16. Now the sacred Scripture is entirely _the word of God_ in this second acception, as being that which we acknowledge to be inspired from God; and innumerable places of it, in the first. And seeing the greatest part of it is conversant either in the prediction of the _kingdom of heaven_, or in prefigurations before the incarnation of Christ, or in evangelization and explication after; the sacred Scripture is also _the word of God_, and therefore the canon and rule of all _evangelical doctrine_, in this third signification; where _the word of God_ is taken for _the word concerning God_, that is to say, for _the gospel_. But because in the same Scriptures we read many things political, historical, moral, physical, and others which nothing at all concern the mysteries of our faith; those places, although they contain true doctrine, and are the canon of such kind of doctrines, yet can they not be the canon of the mysteries of Christian religion. [Sidenote: The word of a lawful interpreter of Scriptures, is the word of God.] 17. And truly, it is not the dead voice or letter of _the word of God_, which is the canon of Christian doctrine; but a true and genuine determination. For the mind is not governed by Scriptures, unless they be understood. There is need therefore of an interpreter to make the Scriptures canon, and hence follows one of these two things; that either the word of the interpreter is the word of God, or that the canon of Christian doctrine is not the word of God. The last of these must necessarily be false; for the rule of that doctrine which cannot be known by any human reason, but by divine revelation only, cannot be less than divine; for whom we acknowledge not to be able to discern whether some doctrine be true or not, it is impossible to account his opinion for a rule in the same doctrine. The first therefore is true, _that the word of an interpreter of Scriptures is the word of God_. The authority of interpreting Scriptures, is the same with that of determining controversies of faith.