r that he might be a revealer: "I have given
unto them _the words_ which thou gavest me" (John 17: 8).

In these days scholars are very jealous for the human element in
inspiration; but the sovereign element is what most impresses the
diligent student of this subject. "The Spirit breatheth where he
wills." Concerning regeneration by the Holy Ghost, we are carefully
told that it is "not of the will of the flesh, nor _of the will of
man_, but of God"; and concerning inspiration by the Spirit, the
teaching is equally explicit: "For no prophecy ever came _by the will
of man_, but men spake from God, being moved by the Holy Ghost" (2
Peter 1: 21, R. V.).

The style of Scripture is, no doubt, according to the traits and
idiosyncracies of the several writers, as the light within the
cathedral takes on its various hues from passing through the stained
windows; but to say that the thoughts of the Bible are from the Spirit,
and the language from men, creates a dualism in revelation not easy to
justify; so that we must quote with entire approval the words of an
eminent writer upon this subject: "The opinion that the subject-matter
alone of the Bible proceeded from the Holy Spirit, while its language
was left to the unaided choice of the various writers, amounts to that
fantastic notion which is the grand fallacy of many theories of
inspiration; namely, that two spiritual agencies were in operation, one
of which {176} produced the phraseology in the outward form, while the
other created within the soul the conceptions and thoughts of which
such phraseology was the expression. The Holy Spirit, on the contrary,
as the productive _principle_, embraces the entire activity of those
whom he inspires, rendering their language the _word of God_."[4]

If it be urged that the quotations which the New Testament makes from
the Old are rarely _ipsissima verba_, the language being in many
instances greatly changed, it should be noted in reply how significant
even these changes often are. If the Holy Spirit directed in the
writing of both books, he would have a sovereign right to alter the
phraseology, if need be, from the one to the other. In the opinion of
many scholars the change of "the Redeemer shall come _to_ Zion, and
unto them that turn from transgression in Jacob," in Isa. 59: 20, to
"There shall come _out_ of Zion the Deliverer," in Rom. 11: 26, is an
inspired and intentional change.[5] So of the citation from Amos 9:
11, "In t