to have been to convince them that the "day of Christ" was not at hand, but that "there would come a falling away first, and that man of sin would be revealed."
But some reader may be disposed to stop and ask what does all this mean? Are not the writings of the Apostles a part of the Word of the Lord? Certainly not. We have no evidence that they ought to be so regarded. In the word of the Lord there is always an infinite and unfathomable depth of meaning. Were it not so, it could not be the word of him whose wisdom is infinite; whose thoughts are as far above our thoughts as the heavens are higher than the earth. The word of the Lord is filled with "spirit and life;" with the omnipotent power of divine goodness and truth; and is thus removed to an infinite distance from all those writings which are merely the expressions of finite thoughts.
But in the writings of the apostles we find no such infinite depths of spiritual meaning. It is true there are "some things hard to be understood," but so there are in the writings of almost every author. This certainly would not be regarded as an evidence that they are a part of the word of the Lord. The apostles had, undoubtedly, received more than an ordinary amount of spiritual illumination. They were thus prepared, in the very best manner, to unfold and explain the truths of the word, so far as was necessary or useful at that time. But the truths which they taught were first received with their own minds, and from them were imparted to others. Their writings therefore, as well as their oral teachings, were expressions of their own thoughts,—nothing more. Certainly no one would attempt to maintain that the many thousands of public sermons and exhortations of the apostles, as well as their private instructions from house to house, that all these constituted a part of the word of the Lord. But it is difficult to conjecture, on what ground a distinction, in this respect, has been made, between their oral sermons and their written lectures.
