I had a few minutes to add a little to this thread, here we go.
The truth about sola scriptura can be found among the early church fathers, I quote them not because they contain any authority other then what they find in Scripture, this will hopfully show that ‘tradition’ is selective. The ‘traditionalists’ will claim no consistency of interpretation can be found among Bible believers, I maintain that selective quoting can be done to build a case for sola scriptura just as they have build a case against sola scriptura. OC and the ‘traditionalists’ know of the site from which I’ll quote, this isn’t a surprise and I’ll supply a link at the bottom of this post so you may log on and view it for yourself. There arugment will be one of trying to say, ‘this father didn’t mean that’ or ‘that father didn’t say that.’
"We have learned from none others the plan of our salvation, than from those through whom the Gospel has come down to us, which they did
at one time proclaim in public, and, at a later period, by the will of God, handed down to us in the Scriptures, to be the ground and pillar of our faith. For it is unlawful to assert that they preached before they possessed "perfect knowledge," as some do even venture to say, boasting themselves as
improvers of the apostles." (Irenaeus, Against Heresies, book 3, 1, 1)
Suppose there arise a dispute relative to some important question among us,
should we not have recourse to the most ancient Churches with which the apostles held constant intercourse, and learn from them what is certain and clear in regard to the present question? For how should it be if the apostles themselves had not left us writings? Would it not be necessary, [in that case,] to follow the course of the
tradition which they handed down to those to whom they did commit the Churches? 2. To which course many nations of those barbarians who believe in Christ do assent, having salvation written in their hearts by the Spirit, without paper or ink, and, carefully preserving the ancient tradition, believing in one God, the Creator of heaven and earth, and all things therein, by means of Christ Jesus, the Son of God; who, because of His surpassing love towards His creation, condescended to be born of the virgin, He Himself uniting man through Himself to God, and having suffered under Pontius Pilate, and rising again, and having been received up in splendour, shall come in glory, the Saviour of those who are saved, and the Judge of those who are judged, and sending into eternal fire those who transform the truth, and despise His Father and His advent. Those who, in the absence of written documents, have believed this faith, are barbarians, so far as regards our language; but as regards doctrine, manner, and tenor of life, they are, because of faith, very wise indeed; and they do please God, ordering their conversation in all righteousness, chastity, and wisdom. If any one were to preach to these men the inventions of the heretics, speaking to them in their own language, they would at once stop their ears, and flee as far off as possible, not enduring even to listen to the blasphemous address. Thus, by means of that ancient tradition of the apostles, they do not suffer their mind to conceive anything of the [doctrines suggested by the] portentous language of these teachers, among whom neither Church nor doctrine has ever been established. (Irenaeus, Against Heresies, book 3, 4, 1-2)
This will sound awfully familiar:
"When, however, they are confuted from the Scriptures, they turn round and accuse these same Scriptures, as if they were not correct, nor of authority, and [assert] that they are ambiguous, and that the truth cannot be extracted from them by those who are ignorant of tradition. For [they allege] that the truth was not delivered by means of written documents, but vivâ voce: wherefore also Paul declared, "But we speak wisdom among those that are perfect, but not the wisdom of this world." And this wisdom each one of them alleges to be the fiction of his own inventing, forsooth; so that, according to their idea, the truth properly resides at one time in Valentinus, at another in Marcion, at another in Cerinthus, then afterwards in Basilides, or has even been indifferently in any other opponent, who could speak nothing pertaining to salvation. For every one of these men, being altogether of a perverse disposition, depraving the system of truth, is not ashamed to preach himself. But, again,
when we refer them to that tradition which originates from the apostles, [and] which is preserved by means of the succession of presbyters in the Churches, they object to tradition, saying that they themselves are wiser not merely than the presbyters, but even than the apostles, because they have discovered the unadulterated truth. For [they maintain] that the apostles intermingled the things of the law with the words of the Saviour; and that not the apostles alone, but even the Lord Himself, spoke as at one time from the Demiurge, at another from the intermediate place, and yet again from the Pleroma, but that they themselves, indubitably, unsulliedly, and purely, have knowledge of the hidden mystery: this is, indeed, to blaspheme their Creator after a most impudent manner! It comes to this, therefore,
that these men do now consent neither to Scripture nor to tradition. (Irenaeus, Against Heresies, Book 3, Ch 2, 1-2).
My stance: "But those who are ready to toil in the most excellent pursuits, will not desist from the search after truth,
till they get the demonstration from the Scriptures themselves." (Clement of Alexandria, book 7, ch 16, Scripture the Criterion by Which Truth and Heresy are Distinguished)
"For we have,
as the source of teaching, the Lord, both by the prophets, the Gospel, and the blessed apostles, "in divers manners and at sundry times," [Heb 1:1] leading from the beginning of knowledge to the end. He, then,
who of himself believes the Scripture and voice of the Lord, which by the Lord acts to the benefiting of men, is rightly [regarded] faithful." ... "For those are slothful who, having it in their power to provide themselves with proper proofs for the
divine Scriptures from the Scriptures themselves, select only what contributes to their own pleasures. And those have a craving for glory who voluntarily evade, by arguments of a diverse sort, the things delivered by the blessed apostles and teachers, which are wedded to inspired words; opposing the divine tradition by human teachings , in order to establish the heresy"(Clement of Alexandria, book 7, ch 16, Scripture the Criterion by Which Truth and Heresy are Distinguished)
Good ol’ Tertullian, this brother had many powerful things to say!
"From this, therefore, do we draw up our rule.
Since the Lord Jesus Christ sent the apostles to preach, (our rule is) that no others ought to be received as preachers than those whom Christ appointed; for "no man knoweth the Father save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal Him." Nor does the Son seem to have revealed Him to any other than the apostles, whom He sent forth to preach-that, of course, which He revealed to them. Now, what that was which they preached-in other words, what it was which Christ revealed to them-can, as I must here likewise prescribe, properly be proved in no other way than
by those very churches which the apostles rounded in person, by declaring the gospel to them directly themselves, both viva voce [living voice], as the phrase is,
and subsequently by their epistles. If, then, these things are so,
it is in the same degree manifest that all doctrine which agrees with the apostolic churches-those moulds and original sources of the faith must be reckoned for truth, as undoubtedly containing that which the (said) churches received from the apostles, the apostles from Christ, Christ from God. Whereas all doctrine must be prejudged as false which savours of contrariety to the truth of the churches and apostles of Christ and God. It remains, then, that we demonstrate whether this doctrine of ours, of which we have now given the rule, has its origin in the tradition of the apostles, and whether all other doctrines do not ipso facto proceed from falsehood.
We hold communion with the apostolic churches because our doctrine is in no respect different from theirs. This is our witness of truth." (Tertullian, The prescription against the heretics, Ch 21)
"We have, however, challenged these opinions to the test, both of the arguments which sustain them,
and of the Scriptures which are appealed to, and this we have done ex abundanti; so that we have, by showing what the flesh of Christ was" (Tertullian, The Flesh of Christ, ch 25)
"And how long shall we draw the saw to and fro through this line, when we have an ancient practice, which by anticipation has made for us the state, i.e., of the question?
If no passage of Scripture has prescribed it, assuredly custom, which without doubt flowed from tradition, has confirmed it. For how can anything come into use, if it has not first been handed down? Even in pleading tradition, written authority, you say, must be demanded. Let us inquire, therefore, whether tradition, unless it be written, should not be admitted. Certainly we shall say that it ought not to be admitted, if no cases of other practices which, without any written instrument, we maintain on the ground of tradition alone, and the countenance thereafter of custom, affords us any precedent. To deal with this matter briefly,
I shall begin with baptism. When we are going to enter the water, but a little before, in the presence of the congregation and under the hand of the president, we solemnly profess that we disown the devil, and his pomp, and his angels. Hereupon we are thrice immersed, making a somewhat ampler pledge than the Lord has appointed in the Gospel. Then when we are taken up (as new-born children), we taste first of all a mixture of milk and honey, and from that day we refrain from the daily bath for a whole week. We take also, in congregations before daybreak, and from the hand of none but the presidents, the sacrament of the Eucharist, which the Lord both commanded to be eaten at meal-times, and enjoined to be taken by all alike. As often as the anniversary comes round, we make offerings for the dead as birthday honours. We count fasting or kneeling in worship on the Lord's day to be unlawful. We rejoice in the same privilege also from Easter to Whitsunday. We feel pained should any wine or bread, even though our own, be cast upon the ground. At every forward step and movement, at every going in and out, when we put on our clothes and shoes, when we bathe, when we sit at table, when we light the lamps, on couch, on seat, in all the ordinary actions of daily life, we trace upon the forehead the sign. If, for these and other such rules, you insist upon having positive Scripture injunction, you will find none. Tradition will be held forth to you as the originator of them, custom as their strengthener, and faith as their observer. That reason will support tradition, and custom, and faith, you will either yourself perceive, or learn from some one who has. (Tertullian, The crown or De Corona, ch 3-4)
Seems like I wrote something like this a few posts ago...
"There is, brethren, one God, the knowledge of whom we gain from the Holy Scriptures, and from no other source. For just as a man, if he wishes to be skilled in the wisdom of this world, will find himself unable to get at it in any other way than by mastering the
dogmas of philosophers, so all of us who wish to practice piety will be unable to learn its practice from
any other quarter than the oracles of God. Whatever things, then, the Holy Scripture declare, at these let us look; and whatsoever things they teach, these let us learn; and as the Father wills our belief to be, let us believe; and as He wills the Son to be glorified, let us glorify Him; and as He wills the Holy Spirit to be bestowed, let us receive Him. Not according to our own will, nor according to our own mind, nor yet as using violently those things which are given by God,
but even as He has chosen to teach them by the Holy Scriptures, so let us discern them." (Hippolytus, Against Noetus, ch 9)
"But that they who are at Rome do not observe those things in all cases which are handed down from the beginning, and vainly pretend the authority of the apostles; any one may know also from the fact, that concerning the celebration of Easter, and concerning many other sacraments of divine matters, he may see that there are some diversities among them, and that all things are not observed among them alike, which are observed at Jerusalem, just as in very many other provinces also many things are varied because of the difference of the places and names"(Cyprian, Epistle 74, 6)
"2.
Let nothing be innovated, says he, nothing maintained, except what has been handed down. Whence is that tradition? Whether does it descend from the authority of the Lord and of the Gospel, or does it come from the commands and the epistles of the apostles? For that those things which are written must be done, God witnesses and admonishes, saying to Joshua the son of Nun: ‘The book of this law shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate in it day and night, that thou mayest observe to
do according to all that is written therein.'" ... "3. what obstinacy is that, or what presumption,
to prefer human tradition to divine ordinance, and not to observe that God is indignant and angry as often as human tradition relaxes and passes by the divine precepts, as He cries out, and says by Isaiah the prophet, "This people honoureth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. But in vain do they worship me, teaching the doctrines and commandments of men." Also the Lord in the Gospel, similarly rebuking and reproving, utters and says,
"Ye reject the commandment of God, that ye may keep your own tradition." Mindful of which precept, the blessed Apostle Paul himself also warns and instructs, saying, "If any man teach otherwise, and consent not to the wholesome words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to His doctrine, he is proud, knowing nothing: from such withdraw thyself." ... "8. Deservedly thus do heresies and schisms arise day by day, more frequently and more fruitfully grow up, and with serpents' locks shoot forth and cast out against the Church of God with greater force the poison of their venom;
whilst, by the advocacy of some, both authority and support are afforded them; whilst their baptism is defended, whilst faith, whilst truth, is betrayed; whilst that which is done without against the Church is defended within in the very Church itself." ... "9. "Nor ought custom, which had crept in among some, to prevent the truth from prevailing and conquering;
for custom without truth is the antiquity of error. On which account, let us forsake the error and follow the truth" (Cyprian, Epistle 73:2,3,8,9, of Pope Stephen’s false teaching on baptism)
"For it weighs me down and saddens me, and the intolerable grief of a smitten, almost prostrate, spirit seizes me, when I find that you there, contrary to
ecclesiastical order, contrary to evangelical law, contrary to the unity of the Catholic institution, had consented that another bishop should be made. That is what is neither right nor allowable to be done; that another church should be set up; that Christ's members should be torn asunder; that the one mind and body of the Lord's flock should be lacerated by a divided emulation. I entreat that in you, at all events, that unlawful rending of our brotherhood may not continue; but remembering both your confession
and the divine tradition, you may return to the Mother whence you have gone forth; whence you came to the glory of confession with the rejoicing of the same Mother. And think not that you are thus maintaining the Gospel of Christ when you separate yourselves from the flock of Christ. (Cyprian, Epistle 43)
"the sacred and inspired
Scriptures are sufficient to declare the truth" (Athanasius, Against the Heathen, part 1, 1, 3)
"Now one might write at great length concerning these things, if one desired to go rate details respecting them; for the impiety and
perverseness of heresies will appear to be manifold and various, and the craft of the deceivers to be very terrible. But since holy Scripture is of all things most sufficient for us, therefore recommending to those who desire to know more of these matters, to read the Divine word, I now hasten to set before you that which most claims attention, and for the sake of which principally I have written these things." (Athanasius, To the Bishops of Egypt, Ch 1, 4)
"Vainly then do they run about with the pretext that they have demanded Councils for the faith's sake;
for divine Scripture is sufficient above all things; but if a Council be needed on the point, there are the proceedings of the Fathers, for the
Nicene Bishops did not neglect this matter, but stated the doctrine so exactly, that persons reading their words honestly,
cannot but be reminded by them of the religion towards Christ, announced in divine Scripture" (Athanasius, de Synodis, Part 1, 6)
"Such then, as we have above described, is the madness and daring of those men. But our faith is right, and starts from the teaching of the Apostles and tradition of the fathers, being confirmed both by the New Testament and the Old. For the Prophets say: 'Send out Thy Word and Thy Truth,' and ' Behold the Virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call His name Emmanuel, which is being interpreted God with us.' But what does that mean, if not that God has come in the Flesh?
While the Apostolic tradition teaches in the words of blessed Peter... [Athanasius then quotes: 1 Peter 4:1; Titus 2:13; Heb 2:1] (Athanasius, To Adelphius, Letter 60, 6)
"This is no
Ecclesiastical Canon; nor have we had
transmitted to us any such tradition from the Fathers, who in their turn received from the great and blessed Apostle Peter ... but where only the fear of God and the Apostolical rule shall prevail; that so in the first place, the faith of the Church may be secure, as the Fathers defined it in the Council of Nicaea (Athanasius, History of the Arians, Part 5, 36)
For more, see
http://www.bible.ca/sola-scriptura-apos ... athers.htm.
Am I premil, yes. Were the Reformers? To my knowledge they maintain a amil position. The Puritians were but they weren't Reformers. Anabaptists were, but they weren't Reformers either...they were hunted and killed by Luther, Zwingli and Calvin following the traditional teaching of a state run Church and this we find in the 'tradition' which Orthodox and Catholic's share. I'm not part of the Reformed Church or tradition, I'm a Baptist. Baptists history isn't traced via the Reformed Church we are members of the Free principle churches that have existed since the time of Christ. As Vic posted, follow the trail of blood and you'll find my people. My 'fathers' were so dangerous they only carried wooden staffs, not swords like the RC's and Orthodox.
quote:
Stabler! [by Leonard Verduin]
We have seen , in the previous chapter, that “the sword was welded to the cross†at the time of the Constantinian change. From this point on the cause of Christ had the benefit, if benefit it was, of a second sword, one made of steel. And we have begun to point out that the Reformers were not minded in their day to sweep this alien weapon out of the Church. The men of the Second Front, however, were convinced that the Constantinian change had perverted the Gospel, had by bringing the sword into the Church and its affaris admitted a foreign body into the tissues of Christ’s Church, a foreign body that had to be removed if suppuration were to cease.
The sword of steel basically a weapon with which to coerce. The Constantinian change, therefore, caused the technique of coercion to be imported into the affairs of the Church. Because of it the cause of Christ lost the dimension of voluntaryism, which is native of true Christianity, and with it the cause of Christ picked up the dimension of coercionism, which is foreign to the true faith. It is with this matter of coercionism versus voluntaryism that we shall be engaged at the present time.
Quite understandably the “heretics†made an issue of this change. They assailed coercionism and advocated voluntaryism. As they sought to reconstitute the Church, they – like the rebuiders of the temple in the day of Nehemiah – worked with the sword in one hand and athe trowel in the other; the sword, to banish coercionism; and the trowel, to rebuild voluntaryism.
In this program the “heretics,†in some instances at least, adopted a distinguishing badge. In protest against the sword wielding ones they themselves carried a harmless staff such as shepherds use.
For this they were, in Reformation times, sometimes referred to as Stabler , staff-carriers. So widely was the carrying of such a harmless cane thought of as a mark of “heresy†that we find this feature mentioned in the sixteenth century as prima facie evidence of addiction to the “heresy†that characterized the Second Front.
Such cane-carrying was not invented in the 16th century, however; it seems to have been a distinguishing feature of the “heretic†from very early times. We read that the Waldensians taught men not to confess their sins save to a cane-carrying cleric. This was apparently taken over by an element among the Bohemian Brethren, as a mark testifying, to the conviction that the sword of steel is not a proper weapon in the hands of a follower of Christ. The innovation caused one of the leaders of the Bohemian evangelicals, Lucas of Prague, to say angrily, “I highly disapprove of these vain Phariees wandering around with staffs, who display their righteousness.†[Quellen VI, p. 381]
The Scotch-Irish, who lng resisted the “Constantinian change†in northwest Europe, carried a staff, known as a gambutta, to differentiate between themselves and the Rome sent clerics. Here the issue seems also to have been the matter of voluntaryism versus coercionism.
Peace
