Rules 1: Mysteries from Scripture pages; analytic vs dialectic; the solid theologian

IX. And here rules are to be noted. 1. The mysteries of faith are to be dug out not from nature's storehouses, but from the pages of the Scriptures — such as the most holy Trinity, the incarnation of the Son of God, election to salvation, redemption, baptism, the Lord's Supper, and the like. For in these saying has place: Athens has nothing in common with Jerusalem; and that of Paul (Galatians 1:15), I did not immediately confer with flesh and blood; and (2 Corinthians 10:5), we take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ.

For we do not side with Raymond Lull and Albertinus — of whom the former strives to deduce all articles of faith, the latter all conclusions, from philosophical principles — much less with the Photinians, who seem everywhere to hold human reason in controversies of faith before Sacred Scripture, however much some try to rub this itch onto us.

For we rightly and deservedly observe the distinction of analytic and dialectic treatment: and we call analytic proof in theology the spiritual principle proper to theology, theopneuston, divinely revealed, accommodated to the demonstration or confirmation of the articles of faith in which our salvation is contained. And we judge that he alone can truly be called analytic in theology — that is, a true and solid theologian — who draws his proofs and the principles of his proofs from the clearest springs of the sacred letters, or from those things which have been demonstrated through the Sacred Scriptures, and does not allow anything alien or foreign from philosophy or human traditions or the fathers' testimonies to be mixed in, unless these entirely agree with the sacred letters or pertain to the true interpretation of Sacred Scripture — and that especially when spiritual demonstrations are needed.