Of the Number, Antiquity, Scope, Authority, and Interpreters of the Books of Holy Scripture
By the Books of Holy “Scripture,” are understood those which ought to be the “canon,” that is to say, the rules of Christian life.
And because all rules of life, which men are in conscience bound to observe, are laws; the question of the Scripture is the question of what is law throughout all Christendom, both natural and civil. For though it be not determined in Scripture what laws every Christian king shall constitute in his own dominions; yet it is determined what laws he shall not constitute. Seeing therefore I have already proved that sovereigns in their own dominions are the sole legislators, those books only are canonical, that is, law, in every nation, which are established for such by the sovereign authority. It is true, that God is the sovereign of all sovereigns; and therefore when He speaks to any subject, He ought to be obeyed, whatsoever any earthly potentate command to the contrary. But the question is not of obedience to God, but of “when” and “what” God hath said; which to subjects that have no supernatural revelation, cannot be known, but by that natural reason which guideth them for the obtaining of peace and justice, to obey the authority of their several commonwealths, that is to say, of their lawful sovereigns. According to this obligation, I can acknowledge no other books of the Old Testament to be Holy Scripture, but those which have been commanded to be acknowledged for such by the authority of the Church of England. What books these are, is sufficiently known without a catalogue of them here; and they are the same that are acknowledged by St. Jerome, who holdeth the rest, namely, the Wisdom of Solomon, Ecclesiasticus, Judith, Tobias, the first and the second of Maccabees, (though he had seen the first in Hebrew,) and the third and fourth of Esdras, for Apocrypha. Of the