people were obliged to take him for Gods Lieutenant longer than they beleeved that God spake unto him And therefore his authority notwithstanding the Covenant they made with God depended yet merely upon the opinion they had of his Sanctity and of the reality of his Conferences with God and the verity of his Miracles which opinion coming to change they were no more obliged to take any thing for the law of God which he propounded to them in Gods name We are therefore to consider what other ground there was of their obligation to obey him For it could not be the commandement of God that could oblige them because God spake not to them immediately but by the mediation of Moses himself And our Saviour saith of himself If I bear witnesse of my self my witnesse is not true much lesse if Moses bear witnesse of himselfe especially in a claim of Kingly power over Gods people ought his testimony to be received His authority therefore as the authority of all other Princes must be grounded on the Consent of the People and their Promise to obey him And so it was For the people Exod. 20. 18. when they saw the Thunderings and the Lightnings and the noyse of the Trumpet and the monntaine smoaking removed and stood a far off And they said unto Moses speak thou with us and we will hear but let not God speak with us lest we die Here was their promise of obedience and by this it was they obliged themselves to obey whatsoever he should deliver unto them for the Commandement of God And notwithstanding the Covenant constituteth a Sacerdotall Kingdome that is to say a Kingdome hereditary to Aaron yet that is to be understood of the succession after Moses should bee dead For whosoever ordereth and establisheth the Policy as first founder of a Common-wealth be it Monarchy Aristocracy or Democracy must needs have Soveraign Power over the people all the while he is doing of it And that Moses had that power all his own time is evidently affirmed in the Scripture First in the text last before cited because the people promised obedience not to Aaron but to him Secōdly Exod. 24. 1 2. And God said unto Moses Come up unto the Lord thou and Aaron Nadab and Abihu and seventy of the Elders of Israel And Moses alone shall come neer the Lord but they shall not come nigh neither shall the people goe up with him By which it is plain that Moses who was alone called up to God and not Aaron nor the other Priests nor the Seventy Elders nor the People who were forbidden to come up was alone he that represented to the Israelites the Person of God that is to say was their sole Soveraign under God And though afterwards it be said verse 9. Then went up Moses and Aaron Nadab and Abihu and seventy of the Elders of Israel and they saw the God of Israel and there was under his feet as it were a paved work of a saphire stone c. yet this was not till after Moses had been with God before and had brought to the people the words which God had said to him He onely went for the bnsinesse of the people the others as the Nobles of his retinue were admitted for honour to that speciall grace which was not allowed to the people which was as in the verse after appeareth to see God and live God laid not his hand upon them they saw God and did eat and drink that is did live but did not carry any commandement from him to the people Again it is every where said The Lord spake unto Moses as in all other occasions of Government so also in the ordering of the Ceremonies of Religion contained in the 25 26 27 28 29 30 and 31 Chapters of Exodus and throughout Leviticus to Aaron seldome The Calfe that Aaron made Moses threw into the fire Lastly the question of the Authority of Aaron by occasion of his and Miriams mutiny agaiust Moses was Numbers 12. judged by God himself for Moses So also in the question between Moses and the People who had the Right of Governing the People when Corah Dathan and Abiram and two hundred and fifty Princes of the Assembly gathered themselves together Numb 16. 3. against Moses and against Aaron and said unto them Ye take too much upon you seeing all the congregation are Holy every one of them and the Lord is amongst them why lift you up your selves above the congregation of the Lord God caused the Earth to swallow Corah Dathan and Abiram with their wives and children alive and consumed those two hundred and fifty Princes with fire Therefore neither Aaron nor the People nor any Aristocracy of the chief Princes of the People but Moses alone had next under God the Soveraignty over the Israelites And that not onely in causes of Civill Policy but also of Religion For Moses onely spake with God and therefore onely could tell the People what it was that God required at their hands No man upon pain of death might be so presumptuous as to approach the Mountain where God talked with Moses Thou shalt set bounds saith the Lord Exod. 19. 12. to the people round about and say Take heed to your selves that you goe not up into the Mount or touch the border of it whosoever toucheth the Mount shall surely be put to death And again verse 21. Goe down charge the people lest they break through unto the Lord to gaze Out of which we may conclude that whosoever in a Christian Common-wealth holdeth the place of Moses is the sole Messenger of God and Interpreter of his Commandements And according hereunto no man ought in the interpretation of the Scripture to proceed further then the bounds which are set by their severall Soveraigns For the Scriptures since God now speaketh in them are the Mount Sinai the bounds whereof are the Laws of them that represent Gods Person on Earth To look upon them and therein to behold the wondrous works of God and learn to fear him is allowed but to interpret them that is to pry into what God saith to him whom he appointeth to govern under him and make themselves Judges whether he govern as God commandeth him or not is to transgresse the bounds God hath set us and to gaze upon God irreverently There was no Prophet in the time of Moses nor pretender to the Spirit of God but such as Moses had approved and Authorized For there were in his time but Seventy men that are said to Prophecy by the Spirit of God and these were of all Moses his election concerning whom God said to Moses Numb 11. 16. Gather to mee Seventy of the Elders of Israel whom thou knowest to be the Elders of the People To these God imparted his Spirit but it was not a different Spirit from that of Moses for it is said verse 25. God came down in a cloud and took of the Spirit that was upon Moses
l. 36. for were r. where p. 166. l. 18. for benefit r. benefits p. 200. l. 48. dele also l. 49. for delivered r. deliver p. 203. l. 35. for other r. higher p. 204. l. 15. for and left r. if left l. 39. for write r. writt p. 206. l. 19. for of the r. over the. p. 234. l. 1. for but of r. but by mediation of l. 15. dele and. l. 38. for putting r. pulling p. 262. l. 19. for tisme r. Baptisme p. 268. l. 48. for that the r. that p. 271. l. 1. for observe r. obey l. 4. for contrary the r. contrary to the. p. 272. l. 36. for our Saviours of life r. of our Saviours life p. 275. l. 18. for if shall r. if he shall l. 30. for haven r. heaven l. 45. for of Church r. of the Church p. 276. l. 38. dele inter l. 46. dele are p. 285. l. 11. for he had r. he hath p. 287. l. 10. dele of p. 298. l. 36. for to ay r. to Lay. p. 361. l. 36. for him r. them THE INTRODUCTION NATURE the Art whereby God hath made and governes the World is by the Art of man as in many other things so in this also imitated that it can make an Artificial Animal For seeing life is but a motion of Limbs the begining whereof is in some principall part within why may we not say that all Automata Engines that move themselves by springs and wheeles as doth a watch have an artificiall life For what is the Heart but a Spring and the Nerves but so many Strâ—…gs and the â—…oynts but so many Wheeles giving motion to the whole Body such as was intended by the Artificer Art goes yet further imitating that Rationall and most excellent worke of Nature Maâ—… For by Art is created that great LEVIATHAN called a COMMON-WEALTH or STATE in latine CIVITAS which is but an Artificiall Man though of greater stature and strength than the Naturall for whose protection and defence it was intended and in which the Soveraignty is an Artificiall Soul as giving life and motion to the whole body The Magistrates and other Officers of Judicature and Execution artificiall Joynts Reward and Punishment by which fastned to the seate of the Soveraignty every joynt and member is moved to performe his duty are the Nerves that do the same in the Body Naturall The Wealth and Riches of all the particular members are the Strength Salus Populi the peoples safety its Businesse Counsellors by whom all things needfull for it to know are suggested unto it are the Memory Equity and Lawes an artificiall Reason and Will Concord Health Sedition Sicknesse and Civill war Death Lastly the Paâ—…ts and Covenants by which the parts of this Body Politique were at first made set together and united resemble that Fiat or the Let us make man pronounced by God in the Creation To describe the Nature of this Artificiall man I will consider First the Matter thereof and the Artificer both which is Man Secondly How and by what Covenants it is made what are the Rights and just Power or Authority of a Soveraigne and what it is that preserveth and dissolveth it Thirdly what is a Christian Common-wealth Lastly what is the Kingdome of Darkness Concerning the first there is a saying much usurped of late That Wisedome is acquired not by reading of Books but of Men. Consequently whereunto those persons that for the most part can give no other proof of being wise take great delight to shew what they think they have read in men by uncharitable censures of one another behind their backs But there is another saying not of late understood by which they might learn truly to read one another if they would take the pains and that is Nosâ—…e teipsum Read thy self which was not meant as it is now used to countenance either the barbarous state of men in power towards their inferiors or to encourage men of low degree to a sawcie behaviour towards their betters But to teach us that for the similitude of the thoughts and Passions of one man to the thoughts and Passions of another whosoever looketh into himself and considereth what he doth when he does think opine reason hope feare c and upon what grounds he shall thereby read and know what are the thoughts and Passions of all other men upon the like occasions I say the similitude of Passions which are the same in all men desire feare hope not the similitude of the objects of the Passions which are the things desired feared hoped c for these the constitution individuall and particular education do so vary and they are so easie to be kept from our knowledge that the characters of mans heart blotted and confounded as they are with dissembling lying counterfeiting and erroneous doctrines are legible onely to 〈◊〉 that 〈◊〉 hearts And though by mens actions wee do discover their designe sometimes yet to do it without comparing them with our own and distinguishing all circumstances by which the case may come to be altered is to decypher without a key and be for the most paâ—… deceived by too much trust or by too much diffidence as he that reads is himself a good or evil man But let one man read another by his actions never so perfectly it serves him onely with his acquaintance which are but few He that is to govern a whole Nation must read in himself not this or that particular man but Man-kind which though it be hard to do harder than to learn any Language or Science yet when I shall have set down my own reading orderly and perspicuously the pains left anoâ—…her will be onely to consider if he also find not the same in himself For this kind of Doctrine admitteth no other Demonstration OF MAN CHAP. I. Of SENSE COncerning the Thoughts of man I will consider them first Singly and afterwards in Trayne or dependance upon one another Singly they are every one a Representation or Apparence of some quality or other Accident of a body without us which is commonly called an Object Which Object worketh on the Eyes Eares and other parts of mans body and by diversity of working produceth diversity of Apparences The Originall of them all is that which we call SENSE For there is no conception in a mans mind which hath not at first totally or by parts been begotten upon the organs of Sense The rest are derived from that originall To know the naturall cause of Sense is not very necessary to the business now in hand and I have else-where written of the same at large Nevertheless to fill each part of my present method I will briefly deliver the same in this place The cause of Sense is the Externall Body or Object which presseth the organ proper to each Sense either immediatly as in the Tast and Touch or mediately as in Seeing Hearing and Smelling which pressure by the mediation of Nerves and other strings and membranes of the body continued
and Evill Whereupon having both eaten they did indeed take upon them Gods office which is Judicature of Good and Evill but acquired no new ability to distinguish between them aright And whereas it is sayd that having eaten they saw they were naked no man hath so interpreted that place as if they had been formerly blind and saw not their own skins the meaning is plain that it was then they first judged their nakednesse wherein it was Gods will to create them to be uncomely and by being ashamed did tacitely censure God himselfe And thereupon God saith Hast thou eaten c. as if he should say doest thou that owest me obedience take upon thee to judge of my Commandements Whereby it is cleerly though Allegorically signified that the Commands of them that have the right to command are not by their Subjects to be censured nor disputed So that it appeareth plainly to my understanding both from Reason and Scripture that the Soveraign Power whether placed in One Man as in Monarchy or in one Assembly of men as in Popular and Aristocraticall Common-wealths is as great as possibly men can be imagined to make it And though of so unlimited a Power men may fancy many evill consequences yet the consequences of the want of it which is perpetuall warre of every man against his neighbour are much worse The condâ—…tion of man in this life shall never be without Inconveniences but there happeneth in no Common-wealth any great Inconvenience but what proceeds from the Subjects disobedience and breach of those Covenants from which the Common-wealth hath its being And whosoever thinking Soveraign Power too great will seek to make it lesse must subject himselfe to the Power that can limit it that is to say to a greater The greatest objection is that of the Practise when men ask where and when such Power has by Subjects been acknowledged But one may ask them again when or where has there been a Kingdome long free from Sedition and Civill Warre In those Nations whose Common-wealths have been long-lived and not been destroyed but by forraign warre the Subjects never did dispute of the Soveraign Power But howsoever an argument from the Practise of men that have not sifted to the bottom and with exact reason weighed the causes and nature of Common-wealths and suffer daily those miseries that proceed from the ignorance thereof is invalid For though in all places of the world men should lay the foundation of their houses on the sand it could not thence be inferred that so it ought to be The skill of making and maintaining Common-wealths consisteth in certain Rules as doth Arithmetique and Geometry not as Tennis-play on Practise onely which Rules neither poor men have the leisure nor men that have had the leisure have hitherto had the curiosity or the method to find out CHAP. XXI Of the LIBERTY of Subjects LIBERTY or FREEDOME signifieth properly the absence of Opposition by Opposition I mean externall Impediments of motion and may be applyed no lesse to Irrationall and Inanimate creatures than to Rationall For whatsoever is so tyed or environed as it cannot move but within a certain space which space is determined by the opposition of some externall body we say it hath not Liberty to go further And so of all living creatures whilest they are imprisoned or restrained with walls or chayns and of the water whilest it is kept in by banks or vessels that otherwise would spread it selfe into a larger space we use to say they are not at Liberty to move in such manner as without those externall impediments they would But when the impediment of motion is in the constitution of the thing it selfe we use not to say it wants the Liberty but the Power to move as when a stone lyeth still or a man is fastned to his bed by sicknesse And according to this proper and generally received meaning of the word A FREE-MAN is he that in those things which by his strength and wit he is able to do is not hindred to doe what he has a will to But when the words Free and Liberty are applyed to any thing but Bodies they are abused for that which is not subject to Motion is not subject to Impediment And therefore when 't is said for example The way is Free no Liberty of the way is signified but of those that walk in it without stop And when we say a Guift is Free there is not meant any Liberty of the Guift but of the Giver that was not bound by any law or Covenant to give it So when we speak Freely it is not the Liberty of voice or pronunciation but of the man whom no law hath obliged to speak otherwise then he did Lastly from the use of the word Free-will no Liberty can be inferred of the will desire or inclination but the Liberty of the man which consisteth in this that he finds no stop in doing what he has the will desire or inclination to doe Feare and Liberty are consistent as when a man throweth his goods into the Sea for feare the ship should sink he doth it neverthelesse very willingly and may refuse to doe it if he will It is therefore the action of one that was free so a man sometimes pays his debt only for feare of Imprisonment which because no body hindred him from detaining was the action of a man at liberty And generally all actions which men doe in Common-wealths for feare of the law are actions which the doers had liberty to omit Liberty and Necessity are Consistent As in the water that hath not only liberty but a necessity of descending by the Channel so likewise in the Actions which men voluntarily doe which because they proceed from their will proceed from liberty and yet because every act of mans will and every desire and inclination proceedeth from some cause and that from another cause in a continuall chaine whose first link is in the hand of God the first of all causes proceed from necessity So that to him that could see the connexion of those causes the necessity of all mens voluntary actions would appeare manifest And therefore God that seeth and disposeth all things seeth also that the liberty of man in doing what he will is accompanied with the necessity of doing that which God will no more nor lesse For though men may do many things which God does not command nor is therefore Author of them yet they can have no passion nor appetite to any thing of which appetite Gods will is not the cause And did not his will assure the necessity of mans will and consequently of all that on mans will dependeth the liberty of men would be a contradiction and impediment to the omnipotence and liberty of God And this shall suffice as to the matter in hand of that naturall liberty which only is properly called liberty But as men for the atteyning of peace and conservation
deduced from the nature of Counsell consisting in a deducing of the benefit or hurt that may arise to him that is to be Counselled by the necessary or probable consequences of the action he propoundeth so may also the differences between apt and inept Counsellours be derived from the same For Experience being but Memory of the consequences of like actions formerly observed and Counsell but the Speech whereby that experience is made known to another the Vertues and Defects of Counsell are the same with the Vertues and Defects Intellectuall And to the Person of a Common-wealth his Counsellours serve him in the place of Memory and Mentall Discourse But with this resemblance of the Common-wealth to a naturall man there is one dissimilitude joyned of great importance which is that a naturall man receiveth his experience from the naturall objects of sense which work upon him without passion or interest of their own whereas they that give Counsell to the Representative person of a Common-wealth may have and have often their particular ends and passions that render their Counsells alwayes suspected and many times unfaithfull And therefore we may set down for the first condition of a good Counsellour That his Ends and Interest be not inconsistent with the Ends and Interest of him he Counselleth Secondly Because the office of a Counsellour when an action comes into deliberation is to make manifest the consequences of it in such manner as he that is Counselled may be truly and evidently informed he ought to propound his advise in such forme of speech as may make the truth most evidently appear that is to say with as firme ratiocination as significant and proper language and as briefly as the evidence will permit And therefore rash and unevident Inferences such as are fetched onely from Examples or authority of Books and are not arguments of what is good or evill but witnesses of fact or of opinion obscure confused and ambiguous Expressions also all metaphoricall Speeches tending to the stirring up of Passion because such reasoning and such expressions are usefull onely to deceive or to lead him we Counsell towards other ends than his own are repugnant to the Office of a Counsellour Thirdly Because the Ability of Counselling proceedeth from Experience and long study and no man is presumed to have experience in all those things that to the Administration of a great Common-wealth are necessary to be known No man is presumed to be a good Counsellour but in such Businesse as he hath not onely been much versed in but hath also much meditated on and considered For seeing the businesse of a Common-wealth is this to preserve the people in Peace at home and defend them against forraign Invasion we shall find it requires great knowledge of the disposition of Man-kind of the Rights of Government and of the nature of Equity Law Justice and Honour not to be attained without study And of the Strength Commodities Places both of their own Country and their Neighbours as also of the inclinations and designes of all Nations that may any way annoy them And this is not attained to without much experience Of which things not onely the whole summe but every one of the particulars requires the age and observation of a man in years and of more than ordinary study The wit required for Counsel as I have said before Chap. 8. is Judgement And the differences of men in that point come from different education of some to one kind of study or businesse and of others to another When for the doing of any thing there be Infallible rules as in Engines and Edifices the rules of Geometry all the experience of the world cannot equall his Counsell that has learnt or found out the Rule And when there is no such Rule he that hath most experience in that particular kind of businesse has therein the best Judgement and is the best Counsellour Fourthly to be able to give Counsell to a Common-wealth in a businesse that hath reference to another Common-wealth It is necessary to be acquainted with the Intelligences and Letters that come from thence and with all the records of Treaties and other transactions of State between them which none can doe but such as the Representative shall think fit By which we may see that they who are not called to Counsell can have no good Counsell in such cases to obtrude Fifthly Supposing the number of Counsellors equall a man is better Counselled by hearing them apart then in an Assembly and that for many causes First in hearing them apart you have the advice of every man but in an Assembly many of them deliver their advise with I or No or with their hands or feet not moved by their own sense but by the eloquence of another or for feare of displeasing some that have spoken or the whole Assembly by contradiction or for feare of appearing duller in apprehension than those that have applauded the contrary opinion Secondly in an Assembly of many there cannot choose but be some whose interests are contrary to that of the Publique and these their Interests make passionate and Passion eloquent and Eloquence drawes others into the same advice For the Passions of men which asunder are moderate as the heat of one brand in Assembly are like many brands that enflame one another especially when they blow one another with Orations to the setting of the Common-wealth on fire under pretence of Counselling it Thirdly in hearing every man apart one may examine when there is need the truth or probability of his reasons and of the grounds of the advise he gives by frequent interruptions and objections which cannot be done in an Assembly where in every difficult question a man is rather astonied and dazled with the variety of discourse upon it than informed of the course he ought to take Besides there cannot be an Assembly of many called together for advice wherein there be not some that have the ambition to be thought eloquent and also learned in the Politiques and give not their advice with care of the businesse propounded but of the applause of their 〈◊〉 orations made of the divers colored threds or shreds of Authors which is an Impertinence at least that takes away the time of serious Consultation and in the secret way of Counselling apart is easily avoided Fourthly in Deliberations that ought to be kept secret whereof there be many occasions in Publique Businesse the Counsells of many and especially in Assemblies are dangerous And therefore great Assemblies are necessitated to commit such affaires to lesser numbers and of such persons as are most versed and in whose fidelity they have most confidence To conclude who is there that so far approves the taking of Counsell from a great Assembly of Counsellours that wisheth for or would accept of their pains when there is a question of marrying his Children disposing of his Lands governing his Household or managing his private Estate especially if there be
is once settled then are they actually Lawes and not before as being then the commands of the Common-wealth and therefore also Civill Lawes For it is the Soveraign Power that obliges men to obey them For in the differences of private men to declare what is Equity what is Justice and what is morall Vertue and to make them binding there is need of the Ordinances of Soveraign Power and Punishments to be ordaine d for such as shall break them which Ordinances are therefore part of the Civill Law The Law of Nature therefore is a part of the Civill Law in all Common-wealths of the world Reciprocally also the Civill Law is a part of the Dictates of Nature For Justice that is to say Performance of Covenant and giving to every man his own is a Dictate of the Law of Nature But every subject in a Common-wealth hath covenanted to obey the Civill Law either one with another as when they assemble to make a common Representative or with the Representative it selfe one by one when subdued by the Sword they promise obedience that they may receive life And therefore Obedience to the Civill Law is part also of the Law of Nature Civill and Naturall Law are not different kinds but different parts of Law whereof one part being written is called Civill the other unwritten Naturall But the Right of Nature that is the naturall Liberty of man may by the Civill Law be abridged and restrained nay the end of making Lawes is no other but such Restraint without the which there cannot possibly be any Peace And Law was brought into the world for nothing else but to limit the naturall liberty of particular men in such manner as they might not hurt but assist one another and joyn together against a common Enemy 5. If the Soveraign of one Common-wealth subdue a People that have lived under other written Lawes and afterwards govern them by the same Lawes by which they were governed before yet those Lawes are the Civill Lawes of the Victor and not of the Vanquished Common-wealth For the Legislator is he not by whose authority the Lawes were first made but by whose authority they now continue to be Lawes And therefore where there be divers Provinces within the Dominion of a Common-wealth and in those Provinces diversity of Lawes which commonly are called the Customes of each severall Province we are not to understand that such Customes have their force onely from Length of Time but that they were antiently Lawes written or otherwise made known for the Constitutions and Statutes of their Soveraigns and are now Lawes not by vertue of the Praescription of time but by the Constitutions of their present Soveraigns But if an unwritten Law in all the Provinces of a Dominion shall be generally observed and no iniquity appear in the use thereof that Law can be no other but a Law of Nature equally obliging all man-kind 6. Seeing then all Lawes written and unwritten have their Authority and force from the Will of the Common-wealth that is to say from the Will of the Representative which in a Monarchy is the Monarch and in other Common-wealths the Soveraign Assembly a man may wonder from whence proceed such opinions as are found in the Books of Lawyers of eminence in severall Common-wealths directly or by consequence making the Legislative Power depend on private men or subordinate Judges As for example That the Common Law hath no Controuler but the Parlament which is true onely where a Parlament has the Soveraign Power and cannot be assembled nor dissolved but by their own discretion For if there be a right in any else to dissolve them there is a right also to controule them and consequently to controule their controulings And if there be no such right then the Controuler of Lawes is not Parlamentum but Rex in Parlamento And were a Parlament is Soveraign if it should assemble never so many or so wise men from the Countries subject to them for whatsoever cause yet there is no man will believe that such an Assembly hath thereby acquired to themselves a Legislative Power Item that the two arms of a Common-wealth are Force and Justice the first whereof is in the King the other deposited in the hands of the Parlament As if a Common-wealth could consist where the Force were in any hand which Justice had not the Authority to command and govern 7. That Law can never be against Reason our Lawyers are agreed and that not the Letter that is every construction of it but that which is according to the Intention of the Legislator is the Law And it is true but the doubt is of whose Reason it is that shall be received for Law It is not meant of any private Reason for then there would be as much contradiction in the Lawes as there is in the Schooles nor yet as Sr. Ed. Coke makes it an Artificiall perfection of Reason gotten by long study observation and experience as his was For it is possible long study may encrease and confirm erroneous Sentences and where men build on false grounds the more they build the greater is the ruine and of those that study and observe with equall time and diligence the reasons and resolutions are and must remain discordant and therefore it is not that Juris prudentia or wisedome of subordinate Judges but the Reason of this our Artificiall Man the Common-wealth and his Command that maketh Law And the Common-wealth being in their Representative but one Person there cannot easily arise any contradiction in the Lawes and when there doth the same Reason is able by interpretation or alteration to take it away In all Courts of Justice the Soveraign which is the Person of the Common-wealth is he that Judgeth The subordinate Judge ought to have regard to the reason which moved his Soveraign to make such Law that his Sentence may be according thereunto which then is his Soveraigns Sentence otherwise it is his own and an unjust one 8. From this that the Law is a Command and a Command consisteth in declaration or manifestation of the will of him that commandeth by voyce writing or some other sufficient argument of the same we may understand that the Command of the Common-wealth is Law onely to those that have means to take notice of it Over naturall fooles children or mad-men there is no Law no more than over brute beasts nor are they capable of the title of just or unjust because they had never power to make any covenant or to understand the consequences thereof and consequently never took upon them to authorise the actions of any Soveraign as they must do that make to themselves a Common-wealth And as those from whom Nature or Accident hath taken away the notice of all Lawes in generall so also every man from whom any accident not proceeding from his own default hath taken away the means to take notice of any particular Law is excused if
Soveraign as they did to Moses to uphold or to forbid them as hee should see cause and if hee disavow them then no more to obey their voice or if he approve them then to obey them as men to whom God hath given a part of the Spirit of their Soveraigne For when Christian men take not their Christian Soveraign for Gods Prophet they must either take their owne Dreames for the Prophecy they mean to bee governed by and the tumour of their own hearts for the Spirit of God or they must suffer themselves to bee lead by some strange Prince or by some of their fellow subjects that can bewitch them by slaunder of the government into rebellion without other miracle to confirm their calling then sometimes an extraordinary successe and Impunity and by this means destroying all laws both divine and humane reduce all Order Government and Society to the first Chaos of Violence and Civill warre CHAP. XXXVII Of MIRACLES and their Use. BY Miracles are signified the Admirable works of God therefore they are also called Wonders And because they are for the most part done for a signification of his commandement in such occasions as without them men are apt to doubt following their private naturall reasoning what he hath commanded and what not they are commonly in Holy Scripture called Signes in the same sense as they are called by the Latines Ostenta and Portenta from shewing and fore-signifying that which the Almighty is about to bring to passe To understand therefore what is a Miracle we must first understand what works they are which men wonder at and call Admirable And there be but two things which make men wonder at any event The one is if it be strange that is to say such as the like of it hath never or very rarely been produced The other is if when it is produced we cannot imagine it to have been done by naturall means but onely by the immediate hand of God But when wee see some possible naturall cause of it how rarely soever the like has been done or if the like have been often done how impossible soever it be to imagine a naturall means thereof we no more wonder nor esteem it for a Miracle Therefore if a Horse or Cow should speak it were a Miracle because both the thing is strange the naturall cause difficult to imagin So also were it to see a strange deviation of nature in the production of some new shape of a living creature But when a man or other Animal engenders his like though we know no more how this is done than the other yet because 't is usuall it is no Miracle In like manner if a man be metamorphosed into a stone or into a pillar it is a Miracle because strange but if a peece of wood be so changed because we see it often it is no Miracle and yet we know no more by what operation of God the one is brought to passe than the other The first Rainbow that was seen in the world was a Miracle because the first and consequently strange and served for a sign from God placed in heaven to assure his people there should be no more an universall destruction of the world by Water â—…ut at this day because they are frequent they are not Miracles neither to them that know their naturall causes nor to them who know them not Again there be many rare works produced by the Art of man yet when we know they are done because thereby wee know also the means how they are done we count them not for Miracles because not wrought by the immediate hand of God but of humane Industry Furthermore seeing Admiration and Wonder is consequent to the knowledge and experience wherewith men are endued some more some lesse it followeth that the same thing may be a Miracle to one and not to another And thence it is that ignorant and superstitious men make great Wonders of those works which other men knowing to proceed from Nature which is not the immediate but the ordinary work of God admire not at all As when Ecclipses of the Sun and Moon have been taken for supernaturall works by the common people when neverthelesse there were others could from their naturall causes have foretold the very hour they should arrive Or as when a man by confederacy and secret intelligence getting knowledge of the private actions of an ignorant unwary man and thereby tells him what he has done in former time it seems to him a Miraculous thing but amongst wise and cautelous men such Miracles as those cannot easily be done Again it belongeth to the nature of a Miracle that it be wrought for the procuring of credit to Gods Messengers Ministers and Prophets that thereby men may know they are called sent and employed by God and thereby be the better inclined to obey them And therefore though the creation of the world and after that the destruction of all living creatures in the universall deluge were admirable works yet because they were not done to procure credit to any Prophet or other Minister of God they use not to be called Miracles For how admirable soever any work be the Admiration consisteth not in that it could be done because men naturally beleeve the Almighty can doe all things but because he does it at the Prayer or Word of a man But the works of God in Egypt by the hand of Moses were properly Miracles because they were done with intention to make the people of Israel beleeve that Moses came unto them not out of any design of his owne interest but as sent from God Therefore after God had commanded him to deliver the Israelites from the Egyptian bondage when he said They will not beleeve me but will say the Lord hath not appeared unto me God gave him power to turn the Rod he had in his hand into a Serpent and again to return it into a Rod and by putting his hand into his bosome to make it leprous and again by putting it out to make it whole to make the Children of Israel beleeve as it is verse 5. that the God of their Fathers had appeared unto him And if that were not enough he gave him power to turn their waters into bloud And when hee had done these Miracles before the people it is said verse 41. that they beleeved him Neverthelesse for fear of Pharaoh they durst not yet obey him Therefore the other works which were done to plague Pharaoh and the Egyptians tended all to make the Israelites beleeve in Moses and were properly Miracles In like manner if we consider all the Miracles done by the hand of Moses and all the rest of the Prophets till the Captivity and those of our Saviour and his Apostles afterward we shall find their end was alwaies to beget or confirme beleefe that they came not of their own motion but were sent by God Wee may further observe in Scripture
the◅efore manifest that Christ hath not left to his Ministers in this world unlesse they be also endued with Civill Authority any authority to Command other men But what may some object if a King or a Senate or other Soveraign Person forbid us to beleeve in Christ To this I answer that such forbidding is of no effect because Beleef and Unbeleef never follow mens Commands Faith is a gift of God which Man can neither give nor take away by promise of rewards or menaces of torture And if it be further asked What if wee bee commanded by our lawfull Prince to say with our tongue wee beleeve not must we obey such command Profession with the tongue is but an externall thing and no more then any other gesture whereby we signifie our obedience and wherein a Christian holding firmely in his heart the Faith of Christ hath the same liberty which the Prophet Elisha allowed to Naaman the Syrian Naaman was converted in his heart to the God of Israel For hee saith 2 Kings 5. 17. Thy servant will henceforth offer neither burnt offering nor sacrifice unto other Gods but unto the Lord. In this thing the Lord pardon thy servant that when my Master goeth into the house of Rimmon to worship there and he leaneth on my hand and I bow my selfe in the house of Rimmon when I bow my selfe in the house of Rimmon the Lord pardon thy servant in this thing This the Prophet approved and bid him Goe in peace Here Naaman beleeved in his heart but by bowing before the Idol Rimmon he denyed the true God in effect as much as if he had done it with his lips But then what shall we answer to our Saviours saying Whosoever denyeth me before men I will deny him before my Father which is in Heaven This we may say that whatsoever a Subject as Naaman was is compelled to in obedience to his Soveraign and doth it not in order to his own mind but in order to the laws of his country that action is not his but his Soveraigns nor is it he that in this case denyeth Christ before men but his Governour and the law of his countrey If any man shall accuse this doctrine as repugnant to true and unfegined Christianity I ask him in case there should be a subject in any Christian Common-wealth that should be inwardly in his heart of the Mahometan Religion whether if his Soveraign command him to bee present at the divine service of the Christian Church and that on pain of death he think that Mahometan obliged in conscience to suffer death for that cause rather than to obey that command of his lawfull Prince If he say he ought rather to suffer death then he authorizeth all private men to disobey their Princes in maintenance of their Religion true or false if he say he ought to bee obedient then he alloweth to himself that which hee denyeth to another contrary to the words of our Saviour Whatsoever you would that men should doe unto you that doe yee unto them and contrary to the Law of Nature which is the indubitable everlasting Law of God Do not to another that which thou wouldest not he should doe unto thee But what then shall we say of all those Martyrs we read of in the History of the Church that they have needlessely cast away their lives For answer hereunto we are to distinguish the persons that have been for that cause put to death whereof some have received a Calling to preach and professe the Kingdome of Christ openly others have had no such Calling nor more has been required of them than their owne faith The former sort if they have been put to death for bearing witnesse to this point that Jesus Christ is risen from the dead were true Martyrs For a Martyr is to give the true definition of the word a Witnesse of the Resurrection of Jesus the Messiah which none can be but those that conversed with him on earth and saw him after he was risen For a Witnesse must have seen what he testifieth or else his testimony is not good And that none but such can properly be called Martyrs of Christ is manifest out of the words of St. Peter Act. 1. 21 22. VVherefore of these men which have companyed with us all the time that the Lord Iesus went in and out amongst us beginning from the Baptisme of Iohn unto that same day hee was taken up from us must one one be ordained to be a Martyr that is a Witnesse with us of his Resurrection Where we may observe that he which is to bee a Witnesse of the truth of the Resurrection of Christ that is to say of the truth of this fundamentall article of Christian Religion that Jesus was the Christ must be some Disciple that conversed with him and saw him before and after his Resurrection and consequently must be one of his originall Disciples whereas they which were not so can Witnesse no more but that their antecessors said it and are therefore but Witnesses of other mens testimony and are but second Martyrs or Martyrs of Christs Witnesses He that to maintain every doctrine which he himself draweth out of the History our Saviours of life and of the Acts or Epistles of the Apostles or which he beleeveth upō the authority of a private man wil oppose the Laws and Authority of the Civill State is very far from being a Martyr of Christ or a Martyr of his Martyrs 'T is one Article onely which to die for meriteth so honorable a name and that Article is this that Iesus is the Christ that is to say He that hath redeemed us aud shall come again to give us salvation and eternall life in his glorious Kingdome To die for every tenet that serveth the ambition or profit of the Clergy is not required nor is it the Death of the Witnesse but the Testimony it self that makes the Martyr for the word signifieth nothing else but the man that beareth Witnesse whether he be put to death for his testimony or not Also he that is not sent to preach this fundamentall article but taketh it upon him of his private authority though he be a Witnesse and consequently a Martyr either primary of Christ or secundary of his Apostles Disciples or their Successors yet is he not obliged to suffer death for that cause because being not called thereto t is not required at his hands nor ought hee to complain if he loseth the reward he expecteth from those that never set him on work None therefore can be a Martyr neither of the first nor second degree that have not a warrant to preach Christ come in the flesh that is to say none but such as are sent to the conversion of Infidels For no man is a Witnesse to him that already beleeveth and therefore needs no Witnesse but to them that deny or doubt or have not heard it Christ sent his Apostles and his Seventy Disciples with
should not violate our Faith that is a commandement to obey our Civill Soveraigns which wee constituted over us by mutuall pact one with another And this Law of God that commandeth Obedience to the Law Civill commandeth by consequence Obedience to all the Precepts of the Bible which as I have proved in the precedent Chapter is there onely Law where the Civill Soveraign hath made it so and in other places but Counsell which a man at his own perill may without injustice refuse to obey Knowing now what is the Obedience Necessary to Salvation and to whom it is due we are to consider next concerning Faith whom and why we beleeve and what are the Articles or Points necessarily to be beleeved by them that shall be saved And first for the Person whom we beleeve because it is impossible to beleeve any Person before we know what he saith it is necessary he be one that wee have heard speak The Person therefore whom Abraham Isaac Jacob Moses and the Prophets beleeved was God himself that spake unto them supernaturally And the Person whom the Apostles and Disciples that conversed with Christ beleeved was our Saviour himself But of them to whom neither God the Father nor our Saviour ever spake it cannot be said that the Person whom they beleeved was God They beleeved the Apostles and after them the Pastors and Doctors of the Church that recommended to their faith the History of the Old and New Testament so that the Faith of Christians ever since our Saviours time hath had for foundation first the reputation of their Pastors and afterward the authority of those that made the Old and New Testament to be received for the Rule of Faith which none could do but Christian Soveraignes who are therefore the Supreme Pastors and the onely Persons whom Christians now hear speak from God except such as God speaketh to in these days supernaturally But because there be many false Prophets gone out into the world other men are to examine such Spirits as St. Iohn adviseth us 1 Epistle Chap. 4. ver 1. whether they be of God or not And therefore seeing the Examination of Doctrines belongeth to the Supreme Pastor the Person which all they that have no speciall revelation are to beleeve is in every Common-wealth the Supreme Pastor that is to say the Civill Soveraigne The causes why men beleeve any Christian Doctrine are various For Faith is the gift of God and he worketh it in each severall man by such wayes as it seemeth good unto himself The most ordinary immediate cause of our beleef concerning any point of Christian Faith is that wee beleeve the Bible to be the Word of God But why wee beleeve the Bible to be the Word of God is much disputed as all questions must needs bee that are not well stated For they make not the question to be Why we Beleeve it but How wee Know it as if Beleeving and Knowing were all one And thence while one side ground their Knowledge upon the Infallibility of the Church and the other side on the Testimony of the Private Spirit neither side concludeth what it pretends For how shall a man know the Infallibility of the Church but by knowing first the Infallibility of the Scripture Or how shall a man know his own Private spirit to be other than a beleef grounded upon the Authority and Arguments of his Teachers or upon a Presumption of his own Gifts Besides there is nothing in the Scripture from which can be inferred the Infallibility of the Church much lesse of any particular Church and least of all the Infallibility of any particular man It is manifest therefore that Christian men doe not know but onely beleeve the Scripture to be the Word of God and that the means of making them beleeve which God is pleased to afford men ordinarily is according to the way of Nature that is to say from their Teachers It is the Doctrine of St. Paul concerning Christian Faith in generall Rom. 10. 17. Faith cometh by Hearing that is by Hearing our lawfull Pastors He saith also ver 14 15. of the same Chapter How shall they beleeve in him of whom they have not heard and how shall they hear without a Preacher and how shall they Preach except they be sent Whereby it is evident that the ordinary cause of beleeving that the Scriptures are the Word of God is the same with the cause of the beleeving of all other Articles of our Faith namely the Hearing of those that are by the Law allowed and appointed to Teach us as our Parents in their Houses and our Pastors in the Churches Which also is made more manifest by experience For what other cause can there bee assigned why in Christian Common-wealths all men either beleeve or at least professe the Scripture to bee the Word of God and in other Common-wealths scarce any but that in Christian Common-wealths they are taught it from their infancy and in other places they are taught otherwise But if Teaching be the cause of Faith why doe not all beleeve It is certain therefore that Faith is the gift of God and hee giveth it to whom he will Neverthelesse because to them to whom he giveth it he giveth it by the means of Teachers the immediate cause of Faith is Hearing In a School where many are taught and some profit others profit not the cause of learning in them that profit is the Master yet it cannot be thence inferred that learning is not the gift of God All good things proceed from God yet cannot all that have them say they are Inspired for that implies a gift supernaturall and the immediate hand of God which he that pretends to pretends to be a Prophet and is subject to the examination of the Church But whether men Know or Beleeve or Grant the Scriptures to be the Word of God if out of such places of them as are without obscurity I shall shew what Articles of Faith are necessary and onely necessary for Salvation those men must needs Know Beleeve or Grant the same The Vnum Necessarium Onely Article of Faith which the Scripture maketh simply Necessary to Salvation is this that JESUS IS THE CHRIST By the name of Christ is understood the King which God had before promised by the Prophets of the Old Testament to send into the world to reign over the Jews and over such of other nations as should beleeve in him under himself eternally and to give them that eternall life which was lost by the sin of Adam Which when I have proved out of Scripture I will further shew when and in what sense some other Articles may bee also called Necessary For Proof that the Beleef of this Article Iesus is the Christ is all the Faith required to Salvation my first Argument shall bee from the Scope of the Evangelists which was by the description of the life of our Saviour to establish that one