accessible at a cheap rate, is an important service to the church, and we heartily recommend it to the careful study of our fellow ministers. The works of the bishop of Chichester, of Professor Powell, and of Mr. Holden have been already noticed in our pages, and are here mentioned again only with a view of renewing our recommendation to our readers to sustain the publisher in his laudable enterprize to disseminate such reasonable books.

Mr. Goode's book, which is dedicated to the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of London, is devoted to the refutation of the Oxford Tracts. It gives at length the doctrine on tradition taught in those writings; proves that it is identical with the Popish doctrine on the same subject; demonstrates that patristical tradition is not "a practically infallible witness of the oral teaching of the apostles, nor receivable as a divine informant;" he vindicates the claim of holy scripture as the sole divinely-revealed rule of faith and practice, and sole infallible judge of controversies, and consequently in the credenda of religion the sole authority which binds the conscience to belief in what it delivers. He vindicates the fulness and sufficiency of the divine revelation as contained in the scriptures, and in doing this examines at length the doctrines which the Tractarians affirm tradition is necessary to establish. He then shows that his doctrine on this whole subject is the doctrine of the fathers themselves, as well as that of the church of England. He pronounces the appeal made by the Tractators in their Catena Patrum, to the opinions of the English divines in support of their doctrines, "one of the most unaccountable, and painful, and culpable (however unintentional) misrepresentations with which history supplies us." He convicts them of the grossest unfairness in quoting in support of their views distorted fragments of works written in direct and avowed opposition to them. He accuses them of borrowing not merely their arguments, but in a great degree their learning at second hand from the Romanists; and brings forward cases of egregious blunders in their quotations from the fathers. He shows that the famous tract No. 90, designed to show that the thirty-nine articles are consistent with the Tridentine decrees, is little else than the reproduction of a work written by a Jesuit more than two centuries ago.*

*The title of this work is, "Deus, natura, gratia, sive, Tractatus de Predestinatione, de meritis, et peccatorum remissione, seu de justificatione et denique de

The theory of the traditionists is, that the holy scriptures are both defective and obscure. They contain, indeed, all the essential doctrines of the gospel, but they give, in many cases, mere hints or notices of them, which could not be understood unless explained and developed by tradition. "It is a near thing," says tract 85, "that they are in scripture at all; the wonder is that they are all there; humanly judging, they would not be there but for God's interposition; and therefore since they are there by a sort of accident, it is not strange they should be but latent there, and only indirectly producible thence." The same writer says, the gospel doctrine" is but indirectly and covertly recorded in scripture under the surface." But besides these doctrines which are essential to salvation, there are others which are highly important which are not in the scriptures at all, which we are bound to believe. These doctrines we must learn from tradition; it is, therefore, " partly the interpretation, partly the supplement of scripture."t

The authority due to tradition is the same as that which belongs to the written word of God. In the language of the Council of Trent, "Traditiones non scriptas pari pietatis affectu, et reverentia cum scriptura esse recipiendas." So Mr. Keble says, that consentient patristical tradition is "God's unwritten word, demanding the same reverence from us." Dr. Pusey says, "we owe faith to the decisions of the church universal." "Our controversy with Rome," he says, " is not on a priori question on the value of tradition in itself, or at an earlier period of the church, or of such traditions as, though not contained in scripture, are primitive, universal, and apostolical, but it is one purely historical, that the Romanist traditions not being such, but on the contrary repugnant to scripture, are not to be received."

The ground on which this authority is ascribed to tradition is, that it is a practically infallible informant of the oral instructions of Christ and his apostles. "Let us understand," says Mr. Newman, "what is meant by saying that antiqui

sanctorum invocatione. Ubi ad trutinam fidei Catholicae examinatur confessio Anglicana, &c. Accessit paraphrastica expositio reliquorum articulorum confessionis Anglicae." It was written by an English convert to Popery, named Christopher Davenport, and after his conversion called Francis a Sancta Clara, and designed to prove the English articles to be conformable to the Tridentine doctrines. "And for learning and ingenuity our modern reconciler," says Mr. Goode" is not to be compared to him. But in all the most important points, the similarity between the two is remarkable."

† Newman's Lectures, p. 298.

ty is of authority in religious questions. Both Romanists and ourselves maintain as follows: that whatever doctrine the primitive ages unanimously attest, whether by consent of fathers, or by councils, or by the events of history, or by controversies, or in whatever way, whatever may fairly and reasonably be considered the universal belief of those ages, is to be received as coming from the apostles." This is the ground commonly taken both by Romanists and the Oxford writers. Certain doctrines are to be received not on the authority of the fathers, but upon their testimony that those doctrines were taught by the apostles. Both however rely more or less on the gift of the Holy Spirit communicated by the imposition of hands, who guides the representative church into the knowledge of the truth, and renders it infallible. "Not only" says Mr. Newman, "is the church catholic bound to teach the truth, but she is ever divinely guided to teach it; her witness of the Christian faith is a matter of promise as well as of duty; her discernment of it is secured by a heavenly as well as a human rule. She is indefectible in it, and therefore not only has authority to enforce it, but is of authority in declaring it. The church not only transmits the faith by human means, but has a supernatural gift for that purpose; that doctrine which is true, considered as an historical fact, is true also because she teaches it.' 99 Hence he says, "That when the sense of scripture as interpreted by reason, is contrary to the sense given to it by Catholic antiquity, we ought to side with the latter." Page 160.

Such being the high office of tradition, it is a matter of great moment to decide how we are to ascertain what tradition teaches. The common answer to this question is, Catholic consent; whatever has been believed always, every where, and by all, must be received as derived from the apostles.

Such then is the theory. The scriptures are obscure and defective. They contain only covertly and under the surface even, some of the essential doctrines of the gospel, and some important doctrines they do not contain at all. The oral teaching of the apostles was sufficient to explain these obscurities and to supply these defects, and was of course of equal authority with their written instructions. This oral teaching has been handed down to us by the church catholic, which is a divinely appointed and divinely guided

* Lectures on Romanism, &c., p. 225.

witness of the truth. To her decisions therefore we owe faith. And as every particular church may err, our security is in adhering to the church universal, which is practically infallible.

It rarely if ever happens that any theory on any subject gains credence among any number of competent men, which has not a great deal of truth in it. And of the two great causes of the long continued and extensive prevalence of faith in tradition as a divine informant, one no doubt is, that there is so much truth in the theory as above propounded, and the other is, that men find tradition to teach what they are anxious to believe. The principal elements of truth in the above theory, are first, that the testimony of God is the only adequate foundation of faith in matters of religion; second, that as much confidence is due to the oral teachings of the apostles as to their written instructions; and third, that the fact that all true Christians in every age have believed any doctrine, admits of no other satisfactory solution, than that such doctrine was derived from the apostles.

The application of these principles and the arguments founded upon them by the traditionists, are, however, full of fallacy and unfairness. They speak of the church catholic being, in virtue of the promise of God, indefectible, and practically infallible, as far as concerns fundamental truth. This every one will admit, if you take the word church in its scriptural sense. The church is the body of true believers; the company of faithful men. That this company cannot err in essential doctrines; that is, that all true Christians will, by the grace of God, ever believe all that is essential to their salvation, we have no disposition to dispute. And moreover, that the promise of our Lord secures the continued existence of his church, or in other words, a continued succession of true believers, we also readily admit. And we are consequently ready to acknowledge that if you can ascertain what this church (i. e. true Christians,) has ever, every where, and universally believed, you have a practically infallible rule, for determining as far as fundamentals are concerned, what is the true faith. But of what avail is all this? How are you to ascertain the faith of all true believers in every age and in every part of the world? They have never formed a distinct, visible society, even in any one age or place, much less in all ages and places. They are scattered here and there in all visible churches, known and numbered by no eye but his who searches the

heart. You might as well attempt to collect the suffrages of all the amiable men who have ever lived, as to gather the testimony of all the people of God to any one doctrine. And if it could be done what would it amount to? You would find they agreed in receiving the doctrines which lie on the very face of scripture, and in nothing else. You would find that the plain testimony of God had been universally understood and received by his people. This would not be a source of new information, though it might be a consolation, and a confirmation of our faith.

The first fallacy and unfairness of traditionists then is, confounding the true church, or the company of faithful men, with the external and visible church. As it is an acknowledged impossibility to ascertain the opinions of the sincere people of God, they appeal to the promiscuous mass of professing Christians organized in different societies in various parts of the world. This proceeding is obviously fallacious and unfair. There is no promise of God, securing any or every external church from apostacy, even as to fundamental truth. As far as we know, every external organization connected with the Jewish church had apostatized in the days of Ahab; the seven thousand who had not bowed the knee to Baal, were hid even from the sight of Elias. During the prevalence of the Arian heresy, the great majority of the churches had departed from the faith; Popes and councils decided in favor of Pelagianism, and in the ages before the Reformation if the voice of the external church, or the mass of professing Christians is to be taken as the voice of the true people of God, and a practical and infallible witness of the truth, we shall have the Bible completely superceded, and the whole mass of Popish error and superstition firmly established. The rule of the traditionists, therefore, which is true in relation to "the faith of God's elect," is as false and fallacious as possible in its application to the external church.

But besides this, the voice of all professing Christians, every where and at all times, it is impossible to ascertain. And if it could be ascertained, the points of agreement would not include one half of the doctrines admitted to be fundamental. It is notorious that neither the doctrines of the Trinity, nor of the atonement, nor of regeneration, has been received every where, always, and by all; much less have all so far agreed in their explanations of these doctrines as to retain what all admit to be essential to their