Facts and Assertions: or a Brief and Plain Exhibition of the Incongruity of the Peculiar Doctrines of the Church of Rome / With Those Both of the Sacred Scriptures and of the Early Writers of the Christian Church Catholic

by George Stanley Faber

2. Do, or do not, the Romish Clergy imitate the Gnostics: who, when they were confuted from Scripture, were accustomed to reply; that, by those who are ignorant of Unwritten Tradition, truth cannot be discovered from the Written Word.

3. Do, or do not, the Romish Clergy copy the example of Cyril of Jerusalem: who declared, that, respecting the faith, NOT A TITTLE ought to be delivered without the authority of the Holy Scriptures; and who exhorted his Catechumens to repose not THE SLIGHTEST CONFIDENCE in his assertions, unless they should receive from the Holy Scriptures full demonstration of the matters propounded?

4. Do, or do not, the Romish Clergy teach, with Athanasius: that, the Scriptures ALONE are sufficient for the declaration of the truth; and that, in the canonical Scriptures ALONE, to the exclusion of the Apocrypha, is the evangelical school of piety?

5. Do, or do not, the Romish Clergy declare, with the same illustrious Father: that they will never be persuaded either to hear or to speak A SINGLE SYLLABLE beyond God’s written word?

6. Do, or do not, the Romish Clergy pronounce, still with the great Athanasius: that it is the part of mere triflers to propound and to speak the things which are not written?

7. Do, or do not, the doctors of the Council of Trent, and after them our present Romish Clergy, take up, and make their own, the ancient pithy distinction of Jerome: The things which are written we acknowledge; the things which are not written we reject?

8. Do, or do not, the Romish Clergy, make a point, with Tertullian, of always requiring the production of proof from the Written Word: and do they, or do they not, allow and maintain, with the same Father; that he, who is unable to produce the Written Word in substantiation of his tenets, but who for that purpose resorts to Unwritten Tradition, may well dread the awful Woe so justly denounced against those who either add to it or detract from it?

9. Finally, in their several estimates of Unwritten Tradition and the Written Word, and in their several modes of conducting those theological controversies which respect the authoritative rule of faith and practice, do the Romish Clergy or the Reformed Clergy approximate most closely to Holy Scripture and to the ancient orthodox Fathers?

CHAPTER V.
MERITORIOUS SATISFACTION.

From the perfect equality of Unwritten Tradition and the Written Word of God, we may next proceed to the doctrine of Meritorious Satisfaction.