John Owen · 78 of 157

Sermon XIV. Luke xvi. 29. · Part 2

Again: when they say the Scripture hath its authority from the church, I ask, How shall I know that there is a church? For if I be one that own no such thing as the Scripture (which the church is persuading me to believe), withal I own no such society as the church; and how will they prove there is such an one, but by the Scripture? For I, who am supposed to acknowledge no church, do acknowledge no authority it hath, and shall not take its own word. And yet if I grant there be a church, how shall I know that such a company of men as pretend to be the church are really so? I shall not take their own testimony; I am not satisfied in their being witnesses to themselves. And if they will prove themselves to be the church by the Scripture, then either the Scripture must have authority, as to me, before the church, or else they prove one obscure thing by another. If they say there be certain signs and marks of the church inherent in it, by which it may be known, — alas! I know not those marks but by the Scripture, which describes the church. If they say the Spirit witnesseth by those marks that this is the church, why may not I say the same of the Scripture; and so, that be known without the testimony of the church to be the word of God, as well as the church to be the church of God? And yet, after all this, granting this society of men to be the church, how shall I know that this church is infallible? And if I know it not to be so, I am not so mad as to build my faith upon its authority. If they say, “Because it is governed by the Holy Ghost,” how shall I know that? for it is not obvious to me that it is. If they say, “Because Christ hath promised that it should,” I ask, Where? where can it be but in the Scripture? Sure, then, the Scripture must be owned, and have its authority, as to me, or their proof is invalid, and they do but trifle instead of arguing.

Before I proceed to another argument, let us examine what is excepted against this. To this text, Eph. ii. 20, it is replied by some of the Papists, —

Exception. I. That “by ‘foundation’ is not meant the Scripture written by the apostles and prophets, but their preaching.”

Answer. But, 1. If that were granted, it would not prejudice our cause. What they wrote and preached is the same truth, and differs not essentially, but only in the way of delivery; one being delivered to their present hearers viva voce, and the other by writing, transmitted likewise to posterity: “Witnessing both to small and great, saying none other things than those which the prophets and Moses did say should come,” Acts xxvi. 22. So Acts xvii.

2. The preaching of the apostles and prophets did last but a while; whereas Paul speaks of the lasting, perpetual foundation of the church.

3. If he speaks only of the preaching of the apostles and prophets, how comes he to join these two together? For the prophets were long since dead; and their preaching, if that only were the foundation of the church, could be the foundation of that church only which lived with them, and heard them.

Except. II. “He meant, therefore,” say some of our adversaries, “the New Testament prophets, who preached at the same time with the apostles.”

Answer. But that is not so easily proved as said: for though such prophets are mentioned in some places of the New Testament, it doth not follow that they must needs be understood here. For why doth the apostle mention them only, and not evangelists too, nay, pastors and teachers likewise, whom he joins all together in Eph. iv. 11, and who did at the same time preach the same truth which the apostles did? Beside that, we find, by the doctrine of “the prophets” mentioned in the New Testament, the truth preached and written by the prophets under the Old commonly understood. So, 2 Pet. i. 19, “A more sure word of prophecy.” Heb. i. 1, “God spake to the fathers by the prophets.” So also, Rom. i. 2, and Luke i. 70. The apostles under the New Testament were the chief that taught, though New Testament prophets, as likewise evangelists, pastors, and teachers, did preach the same doctrine; as formerly, under the Old Testament, the prophets that then lived were the chief, though others beside, as the Levites, did teach “the good knowledge of the Lord,” 2 Chron. xxx. 22.

Except. III. “But,” say they again, “the Ephesians were not built upon Paul’s writings, which were not then extant, but on his preaching; and therefore these other kind of prophets must be understood, on whose preaching, together with the apostles’, they were built.

Ans. The preaching [of] the truth, or writing it, makes no difference; but still it is the same truth, which is the foundation of the church, whether it be written or preached. And though the Ephesians were built on the word as preached by Paul, yet what hinders but they might likewise be built on the word as written by former prophets; whom, though they could not now hear, yet they might read? And Paul himself proves what he preached, by what the prophets had written; that so both the word preached and written might be propounded to the Ephesians as one and the same foundation of their faith.

Except. IV. They say that “by ‘the church’ in this place is understood, not the pastors, but the people; because the pastors were they that preached; and therefore, if they were meant, it would follow that they should be built upon themselves.”

Ans. 1. It is most absurd to say, that the pastors and doctors of the church are not built upon the doctrine of the apostles and prophets. Who ever heard of one foundation for the faith of the teachers, and another for the faith of the people? It seems, then, by their own confession, [that] the pope and his clergy are not built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets; and if they have not this foundation, I am sure they have no better. The faith of pastors and people is the same; and why is not the foundation the same too? Are they fit to build up others in the faith of the Scriptures, who are not themselves built upon the Scriptures? And it is idle to say, [that] they are built on the Holy Spirit: for will they separate the Spirit from the Scripture? What doth the Spirit teach, but out of, and according to, the Scripture? To be led by the Spirit, and yet built on the Scriptures, are very well consistent.

Ans. 2. It is not absurd to say, that the teachers of the church are built on the doctrine they teach; though not as they teach it, yet as they have BEFORE received and believed it. Indeed, they ought to offer nothing to others, as the foundation of their faith, but what is the foundation of their own; nor to hazard the souls of their hearers upon any worse bottom than they would venture their own souls. And it doth not follow from hence that they are taught by themselves, or are a foundation to themselves; but only, that the doctrine they have themselves believed and are built upon, — they deliver to others, that they too may believe it, and be built upon it.

Arg. II. The doctrine delivered in the Scripture doth not, as to our receiving it, depend upon the church; and therefore neither doth the Scripture itself: the doctrine of the Scripture and the Scripture itself are really the same, and differ but in an accident of being written, or not written. The same doctrines we have in the Scripture, were published and known before they were written; and they did not then depend upon the authority of the church; and why should they now? Doth the writing of them make them of less authority, or less credible, or less able to convince men’s minds, than they formerly were? Upon the authority of what church did Adam, Seth, Enoch, Abraham, etc., receive the word of God, when it was yet unwritten? What council was there, what pope to persuade them of it? And how come the same truths to have less power and efficacy to persuade us than them? Will our adversaries say, the patriarchs received the word immediately from God himself? True, some of them did; but what is that to the church and her authority? Or will they say, those patriarchs from whom others received the word were infallible? They will hardly be able to prove it. How came Abraham to persuade his wife to tell a lie, and expose her chastity thereby, for the saving of his life, if he were infallible? And how came other patriarchs to allow polygamy, if they were infallible? And do not the Papists themselves tell us that the church of the Jews was not infallible; and that infallibility is the peculiar privilege of the gospel church, the promise of it being made only to that?

And, to come down lower, Moses received many things of the Lord which were immediately received by the people, — as the law of the passover, Exod. xii., — and where the people presently answer that all the words which the Lord had said, they would do, Exod. xxiv. 3. Did the people themselves (“the church in the wilderness,” Acts vii. 38) give authority to these laws, or did the council of the elders do it? We find nothing of their being convened together upon any such account as to consider whether God’s laws should be received or not. Or did they receive them on the authority of any other church? If so, which was it, where was it? Or, lastly, was Moses an Old Testament pope, and the virtual church of Israel? Then, belike, that church was infallible as well as the gospel, contrary to their own doctrine. That Moses was infallibly inspired in all that he commanded the people from God, is sure; but that ever he pressed them to receive the word of God on his own authority, or any but God’s, can never be proved. If they say that the people received the word on the account of the miracles wrought by Moses, that is more to our purpose titan theirs. And what shall we say of the law written in men’s hearts? on whose authority is that received? It is the same for substance with the law written in the word; and must there be the testimony of the church to assure men that even this law too is of God? or, if it be acknowledged for its own light and power, whereby it manifests itself to be of God, why may not the law written in the word be so acknowledged too?

But come we farther down. On whose authority were the sermons of the prophets, after Moses’ time, received? When they spoke to the people in the name of the Lord, did they ever cite the testimony of the church, to vouch what they said to be indeed from the Lord? or, did they ever seek the suffrages of the high priests and governors of the church, to establish their doctrine as divine? Their ordinary style is, “Thus saith the Lord;” not, “Thus saith the church,” or, “The church says, that the Lord saith thus.”

Lastly. If we descend to the times of the New Testament, we shall find the same there. When our Saviour Christ himself preached, what he spoke was as much the word of God when he spake it as now that it is written; but neither did he refer himself, as to the divinity of his doctrine, to the authority of the church, nor did any believe it on that account. He did not refer it to the church; for he did not receive testimony from men, John v. 34, — no, not from John Baptist himself, though of no small authority in the Jewish church, and generally taken to be a prophet. Though John, as his duty was, did bear witness to Christ, and point to him, — “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world,” John i. 29, 36; — yet Christ had no need of this testimony to make himself be received as the Messiah, or what he preached as the word of God; as if the one or the other could not have been received without it. He therefore tells the Jews that he had “greater witness than that of John,” John v. 36; — first his works; then his Father himself, verse 37; then the written word: “Search the Scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life; and they are they which testify of me,” verse 39. All this while, here is not one tittle of the church and its testimony; and if that be the only means whereby men can be assured of the divineness of the word, how comes Christ to overlook it? And that they who believed Christ’s doctrine did not believe it on the authority of the church is clear; for the church of the Jews was generally corrupt, erred in many things, and therefore was unfit. And it was, especially as to its guides and officers, generally against Christ; and therefore unwilling to give testimony to him. It neither owned him nor his doctrine; so that they who received and believed Christ’s preaching, did it on some other account than the testimony of the then present church. If the Papists shall say, they received his doctrine on the account of Christ’s own divine authority, I would inquire, how they came to know he had any such authority; for that Christ was the Messiah, and, consequently, had this divine authority, were some of the truths he preached. If they say, that Christ’s doctrine was received either upon the account of his miracles, or of its agreement with the scripture of the Old Testament, they say more for us than for themselves, and, either way, desert their cause.

And if we look to the apostles that followed Christ, and preached the same doctrine, we shall see that it was not received on the account of the church, no more than commanded to the hearers thereon. In Acts ii. 41, upon Peter’s preaching, three thousand believed: “They gladly received the word;” they did not, it seems, expect the testimony of the church to tell them whether it were the word or not. In Acts iv. 4, we read of either five thousand more, or so many as made up the whole five thousand. And in Acts viii. the Samaritans receive the gospel on Philip’s preaching; and afterward, the eunuch. And, to pass by others, the Bereans and Thessalonians receive the word, in Acts xvii. Of the former it is said, that “they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the Scriptures daily, whether those things were so,” verse 11. Of the latter, Paul testifies that “they received the word, not as the word of man, but as it is in truth, the word of God,” 1 Thess. ii. 13. All this while, here is no church interposing its authority, or asserting the divineness of what Peter, or Philip, or Paul preached. On what account, then, did these people believe the word preached by the apostles? “On the authority of the church,” say the Papists. But what church? “Why,” says a great one among them, speaking of the Thessalonians, “the voice of Paul was the voice of the church, when he preached to the Thessalonians; and so they, in receiving the word on Paul’s authority, received it on the authority of the church.” Say the same of Peter and Philip.

Paul, it seems, then, was the church; or else how could Paul’s preaching be the voice of the church? What kind of church, then, was Paul? Was he the church virtual? Was he a pope, and was Peter, and Philip, and the rest of the apostles and evangelists, so too? A blessed church, sure, that had so many popes! or rather, a miserable one, that either had no visible head or had so many! If they say, Paul’s voice was the voice of the church, because he was an officer of it, by whom the church published the doctrine she believed and was to propagate; — Paul was indeed an officer of the church; but yet made so by Jesus Christ himself, — not an apostle of men, nor by man, Gal. i. 1. And the doctrine he preached was no otherwise the doctrine of the church, than as it was the same which the church believed, but never taught it him; for he “received it not of men, neither was taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ,” verse 12. And, therefore, they might more reasonably have said, that the voice of Paul was the voice of Christ; the word he preached being more properly the word of Christ, who was the author of it, than the word of the church, who only received it of Christ. But what will become of this fine invention of our Jesuit, if the Thessalonians did not receive the word on the authority of Paul himself, whether in his single or representative capacity, or call it as you please? And, surely, they did not; for then his authority must be owned, ere, on the account of that, his preaching could be believed. But both Paul and his authority, whatever it were, were unknown to the Thessalonians when he first preached among them; and therefore could not induce them to believe what he taught. The same we may say of the other apostles, in their first planting the gospel when they came to the Gentiles; they were unknown till they made themselves and their authority known by their preaching. And when they came to the Jews, where they were known, yet they were not trusted, nor their apostolical authority acknowledged. And so it could prevail neither with the one nor with the other, till their doctrine was first believed.

Arg. III. The Scripture hath its authority, in relation to us, before the church pass its judgment concerning it; and therefore it hath not that authority from the church. This will appear, —

1. By the concession of the Papists themselves, who acknowledge that the church only declares the Scripture to be authentic, but doth not make it so. Surely, then, it was authentic in itself before that declaration of the church, which is only a pronouncing that to be which was before. And if it be in itself authentic, it is so to us too; that is, it hath in itself a power of binding us to the belief of it, so soon as we come to hear of it, whether the church hath declared its authenticness or not.

2. If the Scripture hath not its authority as to us, before the judgment of the church, then either it must be a private or public judgment of the church which gives it that authority. A private one it cannot be: for when we speak of the authority of the Scripture as to us, it is understood of all Christians everywhere; and it is not fit that a private judgment of the church, or, which is the same, the judgment of a private church, should give laws to all the rest, Nor can it be the public testimony, or that of the catholic church; for none such can be produced by the Papists from whence the Scripture hath its authority. Let them, if they can, show us the first general council that ever declared the Scripture to be the word of God. The council of Jerusalem, in Acts xv. 1, if it were a general one, is the first we read of; and that toucheth not the point in hand, — doth not declare the Scripture to be authentic, but takes it for granted. They that were there met cite the scripture of the Old Testament, and thereby own its authority, but do not then first establish it. And Peter and the rest do the like in their preaching, Acts ii., iii. And dare the Papists say, then, that the Old Testament was not authentic before this council? Had the church hitherto no certain canon, nor authentic Scripture, to be the rule of its faith? After this council we find no general one till that of Nice. And was the church of God all this while too (for three hundred years) without the canon of the Scripture? to say nothing that the Council of Nice itself did never define which it was; but acknowledged it as already received.

3. If a council meets to declare the divine authority of the Scripture, we would know by what authority it meets. If the several pastors of the church come together on the authority and by the command of the Scripture itself, then it hath its authority before they meet; else it could not make it their duty so to do. If by some revelation or impulse of the Spirit without the Scripture, what kind of spirit is that which acts in separation from the Scripture? And if the Papists will affirm this, let them no more call themselves good Catholics, but even the worst of fanatics.

Arg. IV. The authority o/the church is not more certain or clear, as to us, than that of the Scripture; and therefore the Scripture cannot have its authority from it. That which proves another thing, must itself be more clear and better known. But that the authority of the church is not better known to us than that of the Scripture will soon appear; for whatever authority the church hath, she must prove it either from herself, or from something else.

If from any thing else, it must either be from the testimony of those that are out of the church; but they know not the church, nor any authority it hath: or from the Scripture; but then the authority of the Scripture must be more known than that of the church: or from the Spirit; but how will they make it out that they have the testimony of the Spirit for them, otherwise than by the Scripture, in and by which he is wont to bear witness? If they say the Spirit witnesseth to the authority of the church inwardly, so as to persuade the minds of dissenters that the church is the church of God; this is merely begged, and not proved, and yet will not satisfy neither. For we ask not, “What is the efficient cause of men’s believing the authority of the church?” but, “What is the argument whereon that belief is grounded, and whereby the church persuades men of its own authority?”

Or else, on the other side, if the church prove its authority from itself, then the same thing shall be proved by itself. But yet, I ask, What judgment of the church is it whereby its authority is proved? They say, “Both the testimony of the ancient and of the present church.” But how can the testimony of the ancient church be known but by the writings of those that formerly lived, the books of fathers, and decrees of councils? But we would know how we shall have greater assurance that those books were written by those fathers whose names they bear, and those decrees made by those councils to which they are ascribed, than that the Scripture is the word of God. How came we to be more certain that Cyprian’s or Austin’s works were written by them, than that the four Gospels were written by the four evangelists, or Paul’s Epistles by him? And if the present church prove its authority by the ancient church, it must prove it but to very few; for they are but few that ever saw, and yet fewer that ever read, the writings of the ancients; and many, perhaps, have never heard of them. And besides, the ancient church was some time the present church; and when it was so, from whence might it prove its authority? From some more ancient., no doubt; according to our adversaries’ discourse, it must be. But from whence did the first church prove its authority (for we must come to a first), when there was none before it to prove it by?

Lastly. The authority of the present church cannot be proved by the testimony of the present church. For then it must be either by a part of it; but that cannot be, for a part of the present church is inferior to the whole of it, and he that questions the authority of the whole will no less question that of a part: or else by the whole church; and then the authority of the whole church must be proved by the authority of the whole church, — we must believe she is the church, because she says she is the church.

Arg. V. If we are to believe the divinity of the Scripture merely on the church’s authority, then that faith can be but a human faith, because founded on no better than the authority of men. Our faith can be no better than its foundation; a divine faith cannot be built upon human testimony. But the Papists themselves are ashamed to own a thing so grossly absurd, as that the faith whereby we believe one main article of religion — the divineness of the Scripture — should be but a human faith.

Except. To this, therefore, they say, that “the faith whereby we believe the Scripture to be the word of God is a divine faith, and built on the testimony of God; and that testimony is no other than the testimony of the church.” We easily reply, —

Ans. 1. That the church’s testimony is no otherwise the testimony of God than as it agrees with the word of God; and when it doth so, we are to believe what the church says, not merely because the church says it, but because God says it. And if the church holds forth to me any divine truth, and I yield my assent to it merely because the church declares it to me, though what I believe be a divine truth, yet the faith with which I receive it will be but a human faith; the truth is of God, but my faith is in man. Whereas, if I believe any truth because God speaks it, though not by the church, nor any officer of it, but some private person, yet my faith is a divine faith, and the testimony of a private person, speaking what the Scripture speaks, is as really the voice of God as the testimony of the church.

2. Some of the most learned of the Papists themselves make a great difference between the testimony of God and of the church. The former they grant to be altogether divine; the latter, modo quodam, “after a sort” divine. The former they reckon to be the primary foundation of faith; the latter, but the secondary. Nay, some of them acknowledge that faith which rests only on the authority of the church not to be divine; and some, the church’s testimony to be but the conditio sine qua non, “the condition without which we cannot” believe the divinity of the Scriptures; — which surely they would scarcely do, if they thought the testimony of the church to be the testimony of God. And if the testimony of the church be but “in some sort” a divine testimony, the faith which is built upon it can be but “in some sort” a divine faith. And if the testimony of the church be but the secondary foundation of faith, how comes it to be (according to Stapleton) the testimony of God himself, which surely they will allow to be the primary foundation of faith?

3. Before they can evince the testimony of the church to be the testimony of God, they must first prove the church to be absolutely infallible, and see they agree among themselves about it; lest we be still at a loss how to know what is that church whose testimony is the voice of God himself. And, —

4. If I do but deny the testimony of the church to be the testimony of God (as we do), how will they prove it? “By the testimony of the church.” I shall not take its word. Or will they say it hath such notes of its being the voice of God in it, as thereby to manifest itself to be his voice? They will get nothing by that; for I am ready to say the same of the Scripture. Or, lastly, will they prove it by the Scripture? Then they plainly give away their cause, and own the authority of the Scripture to be before the testimony of the church.

Arg. VI. If we must believe the Scripture to be the word of God only because the church determines it to be so, then we must believe all things in it to be of God/or the same reason only. That “Christ came into the world to save sinners,” 1 Tim. i. 15; that “whosoever believeth in him shall have everlasting life,” etc., John iii. 16; and all the promises of the gospel, must be believed to be made to us by God, only because the church tells us they were; and the truth of them, as to us, depends merely on the church’s authority: and so all the comfort of our hearts, and the hopes we have of heaven, must be primarily derived from the authority of the church, and ultimately resolved into it. What a case had we been in, if it had not pleased the church to receive these promises into the canon! And if the Papists say true, she might not have received them: for, as we shall see by-and-by, it depends wholly upon the church what books shall be canonical, and what not; and, by the same reason, what parts of those books; and, consequently, whether all the promises of the gospel shall be canonical or not. And so we owe all our hope to the church’s charity; and must count her a good-natured mother for not cutting off these “breasts of consolations,” Isa. lxvi. 11; but leaving something for her poor children to hang upon, to keep them from perishing. Belike it is the church’s favour that all the world is not damned. I am sure the best promises in the Scripture, if the popish doctrine take place, can afford but cold comfort. For if I be asked what ground I have for my hopes of salvation, I answer, The promises of God. If I be asked again, “Are these promises true?” I answer, Yes, “But how doth that appear?” Why, because God made them. “But how do I know God made them?” Well enough; for the church says he did. Here the authority of the church is the first foundation of all my hopes: and poor ones, God knows, they are, if no better grounded, and little comfort I am like to have in them. It is to little purpose to tell me the testimony of the church is not merely human; for is it merely divine? If it be not, it cannot found a faith which is merely divine. And when my soul and the everlasting salvation of it lie at stake, I think I am concerned to see that my faith and hopes have a sure foundation; and that, I am sure, none can be which is not merely divine.