13. It giveth to magistrates, pastors, parents, and other superiors, all that power by which they are authorized to oblige us, under God, to any undetermined particulars.
14. It is the perfect rule of Christ's judging, rewarding, and punishing at last, according to which he will proceed.
15. It is the only law that is made by primitive power.
16. And the only law that is made by infallible wisdom.
17. And the only law which is faultless, and hath nothing in it that will do the subject any harm.
18. And the only law which is from absolute power, the rule of all other laws, and from which there is finally no appeal.[378]
Thus far the holy Scripture with the law of nature is our perfect rule. But not in any of the following respects.
1. It is no particular revelation or perfect rule of natural sciences, as physics, metaphysics, &c.
2. It is no rule for the arts, for medicine, music, arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, grammar, rhetoric, logic; nor for the mechanics, as navigation, architecture; and all the trades and occupations of men; no, not husbandry by which we have our food.
3. It is no particular rule for all the mutable, subordinate duties of any societies. It will not serve instead of all the statutes of this and all other lands, nor tell us, when the terms shall begin and end, nor what work every parent and master shall set his children and servants in his family, &c.
4. It is no full rule in particular for all those political principles which are the ground of human laws; as whether each republic be monarchical, aristocratical, or democratical; what person or of what family shall reign; who shall be his officers and judges, and how diversified; so of his treasury, munition, coin, &c.
5. It is no rule of propriety in particular, by which every man may know which is his own land, or house, or goods, or cattle.
6. It is no particular rule for our natural actions; what meat we shall eat; what clothes we shall wear; so of our rest, labour, &c.
7. It is no particular law or rule for any of all those actions and circumstances about religion or God's own ordinances, which he hath only commanded in general, and left in specie or particular to be determined by man according to his general laws; but of these next.
[377] 2 Tim. iii. 16; 2 Pet. i. 10; 2 Tim. iii. 15; Rom. xv. 4; xvi. 26; John v. 39; Acts xvii. 2, 11; John xix. 24, 28, 36, 37.
[378] Psal. xii. 6; xix. 7-10; cxix.
Quest. CXXXI. _What additions or human inventions in or about religion, not commanded in Scripture, are lawful or unlawful?_
_Answ._ 1. These following are unlawful. 1. To feign any new article of faith or doctrine, any precept, promise, threatening, prophecy, or revelation, falsely to father it upon God, and say, that it is of him, or his special word.[379]
2. To say that either that is written in the Bible which is not, or that any thing is the sense of a text which is not; and so that any thing is a sin or a duty by Scripture which is not. Or to father apocryphal books, or texts, or words upon the Spirit of Christ.
3. To make any law for the church universal, or as obligatory to all christians; which is to usurp the sovereignty of Christ; for which treasonable usurpation it is that protestants call the pope, antichrist.
4. To add new parts to the christian religion.
5. To make any law, which it did properly belong to the universal Sovereign to have made, if it should have been made at all: or which implieth an accusation of ignorance, oversight, error, or omission, in Christ and the holy Scriptures.
6. To make new laws for men's inward heart duties towards God.
7. To make new sacraments for the sealing of Christ's covenant and collation of his benefits therein contained, and to the public _tesseræ_, badges or symbols of christians and christianity in the world.
8. To feign new conditions of the covenant of God, and necessary means of our justification, adoption, and salvation.
9. To alter Christ's instituted church ministry, or add any that are supra-ordinate, co-ordinate, or derogatory to their office, or that stand on the like pretended ground, and for equal ends.
10. To make new spiritual societies or church forms which shall be either supra-ordinate, co-ordinate, or derogatory to the forms of Christ's institution.[380]
11. Any impositions upon the churches (be the thing never so lawful) which is made by a pretended power not derived from God and the Redeemer.[381]
12. Any thing that is contrary to the church's good and edification, to justice, charity, piety, order, unity, or peace.[382]
13. Any unnecessary burden imposed on the consciences of christians; especially as necessary either to their salvation, communion, liberty, or peace.
14. And the exercise of any power, pretended to be either primitive and underived, or infallible, or impeccable, or absolute.
15. In general, any thing that is contrary to the authority, matter, form, obligation, honour, or ends of the laws of God, in nature or Scripture.