ledge, and Revelation, and Reason tell the same tale, and so legitimate and confirm one another.[1]
God's action on Matter and on Man is perhaps the same thing to Him, though it appear differently modified to us. But it is plain from the nature of things, that there can be but one kind of Inspiration, as of Truth, Faith, or Love: it is the direct and intuitive perception of some truth, either of thought or of sentiment. There can be but one mode of Inspiration: it is the action of the Highest within the soul, the divine presence imparting light; this presence as Truth, Justice, Holiness, Love, infusing itself into the soul, giving it new life; the breathing in of the Deity; the in-come of God to the Soul, in the form of Truth through the Reason, of Right through the Conscience, of Love and Faith through the Affections and Religious Element. Is Inspiration confined to theological matters alone? Most surely not. Is Newton less inspired than Simon Peter?[2]
Now if the above views be true, there seems no ground for supposing, without historical proof, there are different kinds or modes of inspiration in different persons, nations, or ages, in Minos or Moses, in Gentiles or Jews, in the first century or the last. If God be infinitely perfect, He
- ↑ See Jonathan Edwards’ view of Inspiration, in his sermon on A divine Light imparted to the Soul, &c. Works, ed. Lond. 1840. Vol. II. p. 12, et seq., and Vol. I. p. cclxix. No. [20].
- ↑ So long as inspiration is regarded as purely miraculous, good sense will lessen instances of it, as far as possible; for most thinking men feel more or less repugnance at believing in any violation, on God's part, of regular laws. As spiritual things are commonly less attended to than material, the belief in miraculous inspiration remains longer in religious than secular affairs. A man would be looked on as mad, who should claim miraculous inspiration for Newton, as they have been who denied it in the case of Moses. But no candid man will doubt that, humanly speaking, it was a more difficult thing to write the Principia than the Decalogue. Man must have a nature most sadly anomalous, if, unassisted, he is able to accomplish all the triumphs of modern science, and yet cannot discover the plainest and most important principles of Religion and Morality without a miraculous revelation; and still more so, if being able to discover, by God's natural aid, these chief and most important principles, he needs a miraculous inspiration to disclose minor details. Science is by no means indispensable, as Religion and Morals. The doctrine of the immortality of the soul, if it is a real advantage, follows unavoidably from the Idea of God. The Best Being, he must will the best of good things; the Wisest, he must devise plans for that effect; the most Powerful, he must bring it about. None can deny this. Does one ask another “proof of the fact?” Is he so very full of faith who cannot trust God, except he have His bond in black and white, given under oath and attested by witnesses!
