The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2)Gillespie, George
Religion
The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2)
Gillespie, George
Church of Scotland -- History; Gillespie, George, 1613-1648
_Sect._ 4. Yet we must hear what the Bishop can say against our
proposition:(167) “If under the law (saith he) God did not spoil his
people of liberty, when he appointed them to rest two days at Pasche, one
at Whitsunday, &c., how can the king’s majesty and the church be esteemed
to spoil us of our liberty, that command a cessation from labour on three
days?” &c. O horrible blasphemy! O double deceitfulness! Blasphemy,
because so much power is ascribed to the king and the church over us, as
God had over his people of old. God did justly command his people, under
the law, to rest from labour on other days beside the Sabbath, without
wronging them; therefore the king and the church may as justly, and with
doing as little wrong, command us to rest likewise, because God, by a
ceremonial law, did hinder his people from the use of so much liberty, as
the moral law did give them; therefore the king and the church may do so
also. Deceitfulness, in that he saith, God did not spoil his people of
liberty, &c. We know that, by appointing them to rest on those days, God
did not take away liberty from his people, simply and absolutely, because
they had no more liberty than he did allow to them by his laws, which he
gave by the hand of Moses, yet he did take away that liberty which one
part of his laws did permit to them, viz., the fourth commandment of the
moral law, which permitted them to labour six days. The Bishop knew that
this question in hand hath not to do with liberty, in the general notion
of it, but with liberty which the moral law doth permit. We say, then,
that God took away from his people Israel, some of the liberty which his
moral law permitted to them, because he was the Lawgiver and Lord of the
law; and that the king and the church cannot do the like with us, because
they are no more lords over God’s law than the people who are set under
them.
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