Matthew 10:20

20. It is not ye that speak Their words will be God’s words. In the demoniacs the devils spake through the human organs. In the arraigned apostles the Holy Spirit shall speak, making their voice his voice, and their tongue his organ. The Spirit of your Father It is God’s Spirit, and at that moment he recognises you as sons of God. Hence our Lord does not here say, My Father, but places the protecting fatherhood of God directly over his apostles.

The assurances here given that premeditation of their speech was unnecessary to the apostles before their persecutors, are not to be rashly applied to every preacher in the administration of the Gospel. A neglect of preparation for the pulpit is carelessness; an avoidance of it under the expectation of inspiration is fanaticism. No doubt a divine influence attends a faithful administration of the word, but not so as to supersede the best and fullest exertion of the human faculties.

We have here the doctrine of inspiration stated in its strongest form. In the apostles, in the moment of trial, the Holy Spirit would reside, and the words they spake should be his words. Its existence with the apostles, at any rate, in certain exigencies, is here beyond doubt asserted. And who can affirm, that in those sacred documents, the New Testament Scriptures, the same inspiration does not exist. If the apostles were furnished with this inspiration in their momentary times of trial, how much more important, that in recording their words for ages for the instruction of the Church and the conversion of the world, they should possess the same high qualification.