I PROPOSE now to follow up the remarks last made upon the Abuse of Private Judgment, with some instances in which it has been indulged, and in which, as might be expected antecedently, it has been productive of error, more or less serious, but never insignificant. These instances shall, on the whole, be such as no orthodox Protestant shall be able to look at with any satisfaction, and some of them shall be taken from the history of Roman theology itself.
Without further preface I enter upon the subject, viz. what are the chief precedents, which past ages supply to modern Protestants, of the exercise of Private Judgment upon the text of Scripture to the neglect of Catholic Tradition; and what is their character?
1.
1. First might be instanced many of the errors in matters of fact connected with the Scripture history, which got current in early times, and, being mentioned by this or that Father, now improperly go by the name of Traditions, whereas they seem really to have originated in a misunderstanding of Scripture. Such, for instance, is the report recorded by Irenæus, and coming, as he conceived, on good authority, that our Saviour lived to be forty or fifty. Such is Clement’s statement that St. Paul was married; such is that of Clement and Justin that our Lord was deformed in person. These make out no claim to be considered Apostolical, whereas they do singularly coincide severally with certain texts in Scripture which admit of being distorted into countenancing them 1. Such again are probably in no slight degree the early opinions concerning the Millennium; certainly in Egypt in the third century they seem to have had their origin in a misconstruction of Scripture 2.
If these various opinions did really thus arise, it is a very curious circumstance that they should now be imputed to Tradition, nay, and adduced, as they are popularly, as if palmary refutations of its claims, being all the while but the result of either going solely by Scripture, or with but scanty and insufficient guidance from Tradition. At the same time it should be borne in mind, that, even if they were not mere deductions from Scripture, still such local rumours about matters of fact cannot be put on a level with Catholic Tradition concerning matters of doctrine.
2.
2. The controversy about Baptism in which St. Cyprian was engaged, and in which, according to our own received opinion, he was mistaken, is a clearer and more important instance in point. Cyprian maintained that persons baptized by heretical clergy, must, on being reconciled to the Church, be re-baptized, or rather that their former Baptism was invalid. The Roman Church of the day held that confirmation was sufficient in such case; as if that ordinance, on the part of the true Church, recognized and ratified the outward act, already administered by heretics, and applied the inward grace locked up in the Sacrament, but hitherto not enjoyed by the parties receiving it. And she rested her doctrine simply on Apostolical Tradition, which even by itself was a sufficient witness on such a point. Cyprian did not profess any Apostolical Tradition on his side, but he argued from Scripture against the judgment of the Roman See. The argument of himself and his countrymen was of the following kind:—“‘There is but one Lord, one Faith, one Baptism;’ the heretics have not the one Faith, therefore they have not the one Baptism.”—Again, “‘There is one Body, one Spirit, one Baptism;’ the one Baptism of the one Spirit is in the one Church, therefore there is no Baptism out of it.” “Christ has said, ‘He who is not with Me, is against Me,’ and St. John, that they who go out from us are antichrists; how can antichrists confer the grace of Baptism?” “There are not two Baptisms; he who recognizes that of heretics, invalidates his own.” “‘No one can receive anything but what is given him from heaven;’ if heresy, then, be from heaven, then, and then only, can it confer Baptism.” “‘God heareth not sinners;’ a heretic is a sinner; how then can his Baptism be acknowledged by God?” 3 Such are the texts with which the African Church defended itself in Cyprian’s days; and who will not allow, with great speciousness? Cyprian himself says in like manner, “Usage is of no force where reason is against it;” 4 nor is it, where reason is clear and usage is modern. Yet, after all, however this be, here is a case, where the mere arguing from Scripture without reference to Tradition (whether voluntarily neglected or not), led to a conclusion which Protestants now will grant to be erroneous.