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Just as some might doubt, whe- ther the world at large is governed by general law or by special interferences, and others might hesitate whether the knowledge of God has been given to man by development according to fitness, or by jumps of positive imposition and revocation ; so the • Compare St James v. 6 ; Joaephus, BeU, Jud. iv. 5, a, 3, 4 ; and Eusebius, HiH. Eccl. u. 43. t Genesis xxvii. 29 ; Ezekiel xxv. xxvi. t I take this opportunity of expressing my own conviction, that there neither can nor ought to be any general conversion of the Jews, without a fuU confession on our part of the wrong we have done their race, in argument and in act. INSPIRATION — HEBREW. 471 Sacred and most Blessed Voliune will be interpreted bj some largely, as a record of spiritual experiences, and hy others nar- rowly, as a communication of literal words. The more frankly we look at the books collected in what is called the Old Testa- ment, the more clearly we see them to comprehend the literature of the Hebrew priesthood and people. They are an expression of the national mind, or a reflexion of its consciousness. What- ever Almighty Grod had taught the Hebrews is therein written ; whether His lessons had the form of historical facts, or whether they came through a stir of the religious feelings, or whether they took a glow from the colouring of the imagination. No man can truly believe that God governs the world, and each nation in it, vnthout expecting that any true expression of a national consciousness, especially if trained by a devout priest- hood, and expounded with constant reference to the God of truth, will be pregnant with lessons significant to all men. For it will at the least be eloquent of that design which we believe to be fulfilling itself, as the will of God, in mankind. For there is a spirit in man, and the inspiration of the Almighty giveth him understanding*. It seemed indeed to the old Hebrews, that no guidance less than Divine could originate any art. Hence the arts of ploughing and sowing com are said in the Bible to * come forth from the Lord of hostsf.' The artificers who do cunning work for the tabernacle} are said to be * filled with the Spirit of God, in wisdom, and in understanding.' The Psalmist, when successful in battle, says, that ' the Lord teacheth his fingers to fight§.' When king Saul|| is filled with patriotic fervour, * the Spirit of the Lord' is said to come upon him, * and his anger was kindled greatly.' Even those darker passions and delusions, such as a fit of melancholy or any temptation, which the refined distinctions of later times ascribed to evil spirits, are, in the older books of the Old Testament, said to • Job xxxii. 8. t Isaiah xxviiL 14^9. t Exodus xxv. 30— 3'- § Psalm cxliy. i. II i Samuel xi. 6. 472 INSPIRATION WITHIN PROVIDENCE. * come from the Lord*.' Now writers whose perception of the Divine agency was so vivid that thej thus ascribed to it every earthly process, would not exclude from its operation the pen of the ready writer, and the chronicle of the recorder. We our- selves have noticed so many steps of law and instrumentality in the order of the world, that we can only accept such sayings by giving them a larger range. We interpret them as meaning, that even the results of human agency are ultimately gifts of a Divine Providence. It is hardly certain how far such interpre- tation would have agreed with the conception of the original writers. But perhaps it might ; for if the question had been stated to them, they would have been found not so much to have denied human agency as to have overleapt it in thought, or made it merely instrumental. One thing is quite clear, that in giving us knowledge of the past or of their own times, the sacred writers never profess to have derived it from other sources than such as were humanly open to them. * Is it not written?' they say of each memorable fact, in such a book, or chronicle. And when they give genealogies, they do so with a form of quotation, saying, * these are the generations,' or this is the pedigree. This we read in the Old Testament; and so in the New it was thought important that the first doctors of the Church should have been eye witnesses of the life of Christ; and if any Grospel has seemed written by any who had not been witnesses, the traditions of the early Church are careful to describe such writers as companions of the Apostles. Thereby is implied a conscious- ness that earthly facts were not to be described even in the most sacred books without earthly means of knowledge. It is quite in harmony with this reasonable view of our Sacred Volume, that every portion of it corresponds, in the range of its knowledge of facts, with the circumstances of each of its writers. There is no account of China or of America, nor any trace of language or science beyond those indigenous to Palestine, or accessible in • I Samuel xvi. 14— 13 ; 2 Samuel xxiv. i ; i Kings xxii. 19—13 [and len oertamly^ Ezekiel xiy. 9]. PSOYIDENCE WITHIK NATURE. 473 its neighbotirhood. Such limitation is found hj experience trae, not only of the Hebrew and Christian scriptures, but of every other sacred literature in the world. Whether we look to the Koran, or to the Vedas, we nowhere find in the books a larger range of knowledge of facts than belonged naturally to the share of the writers. Since then natural means are sufficient in the wisdom of God for the result, it is only folly and pride in man to imagine unnatural ones. Nor is it necessary that errors be found in the sacred document in order to confute any carnal imagination of earthly history having been communicated afresh from heaven with Divine infallibility. It suffices that the know- ledge of the writer correspond only with his circumstances, to render such a theory needless, and thereby to refute it. Much more, however, even the sUghtest error in things otherwise un- important, will overthrow so gratuitous and wanton a dream. It is somewhat less imreasonable to say, that an unseen inspira- tion may watch over a record of things known through natural Providence, and so make it faultless. But such faultlessness is not to be assumed without some reason, either of general proba- bility, or of Divine promise, or actual proof of its existence. We do not find it necessary to the value of history in general that all its records should be faultless. Nor is its wholesomeness neces- sarily lessened by its having a large infrision of poetry, or of imagination. The Grecian fable of the city of Troy, and the British romance of King Arthur, were both fanciful, yet were believed in good feith, and were the inspiring sources of more glorious life to Greece and Eui^ope than a thousand dull pages of facts. Nor are they now scofied at by any but brutal men. In the noblest nations, indeed, the instinct of truth will, with freedom, work itself out ; yet not so as to render each chronicler infallibly faultless. Still less can it be of importance to religion, which opens a kingdom of thought beyond earth and time, that its records of earthly events should be imnaturally infallible. We should not therefore say beforehand, that a religious docu- ment need be infallible: and if there is a Divine promise of 474 SECULAB KNOWLEDGE NEVEB UNNATURALLY COMMUNICATED. infallibility, it has to be shewn ; or if the thing has existed, its proo& must be brought. What then are we to saj to the claim of the Saugata that certain Cingalese chronicles axe to be con- sidered infallible records of the early progress of Buddhism, because they were written, he says, before the age of inspiration ceased*, though some hundreds of years after the date of the supposed events? It is clear that his argument comprehends under the term inspircUionj not only the notion of infiedlibility, which is questionable, but that of a heavenly communication of earthly facts, which is a thing without precedent in the world. All books everywhere, so far as they have made such a claim, have failed upon examination to make it good. We have seen some instances of such failure to-day in examining Indian reli- gious literature. Books said to have come bodily from the mouth of Brahmi, turn out to be the multifonn expression of many stages of thought and fluctuations of society. Wherever we were to extend a like examination, we should find an analogous result.