History of Protestantism in the Netherlands - James Aitken Wylie

did not enter into their minds that they were
forging a yoke for the conscience, or a fetter for the
understanding, and that they were setting up a
barrier beyond which men were not to adventure in
the inquiry after truth. Nothing was further from
the thoughts of the Reformers than this; they
claimed no lordship over the consciences of men.
The documents which they compiled and presented
to the world they styled not a decree, or a rise,
much less a creation, but a Confession, and they
issued their Confessions under this reservation, that
the Bible alone possessed inherent authority, that it
alone was complete and perfect, and that their
confession was only an approximation, to be
reviewed, altered, amended, enlarged, or
abbreviated according as believers advanced in the
more precise, full, and accurate understanding of
the meaning of the Spirit speaking in the Word. We
have nowhere found the views of the Reformers on
this point so admirably set forth as in the celebrated
John a Lasco's preface to his book on the
Sacraments; and as this is a matter on which great
misapprehension has been spread abroad, we shall
here give his words. Speaking of the union of the
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