(c.) Natural and supernatural inspiration differ also in [pg 106] their occasion. A miraculous event, namely, the coming of Christ inwardly to their souls on the day of Pentecost, was the occasion of the apostolic inspiration. This coming of the Holy Ghost was the second of the two supernatural events of Christianity, of which the other was the birth of Christ. The miraculous events in the life of Jesus may have been the natural results of the coming of such a being into the world. The miracles of Christ's life, including his resurrection, may have been natural to a supernatural being. They are the evidence of a break in the series of causation in the outward world. In like manner the inward coming of Christ to the hearts of his disciples in what is called the influence of the Holy Spirit, is another supernatural event, the natural result of which is the founding of the Church, the writing of the New Testament, and the newly created life in individual souls.
These two inspirations, therefore, differ in their substance, source, and method. The substance of one consists of truths of the natural order, the other of the supernatural order. The source of one is the world of nature, the source of the other is the inward Christ. And the method of the one is that of individual genius, which is solitary, while the method of the other is that of love or communion.
§ 6. Inspiration of the Scriptures, especially of the New Testament Scriptures.
We now pass on to ask, What is the inspiration of the New Testament, or of its writers?
The writers of the New Testament had no different inspiration from that of all other Christians. We nowhere hear of any one receiving an inspiration to enable him to write a Gospel or an Epistle. They distinctly repel the idea of any such special or distinct inspiration. “By one spirit we have all been baptized into one body, and have been all made to drink into one spirit.” Gifts are different, but the spirit is one and the same in all. But even among these diversities of gifts, nothing is said of any gift for writing [pg 107] Gospels or Epistles. Probably, therefore, the inspiration by which these were written was precisely the same as that by which they preached to the Gentiles or taught in the Church. It was an inward sight of Christ, an inward sight of his truth and love, which enabled them to speak and write with authority—the authority of those who saw what they said, and knew it to be true. “We speak what we know, and testify what we have seen.” Hence it is that we find in their writings so much substance, so much comprehensiveness, so much insight. They are in constant communion with an invisible world of truth. They describe what is before their eyes.
A book given by inspiration is not a book made perfect by miracle, but a book, the writer of which was in a state open to influences from a higher sphere. All books which the human race has accepted as inspired—Vedas, Koran, Zendavesta—are sacred scriptures; all that lasts is inspired. Perpetuity, not infallibility, is the sign of inspiration.
“The word unto the prophet spoken
Was writ on tables yet unbroken;
The word by seers or sibyls told