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.