208 LECTURES AND ESSAYS [1870- 



It seems even, viewed as a distinctive principle, to be 

 subordinate in importance, and to contain no very 

 pointed antithesis, to the doctrine of the Roman Church. 

 For in general, the recognised teachers of the Church 

 admitted the supremacy of Scripture. &quot; Our faith,&quot; 

 says Thomas, &quot; rests on the revelation made to the 

 Prophets and Apostles who wrote the canonical books, 

 not on such revelations as may have been made to other 

 teachers &quot; (Summa, i. i). 



It was not till the Council of Trent that the Roman 

 Church expressed the full co-ordination with Holy 

 Scripture of traditiones sine scripto. Accordingly, the 

 early Protestants were not conscious of being on this 

 head in antagonism to the voice of the Church. The 

 Augustan Confession and the Smalcald Articles contain 

 no discussion of the authority of Scripture ; and when, 

 among the abuses to be removed, human traditions are 

 enumerated, these are not spoken of as authorities 

 formally set up against the Bible, but are condemned on 

 their material side as burdening consciences and pointing 

 out false ways of coming to peace with God. 1 Not till 

 the days of the Epigoni did the Lutheran Church feel it 

 necessary to lay down at the head of the Formula Con- 

 cordiae the position that Scripture is &quot; the only rule and 

 standard by which all dogmas and all teachers must be 

 valued and judged &quot; (A.D. 1580). In the Reformed 

 Churches the need of an express symbolical statement 

 as to the place of Scripture was sooner felt. So early as 

 1536 the Helvetica prior declares that &quot; canonic Scrip 

 ture, the word of God, the most perfect and ancient of all 

 philosophies, alone contains perfectly all piety, and the 

 whole rule of life &quot; ; 2 and the subsequent Confessions of 

 France, Holland, Scotland, etc., follow this example. 

 But in the Helvetic Confession, as in the Lutheran 



1 Conf. Aug., p. i, Art. xv. ; Artt. Smalc. p. 3, Art. xv. 



2 Art. i. Scriptura Canonica, verbum Dei, omnium perfectissima et 

 antiquissima philosophia, pietatem omnem, omnem vitae rationem, sola 

 perfecte continet, Niemeyer, pp. 105, 115. 



