to the
commandments of God which he hath given unto us, concerning his worship
and service, Deut. iv. 2; xii. 32; Prov. xxx. 6; therefore she may not
lawfully prescribe anything in the works of divine worship, if it be not a
mere circumstance belonging to that kind of things which were not
determinate by Scripture.

Our opposites have no other distinctions which they make any use of
against this argument, but the very same which Papists use in defence of
their unwritten dogmatical traditions, namely, that _additio corrumpens_
is forbidden, but not _additio perficiens_: that there is not alike reason
of the Christian church and of the Jewish; that the church may not add to
the essential parts of God's worship, but to the accidentary she may add.

To the first of those distinctions, we answer, 1. That the distinction
itself is an addition to the word, and so doth but beg the question.

2. It is blasphemous; for it argueth that the commandments of God are
imperfect, and that by addition they are made perfect.

3. Since our opposites will speak in this dialect, let them resolve us
whether the washings of the Pharisees, condemned by Christ, were
corrupting or perfecting additions. They cannot say they were corrupting,
for there was no commandment of God which those washings did corrupt or
destroy, except that commandment which forbiddeth men's additions. But for
this respect our opposites dare not call them corrupting additions, for so
they should condemn all additions whatsoever. Except, therefore, they can
show us that those washings were not added by the Pharisees for
perfecting, but for corrupting the law of God, let them consider how they
rank their own ceremonial additions with those of the Pharisees. We read
of no other reason wherefore Christ condemned them but because they were
doctrines which had no other warrant than the commandments of men, Matt.
xv. 9; for as the law ordained divers washings, for teaching and
signifying that true holiness and cleanness which ought to be among God's
people, so the Pharisees would have perfected the law by adding other
washings (and more than God had commanded) for the same end and purpose.

_Sect._ 11. To the second distinction, we say that the Christian church
hath no more liberty to add to the commandments of God than the Jewish
church had; for the second commandment is moral and perpetual, and
forbiddeth to us as well as to them the additions and inventions of men in
the