CHAPTER VII.

The Document of the Church's Trust divinely, not humanly, authenticated.

66 WHICH THINGS WE SPEAK, NOT IN THE WORDS WHICH MAN'S WISDOM TEACHETH, BUT WHICH THE HOLY GHOST TEACHETH; COMPARING SPIRITUAL THINGS WITH SPIRITUAL: ..

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THAT IS SPIRITUAL JUDGETH ALL THINGS, YET HE HIMSELF IS JUDGED OF NO MAN. FOR WHO HATH KNOWN THE MIND OF THE LORD, THAT HE MAY INSTRUCT HIM? BUT WE HAVE THE MIND OF CHRIST."-1 Cor. ii. 13, 15, 16.

If we knew it not as a matter of fact, we should hardly deem it possible, that the professed ministers of Christ and successors of his Apostles, could ever, as the Roman priests do, prohibit, and if found in unlicensed hands, commit to the flames, a book of which it is so abundantly evidenced that through "the comfort" it contains, we are appointed to "hope;" and it seems scarcely less incredible that among ourselves, who have renounced the mystery of iniquity which attempts to place the light of God under a bushel, there should be found those who will allow to a volume

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• Rom. xv. 4.

of holy records so introduced, so confirmed and honoured, so augmented, expounded, and perfected, as is the canon of Scripture from the opening of the Old to the close of the New Testament, no higher place than that of a witness, cited subsidiarily to prove that which tradition has, according to them, the primary office and the exclusive prerogative of teaching. But great as may be our astonishment at the perversion of truth involved in the doctrines alluded to, and palpably untenable as upon this point, if upon no other, every unbiassed mind must at once feel them to be, the question has on the part of the advocates of those doctrines been argued far too seriously, too elaborately, and in justice to them we rejoice to add, too sincerely, to admit of its being dismissed by any one who himself feels a serious concern for the truth, with a mere exclamation of surprise. The spirit in which their opinions, however erroneous, have for the most part been pleaded, entitles them undoubtedly to brotherly remonstrance, rather than to angry refutation or virulent abuse; and it is in this spirit of brotherly kindness that we would offer, and in their own spirit of sincere search after truth that we would wish them to peruse and carefully to weigh, the suggestions which in the course of these pages are thrown out in opposition to their views.

One of the chief arguments, and the only one that we shall for the present notice, in favour of the authority of tradition as concurrent with that of Scripture itself, is the alleged fact, that Scripture stands on the shoulders, so to speak, of tradition, and ultimately derives its authority from it. According to the way in which this matter is stated, we should look upon tradition, (apostolic tradition of course,) as upon the original luminary in which all the light of God's truth was at the first concentrated, the sun, as it were, of the system of grace; while Scripture, superadded indeed, but by no means essentially necessary, shines like a planet or a satellite with a borrowed light, having for its primary warrant the authority of tradition. Now this is a position which, however decidedly taken for granted on one side, and however incautiously assented to generally on the other, is nevertheless founded in mistake. Practically, no doubt, and in some localities more than in others, appearances may in the first age of the Christian church seem to favour that position; forasmuch as the newly instructed converts among the Gentiles unquestionably received both the Gospel and the Scriptures of the Old Testament, wherever the latter went along with the former, upon no other authority than the preaching of the Apostles and their immediate fellow-workers and

successors. But it must not be forgotten, that although, under the peculiar circumstances of the first promulgation of the Gospel throughout the world, men might generally receive, yet God never did any where rest, his truth upon such grounds. The oral instruction of the first heralds of the Gospel was confirmed by signs following; but these signs were primary evidence only to the generation who witnessed them, and in the nature of things must, unless recorded by the same infallible hands by which they were wrought, soon have sunk down to the secondary and unsafe character of hear-say evidence. To estimate this point at its true value, we have only to suppose that at the period, for instance, of the Council of Nicæa, any churches still remained in the condition in which Irenæus describes some churches of the barbarians to have been in his time, without any further foundation of their faith, at that distance of time from the Apostles, than a few formularies handed down by oral tradition; and that delegates, bishops, and presbyters of those churches, mingled in the general assembly convened to put a stop to the progress of the Arian heresy. How little weight would their simple assertion, that in such and such a faith they had been themselves baptized, and were baptizing others, have carried with it against the subtilties of the heretical

party, who left no stone unturned to establish their false doctrines upon the foundation of Old and New Testament Scriptures garbled and misinterpreted. Was not on the contrary the victory of the orthodox party in the Nicene council, as far as we can gather the mode of procedure from existing records, accomplished by a skilful use of the weapons supplied to them by Scripture? Was not Scripture the rule of faith to which both parties appealed? And was not the truth of Scripture, not of the Old Testament only, as is often erroneously supposed, but of the New Testament also, attested then, as it is to this day, by a living though unwilling witness, by Israel after the flesh, who had become, "as concerning the Gospel, enemies for the Gentiles' sakes," that "through their unbelief" the Gentiles also might "obtain mercy?" The Jew stood then, as he does now, before the world as an example of God's vengeance for the breach of his covenant; he then held, as he now holds, in his hand the historical record of his past iniquities, the prophetic announcement of his present disgrace; and his house, "left desolate"" unto him, was then, as it is now, a striking and indelible memorial of national sin in crucifying the Lord of glory, and an incontrovertible attestation of