Chapter 28

THAT THE CEREMONIES THUS IMPOSED AND URGED AS THINGS NECESSARY, DO BEREAVE US OF OUR CHRISTIAN LIBERTY, FIRST, BECAUSE OUR PRACTICE IS ADSTRICTED.

_Sect._ 1. Who can blame us for standing to the defence of our Christian liberty, which we ought to defend and pretend in _rebus quibusvis?_ saith Bucer.(64) Shall we bear the name of Christians, and yet make no great account of the liberty which hath been bought to us by the dearest drops of the precious blood of the Son of God? _Sumus empti_, saith Parcus:(65) _non igitur nostri juris ut nos mancipemus hominum servitio: id enim manifesta cum injuria redemptoris Christi fieret: sumus liberti Christi. Magistratui autem,_ saith Tilen,(66) _et ecclesioe proepositis, non nisi usque ad aras obtemperandum, neque ullum certamen aut periculum pro libertatis per Christum nobis partæ defensione defugiendum, siquidem mortem ipsius irritam fieri, Paulus asserit, si spiritualis servitutis jugo, nos implicari patiamur._ Gal. v. 1, “Let us stand fast, therefore, in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and not be entangled again with the yoke of bondage.” But that the urging of the ceremonies as necessary doth take away our Christian liberty, I will make it evident in four points.

_Sect._ 2. First, They are imposed with a necessity of practice. Spotswood tells us,(67) that public constitutions must be obeyed, and that private men may not disobey them, and thus is our practice adstricted in the use of things which are not at all necessary, and acknowledged _gratis_ by the urgers to be indifferent, adstricted (I say) to one part without liberty to the other, and that by the mere authority of a human constitution, whereas Christian liberty gives us freedom both for the omission and for the observation of a thing indifferent, except some other reason do adstrict and restrain it than a bare human constitution. Chrysostome, speaking of such as are subject to bishops,(68) saith, _In potestate positum est obedire vel non._ Liberty in things indifferent,(69) saith Amandus Polanus, _est per quam Christiani sunt liberi in usu vel abstinentia rerum adiaphorarom._ Calvin, speaking of our liberty in things indifferent,(70) saith, We may _eas nunc usurpare nunc omittere indifferenter_, and places this liberty,(71) _tam in abstinendo quam in utendo._ It is marked of the rites of the ancient church,(72) that _liberae fuerunt horum rituum observationes in ecclesia._ And what meaneth the Apostle while he saith, “If ye be dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world, why, as though living in the world, are ye subject to ordinances, (touch not, taste not, handle not, which all are to perish with the using,) after the commandments and doctrines of men?” Col. ii. 20-22. Surely he condemneth not only _humana decreta de ritibus_, but also subjection and obedience to such ordinances of men as take from us liberty of practice in the use of things indifferent,(73) obedience (I say) for conscience of their ordinances merely. What meaneth also that place, 1 Cor. vii. 23, “Be not ye the servants of men?” “It forbids us, (saith Paybody) to be the servants of men, that is, in wicked or superstitious actions, according to their perverse commandments or desires.”(74) If he mean of actions that are wicked or superstitious in themselves, then it followeth, that to be subject unto those ordinances, “Touch not, taste not, handle not,” is not to be the servants of men, because these actions are not wicked and superstitious in themselves. Not touching, not tasting, not handling, are in themselves indifferent. But if he mean of actions which are wicked and superstitious, in respect of circumstances, then is his restrictive gloss senseless; for we can never be the servants of men, but in such wicked and superstitious actions, if there were no more but giving obedience to such ordinances as are imposed with a necessity upon us, and that merely for conscience of the ordinance, it is enough to infect the actions with superstition, _Sunt hominum servi_, saith Bullinqer,(75) _qui aliquid in gratiam hominum faciunt_. This is nearer the truth; for to tie ourselves to the doing of anything for the will or pleasure of men, when our conscience can find no other reason for the doing of it, were indeed to make ourselves the servants of men. Far be it then from us to submit our necks to such a heavy yoke of human precepts, as would overload and undo us. Nay, we will stedfastly resist such unchristian tyranny as goeth about to spoil us of Christian liberty, taking that for certain which we find in Cyprian,(76) _periculosum est in divinis rebus ut quis cedat jure suo_.

_Sect._ 3. Two things are here replied, 1. That there is reason for adstricting of our practice in these things, because we are commanded to obey them that have the rule over us, and to submit ourselves, Heb. xiii. 17,(77) and to submit ourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord’s sake, 1 Pet. ii. 16, and that except public constitutions must needs be obeyed, there can be no order,(78) but all shall be filled with strife and contention. _Ans._ 1. As touching obedience to those that are set over us, if they mean not to tyrannise over the Lord’s inheritance, 1 Pet. v. 3; and to make the commandments of God of no effect by their traditions, Mark