Theologoumena Pantodapa (Book VI: De Theologia Evangelica)

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The importance and difficulty of the work undertaken — Certain adversaries noted — The author of evangelical theology: the only-begotten Son of God — The time of His coming — What the fullness of time is — The peak of idolatrous worship, and of philosophy; also of human dominion — The expectation of the renewal of all things — The fullness of time appointed by God — What the "last days" are; the Jewish church.

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I. We are hastening toward the end of the work, though we have not yet attained our purpose: we have undertaken to set forth Christian theology openly and deliberately, first and almost solely. And it was not the evangelical doctrine itself, but that disposition of our mind by which we embrace it, that was chiefly before our eyes when we entered upon the plan of this work. For this reason, we have deferred to this place those things which concern the proper subject of theologians, things pertaining equally to the theology of sinners of every kind. Yet I do not appear to have reached any other summit in this pursuit of heavenly wisdom than this: that when I discourse or speak of these things, I feel myself miserably stammering. For we are occupied with those things which we perceive only in part, and of which no one can drink in the full knowledge, unless he has been permitted to enjoy God face to face, 1 Cor. 13:12. Nor is there reason why we should be unwilling to admit that we are moved by shame at our own slenderness and even ignorance, since the apostle of that same epistle declares that the one who thinks he knows anything here (perfectly) knows nothing at all, ch. 8:2. Such indeed is the arrogance of certain men, especially young men who profess to have given their name to theology — that, although they are barely moderately equipped with the knowledge of evangelical doctrine from three or four books, they carry themselves with such a lofty brow, as if they alone were wise, or as if they judged themselves to deserve a name not unknown among the wisest. Indeed, it would be well if they were only their own Suffenus, and did not also, to their great harm, despise those who are truly imbued with that wisdom which these men boast most ineptly of having attained. It was truly said of old by Seneca: "I think many men could have arrived at wisdom, had they not thought they had already arrived." But these men consider all things, and assert everything with confidence, as Aristotle testifies — a disposition of soul than which nothing is more harmful to the study of theology. It has been said before, and must be said again: "New orators arise — foolish, young men" — of whom Jude v. 10 says: "those who speak evil of whatever things they do not know, but whatever things they know naturally, as brute beasts, in these things they corrupt themselves." If they know anything philosophically about the nature of things, they immediately swell with arrogance — which is the greatest corruption of the soul — and they scorn the mysteries of the gospel which they do not know. May God grant that students may at length understand that an entirely different matter is being dealt with here than in the schools of the philosophers; that a different disposition of mind is needed here, a different preparation of intellect and heart, than those with which they are accustomed to approach the encyclopedia of human sciences. Now, if I contribute anything of counsel that God has graciously pleased to turn to the benefit of the godly, I shall have attained, having accomplished the vow and purpose of this entire work, among many other things, what I shall also attribute to divine grace. But now let us return to our purpose.

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II. The Jewish church having been utterly overthrown, the purely Mosaic theology upon which it rested lost its force to the extent that it could no longer lead anyone to God. God was therefore now about to lay His final hand upon His revelation. The church, having been educated through various stages of spiritual administration, had now grown up and was to be transferred into a state in its own kind perfect and immutable. For the accomplishment of this most holy and most wise work, the only-begotten Son of God, appointed from eternity and promised from the foundation of the world, was sent in the fullness of time. This the apostle teaches us expressly at Heb. 1:1–2: "God," he says, "having spoken in many parts and in many ways of old to the fathers through the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us in the Son" — who is therefore called the Apostle and High Priest of our confession, ch. 2:1; and also the Author and Perfecter of faith, ch. 12:2. But the things that pertain to the person of Jesus Christ as the God-bearing supreme Messenger of God are not the subject of this work, and we have set them forth more fully elsewhere. The immediate author of evangelical theology, therefore, is Jesus Christ Himself, the only-begotten Son of God. We have indeed granted above that the theology of sinners in some sense may be called evangelical. Even as that theology was administered in whatever manner, its primary author was the Son of God Himself — the Spirit of Christ moving the holy men who declared it, 1 Pet. 1:11 and 2 Pet. 1:21. He it was who several times manifested Himself to the patriarchs in human form; and the same was the Angel who was with the church in the wilderness, Acts 7:38. But with respect to the peculiar administration, that alone is called evangelical theology which the Son of God Himself, going forth from the bosom of the Father, set forth in His own person. He is therefore the singular Author of this theology; whence it follows that, as it is the most perfect, so it is the final revelation of God. Tertullian rightly says: "We have no need of curiosity after Jesus Christ, nor of inquiry after the gospel: when we believe, we desire to believe nothing further; for we believe this first — that there is nothing beyond which we ought to believe." — Prescription against Heretics.

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III. The time of the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and therefore of the revelation of evangelical theology, must now be considered. I have no desire, however, to stir up chronological difficulties, nor to call the reckoning of years, days, and hours to calculation; for, to speak freely, I do not yet know what advantage has accrued to anyone from the most difficult and most intricate disputes of chronologists. I am pleased, for my part, by that passage of Plutarch in his Life of Solon, who, in order to show that he was unwilling to discredit the conversation of Solon with Croesus on the ground that some denied that Solon had lived at the time of Croesus, said: "I cannot bring myself to reject this story on account of certain chronological rules, as they are called, which six hundred correctors have hitherto been unable to establish with any certainty, so as to agree among themselves regarding the points of dispute." Now, there are things said about that time which pertain to theology. For Christ is said to have come in the "fullness of time," Epist. to Gal. 4:4; He is also said to have come in the "last days," Epist. to Heb. 1:1; and therefore we must see in what sense these two designations of time precisely denote the same time.

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IV. The first passage reads as follows: "When the fullness of time came, God sent forth His Son." Now the fullness of time is spoken of under two respects: namely, with regard to those things that are measured by time and the ages of this world, and with regard to the divine determination. Under both respects we shall see that Christ came in the fullness of time.

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V. First, the world itself, and in it all things that in any way pertained to the administration of divine patience, had reached their fullness. These things can be referred to four heads. The first place was held by the worship of the gods. What idolatry was in the impious worship of false gods, the world had by then fully experienced at last. Idolatry had reached the peak of its glory, splendor, efficacy, and universality. We have set forth above how it crept forward gradually through an unutterable succession of times and years. From corrupt, foolish, and futile beginnings it had now grown to such great glory that the world had never seen, nor ever shall see, anything more glorious, sublime, or excellent that was destined to perish. What consolation, support, or reward was to be obtained from that superstition to whose service the human race had willingly bound itself, had by now been sufficiently perceived — which would not have been the case had God sent Christ sooner and sooner called men to repentance. From the day on which He bound the world to Himself by the unspeakable benefit of Christ's mission, nothing whatsoever was added to the glory, adornment, or ceremonies — that is, to the fullness — of idolatry. This part of the fullness of time Paul sets forth in Acts 14:15–16; 17:30.

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VI. Second, that endeavor which we have described at greater length above — to restore natural theology through philosophy — had reached the limits set for it by the nature of things and by human genius. At that time, human wisdom attained its own perfection, insofar as a most imperfect and most uncertain thing can be called perfect. Philosophy had never had anything more intimate with the nature of the universe, nothing more sublime, nothing more useful, nor had it ever been set forth more elegantly, than at that time. The combined genius of the Greeks and Latins claims this honor for itself. That this progress of philosophy had looked to the peak of the fullness of time, the apostle teaches us at 1 Cor. 1:21: "For since," he says, "in the wisdom of God the world through wisdom did not know God, it pleased God through the foolishness of preaching to save those who believe" — that is, when it had been sufficiently seen, in the most wise ordering and patience of God, what that philosophical wisdom was capable of, what it aimed at, and what was to be expected from it, it pleased God to announce the gospel through His Son for the salvation of believers.

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VII. Third, the glory of secular power, or of human empire, had raised itself to its supreme peak. What very many had vainly sought to achieve from the age of Nimrod, the Romans had accomplished. All earthly glory — whatever the innermost depths and recesses of perishing things can supply, whatever ambition, luxury, avarice, curiosity, and finally the wisdom of men, with human nature and the nature of nearly all things subjected and reduced to servitude, could extort — was, as it were, compacted and heaped together into one city, and set before the eyes and contemplation of all. What empire and dominion were, what human force, virtue, strength, and power were, what riches were, all the pomp of the age, what the luxury of life was, how high buildings could rise, how deep the shafts of mines could descend — that celebrated city exhibited all this. From that time forward, by a continuous series of events and outcomes, that glory was diminished, and something was daily lost from the height and splendor of affairs. By this fullness of time, those who were not utterly dull and wholly hindered by vices could easily perceive what was to be expected from all created things, when the very lords of affairs burned with avarice, envy, ambition, and lust no less than if they had suffered from the utmost want of all things.

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VIII. Fourth, a wonderful and unusual expectation of the coming of the greatest King, of the beginning of happy times and eternal peace, of the entrance and first beginnings of the renewal of all things, had taken hold of the minds of men. The Jews daily longed for and awaited the appearance of the King Messiah; the Gentiles awaited the return of the golden age. That a report had become widespread that the East (as some said), or the nature of things (as others said), was about to immediately bring forth the greatest King — this is the constant and unanimous testimony of the most celebrated historians. And so, when the human race had exercised itself to the utmost of its powers in superstition and wisdom, in dominion and luxury, in vices and virtues — that is, in the fullness of time — God graciously sent His Son, announcing peace to those who were near and to those who were far off.

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IX. Second, the fullness of time appointed by God from of old was at hand. That Christ had been foreknown before the foundation of the world, Peter testifies, 1 Epist. 1:20. That He would come, according to that foreknowledge and eternal appointment, God had promised from the foundation of the world through the prophets, Luke 1:70. Hence He was called "the Coming One." Such is the sense of the question of John, Matt. 11:3: "Are you the Coming One?" — and He had been desired from Adam onward: "the Desire of all nations," Hag. 2:7. At the appointed time, therefore — that is, when the time destined for the fulfillment of the promises was at hand — the Son of God was manifested in the flesh. The Jews themselves do not dare to deny that the fullness of time had come at which the Messiah was to be sent; but they obstinately deny that He was sent. Why so? Because, they say, God, angered by their sins, has delayed His coming until now. We indeed acknowledge that their crimes were very great and very grievous; but we utterly deny that the unfaithfulness which ejected them from the roll of the people of God was able to make, or did make, God's own faithfulness void.

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X. It is therefore certain that Christ came in the fullness of time. It remains, then, for us to see how He also came at the end of the days. For the fullness of time and the end of days hardly seem to denote the same time and the same days. Yet although so many ages have passed since His coming, and it is most uncertain how long this world will continue in God's patience, or what the duration of the age may be — as Tertullian says — it is most certain that Christ came in the last days. This the apostle testifies, Heb. 1:1–3: "in these last days." Now a given time may be called "last days" absolutely, or with some particular respect. No reason can be given why so great a series of years — indeed of ages — as has flowed from the incarnation of Christ until now, with what remains to be completed until the consummation of all things, should be called the last days absolutely. Some judge that these last days are so called with respect to the dispensation of the divine will, of which the final revelation has now been made. Accordingly, on their reckoning, the entire time of evangelical preaching, from the incarnation or resurrection of Christ to the consummation of the age, is to be called the last days. But this opinion rests on no testimony and on no probable reason that I know of. That time is a new world — "the world to come" — not "last days" or "the last hour." The time of the coming of Christ is therefore called the last days with respect to the Jewish church. That church was already near its destruction. And the end of the Jewish church fell within the fullness of time. For this reason, the apostle affirms in the passage cited that God spoke to the Jewish people in the Son "in these last days" — namely, those which were then in the midst of passing, not yet ended, but about to end immediately. For throughout that entire Epistle to the Hebrews, the apostle assumes that the Jewish church existed at that time, and that its solemn worship had been so pleasing to God in His forbearance that no one was made worse by the observance of it, nor was any less accepted or pleasing to God. The Gentiles were indeed declared free from the yoke of the Mosaic ceremonies, Acts 15. But that faithful Jews observed the entire solemn Mosaic worship religiously for a long time afterward, we have shown above from Acts 21:20–22, 26. Some ancient manuscripts also read: "in the extremity of these days" — by which the condition of the Jewish church, already placed as it were between the altar and the rock, and standing at the extremity, is sufficiently clearly indicated.

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XII. Those words, "in the last days," moreover, refer to those prophecies of the Old Testament which expressly denote the final times of the Jewish church. Jacob, about to set forth what would befall his posterity until the coming of the Messiah, begins his prophecy as follows, Gen. 49:1: "I will tell you what shall befall you in the last days" — which words the elders render as "in the last of the days." Similarly at Num. 24:14, where the Holy Spirit uses the same words concerning the same time: "in the last of the days" — as many manuscripts present the apostolic passage. Christ, therefore, the author of evangelical theology, came "in the fullness of time" and "in the last days" — because the last days of the Jewish church fell within the fullness of the days.

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Christ the author of evangelical theology; most perfectly furnished with knowledge of the divine will — The foundation of the most perfect knowledge of Christ the Mediator, Joh. 1:18 — The manner, fullness, and most absolute perfection — The revelation of the divine will conforming to that knowledge — Evangelical theology — Its principles.

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"Holy brethren, partakers of a heavenly calling, consider the apostle and high priest of our confession, Christ Jesus," says the apostle, at Heb. chap. 3:1. This we have treated briefly in the preceding chapter. It remains that we should carefully examine that very confession of ours, or evangelical doctrine. That Christ was sent from the bosom of the Father, most perfectly furnished with knowledge of the divine will, so that nothing new was left to be drawn from the fountain of truth by those who would come after the King, Eccles. 2:12 — nearly all Christians agree among themselves on this. He Himself indeed, the Word, the eternal Word of God, has an infinite knowledge of all things, and the most absolute understanding of the entire divine essence and will, innate in Himself — that is, communicated to Him from eternity by the Father together with the divine subsistence. But insofar as He stood forth as the Head of the church, Mediator, and the apostle of our confession delegated by the Father, He knew only those things (namely, in that nature in which He Himself performed the entire mediatorial office) which were given and revealed to Him by the Father. Hence He affirmed that He did not know certain things, Marc. 13:32, and that He knew nothing beyond what the Father had revealed to Him, Joh. 5:30, 7:16, 17. The same economy continues even after His glorious exaltation to the right hand of the Father. Whence He testifies that He received from the Father that solemn Apocalypse which He published not by the breath of the Spirit alone, but with a living voice from heaven, Apoc. 1:1. The Socinians fabricate the notion that during the time of His desert fast He was caught up into heaven and instructed in the council of God concerning the office delegated to Him and how it was to be rightly discharged — a monstrous fiction drawn from the lacunae of the Muhammadan Alcoran, which we have refuted in our Evangelical Vindications. The Baptist sets forth the foundation of that knowledge of the divine will which was in Christ Jesus, Joh. 1:18 — if indeed those words belong to the Baptist, which Chrysostom denies, saying, "The saying is not from the forerunner, but from God" — whoever they belong to, these are the words: "No one has ever seen God," not even Moses himself, through whom the law was given, ver. 17; "The only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom (that is, in the lap) of the Father, He has declared Him." For since He is the only-begotten Son of God, and therefore of the same essence as the Father, He has an infinitely most perfect knowledge and comprehension of the divine essence itself, and therefore of all truth latent in it. He alone is therefore qualified to expound God perfectly, since He alone has seen God. Moreover, since He was in the bosom of the Father, He was privy to all His counsels and secrets; and for the declaring of the divine will He was committed to Him

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1 See the author's works, this edition, vol. xii. — the task committed to Him to be duly discharged — He was endowed with the Holy Spirit, not by measure, Joh. 3:34, for God measured out to Him the Spirit without measure most abundantly, and together with Him an immense sea, as it were, of spiritual gifts, especially of wisdom and understanding in the fear of the Lord, Isa. 11:2, 3. So that in Him were "all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge hidden," Col. 2:3. Whatever lay hidden from eternity in the divine mind — pertaining to the illustration of God's glory, the establishment of the kingdom, the institution of worship, the gathering of the church, the calling, instructing, and comforting of the elect, and whatever finally pertains to the rendering of human obedience to God — of all this He was most perfectly instructed by God the Father, and stood forth as the messenger of His will to men. In this opinion, therefore, all agree: namely, that Christ, as the apostle of our confession, had most perfectly explored all of God's counsel concerning His worship and our obedience; whereas all other expounders of the divine will, even the most celebrated legislator himself, were made partakers only of some portion of it, that portion, namely, which served the dispensation under which they ministered. Nothing lay so deeply hidden in the eternal abyss of the divine mind that He did not perfectly search it out; nothing so minute that was ever pleasing or acceptable to God in His worship that escaped or eluded that most wise breast of His.

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III. These things having been premised, we will briefly enumerate the principles of this theology which are proper to it, or its chief causes.

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6. Finally: "That all worshipers of God in Christ, according to the norm of this theology and by its power, are separated from the world, and therefore are and always will be hated by it, for this reason — namely, that they have received the Holy Spirit, of which the world is not capable," 2 Cor. 6:14–18; Joh. 15:18, 19, 14:16, 17; Gal. 1:4, etc. We will see this theology itself pressing these chief maxims at greater length afterwards.

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Evangelical theology, what it is — The various degrees and modes of this knowledge — The first mode — The relation of the purely natural intellect to supernatural doctrine — It is not theology properly so called — In what sense and to what extent spiritual truths can be perceived and understood without the special aid of the Holy Spirit — Propositions of heavenly truth arranged into methods produce Christian philosophy — The use of knowledge of languages and sciences in learning divine truth — What sort of thing is the knowledge of divine matters acquired without the special aid of the Holy Spirit — It is not evangelical theology — A proof of those who are imbued with it.

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I. We have shown that evangelical theology is the doctrine revealed in the gospel through Christ. The knowledge of that doctrine is theology, insofar as it occupies a subject. Moreover, it has this in common with other sciences: that it admits of various degrees according to the diversity of subjects in which it inheres, and of the means through which it is communicated. But beyond this it also has various modes of perceiving the objective doctrine, by the power of the principles set forth in the preceding chapter — which is peculiar to it. The first of these modes consists in that relation which the purely natural intellect, or the intellect of man in the state of nature, can have toward spiritual and supernatural doctrine; another mode is that which man obtains when stirred up and elevated by the special aid and power of the Holy Spirit, that is, the mode of the regenerate man. Each of these, moreover, admits of various degrees. We shall briefly explain in the first place that mode of perceiving or understanding evangelical doctrine — which is the rule for obtaining all communion with God — that the human mind is able to attain without the special aid or grace of the Holy Spirit, and which we deny constitutes theology properly so called.

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II. The gospel is the doctrine concerning God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and His worship, and the obedience we owe to Him. This doctrine, by its own nature, stirs the consciences of men to render that obedience, Tit. i. 1, 11, 12. Moreover, it arouses souls to the expectation of the enjoyment of God. Concerning all these things truly, the true meaning is contained in propositions whose sense is accessible — indeed, plain — to human reason. For this heavenly doctrine yields to no human science in the clarity of its propositions; indeed, in this respect it stands far above all other sciences. The doctrine has been written "plainly," so that "he who reads it may run," Hab. ii. 2. God has given His word — "precept upon precept, precept upon precept, line upon line, line upon line, a little here, a little there," Isa. xxviii. 10; Heb. v. 13, 14. These propositions, therefore, which contain the matters of the greatest importance — that is, the chief heads of this theology — are so clear and exposed to the eyes of all, partly on account of the supreme fitness of the very words which it pleased the Holy Spirit to use for setting forth the things He treats of, and partly on account of the most frequent inculcation of those very things, that their genuine sense is hidden from almost no one, unless he is hindered by the greatest prejudices. We therefore grant that every man endowed with reason and understanding, and in the use of them, is able — according to the measure of his own intellect, the degree of his diligence, and the effectiveness of the external means which he employs in learning the truth — without the saving aid of the Holy Spirit, to draw out the true sense of these propositions, to perceive and retain their meaning. The sophists therefore babble most absurdly who cry out that our position concerning the spiritual nature of the things revealed in the gospel, and the native blindness of the human mind, whereby no one can perceive them spiritually except by relying on the saving power of the Holy Spirit, is opposed to this other position concerning the clarity and perspicuity of the propositions in which the true and saving doctrine is contained in the Holy Scriptures.

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III. Furthermore, we grant that the chief heads of this theology, or evangelical doctrine — those, namely, that pertain most to promoting the worship of God and our obedience — can be arranged and brought together into an order, series, and method, according to the rules of the philosophical arts and sciences. For since among the very things delivered in the gospel there is a certain real and mutual dependence, and since their mutual relation can be set forth in a certain order and, as it were, in connected sequence, there is nothing that prevents this. Creeds, confessions of faith, catechisms, commonplaces, and other methodical arrangements of evangelical truths of that kind serve that purpose. But doctrine arranged and organized in that manner has nothing at all that surpasses the purely rational grasp or understanding of men. I am speaking not of the things themselves, but of the propositions, which are signs of the things. Now the merely natural knowledge or comprehension of evangelical doctrine, when delivered and set forth in that manner, is a certain Christian philosophy, which surpasses all Greek wisdom, or merely human wisdom, by many parasangs. For since all knowledge is a certain intellectual perfection, that knowledge which is most certain and which is occupied with the greatest and supreme object stands above all others. And of this kind is this Christian philosophy, when compared with all the wisdom or science of the pagans. For it proposes objects infinitely distant from all the objects of natural philosophy, and relies on a rule for distinguishing true from false that is altogether infallible, whereas that other philosophy fluctuates in the miserable uncertainty of common notions.

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IV. The whole matter can be briefly set forth at a glance. All divine truth is revealed in the Scriptures through our Lord Jesus Christ. That doctrine is evangelical theology, considered in the abstract. It is contained in propositions whose sense is accessible to human reason. These propositions, together with conclusions legitimately drawn from them — or their sense mingled with other words and philosophical terms — can and customarily are brought together into a system of learning. The languages in which all truth was delivered by the Holy Spirit are Hebrew and Greek; knowledge of those languages is therefore useful to all, and under the providence of God necessary to some. For rightly understanding also those things which the Holy Scriptures have in common with other books, it is useful for one who approaches their study to be trained in those sciences which serve the exposition of rational meanings through appropriate words. But those things are few, and not of great importance, nor do they contribute much to true spiritual wisdom. All the means of true reasoning belong to logic, including the detection of sophistry. The Holy Spirit employs the highest reasoning in Holy Scripture. Where that reasoning cannot be reduced to dialectical rules, it happens either because of a defect in the art itself as it is commonly taught, or because human ingenuity falls short in investigating the ways and modes of true reasoning. He also speaks according to the customary forms of expression in those languages, which learned men have compiled into the art of grammar. The same holds for rhetoric. With these things so arranged, we say that every man possessed of reason is able — without any special or saving aid or assistance of the Holy Spirit, relying on his natural sharpness of intellect and such gifts of mind as God once bestowed on the pagans, and applying the ordinary means, among which knowledge of languages and the common arts is preeminent — to acquire for himself a theological science, that is, an intellectual habit by which he may perceive the sense of theological doctrine as set forth in propositions, reason about it subtly, expound it copiously, and explain, confirm, and defend what are called the articles of faith; and that he can be disposed toward divine truth in precisely the same way as one learned in those matters is disposed toward the mathematical sciences. V. But we deny that this science is Christian theology properly so called; and those who are equipped with it alone, however high they may ascend to the summit and peak of subtlety, we account Christian philosophers, not evangelical theologians. That we have not rashly made these pronouncements we shall show more fully hereafter in the description of true theology. Let it suffice here, as it were in passing, to indicate certain heads of reasons by which we prove that the science we have described is not theology, and the arguments by which those who are equipped with it alone, being destitute of the truly sanctifying Spirit, show that they are not theologians.

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VI. True theology is that knowledge of the divine mind and will which God Himself requires. See Ps. cxix. 27; Jer. xxii. 15, 16; Joh. xvii. 8; 1 Joh. i. 3, 4, and iv. 7. Now that knowledge of Himself and of His will which God requires is pleasing to God, 1 Chron. xxviii. 9; Hos. vi. 6. And he who is furnished with it is pleasing and acceptable to Him, Jer. xxiv. 7. But the science we have described, when it exists alone, is not such. For neither is it itself pleasing to God, nor does it render anyone pleasing to God. "For those who are in the flesh cannot please God," Rom. viii. 8. See 1 Cor. xiii. 2. Furthermore, this knowledge of Himself that God demands, He Himself also promises, Jer. xxxi. 33, 34; Joh. vi. 45. But that disciplinary science of heavenly truth is by no means promised in the covenant of grace, nor is it communicated to men by the power of that covenant. For it

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proceeds from the saving operation of the Holy Spirit, 1 Joh. ii. 20, 27; Eph. i. 17, 18. Second, he who is imbued with true theology "is light in the Lord," Eph. v. 8; being called, that is, "out of darkness into His marvelous light," 1 Pet. ii. 9; Eph. iv. 21-24. But notwithstanding that other science, he in whom it inheres is blind, 2 Pet. i. 9, and darkened in his understanding, Eph. iv. 18, and to him true divine wisdom is foolishness, 1 Cor. ii. 14, 15. Furthermore, that science attains none of the ends of true evangelical theology. For it has made no one conformed to God in Christ, no one fit and able to obey God; it prepares no one for communion with God the Father or the Son; it will never lead anyone to the enjoyment of God. But that science which by no means drives away the corrupt natural darkness from the understanding, which renders no one light in the Lord, pleasing to God, or conformed to Christ, which directs or leads no one into communion and friendship with God, which is itself neither eternal life nor has eternal life joined to it by an indissoluble bond — I think no one who professes himself a Christian will dare to affirm that this is that knowledge of God which He Himself requires in the gospel.

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VII. What then? — the great majority of those equipped with this science betray by their own tokens that they are not evangelical theologians. For, to say nothing of the internal and spiritual evangelical obedience — that obedience of truth with which they have absolutely nothing joined — they very rarely take care even to attend diligently to the outward works of virtue and piety. Where legal conviction, impressed on the heart by the power and efficacy of the Spirit, does indeed accompany that science, with which they are most frequently puffed up — reduced to a servile state of mind and struck with the dread of divine terror — they endeavor to render many offices of religion with some affection of soul. But that conviction does not belong to that science, nor does it emanate from it; for the great majority of those who are held by its bond and power are only moderately furnished with the knowledge of divine things, and many who are most highly cultivated in that science live a life entirely free from its efficacy. But when the consideration of those things which arise out of that science, yet do not necessarily follow from it, is removed, the conduct and manner of life of the great majority furnished with it — most unworthy of the Christian name — permit no one to doubt that it contributes not even the least thing to the sanctity of life. Furthermore, since they are natural men and do not have the Spirit, the Spirit Himself and His truly evangelical gifts are objects of contempt and mockery to them; they even carry on perpetual hostilities against the most Holy Spirit of Christ in all those things wherein, according to the promise of the new covenant, He has graciously bestowed Him. For since it is a part of that philosophy with which they are furnished that all the evangelical blessings are to be ascribed solely to the Holy Spirit, they are more often ashamed to despise Him openly, directly, and in plain words; but it is their custom to assail His saving operations and those heavenly privileges of which the faithful are made partakers through Him with wanton jests; indeed, they are never more like Suffenus, or more pleasing to certain profane mockers, than when they think they are cleverly and wittily baiting the Holy Spirit of God dwelling in His people. Moreover, since they have received none of the gifts of Christ's kingdom, whatever place they may occupy in the churches, they contribute either nothing at all, or certainly very little, to the edification of the body in love. For although in those things which Christian theology has in common with other sciences — or philosophy mingled with evangelical doctrines — they become the most keen and fiery disputants and subtle investigators, and are often the greatest devourers of books, yet when they come to instruct the people in the mysteries of the gospel, they are entirely cold, and beyond ornate little speeches thrust upon the Christian people in place of evangelical instructions and exhortations, there is nothing that they understand or do, discharging the ministerial office in outward appearance only. What Jerome has to say to Paulinus, chapter 5, is excellent: "I say nothing," he writes, "of those like myself, who, if they happen to come to the Holy Scriptures after secular literature, and tickle the ears of the people with polished speech, whatever they say they think is the law of God, and they do not deign to know what the prophets and apostles meant, but they fit ill-matched testimonies to their own sense; puerile are these things, resembling the tricks of jugglers — to teach what you do not know; indeed, to speak with some indignation, not even to know what you do not know."

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II. All men who here live before God — the judge, ruler, and rewarder of all — since this very fact, namely that they live before God, has regard to their present duty and their ultimate end, are either regenerate or unregenerate. Sacred Scripture makes mention many times of the state of spiritual regeneration. Of each man, therefore, it can be either affirmed or denied that he is regenerate. There are none who stand neither absolutely within that state nor absolutely outside it. Some appear to lean or incline one way or the other with respect to it. But speaking absolutely, as they say, every man is either regenerate or not regenerate — this all who know and embrace the gospel confess. Upon this rest all other distributions of the human race found in the sacred writers: into the godly and the ungodly, the wise and the foolish, the faithful and the unbelieving, the holy and the impure, the just and the unjust. For all the regenerate, however liable they may be to sins that do not exceed the compass of the grace of the new covenant — and so that some of them occasionally sin most grievously with respect to this or that particular act — yet as to the spiritual state in which they walk before God and live to Him, they are godly, wise, faithful, holy, just, and are so called by the Holy Spirit; while the ungodly, on the other hand, are foolish, unbelieving, impure, unjust, even though they discharge certain divine and human duties — all the unregenerate, to a man; for "those who are in the flesh cannot please God." And the designation follows the state, not this or that particular act. We therefore assert that the regenerate alone are capable of and partakers in this evangelical theology, all others who profess to give their attention to it being assigned to the philosophico-theological class. What we have said previously lends support to this truth; the progress of our discourse will set the whole matter before the eyes of all. Let it suffice here to confirm the thesis itself briefly. III. Now if Aristotle was permitted to remove and exclude younger men who were subject and enslaved to corrupt affections from the scope of his moral philosophy, to the extent that he did not consider them fit hearers even of it — how much more will it be permitted to a Christian man to pronounce those strangers to true evangelical theology whom he knows to be not only subject to vices and sins, but dead in them. For I myself have known very many young men — drunkards, brawlers, intemperates, languid and withered with lust — who had the moral teaching of Aristotle at their fingertips, so to speak, and were accustomed daily to dispute subtly on its more abstruse chapters. Such rascals, steeped in vices, to have not a whit more of philosophy than of goodness — that is, not a crumb of it — not only Aristotle himself, but by unanimous agreement the entire chorus of the ancient wise men would declare. Let us Christians use at least this much right, and not allow those whom we believe to be no better before God than these to be counted among Christian theologians and genuine disciples of the Lord Jesus on account of their academic knowledge of certain evangelical doctrines. Indeed, some of the ancients are so far from regarding such persons as theologians that they pronounce them utterly unworthy even of the Christian name. Thus Justin in his Apology to the Emperor: those who are found not to live as Christ commanded, when they are made known, are to be declared not Christians — even if they recite the teachings of Christ by word of mouth; for he says that not those who merely profess, but those who confirm their profession also by works, will be saved. And those who live a life less consistent with His precepts, however much they are called Christians, we request that you also punish. — "But indeed, those who are found not to live as Christ taught — that is certain evidence that they are not Christians, even though they profess the teaching of Christ with the tongue; for he says that not the professors alone but those who confirm their profession by works at the same time shall be saved. Furthermore, those who lead a life less in keeping with His precepts, however much they are called Christians, we request that you also punish."

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IV. Now the case here is not as in other controversies, where the truth is with difficulty drawn from two or three passages; nearly the whole gospel is a witness in this cause, and the opposing opinion owes its origin to nothing but the detestable confusion which ignorance of this truth has introduced into the church. I would be prolix, and tedious to the reader, if I were to gather here all — or even most — of the testimonies of great weight that exist in sacred Scripture supporting this truth. It will be sufficient to point out the sources of the arguments. Thus the apostle inquires, 1 Cor. 2:14: "The natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God" — the natural man, that is, he who is not regenerate; "the things of the Spirit" which he does not receive are all those things that belong to evangelical wisdom, especially the doctrine of the cross — that is, the theology of which we are treating. The apostle expounds the meaning of "does not receive" in the following words. He cannot know them, he says — he cannot know those things; and no one has knowledge of the things he cannot know. He then appends the reason for this inability. They are foolishness to him, he says, and he is unable to discern them spiritually — he discerns nothing spiritually. He does not perceive the thing itself, because it is foolishness to him; nor does he attain to the manner by which alone they can rightly be perceived. Now he who neither understands nor can understand spiritual things, to whom they are foolishness, and who is not capable of them — it seems clear to me that such a person is not an evangelical theologian. If there are any who think they hold a different view, our page will not be contentious with them; for in fact they either think differently than they suppose themselves to think, or they do not believe the gospel.

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V. In bearing this testimony, our Lord and Master Jesus Christ Himself went before His disciple and apostle: Joh. 3:3, "Unless one is born from above," He says, "he cannot see the kingdom of God." No one will deny that to see is the same as to know or understand — that use of the sense of words is most frequent in sacred Scripture. That by the kingdom of God He intends the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven — that is, the doctrine of the gospel — the Lord Jesus shows in several places: as Matt. 13:11; Mark 4:11; Luke 8:10. By His authority, therefore, he who is not regenerate can in no way understand the evangelical doctrine. Again, rebuking the unbelieving Pharisees: Joh. 8:47, "He who is of God hears the words of God; for this reason you do not hear, because you are not of God." To be of God is to be "born of God," Joh. 1:13. He who is not of God in that manner "cannot hear the words of God." He is not a fit hearer of them, since he neither understands their spiritual wisdom nor is obedient to them. In like manner He affirms of these same Pharisees — who were puffed up with the opinion of the highest skill in hearing and expounding the word of God — that they had "never heard the voice of God" nor seen His form, Joh. 5:37; for "hearing they did not hear," nor "seeing did they see," because they rightly understood nothing of those things they had heard and seen. But those who consider such persons as scribes instructed for the kingdom of heaven, taught of God, or genuine disciples of Christ (as all evangelical theologians are) — I hope they will bear with those who, together with Christ, hold a different opinion. There is no need to accumulate other testimonies after the express words of our Lord.

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VI. Furthermore: the things that are said on the one hand about all the unregenerate, and on the other about the communication of this theology, are such as to exclude them entirely from all communion with it; they cry out, indeed: "Every one of you is a stranger."

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They are "blind," 2 Pet. 1:9; Isa. 42:7; Luke 4:18; and they are "darkness," Joh. 1:5; 1 Pet. 2:9; Acts 26:18; Eph. 5:8; "their minds are darkened," Eph. 4:18; "they walk in darkness," 1 Joh. 1:6; and "they love darkness," Joh. 3:19; they are "dead," Eph. 2:5; enemies of God, Rom. 8:7, "who neither are subject to the law of God, nor can be." But this evangelical doctrine is "light," Matt. 4:16; 1 Pet. 2:9; Hos. 6:5; Joh. 11:9; Ps. 119:130; and it affords light to all who receive it, Ps. 19:8, 9; Joh. 1:5; Ps. 36:9; 2 Pet. 1:19; Joh. 12:35, 36. It is also "life," Joh. 6:33; Phil. 1:16; and it gives life to those who understand it, Joh. 17:3, 25. This doctrine is moreover communicated through the "opening of eyes," Isa. 42:7; Acts 26:18; the "renewing of the mind," Rom. 12:2; Eph. 4:23; "translation from darkness into light," 1 Pet. 2:9; Eph. 5:8; "resurrection from the dead," Eph. 5:14; and through a most powerful "irradiation of spiritual light," by which God removes darkness, with no less exertion of His power than He employed in the very creation of all things, when He commanded light to shine out of darkness, 2 Cor. 4:6. To prove that the blind see, the darkness shines, and the dead live, requires no common sophistry. Furthermore, to assert that God opened their eyes, translated them into His marvelous light, raised them from the dead, and shone into their minds to give them the knowledge of His glory — concerning those of whom He Himself openly testifies that He did not deal with them in this way — is the work of none but learned angelic doctors and seraphic sophists. But perhaps they will say that all these things are spoken metaphorically; for in truth and properly speaking, the unregenerate are not blind or dead, nor is the doctrine light, but only metaphorically so. But ever since these foolish little men judged that they could speak more properly of divine things than God Himself, scarcely anything sound or whole has been left in the Christian religion; but the pure, heavenly, spiritual, life-giving evangelical doctrine, having been turned into secular and academic knowledge, has overthrown nearly all truth, godliness, and faith. And in this opinion the most learned Pharisees were of old, who confessed that the poor little fellow born blind had lacked his natural sight — yet refused to admit that they themselves were blind, when in truth they were more blind than all moles. But grant that some of these words are transferred from natural things to spiritual uses; for if the same relation did not hold between spiritual blindness and spiritual light, death and life, as holds between natural blindness and natural light, and likewise natural death and natural life, the Holy Spirit by His use of those words would not be teaching us but deceiving and misleading us — yet He deceives us no more than He can be deceived by us. But there is no room here for disputation with those in whose judgment the gospel has obtained faith — who, I fear, are exceedingly few: "For what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness? And what communion has light with darkness? What agreement has Christ with Belial? Or what part has a believer with an unbeliever?" 2 Cor. 6:14-16. Furthermore, evangelical theology is taught by the Holy Spirit and by Him alone: "The Holy Spirit will teach you all things," Joh. 14:26. Hence all the children of the church are taught of God, Isa. 54:13; Joh. 6:45. He is the anointing that teaches all things: "You have an anointing from the Holy One, and you know all things," 1 Joh. 2:20. "The anointing teaches you concerning all things," ver. 27. Nor can He be impeded in His office by anyone. The apostle also teaches this most plainly, 1 Cor. 2:6-13. We have briefly expounded those words of the apostle at the beginning of the work, where we treated of the general nature of theology. Let the reader consult that passage. He teaches that evangelical doctrine is the wisdom of God in a mystery, differing in its whole kind from all human knowledge or wisdom; and he denies that it can be perceived without the special aid of the Holy Spirit. He affirms, moreover, that the Spirit Himself illuminates the minds of the faithful with that wisdom. But those who are not regenerate do not have the Spirit: "natural persons, not having the Spirit," Jude 19. They belong to the world, which does not receive the Spirit, nor can receive Him: Joh. 14:17, "The Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him." Nor are they partakers of the anointing. It is therefore remarkable how they can be imbued with this wisdom, since they neither have the Spirit, who alone bestows it, nor wish to have anything in common with Him. Justin speaks admirably in his Dialogue with Trypho: "Unless one has received understanding of the things spoken and done by the prophets through the abundant grace of God, nothing will profit him in being able to recount their words and deeds."

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Book 1, chap. 2, p. 832. — and ready to do His will. That no defect clings to it on this side, we shall show afterward. We acknowledge, therefore, that very many of the unregenerate excel greatly in that knowledge of spiritual things which we have described above; but we utterly deny that they are made conformable to God by virtue of it, and consequently the knowledge with which they are furnished is not theology. For without faith it is impossible to please God, Heb. 11:6, and all that they perform in the worship of God is plainly nothing, Joh. 15:5. That their works also are "splendid sins" is a famous saying of the ancients, drawn from many passages of sacred Scripture. The knowledge they have of God and of His will does indeed stimulate the consciences of the unregenerate to obey God. It also kindles and increases the natural light of conscience, adds sparks of legal fervor to it, sharpens the sense of sin, and stirs up and fosters many anticipatory forebodings of the coming judgment in the depths of their hearts; but since it does not renew the mind, does not remove the hard heart, does not dispel natural darkness, nor compel the shadows of death to vanish, does not render the soul itself conformed to God, nor bestow spiritual powers for rendering due obedience to God — it therefore by no means attains to the name of true theology. Epictetus would deny that a man is a philosopher who is not free, not master of himself, who has not placed all good in those things that lie within our power. Far be it from us, as Christians, to acknowledge as a theologian one who is not a disciple of Christ, or as a disciple of Christ one who does nothing of what Christ commanded and can do nothing of it — they are all of them, to a man, enemies of Christ, and are regarded by Him as enemies. And very many of them, all the more openly the more learned they are, hold the Spirit of Christ in mockery and contempt. Excellent evangelical theologians indeed! Let them peruse the books of the ancients, let them gorge themselves, let them dispute most keenly, let them turn the bloodless scholastics into flesh and blood, let them devour all the critics, let them write on Scripture, let them preach — yet so far are they from being counted theologians that they do not even properly and directly belong to the church of Christ.

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VIII. Furthermore, the most holy and most sweet communion with God that is to be cultivated — which is the beginning of man's blessedness — is another end of theology. The first man enjoyed this in the state of integrity, through the benefit of primordial theology. That sinners might again attain communion with the most holy God, this new theology was instituted by Him. This we have abundantly proved above. Therefore, unless one has obtained spiritual communion with God through Christ, no man is instructed in this theology. Whether any of the unregenerate have spiritual communion with God is, so far as I know, a matter of no controversy among the regenerate.

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IX. Finally, the ultimate end of true theology is the praise of the glory of the grace of God to be celebrated in the eternal salvation of theologians — that is, the very enjoyment of God to the praise of His grace through Jesus Christ. If that light which the unregenerate possess as their own can direct them in a saving manner toward this end, so that they at length attain it in reality by its benefit, no one will deny that they are theologians; but if not, they must be assigned to whatever other class of learned men one chooses. The comprehension of political precepts is not civil prudence, nor is he at once a good citizen who has carefully studied the books of Plato on the Republic and the Laws, or those of Cicero; nor is he a Christian theologian who has only a superficial notion and knowledge of terms, and nothing beyond that of a disciple of Christ or a true theologian. Indeed, such little men fall shamefully upon themselves, and into that saying of the philosopher: "For," he says, "when reason does not agree with life, one must seem to speak in a foreign tongue, like a flute," Philostratus, in the Life of Crates.

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Who are the regenerate — In what sense the baptized are regenerate — For what reasons they were so called by the ancients — Errors of the Papists noted — The truly regenerate never finally fall away — All the baptized are not truly regenerate — Not every reformation of life is regeneration — What sort of common work of the Holy Spirit exists in the non-regenerate — The office of ministers of the word — Description of the regenerate — All men are dead in sins — The pride of certain persons noted — The most miserable condition of the non-regenerate — The general nature and names of regeneration — God Himself the author, through the Spirit — Its degrees — Acknowledgment of the most miserable state — Dreams sent by God for the instruction of men, Job xxxiii. 15, 16 — Works of providence, the preached word, its ends and means — Very many recoil from this first effect of the word — The work of the law in the conversion of the sinner — And of the gospel — The nature and order of regeneration — The varied process of the Holy Spirit in regenerating sinners.

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I. In our previous disputation we placed a fence around the privilege and possession of the regenerate, so that no one might make unauthorized claim to what belongs to another. But who exactly these regenerate persons are is not the same opinion among all. We will make haste through the thicket. Those who are sprinkled with baptismal water are, in the view of some, all regenerate. Evangelical baptism is indeed a symbol of spiritual regeneration. For this reason it seems that all the baptized can in some sense be said to be regenerate; and it is evident that many are born again. From the ambiguous use of the word in the writings of very many of the ancients, no small confusion has arisen. They pronounce virtually everywhere that all the baptized are regenerate. For since it was their duty to be born again, and they had obtained through the ceremony of renewal its symbol, there was no reason why they should not commonly be so called. For at that time, in the continuous progress and daily extension of the gospel, the state of affairs was far different from what it is today. The great majority of persons whose enrollment was made in the church were not admitted to baptism except after a public profession of true faith, a confession of sincere repentance, and a pledge of regeneration. Thus Justin Martyr, Apol. ii., expounds among others the admission of the faithful to baptism. "All," he says, "who are persuaded and believe that the things we teach and declare are true, and who promise that they can live accordingly, are taught to pray and to ask God, while fasting, for the forgiveness of their former sins — we praying and fasting together with them; then they are led by us to a place where there is water," etc. II. But now virtually everywhere in the world we are all baptized as infants. Therefore the situation of all who share in baptism is not at all the same. On account of that solemn profession of regeneration — which a manner of life approved among the good for some period of time, sometimes the space of many years, placed in the careful observance of the precepts of the gospel, showed to have been sincere and truly evangelical — made at the reception of baptism, and confirmed by that symbol according to the mind of Christ, most of the baptized were admitted into the register of the regenerate. Hence they were called the faithful, the saints, the enlightened. The pernicious opinion that it was necessary for a person to be born again from above by the virtue of the administration of baptism, or, as they say, ex opere operato, gradually prevailed. This dangerous error, though ancient, the more recent apostates covered over with one thing and another so that it would not leak out. By their help, from these beginnings the conclusion was reached that external baptism is absolutely necessary, that midwives serve as ministers, and that there is a Limbo of infants. But these men, while contending that the Spirit is bound to one thing, have lost Him altogether. The ancients were not so; yet in their writings that confusion very frequently occurs, to which their attribution — assigning to those who are regenerate only nominally what belongs to those truly regenerate — owes its origin. Augustine removes the equivocation in more than one place and teaches that very many are called sons of God by us on account of the sacrament of regeneration who are not in reality born of God. But from that same source there arises no less an error regarding the apostasy of the saints or of the regenerate. They admit it virtually everywhere with little circumlocution. And how indeed could it have been otherwise for those to whom it was customary to call all who had been admitted to the baptismal water regenerate, holy, and faithful? But that the true sons of God, united to Christ, partakers of the promised Spirit, can never finally fall away or yield to Satan's possession — this same thing we showed in the preface to our work on the Perseverance of the Saints.

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IV. Therefore the mere reception of an external rite makes no one regenerate. If to it there is added an upright ordering of life, a change of morals for the better, a renunciation of the vices that produce scandal, a profession of true faith or orthodox doctrine, and an observance of the institutions of Christ among those parties which one follows — he at least in whom these things are present will be held by the votes of many to be regenerate. Where indeed these things are not present, there is no regeneration; for "he who is born of God performs the works of God." But that all these things can exist where there is no regeneration, he will concede who has been taught by God what it is "to be born again." For just as faith that is alone, without good works, will never justify anyone before God, so good works done without faith will never prove that anyone has been justified. This sort of reformation of past life and reduction to good conduct was very frequent in the schools of the ancient philosophers. Thus Pythagoras, thus Socrates, thus Plato, Aristotle, Zeno, Cleanthes, Epictetus, Apollonius led very many who were wallowing in the filth of vices back to the path of virtue. But among those who use the word of God in any manner, such corrections of morals are daily occurrences where there is no new creation of the heart or saving renewal of the mind. Moreover, the degrees of these changes — with respect to the vices which sinners renounce and the obedience they embrace — are varied, and their causes varied as well. To enumerate all of these here would take too long. For there is an efficacious operation of the Spirit of Christ through the word upon the hearts of non-regenerate men, which is not regeneration. He illuminates their minds especially with the light of the gospel. Hence they are called enlightened, Heb. vi. 4. That is, by some special gift He sharpens their understanding and imparts to it a peculiar keenness for understanding the will of God as revealed in the Scriptures. By the power of this light He stirs and stimulates their consciences to perform their natural duty diligently; and He affects some with a sense of sin, and with grief and repentance on account of sins committed; He pricks and strikes the heart, does not allow it to sleep securely in its vices, and moreover allures it with the sweetness of the word, and with some fleeting taste and foretaste of heavenly things and of future joys, so that in many they become hearers of the word of God spoken. He also brings them into a kind of bondage, casting into them a fear of death and hell; from which they are vexed, tormented, and filled with horror, binding themselves with vows to perform obedience, following the righteousness of the law, performing the duties prescribed, sometimes giving themselves over to wicked superstitions, and earnestly seeking deliverance by every means. These things and others of the same kind, the faithful ministers of God among us recount at length to the people, confirm with testimonies and examples, and diligently warn the Christian people not to allow themselves to be deceived by a shadow or phantom of regeneration. But to pursue this further here does not belong to the purpose of the work undertaken.

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V. Let us therefore say briefly, in the next place, according to the measure of understanding which we have received, and that light however small which God will have graciously deigned to bestow upon us from His own light, who these regenerate persons are whom we assert to be alone capable of this divine wisdom. The Holy Spirit openly testifies that all men are born in a state of sin — that is, destitute of natural righteousness, infected with the corruption of a depraved nature, and therefore liable to the punishment of sin, which is the eternal wrath of God. Against His most evident testimonies, relying on the disguise of the most frigid little distinctions, some resist; but ungratefully and foolishly. These are so far held by a blind self-love — arising from a most profound ignorance of the spiritual state of their own hearts against God, of the nature of the law of God, and of evangelical grace — that they deny that they are polluted by the stain of natural corruption or held by the bonds of spiritual inability and indeed of depravity to such a degree that they can neither understand, nor will, nor receive anything good. We have judged that these persons are to be simply disregarded here. Yet I fear that "because they say they see, their sin remains," and that on account of sin the most just wrath of God is to be revealed at the appointed time, Joh. iii. 36, ix. 41. All evangelical theology rests upon this premise concerning the most miserable natural state of all men; nor can it be understood or observed without the acknowledgment and most weighty sense of it. For what? Do the healthy need a physician — the righteous need repentance — the pure need sanctification — the living need a life-giving Spirit — the innocent need satisfaction — those who see need eye-salve — those who are of themselves sufficient to render the obedience due, need the saving grace, mercy, and effectual power of God — the friends of God need reconciliation — or the blessed need to be freed from a curse? I recently read disputants of this sort, for whom one feels genuine pity. Do not allow, Lord Jesus, in Your infinite mercy, that I — the least and greatest of sinners — should spend even a moment's effort in proving that I am bound to You by fewer obligations than I truly am, or than it would be more desirable to me with all my life and soul to be! What sort of persons all men are in the state of nature can be understood from those arguments by which we proved above that the unregenerate are incapable of this theology. They are dead, blind, stupid, haters of God and obstinate enemies, empty of all saving grace and light, slaves of Satan, prone to every vice, and most alienated from every spiritual good. But in this state, however much very many of them are greatly pleased with themselves and are at ease, they neither will nor can please God. This is the kingdom of Satan, this is the power of darkness, from which all who are to be regenerate by the grace of God must be transferred into the glorious kingdom of Christ and His admirable light. That transfer is regeneration; which is also variously designated as new creation, or new creature, renewal, resurrection from the dead, opening of eyes, circumcision of the heart, quickening — according to whether it has regard to God as the author of the work or to man as the subject of it. The author of the work is God Himself. Hence to be born again and to be begotten of God are the same. Now God accomplishes this His work through the Spirit and the word: born again not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, through the living word of God, 1 Pet. i. 23; that is, through the washing of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Spirit, Tit. iii. 5; and so sinners are regenerated not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God, Joh. i. 13.

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VI. Now there are as it were two parts of this most miserable condition and state in which we are all born. For in it there is misery on account of sin committed, and therefore the loss of all communion with God; and there is a total inability for every spiritual good, arising from the loss of the practical principle — sufficient for doing well and spiritually the things that are of God — which is accompanied by an inseparable bond of habitual propensity toward every evil. Hence the whole man is misery and sin, and nothing else. Appointing a double remedy for this double evil, God from a double efficacious operation produces a double effect, opposed to each of those evils. We will show what this is. Not to know one's natural misery is itself a part of natural misery. From that ignorance arises pride and self-conceit. Every sinner naturally persuades himself by a kind of dreaming that he is, or can be, or will be at some future time when he chooses, in the best state and condition, or at least not the worst; or he counts all these things as nothing. Here if anyone, as very often happens, even in those places where freedom is granted to evangelical preaching — of which alone the present disputation treats — should happen upon a teacher of his own kind, who, puffed up with some academic knowledge of theological matters, passes himself off as a minister of the new testament, while in truth destitute of the Spirit of Christ and of all saving knowledge of the will of God and of the mystery of the gospel, that teacher will so soothe the man's mind, and by removing the hope of obtaining eternal salvation in the state in which he clings will lure him into a trap, so that, having cast aside all care for saving renewal, he will not only sleep carelessly on both ears

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but will not hesitate to rage against others who, by suggesting healthier counsels from the word of God, would seek to bring him back to better conduct. Hence among certain teachers and their disciples, regeneration is almost a laughingstock even in this very light of the gospel. Yet it is here that God first places the sinner who is to be regenerated. He rouses the sinful soul through His word to a serious sense of itself and of the state in which it lives before God, the Ruler of all and the most just Judge. Hence the first knowledge of God takes hold in the practical judgment, not without the horror of death and the fear of eternal punishment. But it is no small matter to awaken a man who is dead in sins, full of self, enslaved to vices, and secure concerning eternity, to the point where he would institute a serious examination of himself in view of the final judgment. But in the modes and means He uses in producing this effect, the most free will of God and His infinite wisdom reveal themselves. Before the word was committed to writing, it was His custom to impress upon men the testimonies of His justice and terror through divinely sent dreams. This the holy man teaches us in Job, ch. xxxiii. 15-17: "In a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falls upon men, in slumberings upon the bed; then He will reveal the ear of men, and will seal their instruction, to turn man away from his deed, and to cover pride from man, that He may keep back his soul from the pit." From there

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For even a dream comes from Zeus. — Iliad i. 68.

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And there was a particular class of dreams which the ancients called divinely sent. Eustathius in Iliad, Book I, says that these properly gave rise to the name of the dream: as if to say, derived from Zeus, finding and declaring the truth; and therefore such a dream was called divine, because the dream appeared.

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VII. The same effect is produced by the external works of providence, by which God executes either His goodness and mercy, or His judgments and wrath. Thus the holy man in the passage already cited, vv. 19-28: "He is chastened with pain upon his bed, and the multitude of his bones with pain, and his life abhors bread, and his soul desirable food. His flesh is consumed so that it cannot be seen; and his bones that were not seen are laid bare; and his soul draws near to the pit, and his life to the destroyers. Then," etc. The Psalmist also, Ps. lxxviii. 33, 34: "He consumed their days in vanity, and their years in terror. When He slew them, they sought Him." The prophet has similar things, Isa. xxvi. 10, 11. For dispensations of divine providence of this kind very often so affect the minds of sinful men that, though they "have brass and triple iron around their hearts," they cannot restrain themselves from trembling earnestly before God and from dreading the coming judgment. But for the most part this is the work and effect of the preached word of God. So the apostle teaches us, 1 Cor. xiv. 24, 25, and the prophet, Hos. vi. 5.

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VIII. For the sinner who turns these anxieties over in his breast, amid the inmost reasonings of the heart, a keen suspicion arises whether he has God as an enemy or not. He begins at last to understand "that it is an evil and bitter thing that he has sinned against God," Jer. ii. 19. Restoring perhaps the memory of very many sins long buried in oblivion, he is entangled in the secret gnawings of conscience and troublesome thoughts. "What have I done," he says, "what am I doing, or what am I about to do again? I do not know which way to turn. What if I should experience God as angry, and so fall into eternal punishments? What if these hopes with which I have hitherto nourished my sick soul should fade and be found to be deceptive? I must without doubt adopt another rule of life, unless I would rather perish." These things, I say, and things of this kind, sinners who are as it were stunned by the power of the divine word turn over in their inmost hearts. But of those who are so variously touched by the sense of their own condition, many — overcome by the force of innate blindness, which still prevents spiritual things from being seen in their own light and splendor, by carnal concupiscence, by the desire of earthly things, by satanic temptations, and by the company of evil men — recoil again and fall back into their former insensibility. Hence their recovery to good conduct is difficult, and the end is very often worse than the beginning, Jer. viii. 9.

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IX. Now this is as it were the first skirmish of the Spirit of God against the power of darkness in the hearts of sinners; the first attempt, as it were, in destroying the works of Satan, when He who is stronger girds Himself to bind the strong man armed. Upon these follow more powerful and more efficacious sallies of spiritual power. We have so far shown only the vague and unstable reasonings by which the contemplative soul stirs itself to perform some sort of examination of itself. Such tend to be the fruits of the first admonitions — the uncertain stirrings, as it were, of those beginning to awake. There are other "sharp arrows" of Christ, Ps. xlv. 5, 6, which He so embeds in the hearts of sinners that they cannot shake them out, however much they might wish. Using these, He pricks, wounds, and terrifies the consciences and minds of men with a sense of sin, the fear of death, and a dreadful foreboding of the coming judgment. See Acts xxiv. 25. For exposing the nature, guilt, and baseness of sin in the inmost recesses of the soul, and moreover recalling to the sinner's mind the multitude of sins of which he himself is conscious, and the innumerable circumstances of sins that accumulate guilt, He denounces upon him the punishment of death, cuts off all hope of escape, and compels him to feel himself utterly miserable on every side and about to perish immediately. And now whatever is horrible, terrible, and sorrowful that human nature can conceive, that stands continually before the eyes of the sinner: Heb. ii. 15, through the fear of death they were throughout all their life subject to bondage. Now this is the special effect of the word or the doctrine of the law: Rom. vii. 7, I would not have known sin except through the law; for the knowledge of sin is through the law — of such a kind, namely, from which practical conviction, or the practical sense of sin, arises; by which God casting His net upon sinners compels them to descend like birds of the heavens, Hos. vii. 12. For after He has as it were compelled the sinful soul earnestly to weigh the nature and guilt of its sin by the powerful and efficacious force of His word, and has provided it with understanding by which it can contemplate its depravity and desert in the mirror of the law — which the apostle ascribes to "the coming of the law," Rom. vii. 9 — and has awakened the conscience to perform its duty diligently; with legal grief, fear, sadness, anxiety, and other emotions afflicting human nature — often greater ones than words suffice to express — He so affects the very inmost chambers of the heart that it is never free from the greatest distress, Acts ii. 37, they were pierced in their heart. "What shall I do now," says the sinner, "unexpectedly discovered by myself in the most miserable state? I am tormented in my soul; no counsel at all stands firm in my breast. God, whom I dreamed to be easy and favorable toward me, I find to be the most hostile enemy; and the law also, to which I had previously paid no regard, not only holy and pure, but also fiery and powerful, whose transgressions can all be expiated only by death, and that eternal; horror, darkness, and the pains of hell surround me, torment me, and tear me to pieces." So the apostle in Rom. vii. 9: I was alive once without the law; but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died. I reckoned myself alive, healthy, just, and acceptable to God; but with the coming of the law that hope perished and was cut off. From this arises a desire for liberation and an anxious expectation of the outcome, closer to despair than to hope, Acts ii. 37, What shall we do? ch. xvi. 30, What must I do to be saved? Here again prayers from the inmost heart, tears and sighs, divine and human duties performed diligently — for they resolve to obtain righteousness before God by any means, Rom. ix. 31. Yet when it has come to this point, the work of conversion to God is not always carried through to completion. For many, ensnared again by the lures of pleasures, shaking out of their breasts this whole beginning of divine work, whatever it may be, return again to the wallowing of vices, to perish eternally, 2 Pet. ii. 20, 21. Some are pleased with a righteousness as it were from works of law, Rom. ix. 32, and while they strive to establish this righteousness — which is the crime and folly of corrupt nature and has passed into an ecclesiastical dogma among very many — they do not submit to the righteousness of God, Rom. x. 8. And so amid attempts to reach heaven, often the most strenuous and sometimes horrible and cruel ones, Mic. vi. 6, 7, they hasten to hell. For though they run toward the bites and pricking goads of conscience, those who run outside the paths of the sun of righteousness must necessarily perish. For those whom God wills efficaciously and graciously to bring to the saving knowledge of Christ, the case is different. For first, through His Spirit working powerfully in their hearts, He causes them to acknowledge and confess the sentence of the law pronounced against them to be most just and equitable — not only with respect to their actual sins but also with respect to their entire condition and natural state, Rom. vii. 12, 13; then also that they justify God Himself as the author of the law, Rom. iii. 20, and that they stop their mouths by the sense of their guilt, v.

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19. Taught therefore to look for all things from the most free grace and good pleasure of God, they strive to depend wholly upon His will, and not to seek in a troubled or impatient manner the remedies for their evils for which they long, Hab. 1:2–4. That consternation of soul, that dejection of spirit, that fear and trembling of heart, that confusion of speech, that shame of countenance, that despair within themselves — by all of which they are all but overwhelmed — allow nothing but a humble and submissive waiting upon the divine sentence concerning themselves, Luke 17:13; Ps. 130. This alone they seem to hold as fixed and settled: that even if it should please God to slay them, they will by no means forsake Him. And now the soul, laboring under the burden of sins, groaning and sinking, gasps more and more daily for deliverance, for welcome mercy, for righteousness, for acceptance before God. The Holy Spirit was therefore promised by Christ to call back to mind and to suggest to sinners those things which pertain to spiritual consolation, John 14:26. He begins again and again secretly and effectively to insinuate some word of the gospel into the heart of the faltering sinner — such as that word in Ps. 130:4, "With You is forgiveness itself, O Lord, that You may be feared." The conscience of the sinner immediately protests, and likewise the law itself; both forbid him to hope for any forgiveness or pardon whatsoever; both cry out loudly and persistently that no sinner will find any such thing with God. "It is not possible," they say, "that so great a sinner could obtain pardon from a most holy and most just God; die therefore, as the law commands: 'For the wages of sin is death,' Rom. 6:23." But here, when the sinner seems again reduced to his last extremity, that very Spirit, who up to this point had brought the aid of the law and of his own conscience against him and had rendered them effective and powerful for crushing his hard and stubborn heart and for shaking out every opinion of his own righteousness — now stands on the other side, and against the accusations and stings of conscience, the sentence of the law, and the temptations of Satan, strengthens, sustains, and establishes him — now nearly faltering, indeed often defeated and yielding — by various supplied supports of hope and patience. For when sinners, burdened with the sense of their sins and of divine wrath, strive to flee to divine mercy, they do not at once feel themselves embraced with favor and grace, but rather feel themselves sent far away by God as unworthy — lest, by Satan's craftiness — who most eagerly seizes upon that very repulse which they fear, though without cause, and turns it to his own advantage — they should be plunged into the abyss of despair: the Holy Spirit gradually and imperceptibly, through various means, administers general supports. Here proclamations have their place, Isa. 55:1, John 7:37; declarations, John 3:16; Ps. 130:4; exhortations, Jonah 1:38; invitations, Matt. 11:28, 29, Rev. 22:17; and gospel promises. Of all of these the Holy Spirit makes use in the translation of the sinner "from the power of darkness into the marvelous light of Christ." At length, moreover, the same Spirit causes Christ Himself — who was perhaps long since proclaimed, but on account of blindness of mind, hardness of heart, love of sin or of one's own righteousness, was neglected, or at least not held in honor with the submission of soul that is fitting — to be observed by these sinners before their eyes in the promises of the gospel. When, moreover, the wretched, lost, weary, and accursed behold Him lifted up on high, as it were "from the ends of the earth," Isa. 45:22, and see that propitiation has been set forth in His blood for the declaration of God's righteousness in the forgiveness of sins, Rom. 3:24, 25; and that He was made a curse so that the blessing of faithful Abraham might come upon believers, Gal. 3:13, 14; and they see and acknowledge God appeased in Him and reconciling the world to Himself — they seek Him alone, and flee to Him just as those formerly guilty of death fled to the cities of refuge. They believe that He has abundantly satisfied the justice of God for their sins, however great, all of them, and that through His own blood He obtained eternal redemption, Heb. 9:12; and thus that God has made Him righteousness and redemption for all who believe in Him, 1 Cor. 1:30. From this arise shame, love, self-displeasure, humiliation, renunciation of one's own righteousness, and repentance; and having received Christ by faith alone, they likewise receive Him as One to be loved and worshiped, trust in Him, and commit themselves entirely to Him to be taught, governed, sanctified, corrected, and saved. X. In the meanwhile, as these things are being transacted between God and the sinful soul through the word, God Himself, in His infinite mercy in Jesus Christ, when and how He wills, by a manner altogether ineffable yet powerful and effective, through His most holy Spirit, bestows new spiritual life upon the soul previously dead in sins, and with a new heart opens its blind eyes, and shines wonderfully throughout the whole of it, to provide the light of His glory in the face of Jesus Christ. Thus the whole man is made a new creature, fit and capable for rendering proper obedience to God according to the norm of the new covenant, Jer. 32:39; Ezek. 11:19, 36:26; Acts 26:18; Rom. 7:2, 11; 2 Cor. 4:6; Eph. 2:2–5, 4:23, 24; 2 Cor. 5:17. The sinner, thus brought back to life and born again through God's grace, equipped with spiritual powers or with the infused habit of grace, united to Christ now indwelling through the Spirit — in accordance with the will of Him who works all things in all — gives and consecrates himself to evangelical obedience and to good works, for the diligent performance of which he was created in Christ, John 14:16, 17; Rom. 6:2, 6; Eph. 2:10; Tit. 2:11, 12; 1 John 3:3. "And thus he who is born of the Spirit is spirit," John 3:6. But these things do not proceed in the same manner in all who are to be regenerated. There are also many things in this wonderful work whose manner we do not know; very many things which we feel but cannot express: "The wind blows where it will; so also is everyone who is born of the Spirit." This one the same Spirit delivers sooner, that one later, from the straits of the new and spiritual birth. One He strikes, pierces, and presses with sharp pain; another He treats more gently, as seems good to Him. But enough of these things.

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Theology as a complex of spiritual gifts — Extraordinary or ordinary gifts — Ordinary gifts peculiar to the ministry or common to all — Christ the bestower of all gifts, Ps. 68:19; Acts 2:33; Eph. 4:8 — The Hebrew word signifies both to receive and to give — Christ the author of spiritual gifts through the Spirit, Joh. 7:39; Acts 19:2; Joh. 16:14; 1 Cor. 12:11 — That theology is a spiritual gift is proved, Matt. 13:11; Jac. 1:5, 17; 1 Joh. 5:20; 1 Cor. 12:8; 1 Cor. 1:5; Rom. 6:17; Eph. 1:17-20 — The nature and growth of spiritual gifts — The foundation of evangelical theology, the salvific light — Its progress through superadded gifts — The special nature of theology — What the Holy Scripture teaches us to teach — The many names of theology; its opposites — Definition — It is wisdom, Deut. 4:6; 1 Cor. 2:7; 2 Tim. 3:15; Dan. 12:3; Ps. 19:8, 9; Deut. 4:6; Ps. 119:98, 99; Prov. 8, 9; Col. 1:9, 3:16 — Its mode of communication — Its immediate object — Its primary effect — It conforms the mind to Christ, and another — Knowledge of the will of God revealed in Holy Scripture — The character of this knowledge — The new understanding — The practice of piety, Job 28:12-23, or Joh. 7:17, 8:31, 32; Col. 1:9, 10; 2 Pet. 1:8, 9 — Summary recapitulation of the whole discussion — Conclusion.

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I. We define the SUBJECT of evangelical theology to be the mind of man renewed by the Holy Spirit. Let us now approach theology itself. It is a spiritual charism, or rather a complex of spiritual gifts. Now since these spiritual gifts are either extraordinary or ordinary, we must treat only of the latter here. Those gifts, then, are certain spiritual powers and capacities of the mind, instilled into it by the Holy Spirit, by which it is made fit and capable for the perception and comprehension of spiritual things, and for their application to spiritual uses and ends. Of those gifts, moreover, that are mentioned in the holy Scriptures, there is a varied distribution on account of the various respects and various uses. That distribution, since it does not directly pertain to our purpose, let us here pass over. Let it suffice to note only this: that some of them, in a special manner, pertain to the office of the evangelical ministry (of which they are the foundation, Eph. 4:8, 11; 1 Cor. 12:7), while others are common to all the faithful, each according to his own degree and measure. The power to confer these gifts is the fruit and companion of the exaltation of our Lord Jesus Christ to the right hand of the Father — the most eminent part of His royal inheritance. So speaks the Psalmist: Ps. 68:19, "You have ascended on high, You have led captivity captive" — "You have received gifts among men." This passage Peter interprets, Acts 2:33: "Being therefore exalted to the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, He has poured out this that you now see and hear." This referred to those gifts of tongues and prophecy at the sight and sound of which the Jews were astonished. He does not, indeed, expressly mention the gifts themselves received from Christ, but the promised Spirit, who immediately works them in all. Paul repeats the words, Eph. 4:8: "When He ascended on high He led a host of captives, and He gave gifts to men." He departs from the most customary signification of the Hebrew word, in order to set forth the matter more plainly. I marvel that those who undertook the task of inserting into the ancient Greek version attributed to the Seventy Elders the testimonies cited from the Old Testament in the New, using the very words that the inspired writers employed, should have passed over this passage; for it still reads "you received gifts," not "he gave gifts," as in the apostle. Moreover, the Hebrew word sometimes signifies "to give," or at least "to receive with the mind and purpose of giving": Hos. 14:2, "Receive good" — that is, "Give us grace" — or, as our own translators render the sense, "Receive us graciously" — that is, "Be You the bestower of grace and favor upon us." Exod. 25:2, "Speak to the children of Israel, that they take for Me an offering" — that is, "that they give." Hence "the word of receiving signifies giving when they receive from another in order to give," say the masters of the Hebrews. Paul therefore accurately rendered the sense of the words, and so translated the words themselves. Christ received all spiritual gifts from the Father in order to give them to men; Christ therefore is the author of all spiritual gifts. Moreover, the authority of this conferral upon the Spirit was conspicuously given after the ascension. Hence that word of the evangelist: "The Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus had not yet been glorified," Joh. 7:39 — that is, not yet given and poured out in the manner of which he speaks. And this was the ignorance of the disciples of John, recorded in Acts 19:2: "But," they say, "we have not even heard whether there is a Holy Spirit." Do not suppose that those who had been brought up in the bosom of the Jewish church and initiated by the baptism of John were ignorant of whether the Holy Spirit really existed or not; they knew the Spirit — they had simply heard nothing at all about His extraordinary gifts. These ordinary gifts the Holy Spirit distributes most freely to all, in the name and in the place of Christ — for Whom, as Tertullian says, He performs a vicarious service — Joh. 16:14 — "as He wills," 1 Cor. 12:11. "To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good," v. 7.

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II. Of these gifts, as we have said, theology is a certain complex, such that within it — as virtues within justice — all are contained: Matt. 13:11, "To you it has been given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven" — that is, it is given to you to be evangelical theologians. Jac. 1:5, "If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives generously." We have already shown that wisdom is theology, and we will prove it further. Concerning this same wisdom again, v. 17: "Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights." 1 Joh. 5:20, "We know that the Son of God has come, and has given us an understanding, so that we may know Him who is true." "To know Him who is true," moreover, is theology — or else I confess I am entirely ignorant of what theology is: 1 Cor. 12:8, "To one is given through the Spirit the word of wisdom"; 1 Cor. 1:5; Rom. 6:17. The apostle sets the whole matter before our eyes, Eph. 1:17-20: "I pray," he says, "that God may give you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of Him, having the eyes of your understanding enlightened, that you may know what is the hope of His calling, and what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance among the saints, and what is the surpassing greatness of His power toward us who believe." Would that some of those who wander in darkness might be willing and able to learn from these words of the apostle.

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III. Our theology, therefore, is a spiritual gift, 1 Cor. 2:7-9. Now, since that almighty Spirit of God works all things in all, in order that we may establish a distinction between this gift and those very many gifts which He distributes to merely natural men for various uses, we show that it proceeds and is given from Christ the Mediator. This anointing is from that Holy One, 1 Joh. 2:20.

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CHAP. VI.] CONCERNING EVANGELICAL THEOLOGY. [p. 443]

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— bending them to be shaped by it; whereas one ought to follow in the footsteps of Scripture, to use its words, and to rest content regarding their philosophical sense.

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VIII. We have proved above that the proper subject of this theology is the mind of the renewed man. We have also shown that it is a gift of the Holy Spirit, who performs the office of Christ among men. What is peculiar to this gift is that it makes the faithful wise in the mystery of the gospel, or of Christ, in whom all the treasures of knowledge and wisdom are hidden. We therefore say that theology is first and foremost spiritual wisdom — so Scripture calls it: Deut. 4:6, "This is your wisdom and your understanding" (or prudence). 1 Cor. 2:7, "We speak wisdom in a mystery." And he who is furnished with it is called wise, 2 Tim. 3:15, "You have learned the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise" — "to make you wise"; and also understanding; hence the term for the intelligent in Dan. 12:3. And the word of God is called faithful: "making wise the simple," and "enlightening the eyes," Ps. 19:8, 9. For this reason the people of God are called "a wise and prudent people," Deut. 4:6. Ps. 119:98, David says: "You make me wiser than my enemies with Your commandments." V. 99, "I have more understanding than all my teachers." For this reason, among others, Christ Himself is called wisdom, because He alone instructs men in this wisdom, Prov. 8, 9. And this is what the apostle intends in that solemn prayer he offers for the saints at Colossae: Col. 1:9, "We do not cease to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding." And again, Col. 3:16, "Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, in all wisdom."

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IX. The mode of communication peculiar to this wisdom proves that it differs most greatly from all secular wisdom and from systematic or disciplinary knowledge. "We have the mind of Christ," says the apostle, 1 Cor. 2:16 — that is, we know, we understand. But who is it that has this? He says, v. 12, "We have received not the spirit of the world" — namely, the spirit that is the author of worldly wisdom — "but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things freely given us by God." We attain this wisdom only through the Holy Spirit graciously granted to us, Joh. 16:13. He produces this effect in us in a manner altogether wonderful. The same apostle teaches us thus: 2 Cor. 4:6, "For God, who said, 'Let light shine out of darkness,' has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ," etc. The manner of producing this salvific light is no different from that by which light was once brought out of the midst of darkness at the first creation of all things. The knowledge that is thus produced is "the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ" — for it is the fruit of the efficacious divine irradiation that illuminates our minds. And again the same apostle, Eph. 1:17, 18: "May God give you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of Him" (that is, of Christ), "having the eyes of your understanding enlightened." For this gift is from the Father through Christ. There is given a spirit of wisdom and of revelation — which, namely, through the revelation of the mystery of the gospel makes us wise, not with bare knowledge, but with the acknowledgment, or recognition, of Christ as well. There is nothing human here, nothing that in any way savors of human wisdom.

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XI. The immediate object of this wisdom, though it has been sufficiently indicated in what precedes, let us also briefly set forth separately. Holy Scripture calls it generally "all things": 1 Joh. 2:20, "You have an anointing from the Holy One, and you know all things"; and v. 27, "The anointing teaches you about all things" — that is, the things that are necessary for the worship of God, our obedience, consolation, and salvation. Also "all the truth," Joh. 16:13 — namely, all that truth which pertains to the spiritual kingdom of Christ. XII. In this way the faithful are initiated into the sacred things of Christ. For it is "given" to them "to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven," Marc. 4:11 — mysteries not revealed in ancient ages, Rom. 16:25. "We speak," says the apostle, "wisdom in a mystery," 1 Cor. 2:7; Eph. 1:9. And Col. 2:2, 3: "That you may be established in love, and unto all the riches of the full assurance of understanding, unto the acknowledgment of the mystery of God, and of the Father, and of Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge." The foundation is spiritual understanding. To this, through the grace of God, is joined full assurance; and this produces the acknowledgment, or the practical recognition of truth; which truth is indeed the mystery of God, and of the Father, and of the Son — that is, of God revealing Himself to us as Father in the Son: for through the knowledge of Christ we are led to this, in whom all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden; as we have shown at length in our work on "The Communion of the Saints with God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit." This, I say, is the innermost object of evangelical theology — namely those deep things of God which the Spirit searches, in order to reveal them to us, 1 Cor. 2:10. XII. Moreover, through this wisdom by which the renewed mind is illuminated with the knowledge of the evangelical mystery, the whole man is conformed to heavenly truth. This is the first and most distinctively proper effect of this theology. Through it, the image of God lost by sin is renewed once more. We showed in the first book that natural theology — considered materially, as they say — was that image of God to which the first man was created. It consisted in the knowledge of God, together with the readiness to live according to the rule of that knowledge. We have traced at length above the obliteration of that image of God through sin. All confess that we cannot be renewed into the image of Christ except through Christ. He is the image of God, 2 Cor. 4:4; the image of God, Col. 1:15; the radiance of glory and the exact imprint of His nature, Heb. 1:3. The gospel, moreover, is the "image" of Christ — or His "face" — in which "the glory of the Father shines," 2 Cor. 4:6; or the mirror in which Christ Himself (and thus the glory of the Father) is presented for the contemplation of the renewed mind, 2 Cor. 3:18. Through the beholding of this image, which we have through this wisdom, that same image is introduced into our minds: "we are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory." And the new man is renewed "in knowledge after the image of Him who created him," Col. 3:10. That is, the image of God which consisted in natural theology and has been lost is renewed through this acknowledgment, which conforms our minds to Christ, who is the image of God.

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The holiness also, of which we have been made partakers in this renewal, is called "the holiness of truth," Eph. 4:24, because it proceeds from that truth which, exercising its power in our minds, introduces into them the image of Christ. For since it pleased God to express His image in Christ through the word of the gospel, that word in our hearts — as though quickened — becomes a living and efficacious grace, and the whole soul is delivered over to its form, Rom. 6:17. From this arises acknowledgment — that is, the recognition of truth as inwardly implanted; and formation, from the real and most immediate efficacy of truth; and also spiritual sense — that is, the spiritual feeling and taste of the evangelical realities themselves. This, I say, is the primary effect of this supernatural theology; had it been incapable of producing it, it could not rightly have been substituted in place of that natural theology which we have lost.

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XIV. Furthermore: with the aid of this wisdom we savingly understand the objective truth — that is, the mind of God as set forth in the holy Scriptures. Hence it is called knowledge, science, awareness, and recognition. For since the faithful have an understanding that has been elevated and disposed by spiritual light for the saving perception of the mystery of the gospel, it is necessary that they rightly understand the very doctrine in which that mystery is contained. This is that "knowledge of God" so often celebrated in holy Scripture. But whoever on the basis of this use of the term should contend that our theology is knowledge in the philosophical sense of that word, and so should force it into the category of the other sciences, would err very grossly indeed. A different matter is at hand here, as we have abundantly proved. Moreover, theology is called "knowledge" with respect to the act of the mind in perceiving its object, but is called "light" with respect to the principle by which it acts and the manner in which it is borne toward its object. God called us out of darkness into His marvelous light, 1 Pet. 2:9. For just as those darknesses out of which we were called were not merely objective — that is, mere ignorance of divine truth not yet revealed — but chiefly inward, namely the native blindness of our minds; so that marvelous light into which we are called signifies not only the evangelical doctrine, but also that spiritual light by which we are made capable of rightly perceiving the glory of God. The shining of the gospel of the glory of Christ illuminates us, 2 Cor. 4:4. It is in itself a shining, and it illuminates our minds. The Holy Spirit sent Paul to open the eyes of the Gentiles, to turn them from darkness to light, Acts 26:18. The evangelical truth itself is light; and it is also communicated with those who are to believe, in order, namely, to open their eyes that they may see this light — or "light in the light of God," Ps. 36:9. This spiritual light so affects the understanding itself that it is called different and new, Ps. 119:18, 130. And "the Son of God has come, and has given us an understanding, that we may know Him who is true," 1 Joh. 5:20 — as if, forsooth, we had not been furnished with one before. At least He changes it to such a degree that it becomes capable of rightly performing its proper office: "He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures," Luc. 24:45; and Paul says to Timothy, "The Lord will give you understanding in all things," 2 Epist. 2:7; and the Psalmist, "Make me to understand, and I will keep Your law,"

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Ps. 119:34 and 104. On account of this light, therefore, which perfects the intellect in its own act, the knowledge by which the faithful perceive spiritual things spiritually differs immeasurably from all human knowledge, and not only in respect to the objective truth.

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XV. Furthermore: wisdom here, with an indissoluble bond, draws along with it the spiritual affections of the heart conformed to the acknowledged truth, because it produces them; and it makes and guides those who are wise theologians in their whole soul, in cultivating communion with God through Christ, and in diligently rendering the obedience required by the covenant of grace. For he alone is truly wise in the mystery of the gospel who understands God's counsel, love, and grace in and through Christ, according to the revelation of these things made in the word, in such a way that, affected by their spiritual and ineffable taste, he gives himself wholly to God in the obedience of faith. In this practice of piety, or federal obedience — without which everything celebrated under that name is a bare name, or rather a kind of shadow and mask of wisdom — consists the entire vital exercise of this theology. Hence it is called not only the knowledge of the truth according to godliness, at Tit. 1:1; but also piety, worship, and the fear of God; in which all its vital acts consist. Noteworthy is that passage of Job, worthy to be held in perpetual memory: Ch. 28:12-23, "But where shall wisdom be found? And where is the place of understanding? No mortal knows its value, nor is it found in the land of the living. The deep says, It is not in me; and the sea says, It is not with me. It cannot be given for stored gold, nor can silver be weighed out as its price. It cannot be valued in the fine gold of Ophir, in precious onyx, or sapphire. No one can value it in gold or in the most brilliant gem; nor can vessels of finest gold be exchanged for it. No mention shall be made of coral or of pearl; for the acquisition of wisdom surpasses rubies. No one can value it in the topaz of Ethiopia; in pure fine gold it cannot be valued. From where, then, shall wisdom come? And where shall the place of understanding be? Since it is hidden from the eyes of all the living, and concealed even from the birds of the air. Destruction and death say, We have heard a report of it with our ears. God alone understands the way to it, and He Himself knows its place." Ver. 28, "But He said to man, Behold, the fear of the Lord is wisdom; and to depart from evil is understanding." The holy man conducts a sufficiently anxious inquiry into the place, nature, origin, and operations of wisdom. All the works of God confess with one voice that she is precious and altogether inestimable; yet when asked, they openly testify that she does not reside in themselves. For even if someone became most skilled and knowledgeable in their nature and operations, he would not thereby attain to that true wisdom. But lest miserable man should perpetually flounder among difficulties in his inquiry into this wisdom, and after proving himself "a wild donkey's colt," ch. 11:12, should perish eternally, God Himself, graciously taking pity on him, showed him the place and nature of that true wisdom, "and said to man, The fear of the Lord is wisdom, and to depart from evil is understanding" —

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— that is, this wisdom consists in the very fear of God and true holiness; this is its proper work, this is its life and soul. It is prudence, I say, or understanding, directing the whole man in the fear of God and the practice of piety: "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom," Ps. 111:10. In it also it places its growth: Ps. 25:14, "The secret of the Lord is with those who fear Him, and He will make known His covenant to them." And John 7:17, "If anyone desires to do His will, he will know about the teaching, whether it is from God." And with an indissoluble bond these things cohere with one another, so that this wisdom first directs us to do the will of God, or to obey Him in spirit and truth, and then from that practice of evangelical piety it is itself daily advanced and increased. Hence if anyone has not received that spiritual light of which we have spoken, or having received it has not diligently stirred it up by the assiduous use of the means which God has appointed, or having stirred it up has not exercised it in the daily practice of all evangelical duties and in departing from evil in all holiness — he will without any doubt be in vain in his expectation of progress in the study of this theology, either useful to himself or pleasing to God. For such is the force of the evangelical promise: John 8:31-32, "If you remain in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." Moreover, this bond between wisdom and the universal practice of piety, and the power of theology directing our souls into all evangelical obedience — which is our spiritual prudence — the apostle Paul wonderfully shows in the Epistle to the Colossians 1:9-10: "We do not cease," he says, "praying for you and asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, to walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God." The apostle prays that the holy Colossians may be filled with the knowledge of God's will, that is, with evangelical theology. That is our wisdom, or spiritual understanding. But it manifests itself in universal obedient practice. Therefore the apostle asks that the faithful may be filled with it, not for the sake of knowledge itself, or that they may delight themselves in the knowledge of spiritual things, but that they may walk worthily before God, unto all His good pleasure, bearing fruit in every good work. For such is the nature, such is the character of this wisdom, that it effectively works all these things in those who partake of it. And what will accordingly follow? By that very knowledge of God, by whose power and benefit they have prepared themselves for the exercise of piety, they will be increased and advanced. Thus wisdom and piety mutually foster, advance, increase, and strengthen one another. So blessed Peter, after he had enumerated in a long order the evangelical virtues by whose exercise the spiritual life exerts its powers, adds: "These things being present in you and abounding will render you neither idle nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ" — namely, because these are the genuine fruits of the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ, to such a degree that where they are absent, whatever is put forward, there is in reality no knowledge of Christ. For thus the apostle: "But he in whom these things are absent is blind, short-sighted," 2 Pet. 1:8-9. XVI. Let a brief summary conclude the entire discussion. God cares for and effects this: that the regenerate may perceive and understand the truth revealed in holy scripture, for their own glory and proper salvation. To this end He pours out salvific light into their minds through the Holy Spirit. By the benefit of this light they become powerful and fit to understand spiritual things spiritually. Without it, all labor and study devoted to acquiring evangelical theology will be in vain. Those equipped with this spiritual light He further enriches with the gift of wisdom, or renders them wise through the spirit of revelation in the mystery of God the Father and of Christ, and in the knowledge of all salvific truth. Through the embrace of truth, their hearts are spiritually expanded, and a new amplitude accrues to their minds in their acts — the amplitude in which the schoolmen of no mean rank say free will consists. But through various means and various degrees, to each one equipped with this wisdom the objective truth, or evangelical doctrine, is laid open, as much as is needed to promote obedience to it and consolation. That perception of truth is knowledge of God and of His will proclaimed in holy scripture. But this by no means exhausts the whole of theology, as it pleases some, but is the operation of a mind equipped with evangelical wisdom concerning its proper object. Hence the whole soul is conformed to the known truth, so that what truth is in the word, grace is in the heart. Moreover, this wisdom perpetually stimulates toward evangelical obedience and directs the mind in the exercise of the same, which is its proximate end. Insofar as it does this, it is our prudence and understanding. Of the ultimate end there is no need to speak; what pertains to it is known from elsewhere. This wisdom is capable of degrees. These regard partly the spiritual light itself, which the Holy Spirit variously bestows according to His own will, and partly the revealed object, or evangelical doctrine. For since divine truth is transmitted variously in the holy scriptures, as it pleased the infinite wisdom of God, according to each one's spiritual capacity and the diligent use of means apt for promoting the investigation of the various modes of revealing evangelical doctrine, there cannot but be various degrees of knowledge of it; yet in such a way that all progress of whatever kind therein should be ascribed to Him who gives us to grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

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The foundation of the new church according to the norm of evangelical theology. — First rule of its foundation: its members are holy. — The holiness of the Jewish church is typological; of the Christian church, true. — The preaching of John, requiring regeneration. — And also of Christ Himself. — And of the apostles. — The holiness of the evangelical church proved. — Second, it is established as Catholic. — What its Catholicism is. — Third, the institution of particular churches for the celebration of established worship; their nature. — Fourth, the spiritual worship of the new church. — Fifth, the written word alone, the rule of faith, worship, and obedience. — Sixth, the presence of Christ through the Spirit.

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I. We have shown, as we narrated the various degrees and modes of supernatural revelation, that divinely revealed theology has been the norm and root for the church of every age for the solemn celebration of the worship of God. We have also seen how, in these last days, through His only-begotten Son, who always is in the bosom of the Father, He set forth all the mysteries of His counsel concerning the demonstration of His glory in the salvation of sinners and concerning worship to be celebrated. We further pointed out the general nature of that most perfect revelation, insofar as it is communicated to men through the Holy Spirit. According to its norm, our Lord Jesus Christ instituted and erected the new church, which will endure until the consummation of the age. The plan of our undertaking requires that we briefly set forth its state and condition, insofar as they appear to depend on what has been expounded above. I shall speak, however, more briefly than so great a matter ought to be treated: partly because our present task is not to weigh directly and deliberately the nature of the evangelical church; partly because what remains to be said will be illuminated clearly enough by what has been said above; partly because we are called to other concerns, God so graciously disposing.

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"A holy people to Jehovah your God." Now just as all the institutions proper to that church were typological, and a shadow of spiritual good things to come, so that holiness which God ascribes to the whole people was nothing more than a certain prefiguration of that true holiness which the Lord Jesus was about to bestow upon His whole church through the Holy Spirit. We proved above that all their institutions were only a living edifice until the time of reformation. The Holy Spirit, therefore, looking forward to the end of these things which were to be abolished, describes in nearly every place in the Old Testament the enduring state of the future church. But nothing occurs more frequently in all the prophecies concerning that state, or is more solemnly set forth, than this true and saving holiness of the members of that church. See Ps. 2:6, 24:3, 4, 45:18, 68:18; Esa. 11:8-10, 35:8, 54:11-14, 60:21; Ezech. 47:9; Zach. 14:20, 21; Mal. 3.

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Chapter 7. On Evangelical Theology.

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III. Now, when the kingdom of heaven had drawn near, John, who was sent to prepare the way of the Lord, expressly declared that true repentance — that is, new birth, or true holiness of life — was altogether necessary for entering the kingdom of God and obtaining the evangelical state of the church, Matth. iii. 2. Furthermore: since very many were puffing themselves up with the external privileges which they enjoyed in the Jewish church by virtue of carnal descent from the stock of Abraham, he declares most plainly that those privileges would profit them nothing for obtaining any part in the kingdom of Christ, unless they truly repented, ver. 9, 10. Hence the prophets of old had declared that the coming of that Messiah, so greatly longed for by the Jewish church, would be exceedingly terrible to it; because He would utterly cut off from the bounds of the church all those who had not attained to true repentance, holiness, and piety, Mal. iii. 1-5, iv. 1-4. John teaches the same, Matth. iii. 10. Christ, indeed, when He laid the foundations of the new church through His ministry, invited all sinners to Himself. Yet, just as He taught that no one could come to Him unless he were drawn by His Father, Joh. vi. 44, so He receives no one into His fold who has not professed true repentance. Indeed, He not only denies that anyone belongs to His church whose righteousness does not exceed the righteousness of the Pharisees and scribes, Matth. v. 20 — that is, the most rigorous profession of true religion and the most exact exercise of piety — or who has not denied himself, Matth. x. 38, xvi. 24; Luc. ix. 28; and who has not done many other things of that kind; but He also openly declares this at the outset of His preaching as the foundation and firmest rule of His entire church: namely, that no one, unless he has been born again, can either enter or see that kingdom of God which He was then erecting, Joh. iii. 3, 5.

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IV. The preparatory ministry having been completed, the work of visibly gathering the church and separating it from the world was committed by Christ Himself to the apostles, evangelists, and other disciples, each according to his ability. What sort of persons they gathered into Christ's fold they themselves everywhere teach. They were born again, called with a holy and effectual calling, godly, faithful, holy, washed, justified, separated from the world and from all evil, children of God, instructed and anointed by the Holy Spirit, conformed to Christ, living stones, devoted to good works, and renewed in the image of God: Acts ii. 41, 42, 47, iv. 32, viii. 37, x. 47, xiii. 48, xvi. 14, 15, xix. 18, 19; Rom. i. 7, xii. 1, 2; 1 Cor. i. 2, 9, 30, xvi. 1; 2 Cor. i. 1, viii. 5; Eph. i. 1, 2, 18, ii. 5, 9, 10; Phil. i. 1, 6, 7; Col. i. 2-5; 1 Thess. i. 1-10; 2 Tim. iii. 5; Heb. ii. 6; 1 Pet. ii. 4, 5; 2 Pet. i. 1-4; 1 John i. 1-7; 3 John 1. But the profane, unbelieving, disobedient, ignorant of the mystery of the gospel, hypocrites, those conformed to the world, haters of good, and all others of that kind, they everywhere kept far from the bounds of the church. I acknowledge, indeed, that these things were done not in heaven, and not according to the heart-searching judgment of God, but among men. Although the greatest care was therefore taken that only Christ's sheep, and those who were obedient to Him, should be admitted into His holy fold —

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— yet many hypocrites crept in, who afterward either disturbed the state of the church by shameful apostasy, or defiled it by their vicious continuance within it.

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VIII. Fourthly, this theology teaches that the religious worship which the Lord Jesus willed to be celebrated in those assemblies is plainly spiritual. Christ dismissed all external splendor and all carnal adornment, however resplendent with visible glory, by newly appointing to His worship very few ceremonies, and those simple ones. See Joh. iv. 23; 2 Cor. iii. 6-11; Heb. ix. 1-12. But as long as it pleased God to employ in His worship those things which were glorious in visible and carnal adornment, He Himself prescribed everything expressly, at length, and accurately, down to the smallest detail. The Lord Jesus could therefore not more expressly have expelled all worldly adornment and all ceremonies — those beyond what He Himself expressly instituted — from any place in His worship, than He did by His silence throughout this entire theology. To worship He also added a discipline, the preserver of evangelical obedience, spiritual in nature and to be administered spiritually — of which we treat elsewhere.

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IX. Fifthly, in order that all things in His churches might be rightly performed according to the will of God, the Lord Jesus willed this evangelical theology — committed to writing by His command —

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The apostasy of the Christian church — Causes of the permanence of the evangelical church — The defection of particular churches — Predictions of this — The apostasy of the Roman church — Defection from the first theological principle of founding the church.

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I. That our Lord Jesus Christ established His church most wisely, as was fitting for Him who is the way, the life, and the truth, is acknowledged by all, and we have demonstrated it in brief. That this church would endure until the end of the age, He Himself promised, and the reason of the kingdom — which was given to Him by the Father — demands it. For since nothing was ever to be added to the faith once delivered to the saints through the Son of God, and since the whole state of the church depends on revealed theology, it is plainly impossible that any innovation of the kind we reviewed above should occur in it, or that — since the church is itself the visible kingdom of Christ — it should entirely vanish. But since the evangelical church is catholic, and is bound to no place, seat, family, or nation, it is not necessary that this or that assembly, gathered and called in this or that place, should endure forever. For it abundantly suffices for the preservation of the catholic church on earth that true worshippers of God in Jesus Christ through the Holy Spirit have always existed somewhere. But that every assembly which is called a particular church from some particular place where it assembles can fail with the passage of time, Scripture teaches; and that particular churches have in fact failed, events confirm. For the Holy Spirit testifies that some churches, within a few years after their first calling, fell away from faith, love, and purity to such a degree that, unless they repented most swiftly, Christ declared He would utterly forsake them, Rev. ii. 1–4, 16–20.

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The same Spirit also foretold that a certain general defection of those professing the name of Christ from His yoke and from the rule of evangelical theology — a defection which, while some of the apostles were still living, had already put down certain roots — was yet to come;

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the Spirit, 2 Thess. ii. 3, 7, 8. The origin, progress, —

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its most dreadful effects and outcome John sets forth at length in the Apocalypse. Although most other churches, if not all everywhere throughout the whole world, were implicated in the fellowship of this crime, yet that great throng of hypocrites and idolaters which, spread throughout various nations, loves to be called the Roman church, so utterly surpassed all others in wickedness and gathered all the predictions upon itself alone, that it alone is at last worthy to be adduced as the example of total defection from the rule of evangelical theology. Now since very many learned men have devoted themselves to investigating the origin, progress, and various stages of this defection, the guilt and charge of which the Roman church took upon itself, and since to their faithfulness and diligence there remains scarcely anything that could be added, it will suffice for me to expose in brief the principles and sources of this entire execrable apostasy, from which all the particular monsters of errors and superstitions — of which it consists — gradually flowed. And indeed I will do this all the more willingly because I seem to see that very many churches, freed by God's grace from the guilt and stain of this defection in which they were entangled for several centuries, are scarcely yet cautious and vigilant enough lest they fall again into the causes, occasions, and sources of this most foul apostasy. Therefore the same path we have traveled before must be traveled again here. We have shown that the apostasy of the churches of all ages consisted in the neglect and abandonment of those theological principles which were peculiar and proper to that expansion of theology upon which their constitution rested. We also set forth in the previous chapter what those heads of evangelical theology were which our Lord Jesus Christ prescribed for building the church. The forgetting, neglect, and contempt of these gave rise and progress to the defection of churches in former times — would that they were not still doing so. We will teach this in order. II. The constitution of the church — namely, that it ought to consist of the regenerate and of those who profess an unblameable faith — occupies the place of the first foundation in this our theology. From the neglect of this principle, "the first taint of evil," at least that which carried with it the momentum of defection, clung to the churches. For when on the one hand it seemed good to those who presided over the churches of Christ by name that very many should be admitted into them, and on the other hand secular enticements were not lacking to attract many who had almost no sense of spiritual and heavenly things to take up the profession of the Christian name — with this solemn institution of Christ despised — profane, superstitious, carnal, proud, greedy, and licentious men poured into them in crowds. Let Augustine be our witness, in his book On Catechizing the Uninstructed, ch. i: "There are," he says, "those who wish to be Christians either to earn favor from men from whom they expect temporal benefits, or because they do not want to offend those whom they fear; the church bears them for a time."

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III. From this, moreover, the doctrine of the church concerning faith in particular and regeneration was gradually corrupted, the splendor and glory of holiness was lost, separation from the world was neglected, the most superstitious observances were introduced for the use of the Christian people, and discipline was by degrees perverted into the likeness of a certain secular jurisdiction. For after the crowd of hypocrites and of others who had not been regenerate had, by their multitude, as it were overwhelmed the church, it pleased — or at least suited — the teachers of the church to transform the spiritual doctrine of the gospel, which should have been accommodated to the state and condition of those of whom the church consisted, into a certain philosophical wisdom. Thenceforth faith became a right opinion or persuasion concerning God; regeneration became the external rite of baptism; and the glory of holiness, in those assemblies of which the greater part either bitterly opposed it or at least had a mind sufficiently alienated from it, could by no arts, by no pretense of disguise, be preserved. But when almost the whole world, led by various reasons, had taken up the profession of the Christian religion and had foully defiled almost all the institutions of Christ — how could separation from it be instituted without the suspicion of schism from the church itself? Furthermore, we have shown that the discipline instituted by Christ was plainly spiritual. In order for it to obtain its force and efficacy over men, it is required that those very persons toward whom it is to be exercised should likewise be spiritual. When, therefore, hypocrites and carnal men destitute of the Spirit had taken possession of the churches, among whom that most gentle and spiritual discipline of Jesus Christ could by no means attain its proposed end — with it despised and neglected and only its shadow retained — a secular government of this sort crept into the churches, by which these hypocrites, or wicked and villainous men, might be restrained to some degree. Moreover, from that impure crowd which, through contempt of this principle, overwhelmed the churches, very many were most deeply imbued with Jewish and pagan superstitions, through whom at length almost the whole of Hellenism, interpolated with certain Jewish observances, was introduced into the church. For from this source sprang the worship of angels, of deceased men, and of images; purgatory; virgin nuns; priests; the very sacrifice of the mass; the consecration of temples; the observance of festivals — to say nothing of garlands offered to the gods, which the ancients also called the Saturnine lighting of lamps on altars, torches carried in the Februa (in the earlier sacred rites of the greater gods, and then carried at the festival of the Virgin), the Hilaria celebrated to the Mother of the Gods at the beginning of spring, and innumerable other things — as sprouts of ancient superstition that budded in the Christian religion. After enumerating some of these, Baronius adds in his Notes on the Roman Martyrology, Feb. 2: "The same thing happened in many other institutions of the Gentiles, so that the use of their superstition, having been expiated by sacred rites and rendered most holy, was laudably introduced into the church of God." And so that most learned man openly confesses that pagan superstition was admitted into the church; although the Belgian censors in their expurgatory index order the deletion of those words of Polydore Vergil from Book V of On the Invention of Things, ch. i.: "In this matter someone bashfully scrupulous might perhaps say that he plainly does not know whether they are imitating the religion or rather the superstition of the ancients" — with which words he reaches the same conclusion as Baronius —

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established. But with the passage of time, not without a foul defilement of the sacred institutions of Christ, the heads of the churches admitted into them the entire rabble of the nations. Let the admission to the baptismal water by the monk Augustine of the English be an example, which Camden relates from an ancient fragment of his statutes in his Britannia: "Augustine, on a single day of the Lord's nativity — which is perpetually celebrated as a day of universal glory for the English — regenerated by life-giving baptism more than ten thousand men, besides an innumerable multitude of women and children. But what supply of priests or of other sacred orders sufficed to cleanse so great a people? And so, having blessed the English river called Swale" (a river in the County of York) "the supreme pontiff commands heralds and masters to enter in pairs with confidence, and to baptize one another in turn in the name of the triune Deity. And so all were regenerated — by no lesser miracle than that by which the people of Israel had once passed through the divided sea and likewise through the Jordan turned back — to the other bank." Bede attributes these things to Paulinus.

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IV. Whoever he was, no one can doubt that he gave a notable specimen of defection from the principles of evangelical theology. Now from this impious mixture — which was the source and origin of the ecclesiastical defection that occurred first after the entrance of sin, Gen. vi. 1, 2, 4, and which also, after God had most gravely warned the Israelite people in several places to guard themselves against it, Exod. xxii. 32, xxxiv. 12–14; Deut. vii. 2–5, was also the beginning of apostasy for them, Judg. ii. 1–8 — the Christian church contracted its first and almost universal taint and corruption.

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V. Second. The second peculiar principle of evangelical theology, which concerns the institution of the new church, establishes its catholicity. In defection from the rule of this principle, according to its own degree, the fatal apostasy took its stand. For when most of the ancient Christians either misunderstood this principle perversely or foully neglected it, I know not what monsters of opinion were born from it. The fiction of apostolic sees inflicted the first wound upon it. For after it suited some that this or that church, assembled in some celebrated city, should be preferred above other churches, little rationalizations were immediately devised — of which the holy Scriptures are profoundly silent — assigning I know not what secular privileges to this or that place. But all those arguments fought directly against the catholicity of the evangelical church. For although all the apostles had received a command from Christ to proclaim the gospel to all nations to the extent that lay within them — which they also fulfilled to the best of their ability, resolutely remaining nowhere for long — so that Paul alone, with his course not yet completed, "had proclaimed the gospel from Jerusalem and the surrounding regions as far as Illyricum," Rom. xv. 19 — yet almost immediately after their death, the rumor spread that they had fixed their seats here and there. And so Peter was said to have had his seat in one place, and John or James his throne in another. From that most false rumor, those places began to be held in esteem and to be considered as furnished with I know not what privileges above all others. After various disputes, resting upon these shameful lies, and contentions among the heads of churches wantonly seeking preeminence and primacy among brothers — contrary to the express command of the Lord Jesus — allowing worldly pride and Satanic ambition into the church, there at last arose the Roman Papacy, which utterly subverted the catholicity of the church. For from that time, one city — indeed, one man — arrogated to itself both the name and the entire dignity of the church; and — which is the height of madness — the flatterers of that one man sold that particular church, over which the pope presides in a manner altogether secular, in place of the catholic church. This assertion denies and overthrows the nature of the catholic church. And this was the second cause of this monstrous apostasy, with the guilt of which almost the entire Christian world bound itself.

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VI. Third. Christ appointed particular assemblies of the faithful who voluntarily gather into them as the seat for the visible exercise of His solemn worship. But the apostates overthrew the nature not only of the catholic but also of particular churches. For the catholic church was confined within limits and boundaries not at all divinely prescribed to it; and particular churches they extended to such a degree that they were by no means fitted for the performance of those offices for which they were appointed by Christ. For when the profession of the Christian name had most often and with undue haste taken possession of entire cities, regions, and nations, the church of that place or nation succeeded to the form of the political union and constitution which each of them had. One empire, one kingdom, one commonwealth everywhere migrated into one church. From this there also necessarily followed a church arrangement of such a kind as had previously obtained in the political sphere. Let the Roman church be an example: which, having been a particular church but wishing to be catholic, and exceeding the character and nature of the particular while not attaining that of the catholic, lost the entire nature of the church, so as to be neither particular nor catholic. That church, I say, after it had transgressed the limits prescribed to it by Christ and had determined that all subjects of the Roman empire everywhere who had embraced the gospel belonged to itself, its own care, and its government — since it was, of course, the Roman church — gradually transformed into the image of the empire itself and henceforth had nothing in common with the institution of Christ. That the same thing happened among the particular nations is well known.

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VII. Fourth. Evangelical theology teaches in the next place that the glory of religious worship celebrated in the churches is internal and spiritual. It is the common presumption of all men that there is beauty and glory in divine worship. Therefore no one can be pleased with an observance of religious worship in which he cannot perceive glory or splendor. But no one perceives the spiritual glory of spiritual worship unless he himself is likewise spiritual. After, therefore, the crowd of the unregenerate had crept everywhere into the church — which is the seat of evangelical worship — and could not perceive its spiritual glory nor be filled with its sweetness, it resolved to take upon itself the task of devising splendid ceremonies of such a kind as would render the worship to which it devoted itself neat and glorious.

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VIII. For although the evangelical institutions possess an inexpressible beauty, a surpassing glory, and a splendor far excelling every external splendor — for those who, in the observance of them, obtain the sweetest communion with God the Father and the Son through the Holy Spirit — yet to all those who, being carnal, savor only external things, they seem to have no glory or splendor whatsoever. Hence hypocrites, poured out into all manner of superstition in order to supply the defect in worship — which has its only place in their minds — under the specious pretext of beauty, adornment, order, and glory, strove without end or measure to devise new rites and new ceremonies; until not only was the entire worship of the church converted into a vain, superstitious, theatrical medley of carnal rites, but it ended in wicked idolatry. Evangelical discipline owed its ruin to the same vice. For since hypocrites neither perceived its spiritual power nor cared for it, nor could understand how it could exert any efficacy upon those like themselves, they determined that a plainly secular power, exercised by carnal means, should be introduced in its place. Hence brotherly exhortations, admonitions, private rebukes, and those applied by the whole church — with the utmost gentleness, love, and peace in the Holy Spirit — were transformed into I know not what jurisdictions, courts, citations, fines, lawsuits, tumults, uproars — all most fully laden with tyranny and ambition — until nothing sincere, holy, spiritual, brotherly, or evangelical was left in the entire ecclesiastical discipline. IX. Fifth. It is hardly necessary to recall the defection from the fullness of the Scriptures, with the guilt of which the ancient churches bound themselves, since the matter is sufficiently well known from the writings of many. I will speak briefly. When some had placed great weight and importance on those things of which no mention is made in the holy Scriptures, and which for that reason they could have been persuaded ought to occupy no place in the worship of God or in the churches of Christ — they immediately betook themselves to traditions, or to those things which they had heard by most uncertain rumors that their predecessors had observed. But as day by day the reverence for those things which were not instituted by Christ in the holy Scriptures grew — since they served admirably the ambition of some, their secular interests, and also the external splendor of religious worship — the Scriptures began daily to be held cheap, while traditions and some I know not what authority of the church began to be held in ever greater esteem. The ancient serpent never administered a more present poison to the church. For with the stable, fixed, infallible

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X. Sixth. To all these things was added a monstrous contempt of the most Holy Spirit, whom Christ promised to His churches. Christ undertook the care of perpetuating His church to the consummation of the age. To that end He uses the written word and the presence and grace of the Holy Spirit. The word clearly reveals and sets forth all things that pertain to the faith, obedience, and all worship of the church. And in order that the faithful may rightly use that word for the calling, edification, consolation, and the entire work of the ministry of the church, the Spirit continually bestows and distributes His gifts. To that end, as we have shown, He was promised by Christ. But when those who professed the Christian name had determined to embrace and follow in the worship of God either their own inventions or the traditions of the ancestors, in place of the institutions of Christ, they gradually came to regard the Spirit Himself and Christ's promise concerning His mission as nothing. For when other means of perpetuating the church — using unwritten worship through the successive flow of ministerial power, secular learning, and secular doctrine — had been devised, all authority of the Holy Spirit and expectation of Him immediately fell into contempt. And with the word of God despised, the Spirit of Christ neglected, and unwritten worship introduced — for the administration of which no gifts or grace of the Spirit were needed — the apostasy had no further to go.

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I. The Apostle Paul, in the second chapter of the Epistle to the Colossians, most gravely warns the faithful to beware lest anyone should spoil them through philosophy. Nearly all interpreters hold that the apostle in that passage is censuring not the use of philosophy but its abuse. Yet whether the mixture of philosophy with theology pertains to the use of philosophy or rather to its abuse is not a matter on which all agree. For it is most certain that in every age there have been pious and learned men who, led by reverence for this apostolic ordinance, have absolutely rejected all use of philosophy in divine matters. Neither Paul nor anyone else who followed in his steps ever condemned the stirring up and advancing of those common natural notions that distinguish between good and evil, honorable and base, together with the diligent, prudent, and persistent contemplation and investigation of the works of God in creation and providence, so that by these means the minds of men might be kindled to render holy the obedience owed to God. Yet since those notions are imperfect and in large part corrupted, and the human mind stumbles miserably in the contemplation of God's works, it is necessary that whatever knowledge appears to arise from them should be tested against the Lydian stone of Holy Scripture. II. Here we consider only the primary end of all knowledge, namely, living to God; we are little concerned with the bare speculations in which the innate curiosity of the human mind exercises itself and which neither direct nor perfect the rational intellect in relation to God. We have also shown that unless those common notions concerning good and evil, and the contemplation of the works of nature and providence, occupy a different place in the knowledge of God than was assigned to them in the first state of man, all study directed toward advancing them will be entirely in vain. But those are not the things we are here treating. Philosophy as it now prevails everywhere, having been cultivated for many centuries by men who were utterly ignorant of the true God and of His will, is an altogether different matter — I mean its use in theology, that is, the mixture of its principles, notions, and hypotheses with the doctrine of the gospel; the question now raised is whether the means, methods, and terms which it devised as a handmaid to the human intellect occupied with natural objects — or rather with which certain men, sharp in their own estimation and given to speculation, employed in refining it at their own discretion — ought to be employed in the exposition, declaration, explanation, and preaching of that doctrine. What view learned men once held on this question, and what some still hold, can be shown from the testimony of a few. Clement of Alexandria, in book i of the Stromata, says: "There are those who think that philosophy has come into life with the greatest harm and to the ruin of men, as having originated from some evil inventor." Tertullian, in the Prescription against Heretics, says: "Heresies are supplied by philosophy; from it come the Aeons, and I know not what infinite forms, and the Trinity of man in the system of Valentinus — he had been a Platonist; from it came Marcion's better god, derived from the doctrine of tranquility — that had come from the Stoics; and when the soul is said to perish, this is taken from the Epicureans; and when the resurrection of the flesh is denied, this doctrine is drawn from the one school of all the philosophers. What then has Athens to do with Jerusalem? What has the academy to do with the church? What have heretics to do with Christians? Our institution is from the porch of Solomon; we have no need of curiosity after Jesus Christ, nor of inquiry after the gospel: when we believe, we desire to believe nothing further — for this we first believe, that there is nothing further which we ought to believe." And Justin Martyr, writing to the Greeks, says — the Greek text being badly damaged by OCR here — that the philosophers had things manifest to them from ignorance and darkness. Tertullian likewise calls the philosophers "the patriarchs of the heretics," and the same is held by Jeremias, book ii, chapter 37. III. But it is not our purpose to heap up testimonies. It will be enough to have noted that there have been great and holy men who, against the opinion and practice of the present and several past centuries, have cast their vote on this side. What I myself think in this matter I will state briefly — more briefly perhaps than so great a subject deserves, since for many reasons my discourse rushes headlong toward the end of the work.

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IV. In the doctrine of the Scriptures two things are to be considered: first, the divine truth itself; and then, the manner of its exposition or explanation. We have shown above what the nature of that truth is, and that it has nothing in common with common philosophy. What remains is to weigh the manner in which that truth is conveyed and set forth in the Scriptures from the sanctuary of the divine mind. That it is varied and manifold, all who care to know the will of God as revealed in His word are well aware. It must be confessed that the rules and methods which all logical principles prescribe for the systematic teaching of any doctrine or science are scarcely observed anywhere in the Scriptures. As, therefore, the doctrine itself — which has respect to the faith and obedience of sinners — emanated from pure and unmixed revelation, proceeding from the bosom of the Father through the one Jesus Christ, so also the manner of expounding and setting it forth by the Holy Spirit, rejoicing in a certain singular divine quality, is of a kind entirely above and sufficiently unlike that which is perhaps apt and suitable for teaching merely human subjects and sciences — or at least so it seems to many. This the apostle teaches us: 1 Cor. 2:4-7 — "And my word and my preaching were not in persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God. Yet we do speak wisdom among those who are mature — a wisdom not of this age, nor of the rulers of this age who are passing away — but we speak God's wisdom in a mystery, the hidden wisdom" — which passage the reader will find expounded above. Let him also consult Eph. 1:8, 9, 17–19; Col. 1:27, 28; 2:2, 8, 9.

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V. Since this, then, has been the character of evangelical truth and of the manner of its exposition in Holy Scripture, there appear to be, among other things, two matters sufficiently detrimental to the truth itself that have crept into it from common philosophy. For from this source there first arose the arrangement or compilation of spiritual truth — variously and in a manifold way revealed by the demonstration of the Spirit — into a systematic order and a methodical series, of the kind that prevails everywhere in schools and churches. It is from the inauspiciously begun union of common philosophy with theology, I say, that nearly all theological systems, commonplaces, and other such compilations of credible propositions owe their origin. Then, under the pretext of more precise doctrine, the articles of divine truth — that is, credible propositions collected and extracted from the Scriptures and arranged into those formulas — are expounded mingled with philosophical terms and notions. From these two sources there arises a kind of philosophical theology (which in the writings of some comes closer to theology, in those of others closer to philosophy), by which evangelical doctrine is cast down from its spiritual sublimity and loses its heavenly breadth. Such is the theology that the majority of learned men in every Christian sect teach and profess. Hence it comes about that there is no article of evangelical truth — however plain in itself, accessible to the understanding of the faithful, and spiritually effective in its power, as all the saints who cultivate communion with God in Christ experience — that, if it should be undertaken to be expounded accurately and precisely by some man learned in philosophy, is not immediately so obstructed by those terms, notions, and subtleties of reasoning — or rather, minute technicalities — that the Apostle Paul himself would strive in vain to understand or grasp it unless he had been trained in the Peripatetic school.

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VI. This subtlety of disputation among the ancient philosophers — by which it came about that no one was able to grasp the truth — was deservedly mocked long ago by Lucian in the Menippus (Necyomantia), section 4. After he had wittily attacked their most uncertain opinions, he adds — as Owen himself then renders in Latin: "And what was the most absurd of all absurdities was that, when each of them was speaking about contrary things, he produced arguments that were entirely invincible and persuasive, so that against the man who contended that hot and cold were one and the same thing I could not open my mouth at all; and yet I clearly perceived that it could never be the case that the same thing is at once hot and cold." It therefore pleases me to trace the origin and progress of this evil from somewhat farther back.

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VII. When the gospel was first preached in the world, its professors considered it their appointed business to proclaim by faith and love the virtues of Him who had called them out of darkness and translated them into His marvelous light. The celebration of the riches of divine grace by which they had been justified through the blood of Christ and delivered from the coming wrath; the admiration and contemplation of the ineffable love of Jesus the Mediator in the work of redemption; the diligent imitation of His example in all holy obedience and holiness of life; and the means by which, through the Holy Spirit poured out abundantly, they might be rendered more and more conformed to Him day by day; mutual love among themselves; zeal for works useful to men; the worship of God in spirit and truth according to the rule of the gospel; and the observance of the simplicity of the institutions of Jesus Christ — these things occupied, together with their diligence and reasoning, their religion and the cultivation of religion. To do great things and to suffer great things according to the will of Christ, led by the Spirit of God and relying on the word, was their wisdom, their life, and their religion. Nor were they ever lacking in spiritual and ineffable joys and consolations suited to the state and condition in which they found themselves. But not much time had passed from the beginning of the preaching of the gospel before ungodly men, their minds corrupted, impelled by him who rules over human minds obsessed by spiritual darkness, began in various ways to twist and pervert the heavenly truth. For since they themselves were carnal, and it was therefore inevitable that spiritual things should be foolishness to them, they endeavored to corrupt the doctrine of the gospel into a kind of worldly wisdom —

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— and this is what they attempted. Hence some dreamed that Christ Himself was a shadow, a phantom, an idea, a mere man, a spiritually deified man, or even the sun; and that faith was nothing but bare knowledge or science of spiritual things, or even the vain conceit of a fanatical perfection. And all this they fabricated while knowing neither the Father nor the Son. For it is the custom of such men, since they cannot understand spiritual things spiritually, to gratify their own minds by fastening philosophical senses upon the sacred writings. That this poison began to creep gradually even while the apostles were still alive — at least some of them — the sacred page itself attests, and what survives of the histories of those times corroborates. But Satan, unable to match their authority, immediately yielded in that first assault upon the truth. When, however, the sacred company of the apostles and evangelists had been removed, he undertook again the work of corrupting evangelical truth, and not without success. What he could never accomplish through open attack he gradually obtained under the guise of defending the truth. For after the generation of men infallibly led by the Holy Spirit had ceased to exist on earth, the patronage of the truth passed into the hands of men most thoroughly equipped with all worldly wisdom. Among these were Clement, Origen, Tertullian, and countless others. Since these men, when it did not suffice to use against the enemies of truth those weapons that are not carnal — namely the word and Spirit of Christ — also chose to attack with arguments drawn from secular learning. And when they saw the heretics (whom they so called, though they were plainly philosophers who falsely bore the Christian name) dragging the express words of Holy Scripture in a direction other than was right, having devised new vocabulary in the exposition of the truth, they attempted to draw them out from their dens of stratagems and deceptions.

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VIII. But as time progressed it came about that those philosophical arguments which learned men had employed in defense of the truth, together with the terms and vocabulary by which they had articulated this or that article of divine truth, came to be regarded as necessary parts of the religion of Jesus Christ. Yet no methodical confession of faith had as yet crept into the church beyond some portion of that compendium of things to be believed commonly called the Apostles' Creed. No system or body of theology, nor any catechism methodically arranged and philosophically adorned, had as yet been admitted by the faithful. Holy Scripture alone was the rule for settling controversies and for teaching the people; they were only led too far astray by the vain conceit of traditions and by an excessive expectation apart from that Spirit of instruction who was promised to believers for that end through Jesus Christ. But day by day among learned men there grew an itch for mixing philosophy — that is, worldly wisdom — with theological matters. They rushed especially headlong into this ruin after, being destitute of spiritual gifts or having insufficient confidence in them, they had nothing beyond secular learning by which to distinguish themselves among friends or overwhelm adversaries. There was no century that did not add some notable increment to this evil — truly a calamity to the ecclesiastical estate. And so, while some devised new vocabulary and forms of expression, others employed subtleties and modes of philosophical argumentation, and there were those who invented dialectical knots and chains by which to bind the adversaries of truth, and very many twisted the words with which the Holy Spirit expresses supernatural truth into an external and philosophical sense, the most holy and spiritual doctrine of Jesus Christ was in various ways corrupted by worldly wisdom and nearly lost.

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IX. In no different a way did the most learned Apollinarius fall into schism and incur a severer censure from the church than he deserved — namely, by indulging too much, keen disputant that he was, in philosophical subtleties in defense of the truth; as Acacius, bishop of Berea, reports in his Epistle to Cyril of Alexandria, which is included in the acts of the Council of Ephesus. For what benefit, he says, did that distinguished disputant Apollinarius of Laodicea bring to the church, though he was in former times the universal champion who fought most vigorously for the right faith against its enemies? (Here is the first root of the evil.) Did he not, trusting too much in his own wisdom, strive to introduce through trackless and altogether impassable routes certain passages and, as it were, paths leading to the pure and simple faith in Christ — with the result that by his endeavor he accomplished only this: that he himself was reckoned by the whole catholic church among the schismatics? If the same reverent jealousy for heavenly truth which held the church in the days of Apollinarius — that most keen disputant for the true faith — had continued to flourish in subsequent centuries, the church would never have admitted so deformed, gaping, mixed, and impure a doctrine in place of evangelical theology as she afterward embraced. But I would venture to say that that defection in the profession of the Christian religion, which all the faithful mourn with groaning, owes its origin and progress to the mixture of Gentile philosophy with theology. For after philosophy occupied a place in Christian schools, the saving knowledge of God in Christ, as taught by the Holy Spirit in the mystery of the gospel, largely ceased among the majority. Above all, this fatal evil will be found to have infected everything sacred with its poison after Peripatetic philosophy — which had lain neglected for several centuries — began to find favor with students of good letters. Revived and cultivated by the Muhammadan Arabs, it invaded the Christian world with extraordinary speed. For that philosophy, especially as cultivated by the Arabs, is most apt and suitable for engendering subtle disputations and perpetuating quarrels, brawls, and controversies about any subject whatsoever. Relying upon it, the scholastics, openly abrogating nearly all the faith of evangelical theology, introduced in its place a philosophical and barbarous art or science. "For indeed, who of sound judgment can doubt that most genuinely scholastic notions are nothing but —"

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— pure abstractions and refined distillations of Aristotelian metaphysics, given that we are dealing with supernatural matters?" says Cornelius Jansenius of Ypres, in his work on Augustine, vol. ii, col. 19. "These men," therefore, as Verulam rightly says in the New Organon, "besides having reduced theology (to the extent of their power) to a systematic order and fashioned it into the form of an art, have further brought it about that the contentious and thorny philosophy of Aristotle has been mixed with the body of religion more than is fitting." And in all things the name of Aristotle is put forward, even though they rather follow corrupt interpreters and commentators. For, to say nothing of the fact that his works first came by inheritance to a certain Neleus, a skeptic ignorant of letters, and then devolved to Appello of Teos, who sold the worm-eaten manuscripts to the dictator Sulla, and so came down to us in a most corrupted state — the Arabs, from whom these men drew their subtleties, entirely ignorant of both Greek and Latin, used translations from Latin into the Arabic language, made by unlearned and unpolished men, which from his compressed and close style of expression conveyed no sound sense in many places. Concerning all these matters Erasmus says: "I would wish those cold subtleties to be cut off entirely, and that simple and pure Christ to be restored and thoroughly implanted in human minds."

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XI. But since it pleased God at the beginning of the Reformation of several European churches — attempted in the previous century — to send forth His light and truth in the preaching of evangelical simplicity, there was almost nothing in the entire apostate church that was as odious and abominable to pious and good men as that very theological learning which at that time held dominion in the schools and academies. Whether that same philosophical theology has since recovered its place in the very schools of the reformed churches and among learned men of every kind — let others be the judges of that. I will add what the most learned Johannes Drusius says on 2 Pet. 2:22, on the words "A dog returns to its own vomit." "A dog returns to the vomit," he says, "who returns to what the first reformers vomited out. That is scholastic theology; those who follow it neglect the true theology, that is, the word of God; from which all Christian truth — even that which they call scholastic — is mixed with human leaven, so that it is not as pure and sincere as it ought to be. When at last will these things be reformed? For there will be no peace in the church before that. Would that those who are nourished on divine things would order their studies differently; and, casting aside these trifles, would give themselves seriously to the study of the principal languages and to the reading of the sacred text. If that were done, we would have theologians such as we ought rather to wish for than hope for; so utterly does the word of God sink in the eyes of the common people. Many do not understand what they expound to the people from the pulpit: they know only from a commentary — than which nothing is more wretched or more to be avoided by one who seeks the true food of the soul." And, concerning "A washed sow" — "It can be said of one who, having been washed (for reformation is a kind of washing), wallows again in the sophistical mire, to the great harm of youth and the church: for whence, I ask, come these dissensions, if not from that mire? He returns to the vomit who now recalls and introduces again into the academies scholastic theology; mixing that bread which proceeds from the mouth of God alone with the leaven of the philosophers. These men convert the simplicity of believing into a curiosity and subtlety of disputing; devising new questions daily, most of which are useless, formerly unknown to the prophets and apostles, which nevertheless increase the number of disputants who today fill the Christian world." So far Drusius. Let the author of the book entitled Onus Ecclesiae also be heard. "The pagans," he says, "sought to destroy the evangelical norm; therefore the devil instigates the doctrine of Christians to be propped up with pagan authorities, and the dogmas of the Gentiles to be mingled with the principles of faith, so that at last the evangelical truth might be blown away from the midst through sophistical tricks." With which Erasmus's statement agrees: "Everything promises a most happy outcome. Yet one scruple troubles my soul, lest Paganism, under the pretext of ancient literature, attempt to raise its head." But it did not turn out that way. This philosophical method of teaching spiritual things is alien to the gospel. Even the first Christians after the time of the apostles were utterly ignorant of it. Let the writings of the most ancient Christians be consulted — they will be found not to have treated theological matters in the manner of later writers. But in every kind, what is oldest is best.

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XII. Furthermore, there is in spiritual truth — native and heavenly, shining with this light — something that seizes and compels the minds of men into admiration of it. With a certain ineffable glory and splendor it insinuates itself into the hearts of men and penetrates their consciences. It has fullness, breadth, or freedom accompanied by an unerring efficacy. In these things consists the very life and soul of true theology. But nearly all those who would use theology as the sole standard for cultivating holy communion with God in Christ complain that the sense, force, and energy of all these things are obscured, undermined, and diminished in wondrous ways when theology is compelled to proceed burdened with the chains of philosophical notions and terms, entangled in their snares. That in this manner the spiritual efficacy or supreme authority in the consciences of men, together with the heavenly and spiritual breadth that are accustomed to be the inseparable companions of evangelical truth handed down pure and undefiled, is lost — this, I say, all would readily feel and confess, were not the minds of very many occupied by insuperable prejudices. Hence, in place of spiritual wisdom, some barren and dry opinion — I know not what — is substituted; and men who are ungodly, unbelieving, carnal, worldly, and wholly estranged from all saving knowledge of God in Christ are frequently imbued with the highest acquaintance and expertise in it. We see this happen every day — namely, that the spiritual nature of evangelical matters is most grievously obscured, while learned and sharp little men expend much labor in teaching those matters accurately, methodically, and philosophically.

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These are the lines Prudentius once sang concerning the ancient philosophers in his Apotheosis, Hymn against the Unbeliever. But they mix in everywhere many things that even those who use them scarcely understand. "I would be ashamed to say I do not understand, if those who handled these matters did understand," says Melchior Canus, Loci Communes, bk. ii, ch. vii. Also most worthy of note is the very learned Vives's complaint, grounded in bk. xviii of Augustine's City of God, ch. xviii. "Theologians," he says, "teach with great consensus that it belongs to God alone to create something out of nothing. About which Thomas says much, whose arguments Scotus weakens in order to confirm his own, which Occam endeavors to undermine in order to establish his own,

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and yet these too Peter of Ailly loosens — nor do they in this way merely play with a serious matter, or force heavenly things to serve their own passions and factions. What morals can be reformed, what corrupt passions calmed and removed, what can finally come of doctrine agitated and dragged about by disputes, turned upside down at the pleasure of human passions, broken by the engines of those who litigate so stubbornly?"

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XV. From this source theological disputes arise and are made perpetual — disputes that could doubtless all easily be settled, if Christians, at least in profession, would submit themselves to the sole divine word for faith and direction. But while the wisdom of nearly all men who concern themselves with and agitate matters of religion is thoroughly infected by this philosophy — if it is not this very philosophy itself — controversies are made to last forever, and reconciliation among those who disagree, even on matters of the slightest importance, is rendered impossible. Hence theological libraries are full of the largest books and disputes about matters, assertions, and terms of which the Christian world had never heard anything, unless perchance they happened to occur to Aristotle. What an Iliad of evils and tumults has proceeded from there it is not the place to set forth here. XVI. Most truly and weightily in this vein Dr. Hoornbeeck wrote many things not long ago when treating the doctrine of the Trinity, in his Refutation of Socinus, bk. ii, ch. iv, sect. 8. "With what terms," he asks, "or notions, I beseech you, shall we attempt to explain fully and plainly to ourselves a matter that in its own depth is incomprehensible — with phrases or distinctions lately born in the schools? — especially since all the logical or metaphysical terms which we are accustomed to use in this matter are formed from lower things and from their consideration and comparison through the operation of our intellect, while there is no exemplar of that mystery among these things. Nor do the common terms seem sufficiently proportioned or suited to explain it; and we abstain from them all the more scrupulously because, just as new terms are found every day for new inventions or for newly devised kinds of distinctions, so we may justly doubt whether some more convenient notion of distinguishing can also be constructed here. At least to suspend judgment seems to be outside of danger. Nor do we readily believe that the ancients were the less wise here, even though they were ignorant of our recent formulas of distinctions. Moreover we also see that, once some kind of distinction is granted, sharp dispute about it immediately follows, with the main point often abandoned and to the prejudice of truth, more boldly and emptily than surely." So it is: dispute begets dispute, distinction begets distinction; and he who seems to himself to hold all of them is no wiser, in the end, than those who hold none. Jansenius of Ypres solemnly warns that from this it has come about "that the knowledge of more recent theology serves nearly all Christians for nothing, except that by learning and following the various opinions of various men suited to their own desires, they lay aside Christian simplicity and become more cunning, and more wicked than honest" — Augustine, vol. ii, col. 22.

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"They are scarcely as many in number as the gates of Thebes or the mouths of the wealthy Nile." — Juv. Sat. xiii. 26. Deep-seated prejudices, which the ways of the age have produced, turn the minds of men elsewhere. Those who have attempted to compose the divisions and disputes between the parties through mutual relaxation and concession of the strictness of their opinions could long since have understood that they have wasted their labor and their oil. Some ascribe this most deadly evil to the most just judgment of God, delivering to the vanity of these contentions men full of themselves who were unwilling to submit to the simplicity and purity of the gospel — yet in such a way that they assert the men's own darkness, prejudices, corrupt affections, and lusts to be the immediate and vicious cause of all of these things. But presupposing the just judgment of God, which is merited by the sins of men, they affirm that the chief means of bringing those most dreadful errors that swarm everywhere into the church of Christ, and of making the disputes about these and other things perpetual, has been that mixture of which we are treating — namely, the mixture of Platonic and Peripatetic philosophy with the doctrine of the gospel. In the judgment of these men, until Christians striving to become wise through the "Spirit of revelation in the mystery of the gospel" return to evangelical simplicity, shaking off the dust of this Babylonian confusion, hope or expectation of liberation from that vanity of fighting and quarreling everywhere exercised will be in vain. This, they say, is what has so wickedly set the worshipers of Jesus against one another, and what is the source of all separations and schisms. Hence they say that theology has been changed into a certain thorny and perplexing art or science, which corrupt men learn just as they follow other arts, without any aid of the Holy Spirit or communication of spiritual light. And they lament that by the study of this theology the minds of students are turned away from the divinely instituted inquiry into true wisdom — through faith, prayer, assiduous meditation in the word of God, and the holy practice of evangelical obedience. They therefore hold that evangelical theology ought to be absolutely separated from all mixture with philosophy, and they affirm that to free the minds of men from the deep-seated prejudices by whose bonds they are held, and to root out utterly that worldly wisdom which constitutes a great part of that erudition by whose vain opinion the crowd of learned men so greatly prides itself, is the work of the Holy Spirit alone, who will at last accomplish this by the efficacious exertion of His power.

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III. We have elsewhere rejected the endeavor to hew and trim spiritual truth or theology according to the Lesbian and arbitrary rules of other arts and sciences. This doctrine contains something that refuses to be confined by those bars. Theology demands of its cultivators a different freedom and light of understanding, different principles and purposes of the mind, different ends, and different affections of the heart than those which secular or philosophical arts and sciences either know or care about. Those who would be imbued with this spiritual wisdom must devote themselves to cultivating the most holy communion with God in the mystery of the gospel through Jesus Christ, and to exercising their souls toward the experience of the spiritual power and efficacy of saving truths — truths which are neither implanted in the mind by nature, nor presented to it through those things that are subject to its rational consideration and examination. The illumination of the heart, the communication of the spirit of wisdom, the revelation of the mysteries of the kingdom of Christ through that Spirit and the manifestation of them, the translation from darkness into the marvelous light of Christ, the participation in the treasures of wisdom and knowledge that are hidden in Christ — all of which philosophy abhors, and which have always been foolishness to its devotees — these are what bring forth and constitute our theology; they are not mere words and nothing more.

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IV. Do not therefore expect, reader, that I should here compile a catalogue of books or prescribe a method of reading them; others have long since accomplished both of these things, with much judgment and with no less celebrated learning. Gisbertus Voetius especially, in his theological library — a man most learned in many disciplines, never to be sufficiently praised for his rare erudition, singular piety, and love of truth. V. But what I am working toward does not tend in that direction. I by no means sustain the office of a professor of theology, nor does the care of directing others in the plan or method of their studies lie upon me. I detest the noise of the schools and sophistry. By God's gracious arrangement, I live at home and to myself. My aim is, if by any means I may serve the households of the faithful. Therefore, the things I have to add concerning the study of theology — things that can promote the minds of pious students in the investigation of that heavenly truth whose nature we have set forth — are few. But in order that we may arrive at our destination, certain things must be premised.

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VI. Let the reader therefore first observe that I understand those terms — the names of theology and theologians — here in no other way than I have shown they ought to be understood according to the principles set forth and confirmed above. They do not denote in our present discussion any particular science, nor a particular class of men equipped with it. All faithful Christians are theologians, since the saving light of the gospel has been granted to all of them. The difference that exists among them is one of degree. For the distribution of spiritual gifts among the faithful through the Holy Spirit — 1 Cor. 12:11 — from this all difference among theologians depends. The same saving light dwells in all. They are daily transformed into it; the matter is plainly not arbitrary. He works in all as He wills (1 Cor. 12:11), from glory to glory by the Lord the Spirit. But the gifts of grace variously communicated by the same Spirit produce a great distinction among these theologians. Theology, therefore, insofar as it denotes a saving intellectual habit — that is, a spiritual light renewing the mind and transforming it into the image of Christ, who is light — belongs to all and only the faithful. Those things that pertain to the increase of that light, the confirmation of those habits, and accordingly to the spiritual elevation of the understanding, and to the clear and proper perception of the saving object, and to the spiritually efficacious declaration of the truth thus known — in which all distinction among theologians consists — these are the things we are chiefly concerned to promote in the study of theology.

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IX. Second, these gifts alone make men capable of teaching; for by virtue of them we are made sufficient to instruct others in that good knowledge of Christ with which we ourselves have been imbued. Now the one who possesses these gifts — that is, the saving light that elevates and disposes the mind toward a saving perception of evangelical truth, together with those gifts of the Holy Spirit that stir up, increase, kindle that light, and distinctly implant in the mind the truth set forth in the Holy Scriptures, and moreover render him fit to impart to others that knowledge of God in Christ which he himself has graciously obtained — he is the theologian of whom we speak. The study of theology, therefore, is nothing other than the effort, directed according to the norm of the divine word, to promote the saving light and the spiritual gifts in which this heavenly wisdom consists in the mind of the theologian. This Scripture itself teaches us everywhere: 1 Cor. 14:12; 2 Cor. 3:5, 6, 18; 4:6; Eph. 1:17-19; 3:7, 16-19; 4:15, 16; Col. 1:26, 27; 2:2, 3, 7; 1 Tim. 4:12-16; 2 Tim. 3:14-17; 1 Pet. 4:10, 11; 2

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Pet. 3:18. X. Third, we propose that the use of theology in the ministry of the gospel is chiefly to be considered. Knowledge of it alone does not in itself constitute anyone a minister of the gospel, properly so called. Beyond this, a solemn vocation through ecclesiastical election and separation is required in any theologian for the due undertaking of that office. But that one be apt and fit to discharge that office comes from theology. Although therefore the nature of theology is such that everyone who cares either for the glory of God or for his own salvation ought to devote himself to it, yet the obligation of promoting and cultivating it in a special manner falls upon those who are earnestly engaged in instructing others in the knowledge of the divine will. For if those who set their minds upon the sacred office of the ministry were to consider seriously what light in these last days and what spiritual gifts the Lord Jesus has been pleased to bestow graciously upon the Christian people — or upon the greater part of the common body of the faithful — they would without doubt resolve that it is to their own great advantage to give diligent care to the increase of spiritual gifts which they themselves hold as their possession, with all their strength and with the utmost effort of their souls. As for the arts and sciences

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— they may have learned, that they may be equipped with knowledge of philosophy and languages, that they can spend whole days in wrangling and disputing: this will scarcely suffice to rescue their ministry from contempt, or even to bring it into any esteem. For these are not the matters about which there is an immediate contest with the churches. If someone who was hired by another to sow and reap were to boast that he was skilled in the art of navigation or of warfare, he could not escape being ridiculous and contemptible to his employer. Nor will it ever go better for the man who, puffed up with confidence in secular learning and scholastic quibbles, empty of spiritual gifts, a stranger to the mystery of the gospel, thrusts himself upon the Christian people in the office of teaching. There go forth daily (which is grievous) into the Lord's vineyard new orators, foolish young men, who, having scarcely greeted good literature from the threshold, nevertheless, relying on the vain conceit of frigid and worthless learning, believe they can strike rustic and unlettered people with the noise of sesquipedalian words and easily keep them in subjection. But when it comes to actually performing the work of the ministry, destitute of all true theology — that is, of saving light and spiritual gifts — they perform so miserably and comport themselves so ineptly, that to all those in whose hearts are the ways of the Lord, and who know what that eternal life is which consists in the knowledge of God and of Christ, they are immediately worthless and contemptible. Hence come the wrath, quarrels, dissensions, and schisms which our duty and our times demand be met by ministers of the gospel through the study of true theology and the practice of piety, not by force and arms. XI. These things having been premised in accordance with the design of our work, it remains for us briefly to review those things that appear necessary for making useful progress in the study of theology.

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— logic, and rhetoric. For although someone may become wise in the mystery of the gospel without knowledge of these disciplines, that is, as they are commonly taught, yet since the mode of handing down and expounding heavenly doctrine that is observed in the Scriptures has much in common with the other sciences which these arts serve, we judge them at least useful for promoting that wisdom and for making the progress therein in that particular manner we have proposed. The other parts and ornaments of secular learning, however, we do not pass over in silence as though banishing them entirely from theological study. Let each person devote himself to them according to his own disposition and aptitude, especially to history of every kind. Writing and vocal speech are, moreover, the modes and means of communicating all rational concepts. Whatever is spoken, whatever

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XV. Second, once the plan of their studies has been thought out, let students carefully consider what that goal is — what the scope is at which they are aiming with minds and eyes. For since the end of the whole work is the rule for the search and use of means, it must always be carefully attended to, lest we perpetually wander from the way. What that end is, or what kind of end it is or ought to be, is sufficiently clear from what has been said above. There are those who are content with having turned over theological systems — by which evangelical doctrine is reduced to certain heads of topics — night and day with their hands, until, delivered over as it were into their care, they seem to themselves to have mentally conceived a kind of index of theology. To read, know, and retain in memory what the ancient fathers, what the scholastics, what the more recent theologians have thought or written concerning the matters of faith and the business of religion — this is what completes the purpose of others. Very many strive with all their might to attain philosophical expertise in some kind of theological science. But all these ends we have already banished far from the ends of theology.

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It would undoubtedly be the greatest folly, if we wished to obtain the knowledge of it by any means other than those alone which have been prescribed by God Himself, and are further enriched by the communication of the Holy Spirit. He who, with due reverence toward God and with denial of himself and his own natural powers, relying on the help and benefit of the Spirit of Christ through faith, aims at this goal, and uses no means except in relation to that end — and in the manner befitting such means for obtaining such an end, that is, piously and reverently — his studies will, by God's favor, arrive at the outcome that was proposed. But while students waver hither and thither in the use of the most uncertain means, pursuing I know not what aims they have set for themselves, although they "cast gold into the fire," the result is usually a "calf." Therefore, those who would not wish to waste toil and oil in the study of theology should hold firmly to this fixed purpose: that the goal toward which they are tending, and which they are seeking with every effort, is spiritual and saving wisdom in the mystery of the gospel.

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XVII. Third, we have proved above that all supernatural truth revealed by God is contained in didactic propositions in Holy Scripture. Our wisdom consists in the spiritual and saving knowledge of that truth. Therefore all will readily grant that diligent reading of the Scriptures, and assiduous meditation in them, is absolutely necessary for all candidates in theology; yet, as the outcome plainly shows, those who apply themselves to this matter with due thought and care — though they may grant it in words — will be found to be very few indeed. And the neglect of this in this study brings not merely harm but ruin to very many. Nor can it be otherwise, when men profess to aim at any goal whatsoever while openly neglecting the means. In the reading of Scripture they spend little effort — in a varied and sluggish manner, joined to a harmful relaxation of mind; in hearing the word and the solemn preaching of sermons, even less; in meditation, nothing at all — yet none of them doubt that they are going to become the most accomplished theologians. This is the most foolish class of men, and one that deserves to be despised. While they investigate that noble and heavenly wisdom, to which nothing in human life is equal or comparable, they regard as of no account — or place last — that one nearly indispensable means which is appointed for that end. They are wise, if indeed it is wisdom to desire what cannot

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come to pass. But perhaps they are wholly occupied in reading the writings of ancient and more recent theologians who set forth the meanings of Scripture with careful effort? Very well — we commend that diligence. But this is not the study of Scripture. It is one thing to read the Scriptures themselves with ardent desires poured out through faith in Christ, with the help of the Holy Spirit implored, so that we may imbibe the Spirit who lives in them; it is quite another to peruse the writings of other men, however learned and fragrant of heavenly truth. Let them hear Acosta the Jesuit. "He," he says, "who reads the Scriptures with purity of soul will profit more than if he had attempted to unravel their mysteries with many commentaries." He adds something almost fanatical, as it will seem to some — namely, that "he had seen many unlearned men who could scarcely understand Latin, who had drawn so much light from the Holy Scriptures that he himself was astonished, while professors with all their diligence in study had been unable to teach anything similar." It is well that he was a Jesuit and a learned man. Hear also Erasmus in the Preface to the New Testament: "These things, I say, and things of this kind" (that is, faith, love, holiness, contempt of the world according to the word of God) "if anyone, breathed upon by the Spirit of Christ, preaches, instills, exhorts to, invites, and animates others toward — he is at last a true theologian, even if he were a ditchdigger or a weaver; and if anyone also demonstrates these things by his own manner of life, he is in the end a great teacher."

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XIX. First, therefore, the hidden unbelief of the human mind persuades very many that the Holy Scriptures, because they are obscure and entangled with difficulties, or because they contain mysteries with which human intellect would gladly have nothing to do, can scarcely be rightly and clearly understood. They do not consider it their duty to inquire diligently into that which they feel themselves unequal to comprehending. Therefore, with certain exceptions of historical passages and those which that revelation of God's mind has in common with other sciences, they scarcely advance in the study of it beyond the sound of words and the surface of the letters. The deep mysteries and the rays of heavenly wisdom that shine in Scripture terrify sluggish and earthly souls. They perhaps also consult certain texts from which they think commonplaces can be assembled, and which serve to support the opinions of one sect or another. But as for pursuing pure, bare, immediate inquiry into the mind and sense of the Holy Spirit in the Scriptures — for the purpose of attaining spiritual wisdom — they are thoroughly averse to it. XX. Indeed, for reasons I know not, a large portion of students, if they do not despise the reading of the Scriptures, at least neglect it. Some are averse to the style, others to the subject matter itself. Well known are the things which Jerome recounts as having happened to himself, in the Epistle to Eustochium on the Preservation of Virginity. "After frequent watches through the night," he says, "after the tears which the recollection of past sins wrung from my inmost depths, Plautus was taken up in my hands; if at any time, returning to myself, I began to read the prophets, their uncultivated speech made me shudder; and because I did not see the light with my blind eyes, I thought the fault was not in my eyes but in the sun." It is also in everyone's mouth how the impious Politian confessed that he had a repugnance to the Scriptures on account of the barbarism of their style, as he called it. But still more impious are the things which Caspar Peucer recounts concerning him in the Epistle to Christopher Carlowitz. When Politian was asked, says Peucer, what he thought of the Psalms of David, he replied: "I see that those ancient poems are full of wisdom. In them are precepts of all the virtues, there are admonitions concerning providence, threats concerning the punishments of the wicked, and promises concerning the rewards

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and protection. The ancient histories of that nation are also interwoven, both that the memory of antiquity might be handed down to posterity, and that examples of punishments and protection might be set before their eyes at the same time. I regard this wisdom highly; I consider it useful for life and morals, and the figures in their own language to be elegant; and melodies were added in former times, fitted to stir the movements of the soul. But in Pindar the same things are set forth more sweetly, and illustrated more splendidly with examples." This is Politian. So that impious little man, as though appointed arbiter between the Holy Spirit and a pagan poet, adorns David with garlands so that he might fall as a more illustrious victim to the praise of Pindar. Would that there were indeed none who hoped they could seek the doctrine of virtue better from Pindar, or at least from Plato, Plutarch, Seneca, Epictetus, Arrian, Plotinus, etc., than from the books of the Old and New Testament — which atheism we daily see God punishing with horrible blindness.

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XXIII. Fourth, a deep aversion to cultivating any immediate communion with God clings intimately to the souls of many. This is the fruit of indwelling sin. Where that sin reigns — which is the condition of the unregenerate —

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a universal enmity against God prevails. It retains some force even in the regenerate. Now in the writings of all men the native vanity of the human mind has that by which it may amuse itself: even when theological subjects are treated, the mind is occupied with those things that are common to other sciences as well. In Holy Scripture, however, the soul has to do with God Himself. But since the mind subject to native vanity cannot bear this, it flees the study of the word itself with a certain secret aversion. XXIV. Therefore, until these and similar other things — which not only greatly hinder those who approach the study of theology, but also drive them into remarkable frustrations — are removed, it ought not to seem strange if, after much time spent in the study of theology, more come forth as philosophers, or as those who only know how to envy another's reputation, than as theologians, that is, as those wise in the mystery of Christ. XXV. Let us return to the work we have undertaken, so that what we further require in that study of the Scriptures which we commend may be added. First, therefore, he who intends to apply himself diligently to the sacred writings ought to hold firmly fixed in his mind that the most holy God is near to the one who reads and meditates in a peculiar manner, and, moved by the reverence due to the divine majesty and authority, he ought to conduct himself in that study with the utmost submission of soul, as befits the most abject sinner. For in the Holy Scriptures God Himself addresses the reader no less immediately than if He were using a voice sounding from heaven. He Himself is despised when fear and reverence do not occupy the hearts of readers. With him alone it pleases God to dwell, who trembles at His word. Light and desultory reading of the Scriptures is a pestilence to souls and opens a window to atheism. He who approaches the reading of the Scriptures ought to keep fixed in his memory, as if by a spike-nail — as they say — that most weighty apostolic warning found in Heb. 12:28, 29: "Let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear. For our God is a consuming fire." "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of this wisdom"; and unless this is present in the study of the word, it will be present nowhere. XXVI. Second, let the student seriously consider what is at stake for him in every truth with which he is occupied as it is to be drawn out from the mystery of the divine word, and by what means he may advance in the knowledge and worship of God. Let this always be the primary and chief end of all study and meditation in Holy Scripture: that we may learn our duty from them, that we may cultivate the most holy communion with God in them, that we may experience in the inmost senses of our souls the power and efficacy of the Spirit mightily exerting His grace and light in them, that we may know how our consciences stand in relation to the authority of God Himself and of Christ our Lord, which is preeminent in them — to the study of these things we must always draw near. He will await progress in vain — progress that is saving to himself or useful to the church — who, having despised this end of sacred meditation, has nothing else in mind than to furnish his intellect with the bare knowledge of truth. The word is the soul's nourishment. Now there are two things that are nourished and fostered by it: saving light,

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namely, saving light, and the spiritual gifts added over and above it. The first is graciously granted to us that it may be saving to ourselves; the latter, that we ourselves may be saving to others. But he who in the study of the sacred writings does not aim first at the increase of the former will either produce no fruit of the latter, or will himself receive no fruit from their yield. XXVII. Third, the practical recognition of the plainly divine authority of Holy Scripture, and the religious subjection of conscience to it in all things, ought always to be present in its student. For the word of God, and that alone, immediately performs among us the office of God Himself. It therefore holds supreme dominion over us, to which we are bound to bring our minds and intellects into captivity. For we must present our consciences before it, as those who are about to receive from its sentence the judgment concerning ourselves and all those things that pertain to eternity.

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XXVIII. Fourth, the study of the Scriptures in those languages in which they were written out by the Holy Spirit Himself will be of great assistance in the investigation of truth. For besides the fact that it is only from those sources that we can draw the true force and meaning of the words and phrases of the text, there is also a peculiar emphasis, and even a certain energy, in those languages — in Hebrew especially — which effectively insinuates the force and sense of the words into the mind, and which cannot be communicated through any other language. XXIX. Fifth, let all these things, and whatever other things of this kind there may be, be guided, bounded, and accompanied by constant and ardent prayers. This is the greatest means, appointed by God, of obtaining Him who is the author of all true wisdom, and that wisdom itself which we are seeking. We have taught above that the Holy Spirit is the author of this wisdom. He it is who alone searches out and reveals the deep things of God, which He both learns and teaches. He it is through whom the Son of God gives us understanding, that we may know Him who is true, and who makes known to us the things that are Christ's, and thereby leads into all truth. Our Lord Jesus teaches us that He is received through faith and obtained through prayers. God bestows upon us that Spirit of supplications, so that, instructed by His grace and aided by His power, we may ourselves seek the Spirit of direction and consolation. This our wisdom also is the gift of God. "If any of you lacks wisdom," says James, "let him ask of God, who gives generously" (James 1:5). Upon this, therefore, under God, all hope of making progress in theological study depends. Justin rightly says to Trypho: "Pray first of all that the gates of light may be opened to you; for these things are not perceived and understood by all, except by him to whom God and His Christ have granted understanding." And nearly divinely spoken is that saying of Plato in the Epinomis, addressed to the work of expounding the nature of God and theology: for when the Athenian Guest, commanded by Clinias and trusting in the benevolence of God and having prayed to Him, was about to set forth what was consistent with His nature, he adds: "These things will come to pass, if God Himself has guided us —"

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if He alone has shown us the way as guide and auspice. Only add your prayers to mine."

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XXX. Why do we marvel that so many fine intellects grow weary in the study and investigation of heavenly truth? They do not know how to pray. They have never received the Spirit of supplications; indeed — alas! — they very often scorn Him; yes, they mock Him with bitter jests, wickedly, blasphemously; and nowhere do they take more delight in themselves and before others than when they insult Him with sharp wit and lash Him with wanton jests. They are earthly men and savor nothing but earthly things; and while they despise all others and conduct themselves most magnificently, as if they alone were wise, in reality they sink below the lowest level of the common Christian people in the knowledge of the gospel.

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XXXII. To these studies let there be added a constant and devout fellowship with those who cultivate the practice of piety and the norm of evangelical theology in a holy manner. The antiquity of the Gentiles everywhere records that the greatest philosophers traveled through nearly the whole world in order to enjoy the counsel and companionship of those who had been initiated into the mysteries of that wisdom they were investigating. Yet we commonly despise those aids to this kind of wisdom that can be had at home. Some think no account at all should be taken of those in whom the power, the energy, and the life of the wisdom they seek effectively manifest themselves. Indeed — what madness is this — there are none with whom they disagree more with hostile hatred and envy than those who strive to express that wisdom and holiness of life through true piety, unfeigned faith, sincere evangelical obedience, and assiduous and spiritual worship of God. If anyone were to argue strenuously that the article contained in what they call the Apostles' Creed concerning the communion of saints ought to be removed from the things to be believed, a crowd of the studious would instantly fly at his eyes; while in the meantime they themselves either entirely ignore what that communion of saints is, or wickedly despise it.

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XXXII. Moreover, that necessity entered into with the saints and the faithful will produce an assiduous exercise of those spiritual gifts in which this wisdom consists; and by that exercise, through the nature of the thing itself and the power of Christ's ordinance, they are increased.

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60 149. i. 26, 27, 42, iii. 15, 135. iv. 1, 148; iv. 4, 188. iv. 4, 6, 7, 139, 144. iv. 8, 146. iv. 1, 14, 16, 146, 147. iv. 26, 148, 181, 267. v. 284. v. 3, 147. v. 24, 141. v. 28, 262. vi. 2, 4, 455. vi. 1–5, 151. vi. 3, 153. vi. 6, 8, 11–13, 152, 153. vi. 8, 9, 187. vi. 18, 134. vii. 157. vii. 1, 2, 139. viii. 20, 188. ix. 2–4, 162. ix. 5, 6, 161. ix. 9, 157. ix. 11–18, 160. ix. 20, 97, 168. ix. 22, 165. ix. 24, 166. ix. 26, 27, 167. x. 5, 231. x. 9, 97. x. 15–18, 173. x. 21, x. 28, 178, 182. xi. 5, 170. xi. 8, 185. xi. 31, 222. xii. 14, 175. xii. 3, 7, 265, 266. xii. 4, 264. xii. 8, 267. xiii. 15, 265. xiv. 13, 172, 173. xiv. 18, 408. xix. 1, 6, 8, 265. xvii. 1, 2, 9, 265. xvii. 10, 11, 266. xvii. 266. xviii. 18, 19, 269. xix. 33, 372. xxii. 17, 18, 265. xxviii. 18, 19, 22, 217. xxxi. 19, 344. xxxi. 19, 34, 35, 324. xxxi. 47, 269. xxxiv. 23, 375. xxxv. 14, 267.

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Cap. Pag. Gen. l. 16, 217. xlvii. 31, 372, 381. xlviii. 2, etc., 381. xlix. 1, 414. xlix. 33, 381. Exod. ii. 6, 174. xii. 228. xii. 12, 100. xii. 41, 266. xii. 48, 49, 401. xiii. 17, 355. xiv. 266. xvi. 401. xviii. 289, 360. xix. 323, 323. xx. 455, 389, 379, 439. xxi. 368, 384. xxviii. 38, 315. xxxii. 1, 208. xxxii. 1–5, 540. xxxii. 4, 20, 24, 342. xxxii. 323. xxxiii. 341. xxxiv. 134. xxxiv. 12–14, 455. xxxiv. 17, 323. Lev. xvi. 1, etc., 315. xviii. 21, 332. xix. 4, 321. xxiv. 11, 184. xxvi. 1, 212, 217, 321, 323. xxvi. 30, 324. Numer. xv. 15, 401. xvi. 40, 407. xviii. 7, 407. xviii. 9, 158. xxi. 14, 284. xxii. 41, 326. xxiii. 2, 323. xxiii. 28, 326. xxiv. 14, 414. xxiv. 24, 25, 171. xxv. 3, 325. xxv. 18, 325. xxxi. 15, 16, 325. xxxii. 4, 100. xxxiii. 52, 323. Deut. i. 4, xvi. 22, xviii. 10, xviii. 16–19, xxi. 10–13, xxvi. 5, xxvi. 19, xxix. 4, xxix. 16. Josh. xv. 49, xviii. 16, xxii. 17, xxiv. 2, xxiv. 2, 3, xxiv. 14. Judic. i. 11, ii. 1–3, ii. 13, v. 1, etc., 8, vi. 25, 26, vi. 28, viii. 27, viii. 33. Cap. Deut.

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Index of Holy Scripture Passages That Are Partly Cited and Partly Expounded in This Work.

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441, 193, 337. 314, 312, 442, 323, 196. 323. 289, 455. 217. 448, 315, 315, 315, 187. 217. 314, 324, 448, 174, 212, 332, 316. 402, 315, 448. 315. 324, 315. 323. 323, 380, 180, 207, 374. 326.

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337. 335, 284, 335. 325, 262.

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12, 324. Cap. Pag. xvii. 3, 10, 13, 344. xvii. 5, 324, 341, 344. 324. 323. 344. 1 Sam. 337. 323. 173. 324. 324, 344, 322. xxxi. 10, 337. 2 Sam. v. 21, 322. xxiii. 5, 158. 1 Reg. viii. 4, 330. xi. 5, 7, 324. xi. 5, 33, 337. xi. 7, 332. xi. 33, 332, 339. xii. 28–32, 343. xii. 31–33, 329. xvi. 31, 32, 330. xviii. 19, 330. xviii. 21, 26, 329, 331. xviii. 27, 207. xix. 18, 330. 2 Reg. i. 2, 328. iii. 2, 330. iii. 19, 331. x. 21, 330. x. 22, 331. x. 27, 330. xi. 18, 331. xvi. 3, 332. xvi. 11–18, 339. xvii. 15, 319. xvii. 24, 287. xvii. 31, 336. xviii. 26, 294. xxiii. 5, 331, 332. xxiii. 6, 330. xxiii. 10, 332, 335. xxiii. 11, 336. xxiii. 24, 324. 1 Chron.

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19, 178. xxviii. 9, 420. 2 Chron. vii. 18, 160. xiii. 6–9, 343. xiii. 9, 321, 329. xv. 16, 339. xvii. 7–9, 375. xxvi. 8, 323. xxvi. 18–21, 407. xxviii. 3, 333. xxviii. 23, 339. xxxii. 31, 189. xxxiii. 22, 328. xxxiv. 3, 323. xxxvi. 16, 345. Ezra iv. 2, 288. iv. 2, 3, 375. Nehem. viii. 1, 8, 374. viii. 7, 8, 292. viii. 14, 16–18, 348.

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Indices. Cap. Pag. Nehem. ix. 18, 340. x. 29, 160. xiii. 23–25, 176, 293. Esther ix. 27, 304. Job i. 8, 269. ii. 3, 269. iii. 34, 416. iv. 322. xi. 12, 445. xii. 7–10, 46, 52. xvii. 6, 336. xxviii. 324. xxviii. 12–23, 28, 445. xxxi. 26–28, 186. xxxiii. 15–17, 19–23, 433. xxxvii.–xxxix., 46, 52. xxxviii. 25, 26, 76. xl. 32, 354. Psalm ii. 1, etc., 408. ii. 6, 448. ii. 12, 157. viii. 1, etc., 52. ix. 21, 148. xix. 196. xix. 1–7, 50. xix. 4, 198. xix. 4, 9–11, 74. xix. 8, 9, 425, 442. xxiv. 3, 4, 448. xxv. 12, 14, 15. xxv. 14, 446. xxxiii. 18, 152. xxxvi. 9, 425, 444. xliii. 3, 425. xlv. 5, 6, 434. xlv. 13, 448. l. 21, 69. lv. 10, 182. lxviii. 13, 448. lxviii. 19, 438. lxxiii. 4–12, 18–20, 76. lxxviii. 33, 34, 433. xcvi. 5, 321. xcvii. 1, etc., 330. xcvii. 7, 321. cvi. 20, 340. cvi. 28, 322, 325. cvi. 36, 322. cvi. 36, 37, 326. cvi. 37, 38, 106, 333. cx. 4, 407. cxi. 10, 446. cxix. 18, 130, 444. cxix. 27, 420. cxix. 34, 104, 445. cxix. 98, 99, 442. cxxx. 1, etc., 436. cxxx. 4, 436. cxli. 7–9, 46. cxlv. 8–15, 52. cxlv. 9, 15, 16, 73. cxlv. 10, 41. cxlv. 15, 46. cxlvii. 4–6, 52. cxlvii. 1, 36. cxlvii. 19, 20, 59, 74. Prov. iii. 9, 141. viii. 9, 442. xvi. 4, 41. Eccles. ii. 12, vii. 29, ix. 1, 2, ix. 4, ix. 9, v. 10, viii. 14.

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Esai. xi. 2, 3, xi. 8–10, xvi. 1, etc., xvii. 8, xix. 3, xxvi. 9, xxiii. 1, xxvi. 10, xxvii. 9, xxvii. 12, xxviii. 10, xxviii. 16, xxx. 33, xxxiii. 14, xxxv. 8, xl. 12, xl. 19, 20, xlii. xlii. 7, xlii. 17, xliv. 20, xlv. 16, xliv. 20, xlv. 22, xlvi. 1, lii. 16, liii. etc., liii. 12, liv. 11–14, lv. 1, lix. 21, lx. 21, lxv. 17, lxvi. 3, lxvi. 21, lxvi. 22. Jerem. i. 31, ii. 11, ii. 19, iv. 1, vii. 9, vii. 18, vii. 31, 32, viii. 9, viii. 19, x. 8, x. 10, 11, xi. 13, xi. 13, 17, xii. 16, xiv. 14, xiv. 22, xvi. 20, xix. 4, 5, xix. 5, xxii. 15, xxiv. 7, xxxi. 31, 32, xxxi. 33, xxxi. 33, 34,

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Pag. Cap. Pag. iii. 36, 408. iv. 21–24, 417. iv. 38, 374. iv. 24, 452. iii. 15, 131, 196. iv. 1–4, 417, 440. vi. 45, 400, 449. vii. 16, 17, 157. iii. 2, 9, 36. viii. 31, 33, 324. iv. 16, 269. v. 20, 425. viii. 47, 321. v. 29, 30, 448. v. 45, 158. vi. 891, 400. vii. 21, 268, 352. x. 27, 201. x. 28, xiv. 26, 426, 436. x. 88, 442. xi. 3, xv. 5, 188, 193, 331. xvi. 4, 324, 344. xvi. 24, 449. xvii. 3, 25, 323. xxi. 39, 414. Acts ii. 151, 420. xxiv. 14, xxiv. 51, 322. xxvi. 13, 435. xxviii. 18–20, 449. xxviii. 19, 306. iii. 27, 138, 187. Marc. iv. 64, 439. xiii. 38, 332, 336. xv. 340. i. 70. viii. 37, 29. vi. 35, 36, 73. xiii. 43, 440. viii. 5, 138. xiv. 15, 43, 69, 334, 435. viii. 10, xv. 15, 18, 106, 322. ix. 28, xiv. 16, 17, 108. xiv. 16, 1, 59, 70. x. 18, 138. xiv. 16, 64, 63, 400. xix. 96, 452, 414, 436. xviii. 13, 436. xvi. 1, etc., 204. xviii. 13, 14, 63. xvi. 6, 7, xvi. 14, 15, 444. xvi. 331. xv. 126, 116. xv. 495. xvii. 68. i. 8, 424, 462. xvii. 24–27, 100. i. 18, 36. xvii. 24–29, xvii. 26–28, 46. i. 437. xix. 18, 19, xxi. 20–22, 26, 436. xxi. 21, 22, 304, 348. iii. 19, 405. xxiv. 25, 434, 448. iii. x. 18, 19, 34, 38. i. 18, 425, 437, 444.

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Cap. Rom. Pag. i. 449. i. 16, 126. i. 18, 19, 32, 46. i. 18–20, 51. i. 20, 54, 196. i. 21, 195. i. 21, 22, 77. i. 23, 99. i. 28, 209. ii. 5, 9, 10, 449. ii. 14, 15, 45, 46. iii. 2, 364. iii. 19, 436. iii. 20, 435. iii. 24, 25, 437. iii. et iv., 54. v. 6–8, 416. vi. 2, 6, 437. vi. 17, 439, 444. vi. 23, 436. vii. 6, 452. vii. 7, 73, 434. vii. 9, 435. viii. 435. viii. 1, 2, 9, 13, 26, 452. viii. 2, 437. viii. 7, 425. viii. 8, 420. ix. 22, 73. ix. 31, 32, 435. x. 3, 435. xi. 54. xi. 4, 327. xii. 1, 2, 13, 449. xii. 2, 425. xiv. 414. xv. 19, 45. xv. 30, 452. xvi. 25, 443. 1 Cor. i. 2, 9, 30, 449. i. 5, 439. i. 18, 380, 124, 412. i. 30, 427. ii. 4, 452. ii. 4–6, 10, 32. ii. 4–7, 460. ii. 6–13, 426, 441, 443. ii. 7–9, 440. ii. 7, 14, 33. ii. 10, 443. ii. 10–16, 441. ii. 12, 16, 442. ii. 14, 417, 424. ii. 14, 15, 421. viii. 2, 410. viii. 4, 321. viii. 5, 321. ix. 14, 404. x. 20, 143. xi. 438. xii. 7, 1, 439. xii. 8, 439. xii. 11, 470. xii. 13, 452. xiii. 2, 420. xiii. 12, 410. xiv. 12, 471. xiv. 24, 25, 433. xv. 32, 50, 95. xv. 33, 17. xv. 54, 138. xvi. 1, 449. Indices. Cap. 2 Cor. Pag. iv. 449. ii. 16, 43. iii. 1, etc., 316. iii. 5, 6, 18, 471. iii. 6–11, 447, 451. iii. 8, 452. iii. 18, 36, 443. iv. 4, 30, 448, 444. iv. 6, 417, 425, 437, 440, 442, 443, 471. iv. 17, 43. v. 3, 66. v. 17, 437. v. 76. vi. 14–18, 417, 426. viii. 5, 419. xi. 3, 187. Galat. i. 4, 447. iii. 4, 66. iii. 13, 14, 437. iii. 16, 138. iii. 17, 266. iv. 4, 185, 188, 411. iv. 8, 321. v. 16, 25, 452. Ephes. i. 1, 2, 13, 449. i. 8, 9, 17–19, 460. i. 9, 17, 34. i. 10, 75. i. 15, 47, 18, 417, 421, 442. i. 17–20, 469, 471. ii. 2–5, 437. ii. 5, 425. ii. 5, 9, 10, 449. ii. 10, 437. ii. 12–15, 18, 75. ii. 18, 452. iii. 2, 66. iii. 7, 16–19, 471. iii. 9, 443. iii. 9–11, 75. iii. 10, 38. iv. 3, 452. iv. 8, 11, 438. iv. 15, 16, 471. iv. 18, 54, 421, 425. iv. 21–24, 66, 420. iv. 23, 24, 42, 425, 437, 444. v. 8, 421, 425. v. 14, 425. v. 18, 452. v. 25, 26, 416. vi. 17, 18, 452. Philipp. i. 6, 7, 449. i. 19, 452. ii. 452. ii. 16, 63, 50, 425. Coloss. i. 2–5, 449. i. 9, 10, 442, 446. i. 23, 66. i. 26, 27, 471. i. 27, 28, 460. ii. 2, 3, 443. ii. 2, 8, 7, 471. ii. 2, 8, 9, 460. ii. 3, 938, 416. iii. 10, 42, 443.

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Cap. iii. 11, iii. 16. 1 Thess. i. 1–10, ii. 18, v. 19. 2 Thess. ii. 3, 7, 8. ii. 9, 11. iv. 6. iv. 10. iv. 12–16. 1 Tim. i. 10. iii. 5. iii. 14–17. iii. 15. iv. 21. Tit. 128, 418, 445. i. 15, 364. ii. 418, 437. iii. 5, 447, 452. Hebr. x. 5,

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Indices. 485. Cap. Pag. Cap. Pag. Cap. Pag. ii. 19, 153. iii. 6, 153. 10, 410. ii. 20, 167. iii. 18, 471. 19, 426. vii. 10, 471.

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Aah i56, een 425, APod.

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ii. 3, 4, 420. i. 1, 88, 415. 1-4, 449. ii. 8, 138. ii. 14, 325. 8, 9, 447. ii. 20, 417, 440. iii. 1-4, 16-20, 452.

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i. 9, 421, 425. ii. 20, 27, 421, 426, 442, 449. iii. 9, 9.

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§ 19, 425. iii. 3, 437. iv. 11, 41.

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i. 21, 411. iii. 8, 41. i. 5, 153, 157, 168, 182. iii. 12, 144, 146. xii. 9, 14, 187. i. 20, 21, 435. iv. 7, 420. xiii. 11-13, 123. i. 22, 465. v. 20, 439, 444. xiii. 16, 125. 276. xvii. 16, 138. iii. 3-11, 393. 1, 449. xx. 2, 187. ii. 5-7, 13, 156. 9, 205. xxii. 17, 436. Abarbanel, 333, 373.

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Abraham Ecchellensis, 264, 302. Abulensis, 217.

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Apollinarius, 463. Apollodorus, 224, 256.

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Aristotle, 29, 31, 48, 53, 78, 82, 83, 85, 86, 91, 134, 223, 362, 410, 423, 430.

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Athenaeus, 81, 98, 105, 212, 218, 221, 226, 259, 279, 280, 387, 363.

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Author of the book entitled "Onus Ecclesiae," 465.

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Author of Questions to the Orthodox, 198.

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Author of the Life of Isidore, 216.

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Rabbi Azarias, 306, 366, 369, 371, 388, 384.

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Bellarmine, 117, 120, 121, 123, 130, 189, 351, 359, 379.

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Berossus, 153, 154, 285.

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Buxtorf, 28, 149, 173, 175, 177, 178, 188, 296, 299, 304, 310, 381, 351, 352, 354, 369, 370, 382.

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Cappel, 188, 176, 347, 851, 853, 361, 370, 378.

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Clement of Alexandria, 29, 78, 80, 113, 121, 125, 126, 151, 212, 217, 219, 227, 252, 259, 279, 280, 285, 298, 804, 377, 459, 462.

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Constant. Emper., 347.

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Coryphaeus, 201. Costerus, 101.

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Cotta, 169. Cunaeus, 347.

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Cyprian, 49, 131, 400.

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Diodorus Siculus, 91, 98, 105, 106, 128, 189, 197, 199, 228, 227, 237, 240, 278, 281, 312, 334, 363. Diogenes, 29, 30, 92, 239.

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Eustochius, 372, 378. Eutropius, 259. Fagius, 187. Felbengerus, 187. Festus Pompeius, 113. Ficinus, 211.

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Irenaeus, 118, 280, 281, 298, 304, 377. Isidore, 29, 223, 281.

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Jacobus de Voragine, 127. Iamblichus, 52, 79, 188, 200, 201. Jansenius, 400, 464, 467. Jarchi, 81, 109, 170. Johannes Isaacus, 359. Jonathan, 161, Jonesius, 213. Jordanes, 105, 215. Josephus, 78, 91, 100, 108, 118, 119, 187, 149, 153, 68, 166, 175, 242, 263, 275, 277, 289, 307, 309, 325, 2, 377, 878, 382, 389, 397, 403.

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Josephus Czxeus, 381, 385.

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Juvenalis, 50, 100, 104, 116, 189, 199, 260, 275, 468.

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Liuddus, 233, Lorinus, 347.

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Morinus, 145, 178, 183, 305, 311, 351, 358, 362, 367, 878, 879, 382.

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Origen, 30, 78, 121, 125, 201, 227, 285, 242, 286, 382, 462.

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Papinius, 91, 102, 105. Paraeus, 175, 178, 183.

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Plotinus, 37, 47, 133, 197, 200, 201, 210, ATT.

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Pyrobolius, 56; Pythagoras, 52, 420.

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Rab. Jud., 273, 888, 391, 395, 897.

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Rambam, 151, 209, 264, 2738. See Maimonides. Rashi, 166.

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Raymundus Martini, 278, 347, 854, 382.

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Satirists: [Juvenal, 100, 260; Persius, 112.]

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Suarez, 139. Scaliger, 91, 151, 166, 171, 176, 217, 218, 224, 244, 245, 273, 282, 288, 398, 399.

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Schickardus, 286, 805, 806, 382, 403.

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Seldenus, 113, 149, 153, 162, 164, 177, 179, 287, 298, 800, 842, 847, 852, 401.

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Seneca, 48, 79, 80, 93, 94, 107, 111, 113, 114, 115, 200, 214, 245, 256, 857, 410, 477.

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Sepher Ikkarim, 309, 408.

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Septuagint, 34, 145, 147, 148, 151, 158, 160, 172, 173, 187, 198, 212, 284, 319, 321, 322, 823, 324, 532, 336, 337, 338, 339, 310, 351, 439.

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Tertullian, 48, 49, 78, 108, 113, 115, 118, 120, 121, 125, 181, 151, 158, 162, 163, 206, 242, 252, 259, 286, 298, 33%, 396, 400, 411, 413, 439, 459, 462, 466.

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Tullius, 101, 109, 118, 114, 169, 258, 279, 285, 357, 3863. See Cicero.

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Valerius Soranus, 251. P

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Virgil, 90, 101, 102, 159, 162, 181, 188, 195, 199, 215, 251, 255, 257, 334, 402, 4738.

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Vossius, 78, 97, 118, 189, 236, 281, 282, 284, 285, 326, 836, 368, 378.

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Vulgate, 145, 152, 198, 217, 284, 304, 322, 836, 332, 339.

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Xaverius, Jesuit, 121. Xenophon, 78, 92, 250, 836. Ximenius, 378. Xiphilinus, 104. Zaleucus, 53, 313. Zeno, 200, 280, 400. Zenodotus, Stoic, 280. Zohar, Lib., 383. Zonaras, 148, 175. Zozimus, 151, 169.