i believe that the writers of holy scripture were directly inspired by god, in a manner, and to an extent, in and to which no other men whose words have come down to us have been inspired. i cannot draw the line between their inspiration and that of other great teachers of mankind. i believe that the words of these, too, just in so far as they have proved themselves true words,[229] were inspired by god. but though i cannot, and man cannot, draw the line, god himself has done so; for these books have been filtered out, as it were, under his guidance, from many others, which, in ages gone by, claimed a place beside them, and are now forgotten, while these have stood for thousands of years, and are not likely to be set aside now. for they speak if men will read them, to needs and hopes set deep in our human nature, which no other books have ever spoken to, or ever can speak to, in the same way—they set forth his government of the world as no other books ever have set it forth, or ever can set it forth.

but though i do not believe that the difference between the inspiration of isaiah and shakespeare is expressible by words, the difference between the inspiration of the holy scripture—the bible as a whole—and any other possible or conceivable collection of the utterances of men seems to me clear enough. the bible has come to us from the jewish nation, which was chosen by god as the one best fitted to receive for all mankind, and to give forth to all mankind, the revelation of him—to teach them his name and character—that is, to enable them to know him and in knowing him, to feel how they and the world need redemption, and to understand how they and the world have been redeemed. this bible, this book of the chosen people, taken as a whole, has done this, is in short the written revelation of god. this being so, there can be[230] no other inspired book in the same sense in which the bible is inspired, unless we, or some other world, are not redeemed, require another redemption and another christ. but as we and all worlds are redeemed, and christ is come, and god has revealed his name and his character in christ so that we can know him, the bible is and must remain the inspired book, the book of the church for all time, to which nothing can be added, from which nothing can be taken, as they will find who try to take from it or add to it. there may be another homer, plato, shakespeare; there can be no other bible.