CHAPTER VI.

On the Authority and Traditions of the Nicene Church.

WRITERS of the Puseyite school are shrewd enough to see that the claims of the church to apostolical authority would rest on very slender ground, and must soon be abandoned, if they had no better support than the character and judgment of the Reformers. Where then can they find a prop sufficient for that purpose? Why, in its high and venerable antiquity, as instituted twelve centuries ago by Augustine and his fellowmonks, under the immediate sanction of the bishop of Rome, and according to the views and customs of the Nicene age, received by direct tradition from the apostles.

Consistency forbids their appeal to writers of the Romish persuasion from the seventh century till the reformation. During that long interval the bishop of Rome assumed to be the only legitimate successor of St. Peter, exclusively entrusted with the keys of heaven, the vicegerent of God, and supreme head of the church on earth; the denial of which was sufficient to deprive even kings of the papal blessing, and to bring them under a most fearful excommunication and interdict. If then their testimony in support of high-church principles were worth anything, it must be in favour of their own church, and would equally prove all separatists guilty of schism. And if the churchman will assign any reason why he calls dissenters schismatics, he may soon find the same has been used against his own church, with equal force, by the abettors of popery. The supporters of high-churchism, therefore, passing over all intermediate authorities, carry us back

from the nineteenth century to the third, and select the Nicene age of the church as the truest model of apostolic christianity. The cause of Christ had then passed through many fierce and destructive persecutions, survived the most formidable efforts for its extermination, triumphed over paganism, thrown down its mightiest strongholds, and under the patronage of Constantine, was declared to be the religion of the empire. Under these circumstances it seems reasonable to assume, as the Puseyites do, that the christian faith must have been preserved in its native purity, unmixed with human inventions, and free from those excrescences which afterwards grew upon it under the papal system. And though the church was then favoured with imperial protection, it had occupied that position too short a time to be materially affected by it, even in the estimation of those who deem such an alliance with the state inconsistent with its independence, or the purity of its discipline as a spiritual body. The heads of the church in that age were many of them men of eminent piety and talent, in whom intellectual greatness and christian sanctity were combined with the crown of martyrdom; who were deservedly revered by their contemporaries, and whose names will be had in everlasting remembrance. And as they had received their official appointments, and the traditions of the church, as well as the sacred oracles, by a short and direct line of succession from the very apostles, through the medium of the apostolic fathers, they must doubtless have known and maintained the christian doc trine and discipline precisely as they were first instituted. Whatever respect may be due to the Reformers of the sixteenth century as authorized expositors of christian truth, far greater is most assuredly due to the Nicene fathers, who lived within two or three centuries of the apostles. If the former, with a view to distinguish apostolical traditions from papal, were thrown back upon the simple testimony of scripture, who can doubt but such traditions were well known and sacredly preserved by the latter? So that if a revision of the Anglican church were desirable, it should be attempted only to bring its usages into more exact accordance with the Nicene model.

In reply to this assumption, we have no wish to depreciate the Nicene fathers, or to withhold one iota of the gratitude and confidence to which their memories and writings are entitled. The piety and zeal of some, the genius and eloquence of others, the integrity and courage of most, were doubtless of the highest order. During the perils of the second and third centuries, when the christian cause was everywhere spoken against; when its disciples were hated by the priesthood, ridiculed by philosophers, frowned upon by the great, and insulted by the populace; when the toleration and comparative repose sometimes enjoyed, depended on the policy or caprice of some unprincipled emperor and his favourites; when, through a series of terrific persecutions, thousands and tens of thousands had suffered imprisonment, confiscation, banishment, and death itself, under forms the most tormenting and brutal that human wit could invent; when the brightest ornaments of the church were sought ought by informers, as the favourite victims of popular fury; it required no ordinary firmness, no common force of religious principle, for its leading men to stand their ground, and hold fast their integrity, discharging the duties of their office, and boldly appealing to the public, and to emperors themselves, in defence of the gospel and of christian liberty. The moral heroism of such men as Ignatius, Polycarp, Justin Martyr, Irenæus, Quadratus, Aristides, Clemens, Origen, Tertullian, and others of the same age, cannot fail to excite the admiration and gratitude of the christian church. And were they not sometimes invested with a kind of supernatural authority, we should wish their errors and imperfections to remain in the shade, while their names and virtues were held in the highest esteem. The christian fathers of the second century in particular, who were personally acquainted with the immediate successors of the apostles or the next in order, while the supernatural gifts of the Spirit remained in the churches, or were fresh in their remembrance, certainly had many advantages beyond those of a later age to confirm their faith and rectify their opinions. They, and their successors during the Nicene age, are entitled to full credit as to matters of fact, the history of the past, and the prevailing customs and opinions of

the church at that time. Nor can it be denied that many of their writings, the most precious remains of christian antiquity, especially those of Origin, Tertullian, Cyprian, Lactantius, Eusebius, Basil, Ambrose, and Chrysostom,-on various points of experimental and practical theology, contain many passages of singular merit, which might still greatly delight and edify the christian church, and the beauty and sublimity of which have seldom been surpassed.

But to suppose that they were the conservators of any unwritten apostolic traditions, different from those of the New Testament; that the doctrines and rites of christianity were preserved by them perfectly pure, without any addition, just as they were taught or instituted by the apostles; that they were in some sense inspired men, or better qualified than any of later times to understand and expound the scriptures, according to the mind of the Spirit; or that their opinions and customs were invested with a kind of sacred authority, and still demand special deference, independently of their accordance with the New Testament, appear to us to be unwarrantable and dangerous assumptions. On the contrary, we must appeal from them to a higher tribunal, and admit their opinions and traditions so far only as they agree with the word of God.

But does not the apostle Paul warmly commend the Corinthians,* ,"because they remembered him in all things, and kept the ordinances or traditions which he had delivered to them ?" And does he not say to the Thessalonians, "therefore, brethren, stand fast, and hold the traditions which ye have been taught, whether by word or our epistle?" By whom then were these traditions sacredly preserved but by the apostolic fathers? And where can we hope to find them but in their writings? We answer, that by traditions the apostle did not mean certain points of doctrine and discipline which he had not thought proper to commit to writing, but had delivered to them verbally, to be in like manner transmitted to others, and so to be received by the church from age to age in addition to the sacred writings. But he applies this term to the rites and doctrines of christianity in general, because he had received them by immediate

1 Cor. xi. 2. 2 Thes. ii. 15; iii. 6.

revelation from the Lord, and delivered them to others to be received and observed on the same authority. Hence, referring to the first and most essential facts of the gospel, the death and resurrection of Christ, he says to the Corinthians,* “I have delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins, was buried, and rose again the third day, according to the scriptures." And when repeating the institution of the Lord's supper, with a view to reprove and correct their sad abuse of that ordinance, he employs the same language, “I have received of the Lord that which I also delivered unto you."

These and all other parts of the christian system, its facts, evidences, doctrines, moral precepts, positive rites, forms of worship, or of government, constituted the traditions which the apostles taught, the sacred deposits committed by them to the first churches. They did not speak of them as the result of their own inquiries, or a system of human devising, recommended by its own intrinsic merit; but as a divine system, revealed and attested by the Spirit of God. From Christ himself, its divine Author, they had received a special commision to preach the gospel to every creature, commanding all men every where to repent and believe. In executing this commission they could invite the people to a close and impartial scrutiny, because "they had not followed cunningly-devised fables, but spoke the words of truth and soberness, and were eye-witnesses of the Saviour's glory," both before and after his resurrection from the dead. They could also appeal to the supernatural endowments granted them by their ascended Lord, and to the numerous miracles which they performed in confirmation of the truth: while the predictions of the old testament, being now fulfilled, bore testimony to Christ, and ratified still more the testimony of his apostles. Hence, the doctrines and institutions of Christ, which form the new covenant, were the grand and almost exclusive theme of their discourses, which they repeatedly stated and explained, proved and applied to the members of the first churches, till "they understood the way of the Lord more perfectly," and were well-grounded in the

* 1 Cor. xv. 3; xi. 23.