INSPIRATION, amongst divines and others, implies the conveying of certain extraordinary and supernatural notices or intimations into the soul; or it denotes any supernatural influence exercised by God upon the mind of a rational creature, by which he is formed to a degree of intellectual improvement, to which he could not or would not have attained, in his present circumstances, in a natural yay. Thus the prophets are said to have spoken by divine inspiration.

Some authors reduce the inspiration of the sacred writers to that particular care of Providence, which prevented any dung they had said from failing or coming to nought; maintaining, t ; lat ⅛ese writers were not really inspired either with knowledge or expression.

According to Μ. Simon, inspiration is no more than a direction of the Holy Spirit, which never permitted the sacred writers to be mistaken. It is a common opinion, that the inspiration of the Holy Spirit regards only the matter, not the style or words; and this seems to fall in with Μ. Simon’s doctrine of direction.

Theological writers have enumerated several kinds of inspiration. These are, an inspiration of superintendence, in which God so influences and directs the mind of any person, as to keep him more secure from error in a various and complex discourse, than he would have been merely by the use of his natural faculties; plenary superintendent inspiration, which excludes any mixture of error at all from the performance so superintended; inspiration of elevation, where the faculties act in a regular, and, as it seems, in a common manner, yet are raised to an extraordinary degree, so that the composition shall, upon the whole, have more of the true sublime or pathetic, than natural genius could have given; and inspiration of suggestion, when the use of the faculties is superseded, and God does, as it were, speak directly to the mind, making such discoveries to it as it could not otherwise have obtained, and dictating the very words in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. It is generally allowed that the New Testament was written by a superintendent inspiration. Without this the discourses and doctrines of Christ could not have been faithfully recorded by the evangelists and apostles; nor could they have assumed the authority of speaking the words of Christ, or evinced this authority by the actual exercise of miraculous powers. Besides, the sacred writings bear many obvious internal marks of their divine original, in the excellence of their doctrines, the spirituality and elevation of their design, the majesty and simplicity of their style, the agreement of their various parts, and their efficacy on mankind; to which may be added, that there has been in the Christian Church, from its earliest ages, a constant tradition that the sacred books were written by the extraordinary assistance of the Spirit, which must at least amount to superintendent inspiration. But it has been controverted whether this inspiration extended to every minute circumstance in their writings, so as to be in the most absolute sense plenary. Jerome, Grotius, Erasmus, Episcopius, and many others, maintain that it was not; whilst others contend, that the emphatical manner in which our Lord speaks of the agency of the Spirit upon them, and in which they themselves speak of their own writings, fully justify our believing that their inspiration was plenary, unless there be convincing evidence brought on the other side to prove that it was not. If it be said we allow that there were some errors in the New Testament, as it came from the hands of the apostles, there may be great danger of subverting the main purpose and design of that book; since there will be endless room to debate the importance both of facts and doctrines.

Inspiration, in Physic, is understood of that action of the breast, by which the air is admitted into the lungs; in which sense, inspiration is a branch of respiration, and stands opposed to Exspiration.