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.

_Sect._ 5. But he hath yet more to say against us: "If the king (saith he)
may command a cessation from economical and private works, for works civil
and public, such as the defence of the crown, the liberty of the country,
&c., what reason have ye why he may not enjoin a day of cessation from all
kind of bodily labour, for the honour of God and exercise of religion?"
&c. _Ans._ This kind of reasoning is most vicious, for three respects: 1.
It supposeth that he who may command a cessation from one kind of labour,
upon one of the six days, may also command a cessation from all kind of
labour, but there is a difference; for the law of God hath allowed us to
labour six days of every week, which liberty no human power can take from
us. But we cannot say that the law of God alloweth us six days of every
week to economical and private works (for then we should never be bound to
put our hands to a public work), whence it cometh that the magistrate hath
power left him to command a cessation from some labour, but not from all.
2. The Bishop reasoneth from a cessation from ordinary labour for
extraordinary labour, to a cessation from ordinary labour for no labour,
for they who use their weapons for the defence of the crown, or liberty of
the country, do not cease from labour, but only change ordinary labour
into extraordinary, and private labour into public, whereas our opposites
plead for a cessation from all labour upon their holidays. 3. He skippeth
_de genere in genus_, because the king may command a cessation for civil
works, therefore he may command a holy re