DEGREES OF INSPIRATION.
Doctor Buck
says, that inspiration is “the conveying of certain extraordinary and
supernatural notions or motives into the soul, or it denotes any supernatural
influence of God upon the mind of a rational creature, whereby he is formed to
any degree of intellectual improvement, to which he would not or would not, in
fact have attained in his present circumstances in a natural way. And thus the
prophets are said to have spoken by divine inspiration.
“1. And
inspiration of superintendency, in which God does so influence and direct
the mind of any person, as to keep him more secure from error in some various
and complex discourse, than he would have been merely by the use of his natural
faculties.
“2. Plenary
superintendency inspiration, which exclude any mixture of error at all from
the performance so superintended.
“3. Inspiration
of elevation, where the faculties act in a regular, and, as it seems, a
common manner, yet are raised to an extraordinary degree, so that composure
shall, upon the whole, have more of the true sublime, or pathetic, than natural
genius could not have given.
4. Inspiration
of suggestion, where the use of the faculties is superseded, and God does,
as it were, speak directly to the mind, making such discoveries to it as it
could not otherwise have obtained, and dictating the very words in which such
discoveries are to be communicated, if they are designed as a message to
others.”—Page 196. (A. H. Parsons, Parson’s Text Book [Lamoni, Iowa:
Herald Publishing House, 1902], 214)
