3d. All Christians are commanded to search the Scriptures, and by them to judge all doctrines and all professed teachers.—John v. 39; Acts xvii. 11; Gal. i. 8; 2 Cor. iv. 2; 1 Thess. v. 21; 1 John iv. 1, 2.
4th. The promise of the Holy Spirit, the author and interpreter of Scripture, is to all Christians as such. Compare John xx. 23 with Luke xxiv. 47–49; 1 John ii. 20, 27; Rom. viii. 9; 1 Cor. iii. 16, 17.
5th. Religion is essentially a personal matter. Each Christian must know and believe the truth explicitly for himself, on the direct ground of its own moral and spiritual evidence, and not on the mere ground of blind authority. Otherwise faith could not be a moral act, nor could it "purify the heart." Faith derives its sanctifying power from the truth which it immediately apprehends on its own experimental evidence.—John xvii. 17, 19; James i. 18; 1 Pet. i. 22.
20. What is the objection which the Romanists make to this doctrine, on the ground that the church is our only authority for believing that the Scriptures are the word of God?
Their objection is, that as we receive the Scriptures as the word of God only on the authoritative testimony of the church, our faith in the Scriptures is only another form of our faith in the church, and the authority of the church, being the foundation of that of Scripture, must of course be held paramount.
This is absurd, for two reasons—
1st. The assumed fact is false. The evidence upon which we receive Scripture as the word of God is not the authority of the church, but—(1.) God did speak by the apostles and prophets, as is evident (a) from the nature of their doctrine, (b) from their miracles, (c) their prophecies, (d) our personal experience and observation of the power of the truth. (2.) These very writings which we possess were written by the apostles, etc., as is evident, (a) from internal evidence, (b) from historical testimony rendered by all competent cotemporaneous witnesses in the church or out of it.
2d. Even if the fact assumed was true, viz., that we know the Scriptures to be from God, on the authority of the church's testimony alone, the conclusion they seek to deduce from it would be absurd. The witness who proves the identity or primogeniture of a prince does not thereby acquire a right to govern the kingdom, or even to interpret the will of the prince.
21. How is the argument for the necessity of a visible judge, derived from the diversities of sects and doctrines among Protestants, to be answered?
