that is new: Jt was thought expedient, not so much to have respect how to please and satisfie either of these parties, as how to please God and profitt them both. And yet lest any man should be offended, whom good reason might satisfie, here be certein causes rendred why some of the accustomed Ceremonies be put away, and some retained, and kept still. Some are put away because the great excess and multitude of them hath so increased in these latter dayes, that the burthen of them was intolerable; whereof S. Augustine in his tyme complained that they were grown to such a number, that the estate of Christian people was in worse case concerning that matter, then were the Iews. And he counselled that such yoke and burthen should be taken away, as time would serve quietly to do it.
But what would S. Augustine have said, if he had seen the Ceremonies of late daies vsed among vs: whereunto the multitude vsed in his time was not to be compared? This our excessive multitude of Ceremonies was so great, and many of them so dark, that they did more confound and darken, then declare and sett forth Christs benefits vnto vs. And besides this, Christs Gospell is not a ceremoniall 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 of the spirit, being content only with those ceremonies which do serve to a decent order, and godly discipline, and such as be apt to stir up the dull mind of man to the remembrance of his duty to God, by some notable and speciall signification, whereby he might be edified.
Furthermore, the most weighty cause of the abolishment of certain Ceremonies was, that they were so far abused, partly by the superstitious blindsess of the rude, and vnlearned, and partly by the vnsatiable avarice of such as sought more their own lucre, then the glory of God ; that the abuses could not well be taken away, the thing remaining
