This edition of the Second Helvetic Confession as posted on CCEL While we list it here as a “historical document”, the Confession continues as one of two primary doctrinal standards for the Hungarian Reformed Churches. The designation “historical document” in this case does not minimize it’s current authority as a confession of the living Hungarian Reformed Church.

THE SECOND HELVETIC CONFESSION

CHAPTER I

Of The Holy Scripture Being The True
Word of God

CANONICAL SCRIPTURE. We believe and confess the canonical
Scriptures of the holy prophets and apostles of both Testaments to be the true
Word of God, and to have sufficient authority of themselves, not of men. For God
himself spoke to the fathers, prophets, apostles, and still speaks to us through
the Holy Scriptures.

And in this Holy Scripture, the universal Church of Christ
has the most complete exposition of all that pertains to a saving faith, and
also to the framing of a life acceptable to God; and in this respect it is
expressly commanded by God that nothing be either added to or taken from the
same.

SCRIPTURE TEACHES FULLY ALL GODLINESS. We judge,
therefore, that from these Scriptures are to be derived true wisdom and
godliness, the reformation and government of churches; as also instruction in
all duties of piety; and, to be short, the confirmation of doctrines, and the
rejection of all errors, moreover, all exhortations according to that word of
the apostle, “All scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching,
for reproof,” etc. (II Timothy 3:16-17). Again, “I am writing these
instructions to you,” says the apostle to Timothy, “So that you may
know how one ought to behave in the household of God,” etc. (I Timothy
3:14-15). SCRIPTURE IS THE WORD OF GOD. Again, the selfsame apostle to the
Thessalonians: “When,” says he, “You received the word of God
which you heard from us, you accepted it, not as the word of men but as what it
really is, the Word of God,” etc. (I Thess. 2:13) For the Lord himself has
said in the gospel, “It is not you who speak, but the Spirit of my Father
speaking through you”; therefore “He who hears you hears me, and he
who rejects me rejects him who sent me” (Matt. 10:20; Luke 10:16; John
13:20)

THE PREACHING OF THE WORD OF GOD IS THE WORD OF GOD.
Wherefore when this Word of God is now preached in the church by preachers
lawfully called, we believe that the very Word of God is proclaimed, and
received by the faithful; and that neither any other Word of God is to be
invented nor is to be expected from heaven: and that now the Word itself which
is preached is to be regarded, not the minister that preaches; for even if he be
evil and a sinner, nevertheless the Word of God remains still true and good.

Neither do we think that therefore the outward preaching 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 “And no
longer shall each man teach his neighbor…, for they shall all know me”
(Jer. 31:34), And “Neither he who plants nor he that waters is anything,
but only God who gives the growth” (I Cor. 3:7). For although “No
one can come to Christ unless he be drawn by the Father” (John 6:44), And
unless the Holy Spirit inwardly illumines him, yet we know that it is surely the
will of God that his Word should be preached outwardly also. 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 you what you ought
to do.”

INWARD ILLUMINATION DOES NOT ELIMINATE EXTERNAL PREACHING.
For he that illuminates inwardly by giving men the Holy Spirit, the same one,
by way of commandment, said unto his disciples, “Go into all the world, and
preach the gospel to the whole creation” (Mark 16:15). And so in
Phillippi, Paul preached the word outwardly to Lydia, a seller of purple goods;
but the Lord inwardly opened the woman’s heart (Acts 16:14). And the same Paul,
after a beautiful development of his thought, in Romans 10:17 at length comes
to the conclusion, “So faith comes from hearing and hearing from the Word
of God by the preaching of Christ.”

At the same time we recognize that God can illuminate whom
and when he will, Even without the external ministry, for that is in his power;
but we speak of the usual way of instructing men, delivered unto us from God,
both by commandment and examples.

HERESIES. We therefore detest all the heresies of
Artemon, the Manichaeans, the Valentinians, of Cerdon, and the Marcionites, who
deny that the Scriptures proceeded from the Holy Spirit; or did not accept some
parts of them, or interpolated and corrupted them.

APOCRYPHA. And yet we do not conceal the fact that certain
books of the Old Testament were by the ancient authors called apocryphal,
and by the others ecclesiastical; in as much as some would have them
read in the churches, but not advanced as an authority from which the faith is
to be established. As Augustine also, in his De Civitate Dei, book 18,
ch. 38, remarks that “In the books of the Kings, the names and books of
certain prophets are cited”; but he adds that “They are not in the
canon”; and that “those books which we have suffice unto godliness.”

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