pertinent: "Who hath directed the Spirit of the Lord, or, being his counsellor, hath taught him? With whom took he counsel, and who instructed him, and taught him in the path of judgment, and taught him knowledge, and showed him the way of understanding?" 1 Shall man, in his ignorance, presume to affirm that the Spirit of God was shut up to one method of securing from the pen of the sacred writer a record of the revelation made to him that should be "full, entire, complete," according to his mind? Or that, when he recorded well-known facts, the narrative could not be made, in form, matter, and spirit, agreeable to the will of the Holy Ghost, unless the sentences were given him, one by one, as he proceeded? Let it be remembered, then, that the term plenary," as applied to inspiration, respects the result secured, not the mode of securing it, and that it is not to be restricted to one particular theory.

The Question of Verbal Inspiration.

It is acknowledged on all hands that a large part of the revelations made by God to men was given directly, in human language. This is true not only of those revelations which were objective in their form, but also of many, at least, that were given subjectively, that is, by an inward revelation to the mind of the recipient. We might adduce, as instances from the Old Testament, Jacob's dream, in which he saw a ladder reaching from earth to heaven, and heard the Lord, who stood above it, saying: "I am the Lord God of Abraham thy father, and the God of Isaac: the land whereon thou liest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed," etc.; Isaiah's vision, in which he saw the Lord sitting in the temple on a throne high and lifted up, and heard the words not only of the seraphim who stood by, but of God himself; and many more like examples. From the New Testament, also, we might specify the words addressed to Peter in his vision on the house-top; to Paul in a vision 2 Gen. xxviii. 12 seq.

1 Isa. xl. 13, 14.

8 Isa. vi.

Acts x. 10 seq.

at Corinth; to the revelator on Patmos,2 etc. How much of the revelations made to the prophets was given directly in the form of words, and how much by inward vision or intuition, is a question which need not trouble us; since, in either case, the prophecy came from God, and the prefatory words, "Thus saith the Lord," were alike appropriate.

But our present inquiry is directed to another point; namely, whether that theory of verbal inspiration which teaches that the identical words of scripture, in their order and number, were everywhere infused into the minds of the sacred writers, either formally or virtually, so that their office was simply to make a faithful record of them—whether this theory of inspiration is necessary or tenable. We have introduced into the above statement of the theory the clause, "either formally or virtually," for the purpose of indicating the two forms under which it is advocated.

The first, or purely mechanical, form represents every word of scripture as given to the writers immediately by God; so that they are simply the amanuenses of the Holy Spirit, not only when he communicates to them new truths, but also when they relate facts of which they already had full knowledge in a natural way. If we rightly understand Carson, this is the form of verbal inspiration which he advocates. Endeavoring to meet the objection, urged by Henderson, that "it is an incontrovertible fact that those by whom the sacred books were written possessed, to a greater or less extent, a previous acquaintance with many of the subjects of which they treat, he says:

"He has not the perspicacity to distinguish between infusing knowledge into the mind for the information of the person into whom it is infused, and infusing a communication for the information of others. It is, indeed, absurd to speak of giving a man knowledge which he has already; but it is not absurd to speak of communicating to him known truths in order to be recorded. Even among men, there is nothing more common. A person says to his servant: "Tell my friend that my son is dead." Is not this a communication from the master? Was not the fact as well known to the servant? Is it impossible to dictate the words of a discourse to an 1 Acts xviii. 9, 10. 2 Rev. ii. seq.

amanuensis on a doctrine with which the writer is as well acquainted as the author? The previous knowledge of the writers of scripture had nothing to do with the divine communications given to them to be recorded. They wrote, not as they personally knew, but as it was dictated to them by the Spirit. Our confidence in what they relate is not from a conviction of their previous knowledge of the subject, and their ability to express their own meaning, but from the conviction that they spake as the Holy Ghost them utterance." gave

"1

"We do not say that the Holy Spirit infused into the writers of scripture that style which they previously possessed, and which they received in their constitution; and we have no need of so absurd an assertion. We say that he uttered his thoughts, reasonings, and words through the writers of scripture, in the style of those writers. If so, the style must be his, as style is the result of words and the collocation of words." 2 "I believe the inspiration of both words and letters, on the same ground. An inspired speaker might have every word suggested by God, while he did not know a single letter of the alphabet. But, if a writing is inspired, the letters must be inspired, as well as the words, because the writing consists in the letters written, as well as in the words written. My argument for the inspiration of words is not that a writing is made up of words, but that a writing is made up of the words written.” 3

We waive a separate discussion of the theory in this simple form; since all we have to say concerning it will come up naturally in connection with the modification of it to be next considered. This modification is that propounded and advocated at length by Eleazer Lord, in his treatise on Plenary Inspiration, and in other writings of his. Не agrees with Carson, as we have seen, in maintaining that it was not the writers personally, but that which they wrote, that was inspired. In other words, he holds that the apostolic declaration, "All scripture is inspired of God" (Deóπvevotos), means not that all scripture was written by inspired men, but that all scripture was inspired into the sacred writers. We have already shown how untenable is this distinction. The word cóπVEVOTOS occurs but once in the whole compass of the New Testament. To erect, as docs Carson, upon the grammatical rendering of this word, "inspired of God," a whole theory concerning the mode of inspiration, is to build on a sandy foundation. Our translators, with great good

1 Refutation of Dr. Henderson, pp. 29, 30. 2 Ibid. p. 70. 8 Ibid. pp. 80, 81.

sense have rendered, "given by inspiration of God." This is the idea that most readers who have not a theory to maintain will get from the declaration that "all scripture is inspired of God." It is manifestly the same as if the apostle had said, according to another way of indicating inspiration: All the writers of scripture wrote " as they were moved by the Holy Ghost," the particular form of the inspiration being left an open question.

1

Lord further agrees with Carson that the identical words of scripture were given to the sacred writers in their exact order and number, and this theory he attempts to maintain from the inherent nature of language.

should be conscious of thoughts only as he is conscious of the words which express them."

Having said that inspiration is "a divine act by which thoughts are breathed transmitted-conveyed to the intelligent consciousness of those who were to write them," he adds: "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 that the recipient should be conscious at once of the thoughts in the words which it behooved him to write."

"To suppose them [the sacred writers], after receiving 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."

"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 therefore conclude that without a proper miracle the divine thoughts conveyed into the minds of the prophets by inspiration were of necessity conveyed in the very words which they wrote, that they were conscious of those thoughts in those words, and that they no more selected those words than the readers select the words in which they receive the thoughts which are expressed in scripture."5

"If they [the words] were selected by men-if man's agency was in any degree exerted in their selection, how are they the exclusive and infallible words of God? It is not a conclusive or satisfactory answer to this question to say that they were infallibly guided: For, supposing them to 2 Plenary Inspiration, p. 20. 8 Ibid. p. 20. Ibid. pp. 35 36.

1 2 Peter i. 21.

4 Ibid. p. 21. VOL. XXIX. No. 115.

56

have been so guided, if the act of selecting the words was their act, then the words selected were their words."1

"He thinks organically in that orderly, grammatical succession which is exhibited in spoken and written sentences. He thinks organically in the words which constitute such sentences. He is conscious of his thoughts in those words, and not otherwise." 2

The writer further maintains (what is, indeed, implied in the statements above quoted) that "words necessarily and perfectly represent and express the thoughts conceived in them"; that," as the vehicle and representative of thought, they are its perfect counterpart and correlate"; and that, "if the vehicle of thought were not necessarily, uniformly, and perfectly commensurate with the thoughts conceived, we could have no certainty as to what our thoughts were." 3 The reader is requested to note the words, "necessarily, uniformly, and perfectly commensurate with the thoughts conceived." This is affirmed to be the character of language, without limitation or exception, that we may either know our own thoughts with certainty, or communicate them with certainty to others.

We are at one with the writer in holding the inspiration of every part of scripture, and its absolute authority as a divine rule of faith and practice. But we cannot assent to all that he says respecting the particular method of inspiration. We preface what we have to say on this point with some general remarks:

1. In affirming that "we have no consciousness of thought separately from words, or independently of them,” etc., he unwarrantably limits the use of the term "thought." None of our primary ideas and judgments are received in or through language. They come to us partly through the medium of the outward senses, and partly through our higher, supersensuous intuitions. A little child, for example, gets the idea of such a thing as a lump of sugar through his He applies it to his tongue, and has the sensation

senses.

1 Plenary Inspiration, pp. 39, 40.

8 Ibid. chap. viii. p. 135 seq.

2 Ibid. p. 164,