a consummate musician, equally perfect in all. One instrument may be
more capacious than another, but as far as its compass extends, and
in what it sounds forth, it will be true to the conception of the
master. I can conceive no softening here which would not nullify the
doctrine, and convert it to a cloud for each man's fancy to shift and
shape at will. And this doctrine, I confess, plants the vineyard of
the Word with thorns for me, and places snares in its pathways.
These may be delusions of an evil spirit; but ere I so harshly
question the seeming angel of light--my reason, I mean, and moral
sense in conjunction with my clearest knowledge--I must inquire on
what authority this doctrine rests. And what other authority dares a
truly catholic Christian admit as coercive in the final decision, but
the declarations of the Book itself--though I should not, without
struggles, and a trembling reluctance, gainsay even a universal
tradition?

I return to the Book. With a full persuasion of soul respecting all
the articles of the Christian Faith, as contained in the first four
classes, I receive willingly also the truth of the history, namely,
that the Word of the Lord did come to Samuel, to Isaiah, to others;
and that the words which gave utterance to the same are faithfully
recorded. But though the origin of the words, even as of the
miraculous acts, be supernatural, yet the former once uttered, the
latter once having taken their place among the phenomena of the
senses, the faithful recording of the same does not of itself imply,
or seem to require, any supernatural working, other than as all truth
and goodness are such. In the books of Moses, and once or twice in
the prophecy of Jeremiah, I find it indeed asserted that not only the
words were given, but the recording of the same enjoined by the
special command of God, and doubtless executed under the special