So also Paul's becoming a Jew to the Jews, and being shaved, and purifying himself, and circumcising Timothy, are evidently temporary compliances in a thing then lawful, for the avoiding of offence, and for the furtherance of the gospel, and no obligatory, perpetual laws to us. And so most divines think the eating of things strangled, and blood, were forbidden for a time to them only that conversed with the Jews, Acts xv. Though Beckman have many reasons for the perpetuity, not contemptible.
So the office of deaconesses (and some think of deacons) seemeth to be fitted to that time, and state, and condition of christians. And where the reasons and case are the same, the obligations will be the same. In a word, the text itself will one way or other show us, when a command or example is universally and durably obligatory, and when not.
Quest. CXXXVII. How much of the Scripture is necessary to salvation, to be believed, and understood?
Answ. This question is the more worthy consideration, that we may withal understand the use of catechisms, confessions, and creeds, (of which after,) and the great and tender mercies of God to the weak, and may be able to answer the cavils of the papists against the Scriptures, as insufficient to be the rule of faith and life, because much of it is hard to be understood.
1. He that believeth God to be true, and the Scripture to be his word, must needs believe all to be true which he believeth to be his word.
2. All the Scripture is profitable to our knowledge, love, and practice; and none of it to be neglected, but all to be loved, reverenced, and studied, in due time and order, by them that have time and capacity to do it.
3. All the holy Scriptures, either as to matter or words, are not so necessary, as that no man can be saved, who doth not either believe or understand them; but some parts of it are more necessary than others.
4. It is not of necessity to salvation to believe every book or verse in Scripture, to be canonical, or written by the Spirit of God. For as the papists' canon is larger than that which the protestants own; so if our canon should prove defective of any one book, it would not follow that we could not be saved for want of a sufficient faith. The churches immediately after the apostles' time, had not each one all their writings, but they were brought together in time, and received by degrees, as they had proof of their being written by authorized, inspired persons. The second of Peter, James, Jude, Hebrews, and Revelation, were received in many churches since the rest. And if some book be lost, (as Enoch's prophecy, or Paul's epistle to the Laodiceans, or any other of his epistles not named in the rest,) or if any hereafter should be lost or doubted of, as the Canticles, or the second or third epistles of John, the epistle of Jude, &c. it would not follow, that all true faith and hope of salvation were lost with it.
It is a controversy whether 1 John v. 7, and some other particular verses, be canonical or not, because some Greek copies have them, and some are without them; but whoever erreth in that only, may be saved.
5. There are many hundred or thousand texts of Scripture, which a man may possibly be ignorant of the meaning of, and yet have a saving faith, and be in a state of salvation. For no man living understandeth it all.