IV. Now as it can be to nature no injury that of her we say the same which diligent beholders of her works have observed; namely, that she provideth for all living creatures nourishment which may suffice; that she bringeth forth no kind of creature whereto she is wanting in that which is needful1: although we do not so far magnify her exceeding bounty, as to affirm that she bringeth into the world the sons of men adorned with gorgeous attire, or maketh costly buildings to spring up out of the earth for them: so I trust that to mention what the Scripture of God leaveth unto the Church’s discretion in some things, is not in any thing to impair the honour which the Church of God yieldeth to the sacred Scripture’s perfection. Wherein seeing that no more is by us maintained, than only that Scripture must needs teach the Church whatsoever is in such sort necessary as hath been set down; and that it is no more disgrace for Scripture to have left a number of other things free to be ordered at the discretion of the Church, than for nature to have left it unto the wit of man to devise his own attire, and not to look for it as the beasts of the field have theirs: if neither this can import, nor any other proof sufficient be brought forth, that we either will at any time or ever did affirm the sacred Scripture to comprehend no more than only those bare necessaries; if we acknowledge that as well for particular application to special occasions, as also in other manifold respects, infinite treasures of wisdom are over and besides abundantly to be found in the Holy Scripture; yea, that scarcely there is any noble part of knowledge, worthy the mind of man, but from thence it may have some direction and light; yea, that although there be no necessity it should of purpose prescribe any one particular form of church government, yet touching the manner of governing in general the precepts that Scripture setteth down are not few, and the examples many which it proposeth for all church governors even in particularities to follow; yea, that those things finally which are of principal weight in the very particular form of church polity (although not that form which they imagine, but that which we against them uphold) are in the selfsame Scriptures contained: if all this be willingly granted by us which are accused “to pin the word of God in so narrow room, as that it should be able to direct us but in principal points of our religion; or as though the substance of religion or some rude and unfashioned matter of building the Church were uttered in them, and those things left out that should pertain to the form and fashion of it;” let the cause of the accused be referred to the accusers’ own conscience, and let that judge whether this accusation be deserved where it hath been laid.
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Footnotes
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Arist. Pol. lib. i. cap. 8. et Plato in Menex. [t. ii. 237. E. ed. Serrani. πα̑ν γὰρ τὸ τεκὸν τροϕὴν ἔχει ἐπιτήδειαν ὠ̑ν ἂν τέκῃ.] Arist. lib. iii. de Animal. c. 4, 5. ↩