UC-NRLF Ituiuevsita 0f 187 TECK PLENARY INSPIRATION HOLY SCKIPTURES, BY ELEAZAR LORD. NEW-YORK : A. D. F. RANDOLPH, 683 BROADWAY, 1858. ENTERED, according to Act of Congress, in the year 185V, by ELEAZAR LORD, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New- York. JOHN A. GRAY, Printer and Stereotyper, 11 A 18 Jacob 8t, Fire-Proof Building*. TO THE BEV. JOHN C. BBIGHAM, D.D., Senior Secretary of the American, Bible Society : MY DEAR FRIEND: I inscribe this volume to you, not merely as a token of personal esteem, but also as an expression of the regard which I entertain for your services in the official station which, during five-and-thirty years, you have occupied, in devising and maturing the measures, and extend- ing and guiding the operations of the National Society for publishing and disseminating, throughout this and in foreign lands, the great charter of faith and life the Holy Word of God. It is now about twenty years since, on removing from the city to this place, I ceased to act as one of the Publishing Committee of that noble Institution. Its progress in the interim the enlargement of its operations, its matured and conservative character, its hold on the con- fidence of the country and the world, its relations to the well-being, to the education, the principles, the thoughts, the words, and to the faith, the conduct, and the immortal hopes of millions of the past and the passing generation how intimately has your position connected you with all this I And what a significance of purpose, of tendencies, and of results, must a life so occupied have to one whose intellectual and moral convictions, faith and consciousness, unite in the irrefragable certainty that the Holy Scriptures are, " in truth, the Word of God." I would not, even by implication, commit you to any errors or defects hi the ensuing pages. It suffices me to know that you hold the plenary Divine inspiration of the Bible as a foundation principle, both of all effective and saving faith in its contents, and of all true Christian IV efforts to disseminate it, as well as of the obligation of every one who has that sacred Book, to aid hi furnishing it to others, and of their obligation to study and obey it. This foundation principle is, however, assailed by imposing and specious objections. How, it is asked, can the Scriptures, written, as they are, hi the language, styles, and idioms of men, be properly declared to be the infallible Word of God ? If I have done any thing towards a satisfactory solution of this chief diffi- culty, I shall not doubt of your agreeing with me in the main positions which I have advanced, as well as in the cardinal doctrine which I endeavor to defend, whether my auxiliary reasonings and illustrations do, or do not, in all respects meet your approbation. Wishing you yet many years of uninterrupted service in your wonted and genial post, I am faithfully yours, B. LORD. PlEEMONT, ROCKLAND Co., N. Y. ADVERTISEMENT. THE views which are exhibited in the ensuing pages, concerning the nature and effect of Inspiration, differ widely from the theories which have hitherto prevailed. It is shown, or at least attempted to be shown, from the sacred oracles, and from the constitution, experi- ence and consciousness of man, that language is exclusively the me- dium and instrument of thought ; that the conveyance of thoughts from one mind to another necessarily includes a vocal utterance, or a trans- fer, by inspiration or otherwise, of the words which express them ; that inspiration is affirmed, not of the sacred writers personally, but of what they wrote ; that we think in words, receive the thoughts of others in their words, intellectually conceive thoughts, are conscious of them, remember them, and express them, only hi words and signs equivalent to vocal articulations ; and that words intelligibly and legitimately used, necessarily and perfectly signify and express the thoughts conceived in them : and it is therefore argued, that the inspir- ation of the Divine thoughts into the minds of the sacred writers necessarily comprised the inspiration of the words by which they were rendered intelligently conscious of the thoughts conveyed, and which they wrote as they received them ; that on this ground, that which they wrote is in fact, and is therefore expressly denominated the "Word of God ; and that what they wrote was inspired hi the language of common life, and in the style and idioms of the respective writers, to the end that they and their unlearned readers might correctly under- stand it ; and that, when translated into the like phraseology of differ- ent nations, it might be level to the capacity and within the compre- hension of the common people. PIERMONT, September, 185G. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. THE STATE OP THE QUESTION, 9 CHAPTER II. PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS, ....... 13 CHAPTER IIL THE NATURE OP INSPIRATION, 62 CHAPTER IV. VOCAL AND "WRITTEN LANGUAGE, . . . . . .68 CHAPTER V. THE ORIGIN OP LANGUAGE, 69 * CHAPTER VI. THE NATURE AND REALITY OP INSPIRATION, ILLUSTRATED BY REFERENCE TO THE SCRIPTURES, 86 CHAPTER VII. THE INSPIRATION OP THE WORDS OP SCRIPTURE INTO THE MINDS OF THE SACRED PENMEN, EXPRESSLY TAUGHT BY THEM THEIR STYLES AND IDIOMS THE PERSONAL TEACHINGS OP THE GREAT REVEALER, ....... 95 CHAPTER VIII. WORDS NECESSARILY AND PERFECTLY EXPRESS THE THOUGHTS CONCEIVED IN THEM, . 135 VU1 CONTENTS. CHAPTER IX. NATURE AND OFFICE OF TYPES, 170 CHAPTER X. THOUGHTS REMEMBERED ONLY IN WORDS, .... 173 CHAPTER XL THE FIGURATIVE USE OF WORDS, 177 CHAPTER XH. FALSE THEORY CONCERNING LANGUAGE THAT WORDS REPRE- SENT THINGS INSTEAD OF THOUGHTS PRIMARY BELIEFS CONSCIOUSNESS, 185 CHAPTER XTTI. PRACTICAL BEARINGS OF THE SUBJECT, 211 CHAPTER XTV. THE ENGLISH VERSION OF THE SCRIPTURES, .... 235 CHAPTER XV. CONCLUDING OBSERVATIONS, . . 240 CHAPTER I. THE STATE OF THE QUESTION. No question concerning Eevealed Eeligion is of higher importance in itself, or in its bearings at the present time, than that which immediately respects the plenary Inspiration of the Holy Scriptures. What is the nature of that Inspiration by which the Divine thoughts are so conveyed to man and so expressed in human language, that the words of the sacred Text are the words of God ? This is the question. The solu- tion of it requires, as well with respect to any one as to any other portion of what is contained in the In-_ spired volume, such an exposition of the nature and effects of the Inspiration, as shall perfectly reconcile the fact, that the words as inscribed by the sacred pen- men, are the words of God, with the fact, that the writ- ing consists of the ordinary language in the peculiar style and idioms of the respective writers. That faith in the Divine Inspiration, authority, and infallibility of the Holy Scriptures, which is connected with eternal life, has, from age to age, been uniformly held, by the heirs of salvation ; and would have been in like manner, and as firmly held, had the nature and 9* 10 THE PLENARY INSPIRATION mode of Inspiration never been subjected to any theo- logical or philosophical disquisition. Of that faith the Scriptures themselves supply those grounds and evi- dences which Divinely enlightened minds and regene- rated hearts perceive and embrace, with intuitive and perfect conviction. Discussions of the subject, therefore, have had reference chiefly to another class to skep- tics, or to those having but an unsettled, historical or speculative belief to present to their view such rational considerations, and such historical, or other evidences, as might obviate objections, and induce conviction, that the Scriptures were inspired. To that class who are supposed, generally, at least, to admit that the Scrip- tures contain many facts and doctrines which man could not discover, and which, therefore, must have been re- vealed, and, if revealed, must have been inspired, it has been deemed to be of great importance to show what is the nature, mode, and extent of that Inspira- tion which is affirmed of the sacred oracles. This question naturally presented itself in connection with the fact, that the Scriptures were written at different periods of time, by men of different countries, and of various degrees of education and intelligence, and writ- ten in the peculiar styles of the different writers. Moreover, in the discussion of the subject, it has been : for granted, that it was the writers personally, instead of that which they wrote, which was alleged to <1. Hence, as their writings contained some tiling which were level to their capacity, and within ill- ir previous knowledge, and oth'-r things which were previously unknown and above their capacity, different kinds and degrees of Inspiration have been OF THE HOLY SCKIPTURES. 11 imagined, as being most likely to account for the vari- ous contents and styles of the sacred Text. Thus, ail inspiration of super intendency has been sup- posed, whereby the minds of the writers were pre- served from error in recording what was familiarly known to them, or within the scope of their natural faculties. Next an inspiration of elevation, by which the natural faculties were excited and invigorated ; and then an inspiration of suggestion, whereby they were enabled to conceive of things which were previously unknown, and undiscoverable. To these, indeed, some add an inspiration of direction; but they do not treat of it as differing essentially from superintendence. See Home, Doddridge, Pye Smith, Dick, Daniel Wilson, Hender- son, Michaelis, Grotius, and a host of others besides the Eabbinical doctors. It is not necessary at present, to take any further notice of these fancied distinctions, than to observe, that they have not been shown to have any foundation in the Scriptures themselves ; which on the contrary, indicate but one kind and degree of inspiration ; and that they create, but do not remove any real or sup- posed difficulties. The distinction made by some, be- tween Inspiration and Eevelation, is irrelevant and nugatory ; since, had any thing been revealed which was not also inspired, who could determine what was inspired, and what not ? If the whole was inspired, how can it elucidate the nature or mode of inspiration to treat of some portions of the matter as superna- turally revealed, and of other portions as within the previous knowledge of the writers ? But so far as we know, or can infer from the Scriptures themselves, 12 THE PLENARY INSPIRATION every distinct Kevelation was expressed in words ; and all the words of Scripture were inspired into the minds of the writers. In general, and especially wherever rationalistic cri- ticism and philosophical idealism and pantheism are dominant, the utmost vagueness of language, confusion of thought, and inconsistency of doctrine, are exhibited concerning the nature, reality, extent, and results of Inspiration. Those generally who have discussed the subject, seem to have directed their attention to the objections which they felt called upon to meet, or to the preconceived theories which they desired to sup- port, rather than to the nature and the inherent and necessary demands and implications of the subject it- self. Such, then, briefly, is the state of the question, as exhibited in the principal publications relating to it, both in this and other countries. Some, indeed, as Gausen, Haldane, and Carson, maintain the plenary inspiration, and consequent binding authority of the entire volume of canonical Scriptures, on the ground of their own testimony, that " all Scripture is given by inspiration of God ;" but they do not so discuss the nature and mode of inspiration as satisfactorily to obvi- ate the distinctions above referred to. There is, there- fore, occasion for a further elucidation of the subject. It needs to be shown that the nature and mode of in- spiration were such as to preclude variety of kinds and degrees, and establish the conclusion that every portion of the original text was alike inspired, and is, therefore, with strict propriety, denominated the Word of God, and the infallible and only rule of faith arid life. OF THE HOLY SCKIPTUEES. 13 CHAPTER II. PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. WITH the inspired volume of Scripture in our hands, we are in a condition to judge what was necessary in the case of a Divine Kevelation, by what has actually been communicated. Were we without a knowledge of that volume, we should be utterly incapable of con- ceiving, as the wisest of the heathen from age to age have shown themselves to be, of any one of its essen- tial truths concerning the perfections and government of the Creator, the invisible world, the moral relations and duties of man, his condition as a sinner, the method of salvation, or the retributions of eternity ; and equal- ly incompetent to discover the way in which such truths might be revealed. But with the Scriptures in our possession, we are made aware of the vehicle of Keve- lation human language, the ordinary fixed and per- manent language of common life ; and of the instru- ments employed in communicating the divine thoughts in that language holy men selected and qualified for the purpose. With these two preliminaries we are also made aware of what the Divine Wisdom deemed it pro- per to include in the volume which was to be the infal- 14 THE PLENARY INSPIRATION lible rule of faith and life a point which none but the Omniscient Being could possibly determine. And we find the contents as varied as the phenomena of human experience are on the one hand, and as the superhuman existences, facts, and relations of the invisible world are on the other. To the extent perhaps of two thirds of the entire contents of the volume, the original text consists of words which had been audibly spoken by the Kevealer to the writers. Intimately collocated and intermingled with these are passages of several distinct classes : 1. Passages consisting of words which are de- clared to have been spoken by good men, by angels, by bad men, and by Satan. With respect to these, whe- ther truthful and correct in sentiment or otherwise, it is the fact only of their having been spoken, that is authenticated by their insertion in the sacred books. 2. Historical and biographical narratives, in which actual events, acts, and sayings, whether good or bad, arc recorded, and thereby the reality of their occur- rence is certified. 3. Whatever of poetry or prose was inspired without the previous or coincident occur- rence of vocal utterance. -c varied contents conclusively manifest what it was necessary to include in a revelation from God to man, and in what relations the facts and doctrines of Scripture should be communicated to him; while ilu vehicle employed, the language of his ordinary life, implies that his constitution, mental and physical, was tly adapted to that mode of receiving divine in- struction. With these considerations, and the facts and doctrines of the actual revelation in view, we may safely assert, as what with the same knowledge would OF THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 15 be 'felt prior to an actual revelation, and as preliminary to an inquiry into the nature and mode of inspiration : 1. That a revelation of the mind and will of God was a natural and first necessity to man. 2. That the requisite matter of revelation, compris- ing supernatural truths in their due relations to the facts of human experience and consciousness, faith and life, could not, in any degree, be discovered by man. 3. That the vehicle employed in a revelation must be such as infallibly to convey the Divine thoughts to men ; and that human language, therefore, in its ordinary use and acceptation is perfectly adapted to that office : for otherwise, in a case of such infinite concern, some other means would have been employed. 4. That the manner of conveying to men the thoughts of the Divine Mind, in words, according to their cur- rent and familiar signification, must of necessity be like that of conveying in words the thoughts of one man to the mind of another : that is, in accordance with man's mental and physical constitution, and his mode of conceiving and expressing his own thoughts in words. A Divine revelation expressed in words, must be conveyed to the minds of the writers in a way agreeable to the laws of their minds in order to their understanding and intelligibly writing what was re- vealed. 5. That in every particular the contents of a revela- tion, the mode of communicating them, and the times, circumstances, and connections in which they should be committed to writing, must be determined exclu- sively by the Eevealer himself. 6. That as the supernatural doctrines and facts, 16 THE PLENARY INSPIRATION which in their due connection with the history, agency, and character of man, would constitute the Scriptures, were confessedly undiscoverable by men, or by any cre- ated beings, and, therefore, must be from God, their own testimony as to their authorship and authenticity would be entitled to be implicitly relied on. Those facts and doctrines would' be as conclusive evidence of their Divine original, as the visible works of creation and Providence are of the existence of a creator and ruler of the world, 7. That a Divine revelation would exhibit this evi- dence in the successive portions of the whole ; and by their correlation in respect to covenants, promises, and predictions, and their fulfillments, and by the superna- tural facts and doctrines common to the several parts, the evidence would establish the claims alike of all the parts as inseparable, involved in each other, and consti- tuting one consistent and perfected work. 8. That He who created man, knew beforehand that a revelation expressed in words, and written, would be indispensable, and He therefore gave to man a consti- tution and faculties perfectly adapted to his reception of such a Revelation. Hence He said to Moses : "Who hath made man's mouth? or who maketh the dumb, or deaf, or the seeing, or the blind ? Have not I, Je- hovah? Now, therefore, go, and I will be with thy mouth, and teach thee what thou shalt say." 9. That every portion of the Holy Scriptures must have been given by Inspiration of God, for the same reasons that any part or portion was so given that is, for reasons founded in the nature of the case, the ob- OF THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 17 jects of an infallible rule of faith and life, and the incompetency of man. 10. That the nature and mode of Inspiration must, therefore, be such as to constitute what is written, the infallible word of God ; the narratives and facts of ordinary human experience, equally with the original Revelations ; the historical, equally with the doctrinal ; the figurative, equally with the literal passages ; and those most strikingly characterized as of the style and idiom of the writers, equally with all other passages. 11. That all the contents of a volume so provided, must be consistent and harmonious throughout ; so that to suppose the contrary, would be as absurd a con- tradiction as to say that the laws of Nature are not uni- versal, because man has not discovered their applica- tion to all the phenomena of Nature. 12. That the objections of skeptics and errorists, to particular narratives, illustrations, styles, and idioms of Scripture, betray the same depravity and ignorance, which lead them to reject the peculiar doctrines re- vealed immediately from God in words of His own selection. From the stand point afforded by these considera- tions, we may apprehend the nature of that Inspira- tion which is affirmed of the Holy Scriptures. It is obviously necessary to any useful discussion of this subject that what is meant by inspiration should be clearly understood. In the present discussion that term is employed strictly in the sense hereafter to be more fully illustrated, as a Divine act by which thoughts were conveyed to the minds of the sacred writers. This, as is properly signified by the term 18 THE PLENARY INSPIRATION itselfj and is plainly taught in the Scriptures, is held to be its true and only meaning, to the exclusion not only of all theories of different kinds and degrees of Divine inspiration, but also of the prevalent notion that inspi- ration was an influence exerted on the faculties of the prophets elevating, superintending, and guiding them. According to this view, that which the Prophets and Apostles wrote was " given," imparted, conveyed to them by inspiration, in distinction from their capacity of discernment or comprehension being increased so as to enable them to discover the things to be written ; and being so given, it was both congruous and neces- sary that it should be conveyed in words and idioms familiar to those who received it, level to their capacity, adapted to their intellectual habits, and their personal circumstances, that in the natural exercise of their faculties, they might comprehend and duly commit it to writing. It is the effect of the act of Inspiration that we are to consider, not the mode in which the Divine efficiency was exerted. And in whatever mode the Divine agency was exerted, the effect produced by it was the reception and intelligent consciousness on the part of the writers, of the truths to be committed to writing, and in the styles, idioms, and collocations in which they were to be incribed in alphabetic characters. Subjectively, the writers received these communications, without any option, volition, or action on their part. Actively, they exercised their natural faculties, voluntarily and intelligently, in committing to writing what they were conscious of having received by inspiration. Their subjective relation in receiving by inspiration what they were to write, and as they OF THE HOLY SCEIPTURES. 19 were to write it, was the same as in hearing what was audibly spoken to be vocally repeated by them. In the one case they uttered, as they were often expressly commanded to do, the very words which they heard ; in the other, they wrote what they internally heard, received, became conscious of by inspiration. In the one case their voluntary agency was exerted only in speaking; in the other only in writing. There ap- pears to be no ground to suppose that their natural faculties were in any degree interfered with in either case ; or that they were any otherwise affected or ex- ercised than if the words which they wrote had been spoken to them by one of their fellow-men. By the terms Mature and mode of Inspiration, a re- ference is not intended to the manner of the Divine act, or the mode in which the Divine agency was ex- erted, in the act of inspiring thoughts into the minds of the sacred writers. That is wholly inscrutable to us. As in respect to the Divine act which regenerates the soul, we know not how it is exerted, but that it is ex- erted, we know by the effects produced ; so in respect to Inspiration, the mode of the Divine agency is not known, but the fact of its being exerted is known by the effect produced, namely, the conveyance of thoughts to the intelligent consciousness of the sacred writers ; and the question is, Whether the inspiring act con- veyed the thoughts in the words which were to be written, or without words ? If with the words, then the prophet would be conscious of the words and thoughts together, as in case of thoughts audibly ex- pressed to him in words. He would conceive and comprehend the thoughts in those words, as he con- 20 THE PLENARY INSPIRATION ceives of and comprehends all other thoughts in words ; would be able, therefore, to commit those words to writ- ing ; and when written, as when received by inspira- tion, they would be infallibly the words of God. But if the thoughts were inspired without words, then the prophet could not be conscious of them in the natural and ordinary way as in other instances of receiving thoughts ; since men are not conscious of uninspired thoughts apart from words. It is according to man's constitution, a law of his mind, that he should be con- scious of thoughts only as he is conscious of the words which express them ; a further Divine act, an act sus- pending that lasv, would therefore be necessary, by which he should be made conscious of inspired thoughts without words ; and still a further Divine act infallibly guiding him to the choice of the proper words. Such several and distinct acts are not to be supposed, without evidence, of which there is none within our reach. For the effect of Inspiration as made known to us, was the reception by the sacred writers of the inspired thoughts; Inspiration being a Divine act by which thoughts are breathed transmitted conveyed to the intelligent consciousness of those who were to write them in words. There is no apparent reason why the inspiring act should not convey the thoughts in the words in which they were to be written, so tiiat the recipient should be conscious at once of the thoughts in the words which it behooved him to write. And that such was the effect of the Divine act of In- spiration, is evident from a variety of considerations. 1. It was that which is called the Scriptures the OF THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 21 writings, the words which were written by the Sacred Penmen, that was given by inspiration. (2 Tim. 3:16.) 2. The words as written were the infallible words of God ; which implies that they were conveyed by Him to the writers with the thoughts, so that they could in- telligently conceive the thoughts in the words, and commit them to writing. To suppose them after re- ceiving the thoughts by inspiration, to select the words under the guidance of a Divine influence, is to suppose a joint agency in the selection ; in which case the words would not be exclusively the words of God. 3. The necessity of an inspiration of the words to be written, must have been as absolute as that of an in- spiration of the thoughts to be expressed in writing ; at least, in innumerable instances such as those in which words previously unknown to the writer were required, and those in predictions which required typi- cal, figurative, or symbolic, representations. So in very numerous instances where words are written which are said to have been spoken at times and places at which the writers were not present ; and cases like that of the prophecy of Enoch recorded by the Apostle Jude. In all such cases it would seem to be indubit- able that the words must have been inspired. 4. Though Inspiration was an immediate super- natural work of God ; it is abundantly evident that it did not suspend or counteract any law, function, or faculty of the human mind. The Prophets and Apos- tles when vocally uttering what they were at the same time receiving by inspiration, had the ordinary use of all their faculties ; and equally so when uttering the same in alphabetic characters. 22 THE PLENAKY INSPIKATION 5. In all other instances thoughts conveyed from one mind to another are conveyed in words, or signs equiv- alent to vocal articulations ; and there does not appear to be any thing in the nature of the case to justify the supposition that the conveyance of thoughts by inspir- ation is an exception to the general rule. 6. It is inconceivable that thoughts should be con- veyed into the mind of man by inspiration without words, so that he could conceive them without words, and select words whereby to express them, unless the act of Inspiration suspended the natural exercise of his faculties of conception and consciousness, and caused a supernatural consciousness, and power of conception, which would be incompatible with the necessary exer- cise of those and other faculties in the selection of words. For in the natural exercise of his powers he can neither conceive nor be conscious of thoughts apart from words ; and any Divine guidance of him as a ra- tional agent in the selection of words, must be a guidance of the natural and rational exercise of his faculties. If it is a law of our nature that we can intellectually conceive thoughts and receive thoughts from others, so as to be conscious of and remember them only in words, then we may with confidence conclude, that both thoughts and words were conveyed by inspiration ; and this accordingly is, in various ways, taught and implied in every part of the Scriptures. To those of the Apos- tles who were disciples and heard the words of the Lord Jesus, it was promised, that in the exercise of their peculiar office, the Spirit should bring to their re- membrance whatever he had said unto them that is, OF THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 23 should inspire into their minds render them renew- edl j conscious of the same words which they had heard spoken, or of the same thoughts in equivalent words. Paul who, not having been a disciple, had not heard those words, was caught up to Paradise to receive reve- lations of the Gospel directly from the Lord. It was the peculiarity of their office that, in the exercise of it, they spoke and wrote only what was given them by inspiration. The things which they were to testify were communicated to them by inspiration ; and they testified them not in words of their own selection, but in the words which the Holy Ghost taught them. (1 Cor. 2.) When accused and brought before magis- trates, they were expressly forbidden to premeditate what they should say. " Take no thought beforehand what ye shall speak, neither do ye premeditate ; but whatsoever shall be given you in that hour [more strictly, in that moment] that speak ye ; for it is not ye thatspeak, but the Holy Ghost." (Mark 13.) "Take ye no thought how or what thing ye shall answer, or what ye shall say : For the Holy Ghost shall teach you in the same hour [moment] what ye ought to say." (Luke 12.) In these and all other statements and allusions to the subject, the supposition that those who received Di- vine communications by inspiration, had any agency in selecting the words to express those communications, is precluded. The Holy Ghost spake by them, by David and the prophets, as His instruments. His word was on their tongues. The Divine act of Inspiration did not contravene or disturb the exercise of their natural faculties or the laws which governed them, but was in harmony with them. They acted rationally 24 THE PLENARY INSPIRATION and voluntarily in speaking the inspired words, and in writing them. If the reader doubts as to the alleged law of man's nature, and imagines that he receives, conceives, is con- scious of and remembers thoughts independently of words, let him prove it by telling vocally or by writing what those thoughts are. It is a matter for his consciousness to decide ; not a matter to be proved to him by argument. If he has a dis- tinct consciousness of thinking or having thoughts upon any subject whatever, otherwise, in fact or degree, than as he is conscious of conceiving those thoughts in words conceiving particular words as the vesture, vehicle, instrument, adjunct, necessary matrix or condition, of the thoughts conceiving the thoughts and words together conceiving and being conscious of the thoughts, in manner and degree, only as he con- ceives and is conscious of that which signifies them, and which, whether silently articulated or expressed by vocal utterance, or by written characters, we call words ; then may he demur and hesitate as to whether the law in question is a law of our nature. But in that case, since it is indubitable that, as a general rule, we conceive and are conscious of our thoughts in words, he ought to be able to specify what thoughts he 1ms, that are not subject to that rule. And that, no doubt, he will be able to do if he has a distinct consciousness of them. And he will be able to tell whether he con- ceives those particular excepted thoughts in that or- derly succession which is necessary to constitute intelli- gible sentences, or whether he conceives them without that condition, and determines the succession by the OF THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 25 collocation of the words which he selects as the means of expressing them in sentences, propositions, deduc- tions, questions, affirmations, and the like. If the reader can not discern to his own entire satis- faction, whether or not he does, or by possibility can, think independently of words, he nevertheless may readily perceive that, as to the general rule, he does not. He may perceive this in all instances in which he is distinctly conscious of particular thoughts, and therefore, so far as he has the clear testimony of con- sciousness, he may conclude that such is the general rule. It may not be possible to demonstrate that we think only in words and in signs equivalent to words; while on the contrary it is undoubtedly impossible to prove that we do, or can, think independently of words, for we have no consciousness of thinking, except in words. But, considering the importance of the question, Whe- ther it is a law of our intellectual constitution, that every cogitative act includes, as its medium and instru- ment, the words which express the thoughts conceived? some further observations may be permitted on this point. The particular words employed in the construction of sentences, and all that concerns the arrangement of them, and their relations, imply that we conceive the thoughts in those words in the orderly succession in which they are disposed. Thus the qualifying words, the particles, the parenthetical and elliptical expressions, the comparisons, the interrogatories, hyperboles, affirm- ations, negations, and all other modifications of expres- 2 26 THE PLENARY INSPIRATION sion in sentences, imply that the -words are not selected and arranged after the thoughts are conceived. The thought conveyed in a perfect sentence, is that thought only as it is defined, limited, qualified, by the particular words employed and collocated as they are when the sentence is written To conceive the thought, therefore, is to conceive all that constitutes it a thought as expressed in writing. To conceive it without words would in effect be the same as to conceive it in words duly arranged as when written. As conceived with- out words it must, in order to express it, be written in the same words that it would be written in, were it conceived in words. Accordingly we are no sooner conscious of the thoughts than we are conscious of the words. There is, therefore, nothing gained by suppos- ing that we do, or can, think without words. The in- ference from such a supposition would be, at most, only that we first conceive our thoughts independently of words, and that being to no practical purpose, then se- lect the verbal expressions, and conceive the same thoughts in words, to the end that we may be conscious of them, remember them, and express them to others. But such a supposition is incredible, since there can be no conceivable relation between words, and thoughts conceived independently of words ; so that it would be impossible without omniscience or a miracle, to select words proper for thoughts which we were not conscious of, and could not be conscious of without the words. The difficulty might be illustrated by referring to sentences characterized by ellipses, parentheses, a tro- pical or deflected use of words, types, allegories, para- bles, symbolic acts, qualifying words and particles. It OF THE HOLY SCRIPTUEES. 27 is, at least of all cultivated languages, a feature due to the inconceivable rapidity of thought, that in proportion as they are cultivated and expressive, they exhibit the fewest possible words for the expression of particular thoughts, omitting such as the scope of the sentence would naturally supply without injury to the thought to be expressed ; and inserting such parenthetically as, in the connection, would serve the purpose of an inde- pendent sentence, or of extended circumlocutions in the text. This feature of spoken and written language is as noticeable in tongues which are most affluent of words, as in those which are least so. For in the most copious there are no words which do not express par- ticular thoughts, or shades of thought, and for which those who are masters of them have not thoughts to be expressed ; and in those tongues which have fewer words, the thoughts of those who use them are equally restricted. In either case the rapidity of thought may be equal, and equally give rise to ellipses and parenthe- ses, tropes, emblems, and other illustrative or modify- ing expressions. But did we conceive thoughts independently of words, and then by a more slow and deliberate, or at least by a distinct process select the words to be spoken or written, several things, in addition to such concep- tions, would naturally be implied. 1. It would be ne- cessary to establish a relation between our words and our thoughts, so as to render one the exact counter- part and correlate of the other. 2. It would be ne- cessary in every sentence to decide, whether in order to a perfect expression of the thought, any ellipsis, pa- renthesis, trope, comparison, qualifying term, negative 28 THE PLENARY INSPIRATION or affirmative, definite or indefinite particle, was de- manded and admissible. This would require that all the words of a sentence should be mentally reviewed, the force of each, its relations to the others, and to the thought to be conveyed by the sentence, carefully con- sidered, along with the question, whether the intro- duction or the omission of any qualifying words or phrases, or any change of words, or of the arrangement of them, would help or mar the sense. The process of selecting and adjusting the words of a sentence, so as correctly to express a particular thought, would be like attempting to translate a sentence, written in our native tongue, into a language foreign to us, with no other guide or assistance than that of a dictionary ; or it would be like an attempt so to arrange arithmetical figures as to express unknown and indefinite quantities. For if thoughts exist independently of words, and there is no normal and necessary connection and rela- tion between them, they must be, in regard to any manner of expressing them, wholly indefinite. There is no fixed rule by which to tell what they are, no cor- relate, no standard by which to measure them. And if words have each a definite meaning, the selection and adjustment of them so as to express particular thoughts, with which they have previously no connection, must be like that of determining unknown and indefinite quan- tities and proportions by an adjustment of the figures of arithmetic, or like selecting and adjusting sounds so as to constitute to the ear the melody of an unknown tune. For it is undoubtedly true that, if we in any manner conceive or have thoughts independently of words, we are not conscious of them ; and while we OF THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 29 are not conscious of them, a conscious selection of words whereby to express them, must be a selection to express what is unknown to us. To say, on supposition that we think independently of words, that there is, nevertheless, and must be, a re- lation and connection of our words when selected, with our thoughts as we conceive them, is to give up the point in debate. For either that connection is coeval with the thoughts or is of subsequent and artificial ori- gin. If coeval, then the conception of the thoughts and the words is identical. If not coeval, and founded in the very nature of thought and language, then the connection supposed is not a necessary connection neither necessary to the existence of the thoughts, nor the cause of our being conscious of and remembering them. That consciousness of thoughts in words which we have when we conceive particular thoughts, is renewed reproduced by the act which we call recollecting or remembering. It is that which we were formerly con- scious of that we remember ; and that includes the words as invariably and as perfectly as it includes the thoughts remembered which implies that the two are connected, not by an artificial, casual, or uncertain re- lation, but inherently and indissolubly, as necessary correlates and concomitants. Our experience and con- sciousness of agreeable or of painful sensations and emotions, may have a present connection with our thoughts ; but when we recollect those agreeable or painful affections, the original sensations are not repro- duced, but only a consciousness of the words and the thoughts, which they originally occasioned. The joy 30 THE PLENARY INSPIRATION and the pain are not renewed as sensations or emotions, but only our original thoughts of them, and the words which signified them. But invariably, in remembering our past thoughts, we remember the words which were identified with them. It is worthy of remark as corroborating the fact that we think only in words, not only that in dreams as re- collected, there is a distinct remembrance of the words in which successive thoughts passed through the mind, as of words spoken by the dreamer, or words spoken by others to him ; but that, in the case of persons who, from total deafness, converse by signs made with the fingers or otherwise, they dream of persons conversing with them, conveying thoughts to them, not by vocal utterances, but only by exhibiting the signs which were of familiar use to them. Those signs are to them, as the medium and instrument of thought, what words are to those who are exempt from deafness. Such per- sons do not dream of hearing sounds ; and those who lose their sight, and are long blind, do not dream of visible objects. Particular instances, illustrating .facts like these, are given by writers on intellectual philo- sophy. Dr. Gregory, as quoted by Abercrombie, men- tions that thoughts which sometimes occurred to him in dreams, and even the particular expressions in which they were conveyed, appeared to him afterward, when awake, so just in point of reasoning and illustration, and so good in point of language, that he has used them in his college lectures and in his writings. Another instance is that of a lawyer, to whom a very perplexing case was made clear in a dream, during which he rose from his bed, and having a desk at hand, wrote out OP THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 81 the solution at length. On awaking lie remembered the dream, but had no recollection that he had written it, till he discovered the manuscript in his desk. Facts of this nature go far to demonstrate practically, that in all distinct thoughts and trains of thought, words are the coincident medium and vehicle. To satisfy the demands of this discussion, however, that we do not think independently of words, is suffi- ciently manifest from the consideration, that we re- member our thoughts only in the words in which we conceive them ; and that in those words we shall con- tinue to remember them while memory lasts, both in the present and in the future life. Our entire respon- sibility as moral agents seems to require this. It is essential to our consciousness of personal identity, and to the process and the issues of the final judgment, and hence the bearing of this view of language of concep- tion in the mind, and reception from, without, of thoughts ia words, and of the consciousness and me- mory of them only in words on the state of the soul of each individual, as to his consciousness of guilt or the contrary in the present life, and after death, is highly significant For if thoughts can be remembered only in words, if a recollection of the words necessarily re- calls the thoughts, so that the mind is unavoidably conscious of them, and if an entire oblivion, or non-re- eollection of the words precludes a renewed conscious- ness of the thoughts which had been conceived and en- shrined in them, then the phenomena of which we are conscious with respect to our past experience, thoughts, words, acts, feelings, and consciousness of guilt, or the contrary, in connection with them, are accounted for. 32 THE PLENARY INSPIRATION "We are conscious of our past states of mind, whether good or evil, only as we remember the words in which we thought of them when they occurred ; and there- fore we are conscious of the sinfulness of past acts, feel- ings, and emotions, no further than they are distinctly recalled in the words in which we think of them. Hence when a sinner is awakened to perceive the corruption and wickedness of his heart, and the sinful- ness of all his thoughts, feelings, and actions, his me- mory is quickened to recall his former experience, and especially the most corrupt and flagrant, though long- forgotten instances of his conduct. So when regener- ated, and during the ensuing conflict to the close of life, he is conscious of the states of mind which have transpired, of the evil acts, thoughts, and affections on the one hand, and of the holy and obedient ones on the other, only as they are recalled to memory in words. Such being the law of our minds, and such our ex- perience in the present life, the Scriptures very clearly forewarn us, that such, by the permanence of that law, will be the experience of men after death. In the righteous there will be such oblivion of the transgres- sions of their former lives, as is implied in their being blotted out, and as will consist with their perfect and un- interrupted bliss. They will realize in their experience that He, to whom their guilt was imputed, had done a perfect work, and made them in respect to the law which they had transgressed, and to their consciousness of guilt, as though they had never sinned. The un- righteous, on the other hand, with their memories freed from all obstructions, and quickened to the utmost, OF THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 33 will forever be conscious of all their evil thoughts, words, and agencies. "With respect to the particular subject of the present inquiry, that of the conveyance by Inspiration of thoughts, in and by means of words, to the minds of the sacred writers, let it be observed : that thoughts con veyed from one human mind to another, are invariably conveyed in words, or signs equivalent to articulate utterances ; and they are received, comprehended, and rendered matter of consciousness, only so far as the words or signs are consciously recognized and under- stood. The same is true of all the communications from angelic beings to men, of which we have any re- cord; and likewise of those from Satan. In what ways he can affect the feelings and emotions of men, is another question. But when he conveys any distinct thoughts to the human mind, he does it, so far as we know, only in words and their equivalents. Thus by means of words he conveyed his thoughts to Eve ; and so to the false prophets. And there seems to be no room for a question, but that in all the thoughts re- ceived from those beings, and equally in all the thoughts conveyed by man to them, or conceived respecting them, words are the invariable medium. Such is the constitution of things such the law of man's nature. It is thus plain and palpable, that man in the ordi- nary exercise of all his intellectual and rational facul- ties, can and does receive thoughts from other created intelligences, in and by means of words. Does not this law obtain likewise in respect to the thoughts conveyed by inspiration from God ? That it does, is the only conclusion which the facts and analogies known to us 2* 34: THE PLENAR5T INSPIRATION can justify. There is no known fact or apparent reason to justify a contrary supposition. Since the thoughts of one created intelligence can be conveyed to another by means of words, it is certain that the thoughts of the Infinite Intelligence may be so conveyed ; and since the conveyance of thoughts in words from one man to another does not infringe, but . is in harmony with the laws of his intelligent nature, it is plain that the conveyance of the Divine thoughts in words by in- spiration, may be in harmony with those laws. All intellectual conceptions include the words, or equivalent signs, by which they are intelligibly ex- pressed ; and they are necessarily expressed in the words or signs in which they are conceived. To sup- pose that they can be vocally expressed in any other than the words in which he who expresses conceives them, is as absurd as to suppose that he can convey them by writing words which have a different and con- trary meaning; and to say that he can think them without words, is no less absurd than to say that he can express them in writing without writing words. Sensations and emotions, in so far as they occur and exist independently of words, occur and exist indepen- dently of thought. But whatever the subjects of thought may be, whether physical or intellectual, geo- metrical figures or arithmetical proportions, facts or fictions, history or biography, moral precepts or reli- gious doctrines, there are no distinct thoughts of them of which men are conscious, except in words, and words which when spoken or written express them to others. Words, vocally articulated, or silently conceived and realized to the consciousness, are conditions, vehicles, OF THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 35 instruments of thought. Without them there is no consciousness of thought Uttering them is thinking aloud. A knowledge of words, or of signs equivalent in significance to words, is a condition precedent to the exercise of the power of thinking. Hence the necessity of teaching the meaning of words and signs to children. They first learn the meaning of signs, gestures, ex- pressive looks ; next that of sounds, vocal articulations, particular words, exclamations, interrogations, com- mands, phrases, sentences. These being associated with the thoughts which they are employed to convey, they remember. By recalling and reasoning from these they learn to think. The more their knowledge of words is extended, the more they are enabled to exer- cise the power of thinking. Our consciousness and experience wholly forbid the supposition that the choice of words succeeds instead of being identical with the conception of thought. We have no consciousness of thought separately from words, or independently of them. We receive no thoughts by means of the vocal articulations, or the writings of others, except in words of which we pre- viously understand the meaning. And if our con- sciousness is to be relied on, we no more, after intel- lectually conceiving a thought, select the word or words in which we become conscious of it, than after receiv- ing the thoughts of another person by hearing his voice, or reading what he has written, we select the words in which we become conscious of the thoughts so received. We therefore conclude that without a proper miracle, the Divine thoughts conveyed into the minds of the prophets by inspiration, were of necessity conveyed in 36 THE PLENARY INSPIRATION the very words which they wrote ; that they were con- scious of those thoughts in those words, and that they no more selected those words than their readers select the words in which they receive the thoughts which are expressed in Scripture. It may be worth the further observation that, viewed in another light, the supposition that thoughts without words were inspired into the minds of the sacred writers, and that the task of selecting the words they were to write to express those thoughts, was left to them, is in the last degree preposterous and incredible. For from the nature of the inspired thoughts, the rev- elations, doctrines, precepts, promises, threatenings, predictions, covenants, the selection of words to express the exact meaning and shade of meaning intended to be conveyed, would as truly require omniscience as an original conception of the thoughts themselves without any Divine inspiration. No conceivable amount of guidance, short of a proper miracle, could supersede this difficulty. For, to say nothing of the necessity of a miracle to render them conscious of the thoughts without words, it is obvious that such a consciousness could be no guide to them in the choice of words. Be- ing exclusive of words, it could have no relation to them. They would be left to invent or to appropriate words without any rule to govern or assist them, to ex- press meanings upon which the hopes and destinies of men were to be suspended. That they could not possibly have had a clearer con- ception of the thoughts without words than with, must be allowed, or we must conclude that in the words selected their conceptions are but imperfectly conveyed. OF THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 37 But suppose them to have had as clear conceptions as their words convey, since their conceptions and their consciousness of the thoughts were exclusive of words, what but omniscience could enable them to select such words as should infallibly convey precisely those con- ceptions to their uninspired fellow-men ? Suppose even that the thoughts as conceived by them without words, were conceived in the same orderly, grammati- cal succession which marks the exhibition of them in the written Scriptures ; that their non-verbal concep- tions included the necessary distinctions of modes and tenses, interrogatories, exclamations, questions and answers, quotations and parentheses, figures and sym- bols, what, short of omniscience, could enable them to meet the verbal demands of such conceptions, to select such words in such relations to each other, as infallibly and perfectly to convey the thoughts conceived ? Is it not apparent that the slightest imperfection, either in the choice or in the collocation of the words, might be fatal to the record as a rule of life ; and that the writers could give no evidence or assurance that the concep- tions conveyed by their words were precisely the same with those which they had been conscious of without words ? The case is wholly different when once the inspired thoughts have been committed to writing; for the words actually employed confessedly express all that is pretended to have been revealed and inspired. The thoughts are conceived by the reader, in the words, and according to his knowledge and understanding of the words. The words are the medium of the thoughts, and when the thoughts are perfectly conceived in the 38 THE PLENARY INSPIRATION words, lie who so conceives them can express them in other words which he perfectly understands, whether in his native or in a foreign tongue. He has a rule to govern him which is as adequate to the case as any law of his intellectual nature. He is conscious of the coincidence and identity of the thoughts and words. The Divine act of inspiration, as is intended to be shown hereafter, was not properly miraculous. It did not suspend or counteract any law of the human mind. But, according to the constitution and laws of the mind, the conveyance of thoughts from one man to another necessarily requires the conveyance of the words by which the thoughts are expressed. If, therefore, the act of inspiration was not a miracle, the inspired thoughts must have been conveyed in the words which express them. If the act of inspiration were a miracle, suspending that law of the mind by which we conceive, receive from others, are conscious of, and remember thoughts only in words and conveying thoughts without words, then, as no man in the natural exercise of his faculties is either conscious of or remembers thoughts apart from words, we must conclude that the sacred writers were not intelligently conscious of the thoughts which were conveyed to their minds by inspiration, or that their consciousness of them, independently of words, was miraculous. If they had no consciousness of the in- spired thoughts, then, of course, their agency could not have been exercised in the selection of words expressive of them. If their consciousness of them was miracu- lous, then the natural exercise of their faculties was superseded, and could not have been employed in a OF THE HOLY SCRIPTUEES. 39 selection of words. The selection, like the conscious- ness, must have been supernatural miraculous; not the effect of human, but of Divine agency. Nothing, therefore, is gained by such a supposition, nor was there any occasion for any such miracle. The natural and ordinary way of conveying thoughts from one mind to another, is by means of words. If men can convey their thoughts to each other by the instrumen- tality of words, what can possibly hinder the Divine Being from conveying his thoughts to man by the same means? Suffice it, at present, to add that it is not more indubitably certain that the Scriptures contain revelations from God, than that they were verbally ex- pressed and conveyed in the words which were written to express them. Such, manifestly, was the case with all those portions of Scripture which are expressly de- clared to have been audibly spoken to the sacred writers by the Divine Kevealer. That the other por- tions were inspired into the minds of the writers in the words which they wrote, will, it is presumed, be ren- dered evident in the ensuing pages. This view obviates the principal objections which embarrass the prevalent theories. According to these theories there is a difficulty, not hitherto surmounted, as to how or on what infallible ground the words of the sacred Text are, in the Scriptures themselves, de- clared to be the words of God. If they were selected by men if man's agency was in any degree exerted in their selection, how are they the exclusive and infalli- ble words of God ? It is not a conclusive or satisfac- tory answer to this question to say that they were in- fallibly guided. For supposing them to have been so 40 THE PLENARY INSPIRATION guided, if the act of selecting the words was their act, then the words selected were their words. Moreover, where do the Scriptures teach us, or give so much as a hint concerning any such guidance, or any act or pro- cess by which words of man's selection ceased to be his and were adopted or constituted to be the words of God? No theory upon the subject can be conclusive and satisfactory which does not exhibit as the effect of in- spiration, infallibility in thought and language. This result may indeed seem to be attained, by saying that the sacred penmen were guided both in thought and language by the Holy Spirit, so as to be in such a sense His organs, that what they said He said. This would indeed express substantially the result which the case requires ; and if they were so guided, the production of the result would seem to be accounted for. But where is the proof of any such guidance of the human facul- ties in the conception of the necessary thoughts, and in the selection of the necessary words ? Is there any scriptural proof of it or any semblance of proof other than that of an inference from the supposed necessity of the case ? The passages, John 16 : 13, " The Spirit wiU guide you into all truth," and 14 : 26, " He shall bring all things to your remembrance" need only to be read with the context to show that they express no proof of the point in question ; but on the contrary, that the guidance promised was not to enable them to discover truth, or to select words, but JQ insure their being taught by having all things brought to their re- membrance, which Christ had spoken, and their recep- tion of all truth which should be spoken and shoivn to OF THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 41 them by the Spirit. Thus : " The Holy Ghost whom the Father will send in my name, He shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you." "When He, the Spirit of truth, is come, He will guide you into all truth: for He shall not speak of Himself; but whatso- ever He shall hear, that shall He speak ; and He will show you things to come. He shall glorify Me : for He shall receive of Mine, and shall show it unto you. All things that the Father hath are Mine : therefore said I, that He shall take of Mine, and shall show it unto you." These Scriptures plainly show, that all that the Apostles were to know, speak, and write as the word of God, was to be conveyed inspired into their minds by the Spirit in the words previously spoken by Christ, and recalled to their remembrance by the aid of Inspiration, and the words to be spoken inspired conveyed into their minds by the Spirit, as the words of God which He, the Spirit, was commissioned to take, receive, and speak of the things of Christ. The selection of what was to be spoken by the Spirit is expressly referred to Him. An infallible guidance to the selection, either of thoughts or words, can be supposed only on the as- sumption that Inspiration is affirmed of the sacred writers personally, instead of being affirmed solely of what they wrote. No two things can be more distinct and different from each other than these two, and no- thing can be more evident from the Scriptures them- selves, than that it was what the sacred penmen wrote that was inspired into their minds. And if they were indebted to inspiration for the thoughts which were to be expressed in writing, the fact that the written words 42 THE PLENARY INSPIRATION are the words of G-od, is not a premise from which it follows that they were infallibly guided, in the exercise of their faculties, to the selection of the words, or that they exercised their faculties at all in the selection, in- stead of being wholly indebted to inspiration for the words as well as for the thoughts. Concerning the notion so generally prevalent, that the effect of inspiration was an effect on the intellectual faculties of the sacred writers, instead of being the con- veyance of thoughts into their minds, some further ob- servations may be permitted in this place. And first, it is confidently averred that the Scriptures themselves afford no indication whatever that there was more than one kind or degree of inspiration ; and second, that no conceivable influence on the finite natural faculties of man could enable him to discover and originate the conception of the leading truths of revelation. Those truths must undoubtedly have been communicated to him from the Infinite Intelligence, in order to his conceiving, or attaining any conception of them. Hence the Apostle's argument touching the counsels and pur- poses of God, which man never did nor could discover, that " God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit ;" and his illustration: "For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him ? even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of G-od." To which he adds, that those other- wise inscrutable things were freely given to them by the Spirit of God, and that they spoke them in the words which the Spirit taught them. (1 Cor. 2.) Thus, to specify no other instances, it is clear that the pur- poses of God concerning the salvation of men by a OF THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 43 Divine Redeemer, the doctrine of the Trinity, and the doctrines of the resurrection, a final judgment, and eter- nal retributions, must have been revealed and con- veyed to man by Inspiration ; and if the rest of the contents of the Bible were not all inspired in the same way, then there was more than one kind of inspiration, or else those contents were not all inspired in any way. How universally it has been taken for granted that the Divine inspiration which is affirmed of the holy Scriptures, was an influence on the faculties and capa- cities of men, may be seen by referring to the various works of theologians, commentators, essayists, and philosophers, which discuss or allude to the subject, from the period of the Reformation to the present time. It is solely on the basis of this mistaken notion that different kinds and degrees of inspiration have been imagined. This notion, of course, pervades the theo- ries and expositions of all the rationalistic writers, and is essential to them. One of the latest and ablest of them, Mr. Morell, in his "Philosophy of Religion," maintains expressly that "inspiration is only a higher potency of what every man possesses to some degree :" that is, a more or less developed or excited intellectual, intuitional, and emotional consciousness of religious truths. Every man, it is assumed, has such conscious- ness to some degree. To have it to a higher than the ordinary or natural degree, is to be inspired. It is in- spiration that distinguishes poets and geniuses from other men ; and in like manner distinguishes religious teachers the sacred writers. On the other hand, Doctor Dick, a Scotch Presby- terian minister, in his " Essay on the Inspiration of the 44 THE PLENARY INSPIRATION Holj Scriptures," says: "I define Inspiration to be such an influence of the Holy Ghost on the understand- ings, imaginations, memories, and other mental powers of the writers of the Sacred Books, as perfectly qualified them for communicating to the world the knowledge of the will of God." The distinction made in support of their views, by those who imagine different degrees and kinds of in- spiration, between the doctrinal and the historical and other matter of the Scriptures, is entirely gratuitous. The facts and doctrines are so interwoven, so dependent on each other, and often, in respect to the thoughts con- veyed, so identical, as to render it impossible to estab- lish such a distinction. Often, indeed, the most im- portant doctrines are contained in verbal statements of fact ; as in the first chapter of Genesis, and in the his- torical narratives of the incarnation, death, and resur- rection of Christ. They are misled, as in respect to infallible guidance, by supposing the inspiration to be affirmed of the Sacred Penmen, as if it were an influ- ence exerted on their faculties, instead of being affirmed solely of what was inspired into their minds, and written by them. An error no less prevalent, is that of supposing man to have been the inventor and architect of language ; a notion which, among other things, implies that he had, prior to the invention, the power of thinking and of expressing his thoughts without words. With these are associated a variety of kindred no- tions, such as that ideas are images impressed on the mind, and held independently of words ; that words are merely the signs of things, and are necessarily of OF THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 45 defective and uncertain significance ; and that the figu- rative use of words is regulated by no law, and is pe- culiarly liable to misconstruction and uncertainty of meaning. That language was a primeval gift ; that thinking is possible only in words as the medium, instrument, and vehicle of thought ; that we conceive thoughts intel- lectually, receive thoughts from others, are conscious of them, and retain them in the memory as we express them vocally and in writing, only in words ; that the conveyance of thoughts into the mind by inspiration, necessarily includes the inspiration of words ; that in- spiration is affirmed in the Scriptures of the words which constitute the writing ; that words necessarily and perfectly express the thoughts conceived in them, and that it is their office to represent thoughts, and not things : to discuss and illustrate these propositions, and others connected with them, and their relations to the infallible authority of the word of God, and to the in- tellectual and physical constitution, faculties, acts, and consciousness of man, is the object of the ensuing pages. A few words may be necessary concerning the object to be aimed at, in a discussion of this subject. The special object to be had in view, is not to prove and illustrate the plenary inspiration of the Scriptures for the conviction of those who believe with the heart unto righteousness. They already have the highest possible conviction, from the witness of the Holy Spirit with their spirits to the effects wrought in them through the instrumentality of the inspired and written word. They are conscious of the coincidence produced be- 46 THE PLENARY INSPIRATION tween their natures their primary beliefs and the truths of Scripture; and between the feelings and emotions of their renewed hearts and the 'word of faith' which the Spirit employs. The Divine light and authority of Scripture are realized to them. A Divine self-evidencing radiance beams from the sacred page upon their understandings and their hearts. The word of God has, by the Divine influence, been ren- dered quick and powerful in them. They are ' taught of God.' The Spirit teaches them, not by new reve- lations, but by causing them to discern, believe, and obey, the truths already revealed; not by creating new intellectual faculties, but by quickening, rectify- ing, and illuminating their previously blinded and perverted faculties. But the special object to be aimed at, is the rational conviction of those who are not so taught ; and who, from ignorance and prejudice, or from false principles, are in a state of doubt and indifference, or of aversion and opposition. It requires to be made manifest to such, that the Divine inspiration of the Scriptures is proved by evidences which reason can not countervail. In the exhibition of these evidences, it must be as- sumed that certain truths relating to God and to man are admitted by those who are addressed. To men who profess to be atheists, and to infidels and deists, who deny that the Scriptures contain revelations from God, and deny that man needs either a Saviour from sin, or any inspired rule of faith and life, it would be futile to address an argument on this subject. Those who are addressed must be supposed to believe in the existence of God, his moral perfections, and his rela- OF THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 47 tion to man as a moral and accountable creature ; and to believe in the fallen state of man, his incapacity to discover the most essential religious truths, and that the Bible contains truths of fact and doctrine which, had they not been given by inspiration, could not be discovered or conceived. To all such, the question is : Whether the Scriptures are the word of God, so given by inspiration as to be of Divine authority, and binding on the faith and con- science of man ? If so, what is the nature and effect of the Divine act of inspiration ? Did that act convey the inspired truths in the words, idioms, and phrases of the sacred text as written by the prophets and apostles? Did this take place with reference to the entire volume of Scripture? In considering these questions, it is properly deemed to be admitted and incontrovertible, that the Scriptures do in fact contain Eevelations from God which were recorded by the sacred writers. Again, with respect to the miraculous character of inspiration, something needs to be said in these preli- minary notices. A proper scriptural miracle, is an immediate act of God, producing effects which are both supernatural and contra-natural. Inspiration is an immediate act of God producing supernatural, but not contra-natural effects. It is, therefore, not a proper miracle, but is miraculous only as it transcends nature and the agency of second causes. In this respect it may with propriety be classed with that Divine act, the effect of which is the renovation of the human soul ; and that which, without any visible or mediate agency^ caused the chains to fall from Peter's hands, and the iron gate of his prison to fly open ; and many others 48 THE PLENAEY INSPIEATION recorded in Scripture : acts above the powers of man and of Nature, supernatural and Divine, but which did aot suspend or contravene any laws of Nature, but were exerted in conformity with those laws. For it does not appear that the Divine act of inspiration sus- pended or counteracted any law, function, or faculty of the human mind. That act, on the contrary, ap- pears to have been exerted in concurrence with the natural exercise of the rational faculties of men with their way of receiving thoughts from their fellow-men, conceiving them in words, and becoming intelligently conscious of them. Doubtless the sacred writers had an intelligent consciousness of the inspired thoughts which they were to express in writing ; and in com- mitting them to writing, exercised their faculties in the ordinary way. And since their consciousness of them was, for aught that appears, like that of all other thoughts, the fact that those thoughts were conveyed to them by inspiration, can afford no ground to con- clude that the act of conveying them suspended or counteracted any law of their minds. That act, how- ever, was supernatural and Divine ; for nothing but the immediate exertion of the Divine efficiency could con- vey to them thoughts, doctrines, facts, previously known only to God, and in their nature undiscover- able by man. Let it further be observed, that the term Scripture is employed to signify all that is written in the sacred volume, "the received canon is established upon such ample grounds of authority, that we are as much bound to receive each and every of the Sacred Books as of Divine inspiration and authority, as any one OF THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 49 of them. The Books then extant were collectively distinguished by our Lord and his apostles, as the Scriptures, the Holy Scriptures, the Oracles of God, the Word of God which phrases were well understood to signify what had been given by Inspiration. By the successors of the Apostles, after the New Testament Canon had been completed, the entire volume was dis- tinguished by the phrases quoted above, and others of the same comprehensive import as the Divine Scrip- tures, the Divine Oracles, the Sacred Scriptures, the Divine Word, the Scriptures of the Lord, the Old and New Testaments. The several Books which constitute the present canon were enumerated, those of the Old Testament by Jewish writers, and those both of the Old and New by several of the early Christian writers. Those of both Testaments were, shortly after the apos- tolic age, collected into a distinct volume, which was called the Book of Scripture the Ancient and New Scriptures, the Old and New Testaments. See Lardner, Home's Introduction, and authorities quoted by Paley. Lastly, considering the acknowledged necessity of a revelation from God to man, and the nature of the facts and doctrines which the Scriptures contain, it is obvious and reasonable to assume, that their Divine Author had a specific purpose and plan to be exhibited and accomplished by their publication ; and that He inspired and caused to be written such, and only such things, as in the view of Infinite Wisdom were neces- sary to the perfect accomplishment of that plan. And since the Bible as a whole has the unqualified sanction both of Divine and human testimony, as being the word of God, given by inspiration, every part of its 3 50 THE PLENARY INSPIRATION contents is consistent with the rest, and equally derives its authority from Him by its inspiration. When, therefore, it is claimed for the Scriptures collectively that they are the word of God, much more is claimed for them than that they were written by His direction, or by His direction and assistance ; as in the case of any writings claimed to be the writings of a particular man, much more is meant than that they were written by his direction and assistance. It is claimed that they express in his own words and on his own authority the thoughts which he intended to express, whether in the mechanical process of writing he employed an amanu- ensis or not. Less than this would not constitute him the author, and render him absolutely and unavoidably responsible. It is, therefore, in this sense claimed for the Scriptures as the word of God, that the particular thoughts which He intended should be expressed, were inspired into the minds of the sacred writers in the words which He intended should be employed to ex- press them ; and that they involve His infinite and im- mutable authority, and consequently are a perfect rule of faith and life. If every part of the original text is not in this sense His word, then it can not be deter- mined which part, if any, is His word, in any such sense as indisputably to involve His authority and be bind- ing on man's conscience. But if every part of it is His word, then every part of it was given by His in- spiration, and He must have determined, in respect to every particular word and sentence, what should be written and published as His word. Whether portions of its histories, biographies, facts, precepts, observations, were or were not previously known to the writers, OF THE HOLY SCRIPTUKES. 51 could, in this relation, make no difference. For if any words of the text were inserted on man's authority and discretion inserted without being inspired of God, it can not be claimed for them, that they are His words. They may be just and true in their import, but they can not be known to be so on the authority and as the words of God. In respect to what He determined to include in the sacred volume, it could be of no conse- quence what particulars the writers were acquainted with before. Thus with reference, for example, to the Four Gospels. The particulars recorded by Matthew and John, were for the most part previously within their personal knowledge ; while that was not the case with Mark and Luke. But who will pretend that the words and sentences which were written by the two last, were any more or otherwise inspired, than those which were written by the two first-named Evangelists ? So with respect to the Book of Genesis, of which no item of the contents could have been previously within the personal knowledge of Moses. Whatever traditions may have been handed down through a period of twenty five hundred years, we may confidently assert that many of the things contained in that Book, could have been communicated to him only by immediate inspiration ; and it would be a violent and incredible presumption to suppose that, for the rest of the contents, he relied on tradition. Even had ample traditions existed among the Hebrews in their Egyptian bondage, it is a far more incredible supposition, that he was infallibly guided to make a selection from them, and a selection of words by which to express them, than that he re- ceived them in their proper order and connections, by immediate verbal inspiration. 52 THE PLENABY INSPIBATION CHAPTER III. THE NATURE OF INSPIBATION. THE Holy Scriptures claim to be tlie word of God, on the ground that they were inspired by Him. Their inspiration, therefore, must have been of a nature to justify that designation. Their being given by inspir- ation, proves that they verbally express His thoughts in the words which constitute the writing. Large por- tions of them consist of words which are declared to have been audibly spoken by Him. Of those portions, the inspiration, whether coincident with the vocal ut- terance, or the result of a Divine act recalling and re- newing to the intelligent consciousness of the Prophets, what they had heard, must have included the words which had been audibly articulated. The Divine act of inspiration, whatever may have characterized it in other respects, conveyed to their minds His thoughts in His words ; and, therefore, the words which they wrote, are His. All that we can discern, or are con- cerned to know of the nature of that act, is thus shown by the effect produced the conveyance of thoughts in words. The portions of Scripture above referred to, are admitted by all who believe in any inspiration, to OF THE HOLY SCKIPTURES. 53 have been inspired ; and if, in respect to them, the in- spiring act conveyed the thoughts in the words by which they are expressed in the original text, then, to that extent we discern the nature and effect of inspiration, and have ground on which to ascribe the same effect to the inspiration of the rest of Scripture the inspiration of all that the Divine Wisdom saw fit to include and cause to be written in the sacred volume. Such an effect is accordingly signified by the word inspiration. That word is the same in English as in French, and signifies " the act of breathing into any thing the infusion of ideas into the mind by the Holy Spirit." The Hebrew word is rendered : " Inspiration breathing into the breath of the Lord." The Greek, " Divinely inspired" The meaning of the word as applied to the Holy Scriptures, is/ounded on the ana- logy between the impulsion of air from without, into the body, and the conveyance of thoughts from with- out into the mind. Thoughts conceived in the mind may be compared to material forms seen by the eye. They are conceived in words , as visible objects are seen in their proper form and outline. By means of words the mind is conscious of particular thoughts ; as by means of their distinct forms we distinguish and are conscious of see- ing particular objects. Words are the medium and in- strument of thought. Thoughts audibly expressed to a prophet would be conveyed to his mind conjointly with the words, and his reception of them would result from his understanding the words uttered. And thoughts conveyed to his mind by Divine inspiration must of necessity be conveyed in words in order to his being 54 THE PLENARY INSPIRATION conscious of receiving them : for no man is conscious of thinking or of receiving, holding, comprehending, or remembering distinct thoughts, disconnected from the words which, if expressed, vocally or in writing, would distinctly represent them. The visual perception of a person or a statue, pro- duces in the mind an effect like that of reading or hearing the names of those objects. The visible ob- ject in the one case, is to the mind what the vocal sound and written word are in the other. The same thought results in each case coincidently with the perception. But that thought does not arise except as it is intel- lectually conceived in words ; nor does the mind other- wise become conscious of it, or remember it. The pro- duction in the mind of an equivalent result the intel- ligent consciousness.of particular thoughts is the pur- pose and effect of inspiration. And since thought can not transcend consciousness, and we are conscious of thoughts only in words, inspiration must of necessity convey words with thoughts, or it would convey no- thing of which the recipient could be conscious. Divine inspiration is the act of God, by which He con- veyed to the minds of the sacred writers the thoughts which they were to express in the Holy Scriptures. And inas- much as He alone could determine what thoughts should be expressed, and as man could not in the rational and ordinary exercise of his faculties receive inspired or other thoughts otherwise than as they are conceived in words, it follows that He conveyed to them by Inspira- tion what they wrote the thoughts in the words by which they are expressed. The word Revelation appropriately signifies the com- OF THE HOLY SCKIPTURES. 55 munication of truth, from God to men. To reveal, is to disclose, discover, make known. The Hebrew word signifies to uncover, to disclose, or make manifest by acts and events, and to reveal, disclose, communicate truths to the mind b j words or signs. Thus in the history of Samuel : it is said when Jehovah first called him, that the word of the Lord was not yet revealed to him ; and subsequently, that " the Lord revealed Himself to Sam- uel in Shiloh, by the word of the Lord." Again : " Now the Lord had told revealed to Samuel in his ear, a day before Saul came, saying, To-morrow about this time, I will send thee a man." David, after receiving a special revelation from God, by the mouth of Nathan, says : "And now, O Lord God, the word that Thou hast spoken concerning Thy servant and con- cerning his house, establish it forever. . . For Thou, O Lord of Hosts, God of Israel, hast revealed to Thy servant, saying, I will build thee an house." Isaiah says : "It was revealed in mine ears by the Lord of Hosts, Surely this iniquity shall not be purged from you till ye die, saith the Lord God of Hosts." Sure- ly, says Amos, " the Lord God will do nothing but He reveakth His secret unto His servants the prophets." "A tale-bearer reveakth secrets " that is, by speaking words. " The secret things belong unto the Lord our God ; but those things which are revealed, belong unto us and to our children forever, that we may keep all the words of this law." The Greek word is of similar import, signifying the communication of thoughts by words audibly uttered, by causing a verbal conception of them in dreams, or by the instrumentality of external signs and manifest- 56 THE PLENARY INSPIRATION ations. The wise men were warned of God in a dream, That they should not return to Herod. " It was re- vealed unto Simeon, by the Holy Ghost, that he should not see death before he had seen the Lord's Christ." " Moses was admonished of God, when he was about to make the tabernacle : For See, saith He, that thou make all things according to the pattern showed to thee in the mount." " Noah was warned of God, of things not seen as yet." He received revelations in words audibly spoken. " If they escaped not who re- fused him that spake on earth, much more shall not we escape if we turn away from Him that speaketh from heaven." The things which man could not discover, God hath " revealed unto us by His Spirit." The mys- tery of Christ " is now revealed unto the holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit, That the Gentiles should be fellow-heirs, and of the same body." " Unto the prophets it was revealed, that, not unto themselves, but unto us they did minister." In both Testaments wherever the words which are translated, reveal, revealed, revelation, are applied to any thing contained in the Scriptures, distinct verbal communications are referred to. Often it is expressly said that the very words which were employed by the revealing Spirit, were the words which are written ; and there is no reasonable ground to conclude that such was not the case uniformly. On the contrary, the con- clusion that the words which were inspired by the Spirit, were the very words which the Sacred Penmen wrote, is justified by the declared usage in numerous instances, and with respect to the rest, by the nature of inspiration as a Divine act conveying thoughts to OF THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 57 the minds of the Sacred Penmen to be by them ex- pressed in writing ; by the parallel usage of the pro- phets and apostles in speaking the words which had been spoken to them, or inspired into their minds ; by the fact that often the thoughts were such as they were incapable of selecting words to express ; and in a word, by every consideration relating to the subject. 58 THE PLENARY INSPIRATION CHAPTER IV. VOCAL AND WRITTEN LANGUAGE. THOUGHT is conceived and expressed in words, and equivalent signs, as its medium, instrument, and repre- sentative, in a variety of ways. 1st. By all the articulate vocal sounds, which consti- tute spoken language. 2d. By all those significant acts and gestures which are employed in place of spoken and written words. 3d. By picture writing in which thoughts are re- presented by pictures, which have a metaphorical im- port the leading circumstance in a subject being por- trayed to indicate or express the whole. 4th. By hieroglyphics, which represent spoken words, syllables, and letters to read or interpret which, is to utter the words the vocal sounds which they re- spectively represent. A large class of hieroglyphics represented particular words; another class denoted thoughts which were easily associated with each other, by analogy or re- semblance. But into whatever classes the simple and the more complex hieroglyphics may be distributed, they were all representations of spoken words, sylla- OF THE HOLY SCKIPTURES. 59 bles, or letters, and were read like other kinds of writ- ing, as representing v6cal sounds. It is obvious, in- deed, from the nature of the subject, that the charac- ters employed in hieroglyphic writing, were employed for the same purpose and to the same effect, as the let- ters and words of alphabetic writing. For those cha- racters were employed to express such thoughts only as the writer could express vocally, in words ; since to read them, their force and meaning must first be understood in the vulgar tongue, as the reading of them must of necessity be the utterance of words of corresponding import, in like manner as in reading Greek or Latin into English. To suppose that hiero- glyphics stood for things, and not for words, or rather for thoughts as words do, is to suppose, in opposition to experience, that they can not be read in the words of ordinary language, and that men can think and ex- press their thoughts to others without words. 5th. By arbitrary marks to which a specific meaning and pronunciation are assigned, as in the instance of the Chinese written characters, which, though not alphabetic, are representative of vocal sounds. 6th. By every species of alphabetic writing. These several methods of writing are alike in this, that they represent spoken words, so that the reading of what is written, is simply a repetition or utterance of the vocal sounds which the writing represents. Such, indeed, in its relation to thought, is the only office of writing ; notwithstanding that most of the characters in picture writing, and many of those in hieroglyphic, are in their form suggestive of the meaning which they are intended to express. Spoken words, are audible 60 THE PLENARY* INSPIRATION thoughts. Pictures, hieroglyphics, and alphabetic marks, are visible thoughts. When men express themselves orally, it is by utter- ing the words in which they conceive their thoughts. When they express their thoughts by any species of writing, it is by alphabetic or other marks, which re- present the words in which they think. If they indi- cate their meaning by gestures or significant acts, it is by such as are adapted, and understood, like words, to represent their thoughts. And it is no less true that thoughts in the mind, which are not in any manner expressed, are, at least so far as we are conscious of them, silently articulated or clothed in words. Inter- nal sensations and emotions may arise without any con- sciousness of the words by which they might be de- scribed. But no one can exercise his mind in think- ing of any thing within or without, real or imaginary, without being conscious of the words which he would employ, were he audibly to express his thoughts. Even in dreams and visions the thoughts are conceived and embodied in the words in which they are after- wards remembered ; as are all the thoughts of what- ever kind, that are treasured up in the memory. They are distinctly remembered and recalled, no further than the words are in which they were originally conceived. In addition to the foregoing sketch of the modes in which men receive and express their thoughts, by vocal sounds, significant acts, and alphabetic or other writing, a reference is due to representative symbols; which are of frequent occurrence in the prophetic Scriptures, as representing, on the ground of analogy or resemblance, agents, acts, and effects of a different OF THE HOLY SCEIPTURES. 61 nature and sphere from themselves. Agents and phe- nomena which are perceptible by the senses, are em- ployed as symbols to represent other agents and phe- nomena, which are in some respect analogous. The revelation conveyed by these means, is neither received by the prophet, nor expressed by him in words, but is signified by the things symbolized. He sees the sym- bol literally, or in prophetic vision, and discerns its cha- racteristics, and from their analogy to those of the object symbolized, infers what is intended to be fore- shown. In writing, he employs words in their literal sense, not to express what is revealed, but merely to describe the symbol as it appeared to his senses. There is an analogy between the office of words as the instrument of thought, and that of light as the in- strument of vision, and of air as the instrument of hear- ing. The power of seeing exists, but in the absence of light is dormant. The presence of light is a condi- tion of the exercise of the visual faculty. Light is to the act by which the mind perceives external ob- jects, what words are to the act of thinking, and air to the act of hearing. By means of light we become con- scious of seeing, through the medium of the eye. By means of air we become conscious of hearing, through the ear. So by means of words we become conscious of thinking, and by means of the vocal organs and of writing, of expressing our thoughts audibly and visibly to ourselves and others. That capability of the soul by which we see and in the act of seeing distinguish the forms and colors of ex- ternal objects, and by which in hearing we distinguish particular sounds, is the same with that by which the 62 THE PLENARY INSPIRATION soul in thinking distinguishes its successive thoughts by a necessary condition and adjunct of thought which renders us conscious of what we think, and which we express by vocal articulations. As we are conscious of seeing only as we are conscious of distinguishing particular forms and colors, and of hearing only as we are conscious of distinguishing particular sounds ; so we are conscious of thinking only as we are con- scious of that discriminating adjunct of thought, which, by means of the vocal organs, we render audible in words. Insomuch, that our experience and consciousness being the only test, we can no more think without that adjunct, which as we are conscious of it and express it audibly, constitutes our words, than we can see and hear without distinguishing colors and sounds. If it be asked how, by what process, or at what stage of the process of thinking, does the mind supply that contingent of thought, which, when realized to the consciousness, and when articulated, constitutes lan- guage ? let him answer who can tell how, by what process and at what stage, the mind discriminates forms, colors, sounds, relations, proportions, and other qualities? Such discrimination accompanies and is essential to the acts of seeing and hearing ; but is in no degree due to the mechanical structure, capacity, or operation of the visual and auditory organs. Infinite varieties of figures, colors, sounds, relations, propor- tions, qualities, and numbers, exist externally, which as soon as they are brought to the notice of the mind, are perfectly discriminated and distinguished from each other, so that we are no sooner conscious of noticing OF THE HOLY SCRIPTUEES. 63 them than we are conscious of the discrimination. If a definition be desired of that adjunct, concomitant, me- dium and vehicle of thought, of which we are con- scious when we think a definition explaining what it is prior to any mental or vocal articulation, but which when silently cognized, and when vocally expressed, is articulate language, let him answer who can, consist- ently with his own consciousness if it be not a suffi- cient and satisfactory answer to say, that it is that which, when we are conscious of what we think, and when we vocally express our thoughts, constitutes our language words, commensurate, in significance, and in respect to our consciousness, with our thoughts. If it be asked, how is that basis of silent, and of vocal articulation, of which we are conscious when we think, originated or produced? Here in turn, the querist may with propriety be asked, how is thought itself originated, or produced ? and how will he define what thought is abstractly from words ? and how does it happen that thoughts can be expressed in words ? But while we can no more define what thought is, distinct and independent of words, than we can be conscious of thinking without at the same time being conscious of the words which, when silently or audibly articulated, express our thoughts, the supply of words answerable to all the thoughts of which we are conscious, is satis- factorily accounted for, by the fact that we previously learn the words, their forms, sounds, and meanings, and retain them in memory and subject to the power which we exercise in thinking. This is matter of uniform and universal experience, and as well with reference to adults as to children. There may be great variety in 64 THE PLENAKY INSPIRATION the appropriation and use of words ; but there is no conscious thinking without a previous knowledge of words competent to be the medium, and when articu- lated to express our every thought. Such then is man's constitution that a knowledge and use of words is necessary to his exercise of the power of thinking. This feature of his mental consti- tution is, with reference to his social existence and re- lations, associated with his vocal organs, and his power of employing them in the audible enunciation of words, and also his power of visibly expressing them in writ- ing. Hence the necessity of teaching children the meaning of words in order to their exercising the power of thought ; the sound of words in order to the vocal ex- pression, and writing, in order to the visible repre- sentation of their thoughts. Our primary knowledge begins with sensations ; which require certain conditions of the bodily organs. But thinking, reasoning, reflection, are supersensuous, a product of the mind under appropriate conditions. The conditions may, in different individuals, exist im- perfectly and in as different degrees as the power of thought is exercised by different persons. A deaf and blind mute may have other sensations than those which depend on sight and hearing ; and in comparing, think- ing, and reasoning upon them, may substitute some species of signs in place of words. But the variety and compass of his thoughts will necessarily be and without other helps, will ever continue to be, very limited. A merely deaf mute is at less disadvantage. A child who hears and sees, but is not taught the OP THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 65 meaning and sound of words, will remain a child in respect to his power of thinking. When a deaf mute is taught by signs and gestures as a substitute for the vocal utterance of words, the signs, like picture writ- ing, hieroglyphics, and all arbitrary characters, are to him the instrument of thinking. They supply the place, and to their limited extent, fulfill the office of words, and the pupil's power of thinking keeps pace with his acquisitions. These observations might be illustrated and confirmed in a variety of ways. Let it suffice at present to refer to the office and exercise of memory. It is the office of memory to retain and recall past thoughts. But as has already been remarked, such thoughts are remem- bered in the words which originally contained them. There is no distinct memory of past thoughts but in conjunction with the words belonging to them. If, as some may imagine, the mind has thoughts in infancy or advanced life, prior to its consciousness of any cor- responding words or signs, such thoughts are not with- in the grasp of memory ; and if they exist, they can not be reasoned from to invalidate what has been ad- vanced respecting the thinking of which we are con- scious, and which we remember by virtue of the words which are its vehicle. Words are articulate vocal sounds letters written or printed, which represent a sound, or combination of sounds. A letter, is a mark, or character, written, printed, engraved, or painted ; used as the representa- tive of a sound, or of an articulation of the human or- gans of speech. Articulation, is the forming of words by the human voice, uttering articulate sounds, distinct 66 THE PLENARY INSPIRATION syllables or words. To speak, is to express thoughts by words. The faculty of uttering significant articulate sounds, of enunciating words by the voice as expressions of thought to others, is founded in the constitution of man ; a faculty involving the concurrent action of physical organs and mental powers, like that of hear- ing and distinguishing vocal sounds by the ear, and that of seeing and discriminating the forms, dimen- sions, and colors, of external objects by the eye. Those significant articulate sounds which constitute words, and which when vocally uttered express thoughts, are to our consciousness of thinking or of the thoughts expressed, and to all distinct thoughts of which we are conscious, what visible objects, and audi- ble sounds are to the sensations of seeing and hearing. They have the same relation to the faculty of thinking, which visible objects have to the faculty of seeing, and audible sounds to the faculty of hearing; insomuch that thinking can no more take place without words, than seeing where there are no visible objects, and hearing where there are no audible sounds. The power of thinking, considered simply as an intellectual power, is exercised by means of the instrumentality of words : as the power of visual perception is exercised by means of the eye, and that of auricular perception by means of the ear. Hence word and thought often signify identically the same. 'The Lord put a word in Baalam's mouth. Take heed to speak that which the Lord hath put in thy mouth. I will put my words in his mouth. The Lord said unto Jeremiah, Behold I have put my OF THE HOLY SCEIPTUKES. 67 words in thy mouth.' These and many similar pas- sages of Scripture denote the communication of thoughts by inspiration in the words, by which the re- cipient was to express them. And since in all other instances of Divine Inspiration, equally with these a supernatural influence was requisite, there is nothing in the nature of the case, adverse to the belief that in every instance, words in conjunction with thoughts were inspired. Language in the comprehensive sense above referred to, is, by the constitution of man, the means of realiz- ing to his own intelligent consciousness, and of exhibit- ing to his fellow-men, precisely what his thoughts are ; and in the latter particular sustains a relation to hearers and readers, somewhat similar to that which the works of creation and providence sustain as evidences of the Being, wisdom, and agency of the Creator and Kuler of the world. Each individual man is surrounded by other individuals, distinct from himself. His thoughts are made known to them by means of language spoken and written ; and they are thus made known with the same precision as they are known to himself by con- sciousness. Words, when a man speaks or writes them truly to express what he is conscious of thinking, convey to the hearer or reader as exactly and per- fectly what he thinks, as it exists in his own mind ; and to that effect accordingly they are understood. This is not less true of all the words of a language when intelligently spoken, than it is universally ad- mitted to be in respect to particular classes of words, such as the names of persons and things, and designa- tions of qualities, acts, characteristics, and events. 68 THE PLENARY INSPIRATION Even when men deceive, the words which they employ to convey a falsehood or a lie, are as much the instru- ment of the thoughts which they express, as if they were not falsely intended. "As he thinketh in his heart, so is he Out of the heart proceed evil thoughts." By their words men are to be justified, and by their words they are to be condemned. OF THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 69 CHAPTER V. THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE. THE question whether the gift of language was ori- ginally conferred on man by his Creator, or whether he was left to invent, and by slow degrees acquire the use of words, has been much discussed. The latter notion assumes that the first man was as an infant in respect to the power of thinking and expressing his thoughts; that the race continued long in ignorance and barbar- ism ; and that at length, necessity led to the invention and use of language. These assumptions are inconsistent with man's con- stitution, by which words are necessary to thought, with his primeval necessities, and with the inspired re- cord. Such thinking as the invention of language im- plies presupposes, indeed, the actual knowledge and use of words. To his very first thought upon the subject, a coincident word must have been necessary, not only in order to his being conscious of it as a thought, but to his remembering it so as to combine it with a second. But being, from the moment of his creation, mature and perfect in other respects, it is impossible that he should have been as an infant in respect to his power of think- 70 THE PLENARY INSPIRATION ing and expressing his thoughts. His necessities as an adult required the immediate use of language ; and ac- cordingly, that the knowledge and use of words were imparted to him by his Creator at the outset of his ex- istence, is rendered evident in the first and second chap- ters of Genesis ; where, in immediate connection with the announcement of his creation, Divine commands are addressed to him, which, as appears from the context, he clearly understood; and where the record of his naming the beasts of the field and the fowls of the air, and his announcement concerning Eve, evince that he rightly understood the meaning and use of words. That the words by which he named the inferior crea- tures were inspired into his mind with the thoughts which they expressed, is indicated by the fact that the names which he gave them were significant of their natures or of their chief characteristics. In the third chapter, a knowledge of the meaning and use of words, both on the part of Adam and that of Eve, is shown by their answers to the interrogatories which were ad- dressed to them ; and in the fourth and ensuing chap- ters, the same knowledge and use is exhibited in re- spect to Cain and Abel, and to others succeeding them. Adam was created, not an infant, but a man ; and as such, doubtless, was as perfectly endowed with the gift of speech as with the other gifts of an adult, which qualified him for his station, relations, and responsi- bilities as a rational, social, and accountable being. The Scripture narrative, accordingly, represents him as speaking and acting as a man from the first ; as speak- ing the same language as that employed by the Creator, in giving names to light and darkness, to the firma- OF THE HOLY SCRIPTUEES. 71 ment, the earth, the sea, and other visible objects, and in His commands and instructions to the primitive pair and their descendants. That language, therefore, which was so used prior to the creation of Adam, and was used by him and his successors, and was written by Job, and by Moses and the prophets, was not in- vented by man ; and the sacred history shows that the progenitors of the race did not learn it by slow degrees like children, but were gifted with it from the first as perfectly as any of their descendants have been by gra- dual acquisition. During the antediluvian period, and up to the date of the dispersion, " the whole earth was of one language and of one speech." The descendants of Noah had settled in Babylon, and probably in other countries distant from Canaan. In Egypt, which was contigu- ous to Canaan, the tongue of the Patriarchs would seem to have been continued ; for when Abraham visited that country, Pharaoh and the people understood and . spoke the same language with him. The same is im- plied also in the intercourse of Jacob, Joseph, Moses, and others with subsequent kings. "Whether the Egyp- tians wrote the Hebrew language then, or at any pe- riod, is not now known. .Job, however, who is sup- posed to have been contemporary with Abraham, wrote it, and in a style not inferior to that of Moses. Pro- bably others did the same long anterior to the use of hieroglyphs; and it is certain that the Egyptians used alphabetic writing the epistolic contemporaneously with their use of hieroglyphs. Prior to the dispersion^all the inhabitants of the earth were of one language and of one speech literally, were 72 THE PLENARY INSPIRATION of one lip and one word had one mode of articulation, and spoke the same words. The confusion of tongues which ensued was, probably, the effect of such a change in the articulation of the words previously common to them all, as to cause various and to different parties, unintelligible pronunciations. This, as the tribes and families were dispersed and " scattered abroad upon the face of all the earth," would result in a diversity of languages, differing more or less widely from each other, in vocal sound, in orthography, and in the al- phabetic letters, syllables, and words, or other chiro- graphic characters. This would involve nothing like the origination of any new language ; but only changes in that which preexisted. Those who lived at the pe- riod of the dispersion knew the signification of the words previously in use, and either continued to use the same with a different pronunciation, or others in place of them with the same meaning, but so different in sound when spoken, and in orthography and chiro- graphic characters when written, as to make it a differ- ent language, which, being taught to their children, would be perpetuated. Thus the variety of languages which immediately ensued upon the dispersion would naturally result with- out the otherwise necessary lapse of years, or ages, for a new invention. The subsequent changes, like that from ancient to modern Greek, and from Latin to Ital- ian, are not such as to require the supposition that any new or original language has ever been devised by man, And, accordingly, no historical notice exists of any people without a language, or of any people that ori- ginated one; though in every language particular OF THE HOLY SCKIPTUKES. 73 words are dropped from use, new words are introduced, and the signification of some words has undergone a partial or a total change. And it deserves to be re- marked, as strongly implying the origin of all the dif- ferent languages from one primitive stock, that the al- phabets of the different nations not only resemble each other, but, for the most part, are the same with the Hebrew in respect to the order, power, and even the forms of the letters. The fact that in all languages the letters are nearly the same, while the sounds are different, coincides with the supposition that the confusion of tongues resulted from a change of pronunciation. There are some three thousand languages spoken on the earth, between which there is so much of resem- blance and affinity as to induce the conclusion that they are all varieties of one original tongue. In ortho- epy and orthography they greatly differ ; and it is strik- ing to observe to what an extent the difference in these respects is in accordance with the natural effects of cli- mate, employments, and the predominant objects of thought. In the torrid zone, where the vocal organs are highly and uniformly flexible, the language is soft, melodious, and surcharged with vowels. In colder zones, and increasingly towards the polar regions, it is harsh and guttural. By the effect of climate, of expos- ure, of new employments, and of new objects of atten- tion, it may well be supposed that the vocal organs and utterances of families and tribes that migrated in any direction at and after the dispersion recorded in Gene- sis, were sufficiently affected to account for the varie- ties not caused by that event. 3 74 THE PLENARY INSPIRATION The fact that foreign words are adopted and incor- porated with our language is in evidence that words are simply the vehicle and representative of thought. For they are adopted not as signifying things, or as sounds to which we may assign a meaning, but solely for the sake of the thoughts which they convey. Hence, as nearly as possible, words entire, in their pre- vious form and sound, are transferred by those who know the thoughts which they express, and who can not so soon or so well express the same thoughts by new -coined words of different form and sound. Thus, in our version of the Scriptures many Hebrew and Greek words are transferred, because they expressed thoughts which could not be perfectly conceived or ex- pressed in any existing English words. Being trans- ferred, and by usage being understood as conveying the thoughts which they expressed in the original tongues, it would be easy to show, and is indeed obvious, that no substitution of English, or other words, could now be made perfectly to express the same thoughts. There is in Pritchard's Physiology a very forcible argument to show that the Hebrew was the parent of the Semitic tongues, and as compared with the other dialects of that family, and still more, as compared with the languages of the Japhetic and other races, ex- hibits proofs that it was not, as they evidently were, the growth of accidental and gradual accretion, that its very framework displays a deep conception and desigu, in its dissyllabic roots, of which the three consonants express the abstract meaning the essential or leading sense or import, -while all the relations of ideas to past and future time, to personal agency or passion, the pos- OF THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 75 sible or real, and even the differences of nouns and verbs, are denoted by changes in the interior vowels, which the words themselves were obviously intended in their original formation or construction to undergo : a contrivance which implies a conception and previous contemplation of all that words, when invented, can be thought capable of expressing 1 Now since, from a comparison of the several ancient languages the inference is unavoidable that the Hebrew was the primeval tongue, and since that has in its struc- ture certain proofs of perfection and of design which are wanting to the other tongues, and is free from the im- perfections which characterize them, it is a just conclu- sion that the Hebrew was a gift to man at his creation, and not a product in any degree of his contrivance, or of that of any of his descendants. The knowledge and use of words then, was imparted to the primitive pair as an endowment no less neces- sary to man as a thinking and social being, than light was to his seeing, and sound to his hearing. But since words, as the instruments of thinking, and vehicle of thought, consist of syllables and letters, the earliest writing is most likely to have been by means of alpha- betic characters, as corresponding most perfectly to the sounds of letters and syllables and their combinations, to the organic succession of thoughts, and to the indis- pensable rules of grammar. Moreover, the primitive language, like other primeval endowments, may safely be presumed to have been perfect ; and therefore, as it was alphabetic, that the earliest chirographic represent- ations of it, were made in alphabetic characters, which arc in every respect more perfect than picture writing, 76 THE PLENARY INSPIRATION hieroglyphs, or unsyllabic marks. This, taking the Hebrew, in the absence of all evidence to the contrary, and all but positive demonstration in its favor, to have been the primeval tongue, is confirmed by the fact that all the proper names recorded by Moses as of antedilu- vian appropriation, are purely Hebraic ; while the most ancient writings, those of Job, and Moses, are in the alphabetic characters of that language. And though imagined by some, to have been otherwise than copious in words, that language must be acknowledged to have been far more affluent and various than all the systems of picture writing, hieroglyphs, and unsyllabic marks put together ; especially with reference to the great themes to which it is applied. All the difficulties which philosophers and theorists have conjured up on this subject, are founded in the fanciful assumptions above mentioned that the race was originally launched upon its career, in a condition of infantile ignorance and barbarism, and that the first step in the invention of language, was made, in some quarters, by picture writing, in others, by hieroglyphs, and in still others, by unsyllabic marks. The first of these assumptions, as has been shown, is at war with the Sacred Record. The others imply, what is absurd, that men in their efforts to invent language, attempted to communicate their thoughts to each other by pic- tures, hieroglyphs, and marks, before they conversed by vocally uttering their thoughts in words. Whereas it is not more certain that they think in words, than that they must possess words prior to such thinking as they aim to represent by pictures, hieroglyphs, and marks. But if they have words, and employ them as OF THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 77 the vehicle of their thoughts, they have the power which none ever failed to exercise, of expressing them by the voice in advance of any species of writing. And since words are alphabetic and syllabic, the first, most natural, and most perfect mode of representing them on paper, must needs have been by alphabetic characters. In the nature of the case, therefore, picture writing is an evidence of the greatest paucity of words, and equally an evidence of extreme ignorance and degene- racy. Hieroglyphs and non-alphabetic marks, imply the same things in a less degree, and alphabetic cha- racters in a far less degree than either. And that such was the course of things, and the relative place of these several methods, is evident from the facts, that the Mexicans were in the use of a spoken language con- temporaneously with their use of pictures ; that the Egyptians had a spoken language shortly after the dis- persion, and prior, no doubt, to their use of hiero- glyphs ; and that the Chinese have a spoken, as well as a non-alphabetic written language. And it may, without hesitation, be concluded, that the Mexicans had recourse to pictures, and the Chinese to arbitrary marks, because of their ignorance of any alphabet ; and that the Egpptians employed hieroglyphs either for the same reason, or for purposes of secresy. For to suppose any race or class of people to have in use a spoken language, commensurate, as of course it would be, to all their thoughts, and then to suppose them to invent, as a means of recording their thoughts, a sys- tem of hieroglyphs which, according to the theory here opposed, stood for things and not for words, and which 78 THE PLENARY INSPIRATION on any view could have represented but a part of what was expressed in their articulate language, implies either that they had no knowledge of any alphabet, or that their object was concealment. Language, as the instrument of thought, being an original gift from the Creator, and commensurate in copiousness and significance, with the thoughts to be expressed, and as perfect as the faculties of seeing and hearing, would doubtless have continued without change, had man continued in his primeval state. The scriptural is the only historical, and the only rational account we have of the occasion of its becoming cor- rupt. To the rebellious conduct of fallen man, the confusion of speech and the consequent variety of dis- similar tongues is directly ascribed ; and to the depra- vity and wickedness of man all the perversions and corruptions of language are to be traced. To the preceding observations concerning the origin of language, and the Hebrew as the primeval tongue, it is in point to refer to the knowledge and use of lan- guage by angelic beings. That those intelligences have the faculty of speech, is shown both in the Old and New Testaments, by numerous records of what they said. They spoke the same language as the men whom they addressed, or who heard their voices ; and often concerning things not within their own experience or previous knowledge, and which required words which they could not have invented. The patriarchs, pro- phets, and others under the ancient dispensation, un- derstood them. The language which they used, was the same with that which Moses spoke and wrote, in respect to vocal sounds, articulation, and significance. OF T3E HOLY SCRIPTURES. 79 He quotes their words, represents that their voices were heard, and their meaning understood. In the New Testament, their words are quoted in the Greek tongue, in which, in the Apocalypse, they are repre- sented as uniting with the redeemed, and the unfallen hosts in heaven, in doxologies and hymns of praise. They were bearers of Divine messages to men, inter- preters of prophetic symbols see Daniel and Kevela- tion and exercised a ministry towards the heirs of salvation, which required the knowledge and use of words. In every view of the case, it is plain, that had not language been a primeval gift, no intercourse could have taken place between man and his Creator, till the mute and helpless infant, forced by his physical neces- sities, had performed a transcendent and unrivalled wonder, by inventing words whereby both to give ut- terance to his own thoughts, and to receive divine in- struction. But even then, the pressure of physical wants would not have prompted the invention of words for which he had no answerable thoughts words ex- pressive of what he was to believe concerning God, and what duties were required of him words as necessa- rily to be inspired into his mind by the Author of his being, as the thoughts conveyed by revelation con- cerning things not within the observation of his senses. The fact, therefore, that Divine revelations are made in words, and convey thoughts which man is utterly incompetent to discover, demonstrates that language was not of man's invention. The theories of Harris, (Hermes,) Monboddo, Astle, and others, who assume that man was as speechless as 80 THE PLENARY INSPIRATION an infant, till lie invented a language for himself, ac- cordingly involve, in respect to all the details of his progress, the most preposterous suppositions. For those theories, notwithstanding that they contemplate man as continuing in his infantile condition of ignor- ance and helplessness up to the time of his success in the invention of language, nevertheless suppose him to have foreseen the fitness and competency of words to enable him to distinguish different things and express different thoughts ; which implies as much intelligence and discernment concerning the powers of letters, their organic formation, the combination of them in the formation of syllables, and of syllables in the forma- tion of words, and all that belongs to the parts of speech and the relations of the words required to form intelligible sentences, as he would have after he had completed his invention ; and, indeed, as much think- ing and as real a knowledge of words beforehand, as it was the object of his invention to supply. But when the infant had invented letters, articulation, syllables, words, and grammar, he would have accomplished no- thing to his purpose according to these theories till he had assembled a convention of all the infants of his time, to discuss what he had done and to agree on the meaning to be affixed to the respective words of his vocabulary. On the assumption that such a conven- tion of mute imbeciles was held, to affix a meaning to sounds before they employed them as words, it might be reasonable to conclude that they would pass resolu- tions in the very terms employed by the writers above referred to whose theories to that extent, may have a claim to be respected : such as, that " articulate voices OF THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 81 are the first advances towards the formation of lan- guage." And that, " It being difficult to convey new ideas by sounds alone, and man being by nature imi- tative, therefore, an invention of writing is necessary." And at that stage of their progress they would be likely to resolve that pictures would in the nature of things, be the most perfect kind of writing, because pictures would naturally stand for things themselves, and visibly represent them. The notion that man commenced his career in an infantile state, and slowly groped his way to the use of speech, in a condition far inferior, as it must have been to that of animals, with their natural instincts, and their sensational language, has assisted to give a color of plausibility to the no less preposterous notion, that on account of his ignorance and barbarism, Divine revelations were so long deferred, and then given at in- tervals, as by his progress in knowledge and civiliza- tion he became prepared to receive them ; a notion which implies that, until he had prepared himself by the invention of language, to receive a revelation, he had no moral character, and was subject to no moral government ; that the Creator had no claims upon him as an accountable creature, and took no measures to instruct, assist, or restrain him. What the first reve- lations might have been upon this theory, or of what use they could have been till they embraced every thing essential to be known by man, in order to his faith and obedience, no one can tell. The bare statement of a supposition that the Creator made a revelation to the first man, or to any of his descendants, which did not convey the essential truths to be believed, and enjoin 4* 82 THE PLENARY INSPIRATION the essential duties to be performed, is sufficient to re- fute it. Any thing short of that, would be as incon- sistent with the character of the Being to be worship- ped and obeyed, as with the relations, necessities, and duties of man. If as a creature naturally ignorant, yet rational and responsible, man needed a revelation, he needed it as urgently at the outset of his existence as at any later period ; and if there were reasons why the Divine goodness should at any period teach him what it was essential to him to know, and what he could not otherwise learn, those reasons must have been as imperative at the beginning, as at any subse- quent stage of his existence. Closely allied to the notion above referred to, that revelations from the Creator depended upon man's prior invention of language and improvement in civilization, is the no less absurd notion that man was left, in his natural state as a creature, to discover the doctrines and practise the duties of natural religion, as well as to in- vent a language. But whoever considers what natural religion is that it involves right apprehensions of the nature and perfections of the Divine Being, and of our relations to Him, and to one another, and enjoins cer- tain duties towards Him, our fellow-creatures, and our- selves, must be convinced that a discovery of its teach- ings implies omniscience as truly as any thing con- tained in the written Scriptures. Those teachings re- quired not only to be correct, but to be authoritative, and to be comprehensive and ample enough for the guidance of men in their worship, in their social rela- tions, and as subjects of the Divine Government. From the nature of the case, therefore, whether men were OF THE HOLY SCRIPTUKES. 83 originally ignorant and barbarous or not, the conclu- sion is unavoidable, that those teachings never origi- nated with them, but were imparted by the omniscient Creator and Kuler of men. They accordingly com- prise nothing which is not more clearly taught in the written Scriptures. Having been imparted to the pro- genitors of the race when called to act in their prime- val relations, and having been, with many added truths concerning the fallen condition of the race, familiar to ISToah and his contemporaries, they have been preserved even among pagans, with more or less distinctness, down to the present day. To those to whom the writ- ten Scriptures were not imparted, the truths of natural religion handed down by tradition from age to age, have, in proportion as they have been retained, formed the rule of natural conscience, and the sanction of na- tural law and government. The superadded and pe- culiar teachings of the written Scriptures, relate not to man in his original and natural state, but to his altered and peculiar character and exigencies as a fallen crea- ture, and to the method of his recovery ; so that they contain all the earlier oral revelations which belong to natural religion, and new revelations vouchsafed and written from time to time, as the dispensations of the redemptive scheme were carried forward. If now we turn to the introductory portion of the written word, which records the creation of man and gives sketches of his history down to the exodus from Egypt, we find in those brief recitals the doctrines and injunctions of natural religion concerning God, and concerning man in his personal, social, and civil rela- tions, clearly recognized and expressed, in connection 84: THE PLENARY INSPIRATION with doctrines and predictions superadded to the pri- meval and natural system, and relating to the method of his redemption. We find that Adam received oral instructions prior to his fall, and that after that event, further communications were made personally to him, to Abel, Enoch, Noah, and others ; and that Abraham and other patriarchs were directly taught by the great Kevealer, the peculiar truths of revealed, in distinction from natural religion, so that their faith was the same, and of like efficacy, with that of the apostles and fol- lowers of Christ. The reason, therefore, why it was at sundry times, and in divers manners that God spake in times past to the fathers by the prophets, and at a later period by His Son, the Scriptures as written in successive por- tions, was not founded in the nature or the prune val condition of man, his original ignorance, his defect of language, his barbarism, or in any thing concerning his progress from infancy to a mature and cultivated state and character. If a Divine Kevelation was ever to be made to him, he was as capable of receiving it at one time as at any other ; for doubtless He who made man's mouth, could put words into it at His pleasure. And if the first chapters of Genesis were inspired, it is past all question that Divine Revelations were made to him before, and to him and his descendants immedi- ately, and from time to time, after the fall. The insti- tutions of the Sabbath day, and of marriage, those concerning the means of subsistence, dominion over inferior creatures, the conditions of continued residence in Eden, the ritual of piacular sacrifices and of accept- able faith, homage, and obedience these were coeval OF THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 85 with, the first days and years of man's existence. In- deed all such revelations, instructions, and institutions, were then known, as were requisite to the formation of some of the chief model characters of the Bible, as signalized and held up for imitation in the New Testa- ment ; as that of Abel, the second son of Adam, who " obtained witness that he was righteous, God testify- ing of his gifts, and who being dead, yet speaketh ;" that of Enoch, a prophet, the seventh from Adam, who "before his translation had this testimony, that he pleased God ;" and that of Noah, the tenth from Adam, who walked with God, and was an " heir of the right- eousness which is by faith." 86 THE PLENARY INSPIRATION CHAPTER VI. THE NATURE AND REALITY OF INSPIRATION ILLUS- TRATED BY REFERENCES TO THE SCRIPTURES. BOTH the reality and nature of Inspiration are strikingly exhibited in the commencement of the sacred volume. Of the first chapter of Genesis, sixteen verses consist wholly or chiefly of what is recorded as having been spoken by the Creator ; twelve verses relate what was done by Him, and the immediate effects of His acts; and the three remain- ing verses merely record the occurrence of the success- ive days. All the words of this chapter, equally with those of them which are declared to have been spoken by the Creator at the time, and as He proceeded with the work of creation, must have been inspired into the mind of Moses as he wrote them ; for otherwise he could not possibly know what words had been so spoken, or what particular things were done, or what was the order and succession of the acts recorded. And if Adam, as the subsequent narrative implies, un- derstood those words, the knowledge of them must have been conveyed to him by an immediate rinspira- tion of th.oughte_mjrgrds. For twenty-seven of the vefseslrelate to what was said and done prior to his OF THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 87 existence ; so that no being but the Creator Himself could possibly, then or afterwards, impart to him or to others, a knowledge of the sounds, or of the meaning of those words. The three verses which succeed the twenty-seventh are expressly addressed to him, and must have been understood by him ; for they command him to replenish and subdue the earth, and invest him with dominion over the fish of the sea, the fowls of the air, and every living thing that moveth on the earth ; and instruct him as to the herbs and fruits which he was to subsist on, and the herbs by which the inferior animals were to be sustained. They express not only the names of visible objects as the earth, the sea, fish, fowls, animals, trees, herbs, seeds, etc., but various acts and conditions blessing, fruitful, multiply, replenish, subdue, dominion over, living, moving, creeping, bear- ing, fruit, yielding, giving, life, living. Doubtless when he first heard the sound of these words he must have been enabled to comprehend the meaning of them in the connections and relations in which they are re- corded. They were spoken to him immediately after he became a living soul. They prescribed to him what he was to do, and what relation he was to sustain to the inferior creation. He was created in the image of God, who announced before He created him that he should have dominion over all the earth with its teem- ing races. To suppose that the words were not audi bly spoken, would be to deny the authenticity of the record. To suppose that he did not understand them, would be to impute folly to the Creator in speaking them. To suppose that the thoughts expressed were conveyed to him without the words, would be to con- 88 THE PLENARY INSPIRATION tradict that law by which rational creatures are con- scious of thinking and communicating their thoughts to one another in words. But if the words were spoken, and if Adam understood them, then he did not invent the language, nor learn it by slow degrees like a child, but, as an adult of mature faculties, was endowed with a comprehensive and accurate knowledge of all the words uttered in his hearing, and all that he had from time to time occasion to use. The first words spoken to him by the Creator, undoubtedly conveyed a defi- nite and intelligible meaning, which on hearing the vocal utterance, Jie could not mistake. In thinking of that meaning afterwards, he would necessarily think in the words which had been spoken ; for if those were the first words uttered in his hearing, he could then have had no knowledge of other and equivalent words. The conveyance of the thoughts with the words into his mind must have been equivalent in effect and in re- spect to his faculties and his mode of receiving and be- ing conscious of thoughts, to the conveyance of the same thoughts and words into the mind of Moses, by Inspiration. Such accurate knowledge, on his part, of the sounds, meanings, and uses of words, is indubitably evident from the ensuing narrative, in the second and third chapters, where among other things, are recorded the apostasy of man and the consequences of it, which are attested by all history the sin, which brought death, degradation, and misery in its train, and gave occasion to the subsequent revelations, to the work of redemp- tion, and to the institutions of religion. That Adam clearly understood the terms of the pro- OF THE HOLY SCRIPTUKES. 89 hibition which he transgressed, the meaning of the words spoken to him after his transgression, the curse pronounced upon the earth, the denunciation of sorrow, toil, and death upon himself, the reason of his expul- sion from the garden, and the words which in his altered condition, he then employed for the first time, must undoubtedly be admitted, or the whole record must be rejected as a fable, and the historical and ac- tual condition of the race must be regarded as an inex- plicable mystery. In like manner, in the fourth chapter, the words spoken by Jehovah to Cain, are shown to have been correctly understood by him, by the words which he uttered in reply ; though from the peculiarity of the matters referred to, most of the words employed on the occasion, must have been spoken then for the first time. It is reasonable to suppose that the earliest descend- ants of Adam were instructed by him in respect to the sounds and significations of all the words brought to his knowledge ; and that as new subjects and occasions arose in the experience of particular individuals, de- manding the use of new words, the requisite knowledge of them was imparted. This accordingly is indicated in numerous instances. Thus Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of times and events long future, " Saying," as quoted by Jude, " Behold the Lord cometh with ten thousand of his saints," etc., using words, doubtless which he neither learned from his con- temporaries, nor invented himself. Noah received particular verbal revelations concerning the Deluge and the Ark, in words for which there had been no pre- vious occasion, but which he was enabled to under- 90 THE PLENARY INSPIRATION stand. So with Abraham, Moses, and the prophets. "When Moses objected to being sent to Pharaoh to deliver the messages of Jehovah, that he was slow of speech and not a man of words, "Jehovah said unto him, "Who hath made man's mouth ? go and I will be with thy mouth, and teach thee what thou shalt say and thou shalt speak unto Aaron, and put words into his mouth, and I will be with thy mouth, and with his mouth, and will teach you what ye shall do and thou shalt be to him instead of God." The method of revelations, and of imparting the knowledge of words, is thus illustrated. The verbal communications were to be made by Jehovah to Moses, and by Moses to Aaron. Besides the great facts, doctrines, commands, promises, and predictions of the Bible which are expressed in the words of the Kevealer, and together constitute the larger part of the inspired Scriptures, there are numerous in- stances of particular verbal directions respecting the con- duct of individuals, classes, and communities of men, under novel circumstances, and when charged with new and peculiar duties. Thus, particular verbal directions were repeatedly given to Abaham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Joshua, David, and many others, which to a greater or less extent undoubtedly required words not previously known to them, but which it was necessary that they should comprehend. The entire ritual of the Levitical service was detailed to Moses in words, and by him written out for the guidance of the Priests, the Levites, and the congregation. All the details concerning the form, dimensions, materials, workmanship, and furni- ture of the Tabernacle, were in like manner verbally OF THE HOLY SCULPTURES. 91 expressed to Moses and written down by him. Those details involved the use of a great variety oLnew, words ; to understand which, so as to execute the sev- eral parts of the work, in exact conformity with the directions, ( wisdom, understanding, and knowledge, were imparted by the Spirit of God, to Bezaleel and Aholiab, in particular, and to every wise-hearted man, in whose heart the Lord had put wisdom,' to execute what was prescribed. At the close of these instruc- tions Exod. 25-31 Jehovah gave to Moses " two tables of stone, written with the finger of God." " The writing was the writing of God, graven upon the two tables." That 'alphabetic writing was then in use among the Hebrews, and was understood by the people generally, may be gathered, not only from this example, in which the vocal sounds uttered from Mount Sinai in their hearing, were represented in writing on the Tables for general and permanent use, but from earlier notices. At the close of the laws and ordinances which were proclaimed from Sinai Exod. 20-24 Moses, it is said, "wrote all the words of the Lord." In chap. 17 : 14, The Lord said to Moses, "Write this for a memo- rial in a book." The Signet of Judah, mentioned Gen. 38, was, doubtless, like other signets, engraved, and bore, at least, the initials of his name ; by which its ownership was determined. See Exod. 28 and 39. The expressions of Job, chap. 19 : 23, 24 : "Oh! that my words were now written that they were graven with an iron pen in the rock forever" imply the use of writing in the patriarchal age, of which, indeed, the Book of Job itself is a notable evidence. And the 92 THE PLENARY INSPIRATION word translated Book, Gen. 5:1, indicates by its use elsewhere, that the genealogy was recorded at the time referred to. Again : the minute description 1 Chron. 28, of the temple to be erected by Solomon, and of the materials of all its furniture, is an instance of the introduction of new words by inspiration. David gave to Solomon the patterns of all that " he had by the Spirit, of the courts," and in "all this, said David" after specifying the particulars "the Lord made me understand in writ- ing, by His hand upon me, even all the works of tii.is pattern" Probably he immediately wrote down the details, as the Spirit inspired the words of the description into his mind and moved him to write. These examples are in accordance with the earliest intimations in secular history respecting the use of words : namely, that they represented through the eye, when written, the vocal sounds audibly enunciated as expressions of thought. When a word was written, it was that to the eye which articulate sound was to the ear ; and articulate sound was to the ear what the word unspoken was to the mind, as the instrument of thought. Hence the order in which thinking, speaking, and the several kinds of writing succeeded each other. First : learning the sounds and meanings of words by hearing. Second: consciously thinking in words. Third: the articulate vocal utterance of words. Fourth : the writing of the words in alphabetic characters. Fifth : the representation of them by significant acts. Sixth : the representation of them by unsyllabic marks and hieroglyphs ; and Seventh : by pictorial representations. OF THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 93 Man, as created, was perfect. But without the power of articulate speech, he would be no more perfect as an intelligent being, than annuals would be without eyes and ears. His mind was so constituted that he can think ; and his vocal organs were so constituted that he can speak. But he can no more think, except in words, than he can articulate intelligible words which express no thoughts. He was so constituted as to re- ceive thoughts in words, by hearing, by reading, and by inspiration to be conscious of them to remember them to express by vocal articulation the words re- ceived to conceive thoughts in words, and by speak- ing and writing to convey them to others. But origi- nally, as now, words were prerequisite to his conception of thoughts ; his first words and thoughts, therefore, must have been imparted to him by inspiration. When we open our eyes upon an object, a tree, for example, a perfect daguerreotype of it is depicted on the retina, with which the mind is in immediate con- tact. That reflected image is an indispensable condi- tion of perception by sight. When we hear the name of the object there is an impression on the tympanum, equivalent in effect to the image on the retina. When, without seeing it or hearing its name, we think of the object, the intellectual conception is embodied in the word by which it is named the articulate vocal sound which had vibrated on the ear. When we write or read the name, the same intellectual effect results as from the visual image on the retina, and the vocal articulation combined. Thus the senses are organically instrumental to the cogitations of the intellect. But inasmuch as we are 94 THE PLENARY INSPIRATION not conscious of the image depicted on the retina, and therefore, though it be in immediate contact with the mind, we can not recall it by memory ; and inasmuch as sight depends on the presence of light and of visible objects, which conditions are often wanting ; it is not by that image that the intellect conceives thoughts, but by words, of which we are conscious, which we re- member, and which, when we speak or write, convey our thoughts to others. The act of thinking, accord- ingly, both in adults and in children, involves a pre- vious knowledge and recollection of words words learned by oral or literary instruction, or received by inspiration as the medium and instrument of thought. We see things indeed, but seeing is not thinking. We think of what we see in the words which describe it. When we see a new object a plant or an animal of which we neither know the nature nor the name, we think of it in words which assign it to some class or species, or words which describe it as unknown, and merely signify our ignorance. Illustrations of the nature and reality of Divine In- spiration, similar to those which have been adduced, might easily be cited, were it deemed to be necessary, from every part of the writings of the Prophets and of the Apostles and Evangelists. OF THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 95 CHAPTER VII. THE INSPIRATION OF THE WORDS OF SCRIPTURE INTO THE MINDS OF THE SACRED WRITERS EXPRESSLY TAUGHT BY THEM THEIR STYLES AND IDIOMS THE PERSONAL TEACHINGS OF MESSIAH THE GREAT RE- VEALER. THE great commission of our Lord to His Apostles, enjoined them to teach to others only what He com- manded. Go ye and teach all nations to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you. (Matt. 28.) But He had inculcated and prescribed His doctrines and commands in words ' spoken to them ; and what He now enjoins is equivalent to saying : Go and teach all nations all the words ye have heard from Me. Sub- sequently, John 14, He promised them that the Holy Spirit should teach them all things, and bring all things to their remembrance, whatsoever He had spoken unto them. But those things as spoken by Him included the words which He uttered, and could not be brought to their remembrance, or taught to others, disconnected from the words. To the like effect, He said on another occa- sion, John 12 : He that rejecteth Me, and receiveth not My words, hath one that judgeth him. The Word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day ; 96 THE PLENARY INSPIRATION which clearly implies, that the words as spoken by Him and understood by the people, correctly and per- fectly expressed and conveyed to them His meaning, His thoughts, doctrines, commands : and equally, when His words, taught by the Holy Spirit, brought to their remembrance, inspired into their minds, and spoken, or written by them, and when as written they are preached by His ministers to the end of the world. Again, Luke 10, He that heareth you heareth Me. That is, he that heareth you, heareth My words spoken by you, which correctly express My thoughts. From all which we may gather, that whenever the Spirit in- spired into the minds of the Apostles different words from those which are recorded as having been spoken by Christ to express the same thoughts, they are no less His words than if they had been so recorded. It was the office of the Holy Spirit to convey His words to them by inspiration. When He, the Spirit of Truth, is come, He will guide you into all truth ; for He shall not speak of Himself, but whatsoever He shoM hear that shall He speak. (John 14.) Accordingly they were ad- monished, when persecuted and brought before magis- trates Take no thought beforehand what ye shall speak, neither do ye premeditate, but whatsoever shall be given you in that hour, that speak ye ; for it is not ye that speak, but the Holy Ghost. Mark 13. The Holy Ghost shall teach you, in the same hour, what ye ought to say. Luke 12. It is not ye that speak, but the Spirit of your Father that speaketh in you. Matt. 10. I will give you a mouth and wisdom, etc. Luke 21. The Holy Spirit was by their mouth to speak the words of God, as we elsewhere read, that God hath OF THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 97 spoken by the mouth of all His Holy prophets since the world began. (Acts 3. Luke 1.) This inspiration of words was realized by the Apos- tles in preaching and testifying the Gospel. They spoke, not in words of their own selection, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheih, but in the words which the Holy Ghost teacheth. (1 Cor. 2.) This general declaration imports that the words which they spoke in preaching were on all occasions the words of God inspired into their minds. Thus, on the day of Pente- cost, they spake as the Spirit gave them utterance. (Acts 2.) The things which had been spoken by Christ, and which were to be brought to their remembrance by the Spirit, must have been recalled by inspiration ; for they were originally spoken in Syriac, whereas they were written, and therefore must have been inspired in Greek. From the foregoing observations we gather that In- spiration comprised a correct conception of the mean- ing, the form, and the sound of the words in which the thoughts imparted were conveyed; the words being necessary to a consciousness of the thoughts, their sound to a vocal enunciation, and their form to a re- presentation of them by writing. Such, obviously, must have been the case with re- spect to prophecies, instructions, and announcements, when first imparted by inspiration. And such must necessarily have been the case with whatever was in- spired and written or spoken ; for the writers could not be conscious of the thoughts independently of the words, nor write the words without knowing their form, any more than they could speak them without 98 THE PLENARY INSPIRATION knowing their sound. Accordingly those upon whom the gift of tongues was bestowed, spoke as the Spirit gave them utterance, the words which were inspired into their minds, and of which they clearly understood the meaning and the sound. But their utterance of those words conveyed no thoughts to hearers of a differ- ent language, till they were interpreted into equivalent words of their language, of which they knew the mean- ing, the sound, and the form, so that they possessed them as the vehicle of the thoughts, and could speak them, write them, and recall them to remembrance. (1 Cor. 14.) This view of the nature and mode of Inspiration, the process by which the Scriptures, the words written, were given by inspiration of God, obviates the objec- tion sometimes made, that the difference between the style of one sacred writer from that of another implies that the respective penmen were left to select their own words. They were not all qualified by education and other endowments to comprehend, think, speak, and write in the same words ; and therefore words suited to their education and capacity, words in which they could readily conceive, and be conscious of the thoughts intended to be expressed, were inspired into their minds ; into some, words of an ornate and poetical cast, and into others the plainest and most simple words in common use. This objection, as is elsewhere observed, proceeds upon the groundless assumption that Inspira- tion is affirmed of the writers, instead of that which they wrote the Scripture, the words written. In respect to tin so j>;nli< ulurs, there appears no grouinl of di (Terence between the mode in which rev* .!;>- OF THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 99 tions were made to men by inspiration, and the mode in which the knowledge of particular facts or truths is communicated by one man to another. Should a learned and eloquent man impart such knowledge to a man of similar learning and eloquence, he would em- ploy words suited to his education and style of speak- ing ; and if to a man of but ordinary gifts and attain- ments, he would employ only common and simple words. But he could not in either case impart such knowledge by conveying his thoughts into another's mind disconnected from their appropriate words, or visible signs equivalent to words. He must speak or write the words in which he thinks, by which he is conscious of the thoughts to be imparted, and by means of which they are retained in his memory. So a short but very important portion of the Scriptures, after having been audibly spoken to the whole congregation of Israel, was written on tablets of stone by the finger of God. A very large portion, comprising all that could not be discovered by man, and much besides which could not have been within the personal know- ledge of the writers, is recorded in the very words which had been spoken by the Divine Eevealer. With respect to the diverse styles of the sacred pen- men, it may be observed : 1. That the marked differences in their styles, cor- respond to the differences in the education, literary qualifications, employments, and habits of thought and expression, of the different writers. Some were priests, trained in the Levitical schools, and familiar with the sacred writings of their times, and with all the doc- trines and services of their religion. Some were ex- 100 THE PLENARY INSPIRATION pressly educated to be prophets ; others were magis- trates and kings, endowed with the various knowledge and culture required by their official stations. And some were men taken from the secular walks of life, and furnished only with the ordinary education which their stations and pursuits required. Thus of the prophets, Amos was from among the herdmen. " I was no pro- phet, neither was I a prophet's son; but I was an herdman, and a gatherer of sycamore fruit." (Chap. 7.) And of the Evangelists, Matthew was a tax-gatherer, and Peter a fisherman. On the other hand, Moses was learned in all the wisdom of Egypt. David, Solomon, and Isaiah were amply endowed with various know- ledge and with the gifts of eloquence and poetry, and Paul was skilled in the Greek and Hebrew learning of his day. 2. Those provisions in the constitution of man by which we think, are conscious of, and remember and express our thoughts, in words, imply that the same process takes place in the inspiration of Divine truths into the mind, as in the communication of divine or other truths from one human mind to another ; that is, in conjunction with and by the instrumentality of words. The sacred writers were undoubtedly conscious of the thoughts which were inspired into their minds, and which they expressed in words by writing ; and if the laws of the human mind, in respect to percep- tion and consciousness, were not suspended by the inspiration of thoughts into their minds, they could have been conscious of the inspired thoughts only in words. 3. It was therefore necessary to their understanding OF THE HOLY SCKIPTUKES. 101 and comprehending the thoughts of which they were conscious, that they should be inspired in words which by their education, tastes, habits, employments, and official stations, were known and familiar to them ; for, they could not intelligently comprehend and be con- scious of the thoughts any farther than they under- stood and were conscious of the words. 4. Accordingly, there are similar differences in the styles of what is recorded by the different writers, as having been audibly spoken by the Divine Kevealer, as in the styles of the historical narratives or other matter connected with what was spoken ; from which it is apparent that words equally within the knowledge and familiar use of the writers, were employed in both cases. 5. The reason, consequently, why the styles of the different writers, differ from each other, arises not from the fact that what they wrote was inspired, nor from the nature or mode of inspiration, nor yet from the nature of the subjects to which the inspired thoughts relate ; but wholly from the circumstance that the thoughts conveyed must necessarily be inspired in words familiar to the writers, because they could re- ceive, understand, and be conscious of the inspired thoughts only in words which were previously known and familiar to them. Accordingly it happens, both in the prophets and the evangelists, that in some in stances the same thoughts are expressed by different writers in different words, and in other instances in the same words. In short, conformably to the constitu- tion of the mind and the laws of thought and conscious- ness, the same thing appears to have happened, so far 102 THE PLENARY INSPIRATION as the style is concerned, which would have taken place had the inspired thoughts been conveyed from one human being to another, or had they been the thoughts uninspired of the respective writers. This may be illustrated by reference to the Gospels and the writers of them. 1st. There is satisfactory evidence that they were written at successive periods in the order in which they are now arranged. 2d. There is evidence, also, that the successive writers, after Matthew, were familiar with what their predeces- sors had written. 3d. Each Gospel contains many things not contained in either of the others, and omits many things as likely to have been known to the re- spective writers as those which they insert. 4th. The omissions and additions are alike indicative of the pe- culiarities of character, education, and pursuits or em- ployments of the respective writers, and of the descrip- tion of readers which they appear to have had im- mediately in view. Thus Matthew records what was peculiarly suitable to the Jews during the earliest period of the new dispensation ; beginning with the genealogy of Jesus, the Christ, giving a minute account of his nativity, and of the ministry of John the Bap- tist ; relating those acts and miracles of Christ which had been predicted of him, and quoting the prophecies of the previous dispensation, in proof of his Messiah- ship. At the same time, his marked Hebraic idioms, his grouping of kindred subjects together without re- gard to their chronological order, and other peculiari- ties, distinguish his style from that of the other Evan- gelists. Considering his personal character, therefore, and the immediate objects of the Gospel first to be OF THE HOLY SCKIPTUKES. 103 published, it is sufficiently obvious, that, out of the great mass of facts, discourses, miraculous cures, para- bles, narratives, and predictions which transpired, and were to be recorded by one or other of the Evangelists, those which were specially selected, and inspired into his mind, to be written by him, were such only as the occasion immediately required, and were inspired in words, idioms, and phrases, suitable to his peculiar habit and style of thinking. Mark appears to have had more previous literary culture and various knowledge, than Matthew, and to have written with a view to Greek and other Gentile readers. His Gospel, while it contained the facts and doctrines essentially necessary to be known by such readers, supposing them to have been ignorant of its predecessor, had, for the Jews, the requisites of a sup- plement to Matthew's. It omits the genealogies, and cer- tain of the parables and other matters which were of special significance to the Jews. While, on the other hand, it specifies individuals by their names, and ex- plains many things more circumstantially and minutely than its precursor. Its style, as compared with that of Matthew, is precise, laconic, and abrupt. Luke, the beloved physician, must be recognized as a Greek of an accurate, logical, and comprehensive mind, systematically trained in the learning of his time, and of his profession, and writing for his own class of Gentiles as well as for the readers of all time. The peculiarities of his style writing as he did, not as a personal witness of what he relates, but as an historian as well as of his topics, illustrations, and medical allu- sions, are, like the peculiarities of the subjects and style 104: THE PLENARY INSPIRATION of John, apparent to every reader as in striking contrast to what had been written by Matthew and Mark. Even where they severally mention the same events or sayings^ there is often a different collocation of words, a greater or less degree of amplification or particularity, or a diversity in some other respec^ without disparagement of the scope and meaning of the thoughts expressed, yet plainly indicating that what each of them was in- spired to write, was inspired into his mind in his own accustomed style and phraseology, and that the topics were selected by the Omniscient Spirit with reference to the immediate and special objects of the respective Gospels. If what the Evangelists were to utter in their preach- ing, and when brought before magistrates, was to be in the words of the Iloly Ghost speaking in them, how much more when they wrote for the infallible guidance of the faith and life of the Church in after ages ? If when they preached and testified, the inspired words which they uttered were of their accustomed and fa- miliar style, and therefore adapted to the usage and comprehension of their hearers, what wonder can there be that the same peculiarities of style should mark their writings ? If the thoughts they were to express by vocal utterance were inspired into their minds in words already common and familiar, why should not the thoughts they were to express in writing be inspired into their minds in the same words ? If the thoughts were inspired in words, which is the only inspiration indicated in the Scriptures, or which can be defined and shown to be consistent with the intelligent exercise and consciousness of men's minds, they must have been OF THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 105 inspired in words which, in style and idiom, were natu- ral and familiar to the writers. And the significance of the foregoing interrogatories becomes pointed and resistless, when it is considered that the words of Christ Himself, as expressly quoted by the Evangelists, are marked by the same colloqual peculiarities as those which are recorded in immediate connection with them. There was the same reason why the thoughts which were inspired into the minds of the sacred writers should be inspired in words and idioms to which, by education and habit, they were accustomed, as why they should be inspired in a tongue known to the re- spective penmen : and not in a tongue previously un- known both to them and to those for whom their writings were immediately intended; namely, that what they wrote might be immediately and perfectly understood. Had Jehovah spoken to the patriarchs, to Moses, to the children of Israel, and to the prophets, in any other than the words, phrases, and peculiar idioms in common use, he would have been but little, if any better, understood, than if he had spoken in a tongue foreign to his hearers : and so, also, had Christ spoken in any other than the colloquial phrase and manner in common use. It is a fact that the sacred oracles are written in such words of human and fami- liar use; and if that is supposed to constitute an ob- jection to their plenary verbal inspiration, it is obvi- ously a far stronger objection to a suggestive, supervi- sory, or other inspiration, which left the choice of words in any degree to the discretion of men. For in the one case the selection made by Omniscient Wisdom must 5* 106 THE PLENARY INSPIRATION have been such as infallibly to convey the meaning : while in the other, as far as the writers exercised any discretion in the choice of words, there must be fallibility and un- certainty. To suppose them to have been so superin- tended as to insure their selection of the best possible words, those which would perfectly and infallibly con- vey the thoughts intended to be expressed, is to sup- pose nothing less than that the words which they wrote were inspired into their minds to convey to them the thoughts which they were to express in writing. The penmen of the Holy Scriptures wrote what was inspired into their minds to be written. Their volun- tary and responsible agency in the matter was simply that of penmen. What they wrote depended not on them, either in respect to the matter, its truth or its authority. They wrote as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. The Spirit spake by them. They wrote in their own characteristic styles, not merely because they were not competent voluntarily and intelligently to write in any other, but because, in order to their in- telligent and voluntary agency in writing, and that what they wrote might be readily and correctly under- stood, the words, in the styles which characterize the compositions, were inspired into their minds. The thoughts were inspired in those words, in which they were conscious of the thoughts, and which, of necessity, therefore, they wrote. Such plenary inspiration of the words which were spoken and written by the Apostles, is evident both from express declarations, and from the nature of their office. The power of working miracles was not the distinctive characteristic of their office. That power OF THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 107 was exercised on particular occasions, by men who were not apostles. It was, by the imposition of their hands, conferred on others. That which was peculiar to their office, and which distinguished them as Apos- tles, was, that invariably what they spoke and wrote was Divinely inspired and infallible as the rule of faith and life. Their teachings were, by virtue of this plenary and infallible inspiration, of the same binding authority on all churches and for all time, as if they had been audibly announced by their ascended Lord. Therefore they spoke and wrote not in words of man's wisdom or selection, but in the words which the Holy Ghost taught them. Nothing short of this God speaking by them could possibly render their teach- ings, commands, and decisions binding on the con- sciences of men. Nothing different from this could in- vest their words with Divine authority, and constitute them the infallible words of God. It has been regarded by most writers as of extreme difficulty to account for it, that the thoughts which were previously known to the sacred writers, were inspired, or needed to be inspired, into their minds at the time when they recorded them ; which must have taken place if all Scripture is given by inspiration. What necessity could there have been of a Divine in- spiration of those thoughts into their minds, or of in- spiring their minds to conceive those thoughts ? If they were already conscious of them, what more could be necessary than that they should honestly commit them to writing? And if in respect to those thoughts a Divine inspiration took place, why were they inspired in the styles in which the writers were previously con- scious of them? 108 THE PLENARY INSPIRATION This difficulty, we apprehend, arises altogether from an erroneous view of the nature and subject of inspir- ation ; as if it were the writers, instead of what they wrote, that was inspired. They wrote that, and only that, which was inspired into their minds to be written ; and equally, whether it was in part, or wholly, or in no degree, known to them before. They must have known innumerable things which they did not write ; and things concerning the same subjects. It was not necessary to the ends to be answered by the Scriptures, that all the particulars known to them should be writ- ten. The Inspiring Spirit selected such as were neces- sary, omitting others. And in this He did precisely what He would have done, had none of the things been previously known to the writers, or within their personal observation and experience : as in the case of Moses, with respect to the entire retrospective history contained in Genesis not one of the things comprised in that history could have been within his personal ob- servation, or known to him, unless by oral tradition, and without absolute certainty. Nor can it be doubted but that folios might have been filled with other de- tails upon the same subjects. What he records is but a brief selection inspired into his mind out of an inde- finite mass of facts and details. But such a selection In either of the cases referred to is inconceivable, ex- cept by an inspiration of the selected thoughts into the minds of the writers. A miracle, indeed, may be im- agined, by which they should forget all that they knew before, except the selected thoughts ; but that would not suffice : it would not make it absolutely certain that the thoughts not forgotten were conceived correct- OF THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 109 ly and remembered perfectly by them ; or that they were retained so as to be written in the necessary con- nection with each other. The reason, in relation to others than themselves and their immediate constituents, why the Holy Spirit inspired into the minds of the sacred writers in their wonted styles, the thoughts with which they were pre- viously familiar, was the same, no doubt, with that for which He inspired revealed thoughts which were not previously known to them, in the same styles, namely, because they were natural to the conceptions and modes of thinking and expression of mankind in all countries and all times. The written Scriptures were designed not peculiarly for the learned, but for all classes of men ; of whom the unlearned are the vast majority. The simple language of ordinary life, of which the style and phraseology are as much alike as the necessi- ties and the thoughts, was therefore necessary. To have rejected that and adopted any other style would have been to defeat the object of inspiration. The languages in common use among all nations, being in style substantially alike, a revelation, to answer its purpose, to be understood, to meet the common want, and to be translatable from " the originals into other tongues," must of necessity, with respect to one portion of its matter as well as of another, be inspired and written in the ordinary words, styles, and phrases of those who received and wrote it. The same course of remark as that above concerning the selection of thoughts out of the mass of what was previously known to the sacred writers, is in like manner applicable to the selection of historical facts 110 THE PLENARY INSPIRATION and genealogies, in different canonical books, from other works then extant which were not received into the canon. In the books of Kings, for instance, " the book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah," and that of "the Kings of Israel," are frequently mentioned as containing "the rest of the acts," of successive kings the acts, namely, which were not selected for inser- tion in the. Inspired Scriptures. Solomon spake three thousand proverbs, and his Songs were a thousand and five. Of his Proverbs, a portion only are selected ; and but two of the Psalms are ascribed to him. The acts of David are said to be written " in the book of Samuel, the book of Nathan, and the book of Gad ; " and the acts of Solomon "in the book of Nathan, the prophecy of Ahijah, and in the visions of Iddo:" from which sources, doubtless, particular selections were in- spired. "All Israel were reckoned by genealogies; and behold they were written in the book of the Kings of Israel and Judah." (1 Chron. 9.) From those records the genealogies in this book of Scripture were selected. The prophets wrote what was expressly inspired into their minds to be written. Out of all the materials of Jewish history, public and private, the Divine wisdom required certain things to be written certain things which had been recorded in the secular annals or national chronicles of the kings ; while many other things in those records were omitted; and certain things also from the private personal history of indi- viduals. The particulars so selected, were in the view of Omniscience, necessary to be contained in the author- itative Book of Scripture; and as matters of fact, actual events, a true report of what was said and done, OF THE HOLY SCKIPTUEES. Ill whether in itself right or wrong, were inspired into the minds of the prophets to be written. As so written they are the words of God, as they constitute a record of real facts and events in words inspired by Him. Those who object to the idea that the words of Scrip- ture were inspired with the thoughts, regard it as es- pecially preposterous to suppose that the order and grammatical arrangement of the words were Divinely prescribed. But surely a little consideration must con- vince every one : 1st. That whatever thoughts were inspired into a prophet's mind, must have been couch- ed in words, in order to be consciously received by him. And if every one does not perceive the absolute necessity of this in every possible instance, all must ad- mit that necessity in a vast multitude of cases where no fitting words were previously known to the Prophets ; and in other cases where a choice by the sacred pen- men from among a diversity of words was impossible as in proper names, numbers, proportions, qualities, dates, affirmations, negations, and the like. 2d. That the thoughts could not possibly, in any case, be intelli- gibly conveyed otherwise than in a due and orderly succession that succession which is exhibited in the due collocation and grammatical arrangement of the words when written. 3d. That such orderly succes- sion and grammatical arrangement of the words of the sacred text was as necessary to be prescribed as the words themselves, or as the thoughts which they ex- pressed : for in no possible case perhaps, or not in one out of a thousand instances, would a different order and arrangement of the words of the text convey pre- cisely the same meaning as that which was adopted. 112 THE PLENARY INSPIRATION In most cases the meaning would be materially affect- ed by a change in the collocations and relations of the words. In many cases the meaning would be wholly different ; and in every instance the slightest change would modify or obscure the sense. The object of a particular collocation and grammatical arrangement of the words of a sentence is to convey intelligibly and perfectly the thoughts and shades of thought intended to be expressed. And accordingly there are, in the nature and structure of language, the several parts of speech, and the varieties of change in respect to per- son, number, case, mode, tense, and other requisites to the expression of every variety and shade of thought. To these, in the selection and collocation of words in spoken or written sentences, particular attention is in- dispensable. Suppose, for example, that two men were equally familiar with the facts relating to a particular subject the biography of an individual ; that the details of such biography fully written out would fill a massive folio ; that a selection from the mass of materials might be comprised in a thin octavo ; and that in order to pro- duce such an abridgment, one of them should act as penman while the other dictated the words to be writ- ten ; the result obviously would be a work expressing the thoughts of the party dictating, and in the words selected and collocated by him. The writer would have no agency, either in the selection of the thoughts, or in the selection or the arrangement of the words. To suppose him to write other words in place of those dictated, or to change the collocation of the words, would be to suppose him to be guilty of treachery and falsehood. OF THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 113 When connected thoughts are conveyed by inspira- tion, as when conveyed by vocal sounds, or written characters, they must necessarily be adjusted conforma- bly to the laws and habits of the mind that is to re- ceive and be rendered conscious of them. Such ad- justment is as necessary to intelligible speech, and to the intelligent reception of thoughts, however conveyed, as a due succession of notes in instrumental music, and is, by practice, rendered as easy and spontaneous in the one case as in the other. " There are innumerable motions of the fingers upon the stops or keys of an in- strument, which must be directed in one particular train or succession. There is only one arrangement of those motions that is right, while there are ten thousand that are wrong, and would spoil the music. The musician thinks not in the least of the arrange- ment of those motions ; he has a distinct idea of the tune, and wills to play it. The motions of the fingers arrange themselves so as to answer his intention. In like manner when a man speaks upon a subject with which he is acquainted, there is a certain arrangement of his thoughts and words necessary to make his dis- course sensible, pertinent, and grammatical. In every sentence, there are more rules of grammar, logic, and rhetoric, that may be transgressed, than there are words and letters. He speaks without thinking of any of those rules, and yet observes them all, as if they were all in his eye." (Reid, Essay IY.) Doubtless the constitution, laws, and habits of the human mind, ren- der such precision of arrangement as necessary in the case of inspired, as in that of uninspired thoughts and words. 114 . THE PLENARY INSPIRATION The inspiration which is affirmed of the Scriptures that of words with the thoughts represented by them is in harmony with our intellectual constitution, and with those laws conformably to which we think, are conscious of our thoughts, and remember and express them. "We are constituted to think in words, to receive thoughts by hearing and by reading words, to express them by articulating words; and in like manner to receive thoughts by the inspiration of words. The miracle of Divine Inspiration does not contravene the laws of our intellectual being. It conveys intelli- gence to the mind in words of which the recipient be- comes conscious by the inspiration of them, whether with or without the adventitious circumstance of an audible utterance of the words by the inspirer, or that of causing intellectual visions or dreams. That the in- telligence is conveyed in words of which the mind is rendered conscious, in accordance with the laws by which it becomes conscious of all other thoughts as they are conceived in words, and as they are heard when spoken, and read when written, is evident from the fact, that the sacred penmen when receiving by inspir- ation what they were moved and commanded to speak and write, were in a state perfectly to apprehend the meaning of the words inspired, to be conscious of them, to remember them, and to commit them to writing. In all but one particular the process appears to be identical with that by which, in the ordinary exercise of our intellectual and physical organs, we receive intelligence in words, from one another ; the exception being, that revealed intelligence in words, the Holy Scriptures, the words of God, were inspired into the mind of the OF THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 115 recipient, not at hj.s will, or by the will or agency of any other creature, but immediately by the omniscient Creator, Lawgiver, and Judge of men ; and therefore they are His words, and involve His infinite authority. The too common practice of referring to the different books of the sd,cred canon, as if the writers were the sole, or the responsible, authors of them, and of quoting Moses, the Prophets, and the Apostles, as teaching this or that, is neither countenanced by the Scriptures themselves, nor consistent with their claims. The several writers were authors in no higher sense, than that of being penmen of words inspired into their minds words, in- deed, of which, when inspired, they were intelligently conscious, but which were not of their selection. And accordingly when reference is made in Scripture to what was written by particular persons, especially when the reference is made to particular facts or doc- trines, it is introduced by phraseology, like the follow- ing : " Thus saith the Lord ; " " Men and brethren, this Scripture must needs have been fulfilled, which the Holy Ghost, by the mouth of David spake before con- cerning Judas." (Acts 1. See also 4 : 24 ; 7 : 6, etc.) The fact that the inspiration by which the Scriptures were given, conveyed into the minds of the sacred writers the words they were to inscribe, and, so far as the words were conveyed by an audible voice, in a manner analogous to that in which men convey intelli- gence to one another, by articulate vocal expressions, is illustrated by the familiar personal intercourse and conversation of the Great Kevealer, with patriarchs and prophets before, and with His apostles after, his incar- nation, and by the collocation of His words with those 116 THE PLENARY INSPIRATION of men in the sacred narratives. He who is the one only Mediator between Grod and man, who came down from heaven and took man's nature into union with His person the image, representative, Kevealer, Word of Grod, as really exercised His mediatorial office under the ancient as He does under the present dispensation. He is before all things, and by Him all things consist. By Him, and to subserve His purposes of manifesta- tion, providence, and grace, all things in heaven and earth were created and are upheld and governed. In His official Person, and in the similitude of His human nature, He appeared visibly to the first parents of the race, to the patriarchs, to Moses, and to the prophets, and instructed and conversed with them in their ac- customed language. Under one or other of His titles as recorded by Moses, He was recognized and wor- shipped by them, as Creator, moral and providential Ruler, and mediatorial Administrator in all the rela- tions of God to the human race. In His visible appca r- ances, particularly, He was announced as Moloch Je- hovah, the Messenger Jehovah the official mediatorial Person, as designated, anointed, and sent of the Father not as the angel or an angel of Jehovah, according to the Massoretic construction. In this representative character He administered the visible theocracy, con- ducted the children of Israel out of Egypt, gave the Law at Sinai, prescribed the Levitical services, talked with Moses, and spoke to all the prophets since the world began. When He became incarnate, He asso- ciated familiarly with His disciples, instructed them, conversed with them, and referred them to the Hebrew oracles as testifying of Him. " Search the Scriptures ; OF THE HOLY SCRIPTUKES. 117 for in them ye think ye have eternal life ; and they are they which testify of Me. Had ye believed Moses ye would have believed Me, for he wrote of Me. Begin- ning at Moses and all the prophets, He expounded unto them in all the Scriptures, the things concerning Him- self. These are the words which I spoke unto you that all things must be fulfilled which were written in the Law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the Psalms, concerning Me. Then opened He their under- standings, that they might understand the Scriptures." In these and in all similar references, both by Him and by the Apostles, it is .evident that the words of the sacred oracles infallibly expressed the thoughts of the Eevealer who inspired them. On that fact His own in- tegrity, the authority of His mission, and the salvation and eternal life of His hearers depended. He spoke and conveyed His thoughts to them in the same man- ner as they spoke and conveyed their thoughts to Him and to one another, and there is the same evidence that they understood and received His thoughts, that there is that He understood and received theirs. Both His and their words, of question and answer, being inspired into the minds of the sacred penmen, are written as a part of Scripture, and are interspersed in the narratives of events. In numerous instances of His personal ap- pearance, during the ancient dispensation under the above and other designations, the occasion required His special interposition, and the imposing influence of His presence, in giving instructions and commands to par- ticular persons, or in controlling impending events. On such occasions the words which were spoken by him, and the replies which were made, are recorded as alike 118 THE PLENARY INSPIRATION conveying the thoughts of the speakers. Evidently the words spoken were alike vocally articulated, and were employed according to their received significa- tion. Thus among the instances of His appearance and conversation with Abraham, that recorded Gren. 18, may be referred to, when he announced His pur- pose to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah. He revealed His otherwise inscrutable purpose, in the words which He spoke. It nearly concerned the relatives of the Patriarch; and the colloquy which ensued demon- strates by its import and by the particulars referred to, that the words employed conveyed perfectly and in one and the same way, the thoughts of the respective par- ties. So His appearance to Moses in the burning bush, and the continuance of it in the cloudy pillar, during the journeyings of the Israelites for forty years, was attended by a succession of new and peculiar revela- tions intimately connected with the circumstances, and with the civil and religious interests and agency of the tribes, the record of which by Moses shows indubitably that the thoughts of the several speakers were con- veyed in the same way and with equal precision, by their words. It was at His command, and under His eye, that Moses wrote, and deposited the writings, un- (1 i His sanction, in the side of the Ark of the Cove- nant. Instead of citing particular instances of His per- sonally speaking to Moses and directing him as His servant in all that was done, each chapter and para- graph of the four last books of the Pentateuch must be referred to. In his administration of the ancient economy the visible Theocracy he exercised the offices of Prophet, OF THE HOLY SCKIPTURES. 119 Priest, and King, and of necessity gave verbal direc- tions to magistrates, prophets, and all in every relation who were subject to him. On the death of Moses, " Jehovah spake unto Joshua" directed him to enter the promised land, and to observe the law, and not to turn from it to the right hand or to the left. " As I was with Moses, so will I be with thee. This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth, but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein." (Josh. 1.) After the passage of the Jordan, He who appeared to Moses in the bush, appeared to Joshua in the form of a man, with a drawn sword in his hand, and said : " See, I have given into thine hand Jericho." (Josh. 5.) Subsequently, He gave him express verbal directions in every emergency. At the close of his career, the people covenanted to serve Jehovah and to obey His voice, " and Joshua wrote these words in the book of the law of Grod," and he set up a stone as a memorial, " and said unto all the people, Behold this stone shall be a witness unto us ; for it hath heard all the words of the Lord, which he spake unto us." (Josh. 24.) This very significant act implied the utmost re- gard for all the words which Jehovah had spoken, and which were written to express and perpetuate His thoughts to all generations. From the death of Joshua to the reign of Saul, the history is fraught with visible manifestations, miracu- lous interpositions, and specific verbal directions. At the commencement of that period "the children of Israel asked the Lord, saying : Who shall go up for us against the Canaanites first, to fight against them ? 120 THE PLENARY INSPIRATION And the Lord said, Judah shall go up, and the Lord was with Judah." (Judges 1.) The tribes having failed to extirpate idolatry, and rebuke and alarm being necessary to them, " The Mes- senger Jehovah came up from Gilgal to Bochim, and said : 'I made you to go up out of Egypt, and have brought you into the land which I sware unto your fathers ; and I said I will never break my covenant, but ye have not obeyed my voice. Why have ye done this?'" "And it came to pass when the Messenger Jehovah spake these words unto all the children of Is- rael, that the people lifted up their voice and wept." (Chap. 2.) The poignant words which He uttered on that occasion, like those announced from Sinai, affected the people at the time ; but their apostasy to idolatry which had already begun, was not arrested, and a series of calamities ensued. "When oppressed by the Midianites, " The Lord sent a prophet unto the children of Israel, who said unto them : * Thus saiih the Lord God of Israel, I brought you up from Egypt, and brought you forth out of the house of bondage, but ye have not obeyed my voice.' " " And the Messenger Jehovah appeared unto Gideon, and said unto him : * The Lord is with thee.' " Gideon saw Him " face to face," and received from Him minute verbal instructions, commands, and answers to his re- quests, confirmed by miracle, during the events which ensued. The passages which were audibly spoken, are of such import, and occur in such connections, as to demonstrate that the penman of the narrative must have written the precise words which were uttered ; which, therefore, must have been inspired into his mind OF THE HOLY SCEIPTURES. 121 with the other words of the composition. (Judges 6:7,8.) On the occasion of raising up Jephtha as His instru- ment in delivering the children of Israel from the Ammonites, after they had " cried unto Him, saying, "We have sinned against thee," " the Lord said unto the children of Israel, Did I not deliver you from the Egyptians?" In the subsequent recital Jehovah is appealed to as the witness and arbiter of events. " The Spirit of the Lord came upon Jephtha ; and the Lord delivered the Ammonites into his hands." (Judges 10: 11.) To provide a Nazarite through whom His miraculous power should be exhibited against the Philistines, the Messenger Jehovah appeared to Manoah and his wife, promised them a son, and gave particular directions concerning him ; which special announcements on His part, and their replies, are doubtless recorded in the original words. (Judges 13.) Prior to the war upon the tribe of Benjamin, the children of Israel " asked counsel of God, and said, Which of us shall go up first to the battle and Jeho- vah said, Judah shall go up first." After the first, and also after the second battle, in which many of them were slain, they fasted and worshipped, and "inquired of the Lord, saying, Shall I yet go out to battle against the children of Benjamin, or shall I cease ? And the Lord said, Go up ; for to-morrow I will deliver them into thine hand." (Judges 20.) In this and in other instances, the record of the words of Jehovah, in con- nection with that of the extraordinary agencies and events by which they were fulfilled, leaves no room for 122 THE PLENAEY INSPIKATION any other conclusion than that the words in both instances were inspired into the minds of the writers. In the history of Samuel, in repeated instances, the words spoken to him by Jehovah, are so interwoven with the events narrated, and often so essential as pre- dicting or forming the basis of them, as to imply that all the words of the record were equally inspired, and equally employed in their ordinary signification. Thus the prediction, chap. 3d, concerning the house of Eli : " And the Lord said to Samuel, I will do a thing in Israel, at which both the ears of every one that heareth it shall tingle. In that day I will perform against Eli all things which I have spoken concerning his house." The next ensuing chapters record the extraordinary events by which this was accomplished. When the people desired a king, "the Lord said unto Samuel, Hearken unto the voice of the people in all that they say unto thee ; for they have not rejected thee, but they have rejected Me, that I should not reign over them." " Yet protest solemnly unto them, and show them the manner of the king that shall reign over them. And Samuel told all the words of the Lord unto the people that asked of him a king. And Samuel heard all the words of the people," in answer to his description of the king, " and he rehearsed them in the ears of the Lord." (Chap. 8.) Next follows the record of what preceded the anointing of Saul to bo king. " Now the Lord had told Samuel in his ear, a day before Saul came, To-morrow, about this time, I will send thee a man out of the tribe of Benjamin, and thou shalt anoint him. And when Samuel saw Saul, the Lord said unto him, Behold the man whom OF THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 123 I spake to thee of." Having anointed him, lie described to him the incidents he should meet with on his way home, all of which " came to pass that day." " And Samuel called the people together unto the Lord," that is, to the tabernacle in which His presence was mani- fested, and said: " Present yourselves before the Lord by your tribes." When Saul of the tribe of Benjamin had been taken, " he could not be found. Therefore they inquired of the Lord further, if the man should yet come thither. And the Lord answered, Behold he hath hid himself among the stun . And they fetched him thence ; and Samuel said to all the people, See ye him whom the Lord hath chosen. Then Samuel told the people the manner of the kingdom, and wrote it in a book, and laid it up before the Lord." (Chap. 9 : 10.) In the 12th chapter, Samuel briefly rehearses to the people the events of preceding years, and the righteous acts of Jehovah to them and their fathers ; in which lie quotes the words which had been spoken on particular occasions. From the structure and scope of the history of Joshua and the Judges the narrative being made up of the words spoken by Jehovah, those spoken by the princi- pal actors in the scenes described, and the acts and events to which the quoted words relate, in their natural and chronological connection with each other the inference is unavoidable, that all the words as written, were used according to their ordinary and well- understood signification, and were all alike inspired into the minds of the sacred penmen. This inference, indeed, could not be more obvious or more striking 124 THE PLENARY INSPIRATION were all the words of the history recorded as having been audibly spoken. In the progress of the history there are prophetic passages intermixed with the narra- tive of passing events. The triumphal Song of De- borah, and the Song of Hannah, like that of Moses at the Ked Sea, and that near the close of his ministry, from all which quotations are made elsewhere in Scrip- ture, were without doubt verbally inspired. And throughout the narratives in question, the relation of the words which were spoken, to those collocated in connection with them, and the perfect congruity and consistency between them, render it incredible and absurd to suppose that some of the sentences and parts of sentences which are written were verbally inspired, and that the rest were left to the discretion of the writers. To the history of David a very brief notice only is requisite ; while that of the subsequent kings is suffi- ciently referred to in what relate to the prophets. In his last words, David himself says : " The Spirit of the Lord spake by me, and His word was in my tongue." (2 Sam. 23.) The passages in his history in which Jehovah is represented as speaking to him directly and through His prophets, directing his conduct, and hear- ing and answering his requests, are too numerous to be specified. His Psalms bear indubitable marks of ver- bal inspiration. Their inspired and canonical authority are abundantly recognized and attested in the New Testament, both by the Saviour and the Apostles. They are in a large degree prophetic ; and in many of them, in one official relation or another, the Messiah OF THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 125 spoke by him of his future humiliation, sufferings, tri- umph, and reign. The Books of Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel consist almost wholly of passages which are introduced by such formulas, as " Thus saith the Lord The word of the Lord came unto me saying The Lord said unto me The Lord spake, said, or hath spoken Speak Thou, say Thou," etc., which occur some seven hundred times, as introductory to successive paragraphs. The Book of Daniel in its prophetic announcements, its record of miraculous interpositions, and its historical details, is fraught with evidence of its verbal inspira- tion. Nebuchadnezzar's dream concerning the four con- secutive kingdoms, is a striking instance. His thoughts came into his mind upon his bed, what should come to pass thereafter ; but having forgotten their vehicle, he retained no distinct remembrance of them. His spirit was troubled. He summoned the astrologers, the ma- gicians, and the soothsayers, but they confessed their utter inability to tell him what he had dreamed. The God of heaven, who revealeth secrets, revealed this secret to Daniel in a night vision. When, in the words which were inspired into his mind, he expressed the thoughts which Nebuchadnezzar in his dream had conceived in the same words, the king remembered, and was so conscious of them as the same words, that he fell on his face, and said to Daniel : " Of a truth it is, that your God is a God of gods, and a Lord of kings, and a Eevealer of secrets." (Dan. 2.) Instances equally decisive of verbal inspiration are exhibited in the prophecies which were conveyed to, him, and in his 126 THE PLENARY INSPIRATION record of the verbal interpretations which were ex- pressed by the angel Gabriel. The lesser prophets all expressly signify that what they wrote was the Word of Jehovah. Thus : " The beginning of the word of the Lord by Hosea. Then said the Lord unto me Hear the word of the Lord, ye children of Israel." " The word of the Lord that came to Joel" "The words of Amos, which he saw con- cerning Israel Thus saith the Lord Hear this word that the Lord hath spoken against you Hear thou the word of the Lord."" The vision of Obadiah. Thus saith the Lord God " " The word of the Lord came unto Jonah The word of the Lord came unto Jonah the second time." "The word of the Lord that came to Micah Thus saith the Lord Hear now what the Lord saith" "The book of the vision of Naham Thus saith the Lord." "The burden which Habbakuk saw The Lord said, "Write the vision and make it plain upon tables Lord, I have heard Thy speech and was afraid." " The Word of the Lord which came unto Zephaniah" "Then came the word of the Lord by Haggai the prophet Then spake Haggai, the Lord's messenger, in the Lord's message unto the peo- ple, saying Thus saith the Lord of Hosts Again the word of the Lord came unto Haggai " " In the eighth month came the word of the Lord unto Zecha- riah the prophet, saying In the eleventh month came the word of the Lord unto Zechariah, saying Moreover, the word of the Lord came unto me saying Thus saith the Lord of Hosts," etc" The burden of the word of the Lord to Israel by MalachL" Thus nearly the whole of the writings of Moses, the OF THE HOLY SCEIPTURES. 127 Psalmists, and the Prophets, consist of words declared to have been spoken by Jehovah, to the writers, and words spoken by men whom the writers expressly mention ; which words are so collocated and intermin- gled with such other words as were necessary to the progress of the narrative, as to demonstrate that they were all inspired into the minds of the writers. Thus " Grod at sundry times and in divers manners, spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets " and in later days, " by His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, and by whom He made the worlds." "Holy men spoke as they were moved by the Holy Ghost." "All Scripture was given by Inspiration of Grod." Of the prophets to whom he spoke, near fifty in number are mentioned by name, or otherwise personally referred to ; besides whom a succession of High Priests received responses from the Sacred Oracle. A citation of some incidental references to them, is due to the subject. " The Lord heard the voice of Elijah ; and the soul of the child came into him again, and he re- vived ; and Elijah delivered him to his mother. And she said to him, Now by this I know that thou art a man of Grod, and that the word of the Lord in thy mouth, is truth} 1 (1 Kings 17.) "And the Lord spake by His servants the prophets, saying," (2 Kings 21 : 10.) "And the Lord sent against Jehoiakim bands of Chal- dees, according to the word of the Lord which He spake by His servants the prophets." (2 Kings 24 : 2.) " Many years didst thou forbear them, and testifiedst against them by Thy Spirit in Thy prophets.' 1 ' 1 (Neh. 9 : 30.) " Since the day that your fathers came forth out of the land of Egypt unto this day, I have even 128 THE PLENARY INSPIRATION sent unto you all My servants the prophets yet they hearkened not unto He." (Jer. 7 : 25.) "The Lord hath sent unto you all His servants the prophets, yet ye have not hearkened unto Me, saith the Lord ; ye have not heard My words" (Jer. 25 : 4, 7, 8.) " Because they have not hearkened to My words, saith the Lord, which I sent unto them by My servants the prophets." (Jer. 29 : 19.) " Thus saith the Lord God : Art thou he of whom / have spoken in old time by My servants the prophets of Israel, which prophesied in those days, many years, that I would bring thee against them ?" (Ezek. 38 : 17.) "Neither have we obeyed the voice of the Lord our God, to walk in His laws, which He set before us by His servants the prophets." (Dan. 9 : 10.) " I have also spoken by the prophets, and I have mul- tiplied visions, and used similitudes, by the ministry of the prophets." (Ilosea 12 : 10.) " Surely the Lord God will do nothing but He revealeth His secret unto His servants the prophets The Lord God hath spok- en, who can but prophesy." (Amos 3 : 7.) " Should ye not hear the words which the Lord hath cried by the former prophets?" (Zech. 7 : 7,) "the words which the Lord of Hosts hath sent in His Spirit by the former prophets?" (Verse 12.) "As He spake by the mouth of His holy prophets, which have been since the world began." (Luke 1 : 70.) " They have Moses and the prophets let them hear them ; if they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded though one rose from the dead." (Luke 16.) " fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken Beginning at Moses, and all the prophets, He expounded unto them, in all the Scriptures, the OF THE HOLY SCKIPTURES. 129 things concerning Himself." (Luke 24.) " "We have found Him of whom Moses in the Law, and the pro- phets did write, Jesus of Nazareth." (John 1.) "Those things which God before had showed by the mouth of all His prophets, that Christ should suffer, He hath so fulfilled. All the prophets from Samuel, and those that follow after, as many as have spoken, have like- wise foretold of these days." (Acts 3.) " To Him give all the prophets witness." (Acts 10.) " Believ- ing all things which are written in the Law and in the prophets." (Acts 24.) " Witnessing both to small and great, saying none other things than those which the prophets and Moses did say should come." (Acts 26.) " Persuading them concerning Jesus, both out of the Law of Moses, and out of the prophets." (Acts 28.) "The Gospel of God, which He had promised afore by His prophets in the Holy Scriptures." (Rom. 1.) " The righteousness of God, without the Law, is mani- fested, being witnessed by the Law and the prophets." (Eom. 3.) " But now is made manifest, and by the Scriptures of the prophets." (Rom. 16.) "And are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner-stone." (Eph. 2.) " Take my brethren the prophets, who have spoken in the name of the Lord, for an example." (James 5.) " That in the days of the voice of the seventh Angel, the mystery of God should be finished, as He hath declared to His servants the prophets." (Rev. 10.) These, and all similar testimonies, proceed upon the certainty that the words which the prophets wrote, were the words of God, and that they were understood G* 130 THE PLENARY INSPIRATION in the days of the evangelists and apostles, precisely as they were when originally inspired and written. The Scriptures accordingly claim to be the "Word of God. They claim to be infallible and imperishable. The word of the Lord endureth forever. Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in nowise pass from the Law, till all be fulfilled. My words shall not pass away. The word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day. Forever, Lord, thy word is settled in heaven. The counsel of the Lord standeth forever j. the thoughts of His heart, to all generations. Again, if reference be made to particular classes of passages, the conclusion is unavoidable, that they are word for word as they were audibly spoken by Jeho- vah to the Sacred Penmen, or verbally inspired into their minds by the Holy Spirit. As, 1st. The confes- sions, supplications, deprecations, fears, hopes, prayers, thanksgivings, praises, joys, sorrows, of holy men. 2d. All prophetic passages, and all notices of their ful- fillment. 3d. All narratives of miraculous interposi- tions, and the occasions and consequences of them. 4th. All recitals of the infliction of judgments and ca- lamities upon individuals and nations, and the circum- stances, reasons, and results of them ; as in the case of the Deluge, the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, the plagues of Egypt, the curse pronounced upon the whole race in their first parents, that inflicted upon Cain, that upon Ham and his descendants, that upon Achan, and others, in every period of the Thepcratic rule. 5. All descriptions and denunciations of Idola- try, and of other crimes and abominations ; all biogra- OF THE HOLY SCRIPTUEES. 131 phical notices of individuals, good and bad ; all state- ments of their motives, acts, virtues, and crimes ; all statements relating to angels, good and bad, to Satan, to the invisible world, to heaven, to the place of retri- bution, to time, and to eternity. The words of Scripture must necessarily be the infallible words of God, if they involve His authority in any degree. For they express His thoughts, His purposes, counsels, covenants, laws, promises. They describe his acts, as Creator, Euler, and Eedeemer, express the rules by which He deals with men, and the grounds and reasons of His conduct. They relate to the execution of one comprehensive plan, which in- volves His glory and the well-being of the universe. They prescribe the conduct of men in their relations as accountable and immortal creatures. They relate to the events of tune, and to the retributions of eternity. On obedience to them, life and death are suspended. " Set your hearts unto all the words which I testifiy among you this day, which ye shall command your children to observe to do all the words of this Law." " I have set before thee this day, life and good, and death and evil, in that I command thee to love the Lord thy Grod, to walk in His ways, and to keep His commandments, and His statutes, and His judgments, that thou mayest live." (Deut.) The historical, as well as the didactic and prophetic parts of the Scriptures, relate to covenants which were sanctioned by the oath of Jehovah, and the fulfillment of which involves the agency and destiny of men ; to a particular covenant which is everlasting, and is or- dered in all things and sure ; and to promises which, 132 THE PLENARY INSPIRATION as yet, are but partially fulfilled. Hence the homo- geneousness and consistency of the several parts, though written at different periods ; and the fact that they con- tain not a single expression inconsistent with their claim of plenary verbal inspiration. They had one omniscient and immutable Author, who alone com- prehended the details of His plan, and the natures and relations of all things, and, therefore, could determine what should be inspired and written. His whole pro- cedure in the creation and government of the world and of the universe, is a manifestation of Himself, of His perfections, prerogatives, and rights on the one hand, and of the natures, dispositions, and conduct of creatures on the other. The words which He has inspired, relate to things comprised in this scheme of manifestation, and are as infallible expressions of His thoughts, as His works are of His being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, good- ness, and truth. Hence the transactions and events which arc mentioned in Scripture, are represented to be according to His word, or fulfillments of His word. " Christ died and was buried, and rose again, according to the Scriptures. The Scriptures must be fulfilled. The Scripture can not be broken. The Scripture saith unto Pharaoh: Even for this same purpose have I raised thee up, that I might show my power in thce, and that my name might be declared throughout all the earth. Ye do err, not knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God." In all that relates to His own acts and purposes, all that relates to His moral laws, commands, precepts, and prohibitions all that relates to the work of redemp- tion, to the Church, and to the future state, and equally, OF THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 133 in all things connected with, these, His words must be as infallible as He Himself is. Accordingly all good is bestowed in fulfillment of His words of promise and grace ; and all evils are inflicted for disobedience to His words. Again, the words of Scripture, are the sword of the Spirit in changing men from darkness to light, subdu- ing their wills, enlightening and sanctifying them ; and they are the words through which faith is exercised by men. " The sword of the Spirit is the word of God." " The Spirit of God maketh the reading, but especially the preaching of the word, an effectual means of convincing and converting sinners, and of building them up in holiness and comfort, through faith unto salvation." (Catechism.) u The word of God is quick and powerful, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart." (Rom. 8.) u Except a man be born of the Spirit, he can not enter into the king- dom of God. It is the Spirit that quickeneth the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life. Of His own will begat He us with the word of truth. Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you. Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. The righteousness which is of faith, speaketh on this wise The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth and in thine heart : that is the word of faith which we preach : that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt be- lieve in thy heart that God hath raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart, man believeth unto righteousness ; and with the mouth, confession is made unto salvation." " Justifying Faith 134: THE PLENARY INSPIRATION is a saving grace, wrought in the heart of a sinner by the Spirit and word of God," etc. (Ass. Catechism.) " The seed is the word of God the sower soweth the word they that hear and keep it, bring forth fruit. "- "I have manifested Thy name unto the men which Thou gavest me out of the world and they have kept Thy word I pray for them neither pray I for these alone ; but for them also which shall believe on Me through their word. 1 ' (John 17.) " Christ loved the Church, and gave Himself for it, that He might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of 'water by the word. We thank God without ceasing, because, when ye received the word of God, which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth the word of God, which effectually worketh also in you that believe." All this, and all that relates either to the Divine or to human agency in the salvation of men, implies that the words of Scripture, which men are to believe in order to their being justified and sanctified, endure for- ever, and are infallible : insomuch that no other than the originals, and words which express the same thoughts into which the originals may be translated, will subserve the agency of the Spirit, or the exercise of faith. For such words only express the thoughts of the Revealer, concerning the things to which the agency of the Spirit relates, and those which men are to believe ; and those things are forever the same, un- der all dispensations. Faith, justification, and sanctiii- cation are ever the same. Abraham believed God the words of God and was justified; he obeyed His words, and was sanctified ; his faith is the pattern of that of believers in every acre. OF THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 135 CHAPTER VIII. WORDS NECESSARILY AND PERFECTLY REPRESENT AND EXPRESS THE THOUGHTS CONCEIVED IN THEM. BECAUSE words are the constituted instrument and vehicle of thought, and we conceive thoughts in words, arid not without or independently of them, they neces- sarily and perfectly express the thoughts conceived in them. As conceived, they represent to the intellect, as when written to the eye, and when spoken to the ear, all that we are conscious of in the act of thinking. Sensations, feelings, and emotions are subject to no fixed or uniform rules. But words are regulated and re- stricted in their office. As the vehicle and representa- tive of thought, they are its perfect counterpart and correlate. As well might one pretend to see objects which do not exist, or are not visible, and which, therefore, he can not be conscious of seeing or to hear sounds which he is not conscious of hearing as to pre- tend that he has thoughts of which he is not conscious, or which differ in kind or degree from those of which their vehicle makes him conscious. Words exist solely to be the instrument and medium of thought, as the visibility of objects exists that they may be seen, 136 "THE PLENARY INSPIRATION and the audibility of sounds that they may be heard. If successive acts of seeing the same identical objects so as perfectly to distinguish them, were not uniform and certain, the power of seeing, so far from fulfilling its purpose, would but mislead and confuse. If suc- cessive sounds were not so heard as uniformly and per- fectly to distinguish one sound from another, the power of hearing, instead of guiding, would confound us. So as to the power of thinking. If the vehicle of thought were not necessarily, uniformly, and perfectly commen- surate with the thoughts conceived, we could have no certainty as to what our thoughts were. Whether as to thoughts intellectually conceived in words, or thoughts vocally expressed to us by our fellow-men, it is plain that we can no further comprehend and be conscious of them, than the words employed perfectly represent and express them. All that we know, in either case, is the meaning of the words employed in each particular instance. Hence the necessity of learning the meaning of words in order to conceive in them the thoughts which they represent and are intended to express, and to understand by them the thoughts of others who speak or write them. No man receives the thoughts of another, if expressed in a tongue foreign to him ; nor can he conceive thoughts which in his own or other tongues are represented only by words unknown to him. Now inspiration, as its effects show, comprised a correct conception of the meaning, the form, and the sounds of the words in which the inspired thoughts were conveyed, so that the sacred writers were rendered conscious of the thoughts, and were qualified to con- OF THE HOLY SCRIPTURES'. 137 ceive them in the same words, and to express them intelligibly and perfectly by speaking and by writing. Their words, therefore, necessarily represented and ex- pressed the thoughts of which they were made con- scious by inspiration. And if they expressed the thoughts at all, they must have expressed them per- fectly ; for they were the vehicles and correlates of the thoughts, and all that they knew of the thoughts they were made conscious of by the words. This will readily be granted with respect to the words which are recorded as having been spoken by the Most High, Creator, Lawgiver, Euler, and Ke- deemer of men. For if those words do not perfectly express the thoughts which He intended to convey and to have us conceive in them, then we can not be certain that we know what His thoughts are upon any subject, and can not regard the Scriptures as His word. They are not a revelation unless they really convey His thoughts to us ; and if they do not per- fectly and infallibly convey them, we are, as truly as the heathen, in darkness concerning our relations to Him, what we are to believe, and what duties He re- quires of us. But if they do so express and convey His thoughts, then we must conclude that the words written in connection with them in the Scriptures, per- fectly express the thoughts which they represent ; for the two classes are intimately intermingled, equally significant and intelligible, equally necessary to the scope and meaning of sentences and paragraphs, and of necessity from their purport and relations, must have been alike inspired into the minds of the writers. The words employed in the Scriptures, excepting 138 THE PLENARY INSPIRATION those which conveyed thoughts previously unknown to men, are such as were in common use at the time, and of which the meaning was perfectly understood ; which implies that as used in Scripture they perfectly express the thoughts which they there represent; for they largely refer to the objects and affairs of common life, and to be intelligible, must have been used according to the common acceptation on which all faith and con- fidence among men depended. On the other hand, the words employed to convey thoughts previously un- known to the writers, both those which were entirely new, and those which were previously in familiar use, are employed in conformity with the same laws of lan- guage as the words which convey thoughts previously known. New and old words are intimately collocated and connected with each other in the composition. And the fact that such new words to express new thoughts, were, in the connections in .which they are written, audibly spoken or expressly inspired by the Divine Revealer, is conclusive evidence that they per- fectly expressed His thoughts. By far the greater part, comprising several large classes of the words employed by the sacred penmen, indubitably and perfectly expressed the thoughts which they represented, for they related to things which have undergone no change, and which, accordingly, they still exactly represent. Such are the names and desig. nations of the Divine Being ; the terms by which His attributes, acts, purposes, predictions, laws, and pro- mises are expressed ; the proper names of men, of places, and of innumerable things animate and inani- mate ; the relations, faculties, acts, and duties of men ; OF THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 139 numbers, proportions, relations, and qualities of things ; sin, holiness, repentance, faith, and other moral quali- ties and distinctions ; love, joy, sorrow, ease, pain, and other emotions and sensations. In short, all the words which relate to v the creation, the nature, the acts, the moral condition, and the experience of man, and all that relate to the Divine Being and His acts ; and all likewise that relate to the invisible world, to death, to the resurrection, to the judgment, to a future existence, to the holy and to fallen angels. If these words, which essentially constitute the Scriptures, did not, as inspired, perfectly express and convey to those who knew their meaning, the exact thoughts which they represented and were intended to convey; then we have no certainty that we know the truth in any par- ticular concerning the Divine Being, or the subjects of either of the classes of words above referred to. For if the thoughts which these words represent are not precisely the thoughts of Him who inspired them, then they do not reveal His thoughts. If any one of the classes referred to, that which relates to the Divine Being, or that which relates to the invisible world, do not truly represent His thoughts, then we can have no evidence that any of the other classes truly represent His thoughts, and no part of the Scriptures can, with propriety, be called His word. A revelation from God is a communication of His thoughts in such manner that they may be intelligently apprehended and understood by man. A revelation when audibly spoken, or when committed to writing, must be expressed in words, and in words which intel- ligibly and definitely express and convey the thoughts 140 THE PLENARY INSPIRATION which they are employed to represent and reveal. For otherwise they either would reveal nothing or no one could determine what they revealed. The language employed must, therefore, have preexisted with a defi- nite meaning corresponding to the thoughts to be ex- pressed, and with such rules of usage and construction as to render it intelligible : or it must have been mira- culously formed and appropriated to its office when first employed as a medium of instruction to man, and a knowledge of its meaning must at the same time have been imparted to him. The language first spoken to man, was spoken by his Creator, and, therefore, be- yond a doubt, perfectly expressed His thoughts. It may have preexisted. It may have been the language of His eternal counsels, as it was of His subsequent counsels and covenants. It may have been spoken to angels and by them, as it afterwards was. It may have been as perfect as an expression of the thoughts repre- sented by it, and in all other respects, as the marks or figures of mathematical notation, are for the purpose for which they exist, or as the diatonic scale in music is for the expression of melodious sounds. The num- ber of possible mathematical figures and arithmetical combinations is limited. The number of distinct mu- sical notes and musical sounds is limited. The number of letters and of articulate alphabetic sounds is also limited. These, and their combinations in words, are as susceptible of having a fixed and definite signification, as they are of distinct articulate pronunciation, or as arithmetical figures are of denoting distinct and defi- nite numbers, or as a gamut is of representing distinct musical sounds. And the rules according to which OF THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 141 syllables, words, and sentences are formed, so as to express grammatically and perfectly the thoughts which they represent, are inherently and necessarily as uniform and imperative as the rules by which figures are combined to express different numbers, quantities, or proportions, and as the rules by which musical notes and vocal sounds are combined to express differ- ent musical tones. Some thoughts can neither be con- ceived nor expressed directly and without circumlo- cution, in any other than a single word. Thus the word ten alone expresses the simple thought of that aggregate of units, as the word one does that of a sin- gle unit. So of a very large proportion of the objects of our senses, and of their qualities and relations. Such are the root words of every language. But deri- vations, expressions of complex or modified thoughts are often represented by one or more synonyms, or approximately synonymous words, of which some are more and some less comprehensive of the thought to be expressed in particular instances. The reason why particular words, and not others, are employed as numerals, is precisely the same as the reason why par- ticular words and not others are employed to express other facts and truths of every description. It is usage, in every instance, that determines the appropri- ation and significance of particular words. By usage they are known and understood to express particular thoughts. Our thoughts of numbers mathematical truths may be more definite and invariable than our thoughts of moral truths ; but it is in no degree owing to the words selected to express them, but wholly to the degree of our knowledge, the applicability and in- 142 THE PLENARY INSPIRATION fluence of our primary beliefs, and the greater or less clearness of our conceptions. Mr. Locke, so far as he is consistent with himself in his speculations, treats of ideas as quite distinct and different from thoughts an idea being, as denned by him, " Whatsoever is the object of the understanding, when a man thinks." But when he comes to consider numbers, he is forced to perceive that we think of them, and can think of them, only in words, and that the in- tellectual power of numeration, in the case of each and every individual, is absolutely bounded by his know- ledge of the words used to signify numbers. He cites, in illustration of this, the case of uncivilized men whom he had examined, who " could reckon very well to twenty, but could not by any means count to one thousand, because their language being scanty, and ac- commodated only to the few necessaries of a needy, simple life, unacquainted either with trade or mathe- matics, had no words in it to stand for a thousand, so that, when they were discoursed with of those greater numbers, they would show the hairs of their head to express a great multitude, which they could not num- ber ; which inability, I suppose, proceeded from their want of names And I doubt not but we ourselves might distinctly number in words a great deal further than we usually do, would we find out but some fit denominations to signify them by." (Book 2, 5, 6.) Had the author perceived the same thing and reasoned in the same way, concerning all the subjects of his inquiry, his Essay might have been free from its objectionable doctrines, and productive only of a wholesome influence. Neither the savage nor the civ- OF THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 143 ilized have any distinct thoughts either of numbers or of any thing else, any further than they have a know- ledge of words in which to conceive and by which to express their thoughts. The design and adaptation of the vocal organs to be exercised in speaking, of the auditory organs to be exercised in hearing, and of the visual in seeing, are founded in the physical and mental constitution of man. Those organs are alike perfect as instruments of receiving and imparting intelligence. The effects of their exercise are the results of their organization, and are uniform. Words spoken as certainly and necessa- rily convey the thoughts which they signify as the hearing of them proves the utterance of articulate sounds, or as the seeing of physical objects proves the reality of their visible presence. In a word, there can, in the nature of the case, be no less reason why lan- guage should correspond perfectly in significance to the thoughts represented by it, and why the intellectual conception and consciousness of thoughts by means of words unspoken and unwritten should be precisely the same as when occasioned by hearing the words vocally pronounced, or reading them in print ; than why the same external objects as seen at different times, under the same conditions, should appear to be precisely the same. Uniformity of effect is as necessary and as important in the one case as in the other. Words, ac- cordingly, are by the purpose and appointment of the Creator in the organization and constitution of man, the necessary medium, representative, and instrument of thought ; and they perfectly fulfill their office. Nevertheless there are not wanting those who ima- 144 THE PLENARY INSPIRATION gine that they have thoughts which they can not ex- press in words, while others with equal reason, profess to see while their eyes are closed and bandaged, and to see things in the interior or on the opposite side of the globe, and to hear voices where there are no audi- ble sounds. The writings of the first of these classes are designed to show that words are wholly incompe- tent to express some thoughts, and insufficient perfectly to express any. Yet they labor hard to convey their own thoughts to their fellow-mortals, by this inadequate and fallacious medium. And though they necessarily fail to furnish any evidence that they have any thoughts which they have not words to express, they exhibit a degree of skill in using words in such a way as to sig- nify nothing, and thereby subject themselves to the obloquy of not being understood. Were their theory true, we must needs conclude that the whole race had from the beginning been insane in supposing that they had understood each other's thoughts by their words ; while any attempt to instruct men orally or by books, must, of course, be fruitless, and an effort made under the sway of the hallucination, to show that the theory is true, must be set down as merely ridiculous. It is obviously quite as necessary to man in respect to all his relations, interests, responsibilities, and duties, that his words, as intellectually conceived, and as spoken and written, should perfectly represent his thoughts and all of them, as that his sight should per- fectly distinguish all the objects of vision, and his hear- ing all articulate sounds. If it were not a provision of his constitution, a law of his physical and mental organization, that each par- OF THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 145 ticular sound, intonation, and musical note should be heard and uniformly distinguished from all other sounds ; and that each visible object should, under the same conditions, be seen and uniformly distinguished from all other visible objects, man could not exist. And if it were not an inherent law of his constitution, that his words should express his thoughts so as per- fectly to represent them, he could not exist as a moral and social being. Nay, since he is conscious of think- ing only in words, if his words were not the exact measure and real pattern and matrix of all his thoughts, his consciousness could afford no certainty as to what he was thinking of. The absurdity of a contrary theory may be illus- trated by supposing that the same external objects did not always appear to the eye to be the same ; that the human person, for example, as seen at successive inter- vals, appeared, now in its natural form, then in that of a quadruped, a reptile, or a vegetable; or that the same sounds did not uniformly strike the ear so as to be distinguished as the same ; that musical chords had the effect of discords, vocal articulation, that of undis- tinguishable noises, without meaning, alternately with that of distinct and significant sounds. Such, accord- ingly, is the argument and illustration in the inspired words written by the Apostle Paul, 1 Cor. 14 : 1-33 the grounds of which are that God is not the author of confusion, and that, according to the nature and con- stitution of things as ordained by Him, words represent thoughts, and are to be spoken in such a language or so interpreted, as to convey the thoughts to those who hear. u Things without life giving sound, 'whether pipe 7 146 THE PLENARY INSPIRATION or harp, unless they give a difference to the notes, both in tone and in time, how shall it be known what is piped or harped f Such unmeaning sounds are a fit image of unintelligible language, both in their nature and in their effe ts. And therefore if the trumpet, instead of sounding those notes whose meaning is understood by the soldiers, shall give an unknown sound, who in that case witt prepare himself for battle? So also ye, when ye speak by inspiration in your public assemblies, unless with the tongue ye utter intelligible speech, how shall it be known what is spoken ? Therefore, however important the things ye speak may be, ye will be speaking into the air, like madmen. There are no doubt as many kinds of languages used in the world as ye speak, and none of them is without signification to those who are acquainted with them. Nevertheless, if I do not know the meaning of the language that is uttered, I shall be to the person who speaketh a foreigner," etc. (Macknight's paraphrase.) The intellectual as well as the physical capacities of man are limited; and the modes in which they are exercised and manifested are likewise limited. The modes in which he perceives external objects, the modes in which he manifests his thoughts, and the objects of perception and thought are limited. By means of five senses all his perceptions of external objects take place. By means of language, and signs, all the manifestations of his thoughts to others are effected. But there is order and congruity between his senses and their objects, and his thoughts and the means by which he expresses them. Those qualities of objects which are perceptible through the senses, correspond in species and in distinctness from each OF THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 147 other, to the senses appropriated to them ; and for each distinct thought, there is a distinct word or sign, which is known to those who intelligibly express their thoughts. The objects of perception and thought are limited, in number, variety, and all tnose characteristics which are perceptible to us, and of which we have words to ex- press our thoughts. Of large classes of them, indeed, the limit, at least in respect to our capacity, is fixed in the constitution which the Creator originally establish- ed, and so fixed as to be conclusively ascertained by us. Thus we are so constituted as to be capable of uttering by the voice and distinguishing by the ear, only forty different articulate sounds ; nor is it possible for us to conceive in thoughts, or describe in words any other simple or elementary sounds. So of the distinct colors which we perceive by the eye ; and the elements into which all physical substances are resolvable by chemical analysis. Whether with a visual organ of greater capacity other distinct colors would be percepti- ble, or whether with greater powers of analysis the elements in which our chemistry terminates would be further resolvable, is more than we know. The same may be observed of other departments of knowledge as of that, for example, of the elements and axioms of arithmetical and mathematical knowledge, and that of geometrical figures. All these are as perfectly distinct from each other, as are the numbers one and two ; they are the objects invariably of the same dis- tinct thoughts ; we have distinct words whereby to ex- press them ; we can think of them, not apart from, but only in connection with those words, as we hear them 148 THE PLENARY INSPIRATION pronounced, read them as figured or written, silently recall them to remembrance, or give them vocal utter- ance. And we can no more think of any of those elements or figures apart from the words by which we express them, than we can conceive in thought or ex- press in words other and wholly different numbers, re- lations, axioms, and figures. The question is not whether there are in the realms of nature, objects of sense, which our senses are neither designed nor competent to perceive ? nor whether the intellect of a created being is of a nature to be capable of thinking without any coincident use, instrumentality, or knowledge of words? but, whether man, physi- cally and mentally constituted and circumstanced as he is, ever actually has or can have, any distinct thoughts, any intellectual perceptions or cognitions, original or re- membered, apart from words ? If he has, and yet can not express them in words, then he can not be con- scious of them himself, nor remember them, nor give any sort of evidence that he has them. For no one consciously thinks, compares or reasons in silence, otherwise than in words, as when he speaks or writes his thoughts ; nor ever consciously remembers thoughts disconnected from words. If such thoughts are imagined to exist, then they must be fancied to have the same relative place, with those objects of sense, if there be such, which our senses can not discover. To characterize such inexpressible thoughts as un- spoken is to attempt to describe by words what, by the supposition, we have no words to represent ; and is like attempting to describe sensations supposed to be pro- duced by external objects which are beyond the reach OF THE HOLY SCRIPTUKES. 149 of our senses. The fallacy arises from the mistaken notion to which reference is hereafter more particu- larly to be made that words stand for things, instead of simply and exclusively representing thoughts. It is the sole office of words to be the medium of thoughts, intellectually, vocally, and in writing ; and they fulfill that office perfectly in respect to all the thoughts of which we are conscious. If, like sensations, they sig- fied only things, it might be necessary to imagine a vast store-house of thoughts which, owing to their incom- petence and the unfitness of our vocabulary, could not be expressed. Whereas we have words for all our thoughts, which are as perfect as our thoughts are, and will convey our meaning to others who understand the words as precisely and fully as we comprehend it our- selves. He who has clear and precise thoughts, will as certainly have words whereby to convey them to others with clearness and precision, as he who has perfect organs of vision will be, perfectly to see and distinguish visible objects ; or as he whose auditory or- gans are perfect, will be, perfectly to hear and distin- guish audible sounds. And it would be every whit as rational to suppose that the objects which we see and the sounds which we hear were not what those organs were constituted and intended to perceive, as to sup- pose that our words, the vocal utterances of our thoughts, did not signify and express them. He who complains that he has not words to express his thoughts, does but confess that he lacks the thoughts themselves, or has them only in a confused, indeterminate, and un- intelligible state. It has been argued that a verbal expression of our 150 THE PLENARF INSPIRATION thoughts concerning colors, sounds, or other objects of sensational perception, to those who have never expe- rienced the corresponding sensations, fails to convey to them ideas of colors, sounds, etc., and therefore that language is imperfect and inadequate. But it does not follow that because the vocal utterance of words does not fulfill the peculiar office of seeing and hearing, and other senses, therefore it does not perfectly fulfill its own peculiar office. It is not pretended that words represent colors, or sounds, or sensations. It is their office to re- present and express thoughts, and that they perfectly ac- complish. For example : the word blue is the name of a color of which we attain a knowledge only by sight. The word thunder is the name of a sound which we know by hearing. The word pain is the name of a sensation which we know by suffering it. When we have experienced what these names denote, and learned what they are employed to signify, we think of the several sensations in the words appropriated to them respectively. When we utter those words in the hear- ing of those who from their own experience understand them, they perfectly convey our thoughts. To utter them to those who have had no such experience is but the same as to utter them to persons who are deaf, dumb, and paralytic ; and is to no more purpose as an argument in opposition to the perfect sufficiency of words to express our thoughts, than it would be to say that because the blind and deaf can not see and hear, therefore the organs of sight and hearing are not per- fect and adequate to their object. It is those only who take words to be the signs of tilings, who imagine them to be inadequate to their office, because they do not OF THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 151 convey the sensations of sounds and colors, as well a's the thoughts which the names of those sensations re- present. Words, as truly as our senses, are instru- ments or channels of information, the one concerning our thoughts, the other concerning external objects. It is not the part of either of them to supersede or to perform the office of the other. The soul acts and is acted on through the organs of the body. The senses are its instruments, in relation to the external world. The visual and auditory organs are among its instruments of perception, and sensation, which precede our thoughts concerning those phenome- na. The vocal organs are the instruments of express- ing thoughts in words. Words are the instruments by which the soul thinks and is conscious of its thoughts. The difference between these instrumentalities lies in this, that those which are merely physical organizationSj as the eye and ear, produce their effects mechanically and without an intervention of the will. The open eye in the presence of visible objects, sees, whether the will consents or not. Whereas the act of thinking proceeds directly from the will, and involves responsibility which attaches to the words employed to signify and express the thoughts, and by using which the act of the soul in thinking is exerted. Hence the certainty that words are the instruments, the constituted and necessary vehicle of all our thoughts. Our responsi- bility begins with the act of the will, which is realized to the soul in a consciousness of what, when expressed by the vocal organs, we call words. The act of the will, the thought, and the consciousness of it in a form equivalent to the mind to a verbal expression of it to 152 THE PLENARY INSPIRATION the ear, are coincident. Hence successive thoughts arc the result of successive acts of the will ; and we are conscious of them in the order of that succession, as when we give them vocal utterance. We can no more think of two distinct objects or the names of them at the same time, than we can pronounce those names simultaneously. The exercise of the will is, therefore, as necessary to the production of any one thought as to that of any other, and as necessary to the production of each successive thought as the exercise of the vocal organs is to each successive vocal expression. We not only remember thoughts in the words by which they were expressed, but we remember them in the syllabic succession of vocal utterance. Because words which we employ as names of sensi- ble objects do not express all the particular thoughts we have concerning tho natures, qualities, relations, and uses of those objects, those words are alleged by some to be imperfect and inadequate ; as though they would, if perfect, express, respectively, not one, only, but scores of distinct thoughts. But it might, on the same ground, and with equal reason, be alleged that the visual organ is imperfect, since to see an object is to see only its outline or surface, not its internal structure and qualities. It is on the contrary a perfection of language corresponding to perfection in the exercise of the intellect according to its constitution, and perfec- tion in the vocal organs and their exercise, that words represent only the distinct thoughts which they are expressly employed to signify ; some to represent the thoughts which are signified by the names of objects ; others, those which relate to the natures, qualities, and OF THE HOLY SCEIPTURES. 153 other particulars of those objects. For thus it is that words are made to represent distinctly all the thoughts we have. Our intellectual constitution is such that, on the one hand, all those objects of any particular class, which are generally alike, or in one or more respects identical, however numerous and diverse the details, are comprehensible under one name that is, one word, while the diversities and details are distinguishable by other words; and on the other hand, all our intel- lectual notions, to whatever they relate, are conceived by us in words which are already known to us in some physical or mental relation, and which we appropriate to new conceptions ; or are conveyed to us by words spoken or written, which we hear or read. Thus is our knowledge regulated in its acquisition, and limited in extent. "Words result from our mental and physical constitution as thinking and speaking, seeing and hearing do. To imagine that "we know any thing which we have not words to express, is equiva- lent to imagining that we hear sounds which are not au- dible, and perceive in matter what is beyond the reach of our senses. "We can no more conceive intellectually of any thing without words, than we can see without visual or hear without auditory organs. It may per- tain to our constitution that the thoughts which result from our involuntary sensations, should excite the in- tellect and the will to conceive thoughts other than those which it is the province of sensation to originate. The power to think and to conceive new thoughts, may thus be put in operation by the enginery and prior action of the senses ; and the thoughts so con- ceived may comprise what some denominate intuitions ; 154 THE PLENARY INSPIRATION but however that may be, and from whatever influ- ence they may result, they are spontaneously and inva- riably conceived in words, and words whose significa- tion is of course identical with the thoughts of which they are thus the matrix, and which they perfectly re- present and express when spoken and written. Intellect is a part of our nature, and as a created organism is as perfect as any of the adjunct organs of sense. It operates organically according to its nature, as the organs of sense do according to theirs. That intellectually to conceive thoughts in words therefore, and not otherwise, should be a result of organization a law of intellectual action, is no more remarkable, than that distinct and diverse sensations of sight should be a result of the organic structure and operation of the eye. The connection of the will with thoughts and words intellectually conceived, and with the feelings which they excite gives them their moral character and significance. The difference between the ortho- graphy and the vocal sounds of the words in different languages which represent and express the same thoughts, originates, not in the intellectual organism in conceiving thoughts in words, but in the antecedent and accustomed articulations of the words of the re- spective languages. Hence words inspired into the mind of a Greek, conveying thoughts to be understood and to be spoken and written by him, will be in sound, articulation, and orthography, Greek words. If he 1 >< individually familiar with but few and simple words, the inspired words will be the same, or correspond in simplicity with those previously known to him. And here lies the ground of confidence in translations. As OF THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 155 tlie words originally inspired perfectly conveyed the thoughts which they were intended to express, so the words of equivalent signification, in the same connec- tions in other languages, when substituted for the origi- nals, will perfectly convey the same thoughts : accord- ing to the example, 1 Cor. 14, where the words of those who spoke in tongues unknown to the audience, were to be translated by others by the articulation of equivalent words which the hearers understood. In like manner with respect to uninspired words : men of different nations conceive the same precise thoughts in the peculiar words of their respective tongues ; and possess themselves of each other's thoughts by each substituting his own for the foreign words of the other. It is undoubtedly true that the words which we em- ploy in our intellectual conceptions are, for the most part, the same, or derivatives from the same, which were previously in use in relation to sensational per- ceptions and objects of sense ; and hence the secondary significations, which are founded in real or conceived analogies, and the figurative and poetical use of words, and those intellectual visions of agents, objects, acts, and effects, in which analogous things are symbolically represented. The most respectable attempt which we have met with to prove the imperfection of language, by argument and induction, is exhibited by Mr. Dugald Stewart in that part of his Philosophical Essays, in which he re- futes the peculiar notions of Mr. Home Tooke : where he endeavors to show that words spoken or written, in- stead of being the vehicle by which the thoughts of the 156 THE PLENARY INSPIRATION speaker or writer are conveyed to the hearer, do but serve the insignificant purpose of stimulating his mind to think. Presuming that this acute and practised writer has done the best that could be done, to estab- lish, or, at least, to impart a degree of plausibility to the view which he adopts, and that he has, however, succeeded, notwithstanding the imperfection which he ascribes to language, in conveying his own thoughts to his readers by means of the words which he employs ; we deem it worth the while to examine what he says. We can not help surmising^ however, at the outset, that he had not, in this instance, a perfectly clear con- ception of the import and relations of what he said ; and that the special view which he took of the office and effect of words, was induced by his zeal to subvert the erroneous theories of the writers whom he opposed. The leading proposition in the first series of his Essays, is, that we have many primary beliefs, notions, or ideas, the suggestion of which to the mind, is occasioned, not by sensation or consciousness, or by any external influ- ence, but by the exercise of certain of our mental facul- ties. These ideas he seems to have conceived of as existing independently of words; a delusive and futile abstraction, precisely on a level with that of con- ceiving of geometrical problems independently of lines, curves, and angles. To treat of those ideas as things having a potential existence before we are conscious of them, is to transcend the bounds of consciousness, and utter words without significance. No sooner do they exist as thoughts than we are conscious of them ; but we are conscious of them only in and by means of the words which express and represent them. That there OF THE HOLY SCKIPTUEES. 157 is in the constitution of the mind a foundation, capacity, susceptibility, of experiencing those normal beliefs, con- victions, intuitions, of being excited to think those thoughts and of actually thinking them, is as plain as that there is a foundation for feeling sensations, hear- ing audible sounds, and seeing visible objects. But when we think either of sensations or intuitions, words are the matrrx and vehicle of our thoughts. The fallacy pertaining to this disquisition, which arises from his partial view of what we are actually conscious of, clings to his refutation of the philological speculations of Mr. Tooke ; and if it did not occasion, it forms a principal element of all his observations con- cerning the imperfection of language. " We speak," he says, " of communicating, by means of words, our ideas and our feelings to others ; and we seldom reflect sufficiently on the latitude with which this metaphorical (?) phrase ought to be under- stood. The truth is, that, even in conversing on the plainest and most familiar subjects, however full and cirqumstantial our statements may be, the words which we employ, if examined with accuracy, will be found to do nothing more than to suggest hints to our hearers, leaving by far the principal part of the process of interpretation to be performed by the mind itself. In this respect, the effect of words bears some re- semblance to the stimulus given to the memory and imagination, by an outline or a shadow, exhibiting the profile of a countenance familiar to the senses. ... In reading, for example, the enunciation of a pro- position, we are apt to fancy, that for every word contained in it, there is an idea presented to the understanding ; from the combination and comparison of which ideas, results the act of the mind called judgment. So different is all this from the fact, that our words, when examined separately, are often as completely insignificant as the letters of which they are composed ; deriving their meaning solely from the connection, or relation, in which they stand to others. Of this a very obvious ex- ample occurs, in the case of terms which have a variety of acceptations, and of which the import, in every particular application, must be col- lected from the whole S3utenco of which they form a pirt." 158 THE PLENARY INSPIRATION Having alleged this necessity of comprehending the words of a sentence according to their import in the connection and relation to each other in which they are arranged, in order to express the thought which they are intended to convey, as an inherent imperfec- tion of language, he goes on to say that the imperfec- tion is great and palpable in proportion as the words of a sentence are, in their arrangement, more or less capable of being transposed ; and greatest of all when complex or abstract notions are to be spoken of. Thus: "In reading, accordingly, tho most perspicuous discussions, in which such notions form the subject of the argument, little instruction is re- ceived, till we have made the reasonings our own, by revolving the steps ngain and again in our thoughts. The fact is, that, in cases of this sort, the function of language is not so much to convey knowledge (according to the common phrase) from one mind to another; as to bring t\vo minds into the same train of thinking ; and to confine them as nearly as possible to the same track. Many authors have spoken of the wonderful mechanism of speech; but none has hitherto attended to tho far more wonderful mechanism which it puts into action behind the scene." We humbly conceive that the difficulty which Mr. Stewart regarded as an imperfection in language, is in fact in no degree of that nature, but arises wholly from ignorance, negligence, or other defects in speak- ers and writers and in hearers and readers. He who conceives thoughts clearly, and utters them distinctly in the words in which he conceives them, does all that is needful on his part to convey them to other min