constant as to the way and form yet through humane frailty it may many times fail in the measure and end of its efficacy The Officers that are to claim their Functions and Authority as Jure Divino are first the King or Monarch who is from and under God himself established as well in causes Ecclesiastical as Civil supreme Governor And then Fathers Masters and Husbands as Civil Governors And then those of the Clergy as spiritual guides and directors under this their chief guide and director unless it be where and when this Master or Father of the Family is insubjected and independent at which time he being himself a supreme Monarch hath as Elder Brother those Priest-like and Civil Offices of instruction and coertion by the Law of God united in the same unsubordinate person even as amongst those great and more ancient Families it fared before Nations came to be under kingship or that the Priesthood was divided from the Civil power Nor doth matter of Reason alone as already and hereafter to be shewed prove the Authority of these Functions to be Divine but the express precepts by God himself to that purpose given do beyond dispute settle these Officers and none else as of Divine right immediately to them derived for authorising them in their acts of Government and Power By which words of immediately derived we may know how to put a difference between that Power and Authority which is exercised by Kings themselves who hold of none but God above them and that which others their Magistrates perform who being ordained in their power by the Prince cannot be said to hold their powers otherwise then as immediately received from him But although in this regard of subordination it may be in some sense true that the Priest and Master of the Family may be also said to derive their power from the King where Kingship is even because in the exercise thereof they may be by him directed or limited yet is there a great difference to be put between them and Magistrates in respect of claim to divine right in performance of their Functions The Magistrate as he is positively affirmatively impowred by the Prince so is he also negatively under him in the execution thereof the Priest and Master of the Family on the other side have all their positive power of instruction and jurisdiction from God alone derived being negatively onely restrainable by the Monarch in the outward act and execution thereof whereas to the King himself it is alone peculiar as to be by none but God affirmatively impowered so to be by none but him negatively restrainable But then again although in each independent family the offices of instruction and coercion be united in chief in the person of the same Master yet between the Authorities which those of the Priesthood and the Masters of Families do severally execute where they are not united there is unto the Order of Priesthood a greater honor annexed in respect of divine Claym and Authority then to the other and that not onely because instruction must be supposed to precede coercion in time and order but also in dignity in respect or the different dignities of those that are to be the objects of their Authorities the Priestly Function presupposing always a more noble Object namely such an one as is indued with understanding and wit whereas bare coercion can reach unto neither of them And under the Gospel again a farther addition of honor and divine Authority will arise from the observation of that more spiritual charge and Function they inwardly claim towards the promotion and exercise of Gods kingdom in our hearts whereas amongst the Jews the drift of the Priests instructions had for objects the outward acts and Ceremonies chiefly In which regard of instruction and preaching the Fundamentals of Christianity taken as Gospel duties they stand by means of special ordination thereto not onely separately distinguished and enabled above other humane power as the persons to instruct and teach Gods will are distinct and in that respect above those that are to obey but also whilst they meddle not with such things as have tendency to civil Peace and Duty they are unsubordinate to the Prince himself nay above him too as his spiritual Fathers and as having their efficacy and holding their authority herein immediately from Christ as his Ministers and not of the political head of the Commonweal The Father and Master of the family enter upon their authorities and function according to natural course and equity without personal designation and appointment from the Prince and his power and are afterwards restrainable in all things as he shall think good but those of the Priesthood although they were by the laws and authority of the prince personally ordained to stand as Gods Ministers yet are they on the other side as Gods immediate Ambassadors and prophets subordinate to none And this Gospel duty of preaching besides publike prayers and administrations of the Sacraments are to remaine as the proper duties of persons in holy orders without exemption of the prince himself For although to each prince in order to peace and government the chief and general care of instruction in the wayes of righteousness doth appertain as it doth also in each family to the Master thereof yet doth the office and efficacy of instruction in the mysteries of Gods inward kingdome depend on the authority of none but God himself But these things are to be understood of the Clergy in their spiritual Functions onely and as they relate to one another as equally Gods Ministers and not as they are differenced amongst themselves in reference to that distinct proportion of external jurisdiction and power alotted them for peace and order sake For as in the first respect they are under none but God so in the second they are wholly subjected to the Prince he being as great Bishop and overseer of the whole Church to preside over the Bishops of the particular Diocesses thereof upon the same Reason and divine Authority that the Diocesan doth preside over the Parochial Minister And upon the same ground that the Prince as great and general Father and Master of the whole kingdom doth preside in the Government of each Family by means of that civil Magistracy which is exercised under him in like manner doth he as head of the Church preside over the whole Clergy in Ecclesiastical administrations by means of this Episcopal jurisdiction which is to be by him directed or restrained of all which more hereafter Having thus far premised in the declaration and distinction of Officers and Functions of Divine right for the better understanding the present Question as well as many other discourses which will hereafter follow where the same shall be farther proved by Scripture I hope it will to all unprejudiced men appear That although God doth not now as sometimes formerly so immediately expresly operate in the unction and designation of particular persons or
of whose sufficiency and integrity themselves are not satisfied so never to grant them general and arbitrary power to conclude or vote thereby to have their sense of things published till they shall be his too For as it is distastful to do things without Councel so much more against it And it will be prudence in him too by no means to add their Authority to his acts or very seldom to do it because it will in time eat out his power by its growing reputation or cause Rebellion when he shall withdraw And again the Nature of the thing it self will require this superintendency for nothing more incident to Councels then partiality and siding according to interest either of bribes kindred or friendship in debates that concern parties and affairs in the same Kingdom Or if it concern other Kingdoms or States there is nothing more usual then to have them Pensioners to forraigners All which the Prince is in reason free from For as he hath alike interest to all within his own Kingdom so can he not have an equal wish to the welfare of himself and another Prince which the Councellors may have through ambition bribery or revenge to him or others as Ahitophel and Abner and other examples do declare Again as in all other meetings of equals Councels cannot be without faction where some one mans reputation wins many after him like flocks of sheep which way he shall encline In which case I see not how poling and numbring of the persons voting can justly estimate right and wrong or the result of the Councel either for that these cannot be reckoned in the number of Counsellors to the Prince but as servants to others Add to this that usual height of arrogance which men ordinarily take to themselves in presumption of their abilities in this kinde insomuch as truth is not so much desired as victory All which Passions as they shall come to be by the Prince discovered it were strange if an odds of two or three in a number should be thought sufficient to conclude against the stronger integrity and Reason that shall appear to him to be in a less number of persons as though the whole number of any Councel could be for Wisdom and Honesty equal or that these things must ever follow the greater number But in these last discourses I would not be again understood as teaching Princes in this place what to do otherwise then may serve to let subjects know what they are to obey Now concerning Magistrates and the reasons both for institution and limitation of their Offices it may well appear out of what hath been hitherto spoken of Councellors For as the one being chosen or admitted to be helpers to the Prince in the farther information of his Understanding are not thereupon to be so far consultative or deliberative as by their peremptoriness therein to overthrow and exclude that very end for which they were ordained even so also Magistrates being by him chosen or admitted as helpers to his Will in the better execution of what shall be by him decreed and appointed are not thereupon to proceed upon their own Decrees without leave of him that authorized them Else it may happen that Councellors determining as in their own rights and Magistrates acting so too they should as too often it cometh to pass thrust out and seclude that Soveraignty that set them up and engross it to themselves So that we may call the Magistrate a publike Officer appointed and authorized by his Superior power for the oversight and execution of so much of his authority as he shall command and entrust unto him From whence the Magistrates may be apprehended to be of divers sorts according to the nature of those trusts which that superior power shall commit unto them For as he shall delegate them as chief Judges and disposers of things either in Ecclesiastical Civil or Martial affairs so may they come to differ in denominations as Bishops Judges Commissioners Ambassadors and such like But as by the words appointed and authorised he must be presumed under the Soveraign especially when he is present so by the word oversight he must be taken as of absolute power in his absence or else his deputation and power is useless And therefore when some are saying Magistrates are bound to the Laws so as to rule according to them this is true as far as concerns their trust and charge received from those above them But as for such as are to be ruled by them they must be in the Soveraigns stead absolutely above them and the whole interpretation and enforcement of the Law must depend on them also So that from hence it will appear that none but God Almighty is an absolute Soveraign because Princes being by him intrusted with Divine and Natural Laws are but as Magistrates under him For when he shall immediately appear in any thing by voice from himself or by extraordinary direction from some Prophet which for our belief he attests by miracle their power is to cease upon the same reason that the power of their own Magistrates ceases or alters when themselves appear or give to others more late or extraordinary Commission under their hands and seals But although it be true that in respect of God above they be but Magistrates yet the usual calling them Magistrates as thereby making them but of equal rank and power with others hath bred the fame misapprehension to abate their just power as the calling Subjects People hath prevailed towards the belief of the encrease of theirs For as Magistrates and people are republike compellations which subsisting by and aiming at equality do by their expressions signifie as much so Prince and subjects are onely proper in a Kingdom where greater disparity is the foundation thereof But while the King hath the title of supreme Magistrate given him as importing his more large power from God he is still in his true seat of power for while he is such he must in all Gods Laws and where God presides not himself be obeyed as in his stead as that Statute and setled Officer for execution of his will according to all Laws already received But if God send any Ambassador or Commissioner or Prophet or Apostle with an extraordinary message of his pleasure as before shewed then is he to be obeyed upon our knowledge thereof as having neerer instructions from the fountain of power For as it would be unreasonable for the Axe to boast it self against him that heweth therewith c. In like manner would it also be if Magistrates made by Princes should arrogate against them But now as for such who doe acknowledge it unreasonable for the Magistrate or subordinate Officer to resist or rise up against that power that gave it Essence to be such and would yet countenance disobedience against Princes by affirming Magistrates and Officers in their Kingdomes to be in some Employments and cases so far from being Subordinate and his Magistrates
for the governed as heretofore noted even for the necessary preservation of those relations according to that saying If I be a father where is mine honor if I be a Master where is my fear For although a willing and hearty service be most acceptable and onely rewardable as to the doer yet the benefit of others will many times be gained by the deed itself Whereas a known impunity will by example and as it finds hope to attain the like procure common detriment both by neglect of the deed it self and by common invitation to disobedience But if the subject from his own or others experience once find that his obedience in respect of other damages and inforcements in the Princes power is unavoidable he must be supposed even through discreet willingness to submit and then through custom of so doing to arrive at last at a state of natural willingness in obedience it self experience telling us that steadiest loyalty is in such subjects as have been used to greatest subjection and most discontents and rebellions in such Families and Kingdoms where children and subjects have been most free And it will ever be a most certain truth that that obedience which must unavoidably be given will ever in equal things be more ready free and unreluctant then that which may have hopes of avoidance CONCLUSION BUt it is now time to have done having perhaps as much tyred others as my self in these tedious discourses driven so vehemently on to the cure of that evil which while men are men can never enter into a steady thought should be wholly done For when all is said Government will have its faults and when in the rule of nature we see it sometimes come to pass that the stobborness of the matter is such as will not admit of that form which to her policy in general or to the production of some more perfect creature were in particular species necessary but that pestilence murrains mildews c. to the destruction of men beasts and vegitables as also monstruous and imperfect shapes incident to the generation of each race and kind do sometimes happen why should we wonder at ineffectualness herein when besides matter there is a perpetual aversion of will in the governed and alas the while the workmans skill or care in this is too often so to seek that through his default also the malady is increased Since therefore nothing in this life can be to us perfect and without its inconveniences we can only call that Government good which is best and which upon tryal hath fewest and least settled mischiefs as not arising from its form but contingent accidents in its ministration and this is that which I have propounded as the drift of this whole Treatise Yet then again as the many unavoidable diseases of our natural bodies are not at all to discommend or excuse the Physicians care and pains for their mittigation or removal so I hope in this grand disease of the politique Body called Civil War although I cannot attain to a perfect or constant cure yet if the application of those remedies I have proposed shall sometimes cause diversion and sometimes mittigation I shall have comfort in my labours But in this as all things else we must leave the success to God whose work alone it is to still as the raging of the Sea so the madness of the people Even that mad and raging humor of liberty which being blown to a rebellious height by the breath of seditious Oratory as seas by the wind it is none other then if in our natural bodies the allurement of our pallats should tempt us to that food which should bring us to a feavor And as these surfeits seldom come but from such things as are best and then again loathing of that very thing doth follow so in the politique constitution though nothing more necessary and commodious then peace yet nothing more incident to mans fickle nature then in a giddy thirst for variety to grow weary thereof which as a thing bringing Kingdoms and States to their fatal periods no otherwise then bodily surfeits and sicknesses do single persons to their natural deaths shall we say that as they are permitted for the punishment of our sins which we can never want so to this end also And then shall we say that not so much in consideration of ours or our progenitors sins as that the will of God might be made manifest are these things befallen us Shall we say that since none of themselves can be called righteous or good that it may therefore be a reason that wickedness and vice are thus suffered as to the estating us good by comparison and that even again in Government as to the adorning loyalty and other civil vertues disobedience and rebellion is permitted also and to make us thereby more sensible and thankful when peace shall again be restored But be the reasons what they will our duties of obedience and submission being plain enough it is our parts to look to that and to leave these hidden things to God whose judgements are unsearchable and â—is ways past finding out For sure I am that however God for the punishing of a sinful people permit their Princes as he did David in the fact of numbring to fall upon such unwarrantable acts as may bring on their punishments yet can this punishment never warrant any active resistance of his Authority Or be the King not good as David was but such another as Saul was yet since he is our King and the Lords anointed who can without sin lift up their hand against him And why should we be more impatient of enduring those punishments from God that come from the hands of evil Kings then those of pestilence famine or the like that come more immediately from nature since all come from the same hand and to the same end the punishment of our sins And since God owns the giving of them in his anger and the having their hearts in his hand and turning them wheresoever he pleaseth why should we think of resisting one more then another Thus is wicked Pharoahs heart hardned and his subjects the â—gyptians thereby plagued And thus as aforesaid is good Davids heart stirred up to number the people and these people thereupon punished with pestilence And who would have thought a three years famine so long after Sauls death should be the punishment of surviving subjects for a past fact of zeal done by a King so long dead Or that the house of Jehu and his people by consequent should be threatned with Gods punishment for the execution of that his justice upon the house of Ahab three hundred years after the fact done when as yet the very fact it self was so plainly appointed and warranted by divine authority In which examples of Kings sins being made causes of punishing peoples sins with plagues pestilence famine civil war or the like I would know if resisting of Kings had not been resisting of God or
OF GOVERNMENT AND OBEDIENCE As they stand Directed and Determined BY SCRIPTURE AND REASON Four Books BY JOHN HALL Of RICHMOND LONDON Printed By T. Newcomb for J. Kirton A. Roper G. Bedell and G. Sawbridge and are to be sold at their Shops in St. Pauls Church-yard Ludgate-hil and Fleet-street 1654. The Preface TO have undertaken a work of this nature was once as little in my thoughts as the occasion of it the sad distraction of my Nation But as they say of him that was born dumb that he burst into speech against those he saw ready to murther his Father even so the past and feared desolations of my native Country come with such pressing horror upon my soul that neither my general dumbness and insufficiency in all things else nor the particular difficulty of this can keep my natural affection in longer silence that is from endeavouring to warn posterity to avoid the like inconvenience for the future by discovery of both rise and cure of that which is introductive thereof namely disrespect and contempt of the present Soveraign power For they shall finde it plain that from the time that Subjects shall be taught and permitted rudely to press within those secret vails of Authority which their wiser Progenitors had set up for its support and defense that their ignorance not letting them see throughly the cause of these different respects given to Superiors more then others they shall like Cham no sooner see then despise their fathers nakedness And as with them it fareth that through remoteness and want of reading know of their King no otherwise then by report as of someting of Power Riches c. above that which is incident to ordinary men to apprehend him to be some other thing then man also even so when ambitious men finding Authority oppose them have for the peoples engagement laid open to publike view That he is but as other men are and it may be worse too that this power and greatness he hath above the people he had it but from them and for them They then begin to be so much ashamed of their old ignorance and so much taken with this new insinuating lesson that their industry and practise thereupon is not to be wondred at And as themselves are now pleased with these Schollies as matters of high discovery so each one is ready to stretch his fancy therein and in a kinde of pride we all take to seem more wise then ordinary these discourses are told and enlarged to his yet loyal neighbour with no little glory of his new illumination He looks on himself in his past ignorance and on others not yet apprehensive of so much light but as little Children admiring those Babies which themselves had drest up For he comes now to think all those Prerogatives ornaments and Ceremonies given to Majesty nay Majesty it self to be but a sort of Pageantry and shew to please the ignorant sort with And as Bell and the Dragon were sometimes made terrible that as in their names and right others might be the more superstitiously cozened by those that attended them so to no other end as they suppose was all this obedience and expence by some Polititians and Courtiers called for as of duty to this one but that themselves under colour of his name and Authority might make their private uses thereof Whenas by these and the like practises the sinews and foundation of Government and Authority shall be let loose and dissolved and men once precipitated in a course of stubbornness and insubjection all those usual Arguments and Discourses made of that respect which is to Monarchy it self due and how it was not an office and power of yesterdays devising but had the confirmation of Antiquity and Law or the like will all of them prove ineffectual to give a stop to these proceedings Even because most of the writers of this kinde to win readier belief did still argue under the same supposition of derivation of power from the people and so to Princes by Paction by force vvhereof they thought they might defend him and his Authority as in Justice against any violent or injurious attempt whence it proved that want of building on the true and sure ground made their labour unsuccessful and instead of conviction did for the most part but prompt with farther Arguments upon the same foundation to encrease perfect that structure they had already begun And although they again did strengthen their Arguments from the particular Laws and usages of the kingdom it self yet not diving deeper into the ground thereof and shewing that what is there done is but upon the general reason of Government and good of Obedience common to it with all places else the success was little For the people being once confident that power came al from them it must be supposed by them intrusted for their good and that when they saw it otherwise they might reassume it for else say they it was a dry Right without a remedy What if their Progenitors for their folly or cowardise herein had been punished with deserved slavery they would make use of the blessed opportunity to recover their native freedom with the same resolution courage that others had oppressed it before And as for Law the interpretation thereof was not in the King but them as was the Legislative power also That the sin of Rebellion was falsly imputed to them they were the supreme power and above Kings the whole people cannot rebel against the Prince more then the greater against the less In this case since Antiquity cannot be taken upon her bare word but that the reason why it was so formerly done must be also given unto men now there is no remedy but to let them see how that which hath been herein formerly appointed was for and will prove if observed the onely general good by which means people seeing their obedience to be their benefit as well as their duty cannot I conceive but more readily follow it So that now being forced to dig even to the very root of Government which could have no subsistance but by Religion nor that again without a Deity this drew us on in the first place to make some proof and discourse thereof and of that work of Creation to which Providence necessarily succeeding as Gods way of Government in all things besides was needful in some things to be here also treated of not onely as having man himself so considerable a part of it but as partly imitable in the Government of Kingdoms also For as the Laws and Rules of Nature are but for the establishment and security of Creatures in general so those for Peace and Unity in Kingdoms are for men in particular those are to make and keep all Creatures in their species serviceable one to another these to do the like between man and man Then being to consider men as linked in society it was expedient I should first search out what mans natural end
injustice of some particular persons hath hitherto deprived me of In the mean time as in many other of my afflictions I have found the good hand of Providence turning all things for the best and bringing good out of evil so do I now with greater comfort submit to this diversion as foreseeing that if I had not upon these unhappy occasions been brought to discourse of the sins and remedies of uncharitableness and disobedience the usual consequents of plenty and pleasure I should then it is like have been so taken up with mens more general and more present and sensible contents arising by the other as to have rested inconsiderate and silent of these mischiefs which the enjoyments in this kinde might produce In these and other speculations and discourses as I may generally say that I am neither Thief nor prisoner to the Text or Tenet of any man so do I desire to be understood that I was not hereunto induced through arrogance or affected singularity but the small proficience in Arts towards mans use and the daily failing of publick peace and agreement notwithstanding those Rules and Maxims hitherto delivered together with the diversity of opinions concerning them causeed me for a while to lay aside all Authority but that of Scripture or Reason to see what a new disquition from these would afford In any of which if too great zeal to the Cause and end in hand have led me into error and to deviate and transcend these my propounded warrants I do here profess to be ingenuously ready to acknowledge my self a debtor to any sober and reasonable conviction In the mean time I am expecting that some mens interest should lead them to clamour and outcry on my more severe dissections made towards the cure of publick Peace which have been by others but slightly healed and skinned over But as many Land discoveries had not been had not some more daring travellers adventured beyond the road of common belief and opinion so to the increase of knowledge a latitude of enquiry and judgement must be allowed although it may in some things thwart the ordinary current of tradition For I finde that Truth and Knowledge have not a greater and more common enemy then fear of reproach that is whilst writers through fear of contradiction strive to confine themselves to the sense of such as they hold of greatest reputation for ability in that whereof they treat they leave but where they begun and proceed with such wariness to themselves that it makes them forget the errand they go about which is the farther infirmation and benefit of others In my following Discourse as I undertake to cleer things from the sinister constructions which ambitious heads have heretofore given so I doubt not but I shall be by many therein construed and my Arguments prejudiced as if coming from a Court or a Kings parasite and an a better to Arbitrary and Tyrannical Government But because they that are so do it in hope of reward from those they flatter and my self not having any encouragement therein from the present fortune or affection of any now I know not why any should think me less indulgent to my self and posterity as considered in this common relation then others to theirs so as to imploy so much labour to court and countenance our common misery For could it ever have entred into a steady thought to have enthralled whole mankinde as they stand separated amongst us in Kingdoms to no other end then to advance here and there a single person to dignity in comparison of whom thousands of themselves were and might ordinarily be presumed superior in merit And I must confess I was my self a great while pleased with the seeming reasonableness of such like common maxims how unfit it was that all should be subject to the arbitrary Government of any one and much attentive I was to all those fine inventions and contrivances for his constraint herein but when I saw that Soveraingnty must at last be somewhere and that to divide it if it might be was not to lessen but to encrease its yoak when I saw that Covernment a Government must be Arbitrary I then concluded that the burthen of one Tyrant if it must be so was easier then that of many I am not ignorant of the natural sweetness of Liberty not in man onely but in all things that have life and sense For to what end these if when by them I am made perceptible of a benefit to my self I shall at the will of another be deprived and but rendred the more miserable by being desirous It were no doubt a happy estate could a man tell how to fancy it without utter extirpation of Nature if there were sufficient of things created not onely to satisfie the use but to satiate the most greedy appetite of each thing living in such sort that each one might not covet any thing enjoyed by his equal or of others above him It were then again necessary for compleating universal content that each one had over each and every one such full and absolute Dominion that he could not by any aversion of Power or Will in them be restrained Seem these things as large and as impossible for performance as they will yet appetite as appetite cannot otherwise stint it self but the desire for enjoyment possession of power over all things and persons is as natural as over any one Creatures below us have their appetites but few so that in injoying what they seek they are but seldom and then not lasting disturbers of one another But as for man there is not from the greatest to the lowest any that desireth not the increase of his power and he that like Alexander should command all would not yet rest both from wishing more worlds to command and it is like had he been entred among the Gods would have strove for command there also Look we to things again how shall we think what is within the verge of humane reach should now pease all men when all of it formerly could not please one For so our first Parents themselves must encroach on the propriety of Deity in desiring to know good and evil And think we yet that the poorest creature living would not be immortal if the flaming sword of impossibility kept him not off But now as nature hath bordered us by her Law of irresistability so that age sickness infirmities with all their attendants are not by any attempt or insurrection of ours against her avoidable even so I could wish that some way might be had to prevent mens risings against one another Yet then since some must be subject to others what course can we fancy to make them subject and not subject that is that their obedience shall be their liberty shall we wish that every man had his desires in all things so moderated that having or not having or his having or anothers having were alike contentible then indeed would no subjection be
that a small proportion enjoyed with security and peace renders more content and encrease to the owner then a larger which fear of disseisen makes unuseful Therefore necessity the mother of wisdom having taught them to embrace peace and unity reason farther taught this way unto it namely that as the division of their wills and appetites had before made disturbance so the only means to acquit themselves thereof was to submit to some definitive sentence and determination in all controversies hereby many became one in this grand Politique body and as in the natural though the arms legs and all other parts draw greedily for themselves apart that nourishment which is for common supply and that with self-consideration only yet all of them keeping their natural order and rules and relying on the affordment of such members as are of publike concern and trust not only their single but joynt preservations did follow For the brain affords nerves the heart arteries the liver blood to all parts as having the like interest in them all and while each member is thus supplyed according to the proportion which its oeconomy and service to the whole doth require and that Geometrically every one hath alike while they have enough why should one repine at another For if according to the old allusion the hands or feet alledging their greater pains and service should ignorantly quarrel and envy the greater rest and supplies of other parts and hereupon grow so stubborn as to refuse the directions of the common head so far as to disable it and those publique useful members of heart liver c. from performing their offices must it not follow that the whole body thus perishing the hands and feet must therewith perish also For the whole body subsisting by and being but collectively these members each of their particular growth and good made that of the whole swell also So in this Politique Body the several benefits and advancements of particular members are made by this union of will and application to be the encrease of the publique But it is by the way to be considered that in submitting thus Politiquely to have each private wil swayed by a publique which thereupon became the only legal will or sentence it is not to be supposed that the faculty of willing could be resigned for that is impossible and beyond our power it being not capable so far to reflect on it self as to will to be willing or not willing in any thing for if so such kinde of choice would proceed infinitely nor could the actions necessary for preservation of each individual have any setled certain and final sentence for direction or execution on its own behalf but the effect of our wills or the power to execute the same is that we promise and are to suspend or deny if contrary to publique allowance And as not the faculty of willing so not that of understanding and judging can be wholly left and silenced because that also is to the preservation and subsistence of each man as man that is in his separate and personal capacity and to the constitution of will it self absolutely necessary But because my private understanding taking me distinctly for a single person was for self-preservation only I can from my self claim no right farther to use or apply it but in such cases where Polity hath placed me in the relation of a subject and member of a Politique Body united for common good there it is reasonable that as my particular good is unvaluable to that of the general so my liberty and right of judging Publique benefits and expedients should be as unvaluable also And although in this course of Politique submission men could not but expect decisions many times contrary to their private opinions and desires yet since this was the only way to common peace and safety they thought it reasonable that a general good should be preferred before a particular and as we in our Natural so they in this Politique Body were curing with mutilation or patience the impotencies and griefs of particular members rather then the whole body with all other Members should run into common hazard and while striving to shew partial affection to the grieved part only the life and subsistence of all should be endangered For as when life is taken from our natural body it remains a body no longer but a carcase so Politique bodies being berest of their life which is general agreement and submission to Authority continues no longer a Commonwealth but Anarchy Wherefore we may observe that Monarchy was not only the most ancient and useful form of Government as having in it the most apparent unity But also that this chief office was that of a Judge being in all causes and over all persons supreme head and governor Not that any single benefit or the advancement or good of any one person was thereby intended because that otherwise and without this relation they were to be presumed but of equal merit And so if we shall diligently consider all those examples of more special and extraordinary favour and abilities bestowed by God Almighty in Holy Writ we shall finde that the good of the whole or some more considerable part of the people was the end of those miraculous and personal endowments and not single honor it carrying too great a disagreement to Gods justice and too plain a shew of partiality that whole Societies and Orders of men should be to no other end abased but to the advancement and good of one And to this end only were all those Prerogatives and Priviledges annexed to the persons of Princes as amongst others that of irresistible power For their chief end being the peace of the Kingdom and ceasing of strife and slaughter in the doing thereof it must be aswel in his power to decide if equity shall so lead him on the fewer and weaker side as on the more and stronger and so much his Obligation of Protection must imply Else if the stronger should of it self and notwithstanding such decision have still power by force to atchieve their own desires and refuse submission to what end should Government be for without it the stronger side did before judge and prevail for it self but now all Power being resigned into a third determinate hand it is no more of right in them but him and the offer to reassume it is the highest breach of Trust and the Treason of all Treasons even the betraying of all Order and Government it self By all which we may discern the Original reason of Government and power of one man over another we may see why every soul should be subject to the higher powers and how all powers come to be of God and why the resistance hereof as the greatest crime is to be punished with damnation For without submission to Government and Authority what peace can be hoped for and without peace what temporal good can be expected because as the care of God in the
unto me seventy men of the Elders of Israel whom thou knowest to be Elders of the people c. and I will come down and talk with thee and will take of the spirit which is upon thee and will put it upon them and they shall bear the burthen of the people with thee that thou bear it not thy self alone Which places plainly shew that although God at Moses suit did give others power to bear part of the burthen yet is their manner of constitution so ordered as to minde them of subordination to the Monarch and again there is nothing of popular consent herein All which would be well considered by such as are so credulous of the soveraign power of the Sanhedrim This delegation of power from God to Kings was usually conferred under the name of Unction for so saith Samuel in annointing Saul is it not because the Lord hath annointed thee to be Captain over his inheritance plainly implying the power and office to be conferred with the unction and that also as coming from God the Lord hath annointed thee And therefore under this incommunicable and sacred title of Gods anointed their protection is again by God more expresly owned then of other persons This unction or mark of power is in the first place due and proper to Christ thereupon called the Christ or the annointed of God Hereupon all the kingdoms of the earth are our Lords and he also is King of kings and Lord of lords and prince of the Kings of the earth Moreover he being the eternal wisdom of his father by and under him it is that kings raign and princes decree justice nay the very heathen are his inheritance and the utmost ends of the earth his possession And as in acknowledgement of derivation of office and power from Christ Kings as anointed under him do waer his cross on their Crowns so by vertue of this Unction as by a kinde of Sacrament it is that their persons have ever been held so sacred that none have ever yet found out a way or dared to practice the annihilation of the stile it self of King more then that of Father from the same persons that were really so as in other officers set up by humane authority is usually done by way of degradation The which amongst Christians hath been chiefly confirmed by the example of Davids usage towards Saul and Ishbosheth both of them his open and professed enemies Against the first of which although there might be high faults objected and that against God also who did thereupon by Samuel make so much known of his will of rejecting him that the people could not be ignorant thereof yet because they wanted express warrant from God to be actors therein as Jehu had they durst not presume to lift up their hands against the Lords annointed Nay David himself durst not do it although his advantage by his overthrow and his oportunity to do it were most apparant and who also had as high provocations from Saul as might have tempted any ordinary humor of revenge and had farther beyond the pretence of any ordinary subject or any order of them as great a presumption of insubjection as could be because of his own Unction by Gods appointment and from his knowdledge of Sauls rejection Yet he in proof of derivation of kingly Power from God only findes nothing but express authority from that God that hath set them up to be warrantable for the pulling them down they were the Lords anointed not the peoples It was therefore his part and much more is it the part of others now to permit that powerful hand that brought this rod upon them to have liberty to remove it in a way and time of his own For how can they do it as subjects and from whence should they derive insubjection If then they be Gods anointed the rightful power to govern accordingly must be therewith conferred or else the Unction were vaine and in a mockery of God If the politick corporation confer the power let the charter and seal of Office that speaks it be produced let us see the hands and seals of those that conferred this power as also their Commissions and authorities for so doing that we may be satisfied with the just derivation thereof But now as donations and assignations of humane interests use to pass and be conferred from one party to another by such like wayes of conveyance and none else so this passing by anointing it must shew it to be confessedly of a different nature But to give a cleerer light to the comprehension and distinction of Divine Right and Authority in these things we shall here take leave a little to digress As to deny God Almighty to be the prime and supreme cause of all things and of those vertues and abilities whereby each thing is effected is perfect Atheism so on the other hand to submit and fasten on him as immediate Agent those operations which by the ordinary course of his Providence he hath appointed to be the productions of natural causes doth as strongly argue ignorance but if in those effects and productions which may to our sense be observed to come to pass by the interposition of such second Agents as neither by any naturalness in themselves nor observation of ours could be reasonably concluded the causes of them in that case again to deny divine power and ascribe to Nature and second Agents what is above their reach is both Athiesm and folly too To ascribe the hardening of the Clay to God Almighty and not to the Sun or Fire is to be foolishly derogatory to him even as it is also to deny him to be the cause of that heat and vertue in the Sun or Fire whereby it came to pass And no less then so it is to ascribe to the vertue of the Clay that Cure which our Saviour wrought on the blinde man for neither any known naturalness in that Agent nor observation of the like elswhere could reasonably warrant such presumption therein As thus in Inanimates and the general course of Providence there ought to be a discreet distinction made by us in the setting down of what operations are immediately Divine and what Natural so much more in those things which are wrought by Creatures reasonable and where as well the Agent as Patient are voluntary as in Matters of Government and instruction it fareth In which respect since there cannot be any natural Reason or Cause assigned why the will of one should be efficatious to the Government of the will of another as in it self it must follow that that constant course and setled way of so doing must be attributed to Divine Authority only Constant and setled way I say for that there may many humane contrivances be made to introduce temporary subjection and agreement which cannot lay claim to be of divine institution and because again although this Monarchical Government be alone Jure Divino and so onely
submission to authority they are to submit themselves to every ordinance of man for the Lords sake or as they render Gods glory or their own good And then least any factious pretence should alienate their duties in the true object of their allegeance it is appointed unto Kings as supreme and unto other governors as to such as are sent of him for such was the will of God and their well doing that hereby they should put to silence the ignorance and foolishness of men even of such men as not knowing that the foundation of Society was laid upon the united and irresistable authority of the person had under pretence of liberty vented their maliciousness and countenanced rebellion in favouring some subordinate authority against the supreme And then lastly least any should object that because as aforesaid these governors were but for the punishment of evildoers and praise of them that do well therefore if they should do the contrary as their Commission or authority would fail so their obedience to him might faile also We shall farther finde him giving precepts of suffering patiently though they knew it wrongfully And this he confirms by the example of our Saviour himself who as he vvas infinitely more innocent so vvas his usage more hard and unjust and thaâ— many times from under Kings that had neither natural nor rightful authority over him As for one instance in the case of paying tribute for although as appears by Peters ansvver it vvas but vvhat he had used to do he makes an expostulation purposly to cleer all doubt that might be made Of whom said he do the Kings of the earth take custome or tribute of their own children or of strangers Peter saith unto him of strangers Jesus saith unto him then are the children free notwithstanding least we should offend tâ—em go thou to the sea and cast an hook and take up the fish that cometh first and when thou hast opened his mouth thou shalt finde a piece of money that take and give unto them for me and thee So that you see rather then he vvill offend them that is resist authority and give occasion to rebellion by standing out and refusing as he proved he might have done in this illegal command he vvorks a miracle to perform it and doth it for Peter also of vvhom it vvas not demanded Nor vvas this done out of fear as vvanting povver to resist if resistance had been lavvful For he was able to have commanded more then twelve Legions of Angels a povver sufficient to have mastered any oppossion But he like a Prince of peace left us this example not to promote rebellion against the supreme authority but to commit all to him that judgeth righteously even to God to vvhom alone Kings are accountable and therefore to him alone vengeance in that kinde especially doth belong For as God vvas the alone author of their povver and Office so vvill he be the onely judge of their defaults therein according to that of David against thee onely have I sinned as if lying vvith another mans vvife vvere no wrong or trespass to her husband vvhich that it vvas so is cleerly evinced in that parable made by Nathan of the taking of the Evv-lamb and in Davids answer acknowledging it an offence and making a censure thereupon namely The man that hath done this shall surely dye and make restitution But although David had power thus to punish any of his subjects as having from God rightful jurisdiction over them yet when he understands himself to be the man he concludes none on earth above him but that he is subject to God onely in the said words Against thee only have I sinned Marke also the use of this kingly power in enforcing or abateing the rigor of the law For restitution was by Gods law onely set down as a punishment of theft which was the onely fault and not adultery which appeared in the parable of the Lamb but he for the punishment of a fault so aggravated by circumstances though fit to have death added and should no doubt have been therein by his subjects obeyed without imputation of guilt for using arbitrary power no more then when he took the shewbread altered the courses of the Priests erected new Offices amongst them brought in Musick and other Ceremonies into the Temple without particular direction from God or Moses law and when he commanded the numbering of the people as beforesaid and again made that law for the shares of such as stayed with the stuff both of them not onely without but against his present peoples liking To conclude therefore Soveraignty is the supreme judge and disposer of Publike interest where by â—ublike is meant whatever may be of general concern between that Kingdom and another or of mutual concern to others in the same kingdom although the same be kept as a propriety in private hands The particulars of this authority we will briefly here set down The chief is that so largely heretofore spoken of namely the sword of Justice or the last appeal aswel in Religious as Civil Causes and is inseparable and incommunicable The next is the power of making and interpreting of laws The next is to lay taxes and grant privilidges and exemptions and therefore had David and Solomon both their tribute Masters and so Saul also out of his known prerogative promised to them that should slay Goliah to make his fathers house free in Israel which power to free must suppose a power to impose The next is to make Magistrates and state officers for he having delegation from God and being the common Fountain and Center of power their power must be but derivative and part of his The next is to make peace and war all of them comprehended under those general terms of submission mentioned in the Jews first election of their Kings namely to judge them and fight their battailes And as for the other more separable and communicable markes of receiving homage coynage and valuing the mony weights and measures to grant Letters of Mart to have Crown and Scepter to have titles additions and donations of honor as they may be sometimes but complemental so may they be comprehended under some of the more general and express markes before spoken for if he have the last appeal and be in all causes and over all persons and estates in his dominions supream head and governor it will follow that he is so also in these Although in the passed Treatise the name of King be only commonly used yet what is spoken of him is to be applied unto Monarchy in general under what other title of Emperor Prince Duke Lord c. so they be free and holding of God onely For unto the Monarch in right of his Office and not to the name is the Power and Soveraignty due even as the head of the family is in relation to his wife called husband to his children
be few Besides as Nature in all things being left to her own working will by gentle and orderly steps tend to that perfection she was forcibly deprived of so it may be observed how by degrees all Governments do of their own nature and uninterrupted by violence always lead to that perfection and state of Unity again from which by force onely they were hitherto debarred And unto the undeniable proof of the natural right of Monarchical Government it may be asserted that as no Government of it self let alone in the hands of the governors without the forcible intermedling of the governed but would still come to be Monarchy so no government was ever brought from fewer to more but by the force and terror of the people upon the Governors themselves who now as in the Fable of the Serpent that would be governed by his own Tayl will be governing themselves and so make all lawfulness of Government at last vanish into forcible obtrusion There are many other particulars by which Faction useth to make its rise and support which shall be spoken of in the next chapter of Rebellion amongst other things which are the originals of that also For these two are of such like extraction and so neer a kin that what is properly the cause to one is for the most part so to the other Faction being but Rebellion in its birth and as yet but in devise and contrivance and Rebellion being but Faction brought into act and execution even as Polarchy or Anarchy is but both of them brought to such maturity and perfection as to be capable of self-subsistance CHAP. III. Of Rebellion and its most notable Causes and Pretences AS the inordinate thirst of pleasure and its consequent Liberty to attain it is in us all both natural and unlimited so where Rules and Laws of Polity and Government the onely means of restraint are not strictly enjoyned or duely obeyed it commonly falls out that what should have been a bridle proves rather a Spur and the possession of one inordinate lust doth by it self make way for another even as the abundance of drink to the drunkard is the cause of greater thirst to ensue Observe we this First in that lesser Government of a Family and you shall finde Children and Servants nowhere so unquiet and discontented as where the indulgencies of the Parent or Master do most appear And so it is in Kingdoms also where Subjects that have soft and mild spirited Princes and from whose more gentle and easie natures they having already attained many things of Liberty and Freedom do come at last to forget how inconsistent these things may be with their duty or publike peace and to think that their very asking should now be the onely rule for his granting Whereupon as it happens that there is most brawling contention and unquietness in such Families so in such Commonweals Mutinies and Rebellions do ever abound And to keep the Scripture president herein what other Reason can be given of those many murmurrings and insurrections of the Jews even while under the government of Moses one so far from oppressing their liberty that he was the meekest man on the earth And when again they had all things in such plenty as even their very Lust was supplyed with miracles what followed but that which was given for quieting them at one time proved the occasion of their mutiny at another For so while he smote the rock and the water gushed out they are still asking can he give bread can he provide flesh for his people And when they had this flesh this manna it was found too light food for their satisfaction and this very food of Angels was insufficient to stint their boundless desires Therefore while the very meat was in their mouths God was forced to cure by severity those breaches of obedience which abused Mercy and Clemency had made Look again to them under their Kings and you shall finde none so ill used as the best of them even David and Solomon In the last of whose time it is expressed Judah and all Israel was then many as the sand which is by the sea in a multitude eating and drinking and making merry And again Judah and all Israel dwelt safely every man under his own vine and under his own fig. tree from Dan to Beersheba all the days of Solomon And in whose time as the wisest and most peaceful of Kings that Kingdom had the greatest eminency and happiness of any their persons free as expresly said of the children of Israel did Solomon make no bondmen and having riches in such abundance amongst them that he made silver and gold to be in Jerusalem as stones c. And yet as in a kinde of wantonness and surfet they come to his son Rehoboam to ask release of this grievous yoak of Solomon his Father But in truth we can interpret this their coming to Sechem to no other end then to make a Covenant and association to rebel and the pretence to make Rehoboam King was but the outside of their appearance when they intended to unmake him For first Rehoboams raign was not Elective but in right of his Father and Grandfather as heretofore noted and he might as well have reigned in their stead without the peoples approbation as Ishbosheth Sauls son did over them in Davids time or as Nadab in Jeroboams stead over the same Israelites without any such confirmation So that this Assembly was indeed to settle Jeroboams new Principality and not to confirm Rehoboams And therefore since they first sent for him to come in the head of them whom they knew to lay claim to the Crown this action looks purposely to aim at a quarrel and gain a denyal whereby to get a pretence to rebel And was indeed the threatned punishment of Solomons offence against God and not of Rehoboams to the people and so suffered to be done in pursuance of that end namely the punishing his offence with the rod of the children of men Whereupon this his refusing the councel of the old men must be considered as a fit and necessary means thereunto And this may seem the reason of Rehoboams answer importing a denial to the ground of the peoples Petition and answering in that manner as though experience had fully told him that since too much indulgence and concession had lost to his Father he would recover it by rigor and severity But to affirm that this Rebellion was a punishment of Rehoboams answer onely were to give God the lye both for the reasons already mentioned and as plainly crossing his direct Promise to Jeroboam saying I will rent the Kingdom out of the hands of his son and give it unto thee even ten Tribes Plainly arguing a forepassed fault to God and not of oppression to the people upon which onely Reason he is warned to desist For of that war what good issue could be To have Jeroboam beaten
presently after Which things are commonly taken as the emblems of Justice For so it is said A just weight and ballance are the Lords all the weights of the bag are his work By which words God owning the original of the measure of Justice to be from himself which we know he doth no otherwise execute and manage then by that divine sentence he put into the Kings mouth it must follow that as the proportion of Justice in all things is rated by those Standards which are by his Authority appointed so also as his Authority is uncontroleable in setting the Standard for the Pound the Bushel and the like his Authority in stating and deciding other controversies and things must be uncontroleable also even for that all things done by a different Standard of Justice are for the same cause unjust For as there can be but one Standard as by the context of the other place appeareth saying Divers weights and divers measures are both of them alike abomination to the Lord it is in effect to conclude as aforesaid that at the first definition of the size of the Pound Bushel c. were from Authority even so the measure of Justice in all things else must rest on his determination and that the difference from that is inequity because departing from the rule to appointed and not as out of inherent justice in the things themselves For had Authority appointed any other different weight or measure which is now disallowable to have been the true Standard then had the other that is now the rule of Justice against it been the faulty one to it even as those faulty ones are now so to this which is by Authority set down For except there be such a positive and standing way and rule for establishment and defining righteousness and judgement as by a King sitting in the Throne of judgement who can say as in the next verse follows I have made my heart clean I am pure from my sin because if his appointment and allowance of such callings and ways of comerce make not our gainings upon one another lawful farther then the rule Do as thou wouldst be done unto hath first been reciprocally examined and assented unto by the particular dealers then are all dealings unlawful forasmuch as intent of separate advantage is still in each ones design and the others benefit or suffering never openly and impartially considered therewith of which more anon Whereupon we must say that since Laws are necessary in Government and since a publike definitive sentence in their interpretation is necessary to Peace and since in the Cases and Questions of misgovernment the breach of Laws is as well denyed on the part of the Governors as affirmed on the part of the governed it is against all Reason and Rule of Equity for any body or order of the people to usurp this inseparable and prime mark of Soveraignty and become judge to their fellows and to judge those that should have been their Judges also And if it be granted Princes to have power to make Laws it must be presumed that themselves should best know their own meanings And a thing against reason it must seem first to affirm that Rulers or Princes are to govern according to Law and yet deny them the power of knowing and interpreting them What would they have him follow a rule he understands not how shall it be a rule then Therefore when men think it necessary for Kings to be sworn to govern according to Law they must conclude they have liberty of interpretation allowed them or his oath is null and useless And so we must conclude that since all positive Laws are to be founded on those of God and Nature for Law-makers can have no Laws but these above them and since the meaning and measuring of these are disputable as hath been hitherto shewed Reason and Duty do enjoyn us to submit to the known and undenyable precept of obedience rather then after the sin of breach hereof we should be but at the same uncertainty of interpretation as before with this aggravation that in the first case our excuse for failing is easie but in this last it is no better then pride But they that yet think there are within the compass of natural Reason such general rules and maxims of Justice and Equity as to enable men to judge of right and wrong in things done by Superiors let them tell me why Ely of whom we finde nothing of ill mentioned besides should be so severely punished for his sons faults whom he did reprove and why Samuel should escape that shewed greater indulgence to his that were as bad If in these and other like instances they will say as they must that the judge of all the word doth right in respect of his equal and paramount propriety in persons and things they must then confess that his deputy therein which shall be amongst us must be holden as uncontrolable judge of right in his jurisdiction also So that for David to take away half Mephibosheths Land who was loyal and give it to Ziba his servant whom he knew had both abused his Master and him and that without any legal form of process must yet be acknowledged as rightly done by that supreme Officer who being substituted in Elohims prime right of Mishpat amongst us cannot therein be controled or censured by any else And if any will yet say that these former instances might have been found right even by the rules of common Equity had we been knowing of all the circumstances of them they do thereby also confess that since the Judge hath his secret reasons proper to himself to judge by so can there be no definitive proportion of Equity but what is from his sentence proceeding until there can be some way found to search into Gods secret Counsels or the heart of the King which is unsearchable For as it is the glory of God to conceal a thing that is to keep his judgements from common apprehension so it is the honor of Kings to search out a matter and by vertue of his deputation from God to give always a divine sentence whereby not to err in judgement that is not so to err as not to be the rule of Justice to those below although it may be erronious and unjust in it self in relation to that full and high interest and jurisdiction which God hath above him And therefore that wise King makes Understanding Wisdom Instruction Justice Iudgement and Equity depending on obedience and attention to God and our lawful superiors when he says the fear of the Lord is the beginning of Wisdom but fools despise wisdom and Instruction that is all that are disobedient and conceitedly wise are fools and when he next says My son hear the instruction of thy Father and forsake not the Law of thy Mother that is learn Religion Law Equity c. from thy ghostly and civil
superiors Whereupon we may farther say that justice and â—quity so far as it concerns a Commonwealth is to be that way and course which is most advantageous to publike utility and that Law is the rule set down by those that have chief Authority and trust therein And therefore is that maxim avowed as the ground of Law and Equity in a popular State Salus populi suprema lex For the directest course to that end is the greatest Equity and those that have the charge of the end have also the charge of the means in assigning that which is most just and fit And therefore in this case we must reckon the society as it is united for common good as one person So that then as Nature teacheth all men to benefit themselves so doth polity direct the publike But then again as each man in wronging another doth wrong himself so societies when they practice injustice oppression c. do in regard of Gods punishments feared to follow thereupon wrong themselves also and do as we before observed of particular men prefer a less and momentany benefit to a more high and lasting one Upon which ground there is another maxim avowed in Monarchy that the King can do no wrong Not denying he may do himself and others harm but so long as we do according to our duties submit to that he doth command he can do no wrong For he can of himself have no private respect but must judge all alike as out of common regard except where and when some persons or order of the people taking on them his Office of judging equity and in partiality to themselves thinking and seeking more then is already allotted make it a wrong to the other side by having the cause decided by a private and partial judgement for take away Justice in the fountain you may vainly seek it in the streams And thereupon Solomon prays to God to give him an understanding heart to judge the people and to discern between good and bad And such as are not openly denying supreme Authority to be obeyed and would yet by consequent overthrow it by allowing inferiors a liberty to judg and act beyond or otherwise then is enjoyned let them consider the answer that God gives to his chief Magistrate that would undertake to know the way and means of honoring and serving God better then himself and would make that solemn established Law of Sacrifice defeat his present command which was but extemporary namely that Obedience is better then sacrifice and to hearken better then the fat of Rams For I verily believe that no subordinate Magistrate or subject can have a fairer plea for disobeying his King commanding in Gods stead then Saul might have had here for refusing Samuel For if it had been at all lawful for inferiors to judge of fitness and morality or to set a former command or Law against a latter what more just and reasonable then first to preserve innocent creatures whose destruction on one hand could have been a benefit to none when as on the other side they being thus imployed should have so expresly advanced Gods way of service constituted so solemnly already And we might thereunto add that which some would make of highest value in judging good and bad that the importunity and request of the people ran that way also And as our prying into the reason of Gods Laws and not obeying his direct Precepts was our Original fault and a sin in the government of nature as shewing a mistrust of Gods wisdom or care of us so in obedience to civil Laws to seek out another equity then they import is not to be subject to Law but to controle it And as God said to Adam Who told thee that thou wast naked hast thou eaten the fruit I commanded thee that thou shouldst not eat So Princes may say to subjects that without authority undertake to judge of publike good and bad Justice and injustice how come you to know these things except you have transgressed the bounds I set you Have you not proper stations of your own to walk in Why meddle you with mine For if thou judge the law thou art not a doer of the law but a Judge So that then all obedience to Laws must be implicite that is to Gods Laws as his and Civil Laws as the Princes For if in either sort I obey but what upon examination I finde reasonable I take the Law-makers part upon me and obey not him but my self For Law and Justice being the instruments whereby Governors Act upon the Governed they must be at the choice and guidance of the workman and agent and not of the work or patient as heretofore noted Law then is Councel imposed Justice is equity executed In Laws the Subjects are to act in Justice the Prince or Magistrate for him In Laws he shews how much of his Will Subjects shall do in Justice how much he will do himself So that Law may be called Equity taught and Justice Equity practised and is when the Judges own Councels are acted by himself whether in pursuance of Law or not For Justice and Equity may be without standing Law as in the less government of a family but not Law without them that is the Authority of the Prince Now for Justice it self it proceeding from Equity as being the sentence of the Judge upon the judged it may be blinde as to execution because that part concerns Ministerial Officers but cannot as to the sentence and Judge for taking seeing for understanding his eyes must be only open as to stating of Equity Disinterest nor equal interest alone cannot make men competent Judges because they may be so qualified and yet strangers and unknowing of the cause And therefore Judges must besides knowledge have Concern equal Concern and whole Concern and the like we must say of Power For if all the matter and persons contending be not at his dispose to what purpose his sentence Nay if his propriety be not the highest and his power highest he will in judgement proceed but faintly for want of compleat interest and courage For though the Concern and Power of the Judge may be equal in and over both or all the subject persons yet if be not supreme he must so far want the perfection of a Judge as he wants interest to make him concerned to judge at all and power to execute his sentence And more persons then one or not having authority from one cannot be competent Judges over others for they must have unequal concern through unequal passions and interests and must through unequal power also as being of different strength or courage proceed differently and partially in their sentence For whilst the same Plea or Cause is estimated by divers ballances according to that divers judgement and interest abiding in those divers persons in the seat of Justice their sentence can never be uniform to the interest of the persons and the cause they
in order thereunto to fancy as we see it come to pass that there are general rules and laws whereby justice and right are as measurable by inferiors as others yea even whilst they are inferiors But suppose there is in every man implanted the maximes and grounds of general Justice as God to be worshiped parents and superiors to be honoured every man to have his own or the like yet since they were in several men variously concluded from several inductions and observations in the course of humane affairs for they encrease and differ in men as yeers and ability do it must come to pass that when they come to refer back and are to be applyed to particular occasions they must be both different and falible also as not determining how to worship God or wâ—erein to obey susuperiors or what every mans due is Upon which grounds it is no wonder that Astraea was fained to leave the world about the same time when Laws began most to abound and men undertook to fancy that that obedience to the Laws which was constitutive of Magistrates and subjects justice towards one another was also to be definitive and bounding of justice in the original But if we make not justice to be residing in that sentence and determination of equity which each rightful superiour imposeth then hath it indeed no certain aboad amongst men Or if they bound it by any other positive Law then what is to be by him interpreted and enforced then they not onely take away all justice from the golden age of the world which was therefore chiefly called so because the publike person to whose sence of equity things were intrusted did particularly judge in emergencies and so more exactly measure causes then can be now by standing rules and laws but they also for the present take it from fathers masters of families and the like where right and justice is depending on their arbitrary and accasional directions And therefore as Divine Justice or the general rule of equity in government of the world is dependent on the Divine Edict and determination of God who hath the government hereof and as the rule of justice of the family is dependant on him that hath that charge also so is the same to be granted in each kingdom even to be the decision of him that hath Legislative power and trust to determine of things towards the stating political peace or happiness To which purpose some have conceived the word jus to be the abrievation of Jovis os which we may call the Divine sentence in the lips of the King making it the positive decree of the soveraign power For although this Synterisis or inward assent to the general maxims of equity be usefully in all men because they must more or less have dominion yet for inferiors or â—quals as such at any time to use them upon their own authority cannot make the execution take the name of Justice however the sentence may be in it self equal or proportionable to the equity of the cause And indeed that common definition of this vertue of giving every one his own would have caused men necessarily to conclude this the proper vertue of the person in supreme power and propriety for how else shall he have right to distribute had not as before noted private covetousness and arrogance of judgement made men conclude it not to be justice except under that notion of his own each man had such distribution as should not onely be directed by positive Law but by it according to their interpretation also As though there could be private propriety against the publike or that the Prince the Master of a Family or other publike superior were to regard the good and propriety of the contenders or any other separate private persons without regard to the whole propriety and good and not rather make his distributions of the publike stock of honor riches c. to private persons with repsective care to the whole In which respect we may again call publike Justice The exercise of authority proceeding from each rightful superior as his sense of equity in particular distributions shall lead them with regard to publike advantage So that he judging according to sense of equity as between two both the parties contending are to be taken as one and decission is to be so made between them that the other more worthy party the Commonwealth be Geometrically considered And this although the whole present people be present contenders in the two parties yet is the succeeding community or their own future inconveniencies to be considered From whence we may conclude a just man and a governor to be convertible as also is the notion of Justice with that of government having both issue from his authority and determination Saving that under the notion of government as more general we usually comprehend both equity and justice that is both the directive and coercive parts but by Justice we commonly conceive but the bare vindicative part to be acted separate from the Legislative If in this his sentence he bear such particular eye to the parties in competition as to forget or neglect common interest he is unjust to God his superior as failling in his general trust however to his inferiors he must alwayes upon the same reason be acknowledged just We are also accustomed to apprehend the notion of justice to have in reference to the persons subjected a more particular regard then that of government namely when then the Justiciar shall more expresly respect the comparative fitness or interest of any two separate parties at which time the governor being more remarkable by an explicite determination it may thence be called particular government as government it self may be called general and implicite Justice both of them being stated and defined by the due exercise and receit of that power which caused their relations that is of the governor or Justiciar as agent upon the governed or justified as patient In which case the Agent and patient standing reciprocally constituting each other according to their relations to impose and receive it follows that where the governor is not endued with his proper power to impose on the governed according to his vertue of Agency and the governed on the other hand endued with the vertue of receit and patibillity there cannot be government But in proportion as the inferior invades the power of Agency or is insusceptible of the others Agency so far the political harmony and order is broken and inverted and approach is made unto Anarchy And many times also we difference Justice from Government by its object as making it conversant about the Government of our proprieties and apprehending the notion of the Government to have most particular reward to the Subjects personall liberties and this way that definition of giving every man his own and of the division of Justice into distributive and commutative may seem to look Philosophers in their usual Scholy desiring to make it
prejudices of others just more then can the actings by other robbers do the like For as he that takes a purse by force upon the high way is as culpable as he that steals it and as theeves that shall come so armed and accompanied as to beat off Guards and Watch are as much robbers as others so is it not publication of the act which can but denote their present power that can make Democratick censures lawful more then if thieves before they kill or spoil a man should first hold a formal court of judicature amongst themselves and there sentence him For in neither case it takes off the guilt or illegallity of the fact where parties become judges over their equals but aggravates it rather through imprudence and impunity And therefore although what was before alledged in justification of the dealings of one faction towards another might be allowable as in order to self-defence and for security of the invaded party against the others force as beforesaid yet can it not establish them in a right to continue doing wrong to others for it was onely allowable as a course that should have prevented it It is also to be understood that in Christian policy it is onely practicable in the absence of Monarchy as a temporary way to safety and that neither numbers nor prescription can ever make it a lawful government For if there be a Monarch then is that party that obeys and acts in his name not to be called a faction but subjects and those that appose them oppose him and are Rebells In which case prevalence of number or power nor all the specious pretences of leaglity can no more make attempts against their fellows lawful then can the like pretences warrant any association of the servants of a family to attempt the like against such of their fellows as are put into office and authority by their Master For in that case the loyal and faithful subjects and servants while their Prince or Master continue in their offices and while they pursue their quarrel and stand up against their enemies are to be presumed as lawfully acting because acting by an authority from God derived And unto them being so united in the interest and cause of one supreme person is the dealing of one party against another warrantable and allowable For they in pursuance of the loyal quarrel or their own safeties may deal with the other as lawful enemies but the other party cannot do so towards them for that they not onely want a supreme joynt authority amongst themselves whereby to difference subjects from enemies but do also still oppose him they have in opposing their fellow subjects that take his part Whereupon it will follow that in case the revolted party have overthrown the other they are now to count all their actions unlawful farther then they can derive them from an officer authorized by God Almighty who is onely superior to them both In conscience whereof when they shall return to their old form again under one head nature and policy come to be satisfied in all their claims For first the subdued faction or party will by this means be freed from the partiallity of dominion under so many professed adversaries and have one indifferent Judge to them both and so it must be reckoned as done with their consents Then the prevailing faction must be supposed to do it willingly as it is likely to a common favorite and as being singly weary of each others precessure And then lastly supposing himself willing to undertake it there comes consent all along And then because as men we cannot quite shake off the natural way of gaining power by force we are next to consider how these prevailing factions were again prevailed over by their own chief head In which last deed we must remember what was formerly allowed to man as one of his proper wayes of conquest namely craft For how else shall one man conquer and keep under so many be it by money flattery or the like it skilleth not But he being now in power as the conquering party had before taken security of others against their fears so much more may he being but one and having so many that have natural power to hurt also use it if he see danger Of which securities the most usual is the force of guards for his person after the example of the best of Kings David himself Which if not done when occasion of just fear requires the former prevailing faction may at liberty oppress the other still and themselves also be still in danger of mutual mischief for want of restraint from injuring one another And to speak truely this is so far from force that there is but this way to make known the strength or desires of a people and to know whether they have any or no. For as their strength and desires must be known by such as appear therein and not by polling the whole so the strength and desires of these appearers must in what they act be taken for the deed of all And as when an Army of one country conquers another although they be far the less number and not elected by the people yet we usually phrase it that such a Nation have overcome such a Nation even so things properly concerning action being to be measured by the active part onely it follows that what is done by the active and prevailing parts of the people must be reckoned the act of the whole people especially if the other do acquiess or else they can have no action attributed to them at all And upon no other ground then extraordinary eminence and appearance are the actions of Princes made the actions of the whole people For as all vertue gathers strength by union so are the fewer united herein to be reckoned to have both the vertue and appearance of the whole For in this regard it fareth with those associations made by the more active people of any place or country as it doth with those more active and pressing affections and passions whereby every particular man is provoked unto action to wit that as the will in each person could never be brought to any determinate design and execution if those differing passions and affections which are in every single man naturally abiding should be severally and continually pressing upon him with equal importunity and vigor so neither could any nation or people be brought to any attempt at all or conceived to be such or such a dictinst company of men united and associated in a Commonwealth did not the sence of honor popularity ambition covetousness or the like finde so great and continual a prevalence in some as to unite and provoke them to publike undertakings whilst the rest again being of a more dull and fearful temper are content to sit still and enioy with quietness their present fortunes or to move onely in the condition of followers to that party that promiseth greatest advantage and security And as
observe this Monarchical administration so much owned by God as to declare the absence thereof as the fittest and surest token of his dereliction and punishment of a people that had been first false to himself and were now repudiated by him as may appear in that other Prophesie For the Children of Israel shall abide many dayes without a King and without a Prince without a Sacrifice and without an Image and without an Ephod and without Teraphim And by the last words we may observe by the way not onely a depravation in religion and Church order to follow this no King in Israel by making use of Teraphim in the Ephod instead of Urim as the man Michah did but this disorder should increase till that remaining Priesthood who by their consistorial parity were as the Teraphims in this Ephod should be taken away also For this use of Teraphim amongst Israelites was to bee looked upon but as a shift in Jeroboam who wanting that order of Aaron and his Sons made use of the meanest of the people but in the Christian Church and when Christ typified in David shall be their King then also shall those several Kings under him maintain and settle order amongst the Priesthood and in religion it self as David also did Now concerning that separate jurisdiction which some Church-men would claim under colour of dividing our duties into religious and civil it cannot I conceive but plainly appear that notwithstanding sacred pretence this division is but of humane invention being not to be found in the Scripture and as it is for the most part made of no other use but to make division and discord by abating our obedience to the Magistrate under colour of giving it to God so are men not at agreement in stating thereof For while some think that whatever the Magistrate commands it but of civil obedience and so lyable to temporal reward and punishment onely and again what is of Gods command that is expresly set down in Scripture is to be only obeyed out of conscience of divine authority and then leaving men to private judgement what precepts are thence deduceable or when the Magistrates commands be such they must consequently leave them no certain rule whereby either to preserve duty or unity As also those other sort do who distinguishing men in their several relations by them phancied say that in whatever we do as subjects and men linked in Society the same is of civil cognizance and duty but in whatever we act as Christians we are to be guided by precept from God alone In which doing also being neither able to bring from Scripture all things that concern Gods outward worship and finding many precepts of Ethical Political and Oeconomical nature and which do concern our duty and good even as men although we had not been Christians they must needs fall themselves and drive others by these doubtfull precepts from giving any right obedience at all instead of directing them therein For although as to some intents men may be usefully considered in these different relations yet when the same person is now both a man and a Christian such distinctions as should â—imply a possibility of personal devision again so as for the same Christian to act as a man in any thing without being a Christian must besides absurdity bring upon us the many inconveniences of rebellion and civil war And therefore although in our being Christian we lose not the reality of manhood more then in being rational creatures or men we lose the properties of sensitive Creatures yet inasmuch as being rational Creatures and so having a greater and surer light to direct our actions all that we do answerable to other meer sensitives is therefore now to be attributed to us in the capacity of men as of the nobler and higher relation Even so also it fareth with us after and while we are Christians namely that all those actions in which in execution and direction I mean so far as is humane we resemble other meer natural men onely yet these things being by us now acted under the inseparable relation of Christians are although not of express litteral divine precept yet if done in obedience to lawful authority a Christian duty or if acted against it a Christian fault And it will follow that what was in us as men before but moral vertue or vice is now righteousness or sin even to the degree of an idle word And so again considering us as subjects those things that are onely by the light of nature investigable as civil duties when they come to be enforced by a Superiour having his power and office from God have the obligations of religious actions as being part of our obedience to that God who said them to be in that respect Gods also and children of the most high Therefore when God sometimes commands what would concern us and be our benefit as men although we had not been Christians as indeed if we had reason enough all precepts for outward direction would appear such or when again many things appertaining to our religion it self and our outward worship therein are by the Churches authority enjoyned whether the same be found in Scripture or no they are both of them to be held as religious dutyes to us and we being not able while we are Christians to act in any other personal capacity must be obedient and subject as in and to the Lord that is till something be enjoyned to overthorw Christianity we as Christians must obey in all things and it is as sinful to disobey Supream authority in the payment of taxes as in the observation of the Sabboth For God not now giving particular precepts as unto the Iewes but leaving us herein to the direction of the higher power ordained for that purpose of him we are to be obedient to our Masters in the flesh as unto Christ and willingly to do them service as unto the Lord and not as men That is we are now always to obey him as Christs Minister and head of our particular Church and not left at liberty to obey as in a religious tye no farther then we please For the actions and precepts of each State Kingdom are upon their conversion to Christianity to be called and reputed the actings of such or such a Church and not of such or such a State the name and notion of Church including that of State even as in the particular members whereof it is compounded the notion of man is involved in that of Christian. So that now as the entire trust power of Vniversal headship of the Catholike Church is unto Christ resigned and he thereupon to be obeyed as under a religious tye in all causes whatsoever by all such as acknowledge themselves Christians although they seem of never so civil a nature even so his supream deputy in each Christian Church or Kingdome being entirely entrusted like him from whom his power is derived is
in it self worthy of preservation doth by Grace restore and rectifie what in our fall had been corrupted Thus that love which Nature provokes me to express out of inward delight Religion enjoyns and directs me to execute according to explicite precept That good which for Honor or Vertue sake I seek to act as a moral man I must now for Duty and Conscience sake re-inforce and prosecute as a Christian. That degree of beneficence which in nature I might arbitrarily and differently dispense according to mine own relations of Family Friends or the like I must now according to the tye of conscience and subjection distribute indifferently or according to such rules as he that hath publike charge shall direct For our state of innocency consisteth more in negative then in positive acts that is more in being harmless then beneficial because innocence or abstinence from harm is always a praise and compatible to all men inferior as well as others but to be positively beneficial is the attribute and sole honor of the Fountain of good and is to mankind no otherwise communicable and proper then as impowered and deputed from him and acting in his stead And therefore is Lord said to be the fulfilling of the Law because it worketh no ill to his neighbor And in that Chapter as obedience to the Higher Power is most strictly enjoyned and may be understood compleating the Precepts of the first Table and so inclusive of that Law of Honor thy father and mother So is the love of our neighbors as our selves set all down in negative Precepts Thou shalt not commit adultery Thou shalt not steal c. Nay our justification and the forgiveness of our offences and sins against God is made to depend most on our forgiving one another which was chiefly hinted at in that perfect model of Prayer Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those that trespass against us Heaven it self being the reward of our innocence not of our merit and that because we cannot without derogation to Gods honor take on us to act in matters of beneficence without him And so again the Devil being the father of malice the more we take upon us to act therein the more we shew our selves his servants Of which his delight in malice contrary to the Precept of love we have a plain instance in Witches who spend their whole power in things destructive and mischievous being wholly swayed by desire of revenge which as it did at first grow from being crossed in their own designs so they had beneficence in their aims And therefore so far as any is malicious to others that is is wilfully set to prosecute his own ways of doing future good by present evil so far hath he listed himself under this Destroyer and thrust himself out of Divine favour and protection by renouncing Divine obedience whereas others may know they are passed from death to life not only because they love the brethren but also for that they are obedient to Gods minister in the manner thereof For without God every one may be truly said to act that hath not from him as great and full direction and authority as was in his power to procure even in that particular in which he acts but doth relie only on such general directions as were for ought he knows not proper to the cause in question And so not being by Gods Minister interpreted and warranted as to license therein he must remain still as much as before without true warrant to act on another and the other again without just cause of suffering at his hands For since both of these having from Reason and Scripture alike power to judge interpret and impose upon each other he must be concluded to have been most innocent and obeyed God most that hath most obeyed his Vicegerent and stuck to his direction therein And this because the positive Precepts of Scripture and Religion coming only to supply and make more applyable those general and ambiguous rules of natural reason to which end determinate Interpreters were again put to see the meaning of these Scriptures applyed to these cases and persons unto which they are proper it must thereupon follow that as those that undertake to judge cases by the light of nature only without regard therein had to Scripture cannot in so doing be guiltless so also they that undertake to be their own judges from the immediate rules of Scripture and do balk the the direction of the authorized Intepreter and Keeper they must thereby become lyable to guilt also So that now to sum up all these Discourses concerning love and obedience it is still to shew how men under the second Adam stand in respect of works in a like condition for innocence as they did at first For as then the only Precept was to forbear tasting of the knowledge of good and evil even so it is the only Precept still For so much in brief our Saviour explains saying For judgement am I come into this world that they which see not might see and they that see might be made blind And again as before noted answered those that presumed to derive Innocence and Righteousness from their own light If ye were blind ye should have no sin But now ye say we see therefore your sin remaineth The which and other places are certainly plain enough to convince any whom The God of this World hath not blinded to their own destruction And however formerly amongst the Jews where God was immediate Law-giver and by plain litteral Precepts did set down his pleasure to be observed by each one in particular the differencing of obedience into active and passive was useful that thereby upon occasion subjects might perform their duties to God and his Vicegerent also as also it was before the higher Powers were Christians yet now unto Christian Subjects that have not from Christ rules set down for their external abearance one towards another but they are to be taught his commands from his Deputies and Ambassadors the case is otherwise For so the words are Teaching them to observe whatsoever I have commanded you not what I have commanded them So that when subjects are by their Christian head now commanded to be actively obedient in any thing they are then disobedient if they are not so because where doing is required their doing to their power and not their suffering must shew their obedience For as I cannot find that the Crown of Martyrdom was promised to any but such as were persecuted for the name of Christ or Christianity which in Heathenish persecutions was to come to pass so cannot I tell what other title then that of Rebel to give to such as oppose or resist their Christian Prince Nor can I find what other reason to give for that expression of our Saviours saying that God hath given him authority to execute judgement because he is the son of man then thereby to shew how
otherwise their transactions with their Neighbours or misgovernment at home might prove so destructively prejudicial that his own purpose might be defeated by their ruine After the time our Saviour himself appeared and had the whole Government laid on his shoulders these offices were wholly resigned up unto him and so from him who was King and Priest after the order of Melchisedec and who was the Prophet which Moses foretold of to be raised up like him and which was anointed to preach glad tidings they come to be by him conferred in chief on his adopted sons the several heads of his Church and so at last to be impropriate to the anointed Christian Monarchs vvithout such reservation as God had formerly made in the Jewish Church in reference to his Theocraty If we look for the knowledge of these things in the practice of the primitive Christian Church we shall not find any separate jurisdiction or authority claimed either in Priestly or Prophetical way but what was subordiate if not appointed by the Apostles the then Heads of the Church The which is plainly intimated by S. Paul when he tells the Corinthians who had in many things presumed against the authority of his Apostleship as their Head Though ye have ten thousand Instructers in Christ yet have ye not many fathers for in Christ Jesus I have begotten you through the Gospel wherefore I beseech you be ye followers of me For although many of these their Preachers or Instructers had no doubt by their Doctrine won many particular souls amongst them to the faith and so might be called the spiritual Fathers to those persons yet since they generally considered as a collective Church and body of men had first been instructed by him and were also the Seal of his Apostleship in the Lord They under the notion of Sons of the Church could have but one spiritual Father no more then natural sons could Whereupon having signified to them his Power of Super-intendency under a relation that might claim sole and undeniable authority as their general Father or Head he then tells them of his practise thereupon For this cause I sent Timotheous unto you who is my beloved son and faithful in the Lord who shall bring you into remembrance of my wayes which be in Christ as I teach every where in every Church That is I have sent him by my Apostolical Authority to take the charge of your instruction in my absence because he knows my manner of Doctrine and Worship which I have established in other Churches by vertue of that power which Christ gave me And so he goeth on reproving such as had demeaned themselves proudly against his Authority under colour of their office of Instruction or as Waterers to what he planted And thereupon says The Kingdom of God is not in word but in power that is he would not regard the speech of him that was puffed up but the power For although they might preach in Christs name yet if they had not power from that Supreme Deputy which Christ hath intrusted with his Churches Power their Authority was nothing as elsewhere he says How shall they preach except they be sent Indeed those Epistles to the Corinthians are very intent and copious in the defence of S. Pauls Authority and the six first Chapters are particularly bent that way and carry an especial reproof against those Schisms and Divisions which had hapned amongst them for want of this unity Whilst some would choose one Master-builder and some another and that with such vehemence of affection as Idolatrously to neglect or forget Christ himself whose Deacons they were And whilst others as Superstitiously again would balk those Ministers of Christ set over them as thinking obededience no where due but to him alone Therefore saith he I beseech you brethren by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ that ye all speak the same thing and that there be no divisions amongst you but that ye be perfectly joyned together in the same mind and in the same judgement Which thing cannot be while Every one of you saith I am of Paul and I of Apollo and I of Cephas and I of Christ. After which like a faithful Minister and Steward he first vindicates the honor of his Master against such as would divide him by their Idolatrous regard to his Ministers to his stead Is Christ divided was Paul crucified for you or wâ—re you baptized in the name of Paul And so blaming himself to blame others he goes on clearing himself that that power he had exercised had ever been done by him in Christs name as acknowledging his derived Authority and Mission from him of preaching and laying this Christian foundation Which thing seemed foolishness to these Greeks for they besides their natural aversion to all kind of subjection but what themselves fancied were as it appears tainted with arrogancy towards their own ability in discerning right and wrong according to the Moral Philosophy of their own Country and so were unwilling to submit to the simplicity of the Gospel and make obedience to Christ their wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption The wisdom of God is now a Mysterie even a way to Justification which the wise men of the world knew not nor could discover in their Precepts of Moral Justice Having therefore afterwards again warned them against these carnal courses that caused these divisions as also told them that this worldly wisdom is foolishness with God he then undertakes Apostolical honor and power as being immediately intrusted under God in Christ and so he having from them received the Spirit of judgement thinks it not valuable to be judged of mans judgement For the Superior cannot be justified as elsewhere shewed from below Nay though saith he I know nothing by my self yet am I not hereby justified but he that judgeth me is the Lord that is the act of Justification must come from above and therefore Inferiors are not to do it but leave it to the last judgement where every man shall have praise of God In the next verse he comes home to what was the drift of all the rest These things brethren I have in a figure transferred to my self and to Apollo for your sakes that ye might learn in us not to think of men above that which is written that no one of you be puffed up for one against another that is Forasmuch as ye know me to be your Planter and that Apollo and I are all one by subordination to God that gave us our powers therefore are ye not to regard other mens authorities above that written warrant they can bring for the same For difference in power must come from God if it come from below it will cause divisions and puffing up one against another For who maketh one man to differ from another but God and what hast thou that thou didst not receive now if
Author whose power is more rationally to be concluded the prime and sole cause of all things as standing in that supreme order he now doth then if he should be acting beneath and of but one thing at once And as he is more admirable in his own Throne of power ordering all things by his sole word and command then if he should descend to be personally doing of every thing so could we rightly consider it any one thing is in it self as miraculously and powerfully wrought in that kinde of efficiency which we call ordinary as when done in an extraordinary way So for example if wood should have been by God endued with power to draw Iron or one Iron to draw another as now the Load stone doth would not the ordinary effect that way have made the Load-stones attraction as great a miracle as it seemeth for wood to do it now And if none can give reason why other things should not have as great attractive force as these why should it not be a greater proof of Deity to be constantly powerful in all and every operation then to be so but now and then which is all the proof that miracles have And therefore as men of riper judgement and experience would much laugh at the folly and weakness of such as beholding the Mariners compass do ascribe the effect of the Needle to some hidden quality or secret property residing in it self and as again the ascribing and occult quality unto those operations of the Load-stone without farther knowledge or derivation of its cause is but a shift of ignorance as the setting down of all other hidden causes are each thing having a cause beyond it self so is there none but fools that say in their hearts or really think there is no God because they cannot discern his efficacy through and beyond intermediate causes And they are at most but middle witted men for that albeit they can from a little farther experience tell of Causes above the lowest degree of men yet are they not wise enough to search farther So that Athiesm is always bordering on folly and narrowness of comprehension being nothing else but a stubborn relyance on present sense as from the certainty of effects in things we ordinarily behold concluding those Causes within reach of our observation to be the most supreme And farther thinking that if a voluntary Agent were in those things universal Cause and Author he would as fancying his inclination by our own be more personally appearing for his greater credit-sake amongst us and make his present operation serve to direct our acknowledgements unto him Not duly considering that it would be so far from encreasing the worth as it would redound to the actors disesteem as arguing decay of the Vertue of Agency if the supreme and higher Cause should for want of strength otherwise be forced immediately to work on a lower effect for that hereby again the supreme Cause ceasing by becoming an intermediate one it must follow that as Causes were fewer Effects and Creatures must be fewer also And when all is done that supreme Cause that is now intermediate in operation would by its constancy in so doing be as far from discovering a Deity as the other was before unless they could imagine that for their onely satisfaction sake causes of things should not have been constant and uniform but on purpose various to have drawn on their notice Again if God Almighty should have been disabled to the degree of an humane Artificer and have been ineffectual farther then where his own hand hath been express as is the workmans in making the Watch then it must next follow that either Creatures must have been so few and perishable as Watches made by one hand or else they must have supposed this Agents power advanced to such degree that as a Monarch can manage a Kingdom by his Laws so as the same needed not to be afterwards guided by him but by instruments obedient to him or as the Artificer can frame and contrive a Watch to go for as long time as he pleaseth so as the same can now go without his appearance in like manner there should be also such procession of the first cause of operation and motion in these things as they shall be infinitely continued If this course could have gone on this first Cause would have been a God because his operation and existence must have been eternal But on it could not go to any degree of eternity inasmuch as all progressive operations and motions must be finite and determinate in regard that that end and rest which caused motion through desire of approach must cease it having now attained it And therefore to make things continue there must be a circulation of Causes and Effects allowed whereby each individual thing having attained that proper end for which its last Cause or next Agents produced it in Nature must return into its first matter through corruption and alteration of its last specifick forms and be ready to obey the more general Causes in Nature and the Laws of that matter which is most homogenius unto it in correspondence to the next more proper and powerful Agent Even as in the affairs and atchievements in kingdoms although the hands of the lowest sort of individual Officers is most immediate in the work yet these having their power from the next general Officer and so he again from next above him till these Officers growing higher and fewer do at last terminate in the King as Fountain of all their power so any of those next perishable individual Officers deceasing that formal power that made them such returns to the hands of those next Officers above him who constitutes others and those more or fewer in these places as they finde the exigence of that Kingdoms affairs call for in relation thereunto no otherwise then as with us a Constable dying the Justices as the more general Officers do by vertue of their Commissions and derived power constitute new in the place In which course as the affairs of the Kingdom is ordinarily managed without the Prince his appearance or again the spring can move the several wheels of the Watch without particular touch of any but that next him why may there not nay why must there not be a Deity to be the first mover in things of this universe Who according to his good pleasure ordering that the appointed continuance of this world should be maintained by perishable individuals hath in his providence to that end ordered that the corruption of one thing should be still progressive to the generation of another Why may he not again in the doing thereof be yet as far or more removed from our notice in ordinary operations as the cause of Government or the motion of Watches or the like is hid and unknown to the weaker sort of people and to other Creatures below us and are of them thought to proceed from no farther cause then what present sense can discover
For should the King be as much hidden from our bodily sence as God is and should we again know no more of the Commissions and powers granted to Justices in each Kingdom then we do of the Laws of matter and internal forms in Nature it would be as hard to apprehend any prime Agent above those Justices in the Kingdom as to conceive the power and existence of Deity in the world A supposition that may be well made good if consideration be had of those strange conceits of the form and figure of Kings which are entertained by some ignorant people that as yet never saw any nor heard them described And the reason is the same for our ignorance in appearance of Gods operation in Creation Providence and natural Causes as is for the ignorance of these before mentioned in the knowledge of the Causes of political or artificial productions with us unless we shall impiously as well as arrogantly conclude that we should have knowledge in this life in such perfection as to see him intuitively as Angels do now or as our selves shall do hereafter Of the reason of the present course of Gods proceeding in many particulars both of Creation and Providence we did speak in the beginning and other parts of this work in which we declared the divers sympathies and natural propensities wherewith Vegetatives and Inanimates are indued all of them tending to specifical and mutual preservation and Providence We also shewed how Sensitives were provoked by the affection of pleasure naturally implanted in them and accompanying things beneficial to be continually active in pursuance of what was to themselves and others behoof-ful We also manifested how rational Creatures by the affection of love and desire of beneficence and by the thirst of honor accompanying them as their reward were provoked also unto the like continual endeavors towards mutual good and preservation All of them infallibly concluding that there must be an Author or prime Agent of such universal concern and such continual care in constituting and ordering these things as to be their original Cause and perpetual guide and support according to the method of his own good pleasure For should there not be these natural propensions to love and pitty nay to acts of justice and of submission therein to others as to honor Parents and the like it would come to pass that through that too great thirst of self-seeking heretofore spoken of and through anger and envy of being crossed therein no one man would now be left alive inasmuch as there is no man but is by one or other so much hated as to cause his death to be heartily desired were not manifold hinderances by divine Providence and appointment put in to keep off execution And in this regard was may also collect another strong proof for Deity and Providence from that awful and reverential respect which is by each one born towards Authority For experience every day tells us that those very persons that are come to that height of daring as to challenge and enter the field for a lye an abuse to their Mistress or the like where besides the equal hazard of their lives in present they must have a certain expectation to suffer according to Law in case they do out-live the other are yet so kept in order by that divine and providential terror by God impressed on his Image of Authority here on earth as not to have courage to withstand the Attachment of a publike Officer Whereupon our Discourse formerly and ordinary reason it self always testifying that these his works and the way of Government of them are such as cannot be bettered why should we think Change and Alteration any ways convenient For if it be an act proper to goodness wisdom power c. to make things well and good and afterwards to dispose them so will not constancy herein be as commendable to the same goodness wisdom and power in their continuance in that order as it was for creating and thus stating them And so if God had not made and ordered all things so as cannot be bettered he could not have been God and if he should not keep them in the same order whilst they remain the same things he should not be God neither wisdom in designation requiring constancy in prosecution and irresistible power being the necessary attendant of both And having thus far spoken in defence of the constancy of the course of Nature and Providence against such as would not believe a God because since the Fathers fell asleep all things are alike till now so also for conviction of such as from inconstancy and irregularity of the actions in voluntary Agents and Gods permission of sin and oppression would conclude against Deity too according to that divine Aphorism because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil we shall now farther speak In this saying of the wise man we may apprehend the two usual grounds that make men lean to Atheism The first is in thinking all the acts and works of men evil which they cannot apprehend as good not being many times able to look through the mistaken or present particular suffering of some few unto that real and more lasting good thereby procured to many The other in thinking that the acts permitted unto and proceeding from humane Judgement and Will as it is seated in divers persons for the guidance of their own affairs should be alike constant to those of God in the Government of the world and course of his Providence who hath an uniform end to cause steadiness of his actions therein Unto which an answer may be also made out of the same consideration before spoken of namely the sufficiency of the one above the other And if they wil allow any Creature to be so perfect as to have Will and Understanding separate they must in order to their specifical freedom of Will allow them variety of actions also especially since their private ends must differ as before noted And therefore as we must conclude Gods works must be uniform and constant in reference to his Unity of Will and end to design and all-sufficiency of power to atchieve so we must allow to things submitted to the power of inferior voluntary Agents if at all you will grant them voluntary freedom unto variety of productions and execution and that in bad as well as in good Unless we shall at once and against sense conclude all men are alike good wise or powerful and that from such plurality and disparity of Judgement Interest and Will we should think that constant procession could be expected From which liberty and freedom of action in good or bad guided according to the true light or corruption of humane judgement and Will it must also follow that the evidences and directions given for mens guidance should not be in such continuing and pressing manner repeated to each single
is to be laid aside as we do in any case aim at the honor and glory of God whereas if they had but ability or Patience enough to consider it they might finde how both of them do still meet in that very point of humane content and preservation as heretofore declared And so again such as have reflected upon the many self-respects and designes by some Princes practised after they attained unto their great pitch of power and that without due regard to Gods glory whose servants they are or to the good or welfare of their subjects one main end of their greatness they think that they have then arrived at no small height or reputation when they have so far abased that worth and respect which is due to him in comparison of what it due to God of men shall in a manner be brought to judge them as enemies and contrary to one another and to conceive there is no duty or respect due to them at all Not duly weighing how these things do-again meet and conspire in the same end and how it is not the honor or good of Princes personally and separately considered of men which is hereby aimed at But that it is to be given him in reference to that representation of power he hath from God himself and in respect of that preservation and good of man-kinde by this means brought to pass which is Gods end as well as ours And having so far proceeded in giving proofs and reasons to confirm those Propositions we have delivered our next work shall be to shew those grounds whereby many shall come to receive prejudice against them and think them otherwise which we shall do in that which follows THE FOURTH BOOK OF GOVERNMENT and OBEDIENCE AS They stand grounded on and relating to each ones natural inclination and affection The Introduction AS that general good to arise by publike Peace and Agreement was the end of this whole undertaking so were those many and sad examples of Civil disturbance every day set on foot upon the score of Religion the cause also why in the passed Book I made such particular discourses on that subject that upon a short view of Religion as in it self and a more strict enquiry into such Texts as did look most directly that way it might be found whether these Wars and Fightings could be rightly attributed to that faith which we profess or were not rather to be imputed to our lusts which war in our members By the which suffering our selves to be too impetuously swayed it doth thereupon come to pass that when Authority doth oppose us in any thing of our desired enjoyments we do presently cast about how our cause may be made Gods that so under colour of more near relation and subjection unto him we may shake off all that our bounden duty which by the Laws we owe to our Prince his Vice-gerent That Pride and Interest and not desire of any Self-Reformation is the usual cause of mens extraordinary search of the Scriptures may appear from the manner of choice therein made even for that no places are so much quoted and insisted upon as those that are Prophetique and most Mysterious such as are those texts of the Revelation a Book the most controverted of any other as being the greatest stranger to the Apostles times which some would seem wholly to relic upon and having in it least instructions of any how to steer our selves in the course of our lives But because the understanding hereof is generally acknowledged most difficult and because again by reason of this mysteriousness no good agreement can be yet found where justly and precisely to fix those descriptions of the Beast The Whore of Babylon Antichrist and the like therefore as well for renown and glory sake in the discovery as for anger and revenge against those they most hate shall we find some so resolute and peremptory in their expositions as if they would have us believe that these Prophesies were but respective to their interests not only to bring them honor by interpretation but thereby prove themsâ—lves the Saints and People of God there spoken of In these following Discourses I shall therefore let men see how our natural and proper constitutions educations customs c. nay our own interests also do inter-weave themselves in all we do and that as wâ—ll our Opinions and Tenets in Religion as those in Polity and Government do take tincture from these So that as in my second Book I took that Political body again into pieces which I had reared up in the first to handle and examine its grounds according to such notions and parcels of policy as were vulgarly entertained and insisted upon so now in further proof of this third Book I shall take man himself into pieces and search him in his very first principles and the natural rise and cause of both his appetites and affections and of his dislike aversions to the end that each one discerning how these things come to be framed in us and how all along they receive such influence from our breeding and manner of life aâ— easily to pre-occupate and mislead us he may be the sooner induced to an ingenuous review of his own opinions and before he grow too magistral in any thing be careful he is not overtaken by any of these prejudices But then as in this Tract I bring in these more Philosophical Speculations but by way of illustration and farther proof of what was formerly handled in the dâ—scourses of Religion and Polity so is it not to be expected that I should here deliver any thing of this kind as in an entire Treatise or make any such long stay as generally to accommodate them with a proper method or demonstration or with definition of terms since they are now only to be Probationers and Remonstrants themselves and in that kinde to be attendant on that which all this while hath been our main Argument BOOK IV. Of the Causes of LIKE and DISLIKE OF CONTENT DISCONTENT AND Whether it be possible to frame a Government in it self pleasing and durable without Force and Constraint IN many of the Discourses hitherto Government hath been treated of as having its rise and also its efficacy and support from constraint and force that is from the exercise of the power of the Governor upon the Governed which being the occasion of that continual reluctance and resistance in the Subjects and consequently the author of all Civil broils it will not be amiss to enquire what remedy may be herein found or whether any may be found or no It may therefore be doubted since as before shewed the love of our selves was only purely natural how those forraign affections come to havâ— their rise and being Whereupon we must again consider that as Gods praise and glory was the end of all things and accordingly as heretofore shewed the reason why things naturally done should be pleasurable also to wit that the Creature thereby
if any such thing could have averted their punishment but rather aggravated their offences by adding this rebellion against their Prince to their former against God and so breaking more of his Laws For suppose the people never so innocent as in some of the alledged cases may appear or suppose as all of us are ready to flatter our own hypocrisies that neither we nor our Fathers have sinned as to those punishments but that the Will of God might be made manifest Oh let us not resist that Will who owns all the evils that befalls each City that is to say publike evils lest while we will not be punished as he appoints by a King in his anger he by suffering him to be taken away should by Anarchy plague us in his wrath In tender sense of publick Peace and Charity and the blessed condition of the Peace makers themselves and those that are promoters and assistants in it I shall now appeal to the Consciences and Judgements of all such as are wont to gild over their own Covetousness and Ambition with the shews of Justice and Religion and are so forward to kill all that will not submit and joyn in opinion with them you that will undertake to controle Heaven in its dispensations and under colour of Tyranny or Usurpation of wrong rule or wrong entry will at your pleasure be withdrawing your own and others obedience from your present Prince give me leave to summon your thoughts to a serious consideration of all those sad consequents that must attend it that by calling your self to an accompt before the time of that general accomptcom you may be both eased in your own reckoning then and have your Conscience here eased of those sins and miseries which your stubbornness must produce Suppose then that you with all those fair declamations of Law and Justice or of Religion and Zeal which you in your popular Oratory are so copious and ready in shall be able to seduce and draw to your party such a considerable number of your fellow Subjects as to form the same into a Civil war wherein thousands must lose their lives as well on one side as the other suppose I say these several parties through thy perswasion slain by each other in the height of uncharitableness should now present themselves before thee with their wounded and macerated bodies and all besmeared with gore and blood and with grim and ghastly visages stare thee in the face as the horrid spectacles of thy confusion and amazement But this is not all seest thou that throng of desolate Widdows and Orphans and of disconsolate Parents who as in sacrifice of thy ambition or avarice are by the death of each other bereft of comforts and left to a necessity of dying while they live and so the never dying monuments of thy cruelty and Rebellion Let the shrikes and yellings of defloured and ravished Virging and Matrons the groans the tears the sighs of such as are in every corner after the manner of civil war murthered plundered imprisoned or otherwise dispoyled of life or livelihood let all those arise to thy remose If not nor the thought of that Forrest-face which thy native country must now put on in respect of that destruction which must be introduced on its goodly Edifices Corn and Cattel can move thee as in Honor or Charity yet let Piety Piety I say if thou hast any the sense of the Honor of that God thou seemest to worship let this move thee to think how in these Civil wars those publike Oratories and publike places of worship dedicated to his name must be alway in danger of ruine and sacriledge also and how then canst thou persist in a course that must at once destroy all bonds of Love Loyalty and Religion that must at once and that with so high hand offer such violence the utmost violencence in thy power to thy neighbour to thy Prince to thy God Doth not thy heart yet feel remorse Heark the Trumpet calls thee to the Judgement-seat of that great God himself whose Honor and Authority on earth thou hast so often slighted and offended Now for a Mountain now for a Rock to cover thee from the face of the all-incenced Deity Dost thou not now finde that the common Cause of condemnation against Christians is made for living and dying in hatred and malice and how many are there now eying thee as the Author of and ring-leader in those Civil disturbances where Christian against Christian have by thousands killed each other in the height and heat of uncharitableness And seest thou not again how the sentence of blessed runs to the meek to the patient to the peace-makers while thou art setting forward thy trembling limbs and stepping in with an Apology for thy Rebellion how hath new confusion seized thee at the sight of that King and Prophet who did so often flye from his persecuting Prince and had his heart smiting him but for cutting off but the hemn of his Garment what seest thou now where are thy Texts of Scripture thy Pretexts of Law See if thou canst make thy warrant and call unto publike Authority and Command in any degree apparent and equal to his or canst make thy sufferings equal to all that other therefore glorified company of Martyrs and Confâ—ssors who amids all those dismal persecutions even for the most righteous cause of all and plainly so durst not lift up against him that was but a heathenish Prince but chose to follow both the Precept and Example of him who is now in the highest Throne of Honor as a reward of his Patience Oh horror of horrors what is thy Judge become a party too a Mountain a Mountain a Mountain No sooner hath thy all-dispairing soul caused thine all confounded eys to sink and settle on objects below but oh torment of torments Who is this that is now to be thy Prince and under whose Dominion thou must now for ever live Thou shalt not need here to study pretensions of Tyranny and Oppression against thy Prince nor invectives and standers against his Officers and Ministers What is it which thou truly feelest now Oh If this be the expectation as without Repentance it can be none other of all that are promoters of civil disturbance how necessary then is it that we should timously thinking of bridling our covetous and unruly appetites and learn patiently to submit unto that Regiment and condition of life wherein Providence hath places us When discontent of any sort assaults us to impatience think we then this is not our rest No happiness to be here expected all things in this life comes to us mingled as well to manifest and draw down our acknowledgement of Deity and Providence for the receipt of what is good as to wean and withdraw our affections from this world to a better in such sort that those very things wherein our greatest temporal preservation and good doth consist are attended and accompanied with such as are
of greatest mischief From the food with which our bodies are nourished do we contract the most of our diseases nay from those sorts of it which are best too do we by intemperance draw on those maladies which are most desperate and deadly From that very root of Love and desire of beneficence and thirst of Honor ingraffed for mutual comfort and assistance do we daily finde contrary effects to be produced when by too strict and irregular fixation and use thereof according to the particular interest and guidance of our private appetite and discretions we are led into Faction and Civil war And so lastly from that course of prevention and restraint which by divine appointment was setled amongst us as the onely Soveraign remedy and cure of these exorbitances namely the constitution and power of Monarchical government even this doth together with the cure make us lyable and obnoxious to those fatal mischiefs of Tyranny and Oppression also Against which as we have neither reasonable or lawful remedy but that of Patience so shall we finde it a true remedy indeed and to usher us into an habitation and Kingdom where neither a natural distemper nor a civil distraction shall any more afflict us No no all cause of fear either of loss or punishment is now banished our obedience is become all love here for a full comprehension of the pleasure of our present Soveraign together with a full assurance of his continual ready acceptance as well as of our own continual ready ability of performance shall make all apprehension of power stand as it were forgotten in that of goodness And whereas we now know neither our own duties nor Gods love and acceptance but in part seeing them as through a glass darkly then shall we know him as to his Will and good pleasure even as we are known of him as to our hearty desire of serving and honoring him and this face to face We shall not longer wait on tedious Inductions and Observations for some slender and fallible comprehension of these things but at such time as Charity shall make up our Obedience our knowledge shall be inherent arising from presence and intuition There is no such opacity here as to necessitate us to rays of light to discover at most but skin-deep into the qualities of things no then the true Nature of things shall be as soon known as their names and their inward as their outward form And therefore what cause then of fear that any thing should separate us from the love of God our present Soveraign Where there shall not be so much as a false accuser left to appear in that Kingdom whereby to disturb us in our civil life more then a disease to disturb us in our natural The life and health of our then refined bodies shall no more run the hazard of either famine or surfeit by relying on such food as could not nourish us until dead nor but bring death by nourishment Our then no longer sickly nor mortal bodies shall now have their more spiritual life and perfection secured and encreased from a food far more spiritual and perfect then our selves In this true Paradise shall we finde the true tree of life it self that bread of life that once came down from Heaven cloathed with our nature that we might be made capable and Participant of his With this food shall we be always delightfully fed never full always satisfied never satiate As thus to our selves so to our present society instead of those thwartings and injuries which used to come from the hands of competitors or enemies we shall on all hands be saluted with the ready Offices of complacency and love for how can envy or malice have either Author or Object where encrease of eminence or property cannot be so much as wisht for Our enjoyments then shall not be purchased or endeared at the price of want and difficulty for fruition shall here antecede appetite even so as there shall not be so much as time or room left for a wish And whilst thou shalt be thus steadily compleat with happiness in thy self so as neither to have cause to hope more nor fear worsâ— and that through the gift and participation of divine love so shalt thou finde this love so much refined also as to be universally and reciprocally efficacious not onely to procure the possession against fear of intrusion through others wants but to encrease it through consensation of like benefit in them Each one that could not as one contain more content shall by this union contain all We shall not then know one another by our old dividing relations of consanguinity or friendship whereby petty unions were made destructive of the common and introductive of general disagreement No every one is lookt upon with the heightened affection of a brother by means of that more close tye and relation to be derived from that Our father which is in Heaven Hath any one been so heroick as but to taste what it is to be truely in love with any person here Let him then think that every one now shall be that he or that she but withour thought of a he or a she Not so hazardously now beloved as to relye on the courtesie of a Idea from the intent observation of whose perfection in our conceit the imperfections of the original might come to be clouded No as we shall no longer depend on the help of deceiveable notions nor Affections or Passions for our comprehension and understanding so shall we not be in danger to be captivated with the glance of a single sense and that from an outward perishing and deceiveable figure Our Understanding and intuistive knowledge shall now make way for our will it shall not stand to the issue of two contending passions here Where nothing is farther to be hoped for or feared all such composition must cease We shall not in this place love at the hazard of our discretions nor endanger the loss of our selves by the love of another for in this society every other shall be truely known to be an other self even so much thy self that thou shalt not be to thy self but in that self for we shall be so like and so much one another as not to know distinction or separation but what number must make Oh that happy practice of love below that prepared thee for this blessed enjoyment of love above Oh that happy performance of Obedience to thy former Fathers in the flesh although unto death that hath now redeemed thee from death and fitted thee for this subjection unto the Father of Spirits unto life Oh happy participation in a Cross that makes thee now a sharer with thy Saviour in his Crown Thy former bread of affliction and tears of sorrow shall be by thy blessed Savior here turned into wine of comfort and food of life not to be now tasted in a Sacramental sip or broken piece and then onely in a topick Communion but in this
strange act That is God shall be powerfull present in assisting his Vicegerents as formerly with David and Ioshua and by these that sit in Iudgement and turn the battail to the gate shall cause the waters of Mount Perazim to overflow their hiding places and the hailstones of his wrath to sweep away the refuge of lyes And then shall those Prophets Rulers and Seers finde themselves so confounded by the spirit of deep sleep from the Lord that their delusive speculations shall afford them no better satisfaction then the dream of Meat or drink to him that is hungry or thirsty And all because of these pretenders to serve God in another way then by the direction of their Superior Do but draw near to him with their mouth and honour him with their lips but their hearts is far from him in vain making semblance of worshipping him teaching for doctrines the commandments of Men That is preferring the rule of righteousness or judgment of their own setting up before those set up by my authority which was our Saviours own interpretation of this prophesie who no doubt best knew the meaning thereof The like also doth St Mark set down to be the interpretation of this prophesie namely that this pharisaicall pretension of legal or traditional sanctity under the notion of Corban serves but to defeat the positive precept of Gods Vicegerent Therefore saith the Prophet behold I will proceed to doe a marvailous work amongst this people even a marvailous work and a wonder for the wisdome of their wise Men shall perish and the understanding of the prudent Men shall be hid That is the wisdom of these pretenders shall come to nought And therefore it is added Woe to them that seek deep to hide their counsell from the Lord and their works in the dark and they say Who seeth us and who knoweth us That is they finde such multiplication of contrivances as if they would out-wit God Almighty But he saith Surely your turning of things upside down a fit expression for such as will be judging their Iudge shall be esteemed as the Potters clay for shall the work say of him that made it he made it not Or shall the thing framed say of him that framed it he had no understanding That is shall man be wiser then his Maker Will they not allow God his own way and season for things Why will they be again seeking to be under Morall righteousness and legall bondage as when the Lord himself led them by the hand and so would have God tyed to harder conditions then the Plowman Who when he hath made plain the face of the Earth and cast in his appointed grain doth not then continue ploughing himself still but expecting such Crop as this prepared earthy Heart of man will yeeld he doth afterwards by divers afflictions cause those severall sorts of Grain to be cleansed and made acceptable But as for them that think there can be no fruitful place where God is not the immediate holder of the Plough and where are not many Precepts from him given he adds Is it not a very little while and Lebanon shall be turned into a fruitfull field and the fruitfull field shall be esteemed as a forrest and in that day shall the deaf eares hear the word of the Book and the eyes of the blinde shall see out of obscurity and out of darkness That is the Jewes that had heretofore had Gods precepts and worship so plentifull amongst them shall be darkned and the Gentiles formerly sitting in darkness shall have a marvailous light appear and by reason of that precept of Love by God inwardly taught them they shall know and perform the words of the Book or precepts of the Law and so being made obedient to the Gospel and become of the number of Meek and Poor they shall increase their joy in the Lord For the terrible one is brought to nought and the scorner is consumed and all that waiteth for Iniquity is cut off Even suck kinde of men as would scare men with the multitude and strength of their Precepts as if they were all expresly Divine and doe again scorn the simplicity of the Gospel-rule and so make themselves workers of iniquity That make a Man an offender for a Word and lay a snare for him that reproveth in the Gate and turn aside the just for a thing of naught Which verse cleerly expresseth all their practice first by making Religious and Divine precepts to stretch to every thing they cause men to be in danger to be offenders to God for ordinary matters and so make him that is in the seat of judgement appear a stumbling block or rock of offence seeming to them an usurper of authority in offering to direct and reprove us thereby causing the just or the rule of Justice to cease and desist upon no occasion As though a King sitting in the seat of judgement did not scatter away evil with his eyes as though he that doth righteousness were not righteous as though judgement and righteousness had not a certain line and plummet for their measure or that the weight or measure of justice appointed by Cods Vicegerents were not to be the true standard but that men might make divers weights and measures thereof For when subjects take on them to interpret and judge of righteousness and justice by any other way and rule then that set up by Christs deputy they then make him a stumbling block to them as Christ himself being laid as the chief corner stone for the Churches direction was made unto the Jews who would be still following legal righteousness and not submit to that which was of faith in Christ. By means of these snares laid for him that reproveth in the gate we may also interpret that these Priests and Prophets should not onely through strong drink err in vision and stumble themselves in judgement but that they should thereby sometimes ensnare those persons sitting in judgement and so cause them also to err through wine and strong drink that is in too much listening to their shews of Divine revelation and authority But generally the ensnaring there spoken of is in regard of those vulgar errors which should prevaile in the Christian Church notwithstanding this judgement seat of Christ executed by his deputies even as it formerly had done amongst the Israelites called there the drunkards of Ephraim Therefore saith the Lord who redeemed Abraham concerning the house of Jacob Jacob shall not now be ashamed neither shall his face wax pale In which words God expressing himself under the notion of Redeemer shews the condition of the Christian Church the house of Iacob under Christ their Redeemer typified under Iacob himself namely that all cause of fear and shame shall be banished through the succeeding glory of the Christian Church For so it followeth But when he seeth his children the work
of mine hands in the midst of him that is such as are begotten to him through the power of mine inward Kingdom they shall sanctifie my name and shall sanctifie the holy one of Jacob and shall fear the God of Israel that is shall walk righteously and obediently according to their calling They also that erred in spirit that is such as were not yet thus inwardly guided but were led by multitude of litteral precepts shall come to understond that is to know this right way of sanctifying me and they that murmured that is such as were made stubborn by relyance upon their own interpretations of legality shall learn Doctrine that is shall learn the doctrine of obedeince a fit lesson for murmurers As this Office of Teaching or Instruction is to be understood here set down as in the first place proper to Christ who was anointed to preach good tydings so because this could be but in small measure done and supplyed by himself at least amongst the Gentiles in the glory of whose Church it is to be understood that of the Jews was prophesied it is therefore to be supposed that Christian Princes are to be his chief deputies in this office of instruction also For as they under him Shall build the old wasts and raise up the former desolations of the Jewish Church by this advancement of Christs kingdome amongst the Gentiles so These strangers shall stand and feed the Churches flock and the sons of the Aliens shall be her plowmen and vine-dressers all which are the Gospel expressions for Christs Shepherds or Pastors Nor can it appear otherwise then reasonable and necessary that those that are to be in the seat of judgement under Christ should have in chief the power and office to teach and instruct as well as to censure and reform Which although not fit to be personally practised by Kings in that sence of preaching as now understood especially having under them persons in holy orders to that purpose separately ordained yet is that general Office of instruction to be esteemed so properly their right as that for the matter and measure thereof it is alwayes subordinately to be executed by others For as they are to be the keepers of both tables so upon extraordinary and exorbitant occasions they may also no doubt as Gods Ministers entrusted in chief with the advancement of his glory and service publikely and personally also perform that Office under the Gospel much more rightfully then good Josiah under the Law Who to his great commendations had formerly done the like In the ears of the Priests and Prophets and all the people both small and great and yet was the custody and interpretation of the Law much more appropriate to the Priesthood then than now Nay indeed this Office must both be in the same person and in the first place setled also or else I see not how they should have power or ability to reprove in such things where they had no power or right to constitute and ordaine And therefore we may observe that the first Mission of power which our Saviour gave was under the notion of this Office of Preachers or Evangelists and by vertue thereof and obedience thereunto did the Apostles at first claim obedience from their Churches in other things as shall more fully appear anon But to return so much of the prophesie as concerns the Church her encrease and prosperity is to be interpreted as not made good fully in Christ himself nor in some time after that is whilst the Church was so under persecution that those deputies of Christ in the seat of judgement had not power and honor enough to preserve the members from shame or fear But it is to be compleated unto the residue or latter time of the Church when God shall more eminently appear like a Crown and diadem in being the spirit of judgement and strength to them that have the crown and diadem That is when Christ as King shall raign in righteousness and his deputies of Princes shall rule in judgement then shall a man the Prince in Christs seat be for a hiding place from the winde of divers doctrines wherewith they were formerly tossed and a cover from the tempest that is of persecution he shall be as rivers of waters in a dry place That is from the spirit of truth now met in the seat of mercy and judgement he shall cause instructions to flow forth as waters in a dry land and by means of strength to him that is to turn the battle to the gate he shall be as the shaddow of a great rock even for strength and defence to the Church formerly wearied with persecution And so the Prophet goes on to shew how the eyes and ears of them that yet see and hearken to his instructions shall be reclaimed from their former rashness and come to understand knowledge By this word man set down in this second verse in the singular number saying A man shall be c. we may gather first that there should be but one at once in each Church that should supply the place of a rock and spirit of judgement although in respect of the whole number of Christs deputies in the Catholike Church they were to be Princes in the plural number under him the Churches universal head and King of Kings And then again this person being set down under the notion of a man will denote unto us that it could not be meant of Christ himself neither But this as before said shall chiefly come to pass after the former Palaces of the Jewish Church shall be forsaken and by means of the spirit from on high to be powered on the Gentile Church judgement shall dwell in the wilderness that is in the Gentile Church formerly a wilderness and righteousness remain in the fruitful field meaning the now flourishing Gentile Church And the work of righteousness shall be peace and the effects of righteousness shall be quietness and assurance for ever That is by means of righteousness looking down from heaven and so causing righteousness and judgement to kiss each other The Church shall dwell in a peaceable habitation and in sure dwellings and in quiet resting places that is the Church by the means of this blessed protection of kingship shall be no more in danger of persecution as before These blessings of peace and prosperity to come to the Church by means of Gods judgement and righteousness given to the King and the Kings son that is Christ and his sons of oile David under the type of himself and Solomon at large setteth down in the 72 Psalm Where it being set down to last so long as the Moon shall endure we may know how to interpret Isaiahs prediction of quietness and assurance for ever and so be confirmed that these promises import temporal happiness to acrew to us by a temporal Saviour All which prophesies were to be fullfilled after