But the question here, is not what any Christian made a law or canon to himself, which he might again reject by the same right he received it; but what was so made a canon to them, as without injustice they could not do any thing contrary thereunto. That the New Testament should in this sense be canonical, that is to say a law, in any place where the law of the commonwealth had not made it so, is contrary to the nature of a law. For a law, as has been already shown, is the commandment of that man or assembly, to whom we have given sovereign authority to make such rules for the direction of our actions as he shall think fit, and to punish us when we do any thing contrary to the same. When therefore any other man shall offer unto us any other rules, which the sovereign ruler hath not prescribed, they are but counsel and advice; which, whether good or bad, he that is counselled, may without injustice refuse to observe; and when contrary to the laws already established, without injustice cannot observe, how good soever he conceiveth it to be. I say, he cannot in this case observe the same in his actions, nor in his discourse with other men; though he may without blame believe his private teachers, and wish he had the liberty to practise their advice, and that it were publicly received for law. For internal faith is in its own nature invisible, and consequently exempted from all human jurisdiction; whereas the words and actions that proceed from it, as breaches of our civil obedience, are injustice both before God and man. Seeing then our Saviour hath denied his kingdom to be in this world, seeing he had said, he came not to judge, but to save the world, he hath not subjected us to other laws than those of the commonwealth; that is, the Jews to the law of Moses, which he saith (_Matth._ v. 17) he came not to destroy, but to fulfil; and other nations to the laws of their several sovereigns, and all men to the laws of nature; the observing whereof, both he himself, and his apostles, have in their teaching recommended to us, as a necessary condition of being admitted by him in the last day into his eternal kingdom, wherein shall be protection, and life everlasting. Seeing then our Saviour, and his apostles, left not new laws to oblige us in this world, but new doctrine to prepare us for the next; the books of the New Testament, which contain that doctrine, until obedience to them was commanded by them that God had given power to on earth to be legislators, were not obligatory canons, that is, laws, but only good and safe advice, for the direction of sinners in the way to salvation, which every man might take and refuse at his own peril, without injustice.