' Camero De Veibo Doi.
AUTHORITY OF THE SCRIPTURE. 501
not some excellency inherent in itself, or whether it he only some- thino- foreign and extrinsical to it.
3. What we mean hj faith, when it is demanded why we believe the Scripture to be the word of God. Faith, so far as it concerns the nnderstandmg (for in some acts of faith the will bears part), is an assent yielded to something proposed under the appearance, at least, of truth, built upon the testimony of another; and therefore, according as the testimony is, for the sake of which we believe any thing, ac- cordingly will our faith be : — if it be the testimony of a man or men, our faith will be a human faith ; but if the testimony be divine, or we believe a thing because God himself asserts it, we call it " a divine faith." Only we must remember, that a truly divine faith hath always God for its author; so that three things concur to the pro- ducing the act of such a faith: — (1.) The truth believed; which is objectum materiale, " the object of it." (2.) The testimony of God concerning that truth ; which is objectum formale, " the formal reason and ground " of this faith. (3.) The efficiency of God producing it or working it in the mind. Now, when we speak of believing the Scripture to be the word of God, we sj^eak of a divine faith. A man may, upon the credit of his parents, of his minister, of a particular church, or of the church catholic, if such a testimony can be had, believe the Scripture to be the word of God ; but the question will be, what kind of faith that is, whether such an one as God requnes him to receive the Scripture with.
4. What we understand by the church in the question. " The church " may be taken either for the universality of believers in all places of the world, so as to comprehend private saints as well as public officers, people as well as pastors, and those of former ages as well as the present, — prophets themselves, and apostles, and penmen of the Scripture. Or we may take it for that part of the catholic church which lives together in the same age, (call it, if you please, " the present catholic church,") comprehending in it all the believers, people as well as pastors, alive at the same time in the several parts of the whole world. Or else we may understand " the church " in the popish sense, only for the present church; and that, too, for the Church of Kome, which they call " Catholic;" and that, again, only for the pastors of it, excluding the people ; and they, again, may be considered either separately or in conjunction, as meeting together in a general council ; and that, either by themselves Avithout the pope, or together with him ; or, lastly, as represented by him, or virtually contained in him : for this great name, "The Church," dwindles at last into one only man. But, sure, he is no small one that contains so many in him ; for, if we believe the Papists (not only, though espe- cially, the Jesuits), the pope, in this controversy, is nothing else but
592 AUTHORITY OF THE SCRIPTURE.
tlie clivirch catholic compacted, and thrust into a single person, in whom all those seA'eral excellencies which are scattered among the members do, as in the head, collectively reside. And so the catho- licness they vaunt so much of, is crowded into a narrow compass; for those, whether pastors or members of the church, that lived formerly, are first cut off, and the church is reduced to the present age ; then the people, as excrescences, are pared away too, and the bulkiness of the church thereby lessened, the officers or pastors only remaining ; and yet these, too, must be contracted into a council ; and that at last epitomized into a pope, who is but the epitome of an epitome, and scarcely so much as a small synopsis of that voluminous thing " the church," they talk so largely of
II. For the state of the question, these things being premised, take it thus: — 1. In some things ive agree with them; 2. In some ive differ from them.
1. In some we agree.
(1.) That the scripture of the Old and New Testament, which we own (who yet exclude the apocryphal books of one sort or other) is the word of God, is acknowledged by them as well as by us,
(2.) Consequently, that it is in itself true and of divine authority, and that it doth not depend upon the church, as to that authority and truth which in itself it hath, — or that the testimony of the church doth not make it to be true, or to be the word of God, — the Papists them- selves (at least the most wary among them) will (be sure, in Avords) grant. And therefore they have coined a distinction for the nonce : they tell us that the Scripture hath a twofold authority; one in it- self, as it is true, and comes from God ; the other in relation to us, as it binds us to receive and believe it. The fomier of these they own to be in the Scripture antecedently to the testimony of the church. The distinction is vain, when all authority is in relation to another, over whom either de facto it is, or de jure it ought to be, exercised. But let it pass.