This breathing organism, this glorious panharmonicon which
I had seen stand on its feet as a man, and with a man's voice given
to it, the doctrine in question turns at once into a colossal
Memnon's head, a hollow passage for a voice, a voice that mocks the
voices of many men, and speaks in their names, and yet is but one
voice, and the same; and no man uttered it, and never in a human
heart was it conceived. WHY should I not?--Because the doctrine
evacuates of all sense and efficacy the sure and constant tradition,
that all the several books bound up together in our precious family
Bible were composed in different and widely-distant ages, under the
greatest diversity of circumstances, and degrees of light and
information, and yet that the composers, whether as uttering or as
recording what was uttered and what was done, were all actuated by a
pure and holy Spirit, one and the same--(for is there any spirit pure
and holy, and yet not proceeding from God--and yet not proceeding in
and with the Holy Spirit?)--one Spirit, working diversely, now
awakening strength, and now glorifying itself in weakness, now giving
power and direction to knowledge, and now taking away the sting from
error! Ere the summer and the months of ripening had arrived for the
heart of the race; while the whole sap of the tree was crude, and
each and every fruit lived in the harsh and bitter principle; even
then this Spirit withdrew its chosen ministers from the false and
guilt-making centre of Self.
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