Of the two lines of proof offered in behalf of the sixth Article, which I discussed in my last Lecture, the one implied that it declared a doctrine, the other a fact; the one spoke as if Holy Scripture must contain, the other as if it happened to contain, all necessary truth. Of these the former seems to me to come nearer to the real meaning of the Article, and also to the truth of the case, though the particular considerations commonly offered in argument are insufficient. Certainly, we cannot maintain the peculiar authority of the written word, on the ground of any antecedent necessity, that Revelation should be written, nor from the witness of Scripture itself, nor from the parallel of the Jewish Law; yet there are probabilities nevertheless, which recommend its special authority to our belief, even before going into the details of that historical testimony which I consider to be the proper evidence of it.
Let us see, then, what can be said on the primâ facie view of the subject, in behalf of the notion that Scripture is on principle, and not only by accident, the sole Canon of our faith.
2.
First, the New Testament is called by the name of a testament or will. Indeed the very circumstance that St. Paul calls the Gospel Revelation a Testament, and that Testaments are necessarily written, and that he parallels it to the Mosaic Testament, and that the Mosaic was written, prepares us to expect that the Gospel will be written also. And the name of Testament actually given to the sacred volume confirms this anticipation. It evidently is a mark of special honour; and it assigns a most significant purpose to the written Word, such as Tradition, however clearly Apostolical, cannot reach. Even granting Tradition and Scripture both to come from the Apostles, it does not therefore follow that their written Word was not, under God’s over-ruling guidance, designed for a particular purpose, for which their Word unwritten was not designed.
Next, we learn from the testimony of the early Church, that Scripture and Scripture only is inspired. This explains how it may be called in an especial manner the Testament or Will of our Lord and Saviour. Scripture has a gift which Tradition has not; it is fixed, tangible, accessible, readily applicable, and besides all this perfectly true in all its parts and relations; in a word, it is a sacred text. Tradition does not convey to us any sacramental words, as they may be called, or sustained discourses, but ideas and things only. It gives us little or nothing which can be handled and argued from. We can argue only from a text; we can argue freely only from an inspired text. Thus Scripture is in itself specially fitted for that office which we assign it in our Article; to be a repository of manifold and various doctrine, a means of proof, a standard of appeal, an umpire and test between truth and falsehood in all emergencies. It thus becomes the nearest possible approach to the perpetual presence of the Apostles in the Church; whereas Tradition, being rather a collection of separate truths, facts, and usages, is wanting in applicability to the subtle questions and difficulties which from time to time arise. A new heresy, for instance, would be refuted by Tradition negatively, on the very ground that it was new; but by Scripture positively, by the use of its text, and by suitable inferences from it.
3.
Here, then, are two tokens that Scripture really is what we say it is. But now let us proceed to a third peculiarity, to which more time shall be devoted.
Scripture alone contains what remains to us of our Lord’s teaching. If there be a portion of Revelation, sacred beyond other portions, distinct and remote in its nature from the rest, it must be the words and works of the Eternal Son Incarnate. He is the One Prophet of the Church, as He is the One Priest and King. His history is as far above any other possible revelation, as heaven is above earth; for in it we have literally the sight of Almighty God in His judgments, thoughts, attributes, and deeds, and His mode of dealing with us His creatures. Now this special revelation is in Scripture, and Scripture only; Tradition has no part in it.
To enter into the force of this remark, we should carefully consider the peculiar character of our Lord’s recorded words and works when on earth. They will be found to come to us even professedly, as the declarations of a Lawgiver. In the Old Covenant, Almighty God first of all spoke the Ten Commandments from Mount Sinai, and afterwards wrote them. So our Lord first spoke His own Gospel, both of promise and of precept, on the Mount, and His Evangelists have recorded it. Further, when He delivered it, He spoke by way of parallel to the Ten Commandments. And His style, moreover, corresponds to the authority which He assumes. It is of that solemn, measured, and severe character, which bears on the face of it tokens of its belonging to One who spake as none other man could speak. The Beatitudes, with which His Sermon opens, are an instance of this incommunicable style, which befitted, as far as human words could befit, God Incarnate.