the name of some one of the Apostles, in which you may read that Christ was not born of Mary. As one of these books must lie, which, think you, should be credited ? That, which the Church, founded by Christ, propagated by the Apostles, spread through the world, received and has preserved : or that which the same Church rejects as unknown to her? Ibid. L. xxviii. c. 2, p. 440.—“If every art, how. ever low and easy of attainment, still, to be acquired, demands a teacher; what can be more arrogant, than not to be willing to learn those books of divine mysteries from their proper interpreters, and to condemn what is not understood.” L. de utilitate credendi, c. 17, T. viii. p. 69. “ For my part,” he says to a Manichean heretic, “ I would not give credit to the Gospel, unless the authority of the Catholic Church induced me to it.” Contra ep. Fundam. Ibid. p. 154.
VINCENT OF LERINS, L. C. But some may say: If the devil and his disciples, and in general all heretics, use the Scriptures for their own purposes, how are Catholics to discern truth from falsehood in the holy writings?—This they will do, by studiously following the method handed down to us by the holy and learned men, who are gone before us; that is, by interpreting the Scriptures according to the traditions of the Universal Church, and the rules of Catholic faith; in which Catholic and Apostolic Church, they must also be guided by universality, antiquity, and unanimous consent." Com. c. xxvii. p. 360.
