A TREATISE ON THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. PART III.-CHAPTER I. ON THE PERFECTION OF SCRIPTURE. In the preceding portion of this work, I have endeavoured to establish and to apply briefly, the general principles which enable us to discriminate the true church of Christ from all other societies calling themselves Christian. I now proceed to consider the rules by which the doctrines of Revelation may be ascertained, and to this end, shall treat in this Part on the perfection of holy scripture, on the use of tradition, and on the office of the church in relation to both; reserving for the next Part, the consideration of another and a briefer mode of proving Christian doctrine, from the authoritative judgments of the church universal. The genuineness, authenticity, and inspiration of scripture, are proved by the same arguments against infidels and deists by all believers: but when we proceed further to establish the perfection of scripture, and its adaptation to the determination of Christian doctrine, we are at once involved in controversy with various sects. The doctrine which I am about to maintain, is that of the sixth Article approved by the English synods in 1562 and 1571. 66 Holy scripture containeth all things necessary to salvation so that whatsoever is not read therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not to be required of any man, that it should be believed as an article of the Faith, or be thought requisite or necessary to salvation." The first assertion of this Article is, that holy scripture containeth" all things necessary to salvation," or, as the context explains it, "all things which are to be believed as articles of faith, or thought necessary to salvation"-i. e. all the Revelation of God to us, concerning faith and morality. This will be proved in the present chapter. We may also infer from the wording of the Article, that what is "proved by" holy scripture, may be as much an article of faith as what is expressly "read therein." This will form the subject of the next chapter. It should be observed further, that the Article does not affirm that scripture contains all that is true, and lawful, as well as every "article of faith" or every doctrine "necessary to salvation." Nor does it affirm, that men ought not to be required to acknowledge certain truths which are not matters of faith, if such truths are not required as matters of faith, but as truths simply. Hence the church of England may, quite consistently with the doctrine of this Article, for good reasons oblige her ministers to profess, not merely doctrines of the faith, but historical truths, theological verities, pious and probable opinions. To the doctrine that scripture contains all articles of faith, which we maintain against Roman theolo gians, it has been objected in limine, that one at least of the most important articles of faith, namely, the inspiration and canonicity of several books of scripture, is not proved to us by scripture itself, but by the tradition of the church. It may be alleged, that our own theologians confess this. Hooker says: "Of things necessary, the very chiefest is to know what books we are to esteem holy, which point is confessed impossible for the scripture itself to teach. . . . It is not the word of God which doth or possibly can assure us that we do well to think it is his word," &c. He attributes to the church the first proof of the canonicity of scripture. Whitaker acknowledges it is proved by the ecclesiastical tradition. Laud, Field', Chillingworth, and several other theologians acknowledge the same. Hence it is argued by our adversaries, that the assertion of the Article is at once overthrown, because it is admitted that there is at least one essential article of faith which is not to be proved from scripture. I reply, that the Article only means to assert that all doctrines actually revealed by God are to be found in scripture, but there is no necessity to suppose that the inspiration of any particular book was the subject of actual Stapleton, Principiorum Fid. Demonstr. Methodica, Controv. vii. lib. xii; Bellarmin. De Verbo Dei scripto et non scripto; Melchior Canus, Loci Theologici, lib. iii; De la Luzerne, Dissert. sur les Eglises Cath. et Prot. t. i. p. 321; Delahogue, Tract. De Ecclesia, Appendix de Tradit. Collet, Institut. Theol. Scholast. t. i. p. 29, 30; Delahogue, De Ecclesia, Appendix de Traditione; Bouvier, Tract.de vera Eccl. p. 15; Trevern, Discussion Amic. t. i. let. iv; Bailly, Tract. |