, as well as in the present. They 
 have inhabited all zones and regions, have been 
 placed in circumstances the most diversified, and 
 been occupied in the most varied pursuits ; some 
 have been savages, others civilised, rich and poor, 
 learned and unlearned ; some have been favoured 
 with all the means of improvement and grace ; — 
 others have been destitute of any intellectual or 
 moral guidance, except what the light of depraved 
 reason, all but extinguished, supplied. What sage, 
 what philosopher, has ever appeared, who has 
 written a book that exhibits men, all men, just 
 as they have been and are ? None has appeared, 
 and we may add with confidence, that such a 
 writer, let his advantages be what they may, will 
 never appear. But here is a book, written not 
 by one, but by a considerable number of men, 
 
256 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 who lived in very different periods, at least the 
 great majority of them, and therefore had no con- 
 sultation together, who were neither travellers nor 
 philosophers, living in a small contracted country, 
 separated by national institutions, and hemmed in 
 by mountain barriers from the world beyond ; yet 
 this book is a mirror in which not the inhabitants 
 of Judea or of the Oriental world only, but all the 
 generations, nay, all the individuals of the human 
 race, in the essential attributes of their nature, may 
 see themselves exhibited faithfully and fully to the 
 very life. None but He who is the God of truth, 
 and who knows what is in man, could have been 
 the author of this book, given as it was at sundry 
 times and in divers portions. 
 
 IV. The Impartiality of the Scriptures. — In 
 all ages, so strong have been the tendencies of 
 human nature to hero-worship, that to resist and 
 overcome these has been the continual striving of 
 God with man ; and one of the distinguishing 
 characteristics of His revealed word is the many 
 and various safeguards it presents to our relapse 
 into that leading sin of Paganism. In the Bible, 
 indeed, we have the records of men of faith from 
 the earliest time ; the records of the best and 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 257 
 
 noblest of the race that have ever lived in the 
 world. We are furnished with full-length por- 
 traits of their characters and lives ; we see their 
 examples, we learn their reward, that we may be 
 led to imitate their faith and holiness ; but all 
 attempts to transfer to them the honours of 
 worship of any kind, or in any degree, would 
 have been repressed in all good times of the 
 Jewish church, both by the terrors of the divine 
 displeasure, and the penalties of the civil law. 
 The good men of the Old Testament church are 
 too natural in their goodness, and too like our- 
 selves, to be deified. We have the record of 
 Abraham's lies as well as of faith ; of Jacob's 
 deceit as well as his piety ; of the quarrel of 
 the twelve patriarchs, and its consequences ; of 
 David's adultery, as well as his deep and fer- 
 vent devotion ; of Solomon's wisdom, as well as 
 his weakness : all meet for instruction and admoni- 
 tion, but not for idolatry. The account of the 
 patriarchal families and of the chosen nation seems 
 a record of incessant backslidings and their punish- 
 ment ; yet so would that of any nation or family, 
 were its story told with the same singular fidelity 
 and circumstantial minuteness. In the New Tes- 
 tament we meet with a higher development of all 
 
 R 
 
258 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 the moral and spiritual elements of character ; yet 
 still no approach to, nor encouragement of, hero- 
 worship. The denial of Peter, and his later dupli- 
 city, the unbelief of Thomas, the vindictive spirit 
 of James and John, the cowardice and desertion of 
 all the apostles, the sharp contention of Paul and 
 Barnabas, are recorded as faithfully as the treachery 
 of Judas, or the enmity of the chief priests and 
 scribes. Better, holier, and more disinterested they 
 are represented than other men ; yet still, men of 
 like failings with us, to be admired and imitated 
 only in so far as they were the faithful imitators 
 of Him whom they proclaimed the light and the 
 life of the world. No human history can be com- 
 pared with that of the sacred volume in respect of 
 impartiality ; and whether we consider its faithful 
 chronicles of scenes of barbarism and wickedness, 
 calculated to reflect the blackest infamy on the 
 national name of Israel, or the failings and errors 
 even of apostles, as of John the apocalyptic 
 seer, who was in danger of falling into idolatry 
 by worshipping an angel, and who received a 
 check from that heavenly messenger, it is an un- 
 doubted fact, that there is no book in the world 
 that displays so honest and impartial a love of 
 truth, in recording the errors and sins, as well 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 259 
 
 as the virtues and excellences, even of good 
 men. 
 
 V. The Eeserve of the Scriptures on matters 
 not profitable. — The Bible is a wonderful book, 
 and the evidence of its divine origin and character 
 appears as much perhaps in what it withholds 
 as in what it reveals. Look to the foolish and 
 absurd legends which impostors have communi- 
 cated, as in the Koran of Mahomet, or the fabulous 
 traditions of Eome relating to the intercourse of 
 its saints and heroes with God, and the marvellous 
 scenes to which they were admitted in the upper 
 world ; and to every sober, enlightened, and re- 
 flecting mind, their narratives appear to bear the 
 stamp and impress of fiction on the face of them. 
 But how different the Bible, in which all the 
 scripture or writing that is given by inspiration 
 of God, is such only as is profitable for doctrine, 
 for reproof, for correction, and instruction in right- 
 eousness ! Thus, during the abode of Moses on 
 the mount, what wonders he must have witnessed, 
 what scenes of more than earthly glory and gran- 
 deur must have been disclosed to his view ! And 
 yet none of all these does he retail on his return 
 to the people. Though, by telling his tales of 
 
260 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 wonder, he might have made himself an object of 
 unequalled admiration, and drawn towards himself 
 an interest of no common intensity, he spoke of 
 nothing that tended merely to gratify an idle 
 curiosity, or foster a spirit of vain and useless 
 speculation ; and the grand subject which he in- 
 troduced, and on which he dwelt at large, on his 
 descent from the mount, was to announce the will 
 of God respecting the erection of a place of public 
 worship. 
 
 When Moses reascended the mount, he was 
 accompanied by a select band of attendants, whom 
 he had been instructed to bring with him on that 
 occasion. The persons selected for this distin- 
 guished privilege consisted of the most prominent 
 and influential parties in the Hebrew camp, — 
 parties most conspicuous for official rank and 
 station, whose testimony to the glorious scenes 
 unveiled to their view within the curtain of the 
 enveloping cloud, would encourage the people to 
 repose their faith in the delegated character and 
 mission of Moses. It was in conformity to divine 
 instructions these persons were selected to accom- 
 pany Moses in his second ascent to the mount, 
 in order that they might be witnesses of the divine 
 glory, as well as of those intimate communications 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 261 
 
 with God to which the leader was admitted ; and 
 their report of those supernatural scenes might 
 confirm the people's faith in the divine legation 
 with which he was invested. There was the 
 greatest propriety and wisdom in the arrangement 
 of this course : for although the conspicuous part 
 which Moses had heen honoured to act, in effect- 
 ing the emancipation of his countrymen from the 
 house of bondage, and in conducting them on 
 their subsequent' journeys through the wilderness, 
 afforded unmistakeable evidence that he enjoyed 
 the benefit of divine counsel and divine aid, this 
 was a very different thing from his being invested 
 with a delegated power to enact laws for their 
 government ; and as he was thenceforth to exercise 
 that power, to assume the character and office of 
 a lawgiver, and all his enactments were to be ac- 
 companied with sanctions of peculiar solemnity, it 
 was necessary to convince them that all that he 
 did and enjoined in his legislative capacity was 
 stamped with the seal of divine authority. No- 
 thing was better calculated to inspire the minds 
 of the people with confidence in the delegated 
 power and authority of Moses, than the scene 
 on the mount, attested by the report of many 
 competent witnesses, who would bear testimony 
 
262 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 that the law which Moses gave them was no 
 political scheme of human device, but was indeed 
 derived from the mind and communicated by the 
 authority of God. In the passage that gives an 
 account of their ascent 1 to the mount, we have an 
 account of one of the most remarkable scenes that 
 are recorded in the whole compass of the sacred 
 history ; and yet it is difficult whether most to 
 admire the brevity of the record, or the simplicity 
 of the language employed in narrating the sublime 
 spectacle they were privileged to witness. There 
 is no attempt at elaborate description ; no tendency 
 to amplify, either by the selection of striking cir- 
 cumstances, or even by the insertion of epithets 
 such as an excited imagination is apt to indulge 
 in ; no expression of the feelings, whether of admi- 
 ration or of awe, that pervaded the select group : 
 and whether this omission is to be accounted for 
 by the character of this book of Exodus, which 
 is the brief and succinct journal of an annalist ; 
 whether it arose from the attention of Moses being 
 more occupied in the composition of the history, 
 with the object for which those attendants had 
 been associated with him, than with the incidents 
 of their limited experience ; or whether the spec- 
 
 1 Ex. xxiv. 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTUKES. 263 
 
 tacle they witnessed was hastily passed over, as 
 little or nothing compared to the far sublimer 
 and fuller discoveries of the divine majesty and 
 glory with which Moses was himself afterwards 
 favoured, — the marked reserve he has maintained 
 with regard to the details of a scene so far beyond 
 the ordinary range of human experience, and on 
 which a fictitious writer would have felt an irre- 
 sistible temptation to enlarge, — this marked reserve 
 speaks volumes as to his character as an inspired 
 historian. The narrative bears on the face of it 
 the stamp and impress of truth ; and yet we may 
 fairly presume, that though a very brief record of 
 the scene has been transmitted to us, an ample 
 detail of circumstances would be given by the 
 delegates on their descent, which would be long 
 and widely circulated amongst their countrymen, 
 till it was gradually incorporated amongst the 
 popular views of the Godhead entertained by the 
 Jewish people. It was preserved by tradition, 
 and seems even to have fed the imagination of 
 the inspired bards of Israel. For the sublime 
 and glorious spectacle to which the favoured 
 attendants of Moses were now admitted, was 
 doubtless the germ of many of the most mag- 
 nificent descriptions, the symbolical imagery of 
 
264 THE INSPIKATION OF 
 
 the prophets — in those visioned theophanies which 
 are recorded in their mystic pages. It is, however, 
 a very brief record that has been given us of the 
 remarkable scene to which the attendants of Moses 
 were admitted. It is said, " they saw the God of 
 Israel." Now it is a first, a fundamental principle 
 of the true religion, that " no man hath seen 
 God at any time." Moreover, as it is expressly 
 declared, that at the promulgation of the moral 
 law the people saw no manner of similitude, it 
 is evident that the expression, " they saw the 
 God of Israel," can mean nothing more than that 
 they beheld the sign or emblem of His presence. 
 They were favoured with a glimpse of His glory, — 
 that form of it which is commonly spoken of in 
 Scripture under the name of the Shechinah, ex- 
 hibited on that occasion perhaps in a clearer and 
 more vivid degree of effulgence than ever had 
 been formerly witnessed. The Septuagint version 
 renders it, " they saw the place where the God of 
 Israel stood." Whatever it was they saw, it was 
 evidently a something of which no image or picture 
 could be made, and yet marked by such attendant 
 symbols as impressed the minds of all the be- 
 holders with the strongest conviction that God 
 was there of a truth : and it will be remembered, 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 265 
 
 that all the divine manifestations to the ancient 
 church were made by Him who is styled the 
 Angel of the Covenant, and declared by Paul to 
 be Christ. It is observable, however, that in the 
 record of what the attendants of Moses saw, no- 
 thing of the sublime spectacle is described but 
 that which was under his feet. Whether it was 
 that their eyes, dazzled by excess of light, could 
 not stedfastly look at the effulgent glory, or from 
 a feeling of profound reverence, no attempt was 
 made to report any part of the extraordinary 
 scene, except the part on which the glory seemed 
 to rest. 
 
 A similar reserve is maintained by Isaiah in 
 describing the symbols of his famous vision. The 
 elevated throne ; the ample train or glory which 
 filled the temple, like the long-flowing robes of 
 oriental monarchs on grand occasions extending 
 over the floor of the spacious chamber ; the atten- 
 dant seraphim, from a sense of unworthiness to 
 behold the divine majesty, veiling their faces, and, 
 to mark their reverential respect, covering their 
 feet, or the lower part of their body, according to 
 a practice in the East when persons go into the 
 presence of royalty ; their readiness to execute the 
 behests of their Divine Master, and their delegated 
 
266 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 occupation in praising Him; — all these are circum- 
 stantially described ; but no attempt is made to 
 depict the glory of the Lord Himself. From the 
 awful sublimity of such a theme the prophet 
 shrank in conscious humility. And this Person, 
 whose glory was so transcendently great, is de- 
 clared, on the express authority of the Apostle 
 John, to have been Christ : " These things said 
 Esaias, when he saw His glory, and spake of Him," * 
 the Divine Word, " the brightness of the Father's 
 glory, and the express image of His person." 2 
 This was but a visioned representation of the 
 divine glory ; for the prophet was in a state of 
 ecstatic inspiration, and had the things signified 
 by the symbols of the vision vividly impressed 
 on his mind. But the apostles, long after, were 
 favoured with a sensible manifestation of the 
 supernatural glory of the Saviour on the Mount 
 of Transfiguration. No one who reads the nar- 
 rative of that wonderful transaction, can fail to 
 perceive how admirably all the parts of the 
 panoramic scene were calculated to heighten the 
 glory of Christ, and to shadow forth the true 
 purpose of His advent and ministry ; and al- 
 though the earthly spectators did not at once 
 
 ' John xii. 41. 2 Heb. i. 2. 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 267 
 
 arrive at a full apprehension of those sublime 
 mysteries, yet when their minds were opened, 
 and the Holy Spirit had led them into all the 
 truth, we find them ever after appealing to the 
 scene on the mount as affording an incontestable 
 evidence of the character and glory of Christ. But 
 in how simple and moderate terms is it related 
 in the Gospels, and alluded to in the Epistle of 
 Peter ! Had an uninspired writer of talent and 
 eloquence been called to describe such a scene, 
 how would he have enlisted all his powers of 
 imagination to heighten every circumstance, and 
 have exhausted his vocabulary for superlatives to 
 depict the surpassing magnificence of our Lord, 
 when arrayed in His robes of celestial glory ! The 
 sacred penmen resort to no such artifices ; but 
 describe this most awe-inspiring spectacle in few 
 and unaffected words, by saying : " He was trans- 
 figured before them ; His face did shine as the 
 sun, and His raiment was white as the light." 
 The brevity and simplicity of this statement is 
 to a reflecting mind far more significant and 
 effective than the most elaborate description : for 
 as the sun is the brightest object in nature, and 
 no human eye can stedfastly endure the glare 
 of His radiant disc, it is impossible for words 
 

 268 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 to convey a higher idea of splendour, than that 
 the face of the Saviour shone like that resplen- 
 dent orb ; and as light is the pure essence of 
 whiteness, the other statement is as little capable 
 of being strengthened by any addition, " His raiment 
 was white as the light." 
 
 Another instance of reserve in the relation of 
 spiritual and divine things is furnished by the 
 Apostle Paul, who was favoured with " visions " of 
 the divine glory, and "revelations" of the heavenly 
 world, to a degree beyond what mortal man ever 
 enjoyed. He was " caught up into the third," or the 
 highest heaven, where he heard such words as man 
 could not speak if he might, and as it would be 
 unlawful to speak if he could ; the divine purpose 
 being, that the discoveries which God has made of 
 Himself in that glorious world, should not be more 
 fully made in the present state than they have been. 
 There the works of God are exhibited on a grander 
 scale, the government of God subsists in a more 
 perfect form ; and creatures vastly superior to 
 man in capacities, in intelligence, and in moral 
 qualities, inhabit the blessed region. The apostle 
 was favoured with a transient revelation of its 
 economy ; and yet, so far from attempting to draw 
 a highly-coloured picture, or even to dilate on the 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 269 
 
 unknown wonders disclosed to his enraptured view, 
 lie sums it all up in the modest assertion, " It is 
 not expedient for me, doubtless, to glory." 
 
 The last instance of this kind of reserve I shall 
 mention is taken from the Apocalypse, connected 
 with the sublime scene of which the rainbow forms 
 so conspicuous a feature, and forming the first of 
 those many-pictured visions that passed before the 
 eyes of the apostolic seer in the caves of Patmos. 
 In contemplating the group of images which this 
 description contains, the mind of a reader is natu- 
 rally directed in the first instance to the principal 
 personage in the picture ; and ev.ery one must be 
 struck with the admirable, the prudent, and pious 
 reserve of John, who has said not a word about 
 Him who sat on the throne. Upon the furniture 
 and appendages of the throne, especially upon the 
 symbolical "rainbow that was round about it," the 
 sacred writer has largely dwelt, for these are legiti- 
 mate and practicable subjects of contemplation; but 
 he has entirely refrained from the least approach to 
 a description of Him who sat upon it — thus acting 
 as the most exalted of creatures must ever be con- 
 strained to do, filled with silent adoration and over- 
 whelming awe of that Being who dwells in light 
 inaccessible and full of glory. 
 
270 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 Such is the habitual reserve, the studied caution, 
 which the sacred writers observe in all their allu- 
 sions to spiritual and divine things. They act 
 like men who are impressed with solemn awe, as 
 feeling that they stood on holy ground ; and this 
 demeanour, which is common to all of them, pro- 
 duces a strong conviction that they spoke and wrote 
 in the name and by the authority of God. 
 
 The same reserve is shown in other classes of 
 subjects — such as their entire omission of all mat- 
 ters that are not subservient to the great ends of 
 revelation, or are not profitable for correction and 
 instruction in righteousness. We select an instance 
 of this from the earliest annals of the world. Brief 
 as is the account which the sacred historian has 
 given of the various processes of creation, as well 
 as of the original state and altered destiny of man, 
 it might have been expected that he would have 
 been more copious and minute in his details when 
 he entered on the history of the human race, as 
 they have ever since existed in the world. And 
 perhaps there are few readers of the Bible, who, 
 from the sympathies of a common nature, have not 
 at times been conscious of a strong desire to possess 
 a biography of the first pair. "We might have 
 wished to know something of their condition and 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTUEES. 27l 
 
 habits, — to see Adam employed in the operations 
 of the field, and Eve busy with her simple cares as 
 a wife and mother. We might have wished to 
 obtain a glimpse into their family circle ; to be 
 furnished with sketches of its different members, 
 and anecdotes of the infant children ; to learn how 
 they divided their day, what was the internal eco- 
 nomy of their household, — in what manner the first 
 parents of mankind educated their offspring, and 
 what was the general tenor of their lives. Above 
 all, we might have wished to possess some infor- 
 mation as to their sentiments and feelings on a 
 subject the most important to the well-being and 
 happiness of intelligent, moral, and fallen creatures ; 
 to learn whether they cherished a spirit of repent- 
 ance and faith, to know their devotional habits, to 
 have a record of the time and place of their engag- 
 ing in social worship, as well as of the stated ritual 
 that constituted their primitive form of religion. 
 But the inspired wisdom that guided the pen of 
 Moses, led him to pass over in silence all the inci- 
 dents of their personal and family history ; and the 
 only fragment of their primitive annals that has 
 been preserved is a painful episode, which exhibits 
 an awful proof of the sinful nature which our first 
 parents had transmitted to their posterity. 
 
272 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 We select another instance of this kind of reserve 
 from the commencement of the New Testament his- 
 tory ; and it refers to the early period of that life 
 which possesses an intense and never-failing interest 
 for every Christian mind. Perhaps there is no reader 
 of the Gospels but has felt the desire rise in his 
 bosom to know some details of the childhood and 
 youth of Jesus, — to possess some specimens of His 
 opening faculties and progressive education ; in- 
 stances of His precocious intellect, His devotional 
 habits, His earnestness and assiduity in searching 
 the Scriptures, and the eminent example He gave 
 of juvenile piety ; how He worked as a mechanic, 
 whether He associated with the villagers, or kept 
 aloof from most of them as people of a rough, bad, 
 and uncongenial character ; what were His favourite 
 haunts in His hours of leisure, what roads He fre- 
 quented in the neighbourhood of that highland 
 hamlet ; whether He courted privacy, and loved, 
 like Isaac, to meditate in the fields ; whether any 
 and what indications were ever given of the latent 
 wisdom and undeveloped powers He possessed. But 
 on all these matters an absolute silence is observed. 
 The first thirty years of His life are involved in 
 impenetrable obscurity. But if they have been 
 passed over by His biographers in silence, it was 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 273 
 
 certainly not from want of means and opportunities 
 to obtain ample information. The minute circum- 
 stances recorded by Matthew and Luke at the 
 opening of their respective Gospels show that both 
 of them were on a footing of close, familiar inti- 
 macy with Joseph and Mary, and consequently 
 had direct access to the best and purest sources of 
 intelligence. When we remember that Mary, with 
 regard to all that was said and done by her extra- 
 ordinary Son, is recorded to have "kept these 
 things in her heart," we cannot doubt that that 
 earnest observer must have treasured up many 
 anecdotes of interest relating to his early life ; 
 and we can as little doubt that these must 
 have been often retailed to the evangelists, as to 
 other friends of the family. But they have not 
 transmitted those anecdotes, because the preserva- 
 tion of them would have served no purpose but to 
 minister to the gratification of curiosity ; and with 
 the exception of some brief remarks on His subjec- 
 tion to His earthly parents, and His increase of 
 favour with God and man, they have confined their 
 evangelical narratives to the period of His public 
 ministry. We might remark also, that there is no 
 description given in any of the evangelical bio- 
 graphies of the features of our Lord, His size, 
 s 
 
274 THE INSPIEATION OF 
 
 form, and demeanour, — a reserve evidently dictated 
 by the same divine wisdom which concealed the 
 burial-place of Moses. 
 
 We select a third instance of this kind of reserve 
 from the close of the Saviour's ministry. A reflect- 
 ing reader, who has pondered the records of His 
 resurrection, must have often been conscious of 
 many questions arising in his mind connected with 
 that miraculous event, some of them perhaps 
 trivial, others merely curious and speculative. 
 They are such as the following : "Whither did He 
 go first on leaving the tomb ? Whence did He 
 obtain the clothes that He wore ? Where did He 
 lodge, when not with the disciples ? Whence did 
 He come, when He joined the two pious travellers 
 of Emmaus, and whither did He go on leaving 
 them ? How did He with a real material body enter 
 suddenly into the midst of their private assembly, 
 and vanish with equal suddenness from the upper 
 room ? As He rose the first-fruits from the dead, 
 and it was with the identical body in which He 
 had suffered, did it undergo a change in His ascent, 
 to fit it for that world which flesh and blood can- 
 not inhabit ? and how far did it differ from that 
 spiritual body with which, according to Paul, the 
 saints shall be invested in the future world ? On 
 
THE HOLY SCULPTURES. 275 
 
 all such matters the sacred writers maintain a pru- 
 dent reserve, and in this respect furnish a striking 
 proof that the Scripture, all of which is given by 
 inspiration of God, contains nothing but what is 
 profitable for correction and instruction in right- 
 eousness. 
 
 II. INTERNAL PROOFS OF INSPIRATION.. 
 
 The revelations made in the Scripture concern- 
 ing the character and will of God afford decisive 
 proofs of the inspiration of the Scriptures. 
 
 I. True Idea of the Divine Being. — Of God, 
 and of His character, we can derive no certain 
 knowledge from created sources. No angel has 
 descended from his high abode, and mingled with 
 mortals to communicate the tidings. No dis- 
 embodied spirit has returned to reveal the secrets 
 of the other world. And if none has come down 
 the bearer of such intelligence, as certainly none 
 of the wisest and most inquisitive of men has ever 
 been able to soar aloft with adventurous wing to 
 the knowledge of the Divine Majesty, and bring 
 back from his mission of exploration the much 
 
276 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 wished-for, all-important information. We may, 
 indeed, erect on the platform of this world a ladder 
 to climb up by its lofty steps, and so obtain some 
 glimpses of God as He manifests Himself in other 
 and more elevated regions. Men did so in ancient 
 times ; but amid the speculations of many thousand 
 years on the being and character of God, made by 
 the greatest and wisest minds that ever adorned 
 our fallen humanity, mankind never advanced a 
 step beyond vague and dubious conjecture : every 
 successive age was obliged to content itself with 
 the knowledge of the preceding one, just as the 
 creatures which are guided by instinct, and one 
 race of which never outstrips or rises higher than 
 another. Some light, indeed, was reflected from 
 His works and the course of His providential deal- 
 ings ; but still, as through both of these men 
 could see only through a glass darkly, the most 
 enlightened and accomplished in the study both of 
 nature and providence could be described as doing 
 little else than seeking, if haply they might find 
 God. With all the aids furnished by both depart- 
 ments of His works, they were still, like the blind, 
 groping their way in uncertainty and darknesa 
 And in weighing the opinions formed, the conclu- 
 sions arrived at, by those who were not favoured 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTUKES. 277 
 
 and blessed with the guiding illumination of Heaven, 
 it is impossible not to perceive how egregiously and 
 fatally they erred in some views, in what painful 
 doubt and uncertainty they were involved as to 
 other points of the divine character, which it is 
 most desirable and important to ascertain. Instead 
 of a perfect Being, they conceived only of an 
 imperfect one, — a creation of their own fancy, — 
 labouring under material defects, contaminated by 
 debasing passions, addicted to grovelling enjoy- 
 ments, or degraded by the love and practice of 
 odious vices. Others who are further advanced in 
 knowledge, but possessing only the light of natural 
 reason, are sadly perplexed by the apparently 
 jarring views of God suggested by the phenomena 
 of the material world and the course of providence. 
 The regular succession of the seasons, the revolu- 
 tion of day and night, the usually tranquil and 
 settled order of nature, and the profuse bounty 
 that provides for the necessities as well as the 
 enjoyment of man. and the innumerable tribes of 
 living creatures which inhabit the earth along with 
 him, inspire the idea of an amiable and beneficent 
 Being ; while, on the other hand, the aspect of 
 the heavens, black and lowering, — the outburst of 
 the tempest, that uproots the trees of the forest, 
 
278 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 overthrows houses, commits widespread havoc on 
 land, and destroys navies at sea, — the roar of the 
 thunder, the flash of the lightning, the ravages of 
 the pestilence that walketh in darkness, — appal with 
 the terrors of almighty power. Similar perplexity 
 is produced by the varying course of providence : 
 for the peace and happiness that attend the prac- 
 tice of sobriety and virtue, the prosperity that 
 rewards the industrious, and the connection which 
 experience shows to subsist between a patient 
 continuance in well-doing and the secure enjoy- 
 ment of life, tend to create a belief that the world 
 is under the superintendence of a wise and good 
 Bein^. But the moral disorders and strange 
 anomalies that are ever and anon witnessed, — the 
 triumphs of the wicked, the persecution of the best 
 and most excellent persons solely for their devoted- 
 ness to the cause of pure religion, and the un- 
 successful struggles of honest families against the 
 combined evils of poverty and disease, — are apt to 
 force the conclusion, that if there is a God who 
 loves good and hates evil, He is an arbitrary and 
 capricious tyrant. Now it is in the Scriptures 
 alone that the character of God appears invested 
 with attributes suited to the majesty of the 
 Supreme Being. It is there alone His eternity and 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTUKES. 279 
 
 immutability, His unity and spirituality, His awful 
 majesty and moral perfections, are made known in 
 a manner calculated to secure the esteem as well as 
 the confidence of intelligent and rational creatures. 
 It would be easy to multiply quotations to an 
 indefinite extent, showing the vast superiority of 
 the inspired volume to all other sources of know- 
 ledge regarding the God with whom we have to do. 
 We must confine ourselves to a few only : — " Before 
 the mountains were brought forth, or ever Thou 
 hadst formed the earth and the world, even from 
 everlasting to everlasting, Thou art God." " Of old 
 hast Thou laid the foundation of the earth, and the 
 heavens are the work of Thy hands. They shall 
 perish, but Thou shalt endure ; yea, all of them 
 shall wax old like a garment : as a vesture shalt 
 Thou change them, and they shall be changed ; but 
 Thou art the same, and Thy years shall have no 
 end." How strikingly is the eternal and indepen- 
 dent existence of God represented in the fact, that 
 He was before any part of the visible creation was 
 called into being ; and that although the material 
 universe should perish or wear away like an old 
 piece of clothing, He would continue, unshorn of 
 His glory, undiminished in His happiness, and un- 
 affected in His nature ! On the memorable occa- 
 
280 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 sion of Moses requesting to see the glory of the 
 Lord, it is said, in one of the most solemn and 
 mysterious passages of the Bible, that the Lord, 
 in compliance with the desire of His pious servant, 
 descended in a cloud, and stood with him there, 
 and proclaimed Himself the "Lord, the Lord God, 
 merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant 
 in goodness and truth." Can anything surpass or 
 equal the sublimity of this ? A mere human 
 philosopher would have selected some gorgeous 
 description from the appearances of material nature, 
 with which as a suitable train to array the Majesty 
 of Heaven in descending upon the mount ; but the 
 simplicity of the scriptural narrative, unfolding 
 not the full effulgence of His divine glory, which 
 the weakness of humanity in its present state could 
 not have endured, but enlarging only on the lead- 
 ing attributes of His moral character, at once 
 commends itself to the minds of all as superior to 
 aught that man could have said. In the sublime 
 song of Moses contained in the 3 2d chapter of 
 Deuteronomy, the following description is given of 
 the Divine Being : " He is the rock, His work is 
 perfect ; for all His ways are judgment : a God of 
 truth, and without iniquity ; just and right is He." 
 How infinitely does this exalt God above the empty 
 
THE HOLY SCEIPTUEES. 281 
 
 and false objects to whom the votaries of heathen 
 superstition give their blind and devoted reverence ! 
 In the song of thanksgiving offered by Hannah at 
 the birth of Samuel, these exalted sentiments 
 occur : " There is none holy as the Lord ; for there 
 is none beside Thee, neither is there any rock like 
 our God. The Lord is a God of knowledge, and 
 by Him actions are weighed." When Elijah had 
 fled to Horeb after the slaughter of the priests of 
 Baal, his impetuous temper having led him to dis- 
 satisfaction and despair, because all idolaters were 
 not immediately extirpated in the kingdom of 
 Israel, an important and most seasonable lesson was 
 given him. The symbols of the divine power and 
 majesty were exhibited to him in a whirlwind, an 
 earthquake, and a fire ; yet God was not in all these 
 terrific phenomena. There was, however, a soft 
 murmur or whispering sound that followed, sym- 
 bolizing gentleness, patience, and mercy ; and God 
 spake in that voice. The design of this remarkable 
 scene was to show the prophet that it was not 
 according to the character of God to destroy or to 
 coerce, but by the rational weapons of argument 
 and preaching the word to persuade the idolatrous 
 people to abandon a false and to embrace the true 
 religion. The Psalmist has described the divine 
 
282 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 omnipresence by the following metaphorical illus- 
 tration : " Whither shall I go from Thy Spirit ? or 
 whither shall I flee from Thy presence ? If I 
 ascend up into heaven, Thou art there ; if I make 
 my bed in hell (the place of the dead), behold, Thou 
 art there. If I take the wings of the morning, and 
 dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there 
 shall Thy hand lead me, and Thy right hand shall 
 hold me." * This is a beautiful poetical amplifica- 
 tion, to express in a vivid manner the common truth 
 that evidences of divine agency are found every- 
 where. Jeremiah uttered a prayer in the following 
 terms of sublime and enlightened devotion : " Lord 
 God ! behold, Thou hast made the heaven and the 
 earth by Thy great power and stretched-out arm, and 
 there is nothing too hard for Thee ; Thou showest 
 loving-kindness unto thousands, and recompensest 
 the iniquity of the fathers into the bosom of their 
 children after them : The Great, the Mighty God, 
 the Lord of hosts, is His name ; great in counsel, 
 and mighty in work : for Thine eyes are open upon 
 all the ways of the sons of men ; to give every one 
 according to his ways, and according to the fruit of 
 his doings." Micah breaks forth into the following 
 animated apostrophe : " Who is a God like unto 
 1 Ps. cxxxix. 7-10. 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 28 3 
 
 Thee, that pardonest iniquity, and passest by the 
 transgression of the remnant of Thy heritage ? Thou 
 retainest not Thine anger for ever, because Thou 
 delightest in mercy." And to mention only one 
 passage more : the New Testament gives this brief 
 and simple, but rational and sublime character 
 of God. He is " a Spirit, who requires that those 
 who worship Him, should worship in spirit and in 
 truth," — a passage which intimates clearly and 
 beautifully, that no material walls limit His pre- 
 sence, no favoured spot holds an exclusive right 
 to enjoy it ; but that wherever man may go, even 
 to wilds where the feet of the adventurous tra- 
 veller have never trode, nor the voice of human 
 suppliant has ever been heard, there the sincere wor- 
 shipper may receive showers of blessing from above. 
 It has been alleged, however, that the early 
 Scriptures abound with passages of a very different 
 tenor — passages which give a very different view of 
 the Divine Being from that which is exhibited in 
 the New Testament. Instead of representing the 
 Divine Being in a manner worthy the Majesty of 
 Heaven, and in harmony with His spiritual nature, 
 they degrade Him by the ascription of acts and 
 feelings identical with those of man, The allega- 
 tion admits of an easy and satisfactory explanation. 
 
284 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 The face, eyes, ears, hands, back parts, are obviously 
 figurative expressions in the anthropomorphic style, 
 as it is impossible to conceive of a spirit but 
 through the medium of the senses, and there is no 
 other way of describing what He does. The soul 
 of man being created after the image of God, it is 
 a spirit ; and yet, in the full knowledge and belief 
 that it is of a spiritual nature, we are accustomed 
 to speak of seeing with the eye of the mind, of 
 handling a subject, of taking a firm grasp of it, and 
 of metaphorically applying various other expres- 
 sions borrowed from the senses, to describe mental 
 operations, which these aptly represent. Now, 
 conceiving, as men generally do, that the human 
 soul is the same in substance as the Divine Spirit, 
 it is natural for them to describe the acts of God 
 in the same figurative way as they represent the 
 movements of their own minds, and endeavour to 
 impress their imaginations with the vivid idea of 
 His character by ascribing to Him hands, nostrils, 
 ears, eyes, with every active function of the body 
 and every emotion of the mind, just because it is 
 the only way in which He can be brought into 
 contact with the feelings of man, his hopes, his 
 fears, his affections, his imaginative, and even his 
 corporeal associations. What good reason, then, or 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 285 
 
 what sound authority, is there for objecting to a 
 mode of speaking in such constant and familiar 
 use, and for casting it away, notwithstanding the 
 example which has been set by sacred historians 
 and prophets, who used it in writing of the God- 
 head, for the dry and unsubstantial representations 
 of it into which modern theology, borrowing from 
 philosophy, has fallen ? Atheistic philosophers and 
 poets may talk of God as a mighty power every- 
 where diffused through nature, a universal motion, 
 an unknown existence, a mysterious essence, and 
 think it great reverence to express such indefinite 
 notions of Him. But the same writers who tell 
 us that no similitude of the Divine Being was 
 beheld on the mount, are wont to represent Him 
 to the conceptions of a rude people, as seeing, 
 hearing, smelling, coming down, and lifting up ; 
 and conscious experience teaches us, that the 
 human mind cannot realize the idea of God from 
 the abstract language of philosophy so strongly and 
 so fully as when we speak of Him as the living 
 God, the God that judgeth, whose eyes behold and 
 whose eyelids try the children of men. 
 
 It is further said, that the actions attributed to 
 Him are at variance with the higher revelation He 
 has given of Himself in the gospel ; and the re- 
 
286 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 corded instances of His direct interference in the 
 domestic affairs of the patriarchs, and the trivial 
 interests of the Israelitish people, are opposed to 
 the established course of providence in the world. 
 Now we know that the meanest creature in which 
 the principle of life is implanted has its allotted 
 destiny, and is cared for by the Divine Being. 
 And as man is of more value than many sparrows, 
 the inference is, that every human being is an 
 object of special care on the part of Him who 
 rules the universe, and who, though acting in the 
 remotest regions of space, is at the same instant 
 in this world, taking cognizance of every per- 
 son, his history, Iris movements, and his doings, 
 as if he were the sole inhabitant in it. Besides, 
 if we believe that God entered into a special 
 covenant with the Jewish people, we must also 
 believe that this dispensation was carried on con- 
 sistently with the moral government of the world 
 at large ; and that if He had important objects to 
 be promoted through the instrumentality of that 
 nation, it was to be expected that He would take 
 an interest in the personal and domestic concerns 
 of those who were employed as the chief agents in 
 accomplishing His will. Hence His frecpient in- 
 terpositions in the lives of the patriarchs, in the 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTUKES. 287 
 
 history of Moses, at the birth of Samson, and in 
 the case of Elijah. Moreover, the divine appear- 
 ances to Abraham and the patriarchs formed part 
 of the religious education by which they were 
 trained to the knowledge and service of the true 
 God. By these frequent and familiar manifesta- 
 tions to Abraham, the personality of God was seen 
 in opposition to pantheism, His unity as opposed 
 to polytheism, and His infinite perfections in con- 
 trast with the gross conceptions of idolatry. As it is 
 reasonable to think that in all these manifestations 
 there would be the same tones of voice, and the 
 same unequivocal tokens of the divine presence, 
 there is little room for doubting that the patri- 
 archs possessed the amplest means of satisfying 
 themselves that it was God who addressed them. 
 In the long series of miracles, conversations, and 
 appearances, the patriarchs must have acquired a 
 distinct and accurate knowledge of the Divine 
 Spokesman or Bevealer, as a man has of a friend, 
 or a servant of a master, when he hears his voice 
 or beholds his features. And these manifesta- 
 tions, which are so frequently recorded in the early 
 annals of the ancient church, are not, as has been 
 alleged, inconsistent with the statement made in 
 a later portion of the Scripture, that " no man 
 
288 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 hath seen God at any time;" 1 for they were made 
 by " the Angel of the Covenant," " the image of 
 the invisible God," who, as Mediator, has carried 
 on all the negotiations between heaven and earth 
 since the fall The identity of character and con- 
 sistency of revelation maintained by this manifested 
 Deity during many successive centuries, are them- 
 selves sufficient to prove the truth of the narratives 
 which relate them ; for they could not be the in- 
 vention of the human mind. Nor can those who 
 believe the wonderful fact, that " in the fulness of 
 time " He became man, and tabernacled in the 
 world, deem it incredible, that, by appearing from 
 time to time to persons connected with the early 
 church in the form of humanity, assumed at will 
 on particular occasions, He gave prelusive intima- 
 tions of His future incarnation. So clearly has 
 the character of God been made known by Him 
 who was the brightness of the Father's glory, and 
 who, being in the bosom of the Father, came down 
 from heaven to earth to declare Him unto us, that 
 modern infidels have borrowed indirectly, and with- 
 out acknowledgment, all their ideas of the Supreme 
 Being from the mind of Christ ; and that the 
 humble peasant, who has no book in his possession 
 1 John i. 18. 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 289' 
 
 but the Bible, the very child who is learning the 
 Catechism, has a far better knowledge of what man 
 is to believe concerning God, than the greatest of 
 ancient philosophers, who laboured by refined and 
 metaphysical speculations to frame an abstract con- 
 ception of the divine character. 
 
 Another objection that is brought against the 
 scriptural idea of God is, that He is represented as 
 repenting} Eepentance, in the literal meaning of the 
 term, is impossible in the divine mind ; and when 
 ascribed to God, can be so only in a metaphorical, 
 not a literal sense. In consequence of the imper- 
 fection of human language, and the purely spiritual 
 nature of Jehovah, all descriptions of His character 
 must, in order to be intelligible to us, be conveyed 
 in phraseology borrowed from the operations of our 
 own minds. In this way we feebly approximate 
 to right ideas of His perfections. When repent- 
 ance is attributed to God, it implies not a change 
 of design, but a change in His mode of dealing 
 with men, such as would indicate on their part a 
 change of purpose. He allows the inward purposes 
 of His mind, which in Himself are eternally one, 
 for man's sake to be separated according to the 
 order of time, that thus man may be able to 
 1 Gen. vi. 7 ; Jer. xlii. 10, etc. 
 
 T 
 
290 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 understand them. In fact, the great end and aim 
 of the Scriptures is to reveal God to man, to give 
 a description of His character, a history of His 
 modes of proceeding, and an account of His laws. 
 Now, if God were liable to repent or change, there 
 could be no secure reliance on this revelation. In 
 that case, the books of Scripture might be true at 
 one time, and not at another, — true at the time 
 they were written, and not true now. Since that 
 time the character of God might have altered ; He 
 might have changed His mode of procedure, and 
 framed a new code of laws. This is what actually 
 happens amongst men : for there are few, if any 
 persons, whose habits or manners or principles do 
 not vary more or less at different periods of life ; 
 nor is there any Government that does not more or 
 less alter its legislation, to adapt it to the circum- 
 stances of a more advanced age. In such cases, 
 new descriptions of character and new codes of law 
 become absolutely necessary. But God is always 
 the same ; and therefore the Scriptures are always 
 a sure and unvarying expression of His will. The 
 New Testament has now been written nearly 
 eighteen hundred years, and some parts of the 
 Old Testament three thousand. Yet the Bible is 
 as faithful an account of its Divine Author at this 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 291 
 
 moment as at the first ; and it will remain so, if the 
 world should last even millions of years to come. 
 
 But the greatest objection which has been urged 
 is the aspect in which the Old Testament repre- 
 sents the character of God, — the aspect of a gloomy 
 and vindictive Being, jealous of His honour, and 
 ready to resent with condign punishment the 
 giving of His glory to another. In accordance 
 with this view of His character is the account of 
 His proceedings, and His treatment of those who 
 committed a breach of His laws. The whole cha- 
 racter of His legislation, it is alleged, is draconic. 
 But it must be remembered that, in dealing with 
 the Jewish people, God had to maintain the dis- 
 cipline of a stern and inflexible sovereign ; while, 
 at the same time, He showed on many occasions 
 that He was full of patience and forbearance, ready 
 to forgive the errors and sins of His people, waiting 
 for their repentance, and remitting their punishment. 
 The whole character of His procedure is summed 
 up in these striking words : " As I live, saith the 
 Lord, I have no pleasure in the death of the sinner, 
 but rather that He turn from his wicked ways and 
 live. Turn ye, turn ye, from your evil ways ; for 
 why will ye die, house of Israel % " 
 
 It is an interesting and instructive fact, that 
 
292 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 these descriptions of the being and character of 
 God were given to the Jewish people from the 
 commencement of their national existence. At a 
 time when religion was deeply corrupted in all 
 other parts of the world, — when neither the astro- 
 nomy of Chaldea, nor all the wisdom of the 
 Egyptians, nor the refined taste and high civilisa- 
 tion of the Greeks and Romans, could preserve 
 them from the grossest forms of idolatry and 
 superstition, — this description of the true God was 
 given exclusively in the land of Judea ; — these 
 views of His character were taught, not to select 
 audiences in the schools of the prophets or the 
 colleges of the priests, but to all classes of the 
 common people in that country. Was not this a 
 proof that the Jews were under the direct and 
 special instruction of Heaven ? and that the pro- 
 phets who gave them religious instruction, so far 
 superior to what a Socrates or Plato, a Cicero or 
 Seneca, ever attained in the most enlightened times 
 of Greece and Eome, were God-taught men ? 
 
 Views of the divine character such as the pre- 
 ceding, so far transcending all that the unassisted 
 mind of man could reach, evidently show that the 
 book in which they are contained was given by 
 inspiration of God. Who could have imagined 
 
THE HOLY SCKIPTURES. 293 
 
 such lofty ideas, or described such a perfect cha- 
 racter, but those whose minds were illuminated, en- 
 larged, and infallibly directed from above 1 And 
 when we find that none but those ambassadors of 
 God, whose writings are contained in the Old and 
 New Testaments, have been able to give any ex- 
 hibition of His character that is suitable to, or 
 consistent with, the divine nature, we are to judge 
 of what men can do from what they have actually 
 done ; and to conclude, that none could have re- 
 presented the majesty and perfections of God in 
 all their glory, but those to whom He Himself was 
 pleased to impart the knowledge. This knowledge 
 is contained in the Scriptures ; and since all that 
 we can observe and all that we can conceive of that 
 exalted Being conspire to prove the truth of the re- 
 presentations which the sacred volume has afforded 
 of Him, we are led by the clearest dictates of en- 
 lightened reason to believe that the Scripture was 
 given by inspiration of God. 
 
 II. We have an additional confirmation in the 
 official character and work of Him who, in modern 
 phrase, is the hero of the book, whose peculiar mini- 
 stry and qualifications for discharging it form the 
 principal and engrossing subject of the Scriptures. 
 
294 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 Every one who enters upon the office of mediator 
 must possess the qualities and belong to a station 
 that will secure for him the confidence of both the 
 parties whom he undertakes to reconcile. In 
 ordinary cases, among the nations of the earth, it 
 is not difficult to meet with individuals who are 
 competent, from their knowledge, their experience, 
 and their high standing, for such an enterprise ; 
 but it may happen, — in point of fact, it has often 
 happened in all the European embassies that were 
 sent to China, for instance, — that the ambassador, 
 though suitable to one of the parties, was not 
 suitable for the other : though enjoying the full 
 confidence of the Government at home, he was 
 ignorant of the state, unacquainted with the pre- 
 judices, and could not accommodate himself to the 
 circumstances, of that singular people. In conse- 
 quence of this unsuitability, all the efforts at 
 mediation made by the Governments of the West 
 were fruitless, and failed. If we may borrow an 
 illustration of things divine from things human, 
 the Scripture appears to be given by inspiration of 
 God, by its revealing and describing such a Me- 
 diator as was needed to reconcile fallen man to 
 his offended Maker. In making known a Saviour 
 who undertook the onerous task of mediating be- 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 295 
 
 tween God and His rebellious creatures, it seems 
 essential that He should possess all the qualifica- 
 tions for the successful discharge of His arduous 
 undertaking, — that He should possess a resem- 
 blance or identity with the nature of man, at the 
 same time that He is of sufficient dignity to 
 satisfy the infinite claims of God. Our own judg- 
 ment, which revolts at the idea of one being our 
 surety who had no knowledge of our state, no 
 experience of our spiritual wants, tells us, that if 
 any should interpose in our behalf, he should 
 unite in his own person a twofold character, — an 
 equality with God, and a fulness of sympathy, an 
 identity of interest, with man. Now the Saviour 
 whom the Scriptures make known is exactly such 
 a one as meets all the necessities of the case. He 
 was God and man in two distinct natures, and 
 by this wonderful constitution of His person was 
 peculiarly qualified for His great and unprece- 
 dented commission. Possessed of true divinity 
 as well as of true humanity, He combined all 
 those attributes of character that enabled Him to 
 offer a basis of reconciliation which is at once 
 well suited both to the dignity of the Supreme 
 Government, and to the necessities of the wretched 
 offenders, — a basis of reconciliation worthy of God 
 
296 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 to accept, and of man to confide in. Such a cha- 
 racter was so utterly unknown within the whole 
 range of human experience, — nay, it was so utterly 
 beyond the loftiest conceptions of the human mind, 
 — it was, in fact, such a divine original as affords 
 plain and indisputable evidence that the Scripture 
 which describes it was given by inspiration of God. 
 
 III. Further, the Scripture which represents the 
 person of Christ as uniting such an unparallelled 
 combination of properties as constituted Him a 
 fit and acceptable Mediator between heaven and 
 earth, has also described Him in another view that 
 is equally striking, and that possesses no less claims 
 to originality. I refer to His moral character, 
 which, in the delineation of it drawn by His evan- 
 gelical biographers, including the prophets, — for they 
 also have portrayed it, — is represented in all the 
 attributes of perfection ; and this picture is not a 
 rough draught, or a mere outline, consisting of 
 general descriptions or loose indiscriminate eulogy, 
 but is made up of a plain unvarnished history, 
 illustrated by a series of incidents, and actions, and 
 discourses, so various in the time, manner, and 
 circumstances of their occurrence, that the cha- 
 racter is fully elucidated and brought out ; nay, 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 297 
 
 the constitutional features can be distinctly traced ; 
 and the whole, when blended together, forms such 
 an assemblage of moral qualities as mark Him out 
 beyond all controversy the most extraordinary, the 
 most exalted, the most perfect character the world 
 ever saw. Such a character as He exhibited had 
 never been so much as dreamed of before. At 
 various times, indeed, men exercised their ingenuity 
 in attempting to draw a character of ideal perfec- 
 tion. But the efforts were uniformly fruitless and 
 vain ; and the most successful of all such imagi- 
 nary models of excellence are so far from realizing 
 our ideas of moral perfection, that they are gene- 
 rally marked by a proud and selfish spirit, or 
 deformed by vices and defects that are dishonour- 
 able to humanity. None of the wisest and the 
 best of pagan philosophers ever made the most 
 distant approach to the idea of such a character as 
 that of Christ. Nay, the wisest and the best in 
 former ages of the church, in all their pious aspira- 
 tions after purity and goodness, were not much fur- 
 ther ahead of them in conceiving such a model of 
 moral perfection. And we may confidently hazard 
 the assertion, that were all the saints of the Old 
 Testament age before the appearance of Christ 
 to have their separate excellences combined, and 
 
298 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 thrown, as it were, into a moral kaleidoscope, they 
 could not furnish sufficient materials out of which 
 a portrait of Christ might be formed. He not only 
 rises to an immeasurable superiority above them 
 all, but stands prominently forward to our view as 
 altogether original. He went about in the un- 
 wearied office of doing good to the bodies and the 
 souls of men, delivering the purest and most ex- 
 cellent counsels with the greatest familiarity and 
 freedom from parade ; and His daily conduct was 
 a living commentary on the truth and excellence 
 of His precepts. His wisdom as a teacher, though 
 tried in the most unexpected manner and on the 
 most difficult emergencies, was not only never at 
 fault, but was ever bursting forth with new, un- 
 expected, and increasing lustre on the admiration 
 of men. And then, in His private character, He 
 united such a combination of moral excellences, — 
 such a piety to God, and a benevolence to men, — 
 such an unbroken and exemplary attention to every 
 personal, social, and relative duty ; He exhibited 
 such majesty united with so much simplicity, such 
 greatness of soul together with so much condescen- 
 sion and grace, so much fortitude with so much 
 gentleness, — such an assemblage, in short, of all the 
 qualities that command admiration and draw forth 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 29 9 
 
 esteem, — that in the whole range of history there 
 has never appeared a rival to contest or an equal 
 to divide with Him the homage of universal regard. 
 He is the purest and loftiest of human souls, the 
 Man who stands morally at the head of the species ; 
 the incarnation of all the virtues that exalt and 
 sanctify humanity. How or from what source did 
 His biographers derive the conception of such a 
 character ? Not from any previous model which 
 they might have studied, and on which they might 
 have improved : not from the imaginative stores of 
 their own minds ; for the most learned men, the 
 most inventive geniuses even of that rare kind 
 which first " exhausted worlds, and then imagined 
 new," had never been able to form the slightest 
 idea of it, or to make the most distant approach 
 to it. And yet this character, delineated in the 
 narratives of the humble fishermen of Galilee, has 
 commanded the admiration of the greatest and the 
 wisest of every subsequent age. Even the bitterest 
 enemies of the gospel have joined in this tribute ; and 
 Eousseau, one of the leading champions of modern 
 infidelity, has recorded it as his deliberate verdict, 
 that if the humble evangelists had invented such 
 a character as a fiction of their own, they would 
 themselves be greater than the hero of their story. 
 
300 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 But the Christ they portrayed was not a creation 
 of the fancy. He was a real historical personage, 
 who " tabernacled " in Juclea eighteen hundred 
 years ago. And that a number of different inde- 
 pendent writers, including the prophets as well as 
 the evangelists, who lived in different ages, whose 
 minds were unpolished by learning or science, and 
 who were strongly imbued with all the narrow 
 prejudices of their country, should have united in 
 contributing their several parts in presenting to 
 the world the same portrait of the same unparal- 
 lelled character, may be surely pronounced an im- 
 possibility, npon any other hypothesis than that 
 they all were guided and influenced by the inspira- 
 tion of God. 
 
 IV. The idea of sin given in the Scriptures affords 
 additional evidence of their inspiration. Previous 
 to the introduction of Christianity, the Greeks 
 and Eomans had not the conception of sin ; and 
 although peccatum in Latin, and amartia in Greek, 
 are both used as equivalent to sin in our language, 
 yet these words, as used by classic writers, were 
 far from embodying the idea which they afterwards 
 expressed, when adopted into the service of Chris- 
 tians. The heathen mind was a total stranger to 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 301 
 
 the sentiment; nor had it any channel through 
 which it could find admission, till their views and 
 feelings were revolutionized through the trans- 
 forming influence of Christianity. They were 
 familiar with the idea of guilt, — as a wound, a 
 pain, a sense of moral uneasiness in the breast of 
 an individual. But the idea of sin as a taint, an 
 element of moral corruption, infecting the whole 
 human race, and transmitted as a hereditary evil 
 from the first man to all his posterity, was one 
 to which the natural mind was utterly unequal. 
 In like manner, holiness is an idea of which the 
 mind of man has no natural conception. It knows 
 well about virtue, as expressing those moral excel- 
 lences which are held in common estimation by the 
 world. But it never dreamed of such an exaltation 
 of spiritual character as that which consists in all 
 the intellectual powers and affections of humanity 
 acting in perfect harmony under the sanctifying 
 influence of true religion, — such a state of the soul 
 as that which results from being created again 
 after the image of God, in knowledge, righteousness, 
 and true holiness. Ideas of this kind were alto- 
 gether strange and unknown to the natural mind of 
 man ; and they prove that the book from which they 
 were derived was given by inspiration of God. 
 
302 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 In the case of all who have imbibed the true 
 spirit of the Scriptures, and who are living under 
 the habitual influence of its sanctifying power, the 
 happy effects are seen in the embodiment of its 
 beautiful and divine morality in their character 
 and conduct. It is true that multitudes who pro- 
 fess to believe and walk according to the rules of 
 the divine word come far short of this high 
 standard of excellence; but still, however defec- 
 tive or contradictory the lives of its professed 
 disciples may often be, the principles of the Bible 
 remain in their own pure and exalted perfection ; 
 and, while all other systems, heathen and infidel, 
 are utterly incapable of inspiring one generous or 
 elevated sentiment, but, on the contrary, tend uni- 
 formly to vitiate the understanding and harden the 
 heart, the inspired word, when understood and 
 felt in all its heavenly influence, possesses the 
 moral power of not only shedding a grace around 
 the most splendid and most accomplished cha- 
 racter, but of giving to the poorest and most un- 
 educated, principles, motives, and rules for the 
 government, together with sources of enjoyment 
 for the solace and the happiness of life, which the 
 wisdom of the world, with all its pretensions, can 
 never impart. 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 303 
 
 LECTURE V. 
 
 Different Theories of Inspiration — Natural Inspiration or Genius 
 — Religious Inspiration or extraordinary Piety — Inspiration 
 of the Sacred "Writers not subjective, but objective. — The 
 Spirit of God : not His ordinary Influences, but extraor- 
 dinary Gifts, miraculous Endowments manifested by the 
 Performance of Great Works — Bezaleel, the Seventy Elders, 
 Samson, Jephthah, Saul — and especially the Communication 
 of Divine Truth.— Three Stages or Steps in the Process — The 
 Revelation to the Messenger ; his Apprehension of it, or the 
 State of his Mind prepared for receiving it ; and the Power 
 of embodying it in Language. — First, the Revelation, "the 
 Word of the Lord," came suddenly — Means of knowing the 
 Word of the Lord — Not an Illusion of the Fancy — No private 
 Interpretation. — Second, Different Modes of communicating 
 the Divine Will — Condescending Familiarity to Adam — Face 
 to Face in the instance of Moses — Afterwards by Dreams, 
 Elihu, by Visions, and by Divine Illapses. — Third, Power 
 of imparting the Truth revealed to Others — Necessity of this 
 Power to stamp the Record with Divine Authority — Lan- 
 guage emblematic, or modified by the Medium through which 
 the Revelation was conveyed — Moved to speak and write — 
 Hand of the Lord — Bodily Effects of the Communication, 
 sometimes agitating — Prophets both active and passive — 
 Instruments in communicating the Divine Will, but not 
 unconscious Instruments — The Mechanical View of Inspira- 
 tion adopted by Justin Martyr— ■- This Dogma revived at 
 Reformation — Coleridge's sarcastic Description of it as 
 Spiritual Ventriloquism — Inconsistent with the Laws of our 
 Mental Constitution — Divine Element — Human Element — 
 Individuality — Diversity of Style — Action of each Distinct, 
 while the Union leads to harmonious Co-operation — Incom- 
 prehensible — Writers of the New Testament—A Calm and 
 Permanent Inspiration. 
 
304 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 Inspiration, meaning the agency by which the 
 Scriptures were produced, is a primary and funda- 
 mental fact in its literary history; and every 
 reader who has duly pondered the views pro- 
 pounded in the preceding pages, must have seen in 
 the leading characteristics of the sacred volume a 
 basis broad and solid enough for the full establish- 
 ment of that fact. Looking to the contents of the 
 Bible, — to the structure and style of the sacred 
 history, — to the lengthened chain of prophecies 
 pointing to a distant future, many of which have 
 been, and are in the course of being accomplished, — 
 to its sublime doctrines, — and to its reigning cha- 
 racter and aims, so different from the principles 
 and spirit that pervade human productions, it is 
 impossible for an intelligent and candid person to 
 come to any other conclusion, than that in the 
 composition of this book, there is discernible a 
 superior wisdom, which superintended, directed, or 
 controlled its penmen. How and by what means 
 this influence was communicated could not fail to 
 become a subject of earnest inquiry, prompted 
 alike by intelligent curiosity, grateful piety, and 
 a laudable desire to learn all the ascertainable facts 
 connected with so remarkable an emanation of 
 divine wisdom. The Scripture does not present 
 
THE HOLY SCKIPTURES. 305 
 
 to us, as an object of study, the nature or the 
 manner of its inspiration. What it does propose 
 to our faith is simply the divine inspiration of the 
 word as delivered by the sacred writers ; and after 
 it has been admitted as a truth, that a spiritual 
 agency was exerted on the penmen of Scripture, 
 the modus operandi is unquestionably a matter of 
 minor interest and importance. Nevertheless, men 
 of speculative tendencies, who delight to investi- 
 gate the causes and trace the course of things, 
 were naturally led to consider the possibilities and 
 probabilities of a divine influence being put forth 
 in superintending and guiding the movements of 
 the human mind in the production of the Bible. 
 These being conceded, they were led further to 
 inquire who were the privileged persons selected 
 to communicate the mind of God to man ; in what 
 manner they were qualified by the inspiration of 
 the Spirit for the office to which they were ap- 
 pointed ; whether they were merely passive or 
 active recipients of the divine afflatus, co-operating 
 with all their energies in the discharge of their 
 divine mission ; what was the special fitness of 
 the times and places when the intermittent spring 
 of inspiration gave forth its purifying waters ; for 
 
 what immediate or remotely prospective ends the 
 
 u 
 
306 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 communications were made ; and whether these 
 communications received a colouring from the dis- 
 tinctive idiosyncrasies of the inspired messengers, 
 or exhibited an unvarying uniformity of style and 
 character. These questions, all of which cluster 
 around the central idea of inspiration, though of 
 secondary importance in religious practice, possess 
 great interest in philosophy and speculation ; and 
 as numerous theories have been advanced and 
 keenly advocated by eminent writers, it falls within 
 the province of a work of this kind to examine 
 whether and how far they are adequate to explain 
 all the phenomena which appear in the Scripture. 
 Whatever interest the question may possess in a 
 metaphysical or psychological point of view, inspira- 
 tion as a practical subject remains ; nor can an 
 intelligent belief in the reality of inspiration be 
 affected by any hypothesis which theorists may 
 form for determining the confines of the close 
 mysterious influence that was exerted by the 
 spiritual over the material, the divine over the 
 human. 
 
 Bationalists, though professed believers, entertain 
 in general a low idea of the character and autho- 
 rity of the scriptural record ; and after eliminating 
 the supernatural element entirely from the sacred 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 307 
 
 volume, they are only carrying out their principle 
 to its legitimate consequences, when they deny the 
 reality of a miraculous influence in the production 
 of the Bible. That denial, however, has been 
 made in a variety of forms. Some maintain that 
 the sacred writers communicated their religious 
 teaching in myths, which, according to the tastes 
 and habits of their age, were embodied in narra- 
 tives invented as a literary framework for their 
 public exhibition ; others hold that the prophets 
 and apostles, under a mental hallucination, mistook 
 their own impressions and thoughts for realities, 
 and recorded them as objective facts; while a 
 third party, considerable both for numbers and in- 
 fluence in this country, as well as on the Continent 
 and in America, virtually deny the inspiration of 
 the sacred writers, while affecting to recognise 
 them as men gifted with superior natural talents. 
 They use the term inspired in the loose and 
 secondary sense in which it is frequently applied ; 
 and in one point of view, there can be no objection 
 to that application of the word : for, as " the inspi- 
 ration of the Almighty giveth understanding," so 
 every person of high intellectual endowments must 
 be regarded as having received them from " the 
 Father of lights, from whom cometh down every 
 
308 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 good and perfect gift." Accordingly, an eloquent 
 Eationalist has said : " All genius is inspired. It 
 is a scintillation of the Infinite, a beam of the 
 great universal mind. Homer, Milton, and Shak- 
 speare were inspired to sing ; Socrates and Plato 
 to teach men the philosophy of mind and morals ; 
 Newton and Laplace to investigate the laws of 
 nature ; Tell and Washington to vindicate the 
 cause of liberty." And he considers that the pro- 
 phets and apostles were in like manner inspired, 
 by their showing themselves animated by a spark 
 of the mens divinior, which is lighted up in the 
 breasts of all nature's aristocracy. A little con- 
 sideration, however, is all that is necessary to 
 show that the sacred writers occupy a position 
 peculiar to themselves, and which none who have 
 risen to greatness in literature, science, or art, have 
 equalled or can equal. The poet, even of that 
 order to which is ascribed the power of creative 
 genius, can only idealize the scenes of the natural 
 world, and in his highest moods, when " his eye is 
 in a fine frenzy rolling," and " his fancy from her 
 pictured urn throws thoughts that breathe and 
 words that burn," can do no more than take of the 
 things of earth to form new and imaginary com- 
 binations of nature for himself; whereas the pro- 
 
THE HOLY SCEIPTUKES. 309 
 
 phets were favoured with "visions of God," and 
 sung of times when, all old things having passed 
 away, there shall be " a new heaven and a new 
 earth." The philosopher who, like Newton, de- 
 scribed the laws of the planetary system, or, like 
 Locke, marshalled the shadowy tribes of mind, 
 discovered laws important in their bearing upon 
 the enlightenment and welfare of mankind, but 
 still laws which, though long hidden, were reach- 
 able by patient research and well-directed labour ; 
 whereas the sacred writers communicated a know- 
 ledge of heavenly and divine things which no 
 human industry or penetration could have dis- 
 closed, and which never could have been known 
 except through persons employed by God Himself 
 in revealing these mysteries. The promoters of 
 social progress, by the introduction of the steam- 
 engine, the telescope, and the telegraph, have 
 triumphed over the obstructions of time and space, 
 and brought the most distant and opposite parts 
 of the earth, as it were, into close proximity ; but 
 the writers of the Bible, by proclaiming faith in 
 Christ, and "the new commandment which He 
 gave," have announced principles which, when 
 established, will not only draw all the scattered 
 families of mankind into a state of happy union 
 
310 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 and brotherly intercourse, but reconcile all things 
 in heaven and earth to God. The fact is, that 
 there is no common ground on which men of 
 genius in the literary, scientific, or political world 
 can be compared with the sacred penmen ; and 
 that the object of the Eationalistic party, who are 
 ready to recognise their inspiration, is not to 
 elevate them to the first ranks of humanity, but 
 to reduce them to a level with mere naturally 
 able men. Besides, the sacred writers do nowhere 
 claim the prestige of genius. With the exception 
 of a very few, the greater part of them were men 
 who would have passed their lives in obscurity, 
 and left the world unnoticed and unknown, but 
 for being called to the honourable office of pro- 
 claiming the divine will. It was not their in- 
 tellectual power nor their extensive qualifications 
 that brought them into the notice of their con- 
 temporaries, and still holds them up to the ad- 
 miration of posterity, but their being the bearers 
 of a message supported by the credentials of 
 heaven, and the authoritative announcement of 
 " Thus saith the Lord." 
 
 Further, this theory is founded on the erroneous 
 assumption, that the inspiration of the sacred 
 writers was subjective, whereas it was wholly objec- 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 311 
 
 tive. It did not spring from within, or was pro- 
 duced by the exaltation of the natural faculties to 
 an unwonted pitch of energy and action : it came 
 upon them from without, emanating from a quarter 
 above and beyond themselves ; and that source is 
 uniformly described in Scripture to be the Spirit 
 of God. Now the Spirit is promised equally to 
 all the people of God; and in whatever form or 
 degree any of them require His heavenly influences, 
 they are bestowed. Those who enjoy them show 
 the effects by their being led to understand the 
 will of God as revealed in the Scriptures, to per- 
 ceive it in all the analogies of divine truth, and to 
 feel its importance and its power in sanctifying the 
 whole tone of their characters and lives. Nay, 
 wherever the truth is brought home to the under- 
 standing and the heart with the demonstration of 
 the Spirit, it has also the moral power of bringing 
 all the faculties and passions of their souls into 
 healthful and harmonious exercise, — of not only 
 imparting light and peace, but of giving to the 
 uneducated, the humble, and the weak, a dignity of 
 sentiment, a purity of feeling, and a moral energy 
 which philosophy never gave, and never can give. 
 The sacred writers, as good men, would enjoy those 
 common influences of the Spirit ; but that they were 
 
312 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 not all in a sanctified and saved condition, is evi- 
 dent from the fact that amongst the number were 
 a Balaam, a Judas, and others, of whom our Lord 
 declared : " Many will say unto me in that day, 
 Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Thy name, 
 and in Thy name have cast out devils, and in Thy 
 name done many wonderful works ? And then will 
 I profess unto them, I never knew you." The 
 inspiration of the sacred writers, then, was not a 
 religious inspiration, the effect of transcendent 
 piety and high-toned spiritual-mindedness. It was 
 an inspiration not necessarily implying a regene- 
 rated character, and was amongst those extraor- 
 dinary gifts which the Spirit conferred upon some 
 who were employed in advancing the kingdom of 
 God. Thus the Spirit of God is described as 
 qualifying Bezaleel and Aholiab 1 for the work of 
 erecting the tabernacle. It is the explicit doctrine 
 of Scripture, that intellectual power or genius is 
 derived from God (Job xxxii. 8 ; Jas. i. 17); and 
 in reference to those two persons, it is said that 
 even excellence in the mechanical arts is a divine 
 gift. The statement that the Spirit of God filled, 
 invigorated, and animated the minds of these head 
 workmen, is so particularly made, and so often 
 1 Ex. xxxv. 35. 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 313 
 
 repeated, as to convey the impression of a divine 
 afflatus, and it is generally thought that they were 
 endowed with the gifts and qualities necessary for 
 their work to a degree which amounted to inspira- 
 tion. In fact, the tabernacle was to an ancient 
 Israelite nearly what the Epistles of the New 
 Testament are to a modern Christian. Every- 
 thing in it and about its apartments, and their 
 furniture, was to possess the sacredness of a faith- 
 ful exhibition of the scheme of divine grace. No- 
 thing could have been added, subtracted, or in the 
 least degree altered, without leading to fatal errors. 
 To have changed the form and use of an altai", or 
 to have confounded the furniture of the holy with 
 that of the most holy place, would have been a 
 corruption, the same in kind and tendency as to 
 pervert or obliterate the most important passages of 
 the New Testament Scriptures ; and hence it was 
 just as necessary that Bezaleel and his associate 
 should be filled with the Spirit of God for giving 
 a faithful transcript of the divine will in the 
 tabernacle, as it was that the apostles should be 
 inspired for unfolding the mind of Christ in the 
 Epistles. The former were chosen to provide the 
 means of religious instruction, by signs and sym- 
 bols, to babes in understanding and knowledge ; 
 
314 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 while the latter were called to do it in a written 
 form to grown-up men : and thus all Scripture, 
 whether pictorial or alphabetic, was given by in- 
 spiration of God. The Spirit of God is described 
 as qualifying leading men under the theocracy for 
 the performance of public duties requiring extra- 
 ordinary measures of wisdom, fortitude, and daring, 
 as the seventy elders under Moses, Gideon, Samson, 
 Jephthah, Saul, and others. It may be thought a 
 Hebraism to ascribe to the Spirit of God what in 
 our day would be called an unwonted exertion of 
 wisdom and energy, suited to the exigencies of the 
 occasion or the habits of the place. But if the 
 form of expression be Hebraistic, so also were the 
 actions themselves ; for nothing like them is related 
 in the history of any other people. But the 
 principal work for which the Spirit of God is 
 described as endowing men with His extraordinary 
 gifts, is that of fitting a select few by inspiration 
 for the delivery of divine truth to men. " God 
 at sundry times and in divers manners spake in 
 time past unto the fathers by the prophets." x 
 This implies that He spoke first to the minds of 
 
 1 The Greek original (Heb. i. 1) has h vets Tpoipvruis — h for ha, 
 
 in for by j ha tcov tfpotyriTCuv — as ha ffTOftaros T»v ay'iav Trpotprfrw*, 
 
 by the mouth of the holy prophets, Luke i. 70. 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 315 
 
 the prophets, and then spoke by them. For this 
 important office three things were necessary : the 
 revelation of the truth to the chosen messenger ; 
 his apprehension, or the prepared state of his 
 mind to receive it ; and the power of imparting 
 the revealed truth to others. 
 
 1. The revelation, or " the word of the Lord." This 
 form of expression is a phrase of frequent occur- 
 rence in the later Scriptures, and it is almost invari- 
 ably used to announce some direct communication 
 from heaven, or the relation of a prophetic message, 
 such as that which the seers or prophets of Israel 
 were charged to deliver. The term naturally 
 suggests the idea of audible and articulate sounds, 
 by which the Lord made an oracular announcement 
 of His will to men ; and the revelation was made 
 sometimes through the medium of a vocal address, 
 at other times without the employment of this 
 external agency. In the instances of Moses, when 
 he entered the tabernacle (Num. vii. 89, viii. 1), 
 of Nebuchadnezzar (Dan. iv. 30), of our Lord at 
 three eventful periods of His ministry (Matt. iii. 
 17, xvii. 5 ; John xii. 28), and of Paul (Acts ix. 
 4), a real voice, miraculously produced, uttered 
 sounds which were heard and understood by those 
 to whom they were addressed ; and that fact is 
 
316 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 announced in a manner so express, that there can 
 be no room for doubting. But the phraseology, in 
 general, implies no external phenomena, and the 
 usus loquendi of the sacred writers leads to the con- 
 clusion, that when " the word of the Lord came " 
 (Heb. was) to any one, it was by a direct influence 
 upon his mind, originating a train of ideas so far 
 from the ordinary range of human thoughts or the 
 penetration of human sagacity, and impressed with 
 such unusual vividness, as was sufficient to deter- 
 mine it to be a supernatural communication. This 
 is the formula with which the prophets generally 
 introduce their communications, whether in re- 
 ference to a direct special mission to individuals, 1 
 or to a more detailed and elaborate prediction 
 against the nations, or to a solemn denunciation 
 of God's judgments against the apostate people of 
 Israel. It intimated that the burden or subject of 
 their prophetic announcements was not the inven- 
 tion of their own minds, the result of their own 
 observations, the fruit of their own cogitations, — 
 not deduced from intelligence brought to them, nor 
 
 1 "Word of God came : 1 Sam. ix. 15, 27 ; 2 Sam. vii. 4, 27, xii. 
 7, xxiv. 12 ; 1 Kings xii. 22, xvii. 2, xviii. 1, xix. 9, 15, xx. 
 13, 14, 28, 42, xxi. 19, 28 ; 2 Kings iii. 17 ; 1 Cliron. xvii. 3. 
 The word of the Lord came : Num. xxii. 18 ; Deut. v. 5 ; 1 Sam. 
 iii. 1, 7, xv. 3 ; 1 Kings xi. 27, xii. 24, xiii. 1, 2, 5, 9-32 ; 
 Isa. ii. 1-3 ; Jer. i. 2, xxv. 3 ; Ezek. i. 3. 
 
THE HOLY SCEIPTURES. 
 
 317 
 
 perhaps fully comprehended by the bearer of it 
 (1 Pet. i. 10, 11), — but was a message with which 
 the prophet was charged by God, and which bore 
 such unequivocal evidence of its divine origin, that 
 neither the messenger, nor the party to whom it 
 was addressed, entertained any doubt as to its 
 being a communication from heaven. 
 
 2. As to the way in which the word of the Lord 
 came, it is interesting to consider the different 
 modes- employed by the Divine Being of making 
 known himself and His will at those early periods 
 of the world's history, when the word was in the 
 course of being revealed, and before it was em- 
 bodied in a permanent form. There is observable 
 a gradual change from the time when, with con- 
 descending familiarity, God deigned to converse 
 with His recently formed creature man, and to 
 instruct him by word of mouth, down to the pre- 
 sent age, when He no longer lets His voice be 
 heard, and no longer commissions the prophets and 
 apostles to make new revelations of His will to 
 the chosen people. Having spoken to men at large 
 by His Son, whose advent and ministry shed the 
 full blaze of light on all that pertained to our pre- 
 sent duty and future salvation, and the canon of 
 Scripture being now complete under the dispensa- 
 
dl8 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 tion of the Spirit, there is no necessity nor ground 
 to look for any further knowledge or additional 
 communication of the divine will than what we 
 possess in the Scriptures. But in giving out the 
 matter which was progressively embodied in a 
 written form, God was pleased to reveal His will in 
 different ways. Not to dwell upon that singular form 
 called speaking face to face * and mouth to mouth, 2 
 and to enjoy which, whatever the phraseology 
 means, .was during the time of the Jewish church 
 the distinguished and exclusive privilege of Moses, 
 one of the most common channels by which reve- 
 lation was communicated was through the medium 
 of a dream. " If there be a prophet among you," 
 saith the Lord, " I will speak unto him in a 
 dream." 3 And Elihu was declaring the experience 
 of the age of Job, when he said, " In a dream, in a 
 vision of the night, when deep sleep falleth upon 
 men, in slumberings upon the bed, then He openeth 
 the ears of men, and sealeth their instruction." 4 
 Accordingly, it was in a dream that Jacob was 
 promised the land on which he lay for an inherit- 
 ance ; and the future Saviour, in whom all the 
 families of the earth should be blessed, was obscurely 
 
 1 Ex. xxxiii. 11. 2 Num. xii. 8. 
 
 3 Num. xii. 6. 4 Job iv. 13, xxxiii. 15, 16. 
 
THE HOLY SCKIPTURES. 319 
 
 shadowed forth to him. And it was by the same 
 means of communication that Solomon received 
 the rare and enviable privilege of asking the best 
 gifts of heaven. 1 Nor was it merely to His own 
 devoted servants that God imparted a revelation 
 of His will ; but on several important occasions, 
 even to heathen princes also : as to Pharaoh He 
 pre-intimated the famine with which He was about 
 to afflict the land of Egypt ; and to Nebuchad- 
 nezzar the awful calamity that was impending on 
 that proud sovereign. But in such cases there 
 was this marked difference, that while a prophetic 
 dream was given to heathen or ungodly men, the 
 power of interpretation did not accompany it — they 
 knew not what the dream meant till the inter- 
 pretation was sent by some servant of the Lord ; 
 whereas the prophets and people of God received 
 usually the interpretation along with the dream. 2 
 But a still more frequent method of communicating 
 the will of God was in a vision (Heb. bamahazeh), 
 Sept. ev opa/xtTi. The recipient of a divine com- 
 munication in this form was fully awake ; but his 
 mind, supernaturally elevated, was entirely absorbed 
 in the contemplation of objects apart from the 
 
 1 1 Kings iii. 5. 
 
 2 Gen. xv., xxviii., xlvi. ; Dan. vii. ; Matt. i. 11. 
 
3 20 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 influence of material impressions, as well as un- 
 connected with any former experience ; and the 
 supernatural scene was, by the intense excitement 
 of his faculties, as distinctly exhibited to his mental 
 vision as if he had obtained the knowledge through 
 the medium of the bodily eye. It was in respect 
 to this most frequently adopted method of revela- 
 tion the prophets were called seers ; and the scenes 
 exhibited as tableaux vivans to their imagination 
 or their senses were described as the visions of 
 God. 1 Of such a character was the vision granted 
 to Jacob, 2 to Moses, 3 to Elisha, 4 to Isaiah, 5 to 
 Jeremiah, 6 Daniel, 7 and Zechariah, 8 to Peter, 9 
 Paul, 10 and John. 11 
 
 There was still another way in which the will 
 of God was intimated to His servants, viz. by im- 
 mediate impulses and suggestions of the Holy 
 Spirit, as recorded in the experience of David, 12 of 
 Philip, 13 and of Peter. 14 
 
 Thus, not to mention appearances of angels in 
 human form, 15 as well as of prelusive manifesta- 
 
 1 2 Chron. xxvi. 5 ; Ezek. i. 1, viii. 3. 
 
 2 Gen. xxxii. 24-32 ; cf. Hos. xi. 4. 3 Ex. iii. 
 
 4 2 Kings vi. 5 Isa. vi. 1. 6 Jer. i. 11. 
 
 7 Dan. ix. « Zech. i. 8. 9 Acts x. 11. 
 
 10 2 Cor. xii. u Rev., passim. 12 1 Chron. xxviii. 
 
 13 Acts viii. 29. u Acts x. 19. 15 Gen. xix. 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTUKES. 321 
 
 tions of the Saviour, 1 God spake of old in divers 
 manners to the fathers ; and as " there were pro- 
 phets " or inspired messengers of God " since the 
 world began," so the mode of revealing the divine 
 will to each was adapted with divine wisdom to 
 the circumstances of time and place, as well as to 
 the character and state of the recipient. By what 
 means he was satisfied that the communication 
 made to him was of divine origin does not always 
 appear, although on some occasions its supernatural 
 character was established, in the case of a dream, 
 by its being doubled, 2 or, as in the instance of 
 Nebuchadnezzar, by its vivid impression and por- 
 tentous character ; in that of a voice speaking, 
 where there was no person present to utter articu- 
 late sounds, by its repetition ; 3 and in other in- 
 stances, by the hand of Providence preparing a 
 train of circumstances, which led to the direct end 
 of attesting the word of the Lord that the prophet 
 had received. 4 He himself might be unable, as was 
 frequently the case, to penetrate the hidden signifi- 
 cance of the matter he was called to reveal, but 
 his mind was supernaturally enlarged and invigo- 
 
 1 Ex. xxxiv. ; Josh. v. 13 ; Judg. xii. 1. 
 
 2 Gen. xxxvii., xli. 32. 3 1 Sam. iii. 
 4 Jer. xxxii. 6-8 ; Zech. xi. 11. 
 
 X 
 
322 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 rated to apprehend the mystic truth set before 
 him ; and the extraordinary clearness of his con- 
 ceptions is indicated by the formula with which 
 the prophetic books usually open : " The vision 
 of Isaiah, — which he saw ; " " The words of Amos, 
 — which he saw ; " " The word of the Lord that 
 came to Micah, — which he saw." 
 
 3. The power of imparting the revealed truth 
 to others. A revelation might have been given ; 
 but if the publication of it had been left to the 
 discretion of the messenger, it might have been 
 in some points of vital importance imperfect or 
 erroneous, and at best it would have been a mere 
 human testimony. Had the writers of the Bible 
 stated what they saw and heard in the superna- 
 tural ways described above, delivering their reports 
 from the stores of memory, and according to the 
 dictates of their judgments, — not requiring any 
 special assistance, and not receiving it, — what they 
 announced as religious instruction in the name 
 of God would so far have the sanction of divine 
 authority ; for, possessing the credentials of their 
 prophetic office, they would claim the same confi- 
 dence for the narration of what they witnessed on 
 earth as for the voices and visions of heaven. 
 But it would only be the substance of their in- 
 
THE HOLY SCKIPTURES. 323 
 
 structions which would have a religious nature ; 
 to this only would their credentials refer ; and only 
 as it respects this could our confidence in the in- 
 structions of the Scripture conduce to our moral 
 and spiritual improvement. The record in which 
 they were embodied would be possessed of no 
 authoritative character; and as its authors might 
 have mixed up a variety of irrelevant and secular 
 subjects with the divine communications they had 
 received, it might be a delicate and difficult matter 
 to separate the divine from the human, and truth 
 from unavoidable error. The necessity, then, of 
 the ambassadors chosen of God to reveal His will 
 being not only qualified to apprehend the revela- 
 tions made to them, but being endowed with the 
 adequate power of embodying it in language, is 
 obvious. It rendered them not omniscient, — for 
 their knowledge was limited to the truth revealed, 
 — but infallible, and it has stamped the record 
 with divine authority : for we have thus a solid 
 and comfortable assurance, not only that the word 
 of God is in the Bible, but that the Bible is the 
 word of God. 
 
 It was thus that all to whom God was pleased 
 to reveal a portion of His will were qualified by 
 the Spirit to receive and impart it ; and as He was 
 
324 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 from time to time making partial revelations in 
 all ages down to the advent of Christ, there were 
 always some inspired messengers in the world, 
 such as Enoch, Noah, Abraham, and his immediate 
 descendants, Isaac and Jacob. With Moses, a 
 new era was begun in the impartation of inspired 
 power ; for as a particular people were chosen and 
 trained to preserve the knowledge and worship of 
 God for many centuries amid the darkness, super- 
 stitions, and polytheism of all other nations in the 
 world, a direct course of religious instruction and 
 warning was always kept up through the instru- 
 mentality of divinely called and qualified ambas- 
 sadors. The measure of inspiration, as well as the 
 number of inspired messengers, was always pro- 
 portioned to the exigency of the times. And hence, 
 as an unbroken succession of prophets appeared in 
 the later and declining ages of the monarchy, so 
 the greatest of those messengers flourished, and 
 some of the grandest predictions of the glorious 
 state of the kingdom of God in the future ages of 
 the gospel were delivered, in the darkest and most 
 degenerate times of the Jewish church. Elijah 
 and Elisha rose in the reign of Ahab. Isaiah 
 continued his prophetic functions through the time 
 of Ahaz. And during the protracted period of 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 325 
 
 captivity, several eminent prophets alternately con- 
 soled, encouraged, and edified their exiled country- 
 men. But with Malachi inspiration ceased, and 
 the Jews were left like other people to their own 
 resources. The reason was, that their national 
 character had undergone a total change ; and 
 having been completely cured of that strange fond- 
 ness for idolatry, to protest against which, as a 
 breach of the national covenant, had been the 
 immediate occasion of the prophetic office, they no 
 longer needed the services of those extraordinary 
 ministers : for they thenceforth became as dis- 
 tinguished for their blind and bigoted adherence 
 to national institutions, as they had formerly been 
 for their woful departures from the law and the 
 worship of God. The miraculous provision which 
 had been made by the institution of inspired in- 
 structors was withdrawn or suspended for a period 
 of four hundred years. But " as, in the material 
 world, Providence has everywhere proportioned 
 the means to the end, the forces being not greater 
 than the occasion requires ; so it would seem that, 
 in His spiritual communications, extraordinary aids 
 are only granted when ordinary influence is insuffi- 
 cient." 1 The advent of Messiah being the greatest 
 
 1 Clinton's Fasti Hellenici, vol. i. p. 283. 
 
326 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 and most momentous era in the world's history, 
 demanded the renewal of miraculous aid; and 
 accordingly inspiration, after a long suspension, 
 was revived in the church to the apostles and 
 evangelists, to qualify them for the extraordinary 
 duties they had to perform in laying the founda- 
 tion of the Christian church. But there is dis- 
 cernible a marked difference in the character of 
 the inspiration which was imparted respectively 
 to the ancient prophets and the apostles of Christ ; 
 and it is proper, therefore, to take a brief notice of 
 the characteristic distinction. 
 
 The prophets, doubtless, enjoyed the ordinary 
 influences of the Spirit in delivering their public 
 instructions, as preachers do in modern times ; but 
 those influences were bestowed only in a partial 
 degree ; and hence, as in working a miracle a con- 
 siderable time was previously spent in prayer, 1 so 
 the illapse of the Spirit on a prophet, to whom the 
 word of the Lord came for some special mission, 
 was usually marked by circumstances that arrested 
 attention. " The Spirit of God came upon the 
 prophets." " Searching what or what manner of 
 time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did 
 signify, when He testified beforehand the sufferings 
 
 1 1 Kings xvii. 21 ; 2 Kings iv. 34, 35. 
 
THE HOLY SCEIPTUKES. 327 
 
 of Christ, and the glory that should follow." " It 
 is not ye that speak, but the Spirit of your Father 
 that speaketh in you." These and many other 
 passages of a similar import intimate the fact of 
 direct revelation, the result of the extraordinary 
 influence of God acting upon the minds of the 
 prophets and apostles, by which they were super- 
 naturally illuminated, and had the ideas, objects, and 
 events vividly impressed upon them, a knowledge 
 of which they could never have acquired in a 
 natural way, or which, without such an interposi- 
 tion of divine aid, they could never have been 
 qualified to communicate to the world. These 
 passages, viewed separately, and still more collec- 
 tively, convey the impression that the recipients 
 were wrought upon directly and immediately by 
 the Holy Spirit, who enlightened and prepared 
 their minds to perceive the things which they were 
 to promulgate to others ; disposed them to give 
 earnest attention to them, to view them with in- 
 tense interest ; and furnished them, as the exigency 
 of particular circumstances required, with the power 
 of announcing in correct and appropriate language 
 the matters which they were inspired to make 
 known. In the nature of things, the engrossing 
 occupation of the mind with any subject of un- 
 
328 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 usual interest and importance tends to produce 
 excitement. And how much more so, when the 
 subject is wrapped in impenetrable mystery, and 
 is borne upon the attention by the master-potency 
 of the Spirit of God ! At the time when the 
 prophets were favoured with their mystic visions, 
 their minds were commonly in a state of more 
 than ordinary excitement. Their attention was so 
 absorbed with the visionary scene that flitted be- 
 fore their fancy, as to make them totally insensible 
 to what was actually passing around them. They 
 were sometimes awake, but they were also some- 
 times in a trance ; or, as it was generally in the 
 season of deepest slumber that the prophetic 
 afflatus came upon them, the effect was to rouse 
 their imaginations into the most vivid exercise ; 
 and while their senses were dormant, or ceased to 
 hold any communication with external nature, the 
 faculties and emotions of their minds were kept in 
 the most intense action by the strange and un- 
 known images that were successively submitted to 
 their eyes. Nor was this all, for sometimes vio- 
 lent effects were produced upon the body ; and 
 although there is no ground to suppose that the 
 light of reason was under an eclipse, and the 
 mental faculties were overpowered, yet the cor- 
 
THE HOLY SCKIPTUEES. 329 
 
 poreal frame was sometimes subjected to so ex- 
 treme an agitation, that the traces of it were felt 
 man}'- days after. Some indication of this over- 
 mastering power is conveyed by such statements as 
 these : " The Spirit of the Lord came upon " the 
 prophet. " The hand of the Lord was strong, or 
 fell upon " him. 1 " Holy men of God spake as 
 they were moved 2 by the Holy Ghost." The first 
 of these expressions implies that the prophetic 
 afflatus was usually sudden. No premonition was 
 given of its descent, and no mental effort made to 
 procure it ; for although Elisha sought on one 
 occasion the aid of a minstrel, previous to the 
 utterance of a remarkable prediction, 3 that act was 
 a personal expedient of his, to soothe and tran- 
 quillize his mind, which had been agitated by the 
 presence of an idolatrous king. The inspiration, 
 for the most part, was unexpected by the recipient 
 at the time when its influence began to be felt ; 
 and sometimes that influence bore upon him with a 
 pressure which greatly affected his physical frame. 
 Sudden and painful intelligence frequently gives 
 rise to such violent emotions as to agitate the 
 
 1 Isa. viii. 11 ; Ezek. viii. 1, iii. 14, xi. 5. 
 
 2 Gr. QtfbfAtvoi, "borne along, carried forward," as a ship by the 
 wind. — Alford. 
 
 3 2 Kings iii. 15. 
 
330 THE INSPIKATION OF 
 
 bodily frame to its extremities ; and is it wonder- 
 ful that, when the prophets were charged with 
 the astounding disclosures of impending judg- 
 ments upon their own nation or the neighbouring 
 countries, — disclosures of grinding famine, deadly 
 pestilence, desolating wars and protracted exile, 
 the fall of great monarchs, and the ruin of flourish- 
 ing empires, — or, on the other hand, with the 
 animating announcement of the glorious advent 
 and the inestimable blessings of Messiah's reign, 
 — the strangeness of the visions they witnessed, 
 and the magnitude of the thoughts with which 
 their minds were filled, were followed by nervous 
 excitement, physical prostration, and even swoon- 
 ing ? l Besides, the symbolic acts they were 
 
 commanded to perform before the country 
 
 although some of them were merely ideal and 
 visionary — were calculated by their singularity 
 to expose the prophets to public derision and 
 obloquy, so that they must have entered upon the 
 discharge of the prophetic office with great reluc- 
 tance. Isaiah's naming his son Maher-shalal-hash- 
 baz (hasten-booty, speed-spoil), walking naked and 
 barefoot three years, 2 and Hosea's marriage with 
 
 1 Dan. viii. 18, x. 10, 11. 
 
 2 Isa. xx. 2, 3, naked, i.e. loosing the sackcloth from his loins. 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 331 
 
 Gomer : these and the many grotesque actions and 
 gesticulations exhibited by men of the prophetic 
 order, — for they taught by act and sign as well as 
 by words, — gave rise to the proverbial taunt, " The 
 prophet is a fool, and the spiritual man (man 
 of the Spirit) is mad." ' Accordingly Jeremiah, 
 with reference to the public sneers with which he 
 was assailed by the people of his degenerate times, 
 says, " Thou hast persuaded me, and I was per- 
 suaded ; Thou wast stronger than I, and hast pre- 
 vailed." 2 The reproaches that were daily heaped 
 upon him preyed so much upon his sensitive mind, 
 that he resolved to prophesy no more. And he 
 did discontinue his duties for a while. It was 
 then that the word of the Lord, which he had been 
 commissioned to speak, became as " a burning fire 
 shut up in his loins," and " he was weary with his 
 forbearance ; " so that he could not refrain from 
 speaking, and he resumed his prophetic functions 
 as formerly. Thus they " spake as they were 
 moved by the Holy Ghost ; " and they wrote also 
 under the influence of the same divine Agent the 
 different portions of the Scripture which they 
 
 ' Hos. ix. 7, comp. 2 Kings ix. 11. 
 
 2 Jer. xx. 7. Pittithani, Gr. -xu6a, persuaded ; not deceived, as 
 in the Authorized Version. 
 
332 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 respectively contributed, some of them being 
 prompted by the pious and benevolent motive of 
 teaching the principles of faith and duty, others 
 having received an express command to record the 
 revelations made to them. 1 
 
 That the seers themselves remained in partial 
 or complete ignorance of the real import or charac- 
 ter of many of the scenes supernaturally disclosed 
 to them, appears not only from the evident bearing 
 of several passages of Scripture, but from the nature 
 of the case ; as the objects revealed often referred 
 to times and circumstances so far remote from their 
 actual experience, that no explanation could have 
 made these level to their comprehension. They 
 were therefore, strictly speaking, reporters of what 
 they saw, retailers of communications they had 
 been selected as the honoured instruments of receiv- 
 ing from heaven. The pictures exhibited to their 
 enraptured fancy made a deep and indelible im- 
 pression, though the receivers could tell little or 
 nothing of what their dreams portended. They 
 could describe with the invigorated powers and 
 from the faithful records of memory what they 
 had seen ; but they were often left in as painful 
 
 1 Ex. xvii. 14, xxxiv. 27 ; Isa. viii. 1 ; Jer. xxx. 2 ; Hab. 
 ii. 2 ; Rev. i. 11. 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 333 
 
 perplexity as to the meaning of their visions, as the 
 people to whom their predictions were delivered. 
 Accordingly, we read that " they searched diligently 
 what and what manner of time the Spirit of 
 prophecy that was in them did signify." And 
 who does not see in this remarkable circumstance 
 a proof of the inspiration of the prophets ? Not 
 only did the predicted events belong to periods so 
 remotely future, and involve contingencies so many 
 and so great, that no sagacity, however far-sighted, 
 could have made the discovery of them ; but they 
 were wrapt up as in an unknown tongue, or in a 
 sealed book, from the ken even of the persons 
 employed to record them. And how, in such 
 circumstances, could they have been the authors of 
 a cunningly devised fable ? There must have been, 
 had they attempted to palm an imposture on the 
 credulity of mankind, an incoherence in the parts 
 of their story, which no ingenuity could explain or 
 reconcile ; or it would have been pervaded by a 
 rhapsody or extravagant rant, which in the judg- 
 ment of intelligent readers would have been 
 sufficient to detect their fictitious character. But, 
 on the contrary, when through the well-known and 
 uniform symbols of the prophetic style one arrives 
 at the plain meaning of the prophecies, he perceives 
 
334 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 a close connection, a beautiful harmony in their 
 details, as well as a minute accuracy, a graphic 
 faithfulness to historical truths, such as establishes 
 beyond a doubt the inspiration and divine authority 
 of the Old Testament prophets. 
 
 The inspiration that was given to the New 
 Testament writers, though proceeding from the 
 same Spirit, was marked by a very different charac- 
 ter; for it was not sudden and intermittent, but 
 permanent : it produced no violent or sensible 
 effects upon the mind and body ; for although the 
 Holy Ghost descended, on the day of Pentecost, 
 with " a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty 
 wind," x it was ever afterwards calm, persuasive, 
 and gentle, invigorating their faculties, and guid- 
 ing them into the knowledge and inculcation of 
 sanctifying truth. The Spirit, which was formally 
 and without measure imparted to Christ at His 
 entrance into His mediatorial office, is said to be 
 upon Him, 2 or, as it is in a parallel passage, to 
 " rest upon Him ; " 3 thus intimating a marked 
 and most important distinction between Him and 
 former messengers of God : for, while the Spirit fell 
 on them only occasionally, when they were charged 
 with some special mission, it was to continue upon 
 
 1 Acts ii. 2. 2 Isa. ix. 3 Isa. li. 1. 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 335 
 
 Him. And as the apostles were to prosecute the 
 ministry of the word which He had begun, He 
 qualified them for their important work, by the 
 extraordinary gifts and endowments of the Holy 
 Spirit, who was to abide with them individually 
 and collectively for ever. The history of the first 
 plantation of the Christian church shows how fully, 
 freely, and permanently the Spirit was with the 
 apostles and their coadjutors. 
 
 It has been maintained by many eminent writers 
 that the Hebrew prophets were deprived of the 
 free and conscious use of their faculties while 
 under the influence of the prophetic afflatus. This 
 was the theory of Philo and the Alexandrian 
 school, that the consciousness of the seers was 
 entirely suspended so long as the inspiration lasted ; 
 for. as Philo expresses it, " the human understand- 
 ing takes its departure on the arrival of the Divine 
 Spirit, and, on the removal of the latter, again 
 returns to its home ; for the mortal must not 
 dwell with the immortal." This view has had 
 its advocates in modern times, amongst the most 
 eminent of whom is Hengstenberg, who holds 
 the doctrine, that a cessation of human agency 
 and intelligent perception is necessarily connected 
 with a state of prophetic ecstasy ; and the basis 
 
336 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 on which he rests this principle is, that it was not 
 the prophets who spoke, but God who spoke in 
 them. He reduces them to the condition of mere 
 passive instruments ; and when he carries his 
 hypothesis further, by maintaining that, besides 
 losing their consciousness, the Hebrew prophets 
 were raised to a state of furore, or raving, like that 
 which is described by Virgil, — 
 
 At, Phoebi nondum patiens, immanis in antro 
 Bacckatur Vates, magnum si pectore possit, 
 Excussisse deum, tanto magis ille fatigat 
 Os rabidum, fera corda domans, fingitque premendo, — 
 
 in what respect did the inspired seers of Israel 
 differ from the /xavrc<; of the Greeks or the Vates of 
 the Eomans ? Hengstenberg says that the heathen 
 Pythian priestess lost her consciousness, " because 
 the inferior part of the soul was excited to a 
 contest against the superior part of it ; " in other 
 words, she raved through the influence of the vapour 
 which issued from the fountain in her temple, or 
 else that a great part of the maniacal excitement 
 was the result of dissimulation and pretence. 
 " But what an immeasurable distance," says Moses 
 Stuart, " between a raving man or woman, uttering 
 incoherent sentences, or (which was more common) 
 a dissembling hypocrite, uttering cunningly and 
 artfully and equivocally constructed sentences and 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 337 
 
 poetical riddles ; and a Hebrew prophet, animated 
 by the strongest and deepest feelings of reverence 
 for Jehovah, and a holy ardour in the cause of 
 true piety ! Is there ambiguity, flattery, self-seek- 
 ing, enigmas, in the message of the latter ? None. 
 Are not all these stamped on more or less of the 
 heathen oracles ? They are. And such being the 
 case, we would separate the Hebrew prophet from 
 the heathen seer, not by discrepancies of a mere 
 physiological or psychological nature, which lie 
 beyond our ken, in case they exist at all;" 1 or 
 rather, which involve contradictions and impossibi- 
 lities ; but by a rational, enlightened, holy, zealous 
 state of mind, which raised the true seer above all 
 false ones, and did this by making him in a high 
 degree like to the Author of his inspiration. 
 
 Now it is doubtless true, and universally ad- 
 mitted, that the prediction of future events which 
 the prophets announced was not the result of 
 their natural sagacity, nor the conclusion of their 
 observant minds, but was communicated to them 
 by Him who " knows the end from the beginning," 
 and who has all the events of futurity as well as 
 of the present spread out as a map before Him. 
 But if He was desirous to remove the veil that 
 
 1 Bib. Repository, vol. ii. p. 231. 
 Y 
 
338 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 shrouds the distant future from the knowledge of 
 the world, He could have done it in many ways, — 
 though the medium of an inferior creature or in- 
 animate thing, or by a direct utterance from heaven ; 
 and since He did not make choice of any of these 
 methods, but employed the services of men in 
 making such communications, it is impossible to 
 resist the conclusion, that the consciousness and 
 intellectual powers of rational creatures were neces- 
 sary to be enlisted, as subservient to the peculiar 
 work of prophesying. This opinion is confirmed by 
 considering the radical import of the Hebrew as 
 well as Greek word, prophet, which combines both 
 an active and a passive sense, or conveys the idea 
 of activity springing from a preceding state of 
 passiveness ; as appears from the passage in Exodus, 
 where the Lord says to Moses, 1 " See, I have made 
 thee a god to Pharaoh, and Aaron thy brother 
 shall be thy prophet," or spokesman, i.e. should 
 receive from Moses a knowledge of the successive 
 demands to be made, and then communicate them 
 to the Egyptian monarch. The Spirit of God 
 acted upon the minds of the prophets, not by 
 suspending or paralyzing their consciousness, but, 
 as we formerly remarked, by enlightening and 
 1 Ex. vii. 1. 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 339 
 
 invigorating their faculties ; and it seems to have 
 been in consequence of their aesthetic feelings and 
 their imagination having been excited to an un- 
 wonted pitch by the visionary scenes presented to 
 them, that the great majority of the prophets 
 embodied their prophetic songs in poetry, — a far 
 more probable hypothesis than that they first 
 delivered them in plain prose, and afterwards at 
 leisure wrought them into a poetic form. 
 
 It has been the opinion of many both in the 
 ancient and modern church, that the prophets were 
 the mere mouthpieces of the Spirit. Balaam is 
 appealed to by Philo as an example of a humble, 
 involuntary, unconscious instrument through whom 
 God spoke. 1 And Josephus represents Balaam 
 himself as apologizing to Balak on this ground : 
 " When the Spirit of God seizes us, it utters what- 
 soever sounds and words it pleases, without any 
 knowledge on our part; for when it has come 
 into us, there is nothing in us which remains our 
 own." 2 This mechanical view of inspiration was 
 adopted by Justin Martyr, who considers that the 
 mind of the prophet under the influence of the 
 Spirit resembled a plectrum, — a mere organ, the 
 instrument giving out particular sounds according 
 
 1 De Vitd Mosis, lib. i. t. ii. 2 Jewish Antiq. iv. 6. 5. 
 
340 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 to the chord that is struck. From the Fathers 
 this theory was handed down till the time of the 
 Beformation, when the dogma was revived, and 
 strenuously maintained as doing the greatest honour 
 to the Divine Spirit. Many pious and enlight- 
 ened Christians hold it still, — either supporting it 
 by the same illustrative comparison as Justin, or 
 representing the sacred writers as amanuenses, 
 merely putting on record what was dictated to 
 them by the Spirit, and having no more control 
 over their pens than a piece of mechanism over 
 the wheels that belong to it. This theory was 
 ridiculed in mingled strains of eloquence, mysticism, 
 and heresy as "a kind of spiritual ventriloquism, — 
 a colossal Memnon's head, a hollow passage for a 
 voice, — a voice that mocks the voices of many 
 men, and speaks in their names, and yet is but 
 one voice and the same ; no man uttered it, and 
 never in a human heart was it conceived." 1 
 
 Such a theory is opposed to the constitution of 
 the human mind ; and as God, in enlisting the 
 services of man to communicate a supernatural 
 knowledge of His will, would undoubtedly proceed 
 in accordance with the laws of that intellectual 
 and moral nature with which He has endowed 
 
 1 Coleridge, *Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit. 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 341 
 
 mankind, His agency, in imparting the necessary- 
 inspiration to His commissioned servants, must be 
 considered as put forth in a manner fitted alike to 
 distinguish the divine from the human element. 
 The influence and operation of the Spirit of God 
 are seen, both in appljung to the ends of revelation 
 truth already known and available, and in suggest- 
 ing new and hitherto unknown truth ; in the 
 wonderful harmony that reigns throughout all the 
 successive revelations made of the divine will ; 
 in the sublime sentiments inculcated, in the holy 
 spirit that is breathed ; and in the only adequate 
 explanation of many phenomena in the procedure 
 of God. The influence and operation of the man 
 also are seen in the composition and structure of 
 the Scriptures. There are such evident and un- 
 equivocal signs of human instrumentality — of 
 human modes of thinking, feeling, and writing, — 
 such striking peculiarities of human temperament 
 and disposition, and such idiosyncrasies of thought, 
 association, and manner, distinguishing the style 
 of the various penmen of the Scriptures from one 
 another, — that it is impossible to ascribe these to 
 any other cause than the free and independent, 
 while yet infallibly guided and guarded, action of 
 the inspired mind. Thus in the sacred volume 
 
342 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 we trace a divine and a human element. The 
 action of both is distinct, while the union of both 
 leads to harmonious co-operation. Further than 
 this, in our present state of knowledge, we cannot 
 go. In the words of Moses Stuart, " the fact that 
 the Spirit of God did inspire the sacred writers, — 
 that He guided, illuminated, and aided them, and 
 preserved them from all error, is one thing : their 
 physical or metaphysical state, while under His 
 special influence, — the physiology, so to speak, of 
 inspiration, — is a thing quite different from this ; 
 and as the sacred writers have not described their 
 feelings, while none since their time have had any 
 experience of inspiration, that, so far as I know, 
 has never been made out." The union of the 
 material with the spiritual is in many things that 
 fall within our daily observation so close, and yet 
 so mysterious, that we cannot determine the con- 
 fines that separate the one from the other. Thus, 
 for instance, in every age, the attention of thought- 
 ful men has been directed to the great problem, 
 how the moral freedom of man can be reconciled 
 with the superintending direction and control of 
 Providence ; but, notwithstanding all the. attain- 
 ments and researches of philosophy in the present 
 day, it is as great, as profound and inscrutable a 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 343 
 
 mystery as ever. Speculatists have recently turned 
 their inquiries into a different channel — to discover 
 how the efficacy of prayer is consistent with the 
 reign of material law; in other words, how the 
 great Being whose propitious ear we invoke can 
 grant the fulfilment of our desires, as He has 
 promised in the Scriptures to do, without departing 
 from the course He has apparently prescribed to 
 Himself in the uniform operations of nature. Every 
 Christian believes that there was a union of two 
 natures in the person of Christ ; and those natures, 
 though perfectly distinct, were yet so intimately 
 connected, that the sacred writers sometimes speak 
 of Him under the name of God, as performing 
 actions which could be done only by man. 1 Just 
 as inexplicable as the subject either of providence, 
 prayer, or the hypostatical union, is that of inspi- 
 ration : how the Spirit of God acted upon the 
 minds of the sacred penmen, while leaving them to 
 act in accordance with their personal idiosyncrasies 
 — how they were all inspired, and yet Isaiah, Jere- 
 miah, and Ezekiel, Peter, Paul, and John, appear as 
 distinct in their characteristic style as the writers 
 of their respective portions of Scriptures, as these 
 individuals were from all other men. 
 1 Acts xx. 28. 
 
344 THE INSPIKATION OF 
 
 LECTUEE VI. 
 
 Are there different Degrees of Inspiration ? — Maimonides — Rab- 
 binical Views — Different parts of Scripture exhibit more or less 
 of the Spirit — Job, the Psalms, the Prophets, and Apostles — 
 Some of the Sacred Writers more prominent and copious than 
 others — Moses, Paul — Quotations from Turretine — Some 
 books do, others do not, bear internal evidences of Inspiration 
 — Pye Smith's Ideas on Inspiration — Doddridge, Dr. Arnold — 
 Things that are supposed to detract from the Plenary Inspira- 
 tion of Scripture — Ezra's Interpolations — Introduction of 
 Secular Matter — Excessive Population of the Hebrews — 
 Spoiling the Egyptians — Life and Reign of David — Solomon 
 — Abishag — Voluptuous and Luxurious Life — God hardening 
 Pharaoh's heart — Command to avenge the Midianites — 
 Bethshemites and Uzzah — The Public Execution of Saul's 
 Descendants for the Satisfaction of the Gibeonites — Slaves — 
 Property — Cruelties of Ancient War Practice — Alleged Errors 
 of Apostles — Not proved — Errors in Conduct — Jonah, Judas, 
 Peter — Line of Demarcation — Were the Words of the Sacred 
 Writers inspired ? — Words in some instances inspired— Think- 
 ing in Words — The true Theory that the Spirit prompted the 
 thoughts of Prophets and Apostles — The Inspiration Plenary. 
 
 A question of great interest and importance re- 
 mains for consideration. Admitting that the Scrip- 
 tures are possessed of an inspired character, does 
 the quality of inspiration pervade all the books 
 of which it consists, extending even to the minutest 
 portions of every book, and impregnating all of 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTUKES. 345 
 
 them in an equal degree ? From the progressive 
 manner in which the revelation of the divine will 
 was made, some parts of the Scripture record are 
 comparatively obscure, while the strictly local or 
 episodical character of others exhibits a very small, 
 indirect, and remote bearing on the great design 
 of the sacred volume. Accordingly, there has pre- 
 vailed both in the ancient and the modern church, 
 a strong tendency to consider inspiration as com- 
 municated on different occasions with a greater or 
 less amount of fulness ; and although nothing is 
 said in the Scripture to countenance such an idea, 
 the hypothesis that there are certain degrees of 
 supernatural influence easily discernible has been 
 widely entertained. Maimonides, the celebrated 
 Jewish writer, reckoned no less than eleven de- 
 grees of inspiration ; but the rabbinical schools 
 generally held to three, the highest being ascribed 
 to Moses, the second to the prophets, and the 
 third or lowest to the writers of the Hagiographa, 
 the didactic and devotional books of the Old Testa- 
 ment. A similar persuasion has existed in most 
 periods of the Christian church; and in modern 
 times, men of piety and learning have endeavoured 
 to classify the different parts of Scripture accord- 
 ing to the scale on which they conceived in- 
 
346 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 spiration had been imparted or was necessary. 
 This has been done by Twesten in Germany, and 
 by Pye Smith, Dick, Wilson, Henderson, and 
 others in this country, — all of them believing in 
 the general inspiration of the Bible, but not in 
 its equal extension to every part. I do not intend 
 to enter into an examination of the theoretical 
 opinions which speculative writers have advanced 
 on this subject, as to whether there are degrees 
 of inspiration, and how many, from simple sugges- 
 tion and superintendence up to plenary and verbal 
 dictation. All these are distinctions made by 
 men ; and therefore, rejecting them all as arbitrary, 
 partial, and destitute of authority, I lay it down 
 as my grand and only principle, that inspiration 
 was universal, the inspiring power being communi- 
 cated to all the writers of the Bible in common. 
 Although all Scripture was given by inspiration of 
 God, the measure of it was vouchsafed in exact 
 proportion to the necessity of the circumstances ; 
 while the form and extent of it was such as the 
 nature of the case demanded, to preserve the sacred 
 penmen from all error, and to guide them into all the 
 truth. Let this principle be adopted, and there will 
 be no difficulty in perceiving what estimate ought 
 to be formed of the character and authority of every 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 347 
 
 part of the Scripture. A slight acquaintance with the 
 sacred volume will suffice to show that some of the 
 sacred penmen appear in a more prominent cha- 
 racter, and that their writings occupy a larger 
 space than others, as Moses in the Old, and Paul 
 in the New Testament. It might have been antici- 
 pated, from the varying measures of mental ability 
 which naturally exist among men, that a similar 
 inequality would be found amongst those whose 
 ordinary powers were illuminated and strengthened 
 by the supernatural influences of the Spirit ; and 
 accordingly, in looking into the sacred volume, 
 while all the commissioned servants of God spoke 
 and wrote under the guidance of the Spirit, there 
 was a great diversity of spiritual gifts, some of 
 them being endowed with miraculous gifts, with 
 " the word of knowledge," with " the word of 
 wisdom," and with a capacity for useful service in 
 the church, to a larger extent than others. Thus 
 Moses, who was instrumentally the founder of the 
 Jewish church, partook so fully of the Spirit of 
 God, that the posthumous record by a later hand 
 testifies of him, " There arose not a prophet since 
 in Israel like unto Moses." Paul, too, who took 
 so active and influential a part in the organization 
 of the Christian church, was by physical and 
 
348 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 mental exertions in labours more abundant than all 
 the apostles ; and through his preaching as well as 
 his epistles, contributed beyond all his contempo- 
 raries towards the development of the doctrines 
 and duties of the gospel. The superior services 
 rendered by these two writers show that, while all 
 Scripture was given by inspiration of God, it was 
 not given to all in the same degree ; and that 
 although all the books of Scripture were composed 
 by inspired men, they do not all declare the glory, 
 unfold the mind, and illustrate the ways of God 
 with equal clearness and fulness. Some parts of 
 the Old Testament have a higher tone of spiri- 
 tuality ; the book of Job and the Psalms, for in- 
 stance, than the books of Numbers and Leviticus, 
 which are occupied with the dry and detached 
 statutes of the Mosaic legislation. At the begin- 
 ning of the Christian dispensation there was a 
 more plentiful effusion of the Spirit ; hence the 
 apostles gave a larger revelation of the grace of 
 God than the prophets ; and the books of the New 
 Testament are full of brighter disclosures and a 
 purer morality than those of the Old. In the 
 words of an eminent divine : " As one star differs 
 from another star in lustre, so in the firmament 
 of Scripture some books emit more splendid and 
 
THE HOLY SCULPTURES. 349 
 
 ample, and others more faint and inconsiderable, 
 rays of light; as the exigencies of the church 
 more or less required, and as they relate to doc- 
 trines of greater or less importance. Thus the 
 Gospels and the Epistles of Paul send forth those 
 radiant beams far more copiously than the books 
 of Ruth or Esther. Yet it is certain that each 
 of them exhibits such evidences of truth and 
 majesty, as prove of themselves that it is divine 
 and authentic ; or, at least, nothing is found in 
 them that can render their authenticity doubtful." * 
 It is always a cause of great satisfaction, when 
 the internal contents of a Scripture document are 
 such as to leave no doubt of its divine origin and 
 authority ; and when a reader, instead of appeal- 
 ing to external evidences of its truth, can reply 
 somewhat like what was done to the woman of 
 Samaria by her fellow-townsmen : " I believe, not 
 because of thy saying, but because I have read the 
 book myself, and know that it is of God." But 
 there are some books of such a character, that they 
 do not contain internal evidences of inspiration. 
 In this class must be ranked the genealogies which, 
 embodied in the Chronicles and other parts of the 
 historical books, were probably copied from the 
 1 Francisco Turretine, Institutio Theologice, vol. i. p. 71. 
 
350 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 national registers ; and a few other books, which 
 appear so unlike in form as well as spirit to the 
 other books of Scripture, that some men of piety 
 and undoubted reverence for revelation have hesi- 
 tated to recognise them as parts of the word of 
 God. " Whether," says Dr. Pye Smith, " the whole 
 of the Chetubim or Hagiographa, though of un- 
 doubted genuineness and authenticity as historical 
 documents, can be considered as indited by the 
 Holy Ghost, and as forming part of the rule of 
 faith, is by no means so clear as to warrant our 
 demanding an unqualified assent and agreement 
 from all Christian men. Our canon may possibly 
 include books not inspired." * Dr. Doddridge has 
 expressed similar sentiments on the book of Esther, 2 
 and Dr. Arnold on some portions of Daniel. The 
 opinions of such men as Dr. Doddridge, Pye Smith, 
 and Dr. Arnold are worthy of respect even by 
 those who may entirely differ from them ; and 
 though it were true, as they allege, that these 
 books may be excluded from the sacred record 
 without affecting one doctrine of faith or one pre- 
 cept of duty, yet as the book of Esther details 
 
 1 Eclectic Review, 1826. 
 
 2 Doddridge's Dissertation on the Inspiration of the New Testa- 
 ment. 
 
THE HOLY SCULPTURES. 351 
 
 a remarkable interposition of Providence for the 
 preservation of His ancient church, as the Song 
 has been signally useful in fostering the devout 
 affections of multitudes of spiritually-minded Chris- 
 tians, and the authenticity of Daniel has been 
 established on the most solid basis, we feel it im- 
 possible not to recognise such testimonies to the 
 divine character of these books. 
 
 Not only are there some books whose title to 
 inspired authority has been called in question, but 
 there are numerous isolated portions in various 
 books both of the Old and New Testaments which 
 have been thought to vitiate the claim of Scripture 
 to plenary inspiration. These are the interpola- 
 tions of Ezra in Genesis, and others of the early 
 historical books ; and besides, there are other 
 insertions, incorporated with the sacred text, of 
 such a nature as plainly indicates their human 
 origin : viz., the poetry of Lamech, the song of the 
 well, the edicts of Nebuchadnezzar and Cyrus, 
 the letter of Claudius Lysias to Felix, the speech 
 of Tertullus, the account of the disastrous voyage 
 from Alexandria, the detailed conversations of bad 
 men, and even of Satan himself. Now Ezra was 
 an inspired man, who acted under divine guidance ; 
 and when, in his revision of the Scriptures, he 
 
352 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 inserted explanatory notes referring to the obsolete 
 name of a place or to a people who were unknown, 
 because they had become extinct in his day, he 
 was influenced by the same Divine Spirit which 
 indited the Scriptures at first ; so that his inter- 
 polations must be considered as equally inspired 
 with the original text. With regard to the snatches 
 of popular ballads, the legal documents of foreign 
 countries, and the other purely secular matters 
 which have been referred to as finding a place in 
 the sacred volume, they have been made use of by 
 the writers of the Scriptures because they were 
 necessary to elucidate the history, or served to 
 promote the cause and interests of religious truth. 
 They are not to be considered, therefore, as a mere 
 setting to adorn the pearl of great price, or like the 
 mass of worthless earth in which precious ore 
 being embedded, has to be detached from it as an 
 unsightly encumbrance, but as historical facts en- 
 listed by the superintending direction of the Spirit 
 in the service of revelation, and therefore as form- 
 ing an essential part of the inspired word. Still 
 further, there are statements interspersed through- 
 out the historical books of what purport to be 
 facts, but which have been pronounced in certain 
 quarters to be monstrous exaggerations, that tend 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTUKES. 353 
 
 seriously to affect the plenary inspiration of the 
 record in which they are made. As some of those 
 writers professedly believe that the Scriptures 
 contain the word of God, they do not lay the 
 responsibility of such statements on divine inspira- 
 tion. But they deny that the passages which 
 contain those statements are inspired, and ascribe 
 them to the interpolation of later editors, who, 
 being led by national vanity to magnify the pro- 
 sperity of Israel from the earliest times, have 
 blended popular traditions with the facts of sober 
 history to such an extent as to render the sacred 
 books no longer documents of reliable truth and 
 authority. Foremost in this class of objections is 
 the vast increase of the Israelites, who, consisting 
 only of seventy persons, — all, it is alleged, that 
 emigrated with Jacob, — rose within the space of 
 198 years, the duration of the sojourn in Egypt, to 
 the prodigious amount of more than three millions. 
 Such an excessive population in so short a time, 
 and from so small a stock, is justly pronounced to be, 
 on natural principles, and according to the ordinary 
 rate of calculation, altogether incredible. 1 But a 
 careful examination of the Scripture record shows 
 that nothing like the alleged statement is made by 
 
 1 Colenso on the Pentateuch. 
 Z 
 
354 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 the sacred historian. The immediate descendants 
 of Jacob, who went down with him to Egypt, did 
 indeed amount only to seventy souls ; but along 
 with them was a large number of home-born ser- 
 vants or retainers belonging to the pastoral tribe 
 of which he was the acknowledged chief. The 
 conjunction of these different parties was intimated 
 by Joseph, when he spake of " his brethren " and 
 his " father's house," i.e. servants ; * and how nume- 
 rous these were, may be inferred from what is said 
 of Abraham 2 and of Isaac. 3 The rapid increase 
 of the Hebrew population is indicated by the fact 
 that " the land," i.e. of Goshen, " was filled with 
 them ;" 4 but the subsequent history shows that 
 they were dispersed in vast numbers throughout 
 the Delta or Lower Egypt, as artisans or trades- 
 men, and that by their energy, wealth, and extensive 
 influence, they wielded almost the whole powers of 
 the country. This amazing increase excited the 
 jealous fears of the new king of Egypt, who devised 
 a persecuting policy to check it. Notwithstand- 
 ing this, contrary to all natural expectations, 
 they " grew and multiplied," till, at the Exodus, 
 
 1 Gen. xlvi. 31 ; cf. Gen. xxx. 43, xxxii. 5, 7, 16, xxxvi. 7, 
 xxxiv. 25. 
 
 2 Gen. xii. 16, xiv. 14. s Gen. xxvi. 13-16. 
 4 Ex. i. 7. 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 355 
 
 those that were of an age fit for war amounted to 
 600,000 men. Assuming, what is now ascertained 
 by statistical tables, that the number of males above 
 that age is as nearly as possible the half of the 
 whole number of males, the entire male population 
 of Israel would amount to 1,200,000; and adding 
 an equal number for women and children, the 
 aggregate number of Israelites who left Egypt 
 would be 2,40 0,0 00. 1 The calculations of Colenso 
 and others, who object to this vast amount of 
 population as a legendary tale, have been founded 
 upon the genealogical list of Jacob's descendants, 
 which was constructed on the principle of recording 
 only the heads of families, the ancestors of the 
 Israelitish nation born in Canaan, and omitting all 
 others. No mention is made in that register of the 
 servants who certainly accompanied the patriarch 
 into Egypt ; 2 and although it is impossible to specify 
 their numbers, yet, considering that Jacob inherited 
 the tribal property and honours of his father and 
 grandfather, they may be reckoned at upwards of 
 a thousand. Such retainers are usually considered, 
 according to Oriental custom, as forming parts of 
 their masters' families. It is a fact that they were 
 incorporated with the patriarchal families ; for, 
 1 Ex. i. 7 ; Ps. cv. 26. 2 Gen. xlvi. 6, 32. 
 
356 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 having become Hebrews, included in the covenant 
 by the rite of circumcision and the participation 
 of the passover, they constituted a portion of the 
 Hebrew tribe equally with the natural descendants 
 of Jacob. And along with these servants, " a 
 mixed multitude went up also with them." On 
 these grounds, then, it appears that an egregious 
 mistake is committed by those who found their 
 conclusions solely on the catalogue of Jacob's 
 descendants, as if they comprised the entire emi- 
 grants to Egypt, instead of making their estimates 
 on the broader basis of the numerous body who 
 had become, in accordance with divine directions, 
 incorporated with Israel. 
 
 Another circumstance connected with the time 
 of the Exodus has been considered as inconsistent 
 with the idea of inspiration. God is described as 
 saying to Moses, " I will give this people favour 
 in the sight of the Egyptians : and it shall come to 
 pass, that, when ye go, ye shall not go empty : but 
 every woman shall borrow of her neighbour, and of 
 her that sojourneth in her house, jewels of silver, 
 and jewels of gold, and raiment : and ye shall put 
 them upon your sons and your daughters ; and ye 
 shall spoil the Egyptians." x It is utterly impossible, 
 1 Ex. iii. 22, xi. 2, 3. 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 357 
 
 it is alleged, that God could have inspired such 
 actions as these words describe ; the ascription of 
 which to Him is an insult to His majesty, degrad- 
 ing to His justice and goodness, and outraging the 
 purity of His perfect character. The word which 
 our version renders borrowed, signifies properly to 
 demand, or ask ; and the circumstances were these : 
 The Israelites, having received little or no wages 
 for all their laborious service in the house of bond- 
 age, were very poor. They made a demand for 
 adequate remuneration for all their toil ; and it 
 was paid in light but valuable articles of wearing 
 apparel and personal ornament. The demand, 
 however, was not made only at the last moment, 
 as if it had been extorted to ensure their departure ; 
 for the order was issued, and doubtless acted upon, 
 previous to the infliction of the last plague. 1 But 
 the effect was, that the accumulated earnings of so 
 many years' unrequited labours proving so heavy 
 a demand all at once, the Egyptians were im- 
 poverished, and the Israelites were enabled to leave 
 the country like a victorious army laden with 
 spoil. 2 
 
 A part of the Old Testament history which has 
 provoked more scoffing ridicule on the Scripture 
 1 Ex. xi. 2. 2 Ps. cv, 37 ; Ezek. xxxix. 10. 
 
358 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 as an inspired book than most other parts, is that 
 which relates to the son of Jesse. The life and 
 reign of David, it is said, were full of deceit and 
 intrigues, of grossly immoral and criminal conduct, 
 of inhuman cruelty to his enemies, and of a 
 vindictive spirit even to the close of his days. 
 And yet this king, whose memory is blackened by 
 such flagrant offences both against God and man, 
 is prominently held forth by a commissioned prophet 
 of the Lord as " a man according to God's own 
 heart." But it must be observed, that it was in his 
 youth, before he was anointed to the royal dignity 
 and elevated to the throne of Israel, that he was 
 specially designated. This honourable testimony 
 is borne only once in the Old Testament, and once 
 in the New in allusion to the former ; 1 and it was 
 given long before his adultery with Bathsheba, or 
 his murder of Uriah. It was not meant to indicate 
 him as a person of spotless purity and virtue in 
 his private character and conduct ; but one who 
 as a king of Israel would act in the spirit of the 
 constitution, promoting the grand objects for which 
 the nation had been selected by God, and securing 
 the good which lay within the scope of the nation's 
 reach at the period. Solomon imitated, it is said, 
 1 1 Sam. xiii. 11 ; Acts xiii. 22. 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 359 
 
 the deceitfulness of his father ; for while he pre- 
 tended to condone his brother Adonijah for his 
 natural ambition as an elder brother to attain the 
 crown, he betrayed his smothered resentment on 
 the paltry occasion of that brother wishing to 
 marry Abishag. And yet Solomon was endowed, 
 through the special favour of God, with the highest 
 gifts of wisdom. There is no ground for charging 
 Solomon either with cruelty or precipitation in this 
 case. According to Oriental usage, he that obtains 
 the former king's wives has a claim upon the 
 throne. Solomon penetrated the artful scheme of 
 Adonijah ; and, considering this new attempt was 
 rebellion against the viceroy appointed by the 
 Divine King, resolved on condemning him to the 
 punishment of treason. These, not to speak of 
 the polygamous excesses and the luxurious splen- 
 dour of Solomon, are represented as enormous 
 exaggerations, — as betokening, in the whole tenor 
 of the Jewish history and the current of national 
 events at that period, a desire to embellish the 
 narrative, and aggrandize the character of their 
 nation. They have been introduced, it is alleged, 
 by later writers as interpolations on the simplicity 
 and unpretending plainness of the original writers, 
 and thus have so vitiated the present historical 
 
360 THE INSPIKATION OF 
 
 books, that they are no longer trustworthy records. 
 But for this allegation these sceptical critics have 
 no ground whatever but their own fancy, which 
 is father to the thought ; and that the accounts of 
 Solomon's unconstitutional reign are quite true, and 
 have been recorded to show that they led to the 
 decline of the Hebrew monarchy, was shown in 
 Lecture II. 
 
 Incidents of another kind are dwelt upon, as 
 tending even in a stronger degree than those 
 already noticed, to detract from the plenary inspir- 
 ation of Scripture. God is described as saying to 
 Moses, " I will harden Pharaoh's heart," and after 
 the interview it is recorded that " Pharaoh's heart 
 was hardened." * This declaration, it is said, is so 
 utterly unworthy of God, and opposed to His holy, 
 benevolent character, that it cannot have been 
 uttered by Him, or given by inspiration in this 
 record. But God is often said to do a thing 
 which, in the natural course of His providence, 
 takes place. The hardening of Pharaoh's heart 
 would be the result ; but the divine message through 
 Moses would only be the occasion, not the cause, of 
 the king's determined obduracy. Most assuredly 
 God did not harden the Egyptian monarch by any 
 1 Ex. vii. 3, 13. 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 361 
 
 direct influence upon his mind. But the circum- 
 stances in which the applications of Moses and 
 Aaron were placed, operating along with his con- 
 stitutional impetuosity of temper, would produce 
 the effect anticipated, and lead to his assuming 
 an attitude of stern and immoveable hardihood. 
 Similar incidents, representing the divine character 
 in a still more offensive light, are recorded in the 
 historical books; as the command of God to " avenge 
 the children of Israel upon the Midianites." * This 
 was a very special case, calling for the direct in- 
 terference of God to punish an infamous scheme 
 for the destruction of the chosen people. Though 
 the Moabites and Midianites had leagued together 
 in inviting Balaam to curse the Israelites, the latter 
 had taken the lead, if not acted alone, in practis- 
 ing the detestable art of idolatrous licentious- 
 ness ; and therefore they were singled out as the 
 objects of condign punishment by Him " to whom 
 vengeance belongeth." It is observable that, in the 
 command of God to commence hostilities against the 
 Midianites, no order was issued for the slaughter 
 of the women, and in ancient warfare they were 
 usually reserved for slaves. But the Midianitish 
 women had been the chief actors in the scheme of 
 
 1 Num. xxxi. 2-18. 
 
362 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 seduction, and therefore they had forfeited all 
 claims to mild or merciful treatment. This was 
 to be a war of extermination, — for the Midian- 
 ites, like the Canaanites, were enormously wicked 
 sinners, and therefore the only class to be spared 
 were young girls, who would be treated according 
 to the humane rules prescribed to the Hebrews for 
 their conduct to female captives. 1 A third in- 
 stance of this kind is sneered at — the excessive 
 severity ascribed to God for so trivial an offence 
 as that of the Bethshemites 2 looking into, and of 
 Uzzah touching, the ark. 3 The sanctity of the ark 
 was so strictly guarded, that not even the Levites 
 who carried it were permitted to behold it un- 
 covered ; 4 and as this jealous care which God took 
 of His symbol was well known in Israel, it was an 
 unwarrantable and presumptuous act of the Beth- 
 shemites to look into it. In the case of Uzzah, who 
 died in a moment by the visitation of God, there 
 was a noticeable peculiarity. He was a Levite, 
 and the whole proceedings connected with the 
 removal of the ark were contrary to the express 
 regulations of the law. Instead of being carried 
 on the shoulders of the Levites, the ark was con- 
 
 1 Deut. xxi. 10-14. 2 1 Sam. xv. 32, 33. 
 
 3 2 Sam. vi. 6, 7. " Lev. xvi. 2 ; Num. iv. 5, 6. 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 363 
 
 veyed in a wheeled vehicle. Instead of being 
 enveloped in its coverings, and thus concealed, it 
 was kept exposed to the rude gaze and profane 
 curiosity of a erowd. Uzzah, as a Levite, should 
 have known and prescribed the order of removal 
 according to the law. There is observable a grada- 
 tion in the severity of punishments for profaning 
 the ark, proportioned to the opportunities of know- 
 ledge possessed by the offenders. The Philistines, 
 who were ignorant heathens, suffered by diseases 
 from which they were afterwards relieved. The 
 Bethshemites, who were prompted to look into it 
 thoughtlessly, and through the impulse of curiosity, 
 suffered also from a pestilence severely, but, as 
 many think, not fatally ; while Uzzah, who, being 
 a Levite, headed the procession, and ought to have 
 been dutiful, was struck with sudden death, because 
 he was flagrantly transgressing in the public view 
 of the people. 
 
 The painful episode of the Gibeonites and the 
 descendants of Saul x appears an outburst of such 
 fierce superstition, that it has been unhesitatingly 
 pronounced a legendary tradition, inconsistent with 
 the character of an inspired history. The circum- 
 stances were these : — A famine which occurred 
 1 2 Sam. xxi. 
 
364 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 early in the reign of David, of protracted duration 
 and unusual severity, was regarded as a judgment 
 inflicted for national sins ; and the king, having in 
 his anxiety inquired of the Lord, was informed by 
 the oracle, that it was " for Saul and his bloody 
 house, because he slew the Gibeonites." There is 
 no record of the origin or design of the persecution 
 of that people. There is reason, however, to believe 
 that, while it occurred in the course of Saul's 
 sudden fit of fanatical zeal to extirpate the rem- 
 nant of the ancient Canaanites in the land, he 
 was actuated by a grasping ambition to seize their 
 possessions for the aggrandizement of his family. 
 By the slaughter of this people, a solemn covenant 
 made with the heads and representatives of the 
 nation had been broken ; and the offence was the 
 more outrageous, that the Gibeonites, renouncing 
 idolatry, had been since the days of Joshua 
 attached to the service of God in the sanctuary. 
 There is ground to believe, also, that the younger 
 members of Saul's family, who were his " captains 
 of hundreds " and " captains of thousands," had 
 been active and zealous agents in executing his 
 sanguinary orders. Guilt had been incurred by 
 them as well as by him ; and therefore it is said 
 that the famine was " for Saul and his bloody 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 36 5 
 
 house." In consequence of the massacre having 
 been authorized by the highest officer in the king- 
 dom, the surviving Gibeonites had submitted in 
 silence. But by the answer of the oracle to David, 
 they had been constituted Goelim, or blood-avengers ; 
 and as, by the Hebrew law, a pecuniary compensa- 
 tion for murder, though accepted by many people 
 in the East, was an unlawful commutation, there 
 was no alternative but to demand satisfaction in 
 blood, i.e. the death of the nearest kinsman of 
 Saul ; and as the massacre stimulated by his 
 authority had been of a wholesale description, a 
 full reparation was required and given by the 
 execution of seven males of his royal line, seven 
 being a complete number. Now it is observable, 
 that while the divine oracle announced the moral 
 cause for which the calamity of famine was inflicted, 
 it issued no instructions respecting the mode of 
 expiation. Nor did David make any suggestions 
 on that point. The sacrifice of Saul's sons was the 
 spontaneous demand of the Gibeonites, who, though 
 they had formally renounced idolatry, still retained 
 the lingering influence of Hivite superstition. 
 The entire responsibility of this revolting execution 
 lay on the Gibeonites. God did not command nor 
 sanction it. But He in His 'providence permitted 
 
366 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 it as an act of justice, Hot only to ensure equit- 
 able usage to the Gibeonites, lest they might be 
 threatened with future oppression, but to remove 
 the flagrant dishonour brought on His church and 
 people by the guilty infraction of a solemn national 
 treaty. There is no approval of the transaction 
 expressed by the sacred historian, who simply 
 relates the painful incident as it occurred ; and the 
 king gave his assent to it, as the only appointed 
 means of purging the land from blood. 1 
 
 Another passage of a similar kind is objected to, 
 on account of the degrading view in which it is 
 supposed to represent the Divine Being : "If a 
 man smite his servant or his maid with the rod, 
 and he die under his hand, he shall be surely 
 punished. Notwithstanding, if he continue a day 
 or two, he shall not be punished ; for he is his 
 money." 2 This enactment occurs in the midst of 
 many other regulations, pervaded by a humane and 
 considerate spirit, to provide for the protection of 
 the poor and the dependent ; and such enactments 
 were indispensably necessary in a country where 
 slavery was tolerated, in order to secure male or 
 female slaves from the oppression of tyrannical 
 
 1 Num. xxxv. 31-34 ; Deut. xxi. 1-9. 
 
 2 Ex. xxi. 20, 21. 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTUEES. 367 
 
 masters. The punishment of undue severities, 
 especially such as terminated in a fatal result, was 
 left to the discretion of the magistrate on a full 
 consideration of the circumstances. But where the 
 slave who had been severely dealt with survived 
 the harsh treatment for a while, no proceedings 
 were to be instituted against the master, as it was 
 presumed that an owner would not willingly injure 
 a slave who ivas his property. It was this expres- 
 sion, he is his money, which, according to Dr. 
 Colenso, proved so revolting to the mind of a simple 
 Zulu, and from reflecting on which that writer was 
 first led to the conclusion that the Pentateuch was 
 unhistorical. For it asserts, as he alleges, " the 
 horrid idea, that the great and blessed God, the 
 Father of all mankind, would speak of a man- 
 servant or a maid as mere ' money,' and allow an 
 execrable crime to go unpunished, because the 
 victim of his brutal usage had survived a few 
 hours." A more strange and complete misconcep- 
 tion of the meaning of this clause in the act can 
 scarcely be imagined. Every reader of ordinary 
 intelligence, whose mind is free from prejudice, 
 must perceive that it is a reasonable consideration, 
 based upon the principle that it was clearly against 
 the master's interest to destroy his property ; and 
 
368 THE INSPECTION OF 
 
 that, so far from detracting from the sacred charac- 
 ter of the book in which it stands, it furnishes one 
 of the minor evidences of its divine origin, as it 
 was a merciful provision for mitigating the evils of 
 slavery, and a provision utterly unknown in the 
 legislative code of any other nation before the 
 Christian era. 
 
 Even more unworthy of a place in this book, 
 which claims to be all given by inspiration of God, 
 has been declared by many critics the eulogy pro- 
 nounced by the prophetess Deborah on the un- 
 natural, treacherous, and cold-blooded conduct of 
 Jael to Sisera. She certainly rendered a service 
 of the greatest importance to Israel. She would 
 be regarded by admiring contemporaries as a 
 heroine, and her deed celebrated in future ages, as 
 effecting one of the most signal deliverances which 
 the ancient church and people of God experienced. 
 But the real character of this daring act cannot be 
 appreciated, unless it is viewed in the light of the 
 Sinaitic covenant, to the obligations and privileges 
 of which Jael and her tribe had been admitted. She 
 and her husband had been incorporated with the 
 people of God, and were bound by a command 
 paramount to all other considerations to extirpate 
 idolaters. In this light the words of Deborah 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 369 
 
 must be viewed ; and the eulogy on Jael must be 
 considered as pronounced not on the moral cha- 
 racter of the woman and her deed, but solely on 
 the public benefits which, in the providence of 
 God, would flow from it. Eemarks to the same 
 purport may be made on a similar passage in the 
 Psalms, where the sacred writer, predicting the 
 sacking of Babylon, exclaims, " daughter of 
 Babylon, who art to be destroyed ; happy shall 
 he be that rewardeth thee as thou hast served us. 
 Happy shall he be that taketh and dasheth thy 
 little ones against the stones." 1 Such horrid 
 cruelties were perpetrated in ancient warfare ; and 
 the sacred writer prophetically declared that the 
 same atrocities which the Babylonians had perpe- 
 trated in Jerusalem, would be re-enacted in their 
 capital by the victorious enemy who should sack 
 it. The Psalmist does not indicate any joy of his 
 own in anticipating this massacre of the helpless 
 infants. He merely announces the fact that the 
 Medo-Persian invaders would be jubilant amid 
 those scenes of blood, as all victors do exult when 
 they have laid a proud and formidable foe pros- 
 trate in the dust. And the little infants are par- 
 ticularized as a class of the inhabitants whose 
 
 1 Ps. cxxxvii. 8, 9. 
 2 A 
 
370 THE INSPIEATION OF 
 
 sufferings were sure to be conspicuous spectacles 
 in the predicted scene of desolation. 
 
 These passages, and others of a similar import, 
 which have often been paraded by scoffing critics 
 hostile to the Scriptures, are, when rightly under- 
 stood, in no way inconsistent with its character as 
 an inspired book. Instead of presenting false or 
 perverted views of the Divine Being, as has been 
 alleged, they declare the will of God, and His 
 method of dealing with men as they were able to 
 bear it, in the early imperfect state of the church ; 
 and although many enactments of the Mosaic law, 
 as well as many incidents recorded in the sacred 
 history, appear coarser and harsher than what is 
 agreeable to modern ideas, refined and elevated 
 by the pure spirit of Christianity, it must be 
 borne in mind that the Hebrew statutes, where it 
 was impracticable at once to extirpate inveterate 
 evils, contained many elements of improvement 
 upon the laws and usages of all ancient nations. 
 
 Objections to the plenary inspiration of the 
 Scriptures have been raised on a totally different 
 ground, viz. the supposed errors of the sacred 
 writers. " They were fallible men," says Dr. 
 Williams, in Essays and Reviews ; " and they have 
 committed mistakes in history, chronology, geo- 
 
THE HOLY SCEIPTURES. 37l 
 
 graphy, and other departments, like other authors." 
 It is admitted that they were men of like passions 
 and infirmities as others, and in their private 
 conduct as individuals did occasionally do things 
 which were wrong. Moses, for instance, was be- 
 trayed into undue heat of temper ; Nathan, through 
 mistaken zeal, committed an error in judgment, by 
 encouraging David in his contemplated project of 
 erecting a temple ; Jeremiah was hurried, through 
 the pressure of suffering, to curse the day of his 
 birth ; Jonah was querulous and discontented ; 
 Peter dissembled ; Paul was intemperate in speak- 
 ing to a magistrate ; he and Barnabas rose into 
 fierce contention respecting John Mark. Be- 
 sides, in the ordinary intercourse of life they pos- 
 sessed no greater knowledge than their natural 
 sagacity or memory enabled them to acquire ; and 
 hence we find them using such vague statements 
 as Paul, — " hoping to come about winter ; " " not 
 knowing the things which were to befall him in 
 Jerusalem ; " he " baptized the household of Ste- 
 phanas ; besides, he knew not whether he baptized 
 any other;" — these, and many other things that 
 are incidentally mentioned in the Epistles, show 
 that in the common familiar intercourse of life 
 they were left to act for themselves, as others. 
 
372 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 But there is observable a broad line of demarca- 
 tion between the conduct of the prophets and 
 apostles as men, and their procedure as the com- 
 missioned servants of God and witnesses for Christ; 
 for while they were betrayed through constitutional 
 weakness or violence of temper into occasional 
 errors in private life, they were infallible in the 
 discharge of apostolic offices. It is alleged, indeed, 
 that the apostles did err through imperfect know- 
 ledge at first, as when the evangelists, in accord- 
 ance with the reigning notions of their age and 
 country, recorded that demons entered into the 
 bodies of men and animals, and that the coming 
 of Christ was close at hand. In regard to the 
 former, it has been the belief of all sound inter- 
 preters in every age of the church, that in the 
 time of our Lord there were such formidable 
 calamities as demoniacal possessions, several inci- 
 dents in the evangelical narrative being absolutely 
 unintelligible except on that hypothesis. And as 
 to the apprehension which prevailed in some of 
 the early Christian churches of the second coming 
 of Christ, it probably arose from a mistaken inter- 
 pretation of some expressions which were used by 
 men who, themselves living under the powers of 
 the world to come, and viewing the future with 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 37o 
 
 the telescopic eye of faith, spoke of them as near 
 at hand. But they fell into no error in expecting 
 the immediate end of the world ; and Paul ex- 
 pressed his own uniform conviction, as well as that 
 of his brother apostles, when he wrote to the 
 Thessalonians, " that they should not be shaken 
 in mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit nor by 
 word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of 
 Christ is at hand. Let no man deceive you by 
 any means; for that day shall not come except 
 there come a falling away first, and that man of 
 sin be revealed, the son of perdition." In short, 
 although discrepancies and apparent inconsistencies 
 are found in many parts of the sacred writings, 
 they are all capable more or less of explanation 
 and reconciliation. No serious error has ever been 
 proved; 1 and the Scriptures, possessing plenary 
 inspiration, must be regarded as an authoritative 
 and infallible rule in all matters of faith and 
 duty. 
 
 We consider that this conclusion has been 
 established by the arguments adduced in the pre- 
 ceding lectures, independently of the admission or 
 rejection of the dogma of verbal inspiration. By 
 verbal inspiration is meant a suggestion not merely 
 1 Note I. 
 
374 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 of ideas and sentiments, but of the very words in 
 which these are expressed. Now there can be no 
 doubt that there were cases in which the Spirit of 
 God put the precise and actual words into the 
 mouths of the inspired persons who uttered them. 
 Thus, for instance, when the prophets predicted 
 future things of which they had no knowledge, 
 and others spoke in languages they did not under- 
 stand, it is obvious that the expressions must have 
 been supplied to them. Besides, there were cases 
 in which arguments of the greatest importance are 
 founded on the precise use of a single word. Thus, 
 when our Lord said, " Before Abraham was, I am," 
 is it not evident that the change from the past to 
 the present tense in this declaration has great 
 doctrinal significance ? Our Lord Himself argued 
 from the use of a word ; for He proved the reality 
 of a future state from the words addressed to 
 Moses at the burning bush, " I am the God of 
 Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob." " God," He 
 concluded, " is not the God of the dead, but of the 
 living." The apostles also founded on the use of 
 a word ; as a weighty inference is drawn from the 
 use of the word " seed " in the singular, and not in 
 the plural j 1 another is dependent on the word 
 
 1 Gal. iii. 16. 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 375 
 
 "all," 1 and a third on the words "once more," 2 as 
 employed by the prophet Haggai. But although 
 in rare instances, as those just specified, the im- 
 portance and even necessity of verbal inspiration 
 must be conceded, the theopneustia, which the 
 apostle claims for all Scripture, indicates a rational 
 influence on the mind of the sacred writers, rather 
 than a mechanical control of the lips ; and as it is 
 usual and natural for men to think in words, so 
 the action of the Spirit of God on the minds of 
 apostles and prophets would, in accordance with 
 the principles of their mental constitution, prompt 
 and stimulate them to the adoption of such words 
 as would most exactly express the divine mind 
 they were commissioned to make known. Thus 
 the sacred writers were left each of them to speak 
 and write in his own natural manner, — some in a 
 plain, prosaic, and humble, others in a poetical and 
 embellished, highly rhetorical, and argumentative 
 style ; and a satisfactory explanation is obtained of 
 the phenomena of inspiration. 
 
 The plenary inspiration of the Scriptures renders 
 
 that book the supreme standard of authority in 
 
 religion. This conclusion cannot be affected by 
 
 objections that have been brought either from 
 
 1 Heb. ii. 8. * Heb. xii. 27. 
 
376 INSPIRATION OF THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 
 
 within or from without the sacred volume. The mul- 
 tiplicity of various readings cannot affect it: for they 
 do not invalidate a single doctrine or statement ; 
 and their existence affords the prospect that en- 
 lightened criticism will ere long establish a per- 
 fect text. Nor is the authority of Scripture 
 endangered by the dogmas of scientific men. 
 Science is progressive, and many of its once 
 favourite doctrines, as the nebular theory and 
 others, she has been compelled to abandon. Let 
 the students of the Bible and the students of 
 science prosecute their independent courses, and 
 we have a confident assurance, that through a 
 sound exegesis of Scripture, and a patient study 
 of nature, there will be found a perfect harmony 
 between the works and the word of God. 1 
 1 Note K. 
 
NOTES, 
 
 Note A. — Philo, who was a contemporary of Josephus, 
 says that " the Jews would rather have suffered a thou- 
 sand deaths, than that anything should be once altered 
 in all the divine laws and statutes of the nation." 
 
 (Philo Judseus ap. Eusebii prepar. Evang. lib. viii.) — 
 The Jews were extremely fond of arranging their sacred 
 books, and even several minute portions of them, in 
 accordance with the letters of the Hebrew alphabet. 
 It was on this account that the canonical books of the 
 Old Testament, which really amount to 39, were reckoned 
 at the reduced number of 22. The twelve minor 
 prophets were considered as forming one book. But 
 that the twenty-two books comprehended the whole 
 thirty-nine is proved to a demonstration, by a compari- 
 son of our present list with that drawn up and published 
 by a succession of early Christian writers : by Melito, 
 Bishop of Sardis, in the second century, who travelled 
 to the East in order to make the relative inquiries into 
 the state of the Old Testament canon, as known in that 
 quarter of the world ; by Origen in the third century, 
 who enumerates the twenty- two books ; by Athanasius 
 in the fourth, who also gives the names of the twenty- 
 two books, which were recognised by the universal 
 church of that age as forming the canon of the Jewish 
 Scriptures. This list is confirmed by the subsequent 
 testimonies of Gregory Nazianzen and Jerome, and it is 
 
378 NOTES. 
 
 established by the Council of Laodicea in 363. Colla- 
 teral evidence of the same point is furnished by the 
 Septuagint translation, by the Targums or paraphrases 
 of the said books, and by the steady, uniform adherence 
 of the modern Jews to the canon as acknowledged and 
 held by the church of their fathers. The Chetubim or 
 Hagiographa include the whole of the Psalms, the book 
 of Job, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Canticles, 1 and 2 
 Chronicles, Ezra, Esther, and the prophecies of Daniel. 
 The triple distinction of the Jews is quite fanciful. 
 Moses, i.e. the Pentateuch, was of course the first divi- 
 sion. Under the " prophets," or second division, are 
 included Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1 and 2 Samuel, 1 and 
 2 Kings, 1 and 2 Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, and 
 Esther, besides all the prophets, except Daniel. This 
 shows, in our Lord's real classification, the historical 
 books ought to be included under the prophets, having 
 been written by prophets. " When our Saviour," says 
 Bishop Marsh, " spake of the Old Testament as composed 
 of three parts, — the law of Moses, the prophets, and the 
 Psalms, — He gave an exact description of the Hebrew 
 Bible. It is true that our Saviour did not enumerate 
 the books of each class ; but it may be easily shown 
 that the three classes comprehended the present books of 
 the Hebrew Bible, and no more. For the first class was 
 devoted exclusively to the writings of Moses, and the 
 second class admitted the writings only of those whom 
 the Jews denominated the prophets. Neither the first 
 nor the second class, therefore, ever could have contained 
 the productions of later writers, whom the Jews could 
 not possibly regard in the same light as their ancient 
 prophets. Nor could even the third class have contained 
 any of those books which we call Apocrypha. For 
 most of them were Greek in their very origin, and 
 consequently were incapable of admission into the 
 
NOTES. 379 
 
 Hebrew canon. And with respect to the few among 
 them which may have been written in that kind of 
 Hebrew which was spoken in later times by the Jews in 
 Palestine, it would have been quite inconsistent with 
 the veneration of the Jews for their ancient Hebrew 
 Scriptures to have admitted whole books written in 
 Chaldee, though they did not exclude the works of 
 Ezra and Daniel on account of some parts of them being 
 Chaldee." x 
 
 Note B. — It is well known that Biblical scholars have 
 long been divided in opinion as to the proper translation 
 of 2 Tim. iii. 16. In the original Greek there is no 
 verb ; and the insertion of the substantive verb eo-n 
 being left to the reader's discretion, its position at the 
 beginning or the end of the sentence must affect the 
 import of the passage. Its introduction in the early 
 part of the text, so that the words stand, " All Scrip- 
 ture is given by inspiration of God, and profitable," etc., 
 asserts the inspiration of all parts of the sacred volume ; 
 whereas, if it is deferred to a remoter place in the verse, 
 the meaning of the passage is materially altered : 
 " Every writing, divinely inspired, is also profitable," 
 etc. But this rendering is objectionable on various 
 grounds. 1. Because ypa^has here a special meaning, 
 defined by the icpa ypafx/xaTa of the preceding context, 
 which cannot be expressed by "writing." It denotes 
 Scripture, according to the use of the term in the New 
 Testament ; and ypafy-q being without the article, and 
 standing absolute, it is evident that the Scripture re- 
 ferred to was not limited to the Jewish Scriptures, but 
 comprehended the whole of the revealed word of God. 
 But the translation, even as amended, " All Scripture, 
 
 1 Comparative View of the Churches of England and Rome, p. 
 102 ; see also Cosin on the Canon, pp. 94, 95. 
 
380 NOTES. 
 
 divinely inspired, is also profitable," etc., is open to 
 various objections. It evidently implies that some parts 
 of the Scripture are not divinely inspired. Besides, it 
 makes the conjunction /cat, and, serve as an emphatic 
 instead of a merely connecting word. And it tends to 
 weaken the import of the statement, that " all Scripture 
 is divinely inspired," by transferring the emphasis to the 
 affirmation of its being profitable, which no one needs 
 to be informed that Scripture is. It can scarcely be 
 supposed, therefore, that the apostle would make so 
 trivial a statement, nor that it could enforce the counsel 
 which he had addressed to Timothy. The weight of 
 critical authority in modern times, from De Wette to 
 Tregelles, is in favour of the first translation. Dr Pye 
 Smith, particularly in the last edition of his Scripture 
 Testimony, supports the second rendering ; as does 
 Alford also, although he acknowledges that he does so 
 with great hesitation. Our Authorized Version has 
 adopted the first, along with the Ethiopic version. The 
 Syriac, the Arabic version, and the English Bible of 1549, 
 and other English versions, lend their countenance to 
 the second. Although the Clementine Vulgate has est 
 after utilis, and totally omits the /cat, giving this mean- 
 ing, " All Scripture, divinely inspired, is useful for 
 instruction," the Vulgate itself has the same reading as 
 the Greek, Omnis Scriptura divinitus inspirata, et utilis 
 ad docendum. (See Findlay's Vindication.) 
 
 It has been considered by some, that the statement of 
 the apostle was limited exclusively to the Old Testament 
 Scripture, under the persuasion that, during the youth 
 of Timothy, no part of the New Testament could have 
 been written, or at least been generally published. 
 But this is to overlook the established facts of the 
 history. The words occur in the Second Epistle to 
 Timothy, which was the last that he wrote, and that in 
 
NOTES. 381 
 
 the year 66, when already the Gospels of Matthew, 
 Mark, and Luke, as well as the Acts, had appeared, to- 
 gether with almost all the other Epistles, besides those 
 of Paul. Now the Epistles were regarded by Paul 
 from the first as Scripture, for he gave orders that they 
 should be read publicly in the churches (1 Thess. v. 
 27), and to be exchanged one with another, so that all 
 might participate in the privilege of hearing their in- 
 struction (Col. iv. 16). And hence it may be concluded, 
 that he, as well as Peter, ranked all his own with those 
 of the other apostles amongst the " all Scripture that 
 is given by inspiration of God." 
 
 In regard to the Pastoral Epistles, they have been 
 subjected to a series of severe attacks in modern times, 
 begun by Schleiermacher in 1807 upon the First Epistle 
 of Timothy, and extended by Eichhorn, De Wette, and 
 Baur against the two Epistles to Timothy and that to 
 Titus, — all of which Davidson has marshalled in full 
 array. But able defenders appeared in vindication of 
 these Epistles ; and while their authenticity and genuine- 
 ness have been fully established on critical grounds, 
 their full recognition by the church before the close of 
 the second century has been proved by the strongest 
 testimony of ecclesiastical history. In fact, the dis- 
 covery of the work of Hippolytus has overthrown the 
 theories and arguments of those critical sceptics. 
 
 Note C. — It has been alleged that the majority of 
 expositors have found the Messiah in too many prophetic 
 passages. We do not think so ; but most assuredly 
 Eationalistic writers, who eliminate altogether the 
 Messianic element, have gone to the opposite extreme, 
 and have maintained their theories on very slender, 
 often untenable ground. We take Dr. Williams, who 
 has retailed the opinions of the German critics in his 
 
382 NOTES. 
 
 famous contribution to Essays and Reviews, and from 
 that work we cull a sample or two of their interpreta- 
 tions of prophecy. Thus, "the child born" (Isa. ix. 6) 
 he refers to Hezekiah, — an interpretation to which the 
 objections are insuperable. No one single feature of 
 the prophecy corresponds with the life and reign of 
 Hezekiah. The very lowest meaning which German 
 rationalism or Jewish unbelief can give to such words 
 as " Mighty God," are as inapplicable to Hezekiah as 
 the highest. If it would be blasphemy in the prophet 
 to designate him by this appellation in the full sense of 
 the words, it would be equally low, unworthy flattery, 
 to style him " Mighty God " in the sense of Godlike 
 Hero or Divine Warrior ; for Hezekiah, though a 
 good man, was in no conceivable sense a hero. Such a 
 word as " mighty " can hardly be associated with the 
 name of one who, when his land was invaded, made 
 abject submission in such words as those which he 
 sent to the king of Assyria : " I have offended ; return 
 from me : that which thou puttest upon me I will bear " 
 (2 Kings xviii. 14). 
 
 With as little propriety can he be styled " Wonderful 
 Counsellor ; " for Hezekiah, though a good, was a very 
 weak, man. He had to lean for counsel on others, and 
 God gave him a counsellor of surpassing excellence in 
 Isaiah. In fact, if applied to Hezekiah or any of his 
 successors till the destruction of the monarchy, this 
 most astonishing of prophetic utterances is utterly 
 meaningless. If applied to the Virgin-born, it is a 
 glorious anticipation of the Christian faith ; and every 
 one of these attributes is seen to be a distinguishing 
 characteristic of the Redeemer, as displayed in the 
 government of the church. If the Holy Ghost spoke 
 by Isaiah at all, He does so in this prophetic utterance, 
 which refers solely to Him of whom, at His conception, 
 
NOTES. 383 
 
 it was announced that "the Lord shall give unto 
 Him the throne of His father David, and He shall 
 reign over the house of Jacob for ever." Another 
 sample of Dr. Williams' interpretations is that put 
 upon Isa. iv. 2, which he translates and explains 
 most incorrectly, making "the Branch of the Lord," 
 i.e. the Messiah, into " Jehovah's budding," i.e. a better 
 generation of sons and daughters. 
 
 The grand attempt made to destroy the predictive 
 character of the prophetic writings is by the division of 
 the book of Isaiah into two parts, the latter part being 
 written at an interval of two hundred years after the 
 former by a younger prophet of the same name, who 
 was personally acquainted with Cyrus, and hence the 
 reference to him ! The fifty-third chapter of Isaiah, in 
 which the last sufferings of the Messiah are so graphi- 
 cally described, is represented as a historical summary 
 of the life of Jeremiah. The ground on which this 
 elaborate effort of criticism to expunge the predictive 
 element from the Hebrew prophecies rests, is the use 
 of Chaldaic forms of the Hebrew verb Hiphil, the intro- 
 duction of the name of Cyrus, and the adoption of 
 the Chaldaic word Sagan for prince. See Replies to 
 Essays and Reviews ; Birk's Bible and Modern Thought ; 
 Davison's Use, Intent, and Inspiration of Prophecy. 
 
 Note D. — The prophets were men to whom God 
 communicated a knowledge of future events, long be- 
 fore the causes of them had begun to develope them- 
 selves, so as to make them discernible by human 
 sagacity. It might be supposed that the prophecies of 
 Christ and of the kingdom of God would be the result 
 of a sagacious mind, full of pious aspiration in times of 
 great revival, when men's minds were animated by 
 more than usually devout feelings. But some of Isaiah's 
 
384 NOTES. 
 
 prophecies, and those the most spiritual, were uttered 
 or written in the reign of idolatrous kings, when idolatry 
 was rampant. The prophets all predicted something 
 of Christ. Jacob had said, Christ's advent should be 
 before the sceptre departed from Judah, or a lawgiver 
 from between his feet ; Haggai and Malachi, that He 
 should come when the second temple yet stood ; and 
 Daniel had foretold the very year, eighteen centuries 
 ago, in which He would appear, — a prediction which 
 appeared so unprecedentedly minute, as to excite doubts 
 and suspicion respecting the credibility of this prophet. 
 " But this has now been established on a solid basis of 
 proof, and scepticism on the book of Daniel been dis- 
 pelled. The prophetic declaration as to the exact time 
 of Messiah's advent did not rest on mere circumstantial 
 evidence, but was capable of mathematical and absolute 
 demonstration. Interpret the seventy weeks in what 
 way we will, and put the period of their commencement 
 backward and forward, it is evident to all that the time 
 must have expired, and Messiah the Prince have come." 
 
 Note E. — The vernacular language of our Lord's 
 contemporaries — ancient Hebrew having not survived 
 the captivity — was, though still called "the Hebrew 
 tongue," 1 Syro-Chaldaic, or Aramaic. But throughout 
 the Roman Empire, Greek was a universal medium of 
 communication. Not only in Greece and its colonies, 
 in Asia Minor and Egypt, but in Rome itself, the pre- 
 valent use of the Greek tongue was a remarkable feature 
 of the age ; and that Palestine was no exception is proved 
 by many considerations. The common use of the Sep- 
 tuagint in the synagogues, and the quotations from the 
 ancient prophets made by our Lord and His apostles 
 from that version ; the composition of the Gospels and 
 1 Luke xxiii. 88 ; Acts xxvi. 40. 
 
NOTES. 385 
 
 Epistles in that language, for the use of the resident in- 
 habitants of Palestine as well as of the Hellenistic Jews 
 of the Dispersion ; the fact of there being only two New 
 Testament books which were said to have had Hebrew 
 originals, of which, however, no record exists, and which 
 have never been seen by any but in their Greek form ; 
 the testimony furnished by the writings of Philo and 
 Josephus ; the Sermon on the Mount, addressed to a 
 mixed multitude, comprising people from Tyre and 
 Sidon, 1 who spoke the Greek language, and from the 
 Decapolis; 2 — these and various other circumstances 
 afford evidence that cannot be gainsaid, that Greek 
 was known to, and familiarly spoken by, all classes in 
 Palestine during the first age of Christianity. — Roberts' 
 Discussions, Part I. 
 
 Note F. — Mr. Froude (Short Studies on Great Subjects, 
 p. 254) says : " Though extremely probable, it is not 
 absolutely certain, that those passages in the Acts in 
 which the writer speaks in the first person are by the 
 same hand as the body of the narrative. If St. Luke 
 had anywhere directly introduced himself, — if he had 
 said plainly that he, the writer who was addressing 
 Theophilus, had personally joined St. Paul, and in that 
 part of his story was relating what he had seen and heard, 
 there would be no room for uncertainty. But so far as 
 we know, there is no other instance in literature of a 
 change of person introduced abruptly, without explana- 
 tion." In answer to this expression of doubt, several of 
 the early Christian Fathers, — Irenasus, Clement of Alex- 
 andria, 3 towards the close of the second century, Ter- 
 
 1 Luke vi. 17. ~ Matt. iv. 25. 
 
 3 Adver. Hceres. lib. iii. cli. 14 and 15 ; De Jejunio, ch. 10 ; De 
 prcescrip. Hceres. ch. 22 ; Adver. Marcion, lib. v. ch. 2 and 3, 
 etc. ; Stromat. lib. v. 
 
 2b 
 
386 NOTES. 
 
 tullian in the beginning of the third, — bear concurrent 
 testimony to the book of the Acts and the authorship 
 of Luke. And Eusebius 1 has placed it amongst the 
 sacred books that were universally acknowledged as of 
 canonical authority by the churches. 
 
 Note G. — Mr. Matthew Arnold's idea of inspira- 
 tion is given in his last work, Literature and Dogma. 
 According to his view, it is a mystic something that 
 inspires the mind with awe, sometimes even to " cruel 
 terror," or a " timid religiosity," which exerts a power- 
 ful influence on the imagination. " This," in his view, 
 "was what moved the men who wrote the Bible." 
 When the sacred books were produced, a secret but 
 strong influence beyond themselves acted upon the 
 Israelitish people, and inspired them' with awe, — an 
 influence from which they got a sense of righteousness, 
 and were stimulated to do right. This mystic tendency, 
 which was "not themselves, but beyond themselves," was 
 what they meant to express under the name of Jehovah, 
 which, untranslated, gives the name of a mere mytho- 
 logical divinity, and which our translators have errone- 
 ously rendered by the word Lord, conveying the idea 
 of an exalted man. In short, Arnold's representation 
 of this mystic influence is, that it is an innate power 
 which, like that operating upon the impulses of men to 
 self-preservation and reproduction, prompts them to 
 righteousness. We are accustomed to speak of God 
 guiding and governing men. But Mr. Arnold rejects 
 the idea of a personal God, and says it is something 
 which he calls " not ourselves." The stimulus of this 
 secret influence, he says, was the whole inspiration of 
 the Hebrew writers ; and when they declared their 
 
 1 Hi< Eccl. iii. 25. 
 
NOTES. 387 
 
 emotions of joy or sorrow, and their consciousness of 
 sin, they thought not of a personal God, but meant 
 only to express the idea of righteousness. " God is 
 simply the stream of tendency by which all things fulfil 
 the law of their being. And this was Israel's conscious- 
 ness, out of which the grand, solemn statements of 
 Moses, the passionate affections of David, and the lofty 
 imaginations of Isaiah sprang." If there be any mean- 
 ing lying hid in this conglomerate of hyperbolical ex- 
 pressions, it has baffled all our efforts to penetrate it ; 
 and the conclusion to which we are forced to come is, 
 that although Mr. Arnold's work professes to be a guid- 
 ing light towards a better apprehension of the Bible, 
 we feel that we are left totally in the dark as to what 
 this strange work means to teach. 
 
 Note H. — The following excellent remarks on the 
 internal proofs of the supernatural in the Scripture, 
 from the pen of the eloquent Dr. Harris, President of 
 Bodwoin College, form an appropriate sequel to the 
 sentiments contained in the latter half of this chapter : — 
 
 " Naturalism must account for Jesus as the neces- 
 sary outgrowth of His age. It must affirm of Him, 
 as of all great men, that His individual force is of 
 slight account : all that was in Him was but the out- 
 growth of His age ; if He had not lived, the spirit of 
 the age would necessarily have found utterance through 
 some other. But Jesus cannot be accounted for as the 
 natural outgrowth and product of His age. His age 
 was, of all the ages, the most barren of spiritual life : 
 polytheism had decayed into epicurean scepticism ; 
 Judaism had degenerated into the formalism of the 
 Pharisee and the unbelief of the Sadducee. Jesus was 
 in all particulars unlike His age, and contrary to it ; not 
 only so, but He introduced into it a new life, and com- 
 
388 NOTES. 
 
 menced its transformation into His own likeness. The 
 world was like a barren field, — nothing visible but the 
 blackened cinders of scepticism, and the scorched and 
 hollow stalks of empty profession. Jesus came, and 
 life, verdure, and fruit appeared. There went forth from 
 the very publicans, Matthews, and from the very Phari- 
 sees, Pauls ; from that ungodly age there went forth 
 godly men and women, confessors and martyrs, — a 
 living church of God, a power of faith and love, which 
 have been the admiration of all succeeding ages. De- 
 monstrably, here was not a life spontaneously developed 
 out of humanity, but a life coming down upon humanity 
 from above, — an energy of God's redeeming grace, as a 
 new and renovating power into the history of man." 
 
 Note I. — Many of those passages which have been 
 singled out as containing errors and contradictions, 
 admit of a satisfactory explanation. Thus, Num. iii. 39 
 states the total number of the Levites as 22,000 ; 
 whereas the aggregate amount of the different summa- 
 tions given in other parts of the same chapter makes 
 the whole as 22,300. It is supposed that the sum-total is 
 given, as in former instances, in round numbers, or that 
 the 300 in excess were themselves first-born, who could 
 not on that account be substituted for other first-born. 
 The small number of the first-born males may be 
 ascribed to one or other of the following causes : either 
 that there was no notice taken of families in which the 
 eldest child was a daughter, or that the first-born was 
 counted after the law was promulgated. 2 Chron. xvi. 1 
 records that " in the six-and-thirtieth year of the reign 
 of Asa, Baasha king of Israel came up against Judah ;" 
 whereas it is alleged, from 1 Kings xv. 33, that Baasha 
 had apparently died in the twenty-seventh year of Asa's 
 reign ; so that there is a flagrant contradiction between 
 
NOTES. 389 
 
 the two statements. If, however, the chronology her 
 be reckoned, as it is believed it should be, not from the 
 commencement of Asa's reign, but from the disruption 
 of the kingdoms, the thirty-sixth year from that epoch 
 would agree with the sixteenth year of that monarch's 
 reign ; and this was in all probability the chronology 
 adopted in the national register, from which the sacred 
 historian drew his materials. Again, it is said that 2 
 Chron. xxii. 2 makes Ahaziah forty-two years old when 
 his father died ; whereas xxi. 20 states that his father 
 himself was but forty years of age at his death. It is 
 evident, from the nature of the case, that the text in 
 the parallel passage 2 Kings viii. 26 is the correct read- 
 ing ; most commentators are accustomed to remove the 
 difficulty by suggesting that the letter Caph, whose 
 numerical power is twenty, was substituted for Mem, 
 whose numerical power is forty. We prefer the ex- 
 planation given by Dr. Lightfoot, which is this : that 
 Ahaziah began to reign in the twenty-second year of 
 his own age, but in the forty-second of the reign of the 
 Omri dynasty, — a powerful and disastrous dynasty to 
 the kingdoms both of Israel and Judah, and therefore 
 most likely to form an epoch in the eyes of a Hebrew 
 writer. 2 Chron. xxv. 7, 8, have been pronounced 
 contradictory and unintelligible. It must be admitted 
 that the passage is obscure as it stands ; but many 
 critics of eminence have suggested that the particle 
 " not " has in the course of transcription been dropped 
 out of the text, and that the insertion of this little word- 
 will restore the clearness and sense of the prophet's 
 advice to Amaziah. It has been noticed that there is a 
 contradiction between 2 Chron. xxiv. 14, which states 
 that " spoons and vessels of gold and silver were made 
 of the surplus money collected by Jehoiada ;" and the 
 parallel passage in 2 Kings xii. 13, where it is said 
 
390 NOTES. 
 
 " there were not made for the house of the Lord bowls 
 of silver, etc., of the money that was brought into the 
 house of the Lord." It may be that the word " not " 
 has dropped also out of the text in the former passage ; 
 otherwise there is here a direct contradiction. But it is 
 in a matter of very trivial importance, and errors of this 
 kind are very apt to occur in the course of frequent 
 transcription. Various errors also have been noticed in 
 regard to numbers ; as in the story of the Bethshemites 
 it is said. " God smote fifty thousand threescore and ten 
 men " (1 Sam vi. 19). Bethshemesh being a small village, 
 the numbers must be erroneous. The verse should be 
 rendered : " He smote fifty out of a thousand." God, 
 instead of decimating, according to an ancient usage, 
 slew only a twentieth part, i.e., according to Josephus, 
 70 out of 1400 (see Num. iv. 18-22). Such errors 
 were inevitable, unless there had been a constant 
 miraculous superintendence of transcribers. But the 
 errors are comparatively unimportant. • Prof. Rawlin- 
 son describes the Pentateuch as " a history absolutely 
 and perfectly true," but as having "accidental corrup- 
 tions of the text, a few interpolations, glosses, which 
 have crept in from the margin." 1 Mr Birks considers that 
 " the inspiration and authority of the Scriptures are not 
 synonymous with entire freedom from the intrusion 
 of the slightest error." 2 And Messrs. Webster and 
 Wilkinson express themselves in the following manner : 
 " It will be understood tbat an inspiration which may 
 .be truly characterized as direct, personal, independent, 
 and plenary, is consistent with the use of an inferior or 
 provincial dialect, with ignorance of scientific facts and 
 other secular matters, with mistakes in historical allu- 
 sions or references, and mistakes in conduct, and with 
 
 1 Bampton Lect. p. 77. 
 
 2 The Bible and Modern Thought, p. 208. 
 
NOTES. 391 
 
 circumstantial discrepancies between inspired persons 
 in relating discourses, conversations, or events." x 
 
 Note K. — Although the Scriptures were given to 
 instruct mankind in religious truth only, yet, consider- 
 ing their divine origin, it might be expected that, wher- 
 ever mention is made of the material world, there would 
 be no opposition to the principles of true science. The 
 sacred writers speak of physical nature in popular 
 language, and it is evident that in no other way could 
 they have been understood by the generality of man- 
 kind in any age. But their statements are far-reaching 
 in all they have said upon this subject. The idea of 
 creation, the bringing the matter of the universe out 
 of nothing, could have been derived only from divine 
 inspiration ; for all pagan writers speak of the world as 
 formed from pre-existent matter. The second and third 
 verses of the first chapter of Genesis are quite in accord- 
 ance with all the cataclysms and revolutions to which 
 geology has shown the pre- Adamite earth was subjected. 
 The subsequent account which the historian gives of the 
 preparation of the world for the existing economy of 
 providence, — of the animal creation, beginning with 
 the formation of the simplest animals, and ascending in 
 the scale of organized structures, in exact accordance 
 with the modern zoological arrangement established by 
 Ouvier, — of the distinction of species, and the succession 
 of species both of plants and animals from parent 
 species,— of the natural supremacy of rational man, the 
 descent of the human race from a single pair, and the 
 antiquity of man, — is confirmed by the testimony of 
 the most enlightened observation and the conclusions 
 of true science. Nor is there less confidence to be 
 attached to the Mosaic account of the Flood — partial, 
 1 Introduction to the Greek Testament, p. 46. 
 
392 NOTES. 
 
 indeed, in superficial extent, as the Scripture use of the 
 word " all " frequently warrants, but universal in the 
 destruction of mankind, with the exception of a single 
 family. A similar remark may be made as to the 
 introduction of diverse languages, which, as has been 
 most satisfactorily proved by Sir H. Rawlinson and 
 others, must have occurred in the place and time 
 which the Bible history assigns to it. The allusions 
 which are occasionally made to the sun, moon, and stars, 
 to all objects beyond the earthly scene, are extremely 
 guarded, and described only as objects of sight. In 
 other respects, great progress has been made in illus- 
 trating obscure points of Scripture history through the 
 Assyrian and Egyptian monuments. Pharaoh Sesonch 
 (Shishak) is represented dragging a group of captives 
 to the temple of his gods — each having his breast 
 labelled with an inscription telling his country ; and 
 amongst them is Kehoboam, king of Judah, with the 
 name Jaudh Malk, " Judah Melek," king of Judah, 
 in a cartouche over him (see Lepsius' Letters) ; also it 
 has been proved that the immense number of Egyptian 
 monarchs enumerated by Manetho do harmonize with 
 the Biblical chronology ; for there were three dynasties 
 — before Upper and Lower Egypt were united — ruling 
 contemporaneously. The researches at Nineveh have 
 also thrown great light on Scripture history, particularly 
 on those historical puzzles, — the promise made by 
 Belshazzar that Daniel should be " the third ruler in the 
 kingdom :" for it is now fully ascertained that that 
 young king was reigning conjointly with his father 
 Nabonadius ; and also the existence of Merodach 
 Baladan, king of Babylon, who had revolted from 
 Assyria (Isa, xxxix. 1). 
 
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