OF CEREMONIES,

WHY SOME BE ABOLISHED, AND SOME RETAINED.

OF such Ceremonies as be used that nothing can the them, bu

dient, not so much to have respec is new was thought exp. how to please and satisfy either c and profit them both. And yet les these parties, as how to please God any man should be offended, whor good reason might satisfy, here b certain causes rendered, why som of the accustomed Ceremonies b put away, and some retained and kept still.

in the Church, and have had their beginning by the institution of man, some at the first were of godly intent and purpose devised, and yet at length turned to vani­ty and superstition: some entered into the Church by undiscreet de­votion, and such a zeal as was without knowledge; and for be­cause they were winked at in the beginning, they grew daily to more and more abuses, which not only for their unprofitableness, but also because they have much blinded the people, and obscured the glory of God, are worthy to be cut away, and clean rejected: other there be, which although they have been devised by man, yet it is thought good to reserve them still, as well for a decent order in the Church,( for the which they were first devised) as because they pertain to edification, whereunto all things done in the Church( as the Apostle teacheth) ought to be referred.

And although the keeping or omitting of a Ceremony, in itself considered, is but a small thing; yet the wilful and contemptuous transgression and breaking of a common order and discipline is no small offence before God, Let all things be done among you, saith Saint Paul, in a seemly and due order: the appoint­ment of the which order pertain­eth not to private men; therefore no man ought to take in hand. nor presume to appoint or alter any publick or common order in Christ's Church, except he be lawfully called and authorized thereunto.

And whereas in this our time, the minds of men are so diverse, that some think it a great mat­ter of conscience to depart from a piece of the least of their Cere­monies, they be so addicted to their old customs; and again on the other side, some be so new­fangled, that they would innovate all things, and so despise the old,

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great excess and multitude of them Some are put away, because the hath so increased in these lattes days, that the burden of them was intolerable; whereof Saint Augus­tine in his time complained, that they were grown to such a num­ber, that the estate of Christian people was in worse case con­the Jews. And he counselled that cerning that matter, than were such yoke and burden should be taken away, as time would serve quietly to do it. But what would Saint Augustine have said, if he had seen the Ceremonies of late the multitude used in his time days used among us; whereunto was not to be compared? This our excessive multitude of Cere­monies was so great, and many of them so dark, that they did declare and set forth Christ's be­more confound and darken, than nefits unto us. And besides this, Christ's Gospel is not a Ceremo­nial Law,( as much of Moses' Law was,) but it is a religion to serve God, not in bondage of the figure or shadow, but in the freedom with those Ceremonies which do of the Spirit; being content only serve to a decent order and godly stir up the dull mind of man to discipline, and such as be apt to the remembrance of his duty to God, by some notable and spe­might be edified. Furthermore, cial signification, whereby he lishment of certain Ceremonies was, the most weighty cause of the abo­that they were so far abused, partly by the superstitious blind­ness of the rude and unlearned.