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meaning o f the words put by the Holy Ghost on their lips (1 Cor. 14). FALSE NOTIONS I would next observe, that these defini tions produce or conceal false notions of inspiration. In fact, they assume its being nothing more than the natural expression o f a supernatural revelation ;- and that the men o f God had merely o f themselves, and in a human way, to put down in their books what the Holy Ghost made them see in a divine way, in their understandings. But inspiration is. more than this. Scripture is not the mind o f God elaborated by the understanding o f man, to be promulgated in the words o f man ; it is at once the mind o f God and the ..word o f God. VII. The Holy Ghost having in all ages illuminated God’s elect, and having more over distributed miraculous powers among them in ancient times, in which o f these two orders o f spiritual gifts ought we to- rank inspiration? W e must rank it among the extraordinary and wholly miraculous gifts. The Holy Ghost in all ages enlightens the elect by His powerful inward virtue ; He testifies to them o f Christ (John 15:26)'; gives them the unction o f the Holy One ; teaches them all things, and convinces them o f all truth (1 John 2:20, 27; John 7:38, 39). But besides these ordinary gifts o f illumination and faith, the same Spirit shed extraordi nary, ones on thé men who were commis sioned to promulgate and to write the oracles o f God. Divine inspiration was One of those gifts. VIII. Is the difference, then, between illumination and inspiration a difference of 'kind or only o f degree? It is a difference o f kind, and not of degree only. IX. . Nevertheless, did not the Apostles/ beside inspiration, receive from the Holy Ghost illumination in extraordinary meas ure, and in its most eminent degree? In its most eminent degree, is what none can affirm; in an extraordinary degree, is what none can contradict. The Apostle Paul, for example, did not
This we cannot tell. It is a fact which, subject besides to great varieties, could not be for us an object either o f scientific inquiry or o f faith. IDLE CONJECTURE IV. Have not modern authors, however, who have written on this subject, often distinguished in the Scriptures three or four degrees o f inspiration ( superintendence, elevation, direction, suggestion) ? This is but idle conjecture; and. the sup position, besides, is in contradiction with the W ord of God, which knows but one kind o f inspiration. Here, there is none true but suggestion. V. Do we not see, however, that the men o f God were profoundly acquainted, and often even profoundly affected, with the sacred things which they taught, with the-future things which they predicted, with the past things which they related? No doubt they might be so—nay, in most instances they were so—but they might not have been so; this happened in different measures, o f which the degree remains to us unknown, and the knowledge o f which is not required of us. VI: What then must we think o f those definitions o f divine inspiration, in which Scripture seems to be represented as the altogether human expression o f a revela tion altogether divine; what, for example, must we think of that o f Baumgarten, who says that inspiration is but the means by which revelation, at first immediate, became mediate, and took the form of a book? These definitions are not exact, and may give rise to false notions o f inspiration. I say they are not exact. They contradict facts. Immediate revelation does not nec essarily precede inspiration; and when it precedes, it is not its measure. The empty air prophesied (Gen. 3:14; 4 :6 ; Exodus 3 :6 ; 19:3; Deut. 4:12; Matt. 3:17; 17 :5); a hand coming forth from a wall wrote the words o f God (Dan. 5:5) ; a dumb animal reproved the madness o f a prophet (2 Peter 2:16). Balaam prophesied without any desire to do so ; and the believers of Corinth did so without even knowing the
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