CHAPTER X.04

X. Moreover, this worst of consequences ensues; that when men have begun to place religion in such vain figments, that perversion is immediately followed by another execrable corruption, with which Christ reproached the Pharisees. “Ye have made the commandment of God of none effect by your tradition.”

[992]

I will not combat our modern legislators with my own words; I will grant them the victory, if they can vindicate themselves from this accusation of Christ. But how can they vindicate themselves, while they esteem it infinitely more criminal, to have omitted auricular confession at a stated time of the year, than to have lived a most iniquitous life for a whole year together; to have infected the tongue with the least taste of animal food on a Friday, than to have polluted the whole body by committing fornication every day; to have put a hand to any honest labour on a day consecrated to any pretended saint, than to have continually employed all the members in the most flagitious actions; for a priest to be connected in one lawful marriage, than to be defiled with a thousand adulteries; to have failed of performing one vow of pilgrimage, than to violate every other promise; not to have lavished any thing on the enormous, superfluous, and useless magnificence of Churches, than to have failed of relieving the most pressing necessities of the poor; to have passed by an idol without some token of honour, than to have insulted all the men in the world; not to have muttered over, at certain seasons, a multitude of words without any meaning, than to have never offered a genuine prayer from the heart? What is it for men to make the commandment of God of none effect by their traditions, if this be not? When coldly and carelessly recommending the observance of the commandments of God, they insist on an exact obedience to their own, with as much zeal and anxiety as if the whole essence of piety consisted in them; when avenging the violation of the Divine law with slight penalties of satisfactions, they punish the smallest transgression of one of their decrees with nothing less than imprisonment, banishment, fire, or sword; when less severe and inexorable against the despisers of God, they persecute the despisers of themselves with implacable hatred even to death; and when they instruct all those whom they hold in the chains of ignorance in such a manner, that they would feel less concern at seeing the subversion of the whole law of God, than the violation of the smallest tittle of the commands of the Church? In the first place, here is a grievous error, that on account of things of no importance in themselves, and left free by God, one man despises, condemns, and rejects another. Now, as if this were not bad enough, “the beggarly elements of the world,”

[993]

as Paul calls them, are esteemed of more force than the celestial oracles of God. He who is absolved in adultery, is condemned in meat; he who is allowed a harlot, is interdicted from a wife. This is the fruit of that prevaricating obedience, which recedes from God in proportion as it inclines to men.

XI. There are also two other faults, far from small ones, which we charge on these Constitutions. The first is, that they prescribe for the most part useless, and sometimes even foolish observances. The second is, that pious consciences are oppressed with the immense number of them, and being carried back to a species of Judaism, are so occupied with shadows as to be prevented from coming to Christ. When I call these observances useless and foolish, I know this will not be admitted by the wisdom of the flesh, which is so pleased with them, as to consider the Church altogether deformed where they are abolished. But these are the things which Paul describes as “having a show of wisdom in will-worship, and humility, and neglecting of the body; not in any honour to the satisfying of the flesh.”

[994]

This is certainly a most salutary admonition, which ought never to be forgotten by us. Human traditions, he says, deceive under a show of wisdom. Is it inquired whence they have this appearance? I reply, that being contrived by man, the human mind recognizes them as its own, and recognizing them, embraces them with greater pleasure than it would any thing of the greatest excellence, but less agreeable to its vanity. A further recommendation of them is, that as they keep the minds of men depressed to the ground under their yoke, they appear well adapted to promote humility. Lastly, they are regarded as the expedients of prudence, from their supposed tendency to restrain corporeal indulgence, and to subdue sensuality by the rigour of abstinence. But what does Paul say to these things? Does he strip off such disguises, that the simple may not be deluded by false pretences? Satisfied that he had said enough to refute them, when he had called them “the commandments and doctrines of men,”

[995]

he passes over all these things as undeserving of any particular refutation. And knowing that all services of human invention are condemned in the Church, and ought to excite the suspicion of believers in proportion to the pleasure they afford to the minds of men; knowing that false appearance of external humility to be at such an immense distance from true humility, that it might be easily distinguished from it; knowing that discipline to be entitled to no other consideration than as a mere exercise of the body,—he intended these very things, by which the traditions of men are recommended to the ignorant, to serve as their refutation with believers.

XII. So, at the present day, not only the unlearned vulgar, but those who are most inflated with worldly wisdom, are universally and wonderfully captivated with the pomp of ceremonies. Hypocrites and silly women think it impossible to imagine any thing more beautiful or excellent. But those who examine more minutely, and judge with more accuracy, according to the rule of piety, respecting the real value of those numerous ceremonies, perceive, in the first place, that they are frivolous, because they have no utility; and in the next place, that they are delusive, because they deceive the eyes of the spectators with empty pomp. I speak of those ceremonies under which, the Roman doctors contend, are concealed great mysteries, but which, on examination, we find to be mere mockeries. And it is not to be wondered at, that the authors and advocates of them have fallen into such folly as to delude both themselves and others with contemptible absurdities; because they have taken their model in some things from the reveries of the heathen, and in others, without any judgment, have imitated the ancient rites of the Mosaic law, which were no more applicable to us than the sacrifices of animals and other similar ceremonies. Indeed, if there were no argument besides, yet no man in his senses would expect any thing good from such a heterogeneous compound. And the fact itself plainly demonstrates, that numerous ceremonies have no other use than to stupefy the people, instead of instructing them. So hypocrites attach great importance to those novel canons, which overturn discipline rather than preserve it; for on a more accurate investigation, they will be found a mere shadow of discipline, without any reality.