It will perhaps be questioned, whether the foregoing view of Catholic Tradition and the Fundamentals of the Church, is consistent with the supremacy of Holy Scripture in questions of faith. That it is not consistent with present popular notions on the subject I am quite aware; but it may be that those notions are wrong, and that the foregoing view, which is taken from our great divines, is right. If it could be proved contrary to anything they have elsewhere maintained, this would be to accuse them of inconsistency; which I leave to our enemies to do. However, I will not content myself with a mere appeal to authority, but will argue the question on grounds of reason. In this, then, and the two following Lectures, I propose to discuss the question of what is sometimes called “the Rule of Faith;” and to show, that nothing that has gone before is inconsistent with the reverence, thankfulness, and submission with which we should receive Scripture.
2.
The sixth Article speaks as follows: “Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary to salvation, so that whatsoever is not read therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not to be required of any man, that it should be believed as an article of the faith, or be thought requisite or necessary to salvation.”
Now, this statement is very plain and clear except in one point, viz. who is to be the judge what is and what is not contained in Scripture. Our Church is silent on this point,—very emphatically so. This is worth observing; in truth, she does not admit, strictly speaking, of any judge at all, in the sense in which Roman Catholics and Protestants contend for one; and in this point, as in others, holds a middle course between extreme theories. The Roman Church, as we all know, maintains the existence of a Judge of controversies, nay, and an infallible one, that is, the Church Catholic herself. It considers, that the Pope, in General Council, can infallibly decide on the meaning of Scripture, as well as infallibly discriminate between Apostolic and spurious Traditions. Again, the multitude of Protestants also maintain the existence of a judge of Scripture doctrine, but not one and the same to all, but a different one to each individual. They consider every man his own judge; they hold that every man may or must read Scripture for himself and judge about its meaning and make up his mind for himself; nay, is, as regards himself, and practically, an infallible judge of its meaning;—infallible, certainly, for were the whole new creation against him, Bishops, Doctors, Martyrs, Saints, the Holy Church Universal, the very companions of the Apostles, the unanimous suffrage of the most distinct times and places, and the most gifted and holiest men, yet according to the popular doctrine, though he was aware of this, he ought ultimately to rest in his own interpretations of Scripture, and to follow his private Judgment, however sorry he might be to differ from such authorities.
Thus both the Protestant and the Roman Catholic hold the existence of an authoritative judge of the sense of Scripture, each makes itself judge in its own cause, and places the ultimate appeal in its own decision; whereas our Article preserves a significant silence on the subject; which agrees with the mode of treating it adopted in other passages of our formularies. For, in truth, we neither hold that the Catholic Church is an infallible judge of Scripture, nor that each individual may judge for himself; but that the Church has authority, and that individuals have liberty to judge for themselves outside the range of that authority. This is no matter of words, but a very clear and practically important distinction, as will soon appear.
3.
The Church is not a judge of the sense of Scripture in the common sense of the word, but a witness. If, indeed the word judge be taken to mean what it means in the Courts of Law, one vested with authority to declare the received appointments and usages of the realms, and with power to enforce them, then the Church is a judge,—but not of Scripture, but of Tradition 1. On the contrary, both Protestant sectaries and Catholics of Rome consider their supposed judge to be a judge not merely of past facts, of precedents, custom, belief, and the like, but to have a direct power over Scripture, to contemplate questions of what is true and false in opinion, to have a special gift by divine illumination, a gift guaranteed by promise, of discerning the Scripture sense without perceptible human Media, to act under a guidance, and as if inspired, even though not really so 2. Whether any such gift was once destined for mankind or not, it avails not to inquire; we consider it is not given in fact, and both Roman Catholics and Protestants hold that it is given. We, on the other hand, consider the Church as a witness, a keeper and witness of Catholic Tradition, and in this sense invested with authority, just as in political matters, an ambassador, possessed of instructions from his government, would speak with authority. But, except in such sense as attaches to an ambassador, the Church, in our view of her office, is not a judge.