unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book; and if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the Book of Life, and out of the Holy City, and from the things which are written in this book," Rev. xxii. 18, 19. This passage, so similar to the others above cited, is, for the same reasons for which it is applicable to the book of Revelation, applicable to the whole inspired volume.

In the references that have been made above to many passages of Scripture, to which more of a similar import might have been added, the complete verbal inspiration by which both Prophets and Apostles spoke and wrote, has, by their own DECLARATIONS, been unanswerably established. Whatever they recorded, they recorded by the Spirit of God. Whether they spoke in their own tongue, or in tongues which they had not learned; or whether they uttered prophecies which they understood, or concerning which they acknowledged, "I heard, but I understood not;" still they spoke or wrote as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. And if we have seen that even the Divine Redeemer himself, who is over all, God blessed for ever, when acting, in his mediatorial character, as the Father's servant, spoke, as he declares, not of himself, but the words of Him that sent him; and that God the Holy Ghost, in his office of Comforter, was not to speak of himself, but to speak whatsoever he should hear; is it to be presumed that Prophets and Apostles should ever have been left to choose the words which they have recorded in the Scriptures?

The words, then, which the Prophets and Apostles recorded, were the words of God,-Christ spake in them, they were the words which the Holy Ghost taught. The word of God is the sword of the Spirit, Eph. vi. 17." It is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword," Heb. iv. 12. This word was put into the mouths of the Prophets and Apostles ; and therefore their words and commandments have all the authority of the words and commandments of God. "I stir up your pure minds by way of remembrance, that ye may be mindful of the words which were spoken before by the holy prophets, and of the commandment of us, the Apostles of the Lord and Saviour," 2 Pet. iii. 1, 2. The term inspiration loses its meaning when an attempt is made to divide it between God and man. In what an endless perplexity would any man be involved, who was called upon to give to each degree of inspiration, under which it has been supposed the Bible is written, that portion which belongs to it! Let any one undertake the task, and he will soon find that he is building upon the sand. Yet such an attempt should have been made by those daring innovators, be they ancient or modern, who have represented the sacred volume as a motley performance,part of it written under an inspiration of SUGGESTION or REVELATION,-part of it under an inspiration of DIRECTION,-part of it under an inspiration of ELEVATION,-part of it under an inspiration of SUPERINTENDENCE,—(all improperly called inspiration),— and part of it under NO inspiration at all!

But why have such distinctions been introduced? Do they diminish the difficulty of our conceiving how the inspiration of the Holy Ghost is communicated to those who are the subjects of it? Is it easier to con

ceive that a meaning without words should be imparted to the mind of man, than that it should be conveyed to him in words? Instead of being diminished, the difficulty is increased tenfold. But, in either case, we have nothing to do with difficulties: it is a subject which we cannot comprehend; and in whatever way the effect is produced, it is our duty to believe what the Holy Scriptures assert, and not to resort to those vain speculations on the subject by which men darken council by words without knowledge. Every Christian should remember that the view which he takes of the inspiration of the Scriptures is to him of the greatest practical importance. With what a different feeling must that man read the Bible, who believes that it is a book which partly treats of "common and civil affairs," and partly of " things. religious," which is partly the production of men, who were sometimes directed in one way, sometimes in another, and who sometimes were not directed at all, and partly the production of God, and that it contains certain things unworthy of being considered as a part of Divine revelation,-from the feeling of the Christian, who reads that sacred book under the solemn conviction that its contents are wholly religious, and that every word of it is dictated by God! In reading these words, Proverbs, iii. 2, " My son, despise not the chastening of the Lord, neither be weary of his correction," how differently must he be affected who reads them as addressed to him merely by Solomon, from the man who views them as addressed to him by his heavenly Father, according to Hebrews, xii. 5! Paul, in that Epistle, in making various quotations from the Old Testament, refers to them expressly as the words of the Holy Ghost. As far as distinctions in inspiration are admitted, their tendency is to diminish our

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reverence for the Bible, and to exclude as much as póssible the agency of the Spirit of God in its composition. In the same way, men eagerly oppose the doctrine of a particular providence, as one on which it is not prudent" to insist, as not "necessary," and as "attended with difficulties," while they labour to exclude the agency of God from the government of the world, and from the direction of the course of events, by ascribing the whole to the operation of what are called "the laws of nature."

of

Dr Doddridge, in his Essay on Inspiration, p. 58, after desiring the reader to observe, that in very few instances he has allowed an error in our present copies (of the Scriptures), and that, in these few instances, he has imputed it to translators-adds, " because, as Mr Seed very properly expresses it in his excellent sermon on this subject, (which, since I wrote the former part of this dissertation, fell into my hands,) a partial inspiration is, to all intents and purposes, no inspiration at all: For, as he justly argues against the supposition any mixture of error in these sacred writings, mankind would be as much embarrassed to know what was inspired, and what was not, as they could be to collect a religion for themselves; the consequence of which would be, that we are left just where we were, and that GOD put himself to a great expense of miracles to effect nothing at all; a consequence highly derogatory and injurious to his honour." It is not a little remarkable, that such sentiments should thus be approved of by one who, in the same work, has ascribed various degrees of inspiration to different parts of the Scriptures. Let this glaring inconsistency be considered by those who have followed Dr Doddridge in his unscriptural views on this subject.

It is allowed by Dr Doddridge, that under what is called the inspiration of suggestion," the use of our faculties is superseded, and GOD does as it were speak directly to the mind; making such discoveries to it, as it could not otherwise have obtained, and dictating the very words in which these discoveries are to be communicated to others: so that a person, in what he writes from hence, is no other than first the Auditor, and then (if I may be allowed the expression) the Secretary, of GOD; as John was of our Lord Jesus Christ, when he wrote from his sacred lips the seven Epistles to the Asiatic Churches. And it is no doubt to an inspiration of this kind that the Book of the Revelation owes its original." (Doddridge on Inspiration, page 41.) Why, then, has Dr Doddridge supposed that any other part of the Bible was written under an inspiration of a different kind? Where did he learn this? Was it less necessary that the Epistles which were written to the other churches, as "the commandments of the Lord," 1 Cor. xiv. 37, should be fully inspired, than for those addressed to the seven churches of Asia? or was it requisite that, to the Book of Revelation, a higher degree of inspiration should belong, than to the other books of the Holy Scriptures? And where, we are entitled to ask, do the Scriptures sanction such distinctions? But if they in no part give the smallest countenance to them, or to any thing similar, what right has any man to introduce them, and to teach what the Scriptures have not only not taught, but the contrary of which they have most explicitly taught? To invent distinctions that consider some parts of the Scriptures as half inspired, and others as not inspired at all, and relating to things merely civil, is most dishonourable and de