But when we have stated the historical origin of the books, and their internal arrangement which corresponds to their origin, it is a mere gratuitous assertion that all revealed doctrine is contained in them. For as neither the sacred writers, each taken by himself, intended to comprehend the whole Christian doctrine in his own books, nor concerted together to contribute each his portion to make up one whole, but as each wrote on the most diverse occasions what was necessary or opportune for the particular circumstances, the Holy Spirit indeed, who is the chief Author of the Scriptures, might direct everything, so as to form a complete body of doctrine without the knowledge and beyond the intention of the writers, but that He did so can in nowise be shown. For this the supposition is required that it was the will of God that Scripture should be the sole source, or at least the complete code, from which the entire revelation might be acquired. We have certain evidence from the charge of Christ that the Apostles and their successors should teach to the end of the world all nations to observe whatever He had commanded them, and from the promise of the Spirit of truth teaching all truth and remaining with them for ever, by whom Christ's witnesses are ordered to go to the end of the earth, that the whole revelation was to be preached by an authentic office of teaching in perpetual succession. On the other hand, there is not a vestige of a charge that this revelation should be committed entire to writing, either in the words of Christ or in the sayings of the Apostles, or in the manner of acting and writing of the Apostles or of the other sacred writers, or in the arrangement, scope, and occasion of the books, or in the persuasion of Christians down to the sixteenth century. How, then, is this to be maintained unless you first lay down not to believe the word propagated by preaching which Christ appointed by charges and promises distinct and irrefragable, and enjoined to comprehend the whole revealed truth, but to believe only the word in Scripture, which He did indeed superadd to preaching, but never either enjoined or promised that all revealed truth should be contained in it? But whatever be the fact as to the material fulness of Scripture, the form of the books, each and all, is such that they evidently are not written for the purpose of teaching the whole Christian religion to each of the faithful independently of the teaching office. It must be added that these books were addressed to those who were already Christians, and give directions and advice which could not be rightly understood save by those who had been previously instructed, and, moreover, refer the faithful in express words to the preaching which they had heard and received, and in which they are exhorted to abide. They further also refer to guardians of the deposit, and to a line of authentic teachers who shall continue to hand it on from generation to generation.[142]