many plain statements of So far as the authority of

person and offices, alongside of what he has himself witnessed. his writings is concerned, it is to us a matter of indifference whether he then for the first time received new revelations concerning his Master's person and offices, and the true import of the events which he recorded, or whether (as is most probable) these were all truths with which he had long been familiar. In either case, he writes as one who is conscious of enjoying, not casually and at intervals, but as a permanent gift, the plenary illumination of the Holy Spirit; so that all his statements, whether they relate to doctrines or to matters of history, come to us alike with the sanction of God.

The same view we take of the inspiration of the apostles when writing their Epistles. We are far from denying that they may have received, in the progress of their work, special revelations from God. On this point, affirmation and negation would be alike out of place. We can only say, that, if such special revelations were needed to make their writings complete according to the mind of the Spirit, they were given. But we must assume that when the apostle Paul (to take a particular case) sat down to write his Epistle to the Romans, he had, under the supernatural illumination of the Holy Ghost in connection with the revelations made to him by Christ, a clear and full view of the great doctrines of grace which he proceeded to unfold, as well as of the practical duties which cluster around them. He certainly did not need a special revelation that he might come to the conclusion, from the premises which he employed, "that a man is justified by faith, without the deeds of the law "2; or might lay down the principle: "There is no power but of God; the powers that be are ordained of God." His inspiration was not doled out to him, moment by moment, as he proceeded; but he had it as a permanent gift, bestowed upon him in connection with his apostolic office, and it covered fully the whole ground traversed by him. We are

1 Gal. i. 11, 12.

2 Rom. iii. 28.

8 Rom. xiii. 1.

not to infer that, when he says: "To the rest speak I, not the Lord," he is less inspired than when he says: "Unto the married I command-yet not I, but the Lord."2 We have shown, in a previous number, that the difference lies not in his inspiration, but in the matter under consideration. In the one case, Christ had given a positive command; in the other, he had left the believer free to act according to his own judgment. The apostle, accordingly, gives, in the one case, his advice; in the other, the positive command of the Lord; and both alike under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost. Surely, an apostle might give advice by inspiration, as well as enjoin obedience to Christ's positive legislation.

A large part of the sacred volume consists of narratives of events well known to the writers, or drawn from authentic sources accessible to them. We suppose that here the inspiration of the writers consisted largely we say largely, not exclusively in such a full illumination and guidance of the Holy Spirit as gave them a right view of the end proposed to be accomplished, and enabled them to select the right materials, to give to them the right form, and to present them in the right spirit, free from passion, prejudice, and error. We attempt not here to discriminate nicely between different kinds of inspiration. We remark, summarily, that the inspired writers were men, not machines, and that they had whatever help they needed, both in kind and degree, that they might write according to the mind of the Spirit.

Meaning of the Term Plenary Inspiration.

The word "plenary means "full." "Full, entire, complete," is the definition given by Webster. An inspiration, then, that is "full, entire, complete," is plenary, whatever be its mode. To assume that no inspiration can be full, except that in which the very words, in their number and order, are infused into the writer's mind, is to beg the question at issue, and to limit the Holy Spirit in a most unwarrantable manner. Here the prophet's question is very

1 1 Cor. vii. 12. 21 Cor. vii. 10.

8 See Bibliotheca Sacra, Vol. xxviii. p. 644.

pertinent: "Who hath directed the Spirit of the Lord, or, being his counsellor, hath taught him? With whom took he counsel, and who instructed him, and taught him in the path of judgment, and taught him knowledge, and showed him the way of understanding?" 1 Shall man, in his ignorance, presume to affirm that the Spirit of God was shut up to one method of securing from the pen of the sacred writer a record of the revelation made to him that should be "full, entire, complete," according to his mind? Or that, when he recorded well-known facts, the narrative could not be made, in form, matter, and spirit, agreeable to the will of the Holy Ghost, unless the sentences were given him, one by one, as he proceeded? Let it be remembered, then, that the term "plenary," as applied to inspiration, respects the result secured, not the mode of securing it, and that it is not to be restricted to one particular theory.

The Question of Verbal Inspiration.

It is acknowledged on all hands that a large part of the revelations made by God to men was given directly, in human language. This is true not only of those revelations which were objective in their form, but also of many, at least, that were given subjectively, that is, by an inward revelation to the mind of the recipient. We might adduce, as instances from the Old Testament, Jacob's dream, in which he saw a ladder reaching from earth to heaven, and heard the Lord, who stood above it, saying: "I am the Lord God of Abraham thy father, and the God of Isaac: the land whereon thou liest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed," etc.; Isaiah's vision, in which he saw the Lord sitting in the temple on a throne high and lifted up, and heard the words not only of the seraphim who stood by, but of God himself; 3 and many more like examples. From the New Testament, also, we might specify the words addressed to Peter in his vision on the house-top; to Paul in a vision 2 Gen. xxviii. 12 seq.

1 Isa. xl. 13, 14.

3 Isa. vi.

4 Acts x. 10 seq.

at Corinth; to the revelator on Patmos,2 etc. How much of the revelations made to the prophets was given directly in the form of words, and how much by inward vision or intuition, is a question which need not trouble us; since, in either case, the prophecy came from God, and the prefatory words, "Thus saith the Lord," were alike appropriate.

But our present inquiry is directed to another point; namely, whether that theory of verbal inspiration which teaches that the identical words of scripture, in their order and number, were everywhere infused into the minds of the sacred writers, either formally or virtually, so that their office was simply to make a faithful record of them-whether this theory of inspiration is necessary or tenable. We have introduced into the above statement of the theory the clause, "either formally or virtually," for the purpose of indicating the two forms under which it is advocated.

The first, or purely mechanical, form represents every word of scripture as given to the writers immediately by God; so that they are simply the amanuenses of the Holy Spirit, not only when he communicates to them new truths, but also when they relate facts of which they already had full knowledge in a natural way. If we rightly understand Carson, this is the form of verbal inspiration which he advocates. Endeavoring to meet the objection, urged by Henderson, that "it is an incontrovertible fact that those by whom the sacred books were written possessed, to a greater or less extent, a previous acquaintance with many of the subjects of which they treat, he says:

"He has not the perspicacity to distinguish between infusing knowledge into the mind for the information of the person into whom it is infused, and infusing a communication for the information of others. It is, indeed, absurd to speak of giving a man knowledge which he has already; but it is not absurd to speak of communicating to him known truths in order to be recorded. Even among men, there is nothing more common. A person says to his servant: "Tell my friend that my son is dead." Is not this a communication from the master? Was not the fact as well known to the servant? Is it impossible to dictate the words of a discourse to an 1 Acts xviii. 9, 10. 2 Rev. ii. seq.

amanuensis on a doctrine with which the writer is as well acquainted as the author? The previous knowledge of the writers of scripture had nothing to do with the divine communications given to them to be recorded. They wrote, not as they personally knew, but as it was dictated to them by the Spirit. Our confidence in what they relate is not from a conviction of their previous knowledge of the subject, and their ability to express their own meaning, but from the conviction that they spake as the Holy Ghost gave them utterance.""

"We do not say that the Holy Spirit infused into the writers of scripture that style which they previously possessed, and which they received in their constitution; and we have no need of so absurd an assertion. We say that he uttered his thoughts, reasonings, and words through the writers of scripture, in the style of those writers. If so, the style must be his, as style is the result of words and the collocation of words."

"I believe the inspiration of both words and letters, on the same ground. An inspired speaker might have every word suggested by God, while he did not know a single letter of the alphabet. But, if a writing is inspired, the letters must be inspired, as well as the words, because the writing consists in the letters written, as well as in the words written. My argument for the inspiration of words is not that a writing is made up of words, but that a writing is made up of the words written."

We waive a separate discussion of the theory in this simple form; since all we have to say concerning it will come up naturally in connection with the modification of it to be next considered. This modification is that propounded and advocated at length by Eleazer Lord, in his treatise on Plenary Inspiration, and in other writings of his. He agrees with Carson, as we have seen, in maintaining that it was not the writers personally, but that which they wrote, that was inspired. In other words, he holds that the apostolic declaration," All scripture is inspired of God" (OeóπvVEVOTOS), means not that all scripture was written by inspired men, but that all scripture was inspired into the sacred writers. We have already shown how untenable is this distinction. The word cóπVEVOTOS occurs but once in the whole compass of the New Testament. To erect, as does Carson, upon the grammatical rendering of this word, "inspired of God," a whole theory concerning the mode of inspiration, is to build on a sandy foundation. Our translators, with great good

1 Refutation of Dr. Henderson, pp. 29, 30. 2 Ibid. p. 70. 8 Ibid. pp. 80, 81.