give way and soon tumble down; this I dare venture to affirm can be most justly adapted to the oral traditionary tenet of the Church of Rome. Let us, previous to the proof of this, see how Moses the ordained lawgiver of God proceeded. Did he not hand down in writing, the minutest articles of the old law? Was there before the birth of Christ in the written law, even a shadow of oral tradition, if you do not believe the Cabala, which is both ridiculed and rejected by the learned of all persuasions. Are we to neglect the Scriptures which Christ remitted to us, to follow the delusion of human oral traditions? Are we not, who are children of the law of grace, particularised and distinguished through God's mercy from the unbelieving parts of the world? How then can it be said, that Christ has adopted us preferably to thousands who are unacquainted with his holy law, if according to the tenets of the Church of Rome, we must be led by the halter of oral tradition?

• The laws given by Moses, whether moral, ceremonial, or political, amount to the number 613. The Jews reckon up the negative laws to the number of 365, and the affirmative to 248. They apply the first number to the days of the year, and the second to the number of parts in a human body; thereby not only intimating, but inculcating, that not a day of our life ought to pass without meditating upon the law of God, nor any member of our bodies enjoyed which is not consecrated and employed in his service, according to that saying of Ecclesiastes, "Fear God and keep his commandments, for that is the whole [duty] of man."

It is unquestionably true, that Moses was apprised, by immediate inspiration, of the creation of the world, and of what happened after 'till his time. And if he was not thus inspired, yet he could not err as he had such records and monuments and an uninterrupted account. For between Adum and Moses there did not intervene above four persons, as appears by the following table :

Born in the year Died

Adam created

Lamech

Shem

Born in the year,

Died.

1

930

By this it appears, that Adam lived with Lamech 56 years; Lamech lived with Shem 93 years; Shem lived with Isaac 50 years; Isaac lived with Levi 33 years; Levi died but 41 years before the birth of Moses, who was his grandson; consequently there must be an accurate account of what happened as they conversed so long together upon topics which they had fresh in their memories.

Should you be curious enough to enquire into the antiquity of such or such an oral tradition, a Romanist will plausibly tell you, it has been derived from the Apostles, but I will make it appear that this is not only a delusion but a manifest falsehood; whereas it must be undeniably granted, the Apostles were inspired, and consequently must have known the will and commands of Jesus Christ; being amply commissioned and fully authorised to promulgate his holy law. They then proceeded for or against his holy will; if for it, they transmitted to us in writing every point necessary for our salvation; if against it they did not proceed according to his divine commands and directions. If the Apostles deemed those oral traditions so pompously boasted of necessary to salvation, or even an appendix to it, can any one imagine that they being divinely inspired would not insert them in their writings as they have done the foundamental points of our religion.

So weak, feeble, and subject to variation are oral traditions, that the absurdity of them is self evident to any discerning and unprejudiced mind. Diseases, age, and their appendages, together with the manifold infirmities of human nature; the various ways and methods of relation, the spring from which it originates are incident to so many vicissitudes, so many different rehearsals, that no man philosophically tinctured can give credit to the traditionary result of them. Christ therefore, apprised of this, and also knowing what was necessary for the establishment and preservation of his church, consecrated by the Apostles, his divine will to writing.

A greater proof we cannot have of this than St. Paul, who 2 Tim. iii. 15. declares, "that the holy Scriptures are able to make us wise unto Salvation,

through faith in Christ Jesus." If every duty, as

the Apostle expressly says, requisite and conducing to our salvation be handed down in Scripture, innovations and oral traditions are introduced merely to deceive us.

St. John, xviii. 20. introduces Christ saying, “I spake openly to the world, I ever taught in the synagogue, and in the temple whither the Jews always resort, and in secret have I said nothing." This, upon the minutest reflection, undeniably shews how repugnant oral tradition is to the open and declared doctrine of Christ; here we plainly see, he spoke manifestly to the world at his public lectures, and when he privately conversed with the Apostles, he commanded them to illustrate what he said with light, and preach in a perspicuous manner what was whispered to them over the tops of houses, that all the world might without gloss or comment, be made acquainted with his laws. Here light is put in direct opposition with darkness, and whispering with a manifest and open promulgation. How then is it imaginable the Apostles thus commissioned by Christ, and inspired by igniferous and unerring tongues, would bury in the lumber of oral tradition and darkness his soul-saving laws and life-giving mandates. Evinced of this truth, let the Scriptures alone be our only guide.

1

To convince you of the delusion of oral traditions, let us see how Constantine and the Prelates assembled at the first Council of Nice proceeded. The following are Constantine's words-" In all theological disputes the prescribed doctrine of the Holy Ghost is only to be attended to, the Evangelical and Apostolical books, together with the Oracles of the Prophets, evidently intimate to us the will of the Deity. Therefore, laying aside seditious contention it were but meet to have matters determined by the divine writings." Not one of the bishops dissented

C

from, or questioned the truth of this speech, which would have been perfidiously done had they imagined oral traditions to be of equal weight and importance with the divine writings of the Evangelists, Apostles, and Prophets in elucidating debated questions relative to faith.

Another ancient testimony out of Irenæus, whọ lived in the second century strengthens the above. He promises in his third book, to the Christian reader, a most full resistance against all heretics and establishment in the sole, true, and vivific faith which the Church received from the Apostles and distributed to her children." He tells him in the beginning of the first chapter, "That we know not that the disposition of our salvation is by any others but those† by whom the gospel came to us which they then preached, but after by the will of God delivered to us in the Scripturesto be the foundation and pillar of our faith." Thus, he adds, Matthew among the Hebrews set out the Scripture, or writing of the gospel in their language, generally knowing no other; thus Mark, the disciple and interpreter of St. Peter delivered to us, in writing, what was preached by St. Peter: thus Luke, follower of Paul set down in a book the gospel which was preached by him: and afterwards John.

This was the same rule of faith in St. Cyprian's time, in the middle of the third century, Ep. 74. to Pompeius, where upon Pope Stephen's pressing tradition to him, he replies, "Whence is tradition? §

Plenissimum adversus omnes hereticus contradictionem, solâ verâ ac vivificâ fide quam ab Apostolis Ecclesia percepit, et distribuit filiis suis.

Per quos evangelium pervenit ad nos, quod quidem tunc præconcio naverunt, postea vero per dei voluntatém in 'Scripturis nobis tradiderunt fundamentum et columnam fidei nostræ futurum.

Unde est ista traditio? utrumne de dominicâ et evangelicâ authoritate descendens, an de Apostolorum mandatis atque epistolis veniens ? Ea facienda esse quæ scripta sunt.

§ Si aut in evangelio præcipitur aut in Apostolorum epistolis aut actitibus continetur observetur divina hæc et sancta traditio.

Doth it descend from the authority of the Lord and the gospel? Doth it come from the commands and pistles of the Apostles? For God," says he, "testifies and proposes to Joshua, the sun of Nun, that * those things are to be done which are written," saying, "the book of this law shall not depart from thy mouth, but thou shall meditate in it day and night, and observe to do those things that are written in it." [God, it seems, then thought people were to be guided by his written law.]" If then he commanded in the gospel, as contained in the epistles, or acts of the Apostles, let this divine and holy tradition be observed. But if in all former times it be no where commanded nor written, what obstinacy, what presumption is it to prefer a human tradition to God's disposing? He further adds, that § custom without truth, is but antiquity of error. He concludes, that it is the duty of priests who keep God's law, that if in any particular the truth totter, or be ready to fall, they revert to the beginning in Christ and the gospel, and from thence let the reason of our action arise whence the beginning of our Christianity arose. ||

St. Basil, in the Fourth Century, says, "Let Tradition put thee to the blush, the Lord hath thus taught, the Apostles preached, the Fathers observed, the Martyrs confirmed, be thou content to speak as thou hast been taught, and bring me not those captious sophisms."§ A little after, he says, "every word or

* Si retro nusquam omnino præceptum est, neque conscriptum, quæ est ista obstinatio, humanam traditionem divinæ dispositioni anteponere? + Consuetudo sine veritate vetustas erroris est.

Si in aliquo nutaverit aut vacillaverit veritas, ad originem dominicam et evangelicam et apostolicam traditionem revertamur. Inde surgal actus nostri ratio, unde et ordo & origo surrexit.

§ Tom. 1. Hom 27. contra Sab. p. 60S. Tom. 2. p. 307.