chers:
"Behold, I Paul say unto you, that if ye be circumcised Christ shall
profit you nothing." Gal. 5:2. In the memorable letter of the apostles
and elders to the Gentile churches, Acts 15:23-29, they say, "It seemed
good to the Holy Ghost and to us, to lay upon you no greater burden than
these necessary things." "To the Holy Ghost and to us" can mean only, to
us under the guidance of the Holy Ghost. Besides such explicit
assertions as the above, there is a tone of authority running through
the apostolic writings which can be explained only from their claim to
speak with divine authority. They assert the weightiest truths and make
the weightiest revelations concerning the future, as men who know that
they have a right to be implicitly believed and obeyed. What majesty of
authority, for example, shines through Paul's discussion of the doctrine
of the resurrection, 1 Cor., ch. 15, where he announces truths that lie
wholly beyond the ken of human reason. "Behold," says he, "I show you a
mystery; we shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed," as one
who has perfect assurance that he speaks from God. The same tone of
certainty runs through all the remarks which the apostle John
interweaves into his gospel, as well as through his epistles, and
through the other apostolic writings.

To sum up in a single sentence what has been said respecting the
apostles: When we consider the strong presumption, arising from the
necessity of the case, that they must have been divinely qualified to
teach and write without error, the explicit promises of Christ that they
should be thus qualified, and their explicit claims under these
promises, we have full evidence that they wrote, as well as spoke, under
the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, and consequently that their writings
are of divine authority.

4. In the second grade of relationship to Christ stand men who, like
Mark and Luke, were not themselves apostles, but were the _companions of
apostles_, and their associates in the work of preaching the gospel. We
are not authorized to place them in the same rank with the apostles. Yet
they had the gift of the Holy Spirit, which was always given in
connection with ordination at the hands of the apostles. If, in addition
to this, their connection with some of the apostles was of such an
intimate nature that we cannot suppose them to have written without
their knowledge and approbation, we have for their writings all the
apostolic authori