Institutes 4.2.9 — COMPARISON BETWEEN THE FALSE CHURCH AND THE TRUE.

CON treatise-section · status:draft · license:PD

**COMPARISON BETWEEN THE FALSE CHURCH AND THE TRUE.**

Now then let the Papists, in order to extenuate their vices as much as possible, deny, if they can, that the state of religion is as much vitiated and corrupted with them as it was in the kingdom of Israel under Jeroboam. They have a grosser idolatry, and in doctrine are not one whit more pure; rather, perhaps, they are even still more impure. God, nay, even those possessed of a moderate degree of judgment, will bear me witness, and the thing itself is too manifest to require me to enlarge upon it. When they would force us to the communion of their Church, they make two demands upon us—first, that we join in their prayers, their sacrifices, and all their ceremonies; and, secondly, that whatever honour, power, and jurisdiction, Christ has given to his Church, the same we must attribute to theirs. In regard to the first, I admit that all the prophets who were at Jerusalem, when matters there were very corrupt, neither sacrificed apart nor held separate meetings for prayer. For they had the command of God, which enjoined them to meet in the temple of Solomon, and they knew that the Levitical priests, whom the Lord had appointed over sacred matters, and who were not yet discarded, how unworthy soever they might be of that honour, were still entitled to hold it French, “Ils savoient que les pretres Levitiques, combien qu’ils fussent indignes d’un tel office, neantmoins pourcequ’ils avoient eté ordonnez de Dieu, et n’etoient point encore deposés, devoient etre recognus pour ministres legitimes, ayant le degré de pretrise.”—They knew that the Levitical priests, although they were unworthy of such an office, nevertheless, because they had been ordained of God, and were not yet deposed, were to be recognised as lawful ministers, having the rank of priesthood.

Source

• source-manifest/institutes — Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, tr. Beveridge 1845 (PD)
• evidence_grade: D_doctrinal_textbook