implies on the one hand the continuous direction and over-ruling guidance of the Spirit, acting apparently, as Dr. Liddon pointed out in his last sermon from this pulpit, on the principle of selection1, and so controlling the entire process of the Bible's formation, as might best serve the spiritual interests of mankind. In regard to this providential action of the Holy Spirit, Origen makes a far-seeing observation in his Letter to Africanus. Dealing with the question of variations in the Hebrew and Septuagint text of the Old Testament, he appeals boldly to what we might call a self-evident principle of a revelation of grace. 'Can it be,' he asks, that the divine providence, having given in holy Scriptures material for edification to all the churches of Christ, was unmindful of those who had been bought at a price, those for whom Christ died?' Origen evidently means that in Scripture a divine regard for the spiritual interests of mankind is abundantly manifested. Certainly the Old Testament is very far from being the kind of volume which human ingenuity would have compiled for religious purposes; but experience has shown that nothing less expansive, less full, less varied, less mysterious, would have satisfied the needs and yearnings of human nature. Further, the spiritual experience of Christians warrants the belief that the action of the Holy Spirit, while it has controlled the formation and selection of such writings as should best serve the providential purpose of God, has also protected them from such defects as might be injurious to that purpose. An inspired Bible does not mean a book free from a large admixture of imperfect elements, but it does mean a book perfectly adapted to fulfil the function it was intended by God to discharge.

On the other hand, inspiration is primarily a quality

1 See his University Sermon on The Inspiration of Selection, preached May 25, 1890.

2 Orig. ad Afric. iv. So Aug. finds providential purpose in the obscurities of Scripture (de doc. ii. 6).

of the writers or compilers to whom we owe the several books of Scripture. Men of different types were moved to write, and enabled for their special work, by the Holy Spirit, who employed the products of their pen in His own way and for His own purposes1. In considering this matter, however, we are bound to remember that critical analysis of the Old Testament books has somewhat altered the conditions of the problem. In the case of writings which have passed through a prolonged literary process, it is somewhat misleading to speak of the writer as if he were a single person 2. Waiving this point, however, let us inquire wherein the inspiration of the biblical writers consists? Chiefly it would seem in a gift of special moral and religious insight. The inspired writer is one who is spiritually enlightened. He is alive to the character, requirement and purpose of the All-Holy. He gives prominence to spiritual truths and laws. He reads history in the light of his present spiritual knowledge. He looks upon the world as God's world; in history he traces the dealings of God with various types of character, individual or national. He reads in the events of the present, a divine commentary on the past; in the records of the past he finds laws of future development. It is indeed signi

1

Sanday, Bampton Lectures, p. 227: The authority of the word written was precisely the same as that of the word spoken. ... It was inherent in the person who wrote and spoke, and was derived from the special action upon that person of the Spirit of God.' Driver, Serm. on O. T. Subj. p. 136: 'The divine thought takes shape in the soul of the prophet, and is presented to us, so to speak, in the garb and imagery with which he has invested it; it is expressed in terms which bear the external marks of his own individuality, and reflect the circumstances of time and place and other similar conditions, under which it was first propounded."

2 Cp. Dalman, Das A. T. ein Wort Gottes, p. 18.

3 Driver, Serm. on O. T. Subj. pp. 146, 147: 'We may, I suppose, say that what we mean by it [inspiration] is an influence which gave to those who received it a unique and extraordinary spiritual insight, enabling them thereby, without superseding or suppressing the human faculties, but rather using them as its instruments, to declare in different degrees, and in accordance with the needs or circumstances of particular ages or particular occasions, the mind and purpose of God.'

ficant that the larger part of the Old Testament books are ascribed by Jewish tradition to prophets, that is to men who were regarded as specially assisted by the Holy Spirit, whether in reading aright the lessons of national experience, or in divining correctly the providential course of events in the future. Indeed this tradition is so far correct that beyond any question prophetism seems to have been the distinctive element which made Israel's religion what it was1; and as a matter of fact nothing was introduced into the canon which was not believed to be in some sense prophetic 2. For the prophetic faculty alone could enable the biblical writers to interpret the true drift and meaning of the events or experiences which they described. In this lies the present importance of their work. Without being either perfect in form or free from error, the writings of Old Testament sages and historians give us such a representation of the mighty works and gracious revelations of God as can best minister to the education of faith in every age. For under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, Hebrew literature took a direction, and attained to a height, peculiar to itself. 'Just as we have here a nation,' says Ewald, 'wholly different from any other elsewhere upon earth, so we have also a literature shaped and fashioned under a spirit, and thence also with results, wholly different from those of foreign or other Semitic nations,' and this in spite of the fact that, 'in external literary forms Israel followed the old models of earlier Semitic culture 3.'

The above discussion of the term 'inspiration' will suffice to make clear the standpoint presupposed in

1 Cp. J. Darmesteter, Les Prophètes d'Israël, p. 210; Driver, Serm. on O. T. Subj. p. 101; Meinhold, Jesus und das A. T. pp. 103, 104.

2

Cp. Josephus, c. Apion. i. 8; Girdlestone, The Foundations of the Bible, p. 17; Sanday, Bampton Lectures, p. 254. The Jews appear to have supposed 'that books composed during the prevalence of Prophecy were inspired in the strict and true sense, and that those composed after the cessation of Prophecy were not.'

3 Revelation, its Nature and Record, p. 308.

the following lectures. A merely mechanical theory of inspiration is untenable for this reason amongst others, that it ignores the possibility of degrees in inspiration; nor does it adequately recognize God's providential action in regard to the sacred literature of other religions 1. Further, the history of the canon is instructive as reminding us that the relative value of the different books contained in the Old Testament varies somewhat widely. The very fact that there was hesitation in reference to the inclusion of several disputed books is sufficient evidence that the precise spiritual function of a particular writing might not always be obvious or certain, and in any case if the true bearing and import of the divine message in each book is to be correctly understood, it can only be by patient effort to enter into the historical conditions under which it was produced, and the state of mind or culture to which it was addressed. We arrive then at a true conception of inspiration inductively by careful study of the Bible itself. The term 'inspiration' includes on the one hand the providential superintendence or guidance which controlled the formation of the canon, on the other that supernatural influence which heightened the faculties, or directed the genius, of the biblical writers. Inspiration has been admirably described as 'an influence within the soul, divine and supernatural,

1

Cp. Sanday, Bampton Lectures, pp. 398 foll. Observe, the true conception of inspiration does not require us to regard the inspiration of non-Israelites as impossible or imaginary. What distinguishes the biblical writers is the character of their knowledge of God and their peculiar insight into His requirement of man. Schultz, i. 255, points out that in its earlier parts, the Old Testament itself 'goes upon the supposition that even a Balaam is inspired by the true God, and that his curse or blessing takes effect (Num. xxii. 6; xxiii. 5; xxiv. 3 f. Cp. Mic. vi. 5); that Moses has a certain resemblance to the wise men and the sorcerers of Egypt; that even heathen kings have dreams of a truly divine significance (Gen. xx. 6; xl. 5 f.; xli. I, 25, 28); that the prophets of the Philistines prophesy truly (1 Sam. vi. 2 f.); in a word, that God speaks even beyond the bounds of Israel,' &c.

2 Sanday, op. cit. p. 259: 'Just as there is a descending scale within the canon, there is an ascending scale outside it.' Cp. Driver, Serm. on O. T. Subj. p. 153.

working through all the writers in one organizing method, making of the many one, by all one book, the book of God, the book for man, divine and human in all its parts; having the same relation to all other books that the person of the Son of God has to all other men, and that the Church of the living God has to all other institutions 1.' That this influence works mainly in the direction of moral illumination is the view of many ancient Christian thinkers on this subject. Thus while Tatian and Justin Martyr lay stress upon the affinity in character, which makes men suitable instruments of the divine Spirit, Origen declares that the Holy Spirit' enlightened the ministers of truth, the apostles and prophets, to understand the mysteries of those things or causes which take place or act among men or concerning men ". 'By the contact of the Holy Spirit with their soul,' he elsewhere says, 'they became more clear-sighted in their faculties, and more lustrous in their souls 4.'

This view of inspiration is to be distinguished from the popular notions, which undoubtedly influenced other ancient writers. There were some who failed to discriminate between inspiration in the moral sense described above and the passive reception of a divine afflatus. This latter idea was characteristic of Greek 'mantic'; it exercised considerable influence upon the mind of Philo, and of those fathers who were penetrated by Hellenic modes of thought 5. Such a conception,

1 From a sermon quoted by Briggs, Biblical Study, p. 161.

2 See Tatian, C. Graecos, §§ 13, 29 (quoted by Westcott, Introd. to the Study of the Gospels, p. 424). Cp. Justin, Cohort. 8, and Dial. c. Tryph. 7.

de Princip. iv. 14.

4 c. Cels. vii. 4 διορατικώτεροι τὸν νοῦν καὶ τὴν ψυχὴν λαμπρότεροι.

5

Cp. Sanday, Bampton Lectures, p. 75. Philo and apparently Josephus seem to have considered inspiration to consist in a species of frenzy or ecstasy, an actual suspension of the reasoning faculties in man, so that he was simply a passive instrument or mouthpiece of the divine Spirit. Substantially the same view was held by some ecclesiastical writers, e. g. Athenagoras, Leg. pro Chr. § 9; Hippol. de Antichr. ii.; Clem. Alex. Protrept. i. 5; &c. See generally passages quoted by Westcott in his essay on 'The primitive doctrine of inspiration' (Introd. to the Study of the Gospels, pp. 417 foll.).