Councils and papal letters yield to Moses and Paul; the Bereans check preaching
On their own showing, no Church testimony is brighter or more solemn than what Councils and papal Decrees give. Yet common Christian sense says no council matches sacred Scripture's authority. No one dares set Nicea, Chalcedon, Trent, or any other beside Moses and the Prophets. Even Rome's warmest friends have not yet hardened their faces enough to level papal letters with Paul's epistles and the four Gospels.
Roman practice itself proves it. When they rank the sources of theological argument, Scripture always comes first; Councils and papal Decrees come later. They so honor Scripture, as they should, that they grant no error can be found in it, even the least. Councils they want infallible on dogmas of faith — yet they admit many other slips: conclusions may be of faith while the arguments are poor; they may hold the question of right and still err on the question of fact.
Pastors and doctors also use Scripture's witnesses to recommend their own teaching — and that teaching can and must be tried by Scripture. So the Bereans are praised: after hearing Paul preach, they searched the Scriptures to see whether those things were so (Acts 17). If Scripture carries more weight with believers than the Church's pastors, it plainly does not take its authority from their word. What is greater cannot draw its authority from what is less. Nothing can give an authority greater than its own.
Latin
XXXI. Praeterea Ecclesiae testimonium nullum est illustrius et magis solemne juxta adversarios, quam illud quod perhibetur in Conciliis et Decretis Pontificum. At sensus communis fidelium dictat nullorum Conciliorum tantam esse authoritatem, quam sit Scripturae sacrae. Nec enim ullum Concilium vel Nicenum, vel Chalcedonense, vel Tridentinum, vel aliud quodvis quisquam aequiparare auderet authoritate scriptis Mosis et Prophetarum libris. Neque, vel illi qui sunt Pontificibus maxime addicti, eousque adhuc frontem perfricuerunt, ut aequare audeant Epistolas Papales Paulinis Epistolis, et quatuor Evangeliis. Quod docet ipsa praxis doctorum Romanensium. Etenim, cum digerunt locos unde desumuntur argumenta Theologica, primum locum semper Scripturae assignant, posteriorem vero Conciliis, et PP. Decretis. Et quidem eousque Scripturam, sicuti par est, venerantur, ut agnoscant in ea nullum, vel minimum erratum reperiri posse. At, licet velint Concilia infallibilia esse quoad fidei dogmata, tamen agnoscunt in aliis multis errori esse obnoxia, eorumque conclusiones esse quidem de fide, at Concilia uti posse argumentis non bonis: Et quamvis non errent in quaestione juris, saepe tamen falli in quaestione facti. Adde quod Ecclesiae Pastores et Doctores utuntur Scripturae sacrae testimoniis ad authoritatem suae doctrinae conciliandam; illorumque doctrina potest et debet ad Scripturae sacrae examen revocari. Unde est quod laudantur fideles Beroenses qui, audita Pauli praedicatione, consulabant Scripturas, an quae dixerat ita se haberent. Ad. 17. Cum ergo Scriptura sacra apud fideles sit majoris authoritatis, quam sint Ecclesiae Pastores, proculdubio suam authoritatem a testimonio illorum non accipit, quandoquidem quod majorem authoritatem habet, authoritatem sumere non potest ab eo quod habet minorem. Nihil enim potest conferre authoritatem majorem illa ipsa quam habet.