NOTES.
1. Freedom under Inspiration.—Faussett has this to say of man's agency under the influence of inspiration:—"Inspiration does not divest the writers of their several individualities of style, just as the inspired teachers in the early Church were not passive machines in prophesying (I Cor. xiv, 32). 'Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty' (II Cor. iii, 17). Their will became one with God's will; His Spirit acted on their spirit, so that their individuality had full play in the sphere of His inspiration. As to religious truths, the collective Scriptures have unity of authorship; as to other matters, their authorship is palpably as manifold as the writers. The variety is human, the unity Divine. If the four evangelists were mere machines, narrating the same events in the same order and words, they would cease to be independent witnesses. Their very discrepancies (only seeming ones) disprove collusion.... The slight variations in the decalogue between Exo. xx and its repetition Deut. v, and in Ps. xviii compared with II Sam. xxii, in Ps. xiv compared with Ps. liii, and in New Testament quotations of Old Testament (sometimes from the Septuagint, which varies from the Hebrew, sometimes from neither in every word), all prove the spirit-produced independence of the sacred writers, who, under Divine guidance and sanction, presented on different occasions the same substantial truths under different aspects, the one complementing the other."—Bible Cyclopedia, A. R. Faussett, p. 308.
2. The Doctrine of no Further Revelation, New and False.—"The history of the people of God, from the earliest ages, shows that continued revelation was the only way by which they could possibly learn all their duties, or God's will concerning them. They never once thought that the revelations given to previous generations were sufficient to guide them into every duty. A doctrine which rejects new revelation is a new doctrine, invented by the devil and his agents during the second century after Christ; it is a doctrine in direct opposition to the one believed in and enjoyed by the saints in all ages. Now, to subvert and do away a doctrine four thousand years old, and introduce a new one in its stead can only be done by divine authority.... As the doctrine, then, of continued revelation is one that was always believed by the saints, it ought not to be required of any man to prove the necessity of the continuation of such a doctrine. If it were a new doctrine, never before introduced into the world, it would become necessary to establish its divine origin; but inasmuch as it is only the continuation of an old doctrine, established thousands of years ago, and which has never ceased to be believed and enjoyed by the saints, it would be the greatest presumption to call it in question at this late period; and hence it would seem almost superfluous to undertake to prove the necessity of its continuance. Instead of being required to do this, all people have the right to call upon the new-revelation deniers of the last seventeen centuries to bring forward their strong reasonings and testimonies for breaking in upon the long-established order of heaven, and introducing a new doctrine so entirely different from the old. If they wish their new doctrine to be believed, let them demonstrate it to be of divine origin, or else all people will be justified in rejecting it, and clinging to the old."—Orson Pratt, Divine Authenticity of the Book of Mormon, I (2) 15, 16.
3. Inspiration a Sure Guide.—"Inspiration has been defined to be the 'actuating energy of the Holy Spirit, in whatever degree or manner it may have been exercised, guided by which the human agents chosen by God have officially proclaimed his will by word of mouth or have committed to writing the several portions of the Bible.' By plenary inspiration we mean that this energy was so fully and perfectly exercised, as to make the teaching of the sacred writers to be, in the most literal sense of the words, God's teaching, as proceeding from him, truly expressing his mind, and bearing with it the sanction of his authority. By verbal inspiration we mean that this energy was not exhausted in suggesting to the writers the matter of Scripture, and then leaving them to themselves to convey, in their own manner and after an exclusively human sort, what had been supernaturally suggested; but that they were assisted and guided in the conveyance of the truth received.... When the doctrine of plenary and verbal inspiration is thus disentangled from the misapprehensions which have been entertained of it, it presents in no point of view any just ground of objection. It is consistent with all the conclusions relative to the Word which modern scholarship has succeeded in establishing; for the dreams of the 'higher criticism' are little more than the vagaries of arbitrary caprice; and it is much to be regretted that they have been honored with a deference wholly undeserved, and have been rashly placed side by side with the valuable and precious results of genuine criticism. These results, in many respects, point decisively in the direction of plenary inspiration, when the doctrine itself is rightly understood, as supplying the only consistent and logical ground on which the authority of the canonical writings can be safely based."—Cassell's Bible Dictionary, pp. 559, 561.
4. "Is it unreasonable, is it unphilosophical, thus to look for additional light and knowledge? Shall religion be the one department of human thought and effort in which progression is impossible? What would we say of the chemist, the astronomer, the physicist, or the geologist, who would proclaim that no further discovery or revelation of scientific truth is possible, or who would declare that the only occupation open to students of science is to con the books of by-gone times and to apply the principles long ago made known, for none others shall ever be discovered? The chief motive impelling to research and investigation is the conviction that to knowledge and wisdom there is no end. 'Mormonism' affirms that all wisdom is of God, that the halo of his glory is intelligence, and that man has not yet learned all there is to learn of him and his ways. We hold that the doctrine of continuous revelation from God is not less philosophical and scientific than scriptural."—The Philosophy of "Mormonism." The Author, in Improvement Era, Vol. iv, p. 468.