A dispute against the English-popish ceremonies, obtruded upon the Church of Scotland Wherein not…A dispute against the English-popish ceremonies, obtruded vpon the Church of Scotland Wherein not…

ⁿB Andrewes avoucheth, that Ceremonies pertain to the Church only and to the service of God, not to civill solemnities. But so much (I trust) he would not have said of circumstances, which have place in all moral actions, and that to the same end and purpose, for which they serve in religious actions, namely, for beautifying them with that decent demeanour which the very light and law of natural reason requireth, as a thing beseeming all humane actions. For the Church of Christ being a society of men and women, must either observe order & decency in all the circumstances of their holy actions, time, place, person, form, &c. or else be deformed with that misorder and and confusion, which common reason and civility abhorreth. Ceremonies therefore, which are sacred observances, and serve only to a religious & holy use, and which may not without Sacrilege be applied to another use, must be sorted with things of another nature then circumstances. Ceremoniae, Ceremonies (saith ^oD. Field) are so named as Livy thinketh from a town called Caere, in the which the Romans did hide their sacred things when the Gauls invaded Rome. Other think that Ceremonies are so named a carendo, of abstaining from certain things, as the Jews abstained from Swines flesh, and sundry other things forbidden by God as unclean. Ceremonies are outward acts of Religion, &c. Qua propter etiam, saith ^pJunius Ritus & Ceremonias inter se distinximus, quia in Jure politico sui sunt imperati & […] ritus: Ceremonia vero non nisi sacra observationes in cultis dirin• appellant•. Ceremonia, saith ^qBellarmine, proprie & simpliciter sic vocata, est externa actio qua non aliunde est bona & landabilis, nisi quia fit ad Deum colendum. From which words ^rAmesius concludeth against him, that he & others with him do absurdly confound order, decency & the like, which have the same use & praise in civill things, which they have in the worship of God, with religious & sacred Ceremonies. Yet ^s