The elegant and convincing logic of Philip Melancthon, the greatest theologian of the sixteenth century—who, in the following brief lines, discussed and summed up the whole question—is just as sound and unanswerable now as it was when, under the blessing of God, it carried confusion and defeat into the ranks of the papacy, three hundred years ago. He says: “How often has not Jerome been mistaken! how often Augustine! how often Ambrose! How often do we not find them differing in judgment—how often do we not hear them retracting their errors! There is but one Scripture divinely inspired, and without mixture of error.” (_Idem._, p. 219.) In fine, we might prove from history that nearly every Protestant writer, for the last three centuries, has forged for us weapons which could be employed with the most telling effect in the controversy in which we are now engaged. This, however, we have not space to do, but must content ourselves with several brief citations, by which we will show that the authorities of our own times—equally with those of the past—are uniform in their expressions of contempt for testimony which is so largely relied upon by our reviewer in the present discussion. “To avoid being imposed upon, we ought to treat tradition as we do a notorious and known liar, to whom we give no credit, unless what he says is confirmed to us by some person of undoubted veracity.... False and lying traditions are of an early date, and the greatest men have, out of a pious credulity, suffered themselves to be imposed upon by them.—_Archibald Bower._ “But of these, we may safely state that there is not a _truth_ of the most orthodox creed that cannot be proved by their authority; nor a _heresy_ that has disgraced the Romish church, that may not challenge them as it abettors. In point of _doctrine_, their authority is, _with me, nothing_. The WORD of God alone contains my creed. On a number of points, I can go to the Greek and Latin fathers of the church, to know what _they believed_, and what the people of their respective communions believed; but after all this, I must return to God’s word to know what he would have me to believe.” (A. Clark, Com. on Prov. 8.) “We should take heed how we quote the fathers in proof of the doctrines of the gospel; because he who knows them best, knows that on many of those subjects they blow hot and cold.” (Quoted in Hist. of Sab. from Autobiography of Adam Clarke.)