_Sect._ 2. The Act of Perth Assembly allegeth the practice of the ancient church for warrant of holidays, and Tilen allegeth the judgment of antiquity to the same purpose.(208) _Ans._ The festivities of the ancient church cannot warrant ours; for, 1. In the purest times of the church there was no law to tie men to the observation of holidays. _Observandum est_, say the divines of Magdeburg,(209) _apostolos et apostolicos viros, neque de paschate, neque de aliis quibuscunque, festivitatibus legem aliquam constituisse_. Socrates reporteth,(210) that men did celebrate the feast of Easter, and other festival days, _sicuti voluerunt, ex consuetudine quadam_. Nicephorus saith,(211) that men did celebrate festivities, _sicuti cuique visum erat, in regionibus passim ex consuitudine quadam per traditionem accepta adducti_. In which place, as the reader will plainly perceive, he opposeth tradition to an evangelical or apostolical ordinance. Sozomen tells us,(212) that men were left to their own judgment about the keeping of Easter, Jerome saith of the feasts(213) which the church in his time observed, that they were _pro varietate regionum diversa_. The first who established a law about any festival day,(214) is thought to have been Pius I, bishop of Rome, yet it is marked that the Asiatican doctors did not care much for this constitution of Pius. I conclude with Cartwright,(215) that those feasts of the primitive church “came by custom, and not by commandment, by the free choice of men, and not by constraint.” So that from these, no commendation ariseth to our feasts, which are not only established by laws, but also imposed with such necessity and constraint, as spoileth us of our liberty. 2. The festival days observed by the ancient church, were not accounted more excellent than other days, for, saith Jerome,(216) _non quod celebrior sit dies illa qua conveniumus, &c._ But our festival days are made _aliis diebus celebriores_, yea, are taken to be holier than other days, as I will afterwards prove.(217)