In a word, we plainly perceive by the difference of those three laws which the Jews received at the hands of God, the moral, ceremonial, and judicial, that if the end for which and the matter according whereunto God maketh his laws continue always one and the same, his laws also do the like; for which cause the moral law cannot be altered: secondly, that whether the matter whereon laws are made continue or continue not, if their end have once ceased, they cease also to be of force; as in the law ceremonial it fareth: finally, that albeit the end continue, as in that law of theft specified and in a great part of those ancient judicials it doth; yet forasmuch as there is not in all respects the same subject or matter remaining for which they were first instituted, even this is sufficient cause of change: and therefore laws, though both ordained of God himself, and the end for which they were ordained continuing, may notwithstanding cease, if by alteration of persons or times they be found unsufficient to attain unto that end. In which respect why may we not presume that God doth even call for such change or alteration as the very condition of things themselves doth make necessary?

They which do therefore plead the authority of the law-maker as an argument, wherefore it should not be lawful to change that which he hath instituted, and will have this the cause why all the ordinances of our Saviour are immutable; they which urge the wisdom of God as a proof, that whatsoever laws he hath made they ought to stand, unless himself from heaven proclaim them disannulled, because it is not in man to correct the ordinance of God; may know, if it please them to take notice thereof, that we are far from presuming to think that men can better any thing which God hath done, even as we are from thinking that men should presume to undo some things of men, which God doth know they cannot better. God never ordained any thing that could be bettered. Yet many things he hath that have been changed, and that for the better. That which succeedeth as better now when change is requisite, had been worse when that which now is changed was instituted. Otherwise God had not then left this to choose that, neither would now reject that to choose this, were it not for some new-grown occasion making that which hath been better worse. In this case therefore men do not presume to change God’s ordinance, but they yield thereunto requiring itself to be changed.

Against this it is objected, that to abrogate or innovate the Gospel of Christ if men or angels should attempt, it were most heinous and cursed sacrilege. And the Gospel (as they say) containeth not only doctrine instructing men how they should believe, but also precepts concerning the regiment of the Church. Discipline therefore is “a part of the Gospel⁶;” and God being the author of the whole Gospel, as well of discipline as of doctrine, it cannot be but that both of them “have a common cause.” So that as we are to believe for ever the articles of evangelical doctrine, so the precepts of discipline we are in like sort bound for ever to observe.

Touching points of doctrine, as for example, the Unity of God, the Trinity of Persons, salvation by Christ, the resurrection of the body, life everlasting, the judgment to come, and such like, they have been since the first hour that there was a Church in the world, and till the last they must be believed. But as for matters of regiment, they are for the most part of another nature. To make new articles of faith and doctrine no man thinketh it lawful; new laws of government what commonwealth or church is there which maketh not either at one time or another? “The rule of faith⁷,” saith Tertullian, “is but one, and that alone immoveable and impossible to be framed or cast anew.” The law of outward order and polity not so⁸. There is no reason in the world wherefore we should esteem it as necessary always to do, as always to believe, the same things; seeing every man knoweth that the matter of faith is constant, the matter contrariwise of action daily changeable, especially the matter of action belonging unto church polity. Neither can I find that men of soundest judgment have any otherwise taught, than that articles of belief, and things which all men must of necessity do to the end they may be saved, are either expressly set down in Scripture, or else plainly thereby to be gathered. But touching things which belong to discipline and outward polity, the Church hath authority to make canons, laws, and decrees, even as we read that in the Apostles’ times it did⁹. Which kind of laws (forasmuch as they are not in themselves necessary to salvation) may after they are made be also changed as the difference of times or places shall require. Yea, it is not denied I am sure by themselves, that certain things in discipline are of that nature, as they may be varied by times, places, persons, and other the like circumstances. Whereupon I demand, are those changeable points of discipline commanded in the word of God or no? If they be 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 we should more change the one than we may the other. If 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.

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 to avoid it, we are fain to argue for the changeableness of laws ordained even by God himself, as if otherwise theirs of necessity should take place, and that under which we live be abandoned. There is no remedy therefore but to abate this error in them, and directly to let them know, that if they fall into any such conceit, they do but a little flatter their own cause. As for us, we think in no respect so highly of it. Our persuasion is, that no age ever had knowledge of it but only ours; that they which defend it devised it; that neither Christ nor his Apostles at any time taught it, but the contrary. If therefore we did seek to maintain that which most advantageth our own cause, the very best way for us and the strongest against them were to hold even as they do, that in Scripture there must needs be found some particular form of church polity which God hath instituted, and which for that very cause belongeth to all churches, to all times¹⁰. But with 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 untruth¹¹ can possibly avail the patron and defender long, and that things most truly are likewise most behovefully spoken.

---

← How laws for the regiment of the Church may · Contents · Whether Christ have forbidden all change of →

Footnotes

1. Deut. xxii. 10, 11. [Spencer (de Legg. Hebræor. lib. ii. c. 31, 33.) conjectures, but without direct evidence, that these were prohibitions of Sabæan ceremonies.] ↩

2. “Quod pro necessitate temporis statutum est, cessante necessitate, debet cessare pariter quod urgebat.” i. q. 1. Quod pro necessit. [i. e. Decr. Gratiani, pars 1. causa 1. qu. 1. c. 41. in Corp. Jur. Canon. 116.] ↩

3. Acts xv. 28. ↩

4. Counterp. p. 8. [Cosin in his “Answer to the Abstract,” had produced the change of time in celebrating the Eucharist, from the evening after supper, to the morning before the first meal, as an instance of the authority left with the Church to vary matters of discipline. The author of the Counter-poison replies, “As it is a mere circumstance of time, so the alteration hath ground in the Scripture, because one and the same time is not always kept. Acts iii. 42; xx. 7, 11, &c. Neither can that be said to be according to the institution, which being done upon a particular cause (as all divines agree) should not be observed where that cause ceaseth.” T. C. ii. 465. “Neither any man, nor all men in the world, could have put down the temporal ministeries of Apostles, Evangelists, &c. which the Lord ordained, unless the Lord himself had withdrawn them.”] ↩

5. [Exod. xxii. 1; 2 Sam. xii. 6.] ↩

6. “We offer to shew the discipline to be a part of the Gospel, and therefore to have a common cause; so that in the repulse of the discipline the Gospel receives a check.” And again, “I speak of the discipline as of a part of the Gospel, and therefore neither under nor above the Gospel, but the Gospel.” T. C. lib. ii. p. 1, 4. [These latter words are in p. 5, but in p. 4 are the following: “The discipline being, as it is propounded, and offered to be proved, a part of the Gospel, must needs arm the Lord against the refuser.”] ↩

7. Tert. de Veland. Virg. c. 1. ↩

8. Mart. [i. e. Peter Martyr] in 1 Sam. xiv. [“Positum sit, licere Ecclesiæ scribere sibi aut canones, aut leges, aut decreta, aut sanctiones, aut quocunque ea velis nomine appellari. Est enim Ecclesia cœtus, et regi debet verbo Dei, præsertim quod attinet ad salutem ipsius, et cultum Dei. Sed sunt alia, quæ tantum pertinent ad externam disciplinam … Istarum legum finis esse debet ædificatio et εὐταξία. Quoniam autem necessariæ non sunt, pro temporum et locorum ratione mutari possunt.”] ↩

9. Acts xv. ↩

10. “Disciplina est Christianæ Ecclesiæ Politia, a Deo ejus recte administrandæ causa constituta, 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.] ↩

11. Ἐοίκασιν οὐ̑ν οἱ ἀληθει̑ς τω̑ν λόγων οὐ μόνον πρὸς τὸ εἰδέναι χρησιμώτατοι εἰ̑ναι, ἀλλὰ καὶ πρὸς τὸν βίον. Συνῳδοὶ γὰρ ὄντες ἔργοις, πιστεύονται. Arist. Ethic. lib. x. cap. 1. ↩