,-i/* ,.r;r ■?■»«;•--■:• n . ■«■• iFntm tl|p Sjtbrartf of BpqufatI|pJi bg I|im tn ll|p ICtbrary of J^rtnreton Qllipabgtral S>pmtnarg ■%■ If' ;.%w THE BIBLE DOCTRINE OF INSPIRATION EXPLAINED AND VINDICATED. THE I BIBLE DOCTRINE OF INSPIRATION EXPLAINED AND VINDICATED. BY BASIL 'manly, D.D., LL.D., PROFESSOR IN THE SOUTHERN BAPTIST THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY, LOUISVILLE, KY. NEW YORK: A. C. ARMSTRONG AND SON, 714 Broadway. 1888. Copyright, 1888, By Basil Manlt. janfbersftj 33tes0: John Wilson and Son, Cambridge. PKEFACE. For more than a quarter of a century it has been my privilege and duty, in giving theological instruction, to discuss the subject of Inspiration. As each year I have studied it afresh, m}^ sense of its importance has increased ; and in examining the accumulating litera- ture on the topic in books, reviews, and newspapers, I have felt moved to get closer to the original sources, and have determined to ask the attention of the public to a study of it specially from a Biblical standpoint. It is easy to present theories. But the question is one of fact, and not of theor3% The Bible statements and the Bible phenomena are the decisive considera- tions in the case. And recognizing this, I have at- tempted a frank and thorough discussion of the Bible Doctrine of Inspiration. At the same time, I have not failed to read anything that seemed to promise to shed light on the subject. I have been desirous to examine all sides of the ques- tion, and to seek for truth whether old or new ; resolved neither to cling slavishly to confessional or traditional statements, nor to search for original and startling ideas. Originalitj^ on a subject like this, which has VI PREFACE. been under discussion for centuries, would surely be error. But there may be, after all, honest independence of inquiry', a careful sifting of opinions, a fair recasting of views in the mould of one's own thinking, and a subordination of the whole simply to the controlling authority of God's Word. This is all at which I have aimed. I have freely used whatever I have found in the writings of the able men who have discussed this and kindred themes, without a studied effort either to avoid their phraseology or to conform to their ideas or expressions. To the candid, faithful examination of those in all Christian denominations who love and honor God's blessed Word, this brief work is offered, whether they are disposed to accept or to reject the views advocated. And may the blessing of God rest on this humble attempt to serve Him ! BASIL MANLY. Louisville, Kt., March, 1888. COIS^TENTS. Part iFirst* THE DOCTRINE OE INSPIRATION. PAGE Chapter I. Preliminary 13 A. Importance of the Subject 13 B. Deficiencies of an Uninspired Bible 15 C. Some Sources of Misapprehension 18 Chapter II. Distinctions and Explanations ... 20 A. Inspiration distinguished from Kindred Topics . 21 B. Inspiration implies real Supernatural Interposition 23 C. Inspiration is both an Act and a Result .... 25 D. Inspiration implies both Human and Divine Au- thorship ... 26 E. Inspiration distinguished from Revelation ... 36 E. Inspiration distinguished from Illumination . . 40 Chapter III. Summary op the Principal Views now Prevalent 44- A. Mechanical Inspiration 44 B. Partial Inspiration 48 C. Different Degrees of Inspiration 52 D. Natural Inspiration 54 E. Universal Inspiration 56 F. Plenary Inspiration 59 Vlll CONTENTS. PAGE Chapter IV. Negative Statements of the Doctrine 01 A. Mode of Divine Influence not to be explained . . 61 B. Inspiration not Mechanical 63 C. Not Destructive of Consciousness, Self-control, or Individuality 68 D. Not mere Elevation of Natural Faculties ... 69 E. Did not imply Perfect Knowledge on all Subjects 78 E. Did not imply Exemption from Error in Conduct or Great Piety 81 G. Did not prevent Errors of Subsequent Transcrip- tion 82 H. Does not imply the Truth of Opinions or Sayings stated in Scripture, but not sanctioned ... 84 I. Does not imply the Propriety of Actions recorded, but not approved 88 Chapter V. Positive Statement of the Doctrine . 90 1. The Bible the Word of God 90 2. The Bible the Production of Men 90 3. This Twofold Authorship extends to every Part of Scripture 90 Part Secontr* PROOFS OF INSPIRATION. Chapter I. Presumptive Argument for Inspiration 93 1. Nature of God and Man 93 2. Permanence and Importance of the Object in View 94 3. Other Supernatural Acts in giving the Scriptures 95 4. Character and Circumstances of the Writers . . 97 Chapter II. What Direct Evidence of Inspiration IS TO BE expected 104 1. The Proper Source of such Evidence 104 2. The Form in which this Evidence is given . . . 109 CONTENTS. IX FAOB Chapteb III. DiKECT Proofs or Inspiration . . . llJi 1. The General Manner of quoting Scripture in Scripture 114 2. Passages implying tlie Inspiration of the Bible as a Whole .' 130 3. Declarations of the Inspiration of Particular Per- sons or Passages 142 4. Promises of Inspiration to the Sacred Writers . . 145 A. To Old Testament Writers 145 B. To New Testament Writers 148 5. Assertions of Inspiration by the Writers themselves 158 6. Passages recognizing the Union of Human and Divine Authorship 168 OBJECTIONS TO INSPIRATION. Chapter I. Objections from Scripture 179 Luke i. 3 179 1 Corinthians vii. 6-25 181 Romans vi. 18, 19 187 ■2 Corinthians xi. 17 187 2 Corinthians xii. 2, 3 . . 190 1 Corinthians i. 16 191 Chapter II. Objection from the Existence of Dif- ficulties 192 Chapter III. Objections from Alleged Discrepan- cies OR Mistakes 195 1. General Suggestions 195 2. Remarks on Some of the Discrepancies .... 201 X CONTENTS. FAGB Cha-PTEe IV. Objections on Moral Grounds . . . 205 1. Particular Actions objected to 205 2. General Moral Objections 207 3. Moral Grandeur of the Biblical Ethics .... 215 Chapter V. Objections on Critical Grounds . . . 218 1. Objections from Text Criticism 219 2. Objections from Higher Criticism 228 Chapter VI. Objections on Scientlfic Grounds . 235 Chapter VII. Objection from Insignificant Details 251 CONCLUSION 257 INDEXES 259 THE DOCTRINE OF INSPIRATION. part JFtrsit* THE DOCTRINE OF INSPIRATION. CHAPTER I. PRELIMINARY. A. The Importance of the Subject. THE importance of the Doctrine of Inspiration needs scarcely any elaborate comment or proof. The theological atmosphere is full of discus- sion on the subject, either directly or indirectly. Christianity is the Religion of the Book. It is not an external organization, nor a system of cere- monies, nor a philosophy, nor a vague inquiry and aspiration, nor a human invention for man's own convenience or advantage. It is a definite system divinely given, consisting primarily of Facts, occurring both on earth and in heaven ; Doctrines in connection with those facts ; Commands growing out of both these ; and Promises based upon them. The history is so interwoven with the doctrinal teachings, the precepts so combined with the prom- 14 BIBLE DOCTRINE OF INSPIRATION. ises, as to be inseparable ; and the whole is con- tained in the volume or collection of writings which we call the Bible. The question, therefore, Is THE Bible the Word op God ? is of the highest importance to us as Christians, as theological students, as ministers, for all our work and life, in our present and in our future labors. Evangelical Christians generally have recognized this as a vital question. " The Bible, the Bible only, the religion of Protestants," has resounded through many a hall of discussion as the watch- word of victory, and has been re-echoed from many a pulpit as the battle-cry of freedom from ecclesias- tical domination. While not ignoring the noble and animating his- tory of our Christian forefathers, or forgetting the testimony of all the witnesses for Jesus who have lived and died, we do not base our own confidence, or ground our appeals to others, on conformity to any other standard than the Word of God. Histor- ical associations, ancient confessions, compacts and compromises, the opinions of good and great men within or without the ranks of the denomination to which we belong, can have no decisive weight with us. We must go for guidance, not to the Fathers, but to those who were earlier and greater than the Fathers, — to the Apostles, and above all to the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. PRELIMINARY. 15 B, Deficiencies of an Uninspired Bible. The difference between an inspired and an un- inspired Bible is of a momentous character. It is closely connected with the question whether we are following God or men ; whether our religion is of divine or of human origin. An uninspired Bible, whatever its excellences might be, would have three serious defects. First. It would furnish no infallible standard of truth. It would leave us liable to all the mistakes incident to failure of the writers, to their errors in judgment, or their defective expressions of correct thought. It would furnish no principle of accurate discrimination between the true and the false, the divine and the human.^ Second. It would present no authoritative rule for obedience, and no ground for confident and ever- lasting hope. It would contain advice instead of commands, suggestions instead of instructions, surmises of good men (perhaps not even of good men) instead of promises of the faithful God. It would give no firm ground on which to base our convictions, to build our hopes, or to order our life. ^ The existence or not of an infallible standard of right and truth is a difference of kind, and not of degree, and therefore a fundamental difference. The more or the less of human error, the greater or less degree of man's fallibility, is a difference that sinks into unimportance in comparison with it. — Bannermax, p. 104. 16 BIBLE DOCTRINE OF INSPIRATION. Third. It would offer no suitable means for testing and cultivating the docile spirit, for draw- ing man's soul trustfully and lovingly upward to its Heavenly Father. It would minister to the pride of reason, instead of to the culture of faith. It would generate perplexity instead of repose, con- flict instead of submission, resistance instead of reverence.^ — ' Yet we must guard against extravagance of statement, even here. Inspiration is not essential, as seems sometimes to have been stated or implied, to the historical credibility of Scripture. The facts there recorded would be true and immensely im- portant, even though the record of them were not inspired. The facts given are amply established on historical grounds, and are sufficient, if admit- ted, to condemn those who reject the Bible ; indeed, 1 He comes to the Bible, and sits over its contents in the atti- tude of a judge who is to decide for himself what in it is true and worthy to be believed, and what in it is false and deserving to be rejected ; not in the attitude of the disciple who, within the limits of the inspired record, feels himself at Jesus' feet, to receive every word that cometh out of his mouth. . . . The assurance that the Bible is the Word of God, and not simply containing it, in more or less of its human language, is one fitted to solemnise the soul with a holy fear, and a devout submission to its declarations as the very utterances of God. The assurance, on the contrary, that the truths of revelation are mingled, in a manner unknown and indeterminate, with the defects of the record, is one which reverses the attitude, and brings man as a master to sit in judgment on the Bible as summoned to his bar, and bound to render up to him a confession of its errors, and not a declaration of its one and authoritative truth. — Bannee- MA>f, p. 107. Compare pp. 241, 242. PRELIMINARY. 17 those facts are necessary logically to furnish a starting point from which to lead them, step by step, into the higher truths.^ Superficial informa- tion about the Scripture is better than entire igno- rance, and a general confidence that it contains the Word of God is better than rejection, though not equal to the assurance that it is the Word of God. But for those who are set for the defence of the Gospel, it is important to recognize it to be just what it is, and what God meant it should be. Ministers especially, therefore, should not be con- tent with any half-way ground, or rest satisfied in unsettled views. They should search thoroughly until they have reached a reliable conclusion. We can sympathize with and understand honest doubt, especially in young men assailed on every side by a multitude of conflicting opinions, and by the con- fident claims of the apostles of unbelief. But we should not, we cannot, abide in doubts. They par- alyze the energies, they destroy our happiness, they hinder our usefulness. The truth can be ascer- tained, and the sooner the better. Meanwhile let us preach what we know, not what we do not know. 1 If on simple historical testimony it can be proved that Jesus wrought miracles, uttered prophecies, and proclaimed his divinity, — if it can be shown that he was crucified to redeem sinners, that he rose again from the dead, and that he made the destiny of men to hinge on their acceptance of him as their Saviour, — • then, •whether the records which contain those truths be inspired or not, woe unto him who neglects so great salvation ! — F. L. Patton on Inspiration, p. 23. 2 18 BIBLE DOCTRINE OF INSriRATION. " If you know anything, tell me that," said a great philosoi)hcr. " Keep your doubts to yourself. I have enough of my own." C. Some Sources of Misapprehension. All professed Christians agree in acknowledging in general that the Bible is " from God," and that it is inspired in some sense, and to some degree. But it cannot be concealed that great differences of opinion often take refuge under this ambiguous phraseology. It is of extreme importance, espe- cially for ministers and teachers of God's Word, to have clear views and correct views of this sul)ject. Inspiration has become the central topic of some of the great and burning controversies of the age. Doubts concerning it are widely felt, and are ap- parently spreading. These doubts originate, I will not say altogether, but certainly in large measure, in the following sources : a. In misconceptions, either of the doctrine it- self as generally held by Evangelical Christians, or of the evidences and arguments by which it is supported ; h. In presuppositions and assumptions hostile to any supernatural fact, and therefore to any per- sonal, divine communication ; c. In faulty interpretation of particular passages of the Bible, bearing on the question. An unwary advocate, with more zeal than knowl- edge, may honestly assume an indefensible position ; PRELIMINARY. 19 and when driven from that may, in his panic, find no secure stopping-place. Or, on the other hand, a kind-hearted, liberal man, in striving to propitiate opponents, and to gain them over by making a specially mild and unobjectionable statement of truth, may unconsciously surrender the very citadel to the enemy. CHAPTER II. DISTINCTIONS TO BE NOTICED. A. Inspiration distinguished from Kindred Topics. THE question before us is simply, In what sense is the Bible the Word of God ? Is it strictly theopneustos, divinely breathed, or not? And if so, what does that expression imply ? The subject of Inspiration needs to be distin- guished from certain kindred topics of great im- portance. It has complexity and extent enough of its own, without borrowing burdens from correlated subjects of investigation. But many students of the subject are unwarily misled by writers who create confusion in a bewildering display of their own learning, and who blend in inextricable dis- order topics, each of which demands separate and elaborate study. The attempt is sometimes made to embrace at one view, in a brief discussion, all the manifold questions which arise in the -study of the Canon, of Text Criticism, Higher Criticism, Hermeneutics, Biblical History, and its connec- tion with Secular History. One hurried glance is given at all these subjects ; and of course the only result is either the confidence of a shallow dogma- PISTINCTIONS TO BE NOTICED. 21 tism, which experience shows may be found in the blind following of some Rationalist, as well as in adhering to Tradition ; or else there is a vague im- pression of extreme mistiness and uncertainty. Let us name some of these subjects which demand and deserve distinct study, though often confounded with other topics, so as to complicate the discussion as to Inspiration. a. The Genuineness of the Scriptures. — In this the question is one of authorship ; whether the vari- ous books that make up the Bible were composed by the men claimed to be their authors ; or, in those cases where no particular author is named, whether they originated at the time and in the circumstances alleged. b. In Text Criticism, or Integrity of the Scrip- tures, the question is whether the books that we have are the same as the original; whether they liave been correctly transcribed and faithfully pre- served without material addition or diminution. c. Higher Criticism is the name given of late to inquiries depending on style, on the mode of thought and expression of different writers, on the vocabulary, and tone employed, and various inter- nal peculiarities, by which the age and circumstan- ces and method of composition may be discovered. Of course these conclusions bear more or less directly on the authorship, and so are connected with the topic first named (Genuineness), but may extend beyond that question. 22 BIBLE DOCTRINE OF INSPIRATION. d. Authenticity of the Scriptures (sometimes styled Credibility), or the historical verity of the facts recorded. In that part of the subject the iiKjuiry is, Did those events really occur, were those discourses delivered, were those miracles performed as stated ? Is the Bible narrative a collection of myths, or legends, or deliberate fictions ; or is it mainly history, with some intermixture of exagger- ations and fables ; or is it throughout a statement of facts? e. The Canon of Scripture, or the question what books constitute the inspired volume. On the one side, some deny the authority of certain books com- monly received, as Canticles and Esther, or He- brews, James, and the Revelation. On the other, some, as the Romanists, affirm the divine authority of certain books known as the Apocrypha, such as Maccabees, Tobit, etc. Here the issue is not as to the nature of inspiration, but as to the claim that particular books have to be counted in the number of the inspired books. f. The Rule of Faith, or the sufficiency of the Scriptures. The Rationalists claim that reason is the rule or standard of belief, either alone, or supe- rior to or conjointly with the Bible ; while Ro- manists and other Traditionalists affirm that the Church is inspired as well as the Bible, and its voice is the voice of God. Theoretically they allege it as only co-ordinate with the Bible, but practically they establish it as supreme above the Bible ; and along DISTINCTIONS TO BE NOTICED. 23 with this they make the tacit assumption that they and those who agree with them are the Church, and they alone. Though admitting an infallible Bible, they put the supposed infallible interpreter in its place. Thus, as so often happens, extremes meet. Rationalism and Ecclcsiasticism, diverging from the truth, run round the circle till they agree in establishing themselves as the sovereign arbiter ; the one class accepting as true in the Bible only what " finds them," that is, suits tliem ; the other making the Church — that is, the Hierarchy, that is, tliemselves and their allies — the vicegerent of the Almighty, the custodian of truth and of salvation. g. The Evidences of Christianity, or the manifold proofs by which the Christian system as a whole is shown to be true and divine. While all these topics are interwoven naturally with the subject before us, they are distinct from it. And it will conduce both to brevity and to fairness and clearness of discussion, to keep them apart, and to confine ourselves now to the topic in hand. B. Inspiration implies real Supernatural Interposition. For the last hundred years there has been a growing tendency against the admission of any- thing supernatural. The sophisms of Hume had a wide influence, carrying out some unwarranted inferences from Locke's philosophy, and misusing 24 BIBLE DOCTRINE OF INSPIRATION. certain of the metaphysical subtleties of the Scofc- tisli school ; afterwards the Transcendental philoso- phy of Germany, the bold pretensions of Positivism, and the shadowy theories of Pantheism, all tended to furnish avenues of escape, for those who wished them, from the idea of a living, personal, omnipo- tent God, who interposes freely and effectively in human affairs. A more powerful stimulus, however, has been given to the prevalence of tliese anti-supernatural notions, by the proneness of many students of physical science to apply their favorite methods of investigation to topics outside of their range, and to carry the assumptions which seem to be just in dealing with material phenomena into the domain of theology. Because they find, everywhere in the visible universe, law, order, universal principles, they have undertaken to dethrone the Lawgiver, and to exalt on his throne, in His place. Law itself. They deny that the Supreme Being can interpose in any way save that which they have ascertained, or are willing to allow, that he has heretofore done. And hence they deny that He can work a miracle. Some true Christians have yielded to the force of this current, either unreflectingly, or with some vague idea of a compromise, by which they would gain the support of men of science for religion ; and, without exactly denying miracles, have set them- selves to pare down within credible limits the won- ders recorded in the Bible. They will nibble away DISTINCTIONS TO BE NOTICED. 25 at the edge of a miracle, chip off a little here and a little there, and seem to imagine that thej have re- moved the difficulty by reducing its size or changing its form. Let us not be afraid of admitting the idea and the fact of a miracle. The whole system of Christianity is a stupendous series of miracles. With those who deny this we are not now deal- ing. For them the question is not about Inspira- tion, but about the Existence, or else about the Providence, of God. The present discussion is designed for those who admit that there is a God, that he has communicated with men, and that the Bible is in some degree or extent his message. C. Inspiration may be regarded as an Act, or as a Result. It is an influence proceeding from God, and ter- minating in certain effects. These effects may be affirmed of the men who wrote and spoke, or of the books written. Both may be properly said to be inspired. Originally it was a question as to the men. Practically for us now the question is as to the books. Are they a message from God ? If so, in what sense, and to what degree ? There are some who conceive that the subject is cleared of difficulty by limiting the inspiration to the writings. The men were not inspired, they say, but only their writings ; not all they said or wrote, but just these writings. So Paul was not inspired, but the letters to the Ephesians and Ro- mans were. It will be shown hereafter that not all 26 BIBLE DOCTRINE OF INSPIRATION. the utterances or Avritings, not all the opinions or conduct, of the sacred writers are divinely sanc- tioned, but only their official utterances, their teachings and directions. Inspiration was not a personal and inseparable characteristic, attaching to everything they did or thought, but it was a divine gift, imparted for a sp<3cial purpose; and tliere is no proof of its extending beyond the pur- pose for which it was given, — that of making them the accurate and authoritative messengers of God's will and truth to men. Still, in inspiring the rec- ord, it pleased God to inspire the men to record or utter it. And there is nothing ultimately gained, either to clearness of understanding or facility of proof, by attempting to omit the human link of the chain through which the influence passed. The Scriptures were inspired ; the men of God who wrote them were inspired too, moved, home along^ by the Holy Spirit. D. Inspiration implies both Divine and Human Authorship. The distinction between the divine and the hu- man authorship of the sacred writings is not to be denied in thought, nor ignored in our reasonings. But it is of still greater importance to recognize that both must be distinctly held by the advocates of a true inspiration. A document or law might be so given from God as altogether to exclude human authorship, or the DISTINCTIONS TO BE NOTICED. 27 intervention of any human medium ; and then, though divine, it would not be inspired. Such was the Decalogue as originally given. The words were uttered by the Divine Voice on Sinai, in the hearing of Moses as well as of the people ; and he, as well as they, did " exceedingly fear and quake." (Exodus xx. 19-22 ; Hebrews xii. 21.) They were then recorded by the finger of God upon tablets prepared by God. (Exodus xxxii. 16. Compare xxxiv. 1, 28.) The subsequent record of them by Moses was inspired. The divine origin and authority of the Word is not to be affirmed, so as to exclude or impair the reality of the human authorship, and the peculiari- ties resulting therefrom. The Bible is God's Word to man, throughout ; yet at the same time it is really and thoroughly man's composition. No at- tempt should be made — and we shall certainly make none — to thrust aside or ignore the "human element" of the Scriptures,. which is unmistakably apparent on their very face ; no one should wish so to magnify the divine as to crowd this out, or almost out. Tliis is one of the mistakes which good men have committed. Let both be admitted, recognized, accepted, thankfully and rejoicingly, each contribut- ing to make the Bible more completely adapted to human needs, as the instrument of divine grace, and tlie guide for weak and wandering human souls. The Word is not of man, as to its source ; nor depending on man, as to its authority. It is by 28 BIBLE DOCTRINE OF INSPIRATION. and through man as its medium ; yet not simply as the channel along which it runs, like water through a lifeless pipe, but through and by man as the agent voluntarily active and intelligent in its com- munication. Both sides of the truth are expressed in the Scriptural language : " Holy men spake as they were moved [borne along] by the Holy Spirit." (2 Peter i. 21.) The men spoke; the impulse and direction were from God. Theories have been devised, proceeding on vari- ous human analogies, and limiting the divine oper- ation to make room for the human, or suspending the human to allow the intervention of the divine. There is a strong temptation to adopt such sugges- tions. It simplifies the matter so. If the book were human only, a collection of the thoughts, hopes, desires, guesses at truth, of certain wise men of ancient times, that would be an entirely intelligible supposition. If it were divine only, as the tables of stone, engraved by the finger of God, that would be a perfectly simple proposition. If it were of twofold, independent authbrship, part by God and another part by man, the divinity con- tributing one portion and then retiring, while the human author acts alone, there would be perhaps no objection on the part of modern theorizers to recognize such an intermixture, and at any rate all would be intelligible enough ; though there would be serious difficulty in determining which part was from above, and which of the earth, earthy. DISTINCTIONS TO BE NOTICED. 29 But neither of these suggestions suits the actual phenomena. The Bible will not submit to lie upon this bed of Procrustes, to be crammed and crowded into these moulds of human theories. It is all unmistakably the work of man. It is all by singu- lar and accumulated evidences declared to be the Word of God ; all writteu by man, all inspired by God. Both points are proved by separate and suf- ficient evidence. If we undertake to go beyond, and to explain how this was accomplished, we leave what has been made known to us for .the barren and uncertain fields of conjecture. This full recognition of the human authorship of the Scriptures is of prime importance ; for much of the force of the argument against a strict doctrine of Inspiration consists in proving this human au- thorship of the sacred writings, which we think is undeniable, and then inferring from that their fal- libility. " Human, therefore fallible," they say ; " fallible, therefore false in some measure." ^ But this favorite line of argument seems to us to be more plausible than powerful. It is a mere assump- 1 Falsehood was no part of man's original nature; and the pres- ence of error was not essential to themselves being men, or to their writings being human writings. On the contrary, in being pro- tected from liability to error, and exalted above the power of un- truth, they were but restored in the hour of inspiration, in so far, to that condition of freedom from evil in which they were created in the beginning. . . . They were lifted up into a condition more appropriate to human nature, as it was designed and at hrst made to be, than any in which it would have been possible for them to have uttered or recorded error. — Bannerman, p. 436. 30 BIBLE DOCTRINE OF INSPIRATION. tion that their being human forbids their being also divine ; that God cannot so inspire and use a hu- man being as to keep his message free from error ; that the human origin, under divine control, neces- sarily involves either falsity or fallibility. This seems to be perfectly plain : yet this fallacy un- derlies whole pages of vigorous denunciation and confident appeal.^ Such a double authorship, as we are led by tlie evidence (hereafter to be submitted) to attribute to the Bible, is a thing utterly unknown in any other book. A human volume might be the joint composition of two writers, one preparing one part, and the other the remainder ; or one suggesting the idcns, the other clothing them in the language finally adopted ; or one writing originally, the other edit- ing, enlarging, correcting; or each doing this re- vision of the work of the other. But nothing like 1 The doctrine of the plenary inspiration of the Bible, which regards it as all in one sense man's, and all in another sense God's, is the only view that gives full place to the hitman element in Scripture, all theories except itself more or less putting aside or impairing its perfection. Other views, such as that of an inspira- tion different in degree or kind as respects different truths or por- tions of Scripture, make the sacred volume to be, in some of its passages or statements, no more than partly human, just as they make it in others to be no more than partly divine. . . . Unless we are prepared to adopt the theory that the Bible is nothing but the composition of man, alone and exclusively, there is no other view except that of a plenary inspiration which conserves equally the divine and the human element in the recorded word. — Ban- NERMAN, pp. 446, 447. DISTINCTIONS TO BE NOTICED. 31 either of these is supposed or affirmed as to the divine and the human authorship of the Bible. If it is objected that we cannot understand how this human and divine authorship was exercised, so that the two elements sliould be consistent with each other, and that we cannot believe what we cannot understand, we reply, — 1. That, if the two things affirmed were plainly incompatible with each other, logical contradic- tions, so that their union is inconceivable and im- possible, the objection would have decisive weight. 2. But suppose that they are rather of such a na- ture that, while the combination is, from the nature of the case, not within our experience, and so it is not within our power to comprehend and explain their union, it is not beyond the power of God to effect it. The case then presents a very different aspect, analogous to many others, where we are compelled to admit the facts, while we are utterly unable to explain them. That they are, we know ; how they are, we know not. As it has been often and justly said, a man who refuses to believe anything that he does not understand will have a very short creed. We recur, then, to the statement that the Bible is throughout divine and human, all inspired by God, all written by man. This is the current doctrine of Christian people, as set forth substantially by the great body of thoughtful and trusted expounders, of different denominations and of various shades of opinion, 32 BIBLE DOCTRINE OF INSPIRATION. with some variations of language indeed, but with great general accord. It is not fair to confound or identify this strict doctrine of Inspiration with the so-called " Post- Reformation dogma" ,of mechanical inspiration, which (as we think) is not properly inspiration ; and to sharpen the arguments directed against the current view by invectives at what some are pleased to style the traditional, uncritical, mon- strous ideas of the advocates of Plenary or Verbal Inspiration. Some of them have undoubtedly been incautious in statement, or heated in discussion, and we need not attempt their vindication. But that does not impair their substantial agreement in the doctrine as here stated. A few quotations from some leading authors may suffice on this point. It is not claimed that all the writers quoted would accept the views ad- vocated by us in all their minutiae, but as to the point now under discussion their statements are in thorough accord, and of great weight. Philip Schafp {Preshyteriaii) . The New Testa- ment presents in its way the same union of the divine and human natures as the person of Christ. . . . The Bible is thoroughly human, though without error, in contents and form, in the mode of its rise, its compi- lation, its preservation and transmission ; yet at the same time thoroughly divine, both in its thoughts and Avords, in its origin, vitality, energy, and effect. — History of the Christian Church, Vol. I. p. 93. DISTINCTIONS TO BE NOTICED. 83 B. K. Peirce {Methodist). The Bible is not a specimen of the style of the Holy Spirit as a writer ; but the different authors expressed in their own lan- guage, and by their own illustrations, the ideas poured into their minds from on high. . . . The Son of man was no less a perfect man, hungering, thirsting, sleep- ing, weeping, because he was the Son of God ; and the Bible, with all its marks of human hands and weak- ness, is none the less a revelation of the word and will of God. — The Word of God Opened, pp. 23, 24. B. F. Westcott (Episcopalian). The human pow- ers of the divine messenger act according to their nat- ural powers, even when these laws are supernaturally strengthened. Man is not converted into a machine, even in the hand of God. . . . The nature of man is not neutralized by the divine agency, and the truth of God is not impaired, but exactly expressed in one of its several aspects to the individual mind. — Introduc- tion to the Study of the Gospels. Henry Alford (Episcoj)alian). The inspiration of the sacred writers I believe to have consisted in the ful- ness of the influence of the Holy Spirit specially raising them to and enabling them for their work, in a manner which distinguishes them from all other writers in the world, and their work from all other works. The men were full of the Holy Ghost : the books are the pouring out of that fulness through the men, the conservation of the treasure in earthen vessels. The treasure is ours in all its richness ; but it is ours, as only it can be ours, in the imperfections of human speech, in the limitations of human thought, in the variety incident at first to individual character, and then to manifold 3 34 BIBLE DOCTRINE OF INSPIRATION. transcription and the lapse of ages. The men were inspired, and the books are the result of that inspira- tion. — Prolegomena to his Greek New Testament, p. 21. Edwakd Garbett {Episcopalian). If we say that the Bible is the true word of God, the terra " word " involves the human element, for it denotes at once the fact of a communication, and the channel through which it is made. If we say that the Bible is God's word, we express it yet more distinctly in the further term "written"; written how but in human words, by human hands, through human materials, and for human readers ? To talk of a revelation devoid of a human element is to use words devoid of sense. [After referring to the analogy of the two natures in the personal word of God, he adds :] If we attempt to confound the divine and human element togetlier, and say that the Scripture is neither human nor di- vine, but something made up of both, we are cor- rected by the plain facts of the case ; for the distinct human element is palpably there in the language, imagery, and style ; and the distinct divine element is also there in the all-pervading unity of design and sublimity of subject. . . . Nor are we any more able to separate the two elements than we are to confound them. For if we say that part of the Scripture is divine and part of it human, we are again contradicted by the facts ; for in the part we acknowledge to be divine, the human element still survives. — God's Word Written, pp. 143-145. E. P. Humphrey {Presbyterian). The subject may be opened by pointing out the two elements which coexist in the sacred records, the human and the DISTINCTIONS TO BE NOTICED. 35 divine. "Holy men of old spake," — there is the human ; "as they were moved by the Holy Ghost," — there is the divine. Very instructive here is the resemblance between the combination of the divine and human in the person of Christ and in the Holy Scriptures. Both are expressly called by the sacred writers the Word of God; the first is the Word incarnate, the last is the Word written. Again, the manifestation of both proceeded from the Holy Ghost; the first by the way of a miraculous concep- tion, the other by the way of a supernatural inspira- tion. Next, the Son of God came down from above, and took upon him human nature ; even so saving truth was revealed from heaven, and was embodied in human language. Further, in the one person of our Lord two whole, perfect, and entire natures were in- separably joined together in one person, without con- version, composition, or confusion ; in like manner the Bible is one book, only one, wherein the two ele- ments are inseparably combined in such manner that the divine does not absorb the human, nor does the human adulterate the divine. In Christ the two na- tures are so related that he is at once the Son of God and the Son of man ; in the Scriptures the two ele- ments coexist in such fulness that the whole book is God's word, and the whole is man's word. In neither case are we able to explain the mode of union, but we are not at liberty to solve the problem by rejecting either of its conditions. We should bear in mind, however, that in Christ the manifestation of the divine is personal, but in the Bible it is verbal. Therefore we worship the incar- 36 BIBLE DOCTRINE OF INSPIRATION. nate Word as God over all ; we do not worship the written word, but we bow to its authority as the only- infallible rule of faith and practice. — Second General Council of the Fresbi/terlmi Alliance, Philadelphia, 1880. J. A. Smith {Baptist). One of the most beautiful and striking peculiarities of inspired Scripture is the presence there of the various human element, devel- oping itself in all varieties of character and experience, and thus speaking to every reader the vernacular of his own heart and life. It is a different hand, Ave see, as well as a different theme, when Moses lays down the pen of history, and David takes up the harp of song. When Jeremiah mourns, or Ezekiel thun- ders from the Sinai of prophecy, it is not as when Isaiah blows glad trumpets. The beloved Apostle is known in the very first words he utters, while no one can mistake the profound and sententious Paul. Each writer is seen in his own proper character, and recog- nized by idiosyncrasies he is known to have possessed. " But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every " one. The same divine power pervades all, brings its own gracious design out of each, and gives us in the end a unity as complete as the variety. — The Spirit and the Word, pp. 114, 115. Quotations like these might be indefinitely mul- tiplied. Ij. Inspiration distinguished from Revelation. The supernatural interposition by which the Bible has been given to man implies two things, or consists of two divine operations, which, though DISTINCTIONS TO BE NOTICED. 87 usually concurring, are distinguished in their na- ture, viz. : Revelation, which is that direct divine influence that imparts truth to the mind. Inspiration, which is that divine influence that secures the accurate transference of truth into hu- man language by a speaker or writer, so as to be communicated to other men.^ 1 Other definitions of Inspiration are as follows : — A. H. Si'KONG. That special divine influence upon the minds of the Scripture writers in virtue of which their productions, apart from errors of transcription, and when rightly interpreted, together constitute an infallible and sufficient rule of faith and practice. — Systematic Theolocjy, p. 95. E. A. Park. Inspiration is such an influence over the writers of the Bible that all their teachings which have a religious character are trustworthy. W. C. Wilkinson. Inspiration is help from God to keep report of divine revelation free from error. Help to whom ? No matter to whom, so the result is secured. The final result, viz. the record or report of revelation, this must be free from error. Inspiration may affect one or all of the agents employed. G. T. Ladd. While Professor Ladd gives no formal definition of Inspiration that I have observed, he states it as an element of the conception of Sacred Scripture held by the Church, — that "Sacred Scripture owes its origin to that specific movement of the Divine Spirit within the human spirit which forms the nece.ssary ethical condition of receiving and appropriating the truths of redemption by all members of the body of believers." — Doctrine of Sacred Scrip- ture, Vol. II. p. 271. W. W. Gardner. Inspiration consists in that actuating, con- trolling, and guiding influence of the Holy Spirit, under which God's chosen messengers spoke and wrote the original Scriptures. — Gard- ner on Inspiration, p. 2. F. L. Patton. The books of the Bible . . . were composed by men who acted under the influence of the Holy Ghost to such an extent that they were preserved from every error of fact, of doctrine, \\\ 38 BIBLE DOCTRINE OF INSPIRATION. These are not the same, not necessarily united, and ought not to be confounded. They have often been combuied in the same person or writing. They must be combined, (as we think they are in the Bible,) in order to secure the infallible truth and divine authority we claim for it. But it is im- portant to distinctness and accuracy of view to discriminate between them. To illustrate this dis- tinction, we may refer, — a. To those multitudes who heard Christ speak, and thus received a revelation, or to those who lis- tened to the words uttered on Mount Sinai ; for truth was presented to them in words by one who was God himself. But the hearers were not there- fore inspired to record or relate these words upon divine authority, nor were they secured from for- getfulness or error if they attempted to make com- munications about them. Joseph, the husband of Mary, was warned of God in a dream as to his flight into Egypt and return to Galilee ; but we are not informed that he was inspired to record the message. h. Many inspired men wrote under inspiration things which they knew without revelation, but their record or utterance of these things was divinely controlled. So when Luke records the letter of Claudius Lysias (Acts xxiii. 26-30), of judgment ; and these so influenced in the choice of language that tlie very words tliey used were the words of God. — Patton on In- spiratiun, p. 92. DISTIXCTIONS TO BE NOTICED. 39 probably transcribing it, or mentions the decree for the enrohnent of the Roman empire for taxation, or when John and Paul record what they themselves said or saw, we have no need to assume revelation as the source of their knowledge. This distinction may enable us to see more clearly what the precise difference is between the strict and the lax views of Inspiration among many who are really evangelical. Both agree that Chris- tianity is true, notwithstanding all objections and difficulties. Both agree that Eevelation is super- natural, if given at all; and that it has been given; and this notwithstanding their confessed incapacity to understand or explain liow it was given. But one class assume, or tend to assume, just at this point, that the writers were left to themselves mainly or altogether in recording what they knew. They allege a divine operation only in imparting to them knowledge on certain subjects ; while the other class affirm a divine influence over the writers in their giving forth, as well as in receiving the truth. The former admit revelation freely, but arc more or less uncertain or hesitating in affirm- ing inspiration also. The latter affirm God's oper- ation in both.i ^ Botli admit that, in a miraculous manuei' unknown to us, the rev- elation from God was conveyed to the mind of the prophet originally in a form of absolute purity and infallible truth. The point at which the divergence between the two views begins, is after the revelation was made by God, and made perfectly, and when it came to be re- corded by man. According to the views of the advocates of plenary 40 BIBLE DOCTRINE OF INSPIRATION. F. Inspiration distinguished from Illumination. It is important also to distinguish both Revela- tion and Inspiration from Spiritual Illumination, such as is common and necessary to all Christians. This last may be defined as that influence of the Holy Spirit under which all the children of God receive, discern, and feed upon the truth commu- nicated to them. This is distinct from the influ- ences before named (revelation and inspiration) in several particulars : — a. It is promised to all believers, and therefore is what every Christian may expect and pray for. h. It is dependent on conditions, which may or may not be fulfilled by the individual. c. It admits of degrees, increasing or diminish- ing in the same person, and varying greatly as it is actually found in different persons. d. It is closely connected with personal char- acter. e. It conduces to and s-ccures salvation. Neither of these five points is true with respect to Revelation or Inspiration. Spiritual Illumination is confounded with Inspi- irispiration, the same supernatural power which guarded the revela- tion, in the act of being made to the prophet, from all incomplete- ness and mistake, also presided over the act b}' which he recorded it in the Bible ; so that the result of this second step in the process, no less than of the first, was miraculously guarded from error, and the product was a record marked by infallible truth and divine authority. — Bannerman, p. 98. DISTINCTIONS TO BE NOTICED. 41 ration by two large and important classes ; on the one hand by the Roman Catholics, and on the other by the Rationalists generally. The former do it for the purpose of maintaining that the Church, not only of primitive but of modern times, has an inspiration equal to that which gave the Bible. While theoretically claiming for the Spirit, which is alleged to be residing in the Church, equal authority with the Bible, practically they exalt it to a superiority over the Bible ; and they adroitly add the further unfounded assumption that they are this infallible Church. The latter class, claiming more or less to be the devotees of Reason, confound this common influ- ence of the Spirit with the extraordinary opera- tions of Revelation and Inspiration, in such a way as to attribute to the Apostles and to the inspired record all the variability, unceitainty, and defi- ciency which are readily discovered in good men everywhere, acting under the usual leadings of the Holy Spirit in common life. That inspiration does not necessarily imply spir- itual illumination in the sense explained, or insure the possession of saving grace, may be seen in the familiar instances of the prophet Balaam, of King Saul, of the high priest Caiaphas, who all spoke under divine influence, but, so far as we can judge, evidently without renewed hearts. On the other hand, that spiritual illumination docs not imply inspiration is apparent iu the con- 42 BIBLE DOCTHINK OF INSPIRATION. sciousness of every truly regenerated person to-day. It is a transparent fallacy to allege that, because tlie Spirit that works these two things is the same, therefore the operations are the same, — to assume that the Spirit can only act in one way on the chil- dren of God in different ages and circumstances. Yet this is what is tacitly assumed, as if unques- tionable, by such men as Schleiermacher, Cole- ridge, Dr. Thomas Arnold, F. I). Maurice, and many others, writers of eminent ability and worthy of profound respect, with whom it is a painful duty to differ, but still an imperative duty. The distinction we have indicated between Reve- lation, Inspiration, and Spiritual Illumination is not only obvious in the nature of the case, and required by the instances given, in which one of these influ- ences is found without the other, but seems also suggested by the express language of the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians ii. 10-14. He speaks first (ver. 10) of the things naturally unknown which God has " revealed through the Spirit " ; then, sec- ondly (ver. 12), of the " Spirit which is of God" being received that under its illumination " we might know [that is, appreciate, accept] the things that are freely given to us by God," and without which " the natural man (ver. 14) receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God" ; then, thirdly (ver. 13), of the power by which the^ uttered the things that had been revealed unto them, " which things also we speak, not in words which man's wisdom teach- DISTINCTIONS TO BE NOTICED, 43 eth, but which the Spirit teacheth." Thus what we have termed Revelation, Spiritual Illumination, and Inspiration, are each presented by the Apostle in their proper relations and for their appropriate uses. CHAPTER III. PRINCIPAL VIEWS OF INSPIRATION NOW HELD. WE pass over for the present any minute re- view of the history and progress of opinion in the past, as to Inspiration. It could readily be shown how present controversies are but reproduc- tions of the old ; and also that the views which have been fairly tried and found wanting might justly be now set aside. It must suffice to state in a summary way the principal views of Inspiration prevalent in the present day. I. The first is the theory of Mechanical Inspi- ration, or, as it has been termed, the Dictation Theory. This ignores any real human authorship whatever in the Scriptures. Each of the various books, and every part of them, is ascribed to God, in such a sense as to leave no room for human intelligence or activity. The inspired man was as truly and merely a mechanical instrument as the pen with which the writing was done. This view was vigorously and unmistakably ex- pressed by J. A. Quenstedt : — All and each of the things which are contained in the Sacred Scriptures, whether they were naturally PRINCIPAL VIEWS NOW HELD., 45 entirely unknown to the sacred writers, or indeed naturally knowable yet actually unknown, or finally not only naturally knowable but even actually known, whether from some other source or by experience and the ministry of the senses, were not only committed to letters by divine, infallible assistance and direction, but are to be regarded as received by the special sug- gestion, inspiration, and dictation of the Holy Spirit. For all things which were to be written were suggested by the Holy Spirit to the sacred Avriters in the very act of writing, and were dictated to their intellect as if unto a pen {quasi in calamiivi), so that they might be written in these and no other circumstances, in this and no other mode or order. — Theol. Didactico- Polemica, IV. 2, p. 67. In like manner Carpzovius says : — He both impelled their Avill that they might write, and he illuminated their mind and filled it by the sug- gestion of the things and words to be indicated that they might write intelligently, and he directed their hand that they might write infallibly, and yet might not contribute anything more to the Scripture than does the pen of the ready writer. — Critica Sacra Veterls Testamenti, Pars I. p. 43. Robert Hooker — the "judicious Hooker" — says : — They neither spoke nor wrote any words of their own, but uttered, syllable by syllable, as the Spirit put it into their mouths. — Works, II. 383. 46 BIBLE DOCTRINE OF INSBIRATION. Perhaps Haldane and Carson, among recent writers on the subject, would be regarded as ap- proximating most nearly to this Dictation Theory. But it is scarcely fair to charge them with holding it. Carson says : " The Bible, as originally given, is di- vine in every word." (A. Carson's "Works, Vol. V. p. 5.) But he affirms as clearly as any one the voluntary and conscious activity of the inspired men. " The Holy Spirit speaks through man, not as he did through Balaam's ass, or as he might do through a statue, ])ut as a rational instrument. But in all this working of the mind of man, there is nothing that is not truly God's." (p. 12.) " If God has employed them as rational instruments with respect to style, he has likewise employed them as rational instruments with respect to rea- sonings, thoughts, arguments, and words." (p. 21.) He accounts that one would be " frantic to believe that the writers of the Scriptures were unconscious organs." (p. 73.) And again he says : " I never met an individual who looked upon the Evangelists as merely mechanical hand-writers. It is univer- sally believed that the inspired writers were rational organs through which the Holy Spirit communi- cated his mind, though every word written by them in the Scriptures was from God. . . . God can surely speak his words through man in such a way that the words and thoughts shall be the words and thoughts of both." (p. lOo.) Dr. Ladd, who is certainly the most elaborate. PRINCIPAL VIEWS NOW HELD. 47 and probably the ablest, of all the recent assailants of the strict doctrine of the Inspiration of Sacred Scripture, admits that the view of inspiration which he regards as incorrect because " incompatible with the real authorship of the Biblical writers," " has doubtless been, on the whole, most generally preva- lent " in the Christian Church. " This view of in- spiration," he says, " refers the minute peculiarities and variations of the writers, as well as their more important authorial characteristics, to the dictation of the Holy Spirit. That such was the prevalent view in the period preceding the Christian era, not only the express teachings of Philo and of other authors make us aware, but also the entire manner of rabbinical interpretation and dialectics from the Hebrew text. That this was the predominant view among the Church Fathers, we have also seen. In the mediaeval Church, and for a time after the Reformation, this element of the dogma was more loosely held. But it became again an inseparable and vital element of the subsequent Protestant view." He thinks that the discussions which fol- lowed have " explicated and exalted the distinct- ively human elements in all inspired Scripture," and have " proved that the differences in the phe- nomena cannot in general be referred to the imme- diate influence of the Holy Spirit." (Doctrine of Sacred Scripture, II. 259.) Without sharing his opinions on that subject, it is safe to say that the convictions of the great body of Christian people 48 BIBLE DOCTRINE OF INSPIRATION. in every age have referred the Scriptures as a whole to a divine origin, while we do not believe they have intended to deny the real human authorship con- current with this, however much their language may seem sometimes to look that way. II. Somewhat as a reaction from extreme state- ments like those of Quenstedt and others of his time, another class of views arose which may be spoken of together under the title of Partial In- spiration, including all which limit the inspiration to certain parts or sorts of the sacred writings. Under this may be distinguished sundry divisions, as e. g. those which ascribe inspiration — a. To the doctrinal teachings and precepts, ex- cluding the narrative and emotional parts ; or b. To the things naturally unknoivn to the writ- ers, and therefore needing to be communicated 'divinely to them, while in all other matters they were left to themselves, and consequently fell into the natural inaccuracies ordinarily incident to all human knowledge and speech, however sincere and honest ; or c. To the ideas in their general train, but not to the language used, the illustrations, the quotations and allusions. Thus it is sometimes said that divine inspiration belongs to the truth conveyed, but not to the frame- work in which it is set ; that the kernel is divine, but the shell is human and imperfect. Amonsr those who would change the statement PRINCIPAL VIEWS NOW HELD. 49 " The Bible is the Word of God," into " The Bi- ble contains the Word of God," may be named Le Clerc and Grotius, whose views may be readily traced back to Maimonides, the celebrated Jewish Eabbi of the Middle Ages. Semler says : " It is inconceivable how thought- ful Christians confound the Sacred Scripture of the Jews, and the Word of God which is here and tnere contained and enveloped therein." (Quoted in Ladd, II. 222.) He rejected also whole books as uninspired, such as Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, Ruth, Canticles, Mark, Philemon, and the Apocalypse, as well as numerous narratives of the Old Testament. Professor George T. Ladd, in his recent learned and able work on the Doctrine of Sacred Scripture, vehemently maintains the distinction between the Bible and the Word of God. It " brings us the Word of God " ; he thinks it cannot be said to he the Word of God. " The claims and the phenomena of the Bible entitle us to call a large proportion of its writings inspired." (I. 759.) " The most obvi- ous and necessary of all the distinctions to be made, as the prerequisite of the dogmatic construction of our idea of Sacred Scripture, is the distinction be- tween the Bible and the Word of God." (II. 275, 497.) " Its most untenable extremes " (those of the Post-Reformation dogma) " are all traceable to that fundamental misconception which identifies the Bible and the Word of God." (II. 178.) 4 60 BIBLE DOCTRINE OF INSPIRATION. How then, it may be asked, are we to distinguish between the Bible and this " inner Bible " ? By the Christian consciousness, is the reply. " It belongs, then, to the Church, in every age, to ex- amine the sacred writings by the light both of tradition and of its own spiritually illumined self- consciousness. By the light of tradition each age discovers what the previous ages have considered to be canonical Scriptures ; by the light of its own spiritually illumined consciousness it discerns the Word of God within those Scriptures." (II. 502.) Of course no one doubts that " the Word " was first preached before it was written, and that this phrase is not improperly applied to the general message of the Gospel, which message is con- tained in the Bible. (Compare Luke i. 2 ; Mark ii. 2 ; xiv. 14 ; Acts x. 36 ; 1 Thessalonians ii. 13 ; 2 Thessalonians ii. 15 ; 2 Corinthians v. 19.) It is also used in a peculiar sense for the Son of God, the second person in the Holy Trinity, as being the utterance or manifestation of the Father, " the personal principle of divine life and revelation." But neither of these uses need be confounded with the sense in which the Bible, as being the sum- mary of the words of God, is called the Word of God. Dr. Ladd claims for " the Church " the " right of rejecting from this Word whatever does not satisfy the demands of its ethico-religious con- sciousness " ; and he perceives that this is liable PRINCIPAL VIEWS NOW HELD. 51 to the objection tliat " it attaches to the Word of God a strange and dangerous quality of mutability, and thus places the doctrine and life of the Church in constant jeopardy." He replies, that " a certain mutability necessarily belongs to the precise limits of the Word of God, as scripturally fixed, however we endeavor to determine those limits." But that is a question of Canon, not of the nature of Inspi- ration. If Second Peter, for instance, be clearly ascertained to be not genuine, not by the Apostle Peter, we should not regard it as inspired, or as any part of God's Word. It professes to be from " Simon Peter " ; if it is not, but from some other author, it bears a falsehood on its face. It is a fraud. And there is no room for " pious frauds," or any other sort of fraud, in the Word of God. How large a part of the Bible this " Christian consciousness" would recognize and admit to be the Word of God, is not anywhere clearly defined by Dr. Ladd. " A marked difference must be ac- knowledged between the Old Testament and the New." The New Testament is " in nearly all its extent the vehicle of the Divine Word of salva- tion." The Old Testament " contains many divine words," nevertheless it " contains also many state- ments of fact and doctrine which are not thus established, confirmed, and approbated. And in general we must admit that it contains the Word of God only in a preparatory and anticipating way." (11.508-512.) 52 BIBLE DOCTRINE OF INSPIRATION. III. Another view is that of Different Degrees OF Inspiration. Those who hold this opinion in- sist that all Scripture was inspired, but not all alike ; some parts absolutely and fully, others less completely, and some in such a way as to give considerable room for imperfection and error. Three, four, or five degrees are alleged by different authors ; but those usually stated are superintend- ence, elevation, direction, suggestion, — the degrees rising respectively in the amount and nature of the divine control supposed to be exercised. These authors proceed on the assumption that there is error in the Scripture, and that this is to be explained consistently with its divine origin by the supposition of a variable mingling of the hu- man and the divine agency in the composition of the Word ; that so far as the divine element pre- dominated there was infallible accuracy and author- ity, but so far as the human element was combined with it there was or might be failure. Two very different classes of writers, however, have united in the use of this phraseology ; some who seem eager mainly to exhibit the supposed errors and mistakes of the inspired writers ; others who have been evidently actuated by a sincere zeal for the honor of the Word, and the vindication of truth, and have held fast to the integrity and infal- libility of the Bible. Among the eminent writers, generally orthodox, who have been advocates of the theory which lays PRINCIPAL VIEWS NOW HELD. 53 stress on Different Degrees of Inspiration, are Bp. Daniel Wilson, Philip Doddridge, John Dick, Leonard Woods, and Enoch Henderson. It is obvious that this theory also may be traced back to the Jewish Rabbins, who undertook to ex- plain the division of the Old Testament into the three parts, the Law, the*Prophets, and the Hagio- grapha, by inventing the notion of three degrees of inspiration ; the Mosaic, peculiar to him, and high- est of all ; the Prophetic, by prophets ; while the authors of the Hagiographa were not prophets, but had communications chiefly by dreams, and were supposed to know only a part of the truth. This degree they called that of the Holy Spirit. As Havernick truly says : " This asserted diversity of Inspiration appears, even in its definition, to be so vague and inexact that one can hardly form any regular conception of it. Of Biblical grounds it is wholly deficient : nay, the New Testament rather decides against it, from the manner in which it speaks of David and Daniel as prophets." (Intro- duction, I. 67.) The modern writers who adopt this theory of Degrees are not agreed as to the number of the " degrees," nor as to the use they propose to make of the distinction. Wilson gives four degrees, — suggestion, direction, elevation, superintendence ; Doddridge omits direction ; Henderson makes five, — a divine excitement, invigoration, superintend- ence, guidance, direct revelation ; J. T. Beck of 54 BIBLE DOCTRINE OF INSPIRATION. Basle gives three degrees, — the pisteo-dynamical (Mark, Luke, Acts), the charismatical, distributed over the first community of believers, and the apoealyjjtic (the Apostles). Carson objects, with decided force, to this whole theory of Degrees, that, " if this distinction of in- spiration be true, the greatest part of the Bible is not the Word of God at all. When a pupil writes a theme by the direction of his teacher, with every help usually afforded, and when it is so corrected by the latter that nothing remains but what is proper in his estimation, is it not still the pupil's production ? Could it be said to be the composi- tion or the work of the teacher? No more can the Scriptures be called the Word of God according to this mischievous theory. A book might all be true, and good, and important, yet not be the book of God." (Works, V. 31.) IV. More recently a view has arisen which may be termed that of Natural Inspiration. This affirms, in glowing and often complimentary phrases, an inspiration everywhere in the Scriptures, and the same throughout substantially ; not dictation as the first ; nor inspiration in spots, as the second ; nor in varying degrees, as the third. But it de- grades the whole idea, so as to be little more than a strong excitement or fervor, which all men have in some measure; which many who are not even good men, but simply heroes, poets, or men of genius, may share ; and which in some vague, poetic PRINCIPAL VIEWS NOW HELD. 55 sense may be called divine. The inspiration which they allow is such as Milton and Shakespeare, Bj-- ron and Shelley, possessed, or even Homer, Plato, and Socrates, in pre-Christian times. It traces all ths sacred books of the world to substantially the same origin, recognizing Christianity as a religion, but simply as one of the great religions of the world ; nothing less, but also nothing more. Such is the view of Kuenen and other Rationalist theo- logians of Holland and Germany, of F. W, Newman in England, and of Theodore Parker in America. Morell in his Philosophy of Religion (127-179) comes dangerously near to this, if not fully adopt- ing it. " Inspiration," he says, " is only a higher potency of what every man possesses in some degree " ; to which Dr. A. H. Strong pertinently replies, that " the inspiration of everybody is equiv- alent to the inspiration of nobody." This view overlooks the fact, that man's natural insight into moral truth is vitiated by wrong affections, so that unless he is guided from above he is certain to err. It is self-contradictory in admitting inspirations which annihilate each other, the Vedas and the Koran as well as the Bible. It confounds the in- ward impulse of genius with the impulse from above, man's fancies with God's voice. Theodore Parker did nqt deny inspiration to the Scriptures, but did not confine the term to any religious sense. He considered works of intel- lectual genius also as produced by its influence, 56 BIBLE DOCTRINE OF INSPIRATION. and that good men of old spake according to the light which was in them. V. Another view closely allied to this, but still quite distinguishable from it, is that of Universal Christian Inspiration. It refers the sacred books, not to the natural suggestions of man, but to the personal influence of the Holy Spirit ; but repre- sents that as the same in kind with the ordinary illumination of every Christian. As the theory last named readily connects itself with Pelagian views of man's nature, so this is not unnaturally associated with those ideas which unduly exalt man's agency, and affirm his co-operation with God in the matter of salvation. This is substantially the view advanced by Schlei- ermacher, whose ideas have dominated so largely modern theological thought in Germany; and, with some modifications, by Tholuck and Neander ; also by Coleridge, Thomas Arnold, F. W. Farrar, Fred- erick W. Robertson, and Martineau in England, and by T. F. Curtis and J. F. Clarke in America. Schleiermacher ^ regarded Inspiration as not in- fallible, yet as something higher than human genius, — "an awakening and excitement of the re- ligious consciousness, different in degree rather than in kind from the pious inspiration or intuitive feelings of holy men." (Curtis, p. 88.) ^ The venerable Dr. Hodge of Princeton was once lecturing on the theological position of Schleiermacher. As the lecture in its more formal part was over, one of the young men asked, "Then, Dr. PRINCIPAL VIEWS NOW HELD. 57 Coleridge in. his " Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit " contends earnestly that the line of demar- cation between the primitive gifts of Spiritual In- spiration and the inspirations of the Spirit now, was a line drawn without authority. Edward Ivring seems to have received from Coleridge's conversations the start of his fanaticism. (Com- pare Curtis on Inspiration, p. 94.) F. W. EoBERTSON. I think it all comes to this ; God is the Father of Lights, the King in his beauty, the Lord of love. All our several degrees of knowl- edge attained in these departments [referring to the Excursion of Anaxagoras, and Newton's revelation of the order of the heavens] are from him. One depart- ment is higher than another ; in each department the degree of knowledge may vary from a glimmering Hodge, should you recommend Schleiermacher's teachings as good and helpful ? " The Doctor in answer made reference to the ma- terialism of Germany, pointed out how the almost mystic teachings of the great philosopher might have been of great good for his own German people, when they would not be so for England or America, and then concluded by saying : " It is something like the case of the ladder in the pit. We are passing through a meadow, let us say, where we come upon a deep pit. In the bottom you see mire and filth, while against the sides a ladder rests. You say to me, ' Dr. Hodge, is it a good thing to have that ladder there ? ' I should answer, ' That depends entirely upon what purpose you would put it to. If men have stumbled into the pit, and the ladder serves to help them get out, then it is surely a good thing. But if it should only be tliere to lead men who are on dry ground into the pit, it would manifestly not be a good thing. So Schleiermacher's theology might stand to Germany and to ourselves.' " It is need- less to say that no one remained in darkness as to Schleiermacher's place after that. — Westminster Teacher, September, 1887. 58 BIBLE DOCTRINE OF INSPIRATION. glimpse to infallibility, so that all is pro2)erli/ inspira- tion, but immensely differing in value and in degree. If it be replied that this degrades Inspiratio7i, by class- ing it with things so common, the answer is plain : A sponge and a man are both animals, but the degrees between them are incalculable, I think this view of the matter is important, because in the other way, some twenty or thirty men in the world's history have had special communication, miraculous and from God ; in this way, all have it, and by devout and earnest cultivation of the mind and heart may have it inim- itably increased. — Life and Letters, Vol. I. p. 271, Vol. II. pp. 143-150, Sermon I. F. W. Farrar. To us, as to the holy men of old, the Spirit still utters the living oracles of God. — History of Interpretation, Preface, p. xvi. T. F. Curtis divides the views held into three classes, and describes the first as that of absolute infallibility of Scripture in every part ; and the second, that which considers " the scientific and historical matter of the Bible as colored by the age and opinions of the writer, and therefore not ren- dered infallible by Inspiration, while yet the reli- gious portions are thus absolutely and entirely infallible." He objects to both of these, and classes himself with the third, " who look npon Inspiration as a positive and not a negative divine power ; as not destroying but elevating the human element in man [?] ; as not conferring a necessary or absolute immunity from all error or infirmity, but as guid- PRINCIPAL VIEWS NOW HELD. 59 ing the authors and quickening their writings with a divine life, and clothing them with a divine authority similar precisely to that with which the Apostles themselves were endowed, when commis- sioned to institute and establish the primitive Church. That is to say, their inspiration gave them certain Divine powers as a whole, leaving their individual and human errors to be eliminated by degrees as necessary for the life of truth." (Hu- man Element in the Inspiration of the Scriptures, p. 120.) The Church of Christ, he thinks, is an inspired body. " Though the membership of it may be invisible to mortal eyes, it acts with a vis- ible and inspired power and authority upon each age, nation, and community, leading it forward with a heavenly instinct and superior wisdom. There is the home of the Paraclete on earth. Thus all become in measure inspired with the presence of the Saviour, the life of God." (iSic?., p. 311.) VI. The doctrine which we hold is that com- monly styled Plenary Inspiration, or Full Inspira- tion. It is that the Bible as a whole is the Word of God, so that in every part of Scripture there is both infallible ti'uth and divine authority. These two characteristics are distinguishable. Statements might be true, exactly true, yet not conveyed to us on divine authority. The union of absolute truth and divine authority constitutes the claim of the Scripture to our faith and obedience. This brief statement comprehends the whole of 60 BIBLE DOCTRINE OF INSPIRATION. our doctrine on the subject. Nevertheless, in order to promote the clearer understanding of our view, it may be desirable to present some explana- tions and distinctions, and to exhibit the doctrine both negatively and positively. CHAPTER lY. NEGATIVE STATEMENTS OF THE DOCTRINE. npHAT our view may be cordially accepted, or even candidly examined, it is important that it should be clearly understood. Hence we beg leave, in further explanation, to submit several negative statements concerning it, to avoid mis- apprehension. Our business is to get at the facts. This is the true scientific method. We propose to apply the principle of exclusion. In many scientific ques- tions, the beginning of progress is found in ascer- taining what a thing is not. Heat, for example, we know is not matter, it is not the same with electricity, or light, it is not ponderable, etc. So in other things. Some negative statements may clear the way for future consideration and argu- ment. A. Inspiration is not to be explained as to the Mode of the Divine Influence. It will be perceived that we have given no Theory of Inspiration, nor attempted to show how it was accomplished. This omission was not from acci- dent or neglect. We expressly avoid and refuse 62 BIBLE DOCTRINE OF INSPIRATION. it. The question is one of fact, not of theory. The Scriptures omit to give any theory, any ac- count of the mode of inspiration, any explanation of the phenomenon. They assert it as a fact ; they do not tell how it was accomplished. Upon the supposition that it is supernatural, as we have affirmed, it is impossible that there should be any legitimate or adequate theory of it devised by human intellect. Much of the difficulty supposed to overhang the subject arises from ill-judged attempts at conceiv- ing or describing lioiv God inspired men, forgetful of the fact that every supernatural phenomenon is above explanation, and that both revelation and in- spiration are so, just as really as the multiplication of the five loaves, or the turning of the water into wine. As to revelation^ we do not know how it was im- parted. How would one go about to discover the nature of the divine operation involved ? Except the prophet himself, who received the revelation, what man could testify on the subject ? There is no other possible point of contact by which it can be brought within the sphere of human observation. And even to the prophet was it not still a mystery? Do not all the indications point towards that con- clusion ? Possibly he did not know ; certainly we do not know. So too the inspiration is not explicable by us, any more than the condition of the withered hand, at the NEGATIVE STATEMENTS OF THE DOCTRINE. 63 instant that it was healed, and restored to activity by supernatural power. If the change in the hand or arm was properly supernatural, no explanation as to how it was done can make it more intelligible, no lack of explanation more incredible. Just so as to the inspiration. We have no reason to suppose that it was understood as to the nature or mode of its operation, even by those who enjoyed it ; much less can it be intelligible to others, who never experienced it ; and certainly those who had it never undertook to explain its nature for our enlightenment. Even spiritual illumination, which seems nearer to us, which has been promised to every age, and which we trust we have individually experienced, is very imperfectly explicable by us. "VVe know the effects, not the way in which the Spirit operates to produce them. " The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it Cometh, and whither it goeth ; so is every one that is born of the Spirit." And if this new birth is inscrutable to us, how can we theorize on the other influences, which we have never enjoyed ? B. Inspiration is not Mechanical. A view, that is justly chargeable as Mechanical, appears to have been expressed by some of the writers subsequent to the Reformation, such as Quenstedt, heretofore quoted, Calovius, Voetius, 64 BIBLE DOCTRINE OF INSPIRATION. and the Formula Consensus Helvetica. They do not leave room for any conscious or voluntary activity of the writers whom the Holy Spirit em- ployed, but regard them as mere machines. They were driven into this extreme, probably, by two causes. They were so anxious to claim and defend the divine authorship, that they overlooked the human authorship ; just as, in vindicating the divine sov- ereignty and efficiency, some Calvinists then and since have overlooked or denied human freedom and responsibility. Besides, they were in vigorous and deadly con- flict with the Papacy ; and in antagonism to the claim of an infallible, inspired Church, uttering in every syllable the voice of God, they were eager to set up, in the most uncompromising form, the counter authority of an inspired, infallible Bible, so purely divine as to exclude all human will or authorship. It is of this view that Farrar speaks so harshly and in such denunciatory terms (Hist, of Interpre- tation, Preface, p. xx), unfortunately, however, confounding it with the current or orthodox view, which is not legitimately liable to such charges. He allows himself to say, " From it every mistaken method of interpretation, and many false views of morals and sociology, have derived their disastrous origin. ... It sprang from heathenism, and it leads to infidelity." NEGATIVE STATEMENTS OF THE DOCTRINE. 65 Prof. Geo. T. Ladd, in like manner, while ex- ercising a marked and admirable courtesy towards all other opponents, never wearies of severe and caustic expressions against the " Post-Reformation Dogma," its " dreadful pressure " (II. 182), its "monstrous assumptions" (II, 152), the "stolid predisposition to maintain the Post-Reformation Dogma" (11. 247), etc. Some of the early Christian writers, commonly called Fathers, used expressions which have been understood to imply that they regarded inspiration as mechanical. But they seem to have used them as illustrations, and in a rhetorical way, rather than as meaning to be strictly interpreted. For example, they spoke sometimes of the inspired man as a pen in the hand of God, or a lyre touched by the musician. Another illustration sometimes used was that of the amanuensis or copyist. But we are not solicitous either to vindicate their soundness, or to gain the weight of their great names for our opinions. What does the Word of God teach ? There is no Scriptural ground for either of these figures of speech. The inspired writer is not de- scribed either as the pen or the penman. The Bible does not represent verbal dictation to an amanuensis as the method adopted, either in reve- lation or inspiration. So far as there is any anal- ogy apparent, the case of dictation to a penman is more like revelation than inspiration. The act of 5 60 BIBLE DOCTRINE OF INSPIRATION. committing to writing that wliicli is dictated dif- fers very much from what we understand to have occurred in writing or spealiing what is inspired. The difference is this : that there is, where we dictate, no control over the will of the amanuensis ; and also that there is no aid to his memory, reflec- tion, imagination, or power of expression, on the supposition of his being willing but unable to give accurately what had been communicated to him. Both the control, and the imparted power which we believe to belong to inspiration are lacking.' At Sinai the people, as well as Moses, heard audible words uttered from the midst of the fire Though we have no idea how it was done, we unhesitatingly believe this, because it is distinctly so recorded. (Exodus xix. 19 ; xx. 1, 19, 22 ; Deu- teronomy iv. 33, 36 ; v. 4, 22.) This was dictation, if you please to call it so, but there is no indication that the people were inspired to record what they heard. In like manner, distinct words from heaven were spoken at the Baptism of Jesus (Matthew iii. 7), at the Transfiguration (Matthew xvii. 5), at Jerusalem during the feast (John xii. 28), and to Paul near Damascus (Acts xxvi. 14-18.) So much 1 Dictation to an amanuensis is not teaching. (Compare 1 Corin- thians ii. 13, "Words which the Holy Ghost teachetli.") He may- write dictated words of wisdom, without possessing any of the wis- dom from which they proceed, without receiving any instructions, and without even thinking about the import of what he writes. The Holy Scriptures were not written after this manner. — John L. Dagg, Article in Alabama Baptist. NEGATIVE STATEMENTS OF THE DOCTRINE. 67 we know as to some direct divine utterances. But it is not our belief that this was the method by which the reveLT.tions recorded in the Bible were generally given.^ Many of the instructions recorded by Moses and by the prophets are prefaced by the words : " The Lord spake unto Moses, saying" ; or, " The Word of the Lord came to Jeremiah " ; or, " Thus saith the Lord to Cyrus." But that there was in these cases any audible voice uttered, I do not see stated or fairly implied. ^ The Scriptures observe a guarded silence on this matter. There is generally no hint of the mode of the divine action in imparting, or of the mental activity in receiving and uttering the message. 1 The manifoklness of Scripture, in comparison with the work of a single author, is well brought out by Dean Stanley in his descrip- tion of the Koran. " It is as the Old Testament might be if com- posed of the writings of the single prophet Isaiah, or Jeremiah ; or the New Testament, if it were composed of the writings of the single Apostle Paul. It is what the Bible as a whole would be, if from its Images were excluded all individual personalities of its various writers, all differences of time and place and character. . . . The Koran rep- resents not merely one single person, but one single stage of society. It is, with few exceptions, purely Arabian. It is what the Bible would be, if all external iniluences were obliterated, and it was wrapped up in a single phase of Jewish life. The Koran ' stays at home ' ; the Bible is the book of the world, the companion of every traveller, read even when not beloved, necessary even when unwel- come." — History of the Eastern Church, p. 372. ^ How did God conmiunicate these things to them ? If I may be pardoned for adopting the expression of a fair German friend, de- scribing how they answer some questions in Saxony, I would say, " Ich kann es ganz genaii sagen: Ich wei.ss nicht," — "I can tell that exactly : I do not know." 68 BIBLE DOCTRINE OF INSPIRATION. This silence of Scripture is not without signifi- cance. It leads to the inference that there is noth- ing in the communications of human beings with one another that really and fully resembles it. "We must stop short then at the boundaries where the Bible descriptions stop, and not attempt to be wise above what is written. C. Inspiration was not destructive of Consciousness, Self-control, or Individuality. This has often been imputed to the doctrine commonly held, but not justly. There was a hea- then idea of that sort as to their oracles. And some of the early heretics, the Montanists espe- cially, fell into similar views. But it has not been at any time the doctrine of the great body of intel- ligent Christians. It certainly is not the doctrine that we maintain, or that is found in the Bible. The individuality of the sacred writers, as well as their intelligent, voluntary action, was not su- perseded by the Spirit's influence ; but both these were employed. Every man has a combination of peculiarities which distinguish him from others. That is his individuality. It arises from various sources, from birth, education, environment, one's own will, habit, the grace of God. But from whatever source or sources it originates, it influences his whole being. It moulds his thoughts, feelings, expressions. Now this is the material on which we suppose that In- NEGATIVE STATEMENTS OF THE DOCTRINE. 69 spiration acted. As in Regeneration, Spiritual Illu- mination does not destroy the old faculties and substitute others, but changes the direction of the currents that flow in the old channels, so in Inspi- ration. If the sacred writers are Hebrew, they speak Hebrew; if Greek, they speak Greek; if Hebrew-Greek, they use Hebrew-Greek. One of them is naturally warm, ardent, impulsive, another majestic, deliberate, solemn ; one is cultivated, an- other rude ; one pours fortli a trumpet strain, another breathes notes soft and enchanting as an -^olian harp. So of all other peculiarities arising from constitution, habits, age, country, etc. Amos, a gatherer of sycamore fruit, Isaiah, brought up at court, Peter, the Galilean fisherman, Paul, the pupil of Gamaliel, each writes in his own style, under the influence of the same Spirit. This marked individuality is manifest in every part of the Scriptures ; it is the most obvious and primary fact that presents itself to the careful student. It must never be lost sight of. D. Inspiration is not merely a Natural Elevation of the Faculties, analogous to the Stimulus of Pas- sion and Enthusiasm, or to Poetic Genius. Many assert inspiration, meaning by it, however, no more than this. But that is keeping the word, and practically renouncing the doctrine. If the only inspiration which the Bible lias is that which is common to all Christian men, or even to all men 70 BIBLE DOCTRINE OF INSPIRATION. of genius, whether godly or not, or even to all men, as some say, it cannot furnish us with any in- fallible or authoritative guidance. To make our doctrine clear, and the grounds of it, we must con- sider at length some distinctions as to that most momentous of theological topics, the Influence of the Holy Spirit. There are three spheres or provinces in which the Bible teaches that the Spirit operates : a. That of Nature^ including influences over in- animate things, as where the Spirit o£ God moved (was brooding) upon the waters (Genesis i. 2) ; upon animals, in their creation and renewal (Psalm civ. 30) ; and over the human mind and soul, yet falling short of any saving influences. These last are sometimes styled the common operations of the Spirit, because shared by believers and unbelievers, by regenerate and unrcgcnerate. Such are the influences which restrain bad men from evil, and urge occasional impulses towards good, even in the worst. h. The sphere of Grace, where the Spirit operates in originating spiritual life, i. e. in regeneration ; and in sustaining and elevating it, or in preservation and sanctification. In these, not all men, but all the saved, and they only, share. This influence is needed, and is bestowed to accompany the Word, and make it effective. It is not limited to the nat- ural or moral influence of tlie truth itself. It is a personal, vital energy, quickening the soul that was NEGATIVE STATEMENTS OF THE DOCTRINE. 71 dead in trCvSpasses and sins, and illuminating the religious understanding of God's children. c. The sphere of the Supernatural, where the Spirit operates either directly, or by enabling men to perform superhuman wonders. These arc of two kinds, — wonders of i^oiver, commonly called signs or miracles, and wonders of knowledge, com- monly called prophecies, which were usually the effect of Revelation and Inspiration conjoined. Often the Spirit united all these forms of the supernatural in one person, as well as the precedent influences of grace ; so that He created and kept the man in being, then converted and renewed him, then communicated the truth to him by rev- elation, then enabled him to work miracles to at- test it ; and, still further, gave the supernatural accuracy and authority in recording it which could pertain to none but an inspired man. But these different influences were not always united. Some- times they were, but not invariably ; and even when occurring together, they can be profitably distin- guished and considered separately. Each of these was distinct both in object and result. On men in general, and still more on the lower creatures, the Spirit of God acted and still acts, with no intention to clothe them with author- ity, or even to make them holy, but to sustain them in being and activity. And as the object in view differs, so the result differs. In the first case, accordingly, i. e. in the realm 72 BIBLE DOCTRINE OF INSPIRATION. of Nature, the result is continued existence, in- cluding activity and all that is involved in physical life. And the design is no wider or larger than the result. In the second case, the realm of Grace, the result is salvation. No infallibility is secured to true Christians in general, no absolute exemp- tion from error is promised or is produced ; only God's faithfulness is pledged, and secures that they shall not fall finally or fatally away. In the third case, that of the Supernatural, including both revela- tion and inspiration, as well as the working of evi- dential signs, there is a commission to speak and act in the name and by the autliority of God. It would be wrong to say that, in the influences of grace, the men whom God actuates and moves are thereby rendered infallible. That would imply the personal infallibility and absolute sanctity of every truly converted person. It is no less an error to say that, in the supernatural realm, the men whom He actuates and moves are not infallible and au- thoritative as to the things for which they were commissioned. To secure that was the very object of the influence. The only question of importance is to ascertain when the divine influences belong to the one class, and when to the other. This must be decided by the evidence appropriate to such facts, and cannot be ascertained except by considering the divine promises and the actual results in each case, the claims made, and the sanction or attesta- tion given to the truth of the claims. NEGATIVE STATEMENTS OF THE DOCTRINE. 73 Bezaleel, the architect of the tabernacle, and Samson, the giant champion, were moved by the Spirit. But when we consider the design and the result accomplished, we perceive that he endowed the one with inventive power to devise and execute skilful works in gold and silver for the honor of God in liis movable temple, and the other with supernatural strength to fight and destroy the Phi- listines ; but he gave neither of them, so far as we learn, any commission to speak or to write for him. By an entirely different sort of influence their re- spective contemporaries, Moses and Samuel, were moved to speak in God's name, and so, even as other holy men of God, they " spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost." While therefore we freely grant that all good in any man proceeds from the influences of God's Spirit upon him, this does not imply that the influ- ence is the same in all men because the source is the same ; or that we must confound all the saving im- pressions and drawings of the Spirit with the higher influence which produces infallibility in teaching, and confers divine authority in giving commands. We have dwelt specially, and with some repeti- tion, on these points, because it is not uncommon for the opponents of the stricter view^s of Inspira- tion to err, and to lead the unwary into error just here, by confounding these three spheres in which the Spirit operates, and the different influences appropriate to them. 74 BIBLE DOCTRINE OF INSPIRATION. F. D. Maurice, a profound admirer of Coleridge, and prone to recognize the inward light, rather than an objective revelation, as the source of the divine Word and the fountain of all good, virtually denies any special supernatural agency in the In- spiration of the Bible. He says, for instance, " We must forego the demand we make on the con- sciences of the young, when we compel them to say that they regard the inspiration of the Bible as generically distinct from that which God bestows on his children in this day." Because the English Liturgy very properly says, it is " God's holy in- spiration that enables us to think those things that be good," — using the word inspiration, not tech- nically, but in that general sense in which it expresses any influence of the Spirit, — he asks : " Ought we in our sermons to say. Brethren, we beseech you not to suppose the inspiration of Scrip- ture to at all resemble that for which we have been praying ; they are generically and essentially un- like ; it is blasphemous to connect them in our minds, and the Church is very guilty for having suggested the association." The object of this somewhat extravagant appeal is obvious. It is to lead to the inference that, if Christians noiv may err, so inspired men may have done. If the influence from wdiich all good thoughts and all right works do proceed does not, as every- body well knows, secure ordinary Christians from mistake or confer infallibility, he would have us NEGATIVE STATEMENTS OF THE DOCTRINE. 75 infer, neither does the inspiration whicli the sacred writers enjoyed. But it is an utter fallacy thus to blend all spir- itual influences as if they were one, merely because they may be included under a common name. They may be alike, and yet unlike. It may be no blasphemy " to connect them in our minds," and yet it may be perfectly possible and important to distinguish them in our minds, — and to connect or compare them for tlie express purpose of distin- guishing them. As Pantheism, making God and the Universe identical, destroys His distinctness from what He created, and so ignores His Personality, so this theory of Inspiration, by blending all the voices that proceed from God, and raising each to the same pitch and force, prevents us from hearing any. All proper distinction between the Bible and other religious books written by good men is anni- hilated. A new term of reproach, Bibliolatry, is invented wherewith to stigmatize those that rever- ence the supreme authority of God's Word. And in these strange times into which we have fallen, it is openly affirmed that some of the leading Deists are ministers of the Church of England, and offi- ciating publicly at her altars. However that may be, it is certain that on the Continent some of the leading opponents of vital Christianity and most energetic assailants of the veracity of the Bible, some who deny that it differs in any essential fea- 76 BIBLE DOCTRINE OF INSPIRATION. ture from the Koran or the Zendavesta, are not only ministers of the estabHshed churches, but selected and eminent instructors in their theologi- cal schools, and trainers of their rising ministry. The Rev. John Macnaught, a disciple of Maurice, goes indeed further than his leader, and blends in one all the three forms of spiritual influence which we have described. He concludes it to be " the Bible's own teaching on the subject of Inspiration, that everything good in any book, person, or thing is inspired ; and that the value of any inspired book must be decided by the extent of its inspiration, and the importance of the truths which it well or inspiredly teaches." Of course each man is him- self the judge of this value. Accordingly, he says that " Milton and Shakespeare and Bacon, and Canticles and the Apocalypse, and the sermon on the mount, and the eighth chapter to the Romans are, in our estimation, all inspired ; but which of them is the most valuable inspired document, or whether the Bible, as a whole, is not incomparably more precious than any other book, — these are questions that must be decided by examining the observable character and tendency of each book, and the beneficial effect that history may show that each has produced." (Macnaught on Inspira- tion, pp. 192-196.) Hence he has no difficulty in discovering not only books, but inspired books, in the running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything. NEGATIVE STATEMENTS OF THE DOCTRINE. 77 There is a true inspiration, he assures us, in the in- stinct of the owl ; inspiration is heard in the rush- ing of the wind; it is seen in the springing of a blade of grass ; it murmurs in the streams that flow among the hills ; the hinds of the field calve by inspiration. And therefore, because there is no evidence of infallibility attaching to these phenom- ena of nature, Mr. Macnaught argues that there is no such thing as infallibility attaching to the words or writings of God's inspired prophets and evangelists. Hence a considerable part of his book is occupied, as are many of the commentaries of some German critics, in an elaborate attempt to display the errors of Scripture, and to show that to a large extent the Bible, though admitted to be in- spired, ought not to be believed ! Of what value is such inspiration ? ^ 1 An argument of the same kind as Macnaught's is suggested by Harvey Goodwin in the Hulsean Lectures for 1855, on the ground of the analogy between man's creation and the Bible. Because " God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul " (Genesis ii. 7), he affirms, "an inspired work of God this, if ever there was one" (p. 86). From which he proceeds to argue that it Is unwise and dangerous to infer infallibility in the Bible, when man, also "inspired," is certainly fallible. The words employed in the original for hxath of life and spirit of life are en- tirely different, and never confounded. And so the analogy breaks down at the very first step. 78 BIBLE DOCTRINE OF INSPIRATION. E. The Inspiration w^hich the Bible affirms does not imply that those Twho enjoyed it had perfect Knowledge on all Subjects, or on any Subject, but only that they had Infallibility and Divine Author- ity in their Oilicial Utterances. It was limited to the end for which it was given, limited by the very nature of the object in view, viz. the communication of divine truth on certain topics by divine authority. It rendered its re- cipient infallible in nothing else, and authoritative in nothing else. It did not render him omniscient. Overlooking this obvious but important distinc- tion has led to serious mistakes on both sides of this controversy. The opponents of our doctrine of Inspiration seem to understand us to maintain that inspired men were personally, absolutely, and universally infallible ; and they have naturally and forcibly protested against such a view. We agree with them in such a protest. But not all the advo- cates of Inspiration have clearly perceived the dis- tinction, and accordingly some have fallen into embarrassment, and into erroneous and inconsist- ent statements as to this point. Inspiration had nothing to do with Paul's skill or awkwardness as a tent-maker. It did not affect the elegance of his delivery as a speaker, favorably or otherwise. It did not become (as some imagine our doctrine to presuppose) a characteristic in the common affairs of life. It did not preserve its most eminent characters from mistakes in conduct, nor NEGATIVE STATEMENTS OF THE DOCTKINE. 79 exempt them from sinful feelings at different times, and from the constant need of prayer for forgiveness, and the perpetual, watchful struggle against sin. Inspiration did not imply the communication to the man of any truth other than that which he was to impart on God's authority to others ; not of all truth on all subjects, nor even of all that may be true on any subject. And of course it is not maintained that it secured his infallibility on such subjects, or at such times, as he was not called on to spealv with divine authority. The extent of the inspiration was not necessarily beyond that of the revelation ; it might even stop short of it, as when things were made known to Paul which he was not permitted to utter. (2 Corinthians xii. 4.) Again, inspired men did not know the full mean- ing of what they themselves taught. We are ex- pressly informed that the prophets " sought and searched diligently " concerniug the very salvation which they foretold, " searching what time, or what manner of time the Spirit that was in them did point unto." They ministered not to themselves, but to those of later days. (1 Peter i. 10-12.) This idea may be illustrated, in some degree, by the case of a telegraph operator, who can accurately transmit messages wliich he does not understand. His apprehension of its meaning has nothing to do with the exactness of the transcript received at the other end of tlie wire, or with the clear interpreta- tion of the cipher in which it is conveyed. 80 BIBLE DOCTRINE OF INSPIRATION. Accordingly, inspired men, who were the organs of communications concerning the coming glory of Christ and of his kingdom, were still allowed to die without the sight ; and not only so, but without fully understanding the things they spoke. But they waited for those things, delighted in them, longed for them, desired to look into them. They ministered to men of a later dispensation, to whom the key was given by the Saviour's own hand to unlock the dark sayings of their predecessors, so that it could at last be clearly discerned that from beginning to end " the testimony of Jesus iS the spirit of prophecy." (Revelation xix. 10.) A man might grow in knowledge, though in- spired. Peter seems to have done so in regard to the meaning of Joel's prophecy. He had been long familiar with it, no doubt ; but apparently he did not understand it till he received the fulness of the Spirit on the day of Pentecost. Nor did he even then completely apprehend the relation of the Gen- tiles to the Church of Christ. His understanding of that matter was made more full and clear by the communications at Joppa and Cassarea. Not only might one know more than another, yet not be any more truly inspired, for there are no degrees in infallibility ; but the same man at one time would know more than he himself knew at an earlier time. Thus there were all diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit. NEGATIVE STATEMENTS OF THE DOCTRINE. 81 F. Inspiration did not imply Exemption from Error in Conduct, nor great Elevation in Spiritual At- tainments. This is true also of Revelation, as well as of In- spiration. Thus Abimelech, as well as Abraham, received divine communications, i. e. had revela- tions given ; Pharaoh was thus favored, as well as Joseph ; Sarali and Hagar, as well as Huldah and Hannah : though the former were not instructed to utter authoritatively, or to record what they re- ceived. So others besides pious men were sometimes, though rarely, authorized to speak for God, i. e. were inspired. Balaam is a striking example of this ; seeing the truth, declaring the future, yet dying an enemy of Israel, fighting and plotting basely against the very triumph he had foretold. So, too, the old prophet in Bethel, and the disobe- dient prophet that had come out of Judah (1 Kings xiii.), and Caiaphas, who spake "not of himself" (i. e. not from himself, not of his own suggestion), but prophesied as to Christ's dying for the people (John ii. 51). John and Paul, though perhaps more eminently pious and zealous than others of the Apostles, had no higher measure of authority than other inspired men. Excellence of character was not alone a sufficient attestation of divine authority to speak, nor was imperfection of character a disproof of one's gemiine inspiration. 6 82 BIBLE DOCTraNE OF INSPIRATION. The most eminent and holy of the inspired men were not free from sin, and in some cases from conspicuous and glaring sin. The names of Moses, David, and Peter at once occur to the mind, and make it unnecessary to discuss this point further. G. Inspiration is not inconsistent -writh Mistakes in the subsequent Transcription of the Sacred Writings. The inspiration which we affirm is that of the original text of Scripture, and therefore does not deny that there may have been errors in copying. "We have no assurance, nor the slightest reason to suppose, that the supernatural guardianship which insured the correctness of the original record was continued and renewed every time anybody under- took to make a copy of it. The accuracy of our present copies is a separate question, dependent on the ordinary rules of historical evidence in such matters. That is what is examined in the science of Text Criticism. There has been indeed a providential guardian- ship over the Word, by which it has been preserved remarkably incorrupt, and singularly attested as being substantially the same that proceeded from the original writers. The results of the Herculean labors of modern critics make it evident that, in about a dozen important passages, and in very many unimportant ones, there is reasonable ground for correcting the commonly received text. In a number of others, there is room for discussion as to NEGATIVE STATEMENTS OF THE DOCTRINE. 83 the true reading. But when all these known errors are corrected, and all those doubtful readhigs are set aside, it is evident that there is no change as to any leading doctrine or fact of the Gospel. The difference is somewhat as if out of a bucket of rain-water from the cistern a teaspoonful were taken, and then its place supplied by another tea- spoonful of river-water. The contents of the bucket would be practically unaltered. If it be said, that these are very trifling and in- significant results to be obtained by all the labors of the eminent text critics who have been toiling for centuries, — of Bcngel and Griesbach, of Tischen- dorf and Tregelles, of Westcott and Hort, — we reply that it is no trifle to be assured upon such competent authority, after so painstaking an in- vestigation, that the variations from the originals, or from the manuscript copies nearest to the origi- nals, are so slight. Tlius it is that the'plain reader may eat his Gospel bread in peace, undisturbed by the apprehension that chaff or poison may have been somewhere ground up with the wheat. It is objected that some adherents of the strict doctrine of Inspiration used to affirm the absolute immaculatencss of the modern copies of the Scrip- ture, Hebrew points and all ; and that they were logically bound to do so ; that no other ground is consistent or tenable. We do not deny tliat there have been some wild and unfounded assertions on the subject, just as 84 BIBLE DOCTRINE OF INSPIRATION. there is even now, with some ignorant persons, an assumption of the infallibility and equality with the original of some particular translation, as the Vulgate, or King James's, or Luther's. But we are not responsible for such statements; and they are by no means implied in our doctrine, as will be shown when we come to consider this topic in our Third Part, Objections to Inspiration. It is objected, that, if we concede errors in the commonly received text, and the possibility that still other passages are now doubtful and may be found erroneous, this concession weakens greatly the argument for infallible inspiration. " Why so strenuous for exact inspiration of the words, when you admit there may have been errors of transcrip- tion ? What do you gain ? " We answer, we gain all the difference there is between an inspired and an uninspired original ; all the difference between a document truly divine and authoritative to begin with — though the copies or translations may have in minute particulars varied from it — and a document faulty and unreliable at the outset, and never really divine. H. Inspiration does not imply the Truth of Opinions or Sayings stated in Scripture, but not sanctioned. There is an obvious distinction between what is recorded and what is taught or enjoined. Errors may be stated, only to be condemned and refuted. This position is so nearly self-evident that it is hard NEGATIVE STATEMENTS OF THE DOCTRINE. 85 to make it plainer than the simple statement; yet it has been often and strangely overlooked. The Bible might have presented God as the only speaker, — all the words His words, all the acts His acts. On the other hand, it presents a record which introduces men, bad and good, angels, even Satan, speaking and acting according to their own nature. It gives history, dialogue, reasoning, poetry, prayer. It is inspired as a record of these things, but records them as the opinions or sayings of those to whom they are ascribed, — not of God, unless it is in some way indicated that they are by authority of God. Thus the serpent says, "Ye shall not surely die " ; the fool says in his heart, " There is no God " ; the wicked say, " It is a vain thing to serve God." The Bible records these as the lies of those who uttered them. The same thing is true of every history, inspired and uninspired. D'Aubigne's Reformation gives the sentiments of Papists and of Reformers, the cruel and false decisions of the former, as well as the heroic and truthful utterances of the latter. Did any mortal ever doubt which of the two he sanctioned or approved ? The Book of Job contains a protracted discus- sion between Job and three of his friends, as to the great mysteries of God's providential government. The doctrine and spirit of the three friends, Eli- phaz, Bildad, and Zophar, are distinctly stated as 86 BIBLE DOCTRINE OF INSPIRATION. their, and not God's, view of the matter. They are clearly and distinctly condemned by the Al- mighty himself, as not right, so that His wrath was kindled against them (Job xlii. 7). Yet it is from this book that so great a man as Coleridge attempts to draw an argument against the doctrine of Inspiration. " What ! " says he ; " were the hollow truisms, the imsufficing half-truths, the false assumptions and malignant insinuations of the su- pei:cilious bigots who corruptly defended the truth, — were the impressive facts, the piercing outcries, the pathetic appeals, and the close and powerful reasonings with which the poor sufferer (smarting at once from his wounds and from the oil of vitriol which the orthodox liars for God were dropping into them) impatiently, but nobly and uprightly, controverted this truth, while in will and spirit he clung to it, — were both dictated by an infallible intelligence ? " He objects, and justly, against the manner in which both classes of passages are indis- criminately " recited, quoted, appealed to, preached upon, by the 7'outiniers of desk and pulpit " ; but this heedless misuse and perversion of Scripture must not be set to the account of the doctrine of Inspiration, which authorizes no such disregard of plain language and of common sense. In like manner, we find in Scripture quotations from various sources or documents. For example, in Acts we have a copy of the celebrated letter of Claudius Lysias, and a report of the plausible NEGATIVE STATEMENTS OF THE DOCTRINE. 87 speech of the orator Tertullus, — both remarkable for their skill in the art of " putting things," and their quiet assumption of things that were most probably not so. Does the Bible indorse the truth- fulness of what is asserted in these documents, or simply present these as what Lysias wrote and what Tertullus said ? ^ 1 Inspiration, as we have repeatedly had occasion to say, left the inspired historians under the power and regulation of the same laws and influences that guide other authors in their compositions, with the single exception of supernatural ly preserving them from error. It is quite compatible, then, with the free development of the in- dividuality of the sacred penmen as authors, and with their using for the purposes of their authorship the means and the materials and the helps which other authors use in composing their produc- tions. It is compatible with using their own eyesight, and narrat- ing what they saw, if spectators of the events they had to chronicle. It is compatible with searching out the facts and studying the reports of other men, and the traditions handed down, if through such means they might have perfect knowledge of the events re- corded. It is compatible with adopting, by means of quotation from other authors, or reference to existing documents, the facts they had to narrate, if taught by supernatural revelation to do so, for the purposes of their composition. There is nothing in all this inconsistent with the supernatural inspiration of God present and co-operating with them in their work ; unless, indeed, it is believed that the divine and the human co-operation in all cases and under all circumstances is impossible. — Bannerman, 535. That every word of Scripture has been inspired, does not imply that every speech or sentiment recorded there should be inspired. The letter of Claudius Lysias was not inspired, but it is inserted in the Scriptures by inspiration, and for a purpose useful for the edification of the people of God. — Alexander Carson, V. 83. 88 BIBLE DOCTRINE OF INSPIRATION. I. Inspiration does not imply the Propriety of Ac- tions recorded, but not approved. In narrating the actions of men, tliree or four different courses are adopted in Scripture. a. Sometimes actions are recorded with express approval. As to them, of course, there is no ques- tion now. h. Sometimes they are recorded, and distinctly condemned. This is usually in the immediate con- nection, so as to leave no room for mistake or misconception. So David's great sin in the matter of Uriah (2 Samuel xi. 2-27), Peter's dissembling at Antioch (Galatians ii. 11-14), and his denial of our Lord (Matthew xxvi. 69-75). Sometimes the act is recorded, and the censure is more distinctly given afterwards, as in the case of the sin of Moses and Aaron at Kadesh (Numbers xx. 10-12, 24 ; Deuteronomy iii. 26 ; xxxii. 50-52). c. The sins both of good men and of bad men are often recorded, without any distinct censure except by the consequences indicated in the history. The greatest crimes and the highest virtues are described, often without a word of eulogy or blame, to indicate the emotions of the narrator with re- spect to them. Yet the judgment of God as to them is indubitable. Abraham's faith is mentioned, sometimes with and sometimes without special commendation. His lack of faith at other times is recorded, and the NEGATIVE STATEMENTS OF THE DOCTRINE. 89 condemnation, though not distinct or immediately expressed, is sufficiently indicated by the resulting events. A still clearer case of this kind is in the cluster of sins in Isaac's misgoverned and divided family, where the evil of each of the parties in the transaction is vividly brought to view in the provi- dential retribution which is subsequently detailed. d. Sometimes it is left doubtful whether actions so recorded are blamed or approved. Some of the principal instances of this sort will come up for consideration in the reply to objections, in Part Third ; cases in which it is difficult to decide whether the actions were not wrong, or were not commended, such as Jael's slaying Sisera, Jeph- thah's offering his daughter to the Lord, Rahab's concealing the spies, etc. But all that is impor- tant for us now to settle is the principle, obvious and undeniable, that the Bible is not accountable for the propriety of actions recorded, but not ap- proved. CHAPTER V. POSITIVE STATEMENT OF THE DOCTRINE OF INSPIRATION. THIS may be briefly comprehended in three points : — 1. The Bible is truly the Word of God, having both infallible truth and divine authority in all that it affirms or enjoins. 2. The Bible is truly the production of men. It is marked by all the evidences of human author- ship as clearly and certainly as any other book that was ever written by men. 3. This twofold authorship extends to every part of Scripture, and to the language as well as to the general ideas expressed. Or it may be summed up in one single statement : The whole Bible is truly God's Word written by men. PROOFS OF INSPIRATION. part ^econtJ. PROOFS OF INSPIRATION. CHAPTER I. PRESUMPTIVE ARGUMENT FOR INSPIRATION. IN our whole argument revelation will be assumed. It is proved by the general evidences of Chris- tianity, and is admitted by most, if not all, of those with whom we are now discussing. Inspiration, as heretofore distinguished from revelation, is the point to be proved. It is not incredible, not impossible, but likely, that God, in giving a real revelation to man, would inspire it ; that is, control, protect from error, and authorize its utterance and its record. 1. This we argue, first, from the nature of God and man, and the relation between them. Suppos- ing that tliere is a God, infinitely wise, holy, and good, who loves the rebellious creatures that hj^ve strayed into darkness, misery, and sin, and who desires to offer them redemption, it is an object infinitely worthy of such a Being that He should 94 BIBLE DOCTRINE OF INSPIRATION. give tliem clear, accurate, and authoritative infor- mation as to truth and duty. We are not competent to judge of the circum- stances and times He might adopt, nor of the form or amount of communications that would be best ; but we might certainly expect that they would be autJienticated as coming from Him, and as being His message of love and light. And, while we could not presume to decide in advance what subjects such a revelation should touch, or how fully they should be treated, we would fairly have reason to expect that on whatever subjects it did touch no error should be imparted. This much we should naturally expect even of a candid and judicious man, endeavoring to do us good, and guide us right. If the truth was committed, not to merely " earthen vessels," but to vessels of a tainted or poisonous material, so that infusion would corrupt or injure what was placed therein ; or if the message was communicated by men who stated simply the result of their own observation, or used the utmost of their native ability, reasoning out as best they could, unaided, what would be useful for man ; — in either case, it would hardly comport with what might reasonably be expected. It would not be like God. 2. The force of this argument is increased, when we reflect upon the permanence and extent of the object in view. It is evident, upon opening the Scriptures, that they were designed, not for one age, but for all the ages, books of the times, but PRESUMPTIVE ARGUMENT FOR INSPIRATION. 95 for all time ; that while given, almost if not quite exclusively, to one race and nation, they were given for all races of mankind, and all periods ; that even tliose things obviously local and apparently tempo- rary were, as truly as other parts, " written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the ages are come " (1 Corinthians x. 11). If a man has made some great discovery in science, or has devised some invention which he thinks will be of value to mankind, he is careful to have it accu- rately described and faithfully preserved. He would not leave its transmission to haphazard, without su- pervision, to the chances of blunders and misappre- hension by those who are to convey the knowledge of it to others ; and even if, of necessity, he must use some imperfect instruments or mediums for ex- tending information, he would provide a permanent model or standard of comparison, by which their erroneous or defective statements might always be corrected. Precisely this is what our view supposes to have been done by our Heavenly Father. 3. Additional weight is given to this presump- tive argument by considering the other supernatural manifestations or acts connected with the giving of the kScriptures, and recognized by most of those who differ with us as to the doctrine of Inspiration. According to our doctrine, there are three stages of the supernatural in this matter : — a. God communicating to the prophet the truth, — Revelation. 96 BIBLE DOCTRINE OF INSPIRATION. h. God controlling the record or utterance of this revelation by the propliet, — Inspiration. c. God attesting it by divine signs so as to con- firm the authority of the prophet as a divine mes- senger, — Evidential Miracles. Of these, the first and third are admitted and contended for by our brethren, from "whom we differ. They, as much as we, afiirm revelation and evidential miracles. Now, if we admit the super- natural at all, in giving man the knowledge of re- ligious truth and duty, it is no more difficult to believe that enough was done to secure completely the result, than to allow that there was a miracle at the beginning of the process, and a miracle at the close, while in the midst the link of connection was broken by the intervention of uncontrolled human frailty and the liability to mistake. If God works a supernatural wonder in giving revelation, and others to authenticate it, then it is not improbable, but likely, that He would exercise such control, and give such supernatural aid as might be necessary to secure the accurate transfer- ence of the revelation into human speech, so as to make it just what He meant it should be. If, on the other hand, revelation had been committed to mere oral tradition, without any writing, it might be seriously corrupted, or might even perish within two generations. Or if intrusted to unaided human record, it would have had neither unerring truth nor absolute divine authority at the very first. PRESUMPTIVE ARGUMENT FOR INSPIRATION. 97 If the plan of the Almighty was, by means of one or several men, to brhig all nations into nearness "with liimself and acquaintance with his truth, it is reasonable to believe that He would not only super- intend the process of their receiving, but also that of their imparting, the sacred truth. If the divine action ceased with communicating the revelation to them, then we have not a revelation at all, but only a human account of a divine revelation. Ac- cording to that view, there tvas a revelation, but it perished as such, with the men to whom it was im- parted, and all that the world has is the fallible impression it made on their minds, or their fallible account of that impression. The admission of a miraculous revelation not ouly thus creates the probability that all further steps would be taken that are necessary to secure the end in view, but also presents a sufficient an- swer to those wlio object to inspiration, because it implies the supernatural. A first step of this kind having been actually taken, it is unreasonable to allege that another is impossible or incredible. 4. A further presumptive argument for the In- spiration of the Scriptures may be gathered from what we know of the character and circumstances of the writers. How could these books have been written by such men, in such surroundings, without divine aid ? When we consider the subjects discussed, the ideas presented, — ; so hostile not only to their native pre- 7 98 BIBLE DOCTKINE OF INSPIRATION, judiceSjbut to the general sentiments then prevalent with the wisest of mankind, — the whole system of principles interwoven everywhere with history and poetry and promise, as well as minute wonders and single excellences of the word, — our minds are constrained to acknowledge this as God's Book, in a high and peculiar sense. If we begin with the Pentateuch, it is evident that its opening pages must be either the floating tradition of human conjectures and guesses at the origin of all things, or else the record of a revela- tion ; for the events themselves occurred confessedly before the creation of man. No human testimony was possible, in order to describe what happened before human existence. And the altei-native is to regard the account of the Creation as a mere hu- man guess, or else as a divine revelation : in the one case, of no authority whatever ; in the other, of complete authority. Whence could Moses have obtained that sublime theology, that condensed summary of ethics, those marvellous precepts ? Certainly not from the Egyp- tian sources, degraded by polytheism and human degeneracy, with which he was familiar by his edu- cation ; nor from the Babylonish traditions which doubtless may have come down to him through the family of Abraham : for a stream can rise no higher than its source ; and he towers peerless and unap- ]ir()achable above all the sages and lawgivers of antiipiity. PRESUMPTIVE ARGUMENT FOR INSPIRATION. 99 The Psalms are so far above the sacred Ijrlc compositions, not only of any contemporary era, but of all subsequent times, as to leave no room for the fancy that these are the foam that crested the waves of Hebrew poetic passion, the utterances of mere national or individual longings, in one of the narrowest and least cultured of the peoples of the ancient world. Strange that these secluded Hebrews, who scarcely ever passed or looked be- yond their own contracted region, unfamiliar with art and unpolished by contact with the literature of other nations, should have given utterance and melody to the deepest feelings of universal hu- man nature ! Strange that the words which linger most tenderly and solemnly on our lips, beside the couches of the dying, or at the graves of our dead, are the words of Moses, the Man of God, or of Da- vid, the sweet Psalmist of Israel, — of men who lived thousands of years ago, and belonged to what is often alleged to be the most unsympathetic and isolated of all races ! Is there not reason in the claim that the Spirit of the Lord spake by them, and His word was in their tongue ? In the Prophets of the Old Testament we find no comparison, but a marked contrast, with the sooth- sayers and wizards of antiquity, or of to-day. Tliey were not the paid guardians of pretended oracles, ready for money to issue their ambiguous responses, concealing their unhallowed mysteries in suspicious darkness, and living in luxury on the wages of 100 BIBLE DOCTRINE OF INSPIRATION. superstition and vice. Their rewards were more frequently contempt, derision, imprisonment, liatred, and death. Their announcements were made in palaces and cities, openly and unshrinkingly, at the gate of the temple, in the high places of the field, without the concealment or caution of conscious imposture, or the studied ambiguity which hides real ignorance under deceptive Avords. So much might be said, even apart from the foreknowledge of contingent events which is implied in predictive prophecy, and which certainly required divine aid. But if the reality of the numerous minute as well as more extended predictions and fulfilments be conceded, there can be no room for question as to the divine authority and influence under which they spake and wrote. Obviously, what they delivered was not merely for the men of their time, but to encourage, guide, and sustain those of after days ^ and this could not be available, unless both the pre- cise expressions employed, and the record of them, were under a divine superintendence and control. If now we pass to the New Testament, the argu- ment becomes even stronger.^ We are indeed in the 1 B. F. Westcott, after speaking of the ordinary methods of proof of Inspiration, forcibly says : "On the other hand we may examine the character and objects of the books themselves, and put together the various facts which appear to indicate in them the presence of more tlian human authority and wisdom, no less in the simplicity and rudeness of their general form than in the subtle harmony and marvellous connection of their various elements. And if this metliod of proof is less direct and definite than the other, — if it calls for calm patience, and compels thought in each ini^uirer, — it PRESUMPTIVE ARGUMENT FOR INSPIRATION. 101 Augustan age of Rome, but in a nook of tlie em- pire where the culture of that polished period has scarcely penetrated, and dealing with writers whose sentences have not been framed on the models of classic Greece or Rome. In the land of darkness, Galilee of the Gentiles, a great light has suddenly- arisen. What but inspiration could have lifted these men above their sphere, and given their writings the characteristics by which they have dominated, moulded, and quickened the thought of the world, in its most thoughtful and cultured races, from that day to this ? As Dr. E. Henderson well says : — " How otherwise can we account for the fact that persons of ordinary talent, untutored in the schools of philosophy, dull of apprehension, pusillanimous in is also broader and more elastic, capable of infinite extensions and applications. Nor is it less powerful even while it is less cogent. To many perhaps the inward assurance which it creates is more satisfactory than the rigid deductions of direct argument. The unlimited multiplication of convergent presumptions and analogies builds up a strong and sure conviction, possessing a moral force which can never belong to a mere formal proof, even where the premises are necessary truths. " It is in the perfection and oneness of their social teaching, so to speak, that the strongest internal proof of the plenary Inspira- tion of the Gospels is to be found. . . . The manner in which these questions — the foundation doctrines of a Christian community — are treated by the Evangelists is such as to exclude the idea of a mere personal intuition, for that leaves no room for those combi- nations in which the fulness of the Gospel lies. However far one Evangelist might have been led by the laws of his own mind, it can only be by the introduction of a higher power that four un- consciously combine to rear from different sides a harmonious and perfect fabric of Christian truth." — B. F. Westcott, Introduction to the Study of the Gospels, pp. 20-26. 102 BIBLE DOCTRINE OF INSPIRATION. spirit, narrow in their opinions, secular in their hopes and strongly imbued, with national prepossessions, should all at once have displayed the most extraordi- nary mental energy, a superiority to every earthly consideration, a profound acquaintance with truths of the most sublime character, and of the deepest inter- est to the whole human species, and an expansion of benevolence which embraced every nation and every human being on the face of the globe ? To the opera- tion of what causes, within the compass of those prin- ciples of action Avhich govern mankind, are we to ascribe the sudden and entire transformation under- gone by the plain, illiterate fishermen of Galilee, and the bigoted and zealous disciple of Gamaliel ? " — Hen- derson on Inspiration, p. 219. Whence could these four Evangelists, so diverse in their mental peculiarities, have derived the mar- vellously unique picture which they have presented of the historical Christ, except from its being a reality ? No writer of fiction has ever succeeded in so combining the most apparently incompatible characteristics into a harmonious whole. And how could they, by unaided memory, after fifty or even twenty years, have furnished the incidents and the discourses, some casual and brief, some long and scarcely understood at the time ? It is impossible to maintain the absolute historical accuracy of the Gospel historians, without also maintaining their inspiration.^ 1 Witli the Evangelists, authorship could not have been the pro- duct of experience. If not the offspring of experience, autliorship PRESUMPTIVE ARGUMENT FOR INSPIRATION. 103 While not unduly pressing these presumptive arguments,! it may fairly be claimed that they prepare tlie way for considering Avithout prejudice the direct proofs of Inspiration. could not have been the result of education. If not the effect of education, authorship could not have had its birth in instinct, since instinct must emerge in the formulating intellect to become art. And at this point the ideal is inexplicable, except on the ground of a divine revelation in conjunction with a divine inspiration. Reve- lation applies to the facts used, inspiration to their mode of using them. — Dr. A. A. Lipscomb's Studies in the Forty Days, p. 80. 1 It is a ver}' strange misapprehension and exaggeration of the amount of stress assigned to the presumptive arguments, when Coleridge states what he considers to be the strength of the argu- ments in behalf of Inspiration with which he had to contend, or the "motives usually assigned for maintaining and enjoining it. Such, for instance, are the arguments drawn from the anticipated loss and damage that would result from its abandonment ; as that it would de[)rive the Christian world of its only infallible arbiter in questions of Faith and Duty ; suppress the only common and in- appellable tribunal ; that the Bible is the only religious bond of union and gi'ound of unity among Protestants, and the like." (Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit, Letter IV.) Whatever weight these considerations are justly entitled to, they should have ; but Mr. Coleridge surely was unfortunate, if he found these to be the c/(iV/ arguments which upholders of the strict idea of Inspiration " usually assigned for maintaining and enjoining it." They are commonly stated, it is true, but always in a brief and preliminary way. The other arguments, hereafter to be presented, are the ones usually and mainly relied on. CHAPTER 11. WHAT DIRECT EVIDENCE OF INSPIRATION IS TO BE EXPECTED? BEFORE proceeding to examine the positive Proofs of Inspiration, two preliminary ques- tions demand investigation, viz. : 1. From what source can direct proofs come ? 2. In ivhat form may they be expected ? I. From what source can Direct Proofs of In- spiration come ? We answer : Only from the Bible itself. By most writers on the subject this would be at once admitted as correct ; and this is involved in the very attempt we are making to ascertain " the Bible doctrine " of Inspiration. By others, how- ever, we are met at the very threshold with an objection that is not without plausibility, yet when attentively examined is entirely destitute of validit}'. They challenge the admissibility of the witness, the only direct witness that we endeavor to present, or that can be presented. They absolutely rule him out of court. This is bringing the Bible, they say, to prove the Bible, assuming Inspiration to prove Inspiration, and tliereforc reasoning in a circle. WHAT DIRECT EVIDENCE EXPECTED. 105 Not so. We only assert, in the first instance, and that not without evidence, the truthfulness of the Bible, not its inspiration ; and thence we infer that its statements about itself, as well as in regard to other things, are to be believed. 1. We proceed upon data that are admitted. The veracity of the historical record in the Scrip- tures, the honesty of the writers, the reality of their divine mission, are in general admitted by our opponents ; for we are discussing with Christians, not with infidels. Accordingly, we are fairly en- titled to argue on these data. If we commenced at the other end, and assumed Inspiration to prove Credibility, we should be guilty of the fallacy alleged. But, aside from admissions of many of our oppo- nents, it is evident that this testimony of the Bible as to itself is legitimate ; for 2. We are shut up by the nature of the case to such evidence. If there was such a fact as Inspira- tion at all, there could be only two personal wit- nesses to it, — the prophet himself and God. Wlien the Almighty commissioned him to speak His words, there were, in that solitary and awful presence-cham- ber of Deity, none with the prophet. No testimony on earth except his own, could avail to prove what was done. It is the kind of proof pertinent to the fact, the only kind primarily legitimate, and accessible. 3. The testimony of God is added. We begin, lOG BIBLE DOCTRINE OF INSPIRATION. in the order of tlie argument, witli the testimony of the man ; but we find next the witness of God, — and this completes the possible personal evidence in the case. (Compare Hebrews ii. 4, " God uniting ivith them in bearing testimony.") Standing on the common ground occupied by both parties in this portion of the discussion, — that there has been a real revelation made to these writers, and tliat this is contained in the Bible, — the assertions of inspi- ration made by the writers as to themselves or their associates, become authenticated as a fact made known by God, and must be accepted as forming part of the Revelation he has given. Their re- peated and distinct statements, thus authenticated, cannot be set aside as unintentional and unavoid- able error, as part of the " frame-work," unim- portant to the substance of their message. It is fundamental to their message that they claim to he messengers. And this claim God himself confirms in manifold ways. 4. To this argument is added, in some cases, the peculiar seal of miracles, which is again the testi- mony of God in another form. (Mark xvi. 20 ; Hebrews ii. 4.) And this applies not only to those who person- ally wrought miraculous signs attesting their words, but to the others also. Even those who wrought no miracle " formed part and parcel of a miraculous system, which cast its halo of light' and evidence around the revelation of which their writintrs were WHAT DIRECT EVIDENCE EXPECTED. 107 constituents." (Bannerman, 281.) John the Bap- tist performed no miracle, but his teacliings were amply attested as divine by prophecy going before, and the seal of the Lord Jesus following after. So Luke did no miracle, so far as we know ; but his writings seem to have been accepted by apostolic men as of equal authority with their own, before the age of miracles ceased. 5. To this must be added that one inspired writer testifies to another. Thus we have, in still another form, the witness of God, who bestowed the gift upon one, when He confirms and recognizes it through the lips of another. Accordingly, the manifold allusions and references of one part of Scripture to another present the testimony of God in many forms and through manifold channels. Thus, " across long intervals of time, with many generations lying between, with no personal knowl- edge of the authors or their qualifications, with no source of information except that which is unseen and from above, one Scripture author may witness to otliers, and claim to be believed, because speak- ing by instructions from God. It is thus that a man living in apostolic times, if himself endowed with revelation from heaven, may be a competent wit- ness to the inspiration of records contemporaneous with the judges or the monarchs of the Hebrew people." (Bannerman, 281.) So the New Testa- ment generally is an effective witness to the in- spiration of tlic Old. 108 BIBLE DOCTRINE OF INSPIRATION. G. This method of argument is only an example of what is both common and legitimate as to other subjects ; that is, to build up an argument by suc- cessive steps, to advance from a lower point ad- mitted or proved to the higher points really involved in it, or deducible from it. The successive steps here may be stated as follows : — a. The historical verity of the Gospel facts in general. h. The elevated moral character of the writers. c. Their freedom from motive to deceive. d. The impossibility, under the circumstances, of their being deceived. e. The actuality of the miracles, or supernatural signs. /. The reality of the Revelation, as a whole, that had been so authenticated. g. The veracity of the statements of the book about Scripture in general, and about special parts of it in particular. The argument, then, it will be seen, is really cumulative and progressive. It is not like a chaiu, where the whole depends on each separate link, and consequently the whole is no stronger than the weakest link. But each point proven adds support to all the rest. 7. But if the objection to using the assertions of the Bible as to its own inspiration be thus evi- dently groundless, it is equally clear that no fair WHAT DIRECT EVIDENCE EXPECTED. 109 objection can be made to our drawing arguments from i\\Q. ijhenomena of the Scriptures to show their origin and nature. Tliis is the method employed in all physical science, to argue from the facts back to the influences or circumstances under which they were produced. Design is seen in the works of Nature ; tlie divinity of the Author of Nature is fairly proved by these works. And so the divine authorship of the Scriptures may be seen in its characteristics. Thus while the Bible, as a whole, testifies of Christ, Christ testifies to the Bible. The Apostles testify of Jesus, and Jesus authorizes and commissions the Apostles. The Church, as a historically established institution, holds forth the Bible as the Word of truth, and the Word attests the divine lineage of the Church of the Lord Jesus. And, added to all this mutual and interacting strength of testimony, we have the phenomena of Scripture and of early church life confirming each other, and both indicating with the utmost clearness, like the shining sun and the fertile earth, that the hand that made them is divine. II. Another preliminary question relates to the form in which this evidence of the Bible concern- ing its own inspiration is given. a. The testimony is, sometimes, explicit. We shall see some quotations of this kind. h. It is more generally presented by being im- plied and assumed all along in what the Scripture 110 BIBLE DOCTEINE OF INSPIRATION. says ; in the tone of authority it nses, in the con- scious dignity with which it represents the destinies of men for time and for eternity as dependent on its acceptance or rejection. c. The testimony is also found in the phenomena apparent on the very face of the Scriptures ; and accordingly the true doctrine of inspiration is to be gathered by legitimate induction from these, as well as from express assertions. This is the only truly scientific, as well as the Scriptural, method of arriving at the genuine doctrine of inspiration. All the evidence should be admit- ted, all the classes of phenomena should be exam- ined. "We must not only use the inductive method, but must use it legitimately, thoroughly, candidly. Professor Ladd has spoken on this sul)ject with great clearness and force. Yet, as he justly says, " certain postulates must underlie this, as well as every other induction. And w^hether the induction be genuine and successful, or not, will largely depend upon the character and use of these postulates." ^ (Doctrine of Sacred Scripture, Vol. I. p. 17.) 1 The postulates subsequently stated by Professor Ladd are three : " 1. the self-revelation of God in redemption, involving the l)0ssibility and the actuality of miracles, and of inspiration as proph- ecy, — the subjective miracle; 2. the infallible authority of Jesus Christ upon matters included in the doctrine of salvation, . . . not iiecessarily including in itself the claim to infallibility on tlie part of Christ with respect to merely critical and historical matters ; 3. the reality of those truths which underlie the persistent and uni- versal thoughts and feelings of the Chiistian consciousness." (p. 21.) To the second of these, as unduly limited, and to the third, as vague and capable of the most varied interpretation and application, WHAT DIRECT EVIDENCE EXPECTED. Ill The Bible makes on its own behalf high and peculiar claims. This is obvious to even a cursory reader. But the strength of the argument is not in the fact that the assertion of an origin above we should have to object decidedly. For us the authority of Jesus Christ is primal and final, wherever a sure w-ord of His can be found. We see no reason for excepting "critical and historical matters," nor any practicable method of determining how far the range of such an exception is to extend. It is scarcely satisfactoiy to be assured that Jesus Christ spoke the truth, excejit on " critical and historical matters," even if accompanied by the assurance that these "rarely appear to have entered the horizon of his teaching." How much is criticism ? how much is history ? Are all matters of fact, all questions of interpretation, to be included in this range of topics on which what He, said is not, to he relied on ? And as to "Christian consciousness," it is too liable to speak with the voice of its interpreter, whoever he may be, just as all Swedenborg's alleged interlocutors in the spiritual world Siccdcn- borgianize. It seems to us that the learned author has himself been unduly subject to the influence of this last "postulate." The keynote to his whole treatise is a sentence near its commencement, which affirms that "any dogma as to its (the Bible's) origin and nature must be content to take simply the place which fitly belongs to it as assigned by the Christian consciousness, developing under the guidance of the Spirit who gave the Bible to tlie Church." (Doctrine of Sacred Srri])t>(rc, Vol. I. p. 5. Compare also p. 18.) Never- theless, he frankly admits that it is "imjjerative that we should acknowledge the falsity of many opinions held by the learned, and by the entire community of believers, during all the past history of the Church." He adds appropriately, that, " although some paits of this inquiry can scarcely be put into scientific form, yet they are not for this reason devoid of real and great yalue. The heart of the Church and of the race may be heard to beat, and its warm life recognized as present, where no exact anatomical description can be given." (p. 20.) Piofessor Ladd says many things grandly and truly, but it ap- pears to us that he often takes away with one hand what he has given with the other. He announces an important doctrine or fact 112 BIBLE DOCTRINE OF INSPIRATION. man is made so expressly or repeatedly. If not directly claimed at all, it would be naturally sug- gested and fairly inferred. The student of the Bible feels himself lifted into but then follows with so many exceptions and limitations, and bal- ances so nicely between truth and error, as scarcely to leave room for distinct or cordial conviction. Christ's authority is indeed recognized by him as primal and absolute ; but he assures us that Christ's "attitude is manifestly uncritical." Jesus " believed the Old Testament to contain certain important divinely revealed truths" ; but "does not commit his opinion to its entire historical accuracy." His "reserve" as to debated questions "cannot be held to be wholly due to ignorance." If Jesus alludes to the history of Jonah or of the flood, this, we are told, cannot be "pleaded in favor of the historical accuracy" of these accounts, because he did not design to authenticate them. Doubtless his specific design in the allusion may have been to illus- trate his teaching, rather than to authenticate those facts, — which indeed was unnecessary, as none of his hearers doubted them. But does not the allusion unmistakably recognize them as feats ? Again we are told, " Jesus may speak as though he held a certain opinion upon a critical question of the Old Testament, and yet the inference may be by no means valid that he really held this opinion." Tlie Bible, as a whole, is unquestionably divine ; but it is "not in- fallible" in "historical views and statements," in its " narrative of miracles," or even of the "life and resurrection of Christ." Nor can we affirm that " the logic of its argumentative passages is irreproachalile, and its interpretation of its own earlier passages always defensible" ; nor "that the Scripture is free from even im- moral feeling impressed upon it by the human character of its origin." " Even in the New Testament we cannot deny that there exist mistaken impressions in matters of ethical and religious kind." But when the Bible has been " sifted by critical and his- torical research," and tested and approbated by the "Christian con- sciousness," it is alleged that it is the great source of information as to the person and work of Christ. To us it seems as if, in all this, there is a great mingling of the miry clay of conjecture and error with the iron of the mighty truths which Dr. Ladd elsewhere vigorously states and advocates. WHAT DIRECT EVIDENCE EXPECTED. 113 a region higher than the boundaries of human ex- ploration. It handles the loftiest themes with a quiet simplicity, a regal familiarity which betrays no consciousness of intruding into forbidden mys- teries. The assertion of superiority over man is not made in any offensive or supercilious way, but even as Jesus himself, who was the pattern of meekness, yet spake as never man spake, with au- thority and not as the Scribes. The Bible docs not seem anxious about its own recognition. The divine manifestation in it is much as we find it in creation and providence. No voice proclaims Him, no letters of living sunbeam on the radiant sky, no iron pen engraving God's glory in granite rock. But every harmony of nature is vocal with his praise, every mute and motionless rock inscribed all over with the characters which, if riglitly read, reveal the wonders of his power. The evidences and assertions of its own inspira- tion in the Bible are usually, then, as they might be expected to be, not dogmatic formulas, not anx- ious self-indications, but incidental and simple. Such, in fact, is the general method of doctrinal teaching in Scripture on all subjects.^ 1 Tliis peculiarity of method is very properly recognized hj Pro- fessor Ladd : "There is a marked correspondence between Jesus's method of teaching and the divine method of instruction and dis- ci[)line in nature and providence. We discover less effort to force the truth upon men than to stir their inquiry ; little care to guard the careless against misapjirehHusion, much care to rouse them to a true apprehension. His teaching is not a co])y-lesson, but a spur to industry." — Doctrine of Sacred Scripture, Vol. I. p. 31. CHAPTER III. DIRECT PROOFS OF INSPIRATION. I. The General Manner of Quoting Scripture in Scripture. THIS embraces especially the quotations and allusions to the Old Testament in the New, and thus gives, in a general way, the testimony of our Lord and of the Apostles. To bring it out in full would require us to go over the passages in detail. A fair sample of the evidence could be had by taking the allusions to the Old Testament in Matthew and Hebrews, selecting one Gospel and one Epistle for comparison.^ But even this we cannot now exhibit at length. We can only pre- sent a summary. A. As TO THE Old Testament. When Christ came, there was a body of writings in the hands of the Jews, the object of their pe- culiar reverence and attention. It was recognized not merely as embodying the poetry of their an- 1 Compare Bannerman, 311-351; also excellent articles by Dr. H. Osgood on "The Old Testament according to the Testimony of Jesus and the Apostles," and in Baptist Quarterly, 1883, p. 88 f. ; also Dr. F. Gardiner in Sunday School Times, May 2Q, 1886. DIRECT PROOFS OF INSPIRATION. 115 tiquity, the history of their forefathers, the laws of their nation, but above all as the word of God, not only their God, but the God of all the earth, the one only living and true God. Other ancient writings they had, such as what we call the Apocrypha, recognized by them all as purely human, yet respected and cherished ; but these sacred books which make up our Old Tes- tament, though unmistakably human, they regarded as also indisputably divine, and in the strict sense inspired. This universal belief of the Jewish people in these writings could not be overlooked by one who came, like our Saviour, as a teacher, and the Great Teacher, sent from God. It was necessary for him either to contradict that belief, if not true, or to sanction it, if true. Upon such a question he could not be neutral. The Gospel, the final em- bodiment of divine truth, to be presented to the world by Jesus, the only begotten Son of God him- self, could not be planted in the midst of unrebuked error ; least of all could it be built upon error as its basis. And that the New Testament Gospel is built upon the Old, and assumes it throughout as its basis, its forerunner, its original and foundation, is unquestioned and unquestionable. It is a significant and most important fact, therefore, that there is not only no hint anywhere dropped, either by our Lord or by his authorized Apostles, that the people have overestimated the 116 BIBLE DOCTRINE OF INSPIRATION. authority of the Scriptures of the Old Testament which they had ; but there is constantly an appeal to them as an infallible standard in all religious matters. The Great Teacher, the personal Son of God, newly come from the throne of his glory, might have at once set aside all previous revela- tions, and cast them into the shades of insignifi- cance and neglect by his brighter communications ; he might, if he chose, have supplanted, abrogated, consigned them to forgetfulness. This is precisely what he did not do.^ Not only are his discourses significantly full of " echoes from the Old Testament " ; not only does he show a constant and affectionate familiarity with its phraseology well worthy of our imitation ; not only does he adopt its language in prayer, com- fort himself thereby in his deep sorrows, and for- tify his human nature by it against the assaults of the Tempter ; not only does he argue from its minute expressions, and expound its prophecies as having wider applications than the human authors could have had in mind, thereby referring them necessarily to a Higher Author, who gave them this typical intent ; — but he takes pains expressly 1 Our Lord's appeal to the Old Testament is to be considered in view of these two facts : (1) He recognizes in his teaching no hu- man authority, and (2) He does recognize absolutely the authority of his Heavenly Father. Whatever recognition, then, he gives to the authority of the Old Testament, can only be on the ground of its having proceeded from his Father. Compare Matthew vii. 28, 29 ; John viii. 28. — Dr. F. Gakdiner. DIRECT PROOFS OF INSPIRATION. 117 to encourage liis disciples to study and reverence the ancient Scriptures as the Word of God. " Search the Scriptures," he said ; or, if the verb be regarded not as Imperative, but Indicative, which we prefer, the argument is not at all weakened. He is then commending, instead of commanding, their search. " Ye search the Scriptures, because ye think that in them ye have eternal life ; and these are they which testify of me." (John v. 39.) You sent to John (v. 33) ; you saw the miracles, by which the Father testified (v. 36) ; you search the Scriptures (v. 39) ; you set your hope upon Moses (v. 45). But though all these testify of me, are full of me, you will not believe. It is right for you to listen to these witnesses, to interrogate them closely, to search them fully, for they are the real methods in which God has spoken. It is your sin and sliame that, recognizing them and claiming to heed them, you have not recognized me by means of them.^ The fundamental passage, however, in which our Lord expressly sets forth his relation to the law and the prophets of the Old Covenant, is in the Sermon on the Mount ; and this is confirmed by the ^ It is suggested by Dr. Ladd, in connection with this passage, that the Saviour accuses the Jews " of folly and sin in idolizing the written Word, while neglecting its ideal contents of truth." (I. 51.) But does he ? He commends their search of the Scriptures, blames their blindness to the truth so plainly contained in it, and censures their unauthorized additions to it by tradition ; but says not a word about idolizing the written Word. 118 BIBLE DOCTRINE OF INSPIRATION. parallel expressions which he subsequently employs, in reference to particular precepts. In Matthew v. 17, 18, Jesus says : " Think not that I came to destroy (unloose, abrogate) the law or the prophets ; I came not to destroy, but to fulfil (complete). For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass away from the law, till all things be accomplished." " The law and the prophets " must evidently be regarded, as is generally agreed, to be a summary for the entire Old Testament revelation. He will not abrogate, he will comi)lete them. " To use a figure of speech as old as Theophylact, Christ does not intend to rub out and destroy the sketch in shadow-lines before him, but with true and ideal art will fill it in to the completion of the picture." (Ladd, I. 36.) " The jot and the tittle are," as Professor Ladd further and well says, " an insep- arable part of an indelible page." Two things are here distinctly affirmed, — the perpetual obligation of the Old Testament, and its imperfection, — so that it needs completion. Dr. Ladd finds, in this primary teaching of Christ, a distinction " between absolute contents of truth and imperfect form, relative to the pedagogic pur- poses of these contents "; and the truth, he thinks, came from God, while the form is human, fallible, transitory. To us it seems that our Lord makes no such distinction ; that both the contents and DIRECT PROOFS OF INSPIRATION. 119 the form are of divine ordination ; that the imper- fect is not necessarily erroneous, the transitory not false, nor even fallible ; that all was true and divine so far as it went ; and for the time for which it was given, it was the best and most appropriate. But the time had come for additions to be made, for germs to be developed, for partial truths to be completed, for the outlines to be filled in, so as to give the more distinct picture. All this might be, without erasing a single line, or charging on it a single error. That this is the correct interpretation of this important and confessedly fundamental passage, is obvious, not only from considering its exact ex- pressions, but from the instances of modification of the law, which our Lord goes^ on to make. None of them are contrary to it : all go fiirtlier in the same direction. The first two, for instance, as to killing and adultery, are extensions of the Decalogue pre- cept from the outward act to the inward disposition which would prompt it. The next, as to divorce (a subject treated afterwards more fully, Matthew xix. 3-9), shows that the original divine law was monogamy, and that the ease of divorce was a tem- porary concession made under the Mosaic law to " the hardness of men's hearts." But surely it will not be alleged that in this Moses contradicted the divine will, and acted without sanction from the Almighty. The concession for the time was as truly authorized by God as tlie original law, and as 120 BIBLE DOCTRINE OF INSPIRATION. its subsequent restoration. The one saying which Jesus condemns is " hate thine enemy "; and that is not in the laiv, but was one of their traditional additions. It may be added, that in general the very idea of a progressive, advancing revelation implies a rela- tive imperfection in the earlier parts, and that this imperfection of incompleteness is perfectly consist- ent with truth, and with the divine origin of both earlier and later. If otherwise, all progress in divine revelation, which our opponents perceive and affirm as distinctly as we, must be denied. Our Lord modifies the law. Yes ! There are progress and improvement from the Old Testa- ment to the New. Yes ! And there are also in the Old Testament itself. Equally also in the New Testament. Even further, can they not be discov- ered in the personal teachings of our Lord Jesus himself? There is obvious, deliberate, and inten- tional advance in his preaching, from that first simple proclamation, which merely repeated the warning and the announcement of the forerunner, " Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand," to the matured and deep instructions of the night of his betrayal. And even those were incomplete, leaving " many things " still reserved for the fur- ther opportunity of the forty days, and still others for the communication of the promised Spirit. Imperfect ? partial ? Yes, but not erroneous ! In the similar expressions found in Matthew DIRECT PROOFS OF INSPIRATION. 121 xi. 13, and Luke xvi. 16, 17, onr Saviour reiterates the same teaching. Until John, the law and the prophets had remained the one grand source of divinely authorized information ; now, they are to be, not superseded, condemned to failure, but re- tained and completed. *Not an item is to be lost, not a jot, not a tittle. Again, our Lord gives a very striking witness to the sufficiency of the Old Testament in the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus. Even the resurrec- tion of one from the dead would not convince a man who refuses credence to Moses and the proph- ets (Luke xvi. 29-31), because the attitude of heart which leads to the rejection of the former appeal will not be changed by even the embodiment of the truth in the resurrection of the Messiah. There is, however, another sense in which Jesus fulfilled the law and the prophets. "We do not al- lude to the fact that he obeyed the precepts with a moral purity and exactness never before found in man. Though this w^as true, it does not seem to be the truth suggested in the Sermon on the Mount. But Jesus completed the law and the prophets, not only by enlarging, elevating, and developing the true meaning really embodied in them, but also by being that to which they pointed, by filling in person the description they had given in word and type. Age after age, under divine direction, a picture had been growing. The eyes of our first parents, 122 BIBLE DOCTKIXE OF INSPIRATION. dim with tears as tlicy left the howers of Paradise, had caught and cherished tlie faint outline of a future deliverer. One stroke after another had been added to the canvas as successive generations passed by. Painter after painter had taken the brush — ohliteratinij nothing^ but adding here a tint and there a shade — and then died. But the pic- ture lives and grows, century after century, through the long series of revelations ; with a marvellous variety, for scores of hands combine to form it ; with a yet more marvellous unity, for One controls them all. And now the picture is finished, but there is not on earth one whom it resembles ; there is as yet none even that conijjrehends it. It is folded away for four hundred years. Then, when the fulness of time is come, strange attention is concentrated on this ancient canvas ; the picture is unrolled, and searched anew by eager, devout, thoughtful eyes ; and lo, beside it there stands one whom the Forerunner recognizes. "See! This is God's Lamb, who takes away the world's sin." There is the old picture ! Here is the present reality ! All that the law and the prophets promised. He was ! Thus the person and life of Jesus the Messiah, as well as his words and teachings, are seen to rest upon the Old Testament Scriptures ; to confirm and verify them in the very fact of appealing to them for testimony. DIRECT PROOFS OF INSPIRATION. 123 It is alleged, however, that our Saviour, while rccoguizing the law and the prophets, contradicted them in sundry particulars. Let us examine the grounds of this assertion. In his teachings as to the Sabbath (Matthew xii. 1-8, Mark ii. 23-28, Luke vi. 1-5) he does set himself above the ceremonial law, as a master, not as its servant. But even in doing this he does not subvert it or set it aside. He does not, as Dr. Ladd claims, introduce and apply " a new norm or moral code for the observance of the moral and re- ligious truths contained in the law " (I. 43) ; he simply gives an authoritative interpretation of the law. Tlie act of the disciples, which the Pharisees censured, in rubbing out the ears of wheat, because it was working on the Sabbath, was not a violation of tlie Mosaic law, though it was in contravention of the Rabbinical traditions. And hence this can- not be pleaded as an instance in which Jesus " must allow to pass from obligation, as a part of that law, many of its special enactments, observances, and established points of view." That the purely cere- monial, typical, and symbolic features of the Jewish ritual ended with Christ, because fulfilled in Chriat, is agreed. But as to other things, we maintain, the Saviour did not abolish, but rather interpreted, the law. So here the true meaning of the Sabbatic law is expounded and developed, and, as Meyer says, it is declared that " doing well is the moral norm for the rest and labor of the Sabbath." 124 BIBLE DOCTRINE OF INSPIRATION. In like manner as to the law of marriage and divorce (Matthew xix. 3-12, Mark x. 2-12), our Lord, it is true, " places his doctrine above that of the schools, and also above the provisions of the Mosaic law itself." But he does so by pointing out that in that law the original and fundamental principle was not only that one man should be joined to one woman, but that they should cleave together, forsaking all others. Prior to the giving of the Mosaic enactments, which were civil as well as moral, great laxity as to the marriage union had sprung up among the people. Introducing the Law among such surroundings, Moses did not com- mand divorce, as the Phai'isees alleged ; he only suffered it, as our Saviour quietly corrects their ex- pression ; and he threw a barrier in the way of the customary unrestrained freedom on the subject, and established a protection to the weaker party, by commanding that, whenever there was a send- ing away, there should be a bill of divorcement, a formal, deliberate, legal document. But assuredly we are not to charge this upon Moses as his own act without divine authority, and so accuse him of " a faultiness of moral judgment." As Dr. Ladd himself says — " The word used by Christ with reference to the act of Moses (suffered), seems rather to place the human law-giver in some sort at that divine point of view from which such con- cessions are regarded as a necessary part of the divine historic discipline." (I. 45.) DIRECT PROOFS OF INSPIRATION. 125 On the subject of ceremonial purifications and clean and unclean food, it is urged that the Mosaic law (Matthew xv. 1-20, Mark vii. 1-16) is " at the same time contrasted with the tradition of the elders, and also itself indirectly accused of being, in respect to the subject of tradition, on the same unstable ground " (Ladd, I. 46). The contrast drawn between the law of Moses and human tradi- tion is certainly plain and important ; the indirect accusation we fail to find in anything said by our Lord. He clearly affirms the divine origin of the law, condemns their unauthorized additions to it, and develops out of the legal enactments the great principle implied in them. Even as to those cere- monial distinctions between different kinds of food, which were to be done away, they were not in such a sense from Moses as to be in contradiction to God's will. They were from God, for the time, as truly as the ethical or any other portions of the law. If our Lord revokes these distinctions, "making all meats clean" (Mark vii. 19), this is not because of their human origin, but because, though divinely given, they had served their end, and must pass away with the dispensation to which they belonged, and because he, as Lord, had and claimed the right to change even the divine law. But Christ, we are told, " seems to take a hostile position toward the ceremonial law of fasting." (Matthew ix. 14-17; Mark ii. 18-22; Luke v. 33-39.) Not at all toward the Mosaic law of 126 BIBLE DOCTRINE OF INSPIRATION. fasting ; only to that prescribed by tradition and custom. It is well knoNvn that the Mosaic law commands only one fast in the year, and that with a ceremonial significance and object, on the great day of Atonement. The Saviour objects earnestly to the multiplied and merely formal observances of this kind which had been added to the " law of Moses." It might be shown abundantly that the Apostles, in like manner, only re-echo their Master's rever- ence for the ancient volume of Inspiration, and point the people steadfastly to it, in their preach- ing and in their letters, as the light to guide them in darkness, as the heaven-descended oracles to lead them back to God. B. As TO THE New Testament. We proceed to inquire what evidence of this gen- eral sort in quotations and allusions may be found as to the New Testament. From the nature of the case, much testimony cannot be expected in one part of the New Testament to other parts of it, as the writings were so nearly contemporary, all within a single generation. But it may be remarked, — 1. That such corroborative testimony was scarcely needed. Revelation without inspiration would have impressed the Jew as an unheard of anomaly, in one claiming to be a divine messenger ; and the communications from on high which were peculiar DIRECT TROOFS OF INSPIRATION. 127 to the New Dispensation, being recognized as divine on the evidence of miracles, did not require the confirmation of mutual testimony to each other by the several witnesses for God, when Christ himself had sent them forth, clothed with his authority, to speak in his name. 2. The reappearance of the prophetic order is not only predicted by the Lord Jesus, but distinctly announced by Peter on the day of Pentecost as having actually occurred. This is a peculiar and marked feature of gospel times. For some hun- dreds of years, confessedly, the nation had been without a prophet. They lamented over the fact, were disheartened and mortified by the fact, but still acknowledged it as a fact. And there was scarcely anything more startling in the incidents and an- nouncements of the day of Pentecost than the im- pressive and astounding assurance that the gift of Prophecy had been revived, — which meant, as we all know, not the mere power of foretelling, but specifically the power of speaking by divine influence and authority. That this was an extraordinary gift, differing from the gracious blessings which all the devout enjoyed, needed no demonstration to them ; that it was temporary, and for special ends and seasons, requires little proof to us. The equality of the Apostles as prophets, in the sense explained, to those of the Old Dispensation, was thoroughly estab- lished, to the satisfaction of all Christians at least ; 128 BIBLE DOCTRINE OF INSPIRATION. and this rendered unnecessary the accumulation of individual attestations from one of them to the other. 3. We may, however, profitably consider, under this head, the way in which the Apostle Peter refers to his beloved brotlier Paul's writings as a part of the Scriptures. (2 Peter iii. 16.) This is a remarkable allusion. The familiar expression everywhere else applied to the Old Testament writ- ings is here used as to Paul's epistles, " in which," says Peter, " are some things hard to be under- stood, which the ignorant and unsteadfast wrest, as they do also the other Scriptures, unto their own destruction." It has been suggested that this phrase, " the other Scriptures," may include with the Old Testament writings all those portions of the New Testament then in circulation. I do not feel satisfied as to this ; but the expression cer- tainly embraces Paul's epistles along with the He- brew canonical writings, as capable of the same use, and liable to the same perversions and misuse. 4. In 2 Peter iii. 2, there is also a clear impli- cation that the commandment of the Apostles and that of the Holy Prophets are equally binding. Writing to the Hebrew Christians, who certainly believed in tlie inspiration of the " words which Avere spoken before by the holy prophets," he con- joins with these, as having similar authority, "the commandment of us, the Apostles of our Lord and Saviour." DIRECT PROOFS OF INSPIRATION. 129 5. There is another passage, 1 Timothy v. 18, in which the Apostle Paul, referring to provision for the support of the ministry, quotes as Scripture a passage from Deuteronomy xxv. 4, and appar- ently another from Matthew x. 10, or Luke x. 7. He writes, " The Scripture saith. Thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn ; and. The laborer is worthy of his hire." The latter quotation is nowhere found in the Old Testament (see Leviticus xix. 13 ; Deuteronomy xxiv. 14, 15) ; but our Lord, discussing this same subject, makes this remark on two different occasions, as the Evangelists have recorded it, Luke using the pre- cise language that Paul here employs. If not a quotation strictly, it can only be understood as a proverbial expression employed by our Lord, a!hd similarly used by Paul. 6. No contest, however, is likely to occur on this point, that the inspiration of the New Testa- ment is at least eqiral to that of the Old. Even without explicit assertions of it, whatever sanctity, whatever divinity, the writings of the Old Covenant may be proved to have, those of the New certainly share in equal degree. In fact, most persons now- adays are disposed to rank the New far above the Old. If, therefore, we succeed in maintaining the true and proper inspiration of the older part of the volume, that of the later will be readily con- ceded. 9 130 BIBLE DOCTRINE OF INSPIRATION. II. Passages which affirm or imply the Inspiration of the Scriptures as a •whole. Various titles are used to describe the volume or collection of writings now knowai as the Old Testament ; and under all these titles its divinity is attested, moi'e or less explicitly. 1. The Scripture (or the Scriptures'), as already shown, was in our Saviour's time the well-understood name of a definite body of sacred w^ritings. By this name they are frequently identified with the utter- ance of God himself. The phrase, in one or other of its forms, is used about fifty times, and always means the Old Testament alone, except in the cases already alluded to (2 Peter iii. 2, 16), where Paul's epistles and possibly Luke's Gospel seem to be included with it. A few examples only can now be given. Galatians iii. 8 : " The Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the Gospel beforehand unto Abraham, saying. In thee shall all the nations be blessed." Who said those words ? God, personally. Tlie manner of the quotation can only be explained on the principle that the Scripture is so identified, in all that it says, with God himself, that what the Scripture says, God says ; and so a personal utterance of God and a saying of Scripture are simply equivalent. Romans ix. 17 : " The Scripture saith to Pha- raoh, Even for this same purpose have I raised thee up." But it was God who said it. If this DIRECT PROOFS OF INSPIRATION. 131 expression, " I have raised thee up," had been rep- resented by the Apostle as the saying of Moses himself, it would have sounded strange and star- tling as identifying Moses and God ; but there is no such anomaly in his thus identifying the written Word with God.i In the Epistle to the Hebrews, it is every- where assumed that what is said in the Old Testa- ment God said. Constantly the expressions recur, "He saith," "He spake," "He beareth witness," etc. The living voice of the divine speaker is rec- ognized in the Word. To adopt tlie language of B. F. Westcott, this usage in Scripture is " as if the author quoting felt in every quotation the actual presence of Him who had inspired it, and spoke through it." (The Bible in the Church, p. 42.) The error of the Sadducees is traced by the Saviour to their not knowing " the Scripture, nor the power of God." (Matthew xxii. 29.) If they 1 "The Scripture is here identified with God, its Author. Tlie case, as Tholuck remarks, is different when merely something con- tained in Scripture is introduced by 'the Scripture saith'; there 'the Scripture' is merely personified. The justice of Tholuck's remark will be apparent, if we reflect that this expression could not be used of the 7ne?-e ordinary ivords of any man in the historical Scriptures, Ahab, or Hezekiah, — but only where the text itself speaks, or where God spoke, or, as here, some mau under the inspira- tion of God." (Alford, Greek Testament, on Rom. ix. 17.) It is also worthy of notice, that, while the Apostle quotes ordinarily fronr the Septuagint, as the version familiar to the people, he in this expression (as in many other instances) departs from it, to intro- duce a more literal and exact translation of his own from the origi- nal Hebrew. 132 BIBLE DOCTRINE OF INSPIRATION. had properly known and reverenced the one, they would have felt and enjoyed the other. The minute circumstances, as well as the great burden, of Christ's sufferings, are all* represented as necessary in order " that the Scriptures might be fulfilled." (Mark xiv. 49 ; xv. 28 ; John xix. 24, 28, 36.) This points clearly to the divine fore- knowledge and authority found in those writings. The expression of our Lord, " the Scripture can- not be broken" (John x. 35), is an impressive instance of argument to the Pharisees based on a single word. He says it is in " your law," refer- ring to a passage in the Psalms (Ixxxii. 6), thus recognizing this as on a level with that portion of the Scripture to which the Jews gave the highest honor. The word " broken " is here tlie same which we had occasion already to expound in con- nection with the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew V. 17) meaning loosed, abrogated ; and it assures us that " the Scripture, as the expressed will of tlie unchangeable God, is itself unchangeable and in- dissoluble." (Olshausen, Comm. in loco.) It is furthermore to be noticed that our Lord here argues from a more profound sense than the ordi- nary one of the expression employed, and justifies the propriety of such a use of it by the statement, " the Scripture cannot be broken," i. e. not even a single word of Scripture (the word Gods) can be deprived of its force and meaning. One of the last acts of our Lord, before ascend- DIRECT PROOFS OF INSPIRATION. 133 ing to the skies, was to open the understanding of the disciples that they might " understand the Scripture " ; for, says he, " thus it is written, and thus it behoved Christ to suffer." (Luke xxiv. 45.) These expressions indicate the prophetic character of the ancient Scriptures, and strongly imply their divine origin and infallible truth. 2 Timothy iii. 16 : " All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for instruction which is in righteousness." The Apostle seems to be urging this fact as show- ing how " the sacred writings," which Timothy has known " from a babe " are able to make one wise unto salvation. Perhaps also there is a kind of under-current of allusion, as Chrysostom sug- gests, to his own expected decease (2 Timothy iv. 6), since he is now " already being offered," as if to say, " Instead of me you have the divine Scriptures." Whether the word theopneustos, translated " given by inspiration of God," is here to be construed as an epithet belonging to the subject of the sentence (with the Canterbury revisers), or as a predicate (with the common version), is not a settled ques- tion, though the weight of recent authority is with the revisers.^ ^ Ellicott (in loco) discusses the passage fairly and ably, as is his wont, and says : " It is very difficult to decide. . . . Lexicography and grammar contribute little towards a decision. . . . We are thus remanded wholly to the context," — which he regards as on the whole 134 BIBLE DOCTRINE OF INSPIRATION. But if it is rendered as the revisers prefer, " Every Scripture, inspired of God, is also profitable," etc., the argument remains substantially the same, pro- vided we have due regard to the connection. It implies that there is inspired Scripture, and that is the main question. It refers, moreover, unques- tionably to all " the Sacred writings " (of ver. 15) comprehended under the title Scripture, and with which Timothy is expressly declared to have been familiar from childhood. No distinction is recog- nized or suggested between Scriptures inspired and Scriptures not inspired, or only imperfectly or par- tially inspired. Such a thought is entirely foreign to the context. The passage then stands in its full force, which can scarcely be added to by any com- ment, and can hardly be taken away by any subtlety or ingenuity of exposition. It may well be pondered. 2. Another expression for the Scriptures in general is "joro/jj/iec^," or " the prophets.^^ And by this expression their divine origin is often and distinctly declared. Romans xvi. 26 : " The Scrip- favoring the rendering adojited by the revisers. But he distinctly affirms tliat " 2)nsa gra^iJie (every Scripture) implies every individual graphe (Scripture) of those previously alluded to in the term hiera grarnmata (sacred writings)." If the article had been used with graphe, the interj)retation all Scripture would be undisputed. But that graphe. Scripture, as a proper name, may legitimately omit the article (as in John xix. 37, Romans i. 2, xvi. 16, 2 Peter i. 20) is obvious ; — just as in all Jerusalem (Matthew ii. 3), all Israel (Ro- mans xi. 26), all the house of Israel (Acts ii. 36, 1 Samuel vii. 2, 3, Nehemiah iv. 16, Judith viii. 6, Matthew x. 6, xv. 24). Compare "Winer's Grammar, § 18. 5 (r) and 19. 1 (:i). DIRECT PROOFS OF INSPIRATION. 135 tures of tlie prophets, according to the command- ment of the everlasting God." 1 Peter i. 10-12 : "Of which salvation the prophets have inquired and searched diligently," and the Apostle goes on to affirm that " the Spirit of Christ was in them " ; "to them it was revealed"; furthermore, the same things are " now preached with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven." Testimony is given here, both to the prophets of the Old Testament, and to the inspired proclaimers of the New, as having the Spirit of Christ in them, and the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven. What is involved here ? This name prophet is given from the beginning to those who come as divine representatives, who speak for God, and who do this with supernatural aid, direction, and authority. Successive stages may be traced in the develop- ment of prophecy, but there is no essential change of the nature of the office. Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Melchizedek, each in his age, and in his own way, stands forth in God's name ; but their words for the most part are not recorded, and hence pass away, as oral utterances naturally do, except as preserved and transmitted by tradition. The dispensation then changes to a more perma- nent form, and written prophecy begins with Moses. He stands at the head of this new prophetic line, whose words are to be recorded and preserved for after times. With Samuel another stage in ad- 136 BIBLE DOCTRINE OF INSPIRATION. ' vance is reached. A revival of the prophetic order is established ; and from him a continuous series of prophets is kept up for centuries. But not until the days of Hosea and Isaiah does it attain its full development ; only then do the prophetic communi- cations generally receive the written and permanent form which enables subsequent ages to profit by them. At the outset, under Moses, the true nature of the prophetic office is indicated by the analogy of the relation of Aaron to Moses. Exodus iv. 10-16 ; vii. 1, 2. (Read these passages.) A test is given for discriminating the true prophet from the false, and directions to punish the pre- tender with severity. Deuteronomy xviii. 15-22. It follows plainly, that what came as an official announcement from an acknowledged prophet was recognized as coming from Jehovah himself. Even when no distinct assertion is found, the place of any writing on the prophetic roll estab- lished its claim. As Moses, after being once au- thenticated as a divine messenger, did not need to repeat each time he issued a portion of the divine command, " God ordered me to say this, to wrh;e this," so with the prophetic order. When that or- der was once known and established as a " mouth " for Jehovah, it was sufficient for proving the au- thority of any word or writing to show that it came officially from the prophets. Such evidence was open to the contemporaries of the Old Testament DIRECT PROOFS OF INSPIRATION. 137 prophets, to be judged of in each particular case ; and the reception of the writings by these contem- poraries, their being handed ctown by successive generations, and their recognition and indorsement by our Saviour and the Apostles, and the New Tes- tament churches, is the evidence accessible to us. In Romans xvi. 26, the Apostle gives thanks to God for the mystery (revealed secret) which is now- manifested, and " through the prophetic Scriptures, according to the commandment of the eternal God, is made known unto all the nations, unto obedience of faith." Here the prophetic Scriptures, evidently not meaning some part, but the whole, of the older volume of revelation, are set forth as the great source of all Christian knowledge unto all nations, and this by the commandment of the eternal God. They are not superseded or abrogated by Paul's gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, but only confirmed, and given a wider extension of influence. Another passage which seems to express almost in precise terms the doctrine we have been advo- cating is 2 Peter i. 19-21 : " We have the word of prophecy made more sure (confirmed by the gospel evidences), whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a lamp shining in a dark (squalid or misty) place, until the day dawn, and the day-star arise in your hearts : knowing this first, that no prophecy of Scripture is of private interpretation. For no prophecy ever came (was brought) by the will of 138 BIBLE DOCTRINE OF INSPIRATION, x man ; but [tlie word holy of the common version is omitted by the hitcst text critics] men spake from God, being moved (borne along) by the Holy Spirit." We may observe here, (1) that " the word of prophecy," " prophecy of Scripture," " prophecy," arc all expressions to denote the inspired word, the Old Testament, and not merely the predictive por- tions now commonly called prophecy ; (2) that this word is confirmed, made more sure, by the subse- quent revelations ; (3) that it is inferior to the gospel light, even as a lamp shining in a dark (misty or squalid) place is inferior to the sun; (4) that notwithstanding this it is well to take heed to it ; (5) that it is a principle of first impor- tance that no prophecy is of private interpretation (or of personal disclosure) ; (6) because it is of the very nature of prophecy not to come by human will ; (7) but men speak from God, being moved by the Holy Spirit. Of these points, it is only needful to comment on one or two. The expression " of private interpre- tation " has been variously understood to mean, — a, of separate or detached interpretation ; 5, of sjjecial interpretation ; c, to be interpreted by the reader himself (as the Romanists expound the pas- sage) ; d, to be explained or understood by the prophet himself ; e, of self-solution ; f, the result of private or uninspired disclosure. The last seems to us the correct view, agreeing best with the force DIRECT PROOFS OF INSPIRATION. 139 of the words and with the context. The thought is : The prophetic oracles of the Old Testament are worthy of the most profound attention, for they did not originate with man, but with God. The word idios (own), translated " private," might be supposed to refer to the prophecy, or the reader, or the prophet; — the Scripture's own, or the reader's own, or the prophet's own disclosure ; and so to signify, either, The prophecy does not disclose its own meaning ; or. The reader is not to interpret it for himself ; or, The prophet did not disclose it of himself. That this last is the idea intended seems to suit the statement of ver. 19, for which it gives the ground. We do well to take heed to the word of prophecy, for it did not come from the prophet alone, it is not of his own disclosure. It also agrees with the statement which follows in ver. 21, that prophecy came not by the will of man. The use of the verb ginetai, and not esti, confirms this view, pointing as it does to the origination rather than the quality of the Scripture. No prophecy has its genesis, comes into being, or becomes a ])rophecy, by one's own disclosure. It may be added that the word idios is used in precisely this sense by Philo (II. 343, ed. Mangeyi). " For a prophet," says he, " advances nothing whatever of his own (ouden idion'), but is an interpreter, another supplying all the things which he brings forward." Then, after denying the exclusively human origin 140 BIBLE DOCTRINE OF INSPIRATION. of the Word, the Apostle describes in singularly appropriate language the combined human and divine authorship which is elsewhere implied. The men spake, the Spirit moved them. They spake, but it was '■''from God,^ — so the latest critical text reads. Their own activity, as well as the divine influence that acted on them, is distinctly indicated.^ 3. Another title applied to the Scriptures of the Old Testament is the Word of God. Our Lord, rebuking the Pharisees for substituting their traditions for God's commandments, and set- ting aside duty to parents by their rule as to what was Corhan, or devoted to God, charges them with " making void the Word of God " by their tradition (Matt. XV. 8). The commandment of God was what Moses had said : " Honor thy father and thy mother" (Exodus xx. 12), and, "He that speaketh evil of father or mother, let him die the death" (Exodus xxi. 17). Despising this, or exalting hu- man suggestions or traditions to an equality with it, is rejecting, frustrating, making void the Word of God. Jesus considered that a serious offence. 1 Dr. Ladd well paraplirases the passage: "No prophecy con- tained in the Old Testament Scripture has its origin as a matter of merely subjective explication, as a result of the prophet's own power intuitively to discern the meaning of the subject he cogitates ; and prophecy is never sent by the will of man as a cause, but is rather uttered by men who are borne along by the Holy Ghost, and there- fore speak as from a divine source." — Doctrine of Sacred Scripture, I. 162. DIRECT PROOFS OF INSFIRATION. 141 At the Feast of the Dedication at Jerusalem, when the Jews undertook to stone him because they said he made himself God, he said : " Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are gods ? If he called them gods unto whom the word of God came (and the Scripture cannot be broken) say ye of him whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world, Thou blasphemest, because I said, I am the Son of God ? " (John x. 34-36.) The expression " word of God " is not here equivalent to the whole of the Scripture, but it refers to a portion of it. The passage quoted from the Psalms (Ixxxii. 6) is said to be " written in your law," and this is sub- sequently called " the Scripture." And it is im- plied that those who had the benefits of this revelation had had the word of God. God had spoken to them. The judges were called gods as standing, in a judicial relation, in God's stead. Compare Exodus xxi. 6, xxii. 8, 9, 28. The Word, of course, is primarily oral ; but the expression comes naturally to be applied, both in the Old Testament and in the New, to any commu- nication from God, " anything," as Dr. Ladd says, " which God is regarded as procuring or permitting to be said to man." (11. 503.) Any collection of the words of God may be properly styled the Word of God, " because its content is from God, and be- cause God has caused it to be promulgated among men " ; " because it conveys the truth from God, and seeks the honor of God " Thus the voice of 142 BIBLE DOCTRINE OF INSPIRATION. the ancient prophets was the Word of God, which shall stand forever (Isaiah xl. 8) ; the preaching of the Apostles was the Word of God (Romans x. 17, 1 Corinthians xiv. 36) ; it had been sent first to tlie sons of Israel (Acts x. 36, 37); afterwards it had gone even into Macedonia and Achaia (1 Thcs- salonians ii. 13) ; and it has a living and abiding energy (1 Peter i. 23-25). 4. Another terra quite similar, and suggesting naturally the same idea, is " the oracles of God " (Romans iii. 2), " living oracles " (Acts vii. 38). The great and overwhelming advantage that the Jews had over the rest of mankind was, that " they were intrusted with the oracles of God"; and the great sin of the " fathers " was that they would not be obedient unto Moses, " who received living ora- cles to give unto us." Compare also Hebrews v. 12 ; 1 Peter iv. 11. These various expressions describe the Hebrew sacred books, some of them recognizing them as a whole, and dealing with them under one designa- tion, and all acknowledging their divine origin and authority. III. Declarations "which affirm the Inspiration of par- ticular Persons, or single Passages of the Word. A few examples only of this kind can now be given. It is obvious that this argument avails mainly to show the nature of the reality of the in- fluence in these instances. By analogy, however, DIRECT PROOFS OF INSPIRATION. 143 the inference may be reasonably drawn that in other passages or persons a similar influence was exerted. In whatever sense these were inspired, the others were too ; for they stand apparently in no respect on a different level from other sacred writings or writers. A. As to the Old Testament, in Matthew xxii. 43, Jesus says, " David in spirit calleth him Lord," referring to Psalm ex. 1. This seems to be a dis- tinct assertion that David in that Psalm speaks by inspiration, in spirit ; or if the meaning of the lan- guage there is doubted by any, because the spirit is not expressly said to be the divine Spirit, the par- allel passage in Mark xii. 36 makes it unmistakable, where it reads " by [literally m] the Holy Spirit." Compare the same Greek phrase in Revelation i. 10, iv. 2 ; and nearly the same in Romans ix. 1, 1 Corinthians xii. 3. It is a natural inference that the same is true of other Psalms, and of other parts of the Word. There is no peculiarity intimated in this 110th Psalm, distinguishing it as more divine than the others. Further, the argument of our Saviour turns on the precis® word employed, — the word " Lord " ; and therefore indicates something more than a mere general control of ideas. In fact, we can hardly suppose that David himself, in this and other instances, fully apprehended the meaning of his own words. " It required," says Bannerman, " the foresight of that Omniscient Spirit, through 144 BIBLE DOCTRINE OF INSPIRATION. "whom our Lord interpreted David's words, to mould them by his inspiration into that form which they actually have, and which, unknown to the prophet, was to afford the materials to build up the proof of the divinity and the incarnation of Him, who was to be both David's Lord and David's Son," (In- spiration, 328.) Matthew (i. 22, ii. 15) represents the ancient predictions he refers to as " spoken hy the Lord through the prophet." This is as precise and accu- rate a description, according to our view, as could be given of the divine authorship and the human agency involved. " The divine source of the word, its objective verity, and the inspired consciousness of the messenger, are all thus brought before our minds." (Ladd, L 63.) In Acts iv. 25, 26, the Apostles and their com- pany, who presently are declared to be all filled with the Holy Spirit (vcr. 31), lift up their voice with one accord to God, " who by the Holy Spirit, by the mouth of David thy servant, didst say, Why did the Gentiles rage ? " etc., quoting from the second Psalm. In Hebrews iii. 7, a Psalm (xcv. 7) is quoted with the introduction, " even as the Holy Spirit saith." In Hebrews x. 15, " The Holy Spirit bear- eth witness to us," introduces a passage from Jeremiah xxxi. 33, 34. B, As to New Testament authors. Acts iv. 8 : Peter is expressly said to have been DIRECT PROOFS OF INSPIRATION. 145 " filled with the Holy Ghost " in his address to the rulers. Acts X. 28 : Peter affirms that " God has showed " him the principle on which he is acting as to recognizing the Gentiles, and the truth which he is to declare. Acts xiii. 9 : Paul is " filled with the Holy Ghost " in his denunciation of Elymas before Ser- gius Paulus ; and his word is instantly confirmed by the miraculous blindness which falls upon the sorcerer. Further examples might be given, but it is need- less to multiply them. IV. Promises of Inspiration. A. Promises given to Old Testament Writers. Among these may be mentioned, — Exodus iv. 10-12 : " Go, and I will be with thy mouth, and teach thee what thou shalt say." This is the primary promise to Moses, and seems to ex- press in distinct terms all that has been claimed for the divine influence over the inspired man. It is substantially renewed on other occasions, Deuteronomy xviii. 18, 19 : "I will raise them up a Prophet from among their brethren like unto thee, and will put my words into his mouth ; and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him. And it shall come to pass that whosoever will not hearken unto my words which he shall speak in my name, I will require it of him." The 10 146 BIBLE DOCTRINE OF INSPIRATION. question is whether this refers to the Messiah alone, or to a succession of propliets, or, as is generally believed, to both ; to the succession of divinely authorized teachers in the prophetic order first, and to the Messiah ultimately. The contrast with the false prophets in the next verse favors the idea of a plurality of true prophets opposed to them. The singular number, however, is used ; but this may , naturally be applied, in accordance with a frequent Hebrew idiom, to a collective body or a continuous order. In this view the passage affirms, 1. that the prophetic function is not to cease with Moses, but is to be continued ; 2. that the order of prophets will consist of men like Moses, native Hebrews, " of thy brethren " ; 3. that they are to be. raised up from time to time by Jehovah ; and 4. that they should have His words put in their mouth, and speak in His name. Does not this cover the whole ground that we claim? The prophets spoke as God bade them, and the Messiah was the summit and climax of the order, the ideal and perfect prophet. Isaiah lix. 21 : " My Spirit that is upon thee, and my words which I have put in thy mouth." This language describes the nature of the divine influence ; and the passage proceeds to declare that the teachings thus given shall be permanently pre- served in the lips and memories of God's people through all time, — " shall not depart out of thy mouth, nor out of the mouth of thy seed, nor out DIRECT PROOFS OF INSPIRATION. 147 of the mouth of thy seed's seed, saith the Lord, from henceforth and forever." Jeremiah i. 4-9. "• The word of the Lord came to me, saying, ... I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations. . . . Thou shalt go to all that I shall send thee, and whatsoever I command thee thou shalt speak. . . . Behold I have put my words in thy mouth." Such in general was the idea of the divine prophet among the ancient Jews, a speaker for God, with divine authority, direction, and control. These quotations may suffice for illustrating the ample and positive manner in which inspiration is promised to the writers of the Old Testament. It is alleged, however, that the promise of in- spiration is made to the " entire faithful people of the covenant," and that " the inspiration of Moses, Isaiah, or Ezekiel is the secondary fact which is dependent upon the primary." The proof given for this is that the Spirit is promised to Israel and to their seed ; that they are to be a kingdom of priests and a holy nation ; and that Moses wishes that all the people were prophets. But this last of itself implies that they were not ; and the other two proofs evidently have nothing to do with pro- phytic inspiration. This idea of the " inspired na- tion " is scarcely consistent with the conceded fact that every true Hebrew prophet, " by virtue of his office as prophet, stood between God and the theo- cratic people." If all the people were prophets or 148 BIBLE DOCTRINE OF INSPIRATION. inspired, how could the prophet stand between them and God ? It is also inconsistent with the special divine vocation by which he was to be raised up " from the midst of " the people. It should be remembered, however, that other writings besides those which we are accustomed to call " the prophets " were included under that term among the Jews ; and that the historical books, as we term them, seem to have been prepared, by those whom the Jews regarded as prophets, from the regular annals of the nation. Hence those books are known in the Hebrew Bible as the former prophets, while our prophetical books are called the later prophets. B. Promises of Inspiration to the New Tes- tament Writers. The chain of argument on this important point may be first briefly stated, and then we will turn to the passages themselves. 1. Christ did not plan to carry out his great enterprise on the earth personally. His public ministry lasted only about three years. He com- mitted no word to writing ; in this respect present- ing apparently a marked contrast to other founders of permanent institutions. 2. He founded an Apostolic Church, and left it as his representative. 3. He vested in his Apostles complete and absolute authority under himself, as to the admin- DIRECT PROOFS OF INSPIRATION. 149 istration of this Church, and the proclamation of his truth. Mark iii. 14, 15; Matthew xviii. 18; xxviii. 18 ; Acts i. 3-9. 4. To quaUfy them for this, he gave repeated, special promises of the Holy Spirit. 5. The benefits of these promises were shared with others, who are associated with them and termed prophets. These promises to the Apostles may be conveni- ently considered in two divisions. The first class were given prior to the last Passover, and, tliough uttered on three different occasions, are substan- tially equivalent. They are all recorded in the Synoptic Gospels. The first is in Matthew x. 14- 20, on the occasion of sending forth the twelve, the most appropriate opportunity for describing their authority; the second is in Luke xii. 11, 12, when uttering the discourse to his disciples sur- rounded by the many thousands that crowded on them ; the last, recorded in Mark xiii. 9-11, and Luke xxi. 14, 15, was during the Crucifixion week. These promises, thus repeated, may fitly be taken together. a. A real definite influence from without is promised to guide and suggest what they should say. " It is not ye that speak, but the Spirit of your Father that speaketh in you." It was to " be given them " in that hour what they should speak. h. These promises embrace all public occasiotis, when the Apostles must bear testimony of him, 150 BIBLE DOCTRINE OF INSPIRATION. before councils, synagogues, kings ; and this not merely for personal defence and rescue, but for a witness to them ; and this witness is not only to Jews, but it is expressly said to be also to the Gen- tiles. They are by no means so limited, local, and temporary as has been sometimes alleged. c. Now take into connection with these the promise of Matthew xviii. 18, giving them the power of binding and loosing, and especially the commis- sion, Matthew xxviii. 19, 20 : " Go, teach (disciple) all nations, baptizing and teaching them all things whatsoever I command you ; and lo, I am with you ahvay." In their teacliing, then, as well as in their self-defence, he is to be with them ; in every exer- cise of their apostolic office, they are to have his presence, aid, and guidance. Nor does this extension of the supernatural guidance promised to them seem unreasonable. It is precisely in accordance with the nature of the new phase of their work upon which they are about to enter. If it was important tliat they should have supernatural guidance in their occa- sional defence of themselves, in temporary emer- gencies, before courts, how much more in their permanent instructions to the churches for all time ! If " utterance was given " to Paul to make known orally the mystery of the Gospel, why might the divine gift not be expected in recording those instructions ? What excludes those occasions and exigencies from the promise ? DIRECT PROOFS OF INSPIRATION. 151 The second class of passages containing the promise of the Spirit may be found in those mar- vellous chapters (John xiv.-xvi.) of our Lord's last discourse, in the evening before the Crucifixion.^ To bring out their full force, we ought to quote the Avhole. But since we cannot now do this, let us notice specially the promise of the abiding influ- ence of the Holy Spirit to " bring all things to their remembrance," and to " teach them all things." (John xiv. 25, 26.) Their testimony as eyewit- nesses and companions of the Saviour's earthly life was to be confirmed and supplemented by that of the Holy Spirit given through them. (John xv. 26, 27.) Things were to be taught them which they could not yet bear. The Spirit should guide them into " all the truth," declare unto them " things to come," take of the things of Christ, and declare unto them. (John xvi. 12-15.) These promises seem to involve both revelation and inspiration, according to the distinction we have drawn between them, and to assure the Apos- tles not only of the divine impartation of truth, which they did not yet know, and could not now bear, but also divine guidance and control in every 1 Dr. Lee has aptly styled these chapters "the Holy of Holies of Christ's history ; that wonderful passage, from every line of which shines forth the Divinity of Him who spake, though each syllable be tinged with the sadness of a Soul which even now gazed full upon the agony in the Garden, and bore in prospect the crown of thorns, — syllables, too, which were uttered from the very shadow of the tomb." — Lee on Liynration, 35. 152 BIBLE DOCTRINE OF INSPIRATION. particular regarding the proclamation of the Gospel. Evidently, however, there is no promise of omnis- cience, of supernatural information in all human knowledge. And we have no reason to claim or to suppose that this was granted. On this series of promises we have several remarks to submit. a. The peculiar expression, " the Spirit of Truth," evidently refers to his special office of Revealer and Inspirer. The Spirit's presence might indeed be valuable in other respects. It would give comfort and light, it might confer miraculous powers of various kinds. But this promise seems to point particularly to gifts conferred in his character as the Spirit of Truth, giving them the truth, and enabling them to give it to others. h. The Spirit was to " bring to remembrance " all that Christ had said. His divine teachings are not trusted to the fallible memory of the men who heard them. These precious deposits are to be insured, repeated, presented afresh, in more con- densed form, in more perfect light, in clearer rela- tions to all else that they knew, and especially to the advancing providence and revelations of God. The Apostles needed to be enabled to recall and summarize all that the Lord had taught them dur- ing his earthly life, and all that he was going to unfold to their opened and enlarged understandings during those wondrous forty days between the Res- urrection and the Ascension, a period the impor- tance of which must not be estimated by the space DIRECT PROOFS OF INSPIRATION. 153 given to it in the narrative, but rather by the trans- forming effects which have been evidently wrought upon the timorous and hesitating disciples of the Passover evening, by the time that we next meet them, on the day of Pentecost. c. Furthermore, they needed to be qualified to give due proportion and harmony to their preach- ing ; or, as Lee has expressed it, to " insert in their teaching, without interweaving any hetero- geneous element, each particular circumstance as it contributed to the elucidation of the general scheme." (Lee on Lispiration, p. 271.) The facts of the gospel history were of course familiar to them ; but they needed explanation of the meaning of these facts, as well as the true intent of many of the sayings of our Lord, which they themselves had heard, but which they did not yet fairly or fully appreciate. The relation of these great events to the plan of human redemption, to the divine counsels in the past, and to the progress of the kingdom throughout the ages, was yet to be made known to them. Their own faculties were not to be superseded, however, and disused, but to be used and aided. Their own recollection Avas to be employed, but guided and reinforced by the Holy Spirit. d. The Spirit was to " teach them all things," to guide them into " all the truth." Our Lord ex- pressly draws the distinction between the things He had spoken to thom while yet present with 154 BIBLE DOCTRINE OF INSPIRATION. them, and the teachings of the Spirit which are to be superadded to them. (John xiv. 25, 26.) This additional light is not, on the one hand, supernat- ural information in every department of human knowledge, as some have extravagantly inter|)reted it ; nor is it mere illumination in saving knowledge, such as all converted persons possess, as others unduly limit it. It was not for themselves person- ally and only, but for tliem officially, and for the benefit of others. It is expressly connected by our Lord with the intimation that he had many things to say unto them, which they were not then able to bear. Why the revelation of divine truth by God in the Old Testament period should have been so slow and deliberate ; why, in like manner, it should have been made so gradually by our Lord himself ; why it is left incomplete even at this critical moment, when he is leaving the world, and withdrawing from the disciples whom he loved, and the sinners for whom he died, — may be an interesting question. But it is certainly a fact. And from considering it, we see the necessity that this added, advancing influence should be given, to finish the unfinished work. It need scarcely be again remarked here, that incompleteness is not error; that the imper- fection and inferiority freely acknowledged in the Old Testament as compared with the New, and even in tlic earlier of the progressive communica- tions of our Lord, or in those of the promised DIRECT PROOFS OF INSPIRATION. 155 Spirit itself, do not conflict with their being thor- oughly divine, and exactly true, as far as they went. That which is imperfect is not necessarily either faulty or false. e. The Spirit was also promised to " show them things to come," an expression which implies their endowment for predictive as well as declarative prophecy, their ability to describe — what no mere man can know — the future. /. The earlier promises recorded in the Synoptic Gospels are interpreted and confirmed by these later promises. In view of these legacies, both of love and of authority, which our Saviour gives in contemplation of his immediately impending death, it is preposterous to assume that the spiritual aid he had previously promised to them was to be only for their personal defence, and to be confined to the judicial occasions then specially mentioned, as be- fore synagogues and magistrates. The promise is emphasized, renewed, and also enlarged. It may furthermore be fairly understood, that these additional instructions, given tliem by the Holy Spirit subsequently to his death, had the same stamp of infallibility as those spoken to them by the lips of the Master himself. g. It is only necessary to add that these prom- ises did not extend indefinitely. Hence the offices both of Apostle and Prophet came to an end, so far as we can discover, with the Apostolic age. There is no proof that either had any successors in 156 BIBLE DOCTRINE OF INSPIRATION. office. If like authority is claimed for any others, the claim ought to be supported by adequate — not to say similar and equal — evidence. The meaning of these promises receives further elucidation from the record of the period between the Resurrection and the Ascension. It is evi- dent, as already suggested, that the forty days of our Saviour's mysterious life on earth after the Resurrection were no mere pause in the progress of events, but made a decided advance in the teach- ing, and in the preparation of the Apostles for their great work. Even prior to his death the in- structions had become more frequent, more clear, more impressive and precious ; they had revolved more about the central doctrines and eternal reali- ties, as the Great Teacher approached the appointed death of which he had so tenderly warned them. And now, in this interval, there are plentiful in- dications that he both opened their understand- ings, and presented to their opened understandings quickening truths ; so that the Apostles, after their brief course of instruction under tliis new school- ing, came out widely different men from the vacil- lating, trembling, earthly-minded fugitives, Avho, six weeks before, had all forsaken him and fled. The chiefs of modern Rationalism, such as Paulus and Strauss (compare Lee, p. 269), have not been able to withhold the acknowledgment that this transformation in the character and conduct of the Apostles is inexplicable, unless " something ex- DIRECT PROOFS OF INSPIRATION. 157 traordmary be supposed to have occurred durijig this interval." On the very evening which closed that ever memorable first day of the week on -which our Lord rose from the dead, he comforted and recom- missioned his affrighted disciples, saying : "• Peace be unto you ; as the Father hath sent me, even so send I you. And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and saith unto them. Receive ye the Holy Spirit : whose soever sins ye forgive, they are forgiven unto them ; whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained." (John xx. 21-23.) But even this formal imparting of the Holy Spirit is not enough. It is distinctly recorded that he afterwards not only expounded to them, as he had done before, that all things which are written in the Law of Mo- ses, and in the Prophets, and in the Psalms con- cerning him must be fulfilled, but he also " opened their mind, that they might understand the Scrip- tures" (Luke xxiv. 45). At the same time he renewed the assurance that he would send forth " the promise of the Father " upon them, and en- joined on them to tarry in the city until they were clothed with power from on high. In addition to those personal teachings of our risen Saviour, when the day of Pentecost was fully come, the Spirit was given. Too much stress can hardly be laid on this fact. Better even than the presence of Jesus himself are these promised 158 BIBLE DOCTRINE OF INSPIRATION. communications. And they are continued during their ministry, varied and adapted to all the con- tingencies that arose in their official duties. The Apostles, from that notable day, were entirely dif- ferent men. They were endued anew, and in higher measure than ever before, with power from on high. An unmistakable example of the influence of the divine Spirit in imparting new truth is the case of Peter at Joppa, learning by the vision, and by the Spirit's manifestation at CaBsarea, the true rela- tion of the Gentiles to the Church of Christ. He expressly states that his new position was not something evolved or reasoned out by himself from the truths already known, but revealed to him by God in antagonism to his former prejudices and opinions. God had " showed it " to him (Acts X. 28). From this whole line of argument, then, it ap- pears that promises of Inspiration were distinctly and repeatedly made to writers both of the Old and of the New Testament. We do not believe that there was any breach of these promises, or that they in any respect failed to be fulfilled. V. Assertious of Inspiration by the Sacred Writers. Of course assertions of this kind by men them- selves, unsupported and unattested, would have no weight whatever. Mohammed or Joe Smith could make such assertions. DIRECT PROOFS OF INSPIRATION. 159 But the assertions of the sacred writers form an important link in the chain of argument, when taken in connection with the character of the men ; and when, on the one hand, the divine promises going before are considered, and on the other the miraculous confirmations accompanying and follow- ing, " the Lord working with them and confirming the Word with signs following." These men are thoroughly authenticated, it must be remembered, as in some sense teachers sent from God. That, for Christians, is a settled point. The question now is. What claims, as such, do they make for themselves ? A. In the Old Testament a few of the passages may be quoted : — 2 Samuel xxiii, 2, David says : " The Spirit of the Lord spake by me, and his word was in my tongue." Isaiah i. 2 : " Hear, heavens, and give ear, eartli, for the Lord hath spoken." Compare Isaiah xl. 5 : " The mouth of the Lord hath spoken." Jeremiah i. 4-10 : " The word of the Lord came unto me, saying," etc. ..." Then the Lord put forth his liand, and touched my mouth : and the Lord said unto me, Behold, I have put my words in thy mouth." Jeremiah xv. 19: " If thou return, then will I bring thee again, that thou mayest stand before me ; and if thou take forth the precious from the vile, thou shalt be as my mouth." Ezekiel i. 3 : " The word of the Lord came ex- IGO BIBLE DOCTRINE OF INSriRATION. prcssly to Ezekiel, the priest, and the hand of the Lord was upon him." (Compare iii. 4, 10, 11, 17, 27.) These expressions certainly convey the idea that the prophets claimed to be speaking, not their own words, but those with whicli they had been in- trusted by God. It is needless to multiply similar passages. B. Assertions of Inspiration by the New Testa- ment writers. It is unquestionable that they do lay claim, in numerous ways and on various occasions, to an authority more than human, as will be presently shown by quotations. No principle can possibly be stated which would limit these claims to those pre- cise occasions, or forbid their extension to other official communications of these same individuals. Their authority rested generally on their well-known character as the accredited representatives of the Almighty, speaking in his name to men. They only repeated or urged anew their claim of divine authority, when it was questioned, or when some special reason required its assertion. Elsewhere it is quietly taken for granted. While frankly admitting their own fallibility in conduct, and imperfection in grace, and liability to mistake in everything but this for which they are inspired, these writers fearlessly claim to be heard as from God in the proclamation of the Gospel, and as to the concerns of the soul. Against any rejec- DIRECT PROOFS OF INSPIRATION. 161 tion or neglect of that message, they warn men with the utmost energj^ and with tearful anxiety and tenderness. The doctrine which they teach they did not derive from study, did not reason out for themselves; and they did not take credit to themselves for acquiring it, or devoting themselves to it. It is all due to the holy impulse and enlight- ening influence of the Spirit of God. Their authority they represent as equal to that of the Old Testament prophets. The Church- is built " upon the foundation of the Apostles and prophets." (Ephesians ii. 20.) Now there is no question that the Jews of that time, as well as these Christian teachers, held the inspiration of the Old Testament prophets ; and if the Apostles are found claiming to be regarded as on an equal footing with the prophets, there is no stronger form in which they could assert their own inspiration. If it is alleged that this guidance and aid were restricted to oral, not written, teaching, — (1) we would ask, Why ? Can any valid reason be as- signed? ^ (2) Divine authority is expressly claimed by them for their written word. See 1 Corinthians xiv. 37 : " If any man thinketh himself to be a prophet, or spiritual, let him take knowledge of the things which I write unto you, that they are the 1 In case the disciples should commit to writing these com- mandments, whether as embodied in words or in deeds, and whether for the purpose of discipling the nations or of instructing their converts, the promise of Christ woidd surely not be withdrawn. — Ladi>, I. 76. 11 162 BIBLE DOCTRINE OF INSPIRATION. conimandment of the Lord." Compare John xx. 31; 2 Thessalonians ii. 15; 1 Corinthians ii. 13. Let us now consider some of the passages in which these claims are made hy writers of the New Testament. Acts XV. 1-6, 28. The Apostles and elders at Jerusalem, in the decision given upon the question from Antioch, say, " It seemed good to the Holy Ghost, and to us." Romans xvi. 25-27. The Apostle Paul conjoins his own preaching with " the Scriptures of the prophets, according to the commandment of the eternal God," as the source of Christian knowledge unto " all the nations." The case of the Apostle Paul is somewhat pecu- liar, and therefore we have in his case special abimdance of evidence. He was not one of the original twelve. His authority, however, is not based simply on the inspiration which men would persuade us belonged to the Christian community as a whole (of which we discover no suitable evi- dence) ; nor on that which he might claim as a prophet, which might have been adequate ; nor on his adoption into their order, and recognition by the original Apostles ; but on his special call and commission as an Apostle by Jesus Christ himself. He had received the truth not from human sour- ces, even the highest and most direct, but from the Lord Jesus personally by an internal disclos- ure (Galatians i. 11, 16) ; he has seen the Lord DIRECT PROOFS OF INSPIRATION. 163 (1 Corinthians xv. 10, Acts xxii. 6) ; he has had abundant evidence subjectively and objectively of his Apostlcship (Romans i. 1, 5; 1 Corinthians ix. 1, 2). 1 Corinthians ii. 1-16. In consequence of di- visions in the cliurch at Corinth, Paul is led to de- clare his own apostolic authority. Negatively, he says that his proclamation of the mystery of God was not with excellency of speech or of wisdom, not with man's wisdom, not the wisdom of the world. Positively, it was God's wisdom in a mys- tery, spoken in demonstration of the Spirit, re- vealed by God through the Spirit. And not only docs he thus ascribe to God the communication of the knowledge to him (revelation), but also the words in which it is conveyed by himself to other men (inspiration) ; " which things also we speak, not in words which man's wisdom teachetli, but wliich the Spirit tcacheth." Here is a clear refer- ence to God, not only of the doctrine taught, but of the form, the words, in which it is taught. 1 Corinthians xiv. 37 : " If any man thinketh himself to be a prophet or spiritual, let him ac- knowledge the things which I write unto you, that they are the commandment of the Lord." It is a test of discipleship that they acknowledge his regu- lations in church matters as from the Lord. 2 Corinthians xiii. 2, 3. He claims official control in the church : " I write to them who heretofore have sinned and to all other, that, if I come again. 164 BIBLE DOCTRINE OF INSPIRATION. I will not spare, seeing that ye seek a proof of Christ that speaketh in me." And this is not as to some abstract truth which he has declared, but as to the application of the principles of Christian discipline in correcting particular cases of disorder. Galatians i. 8-12 : " But though we, or an angel from heaven, should preach unto you any gospel other than that which we preached unto you, let him be anathema. As we have said before, so say I now again. If any man preacheth unto you any gospel other than tliat which ye received, let him be anathema. For am I now persuading men, or God? or am I seeking to please men? If I were still pleasing men, 1 should not be a servant of Christ. For 1 make known to you, brethren, as touching the gospel which was preached by me, that it is not after man. For neither did I receive it from man, nor was I taught it, but it came to me through revelation of Jesus Christ." Nothing but a distinct conviction and assurance from above of his own authority as an inspired man could war- rant the claims Paul here puts forth. He had not received his doctrine from men, not- even from the other Apostles. And if any proclaim a different gospel — even if he himself should, or if an angel from heaven should do it — he denounces with the utmost severity such a departure from the gospel which he had proclaimed. In Ephesians ii. 20, the Apostles and prophets are classed together, and are represented as the DIRECT PROOFS OF INSPIRATION. 165 foundation on which Christians are built, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone. It is immaterial here whether the prophets be under- stood to be those of the Old Testament, or of New Testament times. The authority which Paul at- tributes to " the prophets " is well understood. He ranks the Apostles with them, and places both in fundamental connection with Jesus Christ himself. This teaching of the Apostles and prophets, then, is a sure foundation, infallibly true and certain. In Ephesians iii. 1-7, Paul claims that God by revelation made known to him the mystery " which in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men, as it is now revealed unto his holy Apostles and prophets by the Spirit ; " and that of this gospel he was " made a minister according to the gift of the grace of God, given unto him by the effectual working of His power," It is by the agency of the Spirit, by the effectual working of divine power, that this knowledge has been communicated to him, and to the other Apostles and prophets. 1 Thessalonians ii. 13, he thanks God that " when ye received the word of God which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the word of men, but, as it is in truth, the word of God." It was divine teach- ing, though received by them from Imraan lips, and it is matter of continual rejoicing that they received it as such. Here is a sharp contrast be- tween simply human instruction — persuasion, ar- gument, the word of men — and divine instruction, 166 BIBLE DOCTRINE OF INSPIRATION. authoritative assertion, the word of God ; and the apostolic teaching is expressly said to be of the latter kind. 1 Thessalonians iv. 2, 8, 15 : " Ye know what commandments we gave you by the Lord Jesus." "• He therefore that despiseth, despiseth not man, but God, who hath also given us his Holy Spirit." " This we say unto you by the word of the Lord," giving a statement as to the wondrous future events at the Resurrection day. 2 Thessalonians ii. 13-15. He points to the two- fold influence exerted in their salvation by " sancti- fication of the Spirit and belief of the truth." To this they had been called by " our gospel," and accordingly they are to "stand fast and hold the. traditions which ye have been taught, whether by word or by our epistle." The power of the Spirit and that of the truth are here intimately associated. That truth they had learned through the preaching of the Apostle ; and, if they are to stand fast in the salvation they have received, it is to be by faithful adherence to the teachings they had obtained from Paul. Moreover, it makes no difference whether these teachings were oral or written. They were equally binding, equally authoritative, equally con- nected with salvation. 1 Peter i. 10-12. The inspiration of the Old Testament writers is here shown to be no mere modification or exaltation of their own unaided faculties, but the impartation of capacity and au- DIRECT PROOFS OF INSPIRATION. 1G7 thority, by "the Spirit of Christ which was in them," to speak on subjects wliich they did not otherwise understand, and to record things the meaning of which they were still left to search and inquire diligently into. Furthermore, the procla- mation of the Gospel in New Testament times was " by the Holy Spirit sent forth from heaven." 2 Peter iii. 1, 2. An equal place is claimed in the attention and confidence of the people for " the words that were spoken before by the holy prophets," and " the commandment of us the Apos- tles of the Lord and Saviour." The Canterbury Revision adopts a different reading, and translates the last clause "the commandment of the Lord and Saviour through your Apostles." Tliis would not vary materially the evidence, but presents our doctrine in rather more distinct terms. Revelation i. 1-3, 10, 11, 19. The Book of Rev- elation opens with a vision of God, and a command to John, such as had been formerly given to Mo- ses, to write in a book what he sees. The assur- ance is afterwards given that this communication is from the same Almighty One, " the Lord God of the holy prophets." Revelation xxii. 6, 7, 18, 19. The angel snys, "These words are faithful and true ; and the Lordj the God of the spirits of the prophets, sent his an- gel to show unto his servants the things that must shortly come to pass." There is added a most solemn warning against adding to, or taking away 168 BIBLE DOCTRINE OF INSPIRATION. from, the words of the book of this prophecy, on peril of incurring all tlie plagues, and forfeiting all the blessings of the eternal world. Considering this whole series of claims put forth by the Apostles and their associates, it is impossible to overlook the formal and public position assumed by the Apostles as tlie introducers, under the au- thority of Jesus Christ, of the new revelation ; nor the distinct connection of this with the old revela- tion, their reverence for which is well known and universally acknowledged ; nor the tone of author- ity and command which men, who were not ambi- tious but humble, not self-seekers and worldly, but self-sacrificing and spiritual, assume in addressing their fellow men as to the concerns of their souls. VI. Passages in which the Union of the Human and Divine Authorship of Portions of Scripture is expressly recognized. The special feature of our doctrine of Inspiration, which may probably excite question among those unfamiliar with the subject, is the thorough-going ascription of a divine character to those parts of the Bible which are most obviously and unmistak- ably human. According to our view, indeed, there is no part of the Bible which does not show clearly the marks of human origin. This is the first and most obvious of the " phenomena " and also of the " claims " of Scripture, — that it is written by Moses, David, Isaiah, Paul, and other men; and DIRECT PROOFS OF INSPIRATION. 1G9 this is equally true of those portions the human authors of which are unnamed and unknown. But we have endeavored to show that this is not incon- sistent with the real divine authorship. The divine origin is as strongly and as distinctly affirmed as if there had been no human instrumen- tality involved. The human agency is also as clearly and unmistakably presented as if there had been no divine interposition in the case. We believe that much of the error and difficulty that have arisen in the minds of devout and earnest in- quirers are due to looking exclusively at one or the other of these classes of facts. It may therefore be useful, as a confirmatory proof on this special point, to present some passages of Scripture where the union of the human and the divine element in the same utterance is distinctly stated or recog- nized ; where the same words are quoted and as- cribed indifferently and equally to God and to man as their author. A few examples of this kind will be sufficient to demonstrate the possibility and the actuality of such a union ; and that is all that is practically necessary for our argument. The commandment, " Honor thy father and tby mother " (Exodus xx. 12), is quoted (Matthew xv. 4) under the expression, "God said"; and again (Mark vii. 10) the Saviour is represented as say- ing, " Moses said." The language of the Psalm (ex. 1), " The Lord said unto my Lord," etc., is quoted (Mark xii. 36) 170 BIBLE DOCTRINE OF INSPIRATION. with the expression, " David said by the Holy- Spirit," which really presents both sides of the truth in the single statement ; in the succeeding verse (Mark xii. 37) the same Evangelist informs us that our Saviour adds, " David himself calleth him Lord." Compare Matthew xxii. 43, " How then doth David in the Spirit call him Lord ? " It is difficult to see in what more explicit language both the authorship by David and the inspiration by the Spirit could be affirmed ; or what higher testimony could be adduced than that of Him who was at once both God and man. The arginncnt of our Lord from the expressions in which Jehovah is called " the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob " (Exodus iii. G, 15), is worthy of special attention. He gives it (Matthew xxii. 31) as that which was " spoken unto you by Gud " ; again (Luke xx. 37), as wliat " Moses showed at the bush," etc. ; while Mark (xii. 26), who is noted for giving minute details and precise circumstances, combines both ideas, and presents the language, " Have ye not read in the book of Moses, in (the place concerning) the Bush, how God spake unto him, saying, I am the God of Abraham ? " etc. It is not necessary to our purpose here to vindicate our Lord from the charge of using " Rabbinical dialectic " and illogical argu- mentation. God had spoken thus to Moses (Exo- dus iii. 6), and bade him speak the same things to the people (Exodus iii. 15). Luke shows that our DIRECT PROOFS OF INSPIRATION. 171 Lord emphasized the fact of its coming through Moses, — " Even Moses showed." Our Lord au- thoritatively expounds the passage in a deeper sense than the obvious one, and shows that " the Eternal would not make and avow such a covenant, save with those whose existence is permanent." (Broadus on Matthew xxii. 31.) That frequently quoted passage (Isaiah vi. 10), in reference to the fat heart, and heavy ears, and closed eyes of the people, is referred to by the Apos- tle Paul (Acts xxviii. 25) : " Well spake the Holy Spirit by Isaiah the prophet unto your fathers," etc. ; while John (xii. 39-41) declares, " Isaiah said again," and, " These things said Isaiah, because he saw his glory." The Apostle Peter in like manner says, " It was needful that the Scripture should be fulfilled, which the Holy Spirit spake before by the mouth of David concerning Judas" (Acts i. 16); thus combining both ideas in the one phrase. (See Acts iv. 25, &c.) So too Matthew (i. 22, ii. 15) employs, in quot- ing, the expression " spoken by the Lord, through the prophet " (Rev. Version) ; not " of the Lord by the prophet," as the Common Version translates, which is now ambiguous, being conformed in its use of the prepositions to antique rather than to modern English ; though it was unquestionably in- tended to convey precisely what we understand it to mean, namely, that the speaking was primarily and fundamentally the Lord's, and tliat the utter- 172 BIBLE DOCTRINE OF INSPIRATION. ance of .this divine message was through the prophet speaking for him. No line of discrimination is to be drawn between the human and the divine portions of Scripture. In the Epistle to the Hebrews, not only portions from the express words of Jehovah as recorded in the Old Testament are quoted with the expressions, " God saith," " the Holy Spirit saith," " the Holy Spirit also is a witness to us," but even the words of Jeremiah and David. Each of the three great divisions of the Scriptures (the Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms) is thus referred to.^ (Hebrews iii. 7 ; ix. 8 ; x. 15.) Turning to the New Testament Apostles and prophets, in their inspired testimony, it is apparent that their human characteristics and circumstances are intended to be employed as natural means of enforcing their witness and giving it the utmost credibility. The fact of their being personal eye- witnesses is again and again insisted on. Yet this human personality of theirs is not in the slightest 1 In this remarkable epistle, God, or the Holy Ghost, is continu- ally named as the speaker in the passages quoted from the Old Testament; and this not merely in those of which it is said in the context of the Old Testament Scriptures, "God said," but also in those in which some human being speaks, e. g. David, as composer of a Psalm. In this the view of the author clearly expresses itself as to the Old Testament and its writers. He regarded God as the Principle that lived, and wrought, and spoke in them all by his Holy Spirit; and accordingly Holy Scripture was to him a pure work of God, although announced to the world by man. — Olshausen, Die Echtheit des N. T., p. 170. DIRECT PROOFS OF INSPIRATION. 173 degree incompatible with their utterance being at the same time the message of God. And the com- bhiation of the two testimonies is expressly brought to view in such passages as John xv. 26, 27, " When the Comforter is come ... he shall bear witness of me ; and ye also bear witness, because ye have been with me from the beginning." Luke xxiv. 48, 49, " Ye are witnesses of these things. And behold I send forth the promise of my Father (the Spirit) upon you ; but tarry ye in the city, until ye be clothed with power from on high." And among the very last words spoken to them by our Lord on Olivet, just before he ascended, he said, " Ye shall receive power, when the Holy Spirit is come upon you ; and ye shall be my wit- nesses . . . unto the uttermost parts of the earth," (Acts i. 8.) Accordingly, the Apostles, in the presence of the Council, declare : " And we are witnesses of these things ; and so is the Holy Spirit, whom God hath given to them that obey him." (Acts v. 32.) And, when assembled for consultation at Jerusalem, on the subject of circumcision, they give their decisions under the form, " It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us " (Acts xv. 28) ; which style, ob- serves the judicious Hooker, " they did not use as matching themselves in power with the Holy Ghost, but as testifying the Holy Ghost to be the Author, and themselves but only utterers of that decree." (Ecclesiastical Polity, Book III. c. 10.) 174 BIBLE DOCTRINE OF INSPIRATION. The doctrine indicated in these passages is pre- cisely what we have been endeavoring to advocate, and to show to be the Scriptural doctrine of Inspi- ration. If we have succeeded in proving this, our end has been attained. Those for whose special benefit this discussion has been designed will readily admit that whatever representation the Scriptures make on the subject is the true one. In conclusion, we have to observe that the force and effect of the various arguments exhibited are not to be obtained by considering each apart, but by combining them, and taking the whole result. Each one does not bear alone the whole weight of the conclusion. As Bishop Butler has well said of the evidence for Christianity, so the evidence for Inspiration combines many things " of great variety and compass, . . . making up, all of them together, one argument ; the conviction arising from which kind of proof may be compared to what they call the effect in architecture or other w^orks of art, a result from a great number of things so and so disposed, and taken into one view." (Analogy, Part II. c. 7.) It has been shown that there is a reasonable pre- sumption that God in giving a revelation, as it is agreed He has done, would inspire it ; that the proper source and kind of evidence to prove that He has actually inspired the Bible is in its own statements and phenomena ; that this conclusion is DIRECT PROOFS OF INSPIRATION. 175 established, — (1) By the general manner of quot- ing Scripture in Scripture ; (2) by passages which afiirm or imply the inspiration of the Scriptures as a whole ; (3) by declarations afiirming the inspira- tion of particular persons or passages ; (4) by promises of inspiration to the sacred writers ; (5) by assertions of inspiration by the sacred writers ; (6) by passages in which that union of tlie human and the divine authorship which we have seen to be implied, is ex])ressly recognized. Thus the Bible statements on the subject have been considered, in general and in detail, as classified and part by j)art. It remains only to submit our minds frankly and lovingly to the combined influence of all God's ivords about his Word, and to join with peaceful confidence in the prayer and the assurance of our Lord Jesus, — " Sanctify them in the truth : Thy Word is Truth." part CljiiU OBJECTIONS CONSIDERED. 12 part Cljirtr. OBJECTIONS CONSIDERED. IT remains only that we give a brief, but full and frank consideration of the principal objec- tions that have been urged against the Doctrine of Plenary Inspiration, which we have endeavored to expound and establish. CHAPTER I. OBJECTIONS FROM SCRIPTURE, CERTAIN passages of Scripture are urged, in which it is alleged that some of the sacred writers disclaim inspiration, at least in the cases mentioned ; and from this it is attempted to infer, somewhat illogically, that the disclaimer applies equally to all that is contained in the Bible, even if written by entirely different men. Let us can- didly examine these passages, and see what they imply. Luke i. 3. " It seemed good to me also, having traced the course of all things accurately from the first, to write unto thee in order," etc. 180 BIBLE DOCTRINE OF INSPIRATION. To some this claim of careful and accurate in- quiry seems to conflict with the idea of assistance or direction from a supernatural source. They assume apparently that there could be no inspira- tion except as to the record of such things as were derived exclusively from revelation. But this is an unwarranted assumption. And certainly that is not the view of inspiration for which we contend. If Luke had denied that there was any other source of information than these inquiries of his, or that he had any aid from above in the arrange- ment of the materials, however gathered, this ob- jection might have some validity as against the Revelation or Inspiration of the two historical books of his composition ; though even then it would be necessary to show that this denial affected the other books of the Bible. But there is no posi- tive disclaimer of that sort, nor even any implied denial here. While asserting this diligent search and comparison of information, he nowhere distin- guishes between the authority of the things so de- rived, and the facts concerning which he makes no reference to such sources. The case might be illustrated by supposing that Peter, while claiming to have been an eyewitness of the Redeemer's transfigured majesty, and there- fore worthy to be believed in reference to that event on the ground of his personal testimony, had de- nied, instead of affirming, that on other subjects he " preached the Gospel with the Holy Ghost sent OBJECTIONS FROM SCRIPTURE. 181 down from heaven." If he had denied it, there would have been evidence of the absence of divine agency or authority. But as he makes no such distinction between the different parts of his teach- ing, and no disclaimer of inspiration as to any part, this reference to his personal observation and expe- rience on a particular point does not invalidate his general authority. Neither does Luke's allusion to his diligent investigations invalidate his authority. He was as really controlled in the record of what he knew natui'ally by personal observation, and of what he learned by inquiry and diligent research, as in the communication of what he received by direct revelation. And this control is what we mean by inspiration. The question is a different one, when it is asked on what ground Luke's writings are accepted as inspired, when he was not an Apostle. Tliat ques- tion belongs to the subject of the Canon, and does not properly come up here. But it may be remarked that the general recognition of his Gospel and of the Acts by the churches during the lifetime of the Apostles, and his intimate association with Paul, lead to the inference that he was to be classed among the prophets or apostolic men to whom in- spiration was granted. The same thing substan- tially may be said in regard to the Gospel according to Mark, who was similarly associated with Peter. 1 Corinthians vii. 6-25. In this passage the Apostle gives directions concerning sundry practical 182 BIBLE DOCTRINE OF INSPIRATION. questions of difficulty, as to marriage, separation of married people, etc., about which the Corinthians had written to him. In reference to the propriety of marriage in gen- eral for most people, he says, ver. 6, " I speak this by permission " (Revised Version and Bible Union Version, hy ivaij of permission'), "and not of com- mandment," i. e. in the way of an indulgence or allowance to you, not as a commandment which I enjoin. There is no reference, as some (judging only from our English version) have imagined, to the difference in the authority by which he speaks in the different cases, as if the origin or nature of that authority were in question. Even if the mean- ing were, that in this case he was only permitted, not commanded, by the Spirit to utter what he did, the objection would have no weight against the doctrine of Inspiration ; because, if this teaching was permitted by the Spirit, it could not be opposed to the truth, and to the will of God as expressed in his other teachings. But both the language itself, when properly translated so as to be free from am- biguity, and tlie connection of the argument, make it clear that the contrast intended is not between things which Paul is permitted and other things which he is commanded to speak, but between things which Paul in his Apostolic character per- mits or allows, but does not command, and other things which he commands. To marry is not wrong, nor to abstain from marriage. " Marry, if OBJECTIONS FROM SCRIPTURE. 183 you think best ; I speak this by way of permission, not as a commandment." We may compare with this a corresponding ex- pression in 2 Corinthians viii. 8, 10. Addressing the Corinthians, and commending to their imita- tion the great liberality of the churches of Macedo- nia, he says, " I speak not by commandment " (Rev. Ver. hy way of eo7n7nandment), i. e. not as giving a command, " but I give my advice " (Rev. Yqv. judgment'), "for this is expedient for you." So far the matter is really quite plain, and all respectable commentators agree as to the meaning. The real difficulty, or the point on wliich the ob- jection is based, begins in the tenth verse of the passage in 1 Corinthians vii. 10-25. In ver. 10, the Apostle says, " I command" (Rev. Ver. give charge), ^^ yet not I, but the Lord": in ver. 12, "to the rest speak" (Rev. Ver. say) "I, not the Lord": in ver. 25, "Concerning virgins I have no commandment of the Lord ; yet I give my judgment." It is alleged that there is here a contrast be- tween different portions of what he speaks, as being part of them of divine origin and authority, and part his own opinion, human, fallible, and therefore uncertain ; part God's commandment, and part man's own suggestion merely. This is evidently not the contrast intended. It is not a distinction between what is authoritative and what is not so, but between that which he 184 BIBLE DOCTRINE OF INSPIRATION. speaks simply reiterating the express words of the Lord Jesus, personally uttered, and that which he speaks by inspiration, not having any words of Jcsiis to quote. Both are authoritative, both di- vine ; but the first coming from Christ primarily, and the other coming in the first instance to Paul himself, and through him to the Corinthian church.i It need scarcely be remarked that " the Lord," ^ Dr. Ladd, while admitting clearly that " the distinction here called for is not that between the words of an Apostle when in- sjtired, and the words of the same Apostle when not inspired," alleges that the teachings of Jesus personally are infallible and permanent, but that the "other contents of truth" are "mixed with possible error, since they came by remoter inferences from the truth of Christ, and were given in the trustworthy yet fallible judgments of the Apostles." Accordingly, he thinks that, besides the " unerpiivocal declarations of the mind of Christ," and "cer- tain wise teachings of an inspired Apostle, the acceptance of which was ethically best for those to whom he wrote," there are here "certain erroneous opinions, the rejection of the practical applica- tion of which was best for the same persons. Among these last may we class the opinions and preferences into which the Apostle was led by his erroneous impression as to the nearness of the Sec- ond Coming." Doctrine of Sacred Scripture, I. 203, 205. We venture humbly, notwithstanding, to agree with Paul's opin- ions and advice, so guardedly and yet frankly expressed, as "good by reason of the (then) present distress " ( ver. 26) ; and also to ques- tion whether he was in any error as to the immediate nearness of the Second Coming. He did not know when it would be. Nei- ther did the other Apostles (Acts 1. 7 ; 1 Thessalonians v. 1, 2). Neither did our Lord during his earthly sojourn (Mark xiii. 32). But they all taught the duty of living with constant reference to it, and in a state of cheerful expectancy of it (Matthew xxiv. 42 ; 1 Co- rinthians i. 7 ; Titus ii. 13 ; 2 Peter iii. 12). And Paul earnestly admonished his Thessalonian brethren against imagining that "the day of the Lord was at hand " (2 Thessalonians ii. 1-3). OBJECTIONS FROM SCRIPTURE. 185 in Acts and the Epistles, is the standing and ha- bitual designation for the Lord Jesus personally. This is well understood and admitted by all careful students of the New Testament. There are three questions here as to the law of marriage, which naturally arose in the early Chris- tian churches, in their hand to hand conflict with heathenism. These questions pertained, — (1) to the married in general (ver. 10) ; (2) to the special cases of mixed marriages, where one party was a believer and the other not (ver. 12) ; and (3) to the unmarried (ver. 25). As to the first, the Lord Jesus had personally laid down the law. (See Mark X. 2-12.) From that there was no appeal, and to that nothing could be added.^ To those already married Paul says, " I command, yet not I, but the Lord." He simply repeats and enjoins what Jesus the Lord had commanded with his own lips. As to the other two cases, Christ had given no specific commandment. These questions had scarcely arisen during his brief personal ministry. So the Apostle proceeds to give his own decision ^ On 1 Corinthians vii. 10, De Wette observes : " Hitherto the Apostle has spoken from his own judgment illuminated by the Holy Ghost (ver. 40) ; so also in what follows (ver. 12, 25, 40) ; but here (ver. 10) he appeals to an expression of the Lord (Mark x. 12)." And Meyer says : "The Apostle was conscious that his individual- ity was under the influence of the Holy Ghost (ver. 40). He there- fore distinguishes, here and in verses 12 and 25, not between his own and insjured commands, but between those which proceeded from his own inspired subjectivity, and those which Christ himself maintained by his objective word." 186 BIBLE DOCTRINE OF INSPIRATION. as to mixed marriages. And this he clearly means to be authoritative, for he adds : " So ordain I in all the churches" (ver. 17). It is not a mere in- dividual opinion, thrown out casually, uncertain, local and temporary in its application. In the Old Testament dispensation a somewhat different law had prevailed as to mixed marriages. According to the Mosaic Law, such a union was not to be formed at all between Israelites and Gentiles, be- tween Jehovah's worshippers and idolaters. And when formed, under the peculiar circumstances prevailing, for example, after the exile, such hea- then or foreign wives were to be resolutely and invariably put away. This was done even in cases which seemed to involve great severity and dis- tress. See Ezra x. 2-19; Nehemiah xiii. 23-27. But Paul enjoins that now the believing or Chris- tian party shall not abandon the other, a rule which needed direct, original, divine authority to establish and enforce it, as he does " in all the churches." As to virgins, the unmarried, he has no com- mandment of the Lord, that is, no express word of Jesus to quote, but he proceeds to give advice suited to the peculiar circumstances, — giving sug- gestions, but laying down no universal rule. He closes this discussion (ver. 40) by saying, " I think also that I " (Rev. Ver. I think that I also) " have the Spirit of God." There are some who regard this passage as expressing Paul's doubt of his own OBJECTIONS FROM SCRIPTURE. 187 inspiration. Because Paul says he thought he had the Spirit of God, they are quite sure that he had not. They represent it as implying uncertainty in his own mind as to his divine authorization, or as to his possessing the Spirit. This is certainly not his meaning. So far from that, in this same epistle, having referred to the existence of miraculous gifts in the church, one of which was the discerning of spirits, he says, " If any man think himself to be a prophet or spiritual, let him acknowledge that the things that I ivrite unto you are the commandments of the Lord." 1 Corinthians xiv. 37. Romans vi. 18, 19. " I speak after the manner of men." What docs the Apostle mean by this ? He has just spoken of the believer as the slave of righteousness. He adds that this is but a human illustration, drawn from human affairs, and must not be misapplied. The expression " slave " must not be strained to imply severity, compulsion, re- luctance, injustice. It only conveys the idea of the relation of entire ownership and consecration, in which the Christian delights to stand towards holi- ness and God. " I have used an illustration," he would say, " drawn from human relations, on ac- count of the intellectual infirmity of your flesh, because you need such figures to set the truth viv- idly before you." Thus he is speaking after the manner of men, but with no renunciation of the divine authority with which he speaks. 2 Corinthians xi. 17. " That which I speak, I 188 BIBLE DOCTRINE OF INSPIRATION. speak not after the Lord, but as in foolishness." Does he mean that he is speaking nonsense, that he is deliberately and purposely making himself a fool ? Certainly not. Just before he had said, " I say again. Let no man think me foolish ; but if ye do, yet as foolish receive me, that I also may glory a little." It is the outgushing of his ardent, affectionate heart, grieved that he should be mis- judged and mistreated by those for whom he had toiled so devotedly, yet only pouriug forth more freely out of tliat pierced and wounded heart the zealous desires he had ever felt for their welfare. " Grant that I am a fool, put me in the position of a fool, if you will ; it has been for your sake that I have acted thus, and even if counted by you as foolish, I deserve your sympathy and consideration." The language is plainly ironical, assuming, for the sake of argument, that what some of them are charging him with is correct, and showing tliat even on that ground he could boast, if so inclined, of more abundant labors and sacrifices for them and for the Gospel. But it is said, he alleges that he speaks not only " as in foolishness," but " not after the Lord " ; and that this must mean that he is at least then not under the influence of inspiration. If this in- terpretation be correct, and if he here disclaims it in regard to this apparent self-boasting to which he is compelled by the unworthy and ungrateful OBJECTIONS FROM SCRIPTURE. 189 depreciation of his labors among the Corinthians, would not the express exception in this case only confirm more incontestably the general claim that elsewhere he is speaking the mind of the Lord ? But it is admitted, even by those (as Meyer and Alford) who regard Paul as in this passage denying " the theopneustic character of the utterance in the stricter sense," that this is done " without his lay- ing aside the consciousness of the Spirit's guidance? under which he, for his purpose, allows the human emotion temporarily to speak." Meyer adds, that " Bengel aptly says : But even this passage, and the exception peculiar to this passage, he so wrote according to a rule of divine propriety, being in- structed by the Lord." Hodge, on the other hand however, thinks as we do that, even in this very passage, " Such an utter- ance is not inconsistent with the Apostle's claim to inspiration. For the simple end of inspiration is to secure infallibility in the communication of truth. It does not sanctify, nor does it preclude the natural play of the intellect or of the feelings. Even if therefore this conduct of Paul was due to human weakness, that would not prove that he was not under the inspiration of God. But such an assumption is needless. There was nothing wrong in his self-laudation. He never appears more truly humble than when these references to his labors and sufferings were wrung from him, filling him with a feeling of self-contempt. All that the 190 BIBLE DOCTRINE OF INSPIRATION. expression implies is, that self-praise, in itself con- sidered, is not the work of a Christian ; it is not the work to which the Spirit of Christ impels a believer. But when it is necessary to the vindica- tion of truth or the honor of religion, it becomes a duty." (Hodge in loco.} Must we not accept the testimony of the Apostle, that even in this glorying " the truth of Christ is in " him (vcr. 10), and that his object in what ex- poses him to misconstruction is a pure and noble one, so that he can appeal confidently to the divine judgment in the matter, — " God knoweth" (ver. 11) ? 2 Corinthians xii. 2, 3. " Whether in the body, or out of the body, I cannot tell ; God knoweth " ; literally (as in Rev. Ver.), " whether in the body, I know not ; or whether out of the body, I know not ; God knoweth," This passage is adduced to show that there were some things which Paul admits he did not know ; and from this confessed limitation of his knowledge it is inferred that he cannot have been inspired. But this inference would only be just on the ground that inspiration implied omniscience, which no one attempts to claim. That there were some things which God knew, and which Paul did not, does not invalidate his real inspiration. Does it ? If it did, would any real inspiration be possible or conceivable in any man ? Is it not obvious that the objection is grounded on such a notion of inspira- OBJECTIONS FROM SCRIPTURE. 191 tion as is utterly impracticable, and such as no intelligent advocate of inspiration holds ? 1 Corinthians i. 16. " I know not whether T bap- tized any other." A somewhat similar argument is based on this passage as upon the one last men- tioned. It is said : Here is a matter on which Paul's mind is in doubt as to a matter of fact. He remembers distinctly that he baptized Crispus and Gaius, and the household of Stephanas, in whose providential and helpful presence he is rejoicing (xvi. 7). He does not remember whether he bap- tized any other. His memory is at fault. Hence, says Alford, " the last clause is important as against those who maintain the absolute omniscience of the inspired writers on every topic which they handle.''^ But we do not allege their omniscience on every subject, or even on any subject ; only that all that they say is accurate, and is uttered under divine di- rection and authority. As Hodge says, " We learn that inspiration was an influence which rendered its recipients infallible, but it did not render them omniscient. They were preserved from asserting error, but they were not enabled either to know or to remember all thino-s." CHAPTER II. OBJECTION FROM TPIE EXISTENCE OF DIFFICULTIES. THE general fact of tlie existence of Difficulties and Obscurities in the Bible is urged as a proof that it cannot be inspired. It is assumed by some that, if it were inspired, there would be none ; that everything coming from God must necessa- rily be perfect, in the sense of being free from all deficiency, and therefore from all obscurity as well as liability to error. We answer, that this is an unwarranted assum|> tion. On the contrary, it might be expected tliat there would be difficulties in the Bible, notwith- standing it is inspired; and this is reasonably inferrible, — a. From the nature of human language, which is an incomplete medium for the expression of thought, ambiguous often, changeable in the lapse of time, and always liable to be misinterpreted. b. From the nature of the mind, which is limited in its capacities, defective in the power of steady attention, frequently partial and one-sided in its investigations even when thoroughly sincere, and EXISTENCE OF DIFFICULTIES. 193 often prejudiced unconsciously. Some obscurities arise from the eye that sees, rather than from the nature of the object seen. Better eyesight would lay many a ghost, and clearer minds would remove many difficulties. c. From the nature of the truths revealed. " A Bible without difficulties would be a firmament without stars." Such a one would have to omit many subjects on which the Bible instructs and cheers man, and could not touch some of the sub- limest truths that the Bible actually presents. Some of these things are abstruse and elevated, some apparently conflicting, but having their con- nections and harmonious relations established, where they meet up yonder in a sphere higher than human observation can now reach. d. From the nature of God himself, who from his infinity cannot be thoroughly comprehended by any finite intelligence. All that we are competent to understand of him is just what he has revealed, — parts of his ways. The man who thinks he abso- lutely comprehends anything infinite only shows the shallowness of his comprehension. e. From the analogy of all God^s communications to man in nature. The obscurities in his word and those in his works correspond. The same characteristics are found in both revelations, — in the Bible and in the universe. The grand work of Bp. Butler, his " Analogy of Natural and Revealed Religion," is chiefly devoted to exhibiting this fact, 13 194 BIBLE DOCTRINE OF INSPIRATION. and specially shows that like obscurities are to be expected, and are found in each. That book has been before the world of thinkers for several gener- ations. It has not been answered or set aside, and it is safe to say it never will be. f. From the corruption of mankind, by which the understanding has been darkened, and rendered averse to truths that would be amply clear and satisfactory to a pure soul. CHAPTER III. OBJECTIONS FROM ALLEGED DISCREPANCIES OR MISTAKES. THE subject is a very large one, and a full dis- cussion of it would take one over almost every part of the Bible, and be obviously inconsist- ent with the limits of a volume like this. 1. Some general suggestions in regard to these alleged mistakes, as a mass, may be profitably made ; as, for example : — a. Many of these are founded on misinterpreta- tion of Scripture. It is said that the New Testa- ment writers misunderstood and misapplied tlie Old Testament ; were controlled by the false preju- dices of their age ; were guilty of illogical argu- ment. But these allegations cannot be sustained by fair exegesis. Particular expressions have been interpreted so as to imply some scientific or historic error. Thus the word firmament in Genesis has been supposed to convey the idea common in an- cient physical science, that the starry universe was fixed in a firm, spherical covering revolving round the earth. That idea is naturally suggested by the Latin firmamentum, and by the Greek stereoma, of 106 BIBLE DOCTRINE OF INSPIRATION. which it was a translation, but it is entirely absent from the original Hebrew word raqia^ which means simply something spread out or expanded, an ex- panse. So the expressions as to the sun's rising (literally breaking fortli) and setting (jcfoing in) are no difficulty to the candid reader, being interpreted phenomenally, just as are similar phrases in use every day among ourselves. b. Many objections rest on misapprehension of the facts of history. Many of these have been al- ready satisfactorily cleared up, and we are thus led to expect the solution of any that remain ob- scure. Research has shown, in numerous instances, that it was the objectors who were mistaken, and not the sacred writers. It used to be alleged, for example, that Daniel was certainly in error in representing Belshazzar as ruler in Babylon, and slain when it was taken ; whereas profane histo- rians give the name of Nabonidus as the last king, and affirm that he was not in Babylon, but at Bor- sippa, where he surrendered to Cyrus, and was con- tinued in authority as a subordinate ruler. The difficulty seemed formidable, until recent discov- eries revealed the name Bil-shar-uzur on a brick of the period, and indicated that he was the son of the reigning monarch. He may then be fairly supposed to have been joined with him in dominion, and left in charge of the city of Babylon. This explains what had formerly been another puzzle, namely, that, in promising to exalt Daniel to the highest ALLEGED DISCREPANCIES OR MISTAKES. 197 dignity, lie proposed to make liim third ruler in the kingdom. He himself was only the second ruler. In like manner, Luke was long charged with error as to Cyrenius being governor of Syria at the time of the enrolment for taxation, inasmuch as Cyrenius was known to have been governor ten years later. It now appears from the researches of Zumpt that he was twice governor of Syria, and it seems reasonable to suppose that that earlier period was the one referred to by Luke. c. Many of the objections are based manifestly and confessedly upon our ignorance. The sacred writer states a portion of the facts ; another writer, sacred or profane, presents another portion. The intervening or connecting links are not given by either, but have to be conjectured or left unsup- plied. If we knew more, the difficulty would be diminished, or might disappear altogether. This is obviously the case in all historical accounts. It is always unsafe and unfair to say that a thing can- not be, merely because we do not understand Iwiv it was. Every juggler's exhibition affords numer- ous instances of apparent incompatibles, where it only needs the knowledge of some slight unobserved circumstance to explain the mystery. The two accounts of Balaam (Numbers xxii. to xxiv. and xxxi. 8-16) are different, but not incom- patible, presenting the same man in different peri- ods of his history, under different circumstances : at first a backslider in heart, but still clinging with 198 BIBLE DOCTRINE OF INSPIRATION. one hand to God, while grasping with the otlier after the rewards of his unhallowed greed and am- bition ; afterwards having thrown off all restraints, and doing evil with both hands earnestly. Why must this be rejected, on purely internal grounds, as not " a trustworthy history of facts" ? The in- tervening fact, fairly supposable, if not inferrible from the narrative, is that God deserted the prophet who, though he spoke the truth, loved a lie, and left him to his miserable and corrupt self. It is painfully common to find some commenta- tors making out of every difference of view or statement a contradiction, when nothing of the sort is fairly implied. Mark and Luke give the details as to the paralytic let down before Christ through the roof ; Matthew simply describes his being brought ; therefore even Weiss represents that he conflicts with Mark. Matthew mentions two demoniacs, Mark only the more prominent and remarkable one. If there were two, there was one. Where is the contradiction ? Matthew and Mark name Thaddeus as one of the Twelve ; Luke calls him Judas, and says that he is the brother of James, to distinguish him from Judas Iscariot. Is this any discrepancy ? He had two names, as was so common in those days. He was Judas Thaddeus, Judas the beloved. And Lebbeus, which some manuscripts read, is probably only another endearing epithet, which Jerome says meant corcu- lum, or darling. A hundred instances of this sort might be given. ALLEGED DISCREPANCIES OR MISTAKES. 199 d. Some alleged discrepancies arise from the different objects had in view by the different nar- rators, or from the different circle of readers or hearers addressed. The four Gospels are not only thus a four-sided view of our Lord's history from as many different directions, but are adapted to as many different classes, as may be seen in all recent comparative studies of the Evangelists. This is obvious not only in the selection of the incidents narrated, and in the special details given, but in the arrangement of the materials. It is evident that Matthew, for instance, is guided, not by a chronological, but by a topical principle in the order he adopts, grouping together things of simi- lar nature, or incidents that naturally suggested each other. " That the Evangelist's mind should thus have worked according to the natural laws of suggestion, is altogether compatible with the in- spiration of his narrative ; for every part of the Bible bears the impress of human thinking, only preserved by the Spirit from error and guided into all truth, so that the inspired writer says precisely what God would have him say." (Broadus on Matthew ix. 2-34.) An interesting example of the natural and legit- imate difference in the narrative, produced by dif- ferent circumstances and audiences, may be found in the three accounts of the conversion of Paul, as given by Luke, in tlie course of his history (Acts ix. 1-18), by Paul himself tp the Jews at Jerusa- 200 BIBLE DOCTRINE OF INSPIRATION. lem (Acts xxii. 1-21), and again by Paul to Festus and Agrippa (Acts xxvi. 9-23). The variations cannot bo urged as discrepancies tliat mark error or falsehood, because they all occur in the same brief book ; and he would have been a heedless and unskilful falsifier indeed who in forging a story would have failed to avoid, or smooth away and remove, such obvious grounds of objection. But when the three accounts are carefully compared, when the points omitted at this time and inserted at the other are considered, the verisimilitude of the whole is decidedly confirmed. Compare any of the recent commentaries on Acts. And on this general subject, see Westcott's " Introduction to the Study of the Gospels," Da Costa's " Four Wit- nesses," and Gregory's " Why Four Gospels ?" e. Some apparent discrepancies arise from count- ing years from different eras or starting points ; from the use of round numbers or approximate numbers ; from the counting of parts of years or days as years or days, etc. Such methods of com- putation are in accordance with recognized custom in all speech, are common, legitimate, necessary. The laborious arithmetical criticism of Bishop Co- lenso on the Pentateuch, though expanded over seven volumes to manufacture and magnify the mistakes of Moses, derives its plausibility mainly from ignoring these obvious principles. /. Some disagreements and difficulties arise ap- parently from errors in the transcription of our ALLEGED DISCREPANCIES OR MISTAKES. 201 present copies, notwithstanding all the care that has been taken, and the general accuracy with which the sacred books have been preserved. This is probably the explanation of such cases as the fifty thousand and seventy men dying at the small village of Bcthshemesh (1 Samuel vi. 19), where the fifty thousand are omitted by Josephus, and by Thenius, Reinke, Wellhausen, and Keil ; and the statements of Stephen as to the places of burial of the patriarchs (Acts vii. 16). So with many of the discrepancies between Kings and Chronicles as to the years of the kings of Judah and Israel, and similar matters. 2. The most satisfactory and useful method of answering this class of objections, if we had time to go into detail, would of course be to take up the particular cases of alleged discrepancy ; or, if not all, at least those among them that seem strongest or most important. Thus we might subject the matter to a practical test. If we examine, for in- stance, the different accounts as to the genealogy , of our Lord, the inscription on the cross, or tlie i words spoken at the baptism of Jesus, it is readily ( seen that these present no insuperable obstacle to ( our accepting the plain testimony of the Scripture as to the authority of the inspired writers. Yet they certainly should be allowed, as part of the phenomena of Scripture, to aid in shaping our doc- trine as to the nature of the record thus inspired, and to lead us to recognize it as thoroughly human 202 BIBLE DOCTKINE OF INSPIRATION. ' and individual, at the same time that it is sent forth with divine authority. It is believed that the failure to do this by some advocates of inspiration, in their arguments and statements, is what has led many devout and earnest students to array them- selves against the commonly received, but sometimes unfortunately presented, doctrine of Inspiration. It is evident that the testimony of the Evan- gelists, for instance, should be compared and put together on the same legal principles as the testi- mony of the several witnesses before a court of jus- tice, each stating the facts from his point of view, each modifying, enlarging, or supplementing the impression derived from the account of the other, so that the result of the whole testimony is pre- sented. Thus the celebrated jurist. Judge Green- leaf, has reviewed on legal grounds the witness of the four Evangelists in his well known work. Professor George P. Fisher, in his " Beginnings of Christianity" (pp. 406-412), has selected and briefly discussed five out of the whole mass of alleged contradictions in the Gospels, as those most apparently insuperable on the ordinarily received view. These are the Sermon on the Mount, as given in Matthew and Luke ; the Healing of the Centurion's Servant ; Peter's Denials ; the Healing of the Blind Man at Jericho ; and the Time of the Last Supper, in John and the Synoptics. These particular cases have been ably discussed by President Bartlett in the Princeton Review ALLEGED DISCREPANCIES OR MISTAKES. 203 for January, 1880. An elaborate and valuable work by Rev. J. W. Haley, on " The Alleged Dis- crepancies of the Bible," has been published by Draper of Andover. It gives, in the First Part, an excellent and instructive chapter on the Origin of the Discrepancies, and then treats of their Design and Results. In the Second Part, he discusses them in detail, as doctrinal, ethical, and historical discrepancies. While in the numerous and varied cases mentioned we may not always prefer the ex- planation to which lie seems inclined, (and there is great room for difference of opinion in such mat- ters,) the work deserves earnest commendation and study for its laborious research, its condensation of results, its candor and courtesy, as well as its de- cided ability. We cannot now go into the details. They are discussed, not only in the works mentioned, but in any good commentary. It is sufficient here to say that there is no case that does not seem to us to admit of a reasonable explanation, consistent with true inspiration. 3. After one has considered and explained the particular discrepancies alleged as most forcible or troublesome, we are sometimes met by an inquiry like this : " I grant that this and that case admits of a fair, or at least a probable explanation. That would not be sufficient to hinder me from believing in the inspiration of the Scripture. But suppose we should find a case of insuperable discrepancy, 204 BIBLE DOCTRINE OF INSPIRATION. or discover by some Assyrian or Egyptian monu- ment a clear historical error in the Bible, what would become of your doctrine of Inspii'ation ? " Our answer is, We propose to wait till such a case arises, before we shape our doctrine, not from the facts and teachings of God's word, but to meet an imaginary contingency which may never arise. And the fact that such discrepancies and errors have been so often and so confidently alleged, and one after another have been found to admit of a reasonable explanation, is a ground of confidence that in the future it will be as in the past. We may be pardoned for referriug, by way of illustration, to a story which is told of a poor colored woman, whose Christian faith was much opposed and ridiculed by an ingenious and free- thinking, but kind master. Nothing that he could say was able to shake her confidence in God. Objections melted away before her honest and fer- vent personal experience of grace. Trials and afflictions but cleared her vision for the things unseen. " Well, Aunt Sally," said he, " I see that none of these things move you ; but suppose that something was to happen that showed you plainly that God did not care for you or your prayers, what would you do then?" — "Now," replied she, " dem supposes^ dey does a heap o' mischief. I ain't got nothin' to do wid dem. I 'm just livin' by de facks." We shall do best to go by the facts. CHAPTER IV. OBJECTIONS ON MORAL GROUNDS. ACTIONS deemed censurable, or laws and prin- ciples of action regarded as immoral, are found in Scripture : therefore it is argued that it cannot be inspired. Most of these points of objec- tion are really urged, as by Tom Paine and Inger- soll, against accepting the Scripture as from God in any sense at all. It is thought, by some defenders of the Bible, that the defence is made easier and more impregnable by adopting a view of Inspira- tion, which gives up these to the assaults of the enemy, as only belonging to the human element, for which the divine is not responsible. These things are thrown overboai'd, as tubs to the whale, while the ship, lightened of them, pursues its course unimpeded. A wiser course, it seems to us, is to meet the difficulties squarely. 1. The objections on moral grounds to the ac- tions narrated may be classified under four differ- ent heads. It may be doubtful, sometimes, to which class a particular transaction should be referred, — but the general propriety of the distinc- tion proposed is clear. 206 BIBLE DOCTRINE OF INSPIRATION. a. Many acts are recorded without specific cen- sure that are certainly not approved. Their occur- rence in the narrative gives ho moral sanction to them, either expressed or implied. Every one con- cedes that in most cases this is so. It is claimed, however, that in certain objectionable acts, such a sanction is implied, as in the cases of Jephthah's daughter, the killing of Sisera, and Rahab's false- hood. We think that in these there is no divine sanction of the conduct referred to. Others prefer to admit the commendation, and to justify the ac- tions. Opinions may differ, as to that. Practi- cally, however, the difficulty remains substantially the same, whatever view of Inspiration we adopt. b. Some of the actions objected to are not really censurable, when properly examined. The slaying of Agag, the Amalekite king, by Samuel (1 Samuel XV. 33), the " spoiling " of the Egyptians by the Israelites on their departure (Exodus xii. 35, 36), the alleged falsehood of Elisha to the Syrian army that came to take him (2 Kings vi. 19), may be most probably regarded as instances of this sort. Agag deserved death for his manifold slaughters and rapines, and had been divinely condemned. Samuel was but the executioner of a penalty sanc- tioned at once by human and by divine law in such a case. As to the " spoiling of the Egyptians," there is no countenance in the original to the idea of borrowing and lending unfortunately and erro- neously suggested by our common translation. OBJECTIONS ON MORAL GROUNDS. 207 The Tsraelities ashed (Rev. Version), and the Egyptians gladly gave, to get rid of these terrible people, whatever they asked. There is no implica- tion of any promise or obligation to return the things given, no fraud or deceit in the case. Elisha's conduct might be regarded as among the stratagems allowable in war ; but aside from that, he did lead them to the man whom they sought, as he said he would ; and he dismissed them without harm. c. Some actions, which would now and ordinarily be wrong, were right under the peculiar circum- stances of the case, or were made right by specific divine authority, modifying the general law. In- stances of this kind may be found in the marriage of brothers and sisters in the beginning of the race, the extermination of the Canaanites under Joshua, the imprecations in the Psalms and Prophets by in- spired men, where God's retributive interposition is denounced or implored against foul and per- secuting cruelty. d. There are numerous cases where, though the general character or conduct of persons is ap- proved, no sanction is given to the various errors or the crimes into which they fell. It is sufficient to mention, without further comment, the cases of Noah, Abraham, Jacob, David, Peter. They were good men, — but, as all others on earth, imperfect good men. 2. Besides specific actions like these, in regard 208 BIBLE DOCTRINE OF INSPIRATION. to which the principles of explanation are clear, whatever differences of opinion may exist as to the particular view to be taken in each case, there arc more general moral objections on the ground that morally faulty conceptions, enactments, or institu- tions are inwrought into the Scripture ; that, in certain of the writings (those of Solomon es- pecially) a low moral tone prevails, not religious but purely selfish, prudential, and worldly ; and that in others such fierce, bloody, and cruel ideas are sanctioned, or positively inculcated, as are in- consistent with divine authorship. Special objection is made to the Old Testament teachings with reference to polygamy, divorce, war, and slavery, and to such laws as that of strict retaliation upon a malicious false swearer, death for the idolater or seducer to idolatry, etc. As to the law of retaliation, like for like, it is sufficient to say that it is difficult to sec how a fairer retribution could be assigned, or one more likely to deter from such a crime, than that a ma- licious perjurer, who expected by his false swearing to injure another, should have exactly that same suffering inflicted upon him that he thought to bring on the other. A rigid law strictly enforced is mercy to the innocent, however hard upon the guilty; and is far more beneficial to those who might otherwise have been criminals, by deterring them from crime, than impunity in wrong-doing would be. OBJECTIONS ON MORAL GROUNDS. 209 In reference to the punishment for idolatry, it is to be remembered that the Jewish state was a the- ocracy ; and that, in a government where God was the King, promoting idolatry was high treason, and fitly to be punished by the highest penalty known to the law. As to polygamy, easy divorce, slavery, and war, they all existed in the state of society into whicli the earliest revelations came. They were modified, controlled, and have been greatly ameliorated by the progressive influence of the Mosaic and the Christian systems. They have not yet been en- tirely abolished. The complaint against the Bible is, that it did not instantaneously and at the outset annihilate evils, already intrenched in such strong- holds of human passion and interest and habit as even the boasted Nineteenth Century cannot utterly demolish. If it be said that any partial correction of evil is compromise and connivance, — that every- thing proceeding from God must be absolutely per- fect, and that everything temporary, transitional, preparatory, must be ascribed to the fallible human instruments, and not to the divine Designer who used them, — we reply that we do not concede these points. God does make millions of incomplete, imperfect things, of all shades and degrees approxi- mating perfection ; He does correct evils progres- sively and gradually ; and it is His wisdom, and not the folly or mistake of the instrument em- ployed, which secures the adaptation of the succes- 14 210 BIBLE DOCTRINE OF INSPIRATION. sive phases and stages of Revelation to the needs of mankind. The skill of an architect may be expended as well upon the temporary scaffolding as the permanent structure, and may be seen as truly in the rough foundation as in the polished column or carved ornaments. The relative imperfection of parts of a progres- sive system may be an element of that real per- fection which consists in its adaptation as a whole to the people and the circumstances for which it was designed, and to the object which it was to accomplish. Taking men as they were, sunk and degraded in ignorance and vice, it was necessary for their deliverance that God should stoop to their need ; should construct a ladder, the lowest rounds of whrch should not be too far above the Slough of Despond in which they were sinking ; should send down a law that would reach them, and lift them up, where they were. Would it have been more divine had it stopped short of them, in order that it might conform to some abstract conception which we may imagine of perfection ? Certainly not. The success of the divine moral government as a unity, and yet a progressive unity, was dependent on such a use of gradual steps and processes. As Dr. Ladd has well said, — " Imperfect human ways of thinking and speaking, and ethically low and imperfect customs, institutions and laws may be taken up into, and more or less changed and assim- ilated by, the forces of revelation and inspiration. OBJECTIONS ON MORAL GROUNDS. 211 Such must the historical process, indeed, be, if God is to get his moral and religious ideas realized in human life. ... It resembles all the methods of the divine government, to take man in hand for legal discipline in the condition in which he is found, and to deal with him by starting from this condition." (Doctrine of Sacred Scripture, I. 476.) But if we thus recognize " these concrete divine words and definite commands as the forms into which the divine ideas cause the crude material to crystallize " ; if the fact " that the ideas take these forms is, indeed," as Dr. Ladd says, " a proof of their divine origin and nature"; if in this adapt- edness to man's case consists their perfection for their purpose, and If this relative imperfection was really necessary to its end, and wisely, mercifully, lovingly, adapted to that end, — why must we ascribe that peculiarity to the fallible man rather than to the all-wise God ? Why attribute this exact suit- ableness in the instrument for its end to the instru- ment itself, and account it a token of fallibility, rather than to Ilim who both made and chose and used the instrument, and shows His wisdom thereby ? The imperfection, then, in these laws and insti- tutions, we admit ; the immorality we deny. And if the Mosaic law not only recognizes its own pre- paratory and partial and incomplete nature, but points to and provides for its own completion in the subsequent stages of revelation, this seems to 212 BIBLE DOCTRINE OF INSPIRATION. US far from indicating an origin inferior to the mind of Him who saw the end from the beginning, and had it in view in the very first steps of his divine self-revealing. We may be permitted to quote and adopt, on this subject, the forcible words of Rev. Dr. Frederic Gardner, of the Berkeley Divinity School, Con- necticut. " Eevelation was progressive, because only iu that way was it possible that man could receive it. i^o- where is it possible for him to attain, or even to com- prehend, perfect truth at a bound. He is obliged to gain first one elementary fact or principle, and then by means of this to advance to another, which must often seriously modify his conception of the first. In the study of language, he must master the rule before he can learn the exception. The Ptolemaic system in astronomy was the necessary means of systematizing observations until they should lead to the Copernican ; the Copernican must begin by the assumption of cir- cular orbits and uniform motions of the planets, until these could lead to the discovery of elliptical orbits and the doctrine of the radius vector. Still our pres- ent knowledge is imperfect. The law of gravity and the observed facts of astronomy are not in perfect ac- cord. Each new discovery, as of the asteroids and of Neptune, brings about a closer harmony ; but we can- not expect to see in nature a perfect realization of the law until we can look out upon its completeness from tlie footstool of the throne of the Omniscient. The same thing is true of chemistry and of all other natural OBJECTIONS ON MORAL GROUNDS. 213 sciences, and indeed of all human knowledge. As already said, the elements, the most essential points, must be thoroughly fixed in the mind before it can re- ceive their modifications. Were the process reversed, and the fuller truth set at once before the untrained thought, the result could only be disastrous, and posi- tive misconceptions take the place of simple imperfect apprehension. The child now, as well as the race in its childhood, must learn the unity of God, before it can be profitably, or even safely, taught the doctrine of the Trinity. Any other course will be sure to lead to the error of Tritheism." — Gardiner's Old and New Testament hi their Mutual Relations, p. 49. Substantially the ideas above suggested apply to the other allegations against the morality of the Bible. We must be allowed, however, before pass- ing from the subject, to protest against the charge that certain of the Proverbs " show so much of shrewdness as scarcely to escape the charge of being immoral, when considered from the Chris- tian point of view (see Proverbs xvii. 8, xviii. 16, xxi. 14)." These are simply statements of what is a fact of common observation and experience, that gifts are both used effectively and abused ; they do not give any commendation or advice of bribery. Also we fail to discover any " asceticism " in Paul's judicious suggestions to the Corinthians (1 Corinthians vii.). They seem to us quite suit- able, as he said, " by reason of the present dis- tress," and not at all out of harmony with the 214 BIBLE DOCTRINE OF INSPIRATION. cheerful views of God and man, of human life and enjoyment, in his discourse at Lystra (Acts xiv. 17), or his charge to the rich(l Timothy vi. 17). That the record of religious experiences, of the conflicts of minds grappling with the great prob- lems of life and of thought, is not unfit for a reve- lation designed for the instruction of those who are called to similar experiences and conflicts, is ap- parent enough. There is no more effective way of teaching the ignorant, guiding the perplexed, and comforting the despondent or tempted, than by such examples. Yet the use of this very method in Psalms like the sixth has been regarded as an exhibition of " moral feebleness amounting almost to cowardice," and in the seventy-third as a " com- plaint against the divine dealing," regardless of the triumphant issue of these conflicts of soul indi- cated in Psalms vi. 9 and Ixxiii. 17-26. Dr. Ladd, though censuring these passages, says very forcibly and justly in another place : — " In these cases [of religious experiences] we surely can find no fault either with the contents of the writ- ing, or with the moral consciousness of the author, for furnishing to us an accurate and sympathetic picture of facts. Even the saints, both of ancient and of modern times, do often doubt the word of the Lord, waver in their judgment of his justice and mercy, and wander in the dark places of rebellion and despair. The story and the picture of these experiences may well form a part of the ethico-religious contents of OBJECTIONS ON MORAL GROUNDS. 215 Sacred Scripture ; for the use of the story and the picture have, in all subsequent times, been both ethi- cally and religiously purifying. And when the nar- rator of the experience, or the painter of the picture, comes at last into the confidence of trust and into clearness of moral vision, we may well believe that the Spirit of all truth and light has been with him all the way. We may well assign the record of such moral and religious experiences to a notable position jimong the revealed ethico-religious truths of the Bible. Such remarks as the foregoing are more or less applicable to the books of Job and Ecclesiastes, to many of the Psalms, to numerous portions of the prophetic and historical writings, and to certain pas- sages of the New Testament." — Ladd, I. 466. We need scarcely add anything to these truthful and appropriate suggestions. Our reply so far has been limited to discussing, first, the particular actions complained of as im- moral, and, secondly, the general objections to the ethical teachings of the Bible. It is time that we turn to a larger view, and contemplate those teach- ings, not in fragments or scraps, but as a whole. 3. The moral grandeur of the ethics of the Bible, whether taken singly as a system, or com- pared with any other system that has ever been presented to man, bespeaks its divine origin. In the search for flaws on the beautiful vase, men may fail to observe its matchless symmetry, its richly variegated hues, and the skilful blending of 216 BIBLE DOCTRINE OF INSPIRATION. tints. In looking for spots in the sun, one may be blind to the magnificence of that glorious orb itself. And thus we may be so absorbed in finding, or even in refuting, paltry objections against the ethics of the Bible, as to fail to take those impressive and affecting views that we should of its sublime moral teachings. It remains a fact, that after all the highest ex- ertions of the human mind on moral questions, and all the wildest vagaries of invention and combi- nation, no moral teaching has ever been devised which has so ennobled man, so purified life, so liberated captives and overthrown tyranny, so lifted up the degraded and invigorated the weak, so comforted the bereaved and animated the despair- ing. During an age when comparatively enlight- ened and cultivated nations were still groping in darkness on moral questions, the Hebrews received, and have transmitted to all succeeding ages, a code of ethics that still furnishes the foundation for all ethical teaching for mankind. There is such sim- plicity, such grandeur, such regal breadth of control, such divine adaptation to the human heart, in the Decalogue and the subsequent precepts based upon it, as to cast utterly into the shade all the injunc- tions and advices that have come from heathen sources, and make them seem entirely puerile and empty. Every renewal or acceleration of moral life in the world, every quickening of worn-out nationalities, or amelioration of savage tribes, may OBJECTIONS ON MORAL GROUNDS. 217 be traced directly to the influence of the Bible ; and the decadence which has occurred, in numerous distressing cases, in Christendom itself, is no less distinctly connected with the neglect of the Word, with departure from its plain precepts, and with holding it back systematically from the people. By their fruits ye shall know them. " The in- fallible test of all religious teaching," says L. Abbott, " is its" practical result in the lives of those tliat receive it. The answer to modern eulogists of Buddhism and Confucianism is India and China." The most terrible and overwhelming refutation of Atheism is France in the Revolution. The most invincible argument against the substitution of the Church of Rome for the authority of God's Word is sullen, stagnant, sinking Spain. And the effect of even the partial introduction of the Scriptures is to be seen in the awakening of Italy, and the dawn of a brighter day for that priest-ridden land. CHAPTER y. OBJECTIONS OX CRITICAL GROUNDS. T TNDER this head are classed sundry objections ^-'^ arising out of the alleged discoveries and con- clusions of Modern Criticism as to the origin and authorship of certain books of the Bible, and as to their transmission to the present time. The word Criticism has received several different significations. Primarily a critic means a judge, from krino ; and one who examined anything care- fully, so as to judge of its character or its mean- ing, was called a critic. So Criticism was used in a very wide sense, including interpretation or ex- position. At present, in reference to the Bible, Criticism is commonly limited to various subsidiary topics wliich precede and prepare for interpreta- tion ; and in this sense it is customary to distin- guish between Text Criticism and Higher Criticism. The former signifies the discussion as to the agree- ment of the present form of the sacred text with the originals as they proceeded from their respect- ive authors. The latter embraces all inquiries, especially from internal evidence, as to the author- sliip of the writings, their age, circumstances of OBJECTIONS ON CRITICAL GROUNDS. 219 composition, object, etc., thus covering a consider- able part of the subject of investigation usually considered in what is termed Special Introduction. Of course it is beyond our scope here to take up all the objections that might arise in connection with Criticism in its widest application. We shall endeavor to discuss briefly those which are based on Text Criticism and Higher Criticism. 1. It is objected, that, with all the researches of Text Criticism, it is not possible in all cases to be certain what was the original text. Hence it is alleged, that, even if the original was infallible, our present text is not ; that plenary inspiration, were it granted, would be useless and unmeaning, if the writings were not preserved miraculously and abso- lutely (as they evidently have not been) from the accidents of time and of careless copying; and that it is not probable that God would supernat- urally confer complete accuracy and authority, if the documents were then to be left to the usual possibilities of error in transmission to future ages. To these objections we reply : — a. The facts present a valid argument against the unfounded claim that was once made, that every letter, syllable, and even every vowel-point and accent of our present received copies of the Bible, must be regarded as inspired. But they do not affect our doctrine, for we make no such claim. The inspiration of the original Scriptures is what we affirm ; and this is an entirely different question 220 BIBLE DOCTRINE OF INSPIRATION. from the accuracy with which copies of them have been preserved. It is now well known that the Hebrew vowel-points are of later origin than the Christian era (probably about the fifth or sixth cen- tury), and can only be regarded as representing the carefully preserved, but not authoritative, tradition as to the pronunciation, while the consonants alone form the ancient text.^ Also it is thoroughly un- derstood that the manuscripts both of the Old and the New Testament have been subject to the defects necessarily incident to the most careful copying. What we affirm is, that the Sacred Scriptures, as they came from their respective authors, had the characteristics of accuracy and authority, as mes- sages from God. I. The Scriptures, though subject to the neces- sary perils of transcription, were specially protected, not only by a general providential guardianship, which it is fair to assume and which history con- firms, but by several favoring circumstances of no small importance. Among these are — the reverence with which from the beginning they were regarded, occasioning more frequent copying than in the case of any other book in the world, and more careful 1 Dr. Ladd affirms: "We may say in brief of the Masoretic text, punctuation as well as consonants, as does Wellhausen, ' As a type of speech, the punctuation is for ns unalterable ; as a com- mentary, inasmuch as it reproduces that construction of the sense of a given passage which has prevailed since the Christian era, it is, although not unchangeable, still at least incomparably the most valuable help to the understanding.' " — Ladd, L 697. OBJECTIONS ON CRITICAL GROUNDS. 221 and affectionate effort to be accurate ; the number of manuscripts, which naturally increases the num- ber of various readings to be noted, but also greatly increases the opportunity of detecting errors, and arriving with much confidence at the original text ; the publicity of these documents by their being read repeatedly and reverently in worship, which also tended to insure the discovery and correction of errors ; the numerous translations, early and late, which called attention to the minutiae of their language and expression ; the habit of delivering discourses based on them, and of making extensive quotations from them, in speaking and writing ; the elaborate expositions and commentaries, the har- monies and comparisons of parallel passages, and even the searches, friendly or hostile, after discre- pancies and difficulties, beginning at an early period, and kept up with unwearied perseverance and mi- croscopic minuteness ; the wide diffusion of copies in different lands, and often in the hostile custody of warring sects, prompt to detect and eager to expose any falsification or corruption. All these circumstances have tended to secure in a very high degree substantial accuracy and purity in the trans- mission of copies of the sacred writings. e. The limits of error, within which we are practically sure of our ground, may be very confi- dently fixed, and leave little opportunity of mistake as to the teaching of Scripture in regard to any fact, or doctrine, or precept. This is especially true 222 BIBLE DOCTRINE OF INSPIRATION. of those parts of the Bible on which faith and duty chiefly rest. If there are " textual uncertainties," as we frankly admit, there are also textual certain- ties ; and these are ample enough for guidance through the snares of earth and to the glories of heaven.i On this subject the emphatic testimony of "West- cott and Hort, the most recent, and certainly 1 The only two passages in the New Testament, of any consid- erable length, where the genuineness of the text may be disputed, are Mark xvi. 9-20, and John vii. 53 to viii. 11. The latter, prob- ably, ought to be abandoned ; the former, we think, should be re- tained. Scholars have ample opportunities of information on the subject in the works of Scrivener, Alford, Tregelles, Tischendorf, and Westcott and Hort. Even those slightly familiar with the topic may find enough to satisfy their doubts in the candid and accurate statements of Schaff in his "Companion to the New Testament." A fair but simple test would be to take some single Epistle, e, g. the Epistle to the Romans, or that to the Galatians, and ascertain the number and the importance of the various read- ings found in these important documents, and the changes in the commonly received text which would be made by the general con- sent of modern text critics of the highest rank. It is stated by Gaussen, that the changes made by Griesbach that affect the sense would be only as follows : — Galatians iv. 17, for "exclude us," read "exclude you." Galatians iv. 26, for " mother of us all," read "mother of us." Galatians v. 19, for "adultery, fornication," read "fornication." Romans vi. 16, for " whether of sin unto death or of obedience unto righteousness," read "whether of sin or of righteousness." Romans vii. 6, for "that being dead wherein we were held," read "having died to that wherein we were held." Romans xi. 6, omit the latter half of the verse. Romans xii. 11, for "serving the Lord," read "serving the occasion." Romans -xvi. 5, for "the first fruits of Achaia," read "the first fruits of Asia." OBJECTIONS ON CRITICAL GROUNDS. 223 among the most competent of text critics, is' ade- quate, without further discussion. They say : — " With regard to the great bulk of the words of the New Testament, as of most other ancient writings, there is no variation or otlier ground of doubt, and therefore no room for textual criticism ; and here therefore an editor is merely a transcriber. The same may be said with substantial truth respecting those various readings which have never been received, and in all probability never will be received, into any printed text. The proportion of words virtually ac- cepted on all hands as raised above doubt is very great, not less, on a rough computation, than seven eighths of the whole. The remaining eighth, there- fore, formed in great part by changes of order and other comparative trivialities, constitutes the whole area of criticism. If the principles followed in the present edition are sound, this area may be very greatly re- duced. Eecognizing to the full the duty of abstinence from peremptory decision in cases where the evidence leaves the judgment in suspense between two or more readings, we find that, setting aside differences of orthography, the words in our opinion still subject to doubt only make up about one sixtieth of the whole New Testament. In this second estimate the propor- tion of comparatively trivial variations is beyond measure larger than in the former ; so that the amount' of what can in any sense be called substantial varia- tion is but a small fraction of the whole residuary variation, and can hardly form more than a thou- sandth part of the entire text." — The New Testament in Greek, II. 2. 224 BIBLE DOCTRINE OF INSPIRATION. With this weighty testimony agree the well- chosen words of Dr. Philip Schaff, the chairman of the American Committee of the Revisers. *' This multitude of various readings of the Greek text need not puzzle or alarm any Christian. It is the natural result of the great wealth of our docu- mentary resources ; it is a testimony to the immense importance of the New Testament ; it does not affect, but it rather insures, the integrity of the text; and it is a useful stimulus to study. " Only about 400 of the 100,000 or 150,000 varia- tions materially affect the sense. Of these, again, not more than about fifty are really important for some reason or other ; and even of these fifty not one affects an article of faith or a precept of duty which is not abundantly sustained by other and undoubted passages, or by the whole tenor of Scripture teaching. The Textus Receptns of Stephens, Beza, and Elzevir, and of our English Version, teach precisely the same Christianity as the uncial text of the Sinaitic and Vatican manuscripts, the oldest versions, and the Anglo-American Revision." — Comjicin'ion to the Neic Testament, p. 177. Richard Bentley, the ablest and boldest of the earlier classical critics of England, affirmed that even the worst of manuscripts docs not pervert or set aside " one article of faith or moral precept." Dr. Ezra Abbot, of Harvard, who ranked among the first textual critics, and was not hampered by orthodox bias (being a Unitarian), asserted that OBJECTIONS ON CRITICAL GROUNDS. 225 " no Christian doctrine or duty rests on those por- tions of the text which are affected by differences in the manuscripts ; still less is anything essential in Christianity touched by the various readings. They do, to be sure, affect the bearing of a few passages on the doctrine of the Trinity ; but the truth or falsity of the doctrine by no means de- pends upon the reading of those passages." The same scholar spoke on the subject more fully, with special reference to the English Revision : — "This host of various readings may startle one who is not acquainted with the subject, and he may imagine that the whole text of the New Testament is thus rendered uncertain. But a careful analysis will show that nineteen twentieths of these are of no more consequence than the palpable errata in the first proof of a modern printer ; they have so little author- ity, or are so manifestly false, that they may be at once dismissed from consideration. Of those Avhich remain, probably nine tenths are of no importance as regards the sense; the differences either cannot be represented in a translation, or affect the form of expression merely, not the essential meaning of the sentence. Though the corrections made by the revis- ers in the Greek text of the New Testament followed by our translators probably exceed two thousand, hardly one tenth of them, perhaps not one twentieth, will be noticed by the ordinary reader. Of the small residue, many are indeed of sufficient interest and importance to constitute one of the strongest reasons for making a new revision, which should no longer 15 226 BIBLE DOCTRINE OF INSPIRATION. suffer the known errors of copyists to take the place of the words of the evangelists and apostles. But the chief value of the work accomplished by the self- denying scholars who have spent so much time and labor in the search for manuscripts, and in their col- lation or publication, does not consist, after all, in the corrections of the text which have resulted from the researches. These corrections may affect a few of the passages which have been relied on for the sup- port of certain doctrines, but not to such an extent as essentially to alter the state of the argument. Still less is any question of Christian duty touched by the multitude of various readings. The greatest service which the scholars who have devoted them- selves to critical studies and the collection of critical materials have rendered has been the establishment of the fact that, on the whole, the Kew Testament writings have come down to us in a text remarkably free from important corruptions, even in the late and inferior manuscripts on which the so-called ' received text ' was founded ; while the helps which we now possess for restoring it to its primitive purity far exceed those which we enjoy in the case of any emi- nent classical author whose works have come down to us. The multitude of 'various readings,' which to the thoughtless or ignorant seem so alarming, is sim- ply the result of the extraordinary richness and vari- ety of our critical resources." — Sunday School Times, May 28, 1881. d. It is not true that plenary inspiration of the original would be useless, unless the copies were OBJECTIONS ON CRITICAL GROUNDS. 227 secured by a perpetual miracle against the effects of time and of careless and corrupt transmission. A truly divine original, even if copied with no more than ordinary human care and fidelity, is vastly superior to an original, however accurately pre- served, that never had divine authority. And obviously the fact that it was recognized and ac- cepted as from God would serve greatly to insure its being preserved with more than ordinary care. e. Neither can it be justly said that there is no probability that God would supernaturally inspire the writings, unless he also miraculously preserved them from erroneous transcription. He might do the one, which he alone could do, and leave the other, as in so many other matters, to the faitliful- ness of his servants intrusted with that responsi- bility. We know that the oral teaching of our Lord Jesus not reported by our Evangelists was directly and thoroughly the voice of God. We believe that the oral and unrecorded instructions of the Apostles in their official work were inspired. Yet there is no reason to affirm any miracle of preservation for either. The voice of God in these forms was limited, except indirectly, to the audience or the generation that heard it. The accidents and corruptions of oral transmission did not render either impossible, or improbable, or unmeaning, or useless, the divine authority with which they spake. Why should the similar but smaller perils of written transmission render it incredible that 228 BIBLE DOCTRINE OF INSPIRATION. God should inspire, in the fullest sense, the records of his grace ? 2. The objections on critical grounds that are most urgently and confidently pressed against the doctrine of Inspiration are those arising from what is called the Higher Criticism. This is a region of thought and inquiry almost entirely modern, in which much is still vague, and dependent largely on subjective impressions and presuppositions, rather than ascertained facts, but where positive assertion is often furnished with surprising liberality in the absence of definite in- formation. The remark of Professor Ladd on tliis subject is eminently just, as pointing out the weak- nesses of both the older and the newer Criticism. "That the former dogmatic manner of regarding these critical questions, while it claimed to weigh carefully the purely external and historical sources for its affirmations, was in reality largely subjective in the worst sense of the word, there can be no dispute. But there ought to be just as little dispute, that much of the more modern criticism, Avhether it please to call itself external or internal, or neither, is just as largely subjective, in quite as bad a sense of the word. The difference between the older so-called critics and many of the more modern ones consists largely in this : the former had a childish trust in imtrustworthy traditions, while the latter have a conceited confidence in the vagaries of their own minds." — Doctrine of Sa- cred Scripture, I. 491. OBJECTIONS ON CRITICAL GROUNDS. 229 We have no need nor disposition to undervalue either the legitimate method or the fairly estab- lished results of modern critical research. Much may be learned, much has been learned, by the patient, elaborate comparisons on which it pro- ceeds ; and a true " Higher Criticism " may be just as valuable as a false or misguided attempt at it may be dangerous and delusive. It is impossible, of course, to give here a, full dis- cussion of many, or in fact of any, of the questions arising on this topic ; our aim is only to present such general considerations as may show how far those questions apply to our present subject. a. It is highly important to distinguish between Criticism and the critics. We are often assured vehemently that "the verdict of Criticism" is thus and so ; when perhaps it is only the sentiment of a few critics, possibly, when sifted, of a single man of eminence, re-echoed and repeated by several other persons. Doctors disagree, and so do critics. b. Some critical theories of large extent and pre- tension are based on cool assumptions of what is utterly devoid of proof. For instance, the views of Graf and Kuenen are avowedly based on the denial of anything really supernatural, the ignoring of any actual miracle or prophecy. Whatever appears to be such must be either ingeniously explained away, or set aside contemptuously as unhistorical, the polite modern term for false. The Leyden school of theologians have attempted to do for the Old 230 BIBLE DOCTRINE OF INSPIRATION, Testament what the Tiibingen school with equal confidence proposed to do for the New, that is, to revise the history of divine manifestation with the divine omitted, like the play of Hamlet with Hamlet left out. In our judgment both have failed : their verdict is that of certain critics, but not at all that of Criticism. The presuppositions on which they are based are emphatically denied. c. A large part of the questions discussed by the Higher Criticism, whichever way they may be decided, have nothing to do with the doctrine of Inspiration, or with the acceptance of the books concerned as a part of the sacred Word. There are a number of the Biblical books, such as Kings and Chronicles, concerning the authorship and period of which the Bible itself gives no distinct indication ; and whether they are concluded to be by one author or by several, whether earlier or later, can have no decisive bearing on our investi- gations. d. As to some of the critical questions most dis- cussed, it is apparent that they bear rather on the Canon of Scripture than on the Inspiration of Scrip- ture. It is fair to say that, if the results of careful inquiry should make it necessary to reject or sur- render certain books as not a genuine part of the Word of God, it would only deprive us of those books themselves, not cast any doubt or obscurity over the value and authority of the remainder. Thus, if, as the result of candid investigation, OBJECTIONS ON CRITICAL GROUNDS. 231 Second Peter or Jude must be given up, if Esther or Canticles cannot be vindicated as entitled to a place in the sacred volume, the evidence for the inspiration of the other books, and their utility for every Christian man, would not be thereby in the least weakened. And the question of the extent of the Canon must always be carefully distinguished from the other question, which is the one im- mediately under consideration, viz. what authority belongs to the books that are recognized as inspired or canonical. e. There are books in regard to which serious doubts are urged as to authorship, but no conse- quences materially affecting their inspiration would follow, if the decision should be adverse to the .common opinion. Thus, if Ecclesiastes be by some later author personating Solomon, or the second part of Isaiah (chapters xl. to Ixvi.) be by a later Isaiah than the well-known prophet of Hezekiah's day ; or, if the letter to the Hebrews should be ad- judged not to be by the Apostle Paul, it would not be necessary to relinquish the inspiration or the canonical authority of these writings. We do not accept the alleged proof against the genuineness of either of these writings according to the received view of their authorship. But if we did, it would not destroy their value or their divinity for us. /. There are other books, however, on which an adverse decision as to authorship would have a wider range, and consequences more disastrous upon 232 BIBLE DOCTRINE OF INSPIRATION. the whole system of revealed truth, as commonly understood and received. Professor Ladd does not hesitate to say, that " we should regard the Pentateuch differently, if we could consider it as coming in its present form from the speech or pen of the great inspired lawgiver, Moses " (I. 497) ; and " there can be no doubt, that, in the narrow and more technical sense of the word, we should pronounce the Pentateuch ' inspired,' as we cannot now, if we could show that it was written by Moses" (I. 676). On the other hand, he declares that " complete critical proof of the spuriousness of the Fourth Gospel would profoundly change our conception of Sacred Scripture, and would not leave untouched our conception of Christianity it- self " (I. 577). He as earnestly denies that Moses wrote the Pentateuch, as he affirms that John wrote the Gospel ; and frankly recognizes the logical con- sequences of the decision in both cases. The Mosaic authorship of the body of the Penta- teuch (aside from the addition to Deuteronomy which records his death, and possibly a few brief notes, geographical or historical, which may have been inserted by some later hand) seems to us of profound importance. It is so thoroughly assumed and recognized elsewhere in Scripture, that to deny it leads naturally, we think, to a denial of the reality of Old Testament history, and to a sub- versal of the whole sclieme and system of divine revelation. If the Pentateuch, as we are told by OBJECTIONS ON CRITICAL GROUNDS. 233 some, is " not a work, but a growth," of exceed- ingly composite authorship and mainly post-exilian origin ; if it is a compound of Babylonish legends and pious frauds, whether gotten up for selfish in- terest, or class aggrandizement, or with broader and more patriotic purpose ; if it not only gives indications, as we think it does, of diverse sources traditional or documentary, employed under divine direction by Moses himself, but also contains, as we think it does not, contradictions and marks of falsehood ; if Moses himself is, as some contend, a mythical personage, and the Exodus never actu- ally occurred as described ; — we can scarcely vin- dicate the verity of the subsequent history, or the allusions of Jesus and the Apostles to these writings. So, if the genuineness of Daniel is successfully assailed, and it must be dragged down from the position of a trup history and prophecy to be a legend of the era of the Maccabees, — a vaticinium post eventum, a fiction designed to inspire the patri- otic ardor of the Jewish rebels against Antiochus Epiphanes, — we cannot, it seems to us, logically stop short with that ; but must either exscind it from tlie Canon, in spite of its recognition by Jews and Christians and by our Lord himself, or else maintain such moral enormities as an honest lie, a fraud of divine origin. In like manner, the authorship of the Fourth Gospel by the Apostle John seems to us not only 234 BIBLE DOCTRIXK OF INSPIRATION. to have been triumphantly vindicated from the in- genious and vehement assaults it has encountered, but to be vital to the system of Christianity, as a divinely inspired whole. This Gospel is, as Dr. E. H. Sears has well styled it, " the Heart of Jesus Christ." ^ 1 It is ^vith pleasure tliat we refer to the able vindication of this autliorsliip hy Doctor Ladd (I. 550-572), and to the more am- ple and elaborate discussions of Bishop Lightfoot and of Doctor Ezra Abbot. CHAPTER VI. OBJECTIONS ON SCIENTIFIC GROUNDS. THE progress of the physical sciences in late years, and especially in the present century, lias been indeed marvellous, has opened up new- avenues for industry and new fields for thought. If the " oppositions of science falsely so called " (1 Timothy vi. 20) were a dangerous snare to young preachers of the early Church, the peril of them has not passed away, but is renewed and increased with all the wider research, the rapid advance of discovery, and the daring freedom of investigation characteristic of these later generations. The Christian soldier of to-day needs to acquaint him- self with all the lines of assault adopted by the enemy, and to arm himself at all points. Especially should he familiarize himself earnestly with those methods of attack which seem most in accordance with the spirit of the age, wdiich are most fortified by appeals to the modes of argument and inquiry that have yielded such admirable results, and that claim to be associated with the advance of truth and light and free investigation. These are noble w^ords, — Truth and Light and Freedom : they are 236 BIBLE DOCTRINE OF INSPIRATION. watchwords of progress. And the ideas they repre- sent are justly dear to tlie hearts of all men, and not less dear to us, as lovers of the Bible, which has so greatly promoted that advance. It is not our purpose to consider in detail the various points of alleged discrepancy between the Bible and modern physical science. This is the business of full and elaborate treatises on Science and the Bible. All that is practicable for us here is to state some general principles as to the relation between God's two revelations, in his Works and in his Word. A. All Truth is consistent ■with all other Truth. The human mind is so constituted as to desire to perceive this consistency, in order to produce and maintain conviction. No system of belief can command intelligent confidence, unless we have the conviction that it is in harmony with whatever else we know. We do not afifirm that we shall always be able to see the points of contact between truths, each of which is satisfactorily proved by its own in- dependent line of argument. The meeting place of the two may be out beyond the sphere of our vision. But all truth, rightly understood, is harmonious. There are truths, tlie full connection of which with each other, or with other truth that we know, may not be clearly seen, yet concerning which we do not doubt. Such are the existence of evil com- pared with the divine attributes of goodness and OBJECTIONS ON SCIENTIFIC GROUNDS. 237 omnipotence ; the divine efficiency considered in connection with human freedom and responsibility ; the Trinity, three persons in one God, and similar doctrines. But these do not at all invalidate the general principle that all truth is consistent with all other truth. A thing cannot be true in theology and false in fact, or reliable in science but wrong in practice, any more than it can be both true and false at the same time, — or than black can be white. B. The Bible does not profess to teach Physical Science. That does not come w-ithin the scope and object of Scripture. Its grand design was the manifesta- tion of God in his revelation to Man. In revealing this it touches, at numerous points, human history and affairs. All that can be expected of the Bible is, that, when it makes allusions to matters outside of its special topic, the statements shall be correct so far as they go. Omissions of things historical or scientific, however important and interesting these things might be to the general scholar, may naturally be expected ; they are unavoidable, in ac- cordance with the })lan on which the Scripture was given. So far from being fairly objectionable, they form a part of the fitness of the Bible to its end, as could readily be shown. It was never objected to Euclid's work on Mathematics, that it did not contain an account of 238 BIBLE DOCTRINE OF INSPIRA^TION. the dramatic performances of that age ; or that it was defective because it gave no sketch of Physics or Metaphysics, as expounded by Aristotle. It would be equally futile to object to the Scriptures that they fail to give an account of the science of that day, whether correct or incorrect. They do not profess to teach that thing ; they were not in- tended to do it ; there was no need that they should, in carrying out their grand and spiritual design. It would have been a palpable turning aside from the great theme of revelation, and un- suited to the end in view ; i. e. to meet the moral necessities of man, and restore him from the ruins of the Fall. C. Our Interpretations of Scripture are not Scripture. Though they may seem to us quite obvious, though they may be hallowed by long traditional belief, or sanctioned by the judgment of many of the good and great, our interpretations of Scripture may be erroneous. We may have mistaken its meaning. If apparent discrepancy arises, either with other Scripture or with facts otherwise made known, let us re-examine, and see what the pas- sages really mean. Let us compare Scripture with Scripture, and find out the total aggregate result of such comparison, for one text is often limited or interpreted by another. This passage, if considered alone, might seem to assert a particular idea ; but, by comparing it with others, it is seen that that OBJECTIONS ON SCIENTIFIC GROUNDS. 239 would be a misinterpretation. Another passage may have been erroneously translated, and the ap- parent inference will be at once set aside on con- sidering the real meaning of the original. Or facts of nature or of secular history may have come to light, which help to fill up the deficiencies of our apprehension, which point to new and better inter- pretations of misunderstood or obscure texts. The true Biblical scholar will welcome light from what- ever source, old or new, hostile or friendly. His reverence for God and for his truth will bind him, instead of repelling, to accept whatever is fairly proved. Only let us be sure that it is proved^ and not merely asserted. D. In like manner, Scientific Conclusions and Opin- ions are not always correct. We must wait for Science to have reached a set- tled conclusion before any legitimate argument, or any well-grounded objection to the Bible, can be fairly deduced from it. How opposite to this, and how inconsistent with candor and common sense the course usually pursued by opponents of revela- tion, we need scarcely pause to describe. As soon as any idea has been started by some scientific man which seems to conflict with the received views of Christians, — an idea thrown out, perhaps, as a mere conjecture, or a theory, novel, peculiar to himself, and as yet untested, — some are ready to exclaim, and to trumpet it in all the newspapers, 240 BIBLE DOCTRINE OF INSPIRATION. " Ah, Moses was mistaken ! The Bible is in error. The learned Professor So-and-so has just discovered it. There can be no mistake about it this time. Science never lies." True : science never lies. And so, figures never lie; but they often deceive, they are often n)isin- terpreted and misapplied. They tell no untrue story, but we take from them an untrue meaning. Our inference, our understanding, our observation of the facts, or our induction from the facts, may have been fallacious. In this, as in other topics, we must draw the dis- tinction between science and scientists, as we have to draw it between theology and theologians. Cer- tain critics say so and so ; therefore that is the verdict, we are told, of criticism, of 3Iodern Criti- cism, of Advanced Criticism ! Therefore it is un- questionable. Some geologist, or biologist, says thus ; therefore Geology or Biology testifies to that conclusion. Pei'haps not I Much of what has been called the conflict of sci- ence with religion was really the conflict of science with science, the overthrow of one false opinion after another, which Bible readers as well as others of their day had adopted, not from the Bible, but from their predecessors or contemporaries. As long as human knowledge continues to be progressive, such experiences may be repeatedly expected. OBJECTIONS ON SCIENTIFIC GROUNDS. 241 E. The Language of Scripture in describing Physical Facts is the Language of Common Life, the Lan- guage of Appearances. The Bible describes phenomena, not the essence or abstract nature of things. We cannot see how it could well do otherwise. If it used any other language than that of common life, it would be mis- understood, or not be understood at all, by plain people, and would fail to accomplish the purpose for which it was given. And as we do not look for what is called scientific precision in the colloquial use of every-day terms, so we need not be surprised to find the same sort of terms used in the Bible. No one counts you an ignoramus, or charges you with a blunder, because you speak of the sun's ris- ing and setting, as if that necessarily implied your belief that the sun is higher, i. e. more remote from the centre of the earth, at one time of day than at another, or as if it indicated your ignorance of the revolution of the earth on its axis. You are using, as every sensible man does on such subjects, whether philosopher or not, phenomenal expressions. The language of science itself is also, for tlie most part, the language of appearances. Very often also it contains etymologically some implica- tion, which originally represented a crude, tempo- rary, erroneous phase of scientific opinion. What are oxygen and hydrogen, electricity, magnetism, galvanism, rays, reflection, refraction, focus, and 16 242 BIBLE DOCTRINE OF INSPIRATION. the like, — in fact, almost all the familiar terms of science, — hut words that wrap up in them allu- sions to ancient theories, some of them exploded, or references to men and ideas of a past age ? May I not speak of rays of light, without heing chargeable with ignorance that the undulatory the- ory of light is now generally preferred to the cor- puscular? Must I necessarily be understood to allude to amber whenever I use the term electricity, because the word elektron means amber ? Had the Scriptures used the language of modern science, itself subject to perpetual modifications and even revolutionary transitions, with reference to the common physical phenomena incidentally mentioned, they would have been unintelligible to those to whom they were at first given, and no more instructive to us of modern times. There was no alternative, then. It would have been necessary, if that idea was carried out, to occupy the pages of revelation with merely scientific state- ments and explanations of physical facts, and so to make it a book of scientific rather than religious teaching ; in which case it would either have been so brief and fragmentary as to be utterly unsatis- factory, incomplete, and obscure, or else so huge a volume as to be practically inaccessible ; and even then it would have been obscure, because the world was not prepared for it. The plan adopted was the obvious, the practical, the only reasonable plan. It was to use the Ian- OBJECTIONS ON SCIENTIFIC GROUNDS. 243 guage of the appearances of things and of common life, — not as indorsing any errors which may be supposed to be involved in the etymology of the words, but simply to become intelligible. In speak- ing to men, the terms which men used and under- stood at the time must be employed. Had the other course been adopted, it is easy to see, not only that the book must have been ex- tremely burdensome in bulk, but that its communi- cations would have been as sure to meet with opposition at one period from being ahead of the age, unintelligible and preposterous to their minds, as at another from being behind the age. Its scientific communications, if it undertook to teach science, must have been complete, anticipat- ing even those brilliant and now unimagined dis- coveries which await the zeal of future explorers of the twentieth, or perhaps the thirtieth century, when the science and the scientific phrases of to-day may be as much the jest and scorn of the learned world as medieeval ideas on such subjects are now. The student who graduated from college even forty years ago would find himself to-day bewildered and utterly at a loss, in reading the text-books or attempting to use the apparatus of instruction in Chemistry, if he had not diligently kept up with tlie progress of research and the changes of technical nomenclature. God does not reveal either scientific ' or moral truth in the way tiiat the objectors demand; not 244 BIBLE DOCTRINE OF INSPIRATION. all at one time, and especially not all the first time. He gives scope and need for the exercise of our own powers of research. He gives us faculties, and expects that we shall use them. There was sound philosophy in the answer of the little five-year-old girl, when some one teased her about curling her hair, instead of leaving it to her Maker. She replied, " When I was little, he curled it for me ; but now he thinks I am old enough to curl it myself." God leaves us something to do, in searching into his works and his word. Bearing these ideas in mind, it will not be diffi- cult to apply fair principles of interpretation to both records, that of Science and that of Revela- tion. Both volumes were written by Almighty direction. The latter was recorded and unfolded by degrees, during centuries of human progress, but now lies before us complete and full. The other began to be recoi'ded far earlier, but is even as yet only partially unfolded and read by us. God permits human hands to open and reveal it to our view, under the guidance of his providence. Some of the pages have been turned, and earnest minds are at work deciphering their meaning. More re- main to be brought to light, and read in the pro- gress of science. How many, we cannot tell, and what is in them we cannot imagine. As we advance in the process of investigating and comparing tlie teachings of these two records, these two divine volumes, God's Word and God's OBJECTIONS ON SCIENTIFIC GROUNDS. 245 Works, it may well be that seeming contradictions will arise. But as leaf after leaf is turned and offered to our perusal, as fact after fact falls into place in the great system of inductive truth, we find fresh instruction arising, and may be sure that ultimately, when both are correctly understood, the two records will thoroughly agree. This has been actually the experience of devout and patient students of both records, in age after age. There has been no period, perhaps, in which some apparent contrarieties have not been either discovered or imagined. But each generation has seen some difficulties solved, and new ones arising, to be soon relieved by further investigation. P. The Number of Remarkable Agreements between Science and Scripture is very great. It is far more difficult for these unexpected coin- cidences to be explained, on the principles of the un- believer, than for any of the apparent contradictions to be cleared up, which are so boastfully alleged. It would be easy to point out a number of these in de- tail, and to show how Science, in each of her depart- ments, is casting light on Revelation. At present it may suffice to give a single example taken from an able article by Dr. McCosh, President of Prince- ton College. " The correspondence between Genesis and Geology as to the order of creation has been expounded scien- tifically by the three men on this continent most com- 246 BIBLE DOCTRINE OF INSPIRATION. pctont to speak on the subject; viz. Professor Dana of Yale, Dr. Dawson of McGill University, Montreal, and ])r. Guyot of Princeton. ... I doubt much whether any geologist in the present day could, in so brief a compass, give as accurate a compendium of the changes which our earth has undergone as is in these thirty-one verses in the opening of our Bible. Except on the supposition that the Scriptural statement is inspired, it is impossible to account for its being "written and published three thousand years before Science made its discoveries." — Homiletic Monthli/, January, 1884, p. 234. The same point is presented by the Hon. Wil- liam E. Gladstone, in his memorable discussion with Mr. Huxley in the " Nineteenth Century," in 1886. We quote simply a few sentences : — "I do not suppose it would be feasible, even for Professor Huxley, taking the nebular hypothesis and geological discovery for his guides, to give, in the compass of the first twenty-seven verses of Genesis, an account of the cosmogony, and of the succession of life in the stratification of the earth, which would combine scientific precision of statement with the majesty, the simplicity, the intelligibility, and the impressiveness of the record before us. Let me mod- estly call it, for argument's sake, an approximation to the present presumptions and conclusions of science. Let me assume that the statement in the text as to plants, and the statement of verses 24 and 25, as to reptiles, cannot in all points be sustained; and yet still there remain great, unshaken facts to be weighed. OBJECTIONS ON SCIENTIFIC GROUNDS. 247 First, the fact that such a record should have been made at all. Secondly, the fact that, instead of dwell- ing in generalities, it has placed itself under the severe conditions of a chronological order, reaching from the first nisus of chaotic matter to a consummated production of a fair and goodly, a furnished and a peopled world. Thirdly, the fact that its cosmogony seems, in the light of the nineteenth century, to draw more and more of countenance from the best natural philosophy ; and. Fourthly, that it has described the successive origins of the five great categories of pres- ent life with which human experience was and is conversant in that order which geological authority confirms. How came these things to be ? How came they to be, not among Accadians, or Assyrians, or Egyptians, who monopolized the stores of human knowledge when this wonderful tradition was born ; but among the obscure records of a people who, dwell- ing in Palestine for twelve hundred years from their sojourn in the valley of the Nile, hardly had force to stamp even so much as their name upon the history of the world at large, and only then began to be ad- mitted to the general communion of mankind when their Scriptures assumed the dress which a Gentile tongue was needed to supply ? It is more rational, I contend, to say that these astonishing anticipations were a God-given supply, than to suppose that a race^ who fell uniformly and entirely short of the great in- tellectual development of antiquity, should here not only have equalled and outstripped it, but have en- tirely transcended, in kind even more than in degree, all known exercises of human faculties." — Nineteenth Century, January, 1886, p. 16. 248 BIBLE DOCTRINE OF INSPIRATION. G. The Absence of definitely established Contradic- tions so far is a remarkable Phenomenon. Many have been alleged, and some insisted on with great zeal and positiveness. All the dogma- tism and boldness of assertion has certainly not been confined to the theologians. But, when closely considered, many of the contradictions claimed have disappeared under the re-examinations of a wiser exegesis of Scripture; many have been re- moved by the advancing discoveries in science or history, showing that it was not the Bible that was mistaken, but its assailants ; and all have ad- mitted some fair and reasonable explanation. This may encourage us, when new difficulties are alleged, to wait candidly, patiently, and hope- fully for furtlier light. But furthermore, this fact is itself a tribute of no small importance to the accuracy of the Bible, and a proof that more than human wisdom has presided over the composition of its pages. Here is a volume made up of sixty-six different books, written in separate sections, by scores of different persons, during a period of fifteen hundred years, — a volume antedating in its earlfer records all other books in the world, touching human life and knowl- edge at hundreds of different points. Yet it avoids any absolute, assignable error in dealing with these innumerable themes. Of what other ancient book can this be said ? Of what book even one hundred years old can this be said ? OBJECTIONS ON SCIENTIFIC GROUNDS. 249 The sacred books of India, of Zoroaster, of Mo- hammedanism, reveal their human origin by the obvious human errors they distinctly affirm, by the misconceptions and falsehoods which are wrapped up inextricably in their theological systems. In like manner, the works on Systematic Theol- ogy so late as the Reformation period, and equally with them the philosophical and scientific writings of the same era, or even of four or five generations ago, are marked by blunders of fact, or errors of tlieory, which can be exposed by the schoolboy of to-day. These books are comparatively little read now. Their mistakes are unknown to the masses of even well-informed men, are only noticed by scholars who know how to account for them, and to appre- ciate the value of the works, notwithstanding these deficiencies. Not so with the Bible. Every line in it has been subjected to a minute, jealous, microscopic scru- tiny, by friend and by foe, such as no other writ- ing has ever experienced. The fires of criticism have kindled all around it and over it, hot enough to detect and to burn out the dross, if there was any. It stands to-day the book in all the world most loved, most hated, most studied, most mis- used ; the book upon which the converging light is cast from every source, from every science and from every age of human research, and to which the concentrated attention of the most vigorous 250 BIBLE DOCTRINE OF INSPIRATION. minds of the race has been directed for centuries. It is only simple justice to say, that it stands a monument of marvellous accuracy. H. Men of Science of the highest Rank sustain the Bible. Finally, let it never be forgotten that, if there be scientific men who assail the Bible, there are others, equally eminent or more so, who defend it ; men not less honest in their love for truth, not less zealous and candid in their search for it, and not less bold and frank in declaring it when found. If there have been a Voltaire and a Diderot to assail it, there have been on its side a Newton and a Davy, a Hugh Miller, an Agassiz, a Maury, and a Guyot. If there are a Huxley and an IngersoU to attack, there are a Hitchcock, a Silliman, a Dana, a Gray, and a Dawson to defend and honor it, — men in whom devotion has not blinded the eye of science, nor learning palsied the heart of piety. Even among the votaries of pure science, who have no professed acquaintance with theology, or who take no distinct religious position, they that are with us as to the divine origin of the Bible are more and mightier than those that are against us. CHAPTER VII. OBJECTIONS FROM INSIGNIFICANT DETAILS. DID the Holy Spirit dictate such details, it is asked, as the minute instructions for the Tabernacle and the Temple, the genealogies of pri- vate families and petty tribes, in the Old Testament ; or such as the salutations to friends at the close of several epistles, Paul's medical counsel to Timothy as to taking remedies for his stomach and infirmi- ties, or the communications with which he charges him as to his parchments and the cloak he had left at Troas ? 1. This objection, it appears to us, wholly mis- conceives the doctrine which we advocate, ignoring the fact that we affirm and vindicate the thoroughly human quality of the books. This feature we claim for them as earnestly as their divine authority. The objection might be of force against a mechani- cal theory of inspiration, which admits no real human authorship, but it has no validity against our doctrine. 2. The objection also ignores the obviously beneficial and valuable design of some of these alleged " insignificant details " ; e. g. the typical 252 BIBLE DOCTRINE OF INSPIRATION. object of the Mosaic ritual, and of the temple ser- vices, and the indispensable importance of the gen- ealogies as evidence in tracing the descent of the Messiah. 3. Further, the objection fails to do justice to those historical passages which it charges with insignificance. It fails to appreciate those details which it calls trivial. It is just in these slight circumstances of the history that character speaks out, oftentimes, in the most affecting and instruct- ive way. But for these affectionate greetings to beloved friends, we should have lacked evidence of the genuine tenderness of the Apostle's soul, and we might have been told that Christianity left no room for the virtue of friendship. The practical common-sense advice to Timothy is no encourage- ment to intemperance, but, on the other hand, a strong evidence that Timothy was abstemious in principle and practice, since it needed Apostolic suggestion and urgency to induce him to use even " a little wine," and that when it was medicinally necessary. Again, Paul's concern about his parchments and other books, and his cloak, is to our minds as in- teresting a circumstance as that other petty but instructive incident of the little old man, practical, helpful, considerate for others, after the shipwreck on the island of Malta, bustling around to gather up fragments of sticks to make a fire for the chilled and dripping company that had been rescued from OBJECTIONS FROM INSIGNIFICANT DETAILS. 253 the waves. We would not be willing to spare or lose either, on any consideration. They reveal to us the man, Paul ; they bring us nearer to him in actual, real life. Consider tlie case about this much complained of cloak. Here is a man who, some thirty years ago, renounced ease, fortune, popularity, brilliant pros- pects, — all for Christ, in order to do good to the souls of men. He has had his reward all along, from the world and from his nation, in stripes, in rod-beatings, in stonings, in imprisonments, in treachery and deadly conspiracy, in unblushing falsehoods, in unassuaged malice. And now his end is near. He is advanced in years, in his last prison, his usefulness accomplished, his course finished. He is just awaiting the sentence of death. Bravely, cheerfully, triumphantly, he writes his last letter to his dearest friend, his son in the Gospel. Not a note quivers, not a word hints of gloom or regret. But he is shivering with cold. Winter is com- mencing. He is in want of clothes. And in that prison he is lonely. He cannot solace himself by talking, as of old, to the guard to whom he was chained ; nor can he, as formerly, have interviews with the hostile Jews, and strive to convert them, or with the loving Christians, and endeavor to com- fort them. He is shut off from such intercourse. Some of the Christians themselves are afraid or ashamed now to stand with him ; and others are 254 BIBLE DOCTRINE OF INSPIRATION. debarred from doing what they would for him. Only Luke is with him, sharing apparently his imprisonment for the sake of alleviating his suf- ferings, — Luke, who had been with him in his imprisonment at Csesarea, and again in his first imprisonment at Rome. He is used to it : he has come to stand by him to the last. But the good man wants his books, especially certain beloved precious parchments. They would cheer his lonely hours. He needs his cloak, he wants his manu- scripts. Is there nothing touching, nothing affect- ing in this ? We read witli emotion about Jerome of Prague, " shut up for three hundred and forty days in the prisons of Constance, in the bottom of a dark and fetid tower, and never allowed to leave it except to appear before his murderers " ; and our hearts go out in sympathy with tlie martyr. We read of the venerable Bishop Hooper in old England, " dragged from his disgusting cellar, covered with wretched clothes and a borrowed cloak, tottering on his staff, and bent double with rheumatism on his way to the stake," for the testimony of Jesus ; and our hearts kindle anew with admiration and devotion. We read of Judson at Oung-pen-la, in extremest peril and destitution, ministered to by that godly wife, his life only saved at the risk of her own; and we feel afresh the impulse to rise to similar hero- ism. And shall not these venerable martyrs, these noble missionaries, remind us also of our brother OBJECTIONS FROM INSIGNIFICANT DETAILS. 255 Paul, shut up in prison, suffering from loneliness and from cold, and asking for his cloak ? And shall his example fail to stir our hearts, or excite our sympathy ? — " We behold him," says Haldane, " standing upon the confines of the two worlds, — in this world about to be beheaded as guilty, by the Emperor of Rome, in the other world to be crowned as righteous, by the King of Kings ; here deserted by men, there to be welcomed by angels ; here in want of a cloak to cover him, there to be clothed / upon with his house from heaven." -^ We put a high value upon that cloak, and the little passage that alludes to it. In like manner we might take up, as Gaussen has done very instructively (Origin and Inspiration of the Bible, pp. 317-322), the greetings at the close of the Epistle to the Romans, and show the mani- fold and precious instructions which come to us from them. Mere lists of names, we are told ; per- sonal reminiscences of his friendships ; dry nomen- clature of eighteen people, all in oblivion otherwise : to give these needed no inspiration. On the contrary, we are specially thankful for these very sixteen verses, giving us a living picture of a primitive Church, and casting a flood of light on the reorganization of heathen society under the influence of Christianity. And we do not see why inspiration might not suggest, as well as affection prompt, these kindly fraternal allusions. But we almost shrink from pursuing this line of 256 BIBLE DOCTRINE OF INSPIRATION. argument, for it seems as if, in such defences of what is contained in the Word of God, we are in danger of exalting ourselves to the position of judges of what should and what should not be con- tained in a revelation from God. A man who is fully competent for such judgment is competent to make a revelation. As Gaussen has said, " It strikes us that there is no arrogance to be compared with that of a man who, owning the Bible to be from God, then makes bold to sift with his hand the pure in it from what is impure, the inspired from what is uninspired, God from man. This is to overturn all the foun- dation of the faith ; it amounts to placing it no more in believing God, but in believing ourselves." (p. 313.) " There are those to-day," says Mr. McConaughy, (in the Sunday School Times, 1880, p. 551,) " who know just what God ought to do, and their judg- ment, rather than what he pleases, is their crite- rion. They measure their God with a yardstick. They sound him with a plumb-line. They calcu- late him by mathematics. They bring him to the test of science. They regulate him according to right reason, — that is, their own. They prescribe the exact limits within which he may work ; and then, having made him altogether such a one as themselves, having robbed him of his Godhead, they fall down and worship the God of their own hands." CONCLUSION. WE have now completed the plan we proposed. We have attempted to set forth, /;*s^, the Doctrine of Inspiration, with such distinctions and explanations as seemed proper to make it clear ; second, the Proofs, indirect and direct, by which we believe it is sustained ; and third, the Objections most commonly urged, with such replies as ap- peared suitable and practicable within our brief space. The result of the whole investigation has been, we trust, adapted to remove difficulties which have been in the way of many thoughtful and earnest students, who had a general conviction of the divine authority of the Scriptures, but did not see how this was to be reconciled with some of the conclusions of modern scholarship. Our labor was commenced with a distinct belief that thorough and candid inquiry would subserve the interests of the cause of Christ ; that truth has nothing to lose, but everything to gain, from fair investigation ; and that to one who earnestly and prayerfully seeks, God will give guidance and satisfaction. 17 258 CONCLUSION. Having found the subject cleared up to our own mind by these studies, we have ventured to submit them to the inspection of friends, and now of the general public, in the humble hope tliat they may convince opponents, and reclaim the doubting to a real and rejoicing faith in the Bible as God's Word to Man. INDEXES. i:n^dex I. SUBJECTS AND PERSONS. FAOB Abbot, Ezra 224 Abbott, Lyman 217 Accuracy of transcription of Scripture 221 Actual influence of Christian- ity 216 Ayag slain 206 Alford, Henry .... 33, 131 Analogy of all God's commu- nications 193 Anathema against any other gospel 164 Apocrypha 115 Apostles authorized by Christ 148 Arnold, Thomas .... 42, 56 Assertions of inspiration . . 158 Augustan age of Rome . . 101 Authenticity of the Scriptures 22 Autliorship both divine and human 26 Balaam 81, 197 Bannerman, James 15, 16, 29, 30, 39, 87, 107, 114, 143 Bartlett, S. C 202 Beck, J. T 53 Belief of the Jewish people . 115 Believers are servants of right- eousness 187 Bengel 83 Bentley, Richard 224 Bezaleel 73 Bible not advice but command 15 PAGE Bibliolatr}', a new term of re- proach 75 Butler, Bishop, his Analogy 174,193 Canon 22 Carpzovius 45 Carson, Alexander . . 46, 52, 87 Change in the Apostles . . 156 Christian consciousness . . 50 Christ wrote nothing . . . 148 Claims of the Bible .... Ill Clarke, J. Freeman .... 56 Claudius Lysias, his letter . 38, 86 Coleridge. S. T. . . . 56, 86, 103 Consciousness not destroyed . 68 Consistency of all truth . . 236 Credibility not dependent on inspiration 16 Crispus baptized 191 Critical objections to inspira- tion 218 Criticism ..<.... 21, 218 Cultivation of the docile spirit 16 Cumulative argument . . . 108 Curtis, Thomas F. . . . 56, 58 Dagg, John L. . . Dana, Prof. James . Daniel, genuineness of Dawson, J. W. . . Death for idolatry . Deficiencies of an uninspired Bible 66 246 233 246 209 15 262 INDEX. PAGE Definitions of inspiration . . 37 Degrees of inspiration ... 52 Dick, John 53 Different eras used .... 200 Difficulties in the Bible . . 192 Direct evidence of inspira- tion 104, 114 Disclaimers of inspiration . . 179 Discrepancies alleged in the Bible 195 founded on misinterpre- tation 195 founded on mistakes as to facts 196 Distinctions to be noticed . . 20 Divorce laws 124 Doddridge, Philip .... 53 Double authorship of the Bible 30 ECCLESIASTES 231 Echoes from the Old Testa- ment in the New . . . 116 Elisha's misleading the Sy- rians 207 Elymas denounced .... 145 Errors in transcription . . 82, 200 Evidences of Christianity . . 23 Extermination of the Canaan- ites 207 Failures due to neglect of the Bible 217 Farrar, F. W. ... 56, 58, 64 Fasting 125 Fisher, George P 202 Food, clean and unclean . . 125 Forgetfulness of Paul . . . 191 Form of the evidence of inspi- ration 109 Four-sided view of the Gos- pel history 199 Garbett, Edward .... 34 Gardiner, Frederic . 114, 116, 212 Gardner, W. W 37 Gaussen 255 Genuineness defined Gladstone, William E. Goodwin, Harvev . Graf ....'.. Greenleaf, Judge Griesbach .... Guyot, Arnold . . PAGE 21 246 77 229 202 83 246 Haley, John W. . . . . 203 Henderson, Enoch . . . 53, 101 Higlier Criticism ... 21, 228 Historical accuracy of Evan- gelists 105 Hodge, Charles 56 Hooker, Richard .... 173 Hooker, Robert 45 Hooper, Bishop 254 Hume, David 23 Humphrev, E. P 34 Huxley, Thos 246 Idolatry punished by death 209 Illumination different from in- spiration 40 Imperfection is not error . . 210 Importance of the doctrine of Inspiration 13 Individuality preserved . . 68 Insignificant details . . . 251 Inspiration an act, or a result 25 of the men and also of the books 26 defined 37 partial 48 degrees of 52 natural 54 universal 56 plenary 59 negative statements of . 61 not to be explained . . 61 not mere stimulus ... 69 not omniscience 78, 190, 191 did not impl}' sinlessness 81 positive statement of . . 90 presumptive argument for 93 said to be disclaimed . . 179 INDEX. 263 Inspiration not inconsistent with careful inquiry . . 180 Interpretations of Scripture nia}' be erroneous . . . 238 Jael's killing Sisera . . . 206 Jephthah's daughter . . . 206 Jerome of Prague; .... 254 .Job ... . ..... 85 John's Gospel, its authorship 232, 234 Judson, Adoniram .... 254 KuENEN, A 55, 229 Ladd, George T., 37, 47, 49, 110, 117, 123, 140, 161, 210, 232 Last discourse of our Lord . 151 Lee, William . . . 151, 153, 156 Limits of possible error . . 221 Lipscomb, A. A 103 Liturgy, the English ... 74 Locke, John 23 Luke's place in the Canon . 181 MacNaught, John ... 76 Maimonides 49 Marriage laws . . . 124, 182 Martineau, James .... 56 Maurice, F. D 42, 74 McConaughy 256 McCosh, President James . . 245 Mechanical inspiration . . 44, 63 Ministers should search thor- oughly 17 Minute circumstances foretold 132 Miracles the testimony of God 106 Mistakes in transcription . 82, 200 Moral grandeur of Biblical ethics 215 Moral objections to inspiration 205 Morell, J. D 55 Mosaic authorship of Penta- teuch 232 PAGE Natural inspiration ... 54 Neander 56 Negative statements of inspi- ration 61 Newman, F. W 55 Objections to plenary inspi- ration 179 Obscurities in the Bible . . 102 Olshausen, H 172 Opinions not sanctioned . . 84 Oracles of God 142 Osgood, Howard 114 Pantheism 75 Park, Edwards A 37 Parker, Theodore .... 55 Partial inspiration .... 48 Patton, F. L 17, 37 Paul's cloak 252 Paul's conversion, different ac- counts 199 Paulus 156 Peirce, B. K 33 Pentateuch 98, 232 Pentecostal blessings . . . 157 Permanence of the object . . 94 Personal experiences recorded 214 Phenomena of Scripture . . 109 Phenomenal language not un- true 241 Physical Science not the sub- " ject of the Bible . . . 237 Plenary Inspiration .... 59 Polygamy 209 Post-Reformation dogma . . 32 Postulates underlying the ar- gument 110 Presumptive argument ... 93 Progressive nature of revela- tion 212 Promise of the Father . . . 157 Prophecy not of private inter- pretation 137 Prophets of Old Testament . 99 Prophetic order reappearing . 127 Providential guardianship of the Scripture .... 220 Psalms 99 264 INDEX. QUENSTEDT, J. A 44 Rabbinical dialectic . Raliab's falsehood . . Rationalist position . . Relation of the Gentiles to Church .... Religion of the Book Retaliation recognized . Revelation different from spiration . . gradual and deliberate Robertson, Frederick W Roman Catholic view . Round numbers used . Rule of faith .... the 170 206 41 158 13 208 36 154 56 41 200 22 Sabbath regulations . . . 123 Sadducees, their error . . . 131 Samuel slaving Agag . . . 206 Schaff, Philip 32, 224 Schleierniacher . . . . 42, 56 Scientific conclusions often misleading 239 Scientific objections to the Bible 235 Sears, E. H 234 Semler 49 Simplicity and majest}' of the Bible ...... 113 Smith, Justin A 36 Solomon's writings prudential and worldly . . . .208, 213 Source of proof of inspiration . 104 Sources of misapprehension . 18 PAGE Spheres of the Spirit's opera- tions 70 Spirit of Truth 152 Spoiling of the Egyptians . . 206 Stanley, Dean A. 1*. ... 67 Strauss 156 Strong, Augustus H. . . 37, 55 Supernatural interposition im- plied 23 Telegraph operator ... 79 Termination of apostolic office 155 Tertullus 87 Testimony of God . . . . 106 Testimony of inspired men . 107 Text criticism .... 21, 219 Thaddeus 198 Tholuck 56, 131 Tischendorf, C 83 Transcviption of the Bible . 201 Tregelles, S. P 83 Typical nature of Mosaic rit- ual 252 Various readings 223, 225 Westcott and Hort . . . 222 Westcott, B. F. . . 33, 100, 131 Wilkinson, W. C 37 Wilson, Bishop Daniel . . 53 Witnesses to the fact of inspi- ration 105 Woods, Leonard 53 Word of God the standard . 14 INDEX 11. BIBLE PASSAGES DISCUSSED. Exodus. PAGE iii. 6, 15 170 iv. 10-16 136, 145 vii. 1, 2 136 XX. 12 140, 169 Deutekonomy. xviii, 15-22 136, 145 2 Samuel. xxiii. 2 159 Psalms. vi. 9 214 Ixxiii. 17-26 214 ex. 1 143, 169 Isaiah, i. 2 159 vi. 9 171 lix. 21 146 Jeremiah. i. 1-9 147.159 XV. 19 , .159 EZEKIEL. i. 3 159 Matthew. PAGE i. 22 144, 171 ii. 15 144, 171 V. 17, 18 118, 132 ix. 14, 17 125 x. 14-20 149 xi. 13 121 xii. 1-8 123 XV. 1-20 125, 169 XV. 8 140 xviii. 18 149, 150 xix. 3-12 119, 124 xxii. 31 170 xxii. 43 143, 170 xxviii. 19, 20 149, 150 Mark. ii. 18-22 125 ii. 23-28 123 vii. 1-16 125, 169 x. 2-12 124 xii. 37 170 xiii. 9-11 149 xiv. 49 132 xvi. 9-20 106, 222 Luke. i. 3 179 v. 33-39 125 vi. 1-5 123 xii. 11, 12 149 xvi. 16, 17 121 xvi. 29-31 121 266 INDEX. PAGE XX. 37 170 xxi. 14, 15 149 xxiv. 45 133, 157 xxiv. 48 173 John. V. 39 117 vii. 53 222 viii. 1-11 . 222 X. 34-36 132, 141 xii. 39-41 171 xiv. 25, 26 151 XV. 26,27 151,173 xvi. 12-15 151 xix. 24, 28 132 XX. 31 162 Acts. i. 8 149, 173 i. 16 171 iv. 8 144 iv. 25, 26 144 V. 32 173 X. 28 145, 158 xiii. 9 145 XV. 1-6 162 XV. 28 173 xxviii. 25 171 Romans. iii. 2 . . vi. 18, 19 ix. 17 . xvi. 25-27 ... 142 ... 187 ... 130 134, 137, 162 1 Corinthians. i. 16 191 ii. 10-14 42, 163 vii. 6-25 181 xiv. 37 161, 163 2 Corinthians. viii. 8, 10 183 xi. 17 187 PAGE xii. 2, 3 . . . 190 xiii. 2, 3 . . 163 Galatiaks. i. 8-12 . . 162, 164 iii. 8 . . . . 130 Ephesians. ii. 20 . . IGl, 164 iii. 1-7 . . . 165 1 Timothy. V. 18 . 129 2 Timothy. iii. 16 . . . 133 1 Thessalonians. ii. 13 . iv. 2-15 142,165 . 166 2 Thessalonians. ii. 13-15 162, 166 Hebrews. iii. 7 144, 172 ix. 8 172 1 Peter. i. 10-12 135, 166 2 Peter. i. 19-21 28, 137 iii. 2 128, 167 iii. 16 128, 130 Revelation. i. 1-3 167 xxii. 6-19 167 Date Due ^cr 3- 42 L :V.«..A.A-^ ... ...*PI NIPiP f i<. '"'^^HlWl^fl^Pil H r£fi(ir u m^ MAR ( ^000 3 f BS480.(VI27K« The Bible doctrine of Inspiration Princeton Theological Seminary-Speer Library 1 1012 00052 2591