As soon as I receive any writing as inspired by the Spirit of Truth, of course I must believe it on its own authority. But how am I assured that it is an inspired work? Now do not these Fathers reply, By the Church? To the Church it belongs to declare what books are Holy Scriptures, and to interpret their right sense. Is not this the common doctrine among the Fathers? And how was the Church to judge? First, by the same spirit surviving in her; and secondly by the accordance of the Book itself with the canon of faith, that is the Baptismal Creed. And what was this? 'Traditio Ecclesiastica'. As to myself, I agree with Taylor against the Romanists, that the Bible is for us the only rule of faith; but I do not adopt his mode of proving it. In the earliest period of Christianity the Scriptures of the New Testament and the Ecclesiastical Tradition were reciprocally tests of each other; but for the Christians of the second century the Scriptures were tried by the Ecclesiastical Tradition, while for us the order is reversed, and we must try the Ecclesiastical Tradition by the Scriptures. Therefore I do not expect to find the proofs of the supremacy of Scripture in the early Fathers, nor do we need their authority. Our proofs are stronger without it. Ib. p. 403. Which words I the rather remark, because this article of the consubstantiality of Christ with the Father is brought as an instance (by the Romanists) of the necessity of tradition, to make up the insufficiency of Scripture. How shall I make this rhyme to Taylor's own assertion, in the last paragraph of sect. xix. of his Episcopacy Asserted, [20] in which he clearly refers to this very question as relying on tradition for its clearness? Jeremy Taylor was a true Father of the Church, and would furnish as fine a subject for a 'concordantia discordantiarum' as St. Austin himself. For the exoteric and esoteric he was a very Pythagoras. Ib. p. 406. ... for one or two of them say, Theophilus spake against Origen, for broaching fopperies of his own, and particularly, that Christ's flesh was consubstantial with the Godhead. Origen doubtless meant the 'caro noumenon', and was quite right. But never was a great man so misunderstood as Origen. Ib. p. 408. n. 'Sed et alia, quoe absque auctoritate et testimoniis Scripturarum, quasi traditione Apostolica, sponte reperiunt atque contingunt, percutit gladius Dei'. "Those things which they make and find, as it were, by Apostolical tradition, without the authority and testimonies of Scripture, the word of God smites." Is it clear that 'Scripturarum' depends on 'auctoritate'? It may well mean they who without the authority of the Church, or Scriptural testimony pretend to an Apostolical Tradition. Ib. p. 411.