Ch. x. 8. 390 Immutability if granted would tell against Puritanism. BOOK III. not commanded and yet may be received in the Church, how can their former position stand, condemning all things in the Church which in the word are not commanded? If they be commanded and yet may suffer change, how can this latter stand, affirming all things immutable which are commanded of God? Their distinction touching matters of substance and of circumstance, though true, will not serve. For be they great things or be they small, if God have commanded them in the Gospel, and his commanding them in the Gospel do make them unchangeable, there is no reason If we should more change the one than we may the other. the authority of the maker do prove unchangeableness in the laws which God hath made, then must all laws which he hath made be necessarily for ever permanent, though they be but of circumstance only and not of substance. I therefore conclude, that neither God's being author of laws for government of his Church, nor his committing them unto Scripture, is any reason sufficient wherefore all churches should for ever be bound to keep them without change. [8.] But of one thing we are here to give them warning by the way. For whereas in this discourse we have oftentimes profest that many parts of discipline or church polity are delivered in Scripture, they may perhaps imagine that we are driven to confess their discipline to be delivered in Scripture, and that having no other means fain to argue for the changeableness of laws God himself, as if otherwise theirs of necessity place, and that under which we live be abandoned. no remedy therefore but to abate this error in t avoid it, we are ained even by should take There is hem, and As for ion is, that nor directly to let them know, that if they fall into any such re oth Whether Church Laws are declared immutable. 391 Ch. xỉ. 1, 2. cause belongeth to all churches, to all times 37. But with BOOK III. any such partial eye to respect ourselves, and by cunning to make those things seem the truest which are the fittest to serve our purpose, is a thing which we neither like nor mean to follow. Wherefore that which we take to be generally true concerning the mutability of laws, the same we have plainly delivered, as being persuaded of nothing more than we are of this, that whether it be in matter of speculation or of practice, no untruth 38 can possibly avail the patron and defender long, and that things most truly are likewise most behovefully spoken. Christ have change of which are set Scripture. XI. This we hold and grant for truth, that those very laws Whether which of their own nature are changeable, be notwithstanding forbidden all uncapable of change, if he which gave them, being of authority those laws so to do, forbid absolutely to change them; neither may down in they admit alteration against the will of such a law-maker. Albeit therefore we do not find any cause why of right there should be necessarily an immutable form set down in holy Scripture; nevertheless if indeed there have been at any time a church polity so set down, the change whereof the sacred Scripture doth forbid, surely for men to alter those laws which God for perpetuity hath established were presumption most intolerable. [2.] To prove therefore that the will of Christ was to establish laws so permanent and immutable that in any sort to alter them cannot but highly offend God, thus they reason. First 39, if Moses, being but a servant in the house of God, did 37 Disciplina est Christianæ Ecclesiæ Politia, a Deo ejus recte "administrandæ causa constituta, 66 ac propterea ex ejus verbo petenda, "et ob eandem causam omnium "ecclesiarum communis et omnium "temporum." Lib. de Eccles. Discip. in Anal. [See also p. 9, Cartwright's Translation.] 38 Εοίκασιν οὖν οἱ ἀληθεῖς τῶν λόγων οὐ μόνον πρὸς τὸ εἰδέναι χρησιμώτατοι εἶναι, ἀλλὰ καὶ πρὸς τὸν βίον. Συνῳδοὶ γὰρ ὄντες ἔργοις, πιστ TEVOVTAL. Arist. Ethic. lib. x. cap. I. 39 Heb. iii. 6. "Either that com"mendation of the son before the "servant is a false testimony, or the “son ordained a permanent govern "ment in the Church. If perma- 16. 66 "He that was as faithful as Moses, left as clear instruction "for the government of the Church: "but Christ was as faithful as "Moses: Ergo." Demonst. of Discip. cap. i. [p. 3. See also Ch. xi. 3. 392 Mutability no Mark of comparative Disfavour : BOOK III. therein establish laws of government for perpetuity, laws which they that were of the household might not alter; shall we admit into our thoughts, that the Son of God hath in providing for this his household declared himself less faithful than Moses? Moses delivering unto the Jews such laws as were durable, if those be changeable which Christ hath delivered unto us, we are not able to avoid it, but (that which to think were heinous impiety) we of necessity must confess even the Son of God himself to have been less faithful than Moses. Which argument shall need no touchstone to try it by but some other of the like making. Moses erected in the wilderness a tabernacle which was moveable from place to place; Solomon a sumptuous and stately temple which was not moveable: therefore Solomon was faithfuller than Moses, which no man endued with reason will think. this reason it doth plainly follow. And yet by He that will see how faithful the one or the other was, must compare the things which they both did unto the charge which God gave each of them. The Apostle in making comparison between our Saviour and Moses attributeth faithfulness unto both, and maketh this difference between them; Moses in, but Christ over the house of God; Moses in that house which was his by charge and commission, though to govern it, yet to govern it as a servant; but Christ over this house as being his own entire possession. [3] Our Lord and Saviour doth make protestation, "I have "given unto them the words which thou gavest me 40" Faithful therefore he was, and concealed not any part of his Father's will. But did any part of that will require the immutability of laws concerning church polity? They answer, Yea. For else God should less favour us than the Jews 11. e. g. in the Matter of Civil Polity. 893 Ch. xi. 4. God would not have their church guided by any laws but his BOOK III. own. And seeing this did so continue even till Christ, now to ease God of that care, or rather to deprive the Church of his patronage, what reason have we? Surely none to derogate any thing from the ancient love which God hath borne to his Church. An heathen philosopher 42 there is, who considering how many things beasts have which men have not, how naked in comparison of them, how impotent, and how much less able we are to shift for ourselves a long time after we enter into this world, repiningly concluded hereupon, that nature being a careful mother for them, is towards us a hard-hearted stepdame. No, we may not measure the affection of our gracious God towards his by such differences. For even herein shineth his wisdom, that though the ways of his providence be many, yet the end which he bringeth all at the length unto is one and the selfsame. [4] But if such kind of reasoning were good, might we not even as directly conclude the very same concerning laws of secular regiment? Their own words are these: "In the "ancient church of the Jews, God did command and Moses "commit unto writing all things pertinent as well to the "civil as to the ecclesiastical state 43." God gave them laws of civil regiment, and would not permit their commonweal to be governed by any other laws than his own. Doth God less regard our temporal estate in this world, or provide for it worse than for theirs? To us notwithstanding he hath not as to them delivered any particular form of temporal regiment, unless perhaps we think, as some do, that the grafting of the 42 [Philemon, Fragm. Incert. xliii. ed. Cler. πολύ γ ̓ ἐστὶ πάντων ζῶον ἀθλιώτατον 43 Ecclesiast. Disc. lib. i. [fol. 5. "In vetere ecclesia Judæorum omnia quæ ad regendum non modo "civilem sed etiam ecclesiasticum 66 "statum [pertinent].... diligenter Ch. xi. 5, 6. 394 The Gospel less systematic than the Law. BOOK III. Gentilés 44 and their incorporating into Israel 45 doth import that we ought to be subject unto the rites and laws of their whole polity. We see then how weak such disputes are, and how smally they make to this purpose. [5] That Christ did not mean to set down particular positive laws for all things in such sort as Moses did, the very different manner of delivering the laws of Moses and the laws of Christ doth plainly shew. Moses had commandment to gather the ordinances of God together distinctly, and orderly to set them down according unto their several kinds, for each public duty and office the laws that belong thereto, as appeareth in the books themselves, written of purpose for that end. Contrariwise the laws of Christ we find rather mentioned by occasion in the writings of the Apostles, than any solemn thing directly written to comprehend them in legal sort. ye [6.] Again, the positive laws which Moses gave, they 44 Rom. xi. 17. 48 Deut. v. 22. |