Address 71: It would be great folly and perverseness, to charge me here with slighting

It would be great folly and perverseness, to charge me here with slighting, or lessening the true value, use, and importance of the inspired apostolical scriptures; for if the charge was just, it must lie against Paul, and not against me, since I say nothing of them, but that which he says, and in his own express words, viz., that all their labor of preaching, instructing, and writing by divine inspiration, had in themselves no other nature, use, or power, than that of such planting and watering as could not fructify till a higher power than was in them gave life and growth to that which they planted and watered.