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LIBRARY OF PRItCETON 
 
 JUN 
 
 THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY 
 
 BS480 .M16 
 
 
 
 
 
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 MacLaren, Will 
 
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 Witness of 
 
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 Spirit 
 
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 Reprinted from THE KXOJC COLLEGE MONTHLY. 
 
 Warfield Librar 
 
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 DEC 18 1925 
 
 THE WITNESS OF THE SPIRIT 
 
 IN RELATION TO THE 
 
 AUTHORITY AND THE INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE* 
 
 WILLIAM MacLAREN, 
 
 Knox College. 
 
 THE authority and the inspiration of Scripture are closely 
 connected, but they can be conceived of as separate. 
 There is a measure of authority due to writings to which we 
 ascribe no inspiration, in the theological sense ; but entire 
 inspiration necessarily carries with it complete authority. 
 
 Nearly all the most intelligent defenders of plenary inspira- 
 tion are careful to inform us that inspiration can be taken up 
 and discussed in its proper logical order only when the work 
 of the Christian apologist has been accomplished. It pre- 
 supposes that there is a personal God, the Creator and Moral 
 Governor of the universe, and that He has made a super- 
 natural revelation of Himself to mankind, of which the Scrip- 
 tures are a record historically trustworthy ; that is to say, they 
 were written by men of competent information and thorough 
 honesty. Apart from inspiration, it is evident that if the 
 books of the Bible are the record of a supernatural revelation, 
 written with as much accuracy as we ascribe to the best class 
 
 *A lecture delivered at the opening of Knox College, on Wednesday, October 2nd, 1895. 
 
(/ 
 
 of ordinary writings, they must have for us a considerable 
 measure of authority. Before we have arrived at any doctrine 
 of inspiration they speak to us with authority, for God speaks 
 in them as He speaks nowhere else. They make known to us 
 what we are to believe and do, with as much accuracy as the 
 facts of history are handed down to us by the best class of 
 writers. 
 
 On the other hand, it is evident that when we discover that 
 the Scriptures give us not merely a credible record of a super- 
 natural revelation, written by intelligent and reliable authors, 
 but written by men who were supernaturally guided to embody 
 correctly in language what God had supernaturally given to 
 them, they must necessarily have for us the highest authority. 
 While, therefore, these books might have a measure of authority 
 apart from inspiration, their highest authority is linked with 
 plenary inspiration. 
 
 All Christians assign to the Bible a position and authority 
 which they accord to no other book, and Protestants are wont 
 to regard them as the only rule of faith and practice. If we 
 cherish this view, we should seek to know the grounds which 
 warrant us to entertain it. 
 
 The Westminster divines and the Reformers laid great stress 
 on the testimony of the Holy Spirit, as the crowning and con- 
 clusive evidence which assures us of the infallible truth and 
 divine authority of the Holy Scriptures. Lee, in his valuable 
 work on Inspiration, criticizes, we think, not very wisely, the 
 position of the Westminster divines and the Reformers. With-- 
 out discarding the witness of the Spirit as a species of evidence 
 which is available, he maintains that it can only be employed to 
 confirm the authority of Scripture when that has been suffi- 
 ciently attested by other evidence. He assumes that it can be 
 employed only when the divine authority of Scripture has been 
 established by proofs drawn from sources external to itself. 
 
 Another class of writers run to the opposite extreme. The 
 witness of the Spirit seems to be the only evidence to which 
 they attach any value. When radical criticism has overturned 
 all the old views of Scripture, and led thoughtful men who have 
 come under its spell to question whether the sacred writers can 
 any longer be regarded as even historically trustworthy, they 
 point to the witness of the Spirit as giving us ample assurance 
 
— 3— 
 
 in the absence of all other evidence. When criticism has over- 
 turned the traditional foundations of our faith, we are comforted 
 by the thought that the only thing of real value, the divine 
 element that runs through the books of Scripture, is certified to 
 us by the witness of the Spirit in our hearts. Robertson Smith 
 says : " If I am asked why I receive the Scripture as the Word 
 of God, and as the only perfect rule of faith and life, I answer, 
 with all the fathers of the Protestant church, because the 
 Bible is the only record of the redeeming love of God ; 
 because in the Bible alone I find God drawing near to man in 
 Christ Jesus, and declaring to us in Him the will of God for our 
 salvation. And this record I know to be true by the witness of 
 His Spirit in my heart, whereby I am assured that none other 
 than God Himself is able to speak such words to my soul." 
 
 Another divine, with, at least, partial affinities for the same 
 school, assures us that he uses the Bible as an authority in 
 matters of religion, not " because of an antecedent conviction 
 that it is inspired ; we are convinced it is inspired because it so 
 asserts its authority over us as we read that we cannot but use 
 it in that way. This, I am confident, is the only rational and 
 experimental way of reaching and stating the truth." This 
 author informs us that it is as we use the Bible, without 
 any presuppositions whatever, that we find " it has power to 
 lodge in our minds Christianity and its doctrines as being not 
 only generally, but divinely true ; and its power to do this is 
 precisely what we mean by its inspiration." This witness 
 of the Spirit does not guarantee the accuracy of the details 
 of Bible history, nor even that what has been commony 
 regarded as history is not myth or legend, but it enables us to 
 recognize the divine element which pervades Scripture and 
 culminates in Christ. We are so brought in contact with the 
 divine element that by the power of the Spirit it begets faith in 
 us, and this is all we need. " The gospels," we are told, " have 
 every quality which they need to put us in contact with the 
 Gospel ; they do put us in contact with it, and the Spirit makes 
 it sure to our faith. Why should we ask more from them ? " 
 This is plausible, and it relieves us from the necessity of a 
 careful inductive study of what the Scriptures teach respecting 
 their own authority and freedom from error. It supersedes all 
 inquiry into the nature and extent of inspiration as taught in 
 
Scripture. For the only inspiration which is recognized becomes 
 known to us by personal experience. The power of the Scrip- 
 tures to lodge Christianity and its doctrines in the minds of those 
 in whom the Spirit works is what is meant by inspiration. 
 
 For this view of the witness of the Spirit this author claims 
 the authority of the Westminster divines, as we have seen 
 Robertson Smith alleges that of " all the fathers of the Protes- 
 tant church." 
 
 In emphasizing the witness of the Spirit, these authors have 
 directed attention to an important truth which has often been 
 too much overlooked in modern times in this connection ; but we 
 cannot admit that it should be allowed to supersede the careful 
 discussion of inspiration, or that these writers have presented 
 the doctrine in its proper relations, or that they are entitled to 
 claim for their views the sanction of the Westminster divines. 
 
 What we shall attempt in this lecture is to examine the 
 Confessional doctrine of the authority of Scripture, consider what 
 is involved in the witness of the Spirit of which the Confession 
 speaks, and, lastly, inquire into the relation which the witness 
 of the Spirit sustains to the authority and the inspiration of 
 Scripture. 
 
 I. THE CONFESSIONAL. DOCTRINE OF THE AUTHORITY 
 OF SCRIPTURE. 
 
 It is stated with great clearness and care m the Confession of 
 Faith, chapter i. 4-5: "The authority of the Holy Scripture, 
 for which it ought to be believed and obeyed, dependeth not 
 upon any man or church, but wholly upon God (who is truth 
 itself), the Author thereof; and therefore it is to be received, 
 because it is the Word of God. We may be moved and induced 
 by the testimony of the church to a high and reverend esteem of 
 the Holy Scripture, and the heavenliness of the matter, the effi- 
 cacy of the doctrine, the majesty of the style, the consent of all 
 its parts, the scope of the whole (which is to give all glory to 
 God), the full discovery it makes of the only way of man's salva- 
 tion, the many other incomparable excellencies, and the entire 
 perfection thereof, are arguments whereby it doth abundantly 
 evidence itself to be the Word of God ; yet, notwithstanding, our 
 full persuasion and assurance of the infallible truth and divine 
 authority thereof is from the inward work of the Holy Spirit, 
 bearing witness by and with the Word in our hearts." 
 
— 5— 
 
 In the Belgic Confession, Article V., and in the GaUican 
 Confession, Article IV., the same doctrine is distinctly stated, 
 and it is certainly sanctioned by the common consent of nearly 
 "all the fathers of the Protestant church." 
 
 Turning, however, to the statement of the Westminster 
 divines, you will observe that it teaches : (i) Negatively, in 
 opposition to the Church of Rome, that "the authority of the 
 Holy Scripture, for which it ought to be believed and obeyed, 
 dependeth not upon the testimony of any man or church.' 
 (2) Positively, that it " depends wholly upon God (who is truth 
 itself), the Author thereof." It is self-evident that, if God speaks 
 to us in the Scripture, the authority of Scripture, in itself con- 
 sidered, must depend on God. On that supposition, no theist 
 can refuse to admit its right to our faith and obedience. The 
 real point on which an issue can be raised is, How can we recog- ' 
 
 nize God as speaking to us in His Word ? If we can certainly 
 know that it is God who speaks to us in the Scriptures, we need 
 search no farther for grounds why we should yield to them the 
 homage of our faith and obedience. (3) The evidence to which 
 this section refers, which warrants us in ascribing divine authority 
 to Scripture, or in regarding God as speaking to us in the sacred 
 books, is threefold : external, internal, and the witness of the 
 Holy Spirit. These three lines of evidence are recognized as 
 valuable, although not all of equal weight. The witness of the 
 Holy Spirit does not stand alone, even when a careful examination 
 of the other evidence might lead us to doubt whether the books 
 deserved to be ranked as historically trustworthy. The three lines 
 of evidence concur in the conclusion at which we arrive. 
 
 According to the Romish view, which this ac^Hbn was specially ^s:^^^^:^;^^ 
 designed to antagonize, we are entirely dependent on the church 
 for the knowledge that God speaks to us in the Bible. A case in 
 some measure parallel will illustrate the difference between the 
 Romish and the Protestant methods. A son receives what pur- 
 ports to be a letter from his father, long absent in a distant 
 country. How can he know who wrote it ? We may imagine 
 that, when he reads the letter, he is entirely unable to discover, 
 either from the handwriting, the style, or the contents, any 
 decisive evidence of its authorship. For anything he can ever 
 learn of that, he is dependent on external testimony. In these cir- 
 cumstances, the messenger who brought it to him assures him that 
 
— 6— 
 
 he received it from his father. His acceptance of the letter as from 
 his father depends wholly on the character and credentials of the 
 messenger. If these are satisfactory, he accepts the letter, because 
 he has confidence in the messenger. This parallels the Romish 
 view of the proximate ground of the authority of the Bible. It 
 comes to us through the church, and the church certifies us that 
 it is from God. Christians believe the church, and, therefore, 
 they accept the Bible. But, with regard to the letter, a second 
 supposition may be made. While the son values highly the 
 testimony of the messenger through whom it reached him, when 
 he reads the letter, the handwriting, the style, the intimate 
 knowledge which it displays of his character, history, and cir- 
 cumstances, the spirit which breathes through it, and, indeed, 
 the entire contents of the letter, assure him that it was written 
 by his father. This illustrates the Protestant position in regard 
 to the external and the internal evidences of the divine author- 
 ship of the Bible. Both are recognized, and both concur in pro- 
 ducing the estimate which we put upon the Scriptures. 
 
 " The testimony of the church " may very properly move us 
 " to a high and reverend esteem of the Holy Scripture." This 
 specification may not cover all the external evidences, but it 
 excludes none. And, if the testimony of the church is viewed, 
 as we think it should be, as embracing not merely the corporate 
 testimony of the church, but that of its individual members, then 
 it certainly includes all that is most important in the external 
 evidences. 
 
 But, while the external evidences are recognized, they are not 
 regarded as of equal importance with the internal. They are not 
 accessible to the great mass of mankind. But the Bible demands 
 faith and obedience, wherever it comes. Were a copy picked up 
 on a lonely island by a man who had never seen a Bible nor 
 heard of a church, and who was entirely ignorant of the external 
 evidences of its divine origin, he could not read it without dis- 
 covering that it demands of him immediate faith in Christ and 
 obedience to His will. To every human being it speaks with all 
 the urgency of divine authority, and sets before him the choice of 
 life or death. Its words run: "He that believeth on the Son 
 hath everlasting life ; and he that believeth not the Son shall not 
 see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him," John iii. 36. 
 This feature of the Scriptures can be accounted for only by the 
 
— 7— 
 
 fact that there is a self-evidencing power in their message which 
 leaves those who reject them without excuse. They carr}^ with 
 them their credentials wherever they go. It is assumed that 
 men need to prosecute no course of learned and laborious research 
 in order to verify their divine origin. When we read the book 
 we may discover the impress of deity and the signature of its 
 divine Author, 
 
 The internal evidences are specially dwelt upon by the West- 
 minster divines, no doubt, because they are accessible to all, and 
 are the most decisive. The enumeration of particulars is very 
 fine, but it is not intended to be exhaustive. " The heavenliness 
 of the matter" must impress every thoughtful reader. "The 
 efficacy of the doctrine," which, during all the centuries, has 
 proved the power of God unto salvation to men of every clime 
 and character, bespeaks God as its author. " The majesty of 
 the style " is worthy of the claims made on its behalf. "The 
 consent of all the parts" demands a supernatural intelligence to 
 mould all its parts mto unity. It is made up of sixty-six 
 writings, the work of some forty authors, who wrote in almost 
 every conceivable style of prose and poetry at intervals during 
 sixteen centuries, yet one ripening plan steadily unfolds itself 
 from age to age, and gives to these diverse compositions a unity 
 so marvellous as to constitute them one book. " The scope of 
 the whole (which is to give all glory to God), the full discovery 
 it makes of the only way of man's salvation, the many other 
 incomparable excellencies, and the entire perfection thereof, are 
 arguments whereby it doth abundantly evidence itself to be the 
 Word of God." 
 
 These arguments appeal to the understanding, the con- 
 science, and the heart, and do often beget a strong rational con- 
 viction of the divine authority of the Word of God, and but for 
 the perverting and darkening power of sin would lead us to a 
 full assurance of the infallible truth and divine authority of the 
 Holy Scriptures. But we cannot forget that man is fallen. 
 Hence the need of something more than the most cogent argu- 
 ments which address our rational nature from without. These, 
 however valuable in their place, when they encounter the dead- 
 ness and the insensibility of a carnal heart, fail to accomplish 
 their work. In moral reasonings, arguments on the one side are 
 liable to be met with arguments on the other, which, if they do 
 
— 8— 
 
 not overthrow the argument, at least weaken its impression. 
 And the difficulties which attend any book which touches on so 
 many mysteries and impinges on such momentous practical 
 interests as the Bible can easily be magnified so as to shut out 
 the proper impression which the argument is fitted to make. 
 The impression, moreover, made by the marks of divinity found 
 in Scripture depends largely on the moral and spiritual condition 
 of the person who studies them. In the purely intellectual 
 sphere, the strength of conviction is regulated by the nature and 
 amount of the evidence presented to the understanding ; but in 
 the moral and spiritual sphere, the strength of the conviction is 
 often in the inverse ratio of the evidence. It is a proverbially 
 bootless task to convince a man against his will. It is only the 
 pure in heart who see God. And except a man be born again 
 he cannot see the kingdom of God. A mind swayed by pride, 
 prejudice, and passion, does not perceive "the heavenliness of 
 the matter " found in Scripture. It is only the musical ear that 
 perceives the beauties of musical harmonies, and it is only the 
 heart which, by "the inward work of the Holy Spirit," has been 
 made receptive of the truth to which the truth is unveiled in its 
 beauty. This is the explanation why men with ample evidence, 
 external and internal, before them fail to reach a divine faith, 
 until the inward work of the Holy Spirit, bearing witness by and 
 with the truth in their hearts, overcomes their questionings and 
 enables them to rest with full persuasion and assurance in the 
 infallible truth and divine authority of the Holy Scriptures. 
 
 II. WHAT IS INVOLVED IN THE WITNESS OF THE SPIRIT 
 TO THE AUTHORITY OF SCRIPTURE ? 
 
 It may aid us in answering this question to remember that 
 this witness is just one phase of the inward work of the Holy 
 Spirit in the heart. And it is admitted by all Christians, with, 
 perhaps, the exception of a few enthusiasts, that the Spirit does 
 not now give objective revelations to men. His work in our day 
 is to enlighten the mind and renew the will, so that men perceive, 
 in its real significance and in its relation to themselves, what has 
 already been revealed in the Word, and rest upon it as an 
 undoubted verity. 
 
 " The Bible reveals and verifies its authority only to regener- 
 ated men. Only they arecompetent to judge it, and pronounce 
 upon its true character, its purpose and its value." (Rooke, 
 
— 9— 
 
 p. 112.) When the divine Spirit regenerates the soul, the subject 
 of His grace sees the Bible with new eyes, and perceives a 
 beauty, meaning, and significance in it which he never saw 
 before. To the unrenewed mind there is no " form nor comeh"- 
 ness" in Christ, but to those renewed by grace He is the chief 
 among ten thousand, and altogether lovely. The difference is 
 not in Christ, but in the eye that sees Him. If the witness of 
 the Spirit is conceived of as partaking of the same general char- 
 acter as the rest of his inward work, it must be regarded, not 
 as imparting fresh knowledge from without, but as so touching 
 the springs of thought and feeling within us, and so quickening the 
 inner man, that we perceive in the Word features which were 
 always there, and were seen by others, but which had never 
 before arrested our attention. No fresh objective revelations, 
 whether by voices, dreams, or visions, are involved in this wit- 
 ness of the Spirit. It is a witness which the Spirit bears " by " 
 the Word as His instrument, and " with " the Word as the 
 standard with which He leads Christians to compare and test 
 their experience and life. When we see the sun shining in his 
 strength, we need no other evidence of his existence. And when 
 the divine Spirit, by His secret and inscrutable inward working, 
 opens our eyes to apprehend the real import of Scripture, and 
 to recognize its practical influence in the hearts and lives of men, 
 we need no other witness of the divine origin of the Holy Scrip- 
 tures. The truth shines with self-evidencing power into our 
 hearts, and there springs up within us, we scarcely know how, 
 a " full persuasion and assurance of the infallible truth and 
 divine authority" of the written Word. 
 
 Man's spiritual blindness, deadness, and insensibility, which 
 render such an inward work of the Holy Spirit absolutely neces- 
 sary, do not render it useless to ply unrenewed men with argu- 
 ments for the divinity of Scripture, or to point them to those 
 marks of God's workmanship which are wrought into its struc- 
 ture. Dr. Lee seems to think that the witness of the Spirit is 
 so unintelligible to skeptics and unbelievers that we might as 
 reasonably " discourse with the blind upon the varieties of 
 colors " as speak of this kind of testimony to them. But there 
 are two remarks which this objection calls forth, viz. : (i) If 
 men can attain a " full persuasion and assurance of the infallible 
 truth and divine authority " of the Holy Scriptures, without any 
 
inward work of the Holy Spirit in their hearts, for what purpose 
 do they need the inward work of the Holy Spirit ? Can any 
 step in the matter of human salvation be more difficult than 
 this which is supposed to be taken without the aid of the Spirit ? 
 Why should we not fall back at once on bald Pelagianism ? 
 (2) Bible analogies which hold in one point do not necessarily 
 hold in everything. Christ, on account of His stability and firm- 
 ness, may be compared to a rock ; but it does not follow that He 
 can be broken in pieces and trampled under foot. And if un- 
 renewed men, on account of their spiritual insensibility and 
 moral impotency, are represented in Scripture as blind, deaf, 
 and dead, it does not warrant us to infer that it is useless urging 
 upon them motives, or plying them with means. It does not 
 entitle us to infer that their wills have ceased to be " endued 
 with that natural liberty that is neither forced, nor by any 
 absolute necessity of nature determined to good or evil." The 
 Scriptures explain their own analogies ; they call upon the blind 
 to see, the deaf to hear, and the dead to arise that Christ may 
 give them light. 
 
 When we enquire. How does the Spirit witness in our hearts ? 
 the Confession answers "by" and "with" the Word. This 
 phraseology is clearly designed to indicate two distinct ways in 
 which the inward work of the Holy Spirit bears testimony that 
 the Bible is from God. But some difficulty has been found in 
 stating the exact difference indicated in bearing witness " by " 
 and " with " the Word. 
 
 The specifications of the internal evidences enumerated in 
 this section may give a clue to the distinction. They are not all 
 of one order. There is one class of these marks which we dis- 
 cover as we study the Bible itself. We have only to read and 
 meditate on what is spread before us there in order to see the foot- 
 prints of deity ; but there is another class of marks which involve 
 a comparison between what is revealed in the Word and what is 
 observed in man, in a state of nature, and in a state of grace. 
 
 In order to discover " the heavenliness of the matter," " the 
 majesty of the style," " the consent of all the parts," " the scope 
 of the whole (which is to give all glory to God), and the many 
 other incomparable excellencies, and the entire perfection of the 
 whole," we have only to examine the book with hearts receptive 
 of the truth. It is seen to be radiant throughout with the divine 
 
glory. As the sun evidences his existence to all who open their 
 eyes to see his light, so the divine authorship of the Scriptures is 
 patent to every heart taught of the Spirit. This is the witness 
 which the Spirit bears by the Word as His instrument. 
 
 But when we turn to what is here spoken ofas" the full discovery 
 which it makes of the only way of man's salvation," we require 
 to study both the book of God and the book of the human heart. 
 We have to compare the remedy with the disease, as set forth in 
 the Word, as made known in our experiences, and as revealed in 
 the records of the race. And when we examine " the efficacy of 
 the doctrine," we have not only to study our Bibles, in order to 
 discover the claims to potency which it puts forth for its teach- 
 ing, claims which even a false religion might advance, but we 
 have to compare the efficacy asserted for it with the results act- 
 ually attained in the lives of those who have embraced it. 
 
 We place side by side the efficacy claimed for the Gospel 
 message in the Word and the results achieved in the history of 
 the church and in our personal experience, and we find the one 
 is the counterpart of the other ; and the efficacy of the doctrine 
 is proclaimed by the record of its triumphs. The central mes- 
 sage of God's Word has, in all ages, been to the Jew a stumbling- 
 block, and to the Greek foolishness ; but it has held on its way, 
 doing its work unm.oved, and wherever it has come it has proved 
 the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth. It 
 has brought a consciousness of peace and pardon to the guilty. 
 It has transformed hearts impure and vile into the divine image ; 
 and lives fast sinking into moral degradation, it has ennobled with 
 lofty aims, with Christian virtues, and with high achievements. 
 
 When we are enabled, with true insight, to compare God's 
 remedy with man's disease, and to set side by side what the 
 Scripture claims for its teaching and the transforming power 
 which it has exerted in those who believe it, then the Spirit bears 
 witness " with " the Word that the book is of God. When the 
 remedy cures the disease, it proclaims the skill of the physician 
 who prescribed it. And when the wards of the lock respond to 
 the key, we know that both came from the same hand. 
 
 III. THE RELATION WHICH THE WITNESS OF THE SPIRIT SUSTAINS 
 TO THE AUTHORITY AND THE INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE. 
 
 Were we seeking to establish what we regard as the true 
 doctrine of the inspiration of Scripture, we would start,, as we 
 
have already indicated, at the point where the Christian apolo- 
 gist has successfully completed his work. We would not discuss 
 the doctrine with skeptics, but with those who acknowledge that 
 there is a personal God, and that He has made a supernatural 
 revelation of Himself to mankind, of which the Scriptures are 
 a record historically trustworth}-. We handle this question only 
 with men who admit that we have in the Bible a supernatural 
 revelation, recorded by writers of competent information and 
 sterling integrity. This stops short of inspiration. Competent 
 information is not omniscience, and sterling integrity does not 
 exclude all prejudice, bias, and misconception. We cannot, at this 
 stage, appeal to these books as infallible, but as trustworthy and 
 credible writings. Were the appeal made to isolated expressions, 
 or texts found in individual books, the evidence might not be 
 sufficient to establish the inspiration of Scripture. For in 
 writers of the highest character, we recognize the possibility of a 
 measure of unintentional mistake, and perchance these isolated 
 utterances might be the result of honest mistake, or slovenly 
 writing. But if it can be shown, as we think it can, that the 
 claims to inspiration, direct and indirect, put forward by the 
 sacred penmen for their own writings, and the manner in which 
 they recognize it in other sacred books, are so clear, numerous, 
 and emphatic, that we cannot regard the writers as honest, intel- 
 ligent men unless in very deed the human authors of the Bible 
 wrote under supernatural guidance, then we can construct a 
 rational argument for the inspiration of Scripture from writings 
 which, up to this point, have been viewed as only historically 
 trustworthy. 
 
 In this way, even unregenerate men can find a rational basis 
 for the conviction that God has supernaturally guided the sacred 
 writers to put on record what He had supernaturally given them, 
 or prompted them to write. This, without the inward work of 
 the Holy Spirit in their hearts, will not beget in them a true and 
 lively faith ; but it will, at least, put them in a better position to 
 study with a reverent and teachable spirit the evidences of its 
 divine origin, and to ponder the way of life which it makes known. 
 
 Robertson Smith, and those to whom we have chiefly referred 
 in this lecture, would, perhaps, object both to our method and our 
 conclusion. For we have seen that all they mean by inspiration 
 is the power of the Scriptures " to lodge Christianity and its doc- 
 
—13— 
 
 trines in our minds as divinely true." Tliis is an experience 
 which the Spirit ^ives to believers. It supplies no evidence of the 
 truth and accuracy of anything except the divine element which 
 runs through Scripture, and culminates in Christ. All we need 
 to know, and all we really can know, of inspiration is already 
 imparted to us by the witness of the Holy Spirit. 
 
 There are several points of importance on which we find 
 ourselves in accord with these authors, (i) We unite with them 
 cordially in the recognition of the fact that through the inward 
 work of the Holy Spirit believers have what is to them a decisive 
 witness to the divine authority of the Bible. (2) We agree with 
 them in thinking that the witness of the Spirit does not prove 
 the inerrancy of the details of Bible history. Whether a given 
 king reigned twenty or forty years, whether a list of names is 
 accurate, and whether variations in the record of the discourses 
 of Christ are due to the freedom with which they were reported, 
 or to the fact that they were repeated on different occasions with 
 variations, are matters in regard to which the witness of the 
 Spirit cannot be wisely invoked. Even good men are sometimes 
 in danger of claiming the Holy Spirit's sanction for their own 
 whims. Luther, who certainly had as much of the Spirit's 
 teaching as most Christians, did not hesitate to speak in very 
 disparaging terms of the epistle of James, and to reject the 
 Apocalypse as neither apostolical nor prophetic, because his 
 spirit could not adapt itself to the production. {Vide Lee, p. 46.) 
 
 But while the witness of the Spirit does not guarantee the 
 inerrancy of all the details of Scripture, it is equally certain that 
 it does not suggest doubts. If doubts arise, they must come 
 from some other source. The mental attitude natural to those 
 who have felt this witness is that of unquestioning faith in the 
 Holy Scriptures. Indeed, " the consent of all the parts " makes 
 it exceedingly difficult, if not presumptuous, for any one to say 
 what details have an important bearing on the great verities the 
 sacred volume was designed to make known. 
 
 There is another point on which we are in substantial accord 
 with these writers, viz. : (3) The witness of the Holy Spirit must 
 greatly increase the confidence in the Scriptures felt by those who 
 have not yet ascertained their plenary inspiration. Of these we 
 may note two classes, viz. : (a) Those who approach the Scrip- 
 tures from the side of the Christian apologist. From a careful 
 
— 14— 
 
 examination of the evidences, external and internal, they have 
 been led to the conviction that these books are the records of a 
 supernatural revelation from God, written by men of competent 
 information and thorough honesty. Viewed even in this light, 
 they carry with them a considerable degree of authority. But 
 when these same persons are led by the inward work of the 
 Holy Spirit to see the real significance of the revelation, which 
 argument had commended to their intelligence ; when they 
 discover its divine beauty and drink in its message for them- 
 selves, and when they find from their own experience that the 
 apprehension of its truth is somehow linked with a sense of 
 peace and pardon and the dawning of a new and higher life, 
 then they have an evidence more conclusive and decisive than 
 any they had before, and whatever confidence they previously 
 reposed in the Scriptures, viewed as historically trustworthy, is 
 greatly increased by this new evidence. 
 
 (b) The believing class who approach the Scriptures from the 
 standpoint of the higher criticism must readily admit that their 
 faith depends largely, if not wholly, on the witness of the Spirit. 
 Indeed, it is difficult to imagine to what other evidence they can 
 turn. For when they have examined the historic portions of the 
 Bible, and have subjected them to the usual critical processes, 
 and have gone through them verse by verse, and have sorted out 
 the words and clauses of each verse, according to the centuries 
 to which they belong, and the unknown authors to whom they 
 are assigned, it would require a peculiarly keen and well-trained 
 mind to measure the degree of credit due to the result. What- 
 ever that result may be, it is not history, and it rests on no 
 ascertainable historic basis. It may be myth, legend, or fiction, 
 or all three combined, but it is not history, nor a narration 
 which is historically trustworthy. This is a somewhat moment- 
 bus conclusion, as both the Mosaic religion and Christianity 
 have always been held to rest on historic facts, and, if these are 
 rendered uncertain, the superstructure cannot be secure. It is 
 not surprising that believing critics are glad to find a refuge for 
 their faith in the witness of the Spirit. They quite agree with 
 us in holding that the witness of the Spirit should greatly in- 
 crease the believer's confidence in the Bible. 
 
 Thus far we can travel on the same road with the writers we 
 are criticizing. We agree with them in holding that the witness 
 
—15— 
 
 of the Spirit gives conclusive and decisive evidence to believers of 
 the divine authority of the Scriptures. We agree with them in 
 thinking that, by itself, the witness of the Spirit does not prove 
 the inerrancy of Scripture. And we agree with them m the 
 opinion that before we have reached any conviction on the 
 plenary inspiration of the Bible, the witness of the Spirit must 
 necessarily increase the believer's confidence in the sacred 
 volume. But here our road divides. 
 
 It is manifest to us that the reality of the Spirit's witness is 
 no reason why we should not seek to ascertain what the Scrip- 
 tures teach in reference to their own authorship, accuracy, and 
 freedom from error, or, in other words, what they make known 
 in regard to their own inspiration. It rather gives importance 
 and encouragement to such an inquiry. For the witness of the 
 Spirit adds to the value of the data from which we reason, and 
 increases the certainty of the conclusion. We have indicated 
 that a thoroughly valid argument for the plenary inspiration of 
 Scripture can be deduced from its books, which, up to this point, 
 have been viewed merely as historically trustworthy ; but surely 
 such an argument gathers immense strength when, by the in- 
 ward work of the Holy Spirit, we are fully assured that the books 
 from which we reason are from God. 
 
 But while the writers to whom we allude cannot regard the 
 books of the Bible as in any proper sense historically trust- 
 worthy, they maintain that the divine element which pervades 
 them is so attested by the Holy Spirit that they are reliable as 
 teachers of doctrine. They do not acknowledge that their Bible 
 has ceased to be a standard to which men may appeal in matters 
 of religion. It has been supposed by some that this is the posi- 
 tion to which they are drifting, but they repudiate the insinua- 
 tion. The Bible must still rule our faith and practice. 
 
 They appeal to the Holy Scriptures for their doctrine of sin, 
 the Trinity, the incarnation, the atonement, the resurrection of 
 Christ, the work of the Holy Spirit, and the judgment to come. 
 They have not renounced the Gospel. But if they appeal to the 
 Bible for their doctrine on these momentous questions, why 
 should they not appeal to it for what it teaches in regard to its 
 own character, authority, and freedom from error ? There is no 
 reason to accept the authority of the sacred books on some 
 doctrines, and reject it on others. 
 
— 16- 
 
 The real question is, ^^'hat idea do the Scriptures give of 
 themselves ? Do they claim infallible truth and divine author- 
 ship for their contents ? Do Christ and the writers of the 
 New Testament handle the Scriptures as those who believe in 
 their partial or in their plenar}^ inspiration ? These are ques- 
 tions that can be answered only by a careful induction of what 
 the Scriptures teach. The Scriptures supply sufficient material, 
 we believe, to sustain the doctrine of plenary inspiration. They 
 do not teach it in the set phrases of systematic theology, but in 
 the incidental way in which they are wont to set forth all the 
 great doctrines of religion. They make known this doctrine by 
 a body of evidence, direct and indirect, that should satisf}^ every 
 mind which yields itself to the natural impression which Scrip- 
 ture gives of its Qwn composition and authority. It is certain 
 that the Christian church, from the apostolic age to the present 
 day, has always treated the Scriptures as the supernatural record 
 of a supernatural revelation. And it is unquestionable that the 
 majority of those who, in modern times, have studied the Scrip- 
 tures inductively in their relation to this doctrine, whether they 
 accept or reject plenary inspiration themselves, have reached the 
 conclusion that Christ and the writers of the New Testament 
 believed and taught this view of Scripture. Kuenen, who can- 
 not be suspected of an}' leaning towards a high doctrine of Scrip- 
 ture, says: " It is the conviction of all the writers of the New 
 Testament that the Old Testament is inspired of God, and 
 is thus invested with divine authority. It is unnecessary to 
 support these statements by quoting passages. Such passages 
 are, as every one knows, very numerous." (" Prophets," 
 p. 448.) 
 
 We cannot enter on the wide field of evidence to which 
 Kuenen refers, but we think it is almost impossible for any one to 
 read carefully the Scriptures without perceiving that the books are 
 represented as at once perfectly human and perfectly divine. The 
 writers put forth claims constantly which involve plenary inspira- 
 tion. They recognize the divine authority of their fellow-writers. 
 They reason from the exact collocation ofwords, from minute verbal 
 peculiarities or forms. It is, with them, a maxim that the Scrip- 
 tures cannot be broken. They believed that " holy men of God 
 spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost." 
 
 If the Scriptures are not reliable in what they teach regard- 
 
— ^1— 
 
 \ng themselves, their authority as teachers of doctrine is gone, 
 and we are at sea, without rudder, compass, or anchor. 
 
 We are aware that it has been proposed to modify what the 
 Scriptures have been supposed to teach in this regard by an 
 appeal to facts which are supposed to be inconsistent with a high 
 doctrine of inspiration. But this can be legitimate only where 
 the language is ambiguous, or its meaning, for some cause, uncer- 
 tain. When Christ spoke of rising again on the third day, His 
 disciples kept that saying in their hearts, questioning one with 
 another what the rising from the dead might mean. They evi- 
 dently did not know whether to construe His language literally 
 or figuratively, and their hesitation is not surprising, as they 
 could find examples in Christ's discourses of both modes of 
 speech, John v. 25-29. If they had put a figurative meaning on 
 His words. His literal rising from the grave, as an outstanding 
 fact, might very properly have qualified their interpretation of 
 the words. But it can scarcely be pretended, reasonably, that 
 there is any ambiguity or uncertainty in the teaching of the 
 Scriptures in regard to their own authority and inspiration. The 
 testimony of Christ and the writers of the New Testament is 
 decisive. In these circumstances, to appeal to facts to modify 
 the doctrine is not to treat the Scriptures with respect. It is 
 rather an attempt to discredit their authority as a teacher. 
 
 Our work in this discussion has been chiefly expository. We 
 have sought to unfold the Westminster doctrine of the authority 
 of Scripture and of the witness of the Spirit. And, while that 
 doctrine is, we think, in full harmony with the Bible, it does not 
 accord with the sentiments of some Vv^ho have claimed Con- 
 fessional sanction for their views. 
 
 We have seen that the Westminster divines do not rest the 
 authority of Scripture on the witness of the Spirit alone. They 
 base it on three concurrent lines of evidence : external, internal, 
 and the witness of the Holy Spirit. The last is represented as 
 the element which is decisive in the case of each individual 
 believer, but it does not stand alone. It is not presented as a 
 harbor of refuge to which the despairing mariner may betake 
 himself when he can no longer outride the storm on the open sea 
 of intellectual conflict. 
 
 We have seen that what is called the witness of the Spirit is 
 merely the necessary result of the inward work of the Holy 
 
— 18— 
 
 Spirit, by which the e}-es of the spiritually blind are opened to 
 see what is in the Word, and to recognize the transformations 
 wrought by its potency in those who believe. When our natural 
 insensibility is overcome and the eyes of our understandings 
 opened, the light of God's Word shines with self-evidencing 
 power into our minds, and we see in the book features which 
 " abundantly evidence it to be the Word of God." 
 
 We have seen that, while the authors to whom we have made 
 special reference do not regard the witness of the Spirit as imply- 
 ing the inerrancy of Scripture, they regard it as carrying with it 
 an adequate doctrine of inspiration. If a power to lodge Chris- 
 tianity and its doctrines in our minds as divinely true is all that 
 is meant, as they tell us, by the inspiration of Scripture, we 
 might agree Vv'ith them. But there is nothing in this peculiar to 
 the Bible. A religious treatise or a good sermon may, with the 
 divine blessing, lodge Christianity and its doctrines in our minds 
 as divinely true. We must read our Bibles with strange inatten- 
 tion if they do not teach us a higher doctrine of inspiration. 
 
 Finally, we have seen that, while the witness of the Spirit 
 does not prove the absolute freedom of the Bible from error, it 
 should increase our confidence in its teaching, and lead us to 
 search the Scriptures for the testimony they give and the indica- 
 tions they supply of the nature and extent of their own inspira- 
 tion. The result of this search is not doubtful. For we have 
 seen that the testimony of those who have made the most careful 
 inductive study of the Word, whether friends or opponents of 
 plenary inspiration, is that, if we do not accept the infallibility of 
 God's Word written, we must part company with Christ and all 
 the writers of the New Testament. 
 
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