OBJECTIONS CONSIDERED.

Various objections have been urged against the conclusions enumerated at the close of our last chapter, some of them involving a general denial of inspiration, and some a denial of particular conclusions. Several theories of inspiration, which conflict more or less with these conclusions, have also been propounded, and these demand attention in order that the whole subject may be before the mind of the student. We shall consider first the objections, and afterward the adverse theories.

Paul makes some statements in the seventh chapter of

I. Corinthians, which have been interpreted to mean that he wrote that chapter without inspiration. In the course of the chapter he discusses three questions: first, the wisdom of marriage under existing circumstances, and of the temporary separation of husband and wife by consent (1-9); second, the propriety of separation from an unbelieving husband or wife (1024); and third, the wisdom under existing distress of giving virgins in marriage (25-40).

After concluding his answer to the second branch of the first inquiry he says: "This I say by way of permission, not of commandment." This has been understood to mean that he was permitted to say this, but not commanded; and that therefore he said it on his own human authority. Rut the context clearly shows that the distinction is between his permitting and his commanding the husband and the wife. The remark, then, has no bearing on our question, unless it be to show that Paul's authority was so supreme that he could give commands or grant permission to the disciples, as each appeared proper.

In discussing the second question he introduces one precept with the words, "Unto the married I give charge, yea, not I, but the Lord;" and another with the words, "But to the rest say I, not the Lord." Here he has been supposed to give one precept by the authority of the Lord, and the other by his own authority, without the lord's. But the real distinction is between what the Lord had taught in person while in the flesh, and what Paul teaches as an apostle. This is proved by the fact that the one precept is found in tin4 sermon on the mount, and the other is not found in any of the Lord's personal teachings. It is also proved by the fact that after giving the precept in question he says: "And so I ordain in all the churches" (17).

In discussing the third question he starts out by saving: "Now concerning virgins, I have no commandment of the Lord: but I give my judgment as of one that hath obtained mercy of the Lord to be faithful. I think, therefore, that this is good by reason of the present distress, namely, that it is good for a man to be as he is." He proceeds to state at length his judgment, and then concludes with the words: "But she is happier if she abide as she is, after my judgment: and I think that I also have the Spirit of God." Here, after beginning with his human judgment, he ends with the words, "I think that I also have the Spirit of God." Does he mean to express a mere opinion, with attending doubt, that he had the Spirit of God? If so, it follows that on this one point he was not certain that he was guided by inspiration; and as he expresses no such doubt on anything else in his writings, it would follow that on this alone did he have any such doubt. But if Paul thought he had the Spirit, why should we think that he had not? Surely he had better grounds on which to form an opinion than we. But even this consideration does not bring us to the end of the matter. In the words, "I think that I also have the Spirit of God," the second I is emphatic, as appears from the fact that instead of being understood from the person of the verb, as the rule is when there is no emphasis, it is expressed (δοχῶ δὲ χὰγὼ πνεῦμα θεοῦ ἔζειν). The term also (χαι) connected with it adds to the emphasis; and the effect of the whole is to emphasize the fact that he also had the Spirit as well as somebody else. There were men in the church at Corinth with spiritual gifts; and it is probable that their authority, or that of some other Apostle, had been arrayed by misrepresentation against his; so, in order to silence any such plea for disregarding his teaching on the subject, he (doses the discussion with the modest but very emphatic reminder that he spoke by inspiration, whether others did or not. This passage, then, furnishes not the slightest ground for doubt of its own inspiration.

In writing to the Corinthians, Paul speaks of one matter in which his memory had failed. After mentioning the names of some among them whom he had himself baptized, he says: "Beside, I know not whether I baptized any other" (1. Cor. i. 16). This lapse of memory is held as proof that lapses of memory in general, and consequently other mistakes of a like nature, are not inconsistent with the inspiration which the Apostles claimed. But they did not claim that the Holy Spirit was to bring all things to their remembrance; the promise was limited to the things which Jesus had taught; and the reference here is to something that Paul had done. Doubtless we may understand that the promised aid implied a remembrance of all, whether spoken by Jesus or not, that might be necessary in any manner to their official work; but in the instance here mentioned there was no such necessity, seeing that his argument was complete without it; and it is for this reason, perhaps, that the Holy Spirit did not supply the missing facts, or that Paul did not refresh his own memory by making proper inquiry.

The fact that Paul rebuked the high priest, not knowing who he was, and then, on learning, apologized (Acts xxiii. 1-5), has been used by some as evidence against inspiration. It is held that, if inspired at all, he would have known who the man was whom he rebuked, and that he would not have made a speech for which he owed an apology. But this is to assume, as in the last instance, that it was the work of the Spirit to make known to the inspired man everything that he did not know. We must keep in mind that its work was not this, but to guide them into just that amount of truth and knowledge which was needful for the work to which they were called. If now we inquire whether the Spirit guided Paul sufficiently on this occasion, without revealing to him that the presiding officer was the high priest, I think we shall answer in the affirmative. When the person in question commanded that he be smitten in the mouth for merely saying, "I have lived in all good conscience before God until this day," it was proper that he should be told, "God shall smite thee, thou whited wall." And when Paid, after saving this, was told that the man was the high priest, it was certainly most becoming in Paul, without retracting a word, to say to the bystanders, "I knew not, brethren, that he was the high priest: for it is written, Thou shalt not speak evil of a ruler of thy people." It is probable that the Holy Spirit withheld the information from him that he might not feel restrained from littering a rebuke which was greatly needed on the occasion, and which was in reality, a judicial divine sentence. The promise was that, when brought before governors and councils, the Spirit should give them what to say; and surely no one can pretend he did not on this occasion say the very best thing that could have been said.

It has been charged that Paul reasoned erroneously, and that this refutes the claim of inspiration. The instance most usually cited is the following: "Now to Abraham were the promises spoken, and to his seed. He saith not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to thy seed, which is Christ" (Gal. iii. 16). It is alleged that Paul here argues from a false premise in assuming that if God meant more than one seed he would have used the plural number, whereas the word seed in Greek and Hebrew, as in English, is a collective noun, and is used in the singular form whether the reference is to one or many. But Paul could not have been ignorant of this usage; for be was both a Greek and a Hebrew scholar, and a mere tyro in the grammar of cither language would know this much. If special proof that he knew it were needed, we have it in verse 29 of this very chapter, where he uses the singular number of this word to includes many, saying, "If ye are Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise." Moreover, he was writing to Greek-speaking people, every one of whom with the least intelligence was acquainted with this usage.

Paul's real purpose in the passage is to teach that although God used a term which, as every Hebrew scholar knew, could convey the idea of plurality, it was not plurality that he meant. In other words, he teaches that God did not mean all of Abraham's offspring, although he used a term which might be so construed. The passage is an authoritative interpretation of the mind of God in a promise which was purposely made obscure by the use of an ambiguous term, and left so until the time of the fulfillment, when its obscurity was cleared up by this inspired apostle. And it must be conceded that were it not for this interpretation, no human being could to this day know that such was God's meaning. So far as Paul employs argument in the case, it is used not to prove that his interpretation is correct, but to show that his interpretation is not precluded by the terms which God employed. If God had said seeds instead of seed, the interpretation would have been inadmissible, whether the phraseology employed had been grammatical or not; for it would unquestionably have expressed the idea of plurality. Whether it would have been grammatical or not, depends on the question whether reference was had to individuals or to kinds of offspring. In the latter case the plural is rightly employed in English, as when we say, a dealer in seeds; and we have at least one instance in which Paul himself employs it in Greek. In his argument on the resurrection (I. Cor. xv. 37, 38), he says: "That which thou sowest thou sowest not the body that shall be, but a bare grain, it may chance of wheat or of some other kind; but God giveth it a body even as it pleased him, and to each of the seeds (ἑχάστῳτῶνσπερμάτω) a body of its own." Here, by "each of the seeds," he means not each individual grain of wheat; but, having specified wheat or some "other kind," he refers to the different kinds of bodies which he gives to the different kinds of seeds. The Septuagint version, Paul's Greek Bible, has five instances of the same use of this word in the plural (Lev. xxvi. lb; I. Sam. viii. 15; Ps. cxxv. 6; Is. lxi. 11; Dan. i. 12, 16), and the Hebrew text has one (I. Sam. viii. 15). Did Paul then refer to kinds of posterity? He certainly did; for in this chapter he makes believers in Christ one kind, being children of Abraham by faith in Jesus, though not children literally; and in the next chapter he makes Isaac and his descendants another kind, being children by promise and also children literally; and he makes Ishmael and his posterity still another kind, being children of the flesh and not of the promise (iv. 23; 28, 29). So, then, here are at least three kinds of children of Abraham, making three kinds of seeds clearly distinguished from one another, and furnishing ground, if such had been the will of God, for the use of the plural, "seeds."

One of the most common grounds for denying the inspiration of the New Testament writers, and especially such inspiration as could guard them from error, is the allegation that they contradict one another, and that they also contradict known facts of history and science. But while this charge is boldly and confidently made, it has never been made good. We have considered in a former chapter the most plausible efforts to make it good, and found them all fallacious; and we shall therefore give4 it no further consideration here.

The same class of men who deny inspiration on account of the alleged contradictions between the writers, also deny it on account of their agreements. The striking agreements in many passages between the three synoptic Gospels, agreement in minute details and even in words, is held to be inconsistent with their guidance by a common Spirit, and to demand an inquiry into the common human sources from which they obtained their information. It is very clear that John and Matthew needed no human sources except their own remembrance of events which they had witnessed, together with direct information from other witnesses of a few incidents which did not come immediately under their eyes. As for Mark and Luke, they must of course have derived their information from others. The question, then, as to how it happened that Mark and Luke have so much matter in common with Matthew, while it is one of curiosity, can not, by any answer which may be given, affect the inspiration of any one of them. If they copied largely from some original document, or if they adopted much from what had been orally repeated by the early preachers, they may have done either under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. The first preacher was Peter; and he was led to present such aspects of the career of Jesus as were known by the Spirit to be best calculated to convince and win the first hearers of the Gospel. The others, seeing this effectiveness, were doubtless led by their own judgment, as well as by the promptings of the Spirit, to follow in his track. Even Paul, when preaching to the Jews in Antioch of Pisidia, used much of the same matter employed by Peter on the day of Pentecost; and if this is true of the Apostle to the Gentiles, how much more certainly would all of the original Twelve and the preachers who started under their instruction do the same. In all ages since, when a great religious movement has been started by the preaching of a small number of men acting in concert, both they and their first co-laborers have uniformly employed for a considerable time the same arguments and illustrations which were found effective at the beginning. It is but a dictate of common sense that they should do so. Why should it be thought strange, then, or inconsistent with their inspiration, that the first gospel writers followed largely the same line of narrative? Doubtless if either had known what the other two had written, and had been left to his own impulse, he would have avoided repeating so much; and on this supposition there is need of adding the supposition of an overruling power just such as the Holy Spirit exercised. On the other hand, if they all wrote independently, the Holy Spirit may have led them to choose so much matter in common for the very purpose of securing to the world, without the knowledge of the men employed for the purpose, this threefold presentation of a certain portion of the Lord's life. In any view of the facts, then, they contain nothing to throw doubt on the Saviour's promise of inspiration, or on the apostolic testimony that the promise was fulfilled.

The varieties of style employed by New Testament writers, of which we have spoken in chapter iv., is held by many as proof that the Holy Spirit exercised no guidance over the words of the inspired; and by some, as proof that there was no miraculous inspiration at all. It has been assumed that if the writers had been guided by the Holy Spirit they would all have written in one style, the style of the Spirit. But this is to assume that the Holy Spirit either could not or would not guide each within the range of his own style and his own vocabulary. Either assumption is baseless, and therefore the conclusion is illogical.

With still more confidence it has been urged that the departures from literal quotation which we have already noticed in quoting both the Old Testament and the words of Jesus and his interlocutors, disproves inspiration with respect to the words. If it does, it also disproves it with reference to the ideas; for, as we have seen, in varying the words the ideas are also varied in some instances. But this objection can have force in either direction only on the assumption that if the Spirit guided at all he would allow no free quotation of the sense in different words, and that he would never quote his own previously expressed thoughts with variation. To point out these assumptions is to set aside the objection.

The question has been asked, What could be the utility of giving an infallibly correct text, seeing that it has been corrupted by the mistakes of transcribers, and that God knew it would be thus corrupted when he gave it? It is admitted that so far as the text has been corrupted beyond possibility of correction, it has been rendered useless; but what is the extent of such corruption? We have seen in Part First that we now possess nine hundred and ninety-nine thousandths of the text precisely as it was given to us, and that nearly all of the other one thousandth part has been settled with almost absolute certainty. The objection, then, is fallacious, in that it aims to spread over the whole hook the shadow of doubt which really affects only a very small part, and a part which is definitely known, and which is so marked in our latest English version as to point it out to the most unlearned reader. It might as well be asked, Why keep in our clerk's offices perfect standards of weights and measures, seeing that many of those in use agree but imperfectly with them? The answer is, we want the perfect standard in order that we may regulate THE instruments in use, and thus keep them as nearly perfect as possible, in like manner we need an infallible text of the Scripture TO begin with, in order that we may ever correct our copies by it and keep them as nearly like it as possible; and the fact that the church has succeeded in keeping her books precisely like the original text in almost every word through eighteen centuries is one of the marvels of that divine providence which watches over all things good and true.

Again it has been asked, What is the utility of an infallible original, seeing that nearly all men have to depend on fallible translations, and then on fallible interpretations, in order to get the meaning? The obvious answer is, that if we have an infallible original, so far as we get its real meaning through our translations and interpretations, we have the infallible truth; whereas, if the original is itself a fallible document, we are still a prey to uncertainty when its meaning is obtained. Moreover, this objection, like the preceding one, assumes too much. It assumes that the fallible interpreter! with his fallible translation, is unable to obtain with certainty the meaning of the original; whereas the fact is that he can and does obtain it, with the exception of occasional passages which are obscure. While it is true that in the Bible there are some words and some sentences whose precise shades of meaning can not be conveyed with unerring certainty in other than the original tongues, and a few whose meaning is not clear to proficient scholars in the original, still it is true that the great mass of words in any language can be translated into other tongues with absolute precision. To such an extent is this true, that every translator is conscious of rendering much that be translates so as to convey the thought with unmistakable accuracy, and every reader of a book knows, in regard to the chief part of it, that he has the meaning. As a consequence, in regard to the meaning of much the greater part of the Bible there is absolutely no difference of opinion. Such a consequence could not exist if the assumption which lies at the basis of the objection were a reality. There is, then, good cause for giving us an infallible book; for we do get its meaning in the main with infallible certainty; and it so happens with nearly all men who study it with diligence and candor that the part whose meaning they obtain without fail is the part most necessary to their present good and their final salvation.

The force of these objections, whether combined or taken, singly, instead of weakening the evidence for inspiration in! any of its particulars as set forth in chapters first, second and third, only tends to exhibit more fully its manifold working for our good, and to prove the wisdom of bestowing on the New Testament writers precisely that kind of inspiration set forth on the sacred pages. It meets the wants of our souls, and accomplishes the benevolent purposes of that Holy Spirit who "breathes where he listeth," and causes us to hear his voice.