I think the Author "scholar" of this book and website sat in these chairs alot in class.
Please read Augustine for yourselves. I have been amazed at these psuedo authors represented for years on these threads who intrepret the original Early Church Fathers. Please check up on them yourself in context.
I will be trying to accurately post the very words themselves from the source. Just amazing how this goes on without the original verse next to what these authors declare. I hardly ever see alongside their own words.
Do you not find that very strange when his original verses are buried in footnotes to another footnote in a another book of reference. Did you ever read an honest scholar with proper foot notes.
It's like the author is a lawyer not caring whether his client/subject is not innocence just to represent a view. Strange brew with these authors.
At least you proved my prophecy was right. Be honest, Johngrace, as you mostly have been, if Webster were anything but a "former" Catholic, would you be so quick to disregard his words out of hand? Since you are so sure that Augustine - who was not always consistent with himself - would not have said the Eucharist was symbolic, then prove the quote Webster gave was false.
As to the subject at hand - sola scriptura - Augustine was a staunch believer in the sufficiency of Holy Scripture. He stated:
This Mediator, having spoken what He judged sufficient first by the prophets, then by His own lips, and afterwards by the apostles, has besides produced the Scripture which is called canonical, which has paramount authority, and to which we yield assent in all matters of which we ought not to be ignorant, and yet cannot know of ourselves.(NPNF1, Vol. 3, Augustin, On Faith and the Creed 2.2).
As well as:
I do not want you to depend on my authority, so as to think that you must believe something because it is said by me; you should rest your belief either on the canonical Scriptures, if you do not see how true something is, or on the truth made manifest to you interiorly, so that you may see clearly (FC, Vol. 20, Saint Augustine Letters, Letter 147,Chapter 2, p. 171).
But if it is supported by the evident authority of the divine Scriptures, namely, of those which in the Church are called canonical, it must be believed without any reservation. In regard to other witnesses of evidence which are offered as guarantees of belief, you may believe or not, according as you estimate that they either have or have not the weight necessary to produce belief (FC, Vol. 20, Saint Augustine Letters, Letter 147, Chapter 4,p. 173).
There is a distinct boundary line separating all productions subsequent to apostolic times from the authoritative canonical books of the Old and New Testaments. The authority of these books has come down to us from the apostles through the successions of bishops and the extension of the Church, and, from a position of lofty supremacy, claims the submission of every faithful and pious mind (NPNF1, Vol. 4, Reply to Faustus the Manichaean, Book XI, Section 5).
This shows that the established authority of Scripture must outweigh every other (Ibid., Reply to Faustus the Manichaean, Book XIII, section 5).
For, as regards any writing professing to come immediately from Christ Himself, if it were really His, how is it not read and acknowledged and regarded as of supreme authority in the Church, which, beginning with Christ Himself, and continued by His apostles, who were succeeded by the bishops, has been maintained and extended to our own day (Ibid., Reply to Faustus the Manichaean, Book XXVIII, section 4–5).
Now, who is it that submits to divine Scripture, save he who reads or hears it piously, deferring to it as of supreme authority (Ibid., Vol6, Our Lord’s Sermon on the Mount, Book I, Chapter XI).
You really should not brush off all the scholarly work of William Webster, like BlueDragon stated, his articles are well researched and well verified. For more on the subject of Sola Scriptura, see http://www.christiantruth.com/scriptureandchurchfathers.html.
