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 sacraments and other service of God, Knox answered: “The church ought to do nothing but in faith, and ought not to go before, but is bound to follow the voice of the true Pastor.” The Superior replied, that “every one of the ceremonies hath a godly signification, and therefore they both proceed from faith, and are done in faith.” Knox replieth: “It is not enough that man invent a ceremony, and then give it a signification according to his pleasure; for so might the ceremonies of the Gentiles, and this day the ceremonies of Mahomet be maintained. But if that anything proceed from faith it must have the word of God for the assurance,” &c. The Superior answereth: “Will ye bind us so strait that we may do nothing without the express word of God? What, and I ask drink? think ye that I sin? and yet I have not God’s word for me.” Knox here telleth him, first, that if he should either eat or drink without the assurance of God’s word, he sinned; “for saith not the Apostle, speaking even of meat and drink, that the creatures are sanctified unto men by the word and prayer? The word is this: all things are clean to the clean: Now let me hear thus much of your ceremonies, and I shall give you the argument?” But secondly, He tells him that he compared indiscreetly together profane things with holy; and that the question was not of meat and drink, wherein the kingdom of God consisteth not, but of matters of religion, and that we may not take the same freedom in the using of Christ’s sacraments that we may do in eating and drinking, because Moses commanded, “All that the Lord thy God commanded thee to do, that do thou to the Lord thy God; add nothing to it, diminish nothing from it.” The Superior now saith that he was dry, and thereupon desireth the grey friar Arbugkill to follow the argument; but he was so pressed with the same that he was confounded in himself, and the Superior ashamed of him:— Dicite Io Pæan, et Io bis dicite Pæan.