working in himself, and which under similar defects of light and
obstacles of error had been his guide and guardian in the morning
twilight of his own genius. Must not the kindly warmth awaken and
vivify the seed, in order that the stem may spring up and rejoice in
the light? As the genial warmth to the informing light, even so is
the predisposing Spirit to the revealing Word."

If I should reason thus--but why do I say IF? I have reasoned thus
with more than one serious and well-disposed sceptic; and what was
the answer?--"YOU speak rationally, but seem to forget the subject.
I have frequently attended meetings of the British and Foreign Bible
Society, where I have heard speakers of every denomination, Calvinist
and Arminian, Quaker and Methodist, Dissenting Ministers and
Clergymen, nay, dignitaries of the Established Church, and still have
I heard the same doctrine--that the Bible was not to be regarded or
reasoned about in the way that other good books are or may be--that
the Bible was different in kind, and stood by itself. By some indeed
this doctrine was rather implied than expressed, but yet evidently
implied. But by far the greater number of the speakers it was
asserted in the strongest and most unqualified words that language
could supply. What is more, their principal arguments were grounded
on the position, that the Bible throughout was dictated by
Omniscience, and therefore in all its parts infallibly true and
obligatory, and that the men whose names are prefixed to the several
books or chapters were in fact but as different pens in the hand of
one and the same Writer, and the words the words of God Himself: and
that on this account all notes and comments were superfluous, nay,
presumptuous--a profane mixing of human with divine, the notions of
fallible creatures with the oracles of Infallibility--as if God's
meaning could be so clearly or fitly expressed in man's as in God's