CHAPTER XI. RESUME AND CONCLUSION.-ANSWER TO THE QUESTION OF THIS BOOK AND OUTLINE OF THE METHOD TO BE EMPLOYED IN THE We have now examined the several arguments which are ordinarily advanced in support of an inspiration of the Bible which is defined as rendering that blessed book infallible. We have not attempted to open the subjects of Miracles or of Prophecy generally; but we have probably seen enough of the Scriptural teaching on these points to assure the reader that they cannot either of them be adduced in proof of inspiration making the Bible infallible. We have seen that the authority said to be attributed to Scripture by Jesus cannot be understood as implying the infallibility of Holy Writ; and that, if it could, we should still need some proof that we had an infallible record of what Jesus said. We have seen that the amazing excellence of the Bible no more proves it infallible than similar excellence proves any thing else, in which that excellence resides, to be free from all error and imperfection. We have seen that, instead of the History of the Canon proving the Bible infallible, that History itself needs much investigation, if indeed it be not hopelessly dark, so that it is rather the goodness and approved ex cellence of the Old and New Testaments which warrant our assenting to their canonicity than their canonicity which assures us of their inspiration. We have seen that our Lord's several promises of inspiration may be-if indeed we should not say must be-so interpreted as wholly to exclude the element of infallibility from the idea of inspiration. We have seen that the common arguments, from antecedent probabilities and from supposed consequences, are altogether inadequate to support the notion of scriptural infallibility, and, indeed, are quite unworthy to give pause to an earnest mind which has a clear perception of some unrecognised, and perhaps unpalatable, though useful and important truth. And, yet again, we have seen that there is nothing in the idea of inspiration itself which renders it incompatible for errors to exist in a person or in a book in which a measure of the Spirit of God is indwelling. Besides these and some other points, which have all been touched in the course of the preceding pages, we know no other argument, worth calling such, which has been, or can be, adduced to support the popular doctrine of inspirational infallibility. In our first Book we saw clear indications that the Bible contained errors in history, in morality, and even in religion. That it contains scientific errors few men of ordinary candour and intelligence are now prepared to deny. Thus then our present position is that we have shown there is no reason which ought to lead us to expect infallibility, or freedom from all error, in an inspired book: and, moreover, we have seen that the Bible, which we acknowledge as an inspired book,—yea, as pre-eminently the inspired book-has in its pages unmistakable proofs of its fallibility. We have, for ourselves at least, exorcised the ghost of infallibility from the Bible: but is that volume, therefore, become profitless in our eyes? Far otherwise. We value it, not because of the spurious ornaments of tinsel with which men had surrounded it, but for the real and genuine gold which the heavenly Father has placed therein. Do we cast away as valueless the writings of Thucydides, or Tacitus, or Aristotle, because they have some errors in them? Shall we tread under foot and despise Milton, Shakspeare, or Racine, because they are fallible? Do we ignore the lessons of Bacon, of Newton, of Herschel, or of Lyell, of Chalmers, of Arnold, of Whately, of Neander, or of Coleridge, because neither those nor any other writers or their writings have been infallible? Nay, does any sane and godly man despise and neglect the teaching of his church because he may hold, with the twenty-first Article of the Episcopalians in England, that even duly summoned general councils of the universal church "may err, and sometimes have "erred, even in things pertaining unto God?" If then we revere and study all the so-called uninspired books which we deem wise and good though fallible, why, because we have abandoned an untenable and unreasonable notion of its infallibility, should we lose one jot of veneration for that best and holiest book, the Bible, to which many, if not all, of the greatest and wisest men, in modern times at least, have agreed in affixing the glorious epithet "Inspired?" Instead of adopting any such rash and unholy course of contempt, it will be our effort, in the next Book, to ascertain what is rightly meant by designating the Bible as inspired: and then, in another portion of our volume, we may try to answer for ourselves the question, What is the just authority of the Bible in matters of religious faith? and on what ground, if not on its infallibility, does that authority rest? BOOK III. WHAT IS THE TRUE MEANING OF THE TERM "INSPIRATION?" CHAPTER I. PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. IF, as a matter of fact, the Bible be not infallible; and if there be no good reason which can be assigned for our supposing the sacred volume otherwise than fallible, what shall we say of the inspired writings? And first, Do we believe the Bible to be inspired at all? Undoubtedly we do. We are firmly convinced that the writers of Holy Scripture were inspired, and that their writings are the reflex of their own inspired minds and thoughts and thus we most distinctly avow our belief in the inspiration of the Bible. But, as has been seen, we are assured that there is no connexion whatever between Infallibility and Inspiration. SECTION 1.-The idea of " Inspiration," but not the word, is in Scripture. WHAT then is the true meaning of this solemn and important word? |