short, there exists but one ingredient of pure unmixed divinity, utterly separated and free from the contamination of all that is human. Again, "the word of God is a light unto our feet and a lamp unto our paths". -a most momentous piece of information truly, if we are only made to know what the word of God is; and nothing can be more distinct or satisfactory in the way of guidance, than simply to be told that the word of God is the scriptures of the Old and New Testament. But should the affirmation be made, that this applies only to part of these scriptures, and we are left without any test by which to fix and identify that part-then the light wanes back again into darkness; and an extinguisher is put upon the Bible. "Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away" a most emphatic affirmation of the authority that lies in these words, did we but know what the words are. The doctrine of a universal inspiration leaves no doubt upon the subject-under the doctrine of a partial inspiration, we are left to grope our uncertain way to them, These and hundreds of other testimonies respecting the word of God convey to us an explicit, a special and a most important deliverance-only provided, however, that this word is a recognizable something which one can point to, and hold forth to the distinct observation of men. Grant us inspiration, we mean the inspiration of the whole Bible, and this we can point to: But tell us that there is but the inspiration of a part, leaving it to the fancy or inclination of each man how much or how little this part shall be-and then all these

testimonies to the unchangeableness and the purity and the rightful authority of God's word become a thing of nought. They but present us with the predicates of propositions leaving us to wander in quest of the subject to which they belong. They are but half sentences, void and meaningless, and just for the want of some specific thing to which we can attach them.

The one does

13. The terms "inspiration" and "revelation" have been confounded; but in meaning they are really distinct from each other. A man might be inspired for the purpose of writing a history with selection and undeviating accuracy-yet with all the facts with which he was previously acquainted; and this would be inspiration without revelation. Or a man might be informed by a celestial visitant, of matters known only to celestials, as one of the Apostles by Jesus Christ, and may afterwards, in the natural exercise of memory and composition, commit the doctrines to writing; and this would be revelation without inspiration. not necessarily imply the other. human, but yet visible being, as our Saviour in the flesh, tells his disciples what before were unknown things of God and heaven, this is revelation. would even call it revelation, when an invisible being, as the Holy Spirit, infuses the knowledge of these things into the minds of men. But when under His guidance, and by His suggestion, they are prompted to speak and write of them to others, this is inspiration. It would accord with the taste and theory of some, did we admit a revelation without an inspiration. We might imagine the

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whole scheme and articles of a system of doctrine made known by some preternatural agent to a commissioned teacher; and that after this, all preternatural application was withdrawn from him -so that for a right conveyance to the world of what he had been thus told or taught, he is left to the retentive powers of his own memory, and to his own faculty of just and appropriate expression, With the advocates for a higher degree of inspiration, there is the demand for much higher securities than this against fallacy and error. They require a preternatural influence, not at the first deposition alone of the subject-matter of revelation in the mind of its intermediate messengers, but along the whole line as it were of the communication between God and the world-that the matter thus deposited might be kept entire in a mind exempt from all the infirmities of human recollection; and that when discharged upon others, instead of being so in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, it might be couched in the very words suggested by the wisdom of God.

14. It will be perceived by this simple statement, what room there is for manifold diversities of sentiment and understanding upon the subject

some as Dr. Benson conceiving only a first revelation, and then the whole intermediate process of continued memory and ultimate expression, left to the operation of the natural faculties aloneothers a bringing of all things afresh into the remembrance, whenever an occasion took place for the disclosure of them-others additionally to this an over-ruling determination, not of the

thoughts alone but of the words employed to convey them, a verbal inspiration as well as an inspiration of ideas-others a total inspiration in the doctrinal of scripture, along with a laxer inspiration or none at all in the historical of scriptureothers who make a distinction between the inspiration of suggestion and the inspiration of superintendence, conceiving the former, to be unnecessary, when the ordinary powers of memory and language are sufficient, either to retain all that is certainly known, or to convey all that is clearly apprehended; and the latter, again, to be desirable and safe, as a guarantee against the errors into which unaided humanity might else have fallen.

15. There are some of these theories, which appear to involve an unavailing and unprofitable scrutiny into the mode of inspiration. The important inquiry is the effect of it, as realized on the Bible-the product of this inspiration, of whatever sort or description the inspiration itself may be. And the two most interesting questions connected with this object, seem to be, does the inspiration extend to the language of the Bible as well as to its doctrine and sentiment; and does it extend to the whole Bible or only to parts of it?

16. In regard to the first question we are greatly helped to the solution of it, by the testimonies of the second form. There is a certain special designation that occurs both in scripture, and in the writings of the Christian fathers; and which serves specifically to mark the very collection of writings that we know by evidence, as strong as can be adduced in favour of any historical

point in Christianity, are comprised in our present scriptures of the Old and New Testament. A something designed by the term άi yapan is the subject of many a predicate in the Bible; and we, knowing precisely what the subject is, are at no loss to understand to what specific things these predicates are applicable. It is of great argumentative importance in this discussion, that these ygapa should be identified with our present scriptures; for we are thereby given to understand that it is our duty to search these scriptures, that we err by not knowing them, that they cannot be broken, that they must be fulfilled, and that all of them are inspired. These all go to confirm our trust in the very books of our present recognised canon; but on the special question whether the various properties of excellence thus attached to the Bible, are attached only to the ideas, or extend also to the language of the Bible, we would remark that they one and all of them are ascribed, not to the ideas as existing in thought and conception in the minds of the inspired men, but to the ideas as brought forth in writing and substantiated in the products of their inspiration. They are the γραφαι, they are the γραμματα, they are the Zoya which have all these virtues and excellencies ascribed to them. It is not of the doctrine as mentally apprehended by the sacred penmen, but it is of the doctrine as manually written by them, that the Bible tells us to search the scripture ras ygapas, that the scripture ygan cannot be broken, that all scripture rara yaon is inspired, that the holy scriptures ga ygappara are able to