118 THE BIBLE AND SCIENCE. ing us to think of it as less really a word of God than we have been wont to think it. As reverence takes place of the idolatry which destroys reverence, we shall learn from it to reverence all God's voices to us in the history of man and the life of nature. The living Word of God will indeed be owned as the Light of men, the source of all light whatever in their hearts and reasons. shall look upon the facts of the universe as His facts. That we may investigate them, and grow in knowledge of Him, we shall bid our noisy disputatious intellects keep silence before Him. Ever yours affectionately, F. D. MAURice. We 119 LETTER XI. CURRENT PHRASES IN THIS CONTROVERSY. MY DEAR FRIEND, You refer to several phrases which are disturbing many minds at this time. The first is Inspiration. I have not thought it needful to discuss the meaning of that word: our Church Prayers speak of it sufficiently; our Church Articles are wisely, piously, and significantly silent upon it. The subject is one for prayer, not for definitions. If we pray, we must confess that Inspiration for which our Collects continually entreat. We must suppose that we cannot think, believe, act without it; we must acknowledge that all wisdom, illumination, power to will and to do, proceed from the Divine Spirit. We dare not define or limit His operations; we only know that He is the good Spirit, the Holy Spirit; that only good can come from Him; that He gives us insight to perceive evil, and strength to resist it. That holy men, then, of old spoke by the inspiration of God, that the same inspiration enables us to know what they said, to have any clear understanding of any kind: this has been the faith of the Church at all times. To control it by theories of ours is to undermine it; to say that inspiration is confined to the writers of the Bible, is formally and directly to contradict those writers; to determine in what measures they or any other men have possessed inspiration, is to tell Him who breathes where He listeth how we suppose He must breathe or ought to breathe. I believe we should repent deeply of having entertained so profane a thought. He knows what inspiration is fitting for each of His servants; we cannot. A denial of the promise of the Spirit, a disbelief that He has been given, and that He dwells with us for ever, is surely latent in such speculations. How is this denial, this disbelief compatible with our acceptance of the most direct declarations of the New Testament? On the other hand, I have spoken at some length on the expression "Word of God." It seems to me that we clergymen should very seriously apply ourselves to the question, “What 'sense does this expression convey to us when we read the Scriptures? Have what we call "the different senses of it no relation to each "other? Is the use of it by St. John a mere figurative accidental use; or does that interpret "all the other applications of it? Has it found "its meaning till we come to that meaning?" If we do give ourselves steadily to this inquiry, I suspect that many of the complaints which the Laity make of us will be found to originate, not, as they often suspect, in our too rigid adherence to our own peculiar phraseology, but in our carelessness about it, in the low and narrow signification which we attach to it. If we had been more faithful in listening to the testimonies of Scripture respecting the Word of God, we should have embarrassed them much less with cruel demands upon them to deny the lessons which God gives them in their consciences, in human history, in the world of nature, out of deference, or supposed deference, to the letter of the Bible. We must begin with paying some respect to the letter ourselves, where it is distinct and most uniform, before we call upon other men to follow it in points which are trivial, and merely accidental to its main purpose. There is a third expression which has occupied us much, which, I am persuaded, must occupy us all continually, if we would see our way through the difficulties that beset us on every side. I began by confessing a difference with you as to the meaning of Revelation. You will now see, I think, why I insisted so much upon that difference. The confusion which exists in all our minds between the mere book and the Revelations whereof the book speaks, is the source of very many of our confusions. "To what are we to trust ?" this demand I hear continually; you yourself have made it. Is it to the letter of the Bible? But 'who is to tell us what that says, what that signifies? Is it to some tradition or general consent of the Church? But the Church fled 'from the tradition and consent to an infallible 'human interpreter, and was driven back from 'that infallible interpreter to the Bible itself, 'as the great deliverer from bewildering decrees 'which the Laity could not understand; and which weakened and depraved their consciences, if through the help of some confessor or 'director they were changed from mere general |