The prophets did not fall into mistakes in those things which they wrote as inspired men (theopneustos) and as prophets, not even in the smallest particulars; otherwise faith in the whole of Scripture would berendered doubtful. But they could err in other things as men (just as David erred in his letter concerning the killing of Uriah [which has historical authenticity but not normal]; and Nathan in the directions which he gave toDavid about building the temple without having consulted God, 2 S. 7:3) because the influence of the Holy Spirit was neither universal nor uninterrupted, so that it might not be considered an ordinary excitation or merely an effect of nature (2 K. 2:17). The apostles were infallible in faith, not in practice; and the Spirit was to lead them into all truth so that they might not err, but not into all holiness that they might not sin because they were like us in all things. The dissimulation and hypocrisy of Peter (Gal. 2:12) was a sin of life, not an error of faith; a lapse in his morality from weakness and the fear of incurring the hatred of the Jews, but not an error of mind from an ignorance of Christian liberty, which he testified sufficiently to have known in his familiar intercourse with the Gentiles before the arrival of the Jews.
Francis Turretin — Institutes of Elenctic Theology
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