tach to it, and so extend the
meaning of the word inspiration as "sometimes to believe it in poets,
legislators, philosophers, and others gifted with high genius," (Essays
and Reviews, p. 140). What this means it is hard to say. Shakespeare,
Milton, Newton, and others certainly did not imagine that they had direct
communication with God; that they revealed to us His nature, and the
relation in which He stands to us; predicted future events, etc., in the
same sense that Moses, David, Isaiah, and the other writers of the Bible
are supposed to have done. If they actually did anything of this kind,
they were assuredly wholly unconscious of their power; nor, we may add,
has common opinion held that they afforded information on the same
subjects as those which the writers of the Bible handled. Admirers of
our poets, and philosophers, have not considered it necessary to
promulgate what they have found in their writings, as matters in which
the spiritual, and, possibly, eternal interests of man are vitally
concerned; although believers in the Bible, and even in Mahomet, have
done so. The word inspiration, in fact, as used in the passage above
quoted, involves a confusion of ideas which we should hardly have
expected to find in the writings of any one who professed to speak
accurately, and appears scarcely pardonable, or even honest, in the case
of so acute a thinker, as the late Mr. Baden Powell. We are not now
saying that the Bible is a revelation from God, or even that there is
such a thing as a distinctive revelation at all. All we assert is, that
the idea of such a thing is a very common one, and that it is very
different from that which is usually held with regard to the works of
Newton, Milton, and other gifted sages and philosophers. We might add,
in passing, that, unless the Bible be an imposture--in which case it
ought to be regarded as far inferior to the works of genuine and truthful
poets and philosophers--it does correspond, as we trust will be seen, on
an examination of its contents, to the idea referred to.

Still further, revelation must not only have some distinctive character;
but, in order to be effectual for its purpose, _it should carry along
with it_, _to the original recipients_, _a reasonable conviction of its
authenticity_. The Bible speaks of several professed modes of
communication, and accepting them according to the ordinary meaning of
words, and not in any mythical, or ideological sense, th