he liberty which hath been bought to us by the dearest drops
of the precious blood of the Son of God? _Sumus empti_, saith Parcus:(65)
_non igitur nostri juris ut nos mancipemus hominum servitio: id enim
manifesta cum injuria redemptoris Christi fieret: sumus liberti Christi.
Magistratui autem,_ saith Tilen,(66) _et ecclesioe proepositis, non nisi
usque ad aras obtemperandum, neque ullum certamen aut periculum pro
libertatis per Christum nobis partae defensione defugiendum, siquidem
mortem ipsius irritam fieri, Paulus asserit, si spiritualis servitutis
jugo, nos implicari patiamur._ Gal. v. 1, "Let us stand fast, therefore,
in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and not be entangled
again with the yoke of bondage." But that the urging of the ceremonies as
necessary doth take away our Christian liberty, I will make it evident in
four points.

_Sect._ 2. First, They are imposed with a necessity of practice. Spotswood
tells us,(67) that public constitutions must be obeyed, and that private
men may not disobey them, and thus is our practice adstricted in the use
of things which are not at all necessary, and acknowledged _gratis_ by the
urgers to be indifferent, adstricted (I say) to one part without liberty
to the other, and that by the mere authority of a human constitution,
whereas Christian liberty gives us freedom both for the omission and for
the observation of a thing indifferent, except some other reason do
adstrict and restrain it than a bare human constitution. Chrysostome,
speaking of such as are subject to bishops,(68) saith, _In potestate
positum est obedire vel non._ Liberty in things indifferent,(69) saith
Amandus Polanus, _est per quam Christiani sunt liberi in usu vel
abstinentia rerum adiaphorarom._ Calvin, speaking of our liberty in things
indifferent,(70) saith, We may _eas nunc usurpare nunc omittere
indifferenter_, and places this liberty,(71) _tam in abstinendo quam in
utendo._ It is marked of the rites of the ancient church,(72) that
_liberae fuerunt horum rituum observationes in ecclesia._ And what meaneth
the Apostle while he saith, "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 all are to perish
with the using,) after the commandments and doctrines of men?" Col. ii.
20-22. Surely he condemneth not only _humana decreta de ritibus_, but also
subjection and obedience to su