us vows,
and if that such bonds be laid on, they should be broken and shaken off.
What! Calls he this a superstitious vow, which abjured all superstition
and superstitious rites? Or calls he this a rash oath, which, upon so sage
and due deliberation, so serious advisement, so pious intention, so decent
preparation, so great humiliation, was religiously, publicly, solemnly
sworn throughout this land, and that at the straight command of authority?
Who is ignorant of these things, except he be a stranger in our Israel?
But say the oath had been rash and temeratious, shall it not therefore
oblige? His judgment is, it doth not; and so thinks the Bishop of
Winchester,(222) who teacheth us, that if the oath be made rashly,
_paenitenda promissio non perficienda praesumptio_, he had said better
thus, _paenitenda praesumptio, perficienda promissio_; for was not that a
very rash oath which the princes of Israel did swear to the Gibeonites,
not asking counsel at the mouth of the Lord? Josh. ix. 14-16, yet it bound
both them, Josh ix. 19, and their posterity, some hundred years after, 2
Sam. xxi. 1. If the matter then be lawful, the oath binds, were it sworn
ever so rashly.

_Sect._ 4. As touching the judgment of divines, we say, 1. Many divines
disallow of festival days, and with the church, were free of them. For the
Belgic churches, in their synod, anno 1578, wished that the six days might
be wrought upon, and that the Lord's day alone might be celebrated. And
Luther in his book, _de Bonis Operibus_, wished that there were no
feast-days among Christians but the Lord's day. This wish of theirs
declareth plainly, that they allowed of no holiday except the Lord's day;
yet Bishop Lindsey must make a fashion of saying something for an answer.
"This wish (saith he(223)) Luther and the Belgic churches conceived, out
of their miscontent at the number, corruptions, and superstitions of the
festival days, beside the Lord's day, as ye do." _Ans._ 1. Their wish
importeth a simple and absolute mistaking of all festival days besides the
Lord's day, and not of their number and corruptions only. 2. It is well
that he acknowledgeth both them and us to have reason of miscontentment at
holidays, from their corruptions and superstitions. The old Waldenses
also,(224) whose doctrine was restored and propagated by John Huss, and
Jerome of Prague, after Wiclif, and that with the congratulation of the
church of Constantinople, held,(225) that they were to