canonicity and more than doubtful authenticity like that ascribed to Jude; but the writings of great Christian saints were 'uninspired' writings, and uninspired also were Blake and Coleridge and Wordsworth.
Possibly this, after all, is what is meant by the sin against the Holy Ghost; perhaps it was to guard against it that our Lord refrained from putting anything into writing, an example which was followed by all his disciples during the generation which succeeded him.
To others, the work of the Holy Spirit was chiefly manifested in the transmission of orders; the Church could hardly be thought of apart from the vexed question of the ministry, and seemed to exist not as a divine fellowship of all kindreds and peoples and nations, appointing its ministers and offering them to God for his blessing—but as an organization that existed for its ministers and because of them only. The fact that the Spirit of God persisted in working through other channels stared us in the face, till the theory of inspiration became here also a barren dogma not consonant with the plain facts of life. The magnificent belief in the universal fellowship of the Holy Catholic Church had become to many a belief in a particular theory about apostolic succession, a mechanical theory which, it seems, cannot be traced back to an earlier date than the reign of George IV.
