intended simply to illustrate one point, namely, that the words ut- tered or recorded by inspired men were the words of God. The Church has never held what has been stigmatized as the^mechani- cal theory of inspiration. The sacred writers were not machines. TTieir' self^conscidusness^vas not suspended ; nor were their intel- lectual powers superseded. HoTy men spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. It was men, not machines; not unconscious instruments, but living, thinking, willing minds, whom the Spirit used as his organs. Moreover, as inspiration did not involve the suspension or suppression of the human faculties, so neither did it interfere with the free exercise of the distinctive mental character- istics of the individual. If a Hebrew was inspired, he spake He- brew ; if a Greek, he spake Greek ; if an educated man, he spoke as a man of culture; if uneducated, he spoke as such a man is wont to speak. If his mind was logical, he reasoned, as Paul did ; if emotional and contemplative, he wrote as John wrote. All this is involved in the fact that God uses his instruments according to their nature. The sacred writers impressed their peculiarities on their several productions as plaiidy as though they were the sub- jects of no^xtraordinary influence. This is one of the phenomena oTTheTSlble patent to the most cursory reader. It lies in the very nature of inspiration that God spake in the language of men ; that He uses men as his organs, each according to his peculiar gifts and endowments. When He ordains praise out of the mouth of babes, they must speak as babes, or the whole power and beauty of the tribute will be lost. There is no reason to believe that the opera- tion of the Spirit in inspiration revealed itself any more in the con- sciousness of the sacred writers, than his operations in sanctifica- tion reveal themselves in the consciousness of the Christian. As the believer seems to himself to act, and in fact does act out of his own nature ; so the inspired penmen wrote out of the fulness of tlieir own thoughts and feelings, and employed the language and modes of expression which to them were the most natural and appro- priate. Nevertheless, and none the less, they spoke as they were moved by the Holy Ghost, and their words were Tus"words.
E. Proof of the Doctrine.
That this is the Scriptural view of inspiration ; that inspired men weie the organs of God in such a sense that their words are to be received not as the words of men, but as they are in truth, aTthe words of God (1 Thess. ii. 13), is proved, —
T.~Prom the signification and usage of the word. It is, of
158 INTRODUCTION. [Ch. VI. — P. R. of Faith
course, admitted that words are to be understood in their histor- ical sense. If it can be shown what idea the men Hving in the apostoUc age attached to the word ^co-icuo-tos and its equivalents, that is the idea which the Apostles intended to express by them. All nations have entertained the belief not only that God has access to the human mind and can control its operations, but that He at times did take such possession of particular persons as to make them the organs of his communications. Such persons were called by the Greeks ^eo^opoi (those who bore a God within them) ; or, €j^£os (those in whom a God dwelt). In the Septuagint the word 'nv'evfj.aTO(t>6po<i is used in the same sense. In Josephus,i the idea is expressed by the phrase " raJ ^etw irvevixaTL KeKiv7;/xevos ; " to which the words of Peter (2 Peter i. 21) exactly answer, i-n-o Trt'ei'/xaros 4>€p6iJ.- cvot; and what is written by men under this influence of the Spirit is called ypac^^ OeoTrveva-To^. (2 Tim. iii. 16.) Gregory of Nyssa,^ having quoted the words of our Lord in Matt. xxii. 43, " How then doth David in Spirit call him Lord," adds, ovkovv ry Swa^ct tov Uvev-
/xaros 01 6i.O(^opovp.€voL ruiv dytW e/xTrveovrat, koX 8ta tovto Tracra ypo.<^r] deo- Tn'ciJcrros Xiyerai, 8ia to ttjs Oeia^ e/ATrveucreo)? eii'ai oioao-zcaAtai', that is, " Hence those of the saints who by the power of the Spirit are full of God are inspired, and therefore all Scripture is called 6eo7neuo-Tos, because the instruction is by divine inspiration." The idea of in- spiration is therefore fixed. It is not to be arbitrarily determined. We must not interpret the word or the fact, according to our the- ories of the relation of God to the world, but according to the usage of antiquity, sacred and profane, and according to the doc- trine which the sacred writers and the men of their generation are known to have entertained on the subject.. According to all antiq- uity, an inspired man was one who was the organ of God in what he said, so that his words were the words of the god of which he was the organ. When, therefore, the sacred writers use the same words and forms of expression which the ancients used to convey- that idea, they must in all honesty be assumed to mean the same thing.
Argument from the Meaning of the Word Prophet.
2. That this is the Scriptural idea of inspiration is further proved fiom the meaning of the word prophet. The sacred writers divide the Scriptures into the " law and the prophets." As the law was written by Moses, and as Moses was the greatest of the prophets, it follows that all the Old Testament was written by prophets. If, therefore, we can determine the Scriptural idea of a prophet, we
i Antiquitits iv. 6, 5. ^ Contra Eunomium Orat. vi, t. ii. p. 187; Paris, 1616.