The supporters of the Holy-Ghost-and-John Smith inspiration theory read the verse in Timothy, "All Scripture that is God-inspired." But they are more ingenious than ingenuous, and their piety is greater than their Greek. The verb substantive must be understood between γραφη and θεοπνευστος, and not between θεοπνευστος and ωφέλιμος, because the conjunction comes between, which renders ωφέλιμος, the second qualitative attribute of γραφη, as θεόπνευστος is the first. I do not know whether the Holy Ghost be still in the shape of a pigeon; but, if he be, theologians twist his writings with a force that would twist his neck.
Peter the fisherman steps in to the assistance of "Timothy" and settles the matter. He assures us that "the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man; but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost."[1] This settles the matter. Peter himself was one of the "holy men of God." He sliced the ear off Malchus, denied his Lord, fished sea of Galilee geds, and devoted his leisure hours to acting as amanuensis to the Holy Ghost. Fine work, too, the Ghost and he produced. When he said, with an oath, to the damsel Rhoda: "Woman, I know not the man!" he told an unmitigated lie. But when he asserted that "prophecy" was written by the Holy Ghost he, of course, told the truth. George Washington could not tell a lie; but Peter apparently could. Was it for this reason that the Holy Ghost selected him as an amanuensis?
If you sin against the Holy Ghost, you cannot "be forgiven, neither in this world nor the world to come." I fear that most of us will never be forgiven; for who among us has not grossly insulted the Ghost by attributing certain of his writings to a poor scribbling worm of the dust, and vice versa? Not only do we frequently fail to distinguish the Ghost's work from Smith's work in the Authorised Version, but there are a number of books which some allege to be the Ghost's and some allege to be Smith's, which are excluded from the Authorised Version altogether. There are the Books of
