Part III, Chapter XLII, 4

When a difficulty arose, the Apostles and elders of the Church assembled and decided what should be preached and taught, and how they should interpret the Scriptures to the people; but they did not deprive the people of the freedom to read and interpret those Scriptures for themselves. The Apostles sent various letters and other writings to the churches for their instruction, which would have been pointless if they had not allowed them to interpret—that is, consider the meaning of—what they read. What was true in the Apostles' time must remain true until there are pastors able to authorize an interpreter whose interpretation must be generally accepted. But this could not happen until kings were pastors, or pastors kings.

There are two senses in which a writing can be called canonical. A canon means a rule, and a rule is a precept that guides and directs a person in any action whatsoever. Precepts given by a teacher to a student, or a counselor to a friend, without power to compel observance are nevertheless canons, because they are rules. But when they are given by someone whom the recipient is bound to obey, those canons are not merely rules but laws. The question here, therefore, concerns the power to make the Scriptures—the rules of Christian faith—into laws.

The first part of Scripture to become law was the Ten Commandments, written on two tablets of stone and delivered by God himself to Moses, who made them known to the people. Before then there was no written law of God: for God had not yet chosen a people as his own particular Kingdom, and had given humankind no law except the Law of Nature, that is, the precepts of natural reason written in every person's heart. Of these two tablets, the first contains the law of sovereignty. 1. They must not obey or honor the gods of other nations: “Non habebis Deos alienos coram me,” that is, “You shall not have as gods the gods worshiped by other nations, but only me.” They were thereby forbidden to obey or honor as their King and Governor any God but the one who spoke to them then through Moses and afterward through the high priest. 2. They “must not make any image to represent him”: they must not choose for themselves any representative imagined by themselves, whether in heaven or on earth, but must obey Moses and Aaron, whom he appointed to that office. 3. They “must not take God's name in vain”: they must not speak rashly of their King or dispute his Right or the commissions of Moses and Aaron, his lieutenants. 4. “On every seventh day they must abstain from their ordinary work” and spend the time in giving him public honor. The second tablet contains each person's duty to others: “Honor your parents; do not kill; do not commit adultery; do not steal; do not corrupt judgment by false testimony”; and finally, “Do not even plan in your heart to injure another.” The question now is who gave these written tablets the binding force of laws. There is no doubt God himself made them laws. But a law does not bind anyone, nor is it law to anyone, unless he acknowledges it as the act of the Soveraigne. How, then, could the people of Israel, forbidden to approach the mountain to hear what God said to Moses, be bound to obey all the laws Moses presented to them? Some, indeed, were Laws of Nature, such as the entire second tablet, and were therefore to be acknowledged as God's laws by all peoples, not only by the Israelites. But the question remains about those peculiar to Israel, such as the laws of the first tablet—except that immediately after Moses presented them, the people bound themselves to obey him in these words (Exod. 20.19.): “Speak to us yourself and we will listen; but do not let God speak to us, lest we die.” Thus only Moses, and afterward the high priest, whom God declared through Moses would administer his particular Kingdom, possessed on earth the power to make this short Scripture of the Decalogue law in the Common-wealth of Israel. But Moses, Aaron, and the succeeding high priests were the civil Soveraigns. Up to this point, therefore, canonizing Scripture, or making it law, belonged to the civil Soveraigne.

The judicial law—that is, the laws God prescribed to Israel's magistrates to govern their administration of justice and the judgments they would deliver in disputes between persons—and the Levitical law—that is, God's rule concerning the rites and ceremonies of the priests and Levites—were all delivered to them through Moses alone. They therefore became laws by virtue of the same promise to obey Moses. The text does not say whether these laws were written at the time or were dictated orally by Moses to the people after his forty days with God on the mountain. But they were all positive laws, equivalent to holy Scripture, and made canonical by Moses, the civil Soveraigne.

When the Israelites reached the plains of Moab opposite Jericho and were ready to enter the promised land, Moses added various laws to the former ones. These are therefore called Deuteronomy, that is, Second Laws. They are, as written in Deut. 29.1., “the words of a Covenant which the Lord commanded Moses to make with the children of Israel, besides the Covenant he made with them in Horeb.” For after explaining the earlier laws at the beginning of Deuteronomy, Moses adds others, beginning in chapter 12. and continuing to the end of chapter 26. of that book. They were commanded (Deut. 27.1.) to write this law on large plastered stones as they crossed the Jordan. Moses himself also wrote it in a book, delivered it into the hands of the “priests and the elders of Israel” (Deut. 31.9.), and commanded (verse 26.) that it “be placed beside the Ark”; for the Ark itself contained only the Ten Commandments. This was the law of which Moses (Deuteronomy 17.18.) commanded the kings of Israel to keep a copy. And this was the law which, after being lost for a long time, was found again in the Temple under Josiah and received by his authority as the law of God. But Moses when he wrote it and Josiah when he recovered it both held civil sovereignty. Thus far, then, the power to make Scripture canonical belonged to the civil Soveraigne.

Apart from this Book of the Law, no book from the time of Moses until after the Captivity was received among the Jews as the law of God. For most of the prophets lived during the Captivity itself, and the others lived only a little before it. Their prophecies were so far from being generally received as laws that the prophets themselves were persecuted, partly by false prophets and partly by kings led astray by them. And this very book, which Josiah confirmed as the law of God, together with the whole history of God's works, was lost during the Captivity and the sack of Jerusalem, as appears in 2 Esdras 14.21.: “Your Law has been burned; therefore no one knows the things you have done, or the works that shall begin.” Before the Captivity, between the loss of the law—which Scripture does not mention, though it may plausibly be placed in Rehoboam's time, when Shishak king of Egypt plundered the Temple (1 Kings 14.26.)—and its rediscovery under Josiah, they had no written Word of God. They governed by their own judgment or followed the guidance of those whom they individually considered prophets.

From this we may infer that the Scriptures of the Old Testament as we have them today were neither canonical nor law for the Jews until their Covenant with God was renewed on their return from the Captivity and their Common-wealth was restored under Esdras. From then onward they were regarded as the law of the Jews, translated as such into Greek by Seventy elders of Judaea, deposited in Ptolemy's library at Alexandria, and approved as the Word of God. Since Esdras was the high priest, and the high priest was their civil Soveraigne, it is clear that Scripture was never made law except by the sovereign civil power.

The New Testament began to be canonical under Christian Soveraigns. From the writings of the fathers who lived before the Christian religion was received and authorized by Constantine the Emperor, we can see that Christians of that time regarded the books we now have in the New Testament as the dictates of the Holy Ghost, and consequently as the canon or rule of faith. There were a few exceptions, whose small number led to the others' being called the Catholic Church and themselves heretics. Such was the reverence and esteem Christians had for their teachers; indeed, in every field, disciples ordinarily hold the first masters from whom they receive their teaching in no small reverence. There is therefore no doubt that when St. Paul wrote to churches he had converted, or any other Apostle or disciple of Christ wrote to those who had embraced Christ, they received those writings as true Christian doctrine. But at that time it was the faith of the hearer, not the power or authority of the teacher, that led him to receive it. Thus the Apostles did not make their own writings canonical; each convert made them so for himself.

But our question is not what any Christian made a law or canon for himself—for by the same right he accepted it, he might reject it again—but what was made a canon for Christians in such a way that they could not act contrary to it without injustice. For the New Testament to be canonical in this sense—that is, to be law wherever the law of the Common-wealth had not made it law—is contrary to the nature of law. A law, as already shown, is the command of the man or assembly to whom we have given sovereign authority to establish whatever rules he thinks fit to guide our actions, and to punish us when we act against them. Thus when anyone else offers us rules not prescribed by the sovereign ruler, these are only counsel and advice. Whether good or bad, the person advised may refuse to follow them without injustice; and if they conflict with established laws, he cannot follow them without injustice, however good he considers them. I mean that in this case he cannot follow them in his actions or in his speech with others, though he may without blame believe his private teachers and wish that he were free to follow their advice and that it were publicly accepted as law. For inward faith is by nature invisible and consequently beyond all human jurisdiction; whereas words and actions proceeding from it, when they breach our civil obedience, are injustice before both God and man. Since our Savior has denied that his Kingdom is of this world, and has said that he came not to judge the world but to save it, he has not subjected us to laws other than those of the Common-wealth: the Jews to the law of Moses (which, he says in Mat. 5., he came not to destroy but to fulfill), other nations to the laws of their respective Soveraigns, and all people to the Laws of Nature. Both he and his Apostles taught us to observe those laws as a necessary condition of admission on the last day into his eternal Kingdom, where there will be protection and everlasting life. Since, therefore, our Savior and his Apostles left us no new laws binding us in this world, but new doctrine to prepare us for the next, the books of the New Testament containing that doctrine were not obligatory canons, or laws, until obedience to them was commanded by those to whom God had given legislative power on earth. They were only good and safe advice to guide sinners toward salvation, which each person might accept or refuse at his own peril without committing injustice.

Again, our Savior Christ commissioned his Apostles and disciples to proclaim his Kingdom, not as present but as yet to come; to teach all nations; to baptize those who believed; to enter the houses of those who received them; and, where they were not received, to shake the dust from their feet against the inhabitants. He did not commission them to call down fire from heaven to destroy those people or to compel their obedience by the sword. In all this there is no power, only persuasion. He sent them as sheep among wolves, not as kings among subjects. Their commission was not to make laws but to obey and teach obedience to laws already made. Consequently they could not make their writings obligatory canons without the assistance of the sovereign civil power. Thus the Scripture of the New Testament is law only where lawful civil power has made it so. There, too, the king or Soveraigne makes it law for himself, thereby subjecting himself not to the teacher or Apostle who converted him, but to God himself and his Son Jesus Christ, as directly as the Apostles themselves did.

When a difficult question arose, the apostles and elders of the church met and decided what should be preached and taught, and how they should interpret Scripture for the people. But they did not take away the people's freedom to read and interpret it for themselves. The apostles sent the churches various letters and other writings to instruct them. This would have been pointless if the churches were not allowed to interpret these writings, that is, to consider what they meant. What was true in the apostles' time had to remain true until there were pastors able to authorize an interpreter whose interpretation everyone had to accept. But that could not happen until kings became pastors or pastors became kings.

A writing can be called canonical in two senses. A canon is a rule, and a rule is a direction that guides a person in any kind of action. Directions from a teacher to a student, or a counselor to a friend, are still canons or rules, even if the giver cannot force the recipient to follow them. But when the rules come from someone the recipient is bound to obey, these canons are not only rules but laws. Our question here, then, is who has the power to make the Scriptures, the rules of Christian faith, into laws.

The first part of Scripture to become law was the Ten Commandments. God himself wrote them on two stone tablets, gave them to Moses, and Moses made them known to the people. Before then God had given no written law. He had not yet chosen a people to be his special Kingdom, so he had given people only the Law of Nature: the rules of natural reason written in every person's heart. The first tablet contains the law of Sovereignty. 1. They must not obey or honor other nations' gods. Its words are “Non habebis Deos alienos coram me,” meaning, “Do not have as gods the gods other nations worship; have only me.” This forbade them to obey or honor any god as their King and Governor other than the one who spoke to them then through Moses and later through the high priest. 2. They “must not make any image to represent him.” They were not to choose any representative for themselves, imagined to be in heaven or on earth. They were instead to obey Moses and Aaron, whom God appointed to that office. 3. They “must not take God's name in vain.” They must not speak carelessly about their King or dispute his right to rule or the authority he gave his deputies, Moses and Aaron. 4. They “must stop their ordinary work every seventh day” and spend that time honoring him publicly. The second tablet gives people's duties to one another: “Honor your parents; do not kill; do not commit adultery; do not steal; do not corrupt judgment through false testimony”; and finally, “Do not even plan in your heart to injure one another.” Our question now is who gave these written tablets the binding force of laws. God himself certainly made them laws. Yet a law binds a person, and is a law for that person, only if the person acknowledges it as the Sovereign's act. The people of Israel were forbidden to approach the mountain and hear what God said to Moses. How, then, could Moses' presentation of all these laws bind them to obey? Some were laws of Nature, including all of the second tablet. They were therefore recognized as God's laws by all peoples, not just the Israelites. But the question remains for the laws specific to the Israelites, like those of the first tablet. There is this qualification: immediately after Moses presented the laws, they bound themselves to obey him, saying (Exod. 20.19.), “You speak to us, and we will listen; but do not let God speak to us, or we will die.” Therefore only Moses, and after him the high priest, whom God appointed through Moses to administer this special Kingdom, had the power on earth to make this brief Scripture, the Ten Commandments, law in the Common-wealth of Israel. Moses, Aaron, and the later high priests were the civil Sovereigns. So up to this point, making Scripture canonical, or making it law, belonged to the civil Sovereign.

God prescribed the judicial law for Israel's magistrates. It governed how they administered justice and what sentences or judgments they gave in disputes between individuals. He also prescribed the Levitical law, governing the rituals and ceremonies of priests and Levites. Moses alone delivered all these laws to them. They therefore also became laws through the same promise to obey Moses. The text does not say whether these laws had been written down at that time, or whether Moses dictated them to the people after his forty days with God on the mountain. Either way, all were positive laws, equivalent to holy Scripture, and made canonical by Moses, the civil Sovereign.

After the Israelites reached the plains of Moab, opposite Jericho, and were about to enter the Promised Land, Moses added various laws to the earlier ones. They are therefore called Deuteronomy, meaning “Second Laws.” As Deut. 29.1. says, they are “the words of a Covenant which the Lord commanded Moses to make with the children of Israel, besides the Covenant he made with them at Horeb.” After explaining the earlier laws at the beginning of Deuteronomy, Moses adds laws starting in chapter 12. and continuing through the end of chapter 26. As they crossed the Jordan, they were commanded (Deut. 27.1.) to write this law on large plaster-covered stones. Moses himself also wrote this law in a book, gave it to the “priests and elders of Israel” (Deut. 31.9.), and commanded (verse 26.) that it “be placed beside the Ark.” The Ark itself contained only the Ten Commandments. This is the law Moses ordered the kings of Israel to keep a copy of (Deuteronomy 17.18.). After it had been lost for a long time, it was found again in the Temple in Josiah's time and accepted as God's law by Josiah's authority. Both Moses when it was written and Josiah when it was recovered held civil Sovereignty. So up to this point, the power to make Scripture canonical belonged to the civil Sovereign.

Between the time of Moses and the return from captivity, the Jews accepted no book besides this Book of the Law as God's law. The prophets, except for a few, lived during the captivity itself, while the rest lived only a short time before it. Their prophecies were far from being generally accepted as laws. The prophets themselves were persecuted, partly by false prophets and partly by kings those false prophets misled. The Book of the Law itself, which Josiah had confirmed as God's law, was lost along with the whole history of God's works when Jerusalem was sacked and its people carried into captivity. This appears from 2 Esdras 14.21.: “Your Law has been burned; therefore no one knows the things you have done or the works that will begin.” Before the captivity, during the interval between the loss of the law and its recovery under Josiah, they had no written Word of God. Scripture does not say when it was lost, but it may well have happened under Rehoboam, when Shishak, king of Egypt, plundered the Temple (1 Kings 14.26.). During that interval, the people governed according to their own judgment or followed the guidance of people each of them took to be prophets.

We may infer from this that the Old Testament Scriptures we have today were not canonical or binding law for the Jews until they renewed their Covenant with God on returning from captivity and restored their Common-wealth under Esdras. From then on these Scriptures were regarded as the law of the Jews. As such, they were translated into Greek by Seventy elders of Judea, placed in Ptolemy's library at Alexandria, and accepted as the Word of God. Esdras was the high priest, and the high priest was their civil Sovereign. Clearly, then, only the sovereign civil power ever made the Scriptures into laws.

The New Testament began to be canonical under Christian Sovereigns. From the writings of the early church leaders who lived before Emperor Constantine accepted and authorized Christianity, we can see what Christians of that period thought about the New Testament books we now have. Apart from a few dissenters, they took these books to be the words of the Holy Spirit and therefore the canon or rule of faith. Because the dissenters were few, the rest were called the Catholic Church, and the dissenters were called heretics. The believers held their teachers in high regard, just as students generally hold their first teachers in high regard, whatever subject those teachers have taught them. So when St. Paul wrote to churches he had converted, or another apostle or disciple of Christ wrote to those who had embraced Christ, they certainly accepted these writings as true Christian teaching. But at that time the listener's faith, not the teacher's power or authority, caused the listener to accept the teaching. Thus the apostles did not make their own writings canonical; each convert made the writings canonical for himself.

Our question, however, is not what an individual Christian made a law or canon for himself, since he could reject it again by the same right by which he accepted it. Our question is what became a canon binding people so that acting against it would be unjust. For the New Testament to be canonical in this sense, or law, anywhere that the law of the Common-wealth had not made it so would contradict the nature of law. As already shown, law is the command of the person or assembly to whom we have given sovereign authority to set whatever rules for our actions they think fit and to punish us for breaking them. If anyone else offers us rules the Sovereign has not prescribed, those rules are only counsel and advice. A person may refuse to follow such advice without injustice, whether it is good or bad. And if it conflicts with established laws, a person cannot follow it without injustice, however good it seems. In that case, I mean, one cannot follow it in one's actions or in speech to others. One may nevertheless believe one's private teachers without blame and wish for the freedom to act on their advice and for that advice to become public law. Inner faith is invisible by its nature and therefore outside all human jurisdiction. But when words and actions arising from it break our duty of civil obedience, they are unjust before both God and humanity. Our Savior said his Kingdom was not of this world and that he came not to judge the world but to save it. He therefore subjected us to no laws other than those of the Common-wealth: the Jews to the law of Moses, which he said (Mat. 5.) he came not to destroy but to fulfill; other nations to the laws of their respective Sovereigns; and everyone to the laws of Nature. He and his apostles taught that observing these laws was a necessary condition for admission on the last day into his eternal Kingdom, where there will be protection and everlasting life. Our Savior and his apostles left us no new laws binding us in this world, but new teaching to prepare us for the next. Thus, until the people to whom God gave earthly lawmaking power commanded obedience to the New Testament books containing this teaching, they were not binding canons or laws. They were only good, safe advice directing sinners toward salvation. Anyone could accept or refuse that advice at their own peril, but without committing an injustice by refusing it.

Furthermore, our Savior commissioned his apostles and disciples to proclaim his Kingdom, which was to come, not already present. They were to teach all nations and baptize believers, enter the homes of people who welcomed them, and shake the dust off their feet against those who did not. They were not to call down fire from heaven to destroy those people or force them to obey by the sword. All this involves persuasion, not power. He sent them as sheep among wolves, not as kings among subjects. Their commission was not to make laws but to obey laws already made and teach others to obey them. So they could not make their writings binding canons without help from the sovereign civil power. The New Testament is therefore law only where lawful civil power has made it so. And there the king or Sovereign also makes it law for himself. In doing so he subjects himself not to the teacher or apostle who converted him, but directly to God and his Son Jesus Christ, as the apostles themselves did.