Is it safe to read the church fathers?

Many, I am aware, whose judgment and conscience I deeply respect, disapprove of human writings on subjects connected with Sacred Scripture; and, no doubt, where such writings usurp the place of Scripture in the mind, the effect is most pernicious. But where this is not the case, I believe the Lord may make a book or tract the means of much real profit to the soul.

But however worthy of all honour Ignatius may be as a holy man of God, and as a noble martyr for Christ, we must ever remember that his letters are not the word of God. They may interest and instruct us, but they cannot command our faith. This can only stand on the solid ground of the word of God, never on the infirm ground of tradition. "Scripture stands alone," as one has said, "in majestic isolation, preeminent in instruction, and separated by unapproachable excellence from everything written by the apostolic fathers: so that those who follow close to the apostles have left us writings which are more for our warning than our edification." At the same time these early christian writers have every claim to the respect and veneration with which antiquity invests them. They were the contemporaries of the apostles, they enjoyed the privilege of hearing their instruction they shared with them the labours of the gospel, and freely conversed with them from day to day. Paul speaks of a Clement — a so-called apostolic father — as his "fellow-labourer, whose name is in the book of life;" and what he says of Timothy may have been at least partly true of many others, "But thou hast fully known my doctrine, manner of life, purpose, faith, long-suffering, charity, patience persecutions, and afflictions." (Phil. 4:3; 2 Tim. 3:10-11)

Whether the quotations were remembered from his pre-conversion days or not does not seem to affect the principle involved. If this teaching is of the Spirit, it appears that no Christian, however gifted, should read human writings even with a view to exposing their fallacies in the light of the word of God. Your enquirer fully admits that "all things are lawful; but all things are not expedient," and this question appears to be one in which everyone is to be "fully persuaded in his own mind," always of course before the Lord. X.

N*. When God has become a man — when He can say, If thou knewest the gift of God, and Who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink, thou wouldest have asked of Him, and He would have given — when the High and Holy One has come so low to be with sinners, the moment I believe it, I can have confidence in Him. I have much to learn; but to learn from one who loves us. If we reject His grace, we have a debt we never can pay at all: but if we have Him, we have one who — blessed be His name — has paid the last farthing for us. There is not the smallest need of your knowing the Fathers. They may be interesting, as a matter of history, to shew what went on in those days for those who make research, and they are so; and in a very few indeed we see marks of piety and true grace, as in Irenaeus of the more voluminous, and others I need not name here; but it is not in the books of those times you get the highest parts of Christianity. They were almost all corrupted by heathenism and philosophical reasonings. I do not think you would find as much rubbish and false interpretation in any quantity of serious books of the same size nowadays. But men suffered then for Christ, and so did some of these very men. As to their consent in doctrines, it is all a fable. There never was more disputing and confusion about doctrine than in those days. They were holding councils on councils to try and settle it, and often the emperors managed the matter their own way — by their power, by the banishment of those whose opinions they did not like, etc. In one great council they had, the prelates of one party beat the old Archbishop of Constantinople so that he died of it. And some of the other councils were not a great deal better, though not so violent.

N*. There you are, I dare say, in your element, Mr. D. The traditions and doctrines of men have all weight with those of the school you belong to. But you know it is written, "In vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men," and I suspect, like many who rest upon them, you have not searched them. A man's writing a thousand years ago does not make his word to be more the truth in the least. They were not inspired. We are specially taught in view of the turning away from the truth which had already begun in the apostle's days, the mystery of iniquity being already at work, and warned that evil men and seducers would wax worse and worse, so that the last days of the church would be perilous times — we are warned, I say, to hold fast by the Scriptures, to know of whom we have learned anything; that that which was in the beginning should abide in us. Hearing the apostles themselves, is made a test of truth. In a word, we are carefully warned against trusting anything but what came out first and by inspiration from God, which no one pretends was the case with those you call the Fathers, who after all were only prelates and doctors of bygone ages whose doctrine was very loose and uncertain. The Fathers generally before the Council of Nice were unquestionably unsound as to the divinity of the Lord, and, after it, the church was whatever the Emperor made it. Athanasius was excommunicated, the Luciferians who held by him were condemned as a sect by Jerome. Hosius, who presided at Nice, gave way; two popes were Arians, or consecrated by the Arians, Felix and Liberius, and the universal church displayed a scene of dispute and contention which never ended in the East till sunk under the power of the Turks, and in the West till Bernard (the last of the Fathers) declared Antichrist was sitting at Rome. But none hardly of the early Fathers were sound in the faith. As to this particular doctrine as we have seen, one whom Bellarmine calls a most learned and acute doctor did not believe it. John Scotus declares it was never known to be of faith till the fourth Council of Lateran in 1215. And all Bellarmine has to say is that it was in a Roman Council, in the case of Berengarius; that is in 1060 and 1079.

When I turn to the fathers, how do I know that I am not turning to some such men as these? This is a great deal too risky for me. When telling Timothy to continue in the things he had learned and been assured of, he says, “Knowing of whom thou hast learned them” (3:14). I do not know these fathers, nor have I any confidence in them. But I have no need of these men, for I have the Holy Scriptures, and they are “profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.” Let us learn to keep more closely to the Word of God itself, for it cannot mislead us; and let us approach it with holy reverence, knowing whose Word it is; and let us earnestly seek to be instructed in its precious truths by the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us for that very purpose. We are certain to be deceived more or less by the fathers, but we cannot be deceived by the Apostles of our Lord. They say, “He that knows God hears us; he that is not of God hears not us” (1 John 4:6).

A great distinction however must be made between the inspired account of the founding and development of the assembly of God in apostolic times, and that which proceeded in later but early days when men wrote no longer by the unerring power of the Holy Spirit. The difference is not in degree but in kind. While the Scripture is the adamantine rock, the productions of the so-called "Fathers of the church" are the treacherous quicksands: the one affords unyielding support, the others offer nothing but at best a dim uncertainty, coupled with the risk of following their departure from the truth.

But we can come to the proofs. I deny that any such thing as purgatory is found in scripture. When we have examined this, we must see what you all allege from the Fathers. Not that I attribute the smallest authority to them, or believe anything as revealed truth but what is in the word of God; but as we are reasoning about it, it is fair to meet all you have to say. It would be quite enough to say they reveal nothing, and have no authority at all; nor would I allege them for the smallest thing; but as you do allege them, we may examine what you allege. I own to you I have a very poor opinion of them from what I have read of them, without meaning to say they have no historical value. We have the highest authority for saying we must have what was from the beginning. But that is Christ and the apostles — none of it elsewhere. And John says, "He that is of God heareth us." Hearing what the apostles say themselves is the test of truth; and he who continues in what was from the beginning (and I repeat, the writings of the apostles and evangelists alone are that) shall abide in the Father and in the Son.

But the faithful disciple is to abide in the things he has learned, knowing of whom he has learned them. He is not to trust to men he does not know. Others may put their trust in what they are pleased to call the fathers of the church, but the true disciple of the Lord has no confidence in any of them. He knows the apostles, and those whom the Spirit of God has used to make known His mind, but the fathers he knows not, nor can he trust his soul to the doctrines put forth by any of them. Some of them may have been in their measure devoted to the interests of Christ; he is not called upon to pass any judgment regarding them, but he trusts not to their teaching, except so far as it is in accord with the Word of God; but if it is in accordance with the Word of God, then it is not the men he is trusting, but the writers of the Scriptures, in which everything is found that is necessary for us to know.

There is one danger, in particular, against which we greatly need to be on our guard — I mean the reading of too many books, to the neglect of the Book. I need hardly add, that I am speaking here of religious books. They may be written by most pious and enlightened servants of Christ, and I would not, by saying so, even for a moment speak disparagingly of such books, lest I should sin against Him Who has given teachers, and against His Holy Spirit Who has imparted the gift of teaching, in writing, as well as orally. All I mean to imply, dear Christian reader, is this, that such books, (however helpful, if used in the right way and measure; and however honoured, as servants of Christ, their authors may be), are human books after all, and not "the Word of God," which, in every tittle of it, is inspired by the Holy Spirit. Honour their authors, but do not make them your authority. And let me add, helpful and very blessed as religious books or tracts may be for the flock of God, they may not only be rendered useless, but positively injurious to the spiritual health of their readers, if their perusal leads to the neglect of the Bible. If a Christian has once contracted the habit of spending the greater part of his reading-hours upon religious books; and the smaller portion, or perhaps only a small fraction of it, to the reading of his Bible; the invariable result will be, that the scriptural knowledge gathered from those books, will be stored up in the head, instead of being treasured up in the heart. The "lying down," produced by such a way of feeding, if we can call it so, will be the rest of spiritual idleness, if the authors of those books have done the searching and thinking for the reader. But even where the writer has made the reader really to think, but without making him to search the Scriptures, it will only lead to spiritual pride, the lying down of self-sufficiency and resting on the vain laurels of hollow attainments and knowledge. But if, with prayerful meditation, we have learnt to ponder the Lord's words in our hearts, like His blessed mother on earth, and make the reading of His Word our chief food, then such books may, under the Lord's blessing, help most effectually to strengthen and establish their readers in the true and living knowledge of that Word, "the entrance" of which "giveth light and understanding to the simple." It will keep the feeding sheep of the divine pasture from that undigested knowledge, which puffs up, and engenders pride, the worst of all spiritual diseases.