Reasons 4–7: Christ's command to search; Bereans; fathers; Scripture's end
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4.From Christ's precept: why would he bid us search the Scriptures (John 5:39) if they could not be understood?
5.From the example of the primitive Church that obeyed this precept (Acts 17:11).
6.From the example of the ancient fathers, who prove the articles of the faith from Scripture.Hence Constantine in the Nicene synod: "Let us dissolve the matters brought into question by the testimonies of the divinely inspired letters."Things brought into question are ambiguous and obscure.If therefore Scripture were equally ambiguous and obscure, those proofs and dissolutions would be ridiculous.
7.From Sacred Scripture's end, which is our teaching (Romans 15:4), to which obscurity is diametrically opposed.
Latin
4. A praecepto Christi: cur enim juberet nos scrutari scripturas, Joh. 5.v.39. si intelligi non possent? 5. Ab exemplo Ecclesiae primitivae huic praecepto obsecutae, Actor. 17 v.11. 6. Ab exemplo patrum antiquorum, qui articulos fidei ex scriptura probant. Hinc enim Constantinus in synodo Nicena: Literarum, inquit, divinitus inspiratarum testimoniis res in quaestione adductas dissolvamus. Res vero in quaestione adductae ambiguae sunt & obscurae. Si igitur scriptura aeque ambigua & obscura fuerit, probationes istae ac dissolutiones erunt ridiculariae. 7. A fine sacrae scripturae, qui est nostra doctrina, Rom. 15 v.4. cui obscuritas e diametro repugnat.