PROTESTANTISM by D. T. Bourdeau

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Mar 4, 1875

PROTESTANTISM

By D. T. Bourdeau

BY ELD. D. T. BOURDEAU.

Text: “It was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints.” Jude 3.

Peace is desirable if it is founded on truth and justice; but war is preferable to a peace that is maintained at the prejudice and sacrifice of truth.

The scripture before us sets forth the work of true Protestantism, which consists in earnestly contending for the faith that was once delivered unto the saints, and which is so important as to be enjoined by a divine exhortation. The truths of the gospel must have been measurably lost sight of in the days of Jude; otherwise he would not have penned these words. Apostasy was already doing its baneful work, and the doctrines of the Bible were being corrupted. This was true when the apostle Paul wrote to the Thessalonians that the mystery of iniquity had already commenced to work; 2 Thess. 2; and it was with reference to the work of apostasy, which threatened to extinguish the light of truth in the earth; in view of the fact that men would arise who would not endure sound doctrine, but would turn away from the truth and receive fables, that Paul, in his dying charge to Timothy, most solemnly enjoined upon him to preach the word; to be instant in season, out of season; to reprove, rebuke, exhort, with all long-suffering and doctrine. 2 Tim. 4:1–4.

Here is the work of true Protestantism. Sin, apostasy, and corrupting the word of God, originated the necessity for this work. It consists in raising Bible truth from the dust, in wrenching it from the iron grasp of error in the face of opposition, and in bringing it to bear upon the consciences of men, that they may receive it and realize its saving power. This work requires moral courage, earnestness, patience, and wisdom. It requires faith in God, devotion to his cause, and undying love for perishing men.

In the present examination of this subject, I shall make it my principal aim to stir up the Protestant mind by way of remembrance on the leading principles of Protestantism, and to exonerate the present reform on the commandments of God, and the speedy second coming of Christ from the charge of enforcing a new religion which is in antagonism with the principles held by Protestants in general. I wish to show that this reform is but a carrying out of these principles, and that to oppose it while claiming to be Protestants is to go back to Roman Catholic ground.

In consequence of the extreme tendency of some in this age to take a superficial view of subjects generally, almost regardless of ancient principles, the evolving and defense of which have cost much study and sacrifice, and in consequence of the strong proclivity of others to hastily take a prejudicial view of and repudiate all newly developed doctrines, without stopping to consider whether they may not be supported by acknowledged and well-established truths, there is with many at the present time great danger of losing sight of valuable knowledge of long standing, and of retrograding instead of advancing. Hence the importance of standing in the ways and inquiring after the old paths.

Protestantism, as a defense of Bible doctrine against the attacks of error, asserts as its leading principle the sufficiency of the Holy Scriptures as a rule of faith and practice. This principle is reasonable; for it would appear consistent that a wise God, in revealing to his intelligent creatures a plan on which their salvation shall depend, should express that plan in such a manner that it shall be sufficient and complete. This principle is the corner-stone of Protestantism, and is supported by such scriptures as the following:—

“Search the Scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me.” John 5:39.

“From a child thou hast known the holy Scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation. All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.” 2 Tim. 3:15–17.

On this point Roman Catholics join issue with Protestants, asserting that the unwritten word, or tradition, is indispensably necessary to prove doctrines that are not taught in the Bible, and which are necessary unto salvation; and in support of this assertion they refer to the authority for Sunday-keeping as follows:—

“Ques. What warrant have you for keeping the Sunday, preferable to the ancient Sabbath, which was the Saturday? “Ans. We have for it the authority of the Catholic church, and apostolic tradition. “Q. Does the Scripture anywhere command the Sunday to be kept for the Sabbath? “A. The Scripture commands us to hear the church (Matt. 18:17; Luke 10:16), and to hold fast the traditions of the apostles. 2 Thess. 2:15. But the Scriptures do not in particular mention this change of the Sabbath. John speaks of the Lord’s day (Rev. 1:10); but he does not tell us what day of the week this was, much less does he tell us that this day was to take the place of the Sabbath ordained in the commandments. Luke also speaks of the disciples’ meeting together [on one occasion] to break bread on the first day of the week. Acts 20:7. And Paul (1 Cor. 16:2) orders that on the first day of the week the Corinthians should lay by in store [at home, Greek,] what they designed to bestow in charity on the faithful in Judea; but neither the one nor the other tells us that the first day of the week was to be henceforth the day of worship and the Christian Sabbath; so that truly the best authority we have for this is the testimony and ordinance of the church. And, therefore, those who pretend to be so religious of the Sunday, whilst they take no notice of other festivals ordained by the same church authority, show that they act by humor, and not by reason and religion; since Sundays and holy days all stand upon the same foundation, viz., the ordinance of the church.” —Cath. Christian Instructed, pp. 209–211.

The “Doctrinal Catechism,” pp. 101, 174, 351–355, offers proof that Protestants are not guided by Scripture. We present two of the questions and answers:—

“Ques. Have you any other way of proving that the church has power to institute festivals of precept? “Ans. Had she not such power, she could not have done that in which all modern religionists agree with her—she could not have substituted the observance of Sunday, the first day of the week, for the observance of Saturday, the seventh day, a change for which there is no scriptural authority. “Q. When Protestants do profane work upon Saturday, or the seventh day of the week, do they follow the Scripture as their only rule of faith—do they find this permission clearly laid down in the Sacred Volume? “A. On the contrary, they have only the authority of tradition for this practice. In profaning Saturday, they violate one of God’s commandments, which he has never clearly abrogated—‘Remember that thou keep holy the Sabbath day.’”

Those who will take pains to examine the Scriptures on the Sabbath question will see that Roman Catholics are correct in stating that there is no scriptural authority for the change of the Sabbath; that this change rests on tradition; and that those who profane the ancient Sabbath violate one of God’s commandments which he has never abrogated.

In vain will they search the Bible from Genesis to Revelation for one declaration that God, Christ, or the apostles ever changed the Sabbath, or blessed the first day, or commanded to keep it holy. They will fail to find that the first day is called the Sabbath, or Christian Sabbath, or that it was kept as a Sabbath or holy day, by Christ or the primitive church; but they will find that the day before the first day, the day which God sanctified in Eden, is the Sabbath in this dispensation; Mark 16:1, 2; Luke 23:54–56; Ex. 20:8–11; Gen. 2:1–3; that it is a part of, and is enjoined by, that law which God spoke with a voice that shook the earth, and wrote with his own finger on stone, and which is immutable in its obligations; Deut. 5:29; Ps. 111:7, 8; 119:152, 142, 172; Matt. 5:17–19; Rom. 3:31; James 2:8, 12; Rev. 22:14, etc.; that accordingly it was observed by Christ and the primitive church; Luke 4:16; 23:56; Acts 13:14, 42, 44; 16:13; 17:2; 18:4; Rom. 7:22, 25, etc.; that Christ commanded his followers to pray that their flight from Judea at the time of the destruction of Jerusalem might not be on the Sabbath day; Matt. 24:16, 20; thus recognizing the existence and importance of the Sabbath, many years after the old dispensation had passed away; that as the ancient Sabbath is the only day that the Lord by his law and in his word claims as his own in this dispensation, the seventh day is the day that was designated by the beloved apostle on the Isle of Patmos as the Lord’s day, a long time after the establishment of the Christian religion. And if the seventh day was the Lord’s day when John wrote the last book in the Bible, it is the Lord’s day in the nineteenth century, and we should consecrate it unto the Lord.

Now all this, and much more in favor of the ancient Sabbath and against the first-day Sabbath being true, Seventh-day Adventists, taking the Bible alone as their rule of faith and practice, discard the first-day Sabbath as a human institution, based on tradition which makes void the fourth precept of Jehovah’s law, and keep the divinely-appointed Sabbath of the Most High. And we would ask those who profess to be Protestants and yet keep the first day: What are you going to do with this matter? Will you be true to your profession, renounce the traditions of men, and keep God’s holy Sabbath? Or will you turn away from the Bible Sabbath and from the first principle of Protestantism, to keep a Sabbath based on tradition, and on the authority of the Roman Catholic church? If you do the latter, have not Roman Catholics a plausible reason to tell you that to be consistent you should embrace all the doctrines that are based on the traditions and authority of their church? We invite you to seriously consider this matter, and to be true to your profession as Protestants.

Protestantism enters its protest against adding to and taking from the Holy Scriptures, not only because of their perfection and sufficiency as a rule of faith and practice, but also because they strongly forbid such acts as being highly sinful, and deserving the most severe punishment. Thus we read from the Old and New Testament Scriptures:—

“Ye shall not add unto the word which I command you, neither shall ye diminish aught from it, that ye may keep the commandments of the Lord your God, which I command you.” Deut. 4:2; 12:32. “Every word of God is pure. . . . Add thou not unto his words, lest he reprove thee, and thou be found a liar.” Prov. 30:6, 7. “For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book; and if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book.” Rev. 22:18, 19.

The adding to and taking from that are here mentioned, do not simply embrace the acts of mutilating and changing the text of the Holy Scriptures: they also comprise the enforcing of such teachings as inculcate doctrines that are not found in the Bible, and that conflict with, take away the force of, and nullify Bible doctrines and important portions of Scripture, and lead to the transgression of God’s commandments. This the Bible and genuine Protestantism strongly protest against; yet there are not a few of those who profess to be Protestants, who zealously engage in this very work by appealing to tradition, and to the teachings of the fathers, to show that the first day of the week should be kept to the neglect of the ancient Sabbath. Thus, as the Jews in the days of our Saviour exalted their tradition above the fifth commandment, and thereby released themselves from the sacred obligation of honoring their parents, and made void an important precept of God’s law; so the majority of the Protestant world at the present time, following the example of the church of Rome, exalt tradition, and the sayings of men, above the fourth precept of Jehovah’s law, and, to all practical purposes, make void that important portion of Holy Writ. And yet they expostulate with Roman Catholics for expunging the second commandment from the decalogue, because it condemns their worshiping images.

If Christ was upon earth, would he not, as in the days of his flesh, meet this impious work with the scathing and reproving interrogation; “Why do ye also transgress the commandment of God by your tradition?” Especially as this work is now being set forth in its true light by an appeal to the unerring word. But the words of Christ which have been left on record are as strong a rebuke as they would be were he here to address them personally; for they still express his holy jealousy for God’s law and how he regards sin, however skillfully and attractingly it may be clothed with human tradition.

It frequently happens that persons professing to be Protestants take away from the Holy Scriptures in stating that the prophecies are not to be understood; for if the prophecies are not to be understood they cannot be of any practical use and are unprofitable, and should not be classed with the Scriptures that are given by inspiration; for they are declared to be “profitable.”

But Seventh-day Adventists as Protestants give the prophecies the place they deserve in the Book of God, acknowledging

them to be “a light” shining in this dark world, 2 Pet. 1:19, to show us our whereabouts and our dangers and duties, and to inspire in us strong faith in the word of God; and they believe that even those portions of prophecy which were closed up and sealed were to be unsealed and made very clear by the transpiring of events fulfilling them. Dan. 12:4; Matt. 24:15, etc.

But I cannot dismiss this branch of the subject without quoting on tradition and on the fathers and human authorities in general. Mr. John Jenkins of Montreal, Canada East, an able defender of Protestantism says:—

“Protestantism rejects an unwritten word; it rejects all oral tradition as a rule of faith; it denies the necessity of an unwritten word to supplement the deficiencies of the written word; it denies the existence of an unwritten word, and it has in vain demanded the proof of its existence in the Catholic Church. Where are these oral traditions? Where is the evidence of their inspiration? Do they teach anything different from the preaching and writings of the Great Teacher and his apostles? Then I reject them, and I say, ‘Ye make the commandments of God of none effect by your tradition.’”

“But Protestantism goes farther. It denies the possibility for any practical, authoritative purpose of an unwritten word. . . . What has oral tradition done for the descendants of Noah? I need only to refer to those nations which in the present day are destitute of the gospel.”

“But a Roman Catholic friend might be disposed to ask whether we are not commanded to ‘hold the traditions which have been taught whether by word or by epistle.’ Yes, I grant that the Thessalonians were thus taught, and I have no hesitation in declaring my willingness to accept those traditions or deliverances of the apostle’s mouth [which the Thessalonians had heard, and therefore could hold fast to], if the Church of Rome can produce them, and furnish demonstrative evidence that they are what they profess to be. ”

Protestantism rejects the authority of the fathers as a rule of faith. They were but men, fallible men; they aspired not to inspiration; they were in the habit rather, as we have already seen, of appealing to the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments as their rule of faith. Protestants esteem the fathers, many of them at least, as men of piety and learning, and reject not their testimony when it agrees with the teachings of the Scriptures but it is as necessary to establish the scriptural authority of the doctrines of the fathers by an appeal to the word of God, as it is to establish the scripturalness of the teachings of our own divines, by an appeal to the same standard. Immutability is an essential attribute of truth. Does the teaching of the fathers possess this attribute? Is there no contradiction among them? Is there even a general consistency of opinion? By no means. Not only is one father opposed to another father, but not unfrequently to himself.

“The Holy Scriptures are able to make thee wise unto salvation, . . . ‘to instruct thee unto salvation.’ And if this could be said of the Old Testament, much more may it be said of the New. What want I more than to be instructed unto salvation? What work of supererogation is that which requires that I receive as truth necessary unto salvation more than that which is able to make me wise unto salvation? For myself I want no more than this—only give me the incorruptible seed of the word, which is able to save my soul and I want naught beside. No! I will not wander from this sure word of prophecy, I will not put in its place any word of man: no tradition shall have with me the same authority as the written word of the living God; and when I am in doubt of its meaning I will go to no uninspired authority; but, following the apostolic maxim, I will compare Scripture with Scripture; no private interpretation shall satisfy me, no interpretation of bishop, or cardinal, or priest; the Scripture is its own, its best interpreter, and will make all things plain. Our Roman Catholic friends sometimes say that the Protestant rule of faith is the Bible explained by every man’s private judgment. This is not a fair representation; our rule of faith is the Bible alone without note or comment, or anything indeed, extrinsic from itself. This is the only standard of appeal which the Protestant can recognize. As long as he keeps within the circumference of the Bible he is on impregnable ground; but the instant he goes beyond the Bible, and allows that the opinion of Henry, or Scott, or Wesley, or the comments of the Anglican, or Scottish, or any other church, are part and parcel of the rule of faith, he has left the munition of rocks—he is unsafe, and is in momentary danger of being carried away with every wind of doctrine.”

These remarks have the old-fashioned Protestant ring. To err is human; and when men go to tradition, to the fathers, or to any other human authority to establish a doctrine that is not found in the Bible, they say by their course that the Bible is not a sufficient rule of faith. How true it is that the fathers contradicted each other. Many of the fathers had been heathen philosophers, and retained some of their heathen notions, blending them with Christianity. Hence it is that by their teachings you can prove many of the doctrines of papacy. Many productions that are attributed to the fathers are forgeries, and some of their genuine writings have been garbled and interpolated in the Dark Ages; so that upon the whole it is safe to follow them only as far as they agree with the Bible.

The Bible, as a sufficient rule of faith and practice, shows us how the primitive church believed and practised, and what we should believe and do; while genuine history, whether from the fathers or some other source, shows how the church have lived, and whether they have departed from the Bible or not.

But when teachers and historians teaching on the times of our Lord and his apostles state facts respecting the faith and practice of the primitive church, which are contrary to the teachings of God’s word, then may their testimony be pronounced spurious.

While the church of Rome teaches that the Bible is obscure to the common people, and that they can understand it but by the aid of an infallible tribunal whose seat shall be at Rome, and who alone shall have the monopoly of the truth, Protestantism asserts it to be the privilege of every man to approach the great source of truth, the Bible, and to draw freely from its streams.

The Divine Author of the Holy Scriptures intended the Bible for all men. Moses taught the law of God and the will of God to the Israelites generally. Joshua and Ezra did the same. The prophets spoke to the people generally in the vulgar tongue, and wrote in the vulgar tongue. Christ spoke to the multitudes, addressing to them some of the sublimest and hardest sayings of the Christian religion, and “the common people heard him gladly.” Peter addressed the multitudes in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost, and Paul preached almost daily to large assemblies of Jews and Greeks. And they, as well as the other writers of the apostolic epistles, wrote “to all the holy brethren,” to all who composed the Christian churches, charging them before God that what they wrote should be read to all. 1 Thess. 5:27. Seeing then that the Bible is made up of these several parts, who can resist the conclusion that it was designed without hindrance for the whole people? Yes, the Bible, like Christ was given for the world.

But the Bible itself teaches most clearly that the Holy Scriptures were designed of God to be read and studied by all. “Search the Scriptures” was the command of Christ to the Jews at one of their annual gatherings. John 5:39. The Bereans were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the Scriptures daily, whether those things were so. Acts 17:11. Said Christ, “They have Moses and the prophets, let them hear them.” Luke 16:29. “From thy infancy,” said Paul to Timothy, “thou hast known the Holy Scriptures”; a statement which clearly shows what was the domestic practice of the Jews as to scriptural instruction. Indeed, the Jews were commanded of God to diligently teach the law to their children. Deut. 6:7. On certain occasions during Christ’s ministry, children were among the first to appreciate and respond to his testimony, and Christ rejoiced at a certain time that God had revealed the truths of the gospel unto “babes.” Matt. 11:25.

Christ gave as one of the evidences of his Messiahship the fact that the gospel was preached unto the poor, and Paul declares that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty are called. Matt. 11:5; 1 Cor. 1:26. In the French version, Christ commands to understand the book of Daniel, Matt. 24:15; and in speaking of the book of Revelation, which was for a long time the most difficult portion of the New Testament, the Holy Spirit made this declaration: “Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written therein.” Rev. 1:3. And besides all this, God has promised to give wisdom to them that ask, and he is more willing to give his Holy Spirit to guide into all truth, than earthly parents are to give good gifts to their children.

But notwithstanding this array of evidence, which might be greatly increased, it is painful to say that when Seventh-day Adventists urge the reform on the commandments of God and the coming of Christ, they are often met by Protestants with the objection that they cannot understand these subjects, thus falling back upon Roman Catholic ground. Yet what can be plainer than the law of ten commandments? So plain and self-evident is it that Protestants generally acknowledge it to be all binding on all men and in all ages; and Seventh-day Adventists and their esteemed Seventh-day Baptist brethren keep the fourth commandment of that law just as it reads, by sanctifying the seventh day because that in it God rested from his works, and then blessed and sanctified it because that in it he had rested. What can be plainer than this? A plain duty enjoined, with the example of Jehovah before us, and what he did to give force to that example that we might imitate it, and keep our Creator in grateful remembrance. Ex. 20:8–11; Gen. 2:2, 3.

(Concluded next week.)