APPENDIX:

THE SECOND HELVETIC CONFESSION

IN ENGLISH.

have their writings matched with the Canonical Scriptures, bat bid us allow of them so far forth as they either agree with them or disagree.

And in the same order we also place the decrees and canons, of councils.

Wherefore we suffer not ourselves, in controversies about religion or matters of faith, to be pressed with the bare testiinonies of fathers or decrees of councils; much less with received customs, or with the

} multitude of men being of one judgment, or with prescription of long time. Therefore, in controversies of religion or matters of faith, we can not admit any other judge than God himself, pronouncing by the Holy Scriptures what is true, what is false, what is to be followed, or what to be avoided. So we do not rest but in the judgment of spiritual men, drawn from the Word of God. Certainly Jeremiah and

, other prophets did vehemently condemn the assemblies of priests gathered against the law of God; and diligently forewarned us that we should not hear the fathers, or tread in their path who, walking in their own inventions, swerved from the law of God (Ezek. xx. 18).

We do likewise reject human traditions, which, although they be set ont with goodly titles, as though they were divine and apostolical, delivered to the Church by the lively voice of the apostles, and, as it were, by the hands of apostolical men, by means of bishops succeeding in their room, yet, being compared with the Scriptures, disagree with them; and that by their disagreement bewray themselves in no wise to be apostolical. For as the apostles did not disagree among themselves in doctrine, so the apostles' scholars did not set forth things contrary to the apostles. Nay, it were blasphemous to avouch that the apostles, by lively voice, delivered things contrary to their writings. Paul affirms expressly that he taught the same things in all churches (1 Cor. iv. 17). And, again, We, says he, write none other things unto you than what ye read or acknowledge' (2 Cor. i. 13). Also, in another place, he witnesses that he and his disciples-to wit, apostolic men—walked in the same way, and jointly by the same Spirit did all things (2 Cor. xii. 18). The Jews also, in time past, had their traditions of elders; but these traditions were severely confuted by the Lord, showing that the keeping of them hinders God's law, and that God is in vain worshiped of such (Matt. xv. 8,9; Mark vii. 6, 7).

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CHAPTER III.-OF GOD; THE UNITY AND THE TRINITY. We believe and teach that God is one in essence or nature, subsisting by himself, all-sufficient in himself, invisible, without a body, intinite, eternal, the Creator of all things both visible and invisible, the chief good, living, quickening and preserving all things, almighty and supremely wise, gentle or merciful, just and true.

And we detest the multitude of gods, because it is expressly written, “The Lord thy God is one God' (Deut. vi. 4). 'I am the Lord thy God; thou shalt have no strange gods before my face' (Exod. xx. 2, 3). “I am the Lord, and there is none other; beside me there is no God. Am not I the Lord, and there is none other beside me alone? a just God, and a Saviour; there is none beside me' (Isa. xlv. 5, 21). 'I the Lord, Jehovah, the merciful God, gracious and long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth,' etc. (Exod. xxxiv. 6).

We nevertheless believe and teach that the same infinite, one, and indivisible God is in person inseparably and without confusion distinguished into the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit: so, as the Father has begotten the Son from eternity, the Son is begotten in an inspeakable manner; and the Holy Spirit proceeds from them both, and that from eternity, and is to be worshiped with them both. So that there are not three Gods, but three persons, consubstantial, coeternal, and coequal; distinct, as touching their persons; and, in order, one going before another, yet without any inequality. For, as touching their nature or essence, they are so joined together that they are but one God; and the divine essence is common to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.'

For the Scripture has delivered unto us a manifest distinction of persons; the angel, among other things, saying thus to the Blessed Virgin, 'The Holy Spirit shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee; and that holy thing which shall be born shall be called the Son of God' (Luke i. 35). Also, in the baptism of Christ, a voice was heard from heaven, saying, “This is my beloved

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said in the Gospel,' It is not ye that speak, but the Spirit of my Father speaketh in you;' therefore ‘he that heareth you, heareth me; and he that despiseth you, despiseth me' (Matt. x. 20; Luke x. 16; John xiii. 20).

Wherefore when this Word of God is now preached in the church by preachers lawfully called, we believe that the very Word of God is preached, and received of the faithful; and that neither any other Word of God is to be feigned, nor to be expected from heaven: and that now the Word itself which is preached is to be regarded, not the minister that preaches; who, although he be evil and a sinner, never. theless the Word of God abides true and good.

Neither do we think that therefore the outward preaching is to be thought as fruitless because the instruction in true religion depends on the inward illumination of the Spirit, or because it is written ‘No man shall teach his neighbor; for all men shall know me' (Jer. xxxi. 34), and “He that watereth, or he that planteth, is nothing, but God that giveth the increase' (1 Cor. iii. 7). For albeit ‘No man can come to Christ, unless he be drawn by the Heavenly Father' (John vi. 44), and be inwardly lightened by the Holy Spirit, yet we know un. doubtedly that it is the will of God that his word should be preached even outwardly. God could indeed, by his Holy Spirit, or by the min. istry of an angel, without the ministry of St. Peter, have taught Cornelins in the Acts; but, nevertheless, he refers him to Peter, of whom the angel speaking says, 'He shall tell thee what thou oughtest to do' (Acts x. 6).

For he that illuminates inwardly by giving men the Holy Spirit, the self-saine, by way of commandment, said unto his disciples,‘Go ye into all the world, and preach the Gospel to every creature' (Mark xvi. 15). And so Paul preached the Word outwardly to Lydia, a purpleseller among the Philippians; but the Lord inwardly opened the woni. an's heart (Acts xvi. 14). And the same Paul, upon an elegant gradation fitly placed in the tenth chapter to the Romans, at last infers, “Therefore faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God' (Rom. x. 14–17).

We know, in the mean time, that God can illuminate whom and when he will, even without the external ministry, which is a thing appertaining to his power; but we speak of the usual way of in

structing men, delivered unto us from God, both by commandment and examples.

We therefore detest all the heresies of Artemon, the Manichæans, the Valentinians, of Cerdon, and the Marcionites, who denied that the Scriptures proceeded from the Holy Spirit; or else received not, or interpolated and corrupted, some of them.

And yet we do not deny that certain books of the Old Testament were by the ancient authors called Apocryphal, and by others Ecclesiastical; to wit, such as they would have to be read in the churches, but not alleged to avouch or confirm the authority of faith by them. As also Augustine, in his De Civitate Dei, book xviii., chapter 38, makes mention that 'in the books of the Kings, the names and books of certain prophets are reckoned; but he adds that they are not in the canon,' and that those books which we have suffice unto godliness.'

CHAPTER II.-OF INTERPRETING THE HOLY SCRIPTURES; AND OF FATHERS,

COUNCILS, AND TRADITIONS. The Apostle Peter has said that 'the Holy Scriptures are not of any private interpretation' (2 Pet. i. 20). Therefore we do not allow all kinds of exposition. Whereupon we do not acknowledge that which they call the meaning of the Church of Rome for the true and natural interpretation of the Scriptures; which, forsooth, the defenders of the Romish Church do strive to force all men simply to receive; but we acknowledge only that interpretation of Scriptures for orthodox and genuine which, being taken from the Scriptures themselves (that is, from the spirit of that tongue in which they were written, they being also weighed according to the circumstances and expounded according to the proportion of places, either of like or of unlike, also of more and plainer), accords with the rule of faith and charity, and makes notably for God's glory and man's salvation.

Wherefore we do not despise the interpretations of the holy Greek and Latin fathers, nor reject their disputations and treatises as far as they agree with the Scriptures; but we do modestly dissent from them when they are found to set down things differing from, or altogether contrary to the Scriptures. Neither do we think that we do them any wrong in this matter; seeing that they all, with one consent, will not