CHAPTER VII. —THE CHURCH OF THE FIRST TWO CENTURIES
Section 2.—The Sufficiency of Scripture.

explaining the general subject of the deference due to the sentiments of the fathers, and of the church of the first three centuries, I had occasion to refer to the fact—of essential importance upon this question—that a process of declension or deterioration, both in respect of soundness of doctrine and purity of character, commencing even in the apostles’ days, continued gradually to advance; and that it met with no effectual or decided check during the first three centuries, though there were occasionally individuals, such as Cyprian, who rose somewhat above its influence. This fact, when once fully established, is fatal to the authority, properly so called, of the fathers, and of the pretended catholic consent, as it is designated. The only thing that gives any plausibility to the claims set up on behalf of the fathers and of the early church, whether by Papists or semi-Papists, is the imagination—for it is nothing else—that there was a constant unbroken tradition, or handing down of sound doctrine and sound practice in regard to the government and worship of the church, carried on, according to the Papists, in the Church of Rome till the present day; but according to the Tractarians, stopping—i.e., becoming somewhat corrupted—about the fifth or sixth century. When it is once ascertained that there was a gradual but unceasing change in matters of doctrine, government, and worship, this at once overturns the only ground on which any claim can be put forth on behalf of the early church to anything like authority, properly so called, in regulating our opinions or our practices, even without taking into account—what, however, is also important, and can be easily established—viz., that the change was wholly in a direction that was not only unsanctioned by Scripture, but opposed to it.

There is, however, a remarkable exception to this constant tendency to deterioration observable during the second and third centuries, to which, before proceeding further, I think it right to direct attention: I mean the constant maintenance, during the first three centuries, of the supremacy and sufficiency of the sacred Scriptures, and the right and duty of all men to read and study them. There is no trace of evidence in the first three centuries that these scriptural principles were denied or doubted, and there is satisfactory evidence that they were steadily and purely maintained.

The fathers of that period were all in the habit of referring to the sacred Scriptures as the only real standard of faith and practice. They assert, both directly and by implication, their exclusive authority, and their perfect sufficiency to guide men to the knowledge of God’s revealed will. They have all more or less explicitly asserted this, and they have asserted nothing inconsistent with it. There are men among them who have, in point of fact, given too much weight, in forming their opinions, and in regulating their conduct, to oral traditions, and to the speculations of their own reason; but, in so far as they did so, they were acting in opposition to their own professed principles, —they were disregarding or deviating from the standard which they professed to follow. Whatever may be said of their practice in some instances, we have certainly the weight of their judgment or authority, so far as it goes, in support of the great Protestant principle of the exclusive supremacy and sufficiency of the written word. This, of course, is denied by Papists and Tractarians; but we are persuaded it can be, and has been, proved, that while they appeal to the authority of the fathers and the early church in support of the authority which they ascribe to them, these parties themselves disclaim all such pretensions advanced on their behalf, and give their testimony in favor of the exclusive authority of Scripture.

We cannot enter into the detailed evidence of this position. It is adduced at length, cleared from every cavil, and established beyond all fair controversy, in the very valuable work to which I have had occasion to refer, —Goode’s "Divine Rule of Faith and Practice." In the writings of the fathers of the first three centuries—and the same may be said of the writings, without exception, of many succeeding centuries—there is not the slightest trace of anything like that depreciation of the Scriptures, that denial of their fitness, because of their obscurity and alleged imperfection, to be a sufficient rule or standard of faith, which stamp so peculiar a guilt and infamy upon Popery and Tractarianism. There is nothing in the least resembling this; on the contrary, there is a constant reference to Scripture as the only authoritative standard. There are many declarations to the same effect, not indeed expressed always with such fullness and precision as to preclude the assaults of cavilers, just because these topics were not then subjects of controversial discussion, but sufficiently full and explicit to satisfy every impartial person as to what their views really were. They speak, indeed, often of tradition, and traditions; but then it has been conclusively proved, that by these words they most commonly meant the sacred Scriptures themselves, and the statements therein contained. They sometimes appealed, in arguing against the heretics, to the doctrines and practices which had been handed down from the apostles, especially in the churches which they themselves had founded. But besides that there was more, not only of plausibility, but of weight, in this appeal in the second century than there could be at any subsequent period, it is evident that they employed this consideration merely as an auxiliary or subordinate argument, without ever intending, by the using it, to deny, or cast into the background, the supremacy and sufficiency of Scripture; and that they employed it, not so much to prove the absolute and certain truth of their doctrines, as to disprove an allegation very often made then, as now, in theological discussion, that they were new and recently invented.

It has, indeed, been alleged by Papists, —and the allegation has been repeated by Tractarians, —that it was the heretics of the early ages who were accustomed, like Protestants, to appeal to the Scriptures; and that the orthodox fathers, in opposition to this, appealed to tradition, in the modern sense of the word. But it has teen proved by evidence that is unanswerable that this allegation is wholly false in fact: it has been proved that the heretics were accustomed to decline or evade an appeal to the Scriptures, by denying their genuineness and authenticity, or by alleging that they were corrupted or interpolated; and that, besides this, they were accustomed to appeal to a secret tradition which they alleged had been handed down from the apostles, and gave their views more fully and correctly than the received Scriptures. All this has been demonstrated, and the proof of it not only disproves the Popish allegation, but throws back upon themselves the charge of treading in the footsteps of the ancient heretics; and moreover explains fully the real import and foundation of the appeal which the orthodox fathers sometimes made to tradition as well as to Scripture. They sometimes appealed to tradition, because the heretics refused to acknowledge the authority of the Scriptures; they appealed to the public tradition of the apostolical churches, because the heretics appealed to a private tradition, alleged to have been secretly handed down from the apostles. About the end of the fourth century, in the writings of Jerome and Augustine, we find some traces of a sanction given to an appeal to tradition on points of ceremony and outward practice, though these fathers, in common with all those who preceded them, are full and explicit in asserting the supremacy and sufficiency of Scripture in all matters of faith or doctrine. We have already admitted that, long before this time, many ceremonies and practices had been introduced into the worship and government of the church which had no foundation or warrant in Scripture; but the introduction of these seems to have been based upon the alleged power of the church to decree rites and ceremonies, rather than upon any allegation that they had been authentically handed down by tradition from the time of the apostles. At any rate, we have no clear indication, till the end of the fourth century, of its having been held by any orthodox writers as a doctrine or principle, that the Scripture was not the sole and sufficient standard in matters of ceremony and ecclesiastical practice, as well as in matters of faith or doctrine; and even then the statements made to this effect by Jerome and Augustine are not very full and explicit, and are not easily reconciled with declarations they have made in other parts of their writings, in which they lave recognized the exclusive supremacy and perfect sufficiency of Scripture in matters of practice as well as of opinion. The principle that the church has power to decree rites and ceremonies which have no warrant or sanction in the sacred Scriptures, as maintained and acted upon by Lutheran and Prelatic churches, we believe to be erroneous in itself, and dangerous in its application, —a principle which the word of God contains sufficient materials to disprove, and which can appeal to no more ancient authority in its support than that of Jerome and Augustine in the end of the fourth or beginning of the fifth century. But still it must not be confounded with the denial of the supremacy and sufficiency of the Scripture as the only rule of faith, especially as it does not set up tradition as a rival standard, does not assume that the rites and ceremonies adopted are to be received as having come down from the apostles, and does not even impose an obligation to adopt all which have been so handed down, but merely vests in the church of any age or country a certain measure of authority to introduce some rites and ceremonies, which it may judge to be for edification.

There is one other topic of some interest and importance connected with the right appreciation and application of the word of God, in which there is no trace of deterioration or corruption during the first three, nor indeed for several subsequent centuries, and with respect to which there lies especial and preeminent guilt upon the apostate Church of Rome, and upon its modern imitators, the Anglican Tractarians. The fathers of the third, and even of the fourth and fifth centuries, zealously inculcated, without any exception and without any reserve, upon all the ordinary members of the church the duty, as far as they had the means and opportunity, of reading and studying the sacred Scriptures; and exerted themselves to afford to them the means of discharging this duty and enjoying this privilege, by getting the Scriptures translated into different languages, and diffusing them as widely as the circumstances of the time, when printing was unknown, admitted of it. The Tractarians, indeed, have attempted to make something of the obscure and perplexing topic called the disciplina arcani [The discipline of secrecy], as practiced in the ancient church, to defend their own doctrine of reserve in the communication of religious knowledge, just as the Papists assign it as the reason why we find no trace of a great number of their doctrines and ceremonies during the first three centuries. This principle does not seem to have been originally anything else than the exercise of a reasonable discretion in the exposition of the doctrines of Christianity, with a due regard to circumstances and to men’s capacities; and to have been gradually, from a foolish affectation of imitating the heathen mysteries and the practice of heathen philosophers, corrupted into something like an esoteric and esoteric doctrine. But whatever it may have been, and in whatever way it may have been practiced, at different times, —and on these points our information is very meager and defective, however objectionable it may have been, and however injurious may have been its consequences, the fact is unquestionable, that all the fathers continued, even in the fourth century, to urge upon all their hearers to read and study the sacred Scriptures; and that no restraint or discouragement was put upon the possession, the use, and the circulation of them.

The early church, then, down even to the Nicene and the immediately post-Nicene age, with all the errors and corruptions which had by this time infected the body of professing Christians, has escaped the special and peculiar guilt of the apostate Church of Rome, and is free from the fearful responsibility of professedly and avowedly laboring to withhold and withdraw from men that word which God has given them to be a light unto their feet and a lamp unto their path; and has transmitted a clear and unequivocal testimony in favor of the right of all men to have free access to the sacred Scriptures, and of their obligation to study them for themselves, with a view to the formation of their opinions and the regulation of their conduct.