M.  Dost thou then affirm that all things necessary to godliness and salvation are contained in the written word of God?

      S.  ^yYea: for it were a point of intolerable ungodliness and madness to think, either that God hath left an imperfect doctrine, or that men were able to make that perfect, which God left imperfect.  Therefore the Lord hath most straitly forbidden men, that they neither ^zadd anything to, nor take anything from, his word, nor turn any way from it, either to the right hand or the left.

      M.  If this be true that thou sayest, to what purpose then are so many things so oft in councils and ecclesiastical assemblies, decreed, and by learned men taught in preaching, or left in writing?

      S.  All these things serve either to expounding of dark places of the word of God, and to take away controversies that rise among men, or to the orderly stablishing of the outward governance of the Church, and not to make new articles of religion.  ^aFor all things necessary to salvation, that is to say, how godliness, holiness, and religion are to be purely and uncorruptedly yielded to God: what obedience is to be given to God, by which alone the order of a godly life is to be framed; what affiance we ought to put in God; how God is to be called upon, and all good things to be imputed to him; what form is to be kept in celebrating the divine mysteries; all these things, I say, are to be learned of the word of God, without the knowledge whereof all these things are either utterly unknown, or most absurdly done; so that it were far better that they were not done at all, as the Lord himself witnesseth that ^bignorance of the scripture is the mother of all errors; and he himself in his teaching, doth commonly allege the ^cwritten word of God, and to it he sendeth us to learn of it.  For this cause therefore, in old times also, the ^dword of God was openly read in churches, and the help of expounders used when they might have them, as appeareth by the histories of the church.  And the Lord himself, immediately before his ascending to heaven, gave principally in charge to his apostles whom he had chosen, ^ethat they should instruct all men throughout the world with his word.  And Paul following his example, ordained that some should be appointed ^fin every church to teach the people, for that he well knew that faith and all things pertaining to godliness do hang upon the reading and ^ghearing of the word of God, and that therefore, ^hapostles, teachers, prophets, and expounders are most necessary in the church of God.