A Treatise of Dogmatic Theology Author:Robert Owen Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. OF CATHOLIC TRADITION AND THE AUTHORITY OF THE CHURCH. oriKinof § 1- Having thus maintained at length the supreme Authority authority of H... more »oly Scripture as the Rule of Faith and the source from which all Theological investigations spring, and to which they must ever be subject, we now ask what need there is of noticing the subsidiary fences of Faith, when Scripture has already been given to us as an infallible Rule and Guide. The Apostles address Christians as divinely illuminated, as possessing the Spirit of promise Who should guide them " into all truth," k as " no longer under a schoolmaster." ' S. Paul saith, " He that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no man ; " m and again, he applies to the Church the prophecy of Jeremiah, " And they shall not teach every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord : for all shall know Me from the least to the greatest." n And S. John saith, " But ye have an unction from the Holy One, and ye know all things ; " and again, " But the anointing which ye have received of Him abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teach you : but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in Him.'' p And following apparently the leading of such passages, our profound Divine, Dr. Jackson, hesitates not to aflirm, " That the Infallible Rule, whereupon every Christian, in matters of written verities absolutely and finally without all appeal, condition, or reservation, is to rely, must be the Divine Written Oracles themselves; some of which every Christian hath written in his heart by the finger of God's Spirit, and believes immediately in and for themselves, and not for any authority; and these to him mus...« less