good and profitable for edifying; for they are set not
as lords over Christ's inheritance, but as ministers for their good: "It
seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us, (say the apostles and elders to
the churches,) to lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary
things," Acts xv. 28. They would not, you see, have enacted a canon about
those things, howbeit indifferent in their own nature, had they not found
them necessary for the eschewing of scandal. And as for the civil
magistrate, he also hath not power to prescribe any thing which he
pleaseth, though it be in itself indifferent; "for he is the minister of
God unto thee for good," saith the Apostle, Rom. xiii. 4. Mark that word,
_for good_,--it lets us see that the magistrate hath not power given him to
enjoin any other thing than that which may be for our good. _Non enim sua
causa dominantur_, saith Calvin;(1301) _sed publico bono; neque effroeni
potentia proediti sunt, sed quoe subditorum saluti sit obstricta_. Now,
the first and chief good which the magistrate is bound to see for unto the
subjects, is (as Pareus showeth(1302)), _bonum spirituale_. Let us, then,
either see the good of the ceremonies, or else we must account them to be
such things as God never gave princes nor pastors power to enjoin; for
howsoever they have power to prescribe many things which are indifferent,
that is to say, neither good nor evil in their general nature, yet they
may not command us to practise any thing which in the particular use of it
is not necessary or expedient for some good end.

3. The ceremonies are not indifferent, because, notwithstanding that they
are prescribed and commended unto us as things in themselves indifferent,
yet we are by the will and authority of men compelled and necessitated to
use them. _Si vero ad res suo natura medius accedat coactio_, &c., then,
say the Magdeburgians.(1303) Paul teacheth, Col. ii., that it is not
lawful to use them freely: "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 are all to perish with
the using), after the commandments and doctrines of men." Hence is
Tertullian taxed(1304) for inducing a necessity in things indifferent.
Now, with how great necessity and co-action the ceremonies are imposed
upon us, we have made it evident elsewhere.(1305)

_Sect._ 4. 4. Whatever be the quality of the ceremonies in their