102 Te.?m'r?ow. [Boo?c I. blares and prophecies concerning the Messiah, and the inspiration anct authenticity of Scripture, of the sacred books themselves, were pre- served in the same way-. "�this we reply, (1.) The principles of religion during the antediluvian ages were very few, and were, there- fore,.easily transmitted and remembered. (?.) It is not true that all or any of the patriarchs bad to depend upon mere midition, in the Romish sense of that word. The patriarchs had direct communication with God; and what he revealed to them, and they revealed to their families, was not human tradition, but divine revelation, and it served the purposes of divine revelation until the law and the testimony were written. (3.) Supposing the truths of religion, in the patriarchal ages, had been matters of mere tradition, they passed through 8o few hands that they might have been preserved to the time of Moses, among a few patriarchs, without any great mixture of error. Methuse!nl? was cotemporary with Adam and Shem, and the latter was cotem- porary with Isaac, so that the whole narrative of the creation and the promises of redemption came down to the family of Jacob through only four hands; whereas no apostolical tradition can come down to us without having passed through upward of fitly generations. (4.) But we do not admit that the family of Jacob received the know- ledge of God by tradition, even through hands so few and so clean. God revealed his will to Enoch, to Noah, to Abraham, and to Jacob himself, who were all inspired men; for they are called, in tile Psalms, prophets. Psa. cv, !5. (5.) Moreover, the example both of the patriarchal and Jewish times is utterly destructive of popish traditions. For notwithstanding the doctrines of religion in the first ages of the world, all flesh had corrupted their ways; and even posterior to the flood, for want of written documents, the doctrines of religion were either corrupted or lost, or superseded by the corrupting influence of tradition. The Jews also, by their traditions, transgressed the corn* mandments of God and rendered them of none effect. The history of the patriarchs and of the Jews proves to us that the word which has been written by inspired men does not depend for its meaning and authority upon the unwritten traditions which have come to us through many age8 of gross darkness, a?td through hands polluted by every crime. 5. We are also informed by our Roman Catholic brethren "that the gospel was first propagated by preaching, and not by the written word, and that the churchdepended for as many as two or three cen- turies on the instructions by word of mouth, and that this is the only way in which barbarous nations did, or can now, receive the gospel." To this we reply, that Protestants acknowledge that the gospel was first declared by word of mouth, and that barbarous nations which can- not read are still to be instructed in that manner. But when we con- cede this, we concede nothing in fayour of popish traditions. In the primitive church there were two cases in which traditions were then used. The one was when the Scriptures had not been written or corn= musicated, as among divers nations of the barbarians. The other case was when they disputed with heretics who received not all the Scrip- tures, such as the Carpocratians, of whom Irenmus spe?ks. t In these cases tradition was urged by the fathers, as Antonius Marinarius, I
- End of Contr., let. xi, p. 69.
tL?. i, c. l, aud o. St.
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