pake this of ignorance or of policy, I leave it to be guessed
at. Howsoever, if we should thus compose our controversy about the
ceremonies, embrace them, and practise them, so being that they be only
called things indifferent, this were to cure our church, as L. Sylla cured
his country, _durioribus remediis quam pericula erant_, saith
Seneca.(1169) Wherefore we will debate this question of indifferency also.

CHAPTER II.

OF THE NATURE OF THINGS INDIFFERENT.

_Sect._ 1. To say nothing here of the homonymy of the word _indifferent_,
but to take it in that signification which concerneth our present purpose,
it signifieth such a mean betwixt good and evil in human actions, as is
alike distant from both these extremes, and yet susceptive of either of
them. _Indifferens_, saith Calepin, is that _quod sua natura neque bonum
est neque malum_. Aquinas(1170) calleth that an indifferent action which
is neither good nor evil. _Rem indifferentem voco quae neque bona neque
mala in se est_, saith a later writer.(1171)

But Dr Forbesse(1172) liketh to speak in another language. He will have
that which is indifferent to be opponed to that which is necessary; and a
thing indifferent he taketh to be such a thing as is neither necessarily
to be done, nor yet necessarily to be omitted, in respect of any necessity
of the commandment of God; or such a thing as is neither remunerable with
eternal life, and commendeth a man unto the reward of God, nor yet is
punishable with eternal death, and polluteth a man with guiltiness. Now,
because he knew that divines define a thing indifferent to be that which
is neither good nor evil, he therefore distinguisheth a twofold goodness
of an individual action.(1173) The one he calleth _bonitas generalis,
concomitans, et sine qua non_; by which goodness is meant the doing of an
action in faith, and the doing of it for the right end, as he expoundeth
himself. This goodness, he saith, is necessary to every human action, and
hindereth not an action to be indifferent. The other he calleth _bonitas
specialis, causans, et propter quam_. This goodness he calleth legal, and
saith that it maketh an action necessary; in which respect indifferent
actions are not good, but those only which God in his law hath commanded,
and which are remunerable with eternal life.

_Sect._ 2. But that we may have the vanity of these quiddities discovered
to us, let us only consider how falsely