Monday, January 2, 2017

The Second Helvetic Confession and the Testimony of the Holy Spirit

The Second Helvetic Confession, from 1566, under chapter 1, “Of the Holy Scripture Being the True Word of God,” we read the following in section 5:


Neither do we think that therefore the outward reaching is to be thought as fruitless because the instruction in true religion depends on the inward illumination of the Spirit, or because it is written ‘No man shall teach his neighor; for all men shall know me’ (Jer. xxxi. 34), and ‘he that watereth, or he that planteth, is nothing, but God that giveth the increase’ (1 Cor. iii. 7). For albeit ‘No man can come to Christ, unless he be drawn by the Heavenly Father’ (John vi. 44), and be inwardly lightened by the Holy Spirit, yet we know undoubtedly that it is the will of God that his word should be preached even outwardly. God could indeed, by his Holy Spirit, or by the ministry of an angel, without the ministry of St. Peter, have taught Cornelius in the Acts; but, nevertheless, he refers him to Peter, of whom the angel speaking says, ‘He shall tell thee what thou oughtest to do’ (Acts x. 6) (Philip Schaff, The Creeds of Christendom, vol. III: The Evangelical Protestant Creeds [revised by David S. Schaff; New York: Harper and Row, 1931; repr., Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Books, 2007], 832; emphasis added)