ted, new ceremonies and services
in honor of saints instituted, because the authors of such things
thought that by these works they were meriting grace. Thus in times past
the Penitential Canons increased, whereof we still see some traces in
the satisfactions.

Again, the authors of traditions do contrary to the command of God when
they find matters of sin in foods, in days, and like things, and burden
the Church with bondage of the law, as if there ought to be among
Christians, in order to merit justification a service like the
Levitical, the arrangement of which God had committed to the Apostles
and bishops. For thus some of them write; and the Pontiffs in some
measure seem to be misled by the example of the law of Moses. Hence are
such burdens, as that they make it mortal sin, even without offense
to others, to do manual labor on holy-days, a mortal sin to omit the
Canonical Hours, that certain foods defile the conscience that fastings
are works which appease God that sin in a reserved case cannot be
forgiven but by the authority of him who reserved it; whereas the Canons
themselves speak only of the reserving of the ecclesiastical penalty,
and not of the reserving of the guilt.

Whence have the bishops the right to lay these traditions upon the
Church for the ensnaring of consciences, when Peter, Acts 15, 10,
forbids to put a yoke upon the neck of the disciples, and Paul says,
2 Cor. 13, 10, that the power given him was to edification not to
destruction? Why, therefore, do they increase sins by these traditions?

But there are clear testimonies which prohibit the making of such
traditions, as though they merited grace or were necessary to salvation.
Paul says, Col. 2, 16-23: Let no man judge you in meat, or in drink, or
in respect of an holy-day, or of the new moon, or of the Sabbath-days.
If ye be dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world, why, as
though living in the world, are ye subject to ordinances (touch not;
taste not; handle not, which all are to perish with the using) after the
commandments and doctrines of men! which things have indeed a show of
wisdom. Also in Titus 1, 14 he openly forbids traditions: Not giving
heed to Jewish fables and commandments of men that turn from the truth.

And Christ, Matt. 15, 14. 13, says of those who require traditions:
Let them alone; they be blind leaders of the blind; and He rejects such
services: Every plant which My heavenly Father hath not planted shall be