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The Fundamentals quote Armitage again, “I cannot tell how the Holy Spirit sug gested the words to the writers any more than some other man can tell how He suggested the thoughts to them. But if diversity of expression proves that He did not choose the words, the diversity of ideas proves that He did not dictate the thoughts, for the one is as varied as the other.” William Cullen Bryant was a newspaper man but a poet; Edmund Clarence Stedman was a Wall Street broker and also a poet. What a difference in style there was between their editorials and commercial letters on the one hand, and their poetry on the other! Is God more limited than a man ? 4. There are certain declarations of scripture itself. Dp§6 not Paul say in one or two places “I speak as a man,” or “After the manner of man ?” Assuredly, but is he not using the arguments common among men for the sake of elucidat ing a point? And may he not as truly be led of the Spirit to do that, and to record it, as to do or say anything else? Of course, what he quotes from men is not of the same essential value as what he receives directly from God, but the record of the quotation is as truly inspired. There are two or three other utterances of his of this character in the 7th chapter of 1.Corinthians, where he is treat ing of marriage. At verse 6 he says, “I speak this by per mission, not of commandment,” and what he means has no reference to the source of his message but the subject of it. In contradiction to the false teaching of some, he says Chris-; tians are permitted to marry, but not commanded to de so. At verse 10 he says, “Unto the married I command, yet not I, but the Lord,” while at verse 12 there follows, “but to the rest speak I, not the Lord.” Does he declare himself inspired in the first instance, and not in the second? By no means, but in the first he is alluding to what the Lord spake on the subject while here in the flesh, and in the second to what he, Paul, is adding thereto on the authority of the Holy Spirit speaking through him. In other words, putting his own utterances on
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