(1.) It is a manifest apostasy from the faith, and a clear proof of arrogance, either to disregard any matter of THE THINGS WHICH ARE WRITTEN, Or to introduce argumentatively any matter of THE THINGS WHICH ARE NOT WRITTEN. [37b]
(2.) THE THINGS WHICH ARE WRITTEN believe: THE THINGS WHICH ARE NOT WRITTEN Seek not after. [37c]
8. Let us next hear Jerome in the fourth and fifth centuries.
(1.) As we deny not THE THINGS WHICH ARE WRITTEN: SO THE THINGS WHICH ARE NOT WRITTEN we reject. We believe, that God was born of a virgin; BECAUSE WE READ IT: we believe not, that Mary was married after her parturition; BECAUSE WE READ IT NOT. [37d]
(2.) Learn, then, in THE DIVINE SCRIPTURES, through which ALONE you can understand the full will of God, that some things are prohibited and that other things are commanded, that some things are granted and that other things are persuaded. [37e]
9. Finally, let us hear Augustine in the fourth and fifth centuries.
Demonstrate, from any one of THE CANONICAL APOSTLES AND PROPHETS, the truth of what Cyprian has written to Jubaianus: and I should then have no room for contradiction. But now, since what you produce is NOT CANONICAL; through the liberty, to which the Lord hath called us, I receive not the decision. [37f]
IV. From the evidence now faithfully laid before him, the prudent inquirer is invited to judge for himself: whether the romish doctrine, of the concurrent EQUAL authority of Unwritten Tradition and the insufficiency of the Written Word alone, be warranted either by Scripture or by the early Fathers.
Meanwhile the following questions may not be altogether unworthy of his attention.
1. Do, or do not, the doctors of the Council of Trent, agreeably to their own formal and distinct profession, follow the example of the old orthodox Fathers, when they decide: that the Written Word of God, and the Unwritten Traditions of the Latin Church, are to be received by the faithful with an EQUAL affection and pious reverence?