similar process produced the New Testament: the Spirit enabled the Apostles “infallibly to receive, understand, and declare, the whole counsel of God in Christ”8 and then to write what they knew for the instruction of later ages. In an anti-Roman passage, Owen sharpens the point that a written record, as distinct from mere oral tradition, is always necessary if God’s revelations are to be preserved from corruption and loss. “Before the committing of the Scriptures to writing, God had given the world