the doctrines he most surely holds, not be- may claim. In the other instance, it is not cause they came to him from Heaven, but his truth, but the truth of God which he has because he lighted upon them through his received from on high, and believes because own discernment, and who sits in judg- he has so received it,-which he does not ment upon the Bible, and believes its words, hold, but which holds him; and which, benot because they have been spoken by Je- cause it is God's, given by Him and resting hovah, and not as an homage to Jehovah's on His testimony, has in it infallible cerveracity, but because they recommend them- tainty to be the warrant for his faith, and selves to his own feelings and convictions, supreme authority to be the law commandand in acknowledgment of his own disco- ing his obedience. In the two cases it may very of them as true. In the other case, we be the same doctrine believed; but it is behave the feeling of a man whose soul is lieved on very different grounds, and to silent, because he hears God speaking, and very opposite effects. speaking to him, who receives the doc- In dealing, then, with this subject, we feel trines of the Bible, not because he has disco- it to be of vital importance that the shortvered their truth for himself, but because comings of those incomplete theories of init is the word of God,-whose faith in it is spiration which are now abroad in the an homage, not to his own powers of judg- Church should not be palmed upon us in ment or discrimination in deciding between disguise, to the exclusion of the plenary docthe truth and the falsehood, but to the au- trine of a supernatural revelation, supernathority and testimony of the Most High,-turally inspired. In maintaining the highand whose attitude is not that of one who est and strictest views of the Scriptures, we sits in judgment upon the Bible, but of one have no occasion to undervalue or deny the rather who sits at the feet of Him who has use of reason, or religious intuition, or spirevealed it. It is not difficult to say in ritual insight, or by whatever other name which of these two parties are best made the inward revealer may be called, in its manifest the faith of the believer and the search after truth; we are not called upon feelings of the child of God. We do not to estimate the extent or value of its discohesitate to take up the gauntlet which Cole- veries in Divine things; and we need have ridge has vauntingly thrown down. We no jealousy of these discoveries, provided belive that it is better to say the Bible is they are not put in the place and advocated true because we have found it to be the Word of God, than to say the Bible is the Word of God because we have found it to be true.*

to the exclusion of a supernatural revelation given us by God. In the same way, we have no interest to deny the importance of that gracious illumination by the Spirit, And different and wholly opposite as are which is the common teaching of all Christthe feelings and spirit in which in the two ians in order to lead them into the truth ; cases the truth is searched out, so also will and we have no call to look upon with susbe the effects of it when found and believed. |picion or unduly to limit the amount of the It may be the very same truth, in so far as teaching, and the products of the illuminaregards its substance and contents, which the tion, of this secret Inspirer of the believer, two men have arrived at by such different provided these are not made to exclude the routes. But, in the one instance, it is his doctrine of the true and supernatural inspirown truth, which he has discovered for him- ation of the chosen men who wrote the self, and which he holds fast because it is his Bible. There may be, and is, a discovery discovery, but which embodies no Divine by reason of God, and the things of God, certainty to satisfy the understanding, and within certain limits; but over and above no Divine authority to lay under responsibility the conscience, which has, in fact, no other title to be believed than any other truth which he himself has found out, and no other right to submission than all truth

that, there is a proper and supernatural revelation from Him. There may be, and is, a teaching of the Spirit in the mind of every Christian, the products of which may be seen in the Christian authorship of the Church; but over and above that, there are the supernatural gifts of the same Spirit, to *"Is it safer for the individual, and more con- enable selected men infallibly to record His ducive to the interests of the Church of Christ in its word. And it is impossible to deny the ortwofold character of pastoral and militant, to con

clude thus, The Bible is the Word of God, and thodox doctrine of the twofold element, of therefore true, holy, and in all parts unquestionable; a supernatural revelation and a supernatural or thus, The Bible, in reference to its declared ends and purposes, is true and holy, and for all who seek truth with an humble spirit, an unquestionable guide; and therefore it is the Word of God?" Confession of an Inquiring Spirit, p. 73.

inspiration, that makes up an infallible Bible, except in one or other of two ways; either by saying that the thing is impossible, or that its existence has not been

Still

proved. With those who hold that the has not been transmitted through a superthing is impossible, that is to say, with natural channel, and because we cannot conthe deniers of the supernatural in any shape ceive how it could reach its destination and or circumstances, we have at present no- accomplish its end unless it were so. thing to do. To those who say that it has this is no more than a presumption, and is not been proved, the defenders of infallibility not the proper or relevant evidence for inare willing to submit the evidence of its spiration. All that we are entitled to say existence. in regard to it is, that God, having for grand and important ends in His spiritual economy performed the first great miracle of revela tion, would not, according to human likeli hood, allow the very object of a revelation, pointing as it does to all men and time, to be frustrated for the want of the second miracle of inspiration, if the latter were necessary to the end in view. And further, the fact of a supernatural revelation, if admitted by the opponents of infallibility in the record of it, is itself a sufficient answer, in the way of an argumentum ad hominem, to all those many objections to inspiration drawn from its supernatural character. But still, we repeat, this is not the primary and proper evidence for inspiration.

We must say a word or two on the subject of this evidence before we close, not in the way of giving even the slenderest outline of it, which in our space would be impossible, but rather with a view of indicating our views as to the kind of proof relevant and sufficient to establish a supernatural inspiration.

It is not difficult to trace, in the theology of the Reformation period, and subsequently, a strong tendency on the part of many, as a natural enough reaction from the Popish doctrine that the infallible authority of the Church is the proper foundation for our

If the distinction which has been prominently kept in view during all our previous remarks be a sound one-the distinction between a supernatural revelation and a supernatural inspiration-it is plain that the question of evidence is not the same in regard to each. We may have a revelation without an inspiration, and proof of the one without any proof of the other. Properly speaking, the defenders of inspiration, plenary and infallible, are entitled to take for granted, as a thing proved, or admitted by those with whom they differ on the point of inspiration, that a supernatural communication from God has been made. The fact of a revela- belief in the canon of Scripture, to make the tion from Heaven is the point from which evidence for the Divine and inspired chathe controversy as to a plenary or partial racter of the sacred volume to rest in the inspiration must start, and from which the witness which it leaves in the heart of the evidence in favour of infallibility must individual believer. In some of the confesbegin. If, in any theory as to the authority sions of the early Protestant churches, and of the Bible, this fact is expressly or impli- in the writings of some of the most eminent citly denied, the controversy becomes a Protestant divines, from Calvin downwards, more general one, belonging not to the de- the traces of this doctrine are to be found, fenders of infallibility peculiarly, but to as if the testimony in the mind of the ChristChristian apologists at large, and must be so ian, shining upon him from the sacred page, dealt with. But the question for the advo- were sufficient evidence of what was, or was cates of inspiration is this,-Is the Bible, not, inspired and canonical in the record. which on both sides it is admitted contains According to Whitaker, in his "Disputatio a revelation from God, a human record of de Sacra Scriptura," against Bellarmine, the it, or a Divine record of it,-a composition Scripture is dvróπOTOS, having its credit written by the unaided powers of its pen- and proof in itself; and Dr. Owen, in his men, or by those penmen, with the help of" Discourses on the Divine Original of Scripthe inward illumination of the Spirit com- ture," tells us that the "self-evidencing mon to Christians,-or, finally, by the efficacy" of it is such as, without any other writers under the supernatural and infallible testimony or proof, to leave a man in no influence of the Holy Ghost? This is doubt as to what books, or portions of plainly a question of fact, which must be books, are truly Divine, and given by indealt with as other matters of fact which spiration. Now, we cannot help thinking come up in controversy. No doubt the that, in their earnest recoil from the Popish simple consideration, that the Bible contains principle of the impossibility of any india revelation from God, is itself a strong pre-vidual having evidence of the canonical ausumption in favour of the conclusion that it thority of the Bible, apart from the decree is inspired and not human,―for this reason, that we know of no communication made by God to any of His creatures, intended and destined for other parties and all times, that

of an infallible Church, some of these divines misstated a good principle, and gave it work to do which it never was intended or fitted to accomplish. They seem to us to have, to

some extent, confounded the distinction, nature, is one of those "invisible miracles," which it has been our aim all along to bring of which Butler speaks, that do not, like outprominently into view, between a superna- ward signs and wonders, appeal to the extural revelation given by God, and a super-ternal senses, and draw their evidence from natural inspiration effected by Him, and to the public testimony which the eyes of many have mistaken the evidence sufficient for the beholders might render. It was a matter one of them, for that distinct evidence which between the prophet himself and God. avails for the other. The "self-evidencing There was none other with him in that secret efficacy" of which Dr. Owen speaks, belongs presence-chamber of Divine wisdom, where to the revelation, not to the inspiration; it he heard the words of the Eternal spoken to may suffice to prove that the Bible contains him, and received supernatural commission a communication from God, but not to show and power infallibly to record them; and no that the record of it is in all its parts and testimony but his own could avail to prove sentences inspired: the Bible is avTÓRIOTOS, what was done there, even as no ear but his in the sense of embodying a message of own heard what was spoken. In respect Divine truth, that, by its adaptation to the of the kind of evidence that can properly wants and capacities of man's moral and reach and substantiate the truth of it, the spiritual being, proves itself to be Divine, fact of inspiration stands in the very same but not in the sense of showing that the mes- predicament with the fact of revelation, or sage has been written in a book composed with the fact of the incarnation, the special under supernatural direction. The ultimate example of "invisible miracles" which Butground of certitude which believers have in ler gives. When John, in the isle that is the Scriptures, as embodying a Divine reve- called Patmos, recorded the communication lation to their souls-a communication of from God, which told him of the things saving truth to them-is, no doubt, that in- | which are, and the things which shall be ternal witness in the heart-that secret mark hereafter, there was no human eye but his of divinity, which no man knoweth but he own present to see, and no human ear but who has himself received it; but this is a his own near to hear, the revelation granted very different matter from the question, to him; and the only evidence which the whether or not that revelation has been em- Church of Christ has to the fact of such a' bodied in a human record, or in a record revelation being then and there vouchsafed, partially divine, or, finally, in a Bible com- is ultimately the witness of John himself, posed under miraculous and infallible influ- the only one who knew the fact or could tell ence from above. The evidence that proves it, and a witness sufficient as to the fact, bethe one of these, is not, in our view of it, cause confirmed by his veracity as a man, relevant to establish the other. We cannot and his miraculous gifts as an apostle. help thinking that the judgment of Richard When Luke relates the "invisible miracle" Baxter is nearer to the truth, when he says, of the miraculous conception and incarnation "For my part, I confess I could never boast of the Son of God, he speaks of a matter of any such testimony or light of the Spirit that could not be known to himself or to (nor reason neither), which, without human any other from their own knowledgetestimony, would have made me believe that which did not appeal to the senses of any the Book of Canticles is canonical, and writ- one, and could not be established by merely ten by Solomon, and the Book of Wisdom outward observation; but which, from the apocryphal, and written by Philo." "Nor very nature of the case, must rest solely could I have known all or any historical upon the testimony of those to whom God books, such as Joshua, Judges, Ruth, Samuel, had revealed it, and who, by the revelation, Kings, Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, etc., to were made to know it themselves, and the be written by Divine inspiration, but by proper witnesses of it to others. And, had tradition." the testimony of Luke stood alone in ScripFrom the very nature of the case, the tes-ture for the mysterious fact to which he detimony of the inspired men is the proper and only possible evidence in the matter. They were cognizant of the fact that God called them up into the Mount, and did invest them there with supernatural endowments, to enable them unerringly to record His revelation given to them; and they only were cognizant of it as witnesses, competent by adequate knowledge and complete veracity, they could depone to the fact, and none other could. Inspiration, from its very

pones, it would have been enough for the faith of the Church of Christ, even although, in this case, it would have been the testimony of one whose veracity as a man was not, so far as we have reason to believe, additionally confirmed by the display in his person of miraculous powers. And so it is in regard to inspiration. The evidence proper and sufficient to prove the truth of it is the witness of the men whom God inspired. They alone knew when and how the super

Whatever, then, was the mysterious character of that transaction which passed between the prophets and God, when He summoned and empowered them to "write all the words" of His revelation in a book, and whatever the solemnities that accompanied their investiture with office, and witnessed

natural powers were given to them, to human testimony is judged of. This is not qualify them for the task to which they were a matter peculiar to the question of inspiracalled; and they alone are competent, by tion, but belongs rather to the department knowledge of the fact, to testify to it. The of Christian apologetics in general. Having only question is, was their testimony true? the testimony to the point, of men whose No more than in the case of Luke, when the competency and veracity as witnesses have awful fact of the miraculous conception of been established and found unimpeachable the Son of God was revealed to him-no by the ordinary principles of evidence, we more than in the case of John, when his soli- have the only proof that, from the nature of tary ear listened to the voice that spoke with the case, is possible, and we have the suffihim in Patmos-no more than in the case of cient proof. In addition to this, there may any one man to whom a revelation from be, in certain cases, the further attestation of God was ever granted, were there other miracles confirming their testimony; alwitnesses at hand, who could hear the words though the endowment of miraculous power or see the hand that invested the inspired is not the invariable accompaniment or the man, in the moment of inspiration, with his primary proof of inspiration.* prophetic powers to record in the Bible the communication made to him in secret. If any one is inclined to put the question, How, or by what means, was the prophet satisfied that he was inspired by God, and that the Holy Ghost had actually come upon him, to endow him for the work of a Scripture writer, and that he was not the victim to their own mind the truth of their call, merely of delusion? the only answer that there could, from the very nature of the can be given is, that this is one of those case, be no ground of certainty furnished to secret things which, from the nature of the other men as to the supernatural powers case as supernatural, must remain unknown; conferred, except from the testimony of it was a matter between God and the man those who in secret received, or of Him who, miraculously clothed upon with the pro- unseen, conferred them. We have in Scripphetic mantle, and could not possibly be ex- ture the testimony of both these parties. plained to us, because it is miraculous. We We have the evidence of the inspired men, have not been told, because we could not who tell us expressly that they "received understand, how any man was supernatur- of the Lord" what they delivered unto us; ally filled with the Divine wisdom in the or tell the same thing implicitly when they case of revelation; and we have not been claim that what they wrote and spake should told either how any man was supernaturally be received with a faith, and obeyed with a endowed with the Divine power in the case submission, not due to the words of other of inspiration. We do not know, and have men. And we have the evidence of the not been told, either the process by which only other party cognizant of the inspiration Paul heard unspeakable words, or the other given, and therefore competent to declare process by which Paul wrote inspired words, the reality of it,-we have the evidence of which it was as little possible (dv) for God, who conferred the gift, when He speaks him, as a man, to receive as to utter. But through the lips of other men, inspired by we do know that it would be to limit God, Him as they were, and taught by revein a way in which the least of His intelli- lation both to recognise and declare to the gent creatures are not limited, to say that world the inspiration of their fellow proHe cannot, like them, communicate His phets. The only two parties who had thoughts to others, and make these other knowledge of the transaction are at one, and parties certain that the thoughts are His: give separate and harmonious evidence to and we know also, that it would be a no less the fact: the witness of each writer of daring limitation of the Almighty, to say that He cannot, after the communication is given, furnish them with complete assurrance of His desire, and of their own supernatural ability, to record it. Having certain knowledge both of their commission and powers as inspired men, the only question is as to the truth of their testimony, when they tell us that they are inspired; and this point is to be determined by the ordinary principles and methods of evidence by which

*Men were often inspired who wrought no miracles; as, for instance, many of the prophets under the Old Testament, and John the Baptist under the New; so that miraculous powers were not, in the saying this, we do not overlook the fact and it is an first instance, the proper evidence of inspiration. In important point in the proof-that inspired men, not workers of miracles themselves, are yet part and parcel of a miraculous system in that method by and so indirectly received from miracles a confirmation of the truth of their inspiration.

which God confirmed His revelation to the world,

Scripture to his own individual inspiration | their own infallibility." The fact of inspirais strengthened and confirmed by the wit- tion rests, in respect of its evidence, on ness of his fellows, when they were enabled precisely the same basis as the fact of reveby God to see and affirm it also; and the lation. We do not require to take for numberless references and allusions from granted that the authors of the Bible had a one part of Scripture to another, so exten- revelation given them in order that we may sively and intimately interwoven with the believe their assertion that it is revealed; text, embodying, as they almost always do, the fact of a revelation from God is no doubt a recognition of its Divine character, consti- a revealed truth; but all that we have to tute the testimony of God-repeating ever do, in the first instance, in order to prove and anon the personal assertion of the in its existence, is to ascertain that the men spired man as to the reality of his own who profess to have received it were honest supernatural gifts. In this way the evidence men, who knew what they said, and were for the inspiration of Scripture is almost in- entitled to be believed when they tell us definitely multiplied and augmented; and that they did receive it. In like manner, the testimony of each single writer to his we do not require to take for granted that own inspiration is not to be taken and val- the penmen of the Bible were inspired men, ued singly, but as one of many, and part of before we can believe their assertion that a whole. they were inspired; the fact of inspiration We really have no patience to deal with is undoubtedly an inspired truth; but all the objection, so often answered, yet always that we have to do in the first place, in order reproduced, that our putting the argument to justify our faith in their assertions, is to for inspiration, on such grounds of evidence, see that they were not inspired men, but is in reality reasoning in a circle; and that honest men, who could not be deceived in we are assuming the inspiration of the sacred what they said, and who would not deceive penmen in order to prove them to be in- others. The fact that the evidence of a spired. We observe that Dr. Donaldson, revelation from God is a truth revealed, one of the latest and most intemperate does not supersede the other fact, that it is railers against Bibliolatry, has not thought a truth that can be proved from other eviit unworthy of him to set off his novelties dence apart from revelation; and the condirected against the Bible with this old ob- sideration, that inspiration is a doctrine asjection. We really can do nothing else, serted and guaranteed by inspiration, does in such a case, than repeat what has been not do away the other consideration, that it so often repeated before, that in proving the can be established on separate grounds ininspiration of Scripture from the assertions dependent of inspiration. We take it for of its writers, we do not take for granted granted that Dr. Donaldson, notwithstandthat they are inspired men, but only that ing the comprehensiveness of his views, and they are honest men, who know what they the narrowness of his creed, still believes, said, and said it truly ;-that the exigencies of our argument require nothing more than this assumption, which we are entitled to make, on the general grounds of the Christian evidences; and that we do not want, and do not assume, "infallible witnesses to

and that firmly, in a revelation from God,. whether it be contained in the Book of Jashar, or in the Bible; and which, in so far forth as it is a revelation from God, and not corrupted by intermixture of foreign matter,-in so far forth as it is the word of God contained in the Bible, and not the Bible *Speaking of Mr. Lee's argument for inspiration, itself,-must, in the estimation of Dr. DoDr. Donaldson proceeds :-"When he (Mr. Lee) says, naldson, be infallible, as surely as any BiblioWe do not, at starting, believe what is contained later holds the whole Bible to be so. But on in the Bible, because it is inspired; but having pre- what is that belief of his founded, if not on viously established its claims to our belief, we are the very same principles and grounds of evifully entitled to draw our main argument for inspira-dence as those on which rests the fact of tion from its own pages,' he endeavours to make a distinction without a difference; for he knows very inspiration, which he declares to be incapawell that the statement of a writer's belief that he was inspired by God might be erroneous, and yet he might believe so; that his credibility would not be affected by his unintentional error, whatever occasioned it, unless by credibility we mean infallibility, which is the thing to be proved. Mr. Lee's argument, when reduced to its elements, is simply this: the sacred writers claim inspiration; but they were inspired; therefore they are infallible witnesses to

their own infallibility."-Christian Orthodoxy Reconciled with the Conclusions of Modern Biblical Learning. By JOHN WILLIAM DONALDSON, D.D. P. 316.

ble of proof? In laying down the founda tion of our argument for inspiration, we do not want "infallible testimonies for the fact," any more than for the corresponding fact of revelation; we are contented, in both cases, with those ordinary but sure grounds of faith, on which we believe other historical events the best accredited and most undoubted. We shall be happy to learn that, without "infallible witnesses to their own

.