THE GENESIS OF NATURE. 



53 



more serious. It touches not the nianuer, l3ut:the matter of 

 the revelation. It appears to be a veiled assault upon the 

 veracity of the Bible. The acceptance of such an allegation 

 would raise a grave difficulty to its authenticity in its integrity 

 as an inspired book. We fully admit the human element in 

 the preservation of Scripture. We know that our copies have 

 been liable to inaccuracies of transcription, inaccuracies of 

 translation, inaccuracies of interpretation, which may have 

 crept into the Holy text itself. We fully admit the human 

 element in the production of Scripture. We admit that its 

 authors were themselves fallible men and were limited in their 

 own knowledge, while we believe that they wrote all through 

 as they were moved by the Holy Ghost, the controlling Spirit 

 of truth. But if the Bible is anything at all it has more than 

 a human element. Its messages are not to be measured by 

 the minds of its messengers. It was professedly not always 

 given to them to fathom the scope of their own utterances. 

 We are not afraid boldly to assert that all Scripture was given 

 by inspiration of God ; and that whatever else inspiration 

 means, it menus this, that the whole Bible, in the state tliat it came 

 from God, is the icorcl of God, the true ivord of the true God. 

 We are quite ready to suppose, if need l)e, the employment of 

 pre-existing archives and documents. We see no grounds for 

 alleging that the early patriarclis could not themselves have 

 had Scriptures that are gone, nor that old documents could not 

 have been transposed from ancient to more modern language. 

 We know no reason for denying that Paradise and the Flood 

 and Babel were not only actual cjyperienees, hut lingering 

 memories. But that the hrst chapters of Genesis, w^hatever 

 their human source, were luriiten under the inspiration of God 

 is as certain as that the Gospels themselves were so given. 

 How different are they from the myths of the Babylonish 

 tablets. These may have caught reflections of early truth, 

 perchance, from some inspired source, from some pristine 

 parts of Scripture, but inspiration is not in them. Can they 

 be compared with the facts of modern science ? Beneath that 

 touchstone is not their debased and mythic character at once 

 revealed ? Can it be said of them, as it has been said of 

 Genesis, " it would not be easy now, to consti'uct a statement 

 of the development of the world in popular terms so concise 

 and so accurate ? " But most of all, the first chapters of 

 Genesis were quoted as authentic records by our Lord, and his 

 view is for us the seal of authority. 



