comprehend a question is to be, in fact, perfectly master of it-to understand not merely the matter, but the manner of a thingto know all about it that can be known; and this understanding, we are told, originates in the inspiration of the Almighty.

Accepting this interpretation of the term, and connecting it with our preceding remarks, we touch, as it were, both extremes of the question of inspiration. In the one case we make it to consist of an entire absorption of the individual intellect and will, into the Divine Mind: and in the other, of their highest and fullest development. Man, under the influence of inspiration, is in the first instance, an unconscious, irresponsible, and sometimes unwilling instrument: and in the second, the entire master of his subject, and acting in the full light and liberty of an understanding, whose capacity appears to be boundless.

What then is the obvious inference from these two facts? The only natural mode of harmonizing them would seem to be thisthat the measure of inspiration is just the measure of man's requirement; and that, instead of the term implying necessarily that God gives in all instances, either everything, or next to nothing-it simply implies, that He gives so much as the varying circumstances of each particular case demand, and neither more nor less.

But this point belongs more properly to the second part of our subject-the extent of inspiration. On this subject there exist many different opinions, some supposing this inspiration to extend to every word and letter, to every jot and tittle, of the Bible; and others reducing it to a mere nonentity, by contending that the superintending agency put forth extended only to the selection, collocation, arrangement, and supervision of materials already extant, either in the records of history or the minds of the narrators. Some indeed, have gone even farther in both these opposite directions, insisting on the one hand, that even our own English translation, with all its imperfections, should command the most servile and superstitious homage: and on the other, that no inconsiderable portion of the Old Testament, and some of the New, is a mere collection of myths, or traditional histories and allegories, superior perhaps, to the old fables of India, Greece, or Rome, but mainly valuable as a psychological curiosity of great antiquity.

It will be at once obvious, that this latter opinion strikes at the root of our faith, whilst the other, by asking too much, makes the advocates of a good cause appear ridiculous, and places its opponents on the vantage ground of a partial triumph.

Extremes are generally unwise and unsafe; and the subject of inspiration offers no exception to the rule, especially as there seems to be no reason for supposing that either party must be altogether right, or altogether wrong. It by no means follows, that because God did not make use of man as an unconscious or unwilling instrument in declaring his will, he left him almost to his unassisted reason; nor is it at all derogatory to the character of his inspired word, to believe that its several writers were not so far caught away from themselves as to lose their individuality, or part with all their natural gifts, acquirements, or characteristics. On the other hand, indeed, it appears quite reasonable to suppose, that if God thought fit to employ man at all, he would enlist him into his service as man, well knowing what was in him, and with the full intention, not of remoulding all his mental and moral qualifications, but of using them as he found them; in some cases, perhaps, subliming, informing, controlling, and directing them, but still leaving them to work naturally whenever and wherever he saw no adequate cause for special interference. We find, accordingly, on the most casual examination of holy writ, that the several writers often preserve their identity of character, speaking in exact accordance with the circumstances of their birth, education, calling, and position in society.

Yet although we have taken this comparatively low estimate of inspiration, we can by no means sympathize with those objectors who would get rid of its necessity on one or both of the grounds following-that no Divine teaching could be necessary in compiling a mere volume of history; and that such a volume, if compiled, could be of no practical benefit to mankind, and was not likely therefore to have engaged the attention of Deity.

To the first of these objections we would reply by glancing at the circumstances under which the Pentateuch, for example, was written.

We have good ground for believing that our earth, as regards the present constitution of things, has existed about six thousand

years. Moses, the earliest of our sacred writers, lived only three thousand three hundred years ago; Herodotus, our first profane historian, just a thousand years afterwards. For the two thousand seven hundred years which elapsed before the time of Moses, the history of the world was consequently unrecorded, except in the traditional remembrances of the antediluvians and the patriarchs. And yet the events which transpired during that interval were the most important and influential ever enacted upon the surface of the earth, as we shall see when we come to the consideration of our second objection.

We are aware that this absence of written or unwritten testimony existing prior to the time of Moses, has been doubted by some, and flatly denied by others. There are not wanting, indeed, men who will tell us that in the laws and institutions of the Jews there is little originality, and that their rites and ceremonies were, to a great extent, but modified or improved adaptations of heathen customs previously existing. But it seems exceedingly improbable that God would condescend to make use of imperfect and erroneous documents, or refine upon rites, to say the least, of very questionable character, in order to set before his people a lesson of separation from the world, or instruct them in the things which happened aforetime for their instruction.

A serious, and to our minds, insurmountable difficulty, indeed, stands in the way of our conceding this. We believe, after a long and wearisome investigation of the subject, that no such customs obtained in the very early times to which we are referring; and that instead of their having been the types on which the Jewish ritual was based, they are one and all misunderstood and distorted copies of that wonderful code of religious observances. And as to documents, it could be easily shewn that the very idea of writing was unknown before the giving of the law, and that Moses was not only the first historian in point of majesty and importance, but in respect to time as well.

If the correctness of these reasonings be admitted, we know of no process short of a direct and immediate revelation from heaven, by which the great facts narrated in the books of Moses could have been put on record; and that the communication of them to the world and the church was really necessary, we shall see in discussing the merits of our second objection.

The redemption of the "great globe itself" from a state of chaos and inanity, the creation of man and the lower animals, the defection of our first parents, and the consequent promise of recovery through the seed of the woman; the universal apostacy of the antediluvians, and their destruction by the deluge; the ark, and its mysterious associations—the re-peopling of the earth —the building of Babel, and the confusion of tongues which followed-the call of Abraham, and the election of a peculiar people from the masses sunk in idolatry around them—these, and many other events of equal interest, appear to have had no "honest chronicler" before the days of Moses. Some of them, indeed, such as the acts of the first five days of creation, could not have been recorded, as they were not witnessed by mortal eyes; and others would not have found historians, as they relate events highly discreditable to, and condemnatory of, the only men cognizant of them, had it not been for a Divine interposition, which we shall now proceed to shew was fully justified by the necessities of the case.

The want of right ideas on the subject of the Mosaic creation made way for the theory of metempsychosis, or the transmigration of souls from one body to another, the anomalous doctrine of materialism, and a hundred forms of idolatry and creature worship. Traditionary vestiges of the Fall, and of the instrumentality by which it had been effected, shed just sufficient light abroad in the world to make its hideous darkness visible, and led to that universal error of primeval times, the worship of the serpent, as typical of the Great Adversary. Dim remembrances of the Deluge led to world-making theories as dishonorable to God as they were ridiculous and practically detrimental to the interests of the soul; and the general uncertainty which obtained in matters of fact led to a corresponding uncertainty as to man's position, his duty, and his destinies.

Although these remarks are referable to the books of Moses, they apply with equal and sometimes with greater force, to the other scripture writings, which, taken jointly or severally, constitute not only a matchless system of theology, but a scheme of history, philosophy, and science, immeasurably in advance of the several ages to which they respectively belong. The prophecies of the Bible, in fact, are not restricted to the first of these

departments; but extend over the vast fields of astronomy, geology, meteorology, archæology, physiology, and chemistry. It supposes, in each and all its writers, such an insight into the mysteries of physics, metaphysics, and antiquities, as no uninspired man could possibly have achieved, as to shut us up to the conclusion that it could not have been written under any influence inferior to that of inspiration.

We have already hinted that great differences of opinion exist as to the extent of this inspiration; but perhaps the only two classes of biblical critics to whom we need now refer, are those who contend for a mere general teaching and superintendence on the part of God; and those who insist that every word and letter was dictated to the several sacred writers-the advocates, in fact, of general and verbal inspiration.

Of these views we decidedly embrace the first-that of mere general direction or oversight; for the following, amongst other

reasons.

1. The Bible is a book of great facts and principles, all subsidiary to one greater fact :—that salvation is to be found only in Christ Jesus. To him gave all the prophets witness. The law, the prophets, and the psalms, all shadowed forth his coming; and his own command, to "search the Scriptures," received its highest sanction from the statement, that these writings, one and all, testified of him. This great distinguishing feature of Holy Writ is set forth in every variety of mode, and in every conceivable form and style of writing, In a certain sense, the Bible becomes all things to all men, that it may by all means save some. With all this prodigality and latitude of style, and form, and expression, how was it possible to give that measured and severe and literal exactness to every word, or even to every sentence, which should allow of its being isolated from its connection, or microscopically criticised and analyzed, without serious damage to the integrity of the whole ?

Or, coming down to any particular sections or episodes of Scripture, does not the same difficulty meet us.

The parables of our Lord, for example, and all his discourses, have one leading idea; and to this idea all the points converge. The Bible, it should ever be borne in mind, is a whole: it is a book of thoughts-not of words; and to fritter down these