ART. VI. After the main foundations of religion in general, in the belief of a God, or more specially of the Christian religion in the doctrine of the Trinity, and of the death, resurrection, and ascension of Christ, are laid down; the next point to be settled is, what is the rule of this faith, where is it to be found, and with whom is it lodged? The church of Rome and we do both agree, that the scriptures are of divine inspiration those of that communion acknowledge, that every thing which is contained in scripture is true, and comes from God; but they add to this, that the books of the New Testament rejected, or out of their curiosity (more than befitted them) debated, the canonical authority of the Epistle of St. Paul to the Hebrews, the Epistle of St. James, the Second Epistle of St. Peter, the Second and Third of St. John, the Epistle of St. Jude, and the Apocalypse, besides some other lesser parts of the gospels; yet can it never be shewed, that any entire church, nor that any national or provincial council, nor that any multitude of men in their confessions or catechisms, or other such public writings, have rejected them, or made any doubt of them at all. Indeed, Luther, and some certain men that lived with him in Germany (no great number nor party of them), were other whiles of that mind, that the Epistle of St. James, &c., might be called into question, whether they were canonical, or no; but afterwards they amended their judgment, and persisted no longer in that error, wherein some others of the Latin church (but never any considerable number or eminent persons there) had been involved before them. And at this day all the churches of Christendom are at one accord for the books of the New Testament. But for the Old Testament they are not so. For herein the canon of the council at Trent hath made the Roman church to differ both from itself (considered as it was in former ages) and from all other churches besides, by adding to the old Canon (strictly and properly so taken) six entire books which were never in it before, that is to say, Tobit, Ecclesiasticus, Wisdom, Judith, the First and the Second of the Maccabees, together with certain other pieces of Baruch, Esther, and Daniel; all which before the time of this new council (where the Pope and his partisans, both in this and in many other divine matters besides, took a most enormous liberty to define what they pleased) were wont to be severed, even among themselves, from the true canonical scriptures. To the body whereof they have now not only annexed them, and made the one to be of equal authority with the other, but they have likewise added this above all, That whosoever shall not receive them, as they do, and believe them to be as good canonical scriptures as the rest (that is, all equally inspired by God, and delivered over to his church for such, ever since they were first written), must undergo the curse of their unhallowed sentence, and be made incapable of eternal salvation. The capacity and assured hope whereof, though (thanks be to God) it never was, nor never will be, in their power to take from us, yet have they laid their most unchristian anathema upon all other churches and persons of the world, and excluded them from all possibility of being saved, unless their new decree in this particular, and the Pope's new creed in this and many other particulars (as unsound and as false as this), be first received and believed for the true articles of our Christian faith. By which their unsufferable and inexcusable determination in that council, they have given the world sufficient cause to reject the council, if there were no other reasons to be brought against it (as many and very many other there be) but this alone-that herein against the common faith, and the catholic canon of the church of God, they have gone about to bind all men's consciences to theirs, and given no more faith or reverence to the true and infallible scriptures of God, than they do to other additional books and writings of men. For the whole current of antiquity runs against them. And the universal church of Christ, as well under the Old as the New Testament, did never so receive these books, which are now by us termed Apocryphal; nor ever acknowledged them to be of the same order, authority, or reverence, with the rest, which both they and we call strictly and properly canonical. In proof whereof we shall here recite the testimony of the church in every age concerning the canon of the Old Testament, and the books that belong thereunto. Where the question will not be. First, Whether those Apocryphal books either have been heretofore, or may still be, read in the church, for the better instruction and were occasionally written, and not with the design of making ART. them the full rule of faith, but that many things were de- VI. livered orally by the apostles, which, if they are faithfully transmitted to us, are to be received by us with the same submission and respect that we pay to their writings: and they also believe, that these traditions are conveyed down infallibly to us, and that to distinguish betwixt true and false doctrines and traditions, there must be an infallible authority lodged by Christ with his church. We, on the contrary, affirm that the scriptures are a complete rule of faith,* and edifying of the people in many good precepts of life: Second, Nor whether they may be joined together in one common volume with the Bible, and comprehended under the general name of Holy Scripture, as that name is largely and improperly taken: Third, Nor whether the moral rules, and profitable histories and examples, therein contained, may be set forth and cited in a sermon or other treatise of religion: Fourth, Nor whether the ancient fathers thought these books (at least many passages in them) worthy of their particular consideration both for the elucidation of divers places in the Old Testament, and for the better enabling of them to get a more perfect understanding of the ecclesiastical story: Fifth, Nor yet, whether, in the very articies of faith, some certain sayings that are found in those books (agreeable herein to the others that are canonical) may not be brought for the more abundant explaining and clearing of them. For all this we grant, and to all these purposes there may be good use made of an apocryphal book. But the question only is, whether all or any of those books be purely, positively, and simply divine scripture, or to all purposes, and in all senses, sacred and canonical, so as that they may be said (or ever were so accounted) to be of the same equal and sovereign authority with the rest, for the establishing and determining of any matter of faith, or controversies in religion, no less than the true and undoubted canonical books of scripture themselves.'-Cosin. Bishop Cosin, then, in his unanswerable 'Scholastical history of the canon of scripture,' brings forward the testimonies of every age to the sixteenth century in support of ours, and consequently against the new canon of the church of Rome. The reader may on this important article consult with much advantage Sir H. Lynde, who proves that the entire canon of scriptures which we profess (without the apocryphal additions) is confirmed by pregnant testimonies in all ages, from the first to the sixteenth, and most of them acknowledged by the Romanists themselves.' And also answers our adversaries' pretences, from the authorities of fathers, and councils, to prove the Apocryphal books canonical.' Via Devia, sections v. and vi.-[ED.] When the holy scriptures are called the rule of faith, we are to understand, the rule whereby to judge of controversies in matters of faith-the rule whereby that which is according to the faith may be made manifest, and heresy detected. The rule is one thing: that whereby we decide what is, or is not, according to the rule, another. The question of the judge must therefore be ever considered apart from that of the rule itself. Every man,' observes Chillingworth, 'is to judge for himself with the judgment of discretion, and to choose either his religion first, and then his church, as we say; or, as you say (addressing the Romanist), his church first, and then his religion.' To exclude men from exercising their reason would make their faith in the first place irrational, because they could have no reason to believe; and in the second place, altogether uncertain, and its object may as well be a falsehood, as a truth; because if I have no reason why I believe it true, then I have no certainty, but it may be false; for the only certainty I can have that my belief is not false, is because I have rational grounds to evidence it true, which when removed, what certainty can I have that I do not err?' Besides, when any man embraces the communion of the papal church, he has reason for so doing, or he has not. If he has not, then his belief is 'irrational, uncertain, and absurd: if he hath, then he believes the Romish church infallible, because his reason judgeth it to be so; and so the church is beholden to the judgment of his private reason for his belief of her infallibility.' If it be objected by the Romanists, that reason is not a sure guide, we again answer with Whitby:- Can you conduct me to a surer guide than reason? Yes, you will answer, to the church. But if my reason, VI. ART. that the whole Christian religion is contained in them, and no where else; and although we make great use of tradition, especially that which is most ancient and nearest the source, to help us to a clear understanding of the scriptures; yet as to matters of faith we reject all oral tradition, as an incompetent mean of conveying down doctrines to us, and we refuse to receive any doctrine, that is not either expressly contained in scripture, or clearly proved from it. Ex. xvii. Deu. xxvii. -26. In order to the opening and proving of this, it is to be 14. xxiv. 4. considered, what God's design, in first ordering Moses, and 8. xxxi. 9, after him all inspired persons, to put things in writing, could 19, 22, 24 be: it could be no other than to free the world from the uncertainties and impostures of oral tradition. All mankind being derived from one common source, it seems it was much Is. viii. 1. easier in the first ages of the world to preserve the tradition pure, than it could possibly be afterwards: there were only a 2, 28-32. few things then to be delivered concerning God; as, that he Hab. ii. 2. was one spiritual Being, that he had created all things, that Luk.i.3,4. he alone was to be worshipped and served; the rest relating xxx. 8. Jer. xxxvi. John xx. 31. 2 Pet. i.15, 16. 19. xxi. 5. being fallible, may misguide me, why may it not when it conducts me to the Rev. i. 11, church; ; especially as you yourselves profess to believe the church's infallibility upon prudential motives?' The judge then is the same in both churches, and must be kept quite distinct from the rule itself. Hence is evident the folly of Romanists, who, when they would assail our rule of faith, spend all their time in exposing the errors and absurdities into which men's private fancies have carried them: whereas such errors arise from men making something else, their own private spirit or their traditions, to be either a substitute for, or supplement to, the only unerring rule-the written word of God.+ The rule to which all questions of religion must be brought is the ler scriptathe written word; and if this word,' observes Chillingworth, 'be sufficient to inform us what is the faith, it must of necessity be sufficient to teach us what is heresy; seeing heresy is nothing but a manifest deviation from, and an opposition to, the faith. That which is straight will plainly teach us what is crooked; and one contrary cannot but manifest the other." But if the scriptures be not the rule, how then shall the notes of the church,' which the Romanist is bound to examine before he can join or remain in his own communion, be determined? And if the scriptures be a sufficient rule whereby to try these, why not so for the trying of other questions-why not of all? The scriptures then are not the judge, but only a sufficient rule for those to judge by who believe them to be the word of God. This distinction is all-important—indeed, the observance of it is indispensable in this controversy. By thus keeping questions, which have no necessary connexion, in their proper place, the champions of the papal system are at once deprived of the use of those weapons, which they have sometimes wielded with so much apparent success against Protestants; while they themselves are involved in inextricable difficulties if compelled to attack the sufficiency and completeness of the scriptures as a rule whereby to determine questions of religion.; for how shall the question of the church be determined but by that rule which we adopt the written word? Thus in the chief of questions are they compelled to have recourse to our rule. In order to fully understand this point, the reader must study Chillingworth, chap. ii. 'Scripture the only rule whereby to judge of controversies.—ED. The reader will see this particular point ably handled by Bishop Taylor-' Of the sufficiency of the Holy Scriptures to salvation.' VI. Jos. xxiv. to the history of the world, and chiefly of the first man that ART. was made in it. There were also great advantages on the side of oral tradition; the first men were very long-lived, and they saw their own families spread extremely, so that they had on their side both the authority which long life always has, particularly concerning matters of fact, and the credit that parents have naturally with their own children, to secure tradition. Two persons might have conveyed it down from Adam to Abraham; Methuselah lived above three hundred years while Adam was yet alive, and Sem was almost a hundred when he died, and he lived much above a hundred years in the same time with Abraham, according to the Hebrew. Here is a great period of time filled up by two or three persons and yet in that time the tradition of those very few things in which religion was then comprehended, was so universally and entirely corrupted, that it was necessary to correct it by immediate revelation to Abraham: God intending Gen. x. 1. to have a peculiar people to himself out of his posterity, com- 2, 3. manded him to forsake his kindred and country, that he might not be corrupted with an idolatry, that we have reason to believe was then but beginning among them. We are Gen. xxxi. sure his nephew Laban was an idolater: and the danger of 19, 30. mixing with the rest of mankind was then so great, that God ordered a mark to be made on the bodies of all descended from him, to be the seal of the covenant, and the badge and cognizance of his posterity: by that distinction, and by their living in a wandering and unfixed manner, they were preserved for some time from idolatry; God intending afterwards to settle them in an instituted religion. But though the beginnings of it, I mean the promulgation of the law on mount Sinai, was one of the most amazing things that ever happened, and the fittest to be orally conveyed down, the law being very short, and the circumstances in the delivery of it most astonishing; and though there were many rites and several festivities, appointed chiefly for the carrying down the memory of it; though there was also in that dispensation the greatest advantage imaginable for securing this tradition, all the main acts of their religion being to be performed in one place, and by men of one tribe and family; as they were also all the inhabitants of a small tract of ground, of one language, and by their constitutions obliged to maintain a constant commerce among themselves: they having farther a continuance of signal characters of God's miraculous presence among them, such as the operation of the water of jealousy, the plenty of the sixth year to supply them all the sabbatical year, and till the harvest of the following year: together with a succession of prophets that followed one another, either in a constant course, or at least soon after one another; but above all, the presence of God which appeared in the cloud of glory, and in those answers that were given by the Urim and ART. VI. Ex. xxv. Thummim; all which must be confessed to be advantages on the side of tradition, vastly beyond any that can be pretended to have been in the Christian church; yet notwithstanding 22. xxix. all these, God commanded Moses to write all their law, as the Ten Commandments were, by the immediate power or finger of God, writ on tables of stone. When all this is laid Ex. xxiv. together and well considered, it will appear that God by a particular economy intended them to secure revealed religion from the doubtfulness and uncertainties of oral tradition. 42. 1 Sa. xxiii. 9-12. 12. It is much more reasonable to believe, that the Christian religion, which was to be spread to many remote regions, among whom there could be little communication, should have been fixed in its first beginnings by putting it in writing, and not left to the looseness of reports and stories. We do plainly see, that though the methods of knowing and communicating truth are now surer and better fixed than they have been in most of the ages which have passed since the beginnings of this religion; yet in every matter of fact such additions are daily made, as it happens to be reported, and every point of doctrine is so variously stated, that if religion had not a more assured bottom than tradition, it could not have that credit paid to it that it ought to have. If we had no greater certainty for religion than report, we could not believe it very firmly, nor venture upon it: so in order to the giving this doctrine such authority as is necessary for attaining the great ends proposed in it, the conveyance of it must be clear and unquestionable; otherwise as it would grow to be much mixed with fable, so it would come to be looked on as all a fable. Since then oral tradition, when it had the utmost advantages possible of its side, failed so much in the conveyance both of natural religion, and of the Mosaical, we see that it cannot be relied on as a certain method of preserving the truths of revealed religion. In our Saviour's time, tradition was set up on many occasions against him, but he never submitted to it: on the contrary he reproached the Jews with this, that they had made Matt. xv. the laws of God of no effect by their traditions;' and he told 3,6, 9. them, that they worshipped God in vain, when they taught for doctrines the commandments of men.' In all his disputes with the Pharisees, he appealed to Moses and the prophets; he bade them 'search the scriptures; for in them,' said he, John v. 39. ye think ye have eternal life, and they testify of me.' Ye think is, by the phraseology of that time, a word that does not refer to any particular conceit of theirs; but imports, that as they thought, so in them they had eternal life. Our Saviour justifies himself and his doctrine often by words of scripture, but never once by tradition. We see plainly, that in our Saviour's time the tradition of the resurrection was so doubtful among the Jews, that the Sadducees, a formed party among them, did openly deny it. The authority of tradition |