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who have the weakness of infancy. But I added also that the uninstructed have the same pretension, for according as their degrees of ignorance are, so are the degrees of their excusable infirmity. But then by uninstructed' is only meant such who have not heard, or could not learn; not such who are ever learning and never sufficiently taught; that is, such who love to hear but not to be doers of the word, such who are perverse and immorigerous, such who serve a humour or an interest, an opinion or a peevish sect in their learning. For there are some who have spent much time in the inquiries of religion, whom if you call ignorant, they suppose themselves injured; and yet will require the privileges and compliances of the weak: these men trouble others, and therefore are not to be eased themselves; their weakness of state is the impotency of passion, and therefore they must not rejoice in that by which they make others grieved.

13. (2.) They are to be complied with according to the foregoing measures, who in all things where they know and can, do their hearty endeavours, and make no abatement to themselves, but with diligence and sincerity prosecute their duty. For this diligence and sincerity are a competent testimony that the principle of their necessity is not evil but innocent and unavoidable. Whatsoever is not an effect of idleness or peevishness, may come in upon a fair, but always comes in upon a pitiable account; and therefore is that subject which is capable of all that ease and rigour and severity which the wise masters of assemblies and interpreters of the divine laws do allow to any persons in any cases.

14. (3.) The last sign of subjects capable of ease, is infirmity of body; and that is a certain disposition to all the mercies and remissions of the law in such cases as relate to the body, and are instanced in external ministries. To which also is to be referred disability of estate in duties of exterior charity; which are to be exacted according to the proportions of men's civil power, taking in the needs of their persons and of their relations, their calling and their quality. And that God intends it should be so appears in this; because all outward duties are so enjoined that they can be supplied, and the internal grace instanced in other actions, of which there are so many kinds that some or other can be done by every one; and yet there is so great variety that no man or but

very few men can do all. I instance in the several ways of mortification, viz. by fastings, by watchings and pernoctations in prayer, lyings on the ground, by toleration and patience, laborious gestures of the body in prayer, standing with arms extended, long kneelings on the bare ground, suffering contradiction and affronts, lessenings and undervaluings, peevish and cross accidents, denying ourselves lawful pleasures, refusing a pleasant morsel, leaving society and meetings of friends, and very many things of the like nature; by any of which the body may be mortified and the soul disciplined: or the outward act may be supplied by an active and intense love which can do every thing of duty: so also it is in alms, which some do by giving money to the poor; some by comforting the afflicted, some by giving silver and gold, others which have it not, do yet do greater things: but since it matters not what it is we are able to do, so that we do but what we are able,-it matters not how the grace be instanced, so that by all the instances we can, we do minister to the grace, it follows, that the law can be made to bend in any thing of the external instance, so that the inward grace be not neglected; but therefore it is certain that because every thing of matter can by matter be hindered; and a string or a chain of iron can hinder all the duty of the hand and foot, God who imposes and exacts nothing that is impossible, is contented that the obedience of the spirit be secured, and the body must obey the law as well as it can.

But there are some other considerations to be added to the main rule.

15. (5.) When the action is already done, and that there is no further deliberation concerning the direct duty, yet the law is not at all to be eased and lessened, if there be a deliberation concerning the collateral and accidental duty of repentance: and this is upon the same reasons as the first limitation of the rule: for when a duty is to be done, and a deliberation to be had, we are in perfect choice, and therefore we are to answer for God and for religion: and this is all one, whether the inquiry be made in the matter of innocence or repentance, that is, in the preventing of a sin or curing of it. For we are in all things tied to as great a care of our duty after we have once broken it, as before; and in some things to a greater; and repentance is nothing but a new

beginning of our duty, a going from our error, and a recovery of our loss, and a restitution of our health, and a being put into the same estate from whence we were fallen; so that at least all the same severities are to be used in repentance, as great a rigour of sentence, as strict a caution, as careful a walking, as humble and universal an obedience, besides the sorrow and the relative parts of duty, which come in upon the account of our sin.

16. (6.) But if the inquiry be made after the sin is done, and that there is no deliberation concerning any present or future duty, but concerning the hopes or state of pardon, then we may hope that God will be easy to give us pardon, according to the gentlest sense and measures of the law. For this, provided it be not brought into evil example in the measures of duty afterward, can have in it no danger: it is matter of hope, and therefore keeps a man from despair; but because it is but matter of hope, therefore it is not apt to abuse him into presumption, and if it be mistaken in the measures of the law, yet it makes it up upon the account of God's mercy, and it will be all one; either it is God's mercy in making an easy sense of the law, or God's mercy in giving an easy sentence on the man, or God's mercy in easing and taking off the punishment, and that will be all one as to the event, and therefore will be a sufficient warrant for our hope, because it will some way or other come to pass as we hope. It is all alike whether we be saved because God will exact no more of us, or because though he did exact more by his law, yet he will pardon so much the more in the sentence: but this is of use only to them who are tempted to despair, or oppressed by too violent fears; and it relies upon all the lines of the divine mercy, and upon all the arguments of comfort by which declining hopes use to be supported: and since we ourselves, by observing our incurable infirmities, espy some necessities of having the law read in the easier sense, we do, in the event of things, find that we have a need of pardon greater than we could think we should in the heats of our first conversion, and the fervours of our newly-returning piety; and therefore God does not only see much more reason to pity us upon the same account; but upon divers others, some whereof we know, and some we know not; but therefore we can hope for more than we yet see in the lines

of revelation, and possibly we may receive in many cases better measure than we yet hope for: but whoever makes this hope to lessen his duty, will find himself ashamed in his hope; for no hope is reasonable but that which quickens our piety, and hastens and perfects our repentance, and purifies the soul, and engages all the powers of action, and ends in the love of God, and in a holy life.

17. (7.) There are many other things to be added by way of assistance to them, who are pressed with the burden of a law severely apprehended, or unequally applied, or not rightly understood; but the sum of them is this.

1. If the sense be hidden or dubious, do nothing till the cloud be off, and the doubt be removed.

2. If the law be indifferent to two senses, take that which

is most pious and most holy.

3. If it be between two, but not perfectly indifferent, follow that which is most probable.

4. Do after the custom and common usages of the best and wisest men.

5. Do with the most, and speak with the least.

6. Ever bend thy determination to comply with the analogy of faith, and the common measures of good life, and the glorifications and honour of God, and the utility of our neighbour.

7. Then choose thy part of obedience, and do it cheerfully and confidently, with a great industry and a full persuasion.

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8. After the action is done, enter into no new disputes, whether it was lawful or no, unless it be upon new instances and new arguments, relating to what is to come,and not troubling thyself with that, which with prudence and deliberation thou didst (as things were then represented) well and wisely choose.

RULE XI.

The positive Laws of Jesus Christ cannot be dispensed with by any human Power.

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1. I HAVE already in this book given account of the indis pensability of the natural laws, which are the main consti tuent parts of the evangelical; but there are some positive laws whose reason is not natural nor eternal, which yet Christ hath superinduced; concerning which there is great question made whether they be dispensable by human power. Now concerning these I say, that all laws given by Christ are now made for ever to be obligatory, and he is the King of heaven and earth, the head and prince of the catholic church, and therefore hath supreme power; and he is the "wonderful Counsellor, the everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace," and his wisdom is supreme, he is the wisdom of the Father, and therefore he hath made his laws so wisely, so agreeably to the powers and accidents of mankind, that they can be observed by all men and all ways, where he hath passed an obligation. Now because every dispensation of laws must needs suppose an infirmity or imperfection in the law, or an infirmity in the man, that is, that either the law did infer inconvenience which was not foreseen, or was unavoidable; or else the law meets with the changes of mankind with which it is not made in the sanction to comply, and therefore must be forced to yield to the needs of the man, and stand aside till that necessity be passed: it follows that in the laws of the holy Jesus there is no dispensation; because there is in the law no infirmity, and no incapacity in the man: for every man can always obey all that which Christ commanded and exacted: I mean, he hath no natural impotency to do any act that Christ hath required, and he can never be hindered from doing of his duty.

2. (1.) And this appears in this; because God hath appointed a harbour whither every vessel can put in, when he meets with storms and contrary winds abroad: and when we are commanded by a persecutor not to obey God, we cannot be forced to comply with the evil man; for we can be secure against him by suffering what he pleases, and therefore disChap. 1. rule 10.

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