Page:The spirit of the Hebrew poetry 1861.djvu/47

 gard as rightfully determinative of our religious belief, and as regulative of our conduct and temper. If it be so, then no other, or middle course can, consistently with undoubted facts, be taken than this; we must bring ourselves to think of these writings as, in one sense, wholly human; and read them as if they were nothing more than human; and, in another sense, as wholly divine; and must read them as if they were in no sense less than divine.

Endless confusions, interminable questionings, come from the mitigative supposition—That, in any given portion, page, or paragraph, certain expressions, or separate clauses, or single words—here five words, and there seven words, are of human origination; while other five words, or seven, or other clauses or sentences or paragraphs, are from heaven; and that thus a perpetual caution or marginal indication is needed, by aid of which we may, from line to line, discriminate the one species of writing from the other—sifting the particles of gold from out of the sand and clay in the midst of which we find them. It is manifest that the better instructed a Bible reader may be, and the more intelligent and conscientious he is, so much the deeper, and so much the more frequent will be his perplexities, and so much the less comfort and edification will he draw from his Bible daily: it will be so if a notion of this kind has lodged itself within him.

That in Holy Scripture which is from above is an element over and beyond, and beside, the me-