Propositions on Indifferent Things & Ceremonies in Worship

David Calderwood (1575–1650) was a leading Scottish, non-conforming, presbyterian minister. He was banished for his nonconformity, taking up residence in the Netherlands where he wrote the large work from where these propositions are taken. That work, Altare Damascenum, or The Altar of Damascus, portrayed and critiqued the Anglican Church's polity (which was seeking, partly at first, to be imposed upon Scotland) as that corrupt imitation to God's ordained polity. That work, said Andrew Thomson, was "the great storehouse from which the prelatic arguments were subverted, and conversions to presbyterianism effected during the period of the second Scottish reformation… It will only be from a correct translation of the Altare Damascenum that the public can derive a full idea of the eloquence, learning and acute dialectic power of its author."

Calderwood was present at the Glasgow Assembly in 1638 and saw episcopacy and the high church liturgy swept away at that time. He collected and wrote a standard history of the reformed Church of Scotland for one of its later General Assemblies.

Travis Fentiman, MDiv, is the webmaster of ReformedBooksOnline.com. He lives in Vermont with his dear wife and four children. He has written theological books entitled, The Civil Government’s Authority about Religion & the Church, Circa Sacra: An Extended Introduction, 1 Corinthians – Head Coverings are Not Perpetual & they were Hair-Buns, with or without Material, Proven and The Biblical Sabbath is from Dawn to Dawn, amongst numerous articles. He has translated numerous historic reformed articles from Latin and worked in the translation process of numerous volumes of Peter van Mastricht's Theoretical Practical Theology.