much as it presents the doctrine under a form more separate from every question about the mode of inspiration and about the secret experience of the sacred writers. Accept one or the other fully, and you have rendered to the Scriptures the honor and the faith which are their due.

We propose then to establish the doctrine of Theopneusty under the one or the other of these two forms; "the Scriptures are given and guaranteed by God, even in their very language ;" and, "the Scriptures contain no error, that is, they say all they ought to say, and only what they ought to say."

Now, how shall we establish this doctrine? By the Scriptures themselves, and only by the Scriptures. When their truth is once admitted, it is from them we must learn what they are; and when they have once asserted that they are inspired of God, it is still for them to say how they are inspired, and how far.

To undertake to prove, a priori, their inspiration, in arguing from the necessity of this miracle for the security of cur faith, would be, to reason feebly, and almost to imitate, in one respect, the presumption which, in another respect, imagines, a priori, four degrees of Theopneusty. Again, to undertake to establish the inspiration of the Scriptures upon the consideration of their beauty, their constant wisdom, their prophetic prudence, and all those marks of divinity which are there revealed, would be indeed, to rest our proof on reasonings doubtless just, but contestable, or at least contested. We must then stand upon the Scriptural declarations alone. We have no other authority for the doctrines of our faith, and Theopneusty is one of those doctrines.

At the same time, let us here guard against a misapprehension. It may happen that some reader not fully confirmed in his belief of Christianity, mistaking our design, and thinking that from our book he may gather arguments

to establish his faith, shall be disappointed, and shall feel himself authorized to reproach our argument as having the capital defect of attempting to prove the inspiration of the Scriptures by that inspiration.

Here we must vindicate ourselves. We have not written these pages for the disciples of Porphyry, of Voltaire, or Rousseau ; nor has our object been to prove that the Scriptures are worthy of faith. Others have done this; it is not our task. We address men who respect the Scriptures, and admit their truth. It is to them we assert, that the Scriptures being true, declare themselves inspired; and that being inspired, they declare themselves entirely so; whence we conclude that they must be so.

Certainly this doctrine is one of the simplest and clearest of all truths, to the mind humbly and rationally submissive to the testimony of the Scriptures. We may indeed hear modern theologians represent it as full of uncertainty and difficulties; but men who have desired to study it only by the light of God's word, have not found there these difficulties and this uncertainty. Nothing, on the contrary, is more clearly or more frequently taught in the Scriptures, than the inspiration of the Scriptures. The ancients too, never found the embarrassments and doubts on this subject, which confound the learned of our day. For them the Bible either was of God, or it was not of God. Antiquity presents on this point an admirable unanimity. But, since the moderns, in imitation of the Jewish Talmudists and Rabbins of the middle ages,† have imagined sage distinctions between four or five degrees of

* See on this subject the learned dissertation of Dr. Rudelbach; in which he establishes from history, the sound doctrines of inspiration as we have endeavored to establish them from the Scriptures. (Zeitschrift für die gesammte Lutherische Theologie und Kirche, von Rudelbach und Guericke. 1840.)

† See our chap. 5, sec. 2, ques. 44.

inspiration, who can be astonished to find that difficulties and uncertainty have increased in their view? They contest that which the Scriptures teach, and they inculcate what the Scriptures do not teach. Their embarrassment is easily explained, but the blame of it rests on their temerity.

The Bible renders so clear a testimony to its own full inspiration, that differences of opinion among Christians on a subject so well defined, are astonishing. And the explanation of it will only add so much testimony to the power and evil of prejudice. The mind, already pre-occupied with objections which it has originated, distorts the Bacred passages, and turns them from their natural sense, and by a secret labor of thought, forces itself to reconcile them with the difficulties which embarrass it. These Christians deny, in spite of the Scriptures, the full inspiration of the Scriptures; as the Sadducees denied the resurrection, because they found the miracle inexplicable; but it must be remembered that Jesus Christ has answered: "Ye do err, not knowing the Scriptures, nor the power of God." (Mark xii. 24–27.) It is then on account of this too common disposition of the human mind, that we have thought it best not to present our Scriptural proofs, until after a full examination of the objections raised against it.

That will be the subject of the next chapter.

We desire to present also, to our reader, a more precise exposition of our doctrine, and of some of the questions connected with it; but it has appeared to us preferable to defer this also to the last pages; both because it will be more acceptable when the difficulties shall have been ma turely considered, and because we would not, at the beginning, repel, by a too didactic discussion, the unlettered readers who may come to these pages, seeking the edification of their faith.

We are about then, to commence, by an attentive examination of the difficulties and the systems raised up against the doctrine of a plenary inspiration. These difficulties constitute objections; and these systems are rather evasions. We will study them both in the two succeeding chapters.

1

CHAPTER II.

OBJECTIONS EXAMINED.

IT is objected, that the individuality of the sacred writers, deeply imprinted on their respective writings, cannot be reconciled with plenary inspiration; it is objected, that the fallibility of the translator renders illusory the infallibility of the original text; it is objected, that the use of the totally human version of the Seventy, by the apostles, renders their theopneusty more than doubtful; the objector refers to the variations in the manuscripts, imperfections in the reasonings and in the doctrines, errors in the facts; he brings up the statements which appear absurd in the light of our more perfect acquaintance with the laws of nature; he states, finally, what he calls the admissions of St. Paul. We shall answer these objections in order, and then examine in succession, some of the theories by which the doctrine of plenary inspiration is evaded.

SECTION L.-THE INDIVIDUALITY, OR PECULIARITIES OF THE SACRED WRITERS, DEEPLY IMPRESSED ON THEIR BOOKS.

It is first objected, that this individuality, which so pervades the sacred books, furnishes a powerful testimony against the doctrine of a full and constant inspiration. We are told that it is impossible to read the Scriptures, without being struck with the differences of language, of conception, of style, which each author presents. These differences, by impressing on these writings the indisputa