of the resolution of the same into its first seeds or principles which are only an opinion of a Deity and Powers invisible and supernaturall that can never be so abolished out of humane nature but that new Religions may againe be made to spring out of them by the culture of such men as for such purpose are in reputation For seeing all formed Religion is founded at first upon the faith which a multitude hath in some one person whom they believe not only to be a wise man and to labouâ—… to procure their happiness but also to be a holy man to whom God himselfe vouchsafeth to declare his will supernaturally It followeth necessarily when they that have the Government of Religion shall come to have either the wisedome of those men their sincerity or their love suspected or that they shall be unable to shew any probable token of Divine Revelation that the Religion which they desire to uphold must be suspected likewise and without the feare of the Civill Sword contradicted and rejected That which taketh away the reputation of Wisedome in him that formeth a Religion or addeth to it when it is allready formed is the enjoyning of a beliefe of contradictories For both parts of a contradiction cannot possibly be true and therefore to enjoyne the beleife of them is an argument of ignorance which detects the Author in that and discredits him in all things else he shall propound as from revelation supernaturall which revelation a man may indeed have of many things above but of nothing against naturall reason That which taketh away the reputation of Sincerity is the doing or saying of such things as appeare to be signes that what they require other men to believe is not believed by themselves all which doings or sayings are therefore called Scandalous because they be stumbling blocks that make men to fall in the way of Religion as Injustice Cruelty Prophanesse Avarice and Luxury For who can believe that he that doth ordinarily such actions as proceed from any of these rootes believeth there is any such Invisible Power to be feared as he affrighteth other men withall for lesser faults That which taketh away the reputation of Love is the being detected of private ends as when the beliefe they require of others conduceth or seemeth to conduce to the acquiring of Dominion Riches Dignity or secure Pleasure to themselves onely or specially For that which men reap benefit by to themselves they are thought to do for their own sakes and not for love of others Lastly the testimony that men can render of divine Calling can be no other than the operation of Miracles or true Prophecy which also is a Miracle or extraordinary Felicity And therefore to those points of Religion which have been received from them that did such Miracles those that are added by such as approve not their Calling by some Miracle obtain no greater beliefe than what the Custome and Lawes of the places in which they be educated have wrought into them For as in naturall things men of judgement require naturall signes and arguments so in supernaturall things they require signes supernaturall which are Miracles before they consent inwardly and from their hearts All which causes of the weakening of mens faith do manifestly appear in the Examples following First we have the Example of the children of Israel who when Moses that had approved his Calling to them by Miracles and by the happy conduct of them out of Egypt was absent but 40. dayes revolted from the worship of the true God recommended to them by him and setting up a Golden Calfe for their God relapsed into the Idolatry of the Egyptians from whom they had been so lately delivered And again after Moses Aaron Joshua and that generation which had seen the great works of God in Israel were dead another generation arose and served Baal So that Miracles fayling Faith also failed Again when the sons of Samuel being constituted by their father Judges in Bersabee received bribes and judged unjustly the people of Israel refused any more to have God to be their King in other manner than he was King of other people and therefore cryed out to Samuel to choose them a King after the manner of the Nations So that Justice fayling Faith also fayled Insomuch as they deposed their God from reigning over them And whereas in the planting of Christian Religion the Oracles ceased in all parts of the Roman Empire and the number of Christians encreased wonderfully every day and in every place by the preaching of the Apostles and Evangelists a great part of that successe may reasonably be attributed to the contempt into which the Priests of the Gentiles of that time had brought themselves by their uncleannesse avarice and jugling between Princes Also the Religion of the Church of Rome was partly for the same cause abolished in England and many other parts of Christendome insomuch as the fayling of Vertue in the Pastors maketh Faith faile in the People and partly from bringing of the Philosophy and doctrine of Aristotle into Religion by the Schoole-men from whence there arose so many contradictions and absurdities as brought the Clergy into a reputation both of Ignorance and of Fraudulent intention and enclined people to revolt from them either against the will of their own Princes as in France and Holland or with their will as in England Lastly amongst the points by the Church of Rome declared necessary for Salvation there be so many manifestly to the advantage of the Pope and of his spirituall subjects residing in the territories of other Christian Princes that were it not for the mutuall emulation of those Princes they might without warre or trouble exclude all forraign Authority as easily as it has been excluded in England For who is there that does not see to whose benefit it conduceth to have it believed that a King hath not his Authority from Christ unlesse a Bishop crown him That a King if he be a Priest cannot Marry That whether a Prince be born in lawfull Marriage or not must be judged by Authority from Rome That Subjects may be freed from their Alleageance if by the Court of Rome the King be judged an Heretique That a King as Chilperique of France may be deposed by a Pope as Pope Zachary for no cause and his Kingdome given to one of his Subjects That the Clergy and Regulars in what Country soever shall be exempt from the Jurisdiction of their King in cases criminall Or who does not see to whose profit redound the Fees of private Masses and Vales of Purgatory with other signes of private interest enough to mortifie the most lively Faith if as I sayd the civill Magistrate and Custome did not more sustain it than any opinion they have of the Sanctity Wisdome or Probity of their Teachers So that I may attribute all the changes of Religion in the world to one and the same cause and
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
Article Iesus is the Christ. The summe of St. Matthews Gospell is this That Jesus was of the stock of David Born of a Virgin which are the Marks of the true Christ That the Magi came to worship him as King of the Jews That Herod for the same cause sought to kill him That John Baptist proclaimed him That he preached by himselfe and his Apostles that he was that King That he taught the Law not as a Scribe but as a man of Authority That he cured diseases by his Word onely and did many other Miracles which were foretold the Christ should doe That he was saluted King when hee entred into Jerusalem That he fore-warned them to beware of all others that should pretend to be Christ That he was taken accused and put to death for saying hee was King That the cause of his condemnation written on the Crosse was JESUS OF NAZARETH THE KING OF THE JEVVES All which tend to no other end than this that men should beleeve that Iesus is the Christ. Such therefore was the Scope of St. Matthews Gospel But the Scope of all the Evangelists as may appear by reading them was the same Therefore the Scope of the whole Gospell was the establishing of that onely Article And St. John expressely makes it his conclusion Iohn 20. 31. These things are written that you may know that Iesus is the Christ the Son of the living God My second Argument is taken from the Subject of the Sermons of the Apostles both whilest our Saviour lived on earth aud after his Ascension The Apostles in our Saviours time were sent Luke 9. 2. to Preach the Kingdome of God For neither there nor Mat. 10. 7. giveth he any Commission to them other than this As ye go Preach saying the Kingdome of Heaven is at hand that is that Iesus is the Messiah the Christ the King which was to come That their Preaching also after his ascension was the same is manifest out of Acts 17. 6. They drew saith St. Luke Iason and certain Brethren unto the Rulers of the City crying These that have turned the world upside down are come hither also whom Iason hath received And these all do contrary to the Decrees of Caesar saying that there is another King one Iesus And out of the 2. 3. verses of the same Chapter where it is said that St. Paul as his manner was went in unto them and three Sabbath dayes reasoned with them out of the Scriptures opening and alledging that Christ must needs have suffered and risen againe from the dead and that this Iesus whom hee preached is Christ. The third Argument is from those places of Scripture by which all the Faith required to Salvation is declared to be Easie. For if an inward assent of the mind to all the Doctrines concerning Christian Faith now taught whereof the greatest part are disputed were necessary to Salvation there would be nothing in the world so hard as to be a Christian. The Thief upon the Crosse though repenting could not have been saved for saying Lord remember me when thou commest into thy Kinâ—…dome by which he testified no beleefe of any other Article but this That Iesus was the King Nor could it bee said as it is Mat. 11. 30. that Christs yoke is Easy and his burthen Light Nor that Little Children beleeve in him as it is Matth. 18. 6. Nor could St. Paul have said 1 Cor. 1. 21. It pleased God by the Foolishnesse of preaching to save them that beleeve Nor could St. Paul himself have been saved much lesse have been so great a Doctor of the Church so suddenly that never perhaps thought of Transubstantiation nor Purgatory nor many other Articles now obtruded The fourth Argument is taken from places expresse and such as receive no controversie of Interpretation as first Iohn 5. 39. Search the Scriptures for in them yee thinke yee have eternall life and they are they that testifie of mee Our Saviour here speaketh of the Scriptures onely of the Old Testament for the Jews at that time could not search the Scriptures of the New Testament which were not written But the Old Testament hath nothing of Christ but the Markes by which men might know him when hee came as that he should descend from David be born at Bethlem and of a Virgin doe great Miracles and the like Therefore to beleeve that this Jesus was He was sufficient to eternall life but more than sufficient is not Necessary and consequently no other Article is required Again Iohn 11. 26. Whosoever liveth and beleeveth in mee shall not die eternally Therefore to beleeve in Christ is faith sufficient to eternall life and consequently no more faith than that is Necessary But to beleeve in Jesus and to beleeve that Jesus is the Christ is all one as appeareth in the verses immediately following For when our Saviour verse 26. had said to Martha Beleevest thou this she answereth verse 27. Yea Lord I beleeve that thou art the Christ the Son of God which should come into the world Therefore this Article alone is faith sufficient to life eternall and more than sufficient is not Necessary Thirdly Iohn 20. 31. These things are written that yee might beleeve that Iesus is the Christ the Son of God and that beleeving yee might have life through his name There to beleeve that Iesus is the Christ is faith sufficient to the obtaining of life and therefore no other Article is Necessary Fourthly 1 Iohn 4. 2. Every spirit that confesseth that Iesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God And 1 Ioh. 5. 1. Whosoever beleeveth that Iesus is the Christ is born of God And verse 5. Who is hee that overcommeth the world but he that beleeveth that Iesus is the Son of God Fiftly Act. 8. ver 36 37. See saith the Eunuch here is water what doth hinder me to be baptized And Philip said If thou beleevest with all thy heart thou mayst And hee answered and said I beleeve that Iesus Christ is the Son of God Therefore this Article beleeved Iesus is the Christ is sufficient to Baptisme that is to say to our Reception into the Kingdome of God and by consequence onely Necessary And generally in all places where our Saviour saith to any man Thy faith hath saved thee the caâ—…se he saith it is some Confession which directly or by consequence implyeth a beleef that Jesus is the Christ. The last Argument is from the places where this Article is made the Foundation of Faith For he that holdeth the Foundation shall bee saved Which places are first Mat. 24. 23. If any man shall say unto you Loe here is Christ or there beleeve it not for there shall arise false Christs and false Prophets and shall shew great signes and wonders c. Here wee see this Article Jesus is the Christ must bee held though hee that shall teach the contrary should doe great miracles The second place is Gal. 1. 8. Though
the procincts of battell to hold together and use all advantages of force is a better stratagem than any that can proceed from subtilty of Wit Vain-glorious men such as without being conscious to themselves of great sufficiency delight in supposing themselves gallant men are enclined onely to ostentation but not to attempt Because when danger or difficulty appears they look for nothing but to have their insufficiency discovered Vain-glorious men such as estimate their sufficiency by the flattery of other men or the fortune of some precedent action without assured ground of hope from the true knowledge of themselves are enclined to rash engaging and in the approach of danger or difficulty to retire if they can because not seeing the way of safety they will rather hazard their honour which may be salved with an excuse than their lives for which no salve is sufficient Men that have a strong opinion of their own wisdome in matter of government are disposed to Ambition Because without publique Employment in counsell or magistracy the honour of their wisdome is lost And therefore Eloquent speakers are enclined to Ambition for Eloquence seemeth wisedome both to themselves and others Pusillanimity disposeth men to Irresolution and consequently to lose the occasions and fittest opportunities of action For after men have been in deliberation till the time of action approach if it be not then manifest what is best to be done 't is a signe the difference of Motives the one way and the other are not great Therefore not to resolve then is to lose the occasion by weighing of trifles which is Pusillanimity Frugality though in poor men a Vertue maketh a man unapt to atchieve such actions as require the strength of many men at once For it weakeneth their Endeavour which is to be nourished and kept in vigor by Reward Eloquence with flattery disposeth men to confide in them that have it because the former is seeming Wisdome the later seeming Kindnesse Adde to them Military reputation and it disposeth men to adhaere and subject themselves to those men that have them The two former having given them caution against danger from him the later gives them caution against danger from others Want of Science that is Ignorance of causes disposeth or rather constraineth a man to rely on the advise and authority of others For all men whom the truth concernes if they rely not on their own must rely on the opinion of some other whom they think wiser than themselves and see not why he should deceive them Ignorance of the signification of words which is want of understanding disposeth men to take on trust not onely the truth they know not but also the errors and which is more the non-sense of them they trust For neither Error nor non-sense can without a perfect understanding of words be detected From the same it proceedeth that men give different names to one and the same thing from the difference of their own passions As they that approve a private opinion call it Opinion but they that mislike it Haeresie and yet haeresie signifies no more than private opinion but has onely a greater tincture of choler From the same also it proceedeth that men cannot distinguish without study and great understanding between one action of many men and many actions of one multitude as for example between the one action of all the Senators of Rome in killing Catiline and the many actions of a number of Senators in killing Caesar and therefore are disposed to take for the action of the people that which is a multitude of actions done by a multitude of men led perhaps by the perswasion of one Ignorance of the causes and originall constitution of Right Equity Law and Justice disposeth a man to make Custome and Example the rule of his actions in such manner as to think that Unjust which it hath been the custome to punish and that Just of the impunity and approbation whereof they can produce an Example or as the Lawyers which onely use this false measure of Justice barbarously call it a Precedent like little children that have no other rule of good and evill manners but the correction they receive from their Parents and Masters save that children are constant to their rule whereas men are not so because grown strong and stubborn they appeale from custome to reason and from reason to custome as it serves their turn receding from custome when their interest requires it and setting themselves against reason as oft as reason is against them Which is the cause that the doctrine of Right and Wrong is perpetually disputed both by the Pen and the Sword Whereas the doctrine of Lines and Figures is not so because men care not in that subject what be truth as a thing that crosses no mans ambition profit or lust For I doubt not but if it had been a thing contrary to any mans right of dominion or to the interest of men that have dominion That the three Angles of a Triangle should be equall to two Angles of a Square that doctrine should have been if not disputed yet by the burning of all books of Geometry suppressed as farre as he whom it concerned was able Ignorance of remote causes disposeth men to attribute all events to the causes immediate and Instrumentall For these are all the causes they perceive And hence it comes to passe that in all places men that are grieved with payments to the Publique discharge their anger upon the Publicans that is to say Farmers Collectors and other Officers of the publique Revenue and adhaere to such as find fault with the publike Government and thereby when they have engaged themselves beyond hope of justification fall also upon the Supreme Authority for feare of punishment or shame of receiving pardon Ignorance of naturall causes disposeth a man to Credulity so as to believe many times impossibilities For such know nothing to the contrary but that they may be true being unable to detect the Impossibility And Credulity because men love to be hearkened unto in company disposeth them to lying so that Ignorance it selfe without Malice is able to make a man both to believe lyes and tell them and sometimes also to invent them Anxiety for the future time disposeth men to enquire into the causes of things because the knowledge of them maketh men the better able to order the present to their best advantage Curiosity or love of the knowledge of causes draws a man from consideration of the effect to seek the cause and again the cause of that cause till of necessity he must come to this thought at last that there is some cause whereof there is no former cause but is eternall which is it men call God So that it is impossible to make any profound enquiry into naturall causes without being enclined thereby to believe there is one God Eternall though they cannot have any
Idea of him in their mind answerable to his nature For as a man that is born blind hearing men talk of warming themselves by the fire and being brought to warm himself by the same may easily conceive and assure himselfe there is somewhat there which men call Fire and is the cause of the heat he feeles but cannot imagine what it is like nor have an Idea of it in his mind such as they have that see it so also by the visible things of this world and their admirable order a man may conceive there is a cause of them which men call God and yet not have an Idea or Image of him in his mind And they that make little or no enquiry into the naturall causes of things yet from the feare that proceeds from the ignorance it selfe of what it is that hath the power to do them much good or harm are enclined to suppose and feign unto themselves severall kinds of Powers Invisible and to stand in awe of their own imaginations and in time of distresse to invoke them as also in the time of an expected good successe to give them thanks making the creatures of their own fancy their Gods By which means it hath come to passe that from the innumerable variety of Fancy men have created in the world innumerable sorts of Gods And this Feare of things invisible is the naturall Seed of that which every one in himself calleth Religion and in them that worship or feare that Power otherwise than they do Superstition And this seed of Religion having been observed by many some of those that have observed it have been enclined thereby to nourish dresse and forme it into Lawes and to adde to it of their own invention any opinion of the causes of future events by which they thought they should best be able to govern others and make unto themselves the greatest use of their Powers CHAP. XII OF RELIGION SEeing there are no signes nor fruit of Religion but in Man onely there is no cause to doubt but that the seed of Religion is also onely in Man and consisteth in some peculiar quality or at least in some eminent degree therof not to be found in other Living creatures And first it is peculiar to the nature of Man to be inquisitive into the Causes of the Events they see some more some lesse but all men so much as to be curious in the search of the causes of their own good and evill fortune Secondly upon the sight of any thing that hath a Beginning to think also it had a cause which determined the same to begin then when it did rather than sooner or later Thirdly whereas there is no other Felicity of Beasts but the enjoying of their quotidian Food Ease and Lusts as having little or no foresight of the time to come for want of observation and memory of the order consequence and dependance of the things they see Man observeth how one Event hath been produced by another and remembreth in them Antecedence and Consequence And when he cannot assure himselfe of the true causes of things for the causes of good and evill fortune for the most part are invisible he supposes causes of them either such as his own fancy suggesteth or trusteth to the Authority of other men such as he thinks to be his friends and wiser than himselfe The two first make Anxiety For being assured that there be causes of all things that have arrived hitherto or shall arrive hereafter it is impossible for a man who continually endeavoureth to secure himselfe against the evill he feares and procure the good he desireth not to be in a perpetuall solicitude of the time to come So that every man especially those that are over provident are in an estate like to that of Prometheus For as Prometheus which interpreted is The prudent man was bound to the hill Caucasus a place of large prospect where an Eagle feeding on his liver devoured in the day as much as was repayred in the night So that man which looks too far before him in the care of future time hath his heart all the day long gnawed on by feare of death poverty or other calamity and has no repose nor pause of his anxiety but in sleep This perpetuall feare alwayes accompanying mankind in the ignorance of causes as it were in the Dark must needs have for object something And therefore when there is nothing to be seen there is nothing to accuse either of their good or evill fortune but some Power or Agent Invisible In which sense perhaps it was that some of the old Poets said that the Gods were at first created by humane Feare which spoken of the Gods that is to say of the many Gods of the Gentiles is very true But the acknowledging of one God Eternall Infinite and Omnipotent may more easily be derived from the desire men have to know the causes of naturall bodies and their severall vertues and operations than from the feare of what was to be fall them in time to come For he that from any effect hee seeth come to passe should reason to the next and immediate cause thereof and from thence to the cause of that cause and plonge himselfe profoundly in the pursuit of causes shall at last come to this that there must be as even the Heathen Philosophers confessed one First Mover that is a First and an Eternall cause of all things which is that which men mean by the name of God And all this without thought of their fortune the solicitude whereof both enclines to fear and hinders them from the search of the causes of other things and thereby gives occasion of feigning of as many Gods as there be men that feigne them And for the matter or substance of the Invisible Agents so fancyed they could not by naturall cogitation fall upon any other conceipt but that it was the same with that of the Soule of man and that the Soule of man was of the same substance with that which appeareth in a Dream to one that sleepeth or in a Looking-glasse to one that is awake which men not knowing that such apparitions are nothing else but creatures of the Fancy think to be reall and externall Substances and therefore call them Ghosts as the Latines called them Imagines and Umbrae and thought them Spirits that is thin aëreall bodies and those Invisible Agents which they feared to bee like them save that they appear and vanish when they please But the opinion that such Spirits were Incorporeall or Immateriall could never enter into the mind of any man by nature because though men may put together words of contradictory signification as Spirit and Incorporeall yet they can never have the imagination of any thing answering to them And therefore men that by their own meditation arrive to the acknowledgement of one Infinite Omnipotent and Eternall God choose rather to confesse he is Incomprehensible and
not a Common benefit to the whole Body which have in this case no common stock but what is deducted out of the particular adventures for building buying victualling and manning of Ships but the particular gaine of every adventurer it is reason that every one be acquainted with the employment of his own that is that every one be of the Assembly that shall have the power to order the same and be acquainted with their accounts And therefore the Representative of such a Body must be an Assembly where every member of the Body may be present at the consultations if he will If a Body Politique of Merchants contract a debt to a stranger by the act of their Representative Assembly every Member is lyable by himself for the whole For a stranger can take no notice of their private Lawes but considereth them as so many particular men obliged every one to the whole payment till payment made by one dischargeth all the rest But if the debt be to one of the Company the creditor is debter for the whole to himself and cannot therefore demand his debt but only from the common stock if there be any If the Common-wealth impose a Tax upon the Body it is understood to be layd upon every Member proportionably to his particular adventure in the Company For there is in this case no other common stock but what is made of their particular adventures If a Mulct be layd upon the Body for some unlawfull act they only are lyable by whose votes the act was decreed or by whose assistance it was executed for in none of the rest is there any other crime but being of the Body which if a crime because the Body was ordeyned by the authority of the Common-wealth is not his If one of the Members be indebted to the Body he may 〈◊〉 sued by the Body but his goods cannot be taken nor his person imprisoned by the authority of the Body but only by Authority of the Common-wealth for if they can doe it by their own Authority they can by their own Authority give judgement that the debt is due which is as much as to be Judge in their own Cause Those Bodies made for the government of Men or of Traffique be either perpetuall or for a time prescribed by writing But there be Bodies also whose times are limited and that only by the nature of their businesse For example if a Soveraign Monarch or a Soveraign Assembly shall think fit to give command to the towns and other severall parts of their territory to send to him their Deputies to enforme him of the condition and necessities of the Subjects or to advise with him for the making of good Lawes or for any other cause as with one Person representing the whole Country such Deputies having a place and time of meeting assigned them are there and at that time a Body Politique representing every Subject of that Dominion but it is onely for such matters as shall be propounded unto them by that Man or Assembly that by the Soveraign Authority sent for them and when it shall be declared that nothing more shall be propounded nor debated by them the Body is dissolved For if they were the absolute Representative of the people then were it the Soveraign Assembly and so there would be two Soveraign Assemblies or two Soveraigns over the same people which cannot consist with their Peace And therefore where there is once a Soveraignty there can be no absolute Representation of the people but by it And for the limits of how farre such a Body shall represent the whole People they are set forth in the Writing by which they were sent for For the People cannot choose their Deputies to other intent than is in the Writing directed to them from their Soveraign expressed Private Bodies Regular and Lawfull are those that are constituted without Letters or other written Authority saving the Lawes common to all other Subjects And because they be united in one Person Representative they are held for Regular such as are all Families in which the Father or Master ordereth the whole Family For he obligeth his Children and Servants as farre as the Law permitteth though not further because none of them are bound to obedience in those actions which the Law hath forbidden to be done In all other actions during the time they are under domestique government they are subject to their Fathers and Masters as to their immediate Soveraigns For the Father and Master being before the Institution of Common-wealth absolute Soveraigns in their own Families they lose afterward no more of their Authority than the Law of the Common-wealth taketh from them Private Bodies Regular but Unlawfull are those that unite themselves into one person Representative without any publique Authority at all such as are the Corporations of Beggars Theeves and Gipsies the better to order their trade of begging and stealing and the Corporations of men that by Authority from any forraign Person unite themselves in anothers Dominion for the easier propagation of Doctrines and for making a party against the Power of the Common-wealth Irregular Systemes in their nature but Leagues or sometimes meer concourse of people without union to any particular designe not by obligation of one to another but proceeding onely from a similitude of wills and inclinations become Lawfull or Unlawfull according to the lawfulnesse or unlawfulnesse of every particular mans designe therein And his designe is to be understood by the occasion The Leagues of Subjects because Leagues are commonly made for mutuall defence are in a Common wealth which is no more than a League of all the Subjects together for the most part unnecessary and savour of unlawfull designe and are for that cause Unlawfull and go commonly by the name of Factions or Conspiracies For a League being a connexion of men by Covenants if there be no power given to any one Man or Assembly as in the condition of meer Nature to compell them to performance is so long onely valid as there ariseth no just cause of distrust and therefore Leagues between Common-wealths over whom there is no humane Power established to keep them all in awe are not onely lawfull but also profitable for the time they last But Leagues of the Subjects of one and the same Common-wealth where every one may obtain his right by means of the Soveraign Power are unnecessary to the maintaining of Peace and Justice and in case the designe of them be evill or Unknown to the Common-wealth unlawfull For all uniting of strength by private men is if for evill intent unjust if for intent unknown dangerous to the Publique and unjustly concealed If the Soveraign Power be in a great Assembly and a number of men part of the Assembly without authority consult a part to contrive the guidance of the rest This is a Faction or Conspiracy unlawfull as being a fraudulent seducing of the Assembly for their particular
thing for the use of war either by Land or Sea are publique Ministers But a Souldier without Command though he fight for the Common-wealth does not therefore represent the Person of it because there is none to represent it to For every one that hath command represents it to them only whom he commandeth They also that have authority to teach or to enable others to teach the people their duty to the Soveraign Power and instruct them in the knowledge of what is just and unjust thereby to render them more apt to live in godlinesse and in peace amongst themselves and resist the publique enemy are Publique Ministers Ministers in that they doe it not by their own Authority but by anothers and Publique because they doe it or should doe it by no Authority but that of the Soveraign The Monarch or the Soveraign Assembly only hath immediate Authority from God to teach and instruct the people and no man but the Soveraign receiveth his power Dei gratiâ simply that is to say from the favour of none but God All other receive theirs from the favour and providence of God and their Soveraigns as in a Monarchy Dei gratiâ Regis or Dei providentiâ voluntate Regis They also to whom Jurisdiction is given are Publique Ministers For in their Seats of Justice they represent the person of the Soveraign and their Sentence is his Sentence For as hath been before declared all Judicature is essentially annexed to the Soveraignty and therefore all other Judges are but Ministers of him or them that have the Soveraign Power And as Controversies are of two sorts namely of Fact and of Law so are Judgements some of Fact some of Law And consequently in the same controversie there may be two Judges one of Fact another of Law And in both these controversies there may arise a controversie between the party Judged and the Judge which because they be both Subjects to the Soveraign ought in Equity to be Judged by men agreed on by consent of both for no man can be Judge in his own cause But the Soveraign is already agreed on for Judge by them both and is therefore either to heare the Cause and determine it himself or appoint for Judge such as they shall both agree on And this agreement is then understood to be made between them divers wayes as first if the Defendant be allowed to except against such of his Judges whose interest maketh him suspect them for as to the Complaynant he hath already chosen his own Judge those which he excepteth not against are Judges he himself agrees on Secondly if he appeale to any other Judge he can appeale no further for his appeale is his choice Thirdly if he appeale to the Soveraign himself and he by himself or by Delegates which the parties shall agree on give Sentence that Sentence is finall for the Defendant is Judged by his own Judges that is to say by himself These properties of just and rationall Judicature considered I cannot forbeare to observe the excellent constitution of the Courts of Justice established both for Common and also for Publique Pleas in England By Common Pleas I meane those where both the Complaynant and Defendant are Subjects and by Publique which are also called Pleas of the Crown those where the Complaynant is the Soveraign For whereas there were two orders of men whereof one was Lords the other Commons The Lords had this Priviledge to have for Judges in all Capitall crimes none but Lords and of them as many as would be present which being ever acknowledged as a Priviledge of favour their Judges were none but such as they had themselves desired And in all controversies every Subject as also in civill controversies the Lords had for Judges men of the Country where the matter in controvesie lay against which he might make his exceptions till at last Twelve men without exception being agreed on they were Judged by those twelve So that having his own Judges there could be nothing alledged by the party why the sentence should not be finall These publique persons with Authority from the Soveraign Power either to Instruct or Judge the people are such members of the Common-wealth as may fitly be compared to the organs of Voice in a Body naturall Publique Ministers are also all those that have Authority from the Soveraign to procure the Execution of Judgements given to publish the Soveraigns Commands to suppresse Tumults to apprehend and imprison Malefactors and other acts tending to the conservation of the Peace For every act they doe by such Authority is the act of the Common-wealth and their service answerable to that of the Hands in a Bodie naturall Publique Ministers abroad are those that represent the Person of their own Soveraign to forraign States Such are Ambassadors Messengers Agents and Heralds sent by publique Authoritie and on publique Businesse But such as are sent by Authoritie only of some private partie of a troubled State though they be received are neither Publique nor Private Ministers of the Common-wealth because none of their actions have the Common-wealth for Author Likewise an Ambassador sent from a Prince to congratulate condole or to assist at a solemnity though the Authority be Publique yet because the businesse is Private and belonging to him in his naturall capacity is a Private person Also if a man be sent into another Country secretly to explore their counsels and strength though both the Authority and the Businesse be Publique yet because there is none to take notice of any Person in him but his own he is but a Private Minister but yet a Minister of the Common-wealth and may be compared to an Eye in the Body naturall And those that are appointed to receive the Petitions or other informations of the People and are as it were the publique Eare are Publique Ministers and represent their Soveraign in that office Neither a Counsellor nor a Councell of State if we consider it with no Authority of Judicature or Command but only of giving Advice to the Soveraign when it is required or of offering it when it is not required is a Publique Person For the Advice is addressed to the Soveraign only whose person cannot in his own presence be represented to him by another But a Body of Counsellors are never without some other Authority either of Judicature or of immediate Administration As in a Monarchy they represent the Monarch in delivering his Commands to the Publique Ministers In a Democracy the Councell or Senate propounds the Result of their deliberations to the people as a Councell but when they appoint Judges or heare Causes or give Audience to Ambassadors it is in the quality of a Minister of the People And in an Aristocracy the Councell of State is the Soveraign Assembly it self and gives counsell to none but themselves CHAP. XXIV Of the NUTRITION and PROCREATION of a Common-wealth THe NUTRITION of a Common-wealth consisteth in
he observe it not And to speak properly that Law is no Law to him It is therefore necessary to consider in this place what arguments and signes be sufficient for the knowledge of what is the Law that is to say what is the will of the Soveraign as well in Monarchies as in other formes of government And first if it be a Law that obliges all the Subjects without exception and is not written nor otherwise published in such places as they may take notice thereof it is a Law of Nature For whatsoever men are to take knowledge of for Law not upon other mens words but every one from his own reason must be such as is agreeable to the reason of all men which no Law can be but the Law of Nature The Lawes of Nature therefore need not any publishing nor Proclamation as being contained in this one Sentence approved by all the world Do not that to another which thou thinkest unreasonable to be done by another to thy selfe Secondly if it be a Law that obliges only some condition of men or one particular man and be not written nor published by word then also it is a Law of Nature and known by the same arguments and signs that distinguish those in such a condition from other Subjects For whatsoever Law is not written or some way published by him that makes it Law can be known no way but by the reason of him that is to obey it and is therefore also a Law not only Civill but Naturall For Example if the Soveraign employ a Publique Minister without written Instructions what to doe he is obliged to take for Instructions the Dictates of Reason As if he make a Judge The Judge is to take notice that his Sentence ought to be according to the reason of his Soveraign which being alwaies understood to be Equity he is bound to it by the Law of Nature Or if an Ambassador he is in all things not conteined in his written Instructions to take for Instruction that which Reason dictates to be most conducing to his Soveraigns interest and so of all other Ministers of the Soveraignty publique and private All which Instructions of naturall Reason may be comprehended under one name of Fidelity which is a branch of naturall Justice The Law of Nature excepted it belongeth to the essence of all other Lawes to be made known to every man that shall be obliged to obey them either by word or writing or some other act known to proceed from the Soveraign Authority For the will of another cannot be understood but by his own word or act or by conjecture taken from his scope and purpose which in the person of the Common-wealth is to be supposed alwaies consonant to Equity and Reason And in antient time before letters were in common use the Lawes were many times put into verse that the rude people taking pleasure in singing or reciting them might the more easily reteine them in memory And for the same reason Solomon adviseth a man to bind the ten Commandements upon his ten fingers And for the Law which Moses gave to the people of Israel at the renewing of the Covenant * he biddeth them to teach it their Children by discoursing of it both at home and upon the way at going to bed and at rising from bed and to write it upon the posts and dores of their houses and to assemble the people man woman and child to heare it read Nor is it enough the Law be written and published but also that there be manifest signs that it proceedeth from the will of the Soveraign For private men when they have or think they have force enough to secure their unjust designes and convoy them safely to their ambitious ends may publish for Lawes what they please without or against the Legislative Authority There is therefore requisite not only a Declaration of the Law but also sufficient signes of the Author and Authority The Author or Legislator is supposed in every Common-wealth to be evident because he is the Soveraign who having been Constituted by the consent of every one is supposed by every one to be sufficiently known And though the ignorance and security of men be such for the most part as that when the memory of the first Constitution of their Common-wealth is worn out they doe not consider by whose power they use to be defended against their enemies and to have their industry protected and to be righted when injury is done them yet because no man that considers can make question of it no excuse can be derived from the ignorance of where the Soveraignty is placed And it is a Dictate of Naturall Reason and consequently an evident Law of Nature that no man ought to weaken that power the protection whereof he hath himself demanded or wittingly received against others Therefore of who is Soveraign no man but by his own fault whatsoever evill men suggest can make any doubt The difficulty consisteth in the evidence of the Authority derived from him The removing whereof dependeth on the knowledge of the publique Registers publique Counsels publique Ministers and publique Seales by which all Lawes are sufficiently verified Verifyed I say not Authorised for the Verification is but the Testimony and Record not the Authority of the Law which consisteth in the Command of the Soveraign only If therefore a man have a question of Injury depending on the Law of Nature that is to say on common Equity the Sentence of the Judge that by Commission hath Authority to take cogninisance of such causes is a sufficient Verification of the Law of Nature in that individuall case For though the advice of one that professeth the study of the Law be usefull for the avoyding of contention yet it is but advice t is the Judge must tell men what is Law upon the hearing of the Controversy But when the question is of injury or crime upon a written Law every man by recourse to the Registers by himself or others may if he will be sufficiently enformed before he doe such injury or commit the crime whither it be an injury or not Nay he ought to doe so For when a man doubts whether the act he goeth about be just or injust and may informe himself if he will the doing is unlawfull In like manner he that supposeth himself injured in a case determined by the written Law which he may by himself or others see and consider if he complaine before he consults with the Law he does unjustly and bewrayeth a disposition rather to vex other men than to demand his own right If the question be of Obedience to a publique Officer To have seen his Commission with the Publique Seale and heard it read or to have had the means to be informed of it if a man would is a sufficient Verification of his Authority For every man is obliged to doe his best endeavour to informe himself of
no Law of England nor is the condemnation grounded upon a Presumption of Law but upon the Presumption of the Judges It is also against Law to say that no Proofe shall be admitted against a Presumption of Law For all Judges Soveraign and subordinate if they refuse to heare Proofe refuse to do Justice for though the Sentence be Just yet the Judges that condemn without hearing the Proofes offered are Unjust Judges and their Presumption is but Prejudice which no man ought to bring with him to the Seat of Justice whatsoever precedent judgements or examples he shall pretend to follow There be other things of this nature wherein mens Judgements have been perverted by trusting to Precedents but this is enough to shew that though the Sentence of the Judge be a Law to the party pleading yet it is no Law to any Judge that shall succeed him in that Office In like manner when question is of the Meaning of written Lawes he is not the Interpreter of them that writeth a Commentary upon them For Commentaries are commonly more subject to cavill than the Text and therefore need other Commentaries and so there will be no end of such Interpretation And therefore unlesse there be an Interpreter authorised by the Soveraign from which the subordinate Judges are not to recede the Interpreter can be no other than the ordinary Judges in the same manner as they are in cases of the unwritten Law and their Sentences are to be taken by them that plead for Lawes in that particular case but not to bind other Judges in like cases to give like judgements For a Judge may erre in the Interpretation even of written Lawes but no errour of a subordinate Judge can change the Law which is the generall Sentence of the Soveraigne In written Lawes men use to make a difference between the Letter and the Sentence of the Law And when by the Letter is meant whatsoever can be gathered from the bare words 't is well distinguished For the significations of almost all words are either in themselves or in the metaphoricall use of them ambiguous and may be drawn in argument to make many senses but there is onely one sense of the Law But if by the Letter be meant the literall sense then the Letter and the Sentence or intention of the Law is all one For the literall sense is that which the Legislator intended should by the letter of the Law be signified Now the Intention of the Legislator is alwayes supposed to be Equity For it were a great contumely for a Judge to think otherwise of the Soveraigne He ought therefore if the Word of the Law doe not fully authorise a reasonable Sentence to supply it with the Law of Nature or if the case be difficult to respit Judgement till he have received more ample authority For Example a written Law ordaineth that he which is thrust out of his house by force shall be restored by force It happens that a man by negligence leaves his house empty and returning is kept out by force in which case there is no speciall Law ordained It is evident that this case is contained in the same Law for else there is no remedy for him at all which is to be supposed against the Intention of the Legislator Again the word of the Law commandeth to Judge according to the Evidence A man is accused falsly of a fact which the Judge saw himself done by another and not by him that is accused In this case neither shall the Letter of the Law be followed to the condemnation of the Innocent nor shall the Judge give Sentence against the evidence of the Witnesses because the Letter of the Law is to the contrary but procure of the Soveraign that another be made Judge and himself Witnesse So that the incommodity that follows the bare words of a written Law may lead him to the Intention of the Law whereby to interpret the same the better though no Incommodity can warrant a Sentence against the Law For every Judge of Right and Wrong is not Judge of what is â—…ommodious or Incommodious to the Common-wealth The abilities required in a good Interpreter of the Law that is to say in a good Judge are not the same with those of an Advocate namely the study of the Lawes For a Judge as he ought to take notice of the Fact from none but the Witnesses so also he ought to take notice of the Law from nothing but the Satutes and Constitutions of the Soveraign alledged in the pleading or declared to him by some that have authority from the Soveraign Power to declare them and need not take care before-hand what hee shall Judge for it shall bee given him what hee shall say concerning the Fact by Witnesses and what hee shall say in point of Law from those that shall in their pleadings â—…hew it and by authority interpret it upon the place The Lords of Parlament in England were Judges and most difficult causes have been heard and determined by them yet few of them were much versed in the study of the Lawes and fewer had made profession of them and though they consulted with Lawyers that were appointed to be present there for that purpose yet they alone had the authority of giving Sentence In like manner in the ordinary trialls of Right Twelve men of the common People are the Judges and give Sentence not onely of the Fact but of the Right and pronounce simply for the Complaynant or for the Defendant that is to say are Judges not onely of the Fact but also of the Right and in a question of crime not onely determine whether done or not done but also whether it be Murder Homicide Felony Assault and the like which are determinations of Law but because they are not supposed to know the Law of themselves there is one that hath Authority to enforme them of it in the particular case they are to Judge of But yet if they judge not according to that he tells them they are not subject thereby to any penalty unlesse it be made appear they did it against their consciences or had been corrupted by reward The things that make a good Judge or good Interpreter of the Lawes are first A right understanding of that principall Law of Nature called Equity which depending not on the reading of other mens Writings but on the goodnesse of a mans own naturall Reason and Meditation is presumed to be in those most that have had most leisure and had the most inclination to meditate thereon Secondly Contempt of unnecessary Riches and Preferments Thirdly To be able in judgement to devest himselfe of all feare anger hatred love and compassion Fourthly and lastly Patience to heare diligent attention in hearing and memory to retain digest and apply what he hath heard The difference and division of the Lawes has been made in divers manners according to the different methods of those men that have written of
God that ordained such Sacrifices for sin as he was pleased in his mercy to accept In the Old Law as we may read Leviticus the 16. the Lord required that there should every year once bee made an Atonement for the Sins of all Israel both Priests and others for the doing whereof Aaron alone was to sacrifice for himself and the Priests a young Bullock and for the rest of the people he was to receive from them two young Goates of which he was to sacrifice one but as for the other which was the Scape Goat he was to lay his hands on the head thereof and by a confession of the iniquities of the people to lay them all on that head and then by some opportune man to cause the Goat to be led into the wildernesse and there to escape and carry away with him the iniquities of the people As the Sacrifice of the one Goat was a sufficient because an acceptable price for the Ransome of all Israel so the death of the Messiah is a sufficient price for the Sins of all mankind because there was no more required Our Saviour Christs sufferings seem to be here figured as cleerly as in the oblation of Isaac or in any other type of him in the Old Testament He was both the sacrificed Goat and the Scape Goat Hee was oppressed and he was afflicted Esay 53. 7. he opened not his mouth he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter and as a sheep is dumbe before the shearer so opened he not his mouth Here he is the sacrificed Gâ—…at He hath born our Griefs ver 4. and carried our sorrows And again ver 6. the Lord hath laid upon him the iniquities of us all And so he is the Scape Goat He was cut off from the land of the living ver 8. for the transgression of my People There again he is the sacrificed Goat And again ver 11. he shall bear their sins Hee is the Scape Goat Thus is the Lamb of God equivalent to both those Goates sacrificed in that he dyed and escaping in his Resurrection being raised opportunely by his Father and removed from the habitation of men in his Ascension For as much therefore as he that redeemeth hath no title to the thing redeemed before the Redemption and Ransome paid and this Ransome was the Death of the Redeemer it is manifest that our Saviour as man was not King of those that he Redeemed before hee suffered death that is during that time hee conversed bodily on the Earth I say he was not then King in present by vertue of the Pact which the faithfull make with him in Baptisme Neverthelesse by the renewing of their Pact with God in tisme they were obliged to obey him for King under his Father whensoever he should be pleased to take the Kingdome upon him According whereunto our Saviour himself expressely saith Iohn 18. 36. My Kingdome is not of this world Now seeing the Scripture maketh mention but of two worlds this that is now and shall remain to the day of Judgment which is therefore also called the last day and that which shall bee after the day of Judgement when there shall bee a new Heaven and a new Earth the Kingdome of Christ is not to begin till the generall Resurrection And that is it which our Saviour saith Mat. 16. 27. The Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father with his Angels and then he shall reward every man according to his works To reward every man according to his works is to execute the Office of a King and this is not to be till he come in the glory of his Father with his Angells When our Saviour saith Mat. 23. 2. The Scribes and Pharisees sit in Moses seat All therefore whatsoever they bid you doe that observe and doe hee declareth plainly that hee ascribeth Kingly Power for that time not to himselfe but to them And so hee doth also where he saith Luke 12. 14. Who made mee a Iudge or Divider over you And Iohn 12. 47. I came not to judge the world but to save the world And yet our Saviour came into this world that hee might bee a King and a Judge in the world to come For hee was the Messiah that is the Christ that is the Anointed Priest and the Soveraign Prophet of God that is to say he was to have all the power that was in Moses the Prophet in the High Priests that succeeded Moses and in the Kings that succeeded the Priests And St. Iohn saies expressely chap. 5. ver 22. The Father judgeth no man but hath committed all judgment to the Son And this is not repugnant to that other place I came not to judge the world for this is spoken of the world present the other of the world to come as also where it is said that at the second coming of Christ Mat. 19. 28. Yee that have followed me in the Regeneration when the Son of man shall sit in the throne of his Glory yee shall also sit on twelve thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel If then Christ whilest hee was on Earth had no Kingdome in this world to what end was his first coming It was to restore unto God by a new Covenant the Kingdom which being his by the Old Covenant had been cut off by the rebellion of the Israelites in the election of Saul Which to doe he was to preach unto them that he was the Messiah that is the King promised to them by the Prophets and to offer himselfe in sacrifice for the sinnes of them that should by faith submit themselves thereto and in case the nation generally should refuse him to call to his obedience such as should beleeve in him amongst the Gentiles So that there are two parts of our Saviours Office during his aboad upon the Earth One to Proclaim himself the Christ and another by Teaching and by working of Miracles to perswade and prepare men to live so as to be worthy of the Immortality Beleevers were to enjoy at such tiâ—…e as he should come in majesty to take possession of his Fathers Kingdome And therefore it is that the time of his preaching is often by himself called the Regeneration which is not properly a Kingdome and thereby a warrant to deny obedience to the Magistrates that then were for hee commanded to obey those that sate then in Moses chaire and to pay tribute to Caesar but onely an earnest of the Kingdome of God that was to come to those to whom God had given the grace to be his disciples and to beleeve in him For which cause the Godly are said to bee already in the Kingdome of Grace as naturalized in that heavenly Kingdome Hitherto therefore there is nothing done or taught by Christ that tendeth to the diminution of the Civill Right of the Jewes or of Caesar. For as touching the Common-wealth which then was amongst the Jews both they that bare rule amongst them
to be without terrour The name of Fulmen Excommunicationis that is the Thunderbolt of Excommunication proceeded from an imagination of the Bishop of Rome which first used it that he was King of Kings as the Heathen made Jupiter King of the Gods and assigned him in their Poems and Pictures a Thunderbolt wherewith to subdue and punish the Giants that should dare to deny his power Which imagination was grounded on two errours one that the Kingdome of Christ is of this world contrary to our Saviours owne words My Kingdome is not of this world the other that hee is Christs Vicar not onely over his owne Subjects but over all the Christians of the World whereof there is no ground in Scripture and the contrary shall bee proved in its due place St. Paul coming to Thessalonica where was a Synagogue of the Jews Acts 17. 2 3. As his manner was went in unto them and three Sabbath dayes reasoned with them out of the Scriptures Opening and alledging that Christ must needs have suffered and râ—…sen again from the dead and that this Iesus whom he preached was the Christ. The Scriptures here mentioned were the Scriptures of the Jews that is the Old Testament The men to whom he was to prove that Jesus was the Christ and risen again from the dead were also Jews and did beleeve already that they were the Word of God Hereupon as it is verse 4. some of them beleeved and as it is in the 5. ver some beleeved not What was the reason when they all beleeved the Scripture that they did not all beleeve alike but that some approved others disapproved the Interpretation of St. Paul that cited them and every one Interpreted them to himself It was this S. Paul came to them without any Legall Commission and in the manner of one that would not Command but Perswade which he must needs do either by Miracles as Moses did to the Israelites in Egypt that they might see his Authority in Gods works or by Reasoning from the already received Scripture that they might see the truth of his doctrine in Gods Word But whosoever perswadeth by reasoning from principles written maketh him to whom hee speaketh Judge both of the meaning of those principles and also of the force of his inferences upon them If these Jews of Thessalonica were not who else was the Judge of what S. Paul alledgâ—…d out of Scripture If S. Paul what needed he to quote any places to prove his doctrine It had been enough to have said I find it so in Scripture that is to say in your Laws of which I am Interpreter as sent by Christ. The Interpreter therefore of the Scripture to whose Interpretation the Jews of Thessalonica were bound to stand could be none every one might beleeve or not beleeve according as the Allegations seemed to himselfe to be agreeable or not agreeable to the meaning of the places alledged And generally in all cases of the world hee that pretendeth any proofe maketh Judge of his proofe him to whom he addresseth his speech And as to the case of the Jews in particular they were bound by expresse words Deut. 17. to receive the determination of all hard questions from the Priests and Judges of Israel for the time being But this is to bee understood of the Jews that were yet unconverted For the conversion of the Gentiles there was no use of alledging the Scriptures which they beleeved not The Apostles therefore laboured by Reason to confute their Idolatry and that done to perswade them to the faith of Christ by their testimony of his Life and Resurrection So that there could not yet bee any controversie concerning the authority to Interpret Scripture seeing no man was obliged during his infidelity to follow any mans Interpretation of any Scripture except his Soveraigns Interpretation of the Laws of his countrey Let us now consider the Conversion it sâ—…lf and see what there was therein that could be cause of such an obligation Men were converted to no other thing then to the Beleef of that which the Apostles preached And the Apostles preached nothing but that Jesus was the Christ that is to say the King that was to save them and reign over them eternally in the world to come and consequently that hee was not dead but risen again from the dead and gone up into Heaven and should come again one day to jâ—…dg the world which also should rise again to be judged and reward every man according to his works None of them preached that himselfe or any other Apostle was such an Interpreter of the Scripture as all that became Christians ought to take their Interpretation for Law For to Interpret the Laws is part of the Administration of a present Kingdome which the Apostles had not They prayed then and all other Pastors ever since Let thy Kingdome come and exhorted their Converts to obey their then Ethnique Princes The New Testament was not yet published in one Body Every of the Evangelists was Interpreter of his own Gospel and every Apostle of his own Epistle And of the Old Testament our Saviour himselfe saith to the Jews Iohn 5. 39. Search the Scriptures for in them yee thinke to have eternall life and they are they that testifie of me If hee had not meant they should Interpret them hee would not have bidden them take thence the proof of his being the Christ he would either have Interpreted them himselfe or referred them to the Interpretation of the Priests When a difficulty arose the Apostles and Elders of the Church assembled themselves together and determined what should bee preached and taught and how they should Interpret the Scriptures to the People but took not from the People the liberty to read and Interpret them to themselves The Apostles sent divers Letters to the Churches and other Writings for their instruction which had been in vain if they had not allowed them to Interpret that is to consider the meaning of them And as it was in the Apostles time it must be till such time as there should be Pastors that could authorise an Interpreter whose Interpretation should generally be stood to But that could not be till Kings were Pastors or Pastors Kings There be two senses wherein a Writing may be said to be Canonicall for Canon signifieth a Rule and a Rule is a Precept by which a man is guided and directed in any action whatsoever Such Precepts though given by a Teacher to his Disciple or a Counsellor to his friend without power to Compell him to observe them are neverthelesse Canons because they are Rules But when they are given by one whom he that receiveth them is bound to obey then are those Canons not onely Rules but Laws The question therefore here is of the Power to make the Scriptures which are the Rules of Christian Faith Laws That part of the Scripture which was first Law was the Ten Commandements written in two Tables of Stone
Laws if any else can make a Law besides himselfe all Common-wealth and consequently all Peace and Justice must cease which is contrary to all Laws both Divine and Humane Nothing therefore can be drawn from these or any other places of Scripture to prove the Decrees of the Pope where he has not also the Civill Soveraignty to be Laws The last point hee would prove is this That our Saviour Christ has committed Ecclesiasticall Iurisdiction immediately to none but the Pope Wherein he handleth not the Question of Supremacy between the Pope and Christian Kings but between the Pope and other Bishops And first he sayes it is agreed that the Jurisdiction of Bishops is at least in the generall de Iure Divino that is in the Right of God for which he alledges S. Paul Ephes. 4. 11. where hee sayes that Christ after his Ascension into heaven gave gifts to men some Apostles some Prophets and some Evangelists and some Pastors and some Teachers And thence inferres they have indeed their Jurisdiction in Gods Right but will not grant they have it immediately from God but derived through the Pope But if a man may be said to have his Jurisdiction de Jure Divino and yet not immediately what lawfull Jurisdiction though but Civill is there in a Christian Common-wealth that is not also de Jure Divino For Christian Kings have their Civill Power from God immediately and the Magistrates under him exercise their severall charges in vertue of his Commission wherein that which they doe is no lesse de Jure Divino mediato than that which the Bishops doe in vertue of the Popes Ordination All lawfull Power is of God immediately in the Supreme Governour and mediately in those that have Authority under him So that either hee must grant every Constable in the State to hold his Office in the Right of God or he must not hold that any Bishop holds his so besides the Pope himselfe But this whole Dispute whether Christ left the Jurisdiction to the Pope onely or to other Bishops also if considered out of those places where the Pope has the Civill Soveraignty is a contention de lana Caprina For none of them where they are not Soveraigns has any Jurisdiction at all For Jurisdiction is the Power of hearing and determining Causes between man and man and can belong to none but him that hath the Power to prescribe the Rules of Right and Wrong that is to make Laws and with the Sword of Justice to compell men to obey his Decisions pronounced either by himself or by the Judges he ordaineth thereunto which none can lawfully do but the Civill Soveraign Therefore when he alledgeth out of the 6 of Luke that our Saviour called his Disciples together and chose twelve of them which he named Apostles he proveth that he Elected them all except Matthias Paul and Barnabas and gave them Power and Command to Preach but not to Judge of Causes between man and man for that is a Power which he refused to take upon himselfe saying Who made me a Iudge or a Divider amongst you and in another place My Kingdome is not of this world But hee that hath not the Power to hear and determine Causes between man and man cannot be said to have any Jurisdiction at all And yet this hinders not but that our Saviour gave them Power to Preach and Baptize in all parts of the world supposing they were not by their own lawfull Soveraign forbidden For to our own Soveraigns Christ himself and his Apostles have in sundry places expressely commanded us in all things to be obedient The arguments by which he would prove that Bishops receive their Jurisdiction from the Pope seeing the Pope in the Dominions of other Princes hath no Jurisdiction himself are all in vain Yet because they prove on the contrary that all Bishops receive Jurisdiction when they have it from their Civill Soveraigns I will not omit the recitall of them The first is from Numbers 11. where Moses not being able alone to undergoe the whole burthen of administring the affairs of the People of Israel God commanded him to choose Seventy Elders and took part of the spirit of Moses to put it upon those Seventy Elders by which is understood not that God weakned the spirit of Moses for that had not eased him at all but that they had all of them their authority from him wherein he doth truly and ingenuously interpret that place But seeing Moses had the entire Soveraignty in the Common-wealth of the Jews it is manifest that it is thereby signified that they had their Authority from the Civill Soveraign and therefore that place proveth that Bishops in every Christian Common-wealth have their Authority from the Civill Soveraign and from the Pope in his own Territories only and not in the Territories of any other State The second argument is from the nature of Monarchy wherein all Authority is in one Man and in others by derivation from him But the Government of the Church he says is Monarchicall This also makes for Christian Monarchs For they are really Monarchs of their own people that is of their own Church for the Church is the same thing with a Christian people whereas the Power of the Pope though hee were S. Peter is neither Monarchy nor hath any thing of Archicall nor Craticall but onely of Didacticall For God accepteth not a forced but a willing obedience The third is from that the Sea of S. Peter is called by S. Cyprian the Head the Source the Roote the Sun from whence the Authority of Bishops is derived But by the Law of Nature which is a better Principle of Right and Wrong than the word of any Doctor that is but a man the Civill Soveraign in every Common-wealth is the Head the Source the Root and the Sun from which all Jurisdiction is derived And therefore the Jurisdiction of Bishops is derived from the Civill Soveraign The fourth is taken from the Inequality of their Jurisdictions For if God saith he had given it them immediately he had given aswell Equality of Jurisdiction as of Order But wee see some are Bishops but of own Town some of a hundred Towns and some of many whole Provinces which differences were not determined by the command of God their Jurisdiction therefore is not of God but of Man and one has a greater another a lesse as it pleaseth the Prince of the Church Which argument if he had proved before that the Pope had had an Universall Jurisdiction over all Christians had been for his purpose But seeing that hath not been proved and that it is notoriously known the large Jurisdiction of the Pope was given him by those that had it that is by the Emperours of Rome for the Patriarch of Constantinople upon the same title namely of being Bishop of the Capitall City of the Empire and Seat of the Emperour claimed to be equall to him it followeth that all other Bishops
end to bee able to produce as far as matter and humane force permit such Effects as â—…umane life requireth So the Geometrician from the Construction of Figures findeth out many Properties thereof and from the Properties new Ways of their Construction by Reasoning to the end to be able to measure Land and Water and for infinite other uses So the Astronomer from the Rising Setting and Moving of the Sun and Starres in divers parts of the Heavens findeth out the Causes of Day and Night and of the different Seasons of the Year whereby he keepeth an account of Time And the like of other Sciences By which Definition it is evident that we are not to account as any part thereof that originall knowledge called Experience in which consisteth Prudence Because it is not attained by Reasoning but found as well in Brute Beasts as in Man and is but a Memory of successions of events in times past wherein the omission of every little circumstance altering the effect frustrateth the expectation of the most Prudent whereas nothing is produced by Reasoning aright but generall eternall and immutable Truth Nor are we therefore to give that name to any false Conclusions For he that Reasoneth aright in words he understandeth can never conclude an Error Nor to that which any man knows by supernaturall Revelation because it is not acquired by Reasoning Nor that which is gotten by Reasoning from the Authority of Books because it is not by Reasoning from the Cause to the Effect nor from the Effect to the Cause and is not Knowledg but Faith The faculty of Reasoning being consequent to the use of Speech it was not possible but that there should have been some generall Truthes found out by Reasoning as ancient almost as Language it selfe The Savages of America are not without some good Morall Sentences also they have a little Arithmetick to adde and divide in Numbers not too great but they are not therefore Philosophers For as there were Plants of Corn and Wine in small quantity dispersed in the Fields and Woods before men knew their vertue or made use of them for their nourishment or planted them apart in Fields and Vineyards in which time they fed on Akorns and drank Water so also there have been divers true generall and profitable Speculations from the beginning as being the naturall plants of humane Reason But they were at first but few in number men lived upon grosse Experience there was no Method that is to say no Sowing nor Planting of Knowledge by it self apart from the Weeds and common Plants of Errour and Conjecture And the cause of it being the want of leasure from procuring the necessities of life and defending themselves against their neighbors it was impossible till the erecting of great Common-wealths it should be otherwise Leasure is the mother of Philosophy and Common-wealth the mother of Peace and Leasure Where first were great and flourishing Cities there was first the study of Philosophy The Gymnosophists of India the Magi of Persia and the Priests of Chaldaea and Egypt are counted the most ancient Philosophers and those Countreys were the most ancient of Kingdomes Philosophy was not risen to the Graecians and other people of the West whose Common-wealths no greater perhaps then Lucca or Geneva had never Peace but when their fears of one another were equall nor the Leasure to observe any thing but one another At length when Warre had united many of these Graecian lesser Cities into fewer and greater then began Seven men of severall parts of Greece to get the reputation of being Wise some of them for Morall and Politique Sentences and others for the learning of the Chaldaeans and Egyptians which was Astronomy and Geometry But we hear not yet of any Schools of Philosophy After the Athenians by the overthrow of the Persian Armies had gotten the Dominion of the Sea and thereby of all the Islands and Maritime Cities of the Archipelago as well of Asia as Europe and were grown wealthy they that had no employment neither at home nor abroad had little else to employ themselves in but either as St. Luke says Acts 17. 21. in telling and hearing news or in discoursing of Philosophy publiquely to the youth of the City Every Master took some place for that purpose Plato in certain publique Walks called Academia from one Acâ—…demus Aristotle in the Walk of the Temple of Pan called Lycaeum others in the Stoa or covered Walk wherein the Merchants Goods were brought to land others in other places where they spent the time of their Leasure in teaching or in disputing of their Opinions and some in any place where they could get the youth of the City together to hear them talk And this was it which Carneades also did at Rome when he was Ambassadour which caused Cato to advise the Senate to dispatch him quickly for feare of corrupting the manners of the young men that delighted to hear him speak as they thought fine things From this it was that the place where any of them taught and disputed was called Schola which in their Tongue signifieth Leasure and their Disputations Diatribae that is to say Passing of the time Also the Philosophers themselves had the name of their Sects some of them from these their Schools For they that followed 〈◊〉 Doctrine were called Academiques The followers of Aristotle Peripatetiques from the Walk hee taught in and those that Zeno taught Stoiques from the Stoa as if we should denominate men from More-fields from Pauls-Church and from the Exchange because they meet there often to prate and loyter Neverthelesse men were so much taken with this custome that in time it spread it selfe over all Europe and the best part of Afrique so as there were Schools publiquely erected and maintained for Lectures and Disputations almost in every Common-wealth There were also Schools anciently both before and after the time of our Saviour amongst the Iews but they were Schools of their Law For though they were called Synagogues that is to say Congregations of the People yet in as much as the Law was every Sabbath day read expounded and disputed in them they differed not in nature but in name onely from Publique Schools and were not onely in Jerusalem but in every City of the Gentiles where the Jews inhabited There was such a Schoole at Damascus whereinto Paul entred to persecute There were others at Antioch Iconium and Thessalonica whereinto he entred to dispute And such was the Synagogue of the Libertines Cyrenâ—…ans Alexandrians Cilicians and those of Asia that is to say the Schoole of Libertines and of Iewes that were strangers in Ierusalem And of this Schoole they were that disputed Act. 6. 9. with Saint Steven But what has been the Utility of those Schools what Science is there at this day acquired by their Readings and Disputings That wee have of Geometry which is the Mother of all Naturall Science wee are not indebted for
Redemption Church the Lords house Ecclesia properly what Acts 19. 39. In what sense the Church is one Person Church defined A Christian Common-wealth and a Church all one The Soveraign Rights of Abraham Abraham had the sole power of ordering the Religion of his own people No pretence of Private Spirit against the Religion of Abraham Abraham sole Judge and Interpreter of what God spake The authority of Moses whereon grounded John 5. 31. Moses was under God Soveraign of the Jews all his own time though Aaron had the Priesthood All spirits were subordinate to the spirit of Moses After Moses the Soveraignty was in the High Priest Of the Soveraign power between the time of Joshua and of Saul Of the Rights of the Kings of Israel The practice of Supremacy in Religion was not in the time of the Kings according to the Right thereof 2 Chro. 19. 2. After the Captivity the Iews â—…ad no setled Common-wealth Three parts of the Office of Christ. His Office as a Redeemer Christs Kingdome not of this woâ—…ld The End of Christs comming was to renew the Covenant of the Kingdome of God and to perswade the Elect to imbrace it which was the second part of his Office The preaching of Christ not contrary to the then law of the Iews nor of Caesar. The third part of his Office was to be King under his Father of the Elect. Christs authority in the Kingdome of God subordinate to that of his Father One and the same God is the Person represented by Moses and by Christ. Of the Holy Spirit that fel on the Apostles Of the Trinity The Power Ecclesiasticall is but the power to teach An argument thereof the Power of Christ himself From the name of Regeneration From the compariâ—…on of it with Fishing Leaven Seed Fâ—…om the nature of 〈◊〉 2 Cor. 1. 24. From the Authority Christ hath lâ—…st to Civill Princes What Christians may do to avoid persecution Of Martyrs Argument from the points of their Commission To Preach And Teach To Baptize And to Forgive and Retain Sinnes Mat. 18. 15 16 17. Of Excommunication The use of Excommunication without Civill Power Acts 9. 2. Of no effect upon an Apostate But upon the faithfull only For what fault lyeth Excommunication Ofpersons liaable to Excommunication 1 Sam. 8. Of the Interpreter of the Scriptures before Civil Soveraigns became Christians Of the Power to make Scripture Law Of the Ten Commandements Of the Iudiciall and Leviticall Law The Second Law * 1 Kings 14 26. The Old Testament when made Canonicall The New Testament began to be Canonicall under Christian Soveraigns Of the Power of Councells to make the Scriptures Law John 3. 36. John 3. 18. Of the Right of constituting Ecclesiasticall Officers in the time of the Apostles Matthias made Apostle by the Congregation Paul and Barnabas made Apostles by the Church of Antioch What Offices in the Church are Magisteriall Ordination of Teachers Ministers of the Church what And how chosen Of Ecclesiasticall Revenue under the Law of Moses In our Saviours time and after Mat. 10. 9 10. * Acts 4. 34. The Ministers of the Gospel lived on the Benevolence of their flocks 1 Cor. 9. 13. That the Civill Soveraign being a Christian hath the Right of appointing Pastors The Pastor all Authority of Soveraigns only is de Jure Divino that of other Pastors is Jure Civili Christian Kings have Power to execute all manner of Pastoral function * John 4. 2. * 1 Cor. 1. 14 16. * 1 Câ—…r 1. 17. The Civill Soveraigne if a Christian is head of the Church in his own Dominions Cardinal Bellarmines Books De Summo Pontifice considered The first book The second Book The third Book * Dan. 9. 27. The fourth Book Texts for the Infaâ—…ibility of the Popes Judgement in points of Faith Texts for the same in point of Manners The question of Superiority between the Pope and other Bishops Of the Popes â—…mporall Power The difficulty of obeying God and Man both at once Is none to them that distinguish between what is and what is not Necessary to Salvation All that is Necessary to Salvation is contained in Faith and Obedience What Obedience is Necessary And to what Laws In the Faith of a Christian who is the Person beleeved The causes of Christian Faith Faith comes by Hearing The onely Necessary Article of Christian Faith Proved from the Scope of the Evangelists From the Sermons of the Apostles From the Easinesse of the Doctrine From formall â—…ud cleer texts From that it is the Foundation of all other Articles 2 Pet. 3. v. 7 10 12. In what sense other Articles may be called Nâ—…cessary That Faith and Obedience are both of them Necessary to Salvation What each of them contributes thereunto Obedience to God and to the Civill Soveraign not inconsistent whether Christian Or Infidel The Kingdom of Darknesse what * Eph. 6. 12. * Mat. 12. 26. * Mat. 9. 34. * Eph. 2. 2. * Joh. 16. 11. The Church not yet fully â—…reed of Darknesse Four Causes of Spirituall Darknesse Errors from misinterpreting the Scriptures concerning the Kingdome of God As that the Kingdome of God is the present Church And that the Pope is his Vicar generall And that the Pastors are the Clergy Error from mistaking Consecration for Conjuration Incantation in the Ceremonies of Baptisme And in Marriage in Visitation of the Sick and in Consecration of Places Errors from mistaking Eternall Life and Everlasting Death As the Doctrine of Purgatory and Exorcismes and Invocation of Saints The Texts alledged for the Doctrines aforementioned have been answered before Answer to the text on which Beza inferreth that the Kingdome of Christ began at the Resurrection Explication of the Place in Mark 9. 1. Abuse of some other texts in defence of the Power of the Pope The manner of Consecrations in the Scripture was without Exorcisms The immortality of mans Soule not proved by Scripture to be of Nature but of Grace Eternall Torments what Answer of the Texts alledged for Purgatory Places of the New Testament for Purgatory answered Baptisme for the Dead how understood The Originall of Daemonclogy What were the Daemons of the Ancients How that Doctrine was spread How far received by the Jews John 8. 52. Why our Saviour controlled it not The Scriptures doe not teach that Spirits are Incorporeall The Power of Casting out Devills not the same it was in the Primitive Church Another relique of Gentilisme Worshipping of Images left in the Church not brought into it Answer to certain seeming texts for Images What is Worship Distinction between Divine and Civill Worship An Image what Phantasmes Fictions Materiall Images Idolatry what Scandalous worship of Images Answer 〈◊〉 the Argument from the Cherubins and Brazen Serpent * Exod. 32. 2. * Gen. 31. 30. Painting of Fancies no Idolatry but abusing them to Religious Worship is How Idolatry was left in the Church Canonizing of Saints The name of Pontifex Procession of Images Wax Candles and Torches lighted What Philosophy is Prudence no part of Philosophy No false Doctrine is part of Philosophy No more is Revelation supernaturall Nor learning taken upon credit of Authors Of the Beginnings and Progresse of Philosophy Of the Schools of Philosophy amongst the Athenians Of the Schools of the Jews The Schoole of the Graecians unprofitable The Schools of the Jews unprofitable University what it is Errors brought into Religion from Aristotles Metaphysiques Errors concerning Abstract Essences Nunc-stans One Body in many places and many Bodies in one place at once Absurdities in naturall Philosopy as Gravity the Cause of Heavinesse Quantity put into Body already made Powring in of Soules Ubiquity of Apparition Will the Cause of Willing Ignorance an occult Cause One makes the things incongruent another the Incongruity Private Appetite the rule of Publique good And that lawfull Marriage is Unchastity And that all Government but Popular is Tyranny That not Men but Law governs Laws over the Conscience Private Interpretation of Law Language of Schoole-Divines Errors from Tradition Suppression of Reason He that receiveth Benefit by a Fact is presumed to be the Author That the â—…hurch Militant is the Kingdome of God was first taught by the Church of Rome And maintained also by the Presbytery Infallibility Subjection of Bishops Exemptions of the Clergy The names of Saceâ—…dotes and Sacriâ—… The Sacramentation of Marriage The single life of Priests Auricular Confession Canonization of Saints and declaring of Martyrs Transubstantiation Pennance Absolution Purgatory Indulgences Externall works Daemonology and Exorcism School-Divinity The Authors of spirituall Darknesse who they be Comparison of the Papacy with the Kingdome of Fayries
fault that Jonathan had committed in eating a honey-comb contrary to the oath taken by the people And Iosh. 18. 10. God divided the land of Canaan amongst the Israelite by the lots that Ioshua did cast before the Lord in Shiloh In the same manner it seemeth to be that God discovered Ioshua 7. 16 c. the crime of Achan And these are the wayes whereby God declared his Will in the Old Testament All which ways he used also in the New Testament To the Virgin Mary by a Vision of an Angel To Ioseph in a Dream again to Paul in the way to Damascus in a Vision of our Saviour and to Peter in the Vision of a sheet let down from heaven with divers sorts of flesh of clean and unclean beasts and in prison by Vision of an Angel And to all the Apostles and Writers of the New Testament by the graces of his Spirit and to the Apostles again at the choosing of Matthias in the place of Judas Iscariot by lot Seeing then all Prophecy supposeth Vision or Dream which two when they be naturall are the same or some especiall gift of God so rarely observed in mankind as to be admired where observed And seeing as well such gifts as the most extraordinary Dreams and Visions may proceed from God not onely by his supernaturall and immediate but also by his naturall operation and by mediation of second causes there is need of Reason and Judgment to discern between naturall and supernaturall Gifts and between naturall and supernaturall Visions or Dreams And consequently men had need to be very circumspect aud wary in obeying the voice of man that pretending himself to be a Prophet requires us to obey God in that way which he in Gods name telleth us to be the way to happinesse For he that pretends to teach men the way of so great felicity pretends to govern them that is to say to rule and reign over them which is a thing that all men naturally desire and is therefore worthy to be suspected of Ambition and Imposture and consequently ought to be examined and tryed by every man before hee yeeld them obedience unlesse he have yeelded it them already in the institution of a Common-wealth as when the Prophet is the Civill Soveraign or by the Civil Soveraign Authorized And if this examination of Prophets and Spirits were not allowed to every one of the people it had been to no purpose to set out the marks by which every man might be able to distinguish between those whom they ought and those whom they ought not to follow Seeing therefore such marks are set out Deut. 13. 1 c. to know a Prophet by and 1 Iohn 4. 1. c. to know a Spirit by and seeing there is so much Prophecying in the Old Testament and so much Preaching in the New Testament against Prophets and so much greater a number ordinarily of false Prophets then of true every one is to beware of obeying their directions at their own perill And first that there were many more false then true Prophets appears by this that when Ahab 1 Kings 12. consulted four hundred Prophets they were all false Impostors but onely one Michaiah And a little before the time of the Captivity the Prophets were generally lyars The Prophets saith the Lord by Ieremy cha 14. verse 14. prophecy Lies in my name I sent them not neither have I commanded them nor spake unto them they prophecy to you a false Vision a thing of naught and the deceit of their heart In so much as God commanded the People by the mouth of the Prophet Iâ—…remiah chap. 23. 16. not to obey them Thus saith the Lord of Hosts hearken not unto the words of the Prophets that prophecy to you They make you vain they speak a Vision of their own heart and not out of the mouth of the Lord. Seeing then there was in the time of the Old Testament such quarrells amongst the Visionary Prophets one contesting with another and asking When departed the Spirit from me to go to thee as between Michaiah and the rest of the four hundred and such giving of the Lye to one another as in Ierem. 14. 14. and such controversies in the New Testament at this day amongst the Spirituall Prophets Every man then was and now is bound to make use of his Naturall Reason to apply to all Prophecy those Rules which God hath given us to discern the true from the false Of which Rules in the Old Testament one was conformable doctrine to that which Moses the Soveraign Prophet had taught them and the other the miraculous power of foretelling what God would bring to passe as I have already shewn out of Deut. 13. 1. c. And in the New Testament there was but one onely mark and that was the preaching of this Doctrine That Iesus is the Christ that is the King of the Jews promised in the Old Testament Whosoever denyed that Article he was a false Prophet whatsoever miracles he might seem to work and he that taught it was a true Prophet For St. Iohn 1 Epist. 4. 2 c. speaking expressely of the means to examine Spirits whether they be of God or not after he had told them that there would arise false Prophets saith thus Hereby know ye the Spirit of God Every Spirit that confesseth that Iesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God that is is approved and allowed as a Prophet of God not that he is a godly man or one of the Elect for this that he confesseth professeth or preacheth Jesus to be the Christ but for that he is a Prophet avowed For God sometimes speaketh by Prophets whose persons he hath not accepted as he did by Baalam and as he foretold Saul of his death by the Witch of Endor Again in the next verse Every Spirit that confesseth not that Iesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of Christ. And this is the Spirit of Antichrist So that the Rule is perfect on both sides that he is a true Prophet which preacheth the Messiah already come in the person of Jesus and he a false one that denyeth him come and looketh for him in some future Impostor that shall take upon him that honour falsely whom the Apostle there properly calleth Antichrist Every man therefore ought to consider who is the Soveraign Prophet that is to say who it is that is Gods Vicegerent on Earth and hath next under God the Authority of Governing Christian men and to observe for a Rule that Doctrine which in the name of God hee hath commanded to bee taught and thereby to examine and try out the truth of those Doctrines which pretended Prophets with miracle or without shall at any time advance and if they find it contrary to that Rule to doe as they did that came to Moses and complained that there were some that Propecyed in the Campe whose Authority so to doe they doubted of and leave to the
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