Brief Account of One Suggestion of the Romanist, Chapter 3 · Section 3
SECT. III.
Oral Tradition defined, and the force of it proposed by Mr. White and S. W. Some things granted in this Schame. One weak part pointed at, which betrayes the whole demonstration. Other parts of …o concernment to it. The great Conclusion denyed, and unproved. Traditions of the present age frequently false. The Jewes, the Arians, the Heathens, the Mohomedans, the Christian Mothers among them.
1. IT is now time to advance to the third part of our designed method to gather the briefest definition or description of this way, …ing from the force of Oral Tradition. This in the Apology is set down, by establishing these definitions, P. 7.that by Tradition he means the delivery of Christs Doctrine from hand to hand, in that part of the world which with propriety is called Christian. By Christs Doctrine he means that which was generally preached by the Apostles, and contains all such points at are necessary to the salvation of the world, not only in particular to single persons, but for Government of the Church and bringing multitudes with convenience to perfection in this life, and felicity in the next. Then, by proceeding to this General position, that A… Christ taught, or the holy Ghost suggested to the Apostles of this nature, i…, by a direct uninterrupted line, intirely and fully descended to the present Church, which communicates with, and acknowledges subjection to the Roman. Adding also the converse of that proposition, viz. Nothing is so descended but such truths, nor any thing held by this tenure, but what is so descended, which being cast up amounts to this great conclusion, No error was ever or can be embraced by the Church in quality of a matter of Faith. This again S. W. farther abbreviates into this one definition, Oral Tradition (supposing the motives with which it was founded, and the charge with which it was recommended by the Apostles) carries in its own force, as applyed to the nature of mankinde, an infallible certainty of its lineal and never to be interrupted perpetuity.
2. In this Scheme, several things there are to which I shall in the obvious sense so farre yield, as not to make any impertinent debate about them, As 1. that Tradition is the delivery of Christs Doctrine from hand to hand in that part of the world, which with propriety is called Christian, meaning by that phrase, all that have been baptized into the Christian Faith, and have not by some destructive, wasting superaddition, forfeited their title to that dignity; for that the Greek Church, that do not own to have ever received the Faith of the Popes Ʋniversal Pastorship from the Apostles, Saint Paul, and St. John, which planted some of them, (and have this real praejudice against it, that St. John, which long outlived St Peter, and by his Apostolical power was exempted from being inferior to any other, whether Clerus or Clemens, his Successors at Rome, cannot reasonably be thought to have subjected his Successors to them, but should rather himself, being the surviving Apostle, be his Successor in that supereminent power, if any such had been given to Peter by Christ) should for the not believing or yielding that, be acknowledged no Christians, or not Christians with propriety, but aequivocally and improperly called Christians, can never appear probable, but by a convincing confirmation of the real delivery of that Doctrine to all, from all the Apostles, which if it were here meant to be praetended, is certainly as yet but praetended to be delivered from thence. The like must be said of Christians of other denominations, which are neither Greek nor Roman, yet have by uninterrupted Tradition received the necessary Faith in every branch of it, and retain it without the Roman additions, and though not the Papal, yet the Apostolical Gover… ment also.
3. So secondly, for the notion of Christs Doctrine, we scruple not to understand it of that, which was generally preached by the Apostles, and contains all such points as are necessary to the salvation of the world, and Government of the Church, and bringing multitudes with convenience to perfection in this life, and felicity in the next] meaning by [necessary to salvation] generally necessary, as an effective means to bring home sinners to repentance, to perswade them to a sincere reception of the Praecepts of Christ, as of the one certain way to aeternal salvation, without examining whether any particular man without the explicite knowledge of every single branch of that Faith, be capable of performing the condition of the Gospel, and so of salvation on the Gospel terms, Gods accepting according to what a man hath, and not exacting what he hath not, and again by [perfection in this life] understanding sincerity of Evangelical obedience, styled often perfection in the Scripture, though in many respects it must be acknowledged imperfect.
4. So thirdly, that all that Christ taught, or the holy Ghost suggested, of this nature is by a direct uninterrupted line intirely and fully descended to the present Church, which communicates with, and acknowledges subjection to the Roman] Adding, that it doth so also and aequally to the Church of England in every particular, and so it is acknowledged by the Romanists to be intirely maintained by us, save only that we acknowledge not one link of their praetended Government, that of the Roman supreme Ʋniversal Pastorship, which yet in these definitions hath not in the least wise been proved to be any (much lesse necessary) truth of Christs teaching.
5. Thus farre then there is no more asked, than granted by us, save only that of the Popes Ʋniversal Pastorship, and that no way inferrible from these praemisses, and consequently nothing gained from us by these so many steps of his fair method.
6. But then when he addes the converse of the last proposition, that nothing is so descended but such truths, nor any thing held by this tenure but what is so descended, there may be ambiguity in these propositions; For the first may be designed to signifie that no article is to this age of the Roman Church delivered down from the ages immediately precedent, upon the account of Apostolical Tradition, but what is both true and necessary to be believed; If this be the meaning of it, then he knowes 'tis denyed by us, and must either be convincingly proved by him, or else there is a very weak, soft, unfortified part, which will be sure to betray all his demonstration, and being not here attempted to be proved in the proposal of the case, if it be not provided for in the last part of the method, the proving of his definition (which when we advance to that, we shall then examine, whether it be, or no) then that abundantly invalidates his whole Scheme.
7. But the proposition is capable of another sense, that nothing is descended to the Church by such uninterrupted Tradition from the Apostles, but such truths as they, from the holy Ghost, thought necessary; which though it have no truth in it, because many things may have been constantly received, and never doubted of by any Church, which yet have no such necessity, as that Christ lived to the age of thirty three years, and the like, yet because this seems not to me to have any influence on our present controversie, I shall not need to put in any exception to the proposition, upon this ground of security, because the articles, which the Romanist holds necessary, and we do not, we hold not to have this continual succession.
8. So the latter part of the converse, that nothing is held by this tenure but what is so descended] if the meaning be, that nothing is by the Romanist maintained to have descended from the Apostles, as necessary to be preached, and believed, but what hath thus really descended (as the obvious meaning is) then 'tis the main thing, which, he knowes, is, in this quaestion denyed by us, and that with great instance, specifying many particulars, which no way appear to us to have descended from them, nor to have been by the Church look'd upon as necessary to be believed, but visibly excluded out of the number of those articles, which alone are affirmed by the universal Church in the first great Councels to be thus necessary.
9. Lastly to his great Conclusion, if that should mean no more than that No error or false Doctrine was ever or can be received by the Universal Church truely so called, in quality of a matter of Faith, then though I have no assurance that it cannot, because the receiving an error by way of superaddition, and defining it de fide, is not sure to destroy, or inferre the defectibility of a Church, as long as they retain all the true fundamental Doctrine, yet again I am no way concerned to debate that, in relation to our praesent quaestion, because the receiving such errors into the faith of the Roman, is not receiving them into the faith of the Ʋniversal Church. But if the meaning be, that no error was ever, nor can be embraced by the Roman Church, in quality of a matter of faith, then he knowes, 'tis farre from being acknowledged by us. And this being probably the importance of his great conclusion, the falsenesse of it depends, and is consequent to the falsenesse of that foregoing proposition, interpreted, as I thought, and think it necessary that the sense carry it, viz. that no article is to this age of the Roman Church delivered upon the score of Apostolical Tradition, but what is both true and necessary to be believed, and so also to the falsenesse of that other, that nothing is by the Romanist maintained to have descended from the Apostles, as necessary, but what hath thus really descended. And so the utmost that this rarely fair method of the Apologist hath yet produced, is no more than a few true propositions aequally granted by us, and of no least concernment to him against us, and one grand falsity, twice crept in to his definition (discernible enough to be such, as soon as ambiguous expressions are interpreted) and the conclusion naturally following the weakest part, most false in our opinion, and most evident to be by S. W. asserted without any ground as yet discovered by him; From all which the conclusion is irrefragably inferred, that unlesse hereafter he demonstratively prove that proposition, which he calls the great conclusion, he is the greatest begger of the principle, and so trifler in the world. The triall of that must be reserved to the fourth, and last part of our method.
10 So in S. W's abbreviature, the matter of the definition [that Oral Tradition, supposing the motives and the charge with which it was founded and recommended by the Apostles, carries in its own force, as applyed to the nature of mankinde, an infallible certainty of its lineal and never to be interrupted perpetuity.] is either most extremely fallacious, and captious, or else what is worse than so, most manifestly false.
11. If he will have all men suppose with him, that all the Romanists present Doctrine, i. e. Oral Tradition, was taught and so founded and recommended by the Apostles, and that with weighty motives to be believed, and strict praecept to be kept as a depositum, and commended as a treasure to all posterity, this is then the coursest draught, or image of (his constant familiar) that most vulgar fallacy, the begging the Quaestion, his supposing us to grant, what he knowes we most deny, and so is most intolerably sophistical.
12. But if abstracted from any such supposition or postulatum, he intend to assert, that whatsoever is orally affirmed in that manner; or to that degree, as the Popes Supreme Pastorship is now affirmed, and delivered from Father to Sonne in the Roman Church, is not only true, but also by this means undenyably ascertain'd to be derived from the Apostles, then as this proposition is most infirm, without any appearance of solidity in it, so must the conclusion necessarily be, that is inferred from it, unlesse again he can produce some evidence, by which what is in it self, and in thes…, thus improbable, and in other instances frequently experimented to be false, shall in this one instance be ascertain'd to have truth in it; It being no more ridiculous, what the Frier in Canus profess'd, to believe all that is in any printed Book, than to believe all which is by a multitude (how great soever) of one age orally delivered as from their Fathers and Progenitors.
13. This may be judged 1. by the example ef the Jewes in Christs time, while their Oral Traditions had the greatest force among them These we know were by them styled foreign *Maimon. Praef. in Seder Zeraim. p. 7.their Law by the mouth, in opposition to the foreign Law in writing. Of the commendation of this, their soberest Writers are as profuse, as Mr. White can be of his, styling it foreign,Ib. p. 2. &c. The foundations on which ye are founded, the roots, the customes, decrees, and constitutions which your great ones have constituted, from the day which the Lord commanded, and so on through all Generations, like the Towre of David erected on your hill, in which are hanged a thousand Helmets with all warlike instruments of the choice ones, all the shields of the mighty. Then for the praetended divine original and unquestionable conveighance of them from God and Moses, the account is given by the same Maimonides, Ibid. p. 5.1. That all the Praecepts of the Law that were sent down by God to Moses, were sent down to h…m together with their interpretation, God delivering by word of mouth first the Text, then the explication and interpretation of it, and what the authentick Text comprehended. 2. That Moses having received both, coming to his Tent sent for Aaron and declared to him the Text, and taught him the Interpretation, then Aaron standing at his right hand, he called unto him Eleazar and Ithamar Aarons sonnes, and did the like to them, then the seventy in like manner, Aarons sonnes standing by, and then the promiscuous assembly of Israel, in the presence and audience of all the former. 3. That Moses departing, Aaron who had now heard this four times, repeated it out of his memory to all, and after him his sonnes in like manner, and so the seventy also, and by this means every one heard both Text and Interpretation recited four times, and so were inabled to instruct one another, the Text being written in roles or volumes, and the Interpretation or Tradition fixed in their memories. 4. That Moses before he dyed, made Proclamation, that if any had forgotten any Tradition which he had received from him, he should come and aske, and he would declare it to him, and then writing thirteen Copies of the Law, one for every Tribe, and one for the Levites, he dyed. Ib. p. 10.5. That Joshuah being furnish'd with these Oral traditionary explications, judged the people according to them. Ib. p. 34.6. That Joshua before his death, left all these Traditions to the Elders of the people, and the Elders to the Prophets, and so they continued without any dissention to the time of the men of the great Synagogue, Haggae, Zacharie, Malachie, Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah, Zorobabel, &c. and so from hand to hand from Ezra to Simeon, from Simeon to Antigonus, from Antigonus to Joses, from Joses to Joshua son of Phaerak, from Josua to Judas, from Judas to Shemaiah from Shemaiah to Hillel, from Hillel to Simeon, from Simeon to Gamaleel, from Gamaleel to Simeon, from Simeon to Gamaleel, from Gamaleel to Simeon the Just, called Rabbenu Hakkedosh, the Phoenix of his age, and he collected all the Oral Traditions of Moses thus delivered down to him. In this account, if the Jewes own testimony may be taken, what can be more exact and punctual for the sure conveighing of these Oral Traditions from Moses and God himself? Could S. W. praetend this for all the articles of his present Roman Mothers, what Trophies would he set up? And yet after all this, we cannot disbelieve our Saviour, who assures us in his time, (which was certainly within the space of this praetended undisturbed succession of Oral deliverers) that the Doctrine of God was foully depraved, evacuated, and destroyed by their Traditions, praetended to be thus lineally deduced from Moses and God himself. This I have thus largely set down, because I see the Apologist (reflecting on this argument when it was proposed by my L. of F.) hath made a shift to misapprehend it,P. 123, &c. understanding by the Jewish Cabala, (in the vulgar modern notion of Cabalistical) the mystical trash of the later Jewes, whatsoever, saith he, any of them have collected from Scripture by a threefold abuse of the Letter, 1. By taking every letter of a word, for a word beginning with that letter, 2. By changing letters according to rules framed by themselves, 3. Finding numbers of years, &c. by the numbers which the Letters of the word compound; P. 126.And this, saith he, a Doctrine praetended as delivered to few, with strict charge to keep it from publicity, and so communicate it again to a select Committee of a few, wherein there is a fair opportunity of juggling and cousenage] But it is very strange he should not take notice of that which is so evident, viz. 1. That the traditions, wherein this argument is founded, are not the result of their literal collections, but praetended to be delivered from Father to Sonne orally from Moses, as the unwritten interpretation of the written Text of the Law, and 2. that they were no jugglings of a secret Cabal, but universally received by the learnedst Jewes in our Saviours time; I instance in that of their foreign, washing up to the wrist before meat, Mar. VII. 2. of which saith the Evangelist, the Pharisees, and all the J…wes, if they do not so wash, do not eat, holding the Tradition of the Elders, and, as he addes, foreign, there be many other things which they have (Traditionally) received to hold. The like again followes v. 9 &c. of saying Corban to Father and Mother, where our Saviour sets down expressely the Text first, the commandement of the Law, Honour thy Father— and then the Jew…sh Doctrine, derived (as they praetended) by Tradition from their Elders, that if any should say Corban to his Father or Mother, it was no more lawfull for him to do any thing of relief to them, than to convert to private use that which was consecrated to God, according to that of Maimonides, delivered as a rule derived from Tradition, that vowes have force, foreign upon matters of praecept, Yad. Nedar. c. 3. §. 1.as much as upon foreign matters of will or choice. In these examples, 'tis clear, that those Doctrines were generally taken up, publikely avowed, and constantly adhaered to by the Jewes, as derived to them from God by Moses, by an uninterrupted Tradition, which yet were so farre from descending thence, that one of them was pe…fectly destructive to the Law which undoubtedly was derived from heaven, and the other was a meer impertinent addition, and so come home exactly to the utmost that we can be deem'd to charge upon the Romanist. And there is no argument that S. W. doth or can urge for the authenticknesse of the tradition for the Roman additionals, which will not be aequally of force to a Jew in Christs time for either of these Traditions, especially if the Oral Tradition of the praesent age be of force to conclude for all the former, back to the Apostles, for that these were the traditions of that praesent age, our Saviour hath set beyond possibility of doubting.
14. A second Instance may be that of the Arrian haereticks, who in Constantius's dayes had a very great, and almost an universal praevalency over the Church, and whilest they had so, not only delivered (the Mothers and Catechists, to their children) false haeretical Doctrine, but withall delivered it, as that which had been delivered to them, and which came down from the Apostles; In which Processe there were little to be objected now by us to the truth of their Doctrine, if all were necessarily to be believed for Catholike and Orthodox, which the multitude and stream of any one age universally professed, and delivered to their children, as received from their ancestors and so from the Apostles.
15. A third instance may be taken from the Ʋniversality of Heathens in any age, suppose that wherein St. Paul preached first the faith of Christ to them; Of these it is sure, that their first, though not immediate Ancestors had been the worshipers of the true God, Japhet and Noah, and his Ancestors before the Flood, and consequently that their Idol worships were certainly of a later date (though some difference there may be among curious inquirers, when they began to praevail among them, and whether debauched by some one great Leader, or whether in a long Processe of time, by a gradual degeneration from piety, and an insensible unobservable growth of impiety) And though this be as manifest and undeniably true, as the story of the Bible, which assures us of it, yet is it as evident, that the whole Heathen world of any such age (which was of far larger extent than the praesent Roman Communion) deduced their false sacrilegious Worships from their immediate Ancestors, and that foreign, as delivered from Father to Sonne from the beginning of all time, as ancient as the Moon, and Mountains, making use of this very argument, as their great Palladium, by which all their several branches of Idol-worship, their whole religion was at once defended, and rendred uncapable of Reformation, foreign, that unmoveable things (the Religion of their Countrey from all antiquity) were not to be innovated.
16. A last instance shall be from the Mahometanes themselves, I mean not in deducing their Doctrines from Mahomet (for that I suppose they truely doe, though we know they are divided among themselves, and the different way of Hali praetends as constant Tradition from their Prophet, as the other) but in believing and teaching that their Mahomet was promised by Christ, and consequently that the Doctrines which Mahomet first taught out of his own corrupt heart, are the Doctrines of the Paraclet, i. e. the holy Ghost, for as such, they are delivered now from Father to Sonne, and have in many parts of Christendome wholly extirpated the Apostolical Doctrin or Faith of Christ, where it is evident, that through the powerfull inrodes and conquests of the Turks, the christian mothers have not only been kept from delivering to their children the Faith which they received, but have themselves been induced to renounce that Faith, and then by the help of Oral Tradition become instruments to transfuse the contrary into their children, and this, be it never so destructive to their childrens and their own aeternal well-fare, only to secure their lives, and a small p…rt of their portion in this world. Which being done by that means in this so much greater instance (renouncing and forgetting all christianity at once) may as possibly be done by the like tyranny, and conjuncture of earthly motives in a lesser instance (receiving in this, or that false Doctrine) unlesse the provisions be more competent against the one, than the other.
17. What security there will be offered us by S. W. to the contrary, we must yet expect, when we come to the view of his proofs, and to that we shall now hasten, having as yet only attended him so farre, as the establishing of his definition, and assigning him the conclusion, which we shall expect from him to prove, and settle demonstratively, that (whatever be said of Jewes, Arrians, Heathens, Mahometanes,) it is impossible to be imagined of the Romanists Oral Traditions, so circumstantiated as they are, to have any fallibility in them.