IN continuing from our last Number, the consideration of the important subject of Christian Evidences, we invite the attention of our readers to the question of the Inspiration of the Holy Scriptures. As we intimated at the conclusion of a former Article, our first object will be "to justify the position we have assigned to this great question, and to show that it does not involve any reasoning in a circle." In doing this, as well as in discussing the subject itself, we shall largely avail ourselves of Mr. Lee's valuable and suggestive Lectures.

Inspiration has been sometimes spoken of, as if it were the primary question between believers and unbelievers. But this we hold to be a palpable error. The Christian Scriptures must first be established as to their genuineness, authenticity, and canonicity, on their own proper grounds of rational evidence, and then, and not till then, is the time to approach the question of their Inspiration. If it were approached sooner, it would involve reasoning in a circle. Because we must go to the Scriptures themselves for our first information, as to the fact of their Inspiration; and we can only escape the charge of a petitio principii, by so establishing them on independent grounds of evidence, before we thus go to them, that they become sufficient and unassailable witnesses to themselves, in this respect. We are not, then, under the circumstances, guilty of the

fallacy so often attributed to Christian advocates, of proving the truth of Scripture by its Inspiration, and the Inspiration of Scripture by itself. Far from it. As we have already seen, the Scriptures rest on their own vast body of testimony; a testimony so varied and so consentient, so beyond all possibility of collusion or artifice, that it approaches as nearly to a demonstration, as any moral evidence ever can. And this being so, we have an entire right to enquire of the Scriptures themselves, under what conditions they were written, and wherein, if in anything, their writers differ from the authors of all other books in the world. There is no reasoning in a circle here. A hundred instances of analogous procedure might be cited, were they needed.

Now, in appealing to the Scriptures for information on this all important subject, we may most properly place ourselves, in the first instance, on the declarations of our Blessed Lord himself. These declarations look two ways. They have regard to the elder Scriptures, and to those also of the New Testament; to the former, in the way of recognition, to the latter, in the way of promise. And therefore, as regards the fact of the Inspiration of the Holy Scriptures, they may be fairly considered as covering the whole ground. It is, however, with their latter aspect only, that we are here concerned.

There were, then, four distinct occasions, on which, before his death, our Lord promised to his Disciples the aid of the Holy Spirit. And these four promises are arranged very judiciously, by Mr. Lee, in two classes. In the first are to be placed the three found respectively in St. Matthew x, 19, 20; St. Luke xii, 11, 12; and St. Mark xiii, 11, with which is also to be taken St. Luke xxi, 14, 15. In all these passages there is distinctly promised an objective, positive, external influence of the Holy Spirit, on "all the public occasions on which the Apostles could be called upon to defend themselves, whether before Councils or Synagogues, before Governors or Kings." And that this promise was fulfilled to the Apostles, is made so evident by the course of the subsequent narrative of their acts and words, that even such writers as Paulus and Strauss are compelled virtually to admit it. The words of Paulus are too remarkable to be passed without notice. "If," he says, embrace in historic glance the record of the origin of Christianity, from the last evening of the life of Jesus, to the close of the fifty days next following, it is undeniable that, in that short interval, something of a nature encouraging beyond what was ordinary, must have taken place, to transform the trembling and irresolute Apostles of that evening into men ex

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alted above all fear of death, who could exclaim before the embittered judges of the murdered Jesus, 'We must obey God rather than men.'

In the second class are to be placed the very remarkable promise or promises, contained in the fourteenth and following chapters of the Gospel of St. John. This promise demands a careful analysis. It will be found to be twofold, though it grounds itself on the assurance, that when the Lord has gone away from his Apostles, he will send to them and here again an objective external influence is pledged to them-the Holy Ghost, here described as the "Spirit of Truth." He is (1) to recall to their minds whatever the Lord has declared to them, and (2) to teach them all things.* For this great gift they have been prepared, by having been the companions of their Lord, while he abode on earth: and by it, and in it, old truths which they have learned from him, are to be brought back to their recollection, and new truth is to be imparted from above.

We can hardly fail to observe, that our Lord here recognizes that distinction to which in a former Article we alluded; the distinction, namely, between what have been called the human and the divine elements in the Scriptures. For here are obviously set forth two sorts of truths; one which the Apostles already knew, and another which they did not know. The former the Spirit is to recall, the latter, He is to communicate. And thus the Redeemer's promise expresses precisely the conditions, under which reason would teach us a priori, if the Spirit were to be given, at all, it must be given to be effectual and sufficient for the purpose had in view. The former truths had already been directly declared to the Apostles by our Lord; the latter were to be declared to them from Him, by the vicarial agency of the Holy Ghost. He was all along the Revealer; the Inspiring Spirit brought back what He had already taught, or what the Apostles had already seen, and communicated what, as yet, Christ had not taught them, the many things which He had to say to them, but which they were not then able to bear.t

Now it seems very clear upon examining the two promises of our Lord, that there is between them an important difference. The first, recorded in the Synoptical Gospels, relates to special personal exigencies, in which the Apostles were told they would be placed, and in which, as matter of fact, we find they were placed. The promise, therefore, is, so to speak, personal to themselves; intended for their personal encouragement, support, and consolation, when they should stand before

St. John xiv, 25, 26.

St. John xvi, 12, 13.

Jewish Sanhedrims or Roman Tribunals. But the latter, recorded by St. John, presents no such limitations or restrictions. The truths recalled to their recollections, or directly communicated, by the Spirit, constitute that Gospel which they are to preach to every creature, either by word or writing. And hence it is plain, that even if the first promises have reference to the words which the Apostles were to speak before Kings and Rulers in the name of Christ, the latter cannot be so restricted; so that the foolish distinction-a distinction, let it be observed, which the Apostles nowhere recognize-between their oral teaching and their written instruction, comes to nothing, and may be summarily dismissed.

The Apostolic History is a continuous comment on, and verification of, the Lord's first promise. A transformation of the whole nature of the Apostles seems to have followed Christ's Ascension, analogous to that described in the words of Samuel to Saul: "The Spirit of the Lord will come upon thee, and thou shalt be turned into another man." We find these poor fishermen of Galilee, whose whole tone of thought and line of conduct before their Lord's departure had remained so true to the character of "unlearned, ignorant men," changed on a sudden into the courageous rivals of the philosophers and rhetoricians of their age. We see them, at first, restless from doubts, and fettered by prejudices, now immovable in their convictions, and alive to each new aspect of the truth. Formerly timid and wavering, they now are fearless and resolved. Their delusive dream of temporal deliverance becomes a real assurance of eternal Redemption. Their narrow estimate of the divine covenant with their nation expands, under the influence of the Holy Ghost, into the sublime conception of the "Israel of God." Nor do the Apostolic history and the Apostolic writings any less explain and indicate the second fuller and less restricted promise of Christ. The Apostles distinctly claim that the Holy Ghost and they, are witnesses to Christ, not independent witnesses, but He witnessing through them.* They put themselves on the same ground with "those holy men of old" who "spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost."+ They reject and even anathematize man or angel, who shall declare any other doctrine than theirs ; and this doctrine they never pretend to have discovered by the use of their own reason, but they always refer it to the gift of God, and the illumination of the Spirit.§ While if any one should be inclined to fancy that all this relates to the teachings by word, Eph. ii, 20; 2 Peter iii, 2. Gal. i, 8. § Eph. iii, 5.

*Acts v, 32.

and not by the written instructions of the Apostles, St. John's assertion concerning his Gospel, "These are written that ye might believe," and St. Paul's exhortation to the Thessalonians, to hold fast to what they had been taught by word or by Epistle,* * ought to show that no such distinctions existed in the minds of the Apostles. But, indeed, reason itself, if rightly directed, leads to the conclusion that such a distinction is as groundless as it is perverse. And, finally, this Divine guidance is asserted to extend to the very language of the Apostolic instructions.t

Thus broadly and fully, then, was the guidance of the Holy Spirit, call it Inspiration or what you choose, promised by our Lord to His Apostles, to furnish them what they were to say in all their witnessings to Him at every time, and in every place; to recall to their minds His acts, His words, His divine instructions; and to communicate to them such truths as were before unknown; words, instructions, truths, which were to form that precious heritage, committed to the Church, to make men "wise unto salvation." Thus fully does the Apostolic History verify these gracious promises. Thus fully do the Apostles claim and appropriate them, in all their completeness and integrity.

And now, the sole objection against all this, alleged from the New Testament, is grounded on certain passages in the seventh Chapter of the first Epistle to the Corinthians. The objection.

is, that in this Chapter, the Apostle distinguishes between what he says by Inspiration, and what he says by himself; and the conclusion is, that some parts of the Epistles are inspired, and some are not; whence, as Mr. Greg shrewdly argues, it follows, that "every man must judge for himself, which are which,must separate by his own skill the divine from the human. assertions in the Bible." Were this really so, we certainly might as well give up the whole thing at once. But let us proceed to examine the Chapter, by the aid of Mr. Lee and the writers to whom he refers.

The first five verses contain certain directions to husbands and wives in reference to a matter of mutual duty. Then, in the sixth verse, according to our English version, the Apostle says, "But I speak this by permission and not of commandment." There is no real difficulty here. The apparent one, arises from the ambiguity of our word permission. Had the

*St. John xx, 31; 2 Thess. ii, 15.

1 Cor. ii, 13; 1 Thess. ii, 13.

For it is not worth while to notice the objections arising from unreasonable expositions of Rom. vi, 18, 19, and 2 Cor. xi, 16, 17. Mr. Alford, as quoted by Mr. Lee, fully explains these passages.