man.

the writers were deeply versed in human learning, would this account for their having eclipsed the writings of those master-spirits, who once shed a lustre on the Lyceum, the Portico, and the Academy; or of those, who now kindle the devotions and animate the zeal of the effeminate Persian, of the timid Hindoo, of the busy Chinese, and of the haughty MussulBut, this superiority, not traceable to the operation of natural causes, demonstrates a difference in the source of their information and, in connexion with the predictions which occasionally illuminate their pages, with the miraculous attestations, often accompanying their oral communications, and with the express testimony of the writers themselves, whose veracity has never been impeached, proves that "holy men wrote as they were moved by the Holy Ghost."

By what means, indeed, whether audible, mental, or ocular, they distinguished his influence from their own unassisted reasonings, is perhaps impossible for us to

ascertain. Nor is it material: since they who could affirm, "These are the commandments which the Lord your God commanded"-"The spirit of the Lord spake by me"-"Thus saith the Lord" "The Lord hath spoken"-" I saw visions of God"-"I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you;" and who, as in the case of the apostles in particular, were endued with the power of " of "discerning spirits," must

have had some certain method of distinguishing it, though unknown to us.

But we are by no means to infer that each writer, whilst composing, was the subject of the same unvarying kind of influence. He, who said "Let there be light," but "formed man of the dust of the ground, breathing into his nostrils the breath of life," could unquestionably adapt the nature of his influence to the nature of the effect to be produced; and could proportion in the intellectual, as he

9 Deut. vi. 1. 2 Sam. xxiii. 2. Isa. l. 1, &c. Ps. l. 1,

&c. Ezek. i. 1. 1. Cor ii. 23.

invariably does in the material world, the degree of agency exerted to the degree of necessity for it. Consequently, the real exigence of the writer was, in every instance, the measure of the assistance afforded. If the historical parts, or books of the Old Testament, were compiled from the public registers, or were arranged from other authentic sources; if the Psalms were collected into one volume, and the book of Proverbs was arranged in the order in which we now have it :1 or when the writer, as Solomon, records maxims which were probably the result of his own reflections: and when St. Paul appeals to the poets, Aratus, Menander and Epimenides for the truth, or illustration of his positions, it is clear that, in these and similar instances, all the assistance required was to "guide" them in the selection of such materials as would contribute to the design originally intended by the Holy Spirit in the entire volume, a method pursued by the Evan

Prov. xxv. 1.

2

gelists, under his guidance, as we learn from the testimony of St. John, compared with the promise of our Lord.

It is evident, however, that several of the writers penned their compositions under very different circumstances. If they were not the instruments employed in performing the wonders related, they were the spectators of the scenes which their pens describe; or had listened to the instructions which they were commissioned subsequently to record for the benefit of future generations. Thus, Moses records the miracles wrought by him in Egypt; the dividing of the Red Sea for the Hebrews "to go on dry ground;" the particulars connected with his leading them in the wilderness forty years; his receiving the law from the smoking summits of Sinai, and describes the Tabernacle with its furniture, "the pattern' of which he had seen in the mount. And to pass by other instances, thus the evangelists relate what they had "heard and

2 John xxi. 25.

seen, and looked upon, and handled of the Word of life," his supernatural birth, his life, his miraculous operations, his instructive discourses, his prophetic intimations, and the particulars of his death, resurrection, and ascension. Thus, St. Luke, relates, as an eye-witness, most of the transactions mentioned in "the Acts of the Apostles." And thus, too, St. Paul refers to the particulars connected with his conversion, and enumerates his various sufferings.

These events must have made impressions on their minds too deep to be easily effaced, and, therefore, so far as the simple facts themselves are concerned, might, probably, have been recollected; yet nothing analogous in the history of the human mind appears to justify the conclusion, that their memories, crowded as they must have been with incidents, and fallible as the memories of other men, could so perfectly recollect the minute circumstances connected with some of the facts, and the numerous topics elucidated