pouring of the Spirit, for the spiritual gifts of its earliest ministers, and the spiritual duties and blessings of all its members-we should be left to a standard of truth and duty dictated only by the wisdom, composed only under the superintending care of fallible men? Surely the inspiration of the New Testament is naturally and reasonably inferred from that of the Old.

2. The same conclusion necessarily arises from the evident inspiration of the apostles in their preaching and other official actions. It was expressly promised by the Lord, that when they should stand before enemies in defence of the gospel, they should speak by inspiration of God. In such circumstances their direction was, "Take no thought how or what ye shall speak. For it is not ye that speak, but the Spirit of your Father which speaketh in you." "The Holy Ghost shall teach you in that same hour what ye ought to say." "I will give you a mouth and wisdom, which all your adversaries shall not be able to gainsay nor resist."* We have no reason to suppose that these promises of inspiration were confined to the special circumstances referred to in the passages above quoted. The apostles were to be placed in many others for which they would be quite as needful. Certain circumstances were particularly spoken of by the Lord, because in them the faith of his apostles would be particularly tried.

But inspiration was promised by the Saviour, in

Mat. 10: 19, 20; Luke 12: 12; 21: 15.

terms of the most comprehensive kind. A little before his crucifixion, when the hearts of his disciples were greatly troubled at the assurance that he was soon to be taken from them, he promised to send them a Comforter, the Holy Spirit, who should abide with them for ever. This blessed person he called repeatedly "the Spirit of truth." He was distinctly promised to the apostles as a substitute in all respects for the presence, the guidance, the instructions of their Lord himself. The great consolation of such a substitute consisted in his being to the apostles, invisibly, just what Jesus had been to them visibly; so that they might consider themselves to be divinely directed and instructed under his influence, in a manner quite as direct and infallible as if they had still the Master's voice to hear and his footsteps to follow. They were assured that "the Spirit of truth" would teach them whatever knowledge their duties might require. "He shall teach you all things." "He will lead you into all truth." Had they forgotten any portion of their Lord's instructions? "The Spirit of truth," said he, "shall bring all things to your remembrance whatsoever I have said unto you." "He shall take of mine, and shall show it unto you." Even the knowledge of the future was promised to the apostles by the inspiration of the Holy Ghost. "He will show you things to come." They were directed to tarry in Jerusalem after his death, until they should receive "power from on high." Now all these promises are positive proofs that the apostles were inspired in their min

istry as soon as their fulfilment took place. Thus, when the day of Pentecost was fully come, and the Spirit descended upon them, "they were all filled with the Holy Ghost," and "began to speak as the Spirit gave them utterance." By this inspiration they were enabled to preach in all languages the wonderful works of God. The sermon of Peter on that day was spoken under this influence. By the same help he discerned the spirit of Ananias and Sapphira. Their lie was unto the Holy Ghost, inasmuch as it was unto one whom the Holy Ghost inspired. Directed by the same Spirit, Peter journeyed from Joppa to the house of Cornelius, and first opened the door of faith to the Gentiles. Paul, by inspiration, went forth on his mission from Antioch to the lesser Asia; being "full of the Holy Ghost," he searched the conscience of Elymas the sorcerer, and punished his wickedness with blindness. When the apostles and elders and brethren were assembled in council about the question sent up from Antioch for their decision, they consulted and determined as they were guided by inspiration of God. "It seemeth good to the Holy Ghost," was the solemn sanction annexed to their sentence. They claimed to be always received as inspired. Their speech and their preaching, they asserted, were "in demonstration of the Spirit;" "not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth." It is expressly declared by St. Peter, that his brethren and himself "preached the gospel with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven." All these

statements, and many others which might be adduced, abundantly confirm the position, that the apostles in their preaching and other official actions were in the highest sense inspired.

Hence it would seem to be very naturally and reasonably inferred, that when they wrote for the permanent guidance of the churches they were inspired also. Can it be supposed that St. Paul, in preaching to the Ephesians or Corinthians, spoke as he was moved by the Holy Ghost, and yet was entirely bereft of that divine aid when he sat down to the much more important work of composing epistles to those churches? When it is considered how entirely all the oral communications of the apostles ceased to be remembered in a short time after they were uttered, except as they were recorded in the Scriptures, and how their written communications to the churches have remained unmutilated these eighteen hundred years, and are now circulated in upwards of one hundred and seventy languages, and will continue to be the guide and treasure of the church to the end of the world, can it be believed that in these the apostles were left to their own fallible wisdom, though guided in the others by the inspiration of God? Such an opinion would be absurd in the extreme.

It seems to be a necessary conclusion, from the above premises, that the authors of the New Testament were divinely inspired, as well when writing for all people and all ages, as when speaking to the congregation of a single synagogue.

3. If the apostles did not intend to impress the church with a belief that they wrote by divine inspiration, they adopted the very means that were most likely to lead its members into a most important heresy. St. Paul, in an epistle to Timothy, which he knew would be universally circulated, published the broad assertion, "All Scripture is given by inspiration of God." Now it is worthy of note, that the epistle containing this declaration is generally supposed to have been written after all the other works of St. Paul, and but a short time before his martyrdom at Rome. At any rate it was one of his latest works. The gospel of St. Matthew had been written and circulated at least twenty years. Those by St. Mark and St. Luke were already in the possession of the churches. The same is true of the Acts of the Apostles. We know of no part of the whole New Testament that was written subsequently to the uttering of the above declaration, except the gospel, epistles, and Revelation by St. John.

In connection with this be it observed, that when the primitive Christians received an epistle or gospel from one of the apostles or evangelists, they regarded it as a portion of Holy Scripture. By this familiar name it was universally known, and with this high honor it was always treated. Precisely as the writers of the New Testament speak of the books of the Old Testament, calling them the Scriptures, do the Christian writers who were contemporaneous with the apostles continually quote their books. This cannot be questioned.

Then consider the circumstances of the