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
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
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
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
beneficial actions the chief are Kings for these in their several Dominions are as under him fountains of power so of honor also For they in Gods stead are the onely able and authorized Judges of the reality and generallity of publike benefits insomuch as if receivers should be sole Judges they as parties would but regard their own satisfactions onely and call that publike which was but private benefit For these are subject both to flatter and mistake but he having the publike in his peculiar trust and looking on all with like interest can as the representative whole or common Sensory best and most impartially judge of common utilities and to him onely it must therefore belong to confer honor and the marks thereof for else while ambitious and proud persons were seeking and arrogating as they like true honor would not be and while people did through continual strife and slaughter of one another set up such as should be still undertaking their greater benefit they should lose as in the Fable their bone for a shadow We must therefore as before said reckon honor as it is in the subjects or people but as Bullion of no use to them nor to those that have it and that the value of it must be according to the coynage of that Prince whose image and authority it bears Hence we may observe that in Republikes and where Monarchies are not setled honors are not neither For there is onely applause estimation or the like momentany and uncertain shadows because with them honoring and honored are the same in degree honor signifying pre-excellence must needs be to none when it is equal to all or at least equally divided amongst so many And then how shall they confer on others what they have not themselves And as upon this ground honor can be onely in Monarchy so must it also follow from what hath hitherto been spoken that it must therein also flow from him to the people and not from the people to him as some would construe that maxime That honor is in the honoring and not in the honored For since as before noted the honorable or beneficial act must precede the honor or thanks thereof as the cause must precede the effect even so the honorable person which must again precede as the cause of that act must also much more precede and be the cause of the honor that follows thereupon And in this respect the subjects or people are so far from being originals of honor that they can therein at most but carry the force of an Eccho in the return and report of that voice or rate of honor which must come from above to wit from God or such as from him have benefits to give As for example when all the people said God save King Solomon as they could not be understood thereby radically and primarily to confer the Office and power it self so neither to be fountains and originals of the honor then given but the power and pleasure of David testified by the presence of his own servants and other attestations of his approbation and assent must be looked upon as efficient causes of this honor and the people but as subservient and instrumental therein Even as also that honor which Mordecai received by being brought on horse back through the street of the City was originally to be ascribed to Abasuerus that had commanded it to be so done to the man whom the King would honor and in testimony that this honor was derived from and authorized by him the fountain of honor and that the people were but to be the reporters and publishers thereof had also commanded him to be attended with some of his own royal retinue and some ensigns of honor and estate proper to himself And as thus the honorable must precede the honoring in time so must they in dignity too as the cause doth the effect For although as to the present act wherein the cause and the effect stand as relatives they are alike in time and constitute equally one another as all Relatives do so that one cannot as to that relation be set or substracted without establishment or overthrow of the other yet if we measure excellency by that power vertue and force whereby any act is maintained between two relatives we may well in that regard account the Agent before the Patient even because he was first and more eminent in the action by which the relation was effected as the father is before and more excellent then the son although as to the relation it self he was not a father till he had a son So in Monarchy although there cannot be a King till there be Subjects because as they stand in the relation of governour and governed one must constitute another yet because even in that very act of Government the Monarch or King must as the Agent precede both in time and dignity any vertue or worth that can come from the subjects he must be accounted original of the power thereto belonging and not they who can be onely passive and that at most in proportion answerable to the power of him that rules For if his power and force therein be never so little yet cannot they in their relation of obedience exceed it whereas they may very often be defective in the ability of their performance of what he doth command Whereupon as the command must precede the execution so must the Commander precede the commanded both in time and dignity even so far as to be the constitutive and efficient cause thereof that is as to the whole relation although in the single and separate acts they may stand reciprocally and equally constituted Nay although in respect of each single act honor may be said to be in the honoring first as the ball projected for the rebound sake must as to that rebound proceed from the place it was thrown against before it can come to the projectors self yet because this rebound took beginning from the ability and intention of the projector even as the honorable act did at first from the honored person we must therefore confess the honored to be the original of the honor thence arising and not they that are passive For so far as the peoples honor shall proceed without or beyond consideration of approved desert so far it is flattery and not honor And therefore upon the same reason that the Creator may be said to precede the Creature even in that very work of Creation although he were not as to that relation Creator till there were a Creature and as again the Father doth precede in time and dignity the son even in reference to that very constitution of sonship although he were not a Father till he had a son so for conclusion the Monarch and Governor is so far from receiving his essential honor and power from the subjects and governed as he may on the otherside be accounted constitutive of them even in that very relation and must
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
were to fight against God and his purpose and to have Rehoboam beaten were to countenance rebellion in people But if you look to the fruit of these Concessions in David you will finde him the fittest instance for retaliation in both kindes whether you respect him as a gracious Prince or an indulgent Father as may appear by some instances formerly given The like will all other stories do being but confirmations of this Maxim That those people that have largest Immunities and Liberties are ever the most seditious for more and that civil war and rebellion doth not arise from want of Liberty and Freedom in the Subjects but from having too much That is from Princes intrusting so great a portion of Soveraign power into their hands under colour of giving them Liberty as shall encourage and enable them to stand in open opposition and defiance against him and his remaining Authority for more and by degrees to demand or rather command all if they shall think good For as it comes to pass with all such prodigal persons as well Princes as others as use or know no other way for gaining love and credit then by wasting of that whereby it should have had foundation and continuance they in the end finde that as before their estates was the cause of their Loves so this being now gone the other would fail also And therefore they should beforehand have considered that what was the onely mean to their desire should have been the chiefest object of their care lest in the end they come to finde that too great liberality unto private and undeserving beggers makes them but publique and unpittied beggars themselves Even so when Princes are soothed up with the specious shews of winning love by condescension and parting with the fundamental rights of Soveraignty to please and gain the people they must now expect that what directed their love to them while they had it will be a cause of want of love being parted with They must consider that since the different love and respect of Princes above others was but in regard of their different power whereby it also came to pass that what was beneficially by them done was therefore more meritorious as less constrained abate them then this power of doing so or otherwise and how shall the love and thanks to Princes differ from that of other men And since Government as Government requires the administration and execution of things according to the will of the Governors when as the pretended government by love respects onely the desires of the loved how can it then be government And Princes so governing that is by the will of the governed as he and they are in their wills different so must one necessarily be the overthrow of another Wherefore if fear and reverence be not made use of but Subjects always courted by loving condiscentions Experience as well as Reason tells us that his Authority will stand on fickle ground Nor do Princes hereby onely offend against interest but Duty also to wit against that prime and incommunicable trust of power from God to them derived to enable them to govern their subjects according to his Laws When they beyond their own Commission to give or the peoples capacity to receive shall strive to dis-invest themselves of so inherent a propriety and by a strange and preposterous way of proceeding endeavor to invert Nature Reason and all kinde of Order and Rule to their own ruine by this setting the commanded above the Commander and making the Subject not subject Whereof what other sequel can we expect but that as a punishment justly deserved and most adequate and congruous to such an offence all Insurrections and Rebellions against them from hence most naturally should proceed So that when it shall once come to pass that either fear to enjoyn or command what he knows to be fit or the hopes for countenance or assistance in what he believes otherwise shall so far work on his resolution as to make his Subjects the objects of his fear and courtship he shall finde that what is hereby for the present gained will come to him at so dear a rate as upon the issue to endanger and cost him his whole estate whereas Nations under absolute Soveraigns are in respect of these but seldom observed to rebel For as when the childe hath once so far prevailed over his indulgent Father as that his wanton appetite cannot be satisfied without the enjoyment of what is offensive to others nay not without those very morsels and what else belongs to the necessary sustentation of the Parent which must now be the only object and remedy of its peevishness it wil be found that as this too great kindness was the cause this stubbornness so it will at last prove a lessening of respect and duty in the childe and the childe will thereupon also be more truely called the guide of the Father then the Father of him And seldom have the Concessions of Princes any other fruit then to be invitations to new demands till at last Subjects have so wholly freed themselves from the more milde and tolerable government of one that through the greedy pursuit of such natural and universal liberty as is with government it self inconsistent they again fall into the perfect slavery of Anarchy where every man is oppressed of his neighbour and instead of one have many Tyrants to disturb them The usual issue of all unhappy people grown wanton with too much Liberty where the commonnels and easiness of former grants is made the onely rule for desiring and obtaining new Petitions which come at length to be reckoned as acts of duty not of grace But to these in brief it may be answered if they may not be denyed why do they petition if they may why do they rebel And having so far considered Rebellion in its prime cause the division of Soveraignty we will examine it by its usual pretences and give some answers In the mean time I shall desire such as may conceive these last passed discourses or others elsewhere used to be impertiment for a Treatise where Subjects and not Princes parts are to be set forth to consider that I intend not here to shew Kings what to do but to shew Subjects what to obey And if this encroachment of Subjects on the Prerogatives of Princes be well considered it will be found no less needful to be propounded to their consideratitions in regard of the inconveniences thereof inticing them to Rebellion then in regard of that proneness again which Princes do hereupon take to fall into acts of Tyranny insomuch as all tyrannous and severe regiment may be observed to have arisen either to remove or prevent this danger tyranny being nothing else but soveraign revenge or severity according to the presumption of injury past or to be feared The evil of Anarchy and benefits of Government have ever been in all mens eys so apparent that none have been hitherto found so
we shall agree to their usual definition of freedom calling him onely a Citizen and free that hath a share and voice in the Government then all under their obeysance must be reckoned slaves as indeed they are the exclusion of Tradesmen in some Commonweals the different admission of freed men and different yeers of emancipation and admission of children to be Citizens shews all their rule to be arbitrary and not depending on their pretended Paction or consent Nor is the little finger of these Polarchies heavier then the loyns of Kings in point of Liberty onely but in Property also the publike Levies and Taxes being always rateably more in them then in Monarchies that are of like extent for Territorie or number of Subjects The which must so come to pass because they can never subsist without Armies both to force their own vassals to obedience and also to keep the major part of the whole commonalty and people from having power and opportunity to set up some more eminent person in trust and charge with the Commonwealth in their stead And to conclude as we defined the Liberty of a Subject to be when he shall be suffered to enjoy his own delight and good so far as publike utility is not crossed to slavery is hereof to be deprived without the same regard but in neither case is the reason and measure left to the parties own judgement but to that which is publike and common CHAP. VII Of Property WE have formerly discoursed how pleasure is the end of all sensiâ—ives and that as man had the most variety of perfection herein so stood his obligation of gratitude and praise higher then of other creatures And this is not only remarkable in that every thing one way or other is made delightful but then farther because the stock of nature in many kinds is not of it self sufficient and because again the covetous appetites of others will not many times let things extend to general satisfaction therefore to preserve our contents and thereby invite us to thankfulness we may observe that each one hath his pleasure and delight affixed to what he possesseth even so that be it of what kind it will the possessions of others in the same or other kinde passeth with less repining For as the food we eat be it never so unlike the body it self or never so differing from other sorts doth yet by long retention and the divers concoctions and passages of the body attain at last to a perfect degree of assimulation even so our sence through daily presence of our own particular enjoyments doth at last imprint them unto the fancy with such steady delight that they come to be valued in a kinde of Identity or second self Answerable hereunto both in end and effect is that property of properties or that property that usually provokes us to seek all others namely that great love of parents towards their children which as a thing of greatest use for preservation of mankinde and esteemed of great concern to parents comes to stick so close to our affections out of no other consideration Insomuch as in all creatures this affection prevailes as acquired to its particular object and not out of any innate sympathy in nature And therefore another yongling of the same or divers kind if the dam be ignorant of the change obtains as great love as the true would do So that Hens we see and other fowl will hatch and bring up fowl of other and different sorts to their own and all because in eggs they were not easily distinguishable whereas after they have taken full notice of their own a remarkable stranger shall not be admitted So in other beasts before their sense have had time to take notice of the shape or smell of their brood part of or all their litter may be changed especially for others of the same kind where there is no disparity of size or yeers As for men mark such as have their wives in suspition how they will pick and choose among their children not as any other affection but as conceit of propriety shall lead them And again such as have just cause to suspect but yet are not at all jealous under this conceit of propriety either love all alike or distinguish not by any revealing sympathy Nay what mother at the same time of her delivery might not be cozened with a change as also while children are at nurse Their best security being that this affectionate esteem of propriety makes the poorest parent of all even loth to yeild thereunto And although our particular goods and estates as being reckoned not of so great concern nor being so long or often in our sight comes to have a less regard Yet an especial indulgence we may observe cast towards them in such sort that the true fountain from whom they flow comes many times to be forgotten For so full of pride and vain-glory are all sorts of men by nature and so heavy a burthen doth the due return of received benefits seem to our ungrateful dispositions that rather then any diminution of content through the acknowledgement of such receit shall lye upon us we are ready by all inventions we can make to shift off the plain confession of any dependance whatsoever And because It is a more blessed thing to give then to receive we would in nothing or at least in due measure acknowledge our selves receivers The prevailence of this humor appears in all those goods and 〈◊〉 which by the bounty of God the earth and other elements and creatur◠〈◊〉 so plentifully afford us For how ready are we herein to finde out a 〈◊〉 relinquish and forget our common dependance and obligation and to impale and impropriate to our selves set portions of them answerable to our desires From which as from a stock now our own our wants being supplied our acknowledgement and gratitude comes many times to be forgotten And this is not onely practised by mankind in general against the common right of other creatures as accounting himself sole Master and Proprietor of natures common revenue but also by Kingdoms Societies and particular persons to the detriment of one another To meet with this inconvenience many things are by our All-seeing God in his law enjoyned in acknowledgement of his original and Paramount propriety for so comes a seventh of our time a tenth of our substance the first of our fruits liquors cattel nay of our own sons to be his to keep us in remembrance that we have not in our selves any unconditionate propriety not so much as over our own persons And to shew that these things are of common interest as between men so between men and beasts every seventh yeer the land is to rest and lye still That the poor may eat and what they leave the beasts of the field may eat And this consideration is expresly set to the letting the land lye fallow in the yeer of Jubilee namely that the land is
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
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
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
be by the Apostles that wanted it Whereupon as we finde Saint Paul comprising Fornication Covetousness Railing Drunkenness and Extortion under the then Church cognisance and censure as well as Idolatry it is to be concluded that the power and jurisdiction of each Churches present head was Vniversal and absolute as of right in it self to judge and punish in civil as well as spiritual causes Christ having then no Church head but them although in matter of execution he were as before noted many times restrained Upon which consideration we cannot any wayes assigne the now Gospel Ministers to be successours to the Apostles or primitive Bishops in what they did as the then heads of Churches but must appropriate that to Kingly right as shall be more fully declared hereafter All which no doubt with some other things elsewhere spoken will displease some of that order For although self interest as highest may make them differ about precedence amongst themselves yet to have their order eclipsed in any thing of honour or power cannot but displease because even self interest though not so direct is yet plainly therein also And therefore since Church-men are usually the best learned and commonly the onely Writers of Church matters and of State affairs also as often as any other it is no marvil if in so long a tract of time so many arguments and contrivances for deviding the Kings and establishing their separate authority have been craftily laid by some and as hastily entertained by others in order to the making them more powerful Amongst other things it may be observed how pride and arrogance hath brought those notions of Laicks and Ideots which were brought in by them whereby to be distinguished from other subjects to import rudeness ignorance and inferiority when as by means of their greater learning and favour divers priviledges and immunities were reserved to themselves The which God knows I dislike not otherwise then as finding it made destructive to publike peace and good For it is an order which of all other should I conceive have the highest rank and esteem amongst Subjects even for that their imployment is in such matters as are apparently in themselves and by publick approbation and appointment held of most immediate concern in Gods worship and service amongst us and is in many things of that nature as is not by others undertakable In which regard truly as much grieved I am to finde that present contrary and proportionable want of eminence and esteem given them in those places where Monarchy hath been ecclipsed or thrust out even by bringing them thereby so much lower as there followes to be more above them as I am offended at the extraordinary height and success of their Antichristian pride where some inseparable marks of Monarchy and government are held in their owne hands But however their success proves it will concern men that would be truly careful of their salvation and followers of things that make for peace to have an eye to the true fundamentals of religion delivered in holy Scripture and not be led away with the usurped interpretation of any unauthorised person whom they shall alwayes finde either directly ayming at their owne interest therein or else in passion or emulation to one another they will instead of satisfying our doubts be still encreasing extending their own differences amongst themselves until they have made them fundamentals and necessary to salvation Whereupon by Anathema's to their opponents they are to be observed to the accompilshment of their several dominions and honour in the Church continually espousing their owne quarrels upon us and engaging us in civil broiles If we do not this and keep not close to Christ himself that is to that authority which is next and most representing him we shall be in continual danger to be made believe by subordinat Ministers that not following of us that is not being of our Sect is all one as not to be Christians and to be against him And if self conceitedness could thus blinde our Saviours owne Disciples so far as to lead them to this rash mistake and that notwithstanding known miracles and profession made in Christs name what may we expect from the ambitious aims of men now living but that this following of us should be continually made as too good experience tells us it is the dayly bait to draw us farther from Christ under pretence of bringing us nearer So that whilst some are declaiming against authority and branding their commands as superstitious even in things wherein Christs honour and worship are neerly concerned they are yet found so resolute in their own particular sects and tenents that they would have mens belief and adherence to Christ to be measured onely by their belief and adherence to them which to my thinking is as high and plain Idolatry as any can be But the immediate following discourse of that text shews the temper and ayme of this humor when those very Disciples are endeavouring to wrest Eliahs president by drawing fire from heaven against that authority which opposed them the which although they were of another religion and jurisdiction too is yet rebuked by our Saviour as proceeding from a most ungospel-like spirit and shewing him to be subject to like passions with others And therefore for the true stating of these things we shall more briefly say that so far as they are to perform the work of Evangelists that is to preach unto us Jesus and to prove and declare him to be the only fundamental object of faith and salvation so far have they their power from God alone but so far as they have diocessan or parochial charge and are in paticulars to shew unto us how we are to obey him as Christ and King in any outward deportment so far are they to derive their authority from that Church power which had from Crhist power to ordain and separate them unto that work So far as they are entrusted with the guidance of Gods inward kingdom in our hearts that is to perswade men to faith in Christ which was the chief work of the primitive teachers amongst the Infidels so far are they Gods Ministers and not mans but as they are to meddle with mens abbearances and external behaviour in Christs Kingdome the Church that is to shew how to perform obedience to him being converted and acknowledging his power so far are they to have warrant from those his chief deputies in the Church Whereupon two things will plainly follow to the advantage of the Clergy above others First that in respect of their ordination they are to be held so properly Gods Ministers that in preaching and administration of the Sacraments and some other things none but they have power to intermeddle and yet are they not hereby excluded from having external jurisdiction and power over mens persons also if the authority of the Church wherein they live shall so think fit Nay when the representative authority of that
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
of Patience Humility c. will be found the chief drift of the Gospel if not the only Precepts that private persons can of their own judgements relye upon they proceeding from the same Precept of Love and Charity These teaching us how with Charity to suffer from others as the orher doth how to be inwardly affected in my actings towards them For as Whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning so was it done that we through Patience and comfort of the Scriptures that is through the Precepts and Examples thereof therein set down as practised and the comfort and reward thereof thence also arising might have hope and encouragement to the performance of the like duties that through the grace and goodness of the God of patience and consolation we may be hereby enabled to be like minded one towards another according to Christ Jesus And so be not only actively charitable whilst in things in our power each one shall not seek to please himself but his neighbour but also the same example will teach us to be passively charitable too by our readiness to submit to authority the only way to the peace and unity of the Church that therein with one mind and one mouth we may glorifie God even the father of our Lord Jesus Christ. However I cannot tell whether from these lights I have given sufficient reason or no for casting off revenge and disobedience and entertainment of patience and humility yet sure I am that I can by mine own good experience say that as I become every day a more true Disciple of my Saviour even by willingly taking up my cross and following him and that as I do more and more consider that slander persecution and all worldly afflictions when suffered for or in a good conscience which may be best known by the corruption and wickedness of the persecutors are not only testimonies of Christianity in order to his predictions that way given but also of Gods more especial and fatherly favour that chasteneth every son whom he loveth So do I more and more encrease every day in true comfort Even from the assurance I thereby gather of Gods protection and care of me and that in a far higher and more setled degree then any revenge by my self formerly taken could afford Nor can I or any man else that considers these usuages of God with a well measured judgement but thereby find advantage to arise even in this worlds consideration also It faring no otherewise with men in the behalf of their Reputation and Honour then in consideration of worldly estate and fortune For as he that will always be living at the height of his fortune will be so much the nearer to poverty by how much he is more expensive and in the sight of envy and yet have no more true inward content then others even so such as live in the height of reputation must be subject to the same diminutions and hazard for when those faults which really all men must more or less have or those which meer envy shall discover shall be divulged to the world he cannot then but be rendred both to other men so much the more ill by how much he hath formerly been held more good and to himself hereby so much more miserable by how much he deemed himself before more happy Whereas he that is really good cannot but be always in a thriving and prosperous condition although that steady course of vertue and honesty which he walks in may through difference of the common practise of the World as making God and his Neighbours good his aym and not Covetousness or Vain-Glory make him to differ from the rest of the World in his Deportments and so for a time displease For a time I say For as men can never wholly banish truth so this mans innocence and integrity cannot but by degrees appear at which time the very height of former calumny will redound to his encrease of reputation And all men being ready to take occasions for extolling their own abilities in matters of extraordinary discovery they will from hence take occasion the more to set forth and admire this mans Merits or Innocence even for that others have heretofore so much leaned to the contrary Which Commendations again growing to this party by continual encrease and degrees and those deserved must thereby render him also in point of reputation both continually prosperous and likewise steady therein But if it fall out otherwise and that Gods love to us above the rest of the world shall be made farther appear by their unjust and oppressive usage of us in matters of our estates or by the dislike and rejection of our communion by such as are riotous or factious as we have hereby fresh comfort in our selves in respect of our Christian Faith and Assurance in order to Gods promises made that way so may we also reap true inward content even in point of Heroick Resolution and Prudence out of the consideration that this their mislike of our cause or carriage arose not from any well grounded estimate of justice or vertue Vulgar justice being many times nothing else but the effect of Bribery Importunity Friendship or the knotting together of some party for the preferring some such mans cause as hath insinuated himself into most favour The which cannot be expected from him that hath his confidence so much in God and the goodness of his cause that he cannot he dare not distrust providence so far as not to resolve on and prefer a noble suffering before an ignoble prevention And so again in point of civil behaviour and in that reputation which is to be expected from mens sociable deportments so little regard is usually had to the general and publike benefit of society that the Commendations of Breeding Comity Urbanity or the like are often times but the flattering compliances and endearments of some sorts or orders of the subjects one towards another whose usual issue is in a Faction And the ordinary way of winning worldly friendship and esteem is either by open applauding each others abilities and courses or else by such profession and insinuation of our services and affections towards them as to give occasion upon all opportunities even out of self-regard to commend their friends and their abilities as esteeming themselves commended in these that so much own and approve them Whereas he that is truly conscientious of Gods Service and his Neighbours so farre as to place them above Popular shews dares not undertake this kind of serving himself by his neighbors ruine but will watch all seasonable opportunities to perform the office of a true friend by expression of such deeds and Councels as shall advance other mens benefit in the first place and his own honor amongst them in the second By which means as I shall really do the part of a true Commonwealths-man and Christian so shall I never want the true comfort thereof as
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
they being now Christians it follows that all that intermeddle without their leave are usurpers also From all which and what hath heretofore been said in the Argument we may easily conceive how to determine concerning Apostolical succession in right whereof those of the Romish Prelacy would at this day take to themselves supreme and independent power in Church affairs even because the Apostles had so in relation to their contemporary Pagan Kings and Magistrates and would on the other side leave to Christian Kings onely civil coercion and Authority because so much and no more was formerly possessed by Infidels We shall therefore say that where the Bishop is in his City or Diocess the supreme Christian Governor as to many of those Ancient Bishops and Patriarchs it happened before Kings were Christians and at this day in Rome Collen Trier c. is practised there and then are they to lay claim to direct Apostolical succession as having none on earth their superior in Ecclesiastical power But when and where that City or Diocess is but part of a greater Church united under a Christian head superior to these particular and inferior heads then and there is that chief Bishop or overseer of that Church to be held the rightful successor of Apostolical power and the other Bishops to be subordinate unto him even as Timothy and Titus were formerly to St. Paul It is not to be doubted but as this office of Ecclesiastical super-intendency is to be acknowledged as of Divine Right so may Bishops so far as their power is extensive account themselves the Apostles successors therein which as it will estate them in rightful power to govern the Presbyters and others below them so will it again subject them to their head in chief even to him that is the more direct and entire successor of Apostolical jurisdiction From whom in that regard they are to derive their personal Ordination or appointment into determinate jurisdiction and power even as Zadock the type of Evangelical Priesthood received his from Solomon the Type of Christian Kingship although the act and Ceremonies of Consecration are to be under the Gospel as formerly under the Law received from those of the Priesthood onely in acknowledgement of divine constitution of that Function But for this omission of Princes in assuming their right upon their conversion he may easily see the reason that shall consider that great splendor of the Roman Emperors and that poverty and more mean condition which the Bishops and such like Church heads did at first live in who being at that time well studyed in their Masters Precepts of Obedience and Humility had so little strugled for jurisdiction or riches that there might seem rather scorn to take then desire to assume and engross what they had And it may be more fresh sense of Piety and Devotion might make these first Christian Emperors willingly rather enlargers then detractors from men of such pious and harmless conversation The which might make them also less studious of those inconveniences which might grow from hence afterwards not only to themselves but all other Christian Kings who from their examples were often made believe that their highest expressions of devotion was to be measured by their advancemene of Christs Church meaning Clergy-men and that also by taking the Jewels out of their own Crowns and therewith embellishing their Myters Whether this omission were begun and continued through ignorance pride or blinded zeal is not so certain as is that absurdity which from thence hath arisen namely of Kings having no more power in the Church allowed them being become Christians then they had before nay and less too since some of these will now put in for so great a share But it is to be considered that as the admonition was then most proper of fear not them that can kill the body c. in respect that Pagan Kings had not Ecclesiastical coertion so was the distinction of duties and obedience into Religious and Civil then most proper also The which will upon the same reason come now to be united because of the union of that person commanding under Christ in chief in both And therefore had the Primitive Christian Princes well examined Saint Pauls distinction of his own and others Apostolical jurisdiction they would have found in them the whole rights of their Crowns comprised when he said Let a man so account of us as Ministers of Christ and Stewards of the mysteries of God Under the first expression of Ministers of Christ or his Deacons or Deputies they shall finde Magistracy and more Civil power over Christian persons and actions within their Church contained in the other all power given over the way and manner of Gods outward worship and also the chief charge and care of Preaching or Instruction Which makes St. Paul proceed in the description of his Stewards Office onely because he undertook little in the other For since it was the most natural and reasonable course to lay down Rules and Instructions for men to follow before any outward execution of Government by Rewards or Punishments in observing or neglecting them could be established we may finde good reason why our Saviour did delegate his Authority to those first Fathers and heads of the Church by vertue of that power they should from him receive to represent him herein saying to them all power is given to me in Heaven and in Earth Go ye therefore and teach all Nations c. teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you and lo I am with you always even unto the end of the world And it must be acknowledged a thing reasonable that since the actions of voluntary Agents must have issue from their understanding that therefore in order to that obedience which was expected to follow there should be appointed a powerful way of instruction to precede Which Office of instruction although it did for this cause precede yet since Christ had promised the continuance of his presence or power with it unto the end of the world as knowing it to be at all times necessary for him that is to have the charge of Government under him we cannot but resolve that this Office of Instruction or Preaching is to be held and exercised by all others but subordinately and in dependence of that present head of the Church who holds amongst other Unctions a deputation herein in chief from Christ himself who was anointed to preach In the first heads the attestation of miracles which gave them Authority to be hearkened unto in their message of Instruction gave them thereby also upon all necessary occasions Authority to be obeyed as Heads and Governors In the last heads as Conquest and the ordinary ways of Providence doth design the Governor first so doth it therewith also estate him in the right of supreme Instruction as necessary thereto And surely they that would deny the necessary conjunction of these two essential parts of
corruption of manners or the deceivableness of unrighteousness as well as Heresie of Doctrine or belief of a lye do follow as a necessary train this sin of insubjection to Christs Authority and so make the Antichrist deservedly to be stiled the man of sin and son of perdition And this may be the reason why the name of Antichrist is not by Saint Paul given to this great one even because he should appear in the latter age of the world wherein the consequences of heresie and corruption of manners should be more notorious in him then was their first main cause the sin of stubbornness and rebellion which by that time should through possession and blinde devotion have gained to it self a shew of right It faring no otherwise in this respect with the application of this Gospel term of Rebellion then it formerly did under the Law with that other proper name of Rebels viz. sons of Belial For as that in after times came from the experience of that concomitant degree of lewdness vileness which always attended disobedient and ungovernable persons to be applyed to persons notoriously wicked as well as to such as were formally Rebels even so in this latter age it is no wonder if the notion of Antichristianism be otherwise used also then in the strict sense of insubjection Like as the vertue and grace of obedience upon a contrary reason is in usual speech made comprehensive of all or any other commendation unto that person unto whom it is given And that he was called Antichrist in opposition to Unction and Monarchical Government may undeniably appear by that which hindred him from taking upon him publikely this power namely the Roman Emperor For had his Antichristianism consisted in such Doctrines as had concerned Christian Faith onely why should the Emperor be at that time a let therein liking them one no better then another But because the Apostle saw such Doctrines set on foot as would overthrow Christs Regency in his Deputies afterwards he calls it the mystery of iniquity already working and concludes the onely let to keep it from being actually in the person of the Antichrist was the Emperors present possession And this was the reason why the actual Session of the Pope in this Authority is called Antichrist revealed even as the broaching of the Doctrines tending thereto was called the mystery of iniquity or Antichrist working aim and possession of jurisdiction making him properly Antichrist in both and not Heresie in Doctrine Having thus far shewed in brief how Antichristianism consists in opposing Christ that is in regard of his Regency it must farther follow that since this opposition cannot be to him now in Heaven otherwise then as done against such as are anointed under him here which are to act in his name and Authority that thereupon Antichristianism is to oppose Christian Monarchs who onely now are anointed as proper immediate Officers under him and who are holding their Office in the Christian Church according to prophetick designation of what should befal her in her flourishing condition namely to have sons whom she should set as Princes in all Lands And this farther appears according to that model of the Christian Church in the eight last Chapters of Ezekiel where the Priesthood also being designed the chief of them is put under such a Name and Notion as may minde them continually of their duty of loyalty and submission to Princes since from a King their predecessor Zadock was first preferred to that Office as heretofore noted And to take off Presbyterial parity from this Antichristian hope of Regency Ezekiel in the 34 Chapter reproving and setting forth the mischiefs arising from their Anarchical rule prophesies that God will set up one shepherd over them and he shall feed them even his servant David Which as it was to be understood first in Christ himself as coming of Davids natural loyns so to be executed by his adopted sons of oyle in the several Territories of his Church We shall finde this future condition of Monarchy prophesied plainly by Jeremy to accompany also the flourishing estate of the Church saying their Nobles shall be of themselves and their Governor should proceed from the midst of them that is shall be my servants also And I will cause him to draw neer and he shall approach unto me that is as I have the hearts of Kings in my power so will I guide his for who is this or who else is this that engaged his heart to approach unto me saith the Lord. Where noting Governor He and His to be set down in the singular number we may infer Monarchy to be meant And then follows Gods more remarkable owning his Church when his Kingdom shall be thus come amongst us and ye shall be my people and I will be your God The like we may observe done largely by Isaiah in the 49 Chapter both to express the increase and flourishing estate of Christs Church to arise and recover by degrees from its former distress and also that this should come to pass in the time of Christs adopted sons and through that glorious addition of kingship following the Gentile Princes entertainment of the Gospel and acknowledgement of their fealties unto him The Children which thou shalt have after thou hast lost the other shall say again in thine ears the place is too straight for me give place to me that I may dwell Then shalt thou say in thine heart who hath begotten me these seeing I have lost my Children and am desolate a captive and removing to and fro and who hath brought up these Behold I was left alone these where had they been Thus saith the Lord God Behold I will lift up mine hand to the Gentiles and set up my Standard to the people and they shall bring thy sons in their arms and thy daughters shall be carryed upon their shoulders And Kings shall be thy nursing Fathers and their Queens thy nursing mothers they shall bow down to thee with their face towards the earth and lick up the dust of thy feet and thou shalt know that I am the Lord for they shall not be ashamed that wait for me The like we shall finde in the 60 Chapter the Gentiles shall come to thy light and Kings to the brightness of thy rising And again the sons of strangers shall build up thy walls and Kings shall minister unto thee For in my wrath I smote thee but in my favor have I had mercy on thee Therefore shall thy gates be open continually they shall not be shut day nor night that men may bring unto thee the wealth of the Gentiles and that their Kings may be brought c. Which and many more places shewing the glory and increase of the Church under Kingship must be understood to be compleated in Christs adopted sons since in his own person he had while he lived neither form nor comliness and as to
administration of power there also is unity of Doctrine lost and schism is also brought into the Church as well as confusion into the State The which needs the less to be wondered at in us on whom the ends of the earth are come if we consider what befel the Jews themselves when there was no King in Israel For although they had the oracles of God committed unto them that is they had not only more aboundance of divine precepts but had God himself also by his Priests and Prophets always ready to give them express direction in all doubts as from an oracle yet how plainly doth the instance of Micahs Idols tells us how subject each one is at such times to fraim to themselves not only new forms of Worship but new gods of their own devising and setting up Which by little and little may come to be taken up and countenanced by their divided authority as that was by the Danites who had many equal to and under them to be seduced by an evil example but none above them to keep them and all others conformable All which well considered may instruct us of the reason of our Saviours dark answer to such as had no minde to believe him therein when he saith My kingdom is not of this world This was true first in that this worlds kingdom being not to be compared to his Kingdom in heaven with his Father did not therefore deserve comparatively to be called his or had in that esteem which they that made this question did think of And then we must understand this denial not to reach to his right of Kingship or Super-eminence in the Church and Kingdoms of this world but to the present execution thereof by himself that probably being the very cause of Pilates demand Unto whom he having been by some reported as King of the Jews and he beholding his present mean condition so unlike that of a King it made him scornfully ask Art thou a King then aswel as afterwards scornfully write that he was so And therefore our Saviours answer can import no farther abnegation of his Kingship amongst us then to his own personal execution meaning not to be by him immediately managed here now but by Deputies whom he shall own and empower as King of Kings Whereupon he also saith The Father judgeth no man but hath committed all judgement to the Son And he is so far from renouncing his true being a King and title hereto that he says I am a King and that the testification of this truth meaning his right in this Office was the cause of his coming into the world adding that every one that is of the truth heareth his voyce that is he believeth and obeyeth him accordingly So that we are to interpret this denial of our Saviours Kingship to be upon the same reason at this time done as he had formerly charged his Disciples that they should tell no man that he was Jesus the Christ. For although he had wrought all those miracles to evince so much yet would he have them carefull not to cast pearls before swine that is he would have them to be wary in declaring his Divinity before unbelieving Jews as himself was now reserved in publishing his Kingship before a scornful Roman lest he being so straitly bound to another Master might be but the more moved thereupon to turn upon him with reproach And therefore they that think that Christ did deny his true Kingly Right and Office by that answer Thou sayest it may also by the same rule say that at the same time he did also deny himself to be Christ the Son of the living God because he also answereth to that question made by the high Priest Thou hast said it But in this place being newly spoken before the other he may be conceived to have made answer enough for both and so to adjoyn that time of fuller manifestation of his external regency and glory which was the occasion of their demand namely at that time when he as Son of man shall be sitting at the right hand of the power of God By which means his Deputies shall be endued with power of earthly dominion and at that time also when he shall make his own personal appearance in the clouds of Heaven to judge all men at the last day And that he had openly acknowledged this truth himself before appears by that request made to Pilate Write not the King of the Jews but that he said I am king of the Jews So that now unto the deniers or opposers of this truth of his Kingship by obejection of any other truth we may make demand with Pilate What is truth Unto which I suppose they can make no answer but by proposing to us some wilde fancies and collections of their own For whilst they would make the known duty of Charity producing real good by peace be interrupted by some of their speculative duties which cause division and all under pretence of preferring truth to peace they would have us leave that good which evidence of sense and experience tells us to be so in hope to enjoy some contemplative good by them called truth which we cannot apprehend But we conceive that when Christ the Way the Truth and the Life is once on our parts entertained and believed when we have once sought and attained the kingdom of God and its righteousness that is have to our utmost endeavoured to promote the glory and Administration of Christs regency in his Church the pillar and ground of truth then and there are we with gratitude to enjoy those additional blessings which peace bringeth Then and there are we to study to be quiet to seek peace and ensue it and the like which are the proper duties of such as being by Gods grace called are by the God of peace called unto peace And therefore although the Prophet Zachery speaking of the restauration of the Jews and their receipt of the Gospel would have them seek peace after truth that is prefer that truth before all worldly blessings yet where this truth is once received there peace is to be preferred to lesser truths according to good Hezekiahs saying now settled and confirmed in Gods Worship Peace and truth shall be in my days The like was promised to the Jews in their restauration or rather to the Gentile Church abundance of peace and truth And to doth holy David also put mercy before it in his blessing to Ittai saying Mercy and truth be with thee And other graces and blessings are elsewhere more often put before then after truth Nay of such advantage to the preservation of truth it self and of sanctify of life this grace is that we shall find it put first as the way to that Follow peace with all men and holiness without which no man shall see the Lord looking diligently lest any man should fail of
the grace of God That is lest failing of the usual concommitant and conveyer of grace ye should through the lack thereof lack grace also Lest any bitterness springing up trouble you and thereby may be defiled Where malice hatred c. the attendants on war being also set down under the name of bitterness we are warned to avoid them by keeping peace for else these malicious bitter prosecutions will not only outwardly trouble but inwardly defile us And to let men see that by this peace the civil peace is meant it is called Peace with all men And again to let them see it is wrought by patience chiefly it follows the large commendations thereof set down in the twelfth to the Hebrews However to make answer to some that would have us endanger both peace and truth by putting the name of truth always in to prevent peace we have made instances of Peace being put before truth and also before Holiness yet the truth hereof is they are so coincident and depending one upon another that Righteousness and Peace have kissed each other They do become inseparable in themselves and are so inseparably our duties to follow and practise that we can never truly do the one whilst we are not highly regardful of the other also and must then be guilty when we prefer as some do a very uncertain discovery of truth to a certain loss of peace and so under colour of new Gospel-light lose the benefits of the Gospel of Peace and make it cease to be an Evangel or glad tidings And if men would consider what hath been hitherto spoken concerning Gods owning the Seat and Throne of Christian judgement now settled amongst us and so being according to his promise A spirit of judgement to him that sitteth in judgement they might thereby perceive how amongst other things of salvation and glory which should come to the Church that mercy and truth are met together and that righteousness and peace as aforesaid have kissed each other So that now truth shall spring out of the earth as from this earthly Throne of judgement by means of righteousness that shall look down from heaven according to the former Prophesie of that good King and Typical Head of the Church made concerning the Churches future state and prosperity where it is set down that God hath now given his own Mishpat or rule of right judgement to the King Christ himself and his righteousness or justice to the Kings Son Christs adopted sons of oyl that so in these there being these unions of Mercy and truth and of righteousness and peace they may be enabled to judge Gods people with righteousness and his poor with judgement And having thus far spoken of the Antichrist according to S. Pauls description we will again re-assume and speak farther of the many Antichrists mentioned by S. John Although S. Paul gives the liveliest discovery of the one and S. John only names the other yet are they both of them as Ring-leaders in the breach of Charity and publike Peace the subject and occasion of many Precepts in holy Writ the admonitions and examples that way given taking up a very considerable part thereof and being for the greatest part the object and aim of what our Saviour either did or suffered For as this general good or charity consisted in or at least had dependance upon the reciprocal duties of commanding and obeying so are we from him furnished with Precepts and Examples of both kinds To this end he rides to the Temple and there by exercising his authority over the Temple the type of the Christian Church as a King he leaves example and authority for the higher powers to demand subjection not only for wrath but also for conscience sake and that either to Kings as Supreme or to others as sent of him To this end again as being the harder duty he not only sets down those many Precepts of Humility but in his own Person becomes the patern to all admiration of Patience and Long-suffering We being to learn of him to be lowly and meek and in the testimony of our Discipleship unto him to take up our cross and follow him Which we must testifie chiefly by our following him in our deeds of meekness and patience under subjection patience and subjection differing from one another no otherwise then in generality For I may do many things whilst a subject which sort with mine own liking and wherein no patience is required but I can do nothing as patient but where subjection must be presupposed But ordinarily patience doth define and constitute true subjection as vertue doth the vertuous And as heretofore shewed Gods glory is the end of Charity and Charity the end of Government and subjection so is subjection the end and aim of patience for what need of patience in what I may avoid That the formal cause of Antichristianism is insubjection to Christian Headship S. John makes plain saying of the many Antichrists of his time they went out from us but they were not of us for if they had been of us they would have continued with us but they went out that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us that is they were like such as receive seed amongst thorns Go forth and are choaked with cares and riches and pleasures of this life and so minding division and separation they do for their sakes overthrow Charity and bring not fruit to perfection But nothing can to my thinking be a clearer evidence that this sin of Antichristianism is the same with Rebellion of one or more Church members against their Christian Head then to consider that we shall never find this phrase of Antichrist set down by any in the plain terms but by S. Iohn the only person whom we shall plainly and expresly read of to be in that sort opposed and disturbed For although S. Paul by his Corinthians and others puffed up against him who had raigned as kings without him might be induced through the sense of the mysterie of iniquity already working to speak so largely of the Antichrist to come yet doth he not name him as doth the other Who is recorded to be notoriously opposed by Diotrephes in his jurisdiction and exercise of Church power in not receiving or submitting unto him and as loving that pre-eminence which was only due to the other their sole Head And not being content therewith that is with his own departure doth neither himself receive or take into his care and protection the brethren such members as have no head and so doth not make his preeminence lawful as over a charge of his own but forbiddeth them that would that is such as would come to S. Iohn and casteth them out of the Church or takes upon him to excommunicate where he hath no authority This fault he warns his beloved Gaius against under the general notion of evil as
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