Page 91
The VII. Sermon. (Book 7)
Though they say, the Lord liveth, surely they swear falsly.
-NOt to waste any time or breath, or (which men in this delicate and effeminate Age, are wont to [ D] be most sparing and thrifty of) any part of your precious patience unprofitably, but briefly to give you a guess whither our discourse is like to lead you; We will severally lay down, and sort to your view, every word of the Text single; and so we may gather them up again, and apply them to their natural proper purposes.
First, then the particle, Though] in the front, and, surely] in the bo∣dy [ E] of the Text, are but bands and junctures to keep all together into one proposition.
Secondly, the Pronoun, They] in each place, is in the letter, the Jews, in application present Christians, and being indefinite, might seem to be of the same extent in both places, did not the matter alter it, and make it universal in the former, and particular in the latter: For Artists say, that an indefinite sign, where the matter is necessary, is equivalent to an Universal, where but contingent, to a particular. [ F] Now to say the Lord liveth, was, and is necessary; though not by any Logical, yet by a Political necessity; the Government and hu∣mane Laws, under which then the Jews, and now we Christians live, require this profession necessarily at our hands: But to swear falsly, not to perform what before they profest, is materia contingens, a matter of no necessity, but free will and choice, that no humane Law can see