^^S^^H^^^^^N^ 
 
 
 PRINCETON, N. J. 
 
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 Dh 'is ion . . 1 J*_,J . . T. .Q ^ 
 Section ....... .4r? . .*>>J. . .1. fj. 
 
 Number 
 
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 w 
 
Inspiration. 
 
 a Clerical Symposium 
 
 "IN WHAT SENSE, AND WITHIN WHAT LIMITS, 
 IS THE BIBLE THE WORD OF GOD?" 
 
 THE VEN. ARCHDEACON FARRAR, 
 
 PRINCIPAL CAIRNS, 
 
 PREBENDARY STANLEY LEATHES, 
 
 REV. EDWARD WHITE, 
 
 And Others. 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 
 THOMAS WHITTAKER, 
 
 2 and 3 BIBLE HOUSE. 
 l88q. 
 
> MAR 24 1 - 
 
 gical Ser<^ 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 Writers, representing various sections of the 
 Church, have skilfully and devoutly stated, in the 
 pages of the Homiletic Magazine, their convictions 
 on the subject of Inspiration. The question of 
 the meaning and extent of the Inspiration of the 
 Sacred Volume, is one that underlies almost all 
 other theological questions. It has therefore been 
 deemed advisable to send forth, in a compact form, 
 the whole series of papers, which make a contribu- 
 tion to theological science, at once valuable for 
 scholarship and fairness. 
 
 FREDERICK HASTINGS, 
 
 Editor of Ho mild ic Magasmu (late Quarterly.) 
 London, 1884- 
 
MAR 
 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 articu: 
 
 I. REV. PROF. J. RADFORD THOMSON, M.A. . 
 
 II. REV. PREBENDARY STANLEY LEATHES, D.D 
 
 III REV. PRINCIPAL JOHN CAIRNS, D.D. 
 
 IV. BET. ALEXANDER MACKENNAL, MA 
 
 V. REV. PAGE HOPPS .... 
 
 VI. REV. W. CROSBY BARLOW, M.A. . 
 
 VII. REV. PROF. G. W. OLVER, M.A. . 
 
 VIII. REV. EDWARD WHITE . 
 
 XI. PROF. ISRAEL ABRAHAMS, M.A. . 
 
 X. RIGHT REV. BISHOP WEATHERS . 
 
 XL VEN. ARCHDEACON FARRAR, D.D. 
 
 TAOi 
 
 1 
 
 23 
 
 4S 
 
 6G 
 
 79 
 
 93 
 
 119 
 
 137 
 
 155 
 
 175 
 
 21 12 
 

SYMPOSIUM ON INSPIRATION. 
 
 "IN WHAT SENSE, AND WITHIN WHAT LIMITS, IS 
 
 THE BIBLE TO BE REGARDED AS THE 
 
 WORD OF GOD?" 
 
 Article I. 
 
 By tiie Eev. Pkof. EADFORD THOMSON, MA. 
 
 THE Bible may be made the basis of two com- 
 pletely different arguments. If the existence 
 of a Divine Governor of the Universe be the ques- 
 tion under consideration, the sacred volume, as an 
 actual fact and as a moral power, may fairly be 
 adduced as an evidence of a supernatural interpo- 
 sition and guidance. On the other hand, if the 
 Divine existence and rule be acknowledged, it is 
 allowable to bring forward the Book, and to ask 
 whether it bears such marks as entitle it to be 
 deemed in some special sense the workmanship of 
 the eternal mind. It is rather under this latter 
 aspect that I am asked to view the Scriptures in 
 this friendly symposium. 
 
 In thinking and writing upon this theme, it is 
 
2 INS PI RATION. 
 
 impossible not to feel how different is the treat- 
 ment the Bible meets with in our own days, from 
 that to which it was subjected in days gone by. 
 "We may almost say, the Bible has no enemies, and 
 if it has critics, they are all friendly critics, anxious 
 to say all they sincerely can say in its favour. Prof. 
 Matthew Arnold represents modern literature, and 
 is often regarded as oue of the severest critics of 
 the current Christianity ; yet he says : " As well 
 imagine a man with a sense for sculpture not culti- 
 vating it by the help of the remains of Greek art, 
 or a man with a sense for poetry not cultivating it 
 by the help of Homer and Shakespeare, as a man 
 with a sense for conduct not cultivating it by the 
 help of the Bible." Professor Huxley represents 
 modern science, and is the bete noire of contro- 
 versial theologians ; yet he says : " I have been 
 perplexed to know by what practical measures the 
 religious feeling, which is the essential basis of 
 conduct, was to be kept up . . . without the use 
 of the Bible." No doubt, both these gentlemen 
 would dissent from the declaration of the late Dr. 
 Tregelles, who professed that to him all the 66 
 books of Scripture w T ere entirely and in every part 
 as if written by the pen of God Himself. Yet 
 they would, certainly one of them, perhaps both, 
 acknowledge the Bible to be the Word of God, 
 
REV. PROF. J. RADFORD THOMSON, M.A. 3 
 
 were they permitted to describe the Eternal in 
 their own way. Among the ignorant and the 
 vulgar there are still to be found vituperators of 
 Scripture and blasphemers ; but in literature, in 
 society, we meet with nothing but cordial appre- 
 ciation. This is owing to the joint influence of 
 enlightenment and liberty, which naturally bring 
 charity and candour in their train. There is no 
 dispute as to the fact that some of the Scripture 
 writers were men of genius ; that their tone of 
 moral thinking and teaching was far higher than 
 prevailed elsewhere in the ancient world : and that 
 the Book, as a whole, has been the source of social 
 blessings and the inspiration of social progress. 
 Making allowance for human fallibility and elimi- 
 nating all the miraculous as incredible, but as 
 written with no purpose to deceive, the Bible would 
 probably be acknowledged, by almost all contem- 
 porary thinkers of any credit, to be the most won- 
 derful and the best Book the world has seen. 
 
 But we shall make a great mistake if we suppose 
 that there is anything approaching to a general 
 agreement anions educated and thoughtful English- 
 men as to what the Bible is. . What is it generally 
 regarded as being ? In reading the other day the 
 last volume of Bishop "Wilberforce's life, I came 
 upon, and made a note of, a passnge which I will 
 
4 INSPIRATION. 
 
 here quote. The belief of the late Bishop Wilber- 
 force was, I think, a fair representation of the 
 belief of orthodox and educated English Christians 
 generally. "In brief," says he,* "my belief is 
 this : — The whole Bible comes to us as ' the Word 
 of God' under the sanction of God the Holy 
 Ghost." We cannot pick and choose amidst its 
 contents ; all is God's "Word to us. But as I 
 believe that this, which I hold as the only orthodox 
 view, is encompassed by many difficulties by what 
 is called the theory of Verbal Inspiration, I desired 
 to show how, in my judgment, a careful scrutiny 
 of the Bible revealed the divers manners in which 
 the Holy Ghost spake : — 
 
 " I. Sometimes by the mere mechanical use of 
 the human agent who conveyed the message, as 
 when (1) God wrote words on the first tables ; (2) 
 dictated them for the second ; or (3) committed 
 them to prophets simply to repeat ; or (4) spake 
 them through the prophets. 
 
 " II. Sometimes by possessing the human instru- 
 ment with a complete knowledge of that he was to 
 speak, and leaving him to express it under the 
 mere suggestions and guardianship of His own 
 special presence according to the natural use of the 
 
 * " Life of the Right Rev. S. Wilberforce, D.D.," vol. iii., pp. 
 149, 150. 
 
REV. PROF. J. RADFORD THOMSON, M.A. 5 
 
 human faculties. I desired, I say, to show how 
 this would greatly lessen these difficulties, and 
 enable men to realise the essential differences 
 between Holy Scripture and any other books ; 
 namely that, as all truth comes from God, other 
 books may be in a sense said to be inspired because 
 they are true, but Holy Scripture alone can be 
 affirmed to be true because it is inspired." 
 
 Such definitions as that of Bishop "Wilberforcc 
 belong: to a reflective and critical a^e. Yet that in 
 some sense the Bible has from the beginning been 
 deemed a sacred book is not disputed. Clement of 
 Rome calls the Scriptures, " the true words of the 
 Holy Ghost," According to "Wcstcott, "The first 
 simple collective title of the whole Bible appears 
 to be that which is found in Jerome in the 4th 
 century, the Divine Library (Bibliotheca Divina)."* 
 Perhaps many minds would prefer to rest in such 
 simple and vague statements as these. But it is 
 not possible or desirable to evade questions which 
 do and will start up, when minds are active, in- 
 quiries are general, and doubts are wide-spread. 
 
 My own temptation, I admit, is not so much to 
 11 level down " the Scriptures to other manifestations 
 of Deity, as, on the contrary, to "level up" these 
 
 * " The Bible in the Church," p. 5. 
 
G INSPIRATION. 
 
 latter to become a Divine Bevelation. Without 
 confusing God with Nature, I delight to see God in 
 Nature. To me, the blue crocus that is opening 
 before my eye in the sunshine of this February 
 morning, the yellow jessamine that brightens my 
 library window, are a word from God. Much more 
 the sweet and trustful expression of my child, who 
 just now came to know if he could do anything for 
 me before going to school. Can I then doubt 
 whether the story of the Saviour blessing the 
 babes, which I read to my assembled household at 
 prayers this morning, was a word from God ? To 
 my own mind such doubt is impossible. But the 
 question is not as to the Divine origin of Scripture, 
 so much as to the sense in which, the limits within 
 which, the Bible is God's Word. It is a question 
 for the understanding, to resolve which needs not 
 merely spiritual perception, but logical acuteness 
 and discrimination. To make my judgment plain 
 and definite, I answer : — 
 
 The Bible is the "Word of God : (1) inasmuch as 
 it is constructed upon a plan, and a plan which 
 only Divine Wisdom could devise and cany out ; (2) 
 inasmuch as it contains declarations, truths, which 
 man could not make known, and which proceed 
 from God ; (3) inasmuch as its writers may reason- 
 ably be deemed to have been Divinely inspired ; 
 
REV. PROF. J. RADFORD THOMSON, M.A. 7 
 
 and (4) inasmuch as its main purpose is to witness 
 to One who is alone in the highest, the proper 
 sense of the term, " The Word of God." 
 
 I. There is one respect in which, to a mind pre- 
 pared to believe that God interests Himself in 
 human well-being, the Bible must present marks 
 of Divine action : the plan upon which the volume 
 as a whole is constructed, and apparently has been 
 designed, is such as human wisdom certainly could 
 neither have arranged nor wrought out. Although 
 written by very different authors, removed from 
 one another by long centuries of time, and by 
 changed conditions of society, it possesses a most 
 singular unity, — a unity not of sameness, but of 
 harmony ; a unity of plan and orderly develop- 
 ment, — an organic unity. There is no hiatus and 
 no repetition ; no part could be dispensed with, — 
 no part could be inserted without spoiling the 
 effect of the whole. This is an argument which 
 can only be appreciated by a mind accustomed to 
 historical survey, and an imagination cultivated by 
 familiarity with works of art. But to such a mind 
 it is very effective. 
 
 The growth of the historical spirit, and the 
 influence exerted by the widely-accepted theory 
 of Evolution, have done much both to modify 
 
8 INSPIRATION. 
 
 the view of tlie Bible entertained by educated 
 believers, and to enhance their admiration of the 
 volume. It is no longer regarded as one book, or 
 consulted in an indiscriminating way as a collec- 
 tion of oracles, every word in which is of equal 
 authority with every other. It is rather thought 
 of as an organic product, each part of which has 
 a relation to the other parts ; the whole of which 
 was conceived in the Divine Mind, and wrought 
 out gradually through long centuries. It is ad- 
 mitted that there is a development of religious 
 doctrine, divinely guided, but still a development. 
 The interest with which the Christian public has 
 regarded such books as those of Dr. Newman 
 Smyth, Dr. Bruce, and Mr. Adeney, is a proof 
 that such a view meets a want in the minds of men 
 of this age. And just as the theory of develop- 
 ment in nature, if opposed, must be opposed on 
 scientific and not on theological grounds, and is re- 
 garded by those theologians who accept it as a most 
 powerful proof of the operation of a supernatural 
 mind and will, — so with the Scriptures. Their 
 growth unto perfection reveals to those who believe 
 in God, the presiding care, the consummate wisdom, 
 the marvellous goodness of Him whose progressive 
 Revelation corresponds to the progressive growth 
 of the spiritual humanity. 
 
REV. PROF. J. RADFORD THOMSON, M.A. 9 
 
 II. It is generally admitted by those who be- 
 lieve in God in any other sense than as "The Un- 
 knowable," that there are in three spheres valu- 
 able and trustworthy manifestations of the Divine. 
 God is revealed in Nature ; for Sir William Hamil- 
 ton's paradox that Nature conceals God can hardly 
 be taken seriously. He is revealed in Conscience, 
 in man's moral nature, judgments and sentiments, 
 as St. Paul shows so plainly in the Epistle to the 
 Romans. And further, there is a special revelation 
 to certain human spirits summoned to an intimate 
 intercourse with the Father of Spirits, such as was 
 the case with the inspired writers of Scripture. 
 
 Many religions have their sacred books : Brah- 
 minism has its Vedas, Parseeism has the Zen- 
 davesta, Confucianism the writings of the Chinese 
 sage, and Mohammedanism its Koran. 
 
 Doubtless the prevalent tendency at the present 
 time is to rest the claims of the Bible to a Divine 
 authority upon the intrinsic excellence, at all 
 events, of the greater portion of the volume. It 
 is, of course, a question how far testimony to the 
 Divinity of the Scriptures is valuable which bases 
 itself upon a spiritual appreciation of their adapta- 
 tion to the higher needs of man. What shall we 
 say of Dr. Edwin Abbott's evidence,* when after, 
 
 * Modem Review, October 1882. 
 
10 INSPIRATION. 
 
 as lie thinks, disproving by the indirect testimony 
 of Justin Martyr the claim of the fourth Gospel 
 to be the work of an apostle, he yet approves its 
 universal recognition in the early Church on the 
 ground of " the intrinsic power of this most 
 spiritual treatise," which "succeeded because it 
 deserved to succeed, because it was, spiritually 
 speaking, in accordance with the truth " ? 
 
 The Bible is usually deemed by Christians the 
 Word of God, because it contains a Eevelation, 
 and because it is the work of insjnred men. Both 
 Revelation and Inspiration are supernatural, and 
 when they meet together, as they are believed to 
 do in the structure and composition of the sacred 
 volume, they impart to the work in which they 
 co-operate a peculiar attribute of Divinity. 
 
 A critical generation like this is constrained to 
 scrutinise claims to paramount excellence ; and 
 this is done sometimes in an irreverent, but some- 
 times also in a reverent spirit. 
 
 There is perhaps no reflective reader of Scripture 
 who has not sometimes been tempted to question 
 within himself whether the space has been as well 
 occupied as might have been the case. Some 
 optical students have been of opinion that if they 
 had been consulted, the eye might have been better 
 made than Nature, or the Creator, has made it. 
 
REV. PHOP. J. RADFORD THOMSON, M.A. 11 
 
 But such criticism requires Omniscience to justify 
 it. It is plain that the Author of the Universe 
 has worked, within His powers, and that He had 
 reason for doing so ; and perhaps the present 
 disciplinary state of mankind is one reason. In 
 reading the Synoptic Gospels I have sometimes, I 
 confess, regretted the repetitions whicli abound in 
 them, and have wished that instead of these there 
 had been preserved some additional records of the 
 Saviour's sayings and doings. In reading the Acts 
 of the Apostles I have often regretted that the 
 narrative of St. Paul's conversion should be told 
 again and again, when there is so much that I 
 should like to have known about the apostle, for 
 which no room has been found. Parts of the 
 Epistle to the Hebrews and parts of the Apocalypse 
 have but little interest for us " sinners of the 
 Gentiles." But a little reflection assures us that in 
 such matters our wisdom may be foolishness ; the 
 Word, as a whole, doubtless appears harmonious 
 and perfect to the mind of the All-wise. And 
 there are not wanting glimmerings of an explana- 
 tion in such cases which may encourage a sub- 
 missive modesty. 
 
 I cannot but think that a decided conviction as 
 to the reality of Revelation is of far greater import- 
 ance than a theory of Inspiration. Dr. Newman 
 
1 2 INSPIRATION. 
 
 Smyth, well says : "An affirmative and very posi- 
 tive answer may be given to the question, 'Have 
 we a series or order of events and teaching which 
 constitute a revelation from God ? ' while doubt 
 and hesitancy may be felt in answering that other 
 question, ' How was the Word of God made known, 
 or what was the precise nature and degree of 
 Inspiration ? ' " * 
 
 Now, Revelation seems to me to have been con- 
 centrated in two epochs ; the time of Moses and 
 the time of Christ. "The law was given by 
 Moses, and grace and truth came by Jesus Christ." 
 I do not mean to deny that Revelation has come 
 otherwise ; but mainly and pre-eminently it was 
 accorded at those two crucial periods of the 
 history of humanity. But Inspiration I conceive 
 to have been far more diffused, and in very 
 different degrees. I can see no Revelation in 
 the books of Chronicles or Proverbs ; but I can 
 very well believe that some measure of inspira- 
 tion was accorded to their writers, thouoh a far 
 higher degree of that impulse was necessary to the 
 production of the Psalms and the prophecies of 
 Isaiah. 
 
 It is plainly impossible that God should have 
 communicated with man except within the limita- 
 
 * "Old Faiths in New Li-lit." 
 
REV. PUOF. J. HADFOItD THOMSON, M.A. 13 
 
 tions imposed by human faculties ; and it is no 
 disparagement, but rather a high recommendation 
 of " the Word," that it should come through 
 human minds and human lips. Prof. Max Miiller 
 has justly said that "a revelation ready made and 
 <nven to men like a lansma^o formed in heaven, 
 would have been a foreign revelation that men 
 could not understand." But we may go further 
 than this, and say with Dr. Hannah : # " God's 
 light loses nothing of its heavenly purity because 
 it is reflected back from human faces ; while man 
 gains all the advantage of the pervading presence 
 of a sympathy which answers to the most varied 
 emotions of his heart." 
 
 Attention has often been drawn to the fact that 
 there is an amazing difference of intrinsic value 
 between the Canonical books of the New Testament 
 and the Christian literature immediately succeed- 
 ing. No one with any literary and spiritual dis- 
 cernment can question this. The First Epistle 
 of Clement is a document of worth, but I 
 imagine few would, with Mr. Matthew Arnold, 
 rank it with the Second Epistle of Peter, or even 
 with the Epistle of Jude. The apocryphal Gospels, 
 the Shepherd of Hermas, &c, are not comparable 
 with the books of the New Testament. The ortho- 
 
 * " Relation of Divine and Human Elements," p. 225. 
 
14 INSPIRATION. 
 
 dox interpretation of the difference seems to me 
 the most reasonable : — " The apostolic period is 
 not only a part of the history of the apprehension 
 of truth by man ; it is also a part of the history 
 of the communication of truth by God." # 
 
 III. Within the circle of Christendom there are 
 to be found opposite tendencies, both of which seem 
 to me to disparage Scripture, yet neither of which 
 questions that it is the Divine word to man. 
 
 There is, first, the mystical tendency, which 
 exalts individual inspiration. All Christians ad- 
 mit with thankfulness that the Holy Spirit within 
 is a Spirit* of inspiration, disposing to appreciate 
 and respond to the Divine Eevelation from with- 
 out ; but the mystics seem to me to come very 
 near to making the indwelling Spirit a Spirit not 
 only of inspiration, but of revelation. If this be 
 so, there does not appear to be any distinctive 
 sense in which the Bible is God's Word, for no 
 one knows whether or not his neighbour is equally 
 qualified to reveal Divine Truth. 
 
 There is, in the. second place, the " Catholic " 
 tendency, which exalts the Church at the exjjensc 
 of the Bible, and which seems especially objec- 
 tionable, not as abolishing "finality" (for we all 
 
 * Bernard, "The Progress of Doctiine," p. 13. 
 
REV. PKOF. J. EADFORD THOMSON, M.A. 15 
 
 believe that "the Lord has yet more light and 
 truth to break forth from His word"), but rather 
 as putting a new patch upon an old garment. 
 
 The relation of the Church to the Scriptures is 
 a delicate and difficult question. Bishop Words- 
 worth,'" who is a champion of the Protestant view, 
 defines the functions of the Primitive Church in 
 reference to Holy Scripture as those of (1) a 
 Witness, (2) a Guardian, (3) a Herald, and (4) a 
 Judge. Of course, it is upon the fourth point 
 that controversy arises. "We do not hesitate to 
 confess," says Bishop Wordsworth, " that we have 
 received the Scriptures from God through the 
 ministry of the Church. But the Scriptures are 
 not the Word of the Church, but the Word of God. 
 They owe their authority not to her, but to Him." 
 If this is admitted, and I do not suppose divines 
 of the Roman communion would deny it — still the 
 question arises, how has the Church authenticated 
 certain books as canonical ? and when and where ? 
 It was done, I conceive, gradually and uncon- 
 sciously, not, in the first place, on the ground of 
 merit, but on the ground of the position of the 
 writers ; for the works of certain apostles and 
 apostolic men would be aud were reverently read 
 in the Christian assemblies. " The idea of canoni- 
 
 * " The Inspiration of Holy Scripture." 
 
1 G INSPIRATION*. 
 
 city," says Dr. Robertson Smith, "the right of a 
 book to be cited as Scripture, was closely connected 
 with regular use in public worship, and so the first 
 step towards a New Testament Canon was doubt- 
 less the establishment of a custom of reading in 
 the Churches individual epistles and Gospels."'"" I 
 am speaking, of course, of the New Testament. 
 The books of the Old Covenant were read in the 
 public assemblies of the early Church, whilst the 
 New Testament Canon was still in process of for- 
 mation. In fact, to quote Canon Westcott, " The 
 idea of a New Testament, consisting of definite 
 books, and equal in authority to the Old, was 
 foreign to the sub-apostolic age. Such an idea 
 was necessarily the growth of time." The imme- 
 diate successors of the apostles did not perceive 
 that the written memoirs of the Lord, and the 
 scattered writings of His first disciples, would 
 form a sure and sufficient source or test of 
 doctrine when the current tradition had grown 
 indistinct or corrupt." 
 
 The fact seems to be that the solid and per- 
 manent record and the fluid society support each 
 other. It is only partisans who can base the 
 Church on the Bible or the Bible on the Church. 
 " The Church offered a living commentary on the 
 
 * Article <: Bible," in Encyc. Brit. 
 
REV. PEOF. J. UADFORD THOMSON, M.A. 17 
 
 Book, and the Book an uuchanging test of the 
 Church." The two have one and the same Divine 
 origin. " The canon of Scripture cannot be made 
 to rest upon the Church, for the Bible and the 
 Church were both the simultaneous outgrowths of 
 something which was in the world before them 
 both, — they were the twin fruits of a life which 
 was before them both."* 
 
 Is it necessary, in order to a firm belief in the 
 Diviue origin and authority of Scripture, to hold 
 — what is very generally held — that its language 
 often conveys a meaning not apprehended by the 
 mind of the inspired penman ? There is a maxim 
 — "Nihil est in scripto, quod non prius in scrip- 
 tore." This maxim is all very well for a logician, 
 but it does not do for a poet, much less for a 
 prophet. Great truths may be suggested by local 
 and temporary circumstances, and those truths 
 may require millenniums of history in which to 
 work themselves out and display their harmony 
 and completeness. 
 
 There is a view of inspiration which has been 
 very prevalent among Broad Church thinkers dur- 
 ing the last generation. I refer to that introduced 
 by Coleridge, who held that whatever "finds" a 
 spiritual nature, i.e., whatever, by reason of its 
 
 * Newman Smyth, pp. 51, 52. 
 
•1 8 INSPIRATION. 
 
 goodness and moral beauty and power, lays hold 
 of a man's soul, and does him good, is, in virtue of 
 that potency, to be regarded as inspired. It is 
 admitted that this is the case with parts of the 
 Bible in a measure far beyond what can be asserted 
 of any other literature. Bishop Harold Browne 
 justly says that the adoption of this principle 
 would set Baxter's " Saint's Everlasting Eest " 
 above the Book of Chronicles ; and I have no 
 doubt this would be admitted by the adherents of 
 the view in question. 
 
 One cannot believe that it required any very 
 high degree of inspiration to write the Book of 
 lluth, for example. It would be contrary to the 
 analogy of the faith to suppose that an unnecessary 
 measure of inspiration was afforded in such a case. 
 Perhaps not very much more was needed for such 
 a work than for the construction of the tabernacle 
 of the wilderness ; perhaps not so much as for the 
 writing of the " Pilgrim's Progress," or the " Chris- 
 tian Year." But what was needed was accorded. 
 And when John wrote his Gospel, it is evident 
 that the Spirit of Truth was accorded, as promised, 
 so as to bring; all things to his recollection and to 
 lead him into all truth. 
 
 That the Bible is the word of men is not ques- 
 tioned. It is written in human language by 
 
REV. PROF. J. RADFORD THOMSON, M.A. 19 
 
 lmmaii penmen, in the exercise of human imagina- 
 tion, feeling, and intellect. In fact, it is intensely 
 human. In it men write about men and for men. 
 Eeruembering the maxim, Humanum est errare, are 
 we to admit that so human a volume as the Bible 
 lacks one mark of human origin — a note never 
 absent from the workmanship of man — I mean falli- 
 bility ? My answer is, the Revelation from heaven 
 is infallible ; but the inspiration of those who con- 
 vey the revelation does not prevent their communi- 
 cations to their fellow-men from participating in 
 the infirmities of their own nature. There are 
 undoubted errors, e.g., of fact, of chronology, and 
 of number, &c, in the Scriptures. 
 
 Upon this point, the existence in Scripture of 
 the humau element to such an extent as to admit 
 of human error and infirmity, the judicious state- 
 ment of Bishop Ellicott may be quoted : " In the 
 case of the written "Word, viewed on its purely 
 human side, and in its reference to matters pre- 
 viously admitted to have no bearing on Divine 
 Truth, we may admit therein the existence of 
 such incompleteness, such limitations, and such 
 imperfections as belong even to the highest forms 
 of purely truthful human testimony; but con- 
 sistently deny the existence of mistaken views, 
 perversions, misrepresentation, and any form what- 
 
20 INSPIRATION. 
 
 ever of consciously committed error or inaccu- 
 racy. * 
 
 Mr. Warrington goes much farther than this, 
 and, after a very careful and reverent examination 
 of the sacred volume, gives it as his opinion, 
 "That in regard to all historical statements of 
 Scripture, regarded in their outward aspect, as 
 narratives of matter of fact, the inspiration under 
 which the sacred writers wrote left them entirely 
 to themselves, both as to sources of information 
 and accuracy of statement, neither directing, con- 
 trolling, or authorising their statements in these 
 particulars in any way whatever; for which his- 
 torical statements so regarded, therefore, the 
 human authors only are to be held responsible." t 
 
 IV. The Scriptures do not explicitly claim to be 
 the Word of God, nor does any one of the books 
 of which they are composed put forward this 
 claim. Yet the expression is a Scriptural one ; in 
 the Old Testament we meet frequently with refer- 
 ences to the word of the Lord, i.e., of Jehovah or 
 Jahveh, and in the New Testament the parallel 
 phrase, the Word of God, is common. The word 
 of the Lord came to the prophets. The words in 
 
 # " Aids to Faith," pp. 417, 418. 
 
 t " The Inspiration of Scripture," p. 238. 
 
REV. PROF. J. EADFOED THOMSON, M.A. 21 
 
 which Moses published the will of God to Israel 
 were the words of the Lord. The "Word of God 
 came to John, the last of the prophets, as to his 
 illustrious predecessors. It is, however, one thing 
 for the assertion to be made that the word of the 
 Lord came to this and that inspired man, and has 
 been recorded in Scripture, and another thing for 
 the assertion to be made that the Bible calls itself 
 the Word of God. Mr. Warriugton says that the 
 phrase in question occurs three or four hundred 
 times in the Old Testament, and a hundred times 
 in the New, but is never once applied to Scripture 
 itself.'" 
 
 But I consider this designation to be supremely 
 applicable to Holy Scripture, inasmuch as in my 
 view the main purpose of the Bible, from begin- 
 ning to end, is to testify to Him who is the Son of 
 God and the Saviour of mankind. The Bible is 
 a problem of which the solution is — Christ. 
 
 The Word of God is emphatically the living- 
 Christ ; not His spoken utterances so much as 
 Himself, manifesting, as He does, the mind and 
 heart of the Supreme. John especially delights 
 so to designate Him, both in His pre-existent 
 glory and in His victorious reign. 
 
 A parallel has often been drawn between the 
 
 * " The Inspiration of Scripture,*' Appendix. 
 
22 INSPIRATION. 
 
 Scriptures and the Christ in respect of the union 
 of the Divine and human in both. It has been 
 said that as in our Saviour there is a combination 
 of two natures, as He is both Son of God and Son 
 of man, so likewise has the Bible a human shape 
 and substance, which is nevertheless informed, 
 animated, and glorified by the indwelling Divine 
 Spirit. But it cannot be maintained that the 
 writers of the books of the Bible were as obedient 
 and responsive to the Holy Spirit, as perfectly 
 free from all independent volition, as the human 
 nature of Christ was lost in the indwelling Word 
 that used that nature as a pliant instrument, a 
 perfect vehicle. 
 
 If God was to speak to men, I believe He could 
 not have spoken with fulness and clearness other- 
 wise than in the person and mediation of His Son. 
 A "book revelation" alone would have been no 
 revelation. But the book is the record, the wit- 
 ness, the herald of One greater even than itself. 
 And the Scriptures are Divine because they are 
 the word of the Word. 
 
REV. EREBDY. STANLEY LEAHIES, D.D. 23 
 
 Article II. 
 
 By the Rev. Psebdy. STANLEY LEATHES, D.D. 
 
 TlfANY years ago, in the Essays and Reviews 
 controversy, distinction was very carefully 
 drawn between the statement, that the Bible was 
 the "Word of God and that it contained the "Word 
 of God. Those who advocated the latter position 
 laid great stress upon the wording of the Sixth 
 Article of the English Church: "Holy Scripture con- 
 taineth all things necessary to salvation," &c, seek- 
 ing thereby to gain a most unfair advantage from 
 a merely accidental verbal resemblance between 
 the article and their thesis, inasmuch as to press 
 the word " containeth " was hardly more reason- 
 able than to press the words " Holy Scripture" on 
 the other side, seeing that Scripture is not holy 
 except as being derived from God, and that if it 
 is written, it is presumably written because so 
 derived. The attempt to argue any such contro- 
 versy on the terms of the received formularies was 
 inherently absurd and unsound, inasmuch as when 
 they were framed the distinction had not been 
 
24 INSPIRATION. 
 
 thought of, and therefore could not have been anti- 
 cipated or provided for by any human language. 
 Whether or not the distinction is in itself a valid 
 one is another matter, which must be determined 
 on its own merits, and not with reference to the 
 accidental terminology of the English Church. 
 Suppose it is admitted in all good faith that the 
 Bible contains the Word of God. Then scattered 
 up and down the Bible somewhere we may suppose 
 that there is something which may rightly be 
 regarded as the Word of God. Opinions will 
 undoubtedly vary as to what and where these 
 elements may be, but that they do exist and are 
 to be found is undeniably true, if the admission 
 that the Bible contains the Word of God is made 
 in all good faith. Practically, however, there is 
 a difficulty arising out of this position which has 
 the effect of reducing the admission to a nullity. 
 For if the Bible contains the Word of God, so that 
 every individual must discern it for himself, then 
 seeing that no two individuals may agree as to the 
 particular elements which are the Word of God, 
 we are landed in this dilemma, — either that there 
 is no absolute Word of God at all, which all may 
 acknowledge, or else that whatever strikes each 
 individual in turn as the Word of God is to him 
 the Word of God, but to him alone, except so far 
 
or, 
 
 REV. PKEBDY. STANLEY LEATHES, D D. LiO 
 
 as others may happen to agree with him. There 
 can, therefore, he no question that to affirm of the 
 Bible that it contains the Word of God, in contra- 
 distinction to its being the Word of God, is very 
 nearly tantamount to affirming that Ave have no 
 actual Word of God at all, at least such as all may 
 readily acknowledge, unless, in addition to saying 
 that the Bible contains the Word of God, we go on 
 to say also in what way we may determine what 
 is or is not the Word of God. On the other hand, 
 it is clearly undeniable that if we are to accept 
 the Bible on its own terms, we shall be obliged to 
 confess that it comes to us with Divine authority, 
 as not only containing a Divine message, but as 
 being in some sense the very embodiment of that 
 message. 
 
 In what sense, then, and within what limits, is 
 that true ? We cannot ask the question without 
 Beeing also that the further question of canonicity 
 is very largely involved in that concerning the 
 Divine message ; into the question, however, we 
 cannot enter, we must accept the usual limits of 
 the Old and New Testaments as sufficiently correct 
 and intelligible for all practical purposes. How 
 then, speaking generally, does the Bible commend 
 itself to us as the Word of God, and in what sense 
 does it so commend itself? In the first place, the 
 
2G INSPIRATION. 
 
 New Testament, beyond all question, claims and 
 assumes that honour for the Old. We may take 
 that for granted, and need not stop to prove it. 
 The New Testament, as a matter of fact, claims an 
 authority for the Old Testament which neither in 
 gospels nor epistles it makes for itself. As a 
 matter of fact, whether rightly or wrongly, the 
 position assigned to the Old Testament by the 
 New is very much that with which the Bible at 
 large is regarded by religious people. Our Lord 
 taught us that not one jot or tittle should pass 
 from the Law till all was fulfilled, that the Scrip- 
 tures of the prophets must be fulfilled, that all 
 things that were written in the Law of Moses, and 
 in the prophets, and in the Psalms, concerning 
 Him, must be fulfilled, and the like. He mani- 
 festly accepted the old dispensation as a sacred 
 and divine communication which could not, in 
 principle or in essential and important fact, be 
 broken. And we cannot conceive Him to have 
 been wrong here without striking at the root of 
 His claims upon our reverence as the Son of God, 
 because it was no. mere error of opinion that was 
 involved, but an entire misrepresentation of His 
 position and of His relation to Scripture in virtue 
 of it. But it is impossible that Scripture, as 
 Scripture, should have had this significance with 
 
REV*. PKEBDY. STANLEY LEATHES, D.D. 27 
 
 regard to Him, and not Lave been possessed of char- 
 acteristics altogether unlike those of any human 
 composition. If the Old Testament did point 
 to Christ, and in whatever sense it did, it must 
 have been endowed with supernatural features and 
 qualifications. And so far as it was so endowed, 
 it may justly be regarded as the Word of God. 
 But yet, forasmuch as not every word or sentence 
 of the Old Testament could be so strained as to 
 refer to Christ, or w T as even alleged to refer to 
 Him, it is clear that this characteristic of the Old 
 Testament was one affecting it as an organic whole, 
 rather than attaching to its individual parts. We 
 dare not say, however, that those passages only 
 that are directly applied to Christ were the Word 
 of God, because they were an integral portion of 
 the whole, and could by no means be severed from 
 the whole. That they were wdiat they were tended 
 rather to elevate the character of the whole to 
 which they belonged, and by no means warranted 
 us in limiting to them the reverence and respect 
 with which they were justly regarded. On the 
 contrary, if they were precious because Divine, so 
 also miiiht the documents containing them be 
 regarded as Divine, because of the preciousness of 
 what they contained. Just as the body of a living 
 man is instinct with life in its several parts, 
 
28 INSPIRATION. 
 
 although every part is not vital, so may Holy 
 Scripture, or rather, for the present, the Old 
 Testament, be regarded as instinct with the spirit 
 of God as a whole, although it is only in certain 
 parts that we can detect the spirit as more 
 especially present, because of its supernatural 
 testimony to Christ. And yet we may rightly say 
 that it is the organic whole that is inspired, and 
 not merely the individual parts. For instance, to 
 take the Psalms : we know that our Lord regarded 
 parts of the Psalms as distinctly referring to Him. 
 And yet it was the Psalms as a whole, and not 
 merely those parts of the Psalms, that we must 
 regard as " inspired," and as " the Word of God ;" 
 for there is every reason to believe that many 
 parts of the Psalms not cited by Christ, referred 
 to Him not less than those which He quotes. It 
 was the dignity put upon the Psalms as the 
 vehicle of the Divine Spirit which made them the 
 depository of those passages, and it was not the 
 passages themselves that made the Psalms other 
 than they were by nature, namely, the vehicle of 
 the Divine Spirit. They were the compositions of 
 men specially endowed with the Spirit of God for 
 a particular purpose, and it was the fact that God 
 spake by these men that made their writings so 
 precious, and not merely the fact that they 
 
REV. PItEBDY. STANLEY LEAHIES, D.D. 29 
 
 happened to give utterance to certain things which, 
 left to themselves, they would have been unable 
 to utter. 
 
 We are brought, then, to this conclusion : that 
 it is the organic unity of the Old Testament and 
 its main divisions that constitutes its characteristic 
 feature, and not the fact that it contains certain 
 sayings and utterances of exceptional and unique 
 value. It is of course obvious that not all parts of 
 the Old Testament, any more than all parts of any 
 other book, are of equal value. The genealogical 
 and numerical lists of Chronicles, Ezra, and Nehe- 
 miah, and the prescriptions of the Levitical ordi- 
 nances, cannot be ranked intrinsically so high as 
 the prophecies of Isaiah, nor could any man in his 
 senses venture to rank them so ; but for all that, 
 forasmuch as these, equally with those, are intrinsic 
 parts of an organic whole, and have their place, 
 which cannot be dispensed with, in an organic 
 whole, therefore, if the organic whole is entitled to 
 be regarded as the Word of God, then are these 
 parts portions also of that Word, and then we are 
 not warranted in saying that the Old Testament 
 contains the Word of God, if by so saying we 
 mean to correct and confute the statement that the 
 Old Testament is the Word of God. For to say 
 this would be to deny the organic unity of that 
 
30 INSPIRATION. 
 
 which is a whole in itself, and which, as a whole 
 in itself, is possessed, of the characteristics which 
 make it the vehicle of that agency by virtue of 
 which its more remarkable features are what they 
 are. To sever these from the whole, and to limit 
 the Divine agency of inspiration to them, would 
 be to do violence to the book which it could not 
 survive as a whole, and which would be equally 
 fatal to its most characteristic parts. 
 
 But then arises the difficult question, what 
 makes the Old Testament or the New an organic 
 whole ? What right have we to assume that 
 either of them is an organic whole, capable of 
 being; thus differentiated from all other writings? 
 Aud here, setting aside the question of canonicity, 
 which has succeeded in including: certain books 
 within its charmed circle and excluding others, it 
 may be observed that we can hardly avoid ascrib- 
 ing a certain unity in the first place to certain 
 portions, and then finally to the whole, whether 
 that whole is defined by canonicity or not. For 
 instance, to take the Book of Genesis. That book, 
 as we have it, is a recognisable whole in itself, 
 however much criticism may persist in disinte- 
 grating it. After all, the Book of Genesis is the 
 Book of Genesis, and there is a substantial unity 
 pervading it whereby the several parts hang 
 
REV. PREBDY. STANLEY LEATHES, D.D. 31 
 
 together and form a whole, however earnestly 
 we or others may insist upon their original in- 
 dependence. Now it is this actual and essential 
 unity with which we have to deal. The Book of 
 Genesis contains several passages of the highest 
 importance individually ; these passages are not 
 confined to any one separate portion of the whole, 
 but are characteristic of the book generally. They 
 are found in the third chapter, the twenty-second 
 chapter, the forty-ninth chapter, and elsewhere. 
 
 These passages, then, are characteristic of the 
 Book of Genesis as an organic whole, because they 
 are not confined to one or other of its component 
 parts. They are features characteristic of the 
 essential unity of the book as w T e have it. They 
 serve to mark the typical standard of the whole. 
 The book is what they are. Because they are 
 what they are, the book, as a whole, is what it is. 
 No one would think of dragging down the estimate 
 of the book to the value of its ^enealooical detail.';, 
 for example, or the like. The value of the book, 
 as a whole, is determined by the value of its most 
 important parts ; it is they which stamp the whole 
 as a whole. I do not mean that they show the book 
 to be a whole, but that they show it as a whole to 
 be what it is. In like manner the Book of Genesis 
 itself is an integral portion of the Pentateuch. 
 
32 INSPIRATION. 
 
 The Pentateuch, as a whole, is to be estimated by 
 the value of Genesis and Deuteronomy, for example, 
 and what they are it is, not in all parts, but as a 
 whole. Nobody proposes to add any other books 
 or portions to the Pentateuch ; but the Pentateuch, 
 as we have it, is the Pentateuch, and rightly or 
 wrongly, Genesis and Deuteronomy are character- 
 istic portions of it, apart altogether from any 
 points dependent upon questions of criticism. In 
 like manner, what is true of Genesis and Deutero- 
 nomy with regard to the Pentateuch, is true of 
 the Pentateuch itself with regard to the rest of 
 the Old Testament. 
 
 The Old Testament is the Old Testament, 
 whether or not we include in it the books that do 
 not exist in the Hebrew. These books may not be 
 canonical, but even if they are added to the Old 
 Testament, seeing that nobody proposes to add any 
 others, the question of their canonicity does not 
 hinder us from regarding the Old Testament, and 
 justly regarding it, as a whole. And thus the Old 
 Testament, as a whole, must be estimated by the 
 intrinsic value of its most important parts, and on 
 the unique character and importance of them may 
 rightly be differentiated from all other compositions 
 which are wanting in these special characteristics. 
 
 "We are now in a position to appreciate the kind 
 
REV. PliEBDY. STANLEY LEATHES, D-D. 33 
 
 of authority that the New Testament assigns to 
 the Old, when it speaks of it as Scripture. For as 
 it is certain that these writings are possessed of 
 features which are found nowhere else, so it is 
 certain that the writers of the New Testament 
 referred to the books in this capacity and regarded 
 them as Scripture, or the written Word of God ; 
 that is to say, not as books which merely contained 
 the Word of God, which they undoubtedly did, 
 but as books which were, in their unique history, 
 growth, composition, and the like, the providen- 
 tially formed vehicle aud chosen embodiment of 
 that Word, so that God committed to them as a 
 whole, whether we make that whole greater or 
 less, the communication of His will to man. 
 
 The analogy of the human body seems to be one 
 that we may again apply here, inasmuch as the 
 feeble members are members still, and honourable 
 from their connection with the body, although not 
 every member can receive the light of day or give 
 utterance to the more immediate messages of the 
 word and mind of God, or is employed to do so. 
 In like manner, when we come to the New Testa- 
 ment, manifestly the words of Christ, if genuine, 
 must have the highest claim on our reverence and 
 regard ; while the question, whether or not they 
 
 are genuine, is one that lies altogether outside our 
 
 c 
 
34 INSPIRATION. 
 
 present consideration, being practically involved in 
 the fact of the New Testament, which is the sub- 
 ject of our discussion, being the New Testament. 
 If we have not got a substantially accurate repre- 
 sentation of the words of Christ, but merely the 
 report of men who may or may not have been 
 His disciples, then there is an end to the whole 
 matter. The question rather is, assuming the 
 genuineness of the New Testament as a whole, in 
 what sense and within what limits is it the "Word 
 of God ? And here, as before, if Christ is what 
 He is represented as being, His own words must 
 be of the very highest authority. They may 
 surely be regarded, not as containing, but as being 
 the Word of God. While with regard to the 
 framework in which they are set, namely, the 
 disciples' own narrative, that must surely borrow 
 its authority not only from what it contains, but 
 also from the fact of its being the vehicle presum- 
 ably chosen and ordained to convey it. And here, 
 in this case, the question of canonicity assumes a 
 somewhat different aspect in relation to our 
 inquiries, inasmuch as we are more concerned to 
 know whether our received books are genuine, 
 than we are to determine whether or not any 
 others may be added to them. The character of 
 the Old Testament as a whole is not greatly 
 
REV. PREBDY. STANLEY LEATHES, D.D. 35 
 
 affected, whether or not it includes Wisdom, or 
 Ecclesiasticus, or even Tobit ; but the character of 
 the New Testament as a whole is very seriously 
 affected if we allow the Apocryphal gospels to be 
 added to it. And, as a matter of fact, they never 
 have formed part of it. Consequently the vital 
 question is, whether the New Testament as it is is 
 genuine ; and this question lies, as I have said, 
 rather beyond our present inquiry, inasmuch as 
 we want to know the amount of authority we 
 must assign to our existing books, assuming them 
 to be genuine, rather than whether or not they are 
 so ; because if they are not genuine, then the whole 
 discussion is foreclosed and is rendered useless. 
 
 In what sense, and within what limits, are the 
 Acts of the Apostles, for instance, and the Epistles 
 of St, Paul the Word of God? With regard to 
 the Acts of the Apostles thus much is clear, that 
 since the period covered by the history is on all 
 grounds a most important one, the value of the 
 record must be in proportion to the authenticity of 
 the narrative, and assuming this, it follows natu- 
 rally, if not necessarily, that the writer of it was 
 delegated and commissioned to write hardly less 
 directly than those who committed the gospel 
 narrative to writing. And thus it is, at all events, 
 significant that the ostensible author of this nn.rra- 
 
36 INSPIRATION. 
 
 tive was also apparently the writer of the third 
 Gospel. It is therefore reasonable to suppose that 
 he wrote with the highest possible sanction ; while 
 he tells us himself, in the preface to the Gospel, in 
 words wdiich must apply equally to the second 
 treatise, that he had the best information that 
 could be procured. If, therefore, these thing3 
 were so, it is not hard to see that the Acts of the 
 Apostles may w T ell be a treatise which not only 
 contains, but even is the Word of God, so far as 
 the authority of its record is concerned ; while that 
 it contains that Word is no less clear, if we accept 
 the mission and authority of the principal actors in 
 the narrative, who ostensibly spoke and acted w T ith 
 a Divine commission to act and speak. 
 
 And with regard to the Epistles of St. Paul, it 
 seems to be one of the ulterior purposes of the 
 Acts of the Apostles to give the voucher and 
 credentials of him who was destined to play so 
 prominent a part in the foundation and extension 
 of the Christian Church. From the fact that he 
 had been a bitter foe and a strenuous persecutor, 
 his message was liable at the first to be received 
 with suspicion, and clearly was so received. It 
 needed not only the generous intervention and 
 testimony of Barnabas to the early Church, but 
 also and no less the tcstimonv of one like St. 
 
REV. PEEBDY. STANLEY LEATIIES, D.D. 3/ 
 
 Luke, whose praise was in the Gospel, to make 
 that message intelligible and trustworthy to the 
 Church of all time. And this is exactly what we 
 have in the narrative of St. Luke on behalf of St. 
 Paul, to prepare us for the acceptance and recogni- 
 tion of his writings as authoritative documents. 
 
 But when we have so accepted them, in what 
 sense and witliin what limits can they be regarded 
 as the Word of God ? Now it so happens that 
 one of the very earliest of those documents has a 
 statement in it which bears upon this question, 
 and if this statement is received as authoritative, 
 it may serve to indicate the kind of deference with 
 which we may accept the Pauline epistles gene- 
 rally. St. Paul refers to his own oral preaching, 
 and says that when the Thessalonians heard it 
 they received it not as the word of men, but, as it 
 really was, the Word of God, " which effectually 
 worketh also in you that believe." Here, therefore, 
 there are certain points which stand out with suffi- 
 cient clearness. First, the unrecorded and oral 
 testimony is declared to have been the Word of 
 God. It did not merely contain, but it was the 
 Word of God. This is the more remarkable, 
 because it is impossible for us to determine 
 definitely what was the nature of this communica- 
 tion. We know, indeed, within certain limits and 
 
38 INSPIRATION. 
 
 from analogy, what was its subject matter, but we 
 can form no idea as to its precise form or sub- 
 stance. "We are therefore warranted in concluding 
 
 o 
 
 that it was the subject matter of the communica- 
 tion, and not the particular form in which it was 
 cast, that made it the Word of God. The form 
 was altogether subordinate to the subject matter. 
 The subject matter of the communication, and the 
 authority with which it was proclaimed, made it 
 to be the Word of God. And the vouchers for the 
 authority of it are to be found in the declarations 
 of St. Paul himself, and in what is told us con- 
 firmatory of those declarations by the writer of 
 the Acts of the Apostles. 
 
 Given the truth of the solemn declarations of St. 
 Paul himself, the authenticity of the events relat- 
 ing to his history, and the unique character of his 
 position, and we must have every reason to accept 
 his communications, as the Thessalonians did, not 
 as the word of man, but as in very truth the Word 
 of God. To question the authority of his word 
 would be to question the authority of his office 
 and mission, and to question the authority of his 
 office and mission would be to throw discredit on 
 the mere historical value of the Christian records, 
 which we cannot do without sapping the founda- 
 tions of the Christian faith itself. Thus the autho- 
 
REV. PilELDY. STANLEY LEATHES, D.D. 39 
 
 rity of a very large portion of the New Testament, 
 as the special organ and channel of Divine com- 
 munication, is secured to us by the admission of 
 its simply historical character and authority. If 
 the documents are in any true sense what they pro- 
 fess to be, it is evident and obvious that we must 
 have in them documents of unique importance and 
 of the very highest authority, — documents which 
 must not only contain the Word of God, but must 
 also be the authorised expression and embodiment 
 of that Word, as no other writings can be. 
 
 It would seem, then, that Ave are gradually 
 arriving at some distinct and definite answer to 
 the question — In what sense is the Bible the 
 Word of God ? It is so in the sense that it may 
 be presumed to have the Divine sanction and 
 authentication as no other book has or can have. 
 If the origin and claims of the Bible are what 
 they are, then it has a just right to be regarded 
 as a communication to man charged with Divine 
 authority. The Old Testament is shown to be so, 
 because of the distinct and otherwise inexplicable 
 witness that it bears to Christ ; and the New 
 Testament is shown to be so because it cannot be 
 otherwise, unless its documents are actual forgeries 
 and impostures, as they most certainly are not. 
 The Bible, then, is the Word of God because it is 
 
40 INSPIRATION. 
 
 the authorised record of the way in which God 
 communicated His will to man, and because it is 
 the appointed instrument for making known that 
 will. And the proof that it is this lies in the 
 credentials that it is able to bring with it, to which 
 there is nothing analogous elsewhere in literature; 
 and also in the effect with which its due reception 
 is followed, which is likewise indicated in those 
 other words of St. Paul : " which effectually 
 worketh also in you that believe," from which 
 we learn two facts of great and primary import- 
 ance ; first, that it is characteristic of the Word 
 of God to be fruitful, — "It shall not return unto 
 Me void, but shall accomplish that which I please, 
 and shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it;" 
 and secondly, that this fruitfulness is conditioned 
 by and dependent upon the faith of the recipient 
 of the message. It is of the greatest consequence 
 to note this contingency, because it shows us 
 plainly, if it is a true contingency, as it cannot 
 fail to be, that whether or not this that we have 
 is the Word of God, it would not be possible to 
 have any Word of God that would not be liable 
 to be rejected, and to become unfruitful, where 
 there was not the requisite measure of faith in the 
 recipient. A moment's consideration will show 
 that it must be so if the Divine message is to be 
 
REV. PREBDY. STANLEY LEATHES, D.D. 41 
 
 conveyed upon probable and not upon demonstra- 
 tive evidence. Because in that case it must appeal 
 to the moral faculties, to educate which may be 
 presumed to be one of the immediate objects of 
 the Divine communication. The supposed "Word 
 of God comes to us seeking acceptance among 
 those who are like-minded with itself. To them 
 it offers points of attraction which are lacking in 
 the case of others, and antecedently there is nothing 
 improbable in a revelation, if made, being accepted 
 by some and rejected by others, unless it were so 
 given as to compel acceptance ; and if this was not 
 the case, those who accepted it would have qualifi- 
 cations which others would lack, and among these 
 would necessarily be the qualification and faculty 
 oi faith. " In you that believe ; " therefore, while 
 it effectually limits the area of acceptance, presents 
 no condition that could not be antecedently per- 
 ceived to be inevitable in the case of any presumed 
 revelation coming from God, and appealing to the 
 judgment of man. Under all imaginable conditions 
 faith would be an indispensable requisite, unless 
 man were to be deprived of his essential preroga- 
 tive of free choice. While, then, the efficacy of the 
 Word of God is confined to those who receive it 
 believingly, among all faithful recipients it is the 
 characteristic of that Word to be operative and 
 
42 INSPIRATION. 
 
 fruitful, so mucli so that this is the one token of the 
 Word of God which the Apostle selects, and which, 
 in fact, differentiates it from every other word. 
 
 The Word of God is proved to be the Word of 
 God, not only by the validity of its credentials, 
 but by the power with which it works, as nothing 
 else can work, upon the believing heart ; and the 
 sense in which the Bible is the Word of God is in 
 the fulness and sufficiency of authority with which 
 it comes to us, as the means specially ordained by 
 God for making known His will to us. In this 
 sense the Bible is the Word of God, as no other 
 book of never so high, a moral tone and purpose 
 can pretend to be. God has spoken by and in this 
 book as He has spoken by and in no other. For 
 in no other book is there the evidence of His pre- 
 siding Spirit and influence that there is in the 
 composition and contents of this book. If other- 
 wise, let the book which can rival this be at once 
 named and tested on its merits, when it will forth- 
 with appear that, whether or not the credentials 
 of this book are satisfactory, those of any other are 
 altogether wanting. 
 
 We must turn now to the investigation of the 
 second question : within what limits is the Bible 
 the Word of God ? That is to say, given the 
 inspiration and authority of the Bible as a fact, 
 
REV. PREBDY, STANLEY LEATHES, D.D. 4 
 
 liow is the character of the Bible influenced and 
 affected thereby ? And in this respect the truth 
 would seem to lie between two extremes. First, 
 the action of any mechanical inspiration must be 
 rejected. The Bible is not the Word of God in 
 any such sense, as that every word and letter that 
 occurs in it is thereby made to be something which 
 it would not be if it occurred elsewhere. Every 
 word and letter of the Bible is not God's "Word 
 because it is found in the Bible, and as it is there 
 found. The truth of analogy holds good in the 
 Bible as it does elsewhere. Thus the Puritanical 
 use of the Bible as a storehouse of words delibe- 
 rately arranged so as to form a rigid and metallic 
 standard for the regulation at haphazard of every 
 conceivable circumstance in life, is superstitious in 
 the highest degree, and unworthy of the free 
 agency and wisdom of the Spirit of God. That 
 there may historically be some remarkable instances 
 in which direction has been sought and found in 
 this way, by no means warrants the inference that 
 this is the right and ideal use of the Bible, or that 
 it is intended to be so used. The story is told of 
 Simeon, that when he was feeling the burden of 
 opposition and contempt more than usual, he found 
 remarkable support in accidentally lighting on the 
 passage, " They compelled one Simon, a Cyrenian, 
 
44 INSPIRATION. 
 
 to bear His cross," because he remembered that 
 Simon nnd Simeon were the same name. It is 
 needless to say that such a method of using Scrip- 
 ture is childish in the extreme, and most dero<m- 
 tory to the wisdom and freedom of the Holy 
 Spirit. Here, then, in this superstitious estimate 
 of the words of Scripture we may surely discover one 
 limit ivithin which it may be defined as the Word 
 of God. It is not the Word of God in any such 
 sense or for any such purpose as this ; we should do 
 it great dishonour if we thought so. The book of 
 God is not different from any other book in the 
 laws of its composition, the changes and chances 
 of its tradition, its liability to errors of transcrip- 
 tion, its dependence upon the watchfulness of its 
 human guardians, and the like. But just as all 
 these contingencies do not prevent us from possess- 
 ing, and highly prizing the possession of, a Shake- 
 speare, Virgil, or Thucydides, so neither do they 
 take from us the priceless treasure of which God 
 has given us the possession in His Word ; nor do 
 they prevent the Bible from being His Word in a 
 sense in which these books, and all others like 
 them, can make no pretension to being. This then 
 is one extreme within which the truth must lie ; 
 another is of an opposite kind. If the Bible is the 
 Word of God at all, it must be so in such a sense 
 
LEV. rREBDY. STANLEY LEATHES, D.D. 45 
 
 as that we may trust its most important and crucial 
 utterances to the very letter. Supposing the exact 
 words to have been accurately ascertained, there 
 seems to be no limit to which we may not trust 
 and rely upon them to the very letter. If words 
 are the vehicles of thought, then the more exact 
 the thought the more accurate the words must be. 
 unless they are to misrepresent and not do justice 
 to it. And there are ten thousand instances in 
 which the Word of God is thus the Word of God, 
 or it must fail altogether as a trustworthy record 
 of His will. In all human compositions the value 
 of the thing written depends upon the truth and 
 faithfulness with which it reflects the mind of the 
 writer. Can it be otherwise with the Divine 
 writings ? If we cannot trust their ipsissima 
 verba when we most stand in need of learning 
 the Divine will, what is there that we can trust ? 
 Nay, is it not reasonable to suppose that if we 
 have any such word at all in the Bible, then there 
 must be vast treasures of wealth still unexplored 
 in it, rich veins of virgin ore which are waiting to 
 reveal and render up their secrets to the faith and 
 patience of the student, and the favouring oppor- 
 tunities of some fresh emergency ? We find it 
 was with no niggard spirit of verbal reliance that 
 the writers of the New Testament appealed to the 
 
46 INSPIRATION. 
 
 writings of the Old, and even if in some cases it 
 may be hard for us to accept their conclusions 
 with the fulness of entire consent, we may at least 
 assume that their practice has set us an example 
 which we shall not do wrong in following, and 
 established a principle which may be a certain 
 Guide to us in our estimate of the character of the 
 Divine Word. Here, then, we discover the traces 
 of a limit on the other side, within which the truth 
 must lie. We must have so accurate a verbal 
 transcript of the will of God that we may be able 
 to depend upon it for teaching us His will ; but, 
 on the other hand, we must beware of making 
 such a use of the Divine words that they cease to 
 be the intelligent exponents of the Divine counsels, 
 and become only the slaves of an unintelligent 
 and random destiny. The Psalmist believed that 
 there were treasures in the Divine word which he 
 might discover, or might fail to perceive, and 
 therefore prayed, " Open Thou mine eyes, that 
 I may see the wondrous things of Thy law ; " while 
 at the same time he recognised the fact that it was 
 a vast repository of 'principle, for permanent and 
 inexhaustible application in the affairs of life, when 
 he said, "The righteousness of Thy testimonies is 
 everlasting : grant me understanding and I 
 shall live." 
 
REV. PIIEBDY. STANLEY LEATHES, D.D. 47 
 
 Within these limits, then, it would seem that 
 ■we shall be warranted in regarding the Bible as 
 the "Word of God. We shall not do justice to it 
 if we pervert it to an occasion of superstitious use. 
 We shall most assuredly fail to recognise its just 
 claims if we suppose that it cannot teach us, as no 
 other book has the authority to do, the mind and 
 will of God, and that it cannot make its every 
 word and select expression the vehicle of imparting 
 the knowledge of that will, when it is expedient 
 and desirable that we should know it. " Seek, and 
 ye shall find," has its application here no less than 
 elsewhere, and the necessary inference is, that if we 
 do not seek we shall not find ; though it is no less 
 true that it will be utterly useless for us to seek 
 unless there is that in the Book, though hidden 
 from the common view, which will most richly 
 and bountifully reward the patient, faithful, and 
 laborious search. 
 
48 INSPIRATION. 
 
 Article III. 
 
 Ey the Rev. Principal JOHN CAIRNS, D.D. 
 
 TN following up the able paper of Professor 
 Stanley Leathes on this question, I have, for a 
 writer, the disadvantage of agreeing too closely 
 with his point of view. This will hardly keep the 
 discussion going : only your next contributor (if 
 you have such), who takes what he regards as a 
 freer position, may find more materials for reply 
 in two statements than in one. I am glad to be 
 in harmony with Dr. Leathes, all the more that 
 the tide has, perhaps, for some time run the other 
 way. I have lived through a great deal of modi- 
 fication on the Inspiration question on the part of 
 men otherwise evangelical ; while I do not find 
 that my own views have changed. The Bible is 
 to me, in all its parts, a more Divine book than 
 ever it was. I am not able to answer a good many 
 difficulties which beset a strict theory of Inspira- 
 tion ; but it seems, as of old, the best supported 
 by evidence and the one likely to keep the field. 
 I shall not, perhaps, adhere very closely to the 
 
REV. PRINCIPAL JOHN CAIRNS, D.D. 49 
 
 distinction taken in the question between the 
 sense in ivhich, and the limits witliin ivJiich, the 
 Bible may be regarded as the "Word of God. I 
 wish to begin with a few negatives which belong 
 to both positions. In setting aside what we do 
 not need to hold, when saying that the Bible is 
 the Word of God, we so far clear the field on both 
 sides. 
 
 I. First, then, We do not need to hold that the 
 question of the canon has been fully settled. I, 
 for one, have no quarrel with that settlement; 
 but though I might not see my way to accept the 
 Book of Esther or the Second Epistle of Peter, if I 
 held a Word of God, I might equally hold that 
 Word all inspired and in the highest sense. As 
 Professor Stanley Loathes has said, the questions 
 are distinct; though, of course, if no canon w r ere 
 left, this question also of the nature and degree of 
 inspiration would fall. 
 
 II. Secondly, We do not need to hold that the 
 present text is the very Word of God. This 
 remark is a mere extension of the foregoing. The 
 change from the original MSS. to the best extant 
 critical text is so far a sacrifice of canonicity. But 
 we know r how little really this means, and how it 
 is always becoming less. The calmness with 
 which even the ordinary mind has taken all the 
 
50 INSPIRATION. 
 
 discussion connected with the Revised New Testa- 
 ment, is creditable to public intelligence. We see 
 that, to all intents and purposes, the Word of God 
 has not been lost in transcription, so that while we 
 must draw the distinction, it is not a grave one, 
 between the Bible as we have it, and as it first 
 came from God. 
 
 III. We do not, thirdly, need to hold that the 
 Bible is all, as to the matter of it, revealed for the 
 first time. No one can ever have held this, even 
 when less freedom prevailed as to the question of 
 inspiration than now. Moses could not be in- 
 formed, for the first time, of the events which he 
 himself had witnessed ; nor Luke of the incidents 
 of Paul's shipwreck. Innumerable historical monu- 
 ments existed, such as the decrees of Cyrus and 
 Darius as to the re-building of the Temple, the 
 registers of the Davidic family and others, the 
 letter of the Council of Jerusalem to the Gentile 
 Christians, and other documents. Nor can this be 
 limited to historical matter. To suppose that the 
 matter of the Psalms of David was all as new to 
 him as the revelation that the Messiah was to 
 spring from his line, is what no one can maintain ; 
 or that Solomon had never conceived anything like 
 any of his Proverbs ; or that Paul, who had taught 
 it in the synagogue at Antioch years before, had 
 
REV. PRINCIPAL JOHN CAIRNS, D.D. 51 
 
 the doctrine of Justification revealed to him when 
 he was about to write the Epistles to the Galatians 
 and to the Romans. Much of the Bible was, no 
 doubt, revealed to the writers, partly at the time 
 when they wrote, as in the visions of the Prophets 
 and of the Apocalypse ; and partly long before, as 
 in the earlier training of the Apostles, for we see 
 how Paul repeatedly claims this privilege. But 
 beyond all question a very large part of the Bible 
 pre-existed, without any proper revelation, in the 
 materials out of which it was made. The revela- 
 tion in regard to them consisted of the use that 
 was to be made of them, and in the Divine work- 
 manship that formed them into a new and higher 
 whole. 
 
 IV. We do not, fourthly, need to hold that the 
 Bible, as to the manner of it, is in such a sense the 
 Word of God, as not also to be the word of man. 
 In recent times much more light has been cast 
 upon what has been called the human element in 
 the Bible ; and this has been unwelcome to some 
 because it has not unfrecjucntly tended, if not to 
 exclude, yet to lower, the Divine. This, however, 
 has been an abuse and not a just use of a great 
 and important principle in theological science. 
 The Bible expressly recognises this human element 
 in itself. ""Which thing-," says Paul, "ive speak." 
 
52 INSPIRATION. 
 
 " We also believe, and therefore speak." These 
 assertions are made in connection with the strongest 
 claims to Divine inspiration. It is to my mind, 
 one of the internal evidences of the canonicity of 
 Second Peter, that it so clearly brings out the two 
 sides in inspired teaching : " Holy men of God 
 spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost." 
 " Even as our beloved brother Paul also, according 
 to the wisdom given unto him, hath written unto 
 you." Our Lord recognises the 110th Psalm as 
 David's, in a true sense, "How then doth David in 
 spirit call him Lord ? " and remarkable is the intro- 
 duction of the personality of David into the matter 
 by Peter on the day of Pentecost, " For David is 
 not ascended into the heavens, but he saith himself 
 (dvros) The Lord said unto my Lord," &c. Many 
 similar references could be produced ; and the 
 effect of all is to establish a genuine authorship for 
 those who were the writers of the sacred books. 
 I, therefore, accept the recommendation of the 
 American Committee, that the word " by " should 
 be uniformly " through ; " for it is more than a 
 question of philology, viz. : as I understand it, a 
 question of doctrine, ' and of this doctrine of real 
 human authorship, that is involved. This differen- 
 tiates the Word of God from all other professed 
 revelations. Thus, in the Koran, Mahomet is 
 
REV. PRINCIPAL JOHN CAIRNS, D.D. 53 
 
 purely passive and recipient. Everything is spoken 
 in one long monotonous utterance, as by the direct 
 voice of God. Now, in the Bible, no doubt, there 
 are considerable portions here and there, as in the 
 writings of the prophets, where this style seems to 
 be used. But I cannot acree with those who think 
 that anywhere there is such a suppression of the 
 human element as, in other religions, is the ideal 
 form of revelation. In the sublimest utterances of 
 prophecy there is an assimilation of style to the 
 individuality of the prophet, and as no one will 
 suppose that this was a mere external adaptation, 
 these oracles must have gone through the souls 
 of the prophets and taken a colour from the 
 human medium thus passed through. It is very 
 difficult, if not impossible, for us to understand the 
 psychology of this subject, but the facts are indubi- 
 table : and the more closely the literature of the 
 Bible is studied, the more profound does this 
 impression become. The only exception, perhaps, 
 is in the Decalogue, which is said to have come in 
 a way altogether mi generis: though the variations 
 in Deuteronomy show the human clement even 
 here. The words of our Lord are no exception ; 
 for He was the " Son of Man ; " and, besides, we 
 see in the Johannine reflection of them another 
 human peculiarity. So far from weakening the 
 
54 INSPIRATION. 
 
 interest of the Bible, this law greatly, arid in com- 
 parison with other professed revelations, unspeak- 
 ably enhances it. It will not be questioned that 
 if God can speak through fifty human voices, all 
 different, the attraction and impression are greater 
 than if He speaks merely by one. This, of course, 
 implies that in all these human voices the one 
 Divine voice, sounding through them and above 
 them, is recognisable. This, it is contended, is the 
 fact ; and hence the doctrine of a true human 
 individuality and authorship in the Bible, so far 
 from being, as is sometimes objected, a lowering of 
 the miracle of inspiration, is, if possible, an eleva- 
 tion of it. A more rigid and metallic style of 
 inspiration, if I may so express myself, while 
 beyond all question less human, would also have 
 been less Divine, than the infinitely varied and 
 flexible, and in every sense unparalleled, organ 
 which we have. It could not have helped being 
 literature, in every form consistent with its own 
 grandeur and seriousness. But it would not have 
 stood at the head of the literature of the 
 world, an external monument between earth and 
 heaven. 
 
 Having made these distinctions, which clear our 
 way, we are now, I think, prepared for answering 
 better the two questions. In what sense, and within 
 
REV. PRINCIPAL JOHN CAIRNS, D.D. 55 
 
 what limits, the Bible may be regarded as the 
 Word of God ? 
 
 Very little needs to be said as to the sense in 
 which the Bible is the Word of God. It must 
 either mean that the Bible has in it matter which, 
 simply on the ground of its being true and natu- 
 rally discernible, comes from God. Or it must 
 mean that it comes by a supernatural communi- 
 cation or revelation. This is the great battle-field 
 between the Rationalist aud the Believer ; but, as 
 Professor Stanley Leathes has shown, it docs not 
 need to be occupied long for our purpose. Who- 
 ever holds a special Divine message in the Bible — 
 beyond the mere outgrowth of human intelligence 
 — if he only speaks of the Bible as containing the 
 Word of God, and knows what he means, has con- 
 ceded a sense to the Bible quite unlike what 
 belongs to any other book. It has, no doubt, a 
 human author or authors ; but God is its true, its 
 deepest author. It comes fL'om God. It only 
 could come from God, and thus it is the Word of 
 God. Further, as being from God, the Bible 
 necessarily manifests Divine properties, intelli- 
 gence, wisdom, holiness, tenderness, all more or 
 less recognisable, and thus, by their presence and 
 evidence, is also the Word of God. But, to crown 
 all, the Bible speaks with Divine authority to 
 
56 INSPIRATION. 
 
 those who are God's creatures and subjects; and 
 thus being not only an utterance but a command, 
 it is the "Word of God. The Bible is not only a 
 royal letter, but a royal proclamation. It makes 
 not only mind, but will, known ; it may be in a 
 thousand ways of indirect and gentle, as well as 
 more summary and abrupt authority ; and its 
 highest strain seems even to forget that the crea- 
 ture is the medium, as well as the subject, of 
 revelation. " Thus saith the Lord." " Hear ye 
 the Word of the Lord." Now, I think that Pro- 
 fessor Stanley Leathes has here found a right 
 starting-point for the limits of inspiration in its 
 very nature, for whatever can be connected and 
 bound up with this admitted, undeniable, tran- 
 scendent element, where the presence of the Word 
 of God shines in its own light, must necessarily 
 share the privilege. His thesis, I think, is this, 
 that the argument for any Bible leads also to 
 a full Bible. Let us simply go over his appli- 
 cations of this principle, and see if there are any 
 others. 
 
 He founds on the organic unity of the Bible, 
 instancing in particular, Genesis, the Pentateuch, 
 the Gospels, and extending the argument from all 
 the parts to the whole. Now this is just what I 
 have said, the extension of Divinity in a part to 
 
REV. PRINCIPAL JOHN CAIRNS, D.D. 57 
 
 Divinity in the whole. The details then lie, after 
 the general principle is accepted, in settling the 
 actual organic unity. This can only be by general 
 Christian consent, or even general literary consent. 
 Non-canonicity, interpolation, or similar difficul- 
 ties, would here be the only demurrers to this 
 plea. It could hardly be checked by a denial of 
 the principle, that inspiration anywhere does, in 
 the nature of things, cover it everywhere, so far as 
 organic unity in a communication extends. 
 
 This also applies to another argument of Pro- 
 fessor Stanley Leathes, the testimony of our Lord 
 in dealing with the Old Testament. It is pre- 
 supposed that His part of the recorded communi- 
 cation shines in its own light as Divine, and also 
 that we have His words with sufficient accuracy to 
 reason from them. It is hardly necessary to meet 
 the difficulties of those who allow that our Lord, 
 in His humbled state, might be voluntarily ignorant 
 of the number and value of sacred books. The 
 argument, then, that is drawn from our Lord's 
 references, not only to the cauonicity of the Old 
 Testament, but to the complete inspiration of its 
 several parts, as resting on His quotations, His 
 appeals, His absolute deference to the Old Testa- 
 ment record, seems impossible to set aside ; but it 
 is just the extension of revelation from one point 
 
58 INSPIRATION. 
 
 to another, from our Lord as the Divine centre, to 
 the circumference of the system. 
 
 Another consideration pressed is the claim made 
 by the sacred writers. In so far as they appeal to 
 each other, with entire deference, whether in the 
 Old Testament Scriptures or in the New, this is 
 enly the same argument with the testimony of our 
 Lord. But in so far as they claim peculiar light 
 and authority for themselves as writers, the argu- 
 ment is distinct. In some sense, it even comes 
 closer than that of Christ Himself; since He 
 delivers no writing of His own, casting over every 
 part of it the same claim to authority. It cannot 
 fairly he denied that these claims are great and 
 singular. Thus Paul : " If any man think himself 
 to be a prophet or spiritual, let him acknowledge 
 that the things that I write unto you are the 
 commandments of the Lord." And thus also John : 
 " AVe are of God : he that knoweth God heareth 
 us ; he that is not of God heareth not us ; hereby 
 know we the spirit of truth and the spirit of error." 
 Here again is the application of the same principle, 
 the extension from the part to the whole, with the 
 same visible cogency of sequence : for if such 
 claims break down in professed teachers at any 
 point, there is delusion and miscarriage. It is 
 indeed possible that an agent of revelation may 
 
REV. PRIXCirAL JOHN CAIRNS, D.D. 
 
 59 
 
 distinguish, in a message, a part which lie excludes 
 from his general divinely guaranteed utterance. 
 Some, as is well known, think this the case with 
 the Apostle Paul in i Cor. vii. But this is hardly 
 the general view ; and if it were so, the exception 
 would prove the rule. 
 
 The only other topic, as far as I have noticed, 
 adduced by Professor Stanley Lcathes to settle the 
 limits of the Word of God is its success. This, 
 agaiu, would be an argument from what is Divine 
 at one point to what is Divine all through. If 
 Divine influence, in a Look itself, or coming from 
 without, work in a transcendent way, the whole 
 vehicle is exalted. This argument also must be 
 held, in the circumstances, to be sound. No doubt 
 Divine Providence may work, and work great 
 things, by imperfect instruments. But hardly by 
 a book which denies, or conceals, its own imper- 
 fection, which exaggerates its nearness to heaven, 
 and goes through the world with a general title to 
 iufallibility, deserving to be rebuked and dis- 
 credited. 
 
 It now remains to see whether any farther 
 applications of the same principle may be found, 
 beyond those rapidly enumerated. One may be 
 suggested, viz., the appeal of our Lord to the 
 authority of the Old Testament, as admitting of 
 
GO INSPIRATION. 
 
 extension to the New. Our Lord, of course, could 
 not ratify the New Testament ; but He could 
 anticipate it, He could provide for it, and use 
 words which fairly cover its contents. Hence the 
 great body of interpreters have applied His words 
 as to the Spirit leading into all truth, and assisting 
 His witnesses when brought before kino;s and mag^is- 
 trates, as fairly including the writing of the New 
 Testament histories and epistles. It would be quite 
 anomalous to have divinely provided records of Old 
 Testament revelation vouched for by the Saviour, 
 while the last, and, in many respects, greatest 
 stage of revelation remained without supply or 
 guarantee. This is not a mere a priori deduction. 
 The strongest evidence of fact would be needed to 
 show that, for some mysterious reason, the analogy 
 did not hold. Hence the Church will never believe 
 that documents which seem to meet this want did 
 not mean to do so, or that New Testament Scrip- 
 ture was less carefully produced and less minutely 
 superintended, than that which our Lord treated 
 with such unquestioning submission. 
 
 Another application, founded on the same prin- 
 ciple of extension, is that from the prophecies of 
 the Bible, A book thus exalted becomes every- 
 where sacred. I believe that a true argument 
 could be founded also on miracles. I do not share 
 
REV. PRINCIPAL JOHN CAIRNS, D.D. Gl 
 
 the distrust of miracles as seals of revelation, and 
 of all that the miracle worker may be fairly held 
 to bind up with God's name. But in the case of 
 prophecy, the extension from part to whole is 
 immediate, since prophecy, unlike miracles, is 
 itself part of a book. What, then, is to bar the 
 extension, or bring down the revealer of the 
 future, whatever be his theme, from the highest 
 authority ? The reverence of the Jews for the 
 prophets was thus most rational. Nor will the 
 case of bad prophets, or of injudicious gifted men, 
 bar the inference. A bad man like Balaam was 
 not allowed to trade with his gift ; nor were the 
 gifted Corinthians, as far as we see, allowed to 
 teach false doctrine. This conclusion carries us a 
 long way to a universal Word of God, for prophecy, 
 like a golden thread, runs all through from Genesis 
 to Revelation. 
 
 I will only add that parts of Scripture, almost 
 as wonderful as prophecies, rising at different 
 points all through the organism of the Bible, main- 
 tain the sense of its unbroken divinity. This is 
 not quite the same thing with the organic unity 
 already considered. That would be the same, 
 though the higher organs were all in one region ; 
 but here, so to speak, they are distributed through- 
 out the body. The master-pieces of the Bible, 
 
62 INSPIRATION. 
 
 narrative, moral, doctrinal, lyrical, are never far off 
 from each other. It cannot be held that the main 
 parts are finished with such incomparable skill, 
 and the minor neglected. When we see how the 
 Mosaic, Davidic, Solomonic, Pre-exilic and Post- 
 exilic books have each their great features, and yet 
 all foreshadow Christ and the New Testament ; 
 and how again the histories' of Christ, so unique, 
 grow into the Acts, pass into the Epistles, and 
 culminate in the Apocalypse, which sums up 
 history, doctrine, prophecy and devotion in one, it 
 is not possible to hold a partial theory of the 
 inspiration of Scripture. "Deep calleth unto 
 deep." It is "as the voice of many waters/' and 
 " as the voices of harpers harping with their 
 iarps. 
 
 It only remains, in closing this paper, to touch 
 in the briefest way upon a few objections and 
 difficulties. Those of a scientific kind may be 
 almost passed over. It is now universally admitted 
 that the Bible was not given to teach science, and 
 could not even have taught it, had it been desired. 
 Nor is cosmogony science, but something which 
 precedes it ; so that science never can properly 
 criticise a cosmogony, and a moral and popular 
 statement of a cosmogony, which antecedes its own 
 career. So of the deluge ; if it be a miracle, to 
 
REV. PRINCIPAL JOHN CAIRNS, D.D. 63 
 
 bring it, like Reimarus, to natural law, ' is, as 
 Lessing said, to destroy it. 
 
 Ethical difficulties are now much less uro-ed than 
 formerly. They chiefly belong to the region of 
 the Old Testament ; and they may be largely 
 covered, though doubtless some remain, by the 
 principle that the Mosaic system was confessedly 
 imperfect, and that evils remained in it — not yet 
 curable — "through the hardness of the people's 
 hearts." Besides, it needs, in some cases, discrimi- 
 nation to see what is simply reported, and what is 
 approved. Doctrinal difficulties and contradictions 
 are also abated in their pressure. Such alleged 
 discords, as between James and Paul, have failed 
 to wound ; and while variation of type is more 
 conceded in our Biblical Theolo^v, this is not 
 generally allowed to be more than the different 
 side of truth. It is indeed remarkable how rarely, 
 even in rationalistic schools, the Apostle Paul is 
 now charged with arbitrary or inconclusive reason- 
 ing. The chief field of difficulty in regard to the 
 full integrity of the Word of God, is the historical 
 — and that with a large and growing admission of 
 historical accuracy. The discoveries in Egypt, 
 Nineveh and Babylon, have assisted this result in 
 the Old Testament ; the failure of the mythical 
 theory, and the growing acceptance of the Gospel 
 
64 INSPIRATION. 
 
 data in the New. There are, no doubt, many 
 problems, of which the harmonistic of the four 
 Gospels can only give a conjectural solution. But 
 this is really the case with all true history, 
 especially as the historians are multiplied ; and as, 
 according to every reasonable theory of the human 
 element in inspiration, the Spirit of God did not 
 shed over the mind of each sacred writer all the 
 illumination that the rest possessed, but wrought, 
 without being limited to this, with his pre-existing 
 mass of knowledge, moulding it to higher ends, so 
 the results seem to vary, because, in the absence of 
 an anxious and studied harmony, the links of 
 reconciliation are not supplied. But any one who 
 looks upon the four Gospels in their wonderful 
 features, spiritual and literary, and on their not 
 less wonderful effects, will, with reason, regard the 
 evidence of their inspiration as not at all shaken by 
 the remaining historical difficulties ; will perhaps 
 rather wonder that they are so few, and will 
 adjourn them to a future, which is always learning 
 better to cure or to endure them. 
 
 I may be permitted to close this paper with a 
 few sentences from, the speech of Bishop Temple 
 at the late meeting of the Bible Society, in which 
 many will hail, if not a change, a happy clearing 
 up of misunderstanding, and a welcome omen of 
 
BEV. PRINCIPAL JOHN CAIRNS, D.D. G5 
 
 Eritisli thought. "I have read the writings of 
 good men and of great men ; I have read the 
 writings of great philosophers of old — of men who 
 saw far deeper into the truth, by the power of 
 wonderful intellects, guided no doubt by God's 
 providence, than it was possible for ordinary men 
 to see. I have read many books which set before 
 the soul the loftiest motives of action, and the 
 most heavenly principles to guide the conduct. 
 And still, wherever we turn, as we read them all 
 we feel that they are referred to our own con- 
 sciences to judge; that we still are called to dis- 
 criminate, and to say, ' Here I accept, and there I 
 reject ; ' and though a man be a greater man than 
 I, still my judgment remains responsible for its 
 own decision, and I cannot shift the responsibility 
 on any other shoulders than my own. And I have 
 read many such books, and have felt that I learned 
 much ; and still, for all that, there remains the 
 sense that these books, though they are my 
 teachers, are not my rulers, and though they in- 
 struct me, they cannot command me. But when 
 I turn to the "Word of God, it takes me straight, 
 as it were, into God's very presence, and gives its 
 message thereby an authority which is His and 
 His alone." 
 
66 INSPIRATION. 
 
 Article IV. 
 
 By the Eev. ALEX. MACKEOTAL, M.A. 
 
 f" HAVE read with interest the papers of Professor 
 Stanley Leathes and Principal Cairns, and 
 fully accord with them in their purpose of establish- 
 ing for the Bible a unique place in literature, and 
 in their affirmation that this is characteristic of the 
 Bible as a whole, and not merely of some detached 
 portions of it. I accept the statement of Dr. 
 Leathes that the Bible is " the authorised record 
 of the way in which God communicated His will to 
 man, and [that] it is the appointed instrument for 
 making known that will." I too should assert that 
 the Bible is an organic whole, a Divine book ; the 
 life pulsates through every part. But these papers, 
 in my judgment, completely fail in establishing 
 their thesis that the Bible may properly be spoken 
 of as the Word of God. For many years I have 
 hesitated so to speak of it ; and my hesitation is 
 increased rather than abated by the arguments of 
 Dr. Leathes and Dr. Cairns. In saying this I do 
 not, as Dr. Cairns suggests, regard myself as taking 
 
REV. ALEX. MACKENNAL, M.A. 67 
 
 a " freer position " than his ; my complaint is that 
 he is too " free " as an interpreter, that he goes 
 counter to the analogy of Scripture, and disregards 
 a distinction which the Bible writers carefully 
 maintain. 
 
 That is a significant fact on which Professor 
 Eadford Thomson dwells, that " the Scriptures do 
 not explicitly claim to be the Word of God, nor 
 does any one of the books of which they are com- 
 posed put forward this claim." He might have 
 gone further and said that the Scriptures implicitly 
 repudiate it. I wish to emphasise Mr. Warring- 
 ton's statement, quoted by Mr. Thomson, that 
 " the phrase in question occurs three or four hun- 
 dred times in the Old Testament, and a hundred 
 times in the New, but is never once applied to 
 Scripture itself." The force of such statements is 
 not to be weakened by the reminder that the whole 
 Bible was not completed while its books were 
 being written, and that until the " organic whole " 
 was complete, its value could not be appraised. 
 The very distinction, the propriety of which Dr. 
 Leathes denies, between the Bible and some of its 
 contents, is grounded on Scriptural usage. A 
 peculiar consciousness in the person who was the 
 medium of the Bevelation is ever connoted when 
 the phrase is used ; the " Word of God " is God's 
 
G8 INSPIRATION. 
 
 direct communication ; there are specially authori- 
 tative statements even of inspired men ; especially 
 urgent messages are given to the prophets, exalting 
 their moods, compelling them to speak. The 
 writers of the Bible are careful to mark these out ; 
 they do not confound them with the work of the 
 historian, the scribe, the poet, even when they treat 
 the writings of poet, scribe, historian with the 
 reverence due to Holy Scripture. 
 
 In the Old Testament the phrase " the "Word of 
 the Lord " is freely applied to the Law ; and this 
 is perfectly intelligible. The whole history is so 
 constructed as to give us the idea of an objective 
 revelation, not in any wise to be confounded with 
 the development of the religious consciousness, or 
 the impulses and reasonings even of an inspired 
 man. The place where the revelation is to be 
 made — Sinai or the tabernacle of the congregation 
 — is solemnly fenced off and consecrated ; the face 
 of Moses shines on his descent from the mountain ; 
 the cloud descends and covers him while the Lord 
 is communicating His will. The lawgiver is dis- 
 tinguished from those who prophesy ; there is to 
 be no confusion between the distinct revelations 
 imparted to him, and the imagery, needing to be 
 interpreted and clothed in their own language, 
 which God causes to pass before the minds of the 
 
REV. ALEX. MACKEXXAL, M.A. G9 
 
 prophets. " Hear now my words, If there be a 
 prophet among you, I the Lord will make myself 
 known unto him in a vision, and will speak unto 
 him in a dream. My servant Moses is not so, who 
 is faithful in all Mine house. With him will I 
 speak mouth to mouth, even apparently, and not 
 in dark speeches ; and the similitude of the Lord 
 shall he behold." Persons who believed such a 
 narrative as that of Moses might well understand 
 that the Law given through him was to be received 
 as authoritative until its abolition should be an- 
 nounced in an equally impressive and unmistakable 
 manner ; to him it was the Word of the Lord. 
 But it is to me inconceivable that they should 
 apply — as a matter of fact they did not apply — 
 the phrase whose solemn import was thus assured 
 to them, to such stories as that of the apostasy 
 under Sinai, or of even the intercession of the 
 inspired saint for Miriam. 
 
 In the prophetical history we find the frequent 
 iteration of the phrase, " The Word of God," or, " of 
 the Lord." Here, too, it is always used of special 
 revelations ; the revelations are, however, not now 
 of permanent, but of passing, personal, local, cir- 
 cumstantial application. The whole body of pro- 
 phecy is not spoken of, simpliciter, as the Word 
 of the Lord ; the phrase used is the Word of the 
 
70 INSPIRATION. 
 
 Lord " which He spake by the hand of Ahijah the 
 Shilonite to Jeroboam the son of Nebat ; " " the 
 "Word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah, until 
 the land had enjoyed her Sabbaths ; " and so on. 
 A prophecy is only called the Word of God, or of 
 the Lord, in relation to the circumstances which 
 called it forth. It is contrary to Old Testament 
 usage to generalise an utterance, to draw out its 
 moral and spiritual significance into new applica- 
 tions, and call it in such applications "the Word 
 of God." It is to me inconceivable that Jeremiah, 
 for instance, who uses the phrase to express and 
 vindicate the sense of solemn urgency under which 
 he speaks, could have tolerated the application of 
 it to the whole history in which his prophecies are 
 enshrined, or even to his prophecies themselves as 
 edited in a book. 
 
 Dr. Leathes says, that " the New Testament, 
 beyond all question, claims and assumes that 
 honour [the honour of being the "Word of God] 
 for the Old. We may take that for granted, and 
 need not stop to prove it." This is an amazing 
 statement ; we can understand it only when we 
 remember that it is of his own reading of the 
 phrase "the Word of God" that Dr. Leathe 
 here speaking, not of the Scriptural usage. To 
 me, fully accepting, as I do, what he says about 
 
REV. ALEX. MACKEXXAL, M.A. 71 
 
 the reverence paid in the New Testament to the 
 Old, the significant fact is, that the phrase in 
 question should not be employed. "The position 
 assigned to the Old Testament by the New is very 
 much that with which the Bible at large is regarded 
 by religious people."' I adopt the statement ; and 
 add, that "religious people" constantly speak of 
 the Bible as the Word of God, but in the New 
 Lament the Old Testament is never so styled. 
 Dr. Cairns quotes as " one of the internal evidences 
 of the eanonicity of Second Peter, that it so clearly 
 brings out the two sides in inspired teaching : 
 'holy men of God spake as they were moved by 
 the Holy Ghost.' " Peter is here contrasting words 
 spoken " by the will of man," and words spoken 
 under the impulse of the Holy Ghost; and it 
 would have been very natural for him to employ 
 the phrase, "the Word of God," had it been the 
 New Testament usage to apply that phrase to the 
 Old Testament. The Apostle Paul does use this 
 language when speaking to the Thessalonians of 
 the authority of the gospel. " When ye received 
 the Word of God which ye heard of as, ye received 
 it not as the word o( men, but as it is in truth, 
 the Word of God, which effectually worketh also in 
 you that believe." "The law," "the law and the 
 prophets," "Moses and the prophets," "the law of 
 
72 INSPIRATION. 
 
 Moses, and the prophets and the Psalms," "the 
 Scripture," — these are all terms employed in the 
 New Testament to designate the Old; and the 
 idea of the sanctity and authority of these writings 
 is sufficiently evident; but the New Testament 
 writers do not, because of their regard for their 
 sacred books, attach to them indiscriminately the 
 title "Word of God." In the New Testament 
 the phrase is commonly applied to the gospel as 
 preached — "The grass withereth, and the flower 
 thereof falleth away : but the Word of the Lord 
 endureth for ever. And this is the Word which, 
 by the gospel, is preached unto you ; " — to the 
 substance of the preaching of the apostles and 
 evangelists — " They which were scattered abroad 
 went everywhere preaching the Word ; " — to the 
 communication of the Father's will by Christ to 
 the twelve — "I have given unto them Thy Word." 
 This use of the term also is perfectly intelligible. 
 The gospel was a direct and special revelation from 
 God ; it was the revelation, the unfolding of the 
 mystery which prophets and wise men had waited 
 for, and into which the angels had desired to look. 
 The gospel was not, like the utterances of the 
 prophets, merely of passing, personal, local, circum- 
 stantial application ; it was not, like the law, given 
 to a nation, intended to endure during the time of 
 
REV. ALEX. MACKENNAL, M.A. 7 3 
 
 that nation's separation, and then to die away in 
 a more excellent glory ; it was for all ages and for 
 all mankind, and so could be styled, simpliciter, 
 "the Word." The restricted usa^e of the Old 
 Testament had kept for New Testament times a 
 term aptly expressive of the supreme and solitary 
 claim of the gospel to be the perfect revelation of 
 God's will to mankind ; and after it had once been 
 employed of the gospel, it could never be again 
 used even in its Old Testament signification. For 
 the reverence of men, trained in the Jewish habit 
 of resreirdinsf the Word of God, as that which 
 endureth for ever, could not have endured the 
 application of the phrase to that which, in the 
 language of the writer of the Epistle to the 
 Hebrews, was decaying, and waxing old and ready 
 to vanish away. Even the law now became " Scrip- 
 ture," and not "the Word of God." The Apostles 
 were "ministers of the Word," and what is meaut 
 by this phrase the Apostle Paul tells us — " our 
 sufficiency is of God, who also hath made us able 
 ministers of the new [covenant] testament ; not of 
 the letter, but of the Spirit : for the letter killeth, 
 but the Spirit giveth life. . . . Now the Lord is 
 that Spirit : and where the Spirit of the Lord is, 
 there is liberty." 
 This last quotation prepares us for John's loftiest 
 
74 INSPIRATION. 
 
 application of the term " Word," to the Lord Jesus 
 Christ Himself. The only complete revelation of 
 the Father is the Son; "No man knoweth the 
 Father save the Son, and he to whomsoever the 
 Son will reveal Him." That reservation of the term 
 " the Word," to which I have alluded in the last 
 paragraph, is seen to have this further significance. 
 It first forbade the indiscriminate acceptance of the 
 sayings of inspired men as utterances essentially 
 Divine ; it appeared in due time that special 
 prophetic sayings, and even the law given by 
 Moses, were only styled the Word of God in a 
 partial and accommodative sense ; it stamped a 
 supreme and solitary grandeur on the gospel, and 
 prepared us for the words spoken from heaven 
 above the Christ — " This is my beloved Son : hear 
 Him." 
 
 There is another significant difference between 
 the use of the term "Word of the Lord" in the 
 prophetic and in the New Testament histories. The 
 Word of the Lord came to the prophets concerning 
 personal matters, of small and trivial concern it 
 might almost seem, as well as concerning great 
 political and national events. The punishment of 
 Shemaiah, for instance (Jer. xxix. 30-33), and 
 the death of Ezekiel's wife, were announced as by 
 " the Word of the Lord." In the apostolic history, 
 
REV. ALEX. MACKENNAL, M.A. 75 
 
 such announcements are said to be by the Spirit, 
 the Holy Ghost, not by the Word of the Lord. 
 Paul was " forbidden of the Holy Ghost to preach 
 the "Word in Asia ; " Agabus bound himself with 
 Paul's girdle, aud said, " Thus saith the Holy 
 Ghost, So shall the Jews at Jerusalem bind the 
 man that owneth this girdle, and shall deliver him 
 into the hands of the Gentiles." Again we see 
 restriction in the use of a very solemn phrase. It 
 appears in the times of Moses ; the Lord gave to 
 the seventy elders (Num. xi.) "of the spirit that 
 was upon " Moses ; " Would God," says Moses, 
 " that all the Lord's people were prophets, and that 
 the Lord would put His spirit upon them." Their 
 inspiration was not to be confounded with the 
 speech of God to Moses, face to face ; they did not 
 receive and report the Word of God. 
 
 Fully to explain why the phrase might be 
 employed as it was in the prophetic history would 
 unduly prolong this paper. I would only suggest 
 that the special revelations made to the prophets 
 consisted frequently of a number of historical 
 details ; whereas in the times of Moses the law was 
 the Eevelation ; and the gospel was so in the 
 Apostolic period. I allude to the contrast in order 
 to emphasize my point, that the distinction between 
 the Word of God and the history in which it is 
 
76 INSPIRATION. 
 
 communicated, between Eevelation and Inspiration, 
 is clearly marked in the Bible. The two great 
 periods of special revelation, the times of Moses 
 and of Christ, were also periods of widely diffused 
 inspiration ; and these are exactly the times when 
 the peculiar significance of the phrase, " the Word 
 of God," is most strictly guarded. 
 
 To sum up the affirmations of my paper — in the 
 Old Testament, the term " "Word of God " is ap- 
 plied only to special revelations, and to them only 
 in relation to the circumstances under which the 
 revelation was made : in the New Testament, 
 which is the history of the foundation of a new 
 dispensation, because the circumstances to which 
 the law and special prophecies apply are, in God's 
 purpose, completely changed, the term is no longer 
 applied to them : the apostolic usage reserves the 
 term to the revelation of God by His Son ; the 
 final employment of the term is the most exalted 
 and restricted of all, — John's application of it to 
 the personal Christ. 
 
 It may be said to me, " Granting that your 
 exposition of the Biblical use of the phrase is 
 substantially correct, is the ordinary Christian 
 usage illegitimate ? is it not pedantic to insist on 
 the points on which you have been dwelling ? 
 would not the discontinuance of the common usatre 
 
REV. ALEX. MACKENNAL, M.A. 77 
 
 seem like yielding the authority of the Scriptures?" 
 I reply, it cannot be pedantic, in deciding on the 
 character of a book, to respect the representation 
 it gives of itself; nor legitimate to disregard dis- 
 tinctions with which it supplies us for its interpre- 
 tation. Both Dr. Leathes and Dr. Cairns are 
 compelled, having regard to the present state of 
 science, critical and otherwise, to lay down qualifi- 
 cations and make reserves "which, to a Jew, would 
 have seemed not very reverent treatment of the 
 Word of God. The attempt to attach a name of 
 special sanctity to all the contents of the Bible ends 
 in the degradation of that name itself. 
 
 We understand what a man means when, urging 
 some utterance on our attention, he says, " I give 
 you my word for this ; " or if laying down some 
 command to servants or children, he says, " These 
 are my words." But should he speak of everything 
 he says, his share in a conversation, the stories he 
 tells, the poems or essays he may write, as "my 
 words ; " we should not only wonder at the stilted 
 style he had adopted, we should gradually come to 
 pay slight regard to what he intended to be his 
 most solemn attestations. 
 
 The term u word " is itself a dubious one, vary- 
 
 .ing in meaning from "vocable" to "utterance." 
 
 The Bible usage aims to preserve for it the latter 
 
78 INSPIRATION. 
 
 signification, and even exalts the meaning from 
 "an utterance" to "the utterance" of God. The 
 modern Christian usa«;e is ever tending downwards 
 to the former insignificant meaning. It is for the 
 sake of faith, that if we venture to speak of " the 
 "Word of God," we may use the phrase confidently 
 and without reserve, that I venture to plead for a 
 return to the habit of Scripture. 
 
REV. PAGE HOPPS. 79 
 
 Article V. 
 
 By the Rev. PAGE HOPPS. 
 
 TN discussing such questions as that now under 
 consideration, one continually finds that the 
 first thing to be done is to press for a definition, 
 or to question the question. In the present case, 
 for instance, the inquiry is inevitable : — Of whom 
 have we to think, when we ask, " In what sense, 
 and within what limits, is the Bible regarded as 
 the Word of God ? " Eegarded by whom ? Are 
 we discussing what the majority think, — what in 
 the main is held — what, in short, is orthodox or 
 authoritative ? I should prefer to put the question 
 thus : — In ivhat sense, and within what limits, is 
 the Bible the Word of God? and from that point of 
 view I shall proceed to consider it. 
 
 Everybody will agree with Mr. Mackennal, — 
 Mr Holyoake would probably agree with him — 
 when he endorses the claim on behalf of the Bible, 
 that it occupies " a unique place in literature." 
 It is when he accepts the statement that the Bible 
 is " the authorised record of the way in which God 
 
80 INSPIRATION. 
 
 communicated His will to man, and (that) it is the 
 appointed instrument for making known that will," 
 that many will hesitate to go with him. One can 
 understand a man saying that, who believes still 
 what used to be generally believed, that the Bible, 
 from beginning to end, is a supernatural production. 
 But Mr. Mackennal is walking on a slippery plank 
 when he accepts the statement that the Bible is 
 " the appointed instrument " chosen by God for 
 making known His will, and yet limits the expres- 
 sion of that will to certain parts of the Book. He 
 would confine the phrase, ''Word of God," to 
 " special revelations " in particular books, and not 
 to everything found in those books. Jeremiah, for 
 instance, may have here and there given a revela- 
 tion from God, may here and there have contri- 
 buted something to " the "Word of God ; " but it is, 
 to Mr. Mackennal, " inconceivable " that Jeremiah 
 " could have tolerated the application of it (the 
 phrase • the Word of God ') to the whole histor}- in 
 which his prophecies are enshrined, or even to his 
 prophecies themselves as edited in a book." 
 
 If, then, we proceed to the grave question — 
 How, then, can we. tell when a prophet or the 
 writer of any Old Testament book is giving us a 
 revelation or uttering " the "Word of God " ? the 
 answer we get is an ominous one. We are referred 
 
REV. PAGE HOPPS. 81 
 
 by Mr. Mackennal to " a peculiar consciousness " 
 in the speaker or writer, or to the assurance of the 
 speaker or writer. Is that all \ Apparently it is. 
 But thousands of eager, devout souls have had, in 
 all ages, " a peculiar consciousness " that God was 
 moving them to speak ; and, in every variety of 
 warning, entreaty, and plea, have claimed to speak 
 for God. Besides, as Mr. Mackennal himself re- 
 minds us, the prophets claimed " the Word of the 
 Lord " for all kinds of trivialities, and, I must add, 
 for not a few absurdities. 
 
 It seems to me, then, that if we follow Mr. 
 Mackennal's lead, and once sever ourselves from 
 the old uncompromising claim that the Bible is 
 altogether a supernatural book, and all alike the 
 "Word of God," there is no halting-place short of 
 submitting the Bible to the verifying faculties of 
 reason, conscience, humanity, and our own reverent 
 trust in God. But if we do that, this seems to 
 follow ; — that the Bible is the Word of God only 
 as all created things are words of His, and that it 
 is our wisdom to mark how imperfectly His words 
 are heard, and our duty to prove all things and 
 hold fast that which is good. 
 
 And yet, after all, why should I speak of Mr. 
 Mackennal's lead ? As he says, " Both Dr. Leathes 
 and Dr. Cairns are compelled, having regard to the 
 
82 INSPIRATION. 
 
 present state of science, critical and otherwise, to 
 lay clown qualifications and make reserves which, 
 to a Jew, would have seemed not very reverent 
 treatment of the Word of God." But we need not 
 go so far back as that. All our theologians and 
 critics who have any regard for " the present state 
 of science, critical and otherwise," have "to lay 
 dow r n qualifications and make reserves " that would 
 have shocked their predecessors a quarter of a 
 century ago, or less. 
 
 I cannot help thinking, then, that real service 
 may be done by any one who will push home con- 
 clusions, and compel people to look this matter 
 squarely in the face. What is Inspiration ? The 
 hitherto accepted view is, that it is the supernatural 
 or miraculous influencing of certain chosen persons, 
 to enable them to transmit an infallible message 
 from God ; and this has always been held in com- 
 pany with the assertion that these persons were 
 limited to the men who wrote the books of the 
 Bible. God, w r e w r ere told, made known His will 
 once, and once for all ; and now all we have to do 
 is to consult " the holy oracle." 
 
 Is this view of Inspiration tenable ? It is already 
 perceived that Inspiration does not involve infalli- 
 bility, and it seems to be also admitted that when 
 we open the Bible we must distinguish and choose. 
 
REV. PAGE HOPPS. 83 
 
 Of course we must. When objections are made to 
 historical and scientific errors in the Bible, what 
 more frequent than the reply, that God did not 
 inspire men to teach Ethnology, Geology, and the 
 like. But what of the varying standards of 
 morality in the Bible ? What of the dark and 
 cruel things attributed to God, or done at His 
 instigation ? It is evident that we must distinguish 
 and choose. The next step is not difficult. I 
 regard it as inevitable. We shall have to think of 
 God's Inspiration as we think of God's sunshine. 
 It never goes out ; it penetrates everywhere ; but 
 its brightness and blessing are ever determined hy 
 the medium, the recipient. This delicious summer 
 air, which, incense-laden, is all about me as I write, 
 is all-creative. It calls into being mighty forests 
 and far-reaching harvests, but it disdains not to 
 open the tiny eyes of the daisies in the meadow. 
 Even so the spiritual breath of the Eternal fills the 
 air around us, and, according to our power, each 
 one receives it and appropriates it. Everywhere it 
 inspires, but it does not everywhere inspire perfectly 
 or in the same way. "The light shineth in the 
 darkness," and the varying degrees of darkness 
 result in varying degrees of "comprehension." 
 Neither is this Inspiration of God for one object. 
 It comes not only to theologian and priest ; surely 
 
84 INSPIRATION. 
 
 it comes also to statesman and poet and scientist, 
 — to all who contend with darkness, and long to 
 come out of that darkness into the marvellous 
 light. That men do not come all at once to the 
 truth, only proves that God works in harmony 
 with the laws of human development ; that " we 
 have this treasure in earthen vessels," and that God 
 has many things to say to us, though we cannot 
 bear them now. 
 
 In what sense, then, is the Bible the Word of 
 God ? In the same sense that a rose is, or a thistle ; 
 a sunbeam that makes a little child dance for joy, 
 or a lightning flash that strikes it dead. Is any- 
 thing outside of God ? Do we not all " live and 
 move and have our being " in Him ? " He is not 
 far from every one of us." Is not that the same 
 thing as to say that He waits to inspire, to speak 
 to every one of us ? Does not the " word of the 
 Lord " come to us now ? Are all the Psalms 
 "inspired," and is there no "word of God" in In 
 Memoriamf Did Jeremiah transmit a "revelation" 
 to the men of his time, and was there never a time 
 when John Bright mio-ht have said " Thus saith 
 the Lord"'? Did Moses legislate for the children 
 of Israel as the messenger of Jehovah, and was 
 Alfred the Great not sent to God's Englishmen ? 
 Did Isaiah and Hosea and Micah speak as they were 
 
REV. PAGE HOPPS. 85 
 
 "moved by the Holy Ghost," and did Luther 
 and Wycliffe and Tyndale speak only from 
 themselves? Is God near to us now, and riot 
 afar off? and if He is near to us, has He nothing 
 more to say ? or is it indeed true that " He has 
 more light and truth to break forth from His 
 'word " ? There is no possible halting-place. We 
 must either abide by the old theory that the Bible 
 is au entirely " supernatural " book, exceptionally 
 inspired by God, expressly for the purpose of 
 revealing to man His will, and of cornmunicatin£ 
 to man once for all a knowledge of the truth con- 
 cerning the great subjects of which it treats, or we 
 must go on to faith in a Living God who is still 
 educating His children, still leading them out of 
 darkness into His marvellous light. 
 
 What is the test of Inspiration ? Not eloquence, 
 not beauty, not purity, not edification, not accuracy, 
 if we are to abide by the theory that Inspiration is 
 co-extensive with the Bible. These, indeed, as we 
 all gladly testify, are in the Bible, and abound : 
 but much else is there, — much, that is to say, which 
 is neither eloquent, nor beautiful, nor pure, nor 
 edifying, nor accurate. But if the tests of Inspira- 
 tion arc eloquence, beauty, purity, edification and 
 accuracy, then we must pass beyond the limits 
 of this noblest and best of books, to find the 
 
86 INSPIRATION. 
 
 traces of the inspiration of the Holy One else- 
 where. 
 
 If, in answer to this, it be said that that only 
 is the " Word of God " which is absolute truth or 
 final truth in religion, then we can only ask : 
 Where is such truth to be found ? It is admitted 
 that such truth is not to be found outside of the 
 Bible ; but, if we turn to the Bible to find it, we 
 find that much of what our fathers or forefathers 
 regarded as " absolute truth " and " final truth " 
 is now doubtful or demonstrably untrue. Quali- 
 fications and reservations multiply. Think of all 
 the revelations of God to Abraham, Isaac and 
 Jacob, to Joshua and Samuel, to Gideon and 
 Ezekiel ! Where men once trod unhesitatingly, 
 and even with vehement faith, how guardedly we 
 go ! Modern civilisation, to say nothing of modern 
 science or modern criticism, seems to be creating 
 an absolutely new standard of things believable 
 and unbelievable ; and the influence of this upon 
 the regarding of the Bible as in any exceptional 
 sense " the Word of God " must be immense ; it 
 may be revolutionary. 
 
 I cannot escape from the conclusion, then, that 
 what we have been calling " Bevelation " is really 
 discovery. Confronted with the moral, as well as 
 with the scientific and historical, imperfections of 
 
KEV. PAGE HOPPS. 87 
 
 the Bible, the defenders of the view that the Bible 
 is a miraculous revelation from God have of late 
 apologised for these by saying that God adapted 
 His revelations to the people to whom they w T ere 
 given. It would surely be more reasonable and 
 more reverential to say that the writers of the 
 books of the Bible came to their knowledge and 
 experiences just as men come to knowledge and 
 experience everywhere — by personal thought, by 
 voyages of discovery, by experiment. If we con- 
 sider how God is dealing with us, we see that He 
 works everywhere through man in harmony with 
 the natural laws of his being. He gave to man by 
 revelation no perfect final system of medicine, of 
 government, of social economy, of mechanics, of 
 agriculture. How much trouble, how much misery, 
 would have been saved, we might say, if He had 
 done so ! Neither did He reveal art, and music, 
 and poetry in perfect final forms. For all these, 
 men have had to think, to work, to experiment. 
 And yet, has God been excluded from these ? 
 Nay, rather, has not the Inspiration of the Eternal 
 everywhere, and through all time, given men 
 understanding ? If all this is true and compre- 
 hensible concerning every other subject, why 
 should it not be true and comprehensible concern- 
 ing theology, or concerning what we call "religious 
 
88 INSPIRATION. 
 
 truth " ? Did God more effectively or really inspire 
 man in the one case than the others ? Why should 
 we think so ? Do we not find in the Bible pre- 
 cisely what we find elsewhere — manifest signs of 
 progress, and all the indications which show that 
 men, in regard to religious truth, as in regard to 
 scientific and political truth, have had to find their 
 way out of darkness into the marvellous light ? 
 
 This appears to be God's way of teaching or 
 evolving us. He has so made man, with such 
 faculties to guide him, and with such laws to govern 
 him, that he is perpetually going on to see more of 
 God, of himself, and of the order and beauty and 
 divineness of all things. The ceaseless Creator 
 works from behind the veil, throuo-h the natural 
 laws of man's being, slowly cleansing the vision, 
 developing the will, perfecting the conscience, and 
 deepening the affections. In this way all is of 
 God, but not by miracle. Here is a pre-arranged 
 and beautiful law at work, so that this progress on 
 the part of man is seen to enter into that stupen- 
 dous plan which is leading on to that 
 
 " One far-off Divine event 
 To which the wiiole creation moves." 
 
 How near this brings God to us ! — indeed the 
 Living God of living men, who is "not far from 
 every one of us." Understanding this, the dis- 
 
REV. page Horrs. 89 
 
 coveries of man may be regarded as the revelations 
 of God ; but revelations not implying infallibility, 
 and not involving miracle, — revelations most of all 
 of that profound law which binds man to his 
 actions, and which conditions all his attainments 
 by his ever-changing plane of development. Ours, 
 then, is not a silent Father, a banished God, audible 
 in Jewry once, but silent in England now ; speak- 
 ing once to a "chosen people," but speaking now 
 no more to His children, though they never needed 
 Him more than now. 
 
 But, indeed, the Bible itself bears witness to this 
 very thing, — to the ever-living and the ever-inspir- 
 ing God. To what did Moses refer when, speaking 
 for God, he said that Bezaleel had been called by 
 name, and had been filled by God with the spirit 
 of wisdom " to devise cunning works, to work in 
 gold, and in silver, and in brass, and in cutting of 
 stones, and in carving of timber ; " and, indeed, 
 that "in the hearts of all that are wise-hearted" 
 God had put wisdom ? "What did he mean when 
 he said that he would to God all the Lord's people 
 were prophets ? What is the meaning of the great 
 doctrine of the eternal, universal, ever working 
 Logos, " which lighteth every man that cometh into 
 the world " ? The Bible is really a witness, not to 
 something exceptional, but to something permanent ; 
 
90 INSPIRATION. 
 
 not to something ended, but to "a well of water 
 springing up to everlasting life : " for all patriarchs 
 and psalmists and prophets seem to say, not, " Lo 
 we are unlike you, we are inspired. God is speak- 
 ing to us, but not to you ; " but "Lo, God is here, 
 why do you not come and hear His voice ? He is 
 with us now and always. Listen to Him, believe, 
 obey and live !" 
 
 In asserting, moreover, in what sense and within 
 what limits the Bible is the " Word of God," we 
 cannot leave out of the account one important fact ; 
 — that the Bible, given, it is said, to tell us what 
 we could not have found out, and to settle for all 
 time what is the truth of God, has created a variety 
 of sects whose leading characteristic is that they 
 differ from one another as to the meaning of this 
 very book. The " Revelation " has revealed one 
 thing to one man, another thing to another. The 
 " Word of God " has said one thing to one man, 
 another thing to another. Is that conceivable 1 
 The Eoman Catholic Church, logical, consistent, 
 and thorough as it always is, says that God has 
 committed his supernatural and miraculous revela- 
 tion to a supernatural and miraculous custodian 
 and interpreter. That avoids or silences all ques- 
 tionings and dissonances. But the Protestant, 
 with his "right of private judgment," stands more 
 
REV. PAGE HOPPS. 91 
 
 and more aghast, or is more and more puzzled, at 
 the controversies of Christendom over the very 
 book that was to have settled everything ; and no- 
 thing is more plain to-day than this, — that the 
 chances of Christian unity would be immensely 
 increased if we could all be left to the voice of God 
 speaking now in the minds, the consciences, and 
 the affections of His children. 
 
 The singular thins: is that with all this belief in 
 the Bible as " the authorised record of the way in 
 which God communicated His will to man," and 
 as " the appointed instrument for making known 
 that will," prayers are continually offered for the 
 guidance of God's Holy Spirit. In every Estab- 
 lished Church in England, every Sunday, prayer is 
 offered for " the healthful spirit " of God's grace ; 
 and the prayer for " the fellowship of the Holy 
 Spirit " is a part of the almost universal doxology 
 of Christendom. The hymnology of all the 
 Churches bears witness to this inconsistency be- 
 tween the creed of the Christian world and the 
 trusts and lonuinirs of Christian hearts. What is 
 the explanation ? Alas, for poor human nature ! 
 The answer reveals its inherent weakness. In 
 all ages it must have something outward to cling 
 to, — an idol, a fetish, an altar, a pope, a priest, a 
 confessional, a string of beads, a crucifix, a con- 
 
02 INSPIRATION 
 
 fession or catechism, a revelation. It is natural, 
 but it belongs to our frailty, not to our force ; to 
 our childhood, not to our maturity ; yes, to. our 
 unbelief, not to our faith. True implicit faith 
 would lead to belief in the Living God, to the 
 unseen but not unfelt Spirit. True implicit faith 
 would teach us to walk by faith, not by sight ; to 
 trust ourselves all in all to the Father who is 
 speaking now — to that patient and generous Being 
 who waits to say " many things " to us when we 
 are able to "bear them." Emerson was right. 
 It was — 
 
 " Out from the heart of Nature rolled 
 The burdens of the Bible old." 
 
 Whatever has been may be, — and more. The old 
 " Word of the Lord " 
 
 " Still floats upon the morning wind, 
 Still whispers to the willing mind." 
 
 Yes ; still does God walk with men, the ceaseless 
 Creator, the faithful Guide, the glorious inspirer : 
 and we have not lost 
 
 " One accent of the Holy Ghost." 
 
REV. W. CROSBY BARLOW, M.A. 93 
 
 Article VI. 
 By the Eey. W. CEOSBY BARLOW, M.A. 
 
 All that knowledge which we can so readily and 
 certainly trace to sensation, is knowledge due to 
 revelation. Ideas of light and shade, colour, and 
 all visual beauty and deformity we have because 
 a form of radient energy is self-revealing. Wave- 
 movement speaks to the ears, and molecular 
 motions give themselves to the finger-tips as 
 warmth. Over and above all that is native to 
 our conscious being, there are ideas of the most 
 momentous import, ideas of duty and responsi- 
 bility, of the Divine and of worship ; these are all 
 from the self-revealing of mind other than our 
 own. Sense and self, and man and God, are the 
 great sources of our knowledge, and that is not 
 first that is spiritual, but that which is natural, 
 and afterwards that which is spiritual. 
 
 All ideas of the supreme must be given by some 
 form of Divine impression, by the self-revealing of 
 God. "We cannot create an idea of God and the 
 Divine ; it must be imprinted on the inner faculty, 
 
9 4 INSPIRATION. 
 
 whose function is to perceive, not the visible and 
 temporal, but that which is not seen and eternal. 
 
 At the same time it would seem to be necessary, 
 in our present condition at least, that knowledge 
 shall follow teaching ; that dogma shall precede 
 doctrine. Teaching gives dogma, an earthen vessel 
 in which alone one may carry living water from 
 the fountain. The dogma is the vessel which con- 
 tains, and shapes, and often defiles the truth. 
 
 Given humanity as it is, does it not seem that 
 children growing up untaught would remain, even 
 in manhood, without knowledge of God, or worship, 
 or even duty ? Let the word, however, be spoken 
 and understood, and straightway — if moral causes 
 do not intervene — the truth uttered will be re- 
 ceived, the do2*ma will contain doctrine. Thus our 
 present mental history contains these elements ; 
 we need instruction as from without, we need 
 moral fitness and willingness to know, and then 
 we have within an inflowing of Divine truth. 
 This last element is universal and perfect ; the first 
 element is practically universal, but is imperfect in 
 most varying degree ; the moral element is, as its 
 name implies, a function of the mental and bodily 
 habits, mores, of the individual. 
 
 Revelation is a fact now, for God, like light, is 
 a self-re vealer ; and revelation is a fact of history, 
 
REV. W. CROSBY BARLOW, M.A. 95 
 
 of document or tradition, as the means of that 
 instruction, ab extra, without which information 
 or internal knowledge would be impossible. 
 
 Dogma is either written, or oral, or both ; that 
 is to say, there is an external revelation, cither oral 
 or traditional. Claimants to this character are 
 many, — the Hindoo, the Chinese, the Mohammedan 
 Scriptures, the myths and mysteries of Greece and 
 Borne ; all these have importance and value, and 
 they have claims to be compared, in quality and 
 quantity of their revealings, with those documents 
 which form the Bible, and which are specially 
 under examination at this moment. 
 
 The Bible, we say, contains a written revelation. 
 We go immeasurably further, and say it contains 
 "the Word of God." This does not imply that 
 the Bible is or contains the earliest verbal mani- 
 festation of God. The oldest sentence of the Bible, 
 — " In the beginning God created the heavens and 
 the earth," — contains an affirmation of a super- 
 sensible universe, the heavens ; of a super-physical 
 causation, created ; of a superhuman agent, God. 
 This earliest sentence of the Bible is evidence of 
 an anterior revelation. Let the Bible be only four 
 thousand years old, the human race was not with- 
 out a revelation before the time of Moses. The 
 Pentateuch, indeed, is clear evidence of this in 
 
96 INSPIRATION". 
 
 many ways. Balaam was, independently of Israel, 
 a confessor and worshipper of Jehovah ; Melchi- 
 zedek was priest of the Highest ; and Abram in 
 El Sbaddai worshipped the I Am. 
 
 There was, moreover, a previous written revela- 
 tion. We have citations in 2 Sam. i. 3 and by 
 Joshua, of the " Book of Jasher ; " the latter refer- 
 ence has been so misunderstood as to suggest to 
 the heavy-leaden apologist of the Bible a miracle 
 subversive of the universe. In the Book of Num- 
 bers we find quotations from a then existent (pro- 
 phetic) "Book of the Wars of Jehovah," and also 
 from a collection of oracular announcements of the 
 same type apparently as those of Balaam. These 
 books we believe to have formed parts of a more 
 ancient Bible than that we possess. Of this, 
 Swedenborff tells us that it was written in the 
 style which he (as explained below) describes as 
 distinctive of the Word of God, but that inasmuch 
 as it was of extreme obscurity, it was first mis- 
 understood and then falsified by the rapidly corrupt- 
 ing relics of the Church preceding the Israelitish. 
 The obscurity is evident in these fragments : — 
 
 Vaheb in Supha, and the brooks of Arnon. 
 
 And the valley of the brooks that stretcheth thither where Ar lieth, 
 
 And leaneth upon the border of Moab. 
 
 And from thence to the well. 
 
 And from the well (or wilderness) to Mattanah, 
 
BEV. W. CROSBY BARLOW, M.A. 97 
 
 And from Matt an ah to Nahaliel, 
 And from Nahaliel to Bamoth, 
 
 And from Bamoth, the valley that is in the field of Moab, 
 To the top of the hill which looketh towards the wilderness. — Xa. 
 xxi. 14-16, 18-20. 
 
 And— 
 
 Sun, be silent upon Gibeon, 
 And thou, Moon, in the valley of Ajalon. ' 
 And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed 
 
 Until the people had avenged themselves upon their enemies. — 
 Josh. x. 12, 13. 
 
 The falsification is curiously confirmed by the 
 " Chaldean Genesis." The early chapters of the 
 first book of Moses are part of the ancient word ; 
 the Chaldean recension of the same themes shows 
 how already, when Terrah beyond the flood served 
 other gods (Jos. xxiv. 2), the sacred record of 
 creation and the flood had been marred in the 
 interests of a new polytheism. 
 
 The corruption of the people led to their being 
 permitted to lose their written revelation, even as 
 the sin of Israel lost them the God-given tables 
 of stone. 
 
 To return, — in the Bible we find a written 
 revelation, — the "Word of God. This assertion has 
 to be examined. 
 
 A written revelation is a document, or series of 
 documents, intended as a permanent ministration 
 to men of such Divine truth as is needed, in order 
 
 G 
 
98 INSPIRATION. 
 
 that they may thereby become wise unto salvation. 
 There have been many private oracles (permit the 
 phrase), the message of God by prophet or priest 
 to this or that individual for this or that momentary 
 or personal use. These we do not take into con- 
 sideration now, for they have, as far as we know, 
 perished from all earthly records, and we are con- 
 cerned only with the permanent and universal, 
 which alone is justly called a revelation. 
 
 This revelation is what we declare the Bible to 
 contain. But such a revelation may have one of 
 three forms — it may be translucent, or obscure, or 
 mingled in its character, here clear and here 
 obscure. 
 
 By a translucent or clear revelation is meant a 
 document conveying teachings new to the world, or 
 at least to its readers, and doing this in language 
 intelligible to its full depth and throughout its 
 whole extent. It will be understood by its writer' 
 it can be understood by any contemporary or later 
 student, who with fit intelligence and moral loyalty 
 seeks to take its lessons to himself. It may be 
 argumentative, it may be dogmatic, it must be 
 intelligible, and it must be fixed and abiding in its 
 meaning. 
 
 An obscure revelation is an inspired embodiment 
 of Divine and spiritual truth in a document wholly or 
 
REV. W. CROSBY BARLOW, M.A. 99 
 
 partly unintelligible to its writer and first readers. 
 It will, therefore, be read and understood with in- 
 creasing clearness through all subsequent ages. 
 
 Translucent Revelation. Perhaps no better 
 illustration of this can be given than that afforded 
 by the Pauline Epistles. 
 
 The Pauline Epistles claim to be and are a revela- 
 tion. Their teaching was in the Apostle's mind most 
 really on this ground. He was a dweller in Jeru- 
 salem where the air was still constantly moved by 
 the rumour of all that Jesus began both to say and 
 to do, and of all that He suffered. A Pharisee 
 of burning zeal, he could not be without interest 
 in the facta thus before him. The interest was 
 quickened by Stephen's oration and martyrdom. 
 All this was an apparatus of external fact. The 
 vision which showed him Jesus living and exalted 
 gave the facts a spiritual significance; what had 
 seemed the history of a sedition against Judaism 
 was now seen to be the embodiment of new dis- 
 coveries of truth. His Gospel, as he delights to 
 call it, was the spiritual and. practical sense of a 
 series of external deeds, discourses, and experiences 
 of Jesus. Further breadth and depth was given to 
 this Gospel according to Paul by visions and reve- 
 lations of God, and raptures into the world normally 
 unseen, into paradise, into the third heaven. 
 
100 INSPIRATION. 
 
 The revelation was intelligently received, and 
 was to be intelligibly conveyed. The special and 
 miraculous was lightly passed over, declared to be 
 beyond utterance. Only in clear speech would 
 Paul set forth what he knew. Except he utters 
 words easy to be understood, he will be speaking 
 into the air. Many forms of speech have significa- 
 tion, but speech communicates nothing unless its 
 meaning be known. He will not pray in any 
 speech which transcends his understanding. His 
 hymns shall be intelligible to himself. He can 
 use the obscurer forms of speech, but in the 
 Church had rather utter five words intellibibly 
 than ten thousand incomprehensibly. 
 
 To be intelligible he uses adaptation. Going to 
 Eome he will know nothing anions: his brethren 
 but the Anointed One who was crucified. When 
 occasion served, he was delighted to advance (in 
 the words of the writer to the Hebrews) from 
 the principles, the first lessons of the teaching of 
 Christ, and to go on to that which is more perfect, 
 to something be} T ond the foundation truths of 
 repentance, faith, baptism, resurrection and eternal 
 judgment. To some he gave milk as to babes, to 
 some meat as to men, and to the perfect he set 
 forth that wisdom of God which was revealed to 
 him by that Spirit which searches and reveals 
 
REV. W. CROSBY BARLOW, M.A. 101 
 
 even the deep tilings of God. By adapting his 
 speecli to his bearers he constantly sought to make 
 his revelation translucent or clear. 
 
 Such revelation, however, presupposes an anterior 
 revelation. A clear speecli is made in intelligible 
 words. "Words are such only when they are the 
 vocal symbols of knowledge already possessed. 
 Clear speech on Divine subjects, whether it be 
 "wisdom" or "the sincere milk" of sacred teach- 
 ing, presupposes ideas of spiritual and Divine facts, 
 and thus implies an anterior revelation. This is 
 universally true of the translucent inspired state- 
 ment. No amount of repress will enable us to 
 avoid the necessity of admitting some first revela- 
 tion not given in words of other than spiritual 
 significance. 
 
 The Epistles, then, which are before us, presup- 
 pose an amount of spiritual idea already in pos- 
 session of men, of which we can form no adequate 
 estimate. They are further marked by large cita- 
 tion of previous documents. These citations are 
 peculiarly interesting. They are derived from the 
 life of Jesus, and from Old Testament Scriptures. 
 The biographical citations are of the same class as 
 those facts which were abundantly present in the 
 mind of Saul of Tarsus when ignorantly, in his 
 unbelief, he persecuted Christianity. The super- 
 
102 INSPIRATION. 
 
 fieial sense of the facts must needs be transcended 
 before their spiritual value could be perceived. 
 So also with the citations from Jewish Scripture. 
 They are constantly used in a non-natural sense. 
 See the references made to the unmuzzled ox, to 
 manna, and water from the rock, to Abraham, 
 Hagar and Sarah, &c. These references seem to 
 usurp the Scriptures of the Jews in a sense in 
 which they could not have been written or read by 
 those to whom they were first given. Thus the clear 
 revelation of the Pauline Epistles, which from its 
 clearness must rest upon an anterior (more or less) 
 obscure revelation, is made to rest on the visible 
 facts of the life of Jesus interpreted spiritually, and 
 especially on citations from the Old Testament 
 adduced as from an obscure revelation, in which 
 the genuine sense differs widely from the sense 
 contained in the letter. 
 
 The translucent revelation, which aims at intelli- 
 gibility and rests on an obscure revelation, is, more- 
 over, necessarily imperfect. It is adapted to its 
 readers, — only occasionally, and on only some few 
 points, does it speak "wisdom" as to "the perfect." 
 It is limited also by the writer's possibilities. No 
 one man has ever possessed all the truth 011 any 
 themes, natural or supernatural ; and only so much 
 as a man knows can he reveal, even to the fittest 
 
REV. W. CIIOSBY BARLOW, M.A. 103 
 
 audience. He occasionally confesses that he is 
 without Divine certitude. If he "thinks " that he 
 is right on questions of temporary and temporal 
 duty, if he thus doubts his knowledge on things 
 that have to do with earth, how can we suppose 
 him taught without limit on heavenly things ? He 
 has confessed his information limited. He has 
 proved it defective also, as in his evident belief in 
 the instant nearness of the Lord's second advent, 
 and that in a personal manifestation. His theme 
 is, the Almighty who cannot be sought out to per- 
 fection ; his subject contains unsearchable wisdom, 
 and includes the love that passes knowledge. 
 
 As such a revelation cannot be perfect amid such 
 limitations, so neither can it be final. Only that 
 can be given which is at the moment receivable, 
 and the receptive capacity of the human race is as 
 much a matter of gradual development as is that 
 of an individual. Only that will be offered by 
 Divine providence which can be received with 
 immediate and eternal advantage. In a clear re- 
 velation only its actually and instantly intelligible 
 meaning can be intended. If it is intended to 
 convey more than is in its literal or other obvious 
 sense, it is not the clear revelation of which we 
 are treating. If, then, its teachings are limited by 
 its obvious meaning, it can only lead us into some 
 
104 INSPIRATION. 
 
 part of the truth, not into that "all truth" which 
 is our destined heritage. A clear revelation, then, 
 cannot be primal and original, it cannot be perfect, 
 it cannot be final. 
 
 To this class of clear, secondary, imperfect and 
 time-dated and time-limited revelations must, it 
 seems, be ascribed the Pauline and other Epistles, 
 and probably also the Acts of the Apostles, the 
 Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and perhaps other boohs 
 contained in the Bible. 
 
 It is, however, already seen that other revelation 
 than this is contained in the Bible, that is to say, 
 if the estimate be correct which the Apostle evi- 
 dently puts on the gospel narrative, and on certain 
 ancient Jewish documents. 
 
 A digression will shorten the argument, and in 
 this way, at least, will be serviceable. The primal 
 revelation of God's creative work is evidently 
 creation itself. But the clear revelation of this 
 work will be sought for in systematic or popular 
 treatises on applied mathematics and physical 
 science. These will be intelligible to those who, 
 understanding their terms, brim* due attention to 
 their study. But these encyclopaedic treatises will 
 not be perfect or final, and may, indeed, become 
 obsolete, not through their being false, but through 
 the development of scientific research on the one 
 
REV. W. CROSBY BARLOW, M.A. 105 
 
 hand and of scientific receptivity on the side of us 
 who are laymen in relation to this subject. 
 
 The works of God are not all always obviously 
 intelligible, but they embody all Divine physical 
 facts and laws, and all Divine outological philo- 
 sophy. They involve these and keep them in- 
 volved until they are gradually evolved by succes- 
 sive seers and forth-speakers of Nature. May we 
 not then state a proportion in these terms ? as the 
 Works of God are to our highest scientific treatises, 
 so is the Word of God (if this be discoverable) to 
 the Apostolic word or other translucent revelation. 
 
 The primal revelatiox, then, must have been 
 obscure in this sense ; — given before the mind of 
 man was filled with large and copious spiritual 
 ideas, it necessarily preceded any extensive voca- 
 bulary of such terms as have been differentiated 
 for the expression of notions connected with the 
 Divine. Thus its literal sense would, of course, be 
 limited to words of material, mundane signification. 
 Its inner sense would be intelligible only as our 
 race and its members, individually grew in insight 
 and in power to keep God and the things of God 
 in their mind. 
 
 Tlie absolutely primal revelation was probably 
 subjective and individual. The earliest devout 
 men were, by reason of their nearness to innocence, 
 
106 INSPIRATION. 
 
 to purity of heart, able to see God in His works 
 and to rise from Nature to Nature's Lord. 
 
 The first written revelation, as we have seen, is 
 not extant, is represented by only such fragments 
 as we have referred to above. A beautiful illustra- 
 tion, however, of its nature and form is given by 
 many of the words of the Lord Jesus. Speaking 
 humanly, He, as a man of His times, could and 
 often would, use the theistic and spiritual voca- 
 bulary of His contemporaries ; but on examination 
 we find that all the characters of the obscure 
 revelation are found in many at least of His dis- 
 courses. In conversation with Nicodemus there 
 is scarcely a word used whose prime sense is not 
 mundane. The dicta on the new birth and on the 
 coming and going of the wind, the Spirit, are to us 
 clearly spiritual, but to their first hearer were 
 earthly things which he could neither understand 
 nor believe. He was receiving a new, but as yet 
 an obscure, revelation. 
 
 The words of Jesus, indeed, seem on superficial 
 examination to belong to the class which we have 
 called " mixed." Jesus spoke of His going to the 
 Father, and His disciples could not tell what He 
 was saying ; again He said, " I came forth from 
 the Father, and am come into the world : again I 
 leave the world, and go to the Father." Then His 
 
REV. W. CROSBY BARLOW, M.A. 107 
 
 disciples said, " Now speakest Thou plaiuly and 
 speakest no parable." It is, of course, to tliat 
 which is riot clear that our attention must at 
 present be directed. We observe, theu, that the 
 revelation in the words of Jesus was often not 
 understood. He would raise the destroyed temple, 
 He said, in three days. Bystanders exclaimed that 
 its building had occupied forty-six years. It is 
 explained, however, by the Evangelist that He 
 was speaking of His body as a temple. How often 
 do we find His very disciples misapprehending His 
 meaning ; He spake, for example, of the doctrine 
 of the Pharisees, and they thought He spake of 
 the leaven of bread. 
 
 He even intended that His words should rather 
 conceal than clearly exhibit the truth, according 
 to a law long before uttered by Isaiah, " Lest men 
 should understand with the heart and should con- 
 vert : " to many it was not yet given to know the 
 mysteries of the kingdom. Partial unfoldings 
 Jesus, however, gave to the inner circle of His 
 hearers, and showed them that the whole of His 
 teaching was, in reality, by parables, and that in 
 all that He said He was uttering thimrs that had 
 been kept secret from the foundation of the world. 
 
 He gave, indeed, explanation again and again to 
 His disciples, but even then they understood but 
 
108 INSPIRATION. 
 
 in part. They did not, indeed, apprehend the 
 literal sense of His references to the decease to be 
 accomplished at Jerusalem, and at best their under- 
 standing, their knowledge of Him, was only after 
 the flesh and not after the spirit. Yet how plainly 
 did He liken His words to the recognised form 
 and presence of a man. What we see when we 
 look upon a brother is flesh, it is mundane, and 
 in itself is not living ; it is the spirit which 
 quickens the mortal frame, and this is the genuine, 
 living manhood. So likewise the genuine, living 
 meanino- of His words is somewhat hidden beneath 
 the earth-spoken, mundane elements of speech : 
 " My words are spirit and they are life." 
 
 His words, because obscure, because they con- 
 tained other meaning than was explicitly uttered, 
 were capable of keeping for man an infinite in- 
 struction. He promises that His Spirit shall lead 
 into all the truth, and that not by constant new 
 documentary revelation, but by the unfolding of 
 the previously unsuspected contents of His words. 
 " He shall not speak of Himself, but whatsoever 
 
 He shall hear He shall speak He shall 
 
 take of mine and shall shew unto you." 
 
 Of course we cannot understand in any narrow 
 sense the "words of Jesus;" not the locjia only, His 
 sayings but also His deeds and whole history, and 
 
BEY. W. CROSBY BAELOW, M.A. 109 
 
 even every Divine Word, is His utterance, what- 
 ever the date or manner of its appearance in the 
 written word. All this is parable ; all is obscure 
 in some degree ; all is the gift, concealedly, of the 
 Eternal wisdom : all is included in those things of 
 Jesus, the unfolding of which shall be the means 
 of leading His people into all the truth. 
 
 Wc turn, then, to documents older than the 
 Gospel narrative. And first we remark that Moses 
 did not, for aught we can see, understand the 
 whole contents of his own writings. Did he see 
 that the name God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of 
 Jacob, was a pledge of resurrection and an irrefut- 
 able evidence that it takes place immediately on 
 the completion of that process which we call 
 death ? Did he see any spiritual identity between 
 Sodom and Babylon and Egypt ? He did not 
 know, we may safely say, did not know a tithe of 
 that significance of the Law as given on Sinai 
 which has been in part unfolded in the Epistle to 
 the Hebrews. Nor can it be believed that he 
 recognised the imperfection of his portrayal of the 
 character of Jehovah, or that he suspected that his 
 reading of the law, even on some vital points of 
 morality, was, in the letter of the word, but a con- 
 cession to the native perversity of the people, to 
 their hardness of heart. He certainly did not 
 
110 INSPIRATION. 
 
 know how largely it might be true of his writings 
 that the letter killeth, and that it is the Spirit that 
 giveth life. 
 
 It is true that some of these peculiarities of the 
 Pentateuch are very startling as attaching to a 
 Divinely-inspired revelation. There are yet others 
 worthy of note. The very histories of the Word 
 may or may not be literal records of fact. The 
 history of the Exodus is questioned ; in the Book 
 of Judges we are reminded of the myths of early 
 Eome ; the stories of creation, of the fall, of the 
 deluge and of Babel, are certainly not literally 
 accurate, and possibly many later narratives may be 
 correct records of traditional beliefs without bein^ 
 scientifically accurate presentations of historic fact. 
 
 Again, the Psalmists could not anticipate the 
 full meaning to be discovered in their poetic state- 
 ments of their hopes and fears, and whole meditative 
 and emotional experience. Even so the prophets 
 spoke for the days in which they spoke, and scruti- 
 nised their utterances, seeking to know what time 
 and what manner of time was indicated in the 
 words that came forth under a Divine impulse that 
 they could neither resist nor interpret. 
 
 If these books, then, be a revelation at all, they 
 certainly are obscure, and as surely they must, by 
 lapse of time, become less so. 
 
REV. W. CROSBY BARLOW, M.A. Ill 
 
 But why should they have been thus obscure? 
 The answer to this question is obvious. All teach- 
 ing proceeds from the known towards the unknown, 
 and that by short steps, such as are possible to the 
 pupil under instruction. 
 
 It was, then, important that every message should 
 start from that point to which its hearers had 
 already attained, and that its obvious sense should 
 be such as to give them precisely the needed 
 instruction, without going beyond that which could 
 be practically adopted for the amendment of life. 
 The Bible can directly give dogma only and incen- 
 tive, the truth becomes internally known in the 
 obedience we yield to the incentive, the workful 
 attention we give to the dogma. Hence the letter 
 of a new revelation always adopts as starting-point 
 the point to which its recipients can attain at the 
 time. Just as the world speaks to me in terms of 
 the science which I know (including my very errors) 
 and leads me into completer knowledge, so, not in 
 the Word only, but in all Divine providence, the 
 Lord's manner of working is rather to lead us first 
 by and then from our errors, than to contradict 
 them at once by broad statements of the truth. 
 Thus it is no part of the evidence of the Divine 
 Word that it shall be immaculately accurate in its 
 letter, but that while its letter is often such as man's 
 
112 INSPIRATION. 
 
 ignorance and hardness of heart demand, it shall, 
 even in the letter, lead us on to salvation, and 
 shall contain within the letter all the treasures of 
 Loth wisdom and knowledge. 
 
 The Word of God and the Works of God are, then, 
 two revelations having the same Author, and 
 evincing not likeness only, but even unity. The 
 Works are the alphabet, which becomes vocal and 
 significant in the Word. The Works of God are 
 divers manifestations of His wisdom and love con- 
 spiring to the use and service of man in the physical 
 sphere of his life. The Word of God is a fuller 
 setting forth of that same love and wisdom, and of 
 their unity in the realm of our spiritual nature and 
 its laws. 
 
 Causes and effects always correspond. Every- 
 thing in the physical universe corresponds with 
 something in the first cause. Everything in the 
 spiritual world corresponds with something in the 
 one infinite Spirit, of whom are the spirits of all 
 flesh. And furthermore and necessarily, there is 
 intimate connection and close correspondence be- 
 tween things material and things spiritual ; so that 
 the mention of a mundane thing is often obviously 
 equivalent to the mention of a spiritual thing. 
 
 This principle lies at the base of most of what 
 is popularly called figurative language, the pictorial 
 
HEY. W. CBOSBY BARLOW, M.A. 113 
 
 setting forth of what is not seen. We are so familiar 
 with this fact and law that we never understand 
 literally such phrases as " a man of keen insight," 
 "a broad thinker," "mental thirst," "the finder of 
 God," "the dark places of the earth." In all these 
 cases a meaning which is spiritual is expressed by 
 a phrase which is mundane. This is the method 
 adopted in the Divine Word in giving a revelation 
 in which an instantly intelligible, literal sense is at 
 one w T ith a temporarily hidden, and infinite internal 
 wisdom. 
 
 The law of correspondence is, of course, the law 
 in w r hich the Work of God and the Word of God 
 find their unity. It is a universal law and is 
 eternal. 
 
 The prophetic writers used this law most likely 
 without a conscious recognition of it, or it may 
 have been partially known to them. Indeed, in 
 some degree all men, everywhere, recognise the 
 principle in certain of its details of application. A 
 man sees when he understands, the obedient is one 
 who hearkens to the voice of his Lord, we taste 
 and see how good is the Lord. Our beliefs are, or 
 should be, well founded, we advance in civilisation, 
 Ave labour after mental culture, and so on, in- 
 definitely. 
 
 Time was when it was, at all events by some, 
 
 H 
 
114 INSPIRATION. 
 
 distinctly recognised that the Word was significant 
 by correspondences being used at once to cover 
 and to reveal spiritual realities. 
 
 The Apostolic word abounds in evidence that 
 Paul and his brethren knew of this law, and could 
 and did employ it to some extent in their readings 
 of the prior Word of God. Origen far more exten- 
 sively applies the principle. Hermas and Bunyan, 
 in their visions and similitudes, invert the applica- 
 tion of the law and strive to express the spiritual 
 in terms of the natural. 
 
 We are not now, however, to trace the history 
 of the knowledge of correspondence to its cessation 
 and its restoration. Suffice it that the knowledge 
 is restored, and is so offered to us that we may 
 find the book unsealed ; and may find in the 
 seeming record of creation an account of the new 
 birth ; in the history of the Exodus, a rationale 
 and prophecy of the " Pilgrim's Progress," and the 
 internal history of the Spiritual Church ; and 
 everywhere a revelation of Jesus incarnate and 
 glorified, for the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of 
 prophecy. 
 
 We have, then, besides the Apostolic word and 
 its kindred books in the Old Testament, a series of 
 books which constitute the veritable Word of Goil, 
 namely, the Pentateuch, Joshua, Judges, Samuel, 
 
REV. \V. CROSBY BARLOW, M.A. 115 
 
 Kings, the Psalms and the Prophets, the Gospel 
 and the Eevelation. 
 
 To these add connective and confirmatory his- 
 tories, as Euth, Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah and 
 Esther, with Job and the Song of Solomon, dra- 
 matic works which are in part, at least, imitative 
 of the style of the Word. 
 
 The "Word itself stands out from all these, even 
 from the inspired Apostolic Word. 
 
 It is distinguished by its having a literal sense 
 of form, specially adapted to the scene and time 
 of its publication, and, furthermore, interior teach- 
 ings which may be thrice read, as teachings for 
 the individual or for the collective religious life 
 (these form the spiritual sense), and for its con- 
 tinuous teaching about the Lord before and during 
 and since the incarnation. 
 
 These senses differ ; the literal is the temporary, 
 and is marked by its date and scene, being always 
 closely adapted to the time of its appearing, inso- 
 much that its morality and its general character 
 are in agreement with its authors and contem- 
 porary readers. The spiritual sense is eternal and 
 has no date of time or place ; it always and 
 everywhere has been and is becoming true. It is 
 present in every syllable, and renders the whole 
 Word of God Divine, even letter by letter. Ic is 
 
1 1 G INSPIRATION. 
 
 an infallible teacher, though the teachings derived 
 thence depend on the spiritual condition of the 
 taught, as the quantity and wholesonieness of water 
 from a pure fountain will be limited by the clean- 
 ness and size of the vessel into which it is drawn. 
 The Word, consequently, by its literal sense, is an 
 ad interim teacher ; while men are but natural it 
 talks with them of Egypt and its bondage ; of 
 Canaan and its milk and honey ; and by the 
 records of patriarchs and kings, by the myths of 
 prehistoric times, by the emotional life of Asaph 
 aud David, by the visions of the prophets, by the 
 life of the Incarnate and by the Apocalypse of His 
 glory, it moves them to the spiritual life. During 
 all our progress to this higher life it is an attend- 
 ant teacher, for ever making clear the path of the 
 heedful. Here, also, and hereafter, when we with 
 angels desire to look into the things that are 
 written, it is, and will be, a perennial fountain of 
 wisdom like to the holy waters from the sanctuary, 
 waters to swim in, a river that cannot be passed 
 over. 
 
 This river is, in fact, the Word itself. It is in 
 the perfect life, the river parted into four heads, 
 giving wisdom and reason, understanding and 
 learning ; it is the refreshment of our pilgrimage, 
 drinking of it by the way, we lift up the head ; it is 
 
REV. W. CROSBY BARLOW, M.A. 117 
 
 the purity and gladness of our social religious life, 
 a river the streams whereof make glad the city of 
 God; it is the healer of all disease, it fertilises 
 barren natures, it quickens the dead, it is itself full 
 of life, and only the utterly, obstinately evil are 
 beyond its healing power. The marshes are given 
 to salt. 
 
 It is the presence amongst men of the Spirit of 
 Jehovah, impulsive to noble deeds as that Spirit 
 was in the cases of Othniel, Jephthah, and Samson ; 
 educative to spiritual accomplishment in the Divine 
 service, as Bezaleel was by the Spirit of God filled 
 with wisdom, understanding, knowledge, and all 
 manner of skill for working in gold, silver, brass, 
 jewels and timber, even in every good work where- 
 by the house of God is builded amongst men ; and 
 it is unlimited in teaching to all those who yield 
 themselves for the mission of God, for he that is 
 sent of God speaketh the words of God, for God 
 giveth not His Spirit by measure. 
 
 This, then, is briefly an answer to the question 
 of the meaning and extent of the phrase, Word of 
 God, as spoken in connection with the Bible ; and 
 this answer is one which does not impair the 
 general estimate in which the Bible is held. For 
 the New Church the Book of Faith is as instructive 
 as for the Old ; the Tro verbs are as full of practical 
 
118 INSPIRATION. 
 
 wisdom, the Acts as valuable from their lessons of 
 Providence, and the Epistles for their unfoldings 
 of the first outcome of the gospel life of Jesus. 
 Whatever lessons have been learned from Moses 
 and other histories, from Psalms, Prophets, Gospels 
 and Eevelation, these lessons are intact and are 
 prized ; while, if our doctrine be correct, within the 
 clouds of the letter we may see a bright light, even 
 the Son of Man, coming with clouds and great 
 gloiy. And we may hope finally to find true as a 
 truth of experience, that the "Word which in the 
 letter has been made flesh is indeed living and with 
 us, that same Word which in the beoinnins: was 
 
 7 O O 
 
 with God, which is God, by which all things are 
 made. 
 
REV. PROF. G. W. OLVER. M.A. 119 
 
 Article VII. 
 By the Key. Peof, G. W. OLVER, M.A. 
 
 TIBE design of this Symposium is, as I assume, to 
 bring before its readers a clear statement of 
 some of the many answers which may be given to 
 the question proposed. For this reason, I do not 
 share the difficulty which Mr. Hopps has found in 
 its form. No one of the previous writers had pro- 
 fessed to decide the sense in which the Bible is the 
 Word of God ; but only to say in what sense it is 
 so regarded by himself, and perchance by others 
 whom he may unwittingly represent. Mr. Hopps 
 must not be supposed to claim any higher 
 authority for his own conclusions. Certain it is 
 that this paper can only be taken to express the 
 sense in which, and the limits within which I, 
 myself, regard the Bible as the Word of God. 
 
 Mr. Mackcnnal demurs to the use of this title 
 in its application to the Bible as a whole, and 
 especially to the New Testament. He would have 
 it restricted to special revelations. That the 
 expression was used by the prophets when they 
 
120 INSPIRATION. 
 
 wished to emphasise the fact that they spoke and 
 wrote under Divine authority, need not be denied. 
 But it is not, therefore, necessary to admit that in 
 its modern use, it is borrowed directly from the 
 Old Testament writers. If they could say, " The 
 Word of Jehovah came unto me ; " St. Luke could 
 also say, " The Word of God came unto John the 
 son of Zacharias in the wilderness." Jesus Himself 
 could say, " The Word which ye hear is not Mine, 
 but the Father's which sent Me." In His last 
 recorded prayer with His disciples He said of them, 
 " I have given them Thy Word." So, also, the 
 Apostles prayed, " And now, Lord, grant unto Thy 
 servants that with all boldness they may speak 
 Thy Word " (Acts iv. 29). They proclaimed " the 
 Word which God sent" (Acts ix. 3G). '< The 
 Word of the Lord was published throughout all 
 the region " (Acts xiii. 49). Thus, too, it is " the 
 Word of God " in Acts vi. 2 ; Eph vi. 17 ; 1 Peter 
 i. 23, 25. With St. John it is likewise " the 
 Word of God," and also, " the message which we 
 have heard of Him and declare unto you " (1 John 
 ii. 14 ; i. 5). 
 
 It cannot be necessary to refer any further to 
 the usage of New Testament Scripture in order to 
 justify the custom of calling the Bible "the Word 
 of God," so far, at least, as they arc concerned who 
 
REV. PROF. G. W. OLVER, M.A. 121 
 
 accept the Bible as the divinely authorised record 
 of a message from God, for and to mankind. 
 Continuing, therefore, so to think and speak of it, 
 I will try to tell why a special and Divine 
 authority may be claimed for its teaching; to what 
 this special authority pertains, and how far it ex- 
 tends ; and what is the bearing of this authority 
 upon the practical life around us. 
 
 If, whilst treating of these matters, I seem to 
 roam somewhat more widely than my predecessors, 
 let it be put down to the account of that variety 
 which naturally belongs to a genuine Symposium. 
 
 The question concerning the authority of Holy 
 Scripture is inseparable from that of the truth of 
 Christianity, inseparable, therefore, from that of 
 the Divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ, As He is 
 the central figure and fact of Christianity, and its 
 substantial embodiment; so this question centres 
 in Him. Apart from Him there is no Christianity, 
 and apart from Him there is no specially Divine 
 authority for Scripture. At the same time I 
 would not be misunderstood. With the New 
 Testament before us, there are, at least, three dis- 
 tinct questions which may be separately raised and 
 in their proper order separately answered. "Was 
 there ever such a message brought from God to 
 men as that which this Book professes to record ? 
 
122 INSPIRATION. 
 
 If so, Lave we reason for belie vino: that this record 
 is trustworthy and accurate ? If it is, then beyond 
 this accuracy, is there any special and Divine 
 authority which belongs to the record ? It will 
 be seen at once that, as a matter of honest reason- 
 ing, an affirmative answer to the third question 
 involves an affirmative for the two others ; but an 
 affirmative answer to the first, or even to the first 
 and second, would not, without further inquiry, 
 carry an affirmative for the third. It is with the 
 third that we are at present concerned. In reality, 
 however, an answer cannot be given without refer- 
 ence to both the second and the first. 
 
 Taking the New Testament Scriptures as they 
 lie before us, we find that whilst written by dif- 
 ferent persons, they also treat of very different 
 matters. Avowedly there is a strange comming- 
 ling of the ordinary and the extraordinary, of the 
 natural and the supernatural. In all this they 
 give what is for the most part a personal testi- 
 mony. The writers are of one mind with St. 
 John when he says, " That which we have seen 
 and heard declare we unto you." We find, how- 
 ever, that whether in writing history or in giving 
 instruction to the churches under their care, they 
 make frequent references to the life around them, 
 to political events, to social and religious customs, 
 
REV. PROF. G. W. OLVER, M.A. 123 
 
 to the habits of the people and the peculiarities of 
 the scenes amid which they professed to move. 
 Hence the trustworthiness of these writers as his- 
 torians can be tested at many points. To such 
 tests their statements have been repeatedly sub- 
 jected, and with the result that they have been 
 found both careful in their observation and ac- 
 curate in their record. And seeing that they are 
 shown to be such witnesses wherever they can be 
 so tested, it is reasonable to believe that they are 
 so at other times and with regard to other matters. 
 Their testimony is therefore received concerning 
 themselves, and not less concerning the natural 
 life of Jesus of Nazareth. They saw Him and 
 they heard Him, and they saw changes which 
 followed the words He uttered or the actions He 
 performed. He Himself explained the phenomena : 
 " My Father worketh hitherto and I work." They 
 record the words and also the fact that His foes 
 not only took up stones to stone Him, but 
 actually crucified Him because He claimed to be 
 "the Son of God," making Himself "equal with 
 God." This explanation of His natural life by the 
 assertion of His divinity, was peculiarly His own. 
 Jewish disciples had nothing within the range of 
 their traditions or of their expectations which 
 could have prompted it. It has come down to us 
 
124 INSPIRATION. 
 
 through the ages ; and science, whether critical or 
 otherwise, has proved itself utterly unable to 
 surest for that human life, or for the record 
 thereof, any other explanation which is not, morally 
 and psychologically, infinitely less credible than the 
 doctrine of the Incarnation. From that day to 
 this, every great moral reformation and every 
 widespread social benefit has had its origin in a 
 simple dependence upon this Divine Incarnate 
 Eeconciler, and in a fearless assertion of that 
 freedom wherewith He makes His followers free. 
 Acknowledge His divinity, and the New Testa- 
 ment narrative is at least consistent; whilst the 
 history of the last eighteen centuries is explicable 
 both as to the blessings which have waited on the 
 successes of Christianity, and the miseries which 
 have arisen out of its perversion. Deny His 
 divinity, and the New Testament is an enigma 
 only less confounding than the facts of human 
 life. And so we reverently bow before Ilirn as 
 " the Light of the world," the " Teacher sent from 
 God," Himself "the Truth," "the Word made 
 flesh." It is from Him as the manifested Jehovah 
 that we trace the authority of the Bible. 
 
 So far as the Old Testament is concerned, a few 
 words will suffice. " God sent forth His Son, 
 made of a woman, made under the law." He was 
 
REV. PROF. G. W. OLVER, M.A. 125 
 
 Lorn as a, Jew among Jews. Before He came and 
 whilst He dwelt upon the earth, the Jewish people 
 had their sacred writings — not Scriptures only, but 
 " the Scriptures." These the Master used, claim- 
 ing for them and their utterances the authorship 
 and the authority of the Holy Spirit. To these 
 He referred all whom He taught, and gave as a 
 twofold reason for so doing, " In them ye think ye 
 have eternal life, and they are they which testify 
 of me." To the Hebrew Bible as it then existed 
 and was accepted, He gave the sanction of His 
 Divine authorisation as the one and only accredited 
 handbook for those who sought to know the truth. 
 How far this sanction and its consequent authority 
 is inherited by our own Old Testament may be 
 hereafter considered. The New Testament must 
 next have our attention. 
 
 From its pages we learn that the Lord Jesus 
 came in order to set up a kingdom. It was to be 
 founded, maintained, extended and perfected by 
 means of "the truth," — "the things concerning; 
 Himself." The benefits of this kingdom were to 
 be enjoyed by all who were brought into living- 
 union with Him, and to this end they were to be 
 taught " to observe all things whatsoever I have 
 
 o o 
 
 commanded you." Moreover, as His apostles were 
 specially chosen and appointed to be His witnesses, 
 
126 INSPIRATION. 
 
 so were they specially endued with authority and 
 power for the full and effectual accomplishment of 
 their work. I need only refer to the well-known 
 and oft-discussed passages concerning the remitting 
 and the retaining of sins (Matt. xvi. 14 ; xviii. 18 ; 
 John xx. 22, 23). It will be noted that the first 
 passage is associated with a question of doctrine, 
 and the second with one of discipline. The third 
 was uttered when there was emphatically made 
 over to them the gift of the Holy Spirit. It must 
 suffice to say that these passages combine to be- 
 stow upon the Apostles a full constituent authority 
 in all matters of faith and practice, and to assure 
 them of that Divine indwelling and direction 
 whereby they should be effectually guided in the 
 exercise of this constituent authority, for the in- 
 struction and welfare of the Church of God in all 
 the after ages. So the Apostles themselves under- 
 stood their office and responsibility. In this spirit 
 they spoke and wrote, and this Divine authority 
 they did not hesitate to claim. And whilst they 
 spoke, the Lord confirmed the word with signs 
 following. And so it came to pass that the utter- 
 ances of these divinely-chosen, divinely-guided, 
 and divinely-accredited plenipotentiaries of the 
 Lord Jesus were in their own day, and came to be 
 in all after ages, accepted as the message from 
 
REV. PROF. G. W. OLVER, M.A. 127 
 
 Christ, " the Word of the Lord," " the Word of 
 God." This is the authority which belongs to the 
 Bible. It is the one and the only Book which is 
 thus accredited to us by the Lord Himself as 
 having been written for us by His own representa- 
 tives, under the supervision and the direction of 
 " the Spirit of Christ which was in them." 
 
 But here a question arises which must have 
 attention. The authority spoken of above is claimed 
 for the Bible as it must be defined in theological 
 science. The question discussed in this Symposium 
 has reference, possibly, to the Bible as generally 
 received and used among us. The Bible, in theo- 
 logical science, consists of the original documents, 
 uncopied and untranslated. The Bible of our daily 
 life is the result of many translations of documents 
 repeatedly copied, and, it must be added, somewhat 
 variously copied. It must therefore be clearly 
 understood that Divine authority cannot be claimed 
 for anything which is not a "correct translation of 
 an exact copy of an originally authorised utterance 
 and writing. Here is a wide field for antiquarian 
 research and for scholarly criticism. Whenever 
 these can establish the claim of a various reading, 
 or of a revised translation, then the translation or 
 the reading must be regarded as having its lawful 
 place in " the Word of God." It must, however. 
 
128 INSPIRATION. 
 
 be carefully noted that the onus of proof lies with 
 the critics. The book has its history and its place 
 in history. All the way down, and through the 
 later ages especially, it has been jealously guarded 
 and eagerly scrutinised both by friends and foes. 
 Whoever would displace a book or a word, must 
 bring evidence to show that the book or the word 
 is not entitled to its place. Merely subjective 
 criticism of the Bible will not suffice. The would- 
 be subjective critic must needs produce some 
 objective credential equal to that of the first 
 preachers and writers of the truth. 
 
 It will be at once seen that I have j>ropounded 
 no theory of Inspiration. I have none to propound. 
 "Men spake from God, being moved by the Holy 
 Spirit." I accept the fact, and do not profess to 
 explain the manner. The fact furnishes all the 
 authority that the state of the case renders neces- 
 sary. The result is a message from God. It is 
 more. It is the one and only message so accredited 
 to the human race as " the Word of God." 
 
 Does it follow that those who believe this must 
 also believe that God never spake to or by any 
 man or men other than those whose names are found 
 in the Bible ? Certainly not. Christians may well 
 rejoice to believe that all through the ages the 
 Spirit of God has prompted men to deeds and 
 
REV. PROF. G. W. OLVER, M.A. 120 
 
 utterances which Lave been for man's welfare, and 
 which will one day be recognised as His to His own 
 glory. In these latter days, also, it is our confi- 
 dent belief that many are going to and fro, moved 
 more or less by the Holy Spirit. It is not neces- 
 sary to ask whether Tennyson or John Bright, 
 whether Luther or Wycliffe, whether Wesley or 
 Fletcher, ever spoke the truth of God, or proclaimed 
 His word ? Mr. Hopps passes by the real question. 
 Is, or was, any one of these men of power openly 
 accredited as the Apostles were by the Lord Him- 
 self as having authority to declare truth for the 
 guidance of His Church ? The Evangelists and the 
 Apostles spoke and wrote truths which had never 
 been before taught. These truths were found 
 to be in accordance with previous revelation, but 
 they had been none the less hidden. Yet the 
 Apostles did not hesitate to claim Divine authority 
 for their teaching, and their claim was admitted 
 by those who saw and Heard them. As for our 
 modern teachers, it is not so. They may discourse 
 of natural things, and we listen. Whether the 
 truth seems to be old or new, we can test their 
 statements and ascertain their correctness, or other- 
 wise. But if they pass beyond the ken of natural 
 sense and science, and so begin to deal with things 
 
 which are Divine, we ask at once for their autho- 
 
 i 
 
130 INSPIRATION. 
 
 rity. If they can refer us to the only acknowledged 
 standard, it is well. If they cannot, and if they 
 are setting forth new doctrine concerning: things 
 beyond the limits of human observation, it is evi- 
 dent that they can never reasonably claim for their 
 utterances the homage due to a message from God. 
 This the Apostles could do, and did, and their 
 risen Lord confirmed their word. As to all other 
 teachers, there may be truth in their utterances, 
 but their utterances are not the word of God. 
 
 Mr. Hopps finds a difficulty in the fact that 
 interpretations of the Bible differ with different 
 persons and at different times. But then he himself 
 points to another fact which explains all this, 
 although he seems to do so unconsciously. He says 
 rightly, that God did not give to man by revelation 
 a perfect final system of medicine, of mechanics, or 
 of agriculture ; and he asks why it should not be 
 as true and as credible that God has acted in the 
 same manner as to theology. The answer is, that 
 the Divine method is, in this matter, the same with 
 reference to both medicine and theology. He has 
 not given by revelation to man a " perfect final 
 system" in either. He has given, in both, the 
 materials out of which, if ever, a perfect final 
 system must be built up. But there is a difference. 
 Medicine has to do with things which are within 
 
EEV. PEOF. O. W. OLVEE, M.A. 13! 
 
 the range of human observation, and with truths 
 which are within the range of human discovery 
 Its facts are before us in the works of God, in what 
 we call Nature. Theology has to do with many 
 things which are beyond the range of human 
 observation, and with truths which man could 
 never have discovered. And as in daily life we are 
 constrained to rely upon testimony as to all matters 
 which are outside of our own personal observation • 
 so here, as to all matters outside of human ken we 
 are dependent upon Divine testimony, and that is 
 reve latum. For this reason it is that '«. rose or a 
 thistle is not, as Mr. Hopps supposes, the Word 
 ot trod in the same sense as the Bible is 
 
 Nevertheless the Bible is to theology what 
 Nature is to medicine. The statements of the former 
 in their relation to theological science correspond 
 to the fact, of the latter in their relation to medical 
 science. Ihey must be observed, interpreted, com- 
 pared and systematic. - In both Nature and the 
 Bib e there is truth absolute and abiding. But men 
 hffi, ,n their observations, their interpretations, 
 and their systems. Moreover, the same men dine 
 at different times. So it must ever be. Medical 
 science is ever varying, but the truth in Nature is 
 unchanonxr. Thenlnmr ;, . 
 
 truth in I • t ? 7 CVOr Var >" m S' bufc t«o 
 truth m Scripture abideth for ever. Scientific 
 
132 INSPIRATION. 
 
 change in medicine does not take away from the 
 sufficiency of Nature ; nor does scientific change in 
 theology take away from the sufficiency of revela- 
 tion. And if it be true that the scientific expression 
 of any law in medicine must be for ever open to 
 revision, and every system of medical science be 
 open to change and reconstruction as the study of 
 Nature is pursued ; it is no less true of theology 
 that the continued study of the Word of God must 
 leave every scientific dogma open to a correspond- 
 ing revision and amendment, and every system 
 of theology open to change and, if need be, to 
 reconstruction. Nevertheless, in the one case the 
 "Works of God, and in the other the Word of God, 
 is the ultimate and supreme standard of appeal. 
 Both equally express the truth of God ; but each 
 has its own message. 
 
 For practical ends there is a difference which is 
 of infinite importance. For natural purposes it 
 would scarcely avail if the sufferer from disease 
 were told to go and study Nature in order to find 
 a remedy for his ills. He must have a man like 
 himself who, by his superior and scientific acquaint- 
 ance with the human body and with medicine, 
 may explain the disease and provide the remedy. 
 Medical science must intervene between the suf- 
 ferer and the cure. In dealing with spiritual 
 
REV. PROF. G. W. OLVER, M.A. 133 
 
 maladies it is not seldom otherwise. I do not 
 say that here also scientific knowledge of human 
 nature and of theology, brought to bear by a 
 human teacher, may not often be useful. Nor will 
 I say that practical experience, apart from definitely 
 scientific knowledge, may not be of great service 
 in either the physical or the spiritual need. But 
 when a sinner desires salvation, when the honest 
 doubter seeks rest, he may go to the Bible and 
 his God. As he reads, — earnestly and prayerfully 
 pondering that which he reads, — the original Re- 
 vealer will teach him the way of life. He may 
 never attain to theological science, and his beliefs, 
 so far from being harmonised and systematised, 
 may be strangely disconnected and even logically 
 incongruous. Nevertheless, his spiritual disease is 
 cured, and his spiritual life is nurtured and per- 
 fected ; for in the study of the Word he has found 
 communion with God. The Spirit of truth guides 
 him into the whole truth, so far as his own life- 
 wants are concerned. He cannot define for you 
 his creed, but he has found the Christ. In this 
 also we rejoice. That which Mr. Hopps regards 
 as an inconsistency, is rather the logical outcome 
 of the theory which affirms that the Bible is the 
 "Word, of God. " The natural man knoweth not 
 the things of the Spirit of God, for they are fool- 
 
134 INSPIRATION. 
 
 ishncss unto him." even though lie reads them 
 in the Bible ; " neither can he know them, because 
 they are spiritually discerned." And so every 
 learner must come to the one unseen Teacher 
 and rely upon Him. "With the open Bible as his 
 one handbook, every " disciple indeed " will find 
 that Mr. Hopps has uttered truth when he says, 
 " True implicit faith would lead to belief in the 
 Living God, to the unseen but not unfelt Spirit. 
 True implicit faith would teach us to ' walk by 
 faith, not by sight ; ' to trust ourselves all in all to 
 the Father, who is speaking now — to that patient, 
 generous Being who waits to say ' many things ' 
 to us when we are 'able to bear them.'" 
 
 To many it will be evident that there are details 
 which I have not attempted to discuss. We hear 
 much of difficulties arising out of the history and 
 the supposed ethics of the Old Testament, I con- 
 fess that if they were more and far more startling 
 than they are, it would disturb me but little. The 
 believer in Christ is in no way called to profess 
 that he can solve all difficulties and harmonise all 
 statements in the Book of Revelation, any more 
 than the believer in a Creating Father, or the 
 believer in an uncreated universe, can solve all 
 difficulties and harmonise all facts in Nature. 
 Daily life does not depend upon a perfected 
 
REV. PROF. G. W. OLVER, M.A. 135 
 
 science, but upon the personal use of knowledge - 
 acquired, and personal obedience to laws that are 
 ascertained. The salvation of a sinner does not 
 depend upon a perfected theology, embracing 
 within its compass a perfected criticism and exe- 
 gesis of Scripture, but upon a personal use of the 
 truth which has been learnt and a personal obe- 
 dience to the directions which are set forth. A 
 practical faith in a living Saviour, ever present 
 and always sufficient, is the only path of life 
 revealed for man. There are facts in geology, 
 concerning which the most haughty scientist can 
 only guess the explanation. There are facts in 
 Biblical exegesis, also, for the explanation of which 
 theologians must wait. The presence of the former 
 does not disprove that the heavens and the earth 
 are the embodiment of the Creator's will ; and the 
 presence of the latter cannot disprove that the 
 Holy Scriptures are the authorised message of His 
 grace to man. Men wrote them under His direc- 
 tion or supervision, and He gave His sanction to 
 that which they had written. His authentication 
 was recognised by His followers. Ecclesiastical 
 authority could never add thereto or take there- 
 from. Councils have recorded history, but they 
 never could attest inspiration. Churches may 
 formulate dogmas, but they never can supplement 
 
136 INSPIRATION. 
 
 revelation. These may come and go, but the 
 Word of the Lord abideth for ever ; and this is 
 the Word which by the Gospel is preached, and by 
 the Bible is declared unto us. 
 
REV. EDWARD WHITE. 137 
 
 Article VIII. 
 By the Eev. EDWAED WHITE. 
 
 rFHE Spectator newspaper recently remarked that 
 the establishment of some defensible doctrine 
 on Inspiration is the first condition of a successful 
 war against modern scepticism. Without admit- 
 ting that the test of spiritual truth is the satisfac- 
 tion of sceptics, — not a few of whom are the most 
 unreasonable of mankind, — I agree with some pre- 
 ceding writers in thinking that the principal 
 difficulties felt by honest readers of the Bible, both 
 believing and unbelieving, are occasioned by the 
 old ecclesiastical theory of Inspiration ; and that 
 such difficulties are either alleviated or removed 
 by reversing the usual method of apologetics, and 
 postponing the adoption of any theory of inspira- 
 tion until the Scriptures have been studied apart 
 from such traditional theories. A doctrine of in- 
 spiration is the last and not the first lesson of a 
 faith formed inductively on the evidence. 
 
 The ecclesiastical idea of " the Bible " is that it 
 is One Book, consisting of many parts, each of 
 
1 38 INSPIH ATIOX. 
 
 which has received the sanction of the Church, in 
 the earlier Christian ages as authentic and divinely- 
 inspired ; so that the whole Hebrew and Greek 
 Bible, from Genesis to Eevelation, is alike and 
 equally the Word of God. 
 
 I. The first step towards a solution of the ques- 
 tion now before us is, I think, to set aside at once 
 this, and all other authoritative Church theories 
 on Inspiration, from the Eoman down to the Puri- 
 tan ; and to fall back for a basis on the statements 
 given by the Scripture writers themselves on the 
 measure and quality of their own inspiration. 
 Surely no one can be justly required to believe 
 concerning "the Bible" as a whole, more than its 
 writers individually or collectively declare respect- 
 ing themselves. Let us, then, steadfastly adhere 
 to the statements respecting each separate work 
 in succession made by its own writer, taking our 
 estimate of the authority of each booh from what 
 the writer himself says of it, or some one subse- 
 quently claiming to speak with Divine authority, 
 — and not from what uninspired churchmen in 
 subsequent ages have maintained on their behalf 
 collectively. 
 
 The first result of this method will be that, 
 passing by the opinions of ecclesiastics in the third 
 and fourth centuries, who formed what is termed 
 
REV. EDWARD WHITE. 139 
 
 the Canon, and co-ordinated all the scattered Scrip- 
 tures into one collection, called afterwards the 
 Bible — now regarded by Christendom as produced 
 by a homogeneous theopneustic process, we throw 
 ourselves back into the age immediately following 
 the events recorded, and consider the phenomena 
 thus presented to us. 
 
 Under these conditions the modern and now 
 dominant idea of one Boole, called "the Bible" or 
 " New Testament," vanishes immediately out of 
 the field of view. The idea of the Bible as one all- 
 inspired Book no longer exists. It is not found in 
 any of the scattered original writings of Christi- 
 anity. It is the product of a later age. A collection 
 of the four Gospels, and of the apostolic Epistles, 
 enforced in every word as authority over men's 
 consciences by an indiscriminate doctrine on their 
 inspiration, formed no part of the earliest Christi- 
 anity, and therefore should not form the foundation 
 or first principle of ours. 
 
 The formation of the Canon, as a series of books, 
 consisting of so many and no more, was essentially 
 a human work resting on the literary and spiritual 
 ability of the churchmen of the third century. The 
 conception of a homogeneous verbal inspiration as 
 attaching to each and all of these books, was an 
 additional ecclesiastical opinion not resting on any 
 
140 INSPIRATION. 
 
 inspired authority, not asserted in any of the books 
 declared to be canonical, and expressing only the 
 judgment of the canonists. There was for several 
 generations a difference of opinion on several of 
 the books finally received as canonical, and to the 
 present day some of the Epistles are not comprised 
 in the versions of the second century. 
 
 If we thus relegate the notion of canonical 
 Scripture as a unity, from the foremost to the 
 hindmost place in our method of study, postponing 
 the consideration of that wonderful internal and 
 spiritual unity of testimony, which gave rise to the 
 conception of the Biblical unity, — what have we 
 left? 
 
 The idea of " the New Testament," as written or 
 printed in one volume, has vanished. What then 
 remains to us, conceived of as contemporaries with 
 the writers? A number of distinct and separate 
 compositions, writings as distinct as those of the 
 authors of Greece or Rome, coming to us each with 
 its special evidence of authenticity, and making its 
 own claim upon our belief, without the faintest 
 reference to any other authorities. If we could 
 read these books, now for so many ages written or 
 printed together in one volume, in their original 
 condition, as so many distinct treatises, independent 
 in their authorship, we should find ourselves in 
 
REV. EDWARD WHITE. 141 
 
 much closer relation with the original facts than 
 when we read them as the " Bible " or the " Testa- 
 ment," and look at them all together in the light 
 of a Church theory respecting the mode of their 
 common production. If we could thus read, as 
 distinct and separate memoirs of our Lord Jesus 
 Christ, the four Gospels, coming to us in books as 
 distinct and independent as those of Cicero, Virgil, 
 Suetonius or Tacitus, apart from any idea of a 
 Canon, we should see the absurdity of claiming for 
 the mode of their production more than they each 
 claim for themselves ; or of asserting for all alike 
 some uniform measure and quality of "inspiration." 
 
 This is an after-thought of the Church, which 
 only gradually grew up in early ages, but has 
 reached its consummation in the days when Protes- 
 tants supposed that they required an absolutely 
 infallible "Bible" with which to ficrht the Roman 
 infallibility. 
 
 The truth is that Christianity has in every age 
 been greatly sacrificed to its many artificial defences 
 iu Church and State, and especially to this defence 
 of an authoritative Canon, with its correlative 
 notion of a uniform verbal theopneustia. Christi- 
 anity was very well able to take care of itself as 
 the " weakness of God," without these ecclesiastical 
 additions and buttresses to its authority. Nor do 
 
142 INSPIRATION. 
 
 we lose anything by the proposed method of 
 regarding; these records. For how can the faith of 
 unlearned persons rationally rest for its deepest 
 foundations on any ancient human authority 
 determining the precise number of treatises which 
 shall form the "New Testament" or "Bible"? 
 How can the unlearned know whether the particu- 
 lar councils which settled the Canon were composed 
 of wise or partially illiterate and foolish men ? 
 How can the unlearned know whether subsequent 
 generations have been right in their notion of the 
 equal verbal inspiration of all these writings so 
 incorporated in the Canon ? If there be no other 
 method of reaching truth by which men can learn 
 for themselves divine realities, like the Samaritans 
 who having seen Jesus for themselves, said, " Xow 
 we believe, not because of thy saying," — the 
 unlearned are in an evil case. 
 
 But it will be said, perhaps, " If you take away 
 from the Church its primary idea of the ' New 
 Testament ' as a unity, and abandon the idea of 
 equally inspired canonical Scripture as its uniform 
 characteristic, you take away from the people the 
 foundation of faith, and nothing is left as the basis 
 of belief for any man except Church authority or 
 his own reason." This pernicious delusion deserves 
 the strongest contradiction. If the whole New 
 
REV. EDWARD WHITE. 143 
 
 Testament were blotted out of human memory to- 
 morrow, with the exception of a single Gospel 
 (suppose that of St. Matthew), and that Gospel 
 came to us floating on the stream of general 
 history just as an ancient work, without any re- 
 commendation whatever from Church authority, 
 and without any annexed theory as to its inspira- 
 tion, but handed down through the centuries as 
 the books of Tacitus have been handed down to 
 us ; there would exist, in the self-evidencing worth 
 of that single writing, an amply sufficient basis for 
 faith in Jesus as the Son of God and Saviour of 
 the world. The only question would be, Is this 
 wonderful and holy narrative of the teaching, the 
 miracles, the life, the sufferings, the resurrection of 
 Jesus of Nazareth — true ? and the reply must be 
 determined primarily, not by any notion of inspira- 
 tion, or by reference to other books, or to a Canon, 
 but first of all by its own interior qualities ; and 
 secondly, by its contemporaneous and subsequent 
 reception as an authentic story, which is a question 
 not for learned men only. So far is it from the 
 truth that a theory of verbal inspiration is any aid 
 to faith in relation to historical books, that " you 
 must first ascertain," as the late Archbishop of 
 Canterbury declared in his latest Charge, " their 
 historical truth by the ordinary methods of criti- 
 
144 INSPIRATION. 
 
 cism, before any question of their inspiration can 
 even arise." If you have not ground to believe in 
 the historical truth of the four Gospels from intel- 
 lectual and moral reasons, of the same class which 
 compel you to believe in the general veracity of 
 Livy or Tacitus, or Lingard, or Macaulay, you 
 cannot possibly attain solid belief in them by 
 setting up a doctrine of verbal inspiration. You 
 are building on the sand, or in the air. But if 
 you already have reason to believe, from their tone 
 and style^ that Matthew and Luke are thoroughly 
 honest and well informed, and above all God- 
 fearing writers, recording the substantial truth, 
 you gain nothing by the notion of a Canon, or by 
 the gratuitous hypothesis of verbal infallibility as 
 the law of the composition. It is assuredly a 
 great material convenience to possess the four 
 Gospel histories in one volume ; but from the be- 
 ginning it was not so, and it somewhat diminishes 
 the weight of their coincident testimony, which 
 would come out all the more forcibly, if they were 
 read as four separate biographies. If the works of 
 Suetonius and Tacitus and other Roman historians 
 had always been bound up together in one "book" 
 or " Canon of Roman history," it would have 
 partially weakened in the public mind the force of 
 their independent testimony respecting the char- 
 
REV. EDWARD WHITE. 145 
 
 acter of the Caesars. Physical unity is not always 
 strength. 
 
 It is therefore sufficient to believe just as much 
 as each of the Evangelists severally tells us re- 
 specting the mode in which his " Gospel " was 
 produced ; and the silence of each in turn respect- 
 ing any sort of supernatural impulse to write it, or 
 of any dynamical supernatural control in writing- 
 it, is in exact conformity with all the internal 
 phenomena of the four compositions. With St. 
 Luke's preface before us— describing the process 
 of collecting his materials from eye-witnesses as 
 altogether in accord with that pursued by every 
 other historian — a description which was almost 
 profane and injurious to God, if he were conscious 
 of writing under a direct Divine impulse, or under 
 infallible guidance, — nothing can be conceived 
 more gratuitous than the allegation that he was a 
 mere pen of the Omniscient Spirit, by whom he 
 was preserved from every minute mistake or par- 
 tial representation. While, on the other hand, 
 nothing can be conceived of as more convincingly 
 truthful than the general agreement of four con- 
 temporary narratives, by independent writers, re- 
 specting the teaching, miracles, death, resurrection 
 and ascension of Jesus, our Lord. The theory of 
 a dynamical inspiration of these four histories may 
 
146 INSPIRATION. 
 
 "be at least postponed to the time when it shall 
 appear that any one of their authors professes to 
 write under such an influence ; or until it shall 
 appear that the four Evangelists have written in 
 full, complete, minute and verbal agreement on 
 every incident of their marvellous story. " The 
 weakness of God is stronger than men." 
 
 The fundamental question for modern inquirers 
 is, 75 the miraculous history of the Books in the Old 
 and New Testaments substantially true ? And 
 this question can be answered by common people 
 quite apart from any dogma on the Canon or on 
 Biblical inspiration. Take the historical books of 
 the " Bible " for what they are worth as human 
 histories. Do they record events truly ? If they 
 do, then the higher dogmatic pretentions to inspired 
 authority on the part of Prophets and Apostles can 
 be sustained, or rather they follow upon the truth 
 of the history. If the truth of the history cannot 
 first be made out on common grounds of internal 
 evidence and human authentic testimony, then the 
 whole superstructure of " Revelation " falls with 
 it. This, I think, is the reason why the historical 
 Gospels approach us with no claim to what is 
 commonly called "inspiration" — (though, indeed, 
 they breathe throughout a God-revealing spirit), — 
 but place the facts of the Divine Revelation in 
 
REV. EDWARD WHITE. 147 
 
 Christ before us, like ordinary historians, simply 
 on the basis of their truth in the world of pheno- 
 mena. Such a mode of reaching us first of all 
 with the historic reality of revelation, on the 
 human level, is in accordance with the law of con- 
 tinuity which prevails everywhere in the Kingdom 
 of God. By a gradual incline, sloping upwards from 
 the ordinary level of human history, learners ascend 
 to a higher plane. 
 
 II. But it is far otherwise with those books of 
 Apostolic origin which contain the dogmatic teach- 
 ing of the Prophets and Apostles. Here we find, 
 time after time, the most explicit and positive claim 
 to speak to believers by a direct inspiration and 
 commaud of God. Tims saith the Lord, is the 
 perpetually recurring preface of the Prophets and 
 Apostles in their communications. We find this 
 alike in the pages of Isaiah, and in the Epistles of 
 St. Paul, Peter, and John. In every one of his 
 Epistles, St. Paul distinctly and emphatically 
 claims to speak with the direct and infallible 
 authority of the Risen Christ, except in two or 
 three small matters on which he gives his " opinion." 
 A full induction of every phrase in his writings 
 asserting or implying such a direct inspiration of 
 God, would require an abstract of nearly half his 
 writings. The whole Second Epistle to the Corin- 
 
148 INSPIRATION. 
 
 thians is an elaborate and unflinching assertion of 
 this claim. Here, then, there is no alternative, 
 except that of either receiving his teaching as 
 divinely authoritative, or of rejecting it; and that 
 must be determined by each man according to his 
 general belief or unbelief in the history of Paul's 
 commission as an Apostle by the apparition of 
 Christ (thrice recorded in the narrative of St. 
 Luke), and according to his spiritual recognition of 
 the Divine element in this Apostle's life and writ- 
 ings, in which he "commends himself to every 
 man's conscience." 
 
 III. This leads to the last point in the Scripture 
 doctrine concerning Inspiration, which is exceed- 
 ingly different from that of the ecclesiastical 
 Canonists. These content themselves with binding 
 together in one "book" all the histories, poems, 
 prophecies and dogmatic writings of the men who 
 lived in contact with the Eevelation of God during 
 many ages, and with asserting, concerning the 
 whole collection, one simple principle of a direct 
 verbal inspiration. The sacred writers themselves 
 approach us each with a separate work, and with 
 different measures of claim to direct inspiration ; 
 though all alike profess to speak the truth. But 
 one and all insist on a remarkable complex defini- 
 tion of Divine Eevelation as a whole ; that it con- 
 
REV. EDWARD WHITE. 149 
 
 sists of three parts, one of facts in the world of 
 phenomena, which can be duly and sufficiently 
 reported by honest historians ; the second, of God- 
 given ideas in the world of thought, explaining and 
 enforcing those supernatural facts ; and the third, 
 in the verifying and interpreting faculty bestowed 
 on the divinely touched soul. They shall he all 
 taught of God. " Every man that hath heard and 
 learned of the Father cometh unto Me." " The 
 natural man comprehendeth not the things of the 
 Spirit of God, neither can he know them, because 
 they are spiritually discerned? The prophetic 
 writers of the Bible insist quite as much on this 
 universal and complementary inspiration or guid- 
 ance of honest souls, as on their own. No part of 
 the "Bible" will be effectively "regarded by its 
 readers as the Word of God," apart from this 
 capacity for receiving the visions of God. And 
 when this capacity does not exist, the Church 
 cannot apparently supplement the deficiency by 
 any exaggerated dogma on outward Canonic 
 Infallibility. " The icicked shall not understand" 
 and the wicked man will not understand Divine 
 things the better for all the mechanical theories 
 
 O 
 
 respecting rt Canons " and " Bibles " written with a 
 steady verbal "infallibility." Under such a divine 
 personal instruction men of old were trained to be 
 
150 INSPIRATION. 
 
 adequate historians of Christ, and to reflect His 
 glory in the pages of the four Gospels, even when 
 using their ordinary human faculties in co-ordinat- 
 ing the materials supplied by the original " eye- 
 witnesses " and inspired ministers of the Word. 
 Under such an instruction spiritual men now read 
 their writings, and recognise the Divinity of the 
 Lord whose life is there. Under such an instruc- 
 tion we recognise the marvellous grace of sim- 
 plicity and self-oblivion which fitted the Evangelists 
 to indite the records of the Theophany, — yes, and 
 we perceive that inward spiritual unity of the holy 
 writings, which does indeed interiorly organise 
 them into a " Canon " and a " Bible " for discerning 
 eyes — at the end rather than at the beginning of the 
 Christian life. But apart from such a personal 
 visitation of God, opening the inner senses and 
 conferring spiritual insight, a man is a long way 
 ofY from the knowledge of truth, notwithstanding 
 all the well-meant but fallacious appliances of the 
 Protestant or Roman Catholic Infallibilities. The 
 Bible is to be reached by the masses only by trans- 
 lation out of "dead languages," and if a man has 
 no means of "knowing" except by reliance on 
 translation and professional exegesis, he remains in 
 the school of those who "hear" rather than of 
 those who "see." It requires inspired good sense 
 
KEY. EDWARD WHITE. 151 
 
 to open the Scriptures even after they have been 
 " translated out of the original tongues." Exegesis 
 is ever approximative, never complete. 
 
 But how fearful the results of the coarser pre- 
 vailing; theories as to the "Bible;" and of its 
 perversion as an authority, when its history as the 
 record of a progressive and gradual revelation, first 
 through barbaric and afterwards through civilised 
 ages, is forgotten or unheeded. The Bible widely 
 diffused among the homes of a nation may become 
 a curse, or a blessing, according to our attainments 
 in the art of handling- it. Here is a mass of writ- 
 ing ; history, poetry, aphorism, allegory, prophecy, 
 epistle, apocalypse, — every line and word of which 
 is supposed by many to carry with it the authority 
 of the Infinite God, the Author of Creation. It is 
 the work of fifty different writers, of different ages, 
 living under different degrees of illumination, of 
 different natural genius, education and capacity, 
 the whole delivered in various dialects of Hebrew 
 and of Greek, under the different styles of four 
 dozen authors, some of them exceedingly prone to 
 parenthesis and complication, others to a law of 
 mental association, depending on the suggestion of 
 the last written clause. Now it is quite conceivable 
 that if this entire mass of " Scripture " were trans- 
 lated with uniform and perfect exactness into living 
 
152 INSPIRATION. 
 
 English, — and if, when so translated, every passage 
 ■were interpreted in its original sense, according to 
 its connection, neither adding to nor taking away 
 from the writer's precise meaning, nor perverting 
 it to divergent uses ; if the history were treated as 
 precedent, and the biography as example, only so 
 far forth as the writer designed ; and if the utmost 
 attention were given to avoid all supernumerary 
 and fallacious deductions, all inferences founded on 
 a mistaken conversion of logic into rhetoric, or 
 rhetoric into logic, — none but beneficial results 
 could ensue. 
 
 But when this prolonged series of books is sub- 
 ject to translation into modern languages, Eastern 
 words into the phrases and idioms of the West, 
 sometimes at the hands of scholars devoid of "the 
 vision and the faculty divine ; " — when this large 
 body of writing is liable at every line to the mis- 
 conceptions of blundering or interested expositors ; 
 when there is no absurd perversion of its meaning 
 by non-natural senses imposed on the plainest 
 words for which some- readers will not be ready to 
 plead direct Divine authority; — when abolished pri- 
 mitive dispensations are ransacked for precedents 
 of modern slavery, of polygamy, of cruelty in war ; 
 when the rules of conduct proper or tolerable in 
 periods of barbarism, or of moral transition, are 
 
EEV. EDWAED WHITE. 153 
 
 held up as laws of eternal obligation ; wlien absolute 
 statutes are reasoned out of incidental references ; 
 when great institutions are founded on single per- 
 verted texts (as on " Thou art Peter," &c.) ; — when 
 enormous pyramids of inference are made to stand 
 upside down on the apex of a single wrong quota- 
 tion ; when the conclusions of exact science, as in 
 astronomy, may be set aside and condemned in 
 favour of the " Biblical " physics of a barbarous 
 antiquity ; — when modern society may be broken 
 into sectarian shivers by the contradictory " autho- 
 rity " of passages respecting a ceremonial observance 
 imperfectly understood;— when a slavish spirit of 
 subservience may end in the destruction alike of 
 the reason of the teacher and the conscience of the 
 taught ; when systems of metaphysical theology, 
 overshadowing human life with the most direful 
 terrors, may be built up by rustics and their 
 spiritual guides on the foundation of one wrested 
 Epistle or one phrase in a Gospel, which is not 
 found in the Vetus Itala ; — in such circumstances 
 as these it is evident that a complicated written 
 "revelation" may become a bitter fountain, infect- 
 ing with its "streams of burning pitch" every 
 department of a life already sufficiently entangled 
 and forlorn. There is no folly, no God-dishonouring 
 theology, no iniquity, no sacerdotal puerility, for 
 
154 INSPIRATION. 
 
 which chapter and verse may not be cited by an 
 enslaved intelligence. And under these circum- 
 stances it is impossible to express in adequate terms 
 the importance of a correct estimate and exposition 
 of "the Bible." 
 
 Towards such a consummation the first step is, I 
 think, resolutely to fling aside the post-Nicene 
 theory of the inspiration of " the Bible " as a whole ; 
 to resolve this Bible into its original elements ; and 
 to regulate our view of each of these component 
 parts by the writer's own testimony concerning the 
 degree in which he was " moved by the Holy 
 Ghost." And while this will modify the sense in 
 which we shall habitually speak of the whole col- 
 lection, from Genesis to Eevelation, as equally, and 
 fully, and directly, and permanently, the " Word 
 of God," it will leave us with an ever-growing- 
 sense of the substantial truth of its histories, and I 
 think with nothing less than an infinitely deeper 
 and more submissive reverence than Mr. Paoe 
 
 O 
 
 Hopps feels, for the authoritative teaching of those 
 who were the Prophets of Judaism and the Apostles 
 of the Gospel. 
 
PROF. ISRAEL ABRAHAMS, M.A. 155 
 
 Article IX. 
 By Prof. ISRAEL A13EAHAMS, M.A. 
 
 TT is possible to regard this momentous subject 
 from several distinct points of view — a fact 
 that the present series of papers has amply illus- 
 trated. It is, therefore, as the Eev. John Page 
 Hopps pointed out, essential to press for a careful 
 definition of the terms of the question from the 
 very outset. The writer whom I have just named 
 preferred to modify the question now under dis- 
 cussion by the omission of the words "regarded 
 as." From his standpoint such modification was, 
 no doubt, necessary. Since, however, my intention 
 is the very opposite of his ; intending, as I do, to 
 abstain, as far as may be, from intruding my own 
 individual opinion on the readers, I prefer to take 
 the question in its original wording : —In what 
 sense, and within what limits, is the Bible regarded 
 as the Word of God ? — regarded, that is, by Jews 
 of the ancient and modern schools. My answer 
 to this question will be more expository than 
 critical ; and will naturally fall under two distinct 
 heads. 
 
15G INSPIRATION. 
 
 1. Iii the .Rabbinical conception, no specific dis- 
 tinction was drawn between the Pentateuch and 
 the remaining portions of the Old Testament. (See 
 particularly Talm. Babli. Baba Bathra, fols. 18 b, 
 19 a). Every part of the Bible was inspired ; and 
 the historical books, no less than the prophetical, 
 were an integral part of the Word of God. Indeed, 
 the authors of these two sections are sometimes 
 considered identical, and Jeremiah, to give an 
 instance, was quoted as the author of the Books 
 of Kin^s as well as of " his book " — -to use the 
 Talmudic phrase — and of the Lamentations. 
 David was inspired when he composed his Psalms, 
 " aided by the ten ancients, Adam, Melchizedek, 
 Abraham, Moses, Haimon, Jeduthun, Asaph, and 
 the three sons of Korah," even as Moses acted 
 under Divine influence when he wrote down the 
 Pentateuch. Citations in the Talmud are freely 
 made from Pentateuch, Prophets, and Hagiographa, 
 (OMDZn D'N'QJ mm) as from works of equal autho- 
 rity. And yet questions as to the limits of the 
 Biblical Canon were not unknown. Ezekiel and 
 Ecclesiastes were, in the opinion of some Rabbis, 
 to be excluded from the authorised list of Biblical 
 books. (See Mishnah. Treatise Yadaim, chap, 
 iii., S 5.) The ground for this exclusion was the 
 supposed internal evidence of their uninspired 
 
PROF. ISRAEL ABRAHAMS, M.A. 157 
 
 character. If Ecclesiastes contained glaring self- 
 contradictions, if Ezekiel was found in total dis- 
 agreement with the Pentateuch, the inspiration of 
 whose author was unquestioned and unquestionable, 
 neither Ecclesiastes nor Ezekiel could be, in any 
 true sense, the Word of God. Here, then, we see 
 established a sort of negative test of inspiration, 
 a test of uncontrovertible cogency within the pre- 
 scribed limits. The supposed inconsistencies of 
 Ecclesiastes, and the seemingly erroneous state- 
 ments of Ezekiel, needed, however, the exercise of 
 very little ingenuity for their reconciliation with 
 one another and with independent Biblical works. 
 The former books, therefore, satisfied the negative 
 as well as the }^ositive tests of inspiration ; and 
 indeed there could have been no question as to 
 their satisfying the former, had there been an 
 entire certainty that they fulfilled the latter. 
 
 "When we come to ask, as so many have asked, 
 for the positive test of inspiration, we are met 
 with the answer, Tradition. Thus, the books of 
 the Apocrypha were not numbered among the 
 inspired writings simply and solely because they 
 were traditionally excluded. It may be as well 
 to point out that the individual authorship of the 
 various Biblical writings was not a question of 
 much importance in this connection. This fact is 
 
158 INSPIRATION. 
 
 uot always borne in mind. When, nowadays, 
 critics — snch as Kuenen, Kalisch, and Kobertson 
 Smith — question the Mosaic authorship of the 
 Pentateuch, the underlying inference usually is, 
 that were the Mosaic authorship once thoroughly 
 disproved, the theory of the Divine origin of the 
 Law would be eo ipso relegated to a place among 
 the myths of the past. The Mosaic authorship of 
 the Pentateuch was certainly accepted by the 
 Eabbis without question. Maimonides drew up a 
 short list of what he regarded as the leading prin- 
 ciples of the Jewish faith, a list that is sometimes 
 described under the title of the " Jew T ish Creed." 
 Such a title is somewhat misleading, for there is 
 no such tiling as a recognised "Jewish Creed;" 
 but that by the way. The eighth principle enu- 
 merated by Maimonides runs thus : — " I believe 
 with a perfect faith that the Law which we now 
 possess is the one which was revealed unto Moses, 
 our teacher." Still, we find an important differ- 
 ence of opinion with the Rabbis as to the author- 
 ship of the last chapter of Deuteronomy (or, at 
 least, of the concluding eight verses) ; some autho- 
 rities holding that Moses, others that Joshua com- 
 posed them. Then again, the authorship of Job, 
 and of various other books, was much disputed. 
 But, as I have already remarked, these differences 
 
PROF. ISRAEL ABRAHAMS, M.A. 159 
 
 of opinion were practically insignificant. For if 
 the tvhole Bible was, in all its parts, equally the 
 inspired Word of God, it really mattered very 
 little whether Moses or Joshua was, in this par- 
 ticular case, the human means of making known 
 unto men the message of their God. 
 
 The main flaw in this method of regarding the 
 subject, of course, seems to lie in the apparent 
 absence of interpretation as to the meaning and 
 reliability of the test of tradition. The answer to 
 the difficulties which this consideration appears to 
 suggest, will best be given when these objections 
 are brought into relation with a similar argument 
 in Mr. Page Hopps ' paper — a paper which is in 
 several ways remarkable. " In ascertaining, more- 
 over, in what sense, and within what limits, the 
 Bible is the ' Word of God,' we cannot leave out of 
 the account one important fact ; — that the Bible, 
 given, it is said, to tell us what we could not have 
 found out, and to settle for all time what is the 
 truth of God, has created a variety of sects, whose 
 leading characteristic is that they differ from one 
 another as to the meaning of this very book. The 
 'KeveJation' has revealed one thing to one man, 
 another tiling to another. The 'Word of God' has 
 said one thing to one man, another thing to another. 
 Is that conceivable ? " Mr. Hopps perceives that 
 
1G0 INSPIRATION. 
 
 the Koman Catholic Church is "Wical, consistent, 
 and thorough " when it asserts that " God has 
 committed His supernatural and miraculous revela- 
 tion to a supernatural and miraculous custodian 
 and interpreter. That avoids or silences all question- 
 ings and dissonances." In the Rabbinical theorv 
 this principle is formulated, and is carried out even 
 more consistently. In the first place, that traditional 
 interpretation was itself regarded as inspired, in 
 much the same sense as the original text of the 
 Scriptures. The "Oral Law" was as much the 
 "Word of God as was the " Written Law." " Moses 
 received the Law at Sinai, and delivered it unto 
 Joshua," says the Mishnah, "Joshua delivered it 
 unto the Elders, and the Elders to the prophets, 
 and the prophets to the men of the Great Syna- 
 gogue." The "Law/' herein mentioned, includes 
 the oral traditions. The objection to this is, if the 
 oral law was truly inspired, why was it not 
 incorporated with the written text? If the written 
 text was not, in itself, sufficiently explicit to be 
 termed the whole of the Word of God, why were 
 not those additional revelations authoritatively 
 added, seeing that they alone could give to the 
 written Word the character of perfection and com- 
 pleteness which was claimed for it ? Joseph Albo, 
 a Jewish writer of the fifteenth century, who on 
 
PROF. ISRAEL ABRAHAMS, M.A. 1G1 
 
 points such as the present takes strikingly com- 
 prehensive views, and offers peculiarly acute sug- 
 gestions, gives a simple, but conclusive reply. It 
 was, he contends, impossible to incorporate the oral 
 wdth the written law without altogether destroying- 
 its value and thwarting its purpose. " If the 
 inspired interpretation of the Written Law had 
 been itself committed to writing, the same difficulty 
 of explanation would meet us in the case of the 
 interpretation as had rendered the latter necessary, 
 in the first instance, for the elucidation of the 
 written text. The first interpretation would stand 
 itself in need of interpretation, and so on ad infini- 
 tum? This, indeed, is what did happen when an 
 attempt was made in later ages to write down the 
 oral traditions. " The Mishnah," continues Albo, 
 — whom I am rather freely translating, — " was the 
 compilation of the Oral Law. So soon, however, as 
 it was completed, doubts and difficulties arose as to 
 its meaning. So considerable w T ere these doubts, 
 so perplexing these difficulties, that it was found 
 necessary to put forward an authoritative interpre- 
 tation of the Mishnah. This work was the Gemara, 
 or Talmud. But the difficulties were by no means 
 ended. The Gemara was at once found to need 
 explanation itself. Hence arose a large number of 
 commentators, who devoted much time and labour 
 
 L 
 
1G2 INSPIRATION. 
 
 to the task of Talraudic interpretation. And then 
 the commentators need explanation " (Sepher 
 Ihkarim, Part III., chapter xxii.). 
 
 Having established the necessity of an oral law, 
 such must further be an inspired law, to possess 
 the requisite authority. The inspiration of the 
 oral law was of exactly the same kind as that of 
 the written law. Thus the Kabbis regarded as the 
 Word of God, not only the Bible, but also the 
 traditional exi)lanation. Perhaps not the whole 
 of the Mishnah was considered as inspired ; * but 
 Dr. Schiller Szinessy is certainly not representing 
 the Eabbinical view when he asserts, — in his article 
 on the Mishnah, contributed to the Ninth Edition 
 of the Encyclopedia Britannica — that " There are 
 but few cases to be found in the Mishnah which 
 would critically come under the denomination of 
 Halakhah le-Mosheh mis-Sinai, i.e., an explanation 
 (of a law) as directly given by God to Moses, and in 
 uninterrupted succession received from him by the 
 Rabbis." Nor, again, was the Mishnah the whole 
 of the oral tradition. To complete the latter we 
 must add the Tosiphto, which, "as its name indi- 
 cates, is ''Addition,' i.e., to the canonical Mishnah;" 
 
 * Much of it is avowedly the result of an application of the 
 Methods of Interpretation alluded to further on. In such case?, so 
 long as the Methods could Le shown to Lave been properly applied, 
 the results thus arrived at were received generally. 
 
PROF. ISRAEL ABRAHAMS, M.A. 1G3 
 
 the Mechilto, a commentary on Exodus; the Sipliro, 
 on Leviticus ; the Siphre, on Numbers and Deuter- 
 onomy ; and the Boraitho, or scattered fragments. 
 Not only was this oral explanation in itself in- 
 spired, but the earliest of those who were made 
 its recipients, and the means of communicating it 
 to later generations were, in so far at least as those 
 precepts and traditions were concerned, inspired 
 also. And hence, returning to our original diffi- 
 culty, viz., in how far tradition could be a test of 
 inspiration, we find that the objection, seemingly 
 so fatal, has in fact no relevancy whatever. Tliat 
 was the Word of God which was so pronounced 
 by an inspired tradition. 
 
 The matter, however, has not so far been fully 
 analysed. There are two circumstances — important 
 elements of the case — which must now be alluded 
 to, and which may perhaps seem to modify con- 
 siderably the Eabbinical conception of inspiration. 
 The first of these facts is the existence of a definite 
 code of principles for the interpretation of the 
 Bible. These principles constitute what I may 
 term the Logical Methods of the Talmud. There 
 is some uncertainty as to the number and character 
 of these principles. Thus, while Hillel enumerates 
 seven such principles, Eabbi Ishmael on the one 
 hand formulates thirteen, and Eabbi Eliezer ben 
 
1G4 INSPIRATION. 
 
 Jose, of Galilee, thirty-two on the other. These 
 various statements can, however, he very easily re- 
 conciled (comp., e.g., Shne Luchoth Ilah-berith, folios 
 389 seq.) ; and the enumeration of Rabbi Ishmael 
 is adopted as the one which all authorities were 
 agreed in recognising. Now the discussions in the 
 Talmud, based on the text of the Mishnah, are very 
 frequently opened by the question : — Whence did 
 the Mishnah derive the statement under considera- 
 tion ? The answer to this question often amounts 
 to the assertion that the statement of the Mishnah 
 is a direct tradition from Siuai. But in many 
 cases the Talmudic answer is far different. The 
 statements of the Mishnah are shown to be derived 
 from the written words of the Law, in accordance 
 with the principles by means of which, in Rabbi 
 Ishmael's language, the Law is to be explained. 
 Thus it would seem, not that the final result was 
 a part of the inspired tradition ; but that, while 
 the method of obtaiuiug the result was inspired, 
 that result itself was only arrived at by means of 
 the discussion that- had preceded. It may, how- 
 ever, be doubted whether this, in some cases, is 
 really so. We frequently meet in the Talmud 
 with the caution that no man was to apply 
 certain, at least, of these logical methods to obtain 
 results which were not confirmed by distinct tradi- 
 
PROF. ISRAEL ABRAHAMS, M.A. 1G5 
 
 tion. In other words, a consistent theory of the 
 tradition has been built up on the hypothesis 
 that the logical methods were not what always 
 were actually employed in obtaining the traditional 
 results, but what might have been so employed, 
 had not distinct traditions rendered such a course 
 unnecessary. 
 
 The Old Testament, then, was, together with the 
 Oral Traditions, in the conception of the Rabbis, 
 the Word of God, and the whole of the Word of 
 God. They could conceive no possibility of an 
 addition to the Written Law, nor of the abrogation 
 of any of its precepts. In one sense, later Jewish 
 authorities of the greatest weight appear to have 
 fallen away from this conception. The ninth article 
 of the creed of Maimonidcs indeed asserts a belief 
 that the Law of Moses was final and immutable 
 as the Word of God. But Maimonides, as I have 
 incidentally stated in a former article, did not 
 hesitate to declare that the Levitical sacrifices, for 
 example, were an institution of a temporary and 
 transitory nature. There is not real inconsistency 
 here. When Maimonides asserted that the Law 
 of Moses was final, he meant the Law of Moses 
 as he understood it ; and, as he understood it, the 
 Sacrifices were ah initio a temporary institution. 
 Still, the introduction of this element — of his own 
 
1GG INSPIRATION. 
 
 individual opinion — indicates an important change 
 m the ordinary Jewish point of view. 
 
 To return to the second of the two circumstances 
 to which I have alluded. On reading the Bible 
 with the assiduity and care which the Rabbis 
 applied to the work, it was impossible for them 
 to avoid being struck by some of the difficulties 
 which lie upon the very surface. First, there are 
 the anthropomorphisms of the Bible. In what 
 sense can that be the Word of God which repre- 
 sents Him as seeing and hearing, as possessed of 
 hands, as forming resolutions and then repenting 
 of His determination ? And secondly, despite the 
 inspired oral traditions, several sections of the Bible 
 still remained obscure and inexplicable. How was 
 an explanation to be found for these passages ? 
 That the first of these questions attracted very 
 deep attention may be gathered from the fact that 
 when Onkelos or Aquilas compiled his " Targum " 
 translation of the Pentateuch he avoided the 
 Biblical anthropomorphisms altogether. At times 
 he found it necessary to adopt the most remark- 
 able circumlocutions to effect his objects, but he 
 almost invariably succeeded in his attempt. This 
 systematic modification is an instance and an 
 illustration of the important Talmudic principle 
 □TK »33 wbl min mm : — " The Law speaks in 
 
PROF. ISRAEL ABRAHAMS. M.A. 1G7 
 
 accordance with the language of men." The exact 
 significance of this principle, and the limits of its 
 application, have been the subject of very much 
 difference of opinion. But upon the assignation 
 of these limits depends, to some extent, the correct 
 estimate of the views of the Rabbis on the whole 
 question of Inspiration. This principle is, e.g., the 
 lineal ancestor of the modern assertion that the 
 Bible is not a Science text-book. It has been 
 used to explain the supposed presence in the Bible, 
 without negativing its Divine authorship, of pas- 
 sages which Air. Page Hopps describes as " neither 
 eloquent, nor beautiful, nor pure, nor edifying, nor 
 accurate." It has been, more allowably, seized 
 upon to explain the Biblical use of the parable as 
 a means of enforcing moral truths. And it was 
 by the Babbis themselves applied to explain the 
 Biblical anthropomorphisms; that they would never 
 have countenanced its application to some of the 
 other suggested objects will appear a little further 
 on. 
 
 But if the oral traditions failed to elucidate the 
 whole of the Sacred Text, in what sense could 
 they, together with the latter, constitute the whole 
 Word of God ? To this I may briefly answer that, 
 though the notion of a necessary addition or supple- 
 ment to the written Law was as obviously foreign 
 
108 INSPIRATION. 
 
 to the Rabbinical conception as the possibility of 
 the abrogation of its permanent precepts, the same 
 all-sufficient confidence in the finality, of the oral 
 law, as handed down by tradition,* was by no 
 means felt. The traditions did not always suffice 
 to explain the difficulties of the text. This in- 
 sufficiency was probably ascribed more to the care- 
 lessness of the recipients of the traditions in later 
 times than to a defect in the traditions themselves ; 
 and when the Talmudists, despairing of their own 
 unaided efforts, relied on the future assistance of 
 inspired teachers, the latter were regarded in the 
 light of restorers of what Israel had possessed and 
 lost, rather than of messengers of an entirely new 
 revelation. This reliance is usually expressed in 
 the Talmud by the puzzling word p\n, a term that 
 has been most ingeniously explained as formed 
 (according to a not uncommon method) from the 
 initial letters of a sentence meaning " The Tishbite 
 will resolve difficulties and perplexities." The 
 Tishbite is, of course, Elijah (1 Kings xvii. 1). 
 Now, whether this conjectural etymology of p\n 
 is correct or not, at all events the fact implied is 
 incontestably true. The advent of the Messiah, 
 or the period immediately preceding that consum- 
 
 * I allude more particularly to cases in which the Methods of In- 
 terpretation had been applied to obtain the results. 
 
PROF. ISRAEL ABRAHAMS, M.A. 1G9 
 
 mation, was looked forward to for the settlement 
 of disputed questions of Biblical interpretation. 
 Malaclii (iv. 4-G) is probably the basis of this 
 supposition. 
 
 To sum up this somewhat involved discussion. 
 The Bible in all its parts was, for the Rabbis, the 
 "Word of God. But it was not the whole of His 
 Word. There were, besides, the oral traditions, 
 which were the Word of God no less than the 
 Sacred Scriptures. But beyond these two divisions 
 the Word of God did not extend. 
 
 2. The answer to the question heading this dis- 
 cussion given by modern Jews must be dismissed 
 in a brief space, and that because a definite answer 
 is impossible. There is no single opinion on the 
 question which could at the present day be called 
 the Jewish opinion. Strange as it may seem, Jews 
 enjoy a very wide latitude in the views they hold on 
 what appear the most essential points of the faith, 
 the reason for this being the absence of any autho- 
 ritative and universally approved creed. Hence, 
 even on this question of Inspiration, there may be 
 seen amomrst modern Jews adherents of the most 
 opposed views. 
 
 Certainly the majority of Jews — not of English 
 Jews perhaps — hold fast to the old conception as 
 set forth above. An advanced section, however, 
 
170 INSPIRATION. 
 
 known as the " Reformed Jews," contest the valid- 
 ity of the older assumptions, though even within 
 this section there are some sub-divisions. First, 
 the authenticity of the oral traditions is denied. 
 So far as this denial is concerned, it is usual to 
 assert that the Jews of the Reform approximate to 
 the tenets of the Karaites. This assertion is hardly 
 correct. The Karaites were indeed so called from 
 their supposed affection for the written text of the 
 Bible, which is in Rabbinic Hebrew known as N~ip 
 [Kara) or N~)pD. The sect, however, which is men- 
 tioned neither by Josephus nor Philo, is compara- 
 tively modern, and its formation dates from the 
 eighth century of the present era. To the Karaites 
 the ancient views both of the Sadducees and of the 
 Samaritans have been variously attributed, but this 
 has been done without sufficient real knowledge of 
 what the Karaites actually profess. There is even 
 a doubt as to whether the Karaites accept the 
 whole of the books of the Old Testament, or the 
 Pentateuch only, as the "Word of God. A char- 
 acteristic which they have in common with the 
 modern advanced Jews is the figurative interpre- 
 tation they place upon those Biblical passages 
 which refer to certain external observances, such as 
 the tephillin. Still, as far as can be made out, the 
 Karaites scarcely deserve the name of a distinct 
 
PROF. ISRAEL ABRAHAMS, M.A. 171 
 
 sect; for, though they dispute the authority of 
 the Talmud, " their enslavement to tradition is 
 quite as complete as that of any Talmudist could 
 possibly be." 
 
 Whether the Jews of the Modern Reform in 
 England, Germany, and America, call themselves 
 Karaites or not, they have at least thrown off 
 altogether the belief in the inspiration of the oral 
 traditions. To most of them the Bible is still 
 the Word of God, and to many, also, the whole of 
 His Word. A distinction is, again, drawn be- 
 tween the Pentateuch and the other portions of 
 Scripture ; and the Mosaic authorship of the Pen- 
 tateuch is, by one section, not regarded as a neces- 
 sary tenet, nor is the Bible conceived as the entire 
 and final revelation of God's Word. " Without 
 denying the inspiration of the Bible," — writes Mr. 
 Claude Montefiore, in the Contemporary Review, — ■ 
 "it [the Reformed Judaism] can escape from the 
 bondage and death of the letter to the libertv and 
 life of the spirit." ..." Orthodox Judaism, if it 
 be consistent, must cling to the Mosaic authorship 
 of the whole Pentateuch. It is a doinna of its 
 
 O 
 
 faith that the whole law — perfect and immutable 
 — was revealed by God to Moses, and written 
 down by Moses in the form in which we now 
 possess it. Reformed Judaism is under no such 
 
172 INSPIRATION. 
 
 obligation. The perfection and immutability of the 
 law contained within the Pentateuch is not a 
 dogma which it can recognise, for it views the 
 whole Hebrew Scriptures in a different light from 
 orthodox) T . It denies that religion can be con- 
 tained, complete and entire, within the pages of 
 any book. It denies that any book does not 
 possess a human as a Divine side. It rejects the 
 theory of verbal inspiration. For the theory of 
 verbal inspiration necessarily implies that every 
 sentence in the Pentateuch is perfect in itself. 
 But Reformed Judaism does not hold itself respon- 
 sible for, and bound by, every utterance and every 
 law in the Biblical Canon." I quote this passage 
 from a recent article of a prominent member of 
 the Reformed Judaism in Emdand, as it well illus- 
 trates how far a writer can 2:0 and still call himself 
 a Jew. In a portion of this passage, and more 
 particularly in the quotation following from Hold- 
 heim, a leader of Jewish Reform in Germany, we 
 find the writers falling back on what seems a 
 misapplication of a -principle already alluded to. 
 " Religion," writes Holdheim, in his Pvcdhjtcn, 
 " can only be revealed to man through man. But 
 that which can only be given through man cannot 
 be given perfect and complete. . . . The endless 
 capacity for development which distinguishes the 
 
PROF. ISRAEL ABRAHAMS, M.A. 173 
 
 Mosaic doctrine of God, is part of the foundations 
 of Judaism, belongs, I would almost say, to the 
 fundamental articles of the Jewish faith." Now 
 there seems something wrong in this line of argu- 
 ment. The Bible, it is said, is the Word of God ; 
 but in so far as it was revealed through man to 
 man, it must be imperfect. This is true. But 
 those who employ this argument seem not to per- 
 ceive that the imperfections so allowed for could 
 only be such as are inherent to the human mind ; 
 could only be imperfections such as no man could 
 remedy. To suppose otherwise is, indeed, to con- 
 sider the Bible as wanting in that which alone 
 could justify its claim in any sense to the title of 
 the Word of God. 
 
 I must now break off, but not before saying one 
 or two words with reference to the main conten- 
 tion of Rev. J. Page Hopps' article. I see no reason 
 why the most pronounced Talmudist should demur 
 to that contention. By all means let everything 
 that is beautiful in Man or in Nature be called, in 
 a sense, part of the Word of God. " The heavens 
 declare the glory of God : and the firmament 
 showeth His handiwork. Day unto day ultereth 
 speech, and night unto night showeth knowledge" 
 (Psalm xix. 1, 2). Nevertheless, there may be 
 still another sense in which the Bible is the Word 
 
174 INSPIRATION. 
 
 of God. In any case, no good seems to me to 
 result from going the lengths that Mr. Hopps 
 would appear inclined to lead us, at all events for 
 those who still hold that there is a meaning in 
 the term, direct Divine Inspiration. Any further 
 remark on this point would, I fear, lead me far 
 beyond the limits I assigned to my paper at the 
 outset. 
 
EIGHT EEV. BISHOP OF AMYCLA. 175 
 
 Article X. 
 By the Eight Kev. WILLIAM WEATHERS, D.D. 
 
 (Bishop of Amy da, and Coadjutor of II. E. Cardinal Manning). 
 
 THIS question, which is being discussed by the 
 • various writers on this subject, is one of great 
 importance. For if, in any sense, the Bible is the 
 Word of God, it highly interests all to know in 
 what sense this is true. I cannot, however, go 
 along with some of those who have so expressed 
 themselves as if they thought that the only im- 
 portant question concerning the Bible which claims 
 our attention, is its Inspiration, the question of the 
 Canon of Scripture being of comparatively little 
 importance. How any one who holds the Bible 
 to be the sole rule of faith can speak thus is to 
 me an enigma. For of what practical use would 
 it be to establish the fact of the Inspiration of the 
 Bible, if we had no means of ascertaining what 
 books belonged to the Bible ? The two questions, 
 viz., the Inspiration and the Canonicity of the 
 Bible, are both of importance, and, in a certain 
 sense, of equal importance, because they are so far 
 connected one with the other that they must stand 
 
176 INSPIRATION. 
 
 or fall together. Nevertheless, they are in them- 
 selves two distinct questions, and it is with the 
 former and not with the latter that we have here 
 to deal. 
 
 In what sense, then, is the Bible to be regarded 
 as the Word of God ? 
 
 This phrase, " the Word of God," may be taken 
 in two different senses. It may be taken, in a 
 stricter sense, to express those revelations or com- 
 mands which come immediately from God. It is 
 ill this sense that the sacred Scripture itself uses 
 the phrase. Or it may be taken in a wider signi- 
 fication, so as to comprehend whatever is written 
 by men under the impulse of the Divine Spirit. 
 In this latter sense the whole Bible may be truly 
 called the Word of God, provided only that all 
 that is therein contained has been set down under 
 the Inspiration of the Divine Spirit. The Catholic 
 Church holds this to be true. Her teaching on 
 this point does not fall short of the highest 
 doctrine maintained by any of your writers. The 
 Council of Trent (Sess. IV. decretum de Canon 
 Scriptur) declares God to be the author of the books 
 of the Old and of the New Testament. It nume- 
 rates those books which it recognises as sacred and 
 canonical, including all the parts of them which 
 have been commonly read in the Church, and 
 
RIGHT REV. BISHOP OF AMYCLA. 177 
 
 which are found in the Latin Vulgate, which is 
 declared to be an authentic version of the sacred 
 Scriptures. 
 
 A word or two may be allowed for the purpose 
 of explaining what is meant by this declaration of 
 the Council as to the authenticity of the Vulgate. 
 The word " authentic," when applied to an original 
 document, means that the document has in all its 
 parts the sanction of the author. When applied 
 to a copy or a translation, it means that it agrees, 
 in all that is essential, with the original. It is as 
 a copy or version of the Scriptures that the Vul- 
 gate is declared to be authentic. The Council did 
 not mean by this declaration that the Vulgate 
 translation was the work of inspired men. It did 
 not institute any comparison between the Vulgate 
 and the original text, such as it exists at the 
 present day in the Hebrew, Chaldaic, or Greek 
 copies which have come down to us — so that they 
 retain the same authority which they had before. 
 Neither did the Council mean that the Vulgate 
 was tree from all errors, since it recommended the 
 Holy See to cause a new and revised edition to be 
 brought out. What the Council did mean by this 
 declaration was, that the Vulgate was to be held, 
 in substance, a faithful representation of the 
 original text. As such it commanded that it should 
 
 o 
 
 M 
 
178 INSPIRATION. 
 
 be read in the services of the Church, and used for 
 all the purposes for which the sacred Scriptures 
 were given. 
 
 O 
 
 Following up this decree of the Council of Trent, 
 declaring all the books of the Old and New Tes- 
 tament to be sacred and canonical, the Vatican 
 Council explains more fully and explicitly (Con- 
 stitutio de fide, c. 2) what we are required to 
 believe in virtue of this decree. It is not enough 
 to hold that these books were in their origin the 
 fruit of human industry, and were adopted by the 
 Church, which put the seal of her approbation 
 upon them. Neither is it sufficient to hold that 
 they contain the truths of revelation without any 
 admixture of error. We are required to believe 
 something more, viz., that they have been delivered 
 to the Church as having been written under the 
 inspiration of the Holy Spirit, and as having God 
 for their true author. Catholics believe, therefore, 
 that the sacred Scriptures are the Word of God, 
 not merely that they contain His word. One of 
 your writers (the Eev. Stanley Leathes) has said 
 well, that " to affirm of the Bible that it contains 
 the word of God, in contradistinction to its being 
 the Word of God, is very nearly tantamount to 
 affirming; that we have no actual Word of God, at 
 least, such as all may reasonably acknowledge, 
 
RIGHT EEV. BISHOP OF AMYCLA. 179 
 
 unless, ill addition to staying the Bible contains 
 the word of God, we go on to say also in what 
 way we may determine what is or is not the Word 
 of God." 
 
 Catholics, believing that the sacred Scriptures 
 are the Word of God, believe also that all they 
 contain is infallibly true. For can God speak 
 that which is false ? They believe more than this. 
 "Whatever a General Council decrees they hold to 
 be infallibly true, because of the promise of oui- 
 Lord to the Church that His Spirit should abide 
 with her for ever, teaching her all truth. Yet 
 Catholics never think of identifying the decrees 
 of a Council with the words of sacred Scripture. 
 What, then, is the difference between the two ? 
 The decrees of the Church's Councils are drawn up 
 by men who are not inspired, though preserved, 
 by the assistance of the Divine Spirit, from falling 
 into error ; whereas the sacred Scriptures are 
 written by inspired men. " For all Scripture is 
 given by inspiration of God " (2 Tim. iii.). 
 
 One of your writers has said, " One cannot 
 believe that it required any very high degree of 
 inspiration to write the Book of Ruth, Perhaps 
 not so much w T as needed as for the writing of the 
 1 Pilgrim's Progress ' or the ' Christian Year.' " To 
 me this seems nothing less than setting up human 
 
180 INSPIRATION. 
 
 reason in judgment upon the "Word of God. But 
 my object in quoting these words is to direct 
 attention to the fact which underlies them, and 
 which sufficiently accounts for their being spoken. 
 The writer — he does not stand alone in the views 
 which he here expresses — confesses the sacred Scrip- 
 tures to be truly given by inspiration of God, but 
 takes this word " inspiration " not in that definite 
 sense in which theological writers use it, but as 
 being little more than a figure of speech. Just as 
 people call Milton an inspired poet, meaning that 
 he was inspired by his own genius, or call Pitt 
 an inspired statesman, meaning that he was be- 
 yond all others directed by a far-seeing political 
 sagacity, so does he call Bunyan and Keble in- 
 spired religious writers, in the sense that they 
 discoursed in no ordinary way upon the lofty 
 themes to which they devoted their pen. But to 
 speak of the sacred Scriptures as inspired in this 
 sense of the word is the same thing as to deny 
 the inspiration of the Scriptures altogether. In 
 what sense, then, do we use the word inspiration 
 when applied to the writers of the sacred Scrip- 
 tures ? An illustration will help us to understand 
 better the matter we are here considering. 
 
 A minister wishes to send a despatch to some 
 fluent abroad. He makes known to his secretary. 
 
RIGHT REV. BISHOP OF AMYCLA. 181 
 
 whose services he calls into requisition, what it is 
 he desires to say. He leaves it to his secretary to 
 draw up the despatch in his own way, but takes 
 care to see that the wording accurately represents 
 his own meaning. Now here the minister is the 
 real author of the despatch which has been pre- 
 pared. Nevertheless, the secretary, in drawing it 
 up in strict conformity with the instructions given 
 to him, has not been simply a passive instrument 
 in the hands of his chief, but has placed at his 
 disposal the services of a free agent. 
 
 Now in some way analogous to this God has 
 vouchsafed to communicate His AVord to us by the 
 writing of inspired men. He has commissioned 
 them to fulfil the office before Him of scribe or 
 secretary. He has imparted to them, in such way 
 as He judged fit, a knowledge of the facts He desired 
 to be put on record, a knowledge of the truths of 
 revelation and of the doctrinal and moral instruc- 
 tions He wished to be committed to writing. In 
 the execution of the task assigned to them, of 
 putting down in writing what He had made known 
 to them, He may have acted with them in the same 
 manner as He did with the prophets who delivered 
 their message by word of mouth, that is to say, He 
 may have left them to the use of their natural 
 faculties, furnishing to them at the same time the 
 
182 INSPIRATION. 
 
 assistance of His Divine Spirit, so as to guard them 
 from either adding to, or detracting from, the ful- 
 ness and integrity of His Word. 
 
 Now this immediate action of God upon man — 
 first, appointing him to act as a sacred amanuensis 
 or scribe ; second, instructing him what he is to 
 say ; and third, so directing him in the execution 
 of the task assigned as to secure exact fulfilment — 
 is what we mean by Divine Inspiration. 
 
 But what ground have we for affirming that the 
 Inspiration vouchsafed to the writers of the sacred 
 books included as much as is here stated ? Because, 
 as nothing more than this would be required, so 
 nothing less than this would be sufficient to war- 
 rant our affirminfr God to be the author of these 
 books. If these books had been put together by 
 mere human industry, and had afterwards been 
 declared by competent authority to contain the 
 revelation of God free from all error, they might 
 have been called, in a certain sense, the Word of 
 God, but they could not be called the Inspired 
 Word of God, much less could they be said to have 
 God for their author. Yet the Apostle tells us 
 that all Scripture is the Inspired Word of God 
 (2 Tim. ii.), and the Church has, by what we 
 believe to be the infallible definitions of her 
 Councils, declared that God Himself is the author 
 
EIGHT REV. BISHOP OF AMYCLA. 183 
 
 of the books both of the Old and the New 
 Testaments. 
 
 After considering what is included in the theory 
 of Inspiration as held by Catholics, it may be well 
 to consider what might seem to be implied therein, 
 but in reality is not. From the fact of the sacred 
 writers being inspired it does not necessarily follow 
 that they were themselves conscious they were 
 writing under the influence of the Divine Spirit. 
 Divine grace may move the will of man, and with 
 his co-operation produce the fruit of justification — 
 which is a Divine work — without man being con- 
 scious of the action of grace upon his soul. So, in 
 like manner, the gift of Inspiration may descend 
 upon a man and work its effects in him, without 
 making its presence known. The Spirit breatheth 
 where He will. We have, as a matter of fact, good 
 reason for believing that in many, if not most cases, 
 the sacred writers did know they were acting 
 under the Divine guidance. To Jeremiah it was 
 said (xxx. 2), " Write thee all the words that I 
 have spoken to thee in a book." In Habakkuk we 
 read (ii. 2), "The Lord answered me, and said, 
 Write the vision and make it plain upon tablets." 
 Many such citations might be given. On the 
 other hand, we have ground in some cases for be- 
 lieving that the writers, though inspired, hud not 
 
184 INSPIRATION. 
 
 themselves any knowledge of the fact. We are 
 told that St. Mark, yielding to the entreaty of the 
 Christians at Rome, wrote his Gospel previous to 
 his departure for Alexandria. Again St. Luke, in 
 the opening verses of his Gospel, assigns as the 
 motive of his writing the fact of his possessing 
 better opportunities than others of furnishing an 
 exact record of the events which had taken place. 
 The above-named circumstances furnish, it is true, 
 no ground whatever for doubting that these Evan- 
 gelists were inspired. God might as easily, so to 
 speak, make use of the solicitations of friends to 
 induce the one to undertake the task He had 
 assigned to him, as He might have furnished the 
 other w T ith those available sources of information 
 which he speaks of, to the end he might be duly 
 fitted for the work of an Evangelist. Nevertheless, 
 the circumstances may leave room to doubt whether 
 the Evangelists themselves were conscious, at the 
 time, of their possessing the gift of Inspiration. 
 "We have another example in the case of the writer 
 of the Second Book of the Machabees (xv. 39). 
 And it seems certain that Caiaphas, when ho 
 uttered the words, " It is expedient for you that 
 one man should die for the people, and that the 
 whole nation perish not," did not know that he 
 was inspired to speak thus. Yet, as we read, 
 
RIGHT REV. BISHOP OF AMYCLA. 185 
 
 he did not speak these words of himself, but, 
 being the High Priest that year, he uttered a 
 prophecy. 
 
 Again, from the fact of the sacred writers being 
 inspired, it does not follow that there is not a 
 human element as well as a Divine in their writ- 
 ings. They were men having their own natural 
 gifts, differing from one another in their previous 
 education, with a more or less extensive vocabu- 
 lary of words. Now God did not by the gift of 
 inspiration change their nature, but He consecrated 
 it to His service. Hence the writers have left the 
 impress of their individual character upon their 
 writings. Thus the prophet Amos, who was called 
 when following the cattle, uses — as we are told by 
 those who are familiar with the Hebrew text — a 
 rustic simplicity of style very unlike the refined 
 and elevated language of the royal prophet Isaiah. 
 Thus St. Luke, when describing the different dis- 
 eases cured by our Lord, makes use of medical 
 terms which we do not meet with in the accounts 
 given by the other Evangelists. I cannot, how- 
 ever, agree with those who, applying to the present 
 case the maxim humanum est crrare, contend that 
 these writers, being in themselves fallible, cannot be 
 supposed to have been made by the gift of Inspira- 
 tion exempt from error. To argue thus is to lose 
 
186 INSPIRATION. 
 
 sight of the direct and immediate action of God 
 which enters into our idea of Inspiration. 
 
 If it be true, however, that there is no substan- 
 tial difference between what is held by Catholics, 
 and what is held by a large class of Protestants, 
 as regards the theory of Inspiration, it is not so 
 as regards the proofs of Inspiration, i.e., the ground 
 upon which we hold the Bible to be inspired. The 
 reasons given by your writers — not excepting the 
 elaborate argument contained in the able paper of 
 the Eev. Stanley Leathes, to which I shall make 
 special reference — seem to me quite inadequate to 
 establish the fact of the Inspiration of the Bible. 
 
 I admit that the Bev. Professor gives one argu- 
 ment amply sufficient to prove the Inspiration of 
 the Old Testament. As he truly says : " The New 
 Testament, beyond all question, claims and assumes 
 that honour for the Old." It is well known what 
 great reverence the Jews had for their sacred books, 
 which they regarded as Divine. Now our blessed 
 Lord did not condemn this belief of theirs. On 
 the contrary, by appealing as He did to the Scrip- 
 tures as an unimpeachable authority, He sanctioned 
 and confirmed that belief. If, then, the writings 
 of the New Testament be admitted to be genuine 
 — and this much is here assumed — they prove that 
 our blessed Lord accepted the books of the Old 
 
EIGHT REV. BISHOP OF AMYCLA. 187 
 
 Testament as inspired. And this is an argument 
 abundantly sufficient to establish the Inspiration of 
 the Old Testament. It is an argument, however, 
 which obliges us to accept as inspired, not merely 
 those sacred books which were written in Hebrew, 
 and are contained in the Canon of Esdras, but 
 also the books written later in Chaldaic or Greek, 
 and inserted in the Septuagint Version. Why do 
 I say so ? As I cannot enter into any detailed 
 proof of a matter which relates to the canonicity, 
 rather than the inspiration of the Scriptures, suffice 
 it to say, that out of 350 citations from the Old 
 Testament which occur in the New, 300 are taken 
 from the Septuagint Version (Hurter, Theol : 
 Compend ; Tract 2, Thesis 35) ; and that there are 
 many references in the New Testament to passages 
 contained in books which belong, not to the 
 Hebraic, but to the Septuagint canon (cf. Tob. iv. 
 G ; Matt. vii. 12; 2 Mach. vi. 19 ; Heb. ix. 35 ; 
 Ecclus. xxx. 4. ; 2 Cor. ix. 7). 
 
 We will pass now to the New Testament. We 
 have here no Scripture testimony affirming the 
 Inspiration of any part of it beyond the indirect 
 testimony to that effect which St. Peter bears to 
 the Epistles of St. Paul (2 Peter iii. 1G). How 
 then can we prove the writings of the New Testa- 
 ment to be the Inspired Word of God ? 
 
188 INSPIRATION. 
 
 The principal argument brought forward by the 
 Rev. Stanley Leathes, for the purpose of proving 
 both the Old and the New Testament to be 
 inspired, is founded on what is called the organic 
 unity of the Bible. The argument may be stated 
 thus : — The Bible is an organic whole. The cha- 
 racter of the Bible as a whole must be judged by 
 the character of its principal parts. Now these 
 principal parts — the sublime moral lessons which 
 are inculcated, the revelations and prophecies 
 which are contained — are the Inspired Word of 
 God. Therefore the Bible, taken as a whole and 
 with all its parts, must be recognised as the 
 Inspired Word of God. But let me ask what 
 Bible are we here speaking of? Is the Catholic 
 Bible, with its Book of Machabees, bearing testi- 
 mony to the doctrine of Purgatory, to be recognised 
 as an organic whole, and as the Inspired Word of 
 God? "No!" our opponents will exclaim. "You 
 have admitted into your Bible many books which 
 ought not to find any place there." But if 
 Catholics and Protestants thus differ from each 
 other, and if Protestants abroad differ amongst 
 themselves, as to what books properly belong to 
 the Bible, is it not manifest that this argument 
 is valueless to prove that any book or any part 
 thereof is to be accounted as inspired because it 
 
RIGHT REV. BISHOP OF AMYCLA. ISO 
 
 is contained in the Bible, uutil it has first been 
 established upon independent ground that the said 
 book, with all its parts, is entitled to be admitted 
 into the Bible ? Neither can any one, in default 
 of direct evidence of the inspiration of the several 
 books of Scripture, assume those books to be 
 canonical "which are accepted as such by all the 
 different churches, so long as his principles oblige 
 him to deny the validity of the grounds upon 
 which they are accepted by others as such. 
 
 This first argument, therefore, is fallacious. It 
 cannot prove that the Bible is inspired until it be 
 first shown that the books in the Bible have a 
 right to be there because they beloug to the 
 canonical Scriptures. "What other argument is 
 adduced then in proof of the inspiration of the 
 books of Scripture 1 The same writer quotes the 
 words of St. Paul to the Thessaloniaus (1 Thess. 
 ii. 13) : " We thank God because, when you 
 received the word of God which you heard of 
 us, you received it not as the word of man, 
 but, as it is in truth, the word of God, which 
 effectually worketh also in you who believe." 
 What the writer says upon this passage resolves 
 itself into two arguments — one being based upon 
 the efficacy of the Divine word in the case of those 
 who believe, the other being founded upon the 
 
190 INSPIRATION. 
 
 recognition on the part of the Thessalonians of the 
 Divine authority of St. Paul's teaching. 
 
 Our blessed Lord said to His Apostles, " Preach 
 the Gospel to every creature. He that believeth 
 and is baptized shall be saved." The Apostle tells 
 the Thessalonians, in like manner, that the Gospel 
 which he preached to them — the Gospel is called 
 in many places of Scripture the Word of God 
 — worketh effectually in those who believe. The 
 Apostle speaks here of preaching, but I do not 
 dispute the justice of the inference that the same 
 evangelical truths, whether they be heard or 
 whether they be read, will in the one case, no 
 less than in the other, work effectually in the heart 
 of believers. But surely the writer would not have 
 us infer from this that the book containing any 
 such truths must in all its parts be regarded as 
 inspired — unless, indeed, the book in all its parts 
 should have been written by an Apostle. 
 
 This, then, is the second argument. It is based 
 upon the authority due to the teaching of an 
 Apostle, whether it be delivered by word of mouth 
 or in writing. I am far from denying the force 
 of this argument. Among; those who have dwelt 
 most strongly on this argument is Michaelis, a 
 name held in great repute amongst Protestants. 
 He contends, in his Introduction to the New Testa- 
 
EIGHT REV. BISHOP OF AMYCLA. 191 
 
 merit, that this is the proper ground upon which 
 the Inspiration of the New Testament should be 
 rested. But then lie candidly admits that this 
 argument does not meet the whole case, that the 
 Inspiration of the Gospels of St. Mark and St. 
 Luke can neither be maintained on this ground, 
 nor yet upon that of ancient documents that have 
 come down to us, but only upon the authority of 
 the Church's testimony. 
 
 Bishop "Wordsworth, one of your writers tell us, 
 goes further. He admits that the sacred Scrip- 
 tures as a whole can be received upon no other 
 authority but that of the testimony of the primi- 
 tive Church, but contends that this testimony is 
 conclusive against the Church of Rome. I have 
 not myself read his book. But seeing that all the 
 Churches of the East, both those which are in 
 communion with the Holy See and those which 
 are not, agree together upon this point, that the 
 testimony of the early Church obliges them to 
 receive the same canon as the Church of Rome, 
 it is not easy to understand how Bishop Words- 
 worth, with the same evidence before him, arrives 
 at a conclusion opposed to the judgment of the 
 Church, both East and West. 
 
 It is quite true that, when the times of persecu- 
 tion were over, a certain diversity of opinion was 
 
192 INSPIRATION. 
 
 found to exist in different parts of the Church 
 concerning some of the inspired writings. The 
 cause of this divergence is not far to seek, but I 
 abstain from entering upon an explanation "which 
 would take me away from the subject I am 
 engaged upon. I wish only to point out how this 
 division in the Church did not, as with other 
 religious bodies, lead to any rupture, but was 
 speedily closed. This was because all were agreed 
 upon the one principle which applied to the solu- 
 tion of doubts, as in other matters relating to 
 doctrine, so in this relating to the books which 
 were to be received as inspired. And what was 
 that principle ? St. Paul had said to Timothy, 
 whom he had appointed Bishop of Ephesus, " The 
 things which thou hast heard from me before 
 many witnesses, the same commend to faithful 
 men who shall be fit to teach others also" 
 (2 Tim. ii.). The Church acted then, as she has 
 acted ever since, in accordance with this precept 
 given by the Apostle. She set herself to trace out, 
 through the testimony of her Bishops and Clergy, 
 what was the Apostolic tradition handed down by 
 the several Churches on this important question. 
 Could it be supposed that they' — the Bishops and 
 Clergy of the different Churches — who had been 
 willing to lay down their lives rather than deliver 
 
RIGHT REV. BISHOP OF AMYCLA. 193 
 
 up the sacred writings into the hauds of the perse- 
 cutors, were altogether ignorant from what source 
 they had received the precious deposit which they 
 possessed ? When, therefore, the Church, to whom 
 Christ had promised the assistance of His Divine 
 Spirit, had satisfied herself what traditions were 
 proved to be genuine and authentic, she published, 
 in the acts of her approved Councils, — Hippo, a.d. 
 393, Carthage, a.d. 397 — the catalogue of those 
 sacred books which she recognised then as canonical, 
 and has continued ever since to recognise as such. 
 
 Now this method of proceeding, which I have 
 said was in accordance with the rule laid down 
 by the Apostle, was the most reasonable, nay, the 
 only possible method which the Church could have 
 adopted. I say the most reasonable method. By 
 what other means but that of the authoritative 
 testimony of the Church could the unlearned of 
 that or of any other age be brought to know what 
 books are the Inspired Word of God ? By what 
 other means but this can the learned be brought — 
 would to God that all might be brought — to be of 
 one mind on this vital question ? I say the only 
 possible method. For inspiration is a Divine 
 operation, not necessarily known to the mind that 
 is acted upon, hidden from all but those to whom 
 God reveals it, either directly, by His own mouth, 
 
194 INSPIRATION. 
 
 as when He spoke to St. John (Rev. i. 19), 
 " Write, therefore, the things which thou hast 
 seen," or indirectly, through the voice of others 
 whom He has commissioned to speak in His name, 
 viz., the Apostles and those to whom the Apostles 
 have delivered the knowledge of the mysteries of 
 God, that is, the Pastors of the Church, to whom 
 He has said, He that heareth you heareth me 
 (Luke x. 16). The only satisfactory proof that 
 can, then, be given of the Inspiration of sacred 
 Scripture is the testimony of God, and the way 
 by which we, to whom God has made no direct 
 personal revelation on the subject, come to this 
 knowledge, is by the testimony of the Church, 
 which He has commanded us to hear. St. Ausrus- 
 tine, who was no sceptic, but a deep Christian 
 thinker and a Doctor of the Church, recognised so 
 clearly this truth that he hesitated not to say, 
 "I would not believe the Gospel unless the autho- 
 rity of the Church moved me thereto " (Cont. Ep. 
 Fund, c. 5). 
 
 "Within what limits is the Bible to be regarded 
 as the Word of God ? 
 
 I. Admitting the Bible to be the Word of God, 
 are we required to believe in its verbal inspira- 
 tion ? This question is not one of so much con- 
 
RIGHT REV. BISHOP OF AMYCLA. 195 
 
 sequence as might at first be imagined, because it 
 cannot be understood to refer to any version of 
 the sacred Scriptures, but only to the original 
 text, and such existing copies as can be ascertained 
 to be authentic. Catholics are under no sort of 
 obligation to believe that inspiration extends to 
 the words of Holy Scripture as well as to the 
 subject matter which is therein contained. The 
 following arguments seem to tell against admitting 
 the verbal inspiration of the Scriptures except in 
 certain particular parts. 
 
 1. The Eighteenth Psalm, written by David, is 
 inserted in 2 Samuel xxii. as well as in the Book 
 of Psalms. The substance is in both cases the 
 same, but the wording differs considerably. St. 
 Augustine takes occasion from this to deprecate 
 insisting needlessly upon the use of identical terms 
 in matters of religion, so long as the identity of 
 doctrine is maintained. 
 
 2. The Apostles, in citing Holy Scripture, give 
 usually the substance, not the exact words of the 
 text to which they refer. 
 
 3. In like manner, the discourses of our Blessed 
 Lord are not reproduced by the Evangelists pre- 
 cisely in the same form. Thus, e.g. t in the In- 
 stitution of the Sacrament of the Blessed Eucharist 
 at the last supper, as set forth by three Evangelists 
 
196 INSPIRATION. 
 
 and by St. Paul, there is a perfect unity in the 
 substance of the doctrine, joined with a certain 
 diversity in the language of its exposition. "We 
 do not lose thereby. On the contrary, each record 
 adds something to our knowledge of that great 
 mystery. 
 
 Although, then, we reject verbal inspiration, it 
 is still imperative upon us to lay great stress upon 
 all the words of sacred Scripture, because, the 
 matter being inspired of which the words are the 
 accurate exponents, it is by weighing well their 
 meaning and their force that we arrive at a deeper 
 sense of the truths they set forth. 
 
 II. Admitting the Bible to be the Inspired W r ord 
 of God, are we bound in consequence, absolutely 
 and unconditionally, to receive the whole matter 
 contained in the Bible, irrespectively of whether 
 it relates to religion, or to history and science ? 
 
 This question opens up a large subject, which 
 would require to be treated at too great length for 
 any justice to be done to it here. I will offer a 
 few remarks only in reply. 
 
 If we recognise that God is in a true sense the 
 author of the books of the Old and New Testa- 
 ment, it is clear that we are bound to receive, 
 with implicit faith, whatever those books teach on 
 
EIGHT REV. BISHOP OF AMYCLA. 197 
 
 the subject of religion and morality, — the guidance 
 of men in these matters being the very end for 
 which those books were given under the inspira- 
 tion of the Holy Ghost. " But what of the dark 
 and cruel things which were attributed to God or 
 done at His instigation ? " I may be in error, but 
 I understand the Rev. J. Page Hopps here to refer 
 to such things recorded in the Bible, as the com- 
 mand given to the Israelites to exterminate the 
 inhabitants of the laud of Canaan. But why was 
 this command given ? " The land," it is written, 
 "is denied. Therefore do I visit the iniquity 
 thereof upon it ; and the land itself vomiteth out 
 its inhabitants " (Lev. xviii.). As God punished a 
 sinful race by the Deluge, and the corrupt cities 
 of the plain by fire from heaven, so did He 
 destroy the Canaauites by the sword, because of 
 their wickedness. And He gave the Israelites the 
 charge of carrying out the sentence, that they 
 themselves might beware, lest, falling into the 
 same sins, they should draw down upon themselves 
 a like judgment. If the innocent were in all these 
 cases involved with the guilty in one common 
 punishment, we must bear in mind that God will 
 hereafter judge men separately, and allot to each 
 one a just reward. But here in this life Uc judges 
 
198 INSPIRATION. 
 
 empires, He judges nations, as such, when the 
 voice of their guilt reaches the heavens. 
 
 Lastly, we have to consider those things which 
 are contained in the Bible, which do not relate to 
 religion, but belong to the department of history 
 or science. Are we, in consequence of our believ- 
 ing the Bible to be inspired, compelled to let 
 these things go also unchallenged, or are we free 
 to reject them on the ground that the Bible was 
 not intended to teach science or history ? First 
 let me ask, however, whether it can be admitted 
 that these things contained in the Bible have no 
 relation to religion ? If we hold that the Bible 
 not merely contains, but is, the Word of God, and 
 if we say that these things not merely have no 
 connection with religion, but are absolutely false, 
 how have they got into the Bible at all, since it 
 is clear that they are in no sense the Word of 
 God ? It is intelligible enough how one wdio holds 
 that the Bible contains the Word of God may 
 hold, at the same time, that there are errors in 
 the Bible. But how he who holds that the Bible 
 is the Word of God can say the same, is to me 
 a mystery. I know that there are Catholics who 
 have maintained this doctrine, that there are errors 
 in the sacred books, though not such as touch faith 
 
EIGHT REV. BISHOP OF AMYCLA. 199 
 
 or morals, and they maintain this because they 
 say the Church has never defined that there are 
 no errors in the inspired volume. I admit the 
 Church has never expressly defined this point. 
 But she has laid down the premisses as of faith 
 from which no other conclusion can be legitimately 
 drawn, but that there is nothing false in the 
 sacred Scriptures. This of course is said of the 
 original text of the Divine Word. It is admitted 
 that there are errors in all the existing copies of 
 the originals, as well as in the different versions 
 which have been made from them. The Council 
 of Trent declared that in the Vulgate we have a 
 translation which is in substance the same as the 
 original. Writing to St. Jerome, St. Augustine 
 (Ep. lxxxii. 3) shows the great respect he had for 
 the Scriptures. " I confess," he says, " that I 
 render to no other book the honour and reverence 
 I pay to the canonical Scripture, believing firmly 
 that none of the writers to these books have fallen 
 into any error. If in these writings I come across 
 anything which seems to me at variance with the 
 truth, I have no doubt but that either my copy 
 is faulty, or the translator has erred, or I mistake 
 his meaning." 
 
 But I may be told that this is an exploded 
 
200 INSPIRATION. 
 
 theory, that all who have regard to the state of 
 modern science are compelled to lay down quali- 
 fications and to make reserves which are a virtual 
 surrender of the infallibility of the Bible. What 
 then are these errors, scientific or otherwise, which 
 have been proved to exist in the Bible ? Because 
 it must be admitted that if errors have been 
 proved, the belief in the infallibility of the Bible 
 is at an end. Now I admit that it is not impos- 
 sible for science to do what it has done before, 
 viz., prove that our interpretation of many things 
 in Scripture is false. St. Augustine warned Catho- 
 lics in his clay not to put forth their private inter- 
 pretation of facts related in the Bible as if it were 
 authentic, because when learned men amongst 
 unbelievers hear that asserted on the authority of 
 the Bible, which they know to be false, they will 
 naturally say, If the Bible is shown to be untrust- 
 worthy in those lesser things, where it can be 
 tested, how can credit be given to it in higher 
 things, where verification is impossible ? But it 
 is one thing to prove our interpretation of the 
 Bible to be erroneous, and another thing to prove 
 the Bible itself to be in error. 
 
 The assertion on the part of men of science that 
 they have disproved the Bible, has been repeated 
 
RIGHT REV. BISHOP OF AMYCLA. 201 
 
 over and over again ; but the men of science of 
 each succeeding age have uniformly disavowed 
 the accepted proofs brought forward in earlier 
 times, and we may rest assured that the twentieth 
 century will pronounce a similar verdict upon 
 the so-called scientific proofs of the nineteenth 
 century. 
 
202 INSPIRATION. 
 
 Article XL 
 By the Venerable Archdeacon FARRAK, D.D. 
 
 rPHE question — In what sense is the Bible regarded 
 as the Word of God ? — naturally seems to in- 
 vite a purely historical treatment. It might be 
 answered by a catalogue of the opinions maintained 
 in different ages respecting the nature and limits 
 of " Inspiration," so far as the use of that term (of 
 which the Catholic Church has never attempted or 
 accepted any accurate definition) is supposed to 
 imply that the Bible is "the Word of God." The 
 particular formulation of the question would seem 
 to call for a chapter in the History of Dogmas. 
 
 It has not, however, been so treated by the 
 writers whose views are given in the previous pages. 
 One and all of them — Anglican Professor, Presby- 
 terian, Congregationalist, Unitarian, Swedenbor- 
 gian, Wesley an, Jew, and Boman Catholic — have 
 given their own personal views, or those of the 
 religious body to which they belong. It is evident 
 that they have all understood the thesis in the 
 sense preferred by Mr. Page Hopps — " In what 
 
VEN. ARCHDEACON FARRAR, D.D. 203 
 
 sense, and within what limits, is the Bible the 
 Word of God 1 " 
 
 1. Professor Stanley Leathes begins at once by 
 disparaging the statement that the Bible "contains" 
 the Word of God, and asserting that it is the Word 
 of God. His paper is apparently an argument that 
 the terms " Bible " and " Word of God " are to be 
 regarded as co-extensive. 
 
 2. Dr. Cairns, closely agreeing with Dr. Leathes, 
 furnishes additional arguments and illustrations in 
 support of the same view. 
 
 3. The Eev. A. Mackennal, while he claims for 
 the Bible an unique place in literature, and agrees 
 with the statements of the preceding writers that 
 it is " an organic whole " and a Divine Book, 
 enforces the fact that neither the Scriptures as a 
 whole, nor any separate boohs of Scripture, put 
 forward any claim to be " the Word of God." He 
 says that, though the phrase "Word of God" 
 occurs three or four hundred times in the Old 
 Testament, and a hundred times in the New, it is 
 not, in a single instance, applied to Scripture itself. 
 He thinks that the very distinction which Dr. 
 Leathes denies, between the Bible and some of its 
 contents, is grounded on Scripture itself. His 
 paper is mainly occupied with definitions of the 
 senses in which the phrase " Word of God " is used 
 
204 INSPIRATION. 
 
 in the Bible ; and as a result of his inquiry, he 
 holds that in the Old Testament it should be con- 
 fined to special revelations, and in the New to 
 Christ alone. He says that for many years he has 
 hesitated to describe Scripture by a term which he 
 regards as unauthorised, and that his hesitation is 
 increased rather than abated by the arguments of 
 Dr. Leathes and Dr. Cairns. It is difficult to see 
 what the previous writers exactly mean, but Mr. 
 Mackennal's meaning is very clear. " The attempt," 
 he says, " to attach a name of special sanctity to 
 all the contents of the Bible, ends in the degrada- 
 tion of that name itself." 
 
 4. Mr. Page Hopps, while agreeing with Mr. 
 Mackennal in his rejection of the term " "Word of 
 God " as applied to all Scripture, goes further still. 
 He, as a Unitarian, cannot even accept the view 
 that the Bible is " the authorised record of the way 
 in which God communicated His will to man." He 
 thinks that many even of the utterances expressly 
 attributed to "the Word of the Lord," contain "all 
 kinds of trivialities and not a few absurdities." 
 Many readers may be startled by these expressions, 
 and it is not my object here to examine them. 
 Mr. Page Hopps might, however, argue that they 
 are implied by even the most orthodox Koman 
 Catholic commentators, who only get over such 
 
YEN. ARCHDEACON FAPJIAR, D.D. 205 
 
 apparent difficulties by the aid of allegory and the 
 mystic sense. Even such a commentator as Pag- 
 ninus says, "Quic quid in serrnone divino neque 
 ad piorum honestatem neque ad jidei veritatem 
 yyroprie referri potest, figuratum esse cognoscas." 
 Even so orthodox a scholar as Flacius Illyricus 
 speaks of places where the grammatical sense 
 '• pugnat cum sana doctrina vel adversatur bonis 
 moribus." He says that the Bible is only the 
 Word of God "as all created things are words of 
 His," and denies that Inspiration is either super- 
 natural or miraculous. He would extend the use 
 of the term to what is called secular literature, and 
 hold that Kino: Alfred and Luther and Tvndale 
 spoke the word of the Lord as well as the Hebrew 
 prophets. In support of these opinions he points 
 out that not only does the Bible evince no infalli- 
 bility in scientific matters, but that it contains 
 " much which is neither eloquent, nor beautiful, nor 
 pure, nor edifying, nor accurate;" that we find in 
 it "varying standards of morality ; " and that the 
 Revelation which it contains has been understood 
 in as many different manners as there are different 
 sects in the Christian Church. 
 
 5. Mr. W. Crosby Barlow says that the Bible 
 contains a revelation, but that a revelation may be 
 translucent, or obscure, or mingled ; and that even 
 
206 INSPIRATION". 
 
 such a ''translucent" revelation as the Pauline 
 Epistles, presupposed for its right apprehension an 
 anterior revelation which is more or less obscure. 
 Since even the "translucent" revelation is con- 
 ditioned by the writer's possibilities as well as by 
 the reader's illuminated receptivity, it cannot, 
 under such limitations, be regarded as either 
 perfect or final. He, as a Swedenborgian, does 
 not, therefore, accept, without large qualification, 
 the view that " The Bible is the Word of God," 
 and says that that Word is not a written book, 
 but is " the presence among men of the Spirit of 
 Jehovah." 
 
 6. Professor Olver, in writing from a Wesleyan 
 standpoint, avers, in answer to Mr. Mackennal, 
 that "the Word of God " is a phrase which, in the 
 New Testament, is not confined to special utter- 
 ances, and that since the Apostles spoke of preach- 
 ing the Word, " the usage of the New Testament 
 justifies the custom of calling the Bible ' the 
 Word of God.'" He proceeds to argue that "the 
 authority of Holy Scripture is inseparable from 
 that of the truth of Christianity." He, therefore, 
 founds the authority of the New Testament on the 
 Incarnation, and that of the Old on the assertion 
 that Jesus claimed for it the authorship of the 
 Holy Spirit. He admits that by the Bible we 
 
YEN. AECHDEACOX PAEEAB, D.D. 207 
 
 must mean the original documents ; he would not 
 absolutely confine Inspiration to the sacred writers; 
 and he maintains that neither difficulties, nor 
 differing interpretations, nor the absence of a 
 perfected theology, can disprove that "the Holy 
 Scriptures are the authorised message of God's 
 grace to man." 
 
 7. Some readers might, I think, fairly complain 
 that of the preceding papers the three which appear 
 to maintain the current view of the Bible as beinsr 
 throughout supernaturally infallible and inspired, 
 are somewhat vague, so far as any close, definite, 
 or fearless handling of the subject is concerned. 
 Neither Dr. Lcathes, Dr. Cairns, nor Professor 
 Olver contribute a single element to any categorical 
 answer of the question honestly put by the per- 
 plexed inquirer, " Is the phrase 'the Word of God ' 
 to be applied to the Bible rigidly or generally t in 
 a strict or in a popular sense ? in a sense which ap- 
 plies to it as a composite whole, or (as Dean Burgon 
 says) to every chapter, verse, word and letter of it ?" 
 They seem to be fighting for a mere phrase which, 
 after all, they are obliged to limit and modify and 
 explain away, till it means nothing in particular. No 
 such complaint attaches to the other three papers, 
 whether they command our assent or not ; least of 
 all does it apply to the paper of the Rev. E. White, 
 
208 INSPIRATION. 
 
 wliicli is the clearest, the ablest, and the most 
 powerful of the whole series. He would argue the 
 question, as an Independent, not a priori — begin- 
 ning with " the old ecclesiastical theory of Inspira- 
 tion," but a posteriori, studying the Scriptures 
 apart from such traditional theories. Stating, 
 only to repudiate, the common ecclesiastical idea 
 of the Bible — that it is one Book which "from 
 Genesis to Kevelation is alike and equally the 
 Word of God ; " he shows — 
 
 (1) That in the first age of Christianity there is 
 no trace of any conception of " the Bible " or " the 
 New Testament" as one all-inspired Book, pro- 
 duced by a homogeneous theopneustic process. 
 
 (2) That the Canon was slowly formed by eccle- 
 siastical opinion, not resting on inspired authority. 
 
 (3) That the books of the Bible must be read 
 and studied as distinct treatises ; and that, so 
 studied, they will at once teach us the absurdity 
 of claiming for their production more than they 
 each claim for themselves, or of asserting for all 
 alike some uniform measure and quality of "In- 
 spiration." 
 
 Mr. White regards the notion of a homogeneous 
 infallibility running throughout the Bible as a 
 pernicious delusion, and appeals to St. Luke's 
 preface as showing that the Evangelists only claim 
 
VT.X. ARCHDEACON FA.RRAR, D.D. 209 
 
 to be truthful witnesses. He says that the Scrip- 
 ture notion of Revelation is a union of three 
 elements — "facts" in the world of phenomena; 
 " God-given ideas " in the world of thought ; and a 
 verifying faculty bestowed on the divinely-touched 
 soul. For his further remarks I must refer to his 
 paper. I agree with it more nearly than with any 
 of the others, and in various works I have already 
 urged, almost in the same words, some of the very 
 same considerations about the Bible regarded as a 
 progressive Revelation, and about the fearful evils 
 which have resulted from the abuse of mechanical 
 theories of a continuous verbal infallibility. 
 
 8. The paper of Professor Abrahams is chiefly 
 interesting as a proof that even among the Jews, 
 who have in many ages treated the very letters of 
 Scripture with an adoration hardly distinguish- 
 able from fetish-worship, there are now, and for 
 centuries have been, wide differences of opinion 
 on the subject of Inspiration. The common Jewish 
 opinion, however, is, that every part of the Bible 
 was equally inspired ; and that the proof of its 
 inspiration is an inspired tradition, and that its 
 traditional interpretation is also inspired. To the 
 orthodox Jew, therefore, not the Bible only, but 
 also the oral tradition, is "the Word of God" — the 
 
 only limitations being those which are inevitably 
 
 o 
 
210 INSPIRATION. 
 
 incident to human language, according to the 
 maxim that "the Law speaks in the tongue of the 
 children of men." And yet, after all this elaborate 
 endeavour to protect a particular dogma concerning 
 Scripture, the hedges of orthodoxy have been so 
 frequently broken down, that, at the present day, 
 " there is no single opinion on the question which 
 can be called the Jewish opinion." 
 
 9. Lastly comes the Bishop of Amycla. He says 
 that the Bible may be called the Word of God in 
 the sense that " It was written by men under the 
 inpulse of the Holy Spirit," and " that all that 
 is therein contained has been set down under the 
 imsjuration of the Divine Spirit." He explains 
 that by "the Bible" the Council of Trent means 
 specifically the Latin Vulgate, including the Apo- 
 crypha, and that " God " is the " author " of the 
 Bible (Apocrypha and all), and that all which it 
 contains is infallibly true. The three proofs which 
 he offers for this wide proposition are : (l) 2 Tim. 
 iii. 16. (2) The fact that "as nothing more than . 
 this would be required, so nothing less than this 
 would be sufficient." (3) That it has been asserted 
 by the infallible definition of Councils. He adds, 
 however, (i.) that the sacred writers were not 
 necessarily conscious of their own Inspiration ; 
 (ii.) that there is a human as well as a Divine 
 
VEN. ARCHDEACON FARRAIt, D.D. 211 
 
 element in their writings. Reverting to the ques- 
 tion of proof, he declares the arguments of the 
 previous writers, who have maintained that " the 
 Bible is the Word of God," are quite inadequate 
 to establish the Inspiration of the Bible. He 
 thinks that the Inspiration of the Old Testament 
 is indeed established by the New, including in the 
 term Old Testament both the Aprocrypha and the 
 Septuagint Version. But, apart from "St. Peter's 
 indirect testimony to the Epistles of St. Paul" 
 (2 Peter iii. 1G), there is no such proof for the 
 New Testament. He thinks that the " organic 
 whole " argument of Dr. Loathes falls to the 
 ground, because it has nothing to say to the ques- 
 tion of canonicity. He points out that St. Paul's 
 appeal to the effectual working of the Word of 
 God, is something widely different from a dogmatic 
 declaration that all parts of the New Testament 
 are equally inspired. He agrees with Bishop 
 Wcids worth in saying, that the Scriptures as a 
 whole can only be received on the testimony of 
 the Primitive Church ; in accordance with which 
 view he appeals to the Council of Hippo, a.d. 393, 
 and the Council of Carthage, a.d. 397. Turning 
 to limitations he sets aside as unimportant, and 
 argues against, the doctrine of verbal Inspiration, 
 on the grounds of the differing forms in which the 
 
212 INSPIRATION. 
 
 Apostles quote Scripture and the Evangelists 
 report the words of Christ. But, in opposition 
 (as he admits) to the opinions of some Catholics, 
 he denies that there are any errors, even in 
 historic or scientific matters, in the sacred books, 
 and asserts that it is only our interpretations 
 which have been mistaken, not the Bible 
 
 itself. 
 
 I have thus endeavoured to summarise- the views 
 of each writer. If, apart from its necessary brevity, 
 there be the least unfairness or inadequacy in the 
 summary, they will, I know, accept my assurance 
 that it is unintentional. Moreover, as their papers 
 are before the reader to correct any mistaken im- 
 pression which they may have left on my mind, I 
 cannot do them any injustice. The whole series of 
 p a p ers — we re it only from the variety of views 
 which they express — is a highly curious and valu- 
 able contribution to our views respecting a question 
 which has filled many volumes, but about which 
 another century must elapse before the last word 
 is spoken. Meanwhile, there is scarcely one 
 of these papers which does not suggest some 
 thought or principle which is well worthy of 
 attention. 
 
 1 . To a great extent it is clear that a question 
 about which Christian writers differ so widely, 
 
VEX. ARCHDEACON FAERAR, D.D. 213 
 
 must be much less important than to some of the 
 writers it appears to be. This consideration alone 
 ought to be suggestive to those who adopt the 
 extremer views. There is not one among them all 
 who does not regard the Bible as a collection of 
 books which have, as a whole, a unique and 
 supreme claim to our study and reverence. There 
 is not one of them who would deny that in this 
 Look, or nowhere, we find those sovereign truths 
 which are the rule of our faith, and the guide of 
 our conduct. Amid such a consensus of opinion 
 concerning the majestic superiority of the Bible to 
 all other collections of national literature, because 
 in it we hear most directly that still small voice, 
 in whose accents we recognise the messages of 
 God, the question whether or not we call the 
 whole sixty -six books by one particular term — 
 " the Word of God " — sinks into very secondary 
 importance. In the first place, as Mr. Mackennal 
 well points out, it is not a scriptural term at all ; 
 and in the next place, if it be thus applied, it 
 becomes, in any case, so ambiguous as to be under- 
 stood in very different senses. Those who appear 
 to apply it to the Bible most extensively, and in 
 its strictest sense, surround it with such important 
 limitations and modifications, as to rob it of all 
 power to connote for any practical purpose the 
 
214 INSPIRATION. 
 
 absolute perfection, and the absolute infallibility, 
 which should properly attach to a term so awful as 
 "the Word of God." 
 
 2. Secondly, it is encouraging to find, amid such 
 apparent diversities, so much substantial agreement 
 as to the authority and preciousness of Scripture. 
 This much, at least, results from the discussion, 
 if in other respects it does not throw any light 
 upon the degree, extent, or nature of that unde- 
 fined and indefinite " inspiration," which theologi- 
 cally describes the composition of the Holy 
 Book. 
 
 3. Thirdly, there are many incidental views in 
 these papers in which all Christians agree. All 
 Christians are at one with the previous writers in 
 placing the Bible above all other books. They 
 may learn from Mr. Mackennal that the popular 
 use of the phrase "Word of God," is not identical 
 with its use in the sacred writers. However much 
 they may dissent from Mr. Page Hopps, they must 
 admit that it is not in Scripture only that God 
 speaks to us ; and that if in another sense, yet in 
 a very true sense, He speaks to us also by " the 
 starry heavens above, and the moral law w T ithin ; " 
 by creation and by conscience ; by the heavens 
 which declare His glory, and the earth which 
 utters forth His praise, so that — 
 
VEN. ARCHDEACON FARRAR, D.D. 215 
 
 " Every bird that sings, 
 And every flower that stars the elastic sod, 
 And every breath the radiant summer brings, 
 To the pure spirit is a word of God." 
 
 They may learn from him to appreciate the remark 
 of Luther that u God spake " does not mean an 
 articulate voice in the air ; that " God does not 
 reveal grammatical vocables but essential things. 
 Thus sun and moon, Peter and Paul, thou and I, 
 are nothing but words of God." Words of God — 
 yes ; but certainly not supernaturally infallible ! 
 
 They may also learn from Mr. Hopps to make 
 due allowance for the certainty that Scripture is 
 not all written on the same level of uniformity, 
 and that it contains elements of very differing 
 value?. Without being Swedenborgians, they will 
 concede to Mr. Barlow that spiritual truths caii 
 only be spiritually discerned, and they may also be 
 reminded of an Article of the Creed which seems 
 often to be overlooked by those who look on In- 
 spiration as an exhausted phenomenon — "I believe 
 in the Holy Ghost." From the strong and manly 
 paper of Mr. White they may learn important 
 modifications of a hard and sterile dogma about 
 uniform Inspiration, by grasping the composite- 
 ness, the progressiveness, the unequal values, and 
 the fragmentary and multifarious character of the 
 different books, together with the complexity of 
 
216 INSPIRATION. 
 
 the idea of Eevelatiou. In the paper of Professor 
 Abrahams there is at least an historic interest ; 
 and that of the Bishop of Amycla is a careful 
 theological statement of the view held in the 
 Church of Borne. Moreover, it results very clearly 
 from all these papers that there is no such thing 
 as a " Catholic," any more than there is a " Jew- 
 ish," view of Inspiration. The Church has never 
 defined either its character, its limits, or its exact 
 application. The views of Christians differ, and 
 no dogmatic rule has been imposed. Any one 
 who chooses may, with perfect equanimity, and 
 with the consent alike of Scripture, of History, and 
 of Church tradition and authority, refuse to regard 
 the term "Word of God" as applicable in its 
 hiohest sense to all that is contained in these 
 
 o 
 
 many books of many ages. 
 
 4. Fourthly, the two last papers furnish a 
 singular comment on the two first. One is in- 
 voluntarily reminded of the remark of Faulcon- 
 bridgc in " Kino; John " : — 
 
 u prudent discipline ! from north to south, 
 Austria and France shout in each other's mouth." 
 
 The Bishop of Amycla answers, and very effectually 
 answers, Dr. Lcathes. "The Bible is the Word of 
 God, and it is inspired," say Dr. Leathes and Dr. 
 Cairns. The Old Testament is the Word of God 
 
VEN. ARCHDEACON FARRAR, D.D. 217 
 
 and all inspired, says Professor Abrahams ; but it 
 needs an inspired interpretation, and we can only 
 know that it is so by an inspired oral tradition. If 
 we ask how we are to know that the oral tradition 
 is inspired, there is no answer. The earth rests on 
 an elephant, and the elephant on a tortoise, and 
 
 the tortoise on ? The Bible, says the Bishop 
 
 of Aniycla, is the Word of God and all inspired ; 
 but the Bible means essentially the Vulgate, and it 
 includes the Apocrypha. That the Old Testament 
 is inspired, we know, he says, from the New ; but 
 this argument is, for argumentative purposes, 
 materially weakened, if not annihilated, when the 
 question of canonicity is set aside, and when the 
 Romish Church claims it as bein^ valid for the 
 Apocrypha, no less than for our Canon. Several of 
 the writers say that the " inspiration " of the Old 
 Testament is certified by the New; but if only 
 those books or parts of books which are alluded to 
 by our Lord and the Apostles {e.g., Christological 
 passages) are thus certified, then, on the one hand, 
 the actual amount of the Old Testament will have 
 to be very greatly reduced ; and on the other hand, 
 there are in the New Testament demonstrable 
 allusions to the Apocrypha, and yet Protestants 
 reject the Apocrypha as uncanonical and unin- 
 spired. "What is the value of any reference to a 
 
218 INSPIRATION. 
 
 perfectly general remark, like that of St. Paul in 
 2 Tim. iii. 16, if these preceding controversialists 
 all alike ignore (i.) that even in the Ee vised 
 Version it does not state that " all Scripture is 
 given by inspiration of God," but the wholly 
 different proposition that " every Scripture (or 
 1 writing ') inspired of God is also profitable ; " 
 and (ii.) if there be no authority accepted by all 
 Christians alike, to decide (for instance) whether 
 Bel and the Dragon, and the story of Susanna, 
 belong to Scripture or not ? Thus the Bishop of 
 Amycla, while he accepts the same formulas as the 
 Anglican and Presbyterian and "Wesleyau Pro- 
 fessors, neither agrees with them as to what the 
 Bible is, nor accepts as valid the proofs of inspira- 
 tion which they adduce. He rejects the doctrine 
 of verbal inspiration, and only receives the Scrip- 
 tures as a whole on the authority of primitive 
 tradition — the " primitive " tradition to which he 
 specially refers being the decision of two Councils 
 in the last decade of the fourth centuary after 
 Christ, neither of which is accepted as authoritative 
 by the English Church. Thus he rejects as value- 
 less the Protestant proofs that " the Bible is the 
 Word of God," and offers proofs, of which one 
 (" primitive tradition ") is valueless to them ; a 
 second (2 Tim. iii. 16) is controverted, and is in 
 
VEX. ARCHDEACON FARRAR, D.D. 210 
 
 any case beside the point ; and the third is a mere 
 a priori assertion, which has no direct or practical 
 bearing on the understanding of the question. 
 
 I have already said that my own views coincide 
 in great measure with those of the Eev. E. White. 
 I yield to no one of the previous writers in my 
 estimate of the sacreduesa of Scripture. To its 
 stud}' and illustration I have devoted much of my 
 life. I have not the least hesitation in speaking of 
 it genetically as ° the Word of God " in the sense 
 that in it, as a whole, I see a record of God's 
 revelation, and therefore one of the most priceless 
 boons which the mercy of God has granted to 
 mankind. It is only when the general phrase is 
 pressed into the superstitious — I had almost said 
 the fetish-worshipping — dogma, that every word 
 and letter of these sixty-six books proceeded 
 supcrnaturally from God; and that the sacred 
 writers were (to use one phrase adopted by the 
 supporters of verbal inspiration) " not only the 
 penmen, but the pens of the Holy Ghost," that 
 the phrase becomes not only unintelligible, but 
 profoundly dangerous. This post - Reformation 
 dogma I reject as utterly untenable, the daughter 
 of an unspiritual superstition, and the mother of a 
 casuistical tyranny. To say that every word and 
 sentence and letter of Scripture is Divine and 
 
220 INSPIRATION. 
 
 supernatural, is a mechanical and useless shibboleth, 
 nay, more, a human idol, and (constructively at 
 least) a dreadful blasphemy. How such a proposi- 
 tion, unless carefully guarded, presents itself to 
 the mind of a devout layman of genius — may be 
 seen in the remarks of Mr. Buskin. He calls it 
 "a grave heresy," or "source of division," to 
 declare " a group of books, accidentally associated, 
 to be ' the Word of God.' " He explains and 
 justifies his remarks in Fors Clavigera, xxxv., 
 xxxvi. To mention but one large limitation which 
 must immediately be made : the phrase, so under- 
 stood, attributes to God the words of men like 
 Judas, and Caiaphas, and the Pharisees, and the 
 imprecations of enemies in the Book of Psalms, and 
 the sceptical pessimism of the earlier parts of 
 Ecclesiastes, and the cold, cruel sophisms which fill 
 whole chapters of the Book of Job and the speeches 
 of Rabshakeh, and the decrees of Persian kings, 
 and much more of a similar nature. These belong- 
 indeed fitly to the historic records of a progressive 
 Revelation. That Revelation is a revelation vouch- 
 safed by God to men through the acts, the words 
 and the lives of men themselves. The sum total 
 of those acts and words, being liable to all human 
 limitations, cannot be called " the "Word of God " in 
 anything approaching to the same high sense in 
 
VEN. ARCHDEACON FARE Alt, D.D. 221 
 
 which the title is applied to Christ. Nor can the 
 book which records them be called by such a name 
 in any other than a general meaning. If we are to 
 stickle about popular phrases, it is infinitely nearer 
 the truth to say, as our Church says, that the 
 Bible "contains" than to say that in every part it 
 " is" the Word of God. 
 
 I am, therefore, quite unable to agree with much 
 that I find in the papers of Dr. Leathes, Dr. Cairus, 
 and Prof. Olver. They appear to hold that all 
 Scripture is, in every part of it, an immediate 
 supernatural communication from God to man, and 
 while they offer no proof which would stand a 
 moment's examination, they are compelled, in order 
 to prevent themselves from being entangled in 
 complete absurdities, to entrench their dogma in so 
 many hazy limitations that it no longer expresses 
 any intelligible thing. 
 
 Dr. Leathes says, that it is unfair to argue from 
 the wording of the Sixth Article in favour of the 
 statement that " Holy Scripture containeth all 
 things necessary to salvation," rather than that 
 " the Bible is the Word of God," because when the 
 Articles were framed the distinction had not been 
 thought of; and he adds that Scripture is not 
 "holy," except as being derived from God. 
 
 The first assertion is, I think, the reverse of the 
 
222 INSPIRATION. 
 
 fact. It seems clear that the expression " con- 
 taineth " was not accidental, for we find it aaain 
 in the Homilies : " Unto a Christian man there 
 can he nothing more necessary . . . than the 
 knowledge of Holy Scripture, forasmuch as in it is 
 contained God's true word ; " and again in the 
 services for the ordering of priests and bishops : 
 " Are you persuaded that the holy Scriptures con- 
 tain sufficiently all doctrine required of necessity for 
 eternal sanation through faith in Jesus Christ ? " 
 
 Eeformers like Luther and Calvin, feeling in their 
 own souls the life of a free Spirit, dealt with 
 Scripture in a much bolder, manlier, and truer way 
 than either their predecessors or their successors. 
 Luther in particular, in many passages, discri- 
 minates carefully between Scripture and the Word 
 of God, and by no means uses the two phrases as 
 identical. 
 
 The second assertion need not detain us lono-. A 
 
 O 
 
 book may be called "holy " without in the least 
 implying that it is either infallible or supernaturally 
 communicated. We should call the " Imitatio 
 Christi " a holy book, though it betrays a radical 
 misconception as to the true following of Christ. 
 
 In point of fact, the confession of the earlier 
 Eeformers, and the spirit of their writings and 
 practice — apart from a few popular and rhetorical 
 
VEX. ARCHDEACON FAERAR, D-D. 223 
 
 expressions — accord with the formula " Scriptura 
 complcctitur verbum Dei;" whereas the formula 
 "Scriptura est verbum Dei" belongs to the later 
 Helvetic Confession, and to such post Reformation 
 dogmatists as Calovius.* " Luther," says Diestel, 
 "gives to the Word of God a narrower and wider 
 sense than the Scripture. It is to him the expres- 
 sion of the Divine "Will, especially on its ethico 
 religious side." The two were first thoroughly 
 and rigorously identified by George Major in his 
 book " De origine et authoritate verbi Dei," 1550. 
 But Dr. Leathes proceeds to argue that if the 
 Bible only contains the word of God there can be 
 no absolute word of God at all, "since no two 
 individuals agree as to the particular elements that 
 are the word of God." It is strange that he should 
 not notice that his own view docs not in the 
 smallest degree prevent the same result. Mm 
 have fought with each other, and burnt each other, 
 and tortured and slandered and hated each other, 
 and to the best of their little power they do so 
 still, because, while they each declared the Bible 
 to be the "Word of God, they attached cxclu 
 
 * Dr Beard says, "It was an afterthought of less original and 
 courageous minds to make no distinction between different parts of 
 the Bible, to regard it all with the same dull and superstitious 
 reverence, and to force the most reluctant facts into the mould of 
 their belief.*— JIMcrt Lecture, p. 1G3. 
 
224 INSPIRATION. 
 
 importance to different expressions which occur in 
 it, or interpreted the same expressions in wholly 
 different ways. Is there no " Word of God " for 
 Dr. Leathes, because for the Bishop of Amycla, 
 Judith and Tobit are also " the Word of God ? " 
 Passing over the question of canonicity, w T hich is 
 so essential to his position, and bidding us accept 
 our ordinary Canon as " sufficiently correct for all 
 practical purposes," the Professor asserts that 
 " beyond all question the New Testament claims 
 and assumes for the Old " that it is the Word of 
 God. That the Old Testament generally is referred 
 to in the New as authoritative is clear, but so far 
 from being called "the Word of God," it never 
 once receives that designation. Our Lord did, 
 indeed, say that "all things written in Scripture 
 concerning Him should be fulfilled," and that "no 
 jot or tittle of the Law should pass away; " yet these 
 are sayings which differ toto ccelo from that dogma 
 of plenary verbal inspiration with which they are 
 strangely mixed up. Such a dogma may be found 
 in the decrees of Trent and in some later Protestant 
 Confessions, but has no place in our own standards, 
 nor in any Catholic creed of Christendom, nor is it 
 in the smallest degree involved in Scripture itself. 
 And that our Lord's words had no such meaning 
 is clear, since He set aside as null and void the 
 
YEN. ARCHDEACON FAR11AR, D.D. 223 
 
 greater part, if not the whole, of the Levitic 
 legislation, criticising it even in an essential par- 
 ticular as a concession to human imperfection. 
 
 Now heaven and earth shall pass away, but 
 "the Word of the Lord cndureth for ever." Is 
 this phrase, then, the fittest by which to describe 
 even the poorest parts of that which in the days of 
 the Apostles was already evanescing and waxing 
 old and "being shaken," and which has since 
 vanished away altogether? The Old Testament 
 (as the New tells us) contains, among other things, 
 " weak and beggarly ordinances ; " "a yoke that 
 neither our fathers nor we were able to bear ; " 
 "dead works;" a commandment which was "weak 
 and unprofitable;" and, as the Old Testament 
 itself tells us, "statutes which were not good" and 
 "ordinances which did not profit." Is all this 
 system of evanished and abrogated Levitism — is 
 this burdensome and narrow sacerdotalism and 
 ceremonialism necessitated by the backwardness of 
 a stitinecked people, but, as our Lord Himself 
 declared, now to be partly supplemented and partly 
 reversed — is it all to be identified with the most 
 rigid interpretation of a phrase which should be so 
 awful in its significance as " the AVord of God ? " 
 
 Dr. Leathes then proceeds to his argument about 
 the "organic unity " of the Old Testament, and 
 
22 G INSPIRATION. 
 
 says that, though " it is only in certain parts that 
 we can detect the Spirit of God as more especially 
 present," and "not all parts are of equal value," yet 
 it is inspired as a whole. Here, then, he is obliged 
 to admit the verifying faculty, and the right of 
 private judgment, which he had just practically 
 excluded. If we are obliged to decide by our 
 individual reason what books are, and what are 
 not, the Word of God, and are compelled to say 
 that the Word of God in this or that chapter is of 
 less value than in another, then, after all, " every 
 individual must discern for himself" what is to us 
 or in any sense eternally valid, the Word of God in 
 Scripture — a right which Dr. Leathes has just 
 declared to be fatal to his own thesis. Can it be 
 ever justifiable to criticise the moral and spiritual 
 value of the " Word of God ? " If the question of 
 the sense in which the Bible "is" the Word of 
 God is "not greatly affected" whether it does or 
 does not include "Wisdom or Ecclesiasticus, and 
 even the Book of Tobit," then it is difficult to 
 see the practical importance of the phrase which 
 in this sense is not scriptural, and is nowhere 
 insisted on by the Church of God. The rigid 
 interpretation of the formula must either require 
 us to accept every verse of Scripture as the 
 Word of God, and therefore as something tran- 
 
YEN. ARCHDEACON FARRAR, D.D. 227 
 
 Bcendant, supernatural, and infallible, or it becomes 
 a mere chameleon-theory — a Lesbian rule— a rule 
 of lead which can be bent any way. Obvi- 
 ously no such rule could have been delivered 
 to early Christians. Whatever may be the basis 
 of such a dogma, it is certainly not based on 
 Scripture itself. The churches founded by the 
 first Christian missionaries had no New Testament 
 at all, for not a line of it was then written. The 
 final settlement of our Canon was a matter of 
 three or four centuries ; to multitudes of the early 
 Christians no less than seven books — even of the 
 New Testament — were, more or less, classed among 
 the Antilegomcna, as books of which the authen- 
 ticity was not universally admitted, and which, 
 therefore, they did not regard as sacred. On the 
 other hand, many early Christians accepted the 
 Epistle of Barnabas and the Pastor of Hennas, 
 which we unhesitatingly reject. But to bring the 
 question to a test. It has always been an open 
 question whether the awful imprecations of Psalm 
 cix. 5-18 are David's own words or the horrible 
 curses of his enemies against which he is protest- 
 ing. What possible gain is there in either case in 
 saying that they "are" "the Word of God?" 
 The last verse of Psalm cxxix. appears to express 
 the unspeakable intensity of a burning hatred. In 
 
228 INSPIRATION. 
 
 its place — as the fragment of a literature which 
 contains a record of God's progressive revelations 
 by means of the history and writings of a chosen 
 people — it has its own profound instructiveness, 
 by way of warning, if in no other way ; but, 
 seeing that the spirit of that utterance is in the 
 most o-larine: antagonism to everv lesson of love 
 and mercy which we learn from Christianity and 
 from the noblest parts of the Scriptures them- 
 selves, what valuable result arises from insisting 
 that that verse, too, — or that Deborah's approval 
 of Jael's cold-blooded murder of the sleeping sup- 
 pliant to whom she had extended the sacred rites 
 of hospitality, or that many passages which stand 
 on a similar level, "are" the Word of God? Such 
 superstitious and unscriptural modes of regarding 
 Scripture have led men to believe in human sacri- 
 fice ; in exterminating wars ; in pious assassi- 
 nations ; in Jesuitical plots ; in hideous massacres ; 
 in revolting persecutions ; in sacerdotal tyranny ; 
 in doing evil that good may come ; in the duty of 
 indiscriminate witch-burning ; in those thrice- 
 accursed horrors of the Inquisition, and of ortho- 
 dox violence and theological hatred which have lit 
 the fires of religious murder, and reddened the soil 
 of earth with innocent and noble blood. 
 
 The argument, — if argument it be, — about re- 
 
YEN. AUCHDEACON FARBAB, D.D. 229 
 
 garding Scripture as an " organic whole," and, there- 
 fore, as throughout a supernatural communication, 
 seems to me to have a precisely opposite bearing 
 from that to which Dr. Leathes applies it. Scrip- 
 ture " as a whole," in ordinary popular language, 
 is the Word of God ; but if the phrase which is 
 true of the whole, as a whole, be perverted as 
 though it applied equally to every part, it ceases 
 to have any tolerable sense. The phrase it seems, 
 even in the view of its defenders, can, after all, 
 apply only to " the most important and crucial 
 utterances" of Scripture, and we must judge for 
 ourselves what those are. Dr. Leathes tries to 
 prove that " the Old Testament is the Word of 
 God" because it "contains" testimonies to Christ. 
 There is clearly no logical relation between the 
 two propositions. Neither from the fact that " it 
 may be presumed to have the Divine sanction," 
 nor from the fact that the special message of the 
 Gospel works effectually in them that believe, n<>r 
 from the authenticity of the New Testament 
 narratives, can any inference be drawn in favour 
 of rigidly accepting the phrase "The Bible is the 
 Word of Cunl," except in the sense in which it is 
 adopted also by those who think it more honest, 
 more accurate and more reverent, when they are 
 using the stricter language of theology, to speak, 
 
230 INSPIRATION - . 
 
 as our Church speaks, of the "Word of God 
 contained in Scripture. When Dr. Leathes argues 
 that the Acts of the Apostles cover an important 
 period, and would not be valuable if not authentic, 
 and "when he, therefore, infers that " the author 
 was delegated and commissioned to write it," and 
 that, since " its ostensible author was also appa- 
 rently the author of the third Gospel, it is, there- 
 fore, reasonable to suppose that he wrote with the 
 highest possible sanction," and, therefore, that the 
 Acts of the Apostles " may well be a treatise which 
 not only contains, but even is the Word of God;" 
 his ever-widening spiral ergo of inferences and 
 presumptions remains, after all, obviously valueless 
 for the support of a single dubious particular 
 which a hostile critic may impugn. To use such 
 arguments against the assaults of modern crit'cs 
 is like using bows and arrows against an army 
 furnished w T ith a park of artillery. They add 
 absolutely nothing to the value which the Book 
 has earned, from its intrinsic merit and truthful- 
 ness, as the narrative of the work wrought by 
 God's Spirit in the spread of Christianity. So far 
 from claiming a mechanical inspiration or a super- 
 natural infallibility, St. Luke, even in his Gospel, 
 puts forward no other claim than that of know- 
 ledge and diligence. Instead of employing this 
 
VEN. ARCHDEACON FARRAR, D.D. 231 
 
 weak chain of " presumablys," " apparentlys," and 
 " maybes," which have not a particle of demon- 
 strative force, and which link us to an unscriptural 
 phrase of dubious meaning ;md of many limitations, 
 I should proceed in the very opposite manner. 
 Taking one by one all of the objections which have 
 been advanced against the credibility of the Acts, 
 I should prove — as I have elsewhere tried to do — 
 that in every instance, and in the minutest par- 
 ticulars, the accuracy and trustworthiness of the 
 narrator can be triumphantly vindicated ; and I 
 should then claim the Acts as one of the sacred 
 books of our faith, because of its unique value as 
 setting forth examples so glorious and teachings so 
 holy, and as containing the record of that growth 
 of Christianity and of Christendom wherein, more 
 clearly than in all other events, we hear the Voice 
 of God speaking to us in the history of the world. 
 Such a method yields us a solid and impregnable 
 conclusion; the other method only thrusts upon 
 us the rigid acceptance and indefinite expansion 
 of an unautbenticated a priori phrase, incapable 
 of definition and liable to deadly abuse. 
 
 Dr. Cairns follows in the steps of Dr. Leathes. 
 Like him, he strangely set- aside the question of 
 the Canon ; he does not hold that the present text 
 is the very Word of God ; nor that the matter of 
 
232 INSPIRATION. 
 
 the Bible was all revealed for the first time ; nor 
 that it is so the "Word of God as not to be also the 
 word of man ; and he is " unable to answer a good 
 many difficulties which beset a strict theory of 
 Inspiration ; " and he " does not think it necessary 
 to say much about the sense in which the Bible is 
 the Word of God : " and yet, he, too, clings to this 
 formula, not in a general sense (in which it is 
 perfectly admissible), but in some particular signi- 
 ficance which it is very difficult to grasp. He 
 admires and adopts the strange argument that the 
 " organic unity " of a book (a phrase which for 
 every practical purpose drops to pieces at a touch), 
 if it imply iuspiration anywhere implies it every- 
 where; just as though, in giving the epithet "in- 
 spired " (in a lower sense) to Shakespeare, we 
 should necessarily thereby iuclude all the worst 
 plays, such as " Titus Andronicus " or " Pericles, 
 Prince of Tyre ; " or feel ourselves bound to defeud 
 all the " insane wantonness " (as it has been called) 
 of some of the scenes and poems. I cannot see 
 the least validity in this " organic whole " argu- 
 ment, The "success" of the Bible cannot possibly 
 j)rove that the whole of the Bible, in every verse, 
 is supcrnaturally any more than it is verbally 
 inspired. The very word " inspired " is of very 
 little theological value, until it has been authentic- 
 
VEX. ARCHDEACON FARRAR, D.D. 233 
 
 ally or authoritatively defined. In point of fact, 
 it does not necessarily connote an abnormal or 
 discontinuous, still less an universal and super- 
 natural infallibility. It occurs five times in our 
 own Prayer Book, and in every single instance it 
 is used of the present, not of the past ; of the 
 natural -and continuous, not of the finished and 
 unrenewable influences of the Holy Spirit of God. 
 \Ye, too, pray for inspiration — surely not without 
 the belief that we shall receive it. Is our inspira- 
 tion a miracle in the sense that is an exceptional 
 work of God within us ? Does it prevent us from 
 intellectual error or moral weakness? Does it 
 make all we say infallible ? Does it make even 
 our best utterances infallible ? If not, by what 
 criterion are we to distinguish between the " in- 
 spiration" for which we pray and which we receive, 
 from that "inspiration" — the gift of an unction 
 from the Holy One — which was granted not only 
 to the Apostles and Evangelists, but to all bap- 
 tized Christians? Dr. Cairns appeals to the pro- 
 phecies and masterpieces which Scripture contain-; 
 but these cannot possibly prove the co-extensive 
 miraculous inspiration of books and histories, and 
 poems w T hich contain no such prophecy and no 
 such masterpieces, any more than the sublimest 
 passages of Milton's prose works, can defend from 
 
234 INSPIRATION. 
 
 criticism Lis plausible sophisms and savage invec- 
 tives. The argument might indeed (as before) be 
 reversed. " The Mosaic system," says Dr. Cairns, 
 " was confessedly imperfect ; " and the Bible con- 
 tains " doctrinal difficulties and contradictions," to 
 say nothing of ethical and scientific difficulties. 
 Is it not just as fair, on the ground of " organic 
 unity," to argue from these imperfections and diffi- 
 culties against the thesis that " the Bible " is 
 " the Word of God," as to argue, from the grander 
 passages, that the entire book is the "Word of God, 
 and communicated by supernatural power ? Mr. 
 Mackennal, though he would not yield to Dr. 
 Leathes or Dr. Cairns — any more than I would 
 myself — in profound allegiance to the Holy Scrip- 
 tures, and such intense reverence for them as more 
 than justifies the devotion of every power to their 
 elucidation, yet pronounces it " inconceivable " 
 that the sacred writers should have applied to 
 their ordinary narratives the description that they 
 were " the Word of the Lord," — a phrase which, as 
 a matter of fact, they reserved for the highest and 
 most special communications. In the papers of 
 Mr. Mackennal and Mr. White we see the light of 
 calm, independent judgment rising above dogmatic 
 prepossessions to a clear grasp of truth. Un- 
 deceived by current phrases, which, except in a 
 
VEN". ARCHDEACON FARRAR, D.D. 235 
 
 popular and general sense, are neither scriptural 
 nor reasonably defensible, they have contributed 
 to the discussion its chief element of oricrinalitv 
 and permanent value. 
 
 Professor Olver argues, as against Mr. Macken- 
 nal, that early Christian preachers (before a line of 
 the New Testament was written) spoke of the 
 Gospel as " the Word of God," and therefore that 
 the New Testament may be so called. Certainly 
 it may, but only in the same general sense. If it 
 be maintained that even a St. Paul or a St. Peter, 
 by using this phrase, claimed any supernatural in- 
 fallibility for all their utterances, and for all their 
 writings, the New Testament itself furnishes ;i 
 sufficient refutation of so extravagant n proposi- 
 tion. It shows that even a Paul and a Peter, 
 though they were "inspired men," could err and 
 did err, both in their words and in their acts, dur- 
 ing the very epoch that they were preaching " the 
 Word <>f God," without detracting in any way from 
 the weight of their essential witness to Christ 
 Thus the New Testament itself destroys the 
 "organic unity" argument. Alike in the Old and 
 New Testament we arc guarded against the extra- 
 vagant error of supposing that the imparting of the 
 Holy Spirit was so total and so absolute as to give 
 
23G INSPIRATION. 
 
 to all the words of any man a supernatural infalli- 
 bility — a fallacy which seems to run through so 
 much of the argument devoted to this topic. 
 Samson was endowed with the Spirit of the Lord ; 
 David was still more highly endowed. Are we 
 told to infer that the " organic unity " of their lives 
 compels us to approve of all their acts or all their 
 words ? Does not the New Testament distinctly 
 tell us that Apostle differed from Apostle, not, 
 indeed, as regards their testimony to Christ, but 
 yet as to practical opinions of great importance ? 
 What is it at which some of the writers aim ? 
 They argue for a rigid interpretation of the thesis 
 that "the Bible is the Word of God," and yet, like 
 Professor Olver, they say that even in the New 
 Testament there is "a strange commingling of the 
 ordinary and the extraordinary, of the natural and 
 the supernatural." Apparently, too, the thesis has 
 no applicability for ninety-nine hundredths of man- 
 kind, since we are cautioned that it does not apply 
 to any wrong reading ; or any interpretation, or 
 any mistranslation ; or, indeed (strictly speaking), 
 to any translation at all ; and, therefore, neither to 
 our English Bible, nor to any but the original 
 Hebrew and Greek. For, says Professor Olver, 
 "Divine authority cannot be claimed for anything 
 
VEV. ARCHDEACON FARRAR, D.D. 237 
 
 which is not a correct translation of an exact copij 
 of an originally authorised utterance and ivriting." 
 Consequently, in spite of the "organic unity" 
 which makes every chapter and verse and word of 
 the Bible "the Word of God," nobody can be sure 
 of any particular word or verse, since it may be an 
 interpolation, like 1 John v. 7 and many small 
 glosses ; or a mistranslation like hundreds of pas- 
 sages in every current Bible ; or even a non-canoni- 
 cal book like those of the Apocrypha ; and in any 
 case an ordinary man, without capacity or oppor- 
 tunity for a "scholarly criticism" and an "anti- 
 quarian research," cannot have the least security 
 that what he reads in any particular passage La a 
 correct translation of an exact copy, or even — in 
 the face of differing canons — that it was " an ori- 
 ginally authorised utterance and writing." Thus 
 he can only decide at second hand, and from widely 
 differing authorities, what is the "Word of God ! 
 
 Were it not better, without these mechanical 
 theories and procrustean formulae, to speak to the 
 people concerning the Bible more as follows ? — The 
 Bible is the book which contains the records of 
 God's dealings with a chosen race, and through 
 them with all mankind. Above all, it is the book 
 which contains the gospel of His Son and the 
 
238 INSPIRATION. 
 
 lessons of salvation. It is not all of the same 
 value. It is not all written on the same level. It 
 does not teach throughout the same morality. It 
 contains some things which were permitted once 
 " because of the hardness of men's hearts," but 
 which are not permitted now. Much of it was 
 addressed " to men of old time," which we have to 
 supplement, to correct, and even to reverse. Much 
 of it is occupied with the " weak and beggarly 
 elements" of an obsolete bondage, "with statutes 
 which were not good and judgments whereby they 
 should not live." Much of it is written from the 
 imperfect moral and spiritual standard of " times 
 of ignorance " at which " God winked." You will 
 find recorded in it, and recorded without comment 
 or disapproval, some opinions and some actions, 
 even of good men, which were not commendable. 
 You will find attributed to God's command con- 
 duct which for us would now be heinously criminal. 
 Nevertheless, this book is a sacred book, for the 
 sum total and general drift of its teaching is loftier 
 and diviner than you will find in any book in all 
 the world. Both by its own loftiest utterances, 
 and by the Christian conscience which it has 
 trained, and by the final standard of its gospel, it 
 furnishes you with ample means whereby to judge 
 
VEX. AKCHDEACOX FARHAH, D.D. 2.30 
 
 what things are right and wrong. The Spirit of 
 God is with us still. The promise of that Spirit 
 was not confined to the contemporaries of Pente- 
 cost, and His influences are living influences, and 
 by them, throughout long ages, men have been 
 slowly correcting the errors and the crimes for 
 which their fathers have pleaded the sanction of 
 the words of this book. By that Spirit of God 
 you will be saved from the tyranny of a dead 
 letter which might otherwise be to you, as it has 
 been to thousands, a savour of death unto death. 
 He will not in the least degree make you infallible 
 or give the least authority to any assertion or 
 opinion or definition or interpretation of yours 
 about points respecting which Christians differ, but 
 He will teach you all things which are necessary 
 for your holiness here and your eternal happiness 
 hereafter. Your Bible is no homogeneous whole 
 which dropped down from heaven. It consists of 
 sixty- six different books, the work of at least forty 
 or fifty different writers, writing in different lan- 
 guages and dialects, and separated from each other 
 by hundreds of years. It is not a book but a 
 library'' or a literature. Great parts of it are but 
 the fragmentary wreck of a literature, from various 
 
 * See 2 Mace. ii. 13. 
 
240 INSPIRATION. 
 
 books of which — now no longer extant — many of 
 its writers quote. The Old Testament, of which 
 a considerable portion is by unknown authors, 
 extends over a thousand years. It is separated by 
 four hundred and fifty years from the New Testa- 
 ment. The translation of it is not always correct ; 
 the exact meaning is not always ascertainable ; the 
 text is not always certain ; the meaning is not 
 always clear ; and the moral decisions which it 
 contains are not always co-ordinate or comprehen- 
 sible : — but all this is a matter of no essential 
 importance, seeing that in this book, and above all 
 in the Gospels, which record the life and teaching 
 of the Saviour of the world, and in the Epistles of 
 the greatest preachers of that Gospel you may find, 
 not, indeed, a minute system about which you can 
 dogmatise, or religious opinions which you can 
 force on others with anathemas, but a moral and 
 spiritual guidance which you cannot mistake. The 
 cud of the whole book is Christ. If it leads you 
 to Christ its whole function is fulfilled. What is 
 essential for rightly learning the way of salvation 
 is not in the dead letter which may only kill, but 
 in the spirit which giveth liberty and life. " Do 
 not hear or read it for any other end but to become 
 better in your daily walk, and to be instructed in 
 
VEX. ARCHDEACON FARRAR, D.D. 241 
 
 every good work, and to increase in the love and 
 service of God." * 
 
 It is obvious that it would require a volume to 
 maintain and define all that I have said, but at 
 any rate I have made clear the view which is not 
 mine only, but has been in all ages the view of 
 thousands and tens of thousands of the saints of 
 God. In the Bible we hear the voice of God ; in 
 the Bible We may read the words of God ; the 
 Bible contains the messages of God to man. There 
 is, therefore, nothing wrong or unintelligible in 
 generally applying to the Bible, as a whole, that 
 which is its most essential feature. Such a mode 
 of speaking runs throughout the whole of our 
 ordinary language. But when the term " the 
 Word of God" is made co-extensive with every 
 chapter of the Bible, and with all that it contains, 
 the majesty of the phrase is at once degraded. It 
 becomes dubious, if not unintelligible, when so 
 used ; it has been perverted into that dogma of 
 absolute infallibility and plenary verbal inspira- 
 tion, which — combined with the equal infallibility 
 demanded for ignorant misapplications of the 
 dogma — has in many an age filled the world with 
 misery and ruin ; which has done more than any 
 
 * Jeremy Taylor, " Holy Living," iv. 4. 
 
l!42 inspiration. 
 
 other dogma to corrupt the whole of exegesis with 
 dishonest casuistry, and to shake to its centre the 
 religious faith of thousands, alike of the most 
 ignorant and of the most cultivated in many 
 centuries, and most of all in our own. 
 
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