ect; that all the
stories which it tells will be told in a superhuman way. Nor does it say
that all the precepts, and all the institutions, and all the
revelations, and all the examples of the Book will be up to the level
of absolute perfection. What the passage _does_ say of such Scriptures
as are given by inspiration of God, is true of the Old Testament
writings as a whole, and still truer of the New Testament writings: they
_are_ profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, and for
instruction in righteousness; and they are adapted to make men perfect,
thoroughly furnished unto all good works. All this you can prove. But
you cannot prove that they answer to the definitions of divine
inspiration so often given in books of theology.

There is another passage in the New Testament which says that
'Whatsoever things were written aforetime, were written for our
learning, that we through patience and comfort of the Scriptures might
have hope.' This too is true of the Old Testament writings as a whole;
but it gives no countenance to the definitions of Scripture inspiration
given by dreamy theologians.

Peter says that 'holy men of old spake as they were moved by the Holy
Spirit;' but he does not say that everything spoken or written by holy
men, when moved by the Holy Spirit, would answer to some human dream of
absolute perfection. He does not say that the holy men, when moved to
speak by the Holy Spirit, would cease to be men, or even be free from
all the imperfections or misconceptions of their age and nation, and
speak as if they had become at once perfect in the knowledge of natural
philosophy, or of common history, or even on every point pertaining to
religion. They might speak as moved by the Holy Spirit, and yet utter
divine oracles in an imperfect human language, and in a defective human
style, and even use illustrations based on erroneous conceptions of
natural facts and historical events.

A man moved to speak by the Holy Spirit would not exhort people to be
idle or heedless; he would urge them to be industrious and prudent: but
in enforcing his exhortation to those virtues by a reference to the ANT,
he might give proof that his knowledge of the ANT was not perfect,--that
his ideas of its ways were not in every little point correct.

A man full of the Holy Spirit, and especially a man who had received of
its influences without measure, would be sure to exhort men to be very
wise and very harmless; but