, and for teaching them what true and inward holiness God required
of them. Now, the Pharisees, when they multiplied their washings of hands,
of cups and pots, brazen vessels and tables, had the same respect of
significancy before their eyes. _Neque enim alio spectabant_ (that I may
use the words of a Formalist(809)) _quam ut se sanctitatis __ studiosos
hoc externu ritu probarent_. Neither have we any warrant to think that
they had another respect than this. But the error was in their addition to
the law, and in that they made their own ceremonial washings, which were
only the commandments of men, to serve for doctrines, instructions and
significations. For those washings, as they were significant, and taught
what holiness or cleanness should be among the people of God, they are
called by the name of worship; and as they were such significant
ceremonies as were only commanded by men, they are reckoned for vain
worship.

And further, I demand why are the Colossians, Col. ii. 20-22, rebuked for
subjecting themselves to those ordinances,--"Touch not, taste not, handle
not?" We see that those ordinances were not bare commandments, but
commandments under the colour of doctrines, to wit, as law commanded a
difference of meats, for signifying that holiness which God would have his
people formed unto; so these false teachers would have the same to be
signified and taught by that difference of meats and abstinence which they
of themselves, and without the commandment of God, had ordained.

Moreover, if we consider how that the word of God is given unto us "for
doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness,
that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good
works," 2 Tim. iii. 16, 17, it cannot but be evident how superfluously,
how superstitiously, the office of sacred teaching and mystical
signification is given to dumb and lifeless ceremonies ordained of men,
and, consequently, how justly they are taxed as vain worship. We hold,
therefore, with the worthiest of our divines,(810) _nullam doctrinam,
nullum sacram signum debere inter pios admitti, nisi a Deo profecta esse
constet_.

_Sect._ 8. To these reasons which I have put in order against men's
significant ceremonies, I will add a pretty history before I go further.

When the Superior of the Abbey of St. Andrews(811) was disputing with John
Knox about the lawfulness of the ceremonies devised by the church, to
decore the sacrame