Pointed for the Ceremonies. The Fifth Sermon
In the partition of God’s laws, next after the moral law we placed the ceremonial law?: and therefore, since the moral law is already expounded, I have now next, by the help of God, to treat of the law of ceremonies. And, that I may not hide any thing from you, note this by the way: that some write Ceremonice, and some Cerimonice; which two words are used for ceremonies; considering that sundry men have sundry opinions touching the word, from whence it should come. For some (after the opinion of Servius Sulpitius) do think that they are called Ceremonie a carendo. But Festus affirmeth, that ceremonies did first take their name of the town Ceres, or Cerete. For Livy in his fifth book saith, that the relics” of the Romans were kept by the towns-men of Cares in the French wars, at what time the Frenchmen invaded Rome. By which occasion it is likely that, for remembrance of the benefit, all the worship due to God, and all the holy rites or customs, were, according to the name of the town, usually called ceremonies. But from whencesoever the word is derived, we in this treatise use it for the holy deed of worshipping God, and the ecclesiastical rites of sacred religion.
Now ceremonies are holy rites belonging to the ministers of religion, and also to the place, time, and holy worship exhibited to God; all which, how they ought to be kept and
[3 Vol. 1. p. 209.] [6 Servius Sulpicius religionem esse dictam tradidit, que propter]
[sanctitatem aliquam remota ac seposita a nobis sit, quasi a relinquendo]
[dicta, ut a carendo ceremonia. Macrob. Saturn. Lib. 11. cap. 3. Sce]
[also Aul. Gell. Noct. Attic. Lib. 1v. cap. 9. Augustine adopted this]
[derivation. Retract. cap. 37.) [5 alii existimant, Lat. omitted: some persons think that.]]
[6 Ceerimoniarum causam alii ab oppido Cre dictam existimant;]
[alii a caritate dictam judicant. Festus, Lutet, 1576. ] [7 Sacra Romanorum, Lat.] [8 —Sacra in plaustrum imposuit (I. Albinius), et το, quo iter]
[sacerdotibus erat, pervexit. Liv. Lib. v. cap. 40.]]
observed according as they should be, the laws called ceremonial do exactly teach and precisely describe. Ceremonies therefore are the actions and rites, which the laws or rules, called ceremonial, do frame or appoint.
Now ceremonies are ordained either by God or men. As touching those which God hath instituted, they are of two sorts: the one sort whereof he did ordain in the old Testament to the ancient Israelites; and the other, at the coming of Christ, to us that are the people of the new Testament or covenant. Of the ceremonies of the new Testament I mean to speak, when I come to treat of the church and the sacraments thereof. At this time I will discourse of the ceremonies of the old Testament, which were holy rites and actions ordained and delivered by God himself to the people of Israel until the time of amendment, partly to represent, and in a shadow to shew!, the mysteries of God; and partly to worship God by them, and also with them to keep the people of God in a lawful religion, and in the society of one ecclesiastical body. cere- But men also have brought in very many and sundry sorts of ceremonies: as among the heathen the arch-flamines did, who were the priests and ministers of idols; which offices and rooms both their kings and princes did some times supply. xii. Among the Hebrews, Jeroboam, king of Israel, to the destruction of him and his, did change the ceremonies which God had ordained into his own, that is, into men’s inventions and detestable blasphemies.
In this latter age of the world, wherein we live, there is no ho? of ceremonies that are instituted daily by brain-sick 3 people: the misery whereof many learned men both have and do yet at this day lament and bewail. Augustine complaineth that in his time ceremonies did increase too fast in the church of God: what would he say (think you), if he were alive to see them now-a-days? But of this I will speak at another time.
[1 velandaque, Lat. and to veil.]: [2 ho, i.e. stop, bound, limit. Johnson. See Tyndale’s Doctr.]
[Treat. Park. Soc. ed. p. 25.] [83 This epithet is not in the Lat.]. [4.ipsam religionem, quam paucissimis et manifestissimis cele-]
[brationum sacramentis misericordia Dei esse liberam voluit, servilibus]
Now, for because the word ceremonies is attributed as a name to any heathenish rites whatsoever, I in this treatise would have you to know, that I speak not of every ceremony, but of those only which were delivered of God by Moses to the people of Israel; not at the will of Moses, but at the will of God, by the means or ministery of Moses, according as it was said unto him: “See, that thou doest all things according to the pattern that was shewed thee in the mountain.” The original therefore or beginning of these ceremonies, which we treat of, are referred to God himself, the most true and assured author thereof; and they did therefore please God, because they were godly, and might be exhibited in faith. Contrarily, the ceremonies in religion that are devised and ordained of men are utterly condemned, as is to be seen in the twelfth of Deuteronomy? In the seventeenth chapter of the fourth of Kings also we find: “Israel walked in the ordinances, or ceremonies, which they themselves had made to themselves.” It is known to all men, what happened to Jeroboam and his household, and all the kings of Israel, that walked in the ways of Jeroboam So then these ceremonies of ours, I mean, the ceremonies whereof I speak, are actions and rites not in profane but holy matters, which God himself did first ordain, and which God’s people doth use and exercise.