hen it is urged, as by Catholic writers, that this infallibility
for teaching and absolution, which was committed to the apostles, has
descended through a succession of ministers called the clergy, the
answer seems to be, that this authority has not been perpetuated in any
body of men apart from the Scriptures, but was transferred to the New
Testament and lodged there for all time. Historically, at least, it
seems to have been {168} the fact, that as the apostles and prophets of
the new dispensation disappeared, the Gospels and Epistles took their
place, and that henceforth the divine authoritative voice of the Spirit
could be distinctly recognized only in the written word. As coal has
been called "fossil sunlight," so the New Testament may be called
fossil inspiration, the supernatural illumination which fell upon the
apostles being herein stored up for the use of the church throughout
the ages.[2]

"All Scripture is given by inspiration of God
[_theopneustos_--God-breathed], and is profitable for doctrine, for
reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness" (3 Tim. 3:
16). As the Lord breathed the Spirit into certain men, and thereby
committed to them his own prerogative of forgiving sin, so he breathed
his Spirit into certain books and endowed them with his infallibility
in teaching truth. God did not choose to inspire all good books,
though he has chosen to

{169} inbreathe one book, thereby separating it and setting it apart
from all other books.[3] The phrase, "the Bible is simply literature,"
which some are using to-day, as a suggestion against bibliolatry, is
not true. Literature is the letter; Scripture is the letter inspired
by the Spirit. What Jesus said in justification of his doctrine of the
new birth is equally applicable to the doctrine of inspiration: "That
which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the
Spirit is spirit." Educate, develop, and refine the natural man to the
highest possible point, and yet he is not a spiritual man till, through
the new birth, the Holy Ghost renews and indwells him. So of
literature; however elevated its tone, however lofty its thought, it is
not Scripture. Scripture is literature indwelt by the Spirit of God.
The absence of the Holy Ghost from any writing constitutes the
impassable gulf between it and Scripture. Our Lord, in speaking of his
own doctrine, uses the same language, to show its separateness from
common teaching which