e is
sought to be bound by the law of the ceremonies, and here, by the way, no
less may be drawn from Hall's words, which now I examine; for he implieth
in them that we are bound to obey the statutes about the ceremonies merely
for their authority's sake who command us, though there be no other thing
in the ceremonies themselves which can commend them to us. But I have also
proved before that human laws do not bind to obedience, but only in this
case, when the things which they prescribe do agree and serve to those
things which God's law prescribeth; so that, as human laws, they bind not,
neither have they any force to bind, but only by participation with God's
law. This ground hath seemed to P. Bayne(649) so necessary to be known,
that he hath inserted it in his brief _Exposition of the Fundamental
Points of Religion_. And besides all that which I have said for it before,
I may not here pass over in silence this one thing, that Hall himself
calleth it superstition to make any more sins than the ten
commandments.(650) Either, then, let it be shown out of God's word that
non-conformity, and the refusing of the English popish ceremonies, is a
fault, or else let us not be thought bound by men's laws where God's law
hath left us free. Yet we deal more liberally with our opposites, for if
we prove not the unlawfulness of the ceremonies, both by God's word and
sound reason, let us then be bound to use them for ordinance' sake.

3. His comparisons are far wide. They are so far from running upon four
feet, that they have indeed no feet at all, whether we consider the
commandments, or the breach of them, he is altogether extravagant. God
might have commanded Adam to eat the apple which he forbade him to eat,
and so the eating of it had been good, the not eating of it evil; whereas
the will and commandment of men is not _regula regulans_, but _regula
regulata_. Neither can they make good or evil, beseeming or not beseeming,
what they list, but their commandments are to be examined by a higher
rule. When Solomon commanded Shemei to dwell at Jerusalem, and not to go
over the brook Kidron, he had good reason for that which he required; for
as P. Martyr noteth,(651) he was a man of the family of the house of Saul,
2 Sam. xv. 5, and hated the kingdom and throne of David, so that _relictus
liber multa fuisset molitus, vel cum Israelitis, vel cum Palestinis_. But
what reason is there for charging us with the law of the ceremonies,
except