Page:The spirit of the Hebrew poetry 1861.djvu/45

 course of thought on this ground—if they do not spring from stolid and incurable prejudices, are yet the indication of a shaken and variable belief in the Bible, as the medium of a supernatural Revelation.

It will be in no dread of the imputation of unbelief that we enter upon the field now in view. A tremulous tread on this ground would be sure sign, either of incertitude as to first principles, or of a treasonable cowardice; and probably of both: we here disclaim the one as well as the other of these sinister restraints. If indeed there be dangers on our pathway, let them be manfully encountered, and they will disappear, as do always the phantoms of superstition when boldly looked at. The risks to faith that haunt this subject are factitious, and have had their origin in an ill-judged modern eagerness to conform our doctrine of Inspiration to the arbitrary conditions of a logical or pseudo-scientific system. No such attempt can ever be successful; but the restless and often-renewed endeavour to effect a purpose of this kind breeds perplexities—it feeds a bootless controversy, and it furnishes disbelief with its only effective weapons.

If unwarranted and unwarrantable modern schemes, as to the nature and the extent of Inspiration, are put out of view, and if interminable argumentation be cut short, then the Bible will return to its place of power and of benign authority, yielding to us daily its inestimable treasures of instruc-