and when He prepares a
Book of books for man, we may expect it to correspond to the deep
insight of Him who is Maker of both the volume and the reader.

For now on the other part we have to remember that this Book, so
naturally and humanly written, as to a very large proportion of its
contents, is yet God-made all through. It is, in a sense quite
peculiar to itself, divine. I quoted a passage from a letter of Henry
Martyn's just now, on purpose to place it beside this letter of St
Paul's, with a view to shewing the likeness of the two. But are they
like in all respects? No; they present a radical difference from
another side. It is just this, that the biblical letter is not only
human as to its type and utterance; as to its message, it is
authoritative, it is from God. Henry Martyn writes as a Christian man,
and it helps us spiritually to be in contact with his affectionate and
holy thoughts. Paul writes as a Christian man, but also as "a chosen
vessel to bear the Name" of his Lord; as the messenger of the mind of
Christ; as he who received "his Gospel" "not of man, nor by man, but by
the revelation of Jesus Christ" (Gal. i. 12). From his own days to
these he has been known in the Church of God as the divinely
commissioned prophet and teacher. Clement of Rome in the first century
refers to him as having written to Corinth by divine inspiration.[14]
Simon Peter, earlier than Clement, refers to Paul (2 Pet. iii. 16) as
the writer of "Scriptures," _graphai_: that solemn word, restricted in
the language of Christianity to the oracles of God.

The simplest and seemingly most naturalistic passage occurring in a
Pauline letter is a "Scripture"; and as such it speaks to me only not
like the utterances of a Martyn but with the voice of the Lord of the
Gospel. "Paul, Paul--his letters I have read, but not always I agree
with him!" So, according to the story, said a German literary visitor
in an Oxford common-room, fifty years ago; the words shocked the
Anglican company. Very many people think with the German now, whether
or no they have really "_read_ Paul's letters." But their thought is
not that of the Church of God; and the soul that will indeed make
experiment of what "Paul's letters" can be when they are read as
divine, and before God, will surely find itself in harmony in this
matter with the Church. It will be little disposed to take up the cry
(true enough in itself), "Back to Christ," in that false sense