D. Arguments against the Doctrine of Tradition.
The heads of argument against the Romish doctrine on thig subject are the following : —
1. It involves a natural impossibility. It is of course conceded that Christ and his Apostles said and did much that is not re- corded in the Scriptures ; and it is further admitted that if we had any certain knowledge of such unrecorded instructions, tliey would be of equal authority with what is written in the Scriptures. But Protestants maintain that they were not intended to constitute a part of the permanent rule of faith to the Church. They were designed for the men of that generation. The showers which fell a thousand years ago, watered the earth and rendered it fruitful for men then living. They cannot now be gathered up and made available for us.. They did not constitute a reservoir for the sup- ply of future generations. In like manner the unrecorded teach- ings of Christ and his Apostles did their work. They were not designed for our instruction. It is as impossible to learn what they were, as it is to gather up the leaves which adorned and enriched the earth when Christ walked in the garden of Geth- semane. This impossibility arises out of the limitations of our na- ture, as well as its corruption consequent on the fall. Man has not the clearness of perception, the retentiveness of memory, or the power of presentation, to enable him (without supernatural aid) to give a trustworthy account .of a discourse once heard, a few years or even months after its delivery. And that this should be done over and over from month to month for thousands of years, is an impossibility. If to this be added the difficulty in the way of this oral transmission, arising from the blindness of men to the things of the Spirit, which prevents their understanding what they hear, and from the disposition to pervert and misrepresent the truth to suit their own prejudices and purposes, it must be acknowledged that tradition cannot be a reliable source of knowledge of religious truth. This is universally acknowledged and acted upon, except by Romanists. No one pretends to determine what Luther and Calvin, Latimer and Cranmer, taught, except from contempoi-aneous v/ritten records. Much less will any sane man pretend to know what Moses and the prophets taught except from their own writings.
Romanists admit the force of this objection. They admit that tradition would not be a trustworthy informant of what Christ and the Apostles taught, without the supernatural intervention of God.
122 INTRODUCTION. [Ch. V. — R. C. R. of Faith.
/ Tradition is to be trusted not because it comes down through tbe hands of falHble men, but because it comes througli an infallibly guided Church. This, however, is giving up the question. It is merging the authority of tradition into the authority of the Church. There is no need of the former, if the latter be admitted. Ro- manists, however, keep these two things distinct. They say that if the Gospels had never been written, tiiey Avould know by histor- ical tradjtion the facts of Christ's life ; and that if his discourses and the epistles of the Apostles had never been gathered up and recorded, they would by the same means know the truths which they contain. They admit, however, that this could not be with- out a special divine intervention.
No Promise of Divine Intervention.
2. The second objection of Protestants to this theory is, that it is unphilosophical and irreligious to assume a supernatural inter- XeDiion 91^ the part of God, without promise and without proof, merely to suit a purpose, — Deus ex inacJdna.
Our Lord promised to preserve his Church from fatal apostasy ; He promised to send his Spirit to abide with his people, to teach them ; He promised that He would be with them to the end of the world. But these promises were not made to any external, visible organization of professing Christians, whether Greek or Latin; nor did they imply that any such Church should be preserved from all error in faith or practice ; much less do they imply that instruc- tions not recorded by the dictation of the Spirit, should be pre- served and transmitted from generation to generation. There is no such promise, in the Wox'd of God, and as such preservation and transmission without divine, supernatural interposition, would be impossible, tradition cannot be a trustworthy informant of what Christ taught.
No Criterion.
3. Romanists again admit that many false traditions have pre- vailed in different ages and in different parts of ine ChurchTTKose who receive them are confident of their genuineness, and zealous in +heir support. How shall the line be drawn between the true and false ? By what criterion can the one be distniguished fi'om the other? Pi'otestants say there is no such criterion, and therefore, if the authority of tradition be admitted, the Church is exposed to a flood of superstition and error. This is their third argument against the Romish doctrine on this subject. Romanists, however, say they have a sure criterion In antiquity and universality. They