blems and prophecies concerning the Messiah, and the inspiration and authenticity of Scripture, of the sacred books themselves, were preserved in the same way." To this we reply, (1.) The principles of religion during the antediluvian ages were very few, and were, therefore, easily transmitted and remembered. (2.) It is not true that all or any of the patriarchs had to depend upon mere tradition, in the Romish sense of that word. The patriarchs had direct communication with God; and what he revealed to them, and they revealed to their families, was not human tradition, but divine revelation, and it served the purposes of divine revelation until the law and the testimony were written. (3.) Supposing the truths of religion, in the patriarchal ages, had been matters of mere tradition, they passed through so few hands that they might have been preserved to the time of Moses, among a few patriarchs, without any great mixture of error. Methuselah was cotemporary with Adam and Shem, and the latter was cotemporary with Isaac, so that the whole narrative of the creation and the promises of redemption came down to the family of Jacob through only four hands; whereas no apostolical tradition can come down to us without having passed through upward of fifty generations. (4.) But we do not admit that the family of Jacob received the knowledge of God by tradition, even through hands so few and so clean. God revealed his will to Enoch, to Noah, to Abraham, and to Jacob himself, who were all inspired men; for they are called, in the Psalms, prophets. Psa. cv, 15. (5.) Moreover, the example both of the patriarchal and Jewish times is utterly destructive of popish traditions. For notwithstanding the doctrines of religion in the first ages of the world, all flesh had corrupted their ways; and even posterior to the flood, for want of written documents, the doctrines of religion were either corrupted or lost, or superseded by the corrupting influence of tradition. The Jews also, by their traditions, transgressed the commandments of God and rendered them of none effect. The history of the patriarchs and of the Jews proves to us that the word which has been written by inspired men does not depend for its meaning and authority upon the unwritten traditions which have come to us through many ages of gross darkness, and through hands polluted by every crime. 5. We are also informed by our Roman Catholic brethren "that the gospel was first propagated by preaching, and not by the written word, and that the church depended for as many as two or three centuries on the instructions by word of mouth, and that this is the only way in which barbarous nations did, or can now, receive the gospel." To this we reply, that Protestants acknowledge that the gospel was first declared by word of mouth, and that barbarous nations which cannot read are still to be instructed in that manner. But when we concede this, we concede nothing in favour of popish traditions. In the primitive church there were two cases in which traditions were then used. The one was when the Scriptures had not been written or communicated, as among divers nations of the barbarians. The other case was when they disputed with heretics who received not all the Scriptures, such as the Carpocratians, of whom Irenæus speaks. In these cases tradition was urged by the fathers, as Antonius Marinarius, a *End of Contr., let. xi, p. 69. † Lib. i, c. 1, and c. 24. Carmelite friar, wisely said: "The fathers served themselves of this topic only in case of necessity, never thinking to make use of it in competition against Holy Scripture." They who had received the Scriptures among the first Christians relied upon them; they that had not received Scripture were to use tradition and the argument from succession, to prove their doctrine to have come from the apostles: that is, they would call witnesses where they could not prove a will by writing. The Romanists now assume the same ground which these ancient heretics occupied. The heretics said, "Jesus in mystery said to his disciples and apostles some things in secret and apart, because they were worthy."* So Bellarmine: " They preached not to the people all things, but those which were necessary to them, or profitable, but other things they delivered apart to the more perfect."+ Thus the pretence of the old heretics and modern Roman Catholics is precisely the same. IV. Arguments against oral tradition. com 1. The Scripture plainly overturns the authority of oral tradition. St. Peter says, "Moreover I will endeavour that you may be able after my decease to have these things always in remembrance," 2 Pet. i, 15. St. Peter was not of the opinion that oral tradition was a better way than writing to preserve the memory of these things; or that without writing they might be preserved. Accordingly Moses was commanded to write the Pentateuch: the prophets afterward committed to writing their revelations. The evangelists and the writers of the New Testament did the same. We have, therefore, the examples of inspired men and the mand of God to commit to writing the communications of his will to man. 2. Besides, oral tradition in its very nature is so uncertain and changeable as not at all to be capable of becoming a rule of faith. Common sense dictates that tradition, after any lapse of time, having gone through so many hands naturally unsettled and changeable, must have altered, increased, or lessened, since that happens in process of time to all things, and thus it becomes entirely too vague to regulate men's conduct. The following quotation from one of our old English divines will place this in a very strong light:-" Suppose but the earliest common story were to be told from one person to another, without being written down, for only one hundred or two hundred years, and let each person as he received it have ever so strict a charge to tell it in the same manner; yet long before the end of that time what security could we possibly have that it was true at first and unaltered still? And you cannot but see there is much less security that a considerable number of doctrines, especially such as compose the popish creed, should be brought down safe for seventeen hundred [eighteen hundred] years together, through so many millions of hands, that were all liable, through ignorance, forgetfulness, and superstition, to mistake them, or through knavery or design to alter them. "But it will be said, in a case of so much importance as religion, men would be more careful in delivering truth than in others. Un * "Jesum dicentes in mysterio discipulis suis et apostolis seorsim locutum, et illos expostulasse, ut dignis et assentientibus, seorsum hæc traderent, per fidem enim et charitatem salvari."—Irenæus, lib. i, c. 24, p. 122, d. See also August., Tract 97, in Johan. † Bellar. De verb., Dei non Script., lib. iv, c. 11, sect. Hic notatis. doubtedly they ought: but who can be secure that they would? It is of equal importance to be careful in practising it too; yet we all know how this hath been neglected in the world: and, therefore, have reason to think the other hath been no less so." "But whoever made the first change, they say, must have been immediately discovered. Now so far from this, that persons make changes in what they relate without discovering it themselves; alterations come in by insensible degrees: one man leaves out, or varies, or adds one little circumstance; the next another; till it grow imperceptibly into a different thing. In one age a doctrine is delivered as a probable opinion; the following age speaks of it as a certain truth; and the third advances it into an article of faith. Perhaps an opposition rises upon this, as many have done. Some have said such a doctrine was delivered to them, others that it was not: and who can tell whether at last the right side or the wrong have prevailed? Only this is certain, that which soever prevails, though by a small majority at first, will use all means of art and power to make it appear a universal custom at last; and then plead uninterrupted tradition. But though such things as these may possibly be done in almost any age, yet they are easily to be done in such ages as were five or six of those that preceded the Reformation; when, by the confession of their own historians, both clergy and laity were so universally and so monstrously ignorant and vicious, that nothing was too bad for them to do, or too absurd for them to believe."* It cannot be doubted that the morals of the priesthood were exceedingly corrupt before the Reformation. Now, suppose it were admitted that tradition contained nothing but sound doctrine for an age or two after the apostles, it must necessarily have become corrupted when taken up and transmitted by such corrupt men. They could not have been the means of preserving and the medium of communicating holy doctrines and precepts which condemned them and must have been abhorred by them. Whatever came in contact with them must have been defiled. It may be admitted that, by the increase and general diffusion of knowledge, the character of the priests of the present day is not so bad, at least in Protestant countries. Allowing this to be so, nothing is gained in favour of oral tradition; as this corruption of which we speak took place before the present race of priests had an existence. There is much uncertainty arising from the manner in which the Church of Rome propounds and explains her traditions. She has been very sparing in her information with regard to the particular doctrines and ordinances which she has received from tradition. So far as we know, there is no publication of theirs which contains a summary of what their church believes under the head of tradition. It may be any thing or it may be nothing, for what any man can tell; for the very writing of it would destroy it as a matter of oral tradition; and therefore no one can tell what their tradition is. As for lay persons in the Church of Rome, they must receive it from the lips of the priest. Tradition is what the church propounds; and as this is too large a body to propound any thing otherwise than by the mouth of its official organs, every priest is the propounder of what he considers the traditions of the church. Thus there may be as many traditions as priests, * Abp. Secker's first sermon on popery. all contradicting one another; for there is no authentic standard to which an appeal can be made. But the Catholic Church, i. e., the priests, are not only the propounders, they are also the explainers of both the written and unwritten word; and neither Scripture nor tradition is to be considered the rule of faith otherwise than as propounded and explained by them. Let the articles of tradition be ever so contradictory, the explanation of a priest can reconcile them with the utmost facility. After all, if there be any doctrines of faith or morals which are not contained in Scripture, and yet were preached by the apostles, let that be proved, let the traditions be produced, and records sufficiently credible and authentic, and we will receive them. It will be said by the advocates for oral tradition, that it is preserved incorrupt by the church, which is superintended and aided for this purpose by the Holy Spirit. But if we can show that many of the popish traditions are false and apocryphal, that others of them are contradictory to each other and to Scripture, that many ancient ones have been disused, and many new ones invented, it will afford us sufficient reason to reject them. And all this we can do. 3. Some of the most ancient traditions, claiming to be apostolical too, are manifestly false, and others are apocryphal, i. e., of uncertain origin and of doubtful authority. Some usages or traditions that are truly apostolical are difficult and indeed impossible to be distinguished from those which are apocryphal. From the first rise of Christianity heretics would say, as inay be seen in Irenæus, "that what they had were the sacred mysteries which the apostles taught, not to all in common, but to the perfect in particular."* Papias himself, as Eusebius testifies, had made "a collection of fables and new doctrines under the title of unwritten traditions, which he had learned from the mouths of those who had seen the apostles and had conversed familiarly with them."+ Many traditions were evidently false. St. Irenæus speaks of a certain tradition which had passed current in his time in Asia, as immediately coming from the apostle John, viz., that Christ taught after his fortieth year, which is now held to be false by all chronologers.‡ Papias, bishop of Hierapolis, in the beginning of the second century, delivered the doctrine of the millenium, or that our Saviour was to live a thousand years on the earth, for an undoubted truth. Irenæus, who received this doctrine from Papias, undertook to give the very words of Christ as a proof of it. All the orthodox fathers, as Justin Martyr declares, embraced it. Many more instances might be adduced, were it necessary. 4. Some ancient traditions are contradictory to each other and to Scripture. The churches of Asia, who have the feast of Easter celebrated precisely on the fourteenth day of the moon's age after the vernal "Quia autem triginta annorum ætas primæ indolis est juvenis, et extenditur usque ad quadragesimum annum, omnis quilibet confitebitur, a quadragesimo aut quinquagesimo anno declinat jam in ætatem seniorem, quam habens Dominus noster docebat, sicut Evangelium et omnes seniores testantur, qui in Asia apud Joannem discipulum Domini convenerunt, idipsum tradidisse eis Joannem. Permansit autem cum eis usque ad Trajani tempora. Quidam autem eorum non solum Joannem, sed et alios apostolos viderunt, et hæc eadem ab ipsis audierunt, et testantur de hujusmodi relatione."Irena. Adv. Heras., lib. ii, c. 39, p. 192, a. equinox, boast for that purpose the tradition of St. John and St. Philip; and the rest of the church hold by apostolic tradition that it ought to be celebrated on the Sunday of our Lord's resurrection. The Greeks, Armenians, Nestorians, Abyssinians, Latins, &c., have their contrary traditions; for tradition is ever changing. One sort hold for apostolic tradition three immersions in baptism, and the use of unleavened bread in the eucharist; while others reject these. One believes a purgatory by tradition, while others do not. Some, according to tradition, circumcise their children, while others reject it as a relic of Judaism. Some, by tradition, fast on Saturday; others do not. Some sacrifice lambs; others detest the custom.* 5. There are many ancient traditions, formerly authorized by public use, which time has so abolished, that there remains not a vestige of them among the Latins themselves. Of this description are the following, viz. not baptizing except in urgent cases, only at Easter and Whitsuntide; giving milk and honey to the baptized; administering the eucharist to little children after baptism; praying standing on Sunday, and from Easter till Whitsuntide; celebrating the communion on the evening of fast days; communicating every Sunday; every one's carrying home with him a piece of the bread of the communion; tributing the cup to all the faithful; receiving the communion standing; mutually kissing one another before the communion; and many others which the Latins have abrogated. dis 6. The Church of Rome has invented many new traditions. How many Latin traditions are there which the Church of Rome now authorizes, of which we cannot find a trace in the primitive church, and which are therefore new, and consequently false and not apostolical. Such are worshipping of images; invocation of saints; transubstantiation; sacrifice of the mass; adoration of the host; the use of an unknown tongue, altars, tapers, jubilees, pilgrimages, &c., &c.; auricular confession; the sovereign authority of the Church of Rome over all others; and many others of which the primitive church knew nothing; from whence it follows that they are not apostolical. There is nothing, therefore, more improper to be the rule of faith than traditions which are not established on any certain foundation; which serve as a pretence to heretics; which are continually changing and often contrary the one to the other; and which may be employed to establish the greatest absurdities. 7. Traditions present many more difficulties in point of clearness, to say nothing of certainty, than the Scriptures do. All the intricate perplexity which the Romanists pretend to find in the way of Scripture falls backs again with increasing force on the way of tradition. It is necessary to discern a true tradition from a false one; it is necessary to consult the originals; it is necessary to know the different ways of reading passages; it is necessary to see divers interpretations of both sides; and a variety of other things too numerous to notice here.† Besides, we may demand, whether they would not give the Scriptures the honour of reckoning it for one part of tradition, since it contains the first sermons of the Lord and his apostles, and many other things from which much light may be derived for the decision of the * See Claude, vol. i., p. 316. + Consult Claude on the Reformation, vol. i, p. 330. |