Welsh Journals

57^ Old Price's Remains. majority in number, even if they did not always include the aristocracy of talent, in Christendom. The compilers then, with this general impression, could never use the term "Bible" or " Holy Scriptures," in any other sense than as a direct plenary and verbal communication from God to man, exactly equivalent in all its parts, to the voices uttered from Heaven, or the words of the ten command¬ ments written with the ringer of God. What these opponents then look for in vain amongst the articles in the form of a statement of doctrine distinctive of the Church of England, is, in fact, implied in the bare use of the words " Holy Scripture;" and, if expressed at all, would have appeared in the form of a definition, which those divines might well deem unnecessary, seeing that it was already the received and only idea generally attached to those revered names, Bible, Testament, &c, by the ancient catholic Church. The proverbs—" as true as the Bible"—"as true as the Gospel" could not have arisen amongst a nation who thought the writers of The Book were either entirely, or here and there, left like other fallible men to choose the words in which they should express the facts and doctrines made, (in some other way,) known to them. That the opposite was, during these past ages, the persuasion of the common herd of illiterate, unreasoning, unenquiring Christians will, I believe, be conceded by all. And a very fair question arises, whether such learned men as have, now and then, expressed their disbelief in verbal inspiration, (some have written, carelessly, as if they did not believe it) were more enlightened, on a point requiring little but a simple assent to God's own account of the matter; or whether, on the contrary, the poor have been preserved from the snares notoriously incident to the pride of human learning, i Cor. i, 20-31,