III.

(The Scriptures, cap. xvi. [^132]p. 550, note 3.)

The Primitive Fathers never dream of anything as dogma which cannot be proved by the Scriptures, save only that the apostolic traditions, clearly proved to be such, must be referred to in proving what is Holy Scripture. It is not possible to graft on this principle the slightest argument for any tradition not indisputably apostolic, so far as the de fide is concerned. Quod semper is the touchstone, in their conceptions, of all orthodoxy. No matter who may teach this or that, now or in any post-apostolic age, their test is Holy Scripture, and the inquiry, Was it always so taught and understood?