Lucas Trelcatius, 1604, and the Question of Authority

Trelcatius listed five points in his polemic against Roman Catholic scholar Franciscus Costerus (1532-1619) and Rome’s emphasis of the superiority of the Church Authority over Scripture. As cited in previous posts, there is a close analogy between Rome’s notion of authority and that of the modern evangelical text critic. Though writing in 1604, Trelcatius provides a succinct discussion, outlining the salient points for demonstrating the Authority of Scripture against externally imposed criteria whether ecclesiastical or otherwise.

I

There is a double consideration of the Church and the Scripture; the one common in respect of the Author; the other singular in respect of the Authority which the Author hath put into them. God is the Author of both, whether mediately or immediately, but the Authority from God is diverse, that of the Scripture is principal and formal, but the other of the Church is secondary and ministerial.

II

The Scripture is in two ways considered, either according to the substance of the Word principally, or according to the manner of writing. Secondarily, in that the Scripture is more ancient than the Church as by the Church was begotten or generated.

[Scripture is considered first, in itself, res or as substantia doctrinae, the substance of the writing or what the word means, and second, as substantia verba, or the accidence of writing, the external shape of the words. Scripture, being more ancient than the Church, birthed the Church and not vice versa. (Note: If the priority of the Scripture over the Church were reversed, the Church’s capacity to generate the Scripture is limited to the accidence of writing not possessing access to the inspired meaning, or substantia doctrinae which comes only from God. That is, the Church cannot beget an inspired text of Scripture, but a God-inspired Scripture can generate the Church.)]

III

Some things are required for the confirmation of a thing absolutely and of it self, and some by accident and for another thing. If the Scripture need any confirmation of the Church, it needeth the same by accident, and not of it self, and therefore the confirmation of the Church belongeth not to the Cause Efficient, but ministerial.

[The confirmation of the authority of Scripture by the Church is not of Scripture’s self-authentication or the Cause Efficient, but only by the accidence of writing. The authority of Scripture resides in the Scripture itself and secondarily the Church recognizes this authority in Scripture’s words.]

IV

In causes coordinate, those which are inferior, and latter cannot obtain force and faculty of others, which are the former. Now every Authority of the Church is subordinate, yet the use is very great of the Scripture as the means principal to believe and of the Church, as the mean outward and ministerial.

[As stated above, God is the Author of both the Authority of the Scripture and the Authority of the Church, the Authority of the Scripture being principal and formal, the authority of the Church being secondary and ministerial. The Authority of the Church is latter and inferior and cannot overrule the Authority of the Scripture which is former. The Authority of the Church is therefore subordinate to the Scripture. The Scripture is the principal to faith and the Church’s use of Scripture the outward standard and ministerial, or for the practice of religion.]

V

There is one corruption of words and certain particular places, through the blemish whereof the principal parts cannot be corrupted, and there is another corruption of the essential parts of the Scripture: the former, if any hath happened unto the Scripture, (for the latter, we utterly deny) is not the corruption of the Scripture, but was caused either by the naughtiness of some other, or through the infirmity of the church, or through the particular ignorance of them that were of the household.

[There are two kinds of irreparable corruption of Scripture. The first can occur only in the accidence of writing due to naughtiness, infirmity, and ignorance. The cause of this corruption is known and can be corrected. The second notion of corruption relates to the essential parts of Scripture or in the substantia doctrinae, or res is denied. The Protestant Orthodox Church in 1604, (unlike many today) was confident that it was in possession of the Holy Scripture.]

Lucas Trelcatius, A Brief Institution of the Common Places of Sacred Divinitie wherein the Truth of every place proved, and the sophisms of Bellarmine are reproved, translated by John Gawen (London: Imprinted by T. P. for Francis Burton, dwelling in Pauls Church-yard, and the sign of the Green Dragon, 1610), 34-36

Please note that Trelcatius places the weight of his argument upon the Scriptures themselves.

The Valley of Vision: The Spirit as Teacher

The following is a prayer copied from The Valley of Vision: A Collection of Puritan Prayers and Devotions. May we pray in the same spirit for wisdom and understanding to know the Triune God and the content of His revealed Holy Scriptures.

THE SPIRIT AS TEACHER

That which I know not, teach thou me,
      Keep me a humble disciple in the school
    of Christ, learning daily there what I am in myself,
    a fallen sinful creature, justly deserving everlasting destruction;
O let me never lose sight of my need of a Saviour,
  or forget that apart from him I am nothing, and can do nothing.
Open my understanding to know the Holy Scriptures;
Reveal to my soul the counsels and works of the blessed Trinity;
Instil into my dark mind the saving knowledge of Jesus;
Make me acquainted with his covenant undertakings
  and his perfect fulfilment of them, that by resting on his finished work
  I may find the Father’s love in the Son, his Father, my Father,
  and may be brought through thy influence to have fellowship with the Three in One.
O lead me into all truth, thou Spirit of wisdom
  and revelation, that I may know the things that belong unto
  my peace, and through thee be made anew.
Make practical upon my heart the Father’s love as thou hast revealed it in the Scriptures;
Apply to my soul the blood of Christ, effectually, continually,
  and help me to believe, with conscience comforted, that it cleanseth from all sin;
Lead me from faith to faith, that I may at all times have freedom to come
    to a reconciled Father, and may be able to maintain peace with him
  against doubts, fears, corruptions, temptations.
Thy office is to teach me to draw near to Christ with a pure heart,
  steadfastly persuaded of his love, in the full assurance of faith.
Let me never falter in this way.

Making Students Unfit for the Modern World

I love education. I’ve spent the better part of my life in school. I go to universities in order to minister to students. My wife and I homeschool our 9 children and we are about to graduate our two oldest this year. I taught at Trinity Baptist College on campus in Jacksonville, FL and now I teach for them online. StandardSacredText.com exists as a means of education. Education has been and is a huge part of my life.

As part of my academic pursuits I enjoy studying and discussing the philosophy of education. My wife knowing this has recently gifted to me a rather large book entitled, The Great Tradition. This book is an anthology of excerpts from the Great Books of the Western World on the topic of education. The dedication of this books reads,

“To Thomas J. St. Antoine, a teacher with the courage to make students unfit for the modern world.”

The Great Tradition ed. Richard M. Gamble, (Wilmington, DE: ISI Books, 2012), The Dedication.

Perhaps the more skeptical reader would consider the above dedication a kind of Backwoods Manifesto. “What do you mean unfit for the modern world?” “Do you mean unfit for modern medicine or modern automobiles or the 24-hour news cycle?” But these questions miss the point entirely. Rather the point of the above dedication and the point of the book as a whole is to expose and remind the reader of the aim of education. And that aim is to cultivate students in the good, the true, and the beautiful. In other words, not that the student be educated in how to possess an excellent skill but that the student be educated in how to be an excellent soul. Education has become a mere means to getting a job whether that be an engineer, a physician, or a pastor.

This we have abandoned in the modern western education in simple point of fact that we have ignored or rejected the existence of a soul in most of our western educational institutions. Man is no longer considered a soul that has a body, but rather a mere body that has no soul. As such, modern western education has abandoned any meaningful attempt to cultivate excellent souls in America’s students via the good, the true, and the beautiful. And while this abandonment is fitting in order to be modern it is not fitting in order to be human.

May we then have the courage to make students unfit for the modern world.

On the point of the Standard Sacred Text, we hope to give you a glimpse into why we don’t believe it is the old words of the KJV that are the problem. Rather, the problem is that many who read the Bible have been made fitting students of the modern world both in private and Christian educational institutions. We believe the primary social problem in the rejection of a standard sacred text is not the words of the KJV but the systemic failure on the part of most western educational institutions, secular and Christian, to build up and foster excellent souls.

The solution then is to be the kind of teachers and students with the courage sufficient to make and be students unfit for the modern world. And in a world which finds moral standards and theological dogmatism unfit let us begin with the Bible and with a standard sacred text of Scripture.

Calvin on 1 Peter 1:25 and the Theocentricity of Scripture

But the word of the Lord endureth forever. And this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you, 1 Peter 1:25.

“The prophet teaches us, not what the Word of God is in itself, but how we are to think of it. Since man has emptied himself of life, he must look for it outside himself. And Peter tells us on the authority of the prophet, that God’s Word alone possesses the energy and efficacy to bestow upon us whatever is solid and eternal. For the prophet knew that our lives have no stability except in God, and except as he communicates it to us by his Word. Since man’s nature is in itself perishing, the Word himself invests it with eternal life, and restores it by new creation.

And this is the word declared unto you. Peter first warns us that when the Word of God is mentioned, we do wrong to imagine something far away, up in the air or in heaven beyond; for the Lord gives us life; what but the law, the prophets, and the gospel? Anyone who wanders away from the revelation will find, instead of God’s Word, nothing but Satan’s impostures, and madness. Therefore, we must keep carefully in mind that godless and devilish men have a crafty way of pretending to honor God’s Word, when they turn us away from the Scriptures; like that dirty dog Agrippa, who praised the eternity of God’s Word to high heaven, and at the same time heaped mockery on the prophets and apostles; in his deceitful way, he covered the Word of God with derision.

In short, as I have already told you, nothing is said here of a Word shut up in God’s bosom. We have to do with God’s Word which came forth from God’s mouth and was given to us. So once again, we are to acknowledge that God’s will is to speak to us by the mouths of the apostles and prophets, and that their mouths are to us as the mouth of the only true God.

Therefore, when Peter says, the word which has been declared to you, he means not to look for the Word of God anywhere except in the preaching of the gospel; and that we cannot know the power of its eternity except by faith. But we do not believe unless we know that the Word was destined for us.”

John Calvin, “Calvin: Commentaries” in the The Library of Christian Classics: Ichthus Edition, edited by Joseph Haroutunian (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1958), 82-83.

It is interesting to note that Calvin speaks of the Word of God in proximity to God. What is solid and eternal is in God communicated by his Word. The Lord gives us life through the Word – the law, the prophets, and the gospel. That God’s mouth, through the mouths of apostles speaks to us as the mouth of God. Theocentricity is the unmistakable focus of this passage on God’s Word. As you read the posts at StandardSacredText.com you will notice the conspicuous distinction between ourselves and other positions. God as both the Author and Subject, to investigate Scripture or formulate theological or philosophical systems that are not Theocentric is to confound and corrupt the entire investigative enterprise. We believe it is impossible to discuss the Word of God freed from the Author of that Word as if the Scriptures were a separate, isolated locus of investigation. What makes the study of Scripture different from all others is that God as its Author tells us about Himself within its pages. Scripture is God’s special self-revelation of Himself.

John Calvin, 1509-1564, and MVO Church Olympics

He will teach us his ways, and we will walk in his paths. Micah 4:2

“Here in a few words the prophet defines true worship of God. For it would not be enough for the nations to come together to one place to confess that they are worshippers of one God if they did not show real obedience. True worship depends on faith, as faith depends on the Word. It is, therefore, especially worthy of note that the prophet here sets God’s Word in the center to show us that religion is founded on obedience in faith, and that God can be worshipped only when he himself teaches his people and tells them what they ought to do. When God’s will is revealed to us, we can truly adore him. When the Word is taken away, some form of worship of God remains, but there is no real religion which could please God.

Hence we conclude that the church of God can be established only where the Word of God rules, where God shows by his voice the way of salvation. Therefore, until true doctrine sheds its light, men cannot be gathered in none place to constitute the true body of the church. Clearly, then, where the teaching is corrupt or is despised, there is no religion approved by God.

Men can, indeed, take God’s name boastfully on their lips; but before God, there is no religion except what is measured by the rule of the Word. It follows then that there is no church which is not subject to God’s Word and is not ruled by it. The prophet here defines both true religion and the way in which God gathers his church together.”

John Calvin, “Calvin: Commentaries” in the The Library of Christian Classics: Ichthus Edition, edited by Joseph Haroutunian (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1958), 79-80.

Reading this passage from Calvin in 2022 creates quite a conundrum for the Church. Is the modern church in fact “measured by the rule of the Word?” This would infer that the Word was a standard against which the church could be measured but as countless posts have indicated, the modern church and the MVO position decries a standard and indeed thrives on the absence of a standard. How then is the modern church, according to Calvin, to determine whether or not it is in the Christian faith tradition? Calvin writes that “there is no church which is not subject to God’s Word and is not ruled by it.” Are we then to conclude from this erudite author and theologian that without a rule or standard, the church is without anything to be measured and is therefore “no church” at all? But must a church have a standard to be measured by to indeed be a church? Can a church be measured by something that is not a standard or rule such as by simple proclamation or self-identification? Can a church be a church in the same manner that a man can self-identify as a woman? In this case, the individual has become the standard by which gender is assigned. Under these circumstances is anyone at liberty to say that a man who self-identifies as a woman remains a man based on physiological chromosomal distinctions no matter what he calls himself. If physiological chromosomal distinctions and Calvin’s “measured by the rule of the Word” are logically congruent, then without the standard of the Word, there is no grounds to call a church a church no matter what anyone else calls it. What remains, however, is not nothing. As Calvin writes, “When the Word is taken away, some form of worship of God remains, but there is no real religion which could please God.” And indeed, some form a worship does remain in America on Sundays in Fundamental and Evangelical MVO churches. The question everyone must ask themselves is whether this traditional practice pleases God. How is it true religion? First, God’s Word must be “in the center to show us that religion is founded on obedience in faith.” Advocates of the MVO position have yet to support an argument that the Viva vox dei, the living voice of God can be heard in modern versions. How then can God’s word be said to be “in the center” when there is profound doubt His word is there at all. And if there is a question of His word being present, how can God be worshipped when it is God himself who “teaches his people and tells them what they ought to do.” If it is not God telling the congregants what to do through the preaching and teaching, who is?

What a pickle.

So next Sunday for our MVO friends, when you walk into a church building, ask yourself, “by what standard can I make the claim that I am going to corporately worship God?” Look down at the Red Flyer wagon stacked with Bibles you pull behind yourself up the steps into the vestibule and ask yourself whether this cacophony of Bibles is that to which the church is subject and is ruled by. If you say yes, my wagon load is the standard, then ask yourself how a distinction is made between textual variations and what Calvin calls “corrupt” teaching where “there is no religion approved by God.” For example, if someone says, “the last twelve verses of Mark do not belong in the Bible,” is that speech corrupt teaching or merely an alternative form of self-identifying Christianity? Furthermore, if the omission is true to the facts and that is why it does not belong, why is it there at all? If the version says, “The most reliable early manuscripts and other ancient witnesses do not have Mark 16:9-20” and draw a dividing line between verse 8 and 9, is this inference that the passage should be omitted a corruption of the text or simply the message of a re-modeled, self-identified Christianity?

How about introducing an ecclesiastical category in the Olympics for MVO churches? It’s a sure bet they would win the Gold Medal.

Sundry Times and Diverse Manners

We are in agreement with our opposition that the revealed word of God has come down to us today in different forms, iterations, and refinements. Where is seems we disagree is on the point that many forms, iteration, and refinements cannot all be the word of God at the same time and in the same way.

At one point all that existed of the written words of God were the first five books written by Moses, but not long after that we get the book of Joshua then Judges and on and on until the whole Old Testament was complete. At the time of Moses, the Pentateuch was the written canon of Scripture but by the time of Ezra it was not. The Pentateuch was only a portion of the canon. To say that the Pentateuch was the whole canon at the time of Ezra would be to reject God’s revealed word in the other 34 books of the OT. Then for the entire intertestimental period, the canon of Scripture was those 39 books of the OT.

Then about half way through the first century AD the first book of the NT canon was written. Most think that I Corinthians was that book. At that point the canon was the OT and 1 Corinthians. Then 20 or so years later we get the Gospels and by the end of the first century all of the books of the NT were written, thus adding to the original 39 OT books, the 27 NT books.

If at any point we are to say that the Pentateuch is the whole canon or the OT is the whole canon or the OT + 1 Corinthians is the whole canon then we would be rejecting the word of God as it appears in the other books of the NT.

We now exist in an ecclesiastical climate where the question is not one of whole books but of whole passages, whole verses, and whole words, but it is still the same kind of animal. We are being told that different forms, iteration, and refinements of the English Bible are equally the whole of God’s canonical word because they are sufficiently reliable for salvation or some such low bar. This is no different in principle than saying, “The Pentateuch alone is the whole of God’s canonical word because it is sufficiently reliable for salvation.” The primary difference between these two statements is merely one of quantity of words.

The point is that we have become Marcionites. Now, we don’t, as Marcion did, remove words from Scripture because we think the God of the OT is not the Christian God. Rather, we remove words from Scripture because scholar’s think the Church should think material like the story of the woman caught in adultery should not be in the Bible.

So we proliferate versions of the Bible in English in order to proliferate the image of intellectual man via syncretism all the while saying that different forms, iterations, and refinements are equally God’s word all at the same time. Most evangelicals wouldn’t dare remove God from the picture but they most certainly would and do come right along side of God and assert their scholarly interpretation of the manuscript evidence while informing us that it is both godly and intellectual to accept their opinion.

In sum, on the one hand, scholarship believes itself to have become the mouthpiece of God. How? They claim to have the power, implicitly and explicitly, to tell the Church what is or is not the New Testament and therefore what is or is not the word of God. We, on the other hand, believe much of the modern evangelical text-critical machine to be in this regard something more approximate to the mouthpiece of Sauron.

Resurrection Sunday

Matthew 28:1-20

28 In the end of the sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, came Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to see the sepulchre.

2 And, behold, there was a great earthquake: for the angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and came and rolled back the stone from the door, and sat upon it.

3 His countenance was like lightning, and his raiment white as snow:

4 And for fear of him the keepers did shake, and became as dead men.

5 And the angel answered and said unto the women, Fear not ye: for I know that ye seek Jesus, which was crucified.

6 He is not here: for he is risen, as he said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay.

7 And go quickly, and tell his disciples that he is risen from the dead; and, behold, he goeth before you into Galilee; there shall ye see him: lo, I have told you.

8 And they departed quickly from the sepulchre with fear and great joy; and did run to bring his disciples word.

9 And as they went to tell his disciples, behold, Jesus met them, saying, All hail. And they came and held him by the feet, and worshipped him.

10 Then said Jesus unto them, Be not afraid: go tell my brethren that they go into Galilee, and there shall they see me.

11 Now when they were going, behold, some of the watch came into the city, and shewed unto the chief priests all the things that were done.

12 And when they were assembled with the elders, and had taken counsel, they gave large money unto the soldiers,

13 Saying, Say ye, His disciples came by night, and stole him away while we slept.

14 And if this come to the governor’s ears, we will persuade him, and secure you.

15 So they took the money, and did as they were taught: and this saying is commonly reported among the Jews until this day.

16 Then the eleven disciples went away into Galilee, into a mountain where Jesus had appointed them.

17 And when they saw him, they worshipped him: but some doubted.

18 And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth.

19 Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost:

20 Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen.

Can You Be Saved Out of Other Versions than the KJV?

We admit in agreement with our opposition that it is possible to be saved out of other versions of the Bible beside the KJV so long as that version contains the substantia doctrinae of the original language. That said, we do not regard the salvific power of a document to be the sole or even primary reason to accept a version of the Bible as the word of God in a given language and that for two reasons:

1.) Most Christians understand and many have experienced that it takes only a handful of verses for the power of God unto salvation to penetrate the heart of a lost soul. As a concrete example, tracts do this quite effectively. Perhaps the tract is only the size of 3×5 card containing the Romans Road. The Scripture contained therein is sufficient to lead someone to Christ and His salvation. In the case of a tract, the vast majority of the Scripture is omitted from the text of the tract, and yet with all that Scripture missing from the tract it is still possible for the person reading the tract to receive Jesus Christ as Savior. Furthermore, the mere presence of parts of Scripture in the tract does not transform the tract into the Bible, the inspired canon of Scripture. The tract contains verses from the Bible but it is not the Bible. In other words, the tract is sufficiently reliable to lead someone to Christ while at the same time the tract is not the inspired canon of Scripture. So, like tracts, versions which contain portions of the inspired canon of Scripture can in these places lead someone to saving knowledge in Christ.

2.) In dealing with the question of whether or not a soul can be saved out of another version, I often ask the question, “To whom is the Scripture written, the lost or the saved?” After some back and forth the answer must be that the Scripture or at least the greater portion of Scripture is written to the saved, to and for God’s people. The Bible is not primarily a book about salvation. Rather, it is a book about conformity to Christ, salvation being the first step in that journey. The greater portion of the Scripture revolves around teaching and examples, both positive and negative, of how we ought live, of how we ought to conform to the image of Christ. In a word, the Bible is about sanctification – being set apart unto God and away from the world. The apostle Paul tells us in 2 Timothy 3:17 that inspired Scripture is profitable for doctrine, reproof, correction, and instruction so that the man of God may be perfect or complete. Hebrews 13:21 tells us that our salvation is secured through the blood of Christ in order that we be made “perfect in every good work to do his will.”

To the point, it is not enough that a version of the Bible be able to lead someone to Christ. That we admit. But more to the reason for which Scripture exists, the version must serve to perfect the saint in every good work in order that he may do the will of God.

The stream cannot be more pure, more perfect, than the fountain. It is not possible therefore that the man of God be made perfect or complete if the Bible from which he reads is not perfect or complete. Or he can only be as perfect as his Bible is perfect.