And the answer should be: "True; God alone
can forgive sins. And it is only because the Spirit of God, who is
God, is in the apostles, endowing them with his divine prerogatives,
that they are able to exercise this high authority."

We are persuaded, however, that this commission was not given to all
Christians, though all have the Spirit. In a note in Olshausen's
Commentary the matter seems to be correctly stated: "To the apostles
was granted the power, absolute and unconditioned, of binding and
loosing, just as to them was {166} given the power of publishing truth
unmixed with error. For _both_ they possessed miraculous spiritual
endowments." Only we should say "sovereign" rather than "miraculous"
endowments. "_The Spirit breatheth where he wills_, and thou hearest
his voice," said Jesus.[1] While miraculous gifts were not confined to
the apostles, Christ may have committed to these, and to these alone,
the sovereign prerogative of forgiving sins; gifts of healing, on the
other hand, the working of miracles, prophecy, the discerning of
spirits, and tongues, being distributed throughout the church; "but all
these worketh one and the same Spirit, dividing to each one severally
even _as he will_" (1 Cor. 12: 11, R. V.). In a word, the action of
the Holy Ghost was supremely sovereign in the assignment of spiritual
offices, and when Jesus breathed on his apostles the Holy Ghost, and
gave them authority {167} to remit sins, he separated them unto a
prerogative of which others, indwelt by the same Spirit, might have
known nothing. It is very generally held that the order of apostles
ceased with the death of those who had seen the Lord and companied with
him until the day that he was received up. But the reason for this
cessation has been too little considered. May we not believe that the
apostles and their companions were commissioned to speak for the Lord
until the New Testament Scriptures, his authoritative voice, should be
completed? If so, in the apostolate we have a provisional inspiration;
in the gospel a stereotyped inspiration; the first being endowed with
authority _ad interim_ to remit sins, and the second having this
authority _in perpetuam_. The New Testament, as the very mouthpiece of
the Lord, pronounces forgiveness upon all in every generation who truly
repent and believe on the Son of God; and preachers in every age, with
the Bible in their hand, are authorized to do the same declaratively.
But w