given, and he had no other reasons to give, therefore he resolves all into the church’s practice,—enough of itself to suffice any that will be wise to sobriety. _Ans._ If any seem to be blasphemous, we have no such custom, neither the churches of God. What! shall a wrangling wit elude the reasons given by the Spirit of God, in such sort, that he must give some other more sufficient proof for that which he teacheth? Then the whole Scriptures of God must yet be better proved, because the unstable do wrest them, as Peter speaks, 2 Pet. iii. 16. (Transcriber’s Note: There is no section 12 in the original book.) _Sect._ 13. 2. The custom of the church is not enough to pitch on, and it is found oftentimes expedient to change a custom of the church. Basilius Magnus(865) doth flatly refuse to admit the authority of custom: _Consuetudo sine veritate_ (saith Cyprian),(866) _vetustas erroris est. Frustra enim qui ratione vincuntur_ (saith Augustine),(867) _consuetudinem nobis objiciunt, quasi consuetudo major sit veritate, &c. Nullus pudor est ad meliora transire_, saith Ambrose(868) to the Emperor Valentinian. _Quaelibet consuetudo_ (saith Gratian),(869) _veritati est postponenda._ And again,(870) _Corrigendum est quod illicite admittitur, aut a praedecessoribus admissum invenitur_. A politic writer admonisheth(871) _retinere antiqua_, only with this caution, _Si proba._ Calvin(872) (speaking against human ceremonies) saith, _Si objiciatur, &c._ “If (saith he) antiquity be objected (albeit they who are too much addicted to custom and to received fashions, do boldly use this buckler to defend all their corruptions), the refutation is easy; for the ancients also themselves, with heavy complaints, have abundantly testified that they did not approve of anything which was devised by the will of men.” In the end of the epistle he allegeth this testimony of Cyprian: “If Christ alone be to be heard, then we ought not to give heed what any man before us hath thought fit to be done, but what Christ (who is before all) hath done; for we must not follow the customs of man, but the truth of God.” What can be more plain than that antiquity cannot be a confirmation to error, nor custom a prejudice to truth? Wherefore Dr Forbesse(873) also despiseth such arguments as are taken from the custom of the church. _Sect._ 14. 3. There was a custom in the churches of God to give the holy communion to infants; and another custom to minister baptism only about Easter and Pentecost. Sundry such abuses got place in the church. If, then, it be enough to pitch upon custom, why ought not those customs to have been commended and continued? But if they were commendably changed, then ought we not to follow blindly the bare custom of the church, but examine the equity of the same, and demand grounds of reason for it.