TRADITION UNSAFE by G. B. T.

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Mar 16, 1915

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 42, No. 11.

TRADITION UNSAFE

By G. B. T.

The tendency of the present is to appeal to tradition when confronted with evidence that shows our practice to be out of harmony with the plain requirements of the Scriptures. An illustration of this is seen in the Sabbath controversy. The Bible clearly states that “the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God.” Ex. 20: 10. Men have departed from this plain precept of Jehovah, and seek to justify their departure by appealing to the practices of the people, particularly the early church.

But this is very unsafe and unsatisfactory. Truth has become mixed with error, through its long residence on earth. Even in Paul’s day he wrote that “the mystery of iniquity” was already working. 2 Thess. 2: 7. So we find even in the early church many gross errors.

Speaking of the early centuries, Wylie says: “Already, in the fourth century, we find images introduced into churches, the bones of martyrs hawked about as relics, the tombs of saints become the resort of pilgrims, and monks and hermits swarming in the various countries. We find the pagan festivals, slightly disguised, adopted into the Christian worship; the homage offered anciently to the gods transferred to the martyrs; the Lord’s Supper dispensed sometimes at funerals; the not improbable origin of masses; and the churches filled with the blaze of lamps and tapers, the smoke of incense, the perfume of flowers, and the goodly show of gorgeous robes, croziers, miters, and gold and silver vases; reminding one of the not dissimilar spectacles which might be witnessed in the pagan temples.”

This writer further says: “The evils of the time were legion; but all flowed from one colossal error: the cardinal truth of Christianity, that salvation is of grace, was completely obscured. By the most plausible pretext and the most subtle devices was

man led away from God, and taught to center all his hopes in himself. Faith was overthrown, and works were put in its room. The sacrifice of Christ was neglected, and man became his own savior. We trace the operation of this grand error in the superstitious and burdensome rites in which all holiness now began to be placed. Sanctification was no longer sought in a pure heart and a mind enlightened by divine truth, but in certain external rites, which were seldom either important or dignified. To nourish the passions and mortify the body was now the grand secret of holiness. . . . The caves of Egypt, the sands of Libya, and the deserts of Syria, were ransacked. The bones of dead men, and, if history may be credited, of the lower animals, were exhumed, were hawked over Christendom, and purchased at a high rate.”—“The Papacy,” pages 25, 49.

The only source of unadulterated truth is in the Scriptures. Like a perennial spring, truth flows from its sacred pages unmixed with error, or any of the sophistries and traditions of men. Men have too long been slaking their thirst for knowledge from the murky fountain of men’s traditions. We should come to the fountainhead of truth, and drink that which is pure. G. B. T.