Seas alas so many Flames can quench The Romish Tyrant on Tarpeia smil'd To see the Brittish Priests thus both beguil'd When they have sent each other unto Hell Saith he by mutual wounds hark what I tell Lest they want Fire should in the Pit profound I will them both alive burn above ground Behold the Jest the peeping Mouse and Frog With Bulrush fighting are on Hill and Bog Like Kite mean while hid in a Cloudy Day With soft mov'd Wings I 'le soar about my Prey So I at length the Croaking Frog shall gull And Mouse ridiculous in pieces pull I shall proceed next to the Form and whole Nature of Excommunication and the further manifold mischiefs it brings to all Protestant-Churches which shews Bishops who use it are neither sit Judges of Marriage nor of any thing else The Form of the Jewish Excommunication By Decree of the Cities and Command of the Saints We Anathematize and Adjure Exterminate Excommunicate Curse and Execrate by the Will of God and the Church by the Book of this Law by the Six Hundred and Thirteen Precepts written in the same by the Anathema wherein Joshua Anathematized Jericho by the Curse wherewith Elisha Cursed the Children and by the Curse wherewith he Cursed Gehazi his Boy and by the Excommunication wherewith Baruch Excommunicated Merath and by the Excommunication which the men of the great Synagogue use and by the Excommunication which Rabbi Jehuda the Son of Rabbi Jehezkiel used in this matter and by all the Anathemata's Imprecations Burnings Excommunications and Exterminations which have been from the time of our Master Moses and since by the name of Acetheriel Jah Lord of Hosts by the name of Michael the Great Prince by the name of Mittraton whose name is as the name of his Master by the name Sandalipon who Binds the Bindings by his Lord by the name of the name of Forty-Two Letters by the name of him who appeared to Moses in the Bush by the name by which Moses divided the Red-Sea by the name of Four Letters by the Writing which is Writon the Tables by the name of the Lord of Hosts the God of Israel sitting on the Cherubin by the name of the Sphaeres and Circles and the Holy living Creatures and Ministring Angels by the name of all the Angels which Minister to the Supreme God let every Israelite and Israelitess wittingly or willing violating any of the things denounced to be observed be Cursed to the God of Israel sitting on the Cherubims let him be Accursed by the Name Glorious and Bright which the High-Priest expresseth in the Day of Expiations let him be Cursed by Heaven and Earth let him be Accursed by the Omnipotent God let him be Accursed of Michael the Great Prince let him be Accursed of Mittraton whose name is as the name of his Master let him be Accursed as Acetheriel Jah Lord of Hosts let him be Accursed of the Seraphim and the Orbes and Holy living Creatures and Angels who Minister before the Supreme God in Holiness and Cleanness If he was born in the Month Nisan which the Angel called Vriel as Prince of the Rank under which he is Governs let him be Accursed of him and all his Rank and if he was born in the Month Jier which the Angel called Trephaniel as Prince of the Rank under which he is Governs let him be Accursed of him and all his Rank and if he is born under the Month Sivan c. this Cursing runs through every Month one after another in the same words Then follows Let him be Accursed of the Seven Angels set over the Seven Days of the Week and of all their Ranks and helping Powers let him be Accursed of the Four Angels set over the Four Quarters of the Year and of all their Ranks and helping Powers let him be Accursed of the Seven Palaces let him be Accursed of the Princes of the Law in the name of the Crown and in the name of the Seal let him be Accursed of the Great God strong and bright let their be Confusion of his Seed let him fall with a swift Ruin let the God the God of the Spirits of all Flesh destroy and cast him away let the God the God of the Spirits of all Flesh subdue him let the God the God of the Spirits of all Flesh overthrow him let the God the God of the Spirits of all Flesh keep him down let the Wrath of the Lord and a violent Whirlwind fall on the head of the Wicked let the Angel of Destruction fall upon him let him be Accursed in all things to which he sets himself let his Soul depart in Terror let him die of the Quinsey let not his Breath go out nor return with the Consumption Fever Burning Drought let him be smitten with the Sword with pining away with the Jaundice nor before his Destruction be freed from them let his Sword enter into his heart and let his Bow be broken let him be as Dust before the Wind and let the Angel of the Lord scatter him let his way be Darkness and Slipperiness and the Angel of the Lord persecute him let unlooked-for Desolation come upon him and let the Net which he hath hid take him let them Expell him from the Light into Darkness and from the habitual World they shall Banish him Tribulation and Straights shall terrifie him his Eyes shall see his own Destruction and he shall drink the Wrath of the Almighty let him put on Cursings as a Garment let him devour the strength of his Skin also God shall scatter him for ever and shall root him out of his Tabernacle The Lord will not rest to forgive him but the Wrath of the Lord and his Jealousie shall smoak against that man and all the Curses which are written in the Book of this Law shall lie upon him for Evil out of all the Tribes of Israel according to all the Curses of the Covenant which are written in the Law But you who adhere to the Lord your God bless you this Day he who blessed Abraham Isaac Jacob Moses and Aaron David and Solomon and the Prophets of Israel and those who amongst the Nations are Holy bless this Holy Congregation and all other Holy Congregations Except only He who shâ—ll break this Curse God of his mercy keep them and make them safe and take them out of all trouble and misery and Prolong their Days and their Years and send his Blessing and a prosperous Wind to the Work of their Hands and let Him Revenge them speedily with all other Israelites and so let his Will and Decree be Amen Seld. de Jur. Nat. Gent. Juxt Discip Ebr. lib. 4. Cap. 7.527 The Form of the Greek Excommunication against Thieves If they Restore not to him that which is his own and possess him peaceably of it but suffer him to remain Injured and Damnified Let him be Separate from the Lord God Creator and be Accursed and Unpardoned and undissolvable after
worse then a Beast CHAP. III. Marriage Filiation and Succession not to be judged by the Law-Civil Canon or Feudall AS to the Author of the Civil Law or rather the Emperor in whose name and time the same was compiled he was Justinian whom though his own Parasites extoll'd for a God and his Lawyer Tribonian imployed by him or his Wife Theodora to do the work claws him with a doleful Compliment that he was in great fear least he should be rapt up into the Heavens when he little thought of it for his singular Piety to their insufferable loss Yet Procopius makes him a Devil and doubts very much whether he were not a Devil incarnate more likely when he little thought of it to be rapt to Hell Bodin indeed speaks something Fol. 17. may clear him from being a Daemon for he saith He was a blockish unlearned Prince and out-witted by his Wife Theodora when she pleased and caused by her to make Laws only for the advantage of the Women against the Men and Procopius likewise commends his Justice and saith That he used when he could catch them to take Bribes of sides and if any who had a Sute before him presented him with a Bribe he was sure to carry his Cause unless the other Party counterballanced him with another As to the Collection of Laws attributed to him it cannot be denied but there are a multitude of excellent Laws of Nature scatter'd through the great Mass of them but in such a confusion as is rather proper to a Chaos then an orderly Digest Then for the bulk 't is an Hundred times bigger then necessary and the Evil Laws which increase it to that greatness in number overwhelm and in Nature destroy or make useless the Good As to the Religion in them it is Popery and Superstition The Justice is Tyrannical and Arbitrary Government the Mercy of them is Racks and all inhuman Tortures Civil Law The Heads of the Civil Law prohibiting to marry are comprehended in the Verses following 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Aetas Conditio Numerus Mona Et Ordo 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. Optio Nobilitas Sanguis Tutela Potestas 11. 12. 13.  14. Fons Sacer Affinitas Raptus Repugnat Honestas Irrita quae faciunt Connubia legibus haec sunt 1. The first cause making marriage void or voidable is Age if the Man is under 14 or the Woman under 12. 2. Condition If it be servile they were not allowed to marry Ceremonially but might lie with one another and get new Slaves 3. Number If a Man have one Wife he ought not to have another 4. If either Person be Monastick as a Monk or Nun. 5. Being within Orders as a Priest or Clerk 6. Adoption prohibits mariage between the Adopting and Adopted 7. Nobility heretofore prohibited marriage with a Plebeian and Senators and their Children per Legem Papiam Juliam with their freed Women or others of so mean Condition A wicked Law and contrary to the Law of God for they might lie with Plebeians but not marry them 8. Consanguinity in respect of which three sorts of Persons are consider'd the Ascendents Descendents and Collaterals 9. A Guardian is prohibited to marry his Pupil 10. A President of a Province is prohibited to marry one subjected to him by reason of his Jurisdiction in which two last cases the reason is that marriage might be free and not compell'd by the Awe or Power of Authority 11. Fons Sacer the Font of Baptism is by the Pope made to contract a spiritual affinity or kindred between the God-fathers and God-mothers and Child Baptized for whom or their Children to marry within the fourth degree is made without any sence as Incestuous as if within the degrees of Carnal kindred 12. Affinity in which are the same Considerations of Prohibition to marry as before in Affinity 13. Rape for by the Civil Law the Ravished was prohibited to marry the Ravishor 14. Such Matters as are thought against Honesty or are of ill report according to the Manners of the People Canon Law As to the Canon Law Aquinas Cajetan and others recite the Verses following which have left out some of these Matters relating to the Civil Law and added difference in Religion and other Matters withal to the Modern Canons in the manner following Error Conditio Votum Cognitio Crimen Cultus Disparitas Vis Ordo Ligamen Honestas Si sis affinis si forte coire nequibis Haec sociandà vetant Connubia facta retractant Which likewise may be easily understood by Exposition before made of the former But they are likewise many of them wicked and contrarg to the Law of God The Civil Law is a Cento of Rescripts of Emperors a frippery of Opinions of Doctors Planting the Sword for the Ballance Superstition for Religion Tyranny for Government Antinomies for Laws Torture for Judgment Gain for Godliness Iniquity for Justice Confusion for Method Fiction for Truth Form for Matter Manner for Merit Ceremony for Substance a Powder of Impertinents a Remedy worse than the Disease a Whirl-pool of Vertigoes a Rock for Shipwracks a Gulf to swallow Money a Sea driven with contrary winds a Bottomless Deep of Doubts a Chaos of Controversies an Abyss of Darkness a Bulk broken with it's own weight Canon Law Anno 1520. The Pope and Papists Excommunicating Luther he appealeth to a Council and burneth the Canon Law and the Popes Bull at Wittenberg Calvin tit Cynus writes of him thus Cynus jurisconsultus Pistorii natus Dyni Maxellani auditor Bononiae jus civile professus est librosque de eo non paucos ita scripsit ut semper à Pontificiis canonibus abhorret In interpretatione l. quoties C. de Jud. scribit Canonicum jurisconsultum secisse sibi jura pro libitu voluntatis suae leges civiles servare eas ad commodum suum non autem contra se propter ambitum secularis jurisdictionis usurpandae non propter aliud Cynus a Professor of the Civil Law at Bononia and one wrote many Books concerning the same yet did always very much abhor the Papal Canons and writes in interpretation l. quoties C. de Jud. that the Canonists made all their Laws according to their own Arbitrary will and observed the Civil Law only for their profit and not when it made against them out of Ambition to usurp Temporal Jurisdiction to themselves and to no other end The Canon Law is deservedly likewise censured by the Lord Bishop of Lincoln in his late learned Book against Popery fol. 35. where having recited many wicked positions in it he concludes in these words Thus much and may be too much for the Canon Law that sink of Forgeries Impiety and Disloyalty for I scarce know any Book wherein are more forged writings under good name sometimes for bad purposes and more impious Doctrines and Positions own'd and authoriz'd for Law and that by one who pretends though without and against reason to be Christ's Vicar and
unto the Elders I gave my Daughter unto this Man to Wife and he hateth her and lo he hath given occasion of speech against her saying I found not thy Daughter a Maid and yet these are the Tokens of my Daughter's Virginity and they shall spread the Cloth before the Elders of the City and the Elders of the City shall take that Man and chastise him and they shall amerce him an hundred Shekels of Silver and give them unto the Father of the Damsel because he hath brought up an evil name on a Virgin in Israel But if this thing be true and the Tokens of Virginity be not found for the Damsel then they shall bring out the Damsel to the door of her Father's House and the men of the City shall stone her with stones that she die because she has wrought folly in Israel to play the Whore in her Father's House So shalt thou put away Evil from amongst you This Custom as many others the Jews learn't of the Heathen Nations and was tolerated amongst them for hardness of their hearts Leo Afer relates amongst the Inhabitants of Fez in Africk the same wicked Custom to be in use and that before the Wedding Feast the Bridegroom ought to deflower the Bride and then they come and shew amongst the Guests a filthy defiled Napkin with great Exultation and a loud Voice Proclaiming the same in as filthy words and behaviour But if this cannot be shewen it spoils the Wedding and the Woman is turn'd away with great disgrace The like they do at Zant where the Wedding Sheets are always kept And amongst the Persians where if the Woman fail to give this Sign they cut off her Ears and turn her home with great disgrace And the like in divers other Heathen Nations which Custom both with Heathen and Jews is 1. very immodest and filthy 2. very cruel and unjust for as Levinus Lemnius and other Physicians and Anatomists hold these Signs are extreamly fallacious and neither shew who is or who is not a Virgin whereby many innocent Persons may be destroyed and many wicked be justified and therefore is no fit Precedent to be followed by Christians Tryal of Jealousie We find likewise the Trial of Jealousie prescribed Numb 5.18 And the Priest shall set the Woman before the Lord and uncover the Woman's head and put the Offering of Memorial into her hands which is the Jealousie-Offering and the Priest shall have in his hand the bitter water that causeth the Curse And the Priest shall charge her by an Oath and say unto the Woman If no man hath lain with thee and if thou hast not gone aside to uncleanness with another instead of thy Husband be thou free from this bitter water that causeth the Curse But if thou hast gone aside to another instead of thy Husband and thou be defiled and some man have lien with thee beside thy Husband Then the Priest shall charge the Woman with an Oath of Cursing and the Priest shall say unto the Woman The Lord make thee a Curse and an Oath amongst the People when the Lord doth make thy Thigh to rot and thy Belly to swell And the Woman shall say Amen Amen And the Priest shall write these Curses in a Book and blot them with the bitter water And shall cause the Woman to drink the bitter water that causeth the Curse In Loango in Africk if any is suspected of Adultery Witchcraft Theft or other Crimes there is a little Tree with a small Root like a White Carrot called Imbunda on accusation the Priest assembles the accused Parties and scrapes a little of the Root into water which makes it as bitter as Gall. One Root will serve for the Tryal of an hundred the Priest beats it together with a Plantan stalk and hits every one after they have drunk with certain words If they can walk by till they make Urine they are free but if they grow dizzy they are knock'd o th' head and dragg'd thence when dead The Matimbas have the same Tryal of Adultery and other Crimes with the same Root made into bitter water the nature whereof is if it be given in too great a Dose it stops the Urine and flies up into the head whereby the Party becomes dizzy which if he be here the Execution something differs from the former and all the People presently fall upon them and cut them in peices with Knives At Morumbay in Africk if any is suspected to be guilty of Adultery or any Crime there is an Idol in a great Basket called Morumbay and they are compelled to come thither when accused and each to kneel down and say Mene quesa Cabumba Marumba that is I come to make trial of my Innocence And if he is guilty he falls down dead and if he is free he is free'd Andrew Battle saith he saw six or seven in his time that were put to this Trial. Amongst the Guineans the Priests have a Drink call'd Enchion Kenow which the Inhabitants beleive hath such a force and virtue from their Fetisso or God that if any Woman suspected of Adultery by her Husband and brought to drink thereof for Trial if she be Guilty the Fetisso will kill her which makes the Woman accused if Guilty rather compound and assent to be Divorced from her Husband then run the hazard of the Fetisso on a Trial by that drink The Americans for the most part if they find not their Wives Virgins or if after they commit Adultery Divorce them wherein they far excel these shameless and devilish Trials of Jews and Ethnicks and the Water-Ordeal and Fire-Ordeal heretofore used by Christians of walking over Red hot Plow-shares bare foot or the newer fashion of putting Women to Self-accusation Canonical Purgation and Compurgation in Episcopal Courts Likewise amongst Christians I say this simple plain proceeding of private Divorce both amongst the Guineans and Americans by the light of Nature far excels all the said Tryals by Jewish Pagan or Popish Priests Lastly It is clear from Christ 's disallowing the Bill of Divorce by the Husband except for Fornication and his allowing it by the Husband when there was Adultery He disallows the Laws of Tryal of Virginity and Tryal of Jealousie as well as he disallowed the Bill of Divorce without lawful cause For the Tryal of Virginity and Jealousie is far worse and shews greater hardness of heart then the Bill of Divorce in regard the Bill of Divorce if the Husband find any uncleanness or dishonesty in his Wife only puts her away and saves both her Honour and Life but the Tryal of Virginity and Jealousie permits the man first to lie with her and perhaps to get her with Child and then to stone her or with bitter water to poison her and her Child together wherein the Turk is not so bad as the Jew For though he buy his Wife if after he finds her not as she should be he will Divorce her and though he lose
would not cause the poor Man to be paid for his shoulder of Mutton without all that ado but I after understood that were not the Forms mixt with so many such absurdities there would be little work for them at the Bar. Of the Law of Transubstantiation of the Children of the Wife into the Children of the Husband if he is within the four Seas at the time of their begetting and no probation admitted to the contrary And of Intails on Marriages Husband within the four Seas no probation admitted that the Children were not his Fiction and Falsity allowed against Truth That no probation is admitted to the contrary appears 18. E. 4.30 where Littleton says That if a Man marries a Woman great with Child by another Man whether he knows it or not knows it and within three days after she is delivered of the Child this Child is legitimate and the true Son of the Man that married her And this by a Fiction in Law and with this agrees Coke Com. 244. So here is a Father made not by god but by the Father of lies and a false Child made Legitimate and the true Child of a Father who never begot him and the true Child if he begot any before he was married without a Priest and Temple made illegitimate and a false yea no Child to him who begot him and all this held very good and sound Divinity If marriage of the great bellied Woman be in facie Ecclesiae a brazen facies Ecclesiae it must be where the Devil gives God the Fiction the truth the lie And Coke and Littleton hold it too for good Law I wonder whose Law they mean and so stiff they are in it that Coke Com. 244. saith No proof shall be admitted to the contrary so here 't is not stabitur praesumptione donec probetur in contrarium but it is the sin of Presumption from which the two Fathers of the Law do not pray as the Patriarch David did Psal 19.13 Keep thy Servant also from presumptuous Sins let them not have Dominion over me then shall I be upright and I shall be innocent from the great transgression One of them at least defends the sin of Presumption so high that he saith 'T is presumption Juris de jure non admittitur probatio in contrarium and in fictione juris semper est equitas a meer repugnancy and contradiction which never came from the Law of God nor is consistent with it as appears Psal 96.13 For he cometh to judg the Earth he shall Judg the World with righteousness and the People with his truth And not with fictions and much less with lies so punctually forbidden James 3.14 Lie not against the truth and so severely threatned Revel 21.8 All liars shall have their part in the Lake which burneth with Fire and Brimstone And Revel 19.20 The false Prophet is to be cast in amongst them who though he seems to be the greatest lier in the World yet in none greater then in this his lie of Legitimation against which must be admitted no proof to the contrary The Law of Legitimation is further That if a Woman Elope or run from her Husband with an Adulterer and live in Adultery with him and have a Child by the Adulterer if her Husband be within the four Seas when 't was begot this Child shall be Legitimate and shall be adjudged the Husband's Child and no probation shall be admitted to the contrary as appears 43. E. 3.19.7 H. 4 9.44 E. 3.10 1. H. 6.7.19 H. 6.17 Coke Com. 244. A further descant on the words of Littleton and Coke concerning the transubstantiation of Children of Parents within the four Seas And of the Law of Intails When a Common Lawyer hath for his Fees in a Deed of Jointure very formally settled Lands Messuages Houses Tenements and Hereditaments c. To have and to hold the said Messuages Houses Lands Tenements and Hereditaments with their and every their Appurtenances unto the said A. B. and C. D. and to the Heirs of their two Bodies lawfully begotten and the Priest on Banes or Licence as formally per verba de praesenti contracted the said A. B. and C. D. which he calls Marriage You shall next hear what Heirs the Priest and Lawyer confederated to do their Faeminine Client a good turn by their Fictions whereat they are both good one will expound by the Gospel and the other interpret by the Law to be lawfully begotten of the Body of this Woman aforesaid First Littleton 18. E. Fol. 30. hath said If a Man marry a Woman great with Child by another Man and within three days after she is delivered of the Child this Child he saith is a Mulier that is to say Legitimate that is to say lawfully begotten of the Body of the said Woman by the said Man that married her Yet he saith In putting the case he was begot by another man and makes a very great Fiction in the premises and contradiction in the conclusion of his Case but let it be what it will Coke Com. 244. seconds him and thinks Littleton hath spoken over conscionably or wasts time to allow three days for cannot a Woman of full and lawful Age though she sup a Virgin if she lie with the Law by her side that Night as well have a Child next Day by dinner as if she stayed three whole days he therefore takes off two of the unnnecessary days and says plainly reserving to the Case of Littleton on the Margent That if the Issue is born a Month or a Day after Marriage between Parties of full lawful Age the Child is Legitimate that is as aforesaid lawfully begot And the reason he gives is Quia filiatio non potest probari from which Premises he makes three Conclusions First Ergo probatio non admittitur in contrarium Secondly Ergo if a Man marry a Woman got with Child by another Man and he is born but one day after the Marriage this Child is lawfully begot by the married Man Thirdly Ergo if a man is on or within the four Seas that is within the Jurisdiction of the King of England and a Child in his absence is begot by another Man on the Body of his Mirmaid he left at home this was lawfully begot by the Man on the four Seas Let any Logician if he dare deny the Sequel for here are two Aristostles for the Law but he hath but one for his Logick And there is a greater Aristotle too for the Gospel the Bishop himself to second my Lord Coke Bishop's Certificate Form hath given his Certificate in his Book of Entries Fol. 181. And the foresaid Bishop by his Letters Patents and Close hath certified to the Justices here That he by virtue of the foresaid Writ to him directed Convocating before him such as of right are to be Convocated hath diligently enquired and certified the truth of the matter that in the Chappel of B. in the County of G. in the
whole People is to be intended only where the Case is reduced to that necessity that either one or other must be but in this there is no necessity Trial should be by Certificate of a Bishop at all and though uno absurdo dato mille sequuntur were there a Thousand inconveniences followed if the Certificate of a Bishop should be question'd for falsity it being first granted it belongs to him to make Certificates yet there is no necessity that absurdity should be first granted that it should belong to him to make Certificates for there are ways enough wherein no Inconveniences follow of Trial of Truth without Certificates of Bishops 2. The supposition is repugnant and impossible that any Case should happen or be shewn in the World wherein Fiction or Falsity ought to be suffer'd in Judicial proceeding or where Probation ought not by the Law of God to be admitted against such Fiction and Falsity notwithstanding the corrupt practice of Courts to the contrary and such suffering of a private mischief of that kind to a private Person is so far from preventing a publick Inconvenience that it will bring both a private and publick mischief and destroy both for it is as impossible to separate Truth from Justice as the Light from the Sun 3. That which is alledged for an inconvenience to the publick That one Bishop would make a Certificate contrary to another this is no more publick inconvenience than if Thieves should fall out and true men come by their Goods 4. As to what is said That the Certificate of the Bishop is in this Case the highest Trial in the Law we must distinguish the Law for it was then the Law of Popery was Predominant which gave Supremacy in Causes of Marriage Filiation and Succession to the Bishops above Kings and to the Sentences in Bishops Courts and made them above Appeal to the Kings Courts and the Foundation of that their Supremacy was That then by that Law Marriage was a Sacrament and Penance was a Sacrament but the Law being now changed from Popish to Protestant and the Supremacy being now given by the Protestant Law to the King above the Bishop as well in Causes Matrimonial as in all other Ecclesiastical Causes and the Protestant Religion taking away the two Popish Sacraments of Marriage and Penance which were the only Roots whence the Episcopal Jurisdiction of Marriage and the incidents to the same pretended to sprout Cessante Causa ratione legis cessat Lex the pretended Causes of the Jurisdiction ceasing the Jurisdiction it self ceases whereby now the Certificate of the Bishop is so far from being the highest Trial that it ought to be no Trial at all for the Sacraments ceasing the Jurisdiction ceaseth and the Jurisdiction ceasing the Power of Trial ought likewise to cease 5. For Councel to advise his Client to maintain a false Certificate of the Bishops knowing it to be false is as wicked as for the Bishop to make a false Certificate knowing it to be false or which is impossible for him to know to be true as all relating to Filiation are it being their own Rule Filiatio non potest probari except by the Parents wherefore ex Ore Suo they condemn themselves of false Judgment and are not therefore fit to be Judges 11. They Judg by Ceremonies and not by Circumstances As to the word Ceremonia some will have it derived à Cerere because they used divers Formalities in the Worship of the Goddess Ceres But this is not proper seeing all the Heathen Gods and Goddesses had as many Formalities in their Worship as she others derive it from Cerete a Latine Town whither as saith Valerius Maximus the Flamen Quirinalis and the Vestal Virgins fled with their Trinkets while the Gauls besieged Rome others derive it à Cereis from Torches and Tapers lighted made of Wax which amongst the old Pagans was a great Ceremony used in the Temples of their Gods and at their Marriages but this is likewise improper and only figurative to take species famosior pro toto genere and not natural so it appears the Etymology of it is either unknown or it is it self an Original not derived from any Rites which is a word usually joined with Ceremonies and much of the same Signification some will have derived à Ritualibus now the Rituales were old Magical and Superstitious Books of the Hetruscan Priests by help of which they either conjur'd their Gods or made the People believe so and they had all the Formalities written in them which were to be used at making Marriages at laying the Foundations of a City and how Altars Temples and Houses were to be Consecrated and how their Courts of Justice and Counties and Hundreds were to be divided for in all these the old Pagans used to Consult their Augurs Aruspices Bishops and Priests and were like our Books of Ecclesiastical Canons But it seems rather these ritual Books had their names derived from the Rites whereof they were made a written Collection and not the Rites from the Rituals and so Rites as well as Ceremonies may be words which none knows whence they came or whether they will But to come from the Etymology of the word Ceremony to the thing usually signified by it and the difference between a Ceremony and a Circumstance it seems A Ceremony is an Act accessary joined to a Principal not affecting the Principal Act with Good or Evil by the Law of God A Circumstance is an Act accessary joined with a Principal affecting the same Principal Act with Good or Evil by the Law of God Ceremonies are infinite but Circumstances are usually drawn to Seven Heads 1. The Cause of doing the Act which is divided into four kinds The Efficient Final Material Formal and these again subdivided into others 2. The Person by or with whom the Act was done 3. The Place where it was done 4. The Time when it was done 5. The Quantity continued or discrete 6. The Quality which is manifold 7. The Seventh and last Circumstance is the Event of the Act the Civilians expound very improperly and instance whether the Act is done by Fear Force Error Deceit Fault Chance or the like for how can these which are precedent Causes of the Act and therefore ought to be refer'd to the Cirstumstance of the Causes be said to be the Event of an Act which is always subsequent and not precedent to the Principal Act and in that sense is always used by the best Latinists as Cicero in Rhetor. Things are often judged from the Event than which there is nothing more unjust and the Poets agree in the same Careat Successibus opto Quisquis ab Eventu facta notanda putat Eventus Belli incertus wherein it is used for the Fortune and Success following the Battel and not the Fortune or Chance which began or occasion'd it So the Common Law in punishing the Event as the death of any Man within a Day or