of gain bring forward their own work instead of the grace and merit of Christ.  There were two fathers,[30] of whom one contended that the use of Christ’s sacred supper should be wholly forbidden to those who, content with partaking of one kind, abstained from the other; the other strenuously maintained that Christian people ought not to be refused the blood of their Lord, for the confession of whom they are required to shed their own.  These landmarks also they have removed, in appointing, by an inviolable law, that very thing which the former punished with excommunication, and the latter gave a powerful reason for disapproving.  There was a father[31] who asserted the temerity of deciding on either side of an obscure subject, without clear and evident testimonies of Scripture.  This landmark they forgot when they made so many constitutions, canons, and judicial determinations, without any authority from the word of God.  There was a father[32] who upbraided Montanus with having, among other heresies, been the first imposer of laws for the observance of fasts.  They have gone far beyond this landmark also, in establishing fasts by the strictest laws.  There was a father[33] who denied that marriage ought to be forbidden to the ministers of the Church, and pronounced cohabitation with a wife to be real chastity; and there were fathers who assented to his judgment.  They have transgressed these landmarks by enjoining on their priests the strictest celibacy.  There was a father who thought that attention should be paid to Christ only, of whom it is said, “Hear ye him,” and that no regard should be had to what others before us have either said or done, only to what has been commanded by Christ, who is preeminent over all.  This landmark they neither prescribe to themselves, nor permit to be observed by others, when they set up over themselves and others any masters rather than Christ.  There was a father[34] who contended that the Church ought not to take precedence of Christ, because his judgment is always according to truth; but ecclesiastical judges, like other men, may generally be deceived.  Breaking down this landmark also, they scruple not to assert, that all the authority of the Scripture depends on the decision of the Church.  All the fathers, with one heart and voice, have declared it execrable and detestable for the holy word of God to be contaminated with the subtleties of sophists, and perplexed by the wrangles of logicians.  Do they confine themselves within these landmarks, when the whole business of their lives is to involve the simplicity of the Scripture in endless controversies, and worse than sophistical wrangles? so that if the fathers were now restored to life, and heard this art of wrangling, which they call speculative divinity, they would not suspect the dispute to have the least reference to God.  But if I would enumerate all the instances in which the authority of the fathers is insolently rejected by those who would be thought their dutiful children, my address would exceed all reasonable bounds.  Months and years would be insufficient for me.  And yet such is their consummate and incorrigible impudence, they dare to censure us for presuming to transgress the ancient landmarks.