is persuasion, doth not
cheerfully address itself to the doing of them. But, I pray, doth the word
underprop or approve the use of anything indifferent, if it be not used
according to the foresaid rules, and, by consequence, conveniently and
profitably?

_Sect._ 9. The Doctor thinks it enough that, in the use of a thing
indifferent, I believe it is lawful for me to do this thing, albeit I
believe and certainly know that it is lawful to me to omit it, or do the
contrary; so that the doing of a thing in faith inferreth not the
necessity of doing it: but for answer hereunto we say,

1. We have sufficiently proven that it is never lawful for us to do
anything which is in the nature of it indifferent, except we be persuaded
not only of the lawfulness of the thing, but of the expediency of doing
it.

2. Of his comparing of things indifferent together, and not considering
them positively and by themselves, we have also said enough before.

3. The doing of a thing in faith inferreth the expediency and profit of
doing it, and that is enough to take away the indifferency of doing it;
for since every indifferent thing is either expedient to be done, or else
unlawful to be done (as hath been showed), it followeth that either it
ought to be done, or else it ought to be left undone; therefore it is
never indifferent nor free to us to do it, or leave it undone, at our
pleasure.

4. Because the Doctor (I perceive) sticketh upon the term of necessity,
and will have everything which is not necessary to be indifferent;
therefore, to remove this scruple, beside that Chrysostom and the author
of the interlineary gloss upon Matt. xviii. 7, take the meaning of those
words, "It must needs be that offences come," to be this, _it is
profitable that offences come_. Which gloss, though it be not to be
received, yet as Camero noteth,(1211) it is ordinary to call that
necessary which is very profitable and expedient. Besides this, I say, we
further maintain, that in the use of things indifferent, that which we
deliberate upon to do is never lawful to be done except it be also
necessary, though not _necessitate absoluta seu consequentis_, yet
_necessitate consequentiae seu ex suppositione_. Paul's circumcising of
Timothy was lawful only because it was necessary, for he behoved by this
means to win the good will of the people of Lystra who had once stoned
him,(1212) otherwise he could not safely have preached the gospel among
them. Therefore he