no place to the adversaries of
Christian liberty, no, not for an hour? Gal. ii. 5. Are we more precise
than David, who would not do so much as take up the names of idols into
his lips, least from speaking of them he should be led to a liking of
them? Psal. xvi. 4; or, may not the sad and doleful examples of so many
and so great abuses and corruptions which have crept into the church from
so small and scarcely observable originals, make us loath at our hearts to
admit a change in the policy and discipline of a well constitute church,
and rightly ordered before the change, and especially in such things as
are not at all necessary?

O! from how small beginnings did the mystery of iniquity advance its
progression? How little motes have accressed to mountains! Wherefore(305)
_simplicitatem Christi nos opportet colere, a qua ubi primum extulit pedem
vanitas, vanitatem sequitur superstitio, superstitionem error, errorem
presumptio presumptionem impietas, idololatrica_. We have cause to fear,
that if with Israel we come to the sacrifices of idols, and eat of
idolothites, and bow down or use any of superstitious and idolatrous
rites, thereafter we be made to join ourselves to these idols, and so the
fierce anger of the Lord be kindled against us, as it was against them,
Num. xxv. 2, 3.

CHAPTER IV.

THAT THE CEREMONIES ARE INEXPEDIENT, BECAUSE THEY HINDER EDIFICATION.

_Sect._ 1. That the ceremonies are a great hinderance to edification,
appeareth, First, In that they obscure the substance of religion, and
weaken the life of godliness by outward glory and splendour, which draws
away the minds of people so far after it, that they forget the substance
of the service which they are about. The heathenish priests laboured,(306)
_per varietatem ceremoniarum, rem in precio retinere_. The use for which
Papists appoint their ceremonies,(307) is, _ut externam quandam majestatem
sensibus objiciant_; and so are the ceremonies urged upon us,(308) though
to conciliate reverence and due regard to divine worship, and to stir up
devotion. In the meanwhile it is not considered,(309) that _mentes humanae
mirificae capiuntur et facinantur, ceremoniarum splendore et pompa.
Videmus siquidem_, saith Bucer,(310) _vulgus delectari actionibus
scaenicis, et multis uti signis_. Chemnitius marks of the cumulating of
ceremonies in the ancient church,(311) that it drew to this, _ut tandem in
theatricum ferme apparatum