_Answ._ 1. The covenant of innocency is ceased _cessante subditorum capacitate_, as a covenant or promise. And so are the positive laws proper to Adam, in that state, and to many particular persons since.
2. The covenant mixed of grace and works, proper to the Jews, with all the Jewish law as such, was never made to us, or to the rest of the world; and to the Jews it is ceased by the coming and perfecter laws and covenant of Christ.
3. The prophecies and types of Christ, and the promises made to Adam, Abraham, and others, of his coming in the flesh, are all fulfilled, and therefore not useful to all the ends of their first making: and the many prophecies of particular things and persons past and gone are accomplished.
4. But the law of nature is still Christ's law; and that law is much expounded to us in the Old Testament: and if God once, for another use, did say, This is the law of nature, the truth of these words as a divine doctrine and exposition of the law of nature is still the same.
5. The covenant of grace made with Adam and Noah for all mankind, is still in force as to the great benefits and main condition, that is, as to pardon given by it to true penitent believers, with a right to everlasting life, and as to the obligation to sincere obedience for salvation: though not as to the yet future coming of Christ in the flesh. And this law of grace was never yet repealed any further than Christ's coming did fulfil it and perfect it: therefore to the rest of the world, who never can have the gospel or perfecter testament, as christians have, the former law of grace is yet in force. And that is the law, conjoined with the law of nature, which now the world without the church is under: under, I say, as to the force of the law, and a former promulgation made to Adam and Noah, and some common intimations of it in merciful forbearances, pardons, and benefits; though how many are under it as to the knowledge, reception, belief, and obedience of it, and consequently are saved by it, is more than I or any man knoweth.
6. There are many prophecies of Christ and the christian church in the Old Testament yet to be fulfilled, and therefore are still God's word for us.
7. There are many precepts of God to the Jews and to particular persons, given them on reasons common to them with us; where parity of reason will help thence to gather our own duty now.
8. There are many holy expressions, (as in the Psalms,) which are fitted to persons in our condition, and came from the Spirit of God; and therefore as such are fit for us now.
9. Even the fulfilled promises, types, and prophecies, are still God's words, that is, his word given to their several proper uses: and though much of their use be changed or ceased, so is not all: they are yet useful to us, to confirm our faith, while we see their accomplishment, and see how much God still led his church to happiness in one and the same way.
10. On all these accounts therefore we may still read the Old Testament, and preach upon it in the public churches.[403]
[403] 2 Tim. iii. 15; Rom. xv. 4; xvi. 26; Matt. xxii. 29; Luke xxiv. 27, 32, 45; John v. 39; Acts xvii. 2, 11; xviii. 24, 25; John xx. 9; vii. 38, 42; x. 35; xiii. 18; xix. 24, 28; Luke iv. 18, 21; 2 Tim. iii. 16; 2 Pet. i. 19, 20; Acts viii. 32, 33, 35; Rom. i. 2.
Quest. CLVI. _Must we believe that Moses's law did ever bind other nations; or that any other parts of the Scripture bound them, or belong to them? or that the Jews were all God's visible church on earth?_
_Answ._ I conjoin these three questions for despatch.
I. 1. Some of the matter of Moses's law did bind all nations; that is, the law of nature as such.
2. Those that had the knowledge of the Jewish law, were bound collaterally to believe and obey all the expositions of the law of nature in it, and all the laws which were given upon reasons common to all the world; (as about degrees of marriage, particular rules of justice, &c.) As if I heard God from heaven tell another that standeth by me, Thou shalt not marry thy father's widow; for it is abominable, I ought to apply that to me, being his subject, which is spoken to another on a common reason.[404]
3. All those gentiles that would be proselytes, and join with the Jews in their policy, and dwelt among them, were bound to be observers of their laws. But, 1. The law of nature as mosaical, did not formally and directly bind other nations. 2. Nor were they bound to the laws of their peculiar policy, civil or ecclesiastical, which were positives. The reason is, (1.) Because they were all one body of political laws, given peculiarly to one political body. Even the decalogue itself was to them a political law. (2.) Because Moses was not authorized or sent to be the mediator or deliverer of that law to any nation but the Jews. And being never in the enacting or promulgation sent or directed to the rest of the world, it could not bind them.