Wesley Corpus

She not only makes tradition of equal authority with the Scripture, but also takes away the Scripture from the people, and denies them the use of it. For, soon after, her writers began to teach, yea, and assert in entire volumes, “that the Scripture is obscure, and hard to be understood; that it gives an handle to error and heresies; that it is not a perfect or sufficient rule of life; that it ought to be understood no otherwise than the Church, that is, the Pope, explains it; that, consequently, the reading the Scripture is of more hurt than use to the generality of Christians.” And, in fact, they not only publicly spoke against the reading the Holy Scriptures, but in most countries absolutely forbad the laity to read them, yea, and the Clergy too, till they were ordered to preach. And if any did read it without a particular license, they condemned and punished it as a great crime. 6. Thus the case stands to this day; yea, the late contro versies in France make it undeniably plain, that the Church of Rome does now labour, more earnestly than ever, to take away the use of the Scriptures, even from those who have hitherto enjoyed them. Seeing, therefore, the Church of England contends for the word of God, and the Church of Rome against it, it is easy to discern on which side the advantage lies, with regard to the grand principle of Christianity. 7. But that it may more clearly appear how widely the Church of Rome differs from the Holy Scriptures, we have set down a few instances wherein they flatly contradict the written word of God. Thus the Church of Rome, after acknowledging that the Apostle terms concupiscence sin, yet scruples not to add immediately, “The Catholic Church never understood that this is truly and properly sin; and if any think the contrary, let him be accursed.” (Conc. Trid, Sess. 5.) Thus, although Christ himself says to all his disciples, “Without me ye can do nothing,” yet the Church of Rome condemns this very proposition as false and heretical:--“The grace of Jesus Christ, the effectual principle of all good, is necessary to every good work. Not only nothing good is done without it, but nothing can be done.” (In the Bull Unigenitus.) 8.