Tradition vs. the Bible.
By R. F. C.
[The following extracts are from a Roman Catholic writer, in controversy with a Protestant. R. F. C.] “The gentleman’s Bible repeatedly forbids to eat blood. Gen. 9: 4; Lev. 7: 26, 27; Acts 15: 28, 29. Yet his church allows it to be eaten on the authority of tradition. The quotation from the Acts commands us to abstain from blood and fornication; and as both are put in the same category, by what principle of consistency can he admit one and reject the other? Simply because the traditions of the Catholic church have never sanctioned the latter. It is therefore ungenerous in the gentleman to skulk through the dark into the pantry of the church and steal a blood pudding from the safe of tradition, and then raise the “hue and cry” against me for going there openly in the daytime to partake of a luncheon at the special invitation of St. John and St. Paul.” “It is ungenerous in him to laugh at me for holding that doctrine on which alone he administers the sacrament of infant baptism; and it is unjust in him to denounce me for holding a doctrine which every week he practically declares to be of more authority than his own Bible.” “His Bible commands him to keep the Sabbath on Saturday, yet he keeps it on Sunday, on the authority of tradition.” “The blood pudding which the gentleman stole was wrapped up in a sheet of an old homily on fasting. I will swear that he ate the pudding, but would be glad to know what he did with the homily. Tradition, it appears, is sufficient authority for feasting, but not for fasting.” “His Bible does not sanction infant baptism, yet he baptizes infants on the authority of tradition; and after all this he will swear to his sixth article, which declares that tradition is no part of a Christian’s rule of faith.” “I have already shown that he steals blood puddings and baptizes infants in the very teeth of his sixth article of faith’ without any ‘warrant of Scripture;’ let us now see how far his conscience can stretch in favor of a doctrine which his lips deny. Christ never wrote, but God the Father did. He wrote the ten commandments on the tablets of stone, and the only commandment he emphasized was that to keep the Sabbath day. ‘Remember to keep holy the seventh day;’ and there is no command so often repeated throughout the Old Testament. If the Bible alone be the gentleman’s rule of faith, he is bound by this commandment; but does he observe it? No, he does not. Has he any Scripture authority for rejecting it? No, he has not. Why then does he not observe it? Because the church thought fit to change it. Here the gentleman admits the authority of the church to be superior to the handwriting of God the Father. And yet he will look you in the face and declare that the Bible without church authority is his rule of faith!”