he Scriptures came from God, if we cannot refer to the decree
of the Church, we might as well ask, How are we to distinguish light
from darkness, white from black, bitter from sweet."

The truth of the religious experiences recorded in the Bible is
self-evidencing to him who shares these experiences, and to no one else.
The Bible has, in a sense, to create or evoke the capacities by which
it is appreciated and verified. It is inspired only to those who are
themselves willing to be controlled by similar inspirations; it is the
word of God only to those who have ears for God's voice. There is a
difference between the phrases: "It is certain," and "I am certain." In
other matters we appeal to the collective opinion of sane people; but
such knowledge does not suffice in religion. Our fellowship with God
must be our own response to our highest inspirations. The Bible is
authoritative for us only in so far as we can say: "I have entered into
the friendship of the God, whose earlier friendship with men it records,
and know Him, who speaks as personally to my conscience through its
pages, as He spake to its writers. The Spirit that ruled them, the
Spirit of trust and service, controls me." This is John Calvin's
position. "It is acting a preposterous part," he writes in his
_Institutes_, "to endeavor to produce sound faith in the Scriptures by
disputations. Religion appearing to profane men to consist wholly in
opinion, in order that they may not believe anything on foolish or
slight grounds, they wish and expect it to be proved that Moses and the
prophets spake by divine inspiration; but as God alone is a sufficient
witness of Himself in His own word, so also the word will never gain
credit in the hearts of men, till it is confirmed by the testimony of
the Spirit."

If, then, the authority of the Bible depends upon the witness of the
Spirit within our own souls, its authority has definite limits. We can
verify spiritually the truth of a religious experience by repeating that
experience; but we cannot verify spiritually the correctness of the
report of some alleged event, or the accuracy of some opinion. We can
bear witness to the truthfulness of the record of the consciousness of
shame and separation from God in the story of the fall of Adam and Eve;
we must leave the question of the historicity of the narrative and the
scientific view of the origin of the race in a single pair to the
investigations of scholars. Our own knowle