Part 22

_Direct._ XII. Observe well in Scripture the difference between Christ's universal laws, (which bind all his subjects in all times and places,) and those that are but local, personal, or alterable laws; lest you think that you are bound to all that ever God bound any others to. The universal laws and unalterable are those which result from the foundation of the universal and unalterable nature of persons and things, and those which God hath supernaturally revealed as suitable constantly to all. The particular, local, or temporary laws are those, which either resulted from a particular or alterable nature of persons and things as mutually related, (as the law of nature bound Adam's sons to marry their sisters, which bindeth others against it,) or those which God supernaturally enacted only for some particular people or person, or for the time. If you should mistake all the Jewish laws for universal laws, (as to persons or duration,) into how many errors would it lead you! So also if you mistake every personal mandate sent by a prophet or apostle to a particular man, as obliging all, you would make a snare of it. Every man is not to abstain from vineyards and wine as the Rechabites were; nor every man to go forth to preach in the garb as Christ sent the twelve and seventy disciples; nor every man to administer or receive the Lord's supper in an upper room of a house, in the evening, with eleven or twelve only, &c.; nor every one to carry Paul's cloak and parchments, nor go up and down on the messages which some were sent on. And here (in precepts about worship) you must know what is the thing primarily intended in the command, and what it is that is but a subservient means; for many laws are universal and immutable as to the matter primarily intended, which are but local and temporary as to the matter subservient and secondarily intended. As the command of saluting one another with a holy kiss, and using love-feasts in their sacred communion, primarily intended the exercising and expressing holy love by such convenient signs as were then in use, and suitable to those times; but that it be done by those particular signs, was subservient, and a local, alterable law; as appeareth, 1. In that it is actually laid down by God's allowance. 2. In that in other places and times the same signs have not the same signification and aptitude to that use at all, and therefore would be no such expression of love; or else have also some ill signification. So it was the first way of baptizing to dip them over-head; which was fit in that hot country, which in colder countries it would not be, as being destructive to health, and more against modesty; therefore it is plain that it was but a local, alterable law. The same is to be said of not eating things strangled, and blood, which was occasioned by the offence of the Jews; and other the like. This is the case in almost all precepts about the external worshipping gestures: the thing that God commandeth universally is a humble, reverent adoration of him by the mind and body. Now the adoration of the mind is still the same; but the bodily expression altereth according to the custom of countries: in most countries kneeling or prostration are the expressions of greatest veneration and submission: in some few countries it is more signified by sitting with the face covered with their hands: in some it is signified best by standing: kneeling is ordinarily most fit, because it is the most common sign of humble reverence; but where it is not so, it is not fit. The same we must say of other gestures, and of habits: the women among the Corinthians were not to go uncovered because of the angels, 1 Cor. xi. 10, and yet in some places, where long hair or covering may have a contrary signification, the case may be contrary. The very fourth commandment, however it was a perpetual law as to the proportion of time, yet was alterable as to the seventh day. Those which I call universal laws, some call moral; but that is no term of distinction, but signifieth the common nature of all laws, which are for the governing of our manners. Some call them natural laws, and the other positive: but the truth is, there are some laws of nature which are universal, and some that are particular, as they are the result of universal or particular nature: and there are some laws of nature that are perpetual, which are the result of an unaltered foundation: and there are some that are temporary, when it is some temporary, alterable thing in nature from whence the duty doth result: so there are some positive laws that are universal or unalterable, (during this world,) and some that are local, particular, or temporary only.[32]