See the two passages where she endeavours to get access
to him when he is preaching:--"Whosoever shall do the will of God, the
same is my brother, and my sister, and my mother"[2] and also the
recommendation of her to the care of John at the crucifixion.
[Footnote 1: Verse 4.]
[Footnote 2: Mark, ch. iii. ver. 35.]
* * * * *
There may be dictation without inspiration, and inspiration without
dictation; they have been and continue to be grievously confounded. Balaam
and his ass were the passive organs of dictation; but no one, I suppose,
will venture to call either of those worthies inspired. It is my profound
conviction that St. John and St. Paul were divinely inspired; but I totally
disbelieve the dictation of any one word, sentence, or argument throughout
their writings. Observe, there was revelation. All religion is revealed;--
_revealed_ religion is, in my judgment, a mere pleonasm. Revelations of
facts were undoubtedly made to the prophets; revelations of doctrines were
as undoubtedly made to John and Paul;--but is it not a mere matter of our
very senses that John and Paul each dealt with those revelations, expounded
them, insisted on them, just exactly according to his own natural strength
of intellect, habit of reasoning, moral, and even physical temperament? We
receive the books ascribed to John and Paul as their books on the judgment
of men, for whom no miraculous discernment is pretended; nay, whom, in
their admission and rejection of other books, we believe to have erred.
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