The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1839-01-04 00:00:00

THE TRACTS FOR THE TIMES.

(FROM THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND QUARTERLY REV IE W.)
(Concluded from our last.)
We have, moreover, observed individuals attached to this
school of late busily employed in endeavours to give another
illustration to those passages in the New Tastament which
have been generally applied to Popery, and to others which
have seemed convertible to their purpose. Opinions as allied
to Popery as those of Mr. Fronde, the already recited writer
in Fraser, has produced from Nos 4 and 9 of these tracts, and
the author, too, of the High Church Principles Examined
(from whom we dissent on a great variety of points, which
we shall not interrupt our present paper by discussing), has
also brought forward some startling extracts, which present
the same suspicious hppearance. When in No. 10, we are
desired to be sure that the bishop is Christ's appointed repre-
sentative, as if we actually saw him work miracles, as St.
Peter and St. Paul did, that he is Christ's earthly likeness, we
cannot abandon the thought that the Pope's supremacy flitted
before the mind of the author. Who will call Maltby or
Stanley Christ's earthly likeness ?
The British Magazine also has the following verses :
" 0 that thy creed were sound, •
For thou dolt soothe the heart, thou Church of Rome,
By thy unwearied watch, butyaised sounds
Of service, in thy Saviour's holy home" (Feb. 1836.)
which leads us to exactly the same conclusion respecting the
religious principles of these men.
The author of the Biyh Church Principles Examined seems
to been a Dissenter, though he has a national dislike to the
Papistical doctrines of the Oriel party; but he has incorrectly
handled the arguments, and tested the allegations of the
tracts by his own opinions, producingf little or nothing which
a critic will allow to be a voucher for those opinions. The
main point between us and the ignes fritui at Oxford is the
validity or invalidity of tradition; it is the substratum on
which the superstructure has been raised; it is that to which
the Romanist has equally appealed. This accordingly has
been the stand which Drs. Shuttleworth and Wilson, and
Mr. Holden, have very properly taken. It must be the stand
which every one of common sense will take in this dispute;
and there is no point which may be more satisfactorily deter-
mined, even if a reference be made to the weary volumes of
the fathers; for their credulity will show that tradition flow-
ing through their pages cannot be regarded as apostolical.
Bishop Marsh observes, that the rejection of tradition is the
vital principle of the reformation; hence, those who seek to
revive its authority have expressed themselves in violent terms
against the Reformers. '['he things which Professor Keble
says must be abandoned, rather than a surrender of one jot
or tittle of primitive faith, " the precious apostolical relics,"
should take place—viz., " present opportunity of doing good;
external quietness, peace, and order; a good understanding
with the temporal and civil power ; the love and co-operation
of those committed to our charge; and all other pastoral con-
siderations," are so very important that it may be most rea-
sonably exacted, that those relics be proved equally precious
and apostolical ere such a surrender be demanded. Dr. Wil-
son properly remarks, that the authority of any one father,
or that of all the united fathers, is not apostolical authority;
and that their testimony to any doctrine is a matter of credi-
bility, not a faith, unless it be confirmed by the word of God.
We indeed cannot understand how this tradition, assumed to
be pure, is to be proved more genuine than the traditionary
rubbish which may be read in the Patristical pages; for,
however those who may seek to extract it from the mass may
be satisfied with their own, process, there is no warrant that
others will be equally satisfied with it. Dr. Wilson, quoting
from Bishop Marsh, has shown the striking coincidence that
subsists between Professor Keble's statements and the Tri-
dentine decree, made at the fourth session, relating to scrip-
ture and tradition, which is singular enough, as the Council
of Trent was one of Froude's few objections to Romanism.
Our sixth article, as Bishop Marsh has proved, contradicts the
Tridentine decree : instead of proposing "two partial rules
of faith—viz., Scripture and tradition: instead of describing
tradition, or the unwritten word, it gives the whole authority
to Scripture alone." The sixth article therefore rejects, en-
tirely and absolutely, tradition as a rule of faith. Hesice,
perhaps; Froude's antipathy to the articles.
Have these persons reflected on the' moral effect of their
doctrine, that Scripture alone is not a sufficientinstructor ?
What security have they that the traditions which they may
think proper to select and offer to public'acceptance under
the name of apostolical relics, will he received as such ?
What security have they, that others which they may reject
will not be brought forward by another party ? Are they not
undermining the reverence with which the word of God, as
containing all things necessary for our salvation should be
regarded? Professor Keble, however, says, " This use of
apostolical tradition may well correct the presumptuous ir-
reverence of disparaging the fathers under the plea of mag-
nifying Scripture The very writings of the apostles
were first to be tried by it (tradition) before they could be in-
corporated into the canon ; they, the Scriptures themselves
as it were, do homage to the tradition of the apostles; the
despisers therefore of that tradition take part, inadvertently
or profanely, with the despisers of the Scripture itself." We
are at a loss for the professor's authority that the Scriptures
do homage, as it were, to the tradition of the apostles; or
some of the apostles having been alive when the three first
gospels and acts and several of the epistles were in circula-
tion in the churches, and St. John having survived to a late
period, and added in his own gospel the things
,wanting in
the others, as long as these living authorities survived there
would have been no need of appeal to a floating tradition;
and ere the despisers of the tradition which is insisted upon
in the present day can be said inadvertently or profanely to
take part, as a consequence, with the despisers of the Scrip-
ture itself, it must be shown that that tradition is pure and
identical with the tradition of the apostolic times. This is
the proof we desire; but it is one which cannot be given.
Examining tradition in the sense of actus tradendi, Dr.
Wilson (of St. Luke i., 1-4) observes :
" Tradition in its first and essential meaning seeing to be-
long to the apostles in a sense in which it can never be cor-
rectly applied to any one who :las not received in the same
immediate manner, from the fountain head of authority, that
which be delivers. If a new revelation were vouchsafed to
any one, then would his declaration of it be properly a tradi-
tion; but that we have uo . reason to expect any such revela-
tion in matters of faith is evident from Jude, verse 3."
The apex paradotheisee lois hagioispistis appears to preclude
the idea of any tradition independent of the Scriptures as a
rule of faith ; it implies a faith once for all delivered, that
faith which was delivered by the apostles ; that faith which
the apostles committed to those writings, which we call the
New Testament. This act of delivery was Lois hagiois to the
church, the faithful in Christ Jesus; and tradition " was the
delivery of that which the apostles had received from their
divine master, and the church was the depository to which
the eeeue it. was it:: ru-nea.-1 PI =co. 214_ Mt:titan k d irti
the 'pillar and ground of the truth—in our articles a witness
and keeper of holy writ.
The early church made constant appeals to Scripture, and
admitted no one doctrine as of apostolical authority unless it
could be proved from the Scripture. As many, like St. Luke.
had taken in hand to set forth in order a declaration of the
very things most surely believed, "might not (Dr. Wilson
asks) their dieegeeseis be allowed to be precious apostolical
relics, remains to be guarded with extreme jealousy," &c. ?
Had they been handed down to us, they would have been
more trustworthy than any vehicle of apostolical tradition
which may now survive; but as there is no intimation of
their incorrectness or heretical pravity, why were they super-
seded and lost? Because, it would seem, they were written
by uninspired men, and God willed not that his church
should depend on such traditional testimony: if then, as this
admirable writer urges, these, which would have been the
highest and purest channels of tradition, were, on account
of their uncertainty and slipperiness, cut off by the interpo-
sition of divine inspiration, that we might know the certainty
(asphaleia) of those things in which the church was then
instructed, apostolic tradition is closed up in the inspired
writings, beyond which, at this distance of time, no certainty
cap be attained. None but God may dare to raise the cur-
tain which has thus fallen on the actus tradendi.
Professor Keble's opinions are very strange ;-.F. and we are
sure that he would not apply to a profane author the style of
criticism which he applies to the New Testament. His notion,
that this deposit committed to. Timothy contained, besides
the substance of Christian doctrines a methodical arrange-
ment of the whole, and a certain system of church practice,
both in government, discipline, and worship, in an extra-
ordinary strain on parakatatheekee; and as, by the tenor of
the argument, all this must have been oral, it is, as Dr.
Wilson argues, still more singular, than even if St. Paul had
not committed it to writing, neither Timothy nor any of his
successors should have recorded it, and that it should not
have been preserved in the church of Ephesus, together with
the two epistles, which, in comparison of so important a
document, might rather be regarded as private epistles.
Again, this deposit is conjectured to have been a kind of
public charge at Timothy's ordination, which he was to in-
trust to faithful men (2 Tim. iii. 2;) whence it is inferred
that it "related principally to doctrine." But who for a
moment can imagine these things which Timothy had heard
from Paul "before many witnesses," the things which he
was to commit to faithful men to teach others also, were any
but the great mysteries of the Gospel—the word in which,
instant in season, and out of season, he has to do the work of
an evangelist, and make full proof of his ministry? Who
can possibly believe that when St. Paul says, " I have kept
the faith," lie meant only that he had been faithful to a
certain form of confession and methodized arrangement of
general truth ? By such language the apostle could have
bad no intention but that of appealing to the whole extent
of his ministrations. To us it is very clear, from 1 Tim., vi.,
20, that the opposition in which the parakatatheekee stands to
bebeelui aennphoniai and antithessis tees pseadonumou ynoseas,
shows that the true Gospel of Jesus Christ, in contrast to
traditions current perhaps amongst the Jewish Christians of
that day and the Gnosis, was intended by the apostle. We
cannot be expected to follow Professor K. into all his other
allegations, which Dr. Wilson has triumphantly disproved.
As if to support his assertion, the professor, however, says—
" To these conclusions we are led by the consideration, first,
that the truths and rules committed to Timothy's charbse were
at the time almost or wholly unwritten." But Dr. Nilson
shows, according to Cresswell, that six of St. Paul's epistles
had been written ten years when he sentdhesecondepistle to
Timothy : those to the Ephesians, Colossians, Philemon, and
the Philippians, almost six years ; that to the Hebrews,
three; that to Titus, one; the Gospel of St. Matthew, 24
years; of St. Mark, at least ten; of St. Luke, six years.
Consequently, the apostle, by having made no particular
reference to these Gospels or his own epistles, considered the
whole canonical Scriptures as the rule of faith, just as the
writings of the Old Testament had been the rule and.criterion
of the apostolical preaching : hence, the general precept,
wee heterodidaskalein.
The authority cited from the fathers is quite as felicitously
overthrown by br. Wilson, who in return cites Cyril of Alex-
andria, as stating that Christ is the truth, "1. e., the true
rule, end, and object of faith, ho aleethees tees pisteos 1w res.
In the appendix he has given an instance of amplification in
translation, where the argument rests on the amplification;
the words are of toinem episcopoi loipoa aneluntes to par' auton
Pp/meet/rerun rheemata holsters exethento kat' auton teen hugiai-
nousan kai ekkleesiastikeen pistiu; which Professor Keble
renders, "on the other [part] the bishops rejected the ex-
pressions devised by them, and proceeded to enunciate
against them the sound faith, the faith of the church from
the beginning." Here the insertion of "proceeded," and
"from the beginning" is clearly designed to support the
views of tradition. Were all the quotations of this school
tobe carefully examined, similar instances might probably
be found.
When we are further informed that this treasure, the idea-
tic al deposit, is lost, hut must be recovered ; that the genu-
ine canons of the primitive councils, and the genuine " frag-
ments of the primitive liturgies, must be searched for 'the
remnant of apostolical tradition,' whom are we to depute to
the overwhelming task ?" With whose critical judgment
shall we be satisfied ? Whom shall we trust " not only to
purify, but integrate" a mutilated and corrupted text? And
when this shall have been done, who will or can prove the

* Sound rhyming with sound is very bad.
t From this censure we exempt Misopapisticus, whose
letters we had not seen when this passage was written.
1: Professor Keble wishes to prove that St. Paul left with
Timothy a specific deposit, a treatise of apostolical doctrine,
and church rules—the rules and doctrines which made up the
charter of Christ's kingdom.—P.2o. This deposit is asserted
to be something so wholly sufficient, so unexceptionably ac-
curate, as to require nothing but fidelity in its transmitters
cp. 21;) a body of truth and duty totally distinct from the
Scriptures, and independent of them (p. 2'2;) the substance
of saving truth in a sufficiently systematic form (p. 23;)
something independent of the written word, and sufficient
at that time to refute heresy, even alone (p. 23;) to be paral-
lel to Scripture; not derived from it, and consequently fixing
the interpretation of disputed texts, not simply by the judg-
ment of the church, but by authority of that holy spirit which
inspired the oral teaching itself, of which such tradition is the
record. (P. 23.) The faith once for all delivered to the
saints, in other words apostolical tradition, was divinely
appointed in the church as the touchstone of canonical
Scripture itself (p. 27;) made the standard and rule of God's
own divine Scripture (p. 28;) to which the Scriptures them-
seam do homage. (P. 28.)