2. The objection again supposes, that there is some _excellency_ in an institution being merely and absolutely positive, more than in one of a mixed nature. But this supposition is vain and erroneous. For what conceivable superior excellency can there be in any precept or duty on account of its _positiveness_? Were there any force in the objection, it would imply that the Christian dispensation is _less excellent_ than the Mosaic; as having fewer positive rites, and their proportion of positiveness being also smaller. And it would also imply, that the reasonable duties of prayer and praise, as founded on the law of nature, as well as more fully enjoined by revelation, were _less excellent_ than baptism and the Lord’s supper; and it would follow, that the services of the church triumphant are in their own nature _less excellent_ than those of the church militant; which are consequences from the force of the objection equally genuine and absurd. Our Lord’s answer respecting the first and great commandment, shews at once that what is the most _important_ duty, is also the most _natural_, and therefore the most remote from what is merely positive; and that is the _love of God_. This matter has been fully shewn before. In one word, the spirit of the objection is truly pharisaic. Some may perhaps object, “that this has been always admitted as true, that baptism and the Lord’s supper are positive institutions of the New Testament; and that many pædobaptists have availed themselves of this fort, in ascertaining the nature and enforcing the obligation of the latter, and particularly bishop Hoadly. And as his lordship’s principle, in his _Plain Account of the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper_, has been deemed unanswerable, Mr. Foot, Dr. Stennett, and others, have taken but the same method in treating about baptism.” To this I reply, That, as principles taken upon trust, dignified titles, and lawn sleeves, are light as a feather in the scale of argument; so, on the other hand, I am satisfied the bishop of Winchester’s positions, taken in a sound sense, nay, the _only_ consistent sense in which they can be taken, are evidently true and important. The sum is this; that all positive duties, or duties made such by institution alone, depend entirely upon the will and declaration of the person who institutes or ordains them, with respect to the real design and end of them, and consequently, to the due manner of performing them. This is strictly true, _in the degree that any duties are positive_, but no further. And to denominate a precept or duty _positive_, though but _partially_ so, I have no objection, for the sake of distinguishing them from such as are merely moral, and evidently founded on the reason and nature of things. “Except we observe this caution,” as bishop Butler observes, “we shall be in danger of running into endless confusion.”