CHAPTER X.06

XVI. Though I may be considered as not delivering a doctrine of perpetual application respecting human constitutions, because the preceding observations have been wholly directed to the present age, yet nothing has been advanced which would not be useful in all ages. For wherever this superstition intrudes, that men are determined to worship God with their own inventions, all the laws made for this purpose presently degenerate into such gross abuses as we have described. It is a curse which God denounces, not against any particular age, but against all ages, that he will strike with blindness and stupidity all those who worship him with the doctrines of men.

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The invariable effect of this blindness is, that no absurdity is too great to be embraced by persons who, in contempt of so many warnings from God, wilfully entangle themselves in such fatal snares. But if, irrespective of peculiar circumstances, any one wish to have a simple statement, what are the human traditions of all ages, which ought to be rejected and reprobated by the Church and all pious persons, the direction we have already given is clear and certain—that they are all laws made by men without the word of God, for the purpose, either of prescribing any method for the worship of God, or of laying the conscience under a religious obligation, as if they enjoined things necessary to salvation. If either or both of these be accompanied with other faults, such as, that the ceremonies, by their multitude, obscure the simplicity of the gospel; that they tend to no edification, but are useless and ridiculous occupations rather than real exercises of piety; that they are employed for the sordid purposes of dishonest gain; that they are too difficult to be observed; that they are polluted with impious superstitions;—these things will further assist us in discovering the vast evil which they contain.

XVII. I hear the answer which they make—that their traditions are not from themselves, but from God; for that the Church is directed by the Holy Spirit, so that it cannot err; and that they are in possession of his authority. When this point is gained, it immediately follows, that their traditions are the revelations of the Holy Spirit, which cannot be despised without impiety and contempt of God. That they may not appear to attempt any thing without high authorities, they wish it to be believed that the greatest part of their observances have descended from the apostles; and they contend that one example sufficiently shows what was the conduct of the apostles in other cases; when, being assembled together in a council, they determined and announced to all Gentiles, that they should “abstain from meats offered to idols, and from blood, and from things strangled.”

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We have already exposed the falsehood of their pretensions in arrogating to themselves the title of the Church. With regard to the present argument, if, stripping off all false disguises, we confine our attention to what ought to be our chief concern, and involves our highest interests, namely, what kind of a Church Christ requires, in order that we may conform ourselves to its standard,—it will be sufficiently evident to us, that the name of the Church does not belong to those who overleap all the limits of the word of God, and exercise an unbounded license of enacting new laws. For does not that law, which was once given to the Church, remain forever in force? “What thing soever I command you, observe to do it: thou shalt not add thereto, nor diminish from it.”

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And again: “Add not thou unto his words, lest he reprove thee, and thou be found a liar.”

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Since they cannot deny these things to have been spoken to the Church, do they not declare the rebellion of the Church, when they pretend that, notwithstanding such prohibitions, it has dared to mingle additions of its own with the doctrine of God? Far be it from us, however, to countenance their falsehoods, by which they do so great an injury to the Church; let us know that the assumption of the name of the Church is a false pretence in all who are so carried away by the violence of human presumption, as to disregard all the restraints of the word of God, and to introduce a torrent of their own inventions. There is nothing involved, nothing intricate, nothing ambiguous in these words, by which the whole Church is forbidden to add any thing to the word, or to diminish any thing from it, in any question relating to the worship of God and his salutary precepts. But it will be alleged, that this was spoken exclusively of the law, which has been succeeded by the prophecies and the whole dispensation of the gospel. This I certainly admit, and at the same time assert, that these were accomplishments of the law, rather than additions to it, or retrenchments of it. But if the Lord suffered no enlargement or diminution of the ministry of Moses, notwithstanding it was enveloped in such great obscurity, till he dispensed a clearer doctrine by his servants the prophets, and finally by his beloved Son,—why do not we consider ourselves far more severely prohibited from making any addition to the law, the prophets, the psalms, and the gospel? No change has taken place in the Lord, who long ago declared that nothing was so highly offensive to him, as to attempt to worship him with the inventions of men. Hence those striking declarations in the prophets, which ought to be continually sounding in our ears: “I spake not unto your fathers, nor commanded them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning burnt-offerings or sacrifices; but this thing commanded I them, saying, Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and ye shall be my people: and walk ye in all the ways that I have commanded you.”

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Again: “I earnestly protested unto your fathers, saying, Obey my voice.”

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There are many other similar passages, but the most remarkable of all is the following: “Hath the Lord,” says Samuel, “as great delight in burnt-offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams. For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry.”

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Therefore, whatever human inventions relating to the worship of God, may be defended by the authority of the Church, since it is impossible to vindicate them from impiety, it is easy to infer that the imputation of them to the Church has no foundation in truth.