18. Yea, it will tempt men at last to infidelity; for Satan will quickly teach them to argue, that if Scripture be a perfect, particular rule, for forty things that were never there, then it is defective, and is not of God, but an undertaking of that which is not performed, and therefore is but a deceit.
19. And the notoriousness and ridiculousness of this error, will tempt the profane to make religious people a scorn.
20. Lastly, and rulers will be tempted in church and state, to take such persons for intolerable in all societies, and such whose principles are inconsistent with government. And no thanks to this opinion, if they be not tempted to dislike the Scripture itself, and instead of it to fly to the papists' traditions, and the church's legislative sovereignty, or worse.
But here also remember that I charge none with all this, but those before described.
[386] Isa. v. 20, 21.
[387] Col. ii 21-23.
Quest. CXXXVI. How shall we know what parts of Scripture precept or example were intended for universal, constant obligations, and what were but for the time and persons that they were then directed to?
Answ. It is not to be denied, but some things in Scripture, even in the New Testament, are not laws, much less universal and perpetual. And the difference is to be found in the Scripture itself.
1. All that is certainly of universal and perpetual obligation, which is but a transcript of the universal and perpetual law of nature.
2. And all that which hath the express characters of universality and perpetuity upon it; and such are all the substantial parts of the gospel; as, "Except ye repent, ye shall all perish," Luke xiii. 3, 5. "Except a man be born again, he cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven," John iii. 3, 5. "He that believeth in him, shall not perish, but have everlasting life," John iii. 16. "He that believeth and is baptized, shall be saved, and he that believeth not shall be damned," Mark xvi. 16. "Without holiness none shall see God," Heb. xii. 14. "Go, preach the gospel to all nations, baptizing them, &c. teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you," Matt, xxviii. 19, 20. Abundance such texts have the express characters of universality and perpetuity (which many call morality).