se of personal inquiry. He
proceeds:--

"Here some man, perhaps, may ask, seeing the canon of the Scripture
is perfect, and most abundantly of itself sufficient for all
things, what need we join unto it the authority of the Church's
understanding and interpretation? The reason is this, because the
Scripture being of itself so deep and profound, all men do not
understand it in one and the same sense, but divers men diversely,
this man and that man, this way and that way, expound and interpret
the sayings thereof, so that to one's thinking, 'so many men, so
many opinions' almost may be gathered out of them: for Novatian
expoundeth it one way, Photinus another; Sabellius after this sort,
Donatus after that; Arius, Eunomius, Macedonius will have this
exposition, Apollinaris and Priscilian will have that; Jovinian,
Pelagius, Celestius, gather this sense, and, to conclude, Nestorius
findeth out that; and therefore very necessary it is for the
avoiding of so great windings and turnings, of errors so various,
that the line of expounding the Prophets and Apostles be directed
and drawn, according to the rule of the Ecclesiastical and Catholic
sense.

"Again, within the Catholic Church itself we are greatly to consider
that we hold that which hath been believed _everywhere_, _always_,
and _of all men_: for that is truly and properly _Catholic_ (as the
very force and nature of the word doth declare) which comprehendeth
all things in general after an universal manner, and that shall we
do if we follow _universality, antiquity, consent_. Universality
shall we follow thus, if we profess that one faith to be true which
the whole Church throughout the world acknowledgeth and confesseth.
Antiquity shall we follow, if we depart not any whit from those
senses which it is plain that our holy elders and fathers generally
held. Consent shall we likewise follow, if in this very Antiquity
itself we hold the definitions and opinions of all, or at any rate
almost all, the priests and doctors together."--_Ch._ 2, 3.

It is sometimes said, that what is called orthodoxy or Catholicism is
only the opinion of one or two Fathers--- fallible men, however able
they might be, or persuasive--who created a theology, and imposed it on
their generation, and thereby superseded Scriptural truth and the real
gospel. L