Five disputations of church-government and worship

§. 25. Reas. 23. And the miserable plight that the Christian world hath lain in many ages by Ceremonies, may warn us to be wise. Augustine complaineth that in his time the Church was burdened with them, and made like the Jewish Synagogue. The most of the Churches in Asia and Africa are drowned too deeply in Ceremonious formality, turning Religion into ignorant shows. The Church of Rome is worse then they; having made God a worship of histrionical actions, and shows and signs and Ceremonies: so that millions of the poor blind people worship they know not whom nor how. And if we abate only of the number, and keep up some of the same kind, (even Symbolical Rites of mans institution, to teach us, and excite our devotion) we shall harden them in their way, and be disabled from confuting them. For a Papist will challenge you to prove just how many such signs are lawful: And why he may not use threescore as well as you use three, when he saith he is edified by his number, as you say you are with yours?

§. 25. Reas. 23. And the miserable plight that the Christian world hath lain in many ages by Ceremonies, may warn us to be wise. Augustine complaineth that in his time the Church was burdened with them, and made like the Jewish Synagogue. The most of the Churches in Asia and Africa are drowned too deeply in Ceremonious formality, turning Religion into ignorant shews. The Church of Rome is worse then they; having made God a worship of histrionical actions, and shews and signs and Ceremonies: so that millions of the poor blind people worship they know not whom nor how. And if we abate only of the number, and keep up some of the same kind, (even Symbolicall Rites of mans institution, to teach us, and excite our devotion) we shall harden them in their way, and be disabled from confuting them. For a Papist will challenge you to prove just how many such signs are lawfull: And why he may not use threescore as well as you use three, when he saith he is edified by his number, as you say you are with yours?

§. 26. Reas. 24. It is not inconsiderable that God hath purposely established a spiritual kind of worship in the Gospel, telling us that God is a Spirit, and will be worshipped in spirit and in truth: Such worshippers doth God require and accept: Bodily exercise profiteth little. The kingdom of God is not in meats or in drinks, but in Righteousness, and Peace, and Joy in the Holy Ghost: Neither Circumcision availeth any thing in Christ Jesus, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature, and faith that worketh by Love. God would never have so much