_The Holy Synod_, say the doctors of the Council of Trent, _perceiving_, _that this faith and discipline are contained_, _both in the Written Books_, _and in the Unwritten Traditions which have descended to us from Christ and his Apostles_, _receives and venerates_, _after the example of the orthodox Fathers_, WITH AN EQUAL AFFECTION AND PIOUS REVERENCE, _both all the Books of the Old and New Testaments_, _and likewise the Traditions themselves_, _whether appertaining to faith or to morals_, _as if orally dictated from Christ and the Holy Spirit_, _and as preserved by continual succession in the Church Catholic_. {30} II. Let us now hear what Scripture says on the topic at present under discussion. 1. The unwritten traditions of the Rabbins, by which they made void the Law of God, claimed to have been delivered to Moses on Mount Sinai by the Lord himself: and their pretended authenticity rested precisely upon the same mode of reasoning, as that employed, for their parallel unwritten traditions, by the Clergy of the Roman Communion. Yet Christ reprobated such vain unhallowed phantasies in language and on principles, which equally apply to the antiscriptural unwritten traditions of the Latin Church. _He answered and said unto them_: _Why do ye also transgress the commandment of God by your tradition_? _For God commanded_, _saying_: _Honour __thy father and thy mother_; _and_: _He that curseth father or mother_, _let him die the death_. _But ye say_: _Whosoever shall say to his father or his mother_; _It is a gift by whatsoever thou mightest be profited by me_; _and honour not his father or his mother_, _he shall be free_. _Thus have ye made the commandment of God of none effect by your tradition_. {31a} Now where is the perceptible difference, between the conduct of the Jewish Rabbins, and the conduct of the Romish Clergy? (1.) The Written Word commanded: that a man should honour his father and mother. But the Jewish Rabbins made this commandment of none effect by their Unwritten Tradition: that, if a man vowed to dedicate his substance to God, he was not bound to relieve out of it the necessities of his parents. (2.) The Written Word has prohibited the bowing down before graven images and the invocation of any being save the Deity.