its contents may attest by its nature that this or that special portion came from God, but not that the book itself, including everything in it, had a divine source. A truth, or a doctrine, may be divinely revealed, but humanly recorded, or transmitted by tradition; and may be mixed up with other things that are erroneous: else the passages of scriptural truth contained in a modern sermon would prove the whole sermon inspired and infallible.

we

V. The argument for Inspiration, drawn from the miraculous gifts of the alleged recipients of inspiration—a matter to which we shall refer when treating of miracles—is thus conclusively met by a recent author: "Shall we say that miracles are an evidence of inspiration in the person who performs them? And must we accept as infallible every combination of ideas which may exist in his mind? If we look at this question abstractedly, it is not easy to perceive the necessary connection between superhuman power and superhuman wisdom. And when look more closely to the fact, did not the minds of the Apostles retain some errors, long after they had been gifted with supernatural power? Did they not believe in demons occupying the bodies of men and swine? Did they not expect Christ to assume a worldly sway? Did not their master strongly rebuke the moral notions and feelings of two of them, who were for calling down fire from Heaven on an offending village? It is often said that where a man's asseveration of his infallibity is combined with the support of miracles, his inspiration is satisfactorily proved; and this statement is made on the assumption that God would never confer supernatural power on one who could be guilty of a falsehood. What, then, are we to say respecting Judas and Peter, both of whom had been furnished with the gifts of miracle, and employed them during a mission planned by Christ, and of whom, nevertheless, one became the traitor of the garden, and the other uttered against his Lord three falsehoods in one hour?

So far, then, our inquiry has brought us to this negative conclusion that we can discover no ground for believing that the Scriptures-i. e. either the Hebrew or the Christian' Canonical Writings-are inspired, taking that word in its ordinary acceptation-viz. that they "came from God; 1 Rationale of Religious Inquiry, p. 30.

were dictated or suggested by Him; were supernaturally preserved from error, both as to fact and doctrine; and must therefore be received in all their parts as authoritative and infallible. This conclusion is perfectly compatible with the belief that they contain a human record, and in substance, a faithful record, of a divine revelation—a human history, and, in the main, a true history, of the dealings of God with man. But they have become to us, by this conclusion, records, not revelations ;-histories to be investigated like other histories ;-documents of which the date, the authorship, the genuineness, the accuracy of the text, are to be ascertained by the same principles of investigation as we apply to other documents. In a word, we are to examine them and regard them, not as the Mahometans regard the Koran, but as Niebuhr regarded Livy, and as Arnold regarded Thucydides-documents out of which the good, the true, the sound, is to be educed.

CHAPTER II.

MODERN MODIFICATIONS OF THE DOCTRINE OF

INSPIRATION.

THE question examined in the last chapter was not "Do the sacred writings contain the words of inspired truth?" but, "Are the writings themselves so inspired as to contain nothing else? Are they supernaturally guaranteed from error?" It is clear that these questions are perfectly distinct. God may send an inspired message to man, but it does not necessarily follow that the record or tradition of that message is inspired also.

We must here make a remark, which, if carefully borne in mind through the discussion, will save much misapprehension and much misrepresentation. The word Inspiration is used, and may, so far as etymology is concerned, be fairly used, in two very different senses. It may be used to signify that elevation of all the spiritual faculties by the action of God upon the heart, which is shared by all devout minds, though in different degrees, and which is consistent with infinite error. This is the sense in which it appears to have been used by both the Jews and Pagans of old. This is the sense in which it is now used by those who, abandoning the doctrine of Biblical Inspiration as ordinarily held, are yet unwilling to renounce the use of a word defensible in itself, and hallowed to them by old associations. Or it may be used to signify that direct revelation, or infusion of ideas and information into the understanding of man by the Spirit of God, which involves and implies infallible correctThis is the sense in which the word is now used in the ordinary parlance of Christians, whenever the doctrine. of Biblical Inspiration is spoken of;—and it is clear that in this signification only can it possess any dogmatic value, i. e. can form the basis of dogmas which are to be received as

ness.

authoritative, because taught in or fairly deduced from the Scriptures. It is only by establishing this sense of the word as the correct one, that divines are entitled to speak of the Bible, or to use it in controversy, as the "Word of God." To establish the doctrine of "Biblical Inspiration,' by using the word in the first sense, and then to employ that doctrine, using the word in its second sense, is an unworthy shift, common among theologians as disingenuous as shallow.

Now we entirely subscribe to the idea involved in the first, and what we will call the poetical, sense of the word Inspiration; but we object to the use of the word, because it is sure to be understood by the world of Readers in the second and vernacular sense; and confusion and fallacy must be the inevitable result.

The ordinary theory of inspiration prevalent throughout Christendom-viz., that every statement of fact contained in the Scriptures is true; that every view of duty, every idea of God, therein asserted, "came from God," in the ordinary and unequivocal sense of that expression, i. e. was directly and supernaturally taught by God to the man who is said to have received the communication-we have discovered to be groundless, and we believe to be untenable. Though still the ostensible doctrine, and the basis on which some of the most difficult portions of the popular theology are reared, it has, however, been found so indefensible by acute reasoners and honest divines, that-unwilling to abandon it, yet unable to retain it-they have modified and subtilized it into every shade and variety of meaning-and no-meaning. We propose, in this chapter, to examine one or two of the most plausible modifications which have been suggested; to show that they are all as untenable as the original one; and that, in fact, any modification of the doctrine amounts to a denial of it. "It is, indeed," says Coleridge," the peculiar character of this doctrine, that you cannot diminish or qualify, but you reverse it."

Two of the most remarkable men of our times, Coleridge and Arnold-one the most subtle thinker, the other the most honest theologian of the age-have, while admitting the untenableness of the common theory of Inspiration, left us a statement of that which their own minds substituted for

it, and which, in our opinion, is equivalent to a negation of it. The attempt, though made in the one case with great fairness, and in the other with great acuteness, thus at once to affirm and deny a proposition, has naturally communicated a vagueness and inconsistency to their language, which makes it very difficult to grasp their meaning with precision. We will, however, quote their own words.

Dr. Arnold writes thus1:-"Most truly do I believe the Scriptures to be inspired; the proofs of their inspiration grow with the study of them. The Scriptural narratives are not only about divine things, but are themselves divinely framed and superintended. I cannot conceive my conviction of this truth being otherwise than sure." (Here, surely, is as distinct an affirmation of the popular doctrine as could be desired.) He continues: "Consider the Epistles of the blessed Apostle Paul, who had the Spirit of God so abundantly that never, we may suppose, did any merely human being enjoy a larger share of it. Endowed with the Spirit as a Christian, and daily receiving grace more largely as he became more and more ripe for glory, . . . . favoured also with an abundance of revelations disclosing to him things ineffable and inconceivable-are not his writings most truly to be called inspired? Can we doubt that in what he has told us of things not seen, or not seen as yet, . . . . he spoke what he had heard from God; and that to refuse to believe his testimony is really to disbelieve God?" Can any statement of the popular doctrine be more decided or unshrinking than this? Yet he immediately afterwards says, in reference to one of St. Paul's most certain and often-repeated statements (regarding the approaching end of the world), "we may safely and reverently say that St. Paul, in this instance, entertained and expressed a belief which the event did not justify." Now put these statements together, and we shall see that Dr. Arnold affirms, as a matter not to be doubted by any reasonable mind, that when St. Paul speaks of certain things (of God, of Christ,

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1 Christian Course and Character, pp. 486-490.

2 It is particularly worthy of remark (and seems to have been most unaccountably and entirely overlooked by Dr. Arnold throughout his argument), that, in the assertion of this erroneous belief, St. Paul expressly declares himself to be speaking "by the Word of the Lord."-1 Thess. iv. 15.