It may be observed in the first place that a revelation _must possess some distinctive character_. Even, if it should turn out that there is no such thing in reality at all, at least the notion which we form in our minds must possess such points of difference as to distinguish it from all other notions. It appears needful to bear this in mind, obvious though it is, because there are not a few, in the present day, who deprive the word, revelation, of nearly all the distinguishing features which have commonly been supposed to attach to it, and so extend the meaning of the word inspiration as “sometimes to believe it in poets, legislators, philosophers, and others gifted with high genius,” (Essays and Reviews, p. 140). What this means it is hard to say. Shakespeare, Milton, Newton, and others certainly did not imagine that they had direct communication with God; that they revealed to us His nature, and the relation in which He stands to us; predicted future events, etc., in the same sense that Moses, David, Isaiah, and the other writers of the Bible are supposed to have done. If they actually did anything of this kind, they were assuredly wholly unconscious of their power; nor, we may add, has common opinion held that they afforded information on the same subjects as those which the writers of the Bible handled. Admirers of our poets, and philosophers, have not considered it necessary to promulgate what they have found in their writings, as matters in which the spiritual, and, possibly, eternal interests of man are vitally concerned; although believers in the Bible, and even in Mahomet, have done so. The word inspiration, in fact, as used in the passage above quoted, involves a confusion of ideas which we should hardly have expected to find in the writings of any one who professed to speak accurately, and appears scarcely pardonable, or even honest, in the case of so acute a thinker, as the late Mr. Baden Powell. We are not now saying that the Bible is a revelation from God, or even that there is such a thing as a distinctive revelation at all. All we assert is, that the idea of such a thing is a very common one, and that it is very different from that which is usually held with regard to the works of Newton, Milton, and other gifted sages and philosophers. We might add, in passing, that, unless the Bible be an imposture—in which case it ought to be regarded as far inferior to the works of genuine and truthful poets and philosophers—it does correspond, as we trust will be seen, on an examination of its contents, to the idea referred to.