Reply: the argument is a sophism; retorsion on doubtful Church authority
They press and inflate this with a fine show; yet anyone who looks into the argument and weighs it carefully will see it is a mere sophism on a false presupposition.
To make that plain even to them, we can argue the same way against them and overturn the foundation they put under their own faith.
The Church's authority is doubtful and uncertain. Therefore its teaching is not faith's supreme rule, nor does the Church hold first authority for us.
That doubt is plain: people dispute what authority the Church has — whether some infallible divine authority, as Rome wants, or, as we hold, great yet human and open to error. Among Christians it is not even settled which church is true; Christianity is split into many parties, and each claims to be the true Church.
So we ask them: amid so many Christian sects, by what argument do you prove that yours is the true Church and its authority infallible? They cannot fall back on Scripture, whose authority they also put in doubt and make to hang on the Church as better known and higher. Still less can they plead their own church's witness, which is the very thing under dispute.
They must either fall silent, or turn to those marks of the true Church by which they think it only probable that Rome is the true Church. But what we need here is not mere probability — it is a lawful foundation for faith that proves the matter to be of faith.
Scripture, moreover, bears far clearer and brighter marks of divinity than the Church does, and there is no lack of strong persuasive arguments — short of strict demonstration — many of which were already set out in the first part of these Theses.
Latin
XVI. Porro ista quidem speciose urgent & exaggerant, sed tamen, si quis argumentum illud introspiciat, & accurate expendat, facile agnoscet merum esse sophisma, quod falsa nititur praesuppositione. Atque ut hoc adversariis ipsis clarum faciamus, simili plane modo possumus contra eos argumentari, & evertere fundamentum quod fidei suae substernunt. Ecclesiae authoritas dubia & incerta est. Ergo Ecclesiae doctrina non est suprema fidei regula: nec Ecclesia quoad nos primam authoritatem habet. Authoritatem vero Ecclesiae dubiam & incertam esse, patet quia dubitatur quaenam authoritas Ecclesiae sit tribuenda. An scilicet infallibilis & divina quaedam authoritas, ut volunt Pontificii: An vero, ut nos censemus, magna quidem, sed humana tamen, & errori obnoxia. Tum quoque inter Christianos non est certum quae sit vera Ecclesia; sed, cum Christianismus in multas partes & sectas divisus sit, unaquaeque pertendit se esse veram Ecclesiam. Hic ergo possumus illos quoque rogare. In tanta sectarum inter Christianos diversitate, quo argumento demonstrare potestis apud vos esse veram Ecclesiam, & authoritatem ejus esse infallibilem? Jam enim non possunt ad sacram Scripturam recurrere cujus authoritas quoque in dubium vocatur, & quam volunt ab authoritate Ecclesiae pendere tanquam notiori & superiori. Multo minus possunt obtendere ipsius Ecclesiae suae testimonium, de cujus authoritate hic quaeritur & disputatur. Vel ergo cogentur hic obmutescere, vel necessario recurrent ad indicia illa & notas quas vocant verae Ecclesiae, hoc est, argumenta quaedam quibus probabile reddi putant Ecclesiam Romanam esse veram Ecclesiam. Sed hic non quaeruntur argumenta quae rem tantum probabilem & credibilem reddant, verum quibus nostra fides tanquam legitimo suo fundamento nitatur, & quae certo probent rem esse de fide. Deinde Scriptura longe clariores & illustiores divinitatis suae notas habet quam Ecclesia, neque desunt argumenta quibus fortiter suaderi possit, etiamsi non demonstrari: qualia multa argumenta Thesium harum prima parte allata & indicata sunt.