Arg. II. The doctrine delivered in the Scripture doth not, as to our receiving it, depend iqwn the church; and therefore neither doth the Scripture itself: the doctrine of the Scripture and the Scripture it- self are really the same, and differ hut in an accident of being writ- ten, or not written. The same doctrines we have in the Scripture, were published and known before they were written; and they did not
510 AUTHORITY OF THE SCRIPTURE.
then depend upon the authority of the church ; and why should they now ? Doth the writing of them make them of less authority, or less credible, or less able to convince men's minds, than they formerly were? Upon the authority of what church did Adam, Seth, Enoch, Abraham, etc., receive the word of God, when it was yet unwritten? What council was there, what pope to persuade them of it? And how come the same truths to have less power and efficacy to persuade us than them? Will our adversaries say, the patriarchs received the word immediately from God himself? True, some of them did ; but what is that to the cliurch and her authority? Or will they say, those joatriarchs from whom others received the word were infallible? They will hardly be able to prove it. How came Abraham to persuade his wife to teU a lie, and expose her chastity thereby, for the saving of his life, if he were infallible? And how came other patriarchs to allow polygamy, if they were infallible? And do not the Papists themselves tell us that the church of the Jews was not infalhble ; and that infallibility is the peculiar privilege of the gospel church, the promise of it being made only to that?^
And, to come dowm lower, Moses received many things of the Lord which were immediately received by the people, — as the law of the passover, Exod. xii., — and where the people presently answer that all the words which the Lord had said, they would do, Exod. xxiv. 8. Did the people themselves (" the church in the mlderness," Acts ^di. 38) give authority to these laws, or did the council of the elders do it ? We find nothing of their being convened together upon any such account as to consider whether God's laws should be received or not. Or did they receive them on the authority of any other church ? If so, which was it, where was it? Or, lastl}', was Moses an Old Testa- ment pope, and the virtual church of Israel? Then, belike, that church was infallible as well as the gospel, contrary to their own doc- trine. That Moses was infallibly inspired in all that he commanded the people from God, is sure ; but that ever he pressed them to receive the word of God on his own authority, or any Ijut God's, can never be proved. If they say that the people received the word on the account of the miracles wrought by Moses, that is more to our pur- pose than theirs. And Avhat shall we say of the law written in men's hearts? on whose authority is that received? It is the same for sub- stance with the law written in the word ; and must there be tlie tes- timony of the church to assure men that even this law too is of God ? or, if it be acknowledged for its own light and power, Avhereby it manifests itself to be of God, why may not the law written in the Word bo so acknowledged too?
But come we farther down. On whose authority were the sermons ' Bccaiii JIan. Coiitrov., lib. i. cap. 3.
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of the prophets, after Moses' time, received? When they spoke to the people in the name of the Lord, did they ever cite the testimony of the church, to vouch what they said to be indeed from the Lord? or, did they ever seek the sufi&'ages of the high priests and governors of the church, to estabhsh their doctrine as divine? Tlieir ordinary style is, " Thus saith the Lord;" not, " Thus saith the church," or, " The church says, that the Lord saith thus."
Lastly. If we descend to the times of the New Testament, we shall find the same there. When our Saviom' Christ himself preached, what he spoke was as much the word of God when he spake it as now that it is written ; but neither did he refer himself, as to the divinity of his doctrine, to the authority of the church, nor did any believe it on that account. He did not refer it to the church ; for he did not receive testimony from men, John v. 34, — no, not from John Baptist himself, though of no small authority in the Jewish church, and generally taken to be a prophet. Though John, as his duty was, did bear witness to Christ, and point to him, — "Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world," John L 29, 36; — yet Christ had no need of this testimony to make himself be received as the Messiah, or what he preached as the word of God ; as if the one or the other could not have been received without it. He therefore tells the Jews that he had " greater witness than that of John," John V. 3G; — first his works; then his Father himself, verse 37; then the written word : " Search the Scriptures ; for in them ye think ye have eternal life; and they are they which testify of me," verse 39. All this Avhile, here is not one tittle of the church and its testimony ; and if that be the only means whereby men can be assured of the divine- ness of the word, how comes Christ to overlook it? And that they who believed Christ's doctrine did not believe it on the authority of the church is clear ; for the church of the Jews was generally coiTupt, en-ed in many things, and therefore was unfit. And it was, especially as to its guides and officers, generally against Christ; and therefore unwilling to give testimony to him. It neither owned him nor his doctrine; so that they who received and believed Christ's preaching, did it on some other account than the testunony of the then present church. If the Papists sliall say, they received his doctrine on the account of Christ's own divine authority, I would inquire, how they came to know he had any such authoiity ; for that Christ was the Messiah, and, consequently, had this divine authority, were some of the truths he preached. If they say, that Christ's doctrine was re- ceived either upon the accovmt of his miracles, or of its agreement with the scripture of the Old Testament, they say more for us than for themselves, and, either way, deseii their cause.