worldly ambition, and as circumstances may admit of their successful promulgation. The condition here required, it is important to observe, they are by their principles obliged to fulfil; because, while the Romish Church claims infallibility in matters of faith, it has neglected to advance the same claim in matters of fact. Now, the decisions of the Council of Trent, are rested on an alleged fact, namely that the traditions which it determined to be obligatory, and which are pleaded in vindication, among other doctrines, of transubstantiation, purgatory, the seven sacraments, invocation of saints, worship of God in an unknown tongue, and the communion in one kind-that these traditions were received by the Apostles from the mouth of Christ, or dictated to them by the Holy Ghost, and have, in every age since, been preserved and acknowledged in the Catholic Church. Consequently, the Tridentine Fathers were bound to substantiate, by historical evidence, the fact here alleged, before the superstructure of doctrine and practice which they have built on it can be admitted; since their infallibility extended not to facts, but to doctrine only. And if any Romanist feel disposed now to undertake the task which the Council of Trent should have fulfilled, as a preparatory labour to the promulgation of their doctrinal decrees, let his evidence be brought from the writers of the first three centuries, whose testimony alone can be received in proof of the apostolic origin of the traditions. It is to no purpose to adduce copious quotations from the fathers of the fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh centuries, when religion, it is argued, had become corrupted by idolatrous admixtures. The thing to be established, we repeat, is the divine and apostolic origin; and no testimony can be conclusive on this point, unless it form part of a chain of evidence reaching to the age of the Apostles themselves. Now, on mounting to this early, and only-sufficient, evidence, we find the fact, so far from favouring, directly to discountenance the pious reverence and affection which the Latin Church professes for tradition; we find, not only no proof to establish the apostolic origin of those traditions on which so many of her practices and doctrines are founded, but the clearest proof, that in the first and purest times of Christianity, nothing was deemed essential to salvation but what is 66 propounded in the written Word. Ireneus, whom the Romanists even claim as an advocate for their supplemental tradition, is an unexceptionable witness, that in the second century, the writings of the Apostles were regarded as the sole source from which christian doctrine and practice are to be learned. "The disposition of our salvation," says he, we know not through any other persons than those by whom the Gospel has come to us; which then, indeed, they themselves orally preached; but which afterwards, according to the will of God, they traditionally handed down to us, in the written word, as the future basis and column of our faith." Tertullian, likewise of the second century, writing against Hermogenes, says," Let him show that it is written; if it be not written, let him fear that wo which is destined to those who either add to, or diminish from, the written word." Even so late as the fourth century, the great Augustine subscribes to the same sentiment," Let us not hear," he says, this I say, this you say; but let us hear, Thus saith the Lord. These are God's books, to whose authority we on both sides consent, and which we on both sides believe. There let us seek the Church, there discuss our cause. Let those things be removed from amongst us which we allege, one against another, from any other source than the divine canonical books." Thus unanimously do we find the early fathers consenting to the principle, that the final appeal should be to the law and to the testimony; thus expressly does the only tradition which can be admitted in the debate, as historically substantiated, condemn the decision by which the Tridentine Fathers sought to give authority to that confused chaos of fabulous legends, on which their unscriptural practices are founded. Ours, then, is the old as well as the true religion-if, indeed, the old religion is to be determined by the old rule. It is a favourite question with Romanists, which they seem to think sufficient to pose the proudest intellectual power, "Where was your religion before Luther?" To which we may confidently reply, "Where theirs never was, and never will be found, namely, in the Bible"-a rule, we may add, of much longer standing than councils, canons, constitutions, or traditions of men, or even the bulls of the Pope himself. (To be concluded in our next.) GLASGOW :-PRINTED AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, BY EDWARD KHULL. SCOTTISH PULPIT. No. 44. SATURDAY, 26TH JANUARY, 1833. SERMON by the Rev. DAVID RUNCIMAN, Edinburgh. Price 2d. ANNUAL SERMON AGAINST THE ERRORS AND CORRUPTIONS OF THE CHURCH OF ROME; Preached by the Rev. JOHN ROXBURGH, A. M.-Concluded. DID our time permit, it would not be difficult, in farther elucidation of the argument, to trace a striking resemblance between the manner in which the Jewish doctors of old made void, by their traditions, the commandments of God, and the manner in which the Romish doctors have, by the same means, vitiated or entirely superseded some of the most important christian ordinances. The Scribes and Pharisees complained in our Lord's time, that his disciples transgressed the traditions of the elders : so they called them, because they pretended that they were delivered by God to Moses, when on the Mount; by Moses communicated to Aaron and his sons; by them handed down to the seventy elders who formed the great Sanhedrim, or chief council of the Jewish nation; and by the elders, in continued succession down to their own days. But although they claimed for their Pharisaic traditions a divine origin, our Saviour did not fail to give the true genealogy of them: " Why," he says, "do ye also transgress the commandment of God by your tradition, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men?" In like manner would the priests of Rome fain persuade us, that all those ecclesiastical traditions with which their canonic theology abounds, were dropped from the mouth of Christ, conveyed from the Apostles, and so handed down by the Church through successive ages; though, when we come to examine their apostolic origination, we find them not a whit less spurious than their fellows of the Mishna and Gemara. The Latin Church, again, dignifies its traditions with all kinds of illustrious titles, adorning them with the epithets divine and apostolical, and professing to regard them with the same reverence and pious affection as Scripture itself. Just so did the Pharisees and their successors, the Talmudists, adorn and dignify their oral law, reckoning it the soul of the written law, from which the latter derived life and sense; and, like the Popish divines, deeming it a much greater sin to break a tradition of the Church, than to violate a commandment of God. The Tridentine Fathers commanded that the canonic traditions, however contradictory they might be to evidence and common sense, should be received with blind and implicit submission, and pronounced an anathema on whoever should despise them. In this also they followed the example of their archetypes, the ancient Pharisees and the modern Rabbins, who hold it the blackest sin to recede from the words of the elders, and abhor as little better than devils those who reject them. It is indeed a very natural expedient to claim a divine authority for those merely human inventions or fables to which we wish to give currency, and accordingly we find it practised by pagans, as well as among the ancient Jews and modern Christians. There is nothing dearer to man than to exercise dominant influence over the opinions and fortunes of his fellow-men; but a powerful obstacle to success is the repugnance of mankind to human control. The simplest method of overcoming this, is to give forth our dogmas as delivered by divine tradition, or proceeding from divine inspiration; by which device, though we ascribe the honour to God, we virtually retain the power in our own hands; yea, we confirm our authority by deriving it from heaven, and so operating on the superstitious feelings of our race. It was nothing else than this prudential consideration which led Numa Pompilius, Lycurgus, and Solon, and the several other great founders of laws and worship in ancient times, to pretend inspiration, or the response of some oracle, for the institutes which they delivered; and could the Church of Rome consolidate her influence without a similar aid, she would soon cease, we suspect, to insult the reason and common sense of mankind by asking us to receive as of divine origin, the legendary fables with which she deludes her votaries. In conclusion, it may be proper to take notice of two arguments which Romish divines sometimes urge in their defence the only two which appear to have even a superficial appearance of reasoning. The first is, that Moses having derived from tradition his knowledge of the antediluvian world, and of the events that occurred till long after the flood, tradition must either be deemed satisfactory historical evidence, or we must be under the necessity of rejecting the account given by Moses of all transactions of which he had not personal knowledge. To this we simply reply, that supposing the transactions referred to not to have been previously entered into any certain records, to be so preserved to the memory of posterity, (and there is no evidence that this was the case,) we possess, in regard to the traditions authenticated by Moses, that rational evidence which is so remarkably awanting to prove the certain and uninterrupted transmission of the Romish traditions. There was an undoubted, unmixed, lineal descent from father to son in the Jewish nation, they being prohibited all mixture by marriage with the families of another people; and hence they were secured against the chief cause of confusion in the tradition of other nations-namely, the frequent alliances and intermarriages with foreign families. Thus, in the time of Moses, it was no difficult matter to trace their lineal descent as far up as the deluge, and even up to Adam. Noah was living in some part of Adam's time; Shem, the son of Noah, was probably living in some part of Jacob's and how easily the general tradition of the ancient history might be continued thence to the time of Moses, will appear when we consider, that the number of the families agreeing in it were increased that they were incorporated by the common bond of religion-that their interest lay in preserving the tradition entire and uncorrupted, for their hopes of possessing Canaan, and their title to it, depended on the promise made to Abraham, their forefather-and withal, when we consider the length of men's lives in those early ages. Another answer to the argument is, that Moses wrought the most undeniable miracles in attestation of his divine mission and the authority of his law. And it would be absurd to suppose, that the Almighty would employ any one as an instrument in making a revelation of his will to mankind, and would permit him to mingle with this revelation a motley mixture of opinions, fables, and legends, without any note of distinction. When the Latin Church can furnish evidence of this kind, and as well substantiated, for their traditions, it will then be time to inquire into their apostolic origin. The second argument of the Romish divines is not more valid than the one to which we have just replied. They say, You admit the Scripture to be the word of God, on the authority of tradition-why not receive narrations, institutions, and ordinances on the same authority ?" The fallacy here may be detected by putting a parallel case. We admit, for example, the narrative of Livy, the Roman historian, to be his on the authority of uninterrupted tradition or consent. Shall we therefore receive, with equal reverence, those books of his which have come down to us, and the events and circumstances which tradition might assure us were recorded in the books that have perished? This answer supposes the Romanists correct in the premises from which their objection sets out. But, secondly, we deny the correctness of the premises. We do not receive the written word of God on the limited traditionary authority on which the Fathers of the Tridentine council have established so large a portion of the Latin creed: nor is the testimony of the Church the only reason of our believing the Bible. In the first place, we receive it, because we have the consent of the whole Church to it, and have had, ever since it was published to the world. And, in the second place, we believe it, because, in addition to the unanimous and uninterrupted testimony of the Church, we have all those evidences of an internal kind which are furnished by the majesty of its style, the purity of its doctrines, the harmony of its parts, and its general scope and design. But we have already illus- | tamed, or altogether subdued, our Catholic trated this point so fully, as to render it unnecessary farther to enlarge in reply to the objection. We have thus completed, then, as was designed, a comparative view of the Protestant and Catholic rules of faith, of their evidence and practical tendencies. It may safely be left to each individual to draw the conclusions warranted by the previous discussion; and if, in the progress of it, we have forgotten the caution, or seriousness of expression, with which the subject should be treated, our error must be ascribed to the eagerness inspired by argument, and which, regarding only the position to be proved, overlooks for the time the feelings and prejudices of the parties concerned in the controversy. Notwithstanding the length to which our remarks have already extended, we can not dismiss the subject without a few observations, justified, it appears to us, by the occasion. Of late years the tide of popular feeling has set in with unwonted force in favour of the members of the Roman Church-a result, perhaps, chiefly to be attributed to the unnecessary severities by which they had long been crushed, and the sympathy which never fails to be excited in behalf of the oppressed. In so far as this disposition to conciliation has for its object to meliorate their social and political condition, with security to Our Protestant institutions, no charitable Protestant can object to it; but in such changes in our national affairs as have been lately witnessed, it is to be feared, lest a spirit of mistaken liberality, which may be unaccompanied with much danger in civil transactions, should extend to religion, and manifest itself in concessions at the expense of truth and of principle. Nothing, indeed, is more to be dreaded amongst us than that mawkish liberalism, inconsistent with all greatness and manliness of character, which holds no fixed religious tenets, and affects to consider it a matter of indifference what system of faith, if any, prevail throughout the land. And is it not to a tendency to some such fastidious and fallacious aversion to controversy, that we must in a great part ascribe the disappointment of those friends to a scriptural creed, who were induced to lend assistance to the removal of Catholic disabilities, in brethren would be brought to listen to reason and argument? Why, you cannot speak of argument but you are reminded, and that by professing Protestants, of the asperities of religious animosity: you cannot propose any measure for withdrawing the veil of ignorance which darkens their minds, without exposing yourself to be reproached with bigotry and intolerance. Alas! how sadly has the lofty and uncompromising spirit of our forefathers deserted their beloved country, when it is denounced intolerant and unchristian any longer to contend for that uncorrupted, unmutilated truth for which alone they thought it worthy to live!-when their degenerate descendants, slighting the objects for which they fought and died, and the blessings which their intrepidity has secured, are countenancing the base surrender of Protestant principles, and leaguing in unholy alliances to demolish the structures reared by their labours, and cemented by their blood! We may rest assured, that the Latin clergy view these attempts, and our mutual dissensions, with the utmost complacency; and that our concessions, in deference to their religious antipathies and partialities, are met with no desire to conciliate by similar sacrifices. While we are engaged with foolish questions which gender strifes, they industriously disseminating the poison of their errors among our common people, seeking to perplex and proselyte them by those false reasonings which they are so well qualified to dress out in a specious and imposing form. One cannot reflect without a feeling of patriotic pride on the attitude which, in these circumstances, our national churches have preserved, and how true they have continued to the principles and spirit of the Reformation, which are in fact the principles and spirit of the Gospel. In a manner not unworthy of those days when, terrible as an army with banners, she led the van in the victo rious march of gospel liberty, and formed the strongest bulwark of the Protestant faith, have many of the most eminent divines of the Church of England been encountering the well-trained defenders of Romish error, both foreign and domestic, and attacking them in their strongholds ; nor in our own poorer and still purer Church have we witnessed less honourable are worldly ambition, and as circumstances may admit of their successful promulgation. The condition here required, it is important to observe, they are by their principles obliged to fulfil; because, while the Romish Church claims infallibility in matters of faith, it has neglected to advance the same claim in matters of fact. Now, the decisions of the Council of Trent, are rested on an alleged fact, namely― that the traditions which it determined to be obligatory, and which are pleaded in vindication, among other doctrines, of transubstantiation, purgatory, the seven sacraments, invocation of saints, worship of God in an unknown tongue, and the communion in one kind-that these traditions were received by the Apostles from the mouth of Christ, or dictated to them by the Holy Ghost, and have, in every age since, been preserved and acknowledged in the Catholic Church. Consequently, the Tridentine Fathers were bound to substantiate, by historical evidence, the fact here alleged, before the superstructure of doctrine and practice which they have built on it can be admitted; since their infallibility extended not to facts, but to doctrine only. And if any Romanist feel disposed now to undertake the task which the Council of Trent should have fulfilled, as a preparatory labour to the promulgation of their doctrinal decrees, let his evidence be brought from the writers of the first three centuries, whose testimony alone can be received in proof of the apostolic origin of the traditions. It is to no purpose to adduce copious quotations from the fathers of the fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh centuries, when religion, it is argued, had become corrupted by idolatrous admixtures. The thing to be established, we repeat, is the divine and apostolic origin; and no testimony can be conclusive on this point, unless it form part of a chain of evidence reaching to the age of the Apostles themselves. Now, on mounting to this early, and only-sufficient, evidence, we find the fact, so far from favouring, directly to discountenance the pious reverence and affection which the Latin Church professes for tradition; we find, not only no proof to establish the apostolic origin of those traditions on which so many of her practices and doctrines are founded, but the clearest proof, that in the first and purest times of Christianity, nothing was deemed essential to salvation but what is propounded in the written Word. Ireneus, whom the Romanists even claim as an advocate for their supplemental tradition, is an unexceptionable witness, that in the second century, the writings of the Apostles were regarded as the sole source from which christian doctrine and practice are to be learned. "The disposition of our salvation," says he, "we know not through any other persons than those by whom the Gospel has come to us; which then, indeed, they themselves orally preached; but which afterwards, according to the will of God, they traditionally handed down to us, in the written word, as the future basis and column of our faith." Tertullian, likewise of the second century, writing against Hermogenes, says," Let him show that it is written; if it be not written, let him fear that wo which is destined to those who either add to, or diminish from, the written word." Even so late as the fourth century, the great Augustine subscribes to the same sentiment," Let us not hear," he says, this I say, this you say; but let us hear, Thus saith the Lord. These are God's books, to whose authority we on both sides consent, and which we on both sides believe. There let us seek the Church, there discuss our cause. Let those things be removed from amongst us which we allege, one against another, from any other source than the divine canonical books." Thus unanimously do we find the early fathers consenting to the principle, that the final appeal should be to the law and to the testimony; thus expressly does the only tradition which can be admitted in the debate, as historically substantiated, condemn the decision by which the Tridentine Fathers sought to give authority to that confused chaos of fabulous legends, on which their unscriptural practices are founded. Ours, then, is the old as well as the true religion-if, indeed, the old religion is to be determined by the old rule. It is a favourite question with Romanists, which they seem to think sufficient to pose the proudest intellectual power, "Where was your religion before Luther?" To which we may confidently reply, "Where theirs never was, and never will be found, namely, in the Bible"—a rule, we may add, of much longer standing than councils, canons, constitutions, or traditions of men, or even the bulls of the Pope himself. (To be concluded in our next.) GLASGOW :-PRINTED AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, BY EDWARD KHULL. |