BUT there is a human element in the book as well as a divine. ‘Holy men
spake as they were moved.’ We shall take, therefore, a very partial view
of the whole subject if we neglect to consider the action of the holy men
as well as the moving of the Holy Ghost. What then are the plain,
obvious facts of the case? Are they not that the books contain as much
evidence of human mind, and human character as if they were uninspired
books? The human authorship is as prominent and conspicuous as the
divine, and any theory of inspiration which excludes it is, I cannot but
think, opposed to the facts of Scripture.
1. There is distinctive _character_ in the different writers. Compare
St. Paul and St. John, St. Peter and St. James, Jeremiah and Ezekiel, and
you see the most transparent variety, a variety which renders it
impossible to suppose that they were merely pens, machines, or copyists.
2. There is the use of _natural powers or gifts_. St. Paul was a
well-educated, intellectual man, with great reasoning powers, so he
supported truth by argument. David was a poet, so he breathed out as the
sweet psalmist of Israel the hallowed outpourings of a sanctified heart.
3. There is the use of _feeling_. All the emotions of the human heart
may be found in Scripture. There is no deep feeling of which man is
capable which is not expressed there. There is love, sorrow in some of
its most tender and touching forms, depression of spirits, joy, hope,
longing desire, deep contrition, calm faith, and perfect peace. All
these you find, not merely described by the inspired authors, but forming
part and parcel of the inspired word. They are the very word itself, and
are expressed as naturally as if there were no such thing as inspiration.
4. There is the use of _memory_. Our Lord’s promise to His Apostles in
John, xiv. 26, applies clearly to this point, and shows that the gift of
the Holy Ghost, so far from superseding memory, would quicken it, and
give it the power of recalling with accuracy the words intrusted to it.
‘He shall bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said
unto you.’
5. There was also the use of _personal experience_, as, _e.g._, when St.
John said, ‘The word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld
his glory’ (John, i. 14); and again, ‘That which we have seen and heard
declare we unto you.’ (1 John, i. 1, 3)
And lastly, and it is a very deeply interesting point, there was the
diligent _use of collected information_. See Luke, i. 1–3, where Luke
does not claim to write original matter, but to have received it from
those who from the beginning were eye-witnesses, and ministers of the
word. It was because he had a perfect understanding from them that he
undertook to write out in order the events of the narrative.
It is clear, therefore, that in the composition of Scripture there was
the free use of the human mind. The Pentateuch is the word of Moses as
well as the word of God, for when our Lord quotes the fifth commandment
in Mark, vii. 10, He introduces it by the words ‘Moses said;’ although
when He condemns His hearers for the breach of it, he says, they were
‘making the Word of God of none effect by their tradition.’ (Mark, v.
13.) The human element is therefore as plain as the divine. We have not
in our Bible a voice speaking from heaven in accents so strange to human
ears that it could only serve to amaze and terrify; but we have God’s
will presented to us through the medium of human language, human feeling,
human thought, and human inquiry; human in all respects but one, and that
is, as we have already found, that it is free from human error.