epta transgrederentur._(45) Wherefore, seeing they make not only as
much, but more ado, about the controverted ceremonies than about the most
necessary things in religion, their practice herein makes it too, too
apparent what necessity they annex to them.

_Sect_. 2. And if we will hearken to their pleading it tells no less; for
howbeit they plead for their ceremonies, as things indifferent in their
own nature, yet, when the ceremonies are considered as the ordinances of
the church, they plead for them as things necessary. M. G. Powel, in the
_Consideration of the Arguments directed to the High Court of Parliament
in behalf of the Ministers suspended and deprived_ (ans. 3 to arg. 16),
hath these words, yea, these particulars: "Subscription, ceremonies, &c.,
being imposed by the church, and commanded by the magistrate, are
necessary to be observed under the pain of sin." The Bishop of Edinburgh
resolves us concerning the necessity of giving obedience to the laws of
the church, enacted anent the ceremonies, thus: "Where a man hath not a
law, his judgment is the rule of his conscience, but where there is a law,
the law must be the rule. As, for example, before that apostolical canon
that forbade to eat blood or strangled things, every man might have done
that which in his conscience he thought most expedient, &c., but after the
making and the publication of the canon that enjoined abstinence, the same
was to rule their consciences. And, therefore, after that time, albeit a
man had thought in his own private judgment that to abstain from these
things was not expedient, &c. yet, in that case, he ought not to have
eaten, because now the will of the law, and not the judgment of his own
mind, was the rule of his conscience."(46) The Archbishop of St Andrews,
to the same purpose saith, "In things indifferent we must always esteem
that to be best and most seemly which seemeth so in the eye of public
authority, neither is it for private men to control public judgment, as
they cannot make public constitutions, so they may not control nor disobey
them, being once made, indeed authority ought to look well to this, that
it prescribe nothing but rightly, appoint no rights nor orders in the
church but such as may set forward godliness and piety, yet, put the case,
that some be otherwise established, they must be obeyed by such as are
members of that church, as long as they have the force of a constitution,
&c. But thou wilt say, My consci