further: that whereas these things were said to be necessary Enávayxes, the meaning of the word is not absolute but relative; for it is in' άváyuns exe, to have a thing under some necessary condition,' and so it happened to them to whom the apostles wrote; for they were Gentile proselytes before they were Christian, and so were tied to observe the seven precepts of Noah, before the Jews would converse with them; and, therefore, that this did not concern the Gentiles, after they were an entire church: for although it did, while the separation lasted, and that there were two bishops in some great churches, as in Rome and Ephesus: yet when the church was of Gentiles only, or conversed not with Jews, this could not relate to them. That blood should be forbidden in the formality of meat is infinitely against the analogy of the Gospel: the decretory and dogmatical words of Christ being," that nothing which enters into the mouth, defiles a man:" and the words of St. Paul' are permissive and preceptive, "Whatsoever is sold in the shambles, eat, asking no question for conscience-sake. For meat commendeth us not to God; for neither if we eat, are we the better, neither if we eat not, are we the worse:" and "the kingdom of God consisteth not in meat and drink, but in righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghosts." The result is this, that blood, as it is a meat, cannot be supposed here to be directly forbidden as naturally unlawful, or essentially evil, or of a proper turpitude: but if the apostles had forbidden the very eating of blood as meat, it must be supposed to be a temporary and relative command which might expire by the ceasing of the reason, and did expire by desuetude; but since it was not so, but a permitting the Gentile proselytes and encouraging them, for present reasons, to abstain from running or life blood in the sense above explicated, according to the sense of the Jewish doctors and their disciples, it no way can oblige Christians to abstain from blood when it is dead, and altered, and not relative to that evil which was intended to be forbidden by God to Noah, and was afterwards continued to the Jews. I end this with the words of Tertullian," Claves macelli tibi tradidit,

permittens esui omnia ad constituendam idolothytorum exceptionem;""God hath given to "God hath given to us the keys of the shambles, only he hath forbidden the pollution of idols :”— in all other things you have your liberty of eating.

I am only now to give an account of the reasons of the ancient churches, why so pertinaciously and so long they refused to eat boiled blood, or any thing of that nature. But for that it is the less wonder, when we consider, that they found it enjoined by all the churches where the Jews were mingled; and the necessity lasted in some places till the apostles were dead, and the churches were persecuted: and then men use to be zealous in little things, and curious observers of letters; and when the succeeding ages had found the precedents of martyrs zealous in that instance, it is no wonder if they thought the article sufficiently recommended to them. 2. But if we list to observe that the Pythagorean philosophers were then very busy and interested in the persuasions of men and sects, and Pythagoras, and Plato, and Socrates, had great names amongst the leading Christians, it is no wonder if, in the percolation, something of the relish should remain, especially having a warrant so plausible to persuade, and so easy to mistake as this decretal of the apostles, and the example of the ancients living in that time, which the heathens call the golden age. At vetus illa ætas, cui fecimus Aurea nomen, Fœtibus arboreis, et, quas humus educat, herbis Fortunata fuit, nec polluit ora cruore".

Single life, and abstinence from certain meats, and refusing of blood, and severity of discipline, and days of abstinence, were sometimes persuaded, sometimes promoted, sometimes urged, sometimes made more necessary, by the Montanists, the Essenes, the Manichees, the Novatians, the Encratites, the Pythagoreans, and the very heathen themselves, — when, because they would pretend severity, it became fit. that the Christians should not be or seem inferior to them in self-denial, discipline, and austerities, But I shall make no more conjectures in this matter; since if the church at that time did enjoin it, the canon was to be obeyed, and, it may be, in some places it was practised upon that stock; upon

" Ov. M. xv. 96, Mitscherl. vol. ii. pag. 125.

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any other just ground, it could not, as I have already proved.. Only this; it cannot be denied but in the western church, where this decree and the consequent custom was quickly. worn out, though it lasted longer even to this day in the Greek church, and Balsamo inveighs against the Latins for their carelessness in this article: yet there were some intervals, in, which, by chance, this decree did prevail; but it was when the bishops of Rome were so ignorant, that they could not distinguish the Old Testament from the New, but in some particulars did judaize. I instance in pope Zechary, before mentioned; who, in his decretal to Boniface, the archbishop. of Mentz, is very curious to warn him to forbid all Christians with whom he had to do, they should abstain from some certain sorts of birds, as jackdaws, crows, and storks; but especially that Christians should eat no hares, nor beavers, nor wild horses: and the council of Worms determined something to the like purpose, not much wiser; but what was decreed then, was long before reproved by St. Austin, affirming, that if any Christian made a scruple of eating strangled birds, in whom the blood remained, he was derided by the rest and that this thing, which was useful in the infancy of the church, should be obtruded upon her in her strength, is as if we should persuade strong men to live upon milk, because their tender mothers gave it them as the best nourishment of their infancy.

This thing being cleared, I know no other difficulty concerning the choice of meats in particular, or the retention of the ceremonial law in general, or in any of its instances, but what will more properly be handled under other titles.

RULE III.

The Judicial Law of Moses is annulled, or abrogated, and·· retains no obliging Power, either in whole or in part, over 2 any Christian Prince, Commonwealth, or Person.

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EITHER the judicial was wholly civil, or it was part of the religion. If it was wholly secular and civil, it goes away,,

x Cont. Faustum Manich. lib. xxxii. c. 13.

with that commonwealth, to whom it was given; if it was part of the religion, it goes away with the temple, with the lawgiver's authority by cession to the greater, with the priesthood, with the covenant of works, with the revelation, and reign of the Messias: and though the instances of this, law, proceeding from the wisest lawgiver, are good guides to princes and commonwealths, where the same reasons are applicable in like circumstances of things, and in equal capacities of the subjects, yet it is wholly without obligation. In the judicial law, theft was not punished with death, but with the restitution of fourfold; and unless the necessities of: a republic shall enforce it, it were consonant to the design of: Christian religion, the interest of souls, their value, and: pity, that a life should not be set in balance over against al sheep or a cup. In the judicial law of Moses, adultery was punished with death; but it will not be prudent for a com-: monwealth to write after this copy, unless they have as great reason and the same necessity, and the same effect be likely to be consequent; it was highly fitting there, where it was so necessary to preserve the genealogies, and where every family had honours, and inheritances, and expectations of its own, and one whole tribe expected in each house the revelation of the Messias, and where the crime of adultery was infinitely more inexcusable by the permission of divorces and polygamy than it can with us. But with us, and so in every nation, many considerations ought to be ingredient into the constitution of a capital law: but they have their liberty, and are only tied up with the rules and analogies of the Christian law only the judicial law of Moses is not to be pretended as an example and rule to us, because it came from a divine principle; unless every thing else fit it by which the proportions were made in that commonwealth ; for although God made aprons for Adam and Eve, it would: not be a comely fashion for the gallants of our age and countries. But concerning this who desires to see long and full discourses, I refer him to Gulielmus Zepperus 'de legibus Mosaicis,' and the preface of Calvin, the lawyer, to his 'Themis Hebræo-Romana."

But the thing in general is confessed, and the arguments now alleged make it certain: but then why it should not be so in every particular, when it is confessed to be so in the

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general, I do not understand; since there are no exceptions or reservations of any particular in the new law, the law of Christianity. But in two great instances this article hath difficulty; the one is, 1. The approach of a man to his wife during her usual term of separation. 2. The other is concerning the degrees of kindred hindering marriage; both which being taken express care of in the judicial law, and yet nothing at all said of them in the laws of Christ, are yet supposed to be as obligatory to Christians now, as to the Jews of old. Of these I shall now give account, because they are of great use in the rule of conscience, and with much unquietness and noise talked of, and consciences afflicted with prejudices and authority, with great names and little reasons.

Quest. Whether the judicial law of mutual abstinence in the days of women's separation, obliges Christian pairs?

The judicial law declared it to be twice penal. Once it only inferred a legal uncleanness for seven days. Levit. xv. 24. But in the Levit. xx. 18, it is made capital to them both: "they shall be both cut off from the people."

From hence, Aquinas, Alexander of Ales, Bonaventure, and Scotus, affirm it to be a mortal sin for a husband then to approach to her: Peludanus and Cajetan deny it; and amongst the casuists, it is with great difference affirmed or denied but with very trifling pretences, as if they were to give laws, and not to inform consciences upon just grounds of reason or religion.

They who suppose it to be unlawful, affirm this law to be ceremonial, judicial, and moral. It is ceremonial, because it inferred a legal impurity; or separation for seven days. It is judicial, by its appendant sentence of death, and a capital infliction. It is moral, because it is against charity, as being hurtful to the child in case any be begotten by such approaches. The whole ceremoniality of it is confessedly gone; but the punishment of it in the judicial law being capital, they urge it as an argument that it is moral. So that the whole weight lies upon this. That which was by the law of God punished with death, was more than a mere ceremony, and must contain in it some natural obliquity and turpitude. And in this case we need not to go far in our inquiry after it; for it is because of the great un

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