selves"; Hooker, Works, 2; 383-"They neither spake nor wrote any word of their own, but uttered syllable by syllable as the Spirit put it into their mouths"; Gaussen, Theopneusty, 61-"The Bible is not a book which God charged men already enlightened to make under his protection; it is a book which God dictated to them"; Cunningham, Theol. Lectures, 349-"The verbal inspiration of the Scriptures [ which he advocates] implies in general that the words of Scripture were suggested or dictated by the Holy Spirit, as well as the substance of the matter, and this, not only in some portion of the Scriptures, but through the whole." This reminds us of the old theory that God created fossils in the rocks, as they would be had ancient seas existed.

Sanday, Bamp. Lect. on Inspiration, 74, quotes Philo as saying: "A prophet gives forth nothing at all of his own, but acts as interpreter at the prompting of another in all his utterances, and as long as he is under inspiration he is in ignorance, his reason departing from its place and yielding up the citadel of the soul, when the divine Spirit enters into it and dwells in it and strikes at the mechanism of the voice, sounding through it to the clear declaration of that which he prophesieth"; in Gen. 15: 12—“About the setting of the sun a trance came upon Abram"--the sun is the light of human reason which sets and gives place to the Spirit of God. Sanday, 78, says also: "Josephus holds that even historical narratives, such as those at the beginning of the Pentateuch which were not written down by contemporary prophets, were obtained by direct inspiration from God. The Jews from their birth regard their Scripture as 'the decrees of God,' which they strictly observe, and for which if need be they are ready to die." The Rabbis said that "Moses did not write one word out of his own knowledge."

The Reformers held to a much freer view than this. Luther said: "What does not carry Christ with it, is not apostolic, even though St. Peter or St. Paul taught it. If our adversaries fall back on the Scripture against Christ, we fall back on Christ against the Scripture." Luther refused canonical authority to books not actually written by apostles or composed, like Mark and Luke, under their direction. So he rejected from the rank of canonical authority Hebrews, James, Jude, 2 Peter and Revelation. Even Calvin doubted the Petrine authorship of 2 Peter, excluded the book of Revelation from the Scripture on which he wrote Commentaries, and also thus ignored the second and third epistles of John; see Prof. R. E. Thompson, in s. S. Times, Dec. 3, 1898: 803, 804. The dictation-theory is post-Reformation. H. P. Smith, Bib. Scholarship and Inspiration, 85-"After the Council of Trent, the Roman Catholic polemic became sharper. It became the endeavor of that party to show the necessity of tradition and the untrustworthiness of Scripture alone. This led the Protestants to defend the Bible more tenaciously than before." The Swiss Formula of Consensus in 1675 not only called the Scriptures "the very word of God," but declared the Hebrew vowel-points to be inspired, and some theologians traced them back to Adam. John Owen held to the inspiration of the vowel-points; see Horton, Inspiration and Bible, 8. Of the age which produced the Protestant dogmatic theology, Charles Beard, in the Hibbert Lectures for 1983, says: "I know no epoch of Christianity to which I could more confidently point in illustration of the fact that where there is most theology, there is often least religion."

Of this view we may remark:

(a) We grant that there are instances when God's communications were uttered in an audible voice and took a definite form of words, and that this was sometimes accompanied with the command to commit the words to writing.

For examples, see Ex. 3:4-"God called unto him out of the midst of the bush, and said, Moses, Moses"; 20: 22-"Ye yourselves have seen that I have talked with you from heaven"; ef. Heb. 12:19-"the voice of words; which voice they that heard entreated that no word more should be spoken unto them"; Numbers 7:89-"And when Moses went into the tent of meeting to speak with him, then he heard the Voice speaking unto him from above the mercy-seat that was upon the ark of the testimony, from between the two cherubim: and he spake unto him"; 8 1 -"And Jehovah spake unto Moses, saying," etc.; Dan. 4:31-"While the word was in the king's mouth, there fell a voice from heaven, saying, 0 king Nebuchadnezzar, to thee it is spoken: The kingdom is departed from thee"; Acts 9: 5-"And he said, Who art thou, Lord? And he said, I am Jesus whom thou persecutest"; Rev. 19:9- “And he saith unto me, Write, Blessed are they that are bidden to the marriage supper of the Lamb"; 21:5-"And he that sitteth on the throne said, Behold, I make all things new"; cf. 1:10, 11-"and I heard behind me a great voice, as of a trumpet saying, What thou seest, write in a book and send it to the seven churches." So the voice from heaven at the baptism, and at the transfiguration, of Jesus (Mat. 3:17, and 17:5; see Broadus, Amer. Com., on these passages).

(b) The theory in question, however, rests upon a partial induction of Scripture facts, -unwarrantably assuming that such occasional instances of direct dictation reveal the invariable method of God's communications of truth to the writers of the Bible.

Scripture nowhere declares that this immediate communication of the words was universal. On 1 Cor. 2:13 — οὐκ ἐν διδακτοῖς ἀνθρωπίνης σοφίας λόγοις, ἀλλ ̓ ἐν διδακτοῖς πνεύματος, the text usually cited as proof of invariable dictation-Meyer says: "There is no dictation here; didakтois excludes everything mechanical." Henderson, Inspiration (2nd ed.), 333, 349-"As human wisdom did not dictate word for word, so the Spirit did not." Paul claims for Scripture simply a general style of plainness which is due to the influence of the Spirit. Manly: "Dictation to an amanuensis is not teaching." Our Revised Version properly translates the remainder of the verse, 1 Cor. 2:13-"combining spiritual things with spiritual words."

(c)

ures.

It cannot account for the manifestly human element in the ScriptThere are peculiarities of style which distinguish the productions of each writer from those of every other, and there are variations in accounts of the same transaction which are inconsistent with the theory of a solely divine authorship.

Notice Paul's anacoloutha and his bursts of grief and indignation (Rom. 5:12 ; 8q., 2 Cor. 11:1 sq.), and his ignorance of the precise number whom he had baptized (1 Cor. 1:16). One beggar or two (Mat. 20:30; cf. Luke 18:35); "about five and twenty or thirty furlongs" (John 6:19); "shed for many" (Mat. 26: 28 has repi, Mark 14:24 and Luke 22:20 have væép). Dictation of words which were immediately to be lost by imperfect transcription? Clarke, Christian Theology, 33-37-"We are under no obligation to maintain the complete inerrancy of the Scriptures. In them we have the freedom of life, rather than extraordinary precision of statement or accuracy of detail. We have become Christians in spite of differences between the evangelists. The Scriptures are various, progressive, free. There is no authority in Scripture for applying the word 'inspired' to our present Bible as a whole, and theology is not bound to employ this word in defining the ScriptChristianity is founded in history, and will stand whether the Scriptures are inspired or not. If special inspiration were wholly disproved, Christ would still be the Savior of the world. But the divine element in the Scriptures will never be disproved."

ures.

(d) It is inconsistent with a wise economy of means, to suppose that the Scripture writers should have had dictated to them what they knew already, or what they could inform themselves of by the use of their natural powers.

Why employ eye-witnesses at all? Why not dictate the gospels to Gentiles living a thousand years before? God respects the instruments he has called into being, and he uses them according to their constitutional gifts. George Eliot represents Stradivarius as saying:-"If my hand slacked, I should rob God-since he is fullest goodLeaving a blank instead of violins. God cannot make Antonio Stradivari s violins, Without Antonio." Mark 11:3-"The Lord hath need of him," may apply to man as well as beast.

(e) It contradicts what we know of the law of God's working in the soul. The higher and nobler God's communications, the more fully is man in possession and use of his own faculties. We cannot suppose that this highest work of man under the influence of the Spirit was purely mechanical.

Joseph receives communication by vision (Mat. 1:20); Mary, by words of an angel spoken in her waking moments (Luke 1: 28). The more advanced the recipient, the more conscious the communication. These four theories might almost be called the Pelagian, the Arminian, the Docetic, and the Dynamical. Sabatier, Philos. Religion, 41, 42, 87 "In the Gospel of the Hebrews, the Father says at the baptism to Jesus: 'My Son, in all the prophets I was waiting for thee, that thou mightest come, and that I might rest in thee. For thou art my Rest.' Inspiration becomes more and more internal, until in Christ it is continuous and complete. Upon the opposite Docetic view, the most per

fect inspiration should have been that of Balaam's ass." Semler represents the Pelagian or Ebionitic view, as Quenstedt represents this Docetic view. Semler localizes and temporalizes the contents of Scripture. Yet, though he carried this to the extreme of excluding any divine authorship, he did good service in leading the way to the historical study of the Bible.

4. The Dynamical Theory.

The true view holds, in opposition to the first of these theories, that inspiration is not simply a natural but also a supernatural fact, and that it is the immediate work of a personal God in the soul of man.

It holds, in opposition to the second, that inspiration belongs, not only to the men who wrote the Scriptures, but to the Scriptures which they wrote, so that these Scriptures, when taken together, constitute a trustworthy and sufficient record of divine revelation.

It holds, in opposition to the third theory, that the Scriptures contain a human as well as a divine element, so that while they present a body of divinely revealed truth, this truth is shaped in human moulds and adapted to ordinary human intelligence.

In short, inspiration is characteristically neither natural, partial, nor mechanical, but supernatural, plenary, and dynamical. Further explanations will be grouped under the head of The Union of the Divine and Human Elements in Inspiration, in the section which immediately follows. If the small circle be taken as symbol of the human element in inspiration, and the large circle as symbol of the divine, then the Intuition-theory would be represented by the small circle alone; the Dictation-theory by the large circle alone; the Illuminationtheory by the small circle external to the large, and touching it at only a single point; the Dynamical-theory by two concentric circles, the small included in the large. Even when inspiration is but the exaltation and intensification of man's natural powers, it must be considered the work of God as well as of man. God can work from within as well as from without. As creation and regeneration are works of the immanent rather than of the transcendent God, so inspiration is in general a work within man's soul, rather than a communication to him from without. Prophecy may be natural to perfect humanity. Revelation is an unveiling, and the Röntgen rays enable us to sce through a veil. But the insight of the Scripture writers into truth so far beyond their mental and moral powers is inexplicable except by a supernatural influence upon their minds; in other words, except as they were lifted up into the divine Reason and endowed with the wisdom of God.

Although we propose this Dynamical-theory as one which best explains the Scripture facts, we do not regard this or any other theory as of essential importance. No theory of inspiration is necessary to Christian faith. Revelation precedes inspiration. There was religion before the Old Testament, and an oral gospel before the New Testament. God might reveal without recording; might permit record without inspiration; might inspire without vouching for anything more than religious teaching and for the history, only so far as was necessary to that religious teaching. Whatever theory of inspiration we frame, should be the result of a strict induction of the Scripture facts, and not an a priori scheme to which Scripture must be conformed. The fault of many past discussions of the subject is the assumption that God must adopt some particular method of inspiration, or secure an absolute perfection of detail in matters not essential to the religious teaching of Scripture. Perhaps the best theory of inspiration is to have no theory.

Warfield and Hodge, Inspiration, 8-"Very many religious and historical truths must be established before we come to the question of inspiration, as for instance the being and moral government of God, the fallen condition of man, the fact of a redemptive scheme, the general historical truth of the Scriptures, and the validity and authority of the revelation of God's will which they contain, i. e., the general truth of Christianity and of its doctrines. Hence it follows that while the inspiration of the Scriptures is true, and being true is a principle fundamental to the adequate interpretation of Scripture, it nevertheless is not, in the first instance, a principle fundamental

....

to the truth of the Christian religion." Warfield, in Presb. and Ref. Rev., April, 1893: 208 -"We do not found the whole Christian system on the doctrine of inspiration. Were there no such thing as inspiration, Christianity would be true, and all its essential doctrines would be credibly witnessed to us "-in the gospels and in the living church. F. L. Patton, Inspiration, 22—“I must take exception to the disposition of some to stake the fortunes of Christianity on the doctrine of inspiration. Not that I yield to any one in profound conviction of the truth and importance of the doctrine. But it is proper for us to bear in mind the immense argumentative advantage which Christianity has, aside altogether from the inspiration of the documents on which it rests." So argue also Sanday, Oracles of God, and Dale, The Living Christ.

IV. THE UNION OF THE DIVINE AND HUMAN ELEMENTS IN INSPIRATION. 1. The Scriptures are the production equally of God and of man, and are therefore never to be regarded as merely human or merely divine.

The mystery of inspiration consists in neither of these terms separately, but in the union of the two. Of this, however, there are analogies in the interpenetration of human powers by the divine efficiency in regeneration and sanctification, and in the union of the divine and human natures in the person of Jesus Christ.

According to "Dalton's law," each gas is as a vacuum to every other: "Gases are mutually passive, and pass into each other as into vacua." Each interpenetrates the other. But this does not furnish a perfect illustration of our subject. The atom of oxygen and the atom of nitrogen, in common air, remain side by side but they do not unite. In inspiration the human and the divine elements do unite. The Lutheran maxim, "Mens humana capax divinæ," is one of the most important principles of a true theology. "The Lutherans think of humanity as a thing made by God for himself and to receive himself. The Reformed think of the Deity as ever preserving himself from any confusion with the creature. They fear pantheism and idolatry" (Bp. of Salisbury, quoted in Swayne, Our Lord's Knowledge, xx).

-

Sabatier, Philos. Religion, 66-"That initial mystery, the relation in our consciousness between the individual and the universal element, between the finite and the infinite, between God and man, how can we comprehend their coëxistence and their union, and yet how can we doubt it? Where is the thoughtful man to-day who has not broken the thin crust of his daily life, and caught a glimpse of those profound and obscure waters on which floats our consciousness? Who has not felt within himself a veiled presence, and a force much greater than his own? What worker in a lofty cause has not perceived within his own personal activity, and saluted with a feeling of veneration, the mysterious activity of a universal and eternal Power? 'In Deo vivimus, movemur, et sumus.'. . . . This mystery cannot be dissipated, for without it religion itself would no longer exist." Quackenbos, in Harper's Magazine, July, 1900: 264, says that "hypnotic suggestion is but inspiration." The analogy of human influence thus communicated may at least help us to some understanding of the divine.

2. This union of the divine and human agencies in inspiration is not to be conceived of as one of external impartation and reception.

On the other hand, those whom God raised up and providentially qualified to do this work, spoke and wrote the words of God, when inspired, not as from without, but as from within, and that not passively, but in the most conscious possession and the most exalted exercise of their own powers of intellect, emotion, and will.

The Holy Spirit does not dwell in man as water in a vessel. We may rather illustrate the experience of the Scripture writers by the experience of the preacher who under the influence of God's Spirit is carried beyond himself, and is conscious of a clearer apprehension of truth and of a greater ability to utter it than belong to his unaided nature, yet knows himself to be no passive vehicle of a divine communication, but to be as never before in possession and exercise of his own powers. The inspiration of the Scripture writers, however, goes far beyond the illumination granted to the preacher, in that it qualifies them to put the truth, without error, into permanent and written

form. This inspiration, moreover, is more than providential preparation. Like miracles, inspiration may use man's natural powers, but man's natural powers do not explain it. Moses, David, Paul, and John were providentially endowed and educated for their work of writing Scripture, but this endowment and education were not inspiration itself, but only the preparation for it.

Beyschlag: "With John, remembrance and exposition had become inseparable." E. G. Robinson: "Novelists do not create characters,- they reproduce with modifications material presented to their memories. So the apostles reproduced their impressions of Christ." Hutton, Essays, 2: 231-"The Psalmists vacillate between the first person and the third, when they deliver the purposes of God. As they warm with their spiritual inspiration, they lose themselves in the person of Him who inspires them, and then they are again recalled to themselves." Stanley, Life and Letters, 1:380-" Revelation is not resolved into a mere human process because we are able to distinguish the natural agencies through which it was communicated"; 2:102-" You seem to me to transfer too much to these ancient prophets and writers and chiefs our modern notions of divine origin. . . . Our notion, or rather, the modern Puritanical notion of divine origin, is of a preternatural force or voice, putting aside secondary agencies, and separated from those agencies by an impassable gulf. The ancient, Oriental, Biblical notion was of a supreme Will acting through those agencies, or rather, being inseparable from them. Our notions of inspiration and divine communications insist on absolute perfection of fact, morals, doctrine. The Biblical notion was that inspiration was compatible with weakness, infirmity, contradiction." Ladd, Philosophy of Mind, 182-"In inspiration the thoughts, feelings, purposes are organized into another One than the self in which they were themselves born. That other One is in themselves. They enter into communication with Him. Yet this may be supernatural, even though natural psychological means are used. Inspiration which is external is not inspiration at all." This last sentence, however, seems to us a needless exaggeration of the true principle. Though God originally inspires from within, he may also communicate truth from without.

3. Inspiration, therefore, did not remove, but rather pressed into its own service, all the personal peculiarities of the writers, together with their defects of culture and literary style.

Every imperfection not inconsistent with truth in a human composition may exist in inspired Scripture. The Bible is God's word, in the sense that it presents to us divine truth in human forms, and is a revelation not for a select class but for the common mind. Rightly understood, this very humanity of the Bible is a proof of its divinity.

Locke: "When God made the prophet, he did not unmake the man." Prof. Day: "The bush in which God appeared to Moses remained a bush, while yet burning with the brightness of God and uttering forth the majesty of the mind of God." The paragraphs of the Koran are called ayat, or "sign," from their supposed supernatural elegance. But elegant literary productions do not touch the heart. The Bible is not merely the word of God; it is also the word made flesh. The Holy Spirit hides himself, that he may show forth Christ (John 3:8); he is known only by his effects- a pattern for preachers, who are ministers of the Spirit (2 Cor. 3:6). See Conant on Genesis, 65. The slem declares that every word of the Koran came by the agency of Gabriel from the seventh heaven, and that its very pronunciation is inspired. Better the doctrine of Martineau, Seat of Authority, 289-"Though the pattern be divine, the web that bears it must still be human." Jackson, James Martineau, 255-"Paul's metaphor of the 'treasure in earthen vessels' (2 Cor. 4:7) you cannot allow to give you guidance; you want, not the treasure only, but the casket too, to come from above, and be of the crystal of the sky. You want the record to be divine, not only in its spirit, but also in its letter." Charles Hodge, Syst. Theol., 1: 157-"When God ordains praise out of the mouths of babes, they must speak as babes, or the whole power and beauty of the tribute will be lost."

Evans, Bib. Scholarship and Inspiration, 16, 25-"The νevμa of a dead wind is never changed, as the Rabbis of old thought, into the veuμa of a living spirit. The raven that fed Elijah was nothing more than a bird. Nor does man, when supernaturally influenced, cease to be a man. An inspired man is not God, nor a divinely manipulated