p. 12 | Fathers! Fathers! by William W. Prescott

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · May 5, 1910

“Fathers! Fathers!”

By William W. Prescott

This third angel’s message is a warning and a protest against the false doctrines and the unscriptural practices of the Roman Catholic Church — against the beast and his image. Those who believe it ought to repudiate in both theory and practise those wrong principles of the Papacy which have marked it as an apostasy. To do otherwise is to stand convicted of the most glaring inconsistency.

Fundamental to the very existence of the papal system of dogmas is the claim put forth concerning the pre-eminent authority of tradition and the opinions of the Fathers in establishing any doctrine. That the plain statements of the Scripture are entirely subordinate to these human interpretations is clear from these two paragraphs quoted from the creed of Pope Pius IV, “the best summary of the leading articles of the Roman faith,” which “must be confessed by all converts:” —

I most steadfastly admit and embrace apostolic and ecclesiastic traditions, and all other observances and constitutions of the same church.

I also admit the Holy Scriptures according to that sense which our holy mother church has held and does hold, to which it belongs to judge of the true sense and interpretation of the Scriptures; neither will I ever take and interpret them otherwise than according to the unanimous consent of the Fathers.

This exaltation of the words of men was carried to such an extent that it became an accepted teaching, established by the canon law, that the papal decretals were of the same authority as the Bible. In the Decretum of Gratian, issued about the middle of the twelfth century, a work which “displaced all the older collections of canon law, and became the manual and repertory, not for canonists only, but for the scholastic theologians,” is found this authoritative statement: —

The decretal epistles are to be reckoned among the canonical scriptures.

In the same way tradition was regarded as “more clear and safe” than the Word of God. In order that we may present this matter impartially we quote from a Roman Catholic writer: —

Like two sacred rivers flowing from paradise, the Bible and divine tradition contain the word of God, the precious gems of revealed truths. Though these two divine streams are in themselves, on account of their divine origin, of equal sacredness, and are both full of revealed truths, still, of the two, tradition is to us more clear and safe.—“Catholic Belief,” by Very Rev. Joseph Faa Di Bruno, D. D.; Imprimatur, John Cardinal McCloskey, Archbishop of New York, page 45.

This is a remarkable position for a church to occupy which professes to be established upon the Bible, but in view of the wide difference between Roman Catholicism and primitive Christianity such a dogma is a logical necessity, inasmuch as a reformation is rendered impossible by the claim of infallibility in teaching.

In this same book there is a practical example of the application of this principle in the attempt to defend the dogma of the immaculate conception of the Virgin Mary. The first appeal is to the Fathers of the church. Here is the formidable array of such authorities: “The ancient writer ‘De Nativitate Christi’ found in St. Cyprian’s works;” “Theodoret, a Father who lived in the fifth century;” “St. Ephrem, a Father of the fourth century;” “St. Cyril of Alexandria, who lived in the beginning of the fifth century;” “St. Maximus, Bishop of Turin, a Father of the fifth century;” “St. Chrysostom, a Father of the fourth century;” “Theodore, Patriarch of Jerusalem.” Surely if these Fathers held this doctrine, all ought to accept it without further question. To believe anything different would be to show a want of respect for the views of these venerable men.

When an interpretation of a passage of Scripture was once adopted and taught by the Roman Catholic Church, it became of more importance to sustain this interpretation than to establish the truth by the testimony of the Bible. An illustration of this practise is found in the words of Faber, one of the enemies of the Reformation, who withstood the Reformers at the Diet of Spires: —

If we must choose between the Holy Scriptures of God and the old errors of the church, we should reject the former.—Cited in D’Aubigne’s “History of the Reformation,” Book XIII, chap. 5, par. 9.

This has been the consistent course of the papal hierarchy from the time when it first refused to abandon its errors when confronted with the testimony of the Scriptures. True Protestantism absolutely rejects any such an assertion, and anything which savors of it, and exalts the authority of the Word of God above the authority of both the church and the Fathers.

The Reformation of the sixteenth century was a revolt against those perversions of the gospel of salvation which had been introduced by the hierarchy, and which were defended by tradition. In answer to the traditions of the church and all human authority in doctrine, the Reformers appealed to the Holy Scriptures. Here was the real ground of controversy.

Soon after Luther had posted his famous theses on the door of the church at Wittenberg, and after he had practically broken off his connection with Rome, he thus described his final step in this separation: —

I looked only to the Pope, to the cardinals, bishops, theologians, lawyers, monks, and priests. . . . It was from them I expected to witness the influence of the Spirit. However, after gaining the victory over all their arguments by Scripture, I at last surmounted through Christ’s grace, but with great anguish, toil, and pain, the only argument that still checked me; namely, that I should “listen to the church.”—Cited in D’Aubigne’s “History of the Reformation,” Book III, chap. 6, second par. from end.

In the disputation which soon followed between Luther and Sylvester Mazzolini of Prierio, a Roman Dominican, the latter advanced and defended this proposition: —

Whoever relies not on the teaching of the Roman Church, and of the Roman pontiff, as the infallible rule of faith, from which the Holy Scriptures themselves derive their strength and their authority, is a heretic.—Id., chap. 9, par. 6.

In combating this remarkable claim, Luther, according to D’Aubigne, laid down “the essential principles of the Reformation: the Word of God, the whole Word of God, nothing but the Word of God.”

When at the Diet of Worms Luther was asked the direct question, “Will you, or will you not, retract?” he made the famous reply: —

I can not submit my faith either to the Pope or to the councils, because it is clear as the day that they have frequently erred and contradicted each other. Unless therefore I am convinced by the testimony of Scripture, or by the clearest reasoning,—unless I am persuaded by means of the passages I have quoted,—and unless they thus render my conscience bound by the Word of God, I can not and will not retract.—Id., Book VII, chap. 8, fifth par. from the end.

In perfect harmony with the principle here laid down, at a later date in a conference with two representatives of the Papacy, Luther said: —

I will never permit any man to set himself above the Word of God.

Another great Reformer, Zwingle, followed the same rule. Of him D’Aubigne says: — Holy Scripture, in his opinion, was the touchstone by which to test the holiest doctors themselves.

In replying to the book which was written against him by King Henry VIII of England, Luther first reproached him “with having supported his doctrines solely by the decrees and opinions of men,” and then continued: —

As for me, I never cease crying, The gospel, the gospel! Christ, Christ! And my adversaries continue to reply: Custom, custom! Ordinances, ordinances! Fathers, fathers! St. Paul says: “Let not your faith stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.” 1 Cor. 2: 5. And the apostle by this thunderclap from heaven overthrows and disperses, as the wind scatters the dust, all the hobgoblins of this Henry. . . . To all the words of the Fathers and of men, of angels and of devils, I oppose, not old customs, not the multitude of men, but the Word of Eternal Majesty,—the gospel, which even my adversaries are obliged to recognize.

Thus the supreme authority of the Word of God above the opinions of men, even of the Fathers and doctors of the church, was the vital principle of the Reformation. It was for this principle that the Reformers contended against Rome, and adherence to this principle became a cardinal feature of Protestantism.

In teaching the threefold message for this generation, in which “the everlasting gospel” is to be restored to the people as the antidote for the errors both of Roman Catholicism and of apostate Protestantism, it ought to be perfectly plain that in establishing any doctrine the appeal should always be to the Word of God, and never to the Fathers. To insist that there shall be nothing held or taught contrary to the consent of the Fathers, is to adopt the purely papal principle set forth in the creed of Pius IV. To place any other writings on an equality with the Scriptures is to follow the Roman canon law as laid down by Gratian. To do either is to abandon the very principle for which the Reformers contended, and to discard the fundamental idea of Protestantism. We can not protest against the Papacy by adopting papal principles. W. W. P.