44 SCRIPTURE. the?, failed in accomplishing what they had undertaken; especially since Christ had promised them that "the Spirit would bring all things to their remembrance, whatsoever he had said unto them," John x/v, 26. Could they, after all, forget any part that was material or necessary ? That any of them should do so is strange; but much more so that they all should. That Luke, the writer of the Acts, should omit any thing of importance, still adds to the wonder; and that no one of the many epistles w'ritten to instruct the churches in their faith and duty, should supply this defect, is beyond all belief. Nor do the apostles give us any hint of their leaving any thing with the church, to be conveyed down by oral tradition, which they themselves had not put in writing. They sometimes, it is true, refer to such things as they had delivered to particular churches; but by tradition in the aposfies' days, and for some ages after, nothing more was meant than the conveyan? of the faith, and not any unwritten doctrines. 2. That the Scripture is a full and sufficient rule of faith and morals, is certain, because w? have no other. For if we consider the grovnds upon which all Christians believe the Scriptures to be the word of God, the same grounds prove that nothing else can be his word. The apostles at first owned these writings; the churches received them; they transmitted them to their posterity; they grounded their faith upon them; they proved their propositions by them; by them they confuted heretics; they made them the measures of right and wrong; all doc- trines which all Christians professed, and on which all their hopes re- lied, were contained in them; and they agreed on no point of faith which is not plainly contained in Scripture. Now we are ready to believe any other article which can be proved as Scripture is pwved. For we know a doctrine is neither more nor less the word of God for being written or unwritten. To be written is but accidental and ex- trinsic; for it was first unwritten, and then the same thing was written; only when it was written it was better preserved, more certainly trans- mitted, not easily altered, and more fit to be a rule. Not but that every word of God is as much a rule as any word of God; but we are sure that what is so written and so transmitted is God's word; whereas other things l?ot thus written are not properly proved; and, therefore, not capable of being owned as the rule of faith and llfe, because we do not know them to be the word of God. If ?.ny doctrine proposed by the Church of Rome, and which is not in Scripture, be proved as Scripture is, we receive it equally. The truth of the Protestant assumption is established from this, that there is no doctrine of faith or life that can pretend to a clear, universal tradition and testimony of the first and of ?ll ages and churches, but only the doctrines contained in the undoubted books of the Old and New Testaments. Nor do we doubt but there were many things spoken by Christ and his aposfies which were never written; and yet these few things only that were written are preserved to u? and made our ru/e. It is not ?lisputed but the words and miracles of Christ which are not written are as true as those which are written; but they' are not our rule, be- cause they are unknown. So there need be no dispute whether they are to be preferred or relied on, as the written or unwritten word of God; for both are to be relied on, and both equally, provided they be both equally well authcnt/cated and known. But there are many 1
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