The question is often asked:  Were these promises given to the apostles alone, or through them to the church at large?  The answer is at hand.  They were given primarily and in a special sense to the apostles; for they had reference to a special work committed to them, which required for its performance special divine illumination and guidance.  They were also given, in an important sense, to the church at large; since all believers enjoy, through the teaching of the apostles, the benefit of these revelations of the Holy Spirit.  They are not, however, made to all believers personally; but were given, once for all, through the apostles to the church.  The gift of the Holy Spirit is indeed made to all believers personally:  through his enlightening and sanctifying power they have all needed help and guidance.  But they are not called, as were the apostles, to lay the foundations of the Christian faith, and have therefore no promise of new revelations from the Spirit or of elevation above all error, any more than they have of miraculous gifts.

We are now prepared to consider, in the third place, the claims which the apostles themselves made to speak and write with divine authority.  Although their simple word as men could avail nothing, yet this same word, taken in connection with their known relation to Christ, with the work committed to them, and with the promises made to them, is of the most weighty import.  It was not indeed their custom to assert gratuitously their superhuman guidance and authority.  Yet when occasions arose, from the nature of the subject under discussion, or from the opposition of false teachers, they did so in unambiguous terms.  Thus the apostle Paul, writing to the Corinthians, says, “Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God.  Which things also we speak, not in the words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual,” 1 Cor. 2:12, 13:  and writing to the Thessalonians concerning the resurrection, “For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep,” etc. 1 Thess. 4:15.  And again, in writing to the Galatians, among whom his apostolic standing had been called in question by certain Judaizing teachers, he says, “I certify you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached of me is not after man:  for I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ.”  Gal. 1:11, 12.  This language is explicit enough.  It could have been used only by one who was conscious of having been divinely qualified to teach the gospel without error.  Accordingly, in the same epistle, he opposes his apostolic authority to these false teachers:  “Behold, I Paul say unto you, that if ye be circumcised