PRESUMPTIVE ARGUMENT FOR INSPIRATION.

In our whole argument revelation will be assumed. It is proved by the general evidences of Christianity, and is admitted by most, if not all, of those with whom we are now discussing. Inspiration, as heretofore distinguished from revelation, is the point to be proved.

It is not incredible, not impossible, but likely, that God, in giving a real revelation to man, would inspire it; that is, control, protect from error, and authorize its utterance and its record.

1. This we argue, first, from the nature of God and man, and the relation between them. Supposing that there is a God, infinitely wise, holy, and good, who loves the rebellious creatures that have strayed into darkness, misery, and sin, and who desires to offer them redemption, it is an object infinitely worthy of such a Being that He should give them clear, accurate, and authoritative information as to truth and duty.

We are not competent to judge of the circum stances and times He might adopt, nor of the form or amount of communications that would be best; but we might certainly expect that they would be authenticated as coming from Him, and as being His message of love and light. And, while we could not presume to decide in advance what subjects such a revelation should touch, or how fully they should be treated, we would fairly have reason to expect that on whatever subjects it did touch no error should be imparted. This much we should naturally expect even of a candid and judicious man, endeavoring to do us good, and guide us right.

If the truth was committed, not to merely " earthen vessels," but to vessels of a tainted or poisonous material, so that infusion would corrupt or injure what was placed therein; or if the message was communicated by men who stated simply the result of their own observation, or used the utmost of their native ability, reasoning out as best they could, unaided, what would be useful for man; — in either case, it would hardly comport with what might reasonably be expected. It would not be like God.

2. The force of this argument is increased, when we reflect upon the permanence and extent of the object in view. It is evident, upon opening the Scriptures, that they were designed, not for one age, but for all the ages, books of the times, but for all time; that while given, almost if not quite exclusively, to one race and nation, they were given for all races of mankind, and all periods; that even those things obviously local and apparently temporary were, as truly as other parts, " written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the ages are come ” (1 Corinthians x. 11).

If a man has made some great discovery in science, or has devised some invention which he thinks will be of value to mankind, he is careful to have it accurately described and faithfully preserved. He would not leave its transmission to haphazard, without supervision, to the chances of blunders and misapprehension by those who are to convey the knowledge of it to others; and even if, of necessity, he must use some imperfect instruments or mediums for ex tending information, he would provide a permanent model or standard of comparison, by which their erroneous or defective statements might always be corrected. Precisely this is what our view supposes to have been done by our Heavenly Father.

3. Additional weight is given to this presumptive argument by considering the other supernatural manifestations or acts connected with the giving of the Scriptures, and recognized by most of those who differ with us as to the doctrine of Inspiration.

According to our doctrine, there are three stages of the supernatural in this matter: —

a. God communicating to the prophet the truth, — Revelation.

b. God controlling the record or utterance of this revelation by the prophet, — Inspiration.

c. God attesting it by divine signs so as to con firm the authority of the prophet as a divine messenger, — Evidential Miracles.

Of these, the first and third are admitted and contended for by our brethren, from whom we differ. They, as much as we, affirm revelation and evidential miracles. Now, if we admit the super natural at all, in giving man the knowledge of religious truth and duty, it is no more difficult to believe that enough was done to secure completely the result, than to allow that there was a miracle at the beginning of the process, and a miracle at the close, while in the midst the link of connection was broken by the intervention of uncontrolled human frailty and the liability to mistake.

If God works a supernatural wonder in giving revelation, and others to authenticate it, then it is not improbable, but likely, that He would exercise such control, and give such supernatural aid as might be necessary to secure the accurate transference of the revelation into human speech, so as to make it just what He meant it should be. If, on the other hand, revelation had been committed to mere oral tradition, without any writing, it might be seriously corrupted, or might even perish within two generations. Or if intrusted to unaided human record, it would have had neither unerring truth nor absolute divine authority at the very first.

If the plan of the Almighty was, by means of one or several men, to bring all nations into nearness with himself and acquaintance with his truth, it is reasonable to believe that He would not only super intend the process of their receiving, but also that of their imparting, the sacred truth. If the divine action ceased with communicating the revelation to them, then we have not a revelation at all, but only a human account of a divine revelation. AC cording to that view, there was a revelation, but it perished as such, with the men to whom it was imparted, and all that the world has is the fallible impression it made on their minds, or their fallible account of that impression.

The admission of a miraculous revelation not only thus creates the probability that all further steps would be taken that are necessary to secure the end in view, but also presents a sufficient answer to those who object to inspiration, because it implies the supernatural. A first step of this kind having been actually taken, it is unreasonable to allege that another is impossible or incredible.

4. A further presumptive argument for the Inspiration of the Scriptures may be gathered from what we know of the character and circumstances of the writers.

How could these books have been written by such men, in such surroundings, without divine aid? When we consider the subjects discussed, the ideas presented, — so hostile not only to their native prejudices, but to the general sentiments then prevalent with the wisest of mankind, — the whole system of principles interwoven everywhere with history and poetry and promise, as well as minute wonders and single excellences of the word, — our minds are constrained to acknowledge this as God's Book, in a high and peculiar sense.

If we begin with the Pentateuch, it is evident that its opening pages must be either the floating tradition of human conjectures and guesses at the origin of all things, or else the record of a revelation; for the events themselves occurred confessedly before the creation of man. No human testimony was possible, in order to describe what happened before human existence. And the alternative is to regard the account of the Creation as a mere human guess, or else as a divine revelation: in the one case, of no authority whatever; in the other, of complete authority.

Whence could Moses have obtained that sublime theology, that condensed summary of ethics, those marvellous precepts? Certainly not from the Egyptian sources, degraded by polytheism and human degeneracy, with which he was familiar by his education; nor from the Babylonish traditions which doubtless may have come down to him through the family of Abraham: for a stream can rise no higher than its source; and he towers peerless and unapproachable above all the sages and lawgivers of antiquity.

The Psalms are so far above the sacred lyric compositions, not only of any contemporary era, but of all subsequent times, as to leave no room for the fancy that these are the foam that crested the waves of Hebrew poetic passion, the utterances of mere national or individual longings, in one of the narrowest and least cultured of the peoples of the ancient world. Strange that these secluded Hebrews, who scarcely ever passed or looked be yond their own contracted region, unfamiliar with art and unpolished by contact with the literature of other nations, should have given utterance and melody to the deepest feelings of universal human nature! Strange that the words which linger most tenderly and solemnly on our lips, beside the couches of the dying, or at the graves of our dead, are the words of Moses, the Man of God, or of David, the sweet Psalmist of Israel, — of men who lived thousands of years ago, and belonged to what is often alleged to be the most unsympathetic and isolated of all races! Is there not reason in the claim that the Spirit of the Lord spake by them, and His word was in their tongue?

In the Prophets of the Old Testament we find no comparison, but a marked contrast, with the sooth sayers and wizards of antiquity, or of to-day. They were not the paid guardians of pretended oracles, ready for money to issue their ambiguous responses, concealing their unhallowed mysteries in suspicious darkness, and living in luxury on the wages of superstition and vice. Their rewards were more frequently contempt, derision, imprisonment, hatred, and death. Their announcements were made in palaces and cities, openly and unshrinkingly, at the gate of the temple, in the high places of the field, without the concealment or caution of conscious imposture, or the studied ambiguity which hides real ignorance under deceptive words. So much might be said, even apart from the foreknowledge of contingent events which is implied in predictive prophecy, and which certainly required divine aid. But if the reality of the numerous minute as well as more extended predictions and fulfilments be conceded, there can be no room for question as to the divine authority and influence under which they spake and wrote. Obviously, what they delivered was not merely for the men of their time, but to encourage, guide, and sustain those of after days; and this could not be available, unless both the pre cise expressions employed, and the record of them, were under a divine superintendence and control.

If now we pass to the New Testament, the argument becomes even stronger.¹ We are indeed in the Augustan age of Rome, but in a nook of the empire where the culture of that polished period has scarcely penetrated, and dealing with writers whose sentences have not been framed on the models of classic Greece or Rome. In the land of darkness, Galilee of the Gentiles, a great light has suddenly arisen. What but inspiration could have lifted these men above their sphere, and given their writings the characteristics by which they have dominated, moulded, and quickened the thought of the world, in its most thoughtful and cultured races, from that day to this? As Dr. E. Henderson well says:

"How otherwise can we account for the fact that persons of ordinary talent, untutored in the schools of Philosophy, dull of apprehension, pusillanimous in spirit, narrow in their opinions, secular in their hopes and strongly imbued with national prepossessions, should all at once have displayed the most extraordinary mental energy, a superiority to every earthly consideration, a profound acquaintance with truths of the most sublime character, and of the deepest interest to the whole human species, and an expansion of benevolence which embraced every nation and every human being on the face of the globe? To the operation of what causes, within the compass of those principles of action which govern mankind, are we to ascribe the sudden and entire transformation under gone by the plain, illiterate fishermen of Galilee, and the bigoted and zealous disciple of Gamaliel?" — Henderson on Inspiration, p. 219.

Whence could these four Evangelists, so diverse in their mental peculiarities, have derived the marvellously unique picture which they have presented of the historical Christ, except from its being a reality? No writer of fiction has ever succeeded in so combining the most apparently incompatible characteristics into a harmonious whole. And how could they, by unaided memory, after fifty or even twenty years, have furnished the incidents and the discourses, some casual and brief, some long and scarcely understood at the time? It is impossible to maintain the absolute historical accuracy of the Gospel historians, without also maintaining their inspiration.²

While not unduly pressing these presumptive arguments,³ it may fairly be claimed that they prepare the way for considering without prejudice the direct proofs of Inspiration.

1) B. F. Westcott, after speaking of the ordinary methods of proof of Inspiration, forcibly says:“ On the other hand we may examine the character and objects of the books themselves, and put together the various facts which appear to indicate in them the presence of more than human authority and wisdom, no less in the simplicity and rudeness of their general form than in the subtle harmony and marvellous connection of their various elements. And if this method of proof is less direct and definite than the other, — if it calls for calm patience, and compels thought in each inquirer, — it is also broader and more elastic, capable of infinite extensions and applications. Nor is it less powerful even while it is less cogent. To many perhaps the inward assurance which it creates is more satisfactory than the rigid deductions of direct argument. The unlimited multiplication of convergent presumptions and analogies builds up a strong and sure conviction, possessing a moral force which can never belong to a mere formal proof, even where the premises are necessary truths.

“It is in the perfection and oneness of their social teaching, so to speak, that the strongest internal proof of the plenary Inspiration of the Gospels is to be found. . . .  The manner in which these questions — the foundation doctrines of a Christian community — are treated by the Evangelists is such as to exclude the idea of a mere personal intuition, for that leaves no room for those combinations in which the fulness of the Gospel lies. However far one Evangelist might have been led by the laws of his own mind, it can only be by the introduction of a higher power that four un consciously combine to rear from different sides a harmonious and perfect fabric of Christian truth.” — B. F. WESTCOTT, Introduction to the Study of the Gospels, pp. 20–26.

2) With the Evangelists, authorship could not have been the pro duct of experience. If not the offspring of experience, authorship could not have been the result of education. If not the effect of education, authorship could not have had its birth in instinct, since instinct must emerge in the formulating intellect to become art. And at this point the ideal is inexplicable, except on the ground of a divine revelation in conjunction with a divine inspiration. Revelation applies to the facts used, inspiration to their mode of using them. — Dr. A. A. LIPSCOMB'S Studies in the Forty Days, p. 80.

3) It is a very strange misapprehension and exaggeration of the amount of stress assigned to the presumptive arguments, when Coleridge states what he considers to be the strength of the arguments in behalf of Inspiration with which he had to contend, or the “ motives usually assigned for maintaining and enjoining it. Such, for instance, are the arguments drawn from the anticipated loss and damage that would result from its abandonment; as that it would deprive the Christian world of its only infallible arbiter in questions of Faith and Duty; suppress the only common and in appellable tribunal; that the Bible is the only religious bond of union and ground of unity among Protestants, and the like.” (Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit, Letter IV.) Whatever weight these considerations are justly entitled to, they should have; but Mr. Coleridge surely was unfortunate, if he found these to be the chief arguments which upholders of the strict idea of Inspiration usually assigned for maintaining and enjoining it.” They are commonly stated, it is true, but always in a brief and preliminary way. The other arguments, hereafter to be presented, are the ones usually and mainly relied on.