the most part, traditions do not treat." But it is evi6emt that Odfen reqnire8 the testhnon?r of Scripture, not because of the difficulty,. but because without sucu testimony such thin? are not to be beJieved. Verhether, there;oFe, the things pFoposed be easy or hard, ff they be not in Scripture they are not to be believed. That this is the sense of Origen's argument, the following will clearly show :--" After these things, as his custom is, he will affirm from the H(?ly Scriptures what he had said; and also gives an example to the dectom of the church, that those things which they speak to the people, they should prove them, not as produced by their own sentences, but defended by divine testimonies; for if he, so great, and such an apesde, believes not that the authority of his saying can be suilieient, unless he teaches tha? those th/ngs which he says are written in the law and the prophets-- how much rather ought we, who are the least, observe this thing, th? we do not, when we teach, produce our own, but the sentences of the Holy Ghost." Add to this what he says in another pls?e: "As our Saviour imposed silence upon the Sadducees by the word of his doc- trine, and faithfully convinced that false opinion which they thought to be truth; so also shall the followers of Christ do, by the examples of Scr/pture, by which, according to sound dec.he, every voice of Pha- raoh ought to be silent."t Origen says in another place: "1%/o man ought, for the confirmation of doctrines, to use books which are not canonized Scriptures."? Again he says: "As all gold, whatsoever it be, that is without the temple, is not holy; even so every sense which is without the divine Scripture, however admirable it may appear to some, is not holy, because it is foreign to Scripture."? Again: "Con- sider how imminent their danger is who neglect to study the Scriptures, in which alone the discernment of this can be ascertained.'*? Cypr/a,J was bishop of Carthage from 248 to 258, and died in the latter year. Augustine (lib. v, c. 26, contra Donat.) quotes Cyprian as follows :--U tad fontera recurramus, i.e., ad apostolicam traditionera, et inde canalera in nos?ra tempera dirigamus :--" That we ought to recur to the fountain, i.e., to apostolical tradition, and thence derive the channel to our own times." Now as Cyprian wrote to Pompeius against Stephen, bishop of Rome, we conclude that it was Stephen who pleaded custom and tradition, to which Cyprian. replies in the following words :--" Whence comes this tradition ? doth it descend from the Lord'8 authority, or from the commands and epistles of the apostles ! f& those things are to be done which are there written," &c. "If it be commanded in the gospels or the epistles and Acts of the Apesties, then let this holy tradition be observed."�. Failers of tl? fourtA century. Hippolitus, who suffered martyrdom in 330, writes as follows against the heresy of Neetus :--" There is one God, whom we do not other-
- Origen in Epist. ad Ram., lib. iii. t Tract 23, in Matt.
- t Nemo uti debet, ad confirmationera dogmaturn, iibri9, qui aunt extra (?nonintas
Seripturu. Tract 26 in Matt. See Taylor, vol. x, p. II Hem. 25 in Matt., Let. Ed., Basil, 1571. ? Lib. x, c. 16, in Ram., ? edit. �nde traditio hmc, utrumne de Dominica auLhoritate deocendena, an de Apes* talerum mandarin Itque epistolis veniens?. Ea enim ease facienda qum Scripts suet, &c. Si in Evangelis pr?cipitur, aut in Apostoiorum epiatolis vel Aetibua ?nvenitur. observetur etiam nnct8 h?ec tra?tio."?(?tpr., ep. !
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