EXAMINATION OF THE EVASIONS OF THOSE WHO REJECT THE PLENARY INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE.

SOME persons, while fully admitting that the subject matter of Scripture has been given by God, at the same time maintain that the style and expressions are purely human;—others exclude from inspiration the books which are historical;—and others have wished at least to expunge certain details which to them appeared too trivial to be attributed to the Spirit of God.

May not Inspiration pertain to the Thoughts without extending to the Words?

In writing their sacred books, say some, the prophets and apostles were undoubtedly inspired with regard to their thoughts, but we must believe that they were after wards left to themselves as regards their language; so that the ideas are given to us, in this written revelation, from God, but the expressions by man.—The Divine Spirit may have presented the sacred truths to the minds of the prophets and evangelists, only leaving to them the care of expressing them. And this manner of viewing their work, it is added, will very felicitously supply us with the reason of the striking differences of style which their respective records display. We answer:—

1. That this system is directly contrary to the testimony of the Scripture. The Bible declares itself to have been written, "not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth." (1 Cor. ii. 13.) It calls itself—the Word of God;—the words of God (throughout);—the voice of God;—the oracles of God (Rom. iii. 2);—the living oracles of God (Acts vii. 38);—the Holy Scripture (2 Tim. iii. 15); the writing of God. A writing consists of letters and words, and not alone of invisible thoughts; now " all SCRIPTURE is inspired by God, " we are told. (2 Tim. iii. 16.) What is WRITTEN is therefore inspired of God, and that which is inspired of God is "ALL SCRIPTURE; " this comprehends ALL that is written.

2. If this system is contrary to the Scripture, it is also irrational. The ideas of our fellow—men take a form in words; and in this way only can they be understood. Mind can only be revealed to us through the flesh. Its character is unknown; its desires, its experience, we know not; we do not even suspect their existence, nor can we trace their associations, until after they have been invested with a body (as it were), and received organs through which to manifest themselves to us.

Language is therefore the wondrous mirror which reflects to us the depths of our being.

It is easy to understand how very irrational is the supposition of receiving with exactitude and certainty the thoughts of another, through the medium of in exact and uncertain expressions. Are they received otherwise than by words? And without the words of God himself, how could we be sure of possessing the thoughts of God?

3.This theory of a Divine revelation, in which you would have the inspiration of the thought without the inspiration of the language, is so irrational, that it can not be sincere: and it presently fails even those who advance it;—for they must see that it obliges them to descend much lower with their arguments than their first position seemed to indicate. Let us hear them. The words are of man, say they, the thoughts are those of God. And how will they prove this to us? Alas! once more by attributing to this written Word of God contradictions, mistakes, and misconceptions! Is it then only the words which they impeach?—and are not these pretended errors much more in the thoughts than in the words? So true it is that we cannot separate the one from the other; and that a revelation of the thought of God ever demands an inspiration of the WORD of God.

4. This theory is not only unscriptural, irrational, and mischievous, but it is moreover arbitrarily assumed; and is a mere gratuitous hypothesis.

5. It is moreover very useless, for it determines nothing. You have a difficulty, say you, in conceiving how the Holy Spirit could have given the words of the Holy Scriptures; but can you better tell us how he gave the thoughts to which they give expression? Would it for instance be more easy for you to explain how God suggested to Moses a knowledge of the operations of the creation, or communicated to St. John that of all the scenes of the last day, than to conceive how he dictated to them the recital in the Hebrew or Greek language?

6. But we add further:—That which in this theory ought especially to strike the attentive mind, is its extremely inconsistent character; since those who most strenuously insist upon it are yet obliged to admit that by far the greater proportion of Scripture must have been given to men of God by inspiration, EVEN IN ITS WORDS.

Suppose that the Holy Ghost this morning called you to stand in a public place, to proclaim the marvellous things of God in Russian or in Kalmuc, what would become of you if he deemed it sufficient to sup ply with thoughts, without giving you words? You might have before your eyes the third heaven, and in your heart the emotions of archangels, but you must nevertheless remain silent and abashed before the assembled multitude. In order that your inspiration should in any degree avail them, it would be necessary that the sentences, phrases, and least words of your address should be entirely supplied to you. Indeed they would readily dispense with your own thoughts, provided that you gave utterance (even without your understanding them) to the thoughts of God in his own words. Well, carry this supposition to Jerusalem and to the persons of the apostles. When the fishermen of Capernaum and Bethsaida, assembled together in their upper room on the day of Pentecost, received the order to go forth and proclaim to every region under heaven the tidings of God's salvation, in the Latin, Parthian, Elamite, Chaldean, Coptic, and Arabic dialects, must not the words have been supplied to them? What could they have done then with the thoughts without the words? Nothing; while with their words they could convert the world!

When at a later period in the church of Corinth believers who had received miraculous powers spake in the assemblies in unknown tongues, and required a brother gifted to interpret, to translate after them the unknown words which they had addressed to the brethren, was it not equally requisite that the words, as well as phrases, should be dictated to them? (1 Cor. xiv.) When the prophets one and all, after having penned their sacred pages, applied themselves to study them with as much reverence and care as they would have studied the oracles of a stranger prophet;—when they meditated night and day (as we are told by St. Peter, 2 Pet. i. 10, 11), "searching what or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify, when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and the glory which should follow;"—must not their every word under those circumstances have been sup plied to them? When Moses narrates the creation, and the formation of the world from chaos; when Solomon describes Eternal Wisdom;—when David a thousand years beforehand gives utterance to the prayer of the Son of God upon the cross;—when Daniel re cords in detail, and without himself well understanding them, the future destinies of the world and of the Jews;—and when finally St. John continues, in his own prophecies, the revelations of the prophet Daniel; —was it not necessary that even the least important words should have been given to them? and does not every interpreter in reading them acknowledge how far we may be led astray from the true sense by a change in the position of even the most trivial word, by the defective rendering of the tense of a verb, or by the inconsiderate collocation of a single particle?

We are bound therefore to conclude that, since so considerable a portion of the Scriptures is necessarily inspired even in its words, the system of an inspiration of the thoughts without the inspiration of the language is entirely inconsistent. There are not two species of the Word of God in the Holy Scriptures;—there are not two kinds of oracles of God. If " holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost, " ALL the sacred writings are divinely inspired; and that which is divinely inspired in the sacred writings is nothing less than "ALL SCRIPTURE."

We have said that the question is with the BOOK, and not with its WRITERS. You think that God al ways gave them the thoughts, but not the words; but the Scripture tells us the contrary, that God always supplied the words, and not always the thoughts. With regard to their thoughts, God might have inspired these to them, while they were writing, with more or less vigour or elevation: this however only concerns my love, not my faith. The SCRIPTURE—the Scripture which they have transmitted to me, perhaps with out having themselves caught its meaning, at least without having always fully understood it—this is what concerns me.

St. Paul may have been mistaken in his thoughts when, on being brought before the Jewish council, and not knowing the person of "God's high priest,' he went so far as to say to him, "God shall smite thee, thou whited wall! " " This matters little, provided I know that, WHEN HE WROTE THE WORD OF GOD, it was Jesus Christ speaking in him.¹

St. Peter may have been mistaken in his thoughts when, refusing to believe that God designed to send him among the heathen, he did not acknowledge that "in every nation the men who turn to God are accept ed of him." He might be still more seriously mistaken when at Antioch he obliged St. Paul to "withstand him to the face, " before all, "because he was worthy of blame," and " walked not uprightly, according to the truth of the gospel." (Gal. ii. 11—14.) But again we ask, what, after all, matters this to our faith? Faith is not concerned to know at all at what moment or in what measure Paul, John, Mark, James, or Peter were inspired in their thoughts, or sanctified in their conduct: what especially concerns it is,—to know that their written words were the words of God, and that in giving them to us they spake "not in the words suggested by man's wisdom, but in those dictated by the Spirit of God." (1 Cor. ii. 13.) Thus then it is not they who speak, but the Holy Ghost (Mark xiii. 11); in a word, it is "God who hath spoken BY THE MOUTH of all his holy prophets since the world began." (Acts iii. 21.)

The sacred Writers were only SOMETIMES inspired, but the Holy Scriptures ALWAYS. The time, measure, degree, and intervals of the inspiration of the men of God are not therefore an object of our faith; but the object of faith is this, that the Scripture is divinely inspired, and that it is the entire Scripture which is divinely inspired.—"A tittle of it can never fail." There is unquestionably an inspiration of thoughts, as there is an inspiration of words; but the former makes THE CHRISTIAN, while it is the latter which makes THE PROPHET.

A true Christian is inspired in his thoughts: the Spirit of God reveals to him "the deep things of God" (2 Cor. ï. 10); flesh and blood hath not revealed to him the counsels of God and the glory of Jesus, but the Father (Matt. xvi. 17); for the Spirit guides him into all truth (John xvi. 13); and he could not truly in heart acknowledge Jesus Christ as Lord (the Lord of lords), but by the Holy Ghost. (1 Cor. xii. 3.) The thoughts of every true believer are therefore more or less inspired of God, but his words are not. He is a Christian; but he is not a prophet. The most sanctified productions of Cyprian, Augustine, Bernard, Luther, Calvin, Beza, and Leighton are but the words of men about the truths of God—words of venerable character no doubt, precious and powerful, and worthy of our attention on account of the wisdom with which they were endowed, and of the abundant expression which they give of the mind of God; but after all they are the words of men. It is altogether different with the prophet. At one time he may have, and at another he may not have, the mind of God in his thoughts. WHENEVER HE SHALL SPEAK AS A PROPHET, he will assuredly have the word of God IN HIS MOUTH. “The Spirit of the Lord spake by me, and the word of JEHOVAH was in my tongue" (2 Sam. xxiii. 1, 2), said David. He will be the mouth of God; whether intelligent or unintelligent, voluntary or involuntary, it matters not, provided the oracles of God are impart ed through him, and that I hereby receive the mind of my God in his own words. In the language of the Bible (which we will presently show), a prophet is a man in whose mouth God puts for a season the words which he deigns to promulgate on the earth. Such a man may prophesy only at intervals, as the Spirit gives utterance. (Acts ii. 4.) He may, like king Saul, prophesy twice only in the course of his life (1 Sam. X. 10); or, like Saul's messengers, but a single time. (1 Sam. xix. 20.) The words of God may therefore be uttered intelligently; or without understanding them; often even without forethought; and sometimes even unwillingly.

When Daniel had completed his testimony, he tells us himself (Dan. xii. 8) that he did not understand what the Spirit had caused him to write. When Caiaphas uttered those prophetic words, he said them “not of himself;" he had the will, but he neither knew nor understood what God would have him utter. (John xi. 49–52.) When Balaam advanced three times to the summit of the rock to curse Israel, and three times successively words of blessing flowed from his lips, as it were, in spite of himself, it was because "the Lord had met Balaam, and put a word in his mouth" (Num. xxiii. 16); he had the conscience, but he had neither full intelligence nor entire control with regard to his prophecy. When the soldiers of Saul sought David in Ramah, and the Eternal Spirit came upon them, so that they themselves also prophesied; and when he sent others even three times in succession, who also prophesied like the first; and when Saul profanely went thither himself, as far as the great well of Naioth, and when God (to display his own power, and to manifest to us more clearly what is the character of a prophet, and what the importance of his word,) caused his Spirit to fall also upon this faithless man; when he then pursued his journey prophesying; when the word of the Lord was in his mouth (at other times so pro fane); and when he prophesied before Samuel during the whole day and all the night;—what had happened to this son of Kish? " Is Saul also among the prophets?" (1 Sam. xix. 18, 24.) Yes;—and Saul was conscious of his state, and of the part he was acting as prophet; but he neither willed, nor foreknew, nor understood fully what he uttered. When the old prophet was amicably seated at table with the man of God, whom he had turned out of his way by a faithless act of natural kindness; and when suddenly by a power from on high he loudly predicted the displeasure of the Lord against his imprudent and culpable guest; he prophesied with a consciousness of what he was doing, but without having desired to do it. (1 Kings xiii. 21.)

Let it then be well understood that the sacred writings are all that is written, and that it is the sentences and the words which are divinely inspired. The question is therefore as to the word, and not as to the men who wrote it. With regard to these latter we are little concerned. The Spirit may have more or less associated their individuality, conscience, recollections, and affections with what he caused them to say; it is not material that we should know this; but we are called upon especially to know (as St. Peter has recorded) that "no WRITTEN PROPHECY came to us by the will of man; " but that " holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost." (2 Pet. i. 21.) And as it was at the feast of Belshazzar, they were little concerned to ascertain what was in the fingers of the terrible hand which came from the wall over against the candlestick; every eye was rather riveted upon the fearful record which it traced there, MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN, because they well knew that these words were from God; so in like manner it matters little to us, as far as faith is concerned, to know what was passing in the minds of the four evangelists while they were engaged in writing the scroll of their Gospels: our attention should rather be turned to the words which they have written, because we know that these words are from God. Let the prophet be as holy as Moses,—wise as Daniel,—an enemy to God as Caiaphas,—ignorant of the language in which he speaks to us, as the prophets of Corinth,—polluted as Balaam,—I may say, insensible as the hand upon the palace wall at Babylon,—formless, soulless as was the air through which sounded the voice of God at Sinai, on the banks of the Jordan, and on Mount Tabor, we repeat, all is of little consequence, except where the personality of a writer might become an essential part of his revelation. Thy thoughts, O my God, thy mind and thy words, are what concern me!

Ought the Historical Books to be excepted from Inspiration?

It will be admitted (we are told) that inspiration may extend even to the choice of expressions, wherever this miraculous work may have been necessary; in the framing of doctrines, for instance, or in order to prophesy the history of an age more ancient than the birth of the mountains, or to announce a future event which God alone could know. But would you venture to maintain that men, contemporary with the facts they wrote of, needed the Holy Ghost to assist them to record events of which they had themselves been wit nesses, or which they had heard from others?—to narrate to us the humble marriage of Ruth in the village of Bethlehem; or the feelings of Esther in the palace of Shushan; or the names of the kings of Israel and Judah; their reigns, their lives, their deaths, and genealogies? Luke, for instance, who from Troas had accompanied the apostle to Jerusalem, to Cæsarea, to the island of Malta, and even to Rome; had he not sufficient recollection to tell us how Paul was seized under the porticos of the temple,—how his nephew disclosed to him in the castle the conspiracy of the forty Jews,—how the officer led the young man to the chief captain, and how the latter took him by the hand, and went with him aside privately, and inquired of him all that he knew? For the narration of facts so simple and so well known to him, was there any need of the continual intervention of a power from on high? We think not, and persist that it is neither necessary nor reasonable to believe that all the historical chapters of the two Testaments are divinely inspired.

To such objections our first answer will be always very simple:—" ALL Scripture," we say, “is divinely inspired." Thou hast knowledge of the Holy Scriptures, O Timothy!—well: "All these holy writings, all the Scripture, is given by inspiration of God." (2 Tim. iii. 14–16.) We know not that the Holy Spirit excepts any part from this declaration; and we cannot admit the right of either man or angel to hazard any exception.

But further. If it were lawful to put one book of God before another book of God,—if we might distinguish in the firmament of the Scriptures constellations of exceeding glory, and stars of the first magnitude, we should certainly give preference to the historical books. In fact

1. It is to the historical books that the most striking and reverential testimony is rendered by the prophets in the Old Testament, and by the apostles in the New. What is there more sacred in the Old Testament than the Pentateuch? and what is there greater in the New than the four Gospels? Is it not of the historical books of the Bible that it is written, "The law of the Lord is perfect;—thy testimonies are wonderful; they stand fast for ever and ever,—they give wisdom to the simple,—they are pure, more to be desired than gold, —the words of the Lord are pure words, as gold seven times purified,—blessed is he that hath such delight in thy law as to meditate therein day and night"?

2. Moreover, remark with what respect our Saviour himself quotes them; and in citing them he delights to honour the Divine decrees even in their least details, and sometimes even in the use of a single word.

3. The histories of the Bible have not been given merely to transmit to future ages the record of accomplished events; they are presented to the Church through all time, to make known to her by recorded facts the character of her God. They are there as a mirror of providence and grace. They are designed to make known to her the mind of God, his purposes, and the invisible things which belong to him;—the heaven where he dwells, his glory, his angels, and those mysteries which "the angels desire to look into." (1 Pet. i. 12.) All this therefore requires the fullest Divine Inspiration. 4. But yet more remains to be said:—the historical Scriptures are given to reveal to us the deep things of man. It is said of the Word of God, that it " pierces like a sword, even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit; that it is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart." This is true of the written word, as of God's own word, because one is the language of the other; but it is especially true of the historical part. Do you not perceive in its narratives that it is a two edged sword, and that it searches the conscience? And in the same manner that it describes to you what passed on our globe when all was chaos, and when the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the deep; so it equally brings to light what is passing in the depths of the human heart, the mysteries of the invisible world: it discloses secret motives, concealed faults, and human thoughts, which otherwise would never have been known but in the light which shall manifest every thing at the last day. Is it thus that mere men write history?

5. The historical Scriptures also required the most entire inspiration, in order to relate to us without any error the mysterious intervention of angels in the affairs of this world, in those of the church and in those of heaven. This is a subject novel, delicate, and difficult. These creatures, ardent and pure, humble and sublime, whose existence the Bible alone has revealed to us do they not differ from men as much as the heavens differ from the earth? Was anything like unto angels ever conceived by the minds of any race of men, by their poets or their sages? No! their imaginations have not even come near them. It will then be understood how impossible it would have been, without the continual operation of God, that the biblical recitals, in treating of such a subject, should not have often borne the too human stamp of our narrow conceptions, and that the sacred historians should not frequently have allowed unsuited expressions to escape from their pen—by giving to angels by turns attributes too Divine, or affections too human.

People at all times have taken pleasure in painting invisible beings, inhabitants of celestial regions, adorned with all those superior qualities which charm the heart of man. But how low, puerile, and vulgar are all their conceptions when compared with angels! How have all these beings of our fancy been in comparison earthly, impassioned, selfish, impure, and often odious! Look at the gods, the demi-gods, and the whole Olympus of the ancients; look at the fairies, genii, and sylphs of the moderns; look at even the angels of Scripture, too quickly disfigured in the books of man; in the apocrypha of Enoch, for example, in many of the Fathers, in the legends of Rome, and even in the more recent creations of the French poets—winged passions, devout puerilities, profane idols, immortal egotists, celestial wickednesses, deified impurities!

But study the angels of the Scriptures: not only is everything there grand, holy, and worthy of God; not only is their character at once ardent and sublime, com passionate and majestic, constantly brought before us there by their names, their attributes, their employments, their habitations, their songs, their contemplation of the depths of redemption, and the ineffable joys of their love; but what must strike us more than all is the perfect harmony of the whole, that all these features agree, and that all these attributes correspond to each other, and are maintained in the justest proportions.

In a word, all this doctrine, sustained from one end of Scripture to the other, during fifteen hundred years, presents a uniformity which not merely attests the immutable reality of its object, but which bears the most striking testimony to their entire inspiration. While all the mythologies tell us of the inhabitants of the moon and of the planets, the Bible does not contain one word on it: it tells us nothing of the second heaven, but it depicts with as much fulness as precision the sublime inhabitants of the third heaven, or the heaven of heavens. This subject is there constantly referred to, and under the most varied forms. Descriptions of the angels are numerous without wearying, and full of distinct and separate details. They are exhibited to us in every situation, in heaven and upon earth, before God and with men; ministers of mercy, and sometimes also executors of vengeance. Plunged in the beams of the glory of God, standing before him, adoring him day and night; but also employed in the service of the humblest believers, assisting them in their distresses, in their journeys, in their prisons;; and finally coming at the last day upon the clouds of heaven with the Son of Man, to take out of his kingdom all that work iniquity, and to gather together his elect from the four winds.

And what were these historians of the angels? Let us not forget: some shepherds, others kings, or soldiers, or priests, or fishermen, or tax—gatherers; some writing in the days of Hercules, of Jason, and of the Argonauts, three hundred years before the siege of Troy; others in the age of Seneca, of Tacitus, and of Juvenal. And notwithstanding we find that he who writes has every where the same being before his eyes; dissimilar from men—they ever resemble themselves; we are defiled, they are perfect; we are selfish, they melt with charity; we are haughty, they are gentle; we are vain and proud in bodies which the worms will consume, they are humble in their glory and their immortality. We sometimes desire to worship them: See thou do it not, they say unto us: "I am thy fellow—servant." We are disturbed by passions, they are fervent in spirit; neither marry nor are given in marriage; neither can they die. We are unfeeling, they are compassionate; we allow the poor Lazarus to lie hungry at our gate, and our dogs lick his sores, but they, when he dies, bear him to Abraham's bosom. They joy in the conversion of a sinner; and more, Jesus himself has said, "The an gels of these little ones always behold the face of my Father, who is in heaven." Once more this uniformity, this purity, this comes not from man, it is from God; and we must recognise here, as elsewhere, the need that the Holy Spirit himself should watch over the writings of his historians, and become the guardian of their expressions.

6. But this is not all. Notice further the fact that, unknown even to their authors, the historical parts of the Bible are full of the future. While they narrate to us events which are passed, "they become (says St. Paul) types to us who live in these last days. " (1 Cor. x. 11.) They narrate, it is true, national or domestic scenes; but throughout they tell of Jesus Christ, and unceasingly pourtray him prophetically in every feature and in every character. Look at the history of Adam, of Noah, of Abraham, of Isaac, of Joseph, and Moses; the account of the offered lamb, the deliverance from Egypt, the fiery cloudy pillar, the manna, the rock which was Christ (1 Cor. x. 4); of the scape-goat (Azazel), and of all the sacrifices; of Joshua, David, Solomon, Jonah, and Zerubbabel. I must present the entire history to do justice to this great truth. But to appreciate it the more fully, turn to what Paul has written of Hagar, of Sarah, of Aaron, and Melchisedec.

If we carefully study the Scriptures we shall speedily recognise and admire the ceaseless power of inspiration in every part; and we shall not fail to feel that if there are in the Bible pages which especially require to be inspired in every line and word, they are those of the historical books. They especially preach, they reveal, they teach, they legislate, and they prophesy.

The Scriptures then must not be compared with other historical books: they have quite another object and bearing

This plenary inspiration was absolutely necessary for the relation of facts which were inaccessible to the knowledge of man. It was necessary to the sacred writers in recording the creation of the universe, the arrangement of chaos, the birth of light, the up heaving of the mountains, the ministry of angels, the purposes of God, the thoughts of the heart of man, and his hid den faults. It was necessary, that they might prefigure the Anointed One by a thousand types, unperceived by the writer himself; and thus to show forth, even from the past, the character of the Messiah, his sufferings, death, and the glory which should follow. It was necessary, that they might suitably treat even of events known to them; to be silent on some, to record others, to characterise and judge of them, so as to un fold to us therein the mind of God. It was necessary, to enable them correctly to describe, in the just pro portion of God's estimate and of the need of the future church, the scenes, either national or domestic, which were typically to represent the work of redemption, or to foretel the character of the last times, and take a comprehensive view of the ages after them. And finally, it was necessary, as the ground of their confidence, as also to determine their reserve; for the wise use of their expressions, and for that remarkable self possession which they have always maintained.

7. We could wish we had time here to speak of their dramatic power (if such an expression may be allowed) —of that Divine and undefinable power, that mysterious and ever—fresh attractiveness which belongs to all their narratives, which captivates the mind in every clime; in which throughout life we find, as in the scenes of nature, a charm always new; and which, after having arrested and engaged our affections in early youth, have a still stronger. hold upon the heart when hoary hairs find us on the verge of the tomb. There must surely be something superhuman in the very humanity of terms so familiar and so artless. Men know not how to write thus. Who will tell us the secret of this captivating power? Where is it to be found? We should find it difficult to explain, perhaps: it seems to consist in an ineffable blending of simplicity and depth, of what is wonderful and what is natural, of local colouring and of spirituality: it is because the recitals are at once rapid and natural; present details, yet are concise; it is in the harmony and truth of the sentiments; it is man, it is nature, in unaffected reality. In a word, we must be sensible (even without being able to account for it) that he who speaks here knows all the most secret and intimate chords of the human heart, and touches them at will, with as hand light and yet powerful, in the exact degree which his spirit purposes. Re peruse the scenes of Ruth and Boaz in the fields of Bethlehem, those of Abraham and Isaac on Mount Moriah, of David and Jonathan, of Elijah and Elisha, of Naaman the Syrian, of the widow of Sarepta, or the Shunammite; and far above all these, of the life and death of the Son of Man; afterwards search through the whole range of human writings, and see if you can discover anything at all comparable.

8. Their Divine conciseness has perhaps neither been sufficiently remarked nor admired. If in this respect you would appreciate the Scriptures, compare them with the biographical works of men, or with the code of doctrines which men put forth when left to them selves. Look, for instance, at the modern church of the Jews, and that of the Latins: while the former has added its two Talmuds to the Scripture (by attributing to them the same Divine authority), one of which (that of Jerusalem) forms a large folio volume, and the other (that of Babylon), which is the more esteemed, and which all her doctors are bound to study, is a work of twelve folio volumes; and while the Roman church in her Council of Trent has declared that she receives with the same affection and reverence as holy Scripture her own traditions concerning faith and morals"—that is to say, the ponderous repertory of her synodical statutes and decretals, her bulls, canons, and the writings of the Fathers; and then see what the Holy Spirit has accomplished in the Bible, and there admire the heavenly wisdom of its inimitable brevity. Who among ourselves, having been during three years and a half the constant witness and ardent friend of a man like Jesus Christ, could have given in sixteen or twenty short chapters the history of that entire life, of his birth, youth, ministry, miracles, sermons, sufferings, death, resurrection, and ascension into heaven? Which of us could be silent on the first thirty years of such a life?

Who among us could have recorded so much goodness, without an exclamation; so many miracles, without a passing reflection; so many sub lime thoughts, without any emphasis; so much suffering without a complaint; so much injustice, without bitterness; so many blameless infirmities in the Master, and so many guilty infirmities in his disciples, without any reserve; such ingratitude in their shameful abandonment of him; and such contradiction, ignorance, and hardness of heart, without any apology or comment? Is it thus that men narrate?

Who among us would have known how to distinguish between what might be stated cursorily, and what should be given in detail? Who among us, for instance, would have felt that he ought to record the entire creation of the world in a single chapter of thirty-one verses; and then the temptation, fall, and condemnation of our race in another chapter of twenty four verses; while so many chapters and pages are de voted to the construction of the tabernacle and of its vessels; that these might be for future ages a continual typical representation of Jesus Christ and of his redemption? Who among us, for the same reason, would have occupied a fifth part of the Book of Genesis with the history of one only of the twelve children of Jacob, and have considered that two chapters would be sufficient for seventeen hundred years of the history of man, from the Fall of Adam to the Flood? Who among ourselves would have thought of mentioning only four women (and such women!) in the forty—two generations of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, and have told of the incestuous Tamar, the impure Rahab, of Ruth the Moabitess, and the adulterous wife of the injured Uriah, without a single accompanying reflection? Who among us, after having shared during ten years the labours of St. Paul, his perils, imprisonments, preachings, and prophetic gifts, could have penned the history of twenty—two years of such a life without saying a word of himself, and without making known to others (otherwise than by a change of the personal pronoun, Acts xvi. 10) that from Troas to Jerusalem and Cæsarea, and from thence to Malta, and on to Rome, he had been the suffering, faithful, and indefatigable companion of the apostle? It must be learned from the pen of St. Paul himself, who in his last imprisonment thus writes to Timothy: my first answer no man stood with me, but all forsook me. Only Luke is with me. " (2 Tim. iv. 11, 16; Phile. 24; Col. iv. 14.) Holy and heavenly moderation! humble and noble silence the Divine Spirit alone could have taught it!

Where among all uninspired historians could you find a man who would have written the Acts of the Apostles in the manner St. Luke has done? Who would have known how to condense into thirty pages the ecclesiastical history of thirty of the brightest years of Christianity, from the ascension of the Son of Man into heaven, to the imprisonment of St. Paul in the capital of the Roman world? Incomparable history! At once how concise and yet extensive! What is there that is not found in it? ' Sermons to Jews, to Greeks, before tribunals, in the Areopagus, the Sanhedrim, in the public places and synagogues, before a pro—consul and before kings:—delightful descriptions of the primitive church; the miraculous and vividly—depicted scenes of her history;—the interposition of angels to deliver, to warn, and to punish;—controversies and divisions in Christian assemblies:—new institutions in the church; —the history of a first council, and its synodical epistle; —comments on Scripture;—accounts of heresies; solemn and terrible judgments of God;—appearances of the Lord in the way, in the temple, and in the prison;—details of conversions, often miraculous and surprisingly varied—such as those of Eneas, the Eunuch, the centurion Cornelius, the Roman gaoler, the pro-consul, Lydia, Apollos, and that of a multitude at Jerusalem, without noticing those incipient workings which are apparent in the emotions of king Agrippa, the disquietude of Festus, the professions of Simon Magus, the terrors of Felix, and the courtesy of the centurion Julius. In it we also read of missionary enterprises;—various solutions of divers cases of con science;—the common possession of external things by Christians of various classes;—mutual prepossessions; disputes among brethren, and between apostles;—out breaks of natural temper, explanations, and still the triumph of love over all;—communications between military authorities, and between one pro—consul and another;—risings from the dead;—revelations made to the church connected with the immediate calling in of the Gentiles;—collections in one church for the poor of another;—prophecies;—national scenes;—punishments inflicted or prepared;—arraignments before Jewish councils or Roman authorities, before governors and kings;—Christians meeting from house to house; their emotions, their prayers, their love, and their doubtings;—a persecuting monarch smitten by an angel and eaten of worms, at a time when to please the populace he had put one apostle to death, and had doomed another to a like fate;—persecutions under every form, by synagogues, by princes, by municipal authorities, by the Jews, and by popular insurrections;—deliverances of the men of God, at one time by a child, at another by an angel, at others by a Roman centurion, or by the captain of a ship, by heathen magistrates and idolatrous soldiers;—tem pests and shipwrecks, whose accurate details still delight (as I have witnessed) the mariners of our own day. And all this recorded in thirty pages, or twenty—eight short chapters! Admirable brevity! Must it not have been the Spirit of God who wrote with such conciseness?—who selected the details, who caused the devout, varied, brief, and richly—significant manner in which so few words are employed, and so many things set forth? Plenitude, brevity, clearness, unction, simplicity, elevation, and practical richness;—such a book of ecclesiastical history the people of God required. True is it, and we again repeat it, it is not thus that mere men write history,

Could you find upon earth a man capable of relating the assassination of his mother with the calmness, method, sobriety, and apparent insensibility which mark the fourfold record of the crucifixion of Jesus by the evangelists;—of that Jesus whom they loved more than a mother is loved, yea, more than life is loved; of that Jesus whom they had seen prostrate at Gethsemane, then betrayed, abandoned, dragged bound into Jerusalem, and at last nailed naked upon a cross; while the sun was darkened, the earth rent, and he who had been the restorer of the dead was himself bowed down to death? Was not the Spirit of God required for every line and every word of such a recital, and in the selection of suitable details from such an age and world of memorable scenes?

9. It was necessary, moreover, that the sacred writers should be entirely under this Divine direction, in order to possess that prophetic reserve which they have maintained in so many respects; and that heavenly prudence which is evident, not only in what they have written, but in that upon which they have preserved silence; not only in the terms which they have employed, but in those which they have avoided.

And, in order to estimate this in some degree, consider for instance when they speak of the mother of Jesus; what Divine foresight, and what prophetic wisdom! whether we look at their narratives or their expressions. In their ardent adoration of the Son, how easily might they be betrayed into speaking in too reverential terms of the mother! Would not a single word, which the natural incautiousness of first emotions might have let fall, for ever have authorised the idolatries of future generations towards Mary, and the criminal adoration which is paid to her? But not a word of this character have they ever recorded. What! have they not even called her " the mother of God? " No, not even by this title; although Jesus is with them Emmanuel, the God—man, the Word which was from the beginning, which was with God, which was God, and which was made flesh! Hear themselves. What do they say of Mary, after the death and resurrection of the Saviour? One single sentence, and then they are silent respecting her,, viz., " These all continued in prayer with the women, and with Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brethren." She is neither named first nor last; she appears as " the mother of Jesus," among the brethren of Jesus and the women of Galilee. And what do they say of her before the death of the Lord? Mark it well. Ah! it is not thus that men relate. Of all the intercourse which Jesus Christ had with his mother, from the commencement of his ministry, they have only selected three sentences to be handed down to us. The first is on the occasion when she interfered at the commencement of his ministry, and looked to him for a miracle; viz., "Woman, (woman!) what have I to do with thee? " (John ii. 4.) When afterwards one from among the crowd in her enthusiasm exclaimed, "Blessed is the womb that bare thee!" he replied, "Yea, rather blessed are they that hear the word of God, and keep it." (Luke xi. 27, 28.) This was the second occasion; and now mark the third. His mother and brethren were shaken in their faith: they had been heard to say, " He is beside himself; and they came and told him, "Thy mother and thy brethren are without, desiring to speak with thee." "Who is my mother?" answered he; and stretching forth his hand towards his disciples, he said, "Behold my mother! every woman who shall do the will of my Father which is in heaven, the same is my mother." And when finally he looked upon her from the cross, he calls her no more by the term "mother," but bequeaths her to the care of the disciple whom he loved, saying, "Woman, behold thy son!" and to John, "Behold thy mother!" and from that hour this disciple received her into his house, not to adore, but to protect her, as a weak and suffering being, whose heart a sword had pierced.

Again we ask, is it thus that men write history? and was it not indispensable that the Holy Spirit should be the sole narrator of these facts?

We delight in citing other examples: they crowd upon our mind while we are writing, and it is with pain we pass them over; for the more closely these historical books are examined, the more does the prophetic wisdom of God, who dictated them, become manifest, in details which are at first unperceived. We delight particularly in dwelling upon the marked prophetic wisdom with which the Holy Spirit, when he has more than once related some important fact, is constantly careful to vary his expressions in order to prevent the false interpretations which would be given to them, and to condemn beforehand the errors which long after might be associated with them. We would for instance cite the surprising and unexpected manner in which the tenth commandment of the Decalogue has been repeated in the Book of Deuteronomy (Deut. v. 21; Exod. xx. 17), with a remarkable transposition of its terms,—the Holy Spirit thereby prophetically de signing to confound the artifice by which the doctors of Rome would endeavour, fifteen centuries later, to divide this commandment into two parts, thereby to conceal their culpable retrenchment of the second: "Thou shalt not make to thee any graven image, nor any likeness—thou shalt not bow down to them, nor serve them." We delight in remarking, moreover, the varied expressions in which the Holy Spirit has recorded the institution of taking bread and wine in remembrance of the Lord's death which, is several times paraphrased, to enable us the better to understand the mind of Jesus Christ, and learn the Spirit's condemnation of the carnal sense which would be given to the words, "This is my blood;" "This cup is the new COVENANT in my blood; " "also, This cup is the COMMUNION of the blood of the new covenant." We would further remark, with what prophetic wisdom, in order to confound those who in after times should affirm that Judas took no part in the last supper (that he went out before, or did not enter until it was over), the Holy Spirit has been careful to make known to us by Mark and Matthew (Matt. xxvi. 21—26; Mark xiv. 19—23), that Jesus announced the treason of Judas before the supper, Judas being present; and by Luke (Luke xxii. 19, 23) it is announced also after supper, in his presence. We delight in observing in all the writers of the New Testament the uniform soberness of their language, whenever it is a question of the relations between pastors and churches, and the admirable prudence with which they have always abstained from applying even once to the ministers of the Christian Church the title of priests or sacrificers, and have only retained for them the title of elders, which was given to the laity in Israel, as always distinguishing them from the sacerdotal order (which represented Jesus Christ, and was never to cease until the only and true Priest should appear). We love, too, to magnify that prudence by which no soul is ever directed to any other pastor or director (Matt. xxiii. 8—10) than Jesus Christ; and with which, in recommending deference towards spiritual guides, they are careful always to speak of them in the plural, in order that the Scripture might supply no authority to support the notion, so natural to pastors and congregations, that every soul ought to have its pastor among men: "Call no man upon earth your father, and be not ye called master, for Christ only is your Master." What precaution is here! what reserve in their narratives, in order never to give too much to man, and "to rehearse all that God had done by the hands of the apostles"! (Acts xiv. 27; Rom. xv. 18; 1 Cor. iii. 6); so that, abasing themselves, all the glory might redound to God, and every servant of the Lord might learn to say, with the last prophet of the Old Testament, and with the first of the New, "He must increase, but I must decrease."

We say again, with the Bible before us, we can scarcely abstain from further quotation.

From all these features combined, we are bound to conclude that if all Scripture is divinely inspired, the historical books are pre—eminently radiant with this Divine interference. They more especially show its necessity—they, especially attest that it was indispensable that the invisible and all—powerful hand of the Holy Ghost should rest upon the sacred writer, to guide him from the first line to the last. It required more than scholars, more than saints, more than enlightened minds, more than angels and archangels—IT REQUIRED GOD!

EVASIONS OF OBJECTORS, CONTINUED.

Does not the apparent Insignificance of certain Scriptural Details authorise their Exception from Inspiration?

Was it consistent with the dignity of inspiration to be associated with the thoughts of the apostle Paul, even in the trivial details into which we see him descend in some of his epistles? Would the Holy Spirit go so far as to dictate to him the common salutations with which he concludes them?—or the sanitary counsel which he has given to Timothy concerning his frequent indisposition?—or the commissions with which he charges him respecting his parchments, and a certain cloak that he had left at Troas with Carpus, when he quitted Asia?

Will the reader here permit us to beseech him to take heed, whenever, with the Bible before him, he does not at a first perusal, recognise traces of the Deity in any portion of the Word, lest with profane hands he should think to cast out a single verse from the temple of the Scriptures. Your hands hold an eternal book, of which all the authors have said with St. Paul, "I think also that I have the Spirit of God." So long therefore as Divine features therein pourtrayed are not seen, the fault is in the reader, and not in the passage. Let him rather say with Jacob, "Surely the Lord is in this place, and I knew it not." (Gen. xxviii. 16.)

Let us now examine somewhat more closely the passages referred to.

St. Paul in the dungeon of a prison asks for his cloak. He had left it with Carpus at Troas; he begs Timothy to endeavour to come to him before the winter, and not to forget to bring it with him. This domestic detail, which (since the time of Anomenes, of whom St. Jerome makes mention) has so many thousand times been advanced as an objection against the inspiration of Scripture,—this detail appears to you too trivial for an apostolic pen, or at least too insignificant and unedifying for the dignity of inspiration. Un-happy however is he who does not discern its touching grandeur!

Jesus Christ also on the day of his death spoke of his cloak and vesture. Would you have this passage erased from the number of inspired words? It was after a night of fatigue and anguish: infuriated men had been ruthlessly hurrying him blindfolded about Jerusalem; from street to street, from tribunal to tribunal, by torch—light, during seven successive hours, and striking him continually on the head with their staves: ere sunrise the following morning, his hands bound with cords; they bring him again into the high priest's palace, and afterwards before Pilate in the Prætorian hall: there, lacerated with rods and streaming with blood, he is delivered to the ferocious soldiery to be put to death: they strip him of his garments, put on him a scarlet robe, spit upon him, place a reed in his hands, and in mockery of worship bow the knee before him: then, before placing the cross on his mangled shoulders, they cover his wounds with his own clothes, and lead him forth to Calvary; but when about to proceed to the last act of execution, they for the third time strip him of his raiment, and without garment or vesture, stript of everything, he suffers the death of a malefactor on the cross, in the sight of the immense assembly. Was there ever a man under heaven's canopy who did not find these details soul—moving, sublime, and inimitable? Or one who, from the ac count of such a dying scene, would retrench as useless or trivial a notice of the vesture which was parted, and of the garment for which the soldiers cast lots? And if Divine Inspiration had been confined to a portion only of the sacred book, would it not have been these very details? Would it not have been the history of that love which, after having sojourned upon earth, more destitute than the birds of the air and the foxes of the field, had been willing to die yet more wretched still, despoiled of everything, even of his garment and his vesture,—his naked body stretched and nailed like that of a malefactor to the cross?

Ah! be not anxious on the Holy Spirit's account! He has not compromised his dignity. Far from thinking it humiliating to transmit these facts to us, he has even hasted to relate them. More than a thousand years before, in the times of the siege of Troy, he already sang on the harp of David,—They look and stare upon me,—they part my garments among them, and cast lots upon my vesture." (Psa. xxii. 18, 19; John xix. 23, 24.)

Well; it is the same Spirit who has shown to us St. Paul writing to Timothy and requiring his cloak. Hear what is said. Paul also is despoiled of all: while yet young, great among men, favoured by princes, admired of all,—he forsook all for Christ. During thirty years and upwards he had been poor; in labours more abundant than others, in stripes above their mea sure, and in prisons more frequent; of the Jews he had five times received forty stripes save one; thrice he had been beaten with rods; once he had been stoned; three times he had suffered shipwreck; in journeyings often, in perils of waters, in perils in the towns, in perils in deserts, in perils by sea; oft in watchings, in hunger, in thirst, and nakedness. These are his own words. (2 Cor. xi. 23–26.) Let us hear him further. He is Paul the aged: he is at Rome, in his last prison, expecting sentence of death; he has fought the good fight; he has finished his course; he has kept the faith; but he is suffering from cold as the winter sets in, and lacks clothing: Thrust into a dungeon of the Mamertine prisons, he bore a name so vile, that even the Christians of Rome were ashamed to acknowledge him; so that on his first arraignment no man stood with. him. Ten years before this period, when a prisoner at Rome and loaded with chains, he had at least received some relief from the Philippians, who knowing his miserable condition had, notwithstanding their own need, laid themselves under restraint in order to minister to his wants; but now he is altogether friendless, Luke only is with him; he is forsaken of all others, and the winter about to set in. He would need a cloak; he had left his own with Carpus, at Troas, two hundred leagues away; there was no one in the chilly dungeons of Rome to lend him one. Had he not joy fully quitted all for Jesus? Had he not counted all the honour of the world but dung, that he might win Christ? and was he not prepared to " endure all things for the elect's sake"? (Phil. iii. 8.)

Who is there that would now remove from the inspired epistles so striking and touching a feature? Does not the Holy Ghost thereby introduce us into Paul's prison, to catch a sight of his affecting self denial and his sublime poverty? just as he enables us to see, as it were with our own eyes, his earnest love, when a short time previously writing to the Philippians he says:—"I weep as I write, because there are many among you who mind earthly things, whose end is destruction." Do we not feel as if we beheld him in the prison, bound with his chain, his tears falling upon the parchment while thus writing? Can we not see his poor body? to—day ill clad, suffering, and benumb ed; to—morrow beheaded and floating down the Tiber, awaiting the day when the earth shall yield her dead, and the sea shall give up the dead which are in it, and Christ shall transform our vile body and make it like unto his own glorious body? And if these details are attractive, can you think they are not useful? And if they profit those who read them as a simple history, what do they not become to him who believes in their inspiration! ' Who can tell the power and consolation which their very familiarity and tangibility may convey to the occupant of a dungeon or a hovel? Who can reckon the poor and the martyred to whom such traits have been a source of encouragement, example, and joy? Venerated brethren! happy martyrs! you have doubtless called to mind your brother Paul, shut up in the dungeons of Rome, suffering from cold and lack of raiment, (2 Tim. iv. 13.) asking for his cloak! Oh, how unhappy must he be who is insensible to such feelings, the affecting greatness of such details, the provident and Divine sympathy they display, the depth and the charm of such a mode of instruction!—but more unhappy still, he who declares it to be human, because he does not understand it. We would here quote the beautiful language of the excellent Haldane on this verse of St. Paul. He observes, "If the place which this passage occupies in the epistle, and in the solemn farewell of St. Paul to the disciples, be considered, it presents the apostle to our view in the situation of all others the most calculated to awaken the feelings. He has just been arraigned before the emperor; he is about to finish his days as a martyr; the hour of his departure is at hand, and the crown of righteousness is laid up for him: behold him on the confines of two worlds.—Looking at this he is about to leave—doomed to be beheaded like a malefactor by the orders of Nero; and to that which he is hastening to possess—crowned as a righteous man by the King of kings and Lord of lords: in this, forsaken by men; in that, welcomed by angels: in this, wanting a worth less cloak for a covering; in that, covered with the righteousness of saints, clothed upon ' with his heavenly mansion of light and joy, and every vestige of mortality swallowed up of life."

Ah! rather than object to such passages, in order to rob the Scriptures of their infallibility, surely we must acknowledge here that wisdom of God, which so often by a single touch has known how to communicate instruction to us, without which long pages might have been necessary. We must adore that compassionate condescension which stoops even to our weakness; which has been pleased not only to reveal to us the highest thoughts of heaven in the simplest words of earth, but which moreover exhibits them to us in forms so vivid, so dramatic, and so touching, often condensing them within some single verse, that we may seize them the more readily.

It is thus that St. Paul, by these words, thrown as it were negligently among the closing commissions of a familiar epistle, sheds a flood of light upon his ministry, and in a passing remark enables us to see the character of his whole apostolical life, as a flash of lightning will sometimes in the darkness irradiate the summits of the Alps, or like some persons who utter their whole soul in a single look.

What striking examples might we not adduce! They crowd upon us: but we must forbear; feeling it rather our duty to take up the particular passages against which objections are advanced.

Before proceeding further, however, we are con strained to avow, that we are almost ashamed of de fending the Word of the Lord in this way. Can we pursue it without some irreverence?—We must ever be careful in what manner we defend the things of God, lest we imitate the rashness of Uzzah, who, having extended his hand to stay the ark of God when the stumbling oxen shook it, thereby kindled the Lord's anger. (2 Sam. vi. 6, 7.)

If it be fully acknowledged on both sides that a word is in the canon of God's oracles, why defend it by human arguments as worthy of him? This doubt less may be done to persuade those who are incredulous; but with such as admit the Divinity of Scripture, is it not doing injury to this word; is it not, as we have said, like putting Uzzah's hand to the ark? Does the word present itself to your eyes like a root out of a dry ground, without form or comeliness, or any beauty to make it desirable? You ought still to venerate it, and to wait entirely upon Him who gave it. When it asserts its own claim, are we acting judiciously in endeavouring to prove that respect is due to it? Should I not have been ashamed, when shown my Saviour and my God, rising from supper, laying aside his garment, taking a towel and washing the feet of his disciples,—should I not have shrunk from attempting to prove, that, notwithstanding all this, he was indeed the Christ? Oh! I ought rather to have bowed lower in adoring him. Just so the majesty of the Scriptures seeks to descend even unto us!

We consider that there is no arrogance comparable to that of the man who, acknowledging the Bible as a book from God, yet pretends to discriminate the inspired from the uninspired, that which is from God from among what is human! This is to overthrow all the foundations of faith; it is to make it consist, not in believing in God, but in believing self. That a chapter or a word is part of the Scriptures, should suffice to prove it divinely good; for God has pronounced concerning it, as upon creation, "I have seen all that I have made, and behold all is good." We must never then say—I find this portion admirable, therefore it is from God; and still less,—This portion seems use less, therefore it is of man. The Lord preserve us from it! But we will say,—It is in the Scriptures, therefore it is from God: it is from God, therefore it is profitable, wise, and admirable; and if yet I do not see it such, the fault is only in myself. We view the protection which the wisdom of man would extend over that of God as ill advised; we regard as an out rage the defiled impress with which men pretend to legalise the Holy Scriptures, and the senseless signature with which they dare to endorse its pages.

If therefore we proceed further in the attempt to demonstrate the Divine wisdom in some passages, which men have daringly held up as human, it is neither to establish their Divine character on the judgment of our better—informed wisdom, nor tardily to secure for them respect, solely on account of the beauty which they may reveal. Our veneration has preceded; it rests upon the fact that the passage is written in the oracles of God. Knowing this, without having seen we have believed. Our only object therefore is to refute the objection by some proofs of its rashness. Let us examine then two or three other passages to which the honours of inspiration have been denied, because they have at first view been considered destitute of spiritual bearing. We can here only refer to a very limited number. It is easy to denounce a sentence as useless or trivial; but to show that the objection is groundless may require pages.

One of the passages which we have most frequently heard brought forward to justify a distinction between what is inspired in the Word of God and what is not, is the recommendation of Paul to Timothy respecting the weakness of stomach, and other ailments with which this youthful disciple was afflicted. "Drink no longer water, but use a little wine for thy stomach's sake, and thy frequent infirmities." (1 Tim. v. 23.)

If however we look into this passage, what an admirable and lively revelation do we not find of the great ness of the apostolic vocation, and of the amiability of the Christian character! Remark in the first place that it is as it were in the temple of God that it has been uttered; for, immediately before, we have these solemn words:—"I charge thee in the presence of God and the Saviour Jesus Christ, and of the elect angels, that thou observe these things without prejudice, doing nothing by partiality. Lay hands suddenly on no man; keep thyself pure. Drink no longer water," &c. We here see that it is in the presence of their common Master and of the holy angels that St. Paul would address himself to his disciple: let us therefore enter into the same temple, in order to understand him, and place ourselves on the same heights, " before the Lord Jesus and his elect angels;" we shall then quickly recognise how much these words reflect the beauty of the apostolic ministry, and the gracious dealings of the Lord towards his servants. The celebrated Chrysostom well understood this, when, preaching from these very words, he remarked,—The most useful servants of God ought to be little surprised if it frequently happen that their Lord judged it expedient to try them, as Timothy, by various bodily infirmities and weaknesses; by put ting some thorn in their flesh, and thus permitting an emissary of Satan to buffet them, in order, on the one hand, that they might be stirred up to the exercise of sympathy, gentleness, cordial affection, and tender compassion; and on the other, to patience, self—denial, self—renunciation, and especially to prayer. Re—peruse with seriousness, and by the light of the last day, this beautiful passage of the apostle, and you will have to admire how much precious instruction the Holy Ghost has given us in the small space of a single verse, above what the pious Jerome has pointed out. How many words, and even chapters, would have been necessary to teach as much in any other form! You there learn besides, for instance, the sobriety of the young and ardent Timothy; he had desired like St. Paul to bring his body into subjection; he drank only water, and refrained from using wine. You will there see also with what tender and paternal delicacy the apostle reproves either his imprudence or austerity carried too far.—You will there see with what wisdom the Lord authorises and invites by these words men of God to take all necessary care of their health; at the same time nevertheless that he sees fit to visit them with bodily sickness.—You will see too with what prophetic foresight this word, put into the mouth of an apostle, antecedently condemns those human traditions, which in the lapse of time would deny to the faithful as an impurity the use of wine.—You will there see, sixthly, with what tender solicitude, sympathy, and truly paternal vigilance, the apostle Paul, in the midst of his high functions, and notwithstanding the overwhelming care of all the churches (from Jerusalem to Illyria, and from Illyria as far as Spain), kept his eye upon the personal circumstances of his much—loved Timothy, and felt for his weakness of stomach, his frequent infirmities, and his imprudent neglect of needful aliment. And finally, you will there learn an historical fact, which throws great light upon the nature of miraculous gifts. In spite of all St. Paul's interest for the ailments of Timothy, he had not the power of restoring him to health; not even Paul, who had so often healed the sick, and who had even raised the dead; because the apostles (and we learn it in this verse, as well as by the sickness of Epaphroditus, Phil. ii. 27) had not received the permanent gift of miracles, any more than that of Divine Inspiration; because it was necessary that this power should be renewed to them on each particular occasion.

But if all these lessons of the apostle are important, and if we thus receive them all so briefly, and in a manner so calculated to affect us, oh! how attractive and full of light do they become to a simple Christian's mind, as soon as he is convinced that it is not here the word of a good man merely; that it is not even that of an apostle only; but that it is the voice of his God, who would teach him so affectingly, sobriety, brotherly love, a tender interest for the health of others, and the utility of afflictions and infirmities to the most zealous of the servants of God: and who, to teach us all these precious lessons, deigns to address us by the mouth of a frail creature!

We are often assailed in connection with the salutations with which St. Paul concludes his epistles, and which (we are told) are, after all, but as the vain compliments which we habitually use at the close of our letters. There is nothing (it is added) in these unworthy of an apostle, but neither is there anything inspired. The Holy Spirit has therein left the pen of St. Paul at liberty, that he might give free expression to his personal affection, as a secretary would be left to himself to close in the usual complimentary style a letter, the subject—matter of which had been dictated to him. Look for example at the last chapter of the Epistle to the Romans. Is it not evident that the apostle devotes sixteen verses to the remembrance of his own personal friendships? Did the dry catalogue of all those individuals require the Holy Spirit's aid? The apostle mentions eighteen persons by name, with out reckoning all those to whom he sends collective salutations in the households of Aquila, Narcissus, and Aristobulus. These verses cannot have required inspiration; at the utmost they needed only that over sight of the Spirit of the Lord which was still exercised, even when the sacred writers were left to their own personalities.

We must avow that it gives us pleasure to review these sixteen verses which have been so repeatedly objected to: for they are of the number of those passages in which Divine wisdom is conspicuous; and if you examine them, you will soon admire with us the exceeding richness, the condescension, and dignity of this mode of instruction; you will there find, under the most practical and artless form, the living picture of a primitive church; you will there discover with lively interest the relations of its members to one an other; and you will see to what high estimation the weakest and most ignorant among them could attain within its bosom.

See, in the first place, with what tender interest the apostle recommends to the love of the church at Rome the humble woman who from Corinth, it would appear, was journeying into Italy about her temporal affairs. She was a well—beloved sister, who had been devoted to the service of the saints, and who did not fear to open her house to many of the faithful, and to St. Paul himself, notwithstanding the perils of such hospitality. She was the servant of the church at Cenchrea. The brethren at Rome are therefore called upon to receive her in the Lord, and to assist her in whatsoever she has need. See, in what follows, how forcible an example the apostle gives us, in a few words, of that Christian courtesy which ought to characterise the mutual relations of the children of God. Admire how, while passing so rapidly in review the brethren and sisters of the church at Rome, he remembers to shed upon this " dry nomenclature," as it has been termed, the refreshing unction of his love! For each one of them there are a few words of encouragement and tender esteem. He there recalls the generous hospitality of Phæbe; the risking of life on his behalf by Aquila and his companion; the honour of Epenetus, in being the first—fruits of Achaia unto Christ; the "much labour " bestowed on him by Mary; the recollection that his kinsmen, Andronicus and Junia, were in Christ before him; his Christian love for Amplias; the evangelical labours of Urbane; the tried fidelity of Apelles; the multiplied labours of Tryphena and Tryphosa in the Lord, and those of the beloved Persis. What an appeal moreover to the conscience of every serious reader is this rapid catalogue! Behold, he should say to himself, the character of the faithful in the church at Rome, to whom salutations were sent! And if the apostle were to address an epistle to the church in which for a season I myself occupy a place, what would he say of me? Would my name have a place in it? Could he add that, like Phabe, I welcomed the saints to my house?—that, like Aquila and Priscilla, I had meetings of Christians under my happy roof?—that, like Mary, I bestowed much labour on the ministers of the Lord; that I have suffered for Christ, like Andronicus and Junia; that I am a man approved in Christ, like Apelles; that I am elect in the Lord, like Rufus; that I am his fellow—helper, like Urbane; that I am in much service for the Lord, like Tryphena and Tryphosa; and that I labour much therein, like the beloved Persis?

But, above all, see what a lesson for Christian women is set forth in these admirable verses! In the simple familiarity of the salutations which close the epistle, how he shows them the high character of their vocation! What an important part is assigned them in the church, and what a place in the heavens! Without having as yet even seen the city of Rome, Paul there mentions, by their own names, and as his fellow—helpers, as many as nine or ten women. Besides Phæbe, whom he first commends to them, there is this admirable Priscilla, who went so far as to expose herself to the suffering of death for the apostle, and who enjoyed the gratitude of all the Gentile churches; next Mary, who had been very zealous in ministering to the apostles; then Tryphena and Tryphosa, who continued to labour in the Lord; then Persis, who was especially dear to him, and who had laboured much in the Lord; then Julia; then the sister of Nereus, who is perhaps Olympia; and finally, we have the venerable mother of Rufus. And remark, by the way, with what respect he mentions this lady, and with what delicacy he salutes her with the tender name of MOTHER: "Salute Rufus, elect in the Lord, and his mother and mine!" Is not this an example of the Christian courtesy which he had recommended to the same Romans in the twelfth chapter of the epistle? " Salute Rufus, elect of God," he writes, "and his mother, WHO IS ALSO MINE!" What a lovely pattern do these verses exhibit to husbands and wives, in the persons of Aquila and Priscilla! You here see them at Rome; you might have seen them five years previously driven out of Italy by the emperor Claudius, arriving at Corinth, and receiving into their dwelling the apostle Paul; then eighteen months after wards accompanying him into Asia, and dwelling at Ephesus, where they had a church in their house (1 Cor. xvi. 19), and where they assisted with so much effect the young and eloquent Apollos, who, not with standing his talents, was glad to draw instruction from their Christian conversation and love; and now that the death of Claudius had allowed the accession of Nero, you see them scarcely returned to Rome ere they consecrate their new abode to the Church of God. It was there that the saints assembled; and you here learn, from a passing expression, that both husband and wife had not hesitated to lay down their own necks for the life of Paul.

But besides all the lessons which are presented to our consciences in these sixteen brief verses, you may there further learn two facts of paramount importance in the history of the church. And, in the first place, you have the most unintentional and convincing evidence that at this period there was no question at Rome either of St. Peter, or of his episcopacy, of his popedom, or of his primacy, or even of his presence. Do we not recognise a prophetic foresight in the care which the Holy Spirit has here taken to do in this Epistle to the Romans what is not done in either of the other four teen of Paul's epistles—closing it with along list of the men and women most esteemed at that time throughout the church at Rome? We have here the apostle of the Gentiles, twenty years after the commencement of his ministry, writing to the saints at Rome, saluting as many as twenty—eight of them by name, and numerous others by collective designations, yet not sending a word to the Prince of the Apostles, or, as he is styled, the Vicar of Jesus Christ to his superior, the head of the Universal Church and founder of the Roman hierarchy! St. Peter was the apostle of the circumcision, and not of the Gentiles (Gal. ii.): his post was at Jerusalem; it is there he must be sought; and it was there that St. Paul had always found him. On his first journey, three years after his conversion, Paul there visited him and remained fifteen days in his house. (Gal. i. 18.) On his second journey (to be present at the first council) he again met him there. On his third journey thither, in the year 44, at the period of the death of Herod Agrippa, it was still there that Peter was dwelling. (Acts xii. 1, 3.) On his fourth journey, seventeen years after his conversion (Gal. ii. 7),St. Paul again finds him there, discharging the office (and let this be especially noted) of an apostle, not of the Gentiles, but of the circumcision. And when finally he is on his fifth and last journey, he writes to the Romans and to the Galatians; and then, in order that the whole church might distinctly know that Peter is not at Rome, and never had been there, Paul takes care to salute by name all those who were most eminent among the saints in that city, even among the women. Where is the bishop of the Latin sect in our day who would venture to written epistle of sixteen chapters to the church of Rome without saying a single word either of the Pope, or of St. Peter, or of the vicar of Jesus Christ?

But there is another historical fact yet more interesting, to the knowledge of which these same sixteen verses, which have been termed useless, particularly direct us. We see in the details of these brief salutations by what humble instruments, and yet to what an extent, the gospel had been established in so short a time in mighty Rome! No apostle had there set foot (Rom. i. 11, 13, 14, 15; xv. 22); yet behold what had been accomplished by the unaided labours of travellers, artisans, merchants, women, slaves, and freedmen what progress the Word of God had made! Jesus Christ had disciples already in the palaces of the Jewish princes who were attached to the imperial court, and even among the Roman officers who were nearest to the person of Nero.. Among those to whom St. Paul first desires his salutations are "those of Aristobulus' household; " and secondly, "they of the household of Narcissus, which are in the Lord." Now the first of these was the distinguished brother of Agrippa the Great, and of Herodias; the second was the powerful favourite of the emperor Claudius, who was not poisoned by Agrippina until the close of the year 54.

Oh! that all who are called Christians would for ever renounce the rash systems in which the words of Scripture are arraigned, and their fitness questioned; in which men dare to prune God's Bible of this word and that passage, to make (at least as far as such words and passages are concerned) a Bible of their own; in which they render themselves responsible for any amount of tampering with the word which daring commentators may ever venture upon., Why should not others do with an entire book what you have dared to do with a verse? What idea do they form of the sacred writers, to suppose them capable of the senseless audacity of blending their own oracles with the oracles of the Al mighty? We remember a poor idiot, a pensioner of one of our hospitals, whose hand—writing was nevertheless so good that a minister of Geneva employed him to transcribe his sermons. Great, however, was the confusion of the latter when the manuscript was returned, to find that the poor fellow had thought proper to enrich every page by the introduction of his own thoughts. There is, however, far less distance between the idiot and the minister, though the latter should be holy as Daniel and sublime as Isaiah, than from Daniel or Isaiah to the Eternal Wisdom.

1) “If any man teach otherwise, and consent not to wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the doc trine which is according to godliness, he is proud, knowing nothing," &c.—thus affirming that his words were the words of Christ, as from the same Spirit. (1 Tim. vi. 3.)