CHAPITRE III

Quelle est la règle de foi établie par Notre Seigneur Jésus- Christ, ou quel moyen a-t-il choisi pour nous communiquer ga doctrine ?—La Bible.—La tradition.

Tous proclament à l’envi que la parole de Dieu révélée est la règle de foi. Encore sur ce point ily a unanimité de sentiments.

Mais où se trouve cette parole de Dieu, cette révélation surnaturelle? Les Protestants répondent : «Dans la Bible et dans la Bible seule» (). Les

(1) “ We may well assert, that the rejection of tr:dition as æ rule of faith was the vital principle of the reforination. ?’—HERBERT Marsu, Comparative view of the Churches of England and Rome, p. 83, 1841.

‘ What I have always conceived to be the great leading principle of Protestantism, is namely the entire sufficiency of Scripture, inde-

pendently of tradition, as a rule of faith and doctrine. ”’—P. N.

SoaurrTLeworTH, Not tradition but Scripture, p. 21-2, 1839.

‘“ With the doctrine of the Supremacy of the Holy Seripture to the consciences of individuals, and the right of private judgment in contradistinction to the authority of the Church, she (the reformed Church of England) stands or falls. ’—Goope, Regula fidei divina, vol. I, Præf. p. xLIT.

‘ The grand fundamental distinction between the Roman Catholic and the Protestant religion consists in this very point, that, whilst Protestants maintain that a full and perfect rule of faith is contained in the “'criptures, and that, consequently, these furnish in and by themselves a suicient basis for all doctrines necessary to salvation,