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The Fundamentals they themselves being only recipient, only concurrent with God, as God moved upon them. Some of the speakers of the Bible, as Balaam, the Old Prophet of Bethel, Caiaphas, are seized and made to speak in spite of themselves; and, with the greatest reluctance, to utter what is farthest from their minds and hearts. Others—in fact all—are purblind to the very oracles, instructions, visions, they announce. “Searching what; or what manner of time, the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify!” i. e., the prophets themselves did not know what they wrote. What picture can be more impressive than that of the prophet him- self hanging over and contemplating in surprise, in wonder, in amazement, his own autograph—as if it had been left upon the table there—t he relict of some strange and supernatural hand ? How does' that picture lift away the Bible from all human hands and place it back, as His original deposit, in the hands of God. Again; it is said that “the Word of the Lord came” to such and such a writer. I t is not said that the Spirit came, which is true; but that the Word itself came, the Dabar- Jehovah. And it is said: “ITayo Haya Dabar,” that it sub- stantially came, essentially came; “essendo fuit”—so say Pag- ninus, Montanus, Polanus—i. e., it came germ, seed and husk and blossom—in its totality — words which the Holy Ghost teacheth—th e “words.” Again; it is denied, and most emphatically, that the words are the words of the man—o f the agent. “The word was in my tongue”. St. Paul asserts that “Christ spake in him” (2 Cor. 13:3). “Who hath made man’s mouth? Have not I, the Lord ? I will put My words into thy mouth.” That looks very much like what has been stigmatized as the “mechanical theory.” I t surely makes the writer a mere organ, although not an unconscious, or unwilling, unspontaneous organ. Could language more plainly assert or defend a verbal direct inspira- tion?
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