But now, passing from the first manifestation of God’s will to the second, _i.e._ from the incarnate Word to the written word, are we to be surprised if we meet with a similar union and a similar difficulty? If, in short, we find the self-same combination of the divine and human elements? Can I wonder if it is presented to us in a form so divine that it is infallibly true, and yet so human that it is full of the workings of the human intellect and human heart? No, I wonder not, and I speculate not. But, as I thank God for an incarnate Redeemer, who has all the omnipotent and infinite attributes of God, while at the same time He has so true a manhood that I may appeal to His sympathy on the ground of His experience of all the trials of the flesh, so I thank God also that He has given us a Bible so perfect, so divine, so authoritative, so infallible, that I may trust it without the shadow of a doubt as the unerring word of the living God, while at the same time it is so completely human, and thereby so exactly adapted to the human heart’s requirements, that I can welcome it as a word spoken for myself, and admire the love of our Heavenly Father who has been pleased to combine in one book a perfect divinity and a perfect humanity, the infallible truth of a perfect Godhead combined by God’s mysterious power with the heart-touching utterance of a true and perfect manhood. DIFFICULTIES. BUT, while we rejoice in the great doctrine of a complete, plenary, and infallible inspiration, we should be wanting in Christian candour if we were to ignore the existence of certain difficulties connected with the subject. There are difficulties we freely acknowledge, some of which have been felt, not merely by sceptical, but by devout and Christian minds; and these difficulties I now propose to consider. 1. The first of these has been already met. It arises from the variety of mind and character in the inspired writers. This is thought to be inconsistent with the divine inspiration of the whole book by one inspiring Spirit; and it would be a difficulty if we believed, according to the mechanical theory, that the writers were merely pens, machines, or copyists. But on the principle that there is a perfect manhood combined with a perfect Godhead, instead of remaining a difficulty, it becomes one of the chief beauties of the book, and is the very thing that renders it so pre-eminently suited to the wants of the human heart. 2. A second difficulty arises from the idea that the language of Scripture is opposed to modern science. The principle of this difficulty is contained in the words, ‘Any true doctrine of inspiration must conform to all well-ascertained facts of history or of science.’ {45}