ceremoniae illae abierint_. Musculus reprehends
bishops for departing from the apostolical and most ancient
simplicity,(312) and for adding ceremonies unto ceremonies in a worldly
splendour and respectability, whereas the worship of God ought to be pure
and simple.

The policy, then, which in most simple and single, and least lustred with
the pomp and bravery of ceremonies, cannot but be most expedient for
edification. The king's daughter is most like herself when she is all
glorious within, not without, Psal. xlv. 13, and the kingdom of God
appeareth best what it is, when it cometh not with observation, Luke xvii.
20, 21. But "superstition (saith Camero),(313) the mother of ceremonies,
is lavish and prodigal; spiritual whoredom, as it is, it hath this common
with the bodily; both of them must have their paintings, their trinkets,
their inveiglements."

_Sect._ 2. Secondly, The ceremonies are impediments to the inward and
spiritual worship, because they are fleshly and external. In the second
commandment are forbidden _omnes ritus, qui a spirituali Dei cultu
discrepant_.(314) "The kingdom of God is within you," saith Christ, Luke
xvii. 21. Now, if the Apostle, 1 Tim. iv. 8, say, that bodily exercise,
such as fasting, watching, &c., which are requisite as helps and
furtherances to the humiliation of the soul, do but profit a little, then
may we say of our unnecessary and unprofitable ceremonies, that they are
exceedingly nocent and harmful to true and spiritual worship. The Apostle
is not speaking of plays and pastimes, as Bellarmine would have us to
think. Who can believe that Timothy was so much addicted to play, that the
Apostle had need to admonish him, that such exercise profiteth little? He
is speaking, then, of such bodily exercises as in those primitive times
were used religiously, as fasting, watching, lying on the ground, and such
like; and he would have Timothy rather to exercise himself to the life and
power of godliness, and to substantial worship, than to any of these
outward things. Neither doth the Apostle condemn only the superstitious
use of these exercises, as Calvin well observeth,(315) _alioqui in totum
damnaret_: whereas he doth only extenuate and derogate from them, saying,
that they profit little. Therefore (saith he), _ut maxime integer sit
animus, et rectus finis, tamen in externis actionibus nihil reperit Paulus
quod magnifaciat. Valde necessaria admonitio, nam semper propendet mundus
in illa