How shall we account for the internal evidences to which we are hereafter to proceed? What room could there be for ordinary learning and observation, in the composition of the sacred records? If every thing is divine, how is it that we see so much apparently human?

In order to settle these questions, so far as we are practically concerned in them, we must consult the sacred volume itself. Man's reasonings upon what God would be likely to do, are almost sure to be erroneous. Let us open the Bible, and observe the system which it unfolds. This was the method we pursued in considering the question of inspiration itself, and it led us on, step by step, to a conclusion perfectly clear and satisfactory. Let us do the same as to the plan and method on which the Holy Spirit proceeded with the sacred writers, and we shall soon arrive at an easy solution of all the difficulties which embarrass our minds.

Let us first trace out the WONDERFUL METHOD of the divine agency, in the inspiration of the Scriptures; then the EXTENT OF THIS INSPIRATION; and, lastly, the ADVANTAGES which we derive from both. A reflection or two on the importance of fully admitting and acting upon the doctrine thus illustrated, will close the subject; and leave us at liberty to review the whole argument deduced from the external evidences of Christianity.

I. In order to trace out the WONDERFUL METHOD OF THE DIVINE AGENCY IN THE INSPIRATION OF THE SCRIPTURES, we must,

1. Collect all the facts of the case, as they lie in the New Testament. We must compare what is decidedly the part of God with what appears to be the part of man. The facts on the one hand were established in the last Lecture. The books are given by a plenary divine inspiration, as we have abundantly proved. They are the words of the Holy Ghost; they are the infallible standard of truth; no intermixture whatever of human frailty or mistake is to be found in the communication they make to us of Christianity. These are the facts on one side of the case-few, prominent, decisive. This is the part of God.

In order to collect the phenomena on the other side, let us open the New Testament again. We see, on the face of the whole, that the writers speak naturally, use the style, language, manner of address, familiar to them, There are peculiar casts

of talent, expression, modes of reasoning in each author. The language is that of the country and age where they lived. They employ all their faculties, they search, examine, weigh, reason as holy and sincere men, in such a cause, might be supposed to do. They use all their natural and acquired knowledge; their memory furnishes them with facts, or the documents and authentic records of the time are consulted by them for information. They plead with those to whom they are sent, they address the heart, they expostulate, they warn, they invite. The mind of man appears working every where. In the historical books, the evangelists seem to follow their own trains of recollection. They relate incidents as they struck them, or were reported to them. In the devotional and epistolary books, again, natural talent, appropriate feelings and judgment, the peculiarities of the individual are manifest. Once more, St. Luke preserves his characteristic manner in the Gospel and the Acts; St. Paul his own style and method of reasoning; St. John may be known in his several productions. Lastly, the prophetical parts are more elevated; and yet breathe the spirit, and retain the peculiar phraseology, of the writers. These are the phenomena on the other side. The facts are numerous, and might be multiplied with every fresh perusal of the sacred books.

The two classes constitute the opposite, and apparently contradictory facts of the case. The books are divine, and yet, to appearance, human. They are infallible, and yet evidently composed by mortals like ourselves. They are the word of God, and yet in the language of man.

2. By tracing, however, the inward structure of the books further, we perceive that the plan or method of the divine inspiration reconciles all these appearances, and subserves the most important practical purposes. We find that it unites the two classes of phenomena, the plenary influences of the Almighty Spirit, and the free and natural exertion of the characteristic faculties of the writers. Instead of addressing us immediately, God is pleased to use men as his instruments. Instead of speaking to us severally by an independent revelation, he has consigned his will to us at once in the Holy Scriptures. Instead of making known that will in the language of angels, or by the skill of poets and philosophers, he has been pleased to choose the unlettered apostles and evangelists. And, instead of using these as mere organic and passive instruments of his power, he has thought right to leave

them to the operations of their own minds, and the dictates of their own knowledge, habits and feelings, so far as it could safely be done, as to the MANNER of communicating his will.

This plan reconciles every thing. The divine Spirit guarded the sacred penmen when they would otherwise have gone astray, superintended and watched over every step of their progress, suggested by direct discoveries what lay beyond the reach of their means of knowledge, and directed them to every topic, which to his infinite wisdom appeared necessary upon the whole, for the instruction of the church, and the conversion of mankind. Thus, on the one hand, the inspiration did not supersede, but supported, elevated and directed them in the use of their natural faculties, of their stores of knowledge, of their experience and observation, and their efforts of recollection and reasoning. The human agency, on the other hand, did not weaken or defeat the supernatural communications; but conveyed them to men moulded by the conceptions, and expressed in the words of common life. The facts of the case by no means imply that man mingled his frailties and errors with the revealed truths of Christianity; but, simply, that God was pleased to use man as his instrument. The human agency was subordinate to the divine. The almighty Spirit moved and gently led on; the holy penmen followed the guidance. God inspired; man indited and The wisdom of the Creator sustained the weakness of the creature. The books, therefore, are divine, and yet in this sense human, without commixture or inconsistency-divine, as to the matter; human, as to the manner-divine, as to the supernatural tendency and direction; human, as to the style employed-divine, as to the revelation; human, as to the instruments-the words of God as to the doctrine; the language of man as to the channel of conveyance.

wrote.

The masterly decision of Warburton may, with one important exception, be adopted, as well expressing the method of the divine conduct. I say with one important exception, for he strangely admits that some errors may have been allowed to fall from the pens of the sacred writers; probably referring to matters not connected with the revelation. But the admission is quite inconsistent with the express doctrine of the sacred books on the subject of inspiration.

"The Holy Spirit," says he, "so directed the pens of these writers, that no considerable error should fall from them, by enlightening them with his immediate influence in such

matters as were necessary for the instruction of the church; and which either through ignorance or prejudice they would otherwise have represented imperfectly, partially or falsely; and by preserving them by the more ordinary means of providence from any mistake of consequence, concerning those things whereof they had acquired a competent knowledge by the common way of information. In a word, by watching over them incessantly; but with so suspended a hand as permitted the use, and left them to the guidance of their own faculties, while they kept clear of error; and then only interposing when, without this assistance, they would have been in danger of falling."*

On the whole, all is clear, if we keep to the facts of the case to what we have proved in our former Lecture, and what we have traced out in this-and attribute such an inspiration to the minds of the sacred writers as exempted them from all error whatever in the communication of the divine will, and gave to every part of their declarations its full sanction as the infallible word of God; and, at the same time, allowed to each writer the free exercise of all his natural powers, and the delivery of the divine revelation according to his own habits and associations. This accounts for and reconciles all the phenomena. The decisive claims of inspiration, made by the apostles, require the first; the obvious appearances of every part of the New Testament, the second.t

3. Nor is the difficulty of explaining this method of the divine agency in the inspiration of the Scriptures, any greater, than in other instances in the government of mankind; where the Almighty "worketh all things according to the counsel of his own will," and yet by means which do not interfere with the free agency, nor alter the moral characteristics, nor lessen the responsibility of man. Our concern is not to explain, but to receive the facts as they lie before us. It is only necessary to admit decisively that the highest measure of that inspiration which preserves from every mistake or error, was not inconsistent with the greatest freedom and latitude in the use of each writer's knowledge and talents, and ordinary means of information-a union incomprehensible, indeed, as to the particulars of it, to our limited

* Warburton's Doctrine of Grace, 1. 1, c. vii.

†“In inspiring, the divine Spirit evidently does not unmake the man; whence every sacred writer has his own peculiar character and style of composition."-J. Scott.