THE

DOCTRINE OF INSPIRATION:

BEING

AN INQUIRY

CONCERNING THE

INFALLIBILITY, INSPIRATION, AND
AUTHORITY OF HOLY WRIT,

BY THE REV. JOHN MACNAUGHT, M. A., OXON.,

INCUMBENT OF ST. CHRYSOSTOM'S CHURCH, EVERTON, LIVERPOOL.

Second Edition, Revised and Corrected.

"Have you seen your uncle's 'Letters on Inspiration,' which I believe are to be pub-
"lished ?" -They have since appeared as 'The Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit.'
"They are well fitted to break ground in the approaches to that momentous question
"which involves in it so great a shock to existing notions; the greatest, probably, that
"has ever been given since the discovery of the falsehood of the doctrine of the Pope's
"infallibility. Yet it must come, and will end, in spite of the fears and clamours of the
"weak and bigoted, in the higher exalting and more sure establishing of Christian truth."
-Letter (Jan. 24, 1835) from the great and good Dr. Arnold, of Rugby, to Mr. Justice Cole-
ridge.-Stanley's Life of Arnold, p. 317, edit. 6th.

"If the word Inspiration be taken in such a sense as to include Infallibility, we can scarcely
"believe that St. Mark and St. Luke were inspired."-Bp. Marsh's translation of Michaelis'
Introduction to the New Testament, vol. i. p. 96, edit. 1793.

LONDON:

LONGMAN, BROWN, GREEN, AND LONGMANS.

1857.

110.0.88.

ΤΟ

ALL RULERS, TEACHERS, AND OTHER THOUGHTFUL PERSONS

THIS VOLUME

IS MOST RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED

BY THEIR HUMBLE SERVANT

THE AUTHOR.

PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.

BY way of preface to this Essay the author has only to say that, in the course of a protracted and earnest inquiry, he has not found any one book or teacher to give him a definite and satisfactory explanation of the very important term “Inspiration." There is, in one school of thought, much which has been written ably, undeniably, and, no doubt, honestly, in opposition to the common idea of Inspiration; and there is, in another school of thought, not a little which has been written truly, ingeniously, and piously in support of the common idea: but few, if any, earnest thinkers will call in question the desirableness, not to say the necessity, of some simple and self-consistent treatise which—while, on the one hand, it shall contain a refutation and abandonment of what is untenable in the popular notion, and, on the other hand, an assertion and demonstration of the true doctrine of Inspiration-shall at the same time vindicate a high reverence for the just authority of Holy Writ, and shall show how this reverence for the sacred volume is to be reconciled both with the articles of existing Creeds, and with the startling facts, bearing on Inspiration, which are made apparent by a diligent analysis of Scripture itself.

The object of this Essay is thus to be destructive of prevailing errors; to be constructive of a true doctrine of inspiration; to uphold the highest reasonable authority for