Wesley Corpus

22, c. 2) the mystical bene dictions, incensings, garments, and many other things of the like kind, (c. 5) salt, spittle, exorcisms, and wax candles used in baptism, &c., (Catech. Rom., par. 2, c. 2, n. 59, 65, &c.,) the Priests shaving the head after the manner of a crown. (Ibid. c. 7, n. 14.) REPLY. “Laying aside the commandment of God, ye hold the tradition of men.” (Mark vii. 8.) “It is necessary even for novices to learn the Scriptures, that the mind may be well confirmed in piety, and that they may not be accustomed to human traditions.” (St. Basil in Reg. Brev. Reg. 95.) The Church of Rome hath no more to show for their holy water, and incensings, and salt, and spittle, &c., than the Pharisees for their traditions; and since they no less impose them as divine than the other, they are alike guilty with them. Q. 10. Doth the Church of Rome agree with other Churches in the number of canonical books of Scripture? A. No: For she hath added to the canonical books of the Old Testament, Esdras, Tobit, Judith, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Baruch, the two Books of Maccabees,” and a new part of Esther and Daniel; which whole Books, with all their parts,f whosoever rejects as not canonical, is accursed. (Concil. Trident. Sess. 4, Decret. de Scriptur.) REPLY. These apocryphal books were wrote after prophecy and divine inspiration ceased, and so were not received by the Jewish Church, (to whom “were committed the oracles of God,” Rom. iii. 2) nor by the Christian Church, as the Sixtieth Canon of the Council of Laodicea shows, where there is a catalogue of the canonical Books, without any mention of these. “As therefore the Church doth read Tobias, Judith, and the Books of the Maccabees, but doth not receive them into the canonical Scriptures; so it doth read the two volumes of Wisdom and Ecclesiasticus for the edification of the people, not to establish the authority of ecclesiastical principles.” St. Jerome. (In Prologo Proverb.)--See Bellarm. de Verbo, l. 1, c. 10 init. * These books are so sacred, as that they are of infallible truth.-Bellarm. De Verbo, l. 1, c. 10, sec. Ecclesia vera.