_Sect._ 3. Moreover, the proctors for holidays among us think to make advantage of the practice of other reformed churches, and the judgment of modern divines. But we are to consider, 1. As they have the example of some churches for them, so we have the example of other churches for us, for the church of Geneva in Savoy, and the church of Strasburg in Germany, did abolish festival days, as Calvin writeth.(218) Yea, _in hac tota provincia aboliti fuerunt dies festi_, saith he. The church of Zurich in Helvetia did also banish them all away, as Bullinger writeth to Calvin.(219) 2. The practice of the greatest part of the reformed churches in observing holidays, cannot commend them in the church of Scotland, 1. Because she did spue them out with so great detestation, that she is more bound to abhor them than other churches which did not the like, and I may well apply to them that which Calvin saith(220) of the ceremonies of the Interim, to Valentinus Pacaeus, _Ut concedam faetidas illas sordes quibus purgatae fuerunt vestrae ecclesiae, inrebus medus posse censeri: earum tamen restitutio eritne res media?_ 2. The church of Scotland is tied yet with another bond to hate holidays, of which other churches are free; for, by a solemn oath sworn to the God of heaven, she hath abjured all antichristian and popish rites, and dedicating of days particularly. When Tilen would make answer to this argument, he saith,(221) that men’s consciences should not be snared with rash oaths and superstitious 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.