increased unnecessarily by the very theories which have been set on foot to explain it. It cannot be too carefully borne in mind that theories about inspiration are one thing and inspiration itself quite another. The theories may possibly be wrong, yet inspiration itself remain a great divine fact all the same. Various theories have been held from time to time about the nature of light, some near the truth and some far away from it, but all the while light itself was a great fact, in the existence of which all life was rejoicing. First, then, before saying anything about theories or modes of inspiration, I will speak of Inspired Revelation itself as a fact. And at starting I shall have to assume, what is with me one of my deepest convictions, the existence behind the veil of sense of a spiritual world which can only be spiritually discerned, and the existence also of the great Father of the spirits of men, the knowledge of whom is life eternal, the most formative influence which reaches and shapes our moral nature. Concerning that Father whose existence is thus assumed, the questions naturally arise,-Can He reveal Himself to us? Has He done this? If so, in what way? Whether God has revealed Himself or not, it must be admitted that self-revelation is neither an unreal nor an unfamiliar process. Men are doing it every day. In fact the difficulty is not to do it. Even when men try to keep themselves to themselves they do not succeed. Their deeds or their words, and sometimes indeed their very silence, reveals them. Word and deed are the revelation of personal life for man so they are for God. If a personal living God exist it is certain He will speak and act. It must be as possible for Him to reveal Himself to men as for men to reveal their inner selves to one another. It has been well said "to admit of an Infinite Mind, in Whose thought the universe pre-existed and Whose will it embodies, and to deny the possibility of Divine Revelation is absurd. It were an outrage on common sense to suppose that He Who endowed man with his multiform faculty of self-revelation D and mutual converse is Himself helplessly imprisoned in everlasting silence. And if Revelation is possible in the case of a Father so loving, it is also probable. It is difficult to believe that one who really cares for men should withhold from them that knowledge which must be the noblest, the most desirable, and the most useful,-the knowledge of Himself." The very essence of all religion is the revelation of God so acting on man as to change him more and more into the likeness of God. The great end aimed at is the formation of man's character through the exhibition of God's. The Bible is only a part of a large system of divine influence on man, the complete elements of which we cannot number, and the whole boundaries of which we cannot measure. All things in the world are, so to speak, words of God, inasmuch as by His mighty word alone they are upheld in being. As Luther puts it, "God does not speak grammatical vocables, but true essential things. Thus, sun and moon, Peter and Paul, thou and I,. are nothing but words of God." He speaks in the facts of history; the course of Providence is the voice of the Eternal revealing His will. He reveals Himself to us in nature. He left not Himself without witness, in that He did good, and gave men rain from heaven, and fruitful seasons, filling their hearts with food and gladness. The invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead. Still more to the purpose God makes Himself known by the inward intuitions of the soul, by the voice of conscience. There is a word written on the hearts of men who have not the outward law, as Paul tells us, their consciences also bearing witness, At which high spirits of old would start God is present and active in all spirit as well as in all space; we cannot say, and dare not conjecture, where God is not. There is a certain divine influence omnipresent in all souls -a word of God always very nigh to every man, even in his heart. But while some would find no difficulty in all this they would say that a book-revelation is impossible. If the revelation of God be possible it must be direct, intuitive, appealing to the inner spiritual sense. But why should a book-revelation be impossible? If the great Framer of the human mind so formed that mind that a written and printed literature should in all ages be a mighty influence upon it, why should He have no means of using a force which He Himself had made possible, and in which, as I believe, He is always working? Indeed, may we not assert that the permanent written form was absolutely indispensable for the great ends Revelation was meant to serve. The Bible is the record of a progressive historic revelation, and the various stages can only be preserved when thus handed on from age to age. Moreover it was intended to travel far from the scene of the great events it records. As Richard Rothe said, Revelation is not designed as a meteor to flash for a moment through the world, but to be set in the firmament for humanity as a bright sun which gradually brings in over the whole extent of our earth, the clear full day. This it can only do when its utterance is fixed by writing and fixed in the process of formation." If then a book-revelation seems indispensable from the nature of the case, we can conceive of that book being given in various ways. An audible voice might break the silence of eternity and speak it aloud in human ears, or it might fall upon the earth with mysterious credentials to show that it was from God. But this is not His way of dealing with men. He does not bear in upon them with startling sights and sounds. There is another mode of giving a book for the world more in harmony with His usual course of procedure, and this is the mode which it is asserted He has chosen. It is conceivable that having chosen certain men for the purpose He might fill their souls with a revelation of Himself which they should be constrained to give to the world. There is surely nothing inherently absurd in such an a idea as this. If one mind can act upon another mind: if the soul lies open to influences within the range of the senses the soul may lie open to influences acting beyond the senses from out of the great unknown spirit world. Surely the Spirit which made man may touch and sway him, even though we can say no more about the mode of His action than we can of the wind which blows where it lists. The thing is possible. But what we are contending for is something more than the ordinary influence of the Divine Spirit upon men's minds. The great men of the heathen world experienced this; this may be traced in every work of genius, in every great conception of art. We contend for something similar to this, but higher, something exceptional in the revelation made both in degree and clearness. In favour of such an exceptional revelation having been made there is a fact the full significance and importance of which to our enquiry it is hardly possible to overrate—the fact that revelation comes to us in vital connection with a great historical people like the Jews, and a great historical fact like that of the Christian Church. We have a nation separated from other nations for a special purpose. Their history is something unique, and their separation from all other peoples to this day is a standing sign among the nations. The contention is not that a book appeared now here among the Romans, now here among the Greeks, and now here among the Persians or the Egyptians in occasional and uncertain fashion. We have a separated people whose history is certainly remarkable; and all the books came in the line of this people. It is claimed and can be shown that God has spoken to men in the national history of this people as He has through no other nation. They were separated for the ultimate benefit of all other nations, but they were separated. They were a people of revelation, in whom, both before and after the coming of Christ, the Spirit of truth wrought and spoke as in no other sphere. Still further also the Christian Church is one of the great facts of history just as the Jewish nation is a great fact of history, and the book is also in the line of its development. You have a special nation and a special historical movement as the field or sphere of special inspiration. Then again we have the strongest claim to the possession of inspiration put forth by the sacred writers themselves. These men have exerted a moral and elevating influence upon the world of the very highest kind. It is difficult to suppose that deceived or deceiving men could do what they have confessedly done. Yet they are very clear themselves that God has sent them and given them their message. Even Professor Kuenen, who with great learning has laboured hard to disprove the supernatural authority of the Prophets of the Old Dispensation, frankly admits that they all claim to possess it. "The canonical Prophets," he says, "all without distinction are possessed by the consciousness that they proclaim the word of Jahveh, the first and the last words of the collection of the Prophetical books are words of Jahveh; from the beginning to the end He is introduced as speaker by men who are persuaded that they can come forward as His interpreters."1 This admission is the simple truth. The sacred writers put forth supernatural claims; Moses says to the people,-" Ye shall not add unto the word which I command you, neither shall ye diminish ought from it, that ye may keep the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you." The prophets continually use the expression, "The Word of the Lord. came unto me." Rightly or wrongly, the writers of the Old Testament were certainly of opinion that God spake through them. Others were of the same opinion and received their I The Prophets and Prophecy in Israel.-Milroy's Translation, pp. 74, 75. |