absurd, who plainly call the ceremonies necessary in themselves,(49) beside the constitution of the church. Others of them, who confess the ceremonies to be not only unnecessary,(50) but also inconvenient, do, notwithstanding, plead for them as things necessary. Dr Burges tells us,(51) that some of his side think that ceremonies are inconvenient, but withal he discovers to us a strange mystery brought out of the unsearchable deepness of his piercing conception, holding that such things as not only are not at all necessary in themselves,(52) but are inconvenient too, may yet be urged as necessary. _Sect_. 3. The urging of these ceremonies as necessary, if there were no more, is a sufficient reason for our refusing them. “To the precepts of God (saith Balduine) nothing is to be added,(53) Deut. xii. Now God hath commanded these things which are necessary. The rites of the church are not necessary, wherefore, if the abrogation or usurpation of any rite be urged as necessary, then is an addition made to the commandment of God, which is forbidden in the word, and, by consequence, it cannot oblige me, neither should anything herein be yielded unto.” Who can purge these ceremonies in controversy among us of gross superstition, since they are urged as things necessary? But of this superstition we shall hear afterward in its proper place. CHAPTER II. THE REASON TAKEN OUT OF ACTS XV. TO PROVE THE NECESSITY OF THE CEREMONIES, BECAUSE OF THE CHURCH’S APPOINTMENT, CONFUTED.