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and occasion how, his body grew first distempered?.... The Scribes and Pharisees taught many things against the law, and Christ reproved them; yet the time when those corruptions first came in, and the persons that devised them, to us are unknown." History of Popery, vol. i. p. 61, 62, 63.

10. Mr. Claude.-"As to the scripture, instead of making that the only rule of faith, they [the Papists] had joined traditions with it; that is to say, the most uncertain thing in the world, the most subject to impostures, and the most mixed with human inventions and weaknesses....Tradition is so far from being able to serve for a rule, that it ought itself to be corrected and regulated according to that maxim of Jesus Christ; 'In the beginning it was not so'....There is, therefore, nothing more improper to be the rule of faith than that pretended tradition, which is not established upon any certain foundation, which serves for a pretence to heretics, which is embraced pro and con, which changes according as times and places do, and by the favour of which they may defend the greatest absurdities, by merely saying, That they are the traditions which the apostles transmitted from their own mouths to their successors." Defence of Reformation, part i. chap. iii. p. 34; part. ii. chap. viii. p. 254, 258.

11. Mr. Ellys. "The plain truth is, there have been such vain pretences to tradition in all ages, one contradicting another, that it seems impossible in this age to discern between true and false. Did not Clemens Alexandrinus call it an apostolical tradition, that Christ preached but one year? And did not Irenæus pretend a tradition, descending from St. John, that Christ was about fifty years old when he was crucified? And do the Papists account either of these to be true? Many things might be named, which for some time have been received as apostolical traditions, which the church of Rome will not now own to be so; and those which

she owns, she can no more prove to be so, than those she hath rejected. It were easy to show this, even from abundance of their own writers, who assert the perfection of the scripture, and complain of the mischief this pretence to traditions hath done; and who confess, they cannot be proved to come from the apostles. But I shall now content myself with the ingenuous confession of the bishops assembled at Bononia, in their counsel given to pope Julius the Third: 'We plainly confess,' say they, among ourselves, that we cannot prove that which we hold and teach concerning traditions, but we have some conjectures only.' And again: In truth, whosoever shall diligently consider the scripture, and then all the things that are usually done in our churches, will find there is great difference betwixt them; and that this doctrine of ours is very unlike, and, in many things, quite repugnant to it.' Preserv. against Popery, title iii. p. 199. 12. Lampe." When I find such things reported as facts, in the writings of the first fathers, I can scarcely believe my own eyes.... Whoever is not an entire stranger to the writings of Irenæus, cannot be ignorant that he placed too much confidence in ecclesiastical traditions." Comment. in Evang. Joan. Prolegom. 1. i. c. iii. §5; c. 5. § 2.

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13. Mr. Bingham.-"Some of the fathers call the quadragesimal fast a tradition, or canon apostolical. St. Jerome says, 'We observe one Lent in the year, according to the tradition of the apostles.' Pope Leo calls it, 'the apostolical institution of a forty-days' fast, which the apostles instituted by the direction of the Holy Ghost.' But it is no small diminution to the judgment of pope Leo, that Mr. Pagi and Quesnel observe of him, that he was used to call every thing an apostolical law, which he found either in the practice of his own church, or decreed in the archives of his predecessors, Damasus and Siricius; and, for St. Jerom, he himself tells us, he sometimes calls particular customs of churches

by the name of apostolical traditions." Orig. Eccles. b. xxi. chap. i. § 8.

14. Turrettinus." But you will say, If any alterations have taken place in the church of Rome since the apostolic age, the time when, and the persons by whom they were made, should be pointed out. But no reason obliges us to this. As if-various alterations did not frequently occur to our notice, of which, neither the time, nor the place, nor the first authors can be accurately known.... It is difficult if not impossible to mark the first moments in which any corruption began, though the fact be so manifest that it cannot be denied. But what necessity is there to point out either the authors, or the times, provided the facts be certain? In order to prove that you have the plague,-is it necesssary for me to show, in what moment the destructive disease began to rage? Is it not quite sufficient by undoubted arguments to prove, that you labour under the fatal malady? Would not he deserve contempt, who should think rather about the commencement of the disease, than concerning an effectual remedy that should be used for his recovery? ....Though the precise time of such corruptions commencing cannot be exactly showed, it does not therefore follow that there are none; or that they are by us falsely attributed to the church of Rome. For the question is not, WHEN were such corruptions introduced? but, Whether in reality there BE SUCH? which may be learned, not from the monuments of ancient history, but from considering the present state of the Romish church. Agreeable to this was our Lord's manner of acting, when he reproved the Scribes and Pharisees. Did he particularize either the authors, the places, or the times in which such or such errors were brought into the church? Nothing less. Yet no one could have performed it better than He, who knew most accurately the commencement of every alteration. Satisfied with the scripture only, he appeals to the first beginning: From the

beginning it was not so.' Or, 'Ye do err, not knowing the scriptures.' Why then should we be tied to such a scrupulous designation of time, and of other circumstances that make nothing to the purpose? when it is quite sufficient for us to show, That the doctrine of the apostles differs exceedingly from that which prevails in the Papacy; and that the present Romish church differs much from that in the apostolic age; and, therefore, 'from the beginning it was not so."" De Necess. Secess. ab Eccles. Rom. disput. v. § 10.

REFLECTIONS.

Reflect. I. The Baptists are here informed by their learned opponents, That the pretence of tradition is a happy expedient, in favour of those who wish to retain unscriptural rites in the worship of God, No. 1;—that some of the first fathers who pleaded apostolic tradition, stand convicted of error, No. 2, 4, 6, 8;-that were an ecclesiastical custom, but a few centuries after the Christian era commenced, to be considered as an apostolical practice barely on a traditional ground, we must adopt a variety of ceremonies, which all Protestants have agreed to reject, No. 3, 6;-that the conduct of Roman Catholics in refusing to acknowledge their errors, except the time when, and the persons by whom they were introduced, be pointed out, is grossly absurd, No. 5,9, 12;— and, that there is no pretence of tradition, relating to all the infants of Christian parents being baptized in the early ages of the church; but that the contrary is manifest, No. 6. Such are the sentiments of these respectable authors concerning the matter before us.*

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Reflect. II. Though the preceding quotations are but as the tithe to the whole crop, if compared with what might be produced from learned Protestants when disputing with Papists, as all who are versed in that con

*For the opinion of the people called Quakers, respecting Pædobaptism as a tradition, see Vol. I. p. 310–312.

troversy must be aware; yet they are quite sufficient on this occasion, both by way of authority, and in point of argument for if this method of reasoning against the novelties of Popery be conclusive, as every consistent Protestant will readily grant, it must equally affect the argument for infant baptism, so far as tradition detached from scripture is pleaded for it; because these learned writers warrant us to assert, that if all the fathers, from Polycarp to Austin, had agreed in pronouncing Pædobaptism an apostolic tradition, which is far from being a fact, the evidence of its divine authority would still have been precarious, notwithstanding the hoary antiquity of such a plea in its favour.-As errors in doctrine and corruptions of worship were multiplied in the second and third centuries; as, in every succeeding age for a long course of time, the fertile invention of ecclesiastics devised something new, in addition to former depravations of truth, of worship, and of church-order; as books were forged under the venerable names of primitive fathers; and as apostolic tradition was pleaded to sanctify a great number of novelties; we are bound to consider all arguments from tradition as futile, except so far as they derive any force from corresponding evidence in the apostolic page. "For," as Bp. Taylor observes, no church at this day admits the one half of those things, which certainly by the fathers were called traditions apostolical."*

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Fond, however, as the fathers were of tradition, we have sometimes the pleasure of hearing them speak a different language. Thus, for example, Cyprian:

"Whence does that custom or tradition derive? Does it come with the authority of our Lord in the gospels, or is it given in charge by the apostles in the epistles ?— If it be either commanded in the gospel, or is to be

* Liberty of Prophesying, sect. v. p. 96. quiry into Orig. Nat. and Order of Churches, tingeri Analecta Hist. Theol. dissert. vii. § 7.

See Dr. Owen's EnPref. p. 54, 55. Hot

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