It Is Scripture Itself , Not The Authors, That Are The Subjects Of Inspiration

 

“This miraculous operation of the Holy Spirit had not for its object the sacred writers, who were only his instruments, and who were soon to pass away; but its object was the sacred books themselves, which were destined to reveal to the Church from age to age, the immutable counsels of God.

 

“The influence which was exercised upon these men, and of which they themselves were conscious in very different degrees, has never been defined to us. Nothing authorizes us to explain it. The Scriptures themselves have never presented to us its mode or its measure as an object of study. They speak of it always incidentally; they never connect our piety with it. That alone which they propose as the object of our faith is the inspiration of their word; is the divinity of their books; between these they make no difference.

 

“Their word, say they, is theopneustic; their books are of God, whether they recount the mysteries of a past anterior to the creation, or those of a future posterior to the return of the Son of Man; the eternal counsels of the most High, the secrets of the human heart, or the deep things of God; whether they give utterance to their own emotions or record their own recollections, relate contemporaneous events, copy genealogies or make extracts from inspired documents; their writings are inspired; their statements are directed by heaven; it is always God who speaks, who relates, ordains or reveals by their mouth, and who, to accomplish it, employs their personality in different degrees. For 'the Spirit of the Lord was upon them, and his word upon their tongue.' And if it is always the word of man, because it is always men who utter it, it is likewise always the word of God, for it is always God that superintends, guides and employs them. They give their narrations, their doctrines, or their precepts, 'not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Spirit teacheth.' And it is thus that God has constituted himself not only the voucher of all these facts, the author of all these ordinances, and the revealer of all these truths, but that also he has caused them to be given to the Church in the precise order, measure and terms which he has judged most conducive to his heavenly design.” 

 

Louis Gaussen (1790 – 1863), Theopneusty; or, The Plenary Inspiration of the Holy Scriptures, English edition of 1843, pages 34-35