BUT of these we may safely say that there is not a truth in the most orthodox creed that can not be proved by their authority, nor a heresy that has disgraced the Romish Church that may not challenge them as its abettors. In points of doctrine, their authority with me is nothing. The word of God alone contains my creed. On a number of points I can go to the Greek and Latin Fathers of the church to know what they believed and what the people of their respective communions believed, but, after all this, I must return to God's word to know what He would have me to believe.—Dr. A. Clarke.
When God's word is by the fathers expounded, construed, and glossed, then, in my judgment, it is even as when one strains milk thru a coal-sack, which must needs spoil and make the milk black. God's word of itself is pure, clean, bright, and clear; but thru the doctrines, books, and writings of the fathers, it is darkened, falsified, and spoiled.—Martin Luther, "Table Talk," p. 228.