them, than the general authority which | cisely the theory held by the more was attached to the apostolic office. We cannot infer that they were regarded by the early Christians as being the Word of God in any other sense than as being the productions of those who lived with Christ, were witnesses of his history, and were imbued with his spirit; as being, in a word, veritable representations of a religious life which they had derived by a special inspiration from heaven."-(P. 171.) The plain meaning of all this is, that inspiration is identical with a high degree of sanctification; and that the man who writes with clear conceptions of spiritual things, is inspired. But it cannot be said of these writings that they are inspired; for inspiration is a phenomenon of the intuitional consciousness, and not the property of a writing. The Bible, therefore, is not inspired, and does not contain an infallible rule of faith and practice. This theory he maintains, in opposition to what he chooses to term the mechanical theory of inspiration. This he states to be, "that which supposes a special dictation of the actual words inscribed on the sacred page, distinct from the religious enlightenment of the writer." (P. 151.) moderate orthodox divines of the present day, Why, then, grapple with it? Why confound verbal inspiration with verbal dictation? Had he fairly stated the common view, most of his objections would have been answered by that simple statement. This will be perceived as we examine his objections to what he terms the mechanical theory. His first objection to this theory is, that "There is no positive evidence of such a verbal dictation having been granted. The supposition of its existence would demand a twofold kind of inspiration, each kind entirely distinct from the other. The apostles, it is admitted, were inspired to preach and teach orally; but we have the most positive evidence that this commission did not extend to their very words. Often they were involved in minor misconceptions; and sometimes they taught specific notions inconsistent with a pure spiritual Christianity, as Peter did when he was chided by Paul. The verbal scheme, therefore, demands the admission of one kind of inspiration having been given to the apostles as men, thinkers, moral agents, and preachers; and another kind having been granted them as writers.”—(P. 151.) The unfairness of this statement of the common notion is obvious at a This objection contains almost as glance. Does not Mr. Morell know many errors as sentences. The twothat the theory of plenary inspiration, fold inspiration supposed, is solely in as held by most theologians, is not the nomenclature of the author. He fairly stated in the definition, "a spe- first confounds inspiration with percial dictation of the actual words in-sonal holiness, and then argues that scribed on the sacred page?" Does he verbal inspiration is inadmissible, benot know that the position, that the cause it would make a second kind. Holy Spirit so guarded the words of the Undoubtedly, if spiritual enlightenment inspired writers that they should not is one kind, we must admit another, or convey any error, differs from that which fail to include the very phenomena in asserts a special dictation of every word, question. as to an amanuensis? Does he not know that such special dictation is commonly limited to those parts of Scripture where such dictation was needful to guard from error? He has himself admitted (p. 176) that this is not pre Again: it is not alleged by the verbal theory that the apostles had one kind of inspiration as preachers, and another as writers. If, then, they had an inspiration as preachers to teach orally, what makes another kind needful for them as writers to teach scripturally? Why confound their spiritual enlightenment as men with their inspiration as teachers; and because the former was distinct from their inspiration as writers, assume that the latter was so likewise? every word should have been dictated to him by the Holy Spirit."-(P. 152.) This objection can lie only against the extreme theory of verbal dictation, and not the common view of verbal inspiration. When it is stated that each writer was left to the free play of his own powers, with such an influence of the Holy Spirit as to secure him infallibly from error, the individuality of the writers appears in perfect accordance with their inspiration, and the objection falls to the ground. It was necessary that this individuality should be preserved to attain the object of revelation. Being made for men, it was necessary, by the laws of human sympathy, that it should be made through men. The same beautiful and tender regard to the yearning sympathies of our nature that induced the High-Priest of our profession to be tempted in all points as we are, that we might, in coming to a throne of grace, commune with a human heart as well as a Divine nature, also led to the employment of human hearts and minds in conveying God's will and purposes to man in a revelation. But, to accomplish this, it was necessary that each writer should preserve his own individuality, while at the same time he was uttering through it the things which he was moved to utter by the Holy Ghost. In this, then, there is no sort of discrepancy. But we have "positive evidence that this commission did not extend to their very words." And what is this positive evidence? Why, forsooth, that they were often involved in minor misconceptions." Suppose they were; the question is, Did they ever teach such misconceptions orally or in writing? If they did, our theory breaks down. What, then, is the proof? | "They taught specific notions inconsistent with a pure spiritual Christianity, as Peter did when he was chided by Paul." Peter did no such thing. His error was one of action and not of teaching, and we have no proof that then or at any other time he taught any such notion. Peter, the man who was imperfectly sanctified, is confounded with Peter the apostle, who was perfectly inspired to teach the doctrines of the gospel; and because he erred in the one capacity, he is charged with having erred in the other. And this is the positive evidence that their commission did not extend to their very words! It is with such bald sophistry that we are to set aside the positive statements of Christ himself: "When they shall lead you and deliver you up, take no thought beforehand what ye shall speak, neither do ye premeditate, but whatsoever shall be given you in that hour, that speak ye, for it is not ye that speak, but the Holy Ghost!" Yet Mr. Morell has "positive evidence that their commis-(P. 152.) sion did not extend to their very It were sufficient to reply to this, that words!" the question is, what is the fact? and The second objection is, the improba- not, what effect will that fact have on our estimate of the writers? But it will surprise those who hold this theory, to be told that they have been undervaluing the sacred writers, by believing them commissioned to speak infallibly and authoritatively for God; and that bility That each writer should manifest his own modes of thought, his own temperament of mind, his own educational influences, his own peculiar phrase ology; and yet, notwithstanding this, His third objection is, that it "Tends to diminish our view of the moral and religious qualifications of the writers, by elevating the mere mechanical influence into absolute supremacy." their estimate of them would be raised, if they held that they had no other influence on their minds than that which they share not only with other Christians, but with all men of genius; and no influence which could preserve them from blunders in matters of fact, of opinion, or of reasoning. Surely Mr. Morell was sorely pressed when he invented this, which, if it has no other merit, has at least that of originality. The fourth objection is declared to amount to a moral demonstration," and is, "That even if we suppose the letter of the Scripture to have been actually dictated, yet that alone would never have served as a revelation of Christianity to mankind, or obviated the necessity of an appeal from the letter to the spirit of the whole system." "The letter of the Scripture has to be illuminated by the Spirit of Truth, before it affords to any one a full manifestation of Christianity in its essence and its power."-(Pp. 152, 153.) This is the old averment in another form, that because the Bible is not a complete revelation, in its plenary sense, to an unconverted man, therefore it is no revelation at all. Because a guidebook is of little or no use to a blind man, therefore, not only is it not a guide-book to those who can see, but there is no such thing as a guide-book possible! Such is this boasted moral demonstration. We do not claim for the Bible that it can compensate for the agency of the Holy Spirit. We hold that God must open our eyes to see wondrous things in his law; but we also hold that these wondrous things are there to be seen. The author admits that a human summary of faith and practice is highly important, and we cannot, for the life of us, see why the mere fact that it is human gives it such value as to make unnecessary and impossible one that is divine. He then brings forward another view of the "mechanical theory," which is, after all, only the same opinion that he has already discussed, with some additions from his own fancy, and the introduction of another distinct question, the Canon of Scripture. He thus sets forth this theory : "The idea is entertained by many, that a distinct commission to write was in every instance given to the sacred penman by God; that each book came forth, with a specific impress of Deity upon it; and that the whole of the Canon of Scripture was gradually completed by so many distinct and decisive acts of Divine ordination. Now, the evidence of this opinion we regard as totally defective, and can only ascribe its growth and progress in the Church to the influence of a low and mechanical view of the whole question of inspiration itself. Let any one look through the whole of the books composing the Old and New Testaments, and consider how many can lay claim to any distinct commission, - and consequently how their inspiration can be at all defended if it be made to rest upon this condition." |—(P. 155.) Here it will be remarked that he dexterously shifts the ground in his argument. He first states the question to be, whether the writers had any distinct commission to write these books; but the question he discusses is, whether their books, in all cases, record any such commission. These are totally different questions. He also takes advantage of the ambiguity of the word "distinct.” As he states it in the proposition, it means distinct to the writers themselves; as he discusses the proposition, it means distinct to us. These again are different questions, yet hopelessly confounded by Mr. Morell. His entire argument on this point is a recapitulation of the books, with an assertion in each case that they contain no distinct commission to write them. As well might he pore over a set of statutes, and reject them because each volume does not contain the certificate of elec tion and legislative commission of each | Scriptures was decided upon solely on individual legislature. the ground of their presenting to the whole church clear statements of apostolical Christianity. The idea of their being written by any special command of God, or verbal dictation of the Spirit, was an idea altogether foreign to the primitive churches."-(Pp. 157, 159.) Almost the only specific argument which he draws from the Scripture, evinces his usual lucklessness in dealing with the Bible. He asserts that Luke "distinctly professes to write from the testimony of eye-witnesses, and to claim the confidence of Theophilus, for whom his two treatises were composed on this particular ground.”—(P. 157.) Unfortunately for Mr. Morell's argument, Luke asserts the very opposite. He says that others wrote thus, but that he wrote because he had a perfect understanding of all things from the very first. He then insensibly glides into the indirect discussion of the Canon of Scripture. This he does in the following assertions:-- "The light which history sheds upon the early period of the Christian Church, shows us that the writings which now compose the New Testament Canon were not at all regarded as express messages to them from God, independently of the conviction they had of the high integrity and spiritual development of the minds of the writers. They received them just as they received the oral teachings of the apostles and evangelists; they read them in the churches, to supply the place of their personal instructions; and there is abundant evidence that many other writings beside those which now form the New Testament were read with a similar reverence, 'and for a similar edification.-It was only gradually, as the pressure of heresy compelled it, that a certain number of writings were agreed upon by general consent as being purely apostolic, and designated by the term homologoumena, or agreed upon. But that much contention existed as to which should be acknowledged canonical, and which not, is seen from the fact that a number of the writings now received were long termed 'antilegomena,' or contested." "The canonicity of the New Testament These passages assert that the primitive church did not regard the canonical Scriptures as written by any special inspiration, peculiar to themselves, and that they did not receive them as an infallible rule of faith and practice. Both of these assertions are made in the face of unquestioned facts. Surely, if Mr. Morell had not the patience to examine original authorities, or even to look through such works as Lardner's Credibility, or the Corpus Confessionum, he might at least have glanced at a little book, which we fear he holds in sovereign contempt, called Paley's Evidences. He would there have found sufficient evidence to prevent him from making such reckless and baseless assertions. In The primitive church did regard the Scriptures as, in a sense peculiar to themselves, inspired by the Holy Ghost, and did appeal to them as an authoritative rule of faith and practice. quoting them they call them, "the Divine Scripture; inspired of the Lord; given by the inspiration of the Holy Ghost; the oracles of the Lord; Divine fountains; fountains of the Divine fulness; the foundation and pillar of faith," &c., &c. They quoted them in controversy; cited them in preaching; commented on them in exposition; made catalogues of them; and by every possible means exhibited the high estimate placed upon them above all other writings. The very mysteries that such men as Origen and Chrysostom found even in the syllables of Scripture, prove the estimation in which they held them. Theophilus of Antioch says, "The like things are to be found in the prophets and the Gospels, because that all, being inspired, spoke by one and the same Spirit of God." Many testimonies to this effect could be cited; but we are really ashamed to quote authorities on the point to a Protestant. Those who wish to examine them for themselves, can consult Lardner's Credibility, or Paley's Evidences, under this head; Daillé on the Fathers, book ii. ch. 2; Taylor's Ductor Dubitantium, book ii. ch. 3, rule 14; Bingham's Antiquities, book xiv. ch. 3. grant that some things were both permitted and commanded in the Jewish Theocracy that are not in the New Testament, because of different circumstances and relations. But assuming these relations, and we find nothing that was not consistent with the essential principles of morality. Such were the expulsion of the Canaanites; the Levirate law; the permission of polygamy; the lex talionis; the law of the avenger of blood; and similar arrangements in the Jewish history and polity. The moral relations were different, and hence the difference of the institutions grafted on those relations; and it has yet to be proved that in those relations the institutions were inconsistent with immutable morality. The general principles of morality are the same under both dispensations, and we defy Mr. Morell to show any new principle of morals revealed in the New Testament. As to the actual attainments in moral excellence made even by the saints of the Old Testament, this is another question, and one that does not touch that at issue. Their acts are recorded, not for imitation or approval, but for instruction and warning. Had the ethical teachings of the Old Testament been as defective as Mr. Morell alleges, it is unaccountable that the Great Teacher did not correct them. So far from this, when asked for a perfect rule of morals, -one so perfect that its obedience might secure eternal life,-he furnished precisely that which was taught in the Old Testament. And it is of this ma The very fact which he alleges to sustain his views, that there was much contention as to what works were to be regarded as canonical, proves the very opposite. Why so eager to determine their canonicity, except that canonicity was matter of high moment? Why, especially, should "the pressure of heresy" produce this settlement, if the Scriptures were not regarded as a rule of faith by which to determine what was heresy and what truth? Why term the apostolical writings canonical, unless they regarded them as a canon, a rule and standard of faith and practice? Was not their anxiety to be kept from fraudulent and spurious writings, proof that it was their apostolical or inspired origin, rather than their power to address the intuitional consciousness, which they deemed important? If a book embodied the religious life, what mattered it by whom it was written? Why, then, these keen contests about the apostolical origin of these books? Does Mr. Morell feel this question to be one of much importance? Does his philosophy make it of much import-ligned law of the old covenant that he ance? Does not this show that his theory and estimate of the Scriptures differ from that of the early Christians? He objects further to the verbal theory, the defective morality of the Old Testament. This is an old stereotype of Infidelity and Socinianism, which will be found answered in detail in any respectable system of theology.gelical Review, pp. 255–262. We utterly deny the allegation. We says not a jot or tittle of it shall ever pass away. Let Mr. Morell beware, then, lest in his eagerness to maintain a theory, he may haply be found accusing Him who never spake of the Old Testament but in terms of the highest admiration and respect. From No H. of The Foreign Evan |