A confession of faith made by common consent of divers reformed churches beyond the…A confession of fayth made by common consent of diuers reformed churches beyonde the…

¶ Of rites, ceremonies, and indifferent things. Chap. 27.

¶ Of rites, ceremonies, and indifferent thinges. Chap. 27.

Ceremonies were in time ¹paste delivered to the people in the old Law, as a certain schooling to them, who were kept under the law, as it were under a schoolmaster and tutor: But when Christ came our deliverer, and had taken away the ceremonial ²law, we that believe are no more under the law, nor yet bound to observe those ceremonies, which at our Messiah's coming, vanished away: which the Apostles were so far from keeping ³or renewing in Christ his church, that they openly affirmed that, they ⟨image 135⟩would lay no such yoke, nor burden upon the churches neck. Wherefore we might seem to bring in or restore Judaism, if in the Church of Christ we ⁴should heap up ceremonies upon Ceremonies, after the manner of the old church. Wherefore we be not of their minds, who thought it good, that Christ his church should be kept under (as with a certain schooling) with many and sundry rites. For if the Apostles would not burden Christian people with ceremonies, ⁵which were first ordained and appointed by God himself, who, I pray you, being well in his wits, would violently thrust upon them inventions invented by man? The greater heap of ceremonies there be in the church, the more is withdrawn not only from Christian liberty, but also from Christ, and faith in him, while the common people look for that in ceremonies, which they should seek in the only Son of God Jesus Christ by faith. A few rites therefore,