Church supposed to be that Kingdom of his to which we are addressed in the Gospel is the Doctrine that it is necessary for a Christian King to receive his Crown by a Bishop as if it were from that Ceremony that he derives the clause of Dei gratiâ in his title and that then onely he is made King by the favour of God when he is crowned by the authority of Gods universall Vicegerent on earth and that every Bishop whosoever be his Soveraign taketh at his Consecration an oath of absolute Obedience to the Pope Consequent to the same is the Doctrine of the fourth Councell of Lateran held under Pope Innocent the third Chap. 3. de Haereticis That if a King at the Popes admonition doe not purge his Kingdome of Haeresies and being excommunicate for the same doe not give satisfaction within a year his Subjects are absolved of the bond of their obedience Where by Haeresies are understood all opinions which the Church of Rome hath forbidden to be maintained And by this means as often as there is any repugnancy between the Politicall designes of the Pope and other Christian Princes as there is very often there ariseth such a Mist amongst their Subjects that they know not a stranger that thrusteth himself into the throne of their lawfull Prince from him whom they had themselves placed there and in this Darknesse of mind are made to fight one against another without discerning their enemies from their friends under the conduct of another mans ambition From the same opinion that the present Church is the Kingdome of God it proceeds that Pastours Deacons and all other Ministers of the Church take the name to themselves of the Clergy giving to other Christians the name of Laity that is simply People For Clergy signifies those whose maintenance is that Revenue which God having reserved to himselfe during his Reigne over the Israelites assigned to the tribe of Levi who were to be his publique Ministers and had no portion of land set them out to live on as their brethren to be their inheritance The Pope therefore pretending the present Church to be as the Realme of Israel the Kingdome of God challenging to himselfe and his subordinate Ministers the like revenue as the Inheritance of God the name of Clergy was sutable to that claime And thence it is that Tithes and other tributes paid to the Levites as Gods Right amongst the Israelites have a long time been demanded and taken of Christians by Ecclesiastiques Iure divino that is in Gods Right By which meanes the people every where were obliged to a double tribute one to the State another to the Clergy whereof that to the Clergy being the tenth of their revenue is double to that which a King of Athens and esteemed a Tyrant exacted of his subjects for the defraying of all publique charges For he demanded no more but the twentieth part and yet abundantly maintained therewith the Commonwealth And in the Kingdome of the Iewes during the Sacerdotall Reigne of God the Tithes and Offerings were the whole Publique Revenue From the same mistaking of the present Church for the Kingdom of God came in the distinction betweene the Civill and the Canon Laws The Civil Law being the Acts of Soveraigns in their own Dominions and the Canon Law being the Acts of the Pope in the same Dominions Which Canons though they were but Canons that is Rules Propounded and but voluntarily received by Christian Princes till the translation of the Empire to Charlemain yet afterwards as the power of the Pope encreased became Rules Commanded and the Emperours themselves to avoyd greater mischiefes which the people blinded might be led into were forced to let them passe for Laws From hence it is that in all Dominions where the Popes Ecclesiasticall power is entirely received Jewes Turkes and Gentiles are in the Roman Church tolerated in their Religion as farre forth as in the exercise and profession thereof they offend not against the civill power whereas in a Christian though a stranger not to be of the Roman Religion is Capitall because the Pope pretendeth that all Christians are his Subjects For otherwise it were as much against the law of Nations to persecute a Christian stranger for professing the Religion of his owne country as an Infidell or rather more in as much as they that are not against Christ are with him From the same it is that in every Christian State there are certaine men that are exempt by Ecclesiasticall liberty from the tributes and from the tribunals of the Civil State for so are the secular Clergy besides Monks and Friars which in many places bear so great a proportion to the common people as if need were there might be raised out of them alone an Army sufficient for any warre the Church militant should imploy them in against their owne or other Princes A second generall abuse of Scripture is the turning of Consecration into Conjuration or Enchantment To Consecrate is in Scripture to Offer Give or Dedicate in pious and decent language and gesture a man or any other thing to God by separating of it from common use that is to say to Sanctifie or make it Gods and to be used only by those whom God hath appointed to be his Publike Ministers as I have already proved at large in the 35. Chapter and thereby to change not the thing Consecrated but onely the use of it from being Profane and common to be Holy and peculiar to Gods service But when by such words the nature or qualitie of the thing it selfe is pretended to be changed it is not Consecration but either an extraordinary worke of God or a vaine and impious Conjuration But seeing for the frequency of pretending the change of Nature in their Consecrations it cannot be esteemed a work extraordinary it is no other than a Conjuration or Incantation whereby they would have men to beleeve an alteration of Nature that is not contrary to the testimony of mans Sight and of all the rest of his Senses As for example when the Priest in stead of Consecrating Bread and Wine to Gods peculiar service in the Sacrament of the Lords Supper which is but a separation of it from the common use to signifie that is to put men in mind of their Redemption by the Passion of Christ whose body was broken and blood shed upon the Crosse for our transgressions pretends that by saying of the words of our Saviour This is my Body and This is my Blood the nature of Bread is no more there but his very Body notwithstanding there appeareth not to the Sight or other Sense of the Receiver any thing that appeared not before the Consecration The Egyptian Conjurers that are said to have turned their Rods to Serpents and the Water into Bloud are thought but to have deluded the senses of the Spectators by a false shew of things yet are esteemed Enchanters But what should wee have thought
Woods and divers services reserved on the Land he gave his Subjects yet it seems they were not reserved for his Maintenance in his Publique but in his Naturall capacity For he and his Successors did for all that lay Arbitrary Taxes on all Subjects Land when they judged it necessary Or if those publique Lands and Services were ordained as a sufficient maintenance of the Common-wealth it was contrary to the scope of the Institution being as it appeared by those ensuing Taxes insufficient and as it appeares by the late small Revenue of the Crown Subject to Alienation and Diminution It is therefore in vaine to assign a portion to the Common-wealth which may sell or give it away and does â—…sell and give it away when t is done by their Representative As the Distribution of Lands at home so also to assigne in what places and for what commodities the Subject shall traffique abroad belongeth to the Soveraign For if it did belong to private persons to use their own discretion therein some of them would bee drawn for gaine both to furnish the enemy with means to hurt the Common-wealth and hurt it themselves by importing such things as pleasing mens appetites be neverthelesse noxious or at least unprofitable to them And therefore it belongeth to the Common-wealth that is to the Soveraign only to approve or disapprove both of the places and matter of forraign Traffique Further seeing it is not enough to the Sustentation of a Common-wealth that every man have a propriety in a portion of Land or in some few commodities or a naturall property in some usefull art and there is no art in the world but is necessary either for the being or well being almost of every particular man it is necessary that men distribute that which they can spare and transferre their propriety therein mutually one to another by exchange and mutuall contract And therefore it belongeth to the Common-wealth that is to say to the Soveraign to appoint in what manner all kinds of contract between Subjects as buying selling exchanging borrowing lending letting and taking to hire are to bee made and by what words and signes they shall be understood for valid And for the Matter and Distribution of the Nourishment to the severall Members of the Common-wealth thus much considering the modell of the whole worke is sufficient By Concoction I understand the reducing of all commodities which are not presently consumed but reserved for Nourishment in time to come to some thing of equall value and withall so portable as not to hinder the motion of men from place to place to the end a man may have in what place soever such Nourishment as the place affordeth And this is nothing else but Gold and Silver and Mony For Gold and Silver being as it happens almost in all Countries of the world highly valued is a commodious measure of the value of all things else between Nations and Mony of what matter soever coyned by the Soveraign of a Common-wealth is a sufficient measure of the value of all things else between the Subjects of that Common-wealth By the means of which measures all commodities Moveable and Immoveable are made to accompany a man to all places of his resort within and without the place of his ordinary residence and the same passeth from Man to Man within the Common-wealth and goes round about Nourishing as it passeth every part thereof In so much as this Concoction is as it were the Sanguification of the Common-wealth For naturall Bloud is in like manner made of the fruits of the Earth and circulating nourisheth by the way every Member of the Body of Man And because Silver and Gold have their value from the matter it self they have first this priviledge that the value of them cannot be altered by the power of one nor of a few Common-wealths as being a common measure of the commodities of all places But base Mony may easily be enhansed or abased Secondly they have the priviledge to make Common-wealths move and stretch out their armes when need is into forraign Countries and supply not only private Subjects that travell but also whole Armies with Provision But that Coyne which is not considerable for the Matter but for the Stamp of the place being unable to endure change of ayr hath its effect at home only where also it is subject to the change of Laws and thereby to have the value diminished to the prejudice many times of those that have it The Conduits and Wayes by which it is conveyed to the Publique use are of two sorts One that Conveyeth it to the Publique Coffers The other that Issueth the same out againe for publique payments Of the first sort are Collectors Receivers and Treasurers of the second are the Treasurers againe and the Officers appointed for payment of severall publique or private Ministers And in this also the Artificiall Man maintains his resemblance with the Naturall whose Veins receiving the Bloud from the severall Parts of of the Body carry it to the Heart where being made Vitall the Heart by the Arteries sends it out again to enliven and enable for motion all the Members of the same The Procreation or Children of a Common-wealth are those we call Plantations or Colonies which are numbers of men sent out from the Common-wealth under a Conductor or Governour to inhabit a Forraign Country either formerly voyd of Inhabitants or made voyd then by warre And when a Colony is setled they are either a Common-wealth of themselves discharged of their subjection to their Soveraign that sent them as hath been done by many Common-wealths of antient time in which case the Common-wealth from which they went was called their Metropolis or Mother and requires no more of them then Fathers require of the Children whom they emancipate and make free from their domestique government which is Honour and Friendship or else they remain united to their Metropolis as were the Colonies of the people of Rome and then they are no Common-wealths themselves but Provinces and parts of the Common-wealth that sent them So that the Right of Colonies saving Honour and League with their Metropolis dependeth wholly on their Licence or Letters by which their Soveraign authorised them to Plant. CHAP. XXV Of COUNSELL HOw fallacious it is to judge of the nature of things by the ordinary and inconstant use of words appeareth in nothing more than in the confusion of Counsels and Commands arising from the Imperative manner of speaking in them both and in many other occasions besides For the words Doe this are the words not onely of him that Commandeth but also of him that giveth Counsell and of him that Exhorteth and yet there are but few that see not that these are very different things or that cannot distinguish between them when they perceive who it is that speaketh and to whom the Speech is directed and upon what occcasion But finding those phrases in mens
every Living Creature And likewise of Man God made him of the dust of the earth and breathed in his face the breath of Life factus est Homo in animam viventem that is and Man was made a Living Creature And after Noah came out of the Arke God saith hee will no more smite omnem animam viventem that is every Living Creature And Deut. 12. 23. Eate not the Bloud for the Bloud is the Soule that is the Life From which places if by Soule were meant a Substance Incorporeall with an existence separated from the Body it might as well be inferred of any other living Creature as of Man But that the Souls of the Faithfull are not of theirown Nature but by Gods speciall Grace to remaine in their Bodies from the Resurrection to all Eternity I have already I think sufficiently proved out of the Scriptures in the 38. Chapter And for the places of the New Testament where it is said that any man shall be cast Body and Soul into Hell fire it is no more than Body and Life that is to say they shall be cast alive into the perpetuall fire of Gehenna This window it is that gives entrance to the Dark Doctrine first of Eternall Torments and afterwards of Purgatory and consequently of the walking abroad especially in places Consecrated Solitary or Dark of the Ghosts of men deceased and thereby to the pretences of Exorcisme and Conjuration of Phantasmes as also of Invocation of men dead and to the Doctrine of Indulgences that is to say of exemption for a time or for ever from the fire of Purgatory wherein these Incorporeall Substances are pretended by burning to be cleansed and made fit for Heaven For men being generally possessed before the time of our Saviour by contagion of the Daemonology of the Greeks of an opinion that the Souls of men were substances distinct from their Bodies and therefore that when the Body was dead the Soulâ—… of every man whether godly or wicked must subsist somewhere by vertue of its own nature without acknowledging therein any supernaturall gift of Gods the Doctors of the Church doubted a long time what was the place which they were to abide in till they should be re-united to their Bodies in the Resurrection supposing for a while they lay under the Altars but afterward the Church of Rome found it more profitable to build for them this place of Purgatory which by some other Churches in this later age has been demolished Let us now consider what texts of Scripture seem most to confirm these three generall Errors I have here touched As for those which Cardinall Bellarmine hath alledged for the present Kingdome of God administred by the Pope than which there are none that make a better shew of proof I have already answered them and made it evident that the Kingdome of God instituted by Moses ended in the election of Saul After which time the Priest of his own authority never deposed any King That which the High Priest did to Athaliah was not done in his owne right but in the right of the young King Joash her Son But Solomon in his own right deposed the High Priest Abiathar and set up another in his place The most difficult place to answer of all those that can be brought to prove the Kingdome of God by Christ is already in this world is alledged not by Bellarmine nor any other of the Church of Rome but by Beza that will have it to begin from the Resurrection of Christ. But whether hee intend thereby to entitle the Presbytery to the Supreme Power Ecclesiasticall in the Common-wealth of Geneva and consequently to every Presbytery in every other Common-wealth or to Princes and other Civill Soveraigns I doe not know For the Presbytery hath challenged the power to Excomunicate their owne Kings and to bee the Supreme Moderators in Religion in the places where they have that form of Church government no lesse then the Pope callengeth it universally The words are Marke 9. 1. Verily I say unto you that there be some of them that stand here which shall not tast of death till they have seene the Kingdome of God come with power Which words if taken grammatically make it certaine that either some of those men that stood by Christ at that time are yet alive or else that the Kingdome of God must be now in this present world And then there is another place more difficult For when the Apostles after our Saviours Resurrection and immediately before his Ascension asked our Saviour saying Acts 1. 6. Wilt thou at this time restore again the Kingdome to Israel he answered them It is not for you to know the times and the seasons which the Father hath put in his own power But ye shall receive power by the comming of the Holy Ghost upon you and yee shall be my Martyrs witnesses both in Ierusalem in all Iudaea and in Samaria and unto the uttermost part of the Earth Which is as much as to say My Kingdome is not yet come nor shall you foreknow when it shall come for it shall come as a theefe in the night But I will send you the Holy Ghost and by him you shall have power to beare witnesse to all the world by your preaching of my Resurrection and the workes I have done and the doctrine I have taught that they may beleeve in me and expect eternall life at my comming againe How does this agree with the comming of Christs Kingdome at the Resurrection And that which St. Paul saies 1 Thessal 1. 9 10. That they turned from Idols to serve the living and true God and to waite for his Sonne from Heaven Where to waite for his Sonne from Heaven is to wait for his comming to be King in power which were not necessary if his Kingdome had beene then present Againe if the Kingdome of God began as Beza on that place Mark 9. 1. would have it at the Resurrection what reason is there for Christians ever since the Resurrection to say in their prayers Let thy Kingdome Come It is therefore manifest that the words of St. Mark are not so to be interpreted There be some of them that stand here saith our Saviour that shall not tast of death till they have seen the Kingdome of God come in power If then this Kingdome were to come at the Resurrection of Christ why is it said some of them rather than all For they all lived till after Christ was risen But they that require an exact interpretation of this text let them interpret first the like words of our Saviour to St. Peter concerning St. John chap. 21. 22. If I will that he tarry till I come what is that to thee upon which was grounded a report that hee should not dye Neverthelesse the truth of that report was neither confirmed as well grounded nor refuted as ill grounded on those words but left as a saying not understood