ment may commission an ambassador, and yet that ambassador may misrepresent its will and intention."

"Commissions in general may not, but the divine commission to teach does. Human governments have no power to secure the infallibility of their ministers; but you cannot say this of God. He can make his ministers infallible."

"He can; but it does not therefore follow that he does." "I have shown that he must, because he cannot authorize either the teaching or the believing of error, without contradicting his own nature, which is infinitely and essentially true; and that he does, to the full extent of their commission to teach, you yourself do and must hold, or give up all belief in external revelation."

"Not at all."

"Why do you believe our Lord was the Son of God ?” "Because he himself so declared."

"Why do you believe his declarations?"

"Because he was the Son of God, and could not lie." "A good reason, after it is proved that he was the Son of God; none at all before."

"I believe him because the miracles he performed proved that he was from God; for no man could do the miracles he did, unless God were with him."

"Was from God, that is, sent or commissioned by God as a teacher, but not that he was God."

"The miracles proved him to be God. He raised the dead, and none but God can raise the dead."

"None but God can raise the dead as efficient cause; but men as instrumental cause may raise them, as is shown by the fact that the apostles and many of the saints have raised the dead. How, then, from the miracle alone conclude that our Lord raised the dead, not as instrumental cause, but as efficient cause?"

"The efficient cause was the divine power."

"Granted. But the divine power inherent in Jesus, as his own proper power, or the divine power merely displayed on the occasion of his saying to the dead, Arise? Moses smote the rock, and the water gushed out. Was it Moses, or God who stood behind Moses, that caused the water to flow from the rock?"

"God who stood behind him."

"So, for aught the miracle itself says, it may have been, not Jesus himself, but God who stood behind him, that caused the dead to live. The miracle does not prove the

proper divinity of our Lord. It only proves that he was sent from God, and that God was with him, and displayed his almighty power at his word."

"Very well."

"The miracles having proved that our Lord was from God, that God sent him and was with him, you therefore believe what he said. He said he was the Son of God, and therefore you believe he was the Son of God, and therefore God himself."

"Be it so."

"The miracles, then, simply proved his divine commission, that is, accredited him as a teacher sent from God. But how from the fact of his commission conclude the truth of what he said, if the divine commission be not the warrant of infallibility? If one who is divinely commissioned to teach, notwithstanding his commission, may err, how can you say that our Lord himself did not err, and that you do not err in believing him to be the Son of God? Indeed, it is only on the ground that the divine commission is the warrant of infallibility, that your profession of faith in the Bible as the infallible word of God is not ridiculous and absurd."

"The sacred writers were inspired, but the divinely commissioned teachers you speak of are not. Being inspired, they could know the truth of what they affirmed; and being honest and godly men, they would not affirm what they did

not know."

"That is nothing to your purpose. The inspiration was nothing more nor less than God simply telling or communicating to them what they were to teach, and they have in this respect no advantage over the church, in case she be fully instructed as to what she is to propose as the word of God. If instructed, it matters not, as to her ability to teach, whether instructed by immediate inspiration to herself, or only mediately through that of the prophets and apostles. She claims to have been fully instructed, for the commission under which she professes to act was, 'Going, teach all nations; teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you.'-St. Matt. xxviii. 19. The alleged defect of immediate inspiration in her case, or its presence in the case of the sacred writers, can, therefore, of itself, be no reason for believing one in preference to the other. The real reason for believing the sacred writers is, that God authorized them to teach; and

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you have the same reason for believing the church, if you have equal reasons for believing her authorized by God to teach his word. The commission is a warrant of infallibility in her case, as much as it was in theirs."

"But you forget that I gave as my reason for believing the sacred writers, that they were honest and godly men, and would not affirm what they did not know."

"You, then, consider the personal character of the teacher better authority than the divine commission? This is a common Protestant blunder, and hence the worthlessness of the greater part of your treatises on the evidences of Christianity. God's authority for believing is not sufficient till man indorses it! The best men are fallible, and may be deceived. If we had nothing but the personal characters of the sacred writers on which to rely, honest and godly as they certainly were, we should have no sufficient reason for believing what they wrote to be the Word of God. Their personal character may be important when the question turns on their credibility as witnesses to the facts they record, but does not enter into the account when the question is on their authority as teachers of revealed truth. No man's personal character is a sufficient warrant for believing that any thing he asserts to be a doctrine of revelation is really and truly a doctrine of revelation. If it were, we should be obliged to believe whatever any man, whose character, so far as we know, is honest and irreproachable, chooses to teach as the word of God. How, then, can you maintain that the personal character of the teacher is a surer warrant of infallibility than the divine commission?"

"The simple fact that the sacred writers were honest and godly men may not be alone a sufficient reason for believing them, yet, if they had been bad men, that would alone have been a sufficient reason for not believing them. For God does not and will not speak by bad men."

"That is not so certain. Balaam, the son of Peor, was a bad man; yet God spoke by him, and caused him to utter a glorious prophecy. Do you believe his prophecy on his personal character, or because divinely commissioned teachers have told you that it was not he who spoke from himself, but the Lord who spoke by him?"

"I believe the sacred writers because God authorized them to teach his word, and the Holy Ghost was with them to enable them to teach it, and to preserve them from error in teaching it."

"Is not the assistance of the Holy Ghost, so far as needed, necessarily implied in the commission or authority to

teach ?"

"If the commission were the warrant of infallibility, it would be so implied; but that is precisely what I deny." "No man can teach infallibly without it?"

"No."

"But with it any man can teach infallibly?"

"Perhaps so."

"No perhaps about it. It must be so positively, or you cannot assert the infallibility of the sacred penmen."

"God leaves the will free; any one who has the assistance may teach infallibly, if he chooses; but it does not therefore follow that he must and will so teach."

"In what concerns personal morality, natural or Christian, the will is free; but in teaching at the command of God, it is not. The individual speaks not as moved by his own will, but as moved by the Holy Ghost. Thus, Balaam was forced against his will to bless Israel, and to utter a prophecy he did not intend, and which he was unwilling to utter; for it was against his interest, and he loved the wages of iniquity. Thus, too, the prophet Jonas sought to run away from the Lord, and not to preach as commanded to the Ninevites, but the Lord brought him back by a miracle, and forced him to utter his word. Moreover, if the matter depended on the human will, the teachings of no human teacher, however authorized and assisted by the Holy Ghost, could ever be regarded as infallible; because no one could ever know whether the teacher spoke as moved by the Holy Ghost, or merely from his own proper motion. In vain, then, would you claim to have in the Bible the infal lable word of God. Nay, you have yourself just said, the Holy Ghost enables the teachers to teach the word, and preserves them from error in teaching it."

"In the case of the sacred writers, not of all men.".

"For all men have not the assistance of the Holy Ghost to teach the word of God, nor are all commissioned to teach it; but if it be what you define it, any one who has it must be able to teach, and be preserved from error in teaching, and therefore must teach the word infallibly."

"Be it so."

"But the divine commission does not necessarily imply this assistance?"

"No, it does not; therefore, I admit the infallibility of the

sacred writers specially, and not of divinely commissioned teachers in general.'

"What is the significance of the divine commission to teach the word of God?”

"It authorizes the one who receives it to be a teacher of God's word, but does not necessarily enable him to teach it infallibly."

"So one may have authority from God to teach his word, and yet not have the ability to teach it in the only sense in which God can authorize it to be taught! What, then, means the authority?"

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Why, it is authority to teach." "Unquestionably, but what is that?"

"He who has it is authorized to speak or teach in the name of God."

"That is, to propound the word of God, not in his own name and on his own authority, but in the name and on the authority of God?”

"Yes, it means that he is empowered to teach with divine authority."

"Can any thing but truth be taught with divine authority?" "No."

"God cannot authorize the teaching of error?"

"No; for that would be the same as to teach it."

"Then no one not able to teach the truth, and not preserved from error in teaching it, can be said to teach by divine authority?"

"So it would seem."

"You say that for God to authorize the teaching of error would be the same as for him to teach it?"

"I do."

"And on the principle that what is done by another's authority, it is virtually that other that does it? Thus, what the agent does by the authority of the principal is held to be done by the principal himself, who is responsible for it. What an ambassador does by the authority of his government is done by his government. Consequently, what one does by the authority of God is done by God himself, and the responsibility rests on him, and not on his agent. So what one teaches by divine authority is taught by God himself, and God is responsible for it. No one can, then, be divinely commissioned to teach what God may not himself teach immediately, and for which he will not hold himself responsible."