Analogy with naturally known principles; Scripture's spiritual efficacy; affections and parts to be considered
5. From the analogy of principles known by nature. (1) Principles are such that everyone who knows the terms also knows them to be true. Picture it this way. Admit the light of reason — as child or elder, scholar or unlettered — and you also admit the principles known by the habit philosophers call νοῦν, intellect. Admit the light of divine revelation, and confess under that Author some divinely inspired discipline, and you also admit Sacred Scripture. No Christian, learned or unlearned, denies our principle or puts it in doubt. Doubt Scripture's truth and you forfeit the name of a true Christian — just as the man who denies nature's known principles hardly deserves the name of a sound, reason-using human being.
(2) Those natural principles are not demonstrated and cannot be. They are grasped as true without arguments, from bare consideration of the terms, by their own evidence. So too our theological principle must not — and cannot — be directly demonstrated. The Christian, lit by Christian faith, assents by the Holy Spirit's power, persuaded in the struggle by Scripture itself as he reads it or hears it opened, and with a learner's zeal weighs it attentively according to his spiritual age. Scripture carries an inward force, planted by its Author, that draws and convinces human minds according to each one's age (1 Thessalonians 2:13; Matthew 7:28-Matthew 7:29; John 6:68).
What evidence is for principles known by the intellect's habit, that spiritual efficacy is for Christ's words and the sacred Scriptures — an efficacy that shows itself in the struggle of spirit and flesh according to each attentive, pious reader's spiritual measure and age (1 Corinthians 2:4-1 Corinthians 2:5, 1 Corinthians 2:12-1 Corinthians 2:14; Ephesians 4:11-Ephesians 4:25).
II. Sacred Scripture's affections and parts are to be considered.
Latin
5. Ab analogia principiorum natura notorum. 1. Principiorum proprium est, ut ab omnibus, quibus termini noti sunt, vera esse cognoscantur. Rem sic illustro. Sicut qui lumen rationis admittit, sive puer, sive senex, sive doctus, sive rudis, admittit quoque ea principia, quae ab habitu, quem philosophi νοῦν, i.e. intellectum dicunt, cognoscuntur: Sic qui lumen Divinae revelationis admittit, & hoc authore disciplinam aliquam divinitus inspiratam fatetur, is quoque admittit sacram Scripturam; h.e. nemo Christianorum, sive doctus, sive indoctus, principium nostrum negat, aut in dubium vocat. Si enim de veritate sacrae Scripturae dubitet, nomen vere Christiani amittit; quemadmodum sani & ratione utentis hominis nomen haud meretur, qui principia illa natura nota inficiatur. 2. Quemadmodum haec principia nec demonstrantur, nec demonstrari possunt, sed vera esse intelliguntur sine argumentis, ex sola consideratione terminorum, ob evidentiam suam: sic principium hoc nostrum Theologicum directe demonstrari non debet, neque potest, sed homo Christianus fide Christiana illuminatus ei assensum praebet virtute Spiritus sancti in lucta sua persuasus ab ipsa scriptura, quando eam legit vel audit explicari, discendique studio attenta consideratione pro gradu aetatis suae spiritualis perpendit; quia habet internam & ab autore suo sibi divinitus inditam vim animos hominum pro cujusque aetate trahendi & convincendi, 1.Thess.2.v.13. Matth.7.v.28.29. Joh.6.v.68. Quod ergo principiis, quae ab habitu intellectus cognoscuntur, est evidentia, id verbis Christi sive Scripturis sacris est illa efficacia spiritualis, quae sese exserit in lucta spiritus & carnis secundum uniuscujusque attenti & pii lectoris spiritualem captum & aetatem, 1.Cor.2.4.5.12.13.14. Ephes.4.11.12.13.14.15.16.17.18.19.20.21.22.23.24.25. II. Sacrae Scripturae considerandae sunt affectiones & partes.