Encyclopedia of sacred theology - pagina 411

Chap.

II]

TO JUDGE THE SPECIAL PRINCIPIUM ?

387

The acceptance of this principium in the end it. cannot rest upon anything save the witness of the Holy Spirit^ even as the acceptance of the natural principium has

accept

never rested upon anything save the witness of our spirit, If this testimonium of our i.e. of our self-consciousness. fails then us, we become sceptics or insane self-consciousness ;

and, in like manner,

present in us, or

is

if

the Avitness of the Holy Spirit

at least inactive in us,

we

is

not

cannot reckon

with a special principium. The effort, therefore, put forth by theology in the days of the Reformation to derive from the Scripture itself proofs for its divine character, is devoid of all force with the opponent. in a circle,

Scripture rectly

by

Not because of the objection, that you reason by seeking from the Scripture itself what the

is.

Our

answered this corargument was not meant authori-

earlier theologians

saying, that this

but ratiocinative ; that the glitter of the sappliire and that in like could only be proven by the sapphire manner the divine majesty of the Holy Scripture could only tative,

;

But however accurate this you show the most beauti-

shine out from that Scripture.

statement was, what avail

is it, if

ful sapphire to one blind, or to

blind people

who

one of " that worst kind of

refuse to see "

?

One

needs, therefore,

but examine the series of these proofs for a moment, and it is at once perceived how utterly devoid of force they are over against him who merely accepts the natural principium. The miracles and the fulfilment of prophecy, indeed, have

been pointed

who all

to, as if

these

had some power

of proof for

him

denies the very possibility of miracle and emasculates

concretely fulfilled prophecy as being "projihecy after

the event" (vaticinium ex eventu).

The

divine character

though criticism had not already then been exercised against it, and, as it was The majestic style claimed, its insufficiency been shown. of the Scriptures was referred to, the consensus of its books, the effectiveness of its entire content, as though even then the arms were not already being welded by which each of these attributes of the Scripture would be disputed, or of the Doctrina Scripturae

was

cited, as

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