Treatise on the Free Investigation of the Canon

they are connected with moral concepts regarding the purpose of these past events. Both, therefore, retain their beneficial effect, which—like all reality—always comes from God; thus, it depends on the understanding of scholarly matters, or on the content and the mental representations of these things themselves, but not on the words that are spoken or written. Now, all books that possess such instructional content, whether in their entirety or in individual parts, truly remain a principle of knowledge original: "principium cognoscendi"; the source or basis by which we come to know a truth, both for the teacher and for every listener who thinks along with them. And these very truths are and remain, then, also directly the divine principle of practice original: "principium praxeos"; the basis for moral action or religious conduct, just as they carried divine effects with them at that time through the author of the speech or action. However, if in books or their parts no such teachings and instructions for inner spiritual improvement appear, but merely human actions and histories: then they are indeed included under the name Sacred Scripture original: "scriptura sacra"; but they do not, for that reason, belong to the principle of knowledge (if