In my last Letter I said that in the Bible there is more that _finds_
me than I have experienced in all other books put together; that the
words of the Bible find me at greater depths of my being; and that
whatever finds me brings with it an irresistible evidence of its
having proceeded from the Holy Spirit. But the Doctrine in question
requires me to believe, that not only what finds me, but that all that
exists in the sacred volume, and which I am bound to find therein,
was--not alone inspired by, that is, composed by, men under the
actuating influence of the Holy Spirit, but likewise--dictated by an
Infallible Intelligence;--that the writers, each and all, were
divinely informed as well as inspired. Now here all evasion, all
excuse, is cut off. An Infallible Intelligence extends to all things,
physical no less than spiritual. It may convey the truth in any one of
the three possible languages,--that of Sense, as objects appear to the
beholder on this earth; or that of Science, which supposes the
beholder placed in the centre;--or that of Philosophy, which resolves
both into a supersensual reality. But whichever be chosen--and it is
obvious that the incompatibility exists only between the first and
second, both of them being indifferent and of equal value to the
third--it must be employed consistently; for an Infallible
Intelligence must intend to be intelligible, and not to deceive. And,
moreover, whichever of these three languages be chosen, it must be
translatable into Truth. For this is the very essence of the Doctrine,
that one and the same Intelligence is speaking in the unity of a
Person; which unity is no more broken by the diversity of the pipes
through which it makes itself audible, than is a tune by the different
instruments on which it is played by a consummate musician, equally
perfect in all. One instrument may be more capacious than another, but
as far as its compass extends, and in what it sounds forth, it will be
true to the conception of the master. I can conceive no softening here
which would not nullify the Doctrine, and convert it to a cloud for
each man's fancy to shift and shape at will. And this Doctrine, I
confess, plants the vineyard of the Word with thorns for me, and
places snares in its pathways. These may be delusions of an evil
spirit; but ere I so harshly question the seeming angel of light--my
reason, I mean, and moral sense in conjunction with my clearest
knowledge--I must inquire on what authority this Doctrine rests. And
what other authority dares a truly catholic Christian admit as
coercive in the final decision, but the declarations of the Book
itself,--though I should not, without struggles and a trembling
reluctance, gainsay even a universal tradition?
I return to the Book. With a full persuasion of soul respecting all
the articles of the Christian Faith, as contained in the first four
Classes, I receive willingly also the truth of the history, namely,
that the Word of the Lord did come to Samuel, to Isaiah, to
others;--and that the words which gave utterance to the same are
faithfully recorded. But though the origin of the words, even as of
the miraculous acts, be supernatural--yet the former once uttered--the
latter once having taken their place among the _phænomena_ of the
senses, the faithful recording of the same does not of itself imply,
or seem to require, any supernatural working, other than as all truth
and goodness are such. In the books of Moses, and once or twice in the
prophecy of Jeremiah, I find it indeed asserted that not only the
words were given, but the recording of the same enjoined by the
special command of God, and doubtless executed under the special
guidance of the Divine Spirit. As to all such passages, therefore,
there can be no dispute; and all others in which the words are by the
sacred historian declared to have been the Word of the Lord
supernaturally communicated, I receive as such with a degree of
confidence proportioned to the confidence required of me by the writer
himself, and to the claims he himself makes on my belief.
Let us, therefore, remove all such passages, and take each Book by
itself; and I repeat that I believe the writer in whatever he himself
relates of his own authority, and of its origin. But I cannot find any
such claim, as the Doctrine in question supposes, made by these
writers, explicitly or by implication. On the contrary, they refer to
other documents, and in all points express themselves as sober minded
and veracious writers under ordinary circumstances are known to do.
But, perhaps, they bear testimony, the successor to his
predecessor?--Or some one of the number has left it on record, that by
especial inspiration _he_ was commanded to declare the plenary
inspiration of all the rest?--The passages, which can without violence
be appealed to as substantiating the latter position, are so few, and
these so incidental,[173]--the conclusion drawn from them involving
likewise so obviously a _petitio principii_, namely, the supernatural
dictation, word by word, of the book in which the question is found;
(for until this is established, the utmost that such a text can prove,
is the current belief of the writer's age and country concerning the
character of the books, then called the Scriptures;)--that it cannot
but seem strange, and assuredly is against all analogy of Gospel
Revelation, that such a Doctrine--which, if true, must be an article
of faith, and a most important, yea, essential article of
faith,--should be left thus faintly, thus obscurely, and, if I may so
say, _obitaneously_, declared and enjoined. The time of the formation
and closing of the Canon unknown;--the selectors and compilers
unknown, or recorded by known fabulists;--and (more perplexing still,)
the belief of the Jewish Church--the belief, I mean, common to the
Jews of Palestine and their more cultivated brethren in Alexandria, (no
reprehension of which is to be found in the New Testament)--concerning
the nature and import of the θεοπνευστια attributed to the precious
remains of their Temple Library;--these circumstances are such,
especially the last, as in effect to evacuate the Tenet, of which I am
speaking, of the only meaning in which it practically means any thing
at all, tangible, steadfast, or obligatory. In infallibility there are
no degrees. The power of the High and Holy One is one and the same,
whether the sphere, which it fills, be larger or smaller;--the area
traversed by a comet, or the oracle of the house, the holy place
beneath the wings of the Cherubim;--the Pentateuch of the Legislator,
who drew near to the thick darkness where God was, and who spake in
the cloud whence the thunderings and lightnings came, and whom God
answered by a voice;--or but a Letter of thirteen verses from the
affectionate _Elder to the elect lady and her children, whom he loved
in the truth_. But at no period was this the judgment of the Jewish
Church respecting all the canonical books. To Moses alone--to Moses in
the recording no less than in the receiving of the Law--and to all and
every part of the five books, called the Books of Moses, the Jewish
Doctors of the generation before, and coeval with, the Apostles
assigned that unmodified and absolute _theopneusty_, which our
divines, in words at least, attribute to the Canon collectively. In
fact it was from the Jewish Rabbis,--who, in opposition to the
Christian scheme, contended for a perfection in the Revelation by
Moses, which neither required nor endured any addition, and who
strained their fancies in expressing the transcendency of the books of
Moses in aid of their opinion,--that the founders of the Doctrine
borrowed their notions and phrases respecting the Bible throughout.
Remove the metaphorical drapery from the doctrine of the Cabbalists,
and it will be found to contain the only intelligible and consistent
idea of that plenary inspiration, which later divines extend to all
the canonical books; as thus:--"The Pentateuch is but _one Word_, even
the Word of God; and the letters and articulate sounds, by which this
Word is communicated to our human apprehensions, are likewise divinely
communicated."
Now, for 'Pentateuch' substitute 'Old and New Testament,' and then I
say that this is the doctrine which I reject as superstitious and
unscriptural. And yet as long as the conceptions of the Revealing Word
and the Inspiring Spirit are identified and confounded, I assert that
whatever says less than this, says little more than nothing. For how
can absolute infallibility be blended with fallibility? Where is the
infallible criterion? How can infallible truth be infallibly conveyed
in defective and fallible expressions? The Jewish teachers confined
this miraculous character to the Pentateuch. Between the Mosaic and
the Prophetic inspiration they asserted such a difference as amounts
to a diversity; and between both the one and the other, and the
remaining books comprised under the title of _Hagiographa_, the
interval was still wider, and the inferiority in kind, and not only in
degree, was unequivocally expressed. If we take into account the
habit, universal with the Hebrew Doctors, of referring all excellent
or extraordinary things to the great First Cause, without mention of
the proximate and instrumental causes,--a striking illustration of
which may be obtained by comparing the narratives of the same event in
the Psalms and in the Historical Books; and if we further reflect that
the distinction of the Providential and the Miraculous did not enter
into their forms of thinking,--at all events not into their mode of
conveying their thoughts,--the language of the Jews respecting the
_Hagiographa_ will be found to differ little, if at all, from that of
religious persons among ourselves, when speaking of an author
abounding in gifts, stirred up by the Holy Spirit, writing under the
influence of special grace, and the like.
But it forms no part of my present purpose to discuss the point
historically, or to speculate on the formation of either Canon.
Rather, such inquiries are altogether alien from the great object of
my pursuits and studies, which is, to convince myself and others, that
the Bible and Christianity are their own sufficient evidence. But it
concerns both my character and my peace of mind to satisfy
unprejudiced judges, that if my present convictions should in all
other respects be found consistent with the faith and feelings of a
Christian,--and if in many and those important points they tend to
secure that faith and to deepen those feelings--the words of the
Apostle,[174] rightly interpreted, do not require their condemnation.
Enough, if what has been stated above respecting the general doctrine
of the Hebrew Masters, under whom the Apostle was bred, shall remove
any misconceptions that might prevent the right interpretation of his
words. Farewell.
[173] With only one seeming exception, the texts in question refer to
the Old Testament alone. That exception is 2 Peter iii. 16. The word
λοιπας (γραφας) is, perhaps, not necessarily so to be interpreted;
and this very text formed one of the objections to the Apostolic
antiquity of the Epistle itself.
[174] 2 Tim. iii. 16.