own name (John v.) and that speaketh not of the Father, but of his own self. Beside this, the Scripture giveth no greater power to a general council than to two or three gathered in the name of the Lord, the which congregation hath authority to excommunicate him that rebelleth, and is stubborn and an open sinner; but it hath no authority to make precepts, and to thrust them into men's consciences that be free...

Moreover, the same things may chance (we do not doubt) to great and general councils, that have chanced unto the particular and provincial councils and surely I think and hold that then all things shall be more doubtful and uncertain, when the authority of the word doth fail, the which ought to be sound and undefiled. For the Church gave not authority to the word, but the word gave authority to the Church." The Old Learning and the New.

15. JEWELL, BISHOP OF SALISBURY.

"As the word of God is the light to direct us, and to bewray errors, so is it also the standard and beam to try the weights of truth and falsehood. Chrysostom, writing upon the twenty-fourth of Matthew, sheweth it were impossible for a man to stay himself, and find out which is the true Church, but by the word of God. "For it could not be tried by working of miracles, because the gift of working miracles is taken away; and such false miracles as carry some show, are rather to be found among false Christians; nor yet by their conversation and life, because Christians live either as ill or worse than heretics. There can be no trial of true Christianity, and Christians which desire to know the truth, whereupon they may build their faith, have no other refuge, but to try and learn this by the Scriptures. For (saith he) heretics have the counterfeit and likeness of those things which are proper to Christ;

they have Churches, they have the Scriptures of God, they have baptism, they have the Lord's supper, and all other things like the true Church; yea, they have Christ himself. He therefore that will know which is the true Church of Christ, how may he know it, but by the Scriptures. Therefore our Lord, knowing that there should be such confusion of things in the latter days, commandeth that Christians, which live in the profession of Christian faith, and are desirous to settle themselves upon a sure ground of faith, should go to no other thing, but to the Scriptures. Otherwise, if they have regard to other things, they should be offended and perish, and not understand which is the true Church."

What say we of the fathers, Augustine, Ambrose, Jerome, Cyprian, &c.? what shall we think of them, or what account may we make of them? They be interpreters of the word; they were learned men, and learned fathers; the instruments of the mercy of God, and vessels full of grace. We despise them not, we read them, we reverence them, and give thanks unto God for them. They were witnesses unto the truth, they were worthy pillars and ornaments in the Church of God. Yet may they not be compared with the word of God. We may not build upon them; we may not make them the foundation and warrant of our conscience; we may not put our trust in them. Our trust is in the name of the Lord. And thus we are taught to esteem of the learned fathers of the Church, by their own judgment; by that which they have written, either for the credit of their own doings, or of the authority which they have thought due to the writings of others. ..In this sort did Origen, and Augustine, and other doctors of the Church speak of themselves, and of theirs, and the writings of others, that we should so read them, and credit them, as they agreed with

the word of God.

not with a necessity to judge of them."

This kind of writing is to be read, of believing them, but with a liberty Treatise of the Holy Scriptures.

16. PARKER, ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY.

"Search therefore, good reader, (on God's name) as Christ biddeth thee, the Holy Scripture, wherein thou mayest find thy salvation... ...Let not the covert suspicious insinuations of the adversaries drive thee from the search of the Holy Scriptures, either for the obscurity which they say is in them, or for the inscrutable hidden mysteries they talk to be comprised in them, or for the strangeness and homeliness of the phrases they would charge God's book with. Christ exhorteth thee therefore the rather for the difficulty of the same to search them diligently. St. Paul willeth thee to have thy senses exercised in them, and not to be a child in thy senses, but in malice.

Though many things may be difficult to thee to understand, impute it rather to thy dull hearing and reading, than to think that the Scriptures be insuperable to them which with diligent searching labour to discern the evil from the good. Only search with an humble heart, ask in continual prayer, seek with purity of life, knock with perpetual perseverance, and cry to that good Spirit of Christ the Comforter; and surely to every such asker it will be given, such searchers must needs find, to them it will be opened.

What meant the fathers of the Church in their writings, but the advancing of these holy books? Where some do attribute no certainty of undoubted verity, but to the canonical Scriptures; some do affirm it to be a foolish rash boldness to believe him, who proveth not by the Scriptures that which he affirmeth in his word. Some do accurse all that is delivered by tradition, not found in the legal and evangelical Scriptures. Some say

that our faith must needs stagger, if it be not grounded upon the authority of Scripture. Some testify that Christ and his Church ought to be avouched out of the Scriptures, and do contend in disputation that the true Church cannot be known, but only by the Holy Scriptures. For all other things, saith the same author, may be found among the heretics. Some affirm it to be a sinful tradition, that is obtruded without the Scriptures; some plainly pronounce that not to know the Scriptures, is not to know Christ. Wherefore let men extol out the Church practices as highly as they can, and let them set out their traditions and customs, their decisions in synods and councils, with vaunting the presence of the Holy Ghost among them really, as some do affirm it in their writing; let their grounds and their demonstrations, their foundations, be as stable and as strong as they blaze them out, yet will we be bold to say with St. Peter, "Habemus nos firmiorem sermonem propheticum.”.......For this we know, that all the prophetical Scripture standeth not in any private interpretation of vain names, of several churches and Catholic and universal sees, of singular and wilful heads, which will challenge by custom all decisions to pertain to them only; who by working so much for their vain superiority, that they be not ashamed now to be of that number, "Qui dixerunt, linguam nostram magnificabimus, labia nostra nobis sunt, quis noster dominus est?" Preface to the Bible.

17. HOOKER, RECTOR OF BISHOP'S BOURNE. "Without the doctrine of the New Testament, teaching that Christ hath wrought the redemption of the world; which redemption the Old did foreshew He should work: it is not the former alone which can on our behalf perform so much as the Apostle doth avouch, who presupposeth this, when he magnifieth that so highly.

And as his words concerning the books of ancient Scripture do not take place but with pre-supposal of the Gospel of Christ embraced; so our own words also, when we extol the complete sufficiency of the whole entire body of the Scripture, must in like sort be understood with this caution, that the benefit of nature's light be not thought excluded as unnecessary, because the necessity of a diviner light is magnified. There is in Scripture therefore no defect, but that any man, what place or calling soever he hold in the Church of God, may have thereby the light of his natural understanding so perfected, that the one being relieved by the other, there can want no part of needful instruction unto any good work which God himself requireth, be it natural or supernatural, belonging simply unto men, as men; or unto men, as they are united in whatsoever kind of society. It sufficeth, therefore, that Nature and Scripture do serve in such full sort, that they both jointly, and not severally either of them, be so complete, that unto everlasting felicity we need not the knowledge of any thing more than these two may easily furnish our minds with on all sides. And therefore they which add Traditions, as a part of supernatural necessary truth, have not the truth, but are in error." Ecclesiastical Polity, Book i., c. 14.

18. HERBERT, RECTOR OF BEMERTON.

"The country parson is full of all knowledge.... But the chief and top of his knowledge consists in the book of books, the storehouse and magazine of life and comfort, the Holy Scriptures.... ..But for the

understanding of these; the means he useth are, first a holy life.......The second means is prayer.......The third means is a diligent collation of Scripture with Scripture. For all truth being consonant to itself, and