high authority. Let us endeavour to analyse this notion : -there are certain books which the Spirit dictated in part, but not altogether. But can the portions so dictated be pointed out?—If they can, to what are we indebted for the remaining portions? if to the writer alone, a fallible and erring man, what assurance have we that he may not be misleading us?—If the inspired portions can not be pointed out, How can we safely assent to the authority of that of which we know not the origin;—or believe in doctrines, concerning which we are ignorant, whether they are propounded to us by the Spirit of God, or by the fancy of the author in whose writings they occur? It is needless to proceed with the argument.-The notion of semiinspiration, involves a manifest absurdity: it supposes that the inspiring Spirit sanctions the introduction into the sacred text of that which of all things will most effectually defeat the object of the revelation. For the gift of inspiration was granted in order that its receiver might be constituted thereby the recorder of absolute, unmingled truth, and that his writings might claim the unhesitating belief of mankind, through all succeeding generations, on this ground alone :-and how could this object be more entirely frustrated, than by allowing the inspired truths to be intermixed with the unassisted reasonings, or imaginations, of him to whom they were revealed ? It would be idle to object here, that the writer might be kept from error by the Spirit in these his mental efforts :-because that is itself inspiration; and all that is meant by it in one of the ordinary acceptations of the word.-Assuredly, therefore, there is no such thing as semi-inspiration: that unspeakable grace was either imparted wholly, or it was altogether withholden. And in every written production, wherein the intellectual faculties of the writer have not been entirely under the dictation and guidance of the Spirit, in the nature of things it is impossible that he can have interfered supernaturally at all. For these reasons we unhesitatingly deny that the apostolical men could have received any assistance from the Holy Spirit, in inditing their epistles, short of plenary inspiration. But we have already endeavoured to show, that the early period at which they were written, is a circumstance by no means involving the necessity, that therefore their authors should be inspired: and when we further state, that plenary inspiration has never been demanded for them, and that they generally repudiate such an idea in their own writings,16 no further impediment remains in the way of our conclusion, that the Epistles of the Apostolical Fathers are uninspired productions; and consequently, that so far as supernatural assistance was concerned, the obligation of the writers to defer to the authority of the New Testament was exactly the same as our own. 16 Barnabas, c. 1. Ignat. ad Rom., c. 2, &c. CHAPTER III. TRADITION. It remains for us to consider, whether the advantages which the apostolic fathers derived from being cotemporary with our Lord and the apostles, conferred upon them the right to advance doctrines which are not sanctioned by the New Testament writers, and the power of authenticating such, independently of that sanction. It may be proper to premise in this place, that we have not to consider their title to credibility, as transcribers of acts and discourses of Jesus Christ and his disciples, at which they profess to have been present, but which are not to be found in the New Testament; in no single instance do their writings assume this character. We must also bear in mind, that whatever advantages might accrue to them from hence, they only had them in common with Simon Magus, Cerinthus, Nicolaus, and others, who were, nevertheless, the originators of some of the foulest and most fantastic heresies that ever disgraced Christianity. Assuredly, therefore, this is no infallible security against their being in error. But, notwithstanding, their proximity to the times of inspiration appears to be an important circumstance in their favour. They were possibly the hearers of our Lord, certainly the pupils of his apostles; and their reli C gious opinions seem to have been derived from the oral discourses of these highly gifted persons, as well as from their written epistles. There is evidence of this in their extant productions, which referring not often to the New Testament, contain, nevertheless, a scheme of religion corresponding, in its general outline, to that which is there promulgated. But we find in them, besides, many doctrines and modes of interpretation for which there is no such authority; and the point at issue is, did they receive these also from the apostles? Here, again, we fall in with the well-known and long agitated question of Christian Tradition. We treat it as arising from, and forming a part of, our present enquiry. It is perfectly evident, that no one of the Apostolical Epistles contains, in itself, so full an exposition upon every point of Christian doctrine and ethics as may be obtained from a digest of the entire volume of which it forms a part; but the apostles certainly declared the whole counsel of God to all the churches they founded: in all of them, therefore, a portion of the divine truth would be known traditionally only, or from the oral instructions of the apostles. Those of the apostolic churches to whom no epistles were addressed, would remain, for a considerable period, in the same situation as that in which the whole of them were originally placed; their knowledge of Christianity would be derived entirely from this tradition. Nevertheless, the written word of God is a complete transcript of the mind of God regarding man,-not one jot or tittle of all that Jesus Christ and the apostles uttered, which it is needful for us to know, is omitted in the New Testament: had the Gospels of our Lord been multiplied, so that the world itself could not contain the books that should be written, John xxi. 25; had we an accurate and un doubted record of all that the apostles spake and wrote from the first moment of their conversion to their final ejaculation at their martyrdom, we should not thereby be put into possession of one important truth or principle in religion, with which we were not already perfectly acquainted, through the books of the New Testament. We utterly repudiate the notion of an oral law in Christianity; of the existence of certain traditions besides the written word, which were committed by Christ to the apostles, and by the apostles to the churches they planted and the bishops they ordained, to remain thenceforward with the Church universal, as a lex non scripta. We refute this opinion, in the first place, by the argument that demolishes an exactly similar figment, raised by the Jews from the Old Testament. We can find no allusion to any such, in the writings of those with whom these traditions are said to have originated. The passages ordinarily adduced in support of it,' merely refer to the fact we have already endeavoured to explain, that the apostles gave verbal as well as epistolary instructions to their converts. We, in the second place, reject it, on the ground of its great improbability. Is it to be believed, that after our Saviour had so severely rebuked the traditions of the Jews, and called them back to the simplicity of the written word, he would, nevertheless, cast a portion of that truth, which he came from heaven to reveal, into the same polluted channel, and thus give his adversaries the power of unanswerably condemning him out of his own mouth ?-the supposition is intolerable. 2 We are supported, in the present instance, by the 11 Cor. xi. 2. 2 Thess. ii. 15, &c. |