NIES ARE NOT THINGS INDIFFERENT TO THE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND;
BECAUSE SHE DID ABJURE AND REPUDIATE THEM BY A MOST SOLEMN AND GENERAL
OATH.

_Sect._ 1. Having spoken of the nature of things indifferent, and showed
which things be such; also of the rule whereby to try the indifferency of
things: which rule we have applied to certain particular cases;--it
remaineth to say somewhat of the main and general purpose, which is
principally questioned in this last part of our dispute, viz., whether
cross, kneeling, holidays, bishopping, and the other controverted
ceremonies wherewith our church is pressed this day, be such things as we
may use freely and indifferently? The negative (which we hold) is strongly
confirmed by those arguments which, in the third part of this our dispute,
we have put in order against the lawfulness of those ceremonies.
Notwithstanding we have thought fit to add somewhat more in this place.
And, first, we say, whatsoever be the condition of the ceremonies in their
own nature, they cannot be indifferently embraced and used by the church
of Scotland, which hath not only once cast them forth, but also given her
great oath solemnly to the God of heaven, both witnessing her detestation
of the Roman Antichrist's "five bastard sacraments, with all his rites,
ceremonies, and false doctrine, added to the ministration of the true
sacraments, without the word of God; all his vain allegories, rites,
signs, and traditions, brought in the kirk, without or against the word of
God;" and likewise "promising, and swearing to continue," as well "in the
discipline and use of the holy sacraments," as "in the doctrine," of this
reformed church of Scotland, which then first she embraced and used after
she was truly reformed from Popery and popish abuses. And this which I say
may be seen in the general Confession of Faith, sworn and subscribed by
his Majesty's father, of everlasting memory, anno 1580, and by the several
parochines in the land, at his Majesty's strait command; which also was
renewed and sworn again, anno 1596, by the General Assembly, by provincial
assemblies, by presbyteries and particular parish churches.

_Sect._ 2. No reformed church in Europe is so strictly tied by the bond of
an oath and subscription, to hold fast her first discipline and use of the
sacraments, and to hold out popish rites, as is the church of Scotland.
And who knoweth not that an oath doth always oblige and bind, _quando est
factum de reb