depended upon in that function; but only the Eternal Sophia, the Power of God and the Wisdom of God: yet this you may see of your old interpreter, that he is wholly open, innocent, and true, and that, through such a person, whether forgetful of his author, or hurried by his scribe, it is more than probable you may hear what Heaven knows to be best for you; and extremely improbable you should take the least harm,--while by a careful and cunning master in the literary art, reticent of his doubts, and dexterous in his sayings, any number of prejudices or errors might be proposed to you acceptably, or even fastened in you fatally, though all the while you were not the least required to confide in his inspiration. [Footnote 38: 'Commentary on the Galatians,' Chap. iii.] 48. For indeed, the only confidence, and the only safety which in such matters we can either hold or hope, are in our own desire to be rightly guided, and willingness to follow in simplicity the guidance granted. But all our conceptions and reasonings on the subject of inspiration have been disordered by our habit, first of distinguishing falsely--or at least needlessly--between inspiration of words and of acts; and secondly by our attribution of inspired strength or wisdom to some persons or some writers only, instead of to the whole body of believers, in so far as they are partakers of the Grace of Christ, the Love of God, and the Fellowship of the Holy Ghost. In the degree in which every Christian receives, or refuses, the several gifts expressed by that general benediction, he enters or is cast out from the inheritance of the saints,--in the exact degree in which he denies the Christ, angers the Father, and grieves the Holy Spirit, he becomes uninspired or unholy,--and in the measure in which he trusts Christ, obeys the Father, and consents with the Spirit, he becomes inspired in feeling, act, word, and reception of word, according to the capacities of his nature. He is not gifted with higher ability, nor called into new offices, but enabled to use his granted natural powers, in their appointed place, to the best purpose. A child is inspired as a child, and a maiden as a maiden; the weak, even in their weakness, and the wise, only in their hour. That is the simply determinable _theory_ of the inspiration of all true members of the Church; its truth can only be known by proving it in trial: but I believe there is no record of any man's having tried and declared it vain.[39] [Footnote 39: Compare the closing paragraph in p. 45 of 'The Shrine of the Slaves.' Strangely, as I revise _this_ page for press, a slip is sent me from 'The Christian' newspaper, in which the comment of the orthodox evangelical editor may be hereafter representative to us of the heresy of his sect; in its last audacity, actually _opposing_ the power of the Spirit to the work of Christ. (I only wish I had been at Matlock, and heard the kind physician's sermon.)