fessor Newman,^ "is the Church Catholic bound to teach the truth, but she is divinely guided to teach it ; her witness of the Christian faith is a matter of promise as well as of duty ; her dis- cernment of it is secured by a heavenly, as well as by a human, rule. She is indefectible in it; and therefore has not only author- ity to enforce it, but is of authority in declaring it. The Church not only transmits the faith by human means, but has a supernat- ural gift for that purpose ; that doctrine which is true, considered as an historical fact, is true also because she teaches it," The author of the Oxford Tract, No. 85, after saying, " We believe mainly because the Church of the fourth and fifth centuries unani- mously believed," ^ adds, " Why should not the Church be divine ? The burden of proof surely is on the other side. I will accept her doctrines, and her rites, and her Bible — not one, and not the other, but all, — till I have clear proof that she is mistaken. It is I feel God's will that I should do so ; and besides, I love these her possessions — I love her Bible, her doctrines, and her rites ; and therefore, I believe." ^ The Romanist then believes because the Church believes. This is the ultimate reason. The Church be- lieves, not because she can historically prove that her doctrines have been received from the Apostles, but because she is supernat- urally guided to know the truth. " Common consent," therefore, is practically abandoned, and tradition resolves itself into the pres- ent faith of the Church.
Tradition not available by the People. 4. Protestants object to tradition as part of the rule of faith, be- cause it is not adapted to that purpose. A rule of faith to the peo- ple must be something which they can apply ; a standard by which they can judge. But this unwritten revelation is not contained in any one volume accessible to the people, and intelligible by them. It is scattered through the ecclesiastical records of eigiiteen cen turies. It is absolutely impossible for the people to learn wlat it teaches. How can they tell whether the Church in all ages has taught the doctrine of transubstantiation, the sacrifice of the Mass, or any other popish doctrine. They must take all such doc- trines upon trust, i. e., oil the faith of the extant Church. But this is to deny that to them tradition is a rule of faith. T hey are required to believe, on thfe peril of their souls, doctrines, the pre- tended evidence of which it is impossible for them to ascertain or appreciate.
1 Lectures, ut supra, pp. 225, 226. * Oxford Tracts, No. 85, p. 102.
8 Ibid. p. 115.
128 INTEODUCTION. [Ch. V. — R. C. R. of Faith.
5. Romanists argue that such is the obscurity of the Scriptures, that not only the people, but the Church itself needs the aid of tradition in order to their being properly understood. But if the Bible, a comparatively plain book, in one portable volume, needs to be thus explained. What is to explain the hundreds of folios in which these traditions are recorded ? Surely a guide to the inter- pretation of the latter must be far more needed than one for the Scriptures.
y Tradition destroys the Authority of the Scriptures.
; 6. Making tradition a part of the rule of faith subverts the authority of the Scriptures. This follows as a natural and un- avoidable consequence. If there be two standards of doctrine of equal authority, the one the explanatory, and infallible interpreter of the other, it is of necessity the interpretation which determines the faith of the people. Instead, therefore, of our faith resting on the testimony of God as recorded in his Word, it rests on what poor, fallible, often fanciful, prejudiced, benighted men, tell us is the meaning' of that word. Man and his authority take the place of God. As this is the logical consequence of making tradition a rule of faith, so it is an historical fact that the Scriptures have been made of no account wherever the authority of tradition has been admitted. Our Lord said, that the Scribes and Pharisees made the word of God of no effect by their traditions ; that they taught for doctrines the commandments of men. This is no less historically true of the Church of Rome. A great mass of doctrines, rites, ordinances, and institutions, of which the Scriptui'es know nothing, has been imposed on the reason, conscience, and life of the people. The Roman Catholic religion of our day, with its hierarchy, ritual, image and saint worship ; with its absolutions, indulgences, and its despotic power over the conscience and the life of the individual, is as little like the religion of the New Testament, as the present religion of the Hindus with its myriad of deities, its cruelties, and abominations, is like the simple religion of their ancient Vedas. In both cases similar causes have produced similar effects. In both there has been a provision for giving divine authority to the rapidly accumulating errors and corruptions of succeeding ages.
7. Tradition teaches error, and therefore cannot be divinely controlled so as to be a rule of faitlv. The issue is between Scripture and tradition. Both cannot be true. The one con- tradicts the other. One or the other must be given up. Of this at least no true Protestant has any doubt. All the doctrines