_respectu præcipientis_, his form of speaking is very bad. _Deus_ (saith he) _non vult contemni præpositos ecclesiæ, nisi justa et necessaria de causa._ Where falsely he supposeth, not only that there may occur a just and necessary cause of contemning those whom God hath set over us in the church, but, also, that the not obeying of them inferreth the contemning of them. Now, the not obeying of their laws inferreth not the contemning of themselves (which were not allowable), but only the contemning of their laws. And as Jerome,(128) speaketh of Daniel, _Et nunc Daniel regis jussa contemnens_, &c.; so we say of all superiors in general, that we may sometimes have just reasons for contemning their commandments, yet are we not to contemn, but to honour themselves. But, 4. Let us take Camero’s meaning to be, that God will not have us to refuse obedience unto those who are set over us in the church: none of our opposites dare say, that God will have us to obey those who are set over us in the church in any other things than such as may be done both lawfully and conveniently for the shunning of scandal; and if so, then the church’s precept cannot bind, except as it is grounded upon such or such reasons. _Sect._ 12. Bishop Spotswood and Bishop Lindsey, in those words which I have heretofore alleged out of them, are likewise of opinion, that the sole will and authority of the church doth bind the conscience to obedience. Spotswood will have us, without more ado, to esteem that to be best and most seemly, which seemeth so in the eye of public authority. Is not this to bind the conscience by the church’s bare will and authority, when I must needs constrain the judgment of my conscience to be conformed to the church’s judgment, having no other reason to move me hereunto but the sole will and authority of the church? Further, he will have us to obey even such things as authority prescribeth not rightly (that is, such rites as do not set forward godliness), and that because they have the force of a constitution. He saith that we should be directed by the sentence of superiors, and take it as a sufficient ground to our consciences for obeying. Bellarmine speaketh more reasonably:(129) _Legesæ human non obligant sub pœna mortis æternæ, nisi quatenus violatione legis humanæ offenditur Deus._ Lindsey thinketh that the will of the law must be the rule of our consciences; he saith not the _reason_ of the law, but the _will_ of the law. And when we talk with the chief of our opposites, they would bind us by sole authority, because they cannot do it by any reason. But we answer out of Pareus,(130) that the particular laws of the church bind not _per se_, or _propter ipsum speciale mandatum ecclesiæ. Ratio: quia ecclesia res adiaphoras non jubet facere vel omittere propter suum mandatum, sed tantum propter justas mandandi causas, ut sunt conservatio ordinis, vitatio scandali: quæ quamdiu non violantur, conscientias liberas relinquit._