O! from how small beginnings did the mystery of iniquity advance its progression? How little motes have accressed to mountains! Wherefore(305) _simplicitatem Christi nos opportet colere, à qua ubi primum extulit pedem vanitas, vanitatem sequitur superstitio, superstitionem error, errorem presumptio presumptionem impietas, idololatrica_. We have cause to fear, that if with Israel we come to the sacrifices of idols, and eat of idolothites, and bow down or use any of superstitious and idolatrous rites, thereafter we be made to join ourselves to these idols, and so the fierce anger of the Lord be kindled against us, as it was against them, Num. xxv. 2, 3. CHAPTER IV. THAT THE CEREMONIES ARE INEXPEDIENT, BECAUSE THEY HINDER EDIFICATION. _Sect._ 1. That the ceremonies are a great hinderance to edification, appeareth, First, In that they obscure the substance of religion, and weaken the life of godliness by outward glory and splendour, which draws away the minds of people so far after it, that they forget the substance of the service which they are about. The heathenish priests laboured,(306) _per varietatem ceremoniarum, rem in precio retinere_. The use for which Papists appoint their ceremonies,(307) is, _ut externam quandam majestatem sensibus objiciant_; and so are the ceremonies urged upon us,(308) though to conciliate reverence and due regard to divine worship, and to stir up devotion. In the meanwhile it is not considered,(309) that _mentes humanae mirificae capiuntur et facinantur, ceremoniarum splendore et pompa. Videmus siquidem_, saith Bucer,(310) _vulgus delectari actionibus scaenicis, et multis uti signis_. Chemnitius marks of the cumulating of ceremonies in the ancient church,(311) that it drew to this, _ut tandem in theatricum ferme apparatum ceremoniae illae abierint_. Musculus reprehends bishops for departing from the apostolical and most ancient simplicity,(312) and for adding ceremonies unto ceremonies in a worldly splendour and respectability, whereas the worship of God ought to be pure and simple. The policy, then, which in most simple and single, and least lustred with the pomp and bravery of ceremonies, cannot but be most expedient for edification. The king’s daughter is most like herself when she is all glorious within, not without, Psal. xlv. 13, and the kingdom of God appeareth best what it is, when it cometh not with observation, Luke xvii. 20, 21. But “superstition (saith Camero),(313) the mother of ceremonies, is lavish and prodigal; spiritual whoredom, as it is, it hath this common with the bodily; both of them must have their paintings, their trinkets, their inveiglements.”