§ 41. 2) In complicated questions, when liberty and necessity are mingled together, rule and example together make the measures. Thus if it be enquired how we are to comport ourselves towards our king, and what are the measures of our duty towards a tyrant or a violent injurious prince, the rule is plain; we must not strike princes for justice, and we must not hurt the Lord's anointed, nor revile the ruler of the people: but if we enquire further concerning the extension of a just defence, the example of David is of great use to us, who not only comported himself by the laws of God and natural essential reason, but his heart smote him for that he had cut off the lap of Saul's garment; and by his example kept us so far within the moderation of necessary defence, that he allowed not any exorbitancy beyond it, though it was harmless and without mischief.

§ 42. 3) In the use of privileges favours and dispensations, where it is evident that there is no rule, because the particular is untied from the ligatures of the law; it is of great concernment that we take in the limits of the best examples. And in this we have the precedent of our blessed Saviour to be our guide: for when in the question of gabels or tribute-money, He had made it appear that Himself was by peculiar privilege and personal right free; yet that He might not do any thing which men would give an ill name to, He would not make use of His right, but of His reason, and rather do Himself an injury than an offence to others. This is of great use in all the like enquiries, because it gave probation that it is better to depart from our right than from our charity; and that privileges are then best made use of, when they are used to edification.

§ 43. 4) In all matters of doubt, when the case seems equal to the conscience on either hand, so that the conscience cannot determine, there the examples of wise and good men are of great use to cast the balance and to determine the action; for to an equal scale every grain that is added will be sufficient to make the determination. If it be disputed whether it be lawful to rely upon the memory of our good works, and make them as an argument of confidence in God; and the rules of conduct seem antinomies, and when we think God's goodness and justice is warrant for the affirmative, and yet the rules and precepts of humility bear us to the negative; between these two, if they stand on equal terms, the example of Hezekiah is sufficient to make the determination.

:

§ 44. 5) The greatest use of examples is in the interpretation of laws when the letter is equivocal, and the sense secret, or the degrees of action not determined, then the practice of good men is the best external measure we can take; for they are like sententiæ judicate in the law, the sentences of judges and the precedents in the like cases, by which the wisest men do often make their determinations. Thus the example of DavidP in dividing the spoil between

[1 Sam. xxx. 24, 5.]

them that fought and them that guarded the stuff, as being a sentence in a question of equity, became a precedent in the armies of Israel for ever after.

§ 45. These are the uses we may make of examples in holy scriptures and ecclesiastic writers, which uses are helps to our weakness, but no arguments of the imperfection of Christ's law; for all these uses are such which suppose us unable to make use of our rule, as in the case of a doubting conscience, or not to understand it, as in case of interpretation; or else are concerning such things which are not direct matter of duty, but come in by way of collateral obligation; as in matter of decency and personal proportions, for which although examples may apply them, yet the laws of Christ have given us the general measures.

§ 46. But then since there is this use to be made of them, and the actions of men in scripture are upon so many accounts, as I before reckoned, inimitable and unfit precedents, the next enquiry is, what are the positive measures by which we may know what examples are imitable and fit to be proceeded in?

THE POSITIVE MEASURES OF EXAMPLE, AND WHICH MAY BE SAFELY FOLLOWED?

§ 47. 1) In this the answer hath but little difficulty, not only because of the cautions already given in the negative measures, but because the enquiry is after examples in cases where the rule is not clear and evident, not understood, or not relied upon; and they being in some sense used only in the destitution of a rule, may with the less scruple be followed, because if there be no rule clear enough to guide the action, neither will there be any to reprove the example. Therefore that which remains is this;

§ 48. 2) That example is safe whose action is warranted by God's blessing. Thus the piety of the Egyptian midwives was imitable, in that they refused to kill the Lord's people at the command of Pharaoh, for it is said, "therefore God did build them houses";" it was mingled with an officious lie, but that was but accidental to their action and no part of its constitution, and therefore not relative to the reward: but whatsoever God says He rewards with a blessing, that in equal circumstances may be safely imitated. I do not say whatsoever is blessed or is prosperous is imitable; for it may be prosperous and yet unblessed in one regard and accursed in another, or successful to-day and blasted to-morrow, or splendid in this world and damned in the next; or permitted for the trial of God's servants, or the extinction of their sins, or the very thriving of it may be the biggest curse, and nurse up the sin into its monstrous ugli

१ [Exod. i. 21.]

ness, and is no other but like the tumour of an ulcer; it swells indeed, and grows very great, but it is a sore all the way, and is a contradiction to prosperity; and sin never thrives, unless it be in the most catachrestical and improper way of speaking in the world: but I say, when it is said, or plainly enough signified in scripture that God did bless the man for so doing, that for which he was blessed, that I say is only imitable. And on the other side though an action be described in story without its mark of good or bad, it is a great condemnation of the action if the event was intolerable, and the proper production was a mischief: and thus was the drunkenness of Lot condemned, because incest was the product, and of Noah, because shame and slavery were the two daughters of it.

§ 49. 3) Because in these examples, for which there is no perfect rule, the concernment is not a direct but a collateral duty, not matter of direct obedience but fame and reputation, that things honest in the sight of all men be provided';' therefore such examples only are to be followed which are of good reports. A man shall not be called a just person if he invades his neighbour's rights, and carries war to dispossess a people that live in peace, upon pretence because we find in scripture that Nimrod did so, because he was an infamous person; but when Joshua kept the Gibeonites alive, because though he was deceived by them yet he swore to them, and yet did make them to be slaves to his people, he is very imitable both in one part and in the other; and we may not break our words upon pretence we were deceived, but yet we may do all that we can justly do for the interest of our relatives; and all this can well depend upon the example of Joshua, because his fame is entire and illustrious, he is accounted a good and a brave man.

50. 4) We must be careful to distinguish the examples of things lawful from the examples of things good and just; and always imitate these, but with caution follow those: not only because what was lawful in the Old testament is not always so in the New, but that what is lawful at all times at some times is not fit to be done. But then, let every example be fitted to the question. If the enquiry be whether this question be holy or no, an example that declares it lawful does not answer that question; but if it be asked whether it be lawful, the example proving it to be holy does conclude the other more strongly.

§ 51. 5) When evident signs of piety, like veins of silver in the grosser earth, are mingled with the example, it adds many degrees of warranty to the determination. Thus our blessed Saviour, in His apology made for His disciple, appealed to the example of David, eating the bread of proposition: it was indeed an argument to them depending upon the fame of the patriarch, but yet our blessed Saviour knew there was in it great charity and lines of piety to his hungry

followers, when David neglected a ceremony that he might do a charity and relieve a necessity; and therefore Christ did it not because David did it, but because he might: David's action was not Christ's warrant, but the piety of the thing was warrant to them both. And, indeed, this is the right use of examples; by the advantage of the man's fame they may reprove an adversary, but by the great lines of piety mingled with the body of the action they may become a precedent for our imitation.

I have now given accounts concerning that principle (mentioned num. 25,) which affirms every thing to be imitable if done and described in the scripture, unless it be signally forbidden.' Concerning the other, 'that nothing is safe or warrantable that is not,' I reserve it for its proper place.

CHAP. III.

OF THE INTERPRETATION AND OBLIGATION OF THE LAWS OF JESUS CHRIST.

RULE I.

IN NEGATIVE PRECEPTS THE AFFIRMATIVES ARE COMMANDED, AND IN THE AFFIRMATIVE COMMANDMENTS THE NEGATIVES ARE INCLUDED.

§ 1. Nor he that gives the law only, but he who authoritatively expounds the law becomes to us a lawgiver: and all who believe in God and in Jesus Christ confess themselves subjects of the christian laws; but all do not obey alike, who confess themselves equally bound, and are equally desirous to obey, because men by new or false or imperfect interpretation of laws become a law unto themselves or others, giving them measures which our blessed Lord never intended; and yet an error in these things is far more dangerous than in a thousand others in which men make greater noises. I shall therefore endeavour to describe plain and rational measures of interpretation, that we may walk securely.

§ 2. It is observable that in the decalogue, and so in the whole law of Moses, there are more negative precepts than affirmative. The Jewish doctors say that there are six hundred and thirteen precepts given by Moses, according to the number of letters in the decalogue, which are six hundred and thirteen. But of these three hundred and forty-eight are affirmative, according to the number of joints of a man's body; but three hundred and sixty-five are negative, according to the number of the days of the year: but to omit these impertinent and airy observations of the Jews, it ministers some useful and material considerations, that in the decalogue all the moral precepts, one only excepted, are negative, (for that of the sabbath is the caput cæremoniarum ;) but that of obedience to our superiors is only positive and affirmative. The reasons were these, by which also we can understand the usefulness of the observation.

3. 1) Because this being the first great reformation of the world was to proceed by the measures of nature, from imperfection to [De Voisin, observat. in procm. Martini Pugionis fidei,' p. 86. ed. fol. Lips.