Our author says that on the day of Pentecost, when the apostles were filled with the Holy Ghost, and spake with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance, verbal inspiration in the strictest sense of the term took place." The immediate supply of words,' he holds, was in this and every similar instance absolutely necessary.' And he thinks that direct verbal inspiration was indispens ably requisite in all instances in which prophets and apostles were employed to write what they did not clearly comprehend. The passages in which such terms as the word of God, the Lord spike, etc., occur, are, in this view, descriptive of immediate verbal communications. He supposes that, in all such cases, wora's were literally spoken, or audibly pronounced by God himself, or by an angel in his name. In this opinion, however, I think he is mis taken. For unquestionably the word of the Lord often, if not generally, came to the prophets in the way of dreams, .or other modes of inward sug gestion.
The doctrine of a plenary inspiration of all Scripture in regard to the language employed, as well as the thoughts communicated, ought not to be rejected without valid reasons. The doctrine is so ob.viously important, and so consonant to the feelings of sincere piety, that those evangelical Christians who are pressed with speculative ob jections against it, frequently-, in the honesty of their hearts, advance opinions which fairly imply it. This is the case, as We have seen, with Dr. Henderson, who says, that the Divine Spirit guided the sa.cred penmen in writing the Scrip tures ; that their mode of expression was such as they were instructed by t'he Spirit to employ ; that Paul ascribes not only the doctrines which the apostles taught, but the entire character of their style, to the influence of the Spirit. He indeed says, that this does not always imply the immediate conzmunication of the wora's of Scripture ; and he says it with good reason. For immediate properly signifies, actzng without a medium, or without the intervention of another cause or means, not acting ay second causes. NOW, those who hold the highest views of inspiration do not suppose that the Divine Spirit, except in a few instances, so influenced the writers of Scripture as to interfere with the use of their rational faculties or their peculiar mental habits and tastes, or in any way to supersede secondary causes as the medium through which his agency produced the desired effect.
In regard to this point, therefore, there appears to be little or no ground for controversy. For, if God so influenced the sacred writers that, either with or without the use of secondary causes, they iwrote just what he intended, and in the manner he intended, the end is secured ; and what they wrote is as truly leis word, as though he had written it with his own hand on tables of stone, without any human instrumentality. The very words of the decalogue were all such as God chose. And they would have been equally so if Moses had been moved by the Divine Spirit to write them with his hand. The expression, that God immea'iately im parted or communicated to the writers the very words which they wrote, is evidently not well chosen. The exact truth is that the writers them
selves were the subjects of the divine influence. The Spirit employed them as active instruments, and directed them in writing, both as to matter and manner. They wrote 'as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.' The matter, in many cases, was what they before knew, and the manner was en tirely conformed to their habits ; it was their own. But what was written was none the less inspired on that account. God may have influenced and guided an apostle as infallibly in writing what he had be fore known, and that guidance may have been as really necessary, as in writing a new revelation. And God may have influenced Paul or John to write a book in his own peculiar style, and that in fluence may have been as real and as necessary as if the style had been what some would call a divine style. It was a divine style, if the writer used it under divine direction. It was a divine style, and it was, at the same time, a human style, and the writer's OWn style, all in one. Just as the believer's exercises, faith and love, are his own acts, and at the same time are the effects of divine influ ence. In efficacious grace,' says Edwards, we are not merely passive, nor yet does God do some and we do the rcst. But God docs all, and we do all. God produces all, and we act all. For that is what he produces, namely our own acts. God is the only proper author and foundation : we only are the proper actors. We are, in different re spects, wholly passive and wholly active. In the Scriptures, the same things are represented as from God and from us. God is said to convert men, and men are said to convert and turn. God makes a new heart, and we arc commanded to make us a new heart—not merely because we must use the means in order to the effect, but the effect itself is our act and our duty. These things are agreeable to that text, God worketh in you both to will and to do.' ' The mental exercises of Paul and of John had their own characteristic peculiarities, as much as their style. God was the author of John's mind and all that was peculiar to his mental faculties and habits, as really as of Paul's mind and what was peculiar to him. And in the work of inspira tion he used and directed, for his own purposes, what was peculiar to each. When God inspired different men he did not make their minds and tastes all alike, nor did he make their language alike. Nor had he any occasion for this ; for while they had different mental faculties and habits, they wcre as capable of being infallibly directed by the Divine Spirit, and infallibly speaking and writing divine truth, as though their mental faculties and habits had been all exactly alike. And it is mani fest that the Scriptures written by such a variety of inspired men, and each part agreeably to the pecu liar talents and style of the writer, are not only equally from God, but, taken together, are far better adapted to the purposes of general instruc tion, and all the objects to be accomplished by revelation, than if they had been written by one man, and in one and the same manner.