PART II.

THE NATURE AND EXTENT OF INSPIRATION.

§. 1. General remarks.

THE term inspired, in its widest extent of signification, may be applied to all who have been miraculously enabled, either to receive a divine revelation, or to execute a divine commission. Not that some of God's servants were inspired for one of these purposes, and some for the other. Those who received revelations, were called on to perform some holy service in consequence, and such service could only, of course, have been enjoined by means of a revelation.

In what consisted the miraculous qualification either for receiving a revelation, or for executing a divine commission, and also under what limitation it was granted; are questions, which we have no right to decide by mere conjecture, nor

H

indeed, in any other way, than by examining the facts and assertions contained in the only authentic record of inspired persons-the Bible. Once satisfied by the appropriate evidence, that a human being is inspired, we should be bound to take his own word for the nature and extent of his inspiration. Our obligation with regard to the Scriptures is the same. If the proofs of their inspiration have satisfied us, to the Scriptures themselves we must go on the Scriptures alone we must depend, for the nature and extent of their inspiration, as well as of the inspiration of those whose holy agency and revelations they record.

Such an inquiry as this will comprehend, I. The different modes of revelation for receiving which men have been inspired. II. The different kinds of divine agency, or the different purposes for which men have received revelations and inspiration. III. The nature and extent of the inspiration, i. e. of the miraculous qualification, both for receiving a revelation, and also for fulfilling the course of duty arising out of it. This last, the personal endowment and qualification, is, it should be observed, strictly speaking, the inspiration; for,

the extraordinary knowledge imparted by God, as well as the act of imparting it, we more properly call revelation".

§. 2. The different modes of revelation for receiving which men have been inspired.

THE various forms of divine communication to mankind, which have required or implied inspiration, may be comprised under the general description of Visions, Voices, Dreams, and instinctive Impulses. There is, it is true, reason to infer from Scripture, that there may have been one other method, as will be presently noticed; but these are all of which Scripture gives any definite

One of the objections brought by infidels against revelation, turns on this ambiguity of the term. A revelation, say they, can be only such to those who actually and immediately receive it from heaven. St. Paul's revelations, for instance, may have been revelations to him, but cannot be so to others. Now this is true of revelation, in one sense of the word; if, namely, we mean by it the act of revealing. But it is clearly not true, if we mean by it the communication itself-the knowledge revealed.

account. Indeed, no other mode of divine communication is perhaps intelligible to an uninspired person, except that wherein the mediation of a distinct being is interposed; and this does not imply or require any inspiration of the person who should so receive a revelation. Our Lord's hearers, for example, had revelations addressed to them through Him; but this did not require or cause them to be inspired. The same was the case with the holy messages conveyed to the patriarchs by angels in the form of men. In all such instances, the persons addressed, would not necessarily be otherwise affected, than if a mere inspired man, like themselves, were announcing a revelation, for the receiving of which he, not they, had been inspired.

By the term Visions, is meant any communications conveyed through an object of sight. Of this kind were, the hand-writing on the wall of Belshazzar's banquet room, the pillar of fire and cloud which guided the Israelites through the wilderness, and the like".

b Daniel v. 5. Exodus xiii. 21, 22.

Voices. This term is intended to signify all revelations conveyed through the sense of hearing. These were often accompanied with extraordinary impressions on the other senses; and were probably the most frequent, because they were the most distinct mode of communication. Such was the giving of the Ten Commandments, the call of Moses, and perhaps all those revelations designated simply by the expression, “The Lord said unto him "."

Dreams.-Under this title I would include whatever was addressed to the imagination only; whether the abstraction from a consciousness of surrounding objects was the effect of sleep, or of some supernatural influence. As instances of this class may be mentioned, Peter's vision of the sheet, Jacob's dream, and the like ".

Instinctive impulses.-This term is used to denote some method of making known the divine will, which does not appear to have been an address either to the senses or to the imagination, but to have operated on the desires, affections,

c Exodus iii. 4. xx. 1. Genesis xvii.

d Acts x. 10. Genesis xxviii. 12.