13. For as none is prohibited from using divers grounds of exception and manners of defence, so neither are they forbidden to employ divers expositions in the praise of God, so that faith be not injured. 14. Notice must also be taken of the variety of rites used in the divine worship. For nearly every Church hath her own observances, and attacheth to them a full meaning of her own: neither is it thought blameworthy or absurd to worship with various chants, or modulations of the voice, nor yet with different observances: when the Church Triumphant herself is surrounded, [Footnote 114] according to the Prophet, with the like diversity, and in the administration of the sacraments themselves a variety of customs is tolerated, and that rightly. [Footnote 114: The author appears to refer here to the XLV Psalm, 'Eructavit cor meum.'] {9} 15. Whence, according to Austin of ecclesiastical institutions in the divine office, some we have received from Holy Scriptures: some from the traditions or writings of the apostles, being confirmed by their successors: some, moreover, of which, however, the institution is unknown, are confirmed by custom and approved by use: and to them equal observance is due as to the others. 16. Let not, then, the reader be angry if he perchance read in this work of observances which he never saw in his own church: or does not read of some that are there in use. For we endeavour not to go through the particular rites of particular places, but those which be more common and usual: because we labour to set forth that doctrine which is of universal, and not that which is of particular bearing, nor would it be possible for us to examine the particular rites of every church. Therefore we have determined, for the health of our soul and the benefit of the readers, to set forth and to arrange the secret mysteries of divine offices in a clear state, to the best of our power and to inculcate and thoroughly to explain that which appears necessary for ecclesiastics, towards the understanding of the daily service: even as it is well known that, when in a different condition of life, we did faithfully in our _Mirror of Magistrates_ do the like for the use of those who were employed in secular courts. {10} 17. But it must diligently be noted that in the divine offices themselves [Footnote 115] many ceremonies there be of usual employment which have, from their institution, respect neither to a moral nor mystical signification. Of these, some are known to have arisen of necessity: some of congruity: some of the difference of the Old and New Testament; some of convenience; and some for the mere honour and reverence of the offices themselves: whence saith blessed Austin, so many things are varied by the different customs of divers place, that seldom or never can those causes be discovered which men followed in constituting them.