Apply equity: even leading Roman doctors speak against notes and Spirit in dispute
Apply that equity to the matter in hand, and it is plain: not only the empty disputers who count for little even among their own, but the very men who head the Roman school, often urge in debate things that cut clean against what we have taught so far — against the marks of God's Word, against the arguments that prove sacred Scripture, and against that inward Spirit-testimony in which our certainty about the Word must finally rest.
They talk as if Scripture deserved no trust and held no authority except what it borrows from the Roman Church, and as if the whole certainty of our faith lay on today's church doctors — so that, once that witness is set aside, Scripture would be worth no more among us than any pagan book. Our doctors collect those impious and blasphemous lines in their disputations on this subject.
Yet when those same Roman doctors speak so injuriously of Scripture, they forget themselves and pull down their own settled teaching. For nearly everything we have already taught — Scripture's light, the Spirit's secret witness, the proper ground of faith and its chief foundation, and the last point into which faith's certainty resolves — is handed down by Pontifical theologians in the schools. To make that clear, we must run briefly back through the heads already treated and note in a few words what the Pontificii teach on each.
Latin
IX. Ut autem ista ad rem praesentem applicemus, certum est, non tantum vanos illos homines, et nullius etiam apud suos pretii, sed eos ipsos quoque qui inter Pontificios Doctores familiam ducunt, multa proferre inter disputandum, quae videntur plane contraria his quae hactenus docuimus, de notis Verbi Dei et argumentis quibus Scriptura sacra comprobatur, et de interno illo Spiritus testimonio, ad quod nostra de verbo Dei certitudo referenda est. Saepe enim loquuntur quasi Scriptura sacra nullam fidem mereretur, nec authoritatem haberet, nisi quam ab Ecclesia Romana mutuatur, et quasi in hodiernos Ecclesiae Doctores tota fidei nostrae certitudo recumberet: ita ut, secluso isto testimonio, Scriptura non plus esset apud nos valitura, quam quilibet liber profanus. Cujus generis voces impias et blasphema dicta Doctores nostri notant et congerunt in suis de hoc argumento disputationibus. Attamen, quum doctores illi Pontificii talia Scripturae injuria proferunt, videntur esse sui immemores, et in eo propria placita refigere. Eadem enim fere quae antea docuimus, de Scripturae sacrae et verbi Dei luce, de arcano Spiritus sancti testimonio, de propria fidei ratione et praecipuo illius fundamento, et de ultimo eo in quod resolvitur fidei certitudo, a Pontificiis Theologis traduntur et docentur in scholis. Quod ut clarius ostendamus, breviter percurrenda sunt nobis illa capita, de quibus antea egimus, et quid de uno quoque doceant Pontificii paucis est indicandum.