Apostolic testimonies continue; how spiritual Israel today knows the genuine Word
XV (continued). Just as the other prophets followed Moses, so the Apostles followed Jesus Christ. Testimony is given them: first, the sacred letters (Acts 17:2; Acts 18:24-Acts 18:28); second, Christ's doctrine and works then notorious among the Jews (Acts 2:22); third, the Apostles' miracles (Acts 2:43; Acts 5:12; Mark 16:20); fourth, the cloud of witnesses who saw Christ after His resurrection (1 Corinthians 15:6); fifth, the martyrs' constancy, rejoicing in death itself and praying for enemies (Acts 7:60; Hebrews 11:36; Hebrews 12:1); sixth, the clearest fulfillment of the oft-repeated prophecy of the nations' conversion to Israel's God (Romans 15:9 and following); seventh, Jerusalem's ruin and the Jews' rejection so often foretold by the prophets.
But another question must be briefly decided here: From where and how can and ought we who confess Christ today know surely and infallibly the true and genuine Word of God, to which alone we defer?
The answer: (1) We who have succeeded the first Christians and the fathers of spiritual Israel still use with our own eyes the seventh testimony — how God has punished the Jews' contempt of His Gospel. (2) We also experience the sixth: the calling of the nations by God fulfilled in ourselves. (3) The fifth is likewise plain: the constancy of those who rejoice in adversity, pray for enemies, and would rather lose all than Christ. (4) The second, third, and fourth — Christ's and the Apostles' works, and the living witnesses who spoke with Christ after His resurrection — are not indeed seized by our eyes, nor do we see the Apostles annotate this or that with their own hand. Yet just as once for Israel according to the flesh the fathers' constant, concordant, and public testimony (whether of saints or not) was as certain as if they had seen with their eyes and heard with their ears, so for us the perpetual, concordant, and public testimony of the new Israel — of all who confess Christ's and the Apostles' doctrine — is as certain as if we ourselves had explored with eyes and ears what they unanimously attest. And as for ancient Israelites that fathers' testimony stood in place of the autopsy by which the fathers themselves had known, so for us the testimony of all Christians — and even of Jews as to the Old Testament — ought to stand in place of autopsy we could have used had we lived in their age. By that testimony's benefit we are as sure of the Gospel's truth as we surely know from histories that Constantinople and Jerusalem are or were, even if we never saw either. Whoever calls this testimony into doubt will with far better right doubt everything that ancient Persians, Greeks, Romans, and other historians write and attest by unanimous consent, and will believe nothing but what he himself has seen and handled with his hands. (5) The first testimony also still endures among us: the prophets' Scripture of the Old Testament, which Christ and the Apostles praise.
By all these testimonies the Apostles' doctrine and Scripture — never doubted by God's saints — is so confirmed to have come from the Apostles that no one without notable malice and obstinacy can today deny its divine authority and truth.
A third question remains about the present time, when many teachers and legates thrust themselves upon us and boast the Word of God: Which is the true and infallible Word of God? What are we to hold concerning dogmas or opinions some Christians today foster? This is determined in four conclusions, so that it may become plain in which part the fault of schism chiefly sticks.
Latin
Sicut autem Mosen secuti sunt prophetae caeteri, ita Jesum Christum secuti sunt Apostoli, quibus testimonium perhibent: primo, sacrae literae; secundo, doctrina et opera Christi notoria inter Judaeos; tertio, miracula Apostolorum; quarto, nubes testium qui Christum a resurrectione viderunt; quinto, constantia martyrum in ipsa morte gaudentium et pro inimicis orantium; sexto, evidentissimum complementum praedictionis de conversione gentium; septimo, excidium Hierosolymae et rejectio Judaeorum toties a prophetis praedicta. Sed et hic altera quaestio breviter decidenda est: Unde et quomodo nos, qui Christum profitemur, verum ac genuinum verbum Dei, cui unice deferamus, certe et infallibiliter hodie dignoscere possimus ac debeamus? Respondetur: 1. Nos, qui a primis Christianis et patribus spiritualis Israelis successimus, septimum testimonium adhuc oculis nostris usurpamus, quo scil. pacto Deus in Judaeis contemptum Evangelii sui ultus sit. 2. Experimur etiam sextum, vocationem gentium a DEO in nobis ipsis impleri. 3. Manifestum etiam est quintum, constantia eorum qui in adversis gaudent, pro inimicis orant, et omnia quam Christum perdere malunt. 4. Secundum, tertium et quartum — opera Christi et Apostolorum et vivi testes — non equidem oculis nostris usurpantur; attamen sicut olim Israeli secundum carnem constans, concors et publicum testimonium patrum tam certum erat ac si oculis suis vidissent, ita et nobis perpetuum, concors et publicum testimonium novi Israelis (omnium qui doctrinam Christi et Apostolorum profitentur) tam certum est, ac si ipsi exploravissemus. Ita et nobis testimonium omnium Christianorum, imo et Judaeorum quantum ad Vetus Testamentum, esse debet pro autopsiā qua uti potuissemus si illorum tempestate nobis vivere contigisset — cujus testimonii beneficio tam certi sumus de veritate Evangelii, quam certo ex historiis scimus Constantinopolin et Hierosolymam esse aut fuisse, etiamsi neutram ipsi unquam viderimus. Qui hoc testimonium vocat in dubium, multo potiore jure dubitabit de omnibus quae veteres Persae, Graeci, Romani et alii historici unanimi consensu scribunt ac testantur; nihilque aliud credet quam quod ipse vidit et manibus contraxit. 5. Durat etiamnum apud nos primum quoque testimonium, nempe scriptura prophetarum Veteris Testamenti, quae a Christo et Apostolis laudatur. Quibus testimoniis omnibus doctrina et scriptura Apostolorum, de qua nunquam dubitatum fuit a sanctis Dei, ab Apostolis profectam esse ita confirmatur, ut nemo sine notabili malitia et contumacia ejus divinam authoritatem ac veritatem hodie negare possit. Tertia quaestio superest de hodierno tempore, quo multi doctores et legati se nobis ingerunt et verbum Dei jactitant: Quodnam verum et infallibile Dei verbum sit? quid de dogmatibus sive opinionibus quae a Christianis aliquibus hodie foventur nobis statuendum sit? Haec quatuor conclusionibus determinatur, ut manifestum fiat in qua parte culpa schismatis potissimum haereat.