Ch. xi. 6. 456 Drift of the Council of Jerusalem's Decree: BOOK IV. positive laws the Apostles did bring in between the churches of Jews and Gentiles, it was in those things only which might either cease or continue a shorter or longer time, as occasion did most require; the second, that they did not impose upon the churches of the Gentiles any part of the Jews' ordinances with bond of necessary and perpetual observation, (as we all both by doctrine and practice acknowledge,) but only in respect of the conveniency and fitness for the present state of the Church as then it stood. The words of the council's decree concerning the Gentiles are, "It seemed good to the "Holy Ghost and to us, to lay upon you no more burden "saving only those things of necessity, abstinence from idol"offerings, from strangled and blood, and from fornication 98." So that in other things positive which the coming of Christ did not necessarily extinguish the Gentiles were left altogether free. [6.] Neither ought it to seem unreasonable that the Gentiles should necessarily be bound and tied to Jewish ordinances, so far forth as that decree importeth. For to the Jew, who knew that their difference from other nations which were aliens and strangers from God, did especially consist in this, that God's people had positive ordinances given to them of God himself, it seemed marvellous hard, that the Christian Gentiles should be incorporated into the same commonwealth with God's own chosen people, and be subject to no part of his statutes, more than only the law of nature, which heathens count themselves bound unto. It was an opinion constantly received amongst the Jews, that God did deliver unto the sons of Noah seven precepts namely, first, to live in some form of regiment under public laws; secondly, to serve and call upon the name of God; thirdly, to shun idolatry; fourthly, not to suffer effusion of blood; fifthly, to abhor all unclean knowledge in the flesh; sixthly, to commit no rapine; seventhly, and finally, not to eat of any living creature whereof the blood was not first let out 99. cited is cap. 5, p. 16. ed. Meyer. Amstelæd. 1699. "From the Red 98 [Acts xv. 28.] 99 Lib. qui Seder Olam inscribitur. [Or "The World's Order," being a summary of events and dates from the creation to the War of Bar Cochab, supposed to have been written about A. D. 130. Wolf. Bibl. Hebr. i. 491. ed. 1715. The passage sea they journied unto Marah... "There were given unto Israel ten precepts; [Exod. xv. 23, 25.] seven of them, concerning which "commandment had been given "to the sons of Noah.] 1. 2 its Reference to the Seven Precepts of Noah. 457 Ch. xỉ. 7. If therefore the Gentiles would be exempt from the law of BOOK IV. Moses, yet it might seem hard they should also cast off even those things positive which were observed before Moses, and which were not of the same kind with laws that were necessarily to cease. And peradventure hereupon the council saw it expedient to determine, that the Gentiles should, according unto the third, the seventh, and the fifth, of those precepts, abstain from things sacrificed unto idols, from strangled and blood, and from fornication. The rest the Gentiles did of their own accord observe, nature leading them thereto. [7.] And did not nature also teach them to abstain from fornication? No doubt it did. Neither can we with reason think, that as the former two are positive, so likewise this, being meant as the Apostle doth otherwise usually understand it'. But very marriage within a number of degrees being not only by the law of Moses, but also by the law of the sons of Noah (for so they took it) an unlawful discovery of nakedness; this discovery of nakedness by unlawful marriages such as Moses in the law reckoneth up2, I think it for mine own part more probable to have been meant in the words of that canon, than fornication according unto the sense of the law of nature. Words must be taken according to the matter whereof they are uttered. The Apostles command to abstain from blood. Construe this meaning according to the law of nature, and it will seem that homicide only is forbidden. But construe it in reference to the law of the Jews about which the question was, and it shall easily appear to have a clean other sense, and in any man's judgment a truer, when we expound it of eating and not of shedding blood. So if we speak of fornication, he that knoweth no law but only the law of nature must needs make thereof a narrower construction, than he which measureth the same by a law, wherein sundry kinds Ch. xi. 8, 9. 458 Economy of the Church in respect of Jewish Rites. BOOK IV. even of conjugal copulation are prohibited as impure, unclean, unhonest. St. Paul himself doth term incestuous marriage fornication3. If any do rather think that the Christian Gentiles themselves, through the loose and corrupt custom of those times, took simple fornication for no sin, and were in that respect offensive unto believing Jews, which by the Law had been better taught; our proposing of another conjecture is unto theirs no prejudice1. [8.] Some things therefore we see there were, wherein the Gentiles were forbidden to be like unto the Jews; some things wherein they were commanded not to be unlike. Again, some things also there were, wherein no law of God did let but that they might be either like or unlike, as occasion should require. And unto this purpose Leo saith3, Apostolical ordinance (beloved,) knowing that our Lord "Jesus Christ came not into this world to undo the law, hath "in such sort distinguished the mysteries of the Old Testa"ment, that certain of them it hath chosen out to benefit evan gelical knowledge withal, and for that purpose appointed "that those things which before were Jewish might now be "Christian customs." The cause why the Apostles did thus conform the Christians as much as might be according to the pattern of the Jews, was to rein them in by this mean the more, and to make them cleave the better. [9.] The Church of Christ hath had in no one thing so many and so contrary occasions of dealing as about Judaism: some having thought the whole Jewish Law wicked and damnable in itself; some not condemning it as the former sort absolutely, have notwithstanding judged it either sooner necessary to be abrogated, or further unlawful to be observed than truth can bear: some of scrupulous simplicity urging perpetual and universal observation of the law of Moses necessary, Errors about the Law: Contempt of the Lessons. 459 Ch, xi, 1. as the Christian Jews at the first in the Apostles' times; BOOK IV: some as heretics, holding the same no less even after the contrary determination set down by consent of the Church at Jerusalem; finally some being herein resolute through mere infidelity, and with open professed enmity against Christ, as unbelieving Jews. To control slanderers of the Law and Prophets, such as Marcionites and Manichees were, the Church in her liturgies hath intermingled with readings out of the New Testament lessons taken out of the Law and Prophets; whereunto Tertullian alluding, saith of the Church of Christ", "It inter"mingleth with evangelical and apostolical writings the Law "and the Prophets; and from thence it drinketh in that "faith, which with water it sealeth, clotheth with the Spirit, "nourisheth with the Eucharist, with martyrdom setteth "forward." They would have wondered in those times to hear, that any man being not a favourer of heresy should term this by way of disdain, "mangling of the Gospels and Epistles7." [10.] They which honour the Law as an image of the wisdom of God himself, are notwithstanding to know that the same had an end in Christ. But what? Was the Law so abolished with Christ, that after his ascension the office of Priests became immediately wicked, and the very name hateful, as importing the exercise of an ungodly functions? No, as long as the glory of the Temple continued, and till the time of that final desolation was accomplished, the very Christian Jews did continue with their sacrifices and other parts of legal service. That very Law therefore which our Saviour was to abolish, did not so soon become unlawful to be BOOK IV. Ch. xi, II, 460 Judaizers: Cautions by Councils against them; observed as some imagine; nor was it afterwards unlawful so [11.] Touching such as through simplicity of error did urge universal and perpetual observation of the Law of Moses at the first, we have spoken already. Against Jewish heretics and false apostles teaching afterwards the selfsame, St. Paul in every epistle commonly either disputeth or giveth warning. Jews that were zealous for the Law, but withal infidels in respect of Christianity, and to the name of Jesus Christ most spiteful enemies, did while they flourished no less persecute the Church than heathens. After their estate was overthrown, they were not that way so much to be feared. Howbeit, because they had their synagogues in every famous city almost throughout the world, and by that means great opportunity to withdraw from the Christian faith, which to do they spared no labour; this gave the church occasion to make sundry laws against them. As in the council of Laodicea 9 Conc. Laod. Can. 37, 38. ["Non "oportet a Judæis vel hæreticis "feriatica quæ mittuntur accipere, cum eis dies agere festos. "nec "Non oportet a Judæis azyma ac"cipere, aut communicare impieta"tibus corum." Conc. Reg. II. 116.] T. C. lib. i. p. 132. [103.] |