Second Helvetic Confession of 1566

<p>Excerpts from the Confession (see URL/link for English text of the full confession):</p>

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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.</p>

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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."</p>