secured against all mistakes, and exhibit the truth with perfect propriety? It is unquestionable that Isaiah, and St. Paul, and St. John might be under the entire direction of the Holy Spirit, even as to language; and, at the same time, that each one of them might write in his own manner and that the peculiar manner of each might be adapted to answer an important end; and that the variety of style thus introduced into the sacred volume might be suited to excite a livelier interest in the minds of men, and to secure to them a far greater amount of good than could ever have been derived from any one mode of writing.

"If we should admit that the divine superintendence and guidance afforded to the inspired writers had had no relation at all to the manner in which they exhibited either doctrines or facts, how easily might we be disturbed with doubts in regard to the propriety of some of their representations? We should most certainly consider them as liable to all the inadvertencies and mistakes to which uninspired men are commonly liable; and we should think ourselves perfectly

justified in undertaking to charge them with real errors and faults as to style, and to shew how their language might have been improved; and, in short, to treat their writings just as we treat the writings of Shakspeare and Addison. 'Here,' we might say, 'Paul was unfortunate in the choice of words; and here his language does not express the ideas which he must have intended to convey.' 'Here the style of St. John was inadvertent; and here it was faulty; and here it would have been more agreeable to the nature of the subject, and would have more accurately expressed the truth, had it been altered thus.' If the language of the sacred writers did not in any way come under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, and if they were left, just as other writers are, to their own unaided faculties in regard to every thing which pertained to the manner of writing, then, evidently, we might use the same freedom in animadverting upon their style as upon the style of other writers. But who could treat the volume of inspiration in this manner without impiety and profaneness? And rather than make any approach to this, who would not

choose to go to an excess, if there could be an excess, in reverence for the word of God."*

To these excellent remarks I would add, that he who objects to the doctrine of verbal inspiration on account of the variety of style which obtains among the sacred writers, might, on the same principle, object to mental inspiration on account of the variety of thought by which they are equally distinguished.

It is in receiving "all Scripture as given by inspiration of God" that the mind finds repose from those endless suspicions which must assail those who regard the Bible as the word of God as to doctrine, but the word of man as to the channel of conveyance.

* Dr. Woods, on Inspiration.

SOME POPULAR OBJECTIONS TO THE FULL INSPIRATION OF THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. *

1. It has been objected, that if the inspiration of the Scriptures be plenary and verbal, it will then follow, that the improper and wicked sayings of bad men, and even devils, which are introduced in Scripture, must lay claim to an immediate inspiration.-The answer to this very flimsy difficulty is simply this, that though, in such cases, the Holy Spirit dictated to inspired men the very words which were uttered by the sinful agents referred to, he dictated them not as his, but theirs.

2. It has been objected, that as the inspired

* I cannot but strongly recommend to my readers a work which I have found of great use to myself on this subject, by Robert Haldane, Esq., entitled, "The Books of the Old and New Testaments proved to be canonical, and their verbal inspiration maintained and established, &c." 12mo.

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writers were thoroughly acquainted with many things of which they wrote, they could not in such matters require any immediate afflatus from the Holy Spirit, and that therefore such a redundant influence would not have been vouchsafed by that infinitely wise Being who never lavishes his supernatural bestowments.—To this I reply, that the authority of a messenger must cease when he acts merely in his own name, and gives forth that only which comes within the range of his own personal knowledge, without reference to the express dictation of the power by which he is delegated. On this principle, a writer of Scripture recording that which was simply the result of his own knowledge, is a contradiction in terms; inasmuch as he must cease to be the medium of an infallible record the moment that he is thrown, in a single instance, on his own unaided resources :-that is not Holy Scripture which is not given by inspiration of God.

3. To the full view of inspiration here contended for, it has been objected, that some things are introduced by the inspired writers of too