affirmation of the real spiritual inspiration), that a series of
more than thirty writers, speaking in succession along a vast line
of time, and absolutely without means of concert, yet all combine
unconsciously to one end--lock like parts of a great machine into
one system--conspire to the unity of a very elaborate scheme, without
being at all aware of what was to come after. Here, for instance,
is one, living nearly one thousand six hundred years before the
last in the series, who lays a foundation (in reference to man's
ruin, to God's promises and plan for human restoration), which
is built upon and carried forward by all, without exception, that
follow. Here come a multitude that prepare each for his successor--that
unconsciously integrate each other--that, finally, when reviewed,
make up a total drama, of which each writer's separate share would
have been utterly imperfect without corresponding parts that he could
not have foreseen. At length all is finished. A profound piece of
music, a vast oratorio, perfect and of elaborate unity, has resulted
from a long succession of strains, each for itself fragmentary. On
such a final creation resulting from such a distraction of parts,
it is indispensable to suppose an overruling inspiration, in order
at all to account for the final result of a most elaborate harmony.
Besides, which would argue some inconceivable magic, if we did not
assume a providential inspiration watching over the coherencies,
tendencies, and intertessellations (to use a learned word) of the
whole,--it happens that, in many instances, typical things are
recorded--things ceremonial, that could have no meaning to the person
recording--prospective words, that were reported and transmitted
in a spirit of confiding faith, but that could have little meaning
to the reporting parties for many hundreds of years. Briefly, a
great mysterious _word_ is spelt as it were by the whole sum
of the scriptural books--every separate book forming a letter or