ture; in Man we look for more. Here the beauty is intellectual, the beauty of Thought, which comprehends the world and understands its laws; it is moral, the beauty of Virtue, which overcomes the world and lives by its own laws; it is religious and affectional, the beauty of Holiness and Love, which rises above the world and lives by the law of the Spirit of Life. A single good man, at one with God, makes the morning and evening sun seem little and very low. It is a higher mode of the divine Power that appears in him, self-conscious and self-restrained.
Now this it seems is the only kind of inspiration which
is possible. It is coextensive with the faithful use of Man's
natural powers. Men may call it miraculous, but nothing
is more natural; or they may say, it is entirely human, for
it is the result of Man's use of his faculties; but what is
more divine than Wisdom, Justice, Benevolence, Piety?
Are not these the points in which Man and God conjoin?
If He is present and active in spirit—such must be the
perfect result of the action. No doubt there is a mystery
in it, as in sensation, in all the functions of Man. But
what then? As a good man has said, “God worketh
with us both to will and to do.” Mind, Conscience, the
affections, and the Soul mediate between us and God, as
the senses between us and matter. Is one more surprising
than the other? Is the one to be condemned as spiritual
mysticism or Pantheism? Then so is the other as material
mysticism or Pantheism. Alas, we know but in part; our
knowledge is circumscribed by our ignorance.
Now it is the belief of all primitive nations that God inspires the wise, the good, the holy.[1] Yes, that he works with Man in every noble work. No doubt their poor conceptions of God degraded the doctrine and ascribed to the Deity what came from their disobedience of his law.
The wisest and holiest men have spoken in the name of
- ↑ On this doctrine see Sonntag, Doctrina Inspirationis, &c., 1803, § 1, et seq., and the authors he cites. De Wette, Dogmatik, § 85–96, and § 143—148, gives the Old Testament doctrine of Inspiration. See also Hase, Hutterus redivivus, § 41, Dogmatik, § 8; Bretschneider, Dogmatik, Vol. I. § 14, et seq.; and Baumgarten-Crusius, Dogmengeschichte, Vol. II. p. 775, et seq. Much useful matter has been collected by these writers, and by Münscher, Bauer, Von-Cölln, and Strauss, but a special history of the doctrine is still a desideratum.
