God. Minos, Moses, Zoroaster, Confucius, Zaleucus, Numa, Mahomet, profess to have received their doctrine straightway from Him. The sacred persons of all nations, from the Druid to the Pope, refer back to his direct inspiration. From this source the Sibylline oracles, the responses at Delphi, the sacred books of all nations, the Vedas and the Bible, alike claim to proceed. Pagans tell us no man was ever great without a divine afflatus falling upon him.[1] Much falsity was mingled with the true doctrine, for that was imperfectly understood, and violence, and folly, and lies were thus ascribed to God. Still the popular belief shows that the human mind turns naturally in this direction. Each prophet, false or true, in Palestine, Nubia, India, Greece, spoke in the name of God. In this name the apostles of Christ and of Mahomet, the Catholic and the Protestant, went to their work.[2] A good man feels that Justice, Goodness, Truth, are immutable, not dependent on himself; that certain convictions come by a law over which he has no control. There they stand, he cannot alter though he may refuse to obey them. Some have considered themselves bare tools in the hand of God; they did and said they knew not what, thus charging their follies and sins on God most high. Others, going to a greater degree of insanity, have confounded God with themselves, declaring that they were God. But even if likeness were perfect, it is not identity. Yet a ray from the primal light falls on Man. No doubt there have been men of a high degree of inspiration, in all countries; the founders of the various religions of the world. But they have been limited in their gifts, and their use of them. The doctrine they taught had somewhat national, temporal,
- ↑ See the opinions of the ancients in the classic passages, Cicero de Nat. Deorum, II. 66; Orat. pro Arch. c. 8; Xenophon Memorah. I. 1; Seneca, Ep. XLI. See many passages collected in Sonntag. See also Barclay's Apology for the Quakers, Prop. I.-III. XI.; Sewell's History of the Quakers, B. IX.-XII., and p. 693; and George Fox's Journal, passim.
- ↑ The history of the formation of the ecclesiastical doctrine of inspiration, which is the Supernatural View, is curious. It did not assume its most exclusive shape in the early teachers. In John of Damascus it appears in its vigour. In Abelard and Peter Lombard, it is more mild and liberal. Since the Reformation, it has been violently attacked. Luther himself is fluctuating in his opinions. As men's eyes opened they would separate falsehood from truth. The writings of the English deists had a great influence in this matter. See Walch’s Religions-Streitigkeiten, Vol. V. ch. vii. Strauss also. Vol. I. § 14, et seq., gives a brief and compendious account of attacks on this doctrine.
