- 04 'ra,?Drrzotw. [Boo? I
doubtsally they ought: but who can be secure that dray would ? It is of equal importance to be careful in practising it too; yet we all know how this hath been neglected in the world: and, therefore, have mason to think the other hath been no less so.'* "But whoever made the first change, they say, must have been im- media?ly discovered. Now so far from this, that persons make changes in what they relate without discovering it themselves; alterations come in by insensible degrees: one man leaves out, or varies, or adds one litde cir- cumstance; the next another; till it grow imperceptibly into a difi?ereut thing. In one age a doctrine is delivered as a probable opinion; the following age speaks of it as a certain truth; and the third advances it into sn article of faith. Perhaps an opposition rises upon this, as many have done. Some have said such a doctrine wa.v delivered to then?, others that it was not: and who can tell whether at last the right side or the wrong have prevailed ? Only this is certain, that which soever prevails, though by a small majority at first, will use all means of art and power to make it appear a universal custom at last; end then plead uninterrupted tradition. But though such things as these may possibly be done in almost any age, yet they are easily to be done in such ages as were five or six of those that preceded the Reformation; when, by the confession of their own historians, both clergy and laity were so universally and so monstrously ignorant and vicious, that nothing was too bad for them to do, or too absurd for them to believe. n It cannot be doubted that the morals of the priest.h. ood were exceed- ing]y corrupt before the Eeformution. Now, suppose it were admitted th? tradition contained nothing but sound doctrine for an age or two after the apostles, it must necessarily have become corrupted when taken up and transmitted by such corrupt men. They could not have been the means of preserviu_,r and the medium of communicating holy doctrines end precepts whic? condemned them and must have been abhorred by them. Vt;hatever came in contact with them must have been defiled. It may be admitted that, by the increase and general diffusion of knowledge., the character of the priests of the present day is not so bad, at least in Protestant countries. Allowing this to be so? nothing is gained in fayour of oral tradition; as this corruption of which we speak took p]ace before the present race of priests had an existence. There is much u?aingy arising from the m?nner in which the Church of Rome propounds and explains her traditions. She has been very sparing in her information with regard to the particular doctrines end ordinances which she has received from tradition. So far as we know, there is no publication of theirs which contains a summary of what their church believes under the head of tradition. It may be any thing or it may be nothing, for what any man can tell; for the very writing of it would destroy it as a matter of oraJ tradition; and there- fore no one can tell what their tradition is. As for lay persons in the Church ot ? Rome, they must receive it from the lips ot ? the priest. Tradition is what the church propounds; and as this is too large a body to propound any thing otherwise than by the mouth of its o?cial organs, every* priest is ?he propounder of what he considers the tra- (litions of the church. ?hus there may be as many traditions as priests, �Abp. 8ecker's ?xt?t sermon on popery.
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