is plainly and repeatedly declared that their writings are inspired, without a single statement of the manner of their inspiration, we are bound to believe that they are inspired, without believing at all, in one way or another, in what manner they are inspired.

It is a real relief to get away from man's fruitless speculations, and vain guesses, and laborious gropings in the dark, and philosophical disquisitions, to the calm, clear, and straightforward statements of the Bible itself. We turn to the first man God commissioned to make known His will, and we find him saying, "O my Lord, I am not eloquent, neither heretofore nor since Thou hast spoken unto Thy servant, but I am slow of speech and of a slow tongue. And the Lord said unto him, Who hath made man's mouth? . . . . Now, therefore, go and I will be with thy mouth, and teach thee what thou shalt say" (Ex. iv. 10-12). It will be observed that Jehovah does not promise to be with his mind, and teach him what to think, but to be with his mouth, and teach him what to say. So far as the record testifies, the thoughts of Moses were not inspired in any degree, but his words were inspired, and it is with these we have to do. Certain learned gentlemen claim to have discovered internal and linguistic evidence that Moses did not write the Pentateuch, and then with the strangest inconsistency insist that it is part of the inspired Scriptures. It is said that when Kuenen heard of this absurd position taken by his English and American admirers and followers, he exclaimed, "I have exposed the forgery of the books, but I certainly never thought of associating God Almighty with the fraud."

Those, however, who do not believe that the Pentateuch is a shameless forgery, are compelled to believe, unless they are as inconsistent as the higher critics, that its language was given by inspiration of God. "The Lord said unto Moses"; "The Lord spake unto Moses, saying"; "God spake all these

words, saying"; "The Lord called unto Moses, and spake unto him out of the tabernacle of the congregation, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them," are phrases of constant occurrence all through the Pentateuch. It is plainly stated that the tables Moses received on the mount "were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God, graven upon the tables"; "and the Lord spake unto Moses, face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend." Now, what are those who hold theories of inspiration, going to do with evidence like this, that might be multiplied indefinitely? The words just quoted are found more than five hundred times in the five books; and if Moses did not tell the truth, or if he yielded to a weak imagination, when he so often and so solemnly declares that the language he wrote and uttered was put into his mouth by the Lord, then his testimony is not worth a straw upon any subject whatever.

If the words were not inspired, why did he say, when the Israelites were nearing the end of their long journey in the wilderness, "Ye shall not add to the word which I command you, neither shall ye diminish aught from it"? (Deut. iv. 2). Surely the meekest man on the earth could not have attached such transcendent importance to his own word, nor could he have said, unless he knew they were inspired, "These words which I command thee this day shall be in thine heart; and thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes. And thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house and on thy gates" (Deut. vi. 6-9). He every where asserts that the words he communicated to the people were the words God told him to deliver; he nowhere intimates that any

message he uttered was his own in thought or language; and we are fairly compelled to accept his testimony upon this point, or to abandon all confidence in him as a trustworthy witness in any particular. When the higher critics tell us that he did not write the Pentateuch, they might as well tell us that our Lord Jesus Christ and His apostles, who over and over say he did w.ite it, were ignorant of what modern scholarship has discovered, or that they lent the sanction of their names to a gross fraud; and in either event they must be dismissed from the mind as not entitled to the least respect.

Turning to the second division of the Old Testament, which our Saviour recognized and adopted, we find David to be the principal actor and agent, through whom God made known His will; and we bring all the theories of inspiration side by side with his dying testimony. "Now these be the last words of David. David the son of Jesse said, and the man who was raised up on high, the anointed of the God of Jacob, and the sweet psalmist of Israel, said, The Spirit of the Lord spake by me, and His word was in my tongue" (2 Sam. xxiii. 1, 2). He does not say, "The Spirit of the Lord thought by me," but "spake by me"; nor does he say, "His ideas were in my mind," but "His word was in my tongue." So far as we can gather from the record, his thoughts were not inspired at all; and it is probable from the use made of his Psalms in the New Testament that his language often bore a meaning far beyond his conception of its import; but it is certain that his words were given by inspiration of the Holy Spirit.

Hence the value of the written word as it is set forth in all of his Psalms. "The words of the Lord are pure words, as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times"; "The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul; the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple; the statutes of the Lord are right, rejoicing the

heart; the commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes." "Forever, O Lord, Thy word is settled in heaven." "Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path." "The entrance of Thy words giveth light." "Thy word is true from the beginning." "Thou hast magnified Thy word above all Thy name," or above every other manifestation of Himself, in nature, or in science, or in human reason. In the historical books and in the Psalms, including the other poetical books, “The Lord said," "The Lord spake, saying," "Thus saith the Lord," "The word of the Lord came," occur about three hundred times; and are we to dismiss such testimony at the bidding of man's idle theories of inspiration? That word can do for us more than any earthly parent or power; for "when thou goest, it shall lead thee; when thou sleepest, it shall keep thee; when thou awakest, it shall talk with thee." No wonder it is said at the close of this second part of the Scriptures, "Every word of God is pure; . . . . add thou not unto His words, lest He reprove thee, and thou be found a liar."

Glancing for a moment at the third division of the Old Testament, known as the Prophets, let us compare human theories with divine testimony. We learn that Jeremiah recoiled, as Moses did, from the disagreeable mission upon which he was sent, saying: "Ah! Lord God! behold, I cannot speak; for I am a child. But the Lord said unto me, Say not, I am a child, for thou shalt go to all that I shall send thee, and whatsoever I command thee thou shalt speak. . . . Then the Lord put forth His hand and touched my mouth. And the Lord said unto me, Behold, I have put my words in thy mouth." He did not say, observe, "I have put my thoughts in thy mind and left thee to selection of any language that occurs to thee as suitable," but "I have put my words in thy mouth." Hence, all through his prophecy, “Thus

saith the Lord," "The Lord said unto me," are found at brief intervals, frequently sounding out again and again in the same chapter. But precisely the same thing is true of all the other prophets, without a single exception. Every one of them claims that he was delivering the very message God told him to deliver, and in the words of God. No man can dispute this statement, and there is not a hint in any part of the prophecies that in the least passage the writers were cast back upon their own thoughts or their own words. "Hear the word of the Lord," "The word of the Lord came," "Thus saith the Lord God," and similar declarations, are found about twelve hundred times in the prophecies; "saith the Lord" being repeated twenty-four times in the four short chapters of Malachi.

Are we to make nothing of all this? Is it to be set aside at the bidding of man's wholly uncalled-for theories of inspiration? Because he chooses to fancy that there are different kinds and degrees of inspiration, because he prefers to believe in inspired thoughts and uninspired words, because he tries to comfort himself with dynamic inspiration, because he is opposed to mechanical inspiration, are we to treat the explicit testimony of the word itself, given in more than two thousand places, as of no value? Out with all of these foolish theories, that are not worth the paper on which they are written! Men have no right to their opinions, when God has most explicitly and fully revealed His truth, as He has done upon this subject. To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them"; and it is certain that the theories of inspiration have only darkened His counsel. He does not set before us the foolish task of trying to explain how His book is inspired, but to believe, because He says it, that it is inspired and verbally inspired.