syllable in that secret and that unfinished word, as it was for
so many ages. This cooperation of ages, not able to communicate
or concert arrangements with each other, is neither more nor less
an argument of an overruling inspiration, than if the separation
of the contributing parties were by space, and not by time. As
if, for example, every island at the same moment were to send its
contribution, without previous concert, to a sentence or chapter of
a book; in which case the result, if full of meaning, much more
if full of awful and profound meaning, could not be explained
rationally without the assumption of a supernatural overruling of
these unconscious co-operators to a common result. So far on behalf
of inspiration. Yet, on the other hand, as an argument in denial
of any blind mechanic inspiration cleaving to words and syllables,
_Phil._ notices this consequence as resulting from such
an assumption, viz., that if you adopt any one gospel, St. John's
suppose, or any one narrative of a particular transaction, as
inspired in this minute and pedantic sense, then for every other
report, which, adhering to the spiritual _value_ of the
circumstances, and virtually the same, should differ in the least
of the details, there would instantly arise a solemn degradation.
All parts of Scripture, in fact, would thus be made active and
operative in degrading each other.

Such is _Phil._'s way of explaining ξεοπνευστια[Footnote:
I must point out to _Phil_. an oversight of his as to this word
at p. 45; he there describes the doctrine of _theopneustia_ as
being that of 'plenary and _verbal_ inspiration,' But this he
cannot mean, for obviously this word _theopneustia_ comprehends
equally the verbal inspiration which he is denouncing, and the
inspiration of power or spiritual virtue which he is substituting.