Summary

Portrait of Tertullian Tertullian Ante-Nicene Fathers Vol. III, Apologetic… (1885)

We are concerned if even a particle of the wine or bread, made ours, in the Lord’s Supper, falls to the ground, by our carelessness. In all the ordinary occasions of life we furrow our foreheads with the sign of the Cross, in which we glory none the less because it is regarded as our shame by the heathen in presence of whom it is a profession of our faith.
He owns there is no Scripture for any of these usages, in which there was an amplifying of the precepts of Christ.
Source: Wikisource

Portrait of Tertullian Tertullian Ante-Nicene Fathers Vol. III, Apologetic… (1885)

And as our author asserts the long continuance of such usages to be their chief justification, it is evident that he supposed them common from the Sub-apostolic age. There is nothing here to justify amplifications and traditions which, subsequently, came in like a flood to change principles of the Faith once delivered to the Saints. Even in his little plea for Montanistic revelations of some possible novelties, he pre-supposes that reason must be subject to Scripture and Apostolic Law. In a word, his own principle of “Prescription” must be honoured even in things indifferent
Source: Wikisource

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