Theological Theses · §1614 · Louis Le Blanc de Beaulieu

First argument: worship without God's word is will-worship

The Protestants hold that the blessed spirits, whether of men or of angels, are not to be honored with the worship the Roman Church gives them: churches and altars built and dedicated in their honor, candles lit to them, incense burned, knees bent before them as though they were watching; vows made to them, offerings of every kind presented, oaths sworn by their name; and, finally, solemn prayers by which people run to them for help, and hymns sung to them publicly in thanksgiving for benefits received from God, and anything else of the kind.

Neither the blessed angels, I say, nor the saints who have died in Christ are to be worshiped in this way. The Protestants prove it first from the fact that such worship ought not to have been devised by human beings apart from God's word. Otherwise it will be offered without faith, since without God's word no one can be sure that it pleases God and is accepted by him.

So if it is clear that worship of this kind rests on no command or revelation of God, it may rightly be rejected as one of the forms of self-made worship that the Apostle condemns. And it is plain that this whole worship has no foundation in God's word, since in all of Scripture, Old Testament or New, there is no command for it and no example of it.

Latin

LVII. Porro Beatos Spiritus sive hominum, sive Angelorum, non esse colendos eo cultu qui ipsis in Ecclesia Romana exhibetur, dum scilicet, aedes sacrae & altaria in eorum honorem construuntur atque dedicantur, cerei illis accenduntur, incensum adoletur, & coram ipsis tanquam intuentibus genua flectuntur: dum vota eis nuncupantur, & variae fiunt illis oblationes, ac juramenta per eorum nomen concipiuntur: dum denique precibus solennibus ad eorum auxilium & opem confugitur, & hymni illis publice canuntur in gratiarum actionem pro beneficiis a Deo acceptis, & si qua sunt hujusmodi: nec Angelos, inquam, beatos, nec Sanctos in Christo defunctos eo modo colendos esse, inde probant primum Protestantes, quod talis cultus non debuit ab hominibus sine Dei verbo excogitari. Alioqui sine fide exhibebitur: cum absque Dei verbo nemo certus esse possit illum Deo gratum & acceptum esse. Adeoque si constet ejusmodi cultum nullo Dei praecepto & revelatione niti, inter ἐθελοθρησκείας ab Apostolo damnatas merito rejici potest. Jam vero totum illum cultum in Dei verbo nullum fundamentum habere, ex eo patet, quod in universa Scriptura seu Veteris, seu Novi Testamenti, nullum ejus extat praeceptum, aut exemplum.

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