תמונות בעמוד
PDF
ePub

Orders are rejected by the Church of England, and only the two higher Orders are retained, the advocates of the Church of Rome, when they contend that our Orders depend upon Tradition as well as theirs, make use of an argument, which directly contradicts what the Council of Trent has admitted.

Again it has been asserted, that the institution of the Christian Sabbath, or the keeping the first day of the week holy, instead of the seventh, is And the author of the founded on Tradition. treatise De Ecclesia Christi has quoted it as one of the apostolical traditions. The institution therefore of the Christian Sabbath is represented, as having its foundation in Tradition as a Rule of Faith, that is the Unwritten Word of God. Now one should really suppose from the representation, that the institution had no foundation in the Written Word. But it is evident from Acts xx. 7. and 1 Cor. xvi. 1, 2. that the practice of the primitive Christians to assemble, for the purpose of worship, on the first day of the week, in commemoration of Christ's resurrection, had the sanction of St. Paul himself. And since this is recorded in the Written Word, what necessity is there for an appeal to the Unwritten Word?

Another example is given by Bellarmine, which has been repeated by every advocate of the Church of Rome to the present time. This example is Infant Baptism, which Bellarmine represents as

siâ laudabiliter receptæ, et plurimis in locis aliquamdiu intermissæ, in usum juxta sacros Canones revocentur. P. CLXV.

an apostolical tradition 1. Indeed the Council of Trent has itself appealed to apostolical tradition for the baptism of infants 16. Now from this example it is argued, either that the Church of England, notwithstanding its professions in the sixth Article, does not reject Tradition as a Rule of Faith; or that it acts with inconsistency, in returning the Sacrament of Baptism under the same form, as the Church of Rome. But both these charges are at once refuted by our twenty-seventh Article. For this Article is so far from resting the practice of Infant Baptism on the authority of Tradition, that it places that practice on a totally different footing. "The Baptism of young children (says this Article) "is in any wise to be retained in the Church, as "most agreeable with the institution of Christ "7" Where then is the inconsistency of our Church in respect to Infant Baptism? Or how does this example prove, that the Church of England acknowledges the authority of Tradition?

But there is another point of view, from which this example may be examined. When Bellarmine represents Infant Baptism as an apostolical tradition,

5 Parvulos baptizandos, vocatur traditio apostolica non scripta, De Verbo Dei, Lib. IV. Cap. 2.

16 Ex traditione Apostolorum etiam parvuli, qui nihil peccatorum in semet ipsis adhuc committere potuerunt ideo in remissionem peccatorum veraciter baptizantur, ut in eis regeneratione mundetur, quod generatione contraxerunt. P. xxiv.

"In what respects the practice of infant baptism is "most agreeable with the institution of Christ," it would be foreign to our present purpose to inquire: nor can it be necessary, as the agreement has been already shewn by those, who have professedly written on this subject.

he represents it, according to his own principles, as a Doctrine. For the apostolical traditions are ingredients in what he himself calls Doctrina non scripta 18. Indeed there is one respect, in which a Sacrament must be included under Doctrines; namely, when we consider it in reference to its inward and spiritual grace. Hence the Council of Trent, when it appealed to the Tradition of the Apostles (Traditio Apostolorum) in favour of Infant Baptism, spake in express terms of the efficacy of that Sacrament, which is necessarily a matter of Doctrine 19. But as a Sacrament has likewise an outward and visible sign, the administration of it may in this respect be considered as a Ceremony of the Church. Since then the Church of England uses its own discretion in regard to Ceremonies, though it invariably rejects Doctrines, which are founded only on Tradition, we may very consistently take into consideration, that the ceremony of baptizing infants has prevailed from the earliest ages of Christianity. And having adopted the practice on the ground of its being "most agreeable with the institution of Christ," we may, in perfect conformity with the principles of our Church, consider the antiquity of the practice as an additional reason for our adopting it. For the Tradition of Ceremonies is a very different thing from the Tradition of Doctrines. The Tradition of the latter is oral Tradition, and going from mouth to mouth must be perpetually subject to alteration. But the Tra

18 See Note 2, to this Chapter. The term Doctrina tradita has a similar meaning.

19 See the preceding Note 16.

dition of the former is ocular Tradition, and may be preserved unaltered, through a succession of ages, though never committed to writing. It is however of no importance on the present occasion, whether the distinction between the doctrinal and the ceremonial part of the Sacrament be considered, or not. For the Church of England in its own official declaration on the adoption of Infant Baptism, has left the argument of Tradition entirely out of the question. It has assigned a totally different reason, and therefore cannot be charged with an acknowledgment of the authority, ascribed to Tradition by the Church of Rome ".

20

If we further inquired into all the other examples, in which the term Tradition either has been, or might be, employed, for the purpose of proving a similarity between the Churches of England and Rome, the inquiry would hardly ever terminate. For the term "Tradition" may be applied to any thing whatever which is communicated from one person to another. Unless therefore we distinguish the Tradition of Doctrines, or Tradition as a Rule of Faith, from all other kinds of Tradition, there will be no end of the confusion, which must arise from arguments about Tradition. And since it has been fully proved in the first, the third, and the fourth, chapters of this Work, that the Tradition, of which the rejection constitutes the characteristic difference between the Churches of England and Rome, is

20 The confession of Augsburg appeals likewise to the authority of Scripture, and not to the authority of Tradition, for infant-baptism. See the ninth Article of that Confession.

K

that Tradition, which to the Church of Rome is a Rule of Faith, we may be certain, without previous examination, that, whenever an instance can be alledged, in which the two Churches agree about Tradition, that the term is used in some other sense. It will be sufficient therefore to notice two or three examples, on which the advocates of the Church of Rome lay the greatest stress.

It is said, that if our Church rejects the authority of Tradition, it rejects what is necessary to prove the authenticity of the New Testament. And on this occasion there is frequently quoted the wellknown saying of Augustine, "Ego Evangelio non crederim, nisi me commoveret Ecclesiæ auctoritas." Now according to our twentieth Article, the Church is "a Witness and Keeper of Holy Writ." Suppose then, that this declaration be applied to St. Paul's Epistles, for instance. When we are about to establish their authenticity, we trace the quotations from them in ecclesiastical writers, from the present age upwards till we come to writers so near to the time when St. Paul lived, that the Epistles ascribed to him, could not have been falsely ascribed, without their knowing it. In this sense the Church is a Keeper and a Witness of Holy Writ: and to the evidence for authenticity, which we thus obtain, the title of "Tradition" is sometimes applied, because the evidence has been handed down to us from the earliest ages. But this is a Tradition of Testimony, and has no connection whatever with a Tradition of Doctrine. And it is so far from distinguishing the Church of Rome, or indeed any Church whatever, that it is applied to establish the authenticity of

« הקודםהמשך »