CHAPTER X.07

XVIII. For this reason we freely censure that tyranny of human traditions, which is imposed upon the world under the name of the Church. Nor do we hold the Church in contempt, as our adversaries, in order to render us obnoxious, falsely assert. We allow it the praise of obedience, than which no higher praise can be given. On the contrary, they are themselves the most outrageous violators of the Church, which they represent as guilty of rebellion against the Lord, when they pretend that it has gone beyond what was permitted by the word of God; to say nothing of the combination of impudence and wickedness discovered in their incessant vociferations respecting the authority of the Church, while they take no notice of the command of the Lord, or of the obedience due from the Church to that command. But if we desire, as we ought, to agree with the Church, it will be best for us to observe and remember what commands are given by the Lord, equally to us and to the whole Church, that we may all obey him with one consent. For there is no doubt that we shall fully agree with the Church, if we show ourselves in all things obedient to the Lord. Now, to attribute to the apostles the origin of the traditions which have hitherto oppressed the Church, is a mere imposture; for the whole tendency of the doctrine of the apostles was, that men’s consciences should not be burdened with new observances, or the worship of God contaminated with human inventions. Besides, if there be any credit due to ancient histories and records, the apostles not only never knew, but never even heard of that which is ascribed to them. Nor let it be pretended, that the greatest part of their Constitutions were received in use and commonly practised, which were never committed to writing; namely, those things which, during the life of Christ, they were not able to understand, but which after his ascension, they learned from the revelation of the Holy Spirit. The meaning of that passage we have already examined. With respect to the present subject, we may observe, they make themselves truly ridiculous by maintaining that those great mysteries, which were so long unknown to the apostles, consisted partly of Jewish or heathen ceremonies, of which the former had long before been promulgated among the Jews, and the latter among the heathen, and partly of foolish gesticulations and unmeaning rites, which stupid priests, who scarcely know how to walk or speak, perform with the greatest exactness, and which even infants and fools counterfeit so well, that it might be thought there were no more suitable ministers of such solemnities. If there were no histories, yet men of sound judgment would conclude from the thing itself, that such a vast multitude of rites and observances did not break into the Church all on a sudden, but that they must have been introduced by degrees. For when those holy bishops, who were the immediate successors of the apostles, had made some appointments relating to order and discipline, they were followed by a series of others, who had too little consideration, and too much curiosity and cupidity, of whom every one in succession vied with his predecessors, from a foolish emulation to excel them in the invention of new observances. And because there was danger that their inventions, by which they desired to obtain the praises of posterity, might in a short time be disused, they were the more rigid in enforcing the observance of them. This foolish and perverse imitation has been the source of most of those rites which the Romanists urge upon us as apostolic. And this is also attested by various histories.

XIX. To avoid too much prolixity in composing a catalogue of them all, we shall content ourselves with one example. In the administration of the Lord’s supper, the apostles used great simplicity. Their immediate successors, to adorn the dignity of the mystery, added some forms which were not to be altogether condemned. Afterwards followed those foolish imitators, who, by adding various fragments from time to time, at length formed those vestments of the priests, those ornaments of the altar, those gesticulations, and all that apparatus of useless things, which we see in the mass. But they object that it was an ancient opinion, that whatever was done with the common consent of the universal Church, had originated from the apostles. In proof of this, they cite the testimony of Augustine. I shall give them no other answer than in the words of Augustine himself. “Those things which are observed throughout the world,” says he, “we may understand to have been ordained, either by the apostles themselves, or by general councils, whose authority is very useful in the Church; as that the sufferings, resurrection, and ascension of our Lord, and the descent of the Holy Spirit, are celebrated by solemn anniversaries; and if there be any thing else of a similar kind observed by the universal Church wherever it has extended itself.” When he enumerates so few examples, who does not see that he intended to attribute to authors worthy of credit and reverence the observances which were then in use, and none but those simple, rare, and sober ones, which are useful in preserving the order of the Church? But how distant is this passage from the conclusion the Roman doctors would extort from it, that there is not the most insignificant ceremony among them which ought not to be considered as resting on the authority of the apostles!

XX. Not to be too tedious, I will produce only one example. If any one inquire whence they have their holy water, they immediately answer, From the apostles. As if the histories did not attribute this invention to a bishop of Rome, who, if he had taken counsel of the apostles, would certainly never have contaminated baptism by a strange and unseasonable symbol. Though it does not appear to me probable that the origin of that consecration was so ancient as those histories state. For the observation of Augustine, that some Churches in his time rejected the custom of washing the feet as a solemn imitation of Christ, lest that ceremony might be supposed to have any reference to baptism, implies that there was no other kind of washing then practised which bore any resemblance to baptism. Be this as it may, I shall never admit it to have been a dictate of the spirit of the apostles, that baptism should be recalled to the memory by a daily ablution, which would be little else than a repetition of it. It is of no consequence that Augustine elsewhere ascribes other things also to the apostles; for as he has nothing but conjectures, no conclusion ought to be drawn from them on such an important subject. Lastly, though we should even grant, that those things which he mentions had been transmitted from the time of the apostles, yet there is a wide difference between instituting some pious exercise which believers may use with a free conscience, or if they find not profitable, may abstain from the use of it, and making laws to entangle their consciences with bondage. But whoever was their author, since we see that they have fallen into so great an abuse, nothing prevents our abolishing them without any disrespect to him; because they were never instituted in order to be perpetual and unalterable.