_Soc._ First, If you can shew me _an unanimous consent_ of the Church Catholick of all ages in this point, and that as held necessary, I will willingly submit to it. But this you can never do according to such a proof thereof, as is required, _viz._ [26]_That all Catholick Writers agree in the belief of it; and none of them oppose it: and agree also in the belief of the necessity of it to all Christians. * That no later Writers and Fathers, in opposition of Hereticks, or heats of contention, judged then the Article so opposed to be more necessary than it was judged before the contention. * That all Writers, that give an account of the faith of Christians, deliver it; And deliver it not as necessary to be believed by such as might be convinced that it is of divine Revelation, but with a necessity of its being explicitely believed by all_[27]. Now, no such unanimous consent can be pretended for the forementioned _Consubstantiality_. For, not to speak of the times next following the Council of _Nice_, nor yet of several expressions in the Ancients, _Justin Martyr_, _Irenæus_, _Tertullian_, _Clemens Alexandrinus_, _Origen_, that seem to favour our opinion[28]: Nor, of those Eastern Bishops, which _Arrius_, in his Letter to _Eusebius Nicomed._[29] (numbers on his side,) _Hilarius_[30] relates no less than Eighty Bishops before that Council, to have disallowed the reception of the word +homousios+; and in the Council also Seventeen, (some of note) at first to have dissented from the rest. §. 14. _Prot._ Not yeilding what you say for truth; but for the present, supposing it; yet the Judgment of so _small_ a _party_ may by no means be adhered to by you, it being inconsiderable in respect of the _whole Body_ of the Catholick Church declaring against you. _Soc._ If the consent of the much major part is to be taken for the whole, then the Reformed cannot maintain their dissent from the much more numerous body of Christianity, that opposed their opinions, and sense of Scriptures at the beginning of the Reformation, and do still oppose them. But not to stand upon this, I would willingly conform to the unanimous, or most general judgment of the Church Catholick; if I were secure that she could not be mistaken in it. But [31]_The sense of the Church Catholick is no infallible rule of interpreting Scripture in all things which concern the Rule of Faith--[32]Nor may she usurp that royal Prerogative of Heaven, in prescribing infallibly in matters questioned._ _Prot._ You may be secure, that she never erreth in any point _necessary_. _Soc._ But you tell me, that though she never err in necessaries, yet it follows not, that she is an _unerring Guide or Witness_ therein[33] or, _that she must unerringly declare what points are necessary and what not_; and I must first learn, whether this point of _Consubstantiality_ is to be numbred among _necessaries_, before I can be assured, that the sense of the Church Catholick errs not therein. §. 15.