During the fierce controversy between the divines of the Protestant Reformation and those of the Roman Catholic Church, the latter asserted that the former treated the Bible—and treated it...

 During the fierce controversy between the divines of the Protestant Reformation and those of the Roman Catholic Church, the latter asserted that the former treated the Bible—and treated it quite naturally—as a wax nose, which could be twisted into any shape and direction. Those who championed the living voice of God in the Church, against the dead letter of the written Bible, were always prone to deride the consequences of private judgment when applied to such a large and heterogeneous volume as the Christian Scriptures.