reply, in that state of the revelation, when it was making influx into the prophetic or apostolic mind-but in that state of it, after it had made efflux thence; after, in fact, it had been imbodied in scripture, and then spoken of as άi yeapai; or been shaped into a word, in which shape it is, that through the whole volume of inspiration, every pure and perfect characteristic is assigned to it. In other words, it is not before the efflux, but after it had passed this ordeal, that we are told it cannot be broken-that it is all given by inspiration of God-that no man must take away from it, and no man must add thereunto. These and many similar things are spoken, not of the truth as it exists ideally in the mind of God, but of the truth as uttered verbally by the mouth of His prophets -or, rather, of their collective word, as expressing and imbodying the truth. These high ascriptions are given, not to the act of inspiration, but to the product of inspiration; and we are taught, by the uniform testimony of scripture, to believe of that product, that it is divine and immaculate and perfect. These things are spoken, not of a word, uttered perhaps in heaven, and which never reached our homes upon earth; but of the word that is nigh unto us, of the word as it came forth in utterance from the mouths of prophets and apostles, or as written by their hands. It is of the word thus brought forth in the Bible, and which men by their wretched hypotheses would make a polluted and precarious thing-it is this which is as silver seven times tried, and which has the impress of the wisdom and will of God upon all its sayings.

19. Such being our views, it is the unavoidable consequence of them, that we should hold the Bible, for all the purposes of a revelation, to be perfect in its language as well as perfect in its doctrine. And for this conclusion, it is not necessary that we should arbitrate between the theories of superintendence and suggestion. The superintendence that would barely intercept the progress of error, we altogether discard-conceiving, that, if this term be applicable to the process of inspiration at all, it must be that efficient superintendence which not only secures that, negatively, there shall be nothing wrong-but which also secures that, affirmatively, there should at all times. have emanated from the sacred penmen, the fittest topics, and these couched in the fittest and most appropriate expression. Whether this has been effected partly by superintendence and partly by suggestion, or wholly by suggestion, we care not. We have no inclination and no taste for these distinctions. Our cause is independent of them— nor can we fully participate in the fears of those alarmists who think that our cause is materially injured by them. The important question with us is not the process of the manufacture, but the qualities of the resulting commodity. The former we hold not to be a relevant, and we are not sure that it is a legitimate inquiry. It is on the latter we take our stand; and the superabundant testimonies of scripture on the worth and the perfection and the absolute authority of the word-these form the strong-holds of an argument that goes to establish all which the most rigid advocates for a

total and infallible inspiration ought to desire. Our concern is with the work, and not with the workmanship; nor need we intrude into the mysteries of the hidden operation, if only assured by the explicit testimonies of scripture, that the product of that operation, is, both in substance and expression a perfect directory of faith and practice. We believe that, in the composition of that record, men not only thought as they were inspired, but spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. But our argument for the absolute perfection of Holy writ is invulnerably beyond the reach even of those who have attempted to trace with geographical precision the line which separates the miraculous from the natural; and tell us when it was that apostles wrote the word which the Spirit prompted them, and when it was that they wrote the words which the Spirit permitted them. To the result, in our humble apprehension, it positively matters not. Did they speak the words that the Spirit prompted, these words were therefore the best. Did they speak the words which the Spirit permitted, it was because these words were the best. The optimism of the Bible is alike secured in both these ways; and the sanction of the Spirit extended, both in respect of sentiments and of sayings, to every clause of it. In either way, they effectively are the words of the Spirit; and God through the Bible is not presenting truths through the medium of others' language; He in effect has made it his own language, and God through the Bible is speaking to us.

20. We are aware that by this language of

We are

concession, we might offend the alarmists on the side of plenary inspiration; but, really and in effect, there is no difference betwixt us. perfectly agreed as to the absolute and divine perfection of the word-the optimism of the Bible. We are at one as to the qualities of the opus operatum; and, if we differ at all, it regards only the modus operandi-and it is just because of our aversion to intrude into things unseen, that we express ourselves so guardedly on the subject. The Bible is divinely perfect; yet in one sense may be regarded as the compound result of the natural and the super-natural-not so natural as to have one tinge of nature's infirmity adhering to it-not so super-natural as wholly to suspend and overbear the laws of man's mental constitution. It is thus that each prophet and historian and apostle of scripture, preserves his own characteristic and complexional variety of style and manner -as much so perhaps as if, instead of writing as inspired, they had been left to write as uninspired men. It were difficult, in these circumstances, to define, how far the miraculous encroached on the ordinary processes of thought and expression. But quite enough surely for us, if we know it to have encroached so far, that the Bible, the resulting Bible, is so good that it could not be made better. We agree with Mr. Carson and others that the Bible is wholly the product of divine authorship-God being the author of the ordinary as well as the miraculous; and it being wholly of His judgment and sovereign determination, to what extent the miraculous should over

rule the natural, in order to the effect of furnishing the world with a perfect and infallible word. We do not detract, in the least, from the mastery of God's wisdom and God's will, in the composition of the Bible, though we allow that He was pleased to avail Himself of second causes. In as far as second causes were concerned in the production of the Bible, we would not say that God left the Bible in any degree to the operation of these causes; but, believing as we do in His incessant agency, we would say that He Himself operated by these causes-insomuch that every word, whether suggested to the mind of the writer miraculously or not, was loveusos; every word was breathed into him by God. And yet we do not feel alarmed by the expression, that the writers were left to their own varieties of style and expression as if it followed on that account, that the Bible was abandoned to the chance of deteri

oration thereby. If the word was suggested to the writer, it must have been the best word-or if the writer used the very word he would have done though uninspired, or otherwise, was left to his own word, it must have been because it was the best. Between the one and the other, we have still the best possible Bible. This information we distinctly and definitely have in scripture; and this ought to satisfy us-although obliged by our ignorance, to speak uncertainly and indefinitely of the operation within the vail. Enough to know

*The miraculous agency of God did not overbear the natural tendency of the human authors of the New Testament to the use of Hebraisms; and hence their Hellenistic Greek.