This may be my last post in the brief series on the origin of the term Biblicist and how the retrieval of its meaning is ignored (mostly by those who laud their efforts at retrieval). In Part 1, I discussed what Matthew Barrett referred to as the first usage of the term in English from 1827. It was a pejorative reference from a Roman Catholic Priest against the Reformed belief in Sola Scriptura. Then, in Part 2, I discussed other uses of the term from the 19th Century.
Now in Part 3, we will see how the use of the term as a pejorative by a Roman Catholic against the Reformed was nothing new in 1827. This had been happening for at least 140 years!
In a Reformed work published in 1688 titled “Popery Not Founded On Scripture, Or, the Texts Which Papists Cite Out of the Bible: An Examination of Their Texts Concerning the Obscurity of the Holy Scripture” we have a much earlier use of a variation of the term. Though if any of those who don’t like the term “biblicist” would prefer to use the term “biblist” for themselves, I would be OK with that. But I doubt anyone will claim there is a difference in using one term over the other.
Here is the title page of the work. It is actually a compilation of several essays from various contributors. We will be discussing the introduction below, and the author of the introduction is not specified.
As we dive right in to the first sentence in the introduction, we read the following:
“The Faith of the Reformed has, by some of their Adversaries of the Roman Persuasion, been called Biblism: And they themselves have had he Name of Biblists given to them. And these they look upon as Names of Honour, though they were intended as marks of Infamy by the Inventers of them; for it is both a safe and worthy practice, to take, for their Rule, the Word of God, rather than the Word of Man.” Then Athanasius is cited as in agreement “That the Holy and divine Scriptures are of themselves sufficient for showing the Truth.”
Right away we see that the Reformed authors of this work (including Thomas Tenison who would himself be an Archbishop of Canterbury) taking the name Biblist as a “Name of Honour”.
On page 8 in the introduction, we also have this bonus statement in affirmation of Martin Luther being among the Biblists: “Whilst Luther cited the Holy Scriptures, Cajetan cited the Decree of Pope Clement, and Thomas Aquinas.”
This is precisely the type of Reformed Biblicism that we have been promoting and retrieving for years. Hopefully you will join us in taking this Reformed Name of Honor!
In closing, I would be remiss to not point out the irony in what was likely one of the very first uses of biblicist/biblist. The irony is that it was claimed as a Name of Honor by Anglicans in the 17th Century and now Matthew Barrett has become an Anglican. Perhaps now he can feel at home in calling himself a Biblicist!!
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