{"collection":"chr","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/chr/ecf/105/1050293.htm","path":"chr/ecf/105/1050293.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/chr/ecf/105/1050293.htm","text":"Chapter 46 [XXXIX.]\u2014Shall We Follow Scripture, or Add to Its Declarations?\nIt is, to be sure, a grand sentence with which he concluded this passage, when he says: \u201cWhat we read, therefore, let us believe; and what we do not read, let us deem it wicked to add; and let it suffice to have said this of all cases.\u201d On the contrary, I for my part say that we ought not to believe even everything that we read, on the sanction of the apostle\u2019s advice: \u201cRead all things; hold fast that which is good.\u201d 1241 Nor is it wicked to add something which we have not read; for it is in our power to add something which we have bona fideexperienced as witnesses, even if it so happens that we have not read about it. Perhaps he will say in reply: \u201cWhen I said this, I was treating of the Holy Scriptures.\u201d Oh how I wish that he were never willing to add, I will not say anything but what he reads in the Scriptures, but in opposition to what he reads in them; that he would only faithfully and obediently hear that which is written there: \u201cBy one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin, and so death passed upon all men; in which all have sinned;\u201d 1242 and that he would not weaken the grace of the great Physician,\u2014all by his unwillingness to confess that human nature is corrupted! Oh how I wish that he would, as a Christian, read the sentence, \u201cThere is none other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved;\u201d 1243 and that he would not so uphold the possibility of human nature, as to believe that man can be saved by free will without that Name!","title":"Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Vol. V: A Treatise on Nat...","type":"page"}