Protestantism | AdventAI

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · Aug 17, 1876

Protestantism.

MR. DOWLING in his History of Romanism uses the following emphatic language concerning Protestants:—

The Bible, I say, the Bible only, is the religion of the Protestants! Nor is it of any account in the estimation of the genuine Protestant how early a doctrine originated, if it is not found in the Bible. He learns from the New Testament itself that there were errors in the time of the apostles, and that their pens were frequently employed in combating those errors. Hence, if a doctrine be propounded for his acceptance, he asks, Is it to be found in the inspired word? Was it taught by the Lord Jesus Christ and his apostles? . . .

More than this, we will add, that though Cyprian, or Jerome, or Augustine, or even the fathers of an earlier age, Tertullian, Ignatius, or Irenæus, could be plainly shown to teach the unscriptural doctrines and dogmas of Popery, which, however, is by no means admitted, still the consistent Protestant would simply ask, Is the doctrine to be found in the Bible? Was it taught by Christ and his apostles? . . .

He who receives a single doctrine upon the mere authority of tradition, let him be called by what name he will, by so doing steps down from the Protestant rock, passes over the line which separates Protestantism from Popery, and can give no valid reason why he should not receive all the earlier doctrines and ceremonies of Romanism upon the same authority.