rom the law of God, sometimes from the law of man, and
sometimes from the law of nature, but I will prove that the lawfulness of
those ceremonies we speak of can neither be grounded upon the law of God,
nor the law of man, nor the law of nature, and by consequence that they
are not lawful at all, so that, besides the answering of what our
opposites allege for the lawfulness of them, we shall have a new argument
to prove them unlawful.

_Sect._ 2. I begin with the law of God. And, first, let us see what is
alleged from Scripture for the ceremonies in general; then, after, let us
look over particulars. There is one place which they will have in
mythology to stand for the head of Medusa, and if they still object to us
for all their ceremonies even that of the Apostle, "Let all things be done
decently and in order," 1 Cor. xiv. 40. What they have drawn out of this
place, Dr Burges(819) hath refined in this manner. He distinguished
betwixt _praeceptum_ and _probatum_, and will have the controverted
ceremonies to be allowed of God, though not commanded. And if we would
learn how these ceremonies are allowed of God, he gives us to
understand,(820) that it is by commanding the general kind to which these
particulars do belong. If we ask what is this general kind commanded of
God, to which these ceremonies do belong? he resolves us,(821) that it is
order and decency: And if further we demand, how such ceremonies as are
instituted and used to stir up men, in respect of their signification,
unto the devout remembrance of their duties to God, are in such an
institution and use, matters of mere order? as a magisterial dictator of
_quodlibets_, he tells us(822) that they are matters of mere order, _sensu
largo_, in a large sense. But lastly, if we doubt where he readeth of any
worship commanded in the general, and not commanded, but only allowed in
the particular, he informeth us,(823) that in the free-will offerings,
when a man was left at liberty to offer a bullock, goat, or sheep at his
pleasure, if he chose a bullock to offer, that sacrifice, in that
particular, was not commanded, but only allowed. What should I do, but be
_surdus contra absurdum_? Nevertheless, least this jolly fellow think
himself more jolly than he this, I answer, 1st, How absurd a tenet is
this, which holdeth that there is some particular worship of God allowed,
and not commanded? What new light is this which maketh all our divines to
have been in the mist, wh