also contained among the acknowledged doctrines of the Church of England.

Jesus Christ;

From Augustine let us pass to St. Paul, whom you quote as another authority in favour of tradition. "Continue," he says to Timothy,* "in the things which thou hast learned and hast been assured of, knowing of whom thou hast learned them." The Apostle in other passages salutes Timothy as his "dearly beloved," as his "own son in the faith;" and I am therefore little inclined to dispute that St. Paul is here referring to himself as the spiritual father and instructor of the son of Eunice; and that on the assurance of his authority, Timothy was exhorted and required to "continue in the things which he had learned." But before you require us to receive and apply this as the rule of our own faith, let me request you will attentively consider the difference of circumstances. Who was Saint Paul? an Apostle who had seen the Lord and had been instructed by him in all the essential facts and doctrines of the Gospel. Even though the same word "tradition" may be used to describe the oral communications of St. Paul to Timothy, as well as the unwritten deposit of which your Church professes to be the guardian, I must ever most earnestly contend that in the reality of the things spoken of there is no sameness, and scarcely any resemblance. It is a most inconsequent mode of reasoning to infer that because an inspired Apostle, who had received instruction from the Lord himself, was able by word of mouth to transmit the same without error or abatement to his own immediate disciple, therefore the same may with equal certainty be handed down in the same manner through so many ages; and that we, who cannot possibly trace out the first origin of certain tenets or follow them downward in a connected stream, must nevertheless

* II Tim. III. 14.

receive them with a submission as implicit as that with which Timothy received the words of the Lord spoken by Paul. Sir, I must shew myself a Protestant here. On behalf of all my brethren I must protest against such a tyrannical assumption. Before we acquiesce in the traditions which your Church seeks to impose upon us, and by means of which she may impose any doctrines that she pleases, we must in all reason require you to prove that we have as perfect means as Timothy possessed, of "knowing from whom we learned them." And let me remark with what surprise I observe that in your quotation of this authority you should have stopped exactly where you did. Why not proceed with those words of the Apostle which immediately follow? "And that from a child thou hast known the Holy Scriptures which are able to make thee wise unto Salvation through faith, which is in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is given by inspiration of God; and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness; that the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works." According to my plain understanding the man of God cannot be more than "perfect;" he cannot come behind in any spiritual gift if he be "throughly furnished unto all good works." And these things, we have assurance, the Scriptures are competent to effect for him. Our Saviour also points out these, not obscurely, as the word of God, and as the sole foundation of belief in him. "Ye have not his word," he says “abiding in you; for whom he hath sent, him ye believe not." ""* What course then does he enjoin them to pursue for remedy of these mortal deficiences? or in order that they might have the word of God in them, and be led to a belief in his Son. He does not recommend their having recourse to tradition. No; but he emphatically gives them this direction: "Search the Scriptures; for in them

John V. 38.

ye think ye have eternal life; and they are they which testify of me."* All our desire is that with respect to the Scriptures of the New Testament you would allow us to come to the same conclusion which our Saviour held concerning the old. The argument employed by those on your side in favour of tradition, is briefly this; that several years elapsed after the Ascension of our Lord before any single book of the New Testament was written, and many more before they became universally known, and were collected, and received as divine; that during this interval, the sole vehicle of instruction was oral tradition, and therefore that when at length the written word was added to the unwritten, the latter would not on that account forfeit the authority which it had previously enjoyed. But what authority have you for this opinion? not the decisions of Christ with respect to the Old Testament, nor those of his Apostles relative to the new. The conclusion to which they lead us is, that the written word was given, not to serve as a rule of faith conjointly with tradition, but with the express design of superseding the authority and use of tradition altogether. The appointments of God are uniform, and his dealings run parallel under both dispensations. The religion of the patriarchs was preserved by tradition during 430 years; as that of Christ was for about 30. Then, in the former case, when it is to be presumed that tradition was no longer safely to be trusted, the Books of Moses were written; and afterwards those of the Psalms and Prophets. The Old Testament therefore, it may with as much justice be said, was added to the previously existing traditions; many of which were accumulated and preserved by the Jews as supplementary to and explanatory of, the written word. The Jews too had apparently very strong grounds to justify their appeal to tradition; among which were to be reckoned the great length of time during

* John V. v. 39.

which the knowledge of God had been preserved by it alone; and the injunction delivered to them by Moses before his decease. "Remember the days of old; consider the years of many generations; ask thy father and he will shew thee; thy elders and they will tell thee."* Has the Church of Rome any text to produce, in favour of her traditions, equally pertinent with the above? By no means. If then our Lord directed the Jews, who had such an ar

gument on their side, to Search the Scriptures," and charged them with having "made the word of God of none effect by their traditions," how much more forcibly. would he have urged this against you?

We may thus reason very strongly from analogy against the authority of tradition; because no explanation can be given why the same principle upon which it was condemned under the Jewish dispensation ought not to be extended to it under the Christian. In fact, if we examine the declarations of the authors of the New Testament, we shall find that their very purpose in becoming writers, was to furnish security against the errors which even in that early age, a reliance on tradition was beginning to introduce. St. John assures us that if the things which Jesus did should be written every one, the world itself would scarcely contain the records. + Here assuredly was an ample and edifying field for the exercise of traditional fidelity. And yet what has it done? and why has it done no more? Of all the sayings of Jesus unrecorded by the Evangelists, but one has been preserved; and that one has been preserved in consequence of having found a place in the writings of St. Paul. Speaking of himself, St. John most significantly says "This is the disciple that testifieth of these things, and wrote these things;" and again "these are written, that ye might * Deuteronomy xxxii, 7, + John xxi, 25.

believe that Jesus is the Christ, the son of God, and that believing ye might have life through his name."* It is very true that in an earlier stage of the faith, St. Paul commended certain traditions to Timothy upon the ground of his knowing from whom he learned them; and I have stated reasons why this, as a temporary resource, was sufficient, so long as the Apostles were in existence, to maintain, and give assurance of, the conformity of such traditions with the doctrine delivered by Christ. But at a later period, when this assurance must be greatly weakened or altogether fail, as the last of the Apostolic body was on the point of departure from the world, the resource of tradition was to be superseded by another authority less liable to uncertainty and exception. This the expression of St. John plainly intimates, as he says explicitly that he wrote these things in order that they might be believed.And let it be remarked what this belief was to include. Even the cardinal doctrine "that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God;" that doctrine on which our Lord declares that he would "build his Church."+ It is not my intention to enter into the whole question of tradition, which has filled so many volumes. I would rather direct attention to a few points only, and such as have not been generally dwelt upon in connexion with this argument. Look therefore at the proem of St. Luke's Gospel, in composing which he was encouraged, perhaps assisted, by St. Paul. His design in writing, he most convincingly explains, was to counteract the inaccurate representations which had even then arisen from incautious reliance on tradition. These are his words" For as much as many have taken in hand to set forth in order a declaration of those things which are most surely believed among us, even as they delivered them unto us, which from the beginning were eye witnesses and ministers of the word, it seemed good to me also, having John xx, 31 and xxi, 24 + Matt. xvi, 18.