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PÆDOBAPTISM EXAMINED,

&c.

CHAPTER I.

Concerning the Nature, Obligation, and Importance of Positive Institutions in Religion.

DR. DODDRIDGE.-"Those are called positive institutions or precepts, which are not founded upon any reasons known to those to whom they are given, or discoverable by them, but which are observed merely because some superior has commanded them." Lectures, Definit. lxxi. p. 238.

2. Bp. Taylor." All institutions sacramental, and positive laws, depend not upon the nature of the things themselves, according to the extension or diminution of which our obedience might be measured; but they depend wholly on the will of the Lawgiver, and the will of the Supreme, being actually limited to this specification, this manner, this matter, this institution: whatsoever comes besides, it hath no foundation in the will of the Legislator, and therefore can have no warrant or authority. That it be obeyed, or not obeyed, is all the question and all the variety. If it can be obeyed, it must; if it cannot, it must be let alone....Whatsoever depends upon a divine law or institution, whatsoever God wills, whatsoever is appointed instrumental to the signification of a mystery, or to the collation of a grace or a power, he that does any thing of his own head, either must be a despiser of God's will, or must suppose himself the author of a grace, or else to do nothing at

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all in what he does; because all his obedience and all the blessing of his obedience depend upon the will of God, which ought always to be obeyed when it can : and when it cannot, nothing can supply it, because the reason of it cannot be understood.... All positive precepts, that depend upon the mere will of the lawgiver, admit no degrees, nor suppletory and commutation; because in such laws we see nothing beyond the words of the law, and the first meaning, and the named instance and therefore it is that in individuo which God points at; it is that in which he will make the trial of our obedience; it is that in which he will so perfectly be obeyed, that he will not be disputed with or enquired of, why and how, but just according to the measures there set down; so, and no more and no less, and no otherwise. For when the will of the lawgiver is all the reason, the first instance of the law is all the measure, and there can be no product but what is just set down. No parity of reason can infer any thing else; because there is no reason but the will of God, to which nothing can be equal, because his will can be but one." Ductor Dub. b. ii. chap. iii. § 14, 18.

3. Mr. Reeves." The distinction of obligations between moral and positive duties is to be understood with great caution. For though the goodness of a law be a great motive and inducement to obedience, yet the formal reason of obligation does not arise from the goodness of a law, but from the authority and will of the legislator. God commands a thing which was before indifferent; therefore that thing is as much a law as if it was never so good in its own nature he forbade the eating of a tree in the midst of the garden, which without that prohibition had been indifferent. But Adam, and in him all his posterity, was condemned for the breach of a law purely positive.... When God therefore says, that he will have mercy and not sacrifice,' it is not to be understood as if God would have

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any of his laws broken; but, as our Saviour explains it, 'These ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone.' I ask then, what are natural laws? Why, what we conclude merely from the light of nature that God has commanded or forbidden, either to be believed or done. What then are positive laws? Why, what we know to be the will of God by his express word only. In both cases then we see, that it is the will of God, and not the goodness of the thing, or the manner of the discovery, which induces the obligation.” Apologies, vol. ii. p. 217, 218, edit. 1709.

4. Dr. Fiddes.-"The distinction between positive law and moral law is founded in this difference: the subject matter of positive law is something to which we are antecedently under no obligation, and which only obliges by virtue of its being enacted, and perhaps to a certain limited period. The subject matter of a moral law is, on the other hand, something antecedently, in the visible reason of it, obligatory to us, and the obliga tion thereof will always continue unchangeably the same.... By a positive command, I understand an erpress declaration made by competent authority, whether concerning things to be done, or to be omitted." Theolog. Pract. b. i. chap. vi. p. 50; b. ii. part i. chap. i. p. 105.

5. Dr. Owen.-" Positive institutions are the free effects of the will of God, depending originally and solely on revelation, and which therefore have been various and actually changed." Discourse concerning the Holy Spirit, b. i. chap. iii. § 3.

6. Buddeus. "The obligation by which men are bound rightly to use positive appointments, is to be derived from the moral law itself; by which it is manifest, that men are obliged to do all those things by which their eternal felicity may be promoted....God had the wisest reasons, why he would have an appointment administered in this or the other manner. It is not

lawful, therefore, for men to alter any thing, or to mutilate the appointment. Thus the sacraments are to be used, not according to our own pleasure, but in the manner appointed by God." Institut. Theol. Moral. pars i. c. v. § 18; pars ii. c. ii. § 50. Lips. 1727.

7. Bp. Butler." Moral precepts are precepts, the reasons of which we see; positive precepts are precepts, the reasons of which we do not see. Moral duties arise out of the nature of the case itself, prior to external command; positive duties do not arise out of the nature of the case, but from external command; nor would they be duties at all, were it not for such command, received from Him whose creatures and subjects we are. But the manner in which the nature of the case, or the fact of the relation is made known, this doth not denominate any duty either positive or moral.... The reason of positive institutions, in general, is very obvious; though we should not see the reason why such particular ones are pitched upon, rather than others. Whoever, therefore, instead of cavilling at words, will attend to the thing itself, may clearly see, that positive institutions in general, as distinguished from this or that particular one, have the nature of moral commands, since the reasons of them appear. Thus, for instance, the external worship of God is a moral duty, though no particular mode of it be so. Care then is to be taken, when a comparison is made between positive and moral duties, that they be compared no farther than as they are different; no farther than as the former are positive, or arise out of mere external command, the reasons of which we are not acquainted with; and as the latter are moral, or arise out of the apparent reason of the case, without such external command. Unless this caution be observed, we shall run into endless confusion. Now this being premised, suppose two standing precepts enjoined by the same authority; that in certain conjunctures it is impossible to obey both; that the

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