t of Ceres or Bacchus. And elsewhere(419) he complaineth of the great
abuses of holidays among them.

_Sect._ 15. As touching the rule which is alleged against the ceremonies
out of Paul's doctrine, namely, that in those things from which we may
lawfully abstain, we should frame the usage of our liberty with regard to
the weakness of our brethren. Hooker answereth to it, 1. That the weak
brethren among them were not as the Jews, who were known to be generally
weak, whereas, saith he, the imbecility of ours is not common to so many,
but only here and there some such an one is found. 2. He tells us that
these scandalous meats, from which the Gentiles were exhorted to abstain
for fear of offending the Jews, cannot represent the ceremonies, for their
using of meats was a matter of private action in common life, where every
man was free to order that which himself did, but the ceremonies are
public constitutions for ordering the church, and we are not to look that
the church is to change her public laws and ordinances, made according to
that which is judged ordinarily and commonly fittest for the whole,
although it chance that, for some particular men, the same be found
inconvenient, especially when there may be other remedies also against the
sores of particular inconveniences. Let them be better instructed.

_Ans._ 1. This is bad divinity that would make us not regard the
scandalising of a few particular men. Christ's woe striketh not only upon
them who offend many, but even upon them who offend so much as one of his
little ones, Matt. xviii 6.

2. That which he saith of the few in England, and not many, who are
scandalised by the ceremonies, hath been answered by a countryman of his
own.(420) And as for us, we find most certainly that not a few, but many,
even the greatest part of Scotland, one way or other, are scandalised by
the ceremonies. Some are led by them to drink in superstition, and to fall
into sundry gross abuses in religion, others are made to use them
doubtingly, and so damnably. And how many who refuse them are animated to
use them against their consciences, and so to be damned? Who is not made
to stumble? And what way do they not impede the edificatlon of the church?

3. What if there had been a public constitution, commanding the Gentiles
to eat all meats freely, and that this hath been judged ordinarily and
commonly fittest for the whole, even to signify the liberty of the church
of the New Testament?