Quest. CLVI. Must we believe that Moses's law did ever bind other nations; or that any other parts of the Scripture bound them, or belong to them? or that the Jews were all God's visible church on earth?
Answ. I conjoin these three questions for despatch.
I. 1. Some of the matter of Moses’s law did bind all nations; that is, the law of nature as such.
2. Those that had the knowledge of the Jewish law, were bound collaterally to believe and obey all the expositions of the law of nature in it, and all the laws which were given upon reasons common to all the world; (as about degrees of marriage, particular rules of justice, &c.) As if I heard God from heaven tell another that standeth by me, Thou shalt not marry thy father’s widow; for it is abominable, I ought to apply that to me, being his subject, which is spoken to another on a common reason.
3. All those gentiles that would be proselytes, and join with the Jews in their policy, and dwelt among them, were bound to be observers of their laws. But, 1. The law of nature as mosaical, did not formally and directly bind other nations. 2. Nor were they bound to the laws of their peculiar policy, civil or ecclesiastical, which were positives. The reason is, (1.) Because they were all one body of political laws, given peculiarly to one political body. Even the decalogue itself was to them a political law. (2.) Because Moses was not authorized or sent to be the mediator or deliverer of that law to any nation but the Jews. And being never in the enacting or promulgation sent or directed to the rest of the world, it could not bind them.
II. As to the second question, Though the Scripture as a writing bound not all the world, yet, 1. The law of nature as such which is recorded in Scripture did bind all. 2. The covenant of grace was made with all mankind in Adam and Noah; and they were bound to promulgate it by tradition to all their offspring. And no doubt so they did; whether by word, (as all did,) or by writing also, (as it is like some did, as Enoch’s prophecies were it is like delivered, or else they had not in terms been preserved till Jude’s time). 3. And God himself as aforesaid by actual providences, pardoning, and benefits given to them that deserved hell, did in part promulgate it himself. 4. The neighbour nations might learn much by God’s doctrine and dealing with the Jews.
III. To the third question, I answer, 1. The Jews were a people chosen by God out of all the nations of the earth, to be a holy nation, and his peculiar treasure, having a peculiar divine law and covenant, and many great privileges, to which the rest of the world were strangers; so that they were advanced above all other kingdoms of the world, though not in wealth, nor worldly power, nor largeness of dominion, yet in a special dearness unto God.
2. But they were not the only people to whom God made a covenant of grace in Adam and Noah, as distinct from the law or covenant of innocency.
3. Nor were they the only people that professed to worship the true God; neither was holiness and salvation confined to them; but were found in other nations. Therefore though we have but little notice of the state of other kingdoms in their times, and scarcely know what national churches (that is, whole nations professing saving faith) there were, yet we may conclude that there were other visible churches besides the Jews. For, 1. No Scripture denieth it; and charity then must hope the best. 2. The Scriptures of the Old Testament give us small account of other countries, but of the Jews alone, with some of their neighbours. 3. Shem was alive in Abraham’s days (yea, about 34 years after Abraham’s death, and within 12 years of Ishmael’s death, viz. till about An. Mundi 2158). And so great and blessed a man as Shem, cannot be thought to be less than a king, and to have a kingdom governed according to his holiness; and so that there was with him not only a church, but a national church, or holy kingdom. 4. And Melchizedec was a holy king and priest; and therefore had a kingdom holily governed; and therefore not only a visible but also a national church (supposing that he was not Shem, as the Jews and Broughton, &c. think; for the situation of his country doth make many desert that opinion). 5. And Job and his friends show that there were churches then besides the Jews. 6. And it is not to be thought that all Ishmael’s posterity suddenly apostatized. 7. Nor that Esau’s posterity had no church state (for both retained circumcision). 8. Nor is it like that Abraham’s offspring by Keturah were all apostates, being once inchurched. For though the special promise was made to Isaac’s seed, as the peculiar holy nation, &c. yet not as the only children of God, or persons in a state of salvation. 9. And the passages in Jonah about Nineveh give us some such intimations also. 10. And Japheth and his seed being under a special blessing, it is not like that they all proved apostates. And what was in all other kingdoms of the world is little known to us.
We must therefore take heed of concluding, (as the proud Jews were at last apt to do of themselves,) that because they were a chosen nation privileged above all others, that therefore the Redeemer under the law of grace made to Adam, had no other churches in the world, and that there were none saved but the Jews and proselytes.
Rom. ii.; i. 20, 21; Exod. xii. 19, 43, 48, 49; xx. 10; Lev. xvii. 12, 15; xviii. 26; xxiv. 16, 22; Numb. ix. 14; xv. 14-16, 29, 30; xix. 10; Deut. i. 16.
Psal. cxlv. 9; ciii. 19; c. 1; Rom. xiv. 11; Judg.
xiv. 15.
Deut. xiv. 2, 3; vii. 2, 6, 7; Exod. xix. 5; vi. 7, 8; Lev. xx. 24, 26; Deut. iv. 20, 33; xxix. 13; xxxiii. 29; Rom. iii. 1-3.
It is this Jewish pride of their own prerogatives which
Paul so much laboureth in all his epistles to pull down.