Scripture is the analytic, proper, spiritual principle that settles controversy; without analytic ministry no spiritual proof

This is an analytic principle — proper (οἰκεῖον), native to the discipline, and spiritual — by which every theological and spiritual controversy is to be decided. For just as from the analytics, or even from the whole philosophy of Aristotle, Plato, and others, though you pound such learning in a mortar, you still cannot draw out and elicit a single spiritual proof to confirm the articles of faith, nor solidly refute the spiritual errors of the Arians, the papal party, and other sectaries — so, on the other side, it is most truly said that without the ministry of analytic doctrine, which admits into theology nothing but what is proper (οἰκεῖον) and native, or what theology itself presupposes in other disciplines as agreeing with spiritual things and analogous to the faith (for this is to analyze, ἀναλύειν, in theology, 1 Corinthians 2:13), no controversy's truth can be accurately and solidly proved, taught, or known, nor its falsity struck down and confuted — whether the dispute has been raised in philosophy or in theology.

That analytic gift either falls to excellent natural talents — though only to a few, and imperfectly — or more firmly, from a stronger principle, is granted by the Holy Spirit to some, as to the Apostles, in a more divine mode, or finally is acquired by precepts and teaching; and that teaching is a surer guide than nature. On both sides we are warned to use proper principles for proving the proper theorems of a discipline — philosophical principles for philosophical things, theological for theological. Only so can and should philosophical matters be treated philosophically, and theological matters theologically.