On the one hand, full weight must be given to that remarkable testimony of history wliicli West- cott, in the passage quoted al)ove, signalises. But a still more remarkable phenomenon of tlie same kind is apparent in the pages of the B. itself. From one point of view, nothing can be more un- systematic and fragmentary than its contents. It is full of contrasts and surface-discrepancies. It is made up of extracts from the lives of indi- viduals and the exiieriences of a people. All forms of literature are represented in it (see 'Jhe Literary Study of the Bible, by R. (!. Moultou). It presents no systematised tlieology or etliics. Yet a closer observation reveals the unity underlying all this variety. A progress is discernible from the first page to the last. Revelation corresponds to revelation, like the outcropping of the same rock-stratum in dillorent places. One thouglit, one plan, is seen to pervade the wliole, and to make tlie !{., if the product of many minds, the outcome of one Spirit, — not a 'library' only, as has been said, but a 'book.' Again, in so far as the B. is admitted to be inspired, its testimony to itself, the testimony of part to part, cannot be ignored. 'This is an argument which may easily be pushed too far and made to jirove too much ; its ap|>lication in any absolute way would require, for examiile, the (luestion of canonicity to bo already settled. But the great argument for the real inspiration of the B. in a special sense is that it commends itself to the minds of tliose who devoutly receive it, — what the Reformers designated the testimonium Spiritus Snncti. The relation of this to other evidences for the unique authoritj' of .Scrijiturc is expressed by the Westminster Confession (ch. i. 5) tlius : ' We may be moved and induced by tlic testimony of the Cliurch to an high and reverend esteem of the Holy Scrijiture, and the hcavenliiicsa of the nin^ter, the efficacy of the doctrine, the majesty of the style, the con.sent of all the parts, the scope of the whole (which is to give all glory to (Jod), the full discovery it makes of the only way of man's salvation, the many otlier incompar- able excellenceB, and the entire perfection thereof
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are arguments whereby it doth abundantly evi- dence itself to be the word of God ; yet, notwith- standing, our full persuasion and assurance of the infallible truth, and divine authority thereof, is from the inward work of the Holy Spirit, bearing witness by and with the word in our hearts.' This is the religious test of the value of Scripture. But it obviously applies only to the knowledge of salvation, of which Scripture is the vehicle. It is religious, not speculative — still less historical or scientific. However real and important the fact to which it points, it bears upon it a stamp of in- dividuality, subjectivity. As seen at work Lq Luther, for example, ' it is impossible to read his comments on Holy Scripture without feelin" that he realises its actual historical work and con- sequent spiritual meaning in a way which was un- known before. For him the words of apostles and prophets are "living words," direct and immediate utterances of the Holy Spirit, penetrating to the inmost souls of men, and not mere premisses for arguments or proofs' (Westcott, I.e. pp. 245, 246). But a criterion which in Luther and other Re- formers was compatible with a large degree of liberty, gave rise in its later and more formal application to the ' summary method,' as Westcott calls it, of cutting the knot of a difficulty, dis- posing of evidfpce by dogmatically pronouncing it superfluous, and assuming that history has been fully interrogated and has spoken its last word, and so converting a great truth into a fetter and a falsehood.
On the other hand, while the elements which thus make for the inspiration of the B. and its unique authority as a spiritual guide are widely and fully recognised, the human element in Scripture has in recent times forced itself upon the attention of the thoughtful. Here it is not merely that by evident signs the biblical writers show that they were not simply amanuenses writing to the dictation of a Spirit above them ; it is not the occurrence of discrepancies and inconsistencies in the B. itself, or in connexion with external history and modern science : it is rather the recognition of a progressive revelation in the B., that it contains the history of the struggle between the Divine light and human ignorance and sin, that the revelation is conveyed to us in such measure and manner as each of the writers was able to apprehend it and give it forth. Thus the process traced in an earlier portion of this article, whereby the 'books' became the 'Book,' tlie change of the point of view from plurality to unity, is one which wisdom, thought, and investiga- tion find it necessary, to some extent, to reverse. In order to understand even this unity aright, it is found essential to scrutinise the several parts of which it is made up, the manifold media through which the revelation has been given, the several stages through which the B. as we know it has been evolved. This side of it will fall to be more carefully considered in the article Theologv ; in the meantime it is needful to observe that, as (ilailstone remarks, ' if any development of Divine Revelation be .acknowledged, if any distinction of authority between different portions of the text be allowed, then, in order to deal with subjects so vast and diliicult, we are at once compelled to assume so large a liberty as will enable us to meet all the consequences which follow from abandoning the tlieory of a purely verbal inspiration ' {Butler, iii. 17).