creature until they become united into some place apted and disposed for production where from the benign influence of the Sun or celestial bodies as from a more universal and efficient cause they evade into living creatures Nor does this hold less true in the production or generation of all rational Science for the Reason by it self without matter cannot form dispose or define any thing Nor does the outward sense or memory apprehend things otherwise then as seen c. or remembred not as formed disposed or defined so as to be the subject of a Proposition Since therefore the Reason cannot prepare apt or define unless the Memory or outward senses supply matter nor the Memory without the Reason dispose prepare or define any thing so as to be the subject of a Proposition it does necessarily follow that the Reason united or conjoined with the Memory does prepare the subject of every Scientifical Proposition But in every Scientifical Proposition there must be a Predicate which comprehending the Subject must be understood The Understanding therefore is the prime and efficient cause of all rational Science and the Reason is the formal cause which does dispose and prepare the matter in the Senses or Memory to be comprehended judged or discerned by the Understanding And by consequence the Reason and Memory or Senses are but the Instruments by which the Understanding does generate and produce Science 63. Only Man can rightly infer and deduce particular Conclusions Why only Man is a reasonable creature from universal Causes and can direct his actions conformable to things in his understanding and not to his appetite and senses which is common to all living creatures as well as man only Man therefore is a rational creature 64. All men naturally desire to know And though by Aristotles judgment By what means men attain to Science all Science is begotten from preexistent Knowledge which from things granted does demonstrate the Conclusions yet must there be some manner and method which men must use by which others as well as themselves may understand this or that thing to be a Science or scientifical Conclusion Men therfore must propose that method which Euclid observes or all their science will be equivocal and obscure viz. First to define all those things of which his science is compounded in such terms that every singular or individual may be so comprehended that it may be wholly with all the parts of it contained in the definition excluding every thing else For if a man define a thing so that there be any so much as equivocation in it as that it does not signifie this only thus desined but may something else then of necessity must all the Science that bears a part of this definition be equivocal and uncertain And as the definition must not be equivocal to signifie more then the thing defined another thing as well as this so neither must it signifie less viz. any part of the thing defined for the thing for then all in which this thing is a part will be infinitely deficient and imperfect Secondly After the definitions I require such things as no ingenuous man will deny As that I may adde divide multiply convert c. these things thus defined Thirdly I set down those Axioms Principles Effata Pronuntiata Common Notions or Indemonstrable Propositions which are the first causes of the Science and do demonstrate all the Conclusions of it but in themselves are indemonstrable and for which no reason can be given but only the good will and pleasure of him that made them so And these Principles must be granted before any man can by his Reason produce any Conclusion And if a man denies these Principles all Argumentation is at an end for Contra negantem principia non est disputandum And no mans Reason can work upon nothing nor prove nor find out any thing before something be first granted by which a man may prove it or find it out 65. I have known and know many men who have vast memories Why some men are more phantastical then others and very strong phantasies who notwithstanding have been as unreasonable as any and would never admit of any discourse of any thing they fancied to themselves but upon a very slender opposition would fall into passion And the reason is because they phancie things only because they please them and do not understand them as true And if any man shews such a man some Consequence which will not follow from what he phancies or that it is inconsistible with some known universal Truth then does he seek to supply with passion what he wants in reason because he is crossed in what he desires should be true Whereas men who understand or desire to understand their Thesis or Notion not only take pleasure that nothing can be inferred from it which is false and that it is not inconsistible with any thing true whatsoever but will be so far from falling into passion with any man that opposes it that they would thank any man and take him for their friend that can shew them wherein what they suppose to be universally true is not or that it is inconsistible with something which they suppose to be universally true The Spirit of God says He is a fool that rages and is confident These light phantastical men who will phancie things for truth not because they are so but because they would have them so do not only rage when they are convinced that those things they phancie for truth are made to appear either but verisimilitudes or falshoods but will take them for illwillers who convince them and continue as confident in their foolish apprehensions as before 66. As the levity of the Phantasie which is always in agitation apprehending Why some men are more dull then others things without Reason is the cause why men too suddenly apprehend Verisimilitudes for Truth so the want of Phantasie is the cause why many men of vast memories very slowly apprehend the cause of any thing Where the Phantasie is too light there men apprehend or believe every thing for Truth they affect or desire and are soon perswaded to any thing they are not wilfully prejudiced to Where it is crass and dull and moves slowly or as we say where men are endued pingui Minerva there men are hardly moved to understand any thing 67. Sensible Knowledge is the retaining the Idea of things in the What is Sensible Knowledge memory which before were in the outward senses And there being neither Reason nor Understanding to the attaining of this Knowledge it is common to other Creatures as well as Man The Ox knows his owner and the Ass his masters crib says our Saviour 68. But all Causes from whence men do infer and discourse are not Of Argumentation à Posteriori so perspicuous as are the Axiomes in Geometry or the Laws of God and a mans Country But some Causes are known to Nature and
case to him whether there be a King or no King in Israel for he will do what is right in his own eyes For our Author says In renouncing the power Pag. 25. of our Will we renounce our Understanding also Our Author for his part needs not fear it but sure he fears that if he do so because he cannot hope that he is qualified enough to be a Privy-Councellor that he has bound himself up from dabling with the Grounds of Obedience and Government Why he should do well to be of Counsel with Adam against God for the Devil and he agree in the same thing viz. That it is not liberty enough for Adam to eat of the other trees of the garden in Eden no Adam must not renounce his will and understanding too in order to his chiefest good the knowledge of good and evil and making himself like unto God by tasting the forbidden fruit To our Author it is not liberty enough for the Subject to square his actions to the Laws and Rules of his Country he must not renounce his will to be commanded by King or Laws but must have his will too in making of Laws Now let our Author tell me what a Government this is like to prove Who will hold the plough that is perswaded he may handle the scepter Who will live in an obscure cottage that hopes he may govern at the helm or eat his bread in the sweat of his brows who may expect to fare deliciously every day And now let me tell our Author once for all That humane Laws are made to retain Subjects in their obedience lest a worse thing happen unto them There must be no starting out or breaking loose from them For Laws are like the banks which encompass waters if there be the least hole in them the banks will be blown up and the waters lose themselves The Fifth GROUND That Fidelity is different from Obedience and wherein it consists Author NOw some good body help a lame Dog over the stile Here we find our Author taking monstrous pains and in a great sweat why what 's the matter trow What! Our Author undertakes to shew that Servants owe their Masters no obedience but fidelity only And this he would prove by a mighty argument viz. A man buyes a piece of Cloth or other merchandise of another and pays for it And therefore Servants owe their Masters no obedience And if this will not do it his Ipse dixit must or he loses an essential ingredient towards the patching up of his Fools paradise Observ Now herein our Author and I differ and I fear we shall never agree in any thing Our Author will trust his servant where he expects no obedience and I will make my servant obey me whenas it may be I will not trust him for a groat And indeed our Author will do more for his servant then I see in reason any man should do for him For pag. 141. he tells us In pure Morality he may falsifie and break promise if he save any thing by it and is better then his word I shall say no more in answer to this Ground but object the authority of the Holy Ghost against it Ephes 5. 6. Servants be obedient to them that are your Masters according to the flesh c. The Sixth GROUND In what consists Right or Due Author HEre our Author says The next Consideration may appear too Metaphysical a Nicety for a Moral Treatise Yet he armed Cap-a-pe in compleat Ignorance valiantly attempts it and will tell you of I know not what of Reason which takes nothing to be good but what is good for a mans self and makes it the rule of his actions to do what is fitting for him or conformable to his that is to a Rational nature But this is a rule by which he treats Horses Dogs Trees and Stones c. and runs through all his actions Observ Well But since the men of this world were never more unreasonable and every man so pretending to Reason and yet no man almost can tell what he means by Reason let us see what Ratio Reason is and what Reasoning is and why Man is onely said to be a reasonable creature Reason is properly that power of the soul by which a Man is discerned from other living creatures and by which he does excell and command them By Horace it is put for the reasoning and discoursing of the soul for finding out what is true Ratio ponitur pro ratiocinatione discursu animi ad investigandum verum Cicero lib. 2. ad Heren Ratio est causa quae demonstrat verum esse id quod intendimus brevi subjectione Reason is the cause which shews that thing to be true which we intend in a short view And Reason is many times equivocally used for Counsel as Cicero in Verr. Mea quidem ratio cum in praeteritis rebus est cognita tum in reliquis explorata provisa est My counsel is as well known in things past as throughly tried and provided in other things Sometime for Respect Habenda est ratio honoris Men ought to respect their honor Sometime for Care Habenda est ratio rei familiaris Men must look after their houshold-affairs Sometime for Business Rationem habet cum terra quae nunquam recusat imperium He busieth himself with his land which never disobeys him Thus far Calapine Sometime it is taken for Account Lu. 16. 2. Redde rationem villicationis tuae Give an account of thy Stewardship Ratio in the third Definition of the fifth Book of Euclide est duarum magnitudinum ejusdem generis mutua quaedam secundum quantitatem habitudo Reason is a certain mutual habit of two magnitudes of the same kind after their quantity As when two Quantities of the same kind two Numbers two Lines two Superficies two Solids c. are compared one to another according to their quantity that is accordingly as one is greater less or equal to another this comparison or mutual habit of one to another was by Geometricians called Ratio But now I know not by what habit or custom Proportio which definition 4º lib. 5. Euclid is Rationum similitudo And definition 5 consists in three terms at least for indeed it must consist in four for where it is in three the medium is iterated twice as what proportion four hath to six six hath to nine c. hath eaten the former quite up and is only used Or take Reason thus Reason is that by which men from given Principles do rightly infer and deduce Conclusions And Reasoning is twofold either à priori or à posteriori A priori from the cause nature and matter of necessary truths to shew what effects follow from thence and such Propositions are called demonstrative or scientifical shewn and known from the Causes such are all Propositions in Geometry and Mathematiques Or when the Effect is certain and the Cause probable and these are but probable
subjection to them which are created by Gods will so revealed are not created by the Law of nature 11. All offices which are created by Divine Law whether by the Law All offices of commanding and obeying are not Gods ordinance immediately of Nature or by divine positive institution being from higher then humane causes are indelible and cannot be aliened transferred or communicated by any humane act for ejus est nolle cujus est velle and therefore cannot the power and obedience of Parents and Children of Husband and Wife of King and Subjects be aliened dissolved communicated or transferred but the offices of Masters and Servants of Magistrates and those subject to them are alienable communicable and transferrable and sometime are and sometime are not they are not therefore from any immediate ordinance of God either positive or natural But the offices of commanding and obeying as Masters and Servants and Magistrates and those subject to them are but temporary and determinable by the laws of him that made them therefore not Gods ordinance 12. Humane laws create Magistrates power two ways Immediately How many ways power and subjection happens by humane laws to Magistrates and those subject to them as when Supreme powers which are the fountain from whence all Temporal laws are derived constitute any Magistrate giving him jurisdiction over the inhabitants of any place or when the Laws or Higher powers enable such men to nominate their Magistrate there the Nominators are the instruments by which the Law does transfer this Magisterial power 13. The mutual offices of power and subjection between Masters and How many ways humane laws create the power and subjection of Masters and Servants Servants happen two ways either created by the contract or pact of the Master and Servant and we have before shewed that all pacts and contracts receive their obligation from Humane laws as the means by which Humane laws do create these offices or else without any pact or contract of the parties commanding and obeying as in the cases of Slavery where prisoners are taken in war or men condemned thereunto for some offence or of Apprentiship where children are bound for such a term by the Laws of their Country or Parents And I do grant Mr. Hobbs Grotius and White that this power and subjection Humana voluntas introduxit but not the parties obeying as they most senslesly feign but the Supreme powers or the parties commanding And where they are not so created all men are originally free I do much wonder at those men who make all Supreme or Regal power to have Annot. its origination from the consent and aggregation of many families For they not only confound the Masters power with the Fathers which in the nature and cause we have already shewed and shall more fully hereafter in their proper Chapters shew but also make the Masters power to be from the Law of God and Regal power to be a Humane institution whereas the contrary is true in both And what it is should move men to imagine that after Adam's and Noah's posterity dilated themselves into many families that they should give Adam and Noah more power then God gave them I am sure no such thing or the least probability thereof appears in Scripture or that after Adam's and Noah's deaths their Posterities became free and independent from all Government which was no body can tell when brought in by the Pacts of Men or by consent and submission of Families to it 14. That power or right of command which God jure divino hath as All power and subjection from what causes solely and absolutely over all his creatures as the Creator first and efficient Cause of them and therefore by highest right all obedience is chiefly due to them before any creature in all things Or else power and subjection are caused from the Laws of Nature or from the Law of God revealed in the Scriptures or from Humane positive Laws All Society which is not contained in these causes is Tyranny in the party commanding nor is any obligation in Conscience to such Commands from the party commanded Having thus far treated of the Causes of Power and Subjection conjunctly we shall hereafter in their several Chapters treat of them severally and more at large And we insist more largely hereon in regard these Powers and Subjections are either so confounded in their Causes by other men or such wild things begged for Principles that so far as I understand no ingenuous man should grant CHAP. II. Of Regal and Magistrates power 1. THere is no question but one of Mans chiefest happinesses in this Introduction life consists in the contemplation of God in his works to contemplate the Heavens and the Earth the workmanship of his hands and the admirable order and motion of them all being by him so made and created Nor is God less seen in the generation and birth of Man and other creatures then in the creation of the Universe And as admirable is the preservation of every Man as his generation For abstracting from the internal cause Spiritus intus alit totamque infusa per artus Virg. Aen. 6. prop. fin Mens agitat molem How God does renew and preserve every Man and every part of Man by a perpetual motion viz. the Systole and Diastole of the Blood If a Man considers his outward preservation not only from the violence of other creatures who are of much more force then himself but also from the force and violence of his own kind for were he not restrained Homo homini lupus And what are the People in general but a sudden rash and furious Beast carried hither and thither upon every wild fancy raging to have this thing done and presently lamenting because it is done He must needs As the Athenians did in their sentence on Socrates and the Captains at the Fight at Arginusae confess there is no power under heaven which can restrain the raging of the sea and the madness of the people The Psalmist therefore Psal 77. when he calls to mind the works of God and his wonders of old Thou thundrest from heaven thou shakest the earth thou dividest the sea and at last as the greatest wonder of all he says Thou leadest thy people like sheep by the hands of Moses and Aaron It is not therefore from any pacts and inventions of Man that he may hope for any security but by submitting himself to what God hath ordained for his preservation 2. Upon a survey taken in Scripture how often Christi Domini are Regal power cannot be created by the People used they are found to be thirty three two of which are spoken of the Patriarchs one of our Saviour and all the rest of Kings only Once of our Saviour Luk. 2. 26. twice of the Patriarchs Psal 105. 15. and 1 Chro. 16. 22. all the rest to Kings only and expresly And though others were anointed yet none
12. twenty nine Abbots and Priors for so many then were Lords of Parliament It is declared That where by divers sundry old authentique Histories and Chronicles it was manifestly declared and expressed that this Realm of England is an Empire and has been so accounted in the world governed by one Supreme Head and King having the dignity and Royal estate of the Imperial crown of the same unto whom a Body Politique compact of all sorts and degrees of people divided in terms and by names of Spirituality and Temporality been bound and ought to bear next to God a natural and humble obedience He being also institute and furnished by the goodness of God with plenary whole and entire power preheminence authority prerogative and jurisdiction to render and yield justice and final determination to all manner of folk resiants or subjects within this his Realm in all causes matters debates and contentions happening to occur insurge or begin within the limits thereof without restraint or provocation to any Forein Princes or Potentates in the world The body Spiritual whereof having power when any cause of Law Divine happened to come in question or of Spiritual Learning that it was declared interpreted and shewed by that part of the said body Politique called the Spiritual body then being usually called the English Church which always hath been reputed and also found of that sort that both for knowledge integrity and sufficiency of number it has been always thought and was also at that houre sufficient and meet of it self without the intermedling of any exterior person or persons to declare and determine all such doubts and to administer all such offices and duties as to the the rooms Spiritual did appertain For the due administration whereof and to keep them from corruption and sinister affection the Kings noble Progenitors and Antecessors of the Nobles of this Realm have sufficiently endowed the said Church both with honor and possessions And the Laws Temporal for trial of Property of Lands and Goods and for the conservation of the people of this Realm in unity and peace without rapine and spoil was and yet is administred adjudged and executed by sundry Judges and Ministers of the other part of the said Body Politique called the Temporalty And both their Authorities and Jurisdictions do conjoin together in the due administration of Justice the one to help the other This Statute does moreover affirm that Ed. 1. Ed. 3. Rich. 2. H. 4. and other Kings did make divers Laws Ordinances Statutes c. for the entire and sure conservation of the prerogatives liberties and preheminences of the said Imperial Crown and of the Jurisdictions Spiritual and Temporal of the same to keep it from the annoyance as well from the See of Rome as from other Forein Potentates and does make all Causes determinable by any Spiritual jurisdiction to be adjudged within the Kings authority All First-fruits and all contributions to the See of Rome by any Bishop St. 25. H. 8 cap. 20. were forbidden upon pain of forfeiture of all the goods and cattals for ever and all the Temporal lands and possessions of every Archbishoprick or Bishoprick during the time that he or they who offend contrary to the said Act shall possess and enjoy the said Archbishoprick or Bishoprick And that if any presented to the See of Rome by the King to a Bishoprick and he be there delayed he may be consecrated by an Archbishop in England and that an Archbishop presented to the See of Rome to be there consecrated and there letted may be consecrated by two Bishops of England And because the Pope hereof informed did not redress and reform the said exactions nor give answer to the Kings mind therefore the said Statute did prohibit any man to be presented to the See of Rome for the dignity of an Archbishop or Bishop or that any Annates or First-fruits be paid to the Bishop of Rome and that upon the avoidance of any Archbishoprick or Bishoprick the King his heirs and successors may grant to the Prior and Covent or Dean and Chapiter of the Cathedral Churches or Monasteries where the See of such Archbishoprick or Bishoprick shall happen to be void a Licence under the Great seal as of old time hath been accustomed to proceed to Election of an Archbishop or Bishop of the See so being void with a Letter missive containing the name of the person which they shall elect and choose and for default of such Election the King by his Letters Patents may nominate an Archbishop or Bishop and that every Archbishop Bishop to whose hands any such presentment or nomination shall be directed shall with speed invest and consecrate the person nominated and presented by the King his heirs and successors And if any Archbishop or Bishop Prior and Covent Dean and Chapiter shall for the space of twenty days next after such Licence or Nomination come to their hands neglect or shall execute any Censures Excommunications Interdictions c. contrary to the execution of any thing contained in this Act that then they incur the penalty of a Praemunire An act concerning the exoneration of the Kings subjects from exactions St. 25. H. 8. cap. 21. and impositions before that time paid to the See of Rome and for having Licences and Dispensations within this Realm without suing further for the same The King shall be reputed Supreme Head of the Church of England St. 26. H. 8. cap. 1. and have authority to reform and redress all Errors Heresies and abuses in the same Every Archbishop and Bishop disposed to have a Suffragan may elect 26 H. 8. c. 14. discreet Spiritual persons being learned and of good conversation and present them under their seals to the King making humble request to his Majesty to give to one of the two such title name stile and dignity of Bishop of such of the Sees as the King shall think fit and that every such person to whom the King shall give any such stile and title of the Sees abovenamed viz. the Towns of Thetford Ipswich Colchester Dover Gilford Southampton Taunton Shaftsbury Molton Marlborough Bedford Leicester Glocester Shrewsbury Bristow Penrith Bridgwater Nottingham Grantham Hull Huntington Cambridge and the Towns of Perth and Barwick S. Germans in Cornwal and the Isle of Wight shall be called Bishop Suffragan of the same See whereunto he shall be named and that every Archbishop and Bishop for their own peculiar Diocese may and shall give to every such Bishop Suffragan such Commissions as have been accustomed for Suffragans heretofore to have or else such Commissions as by them shall be thought requisite reasonable and convenient And that no Suffragan shall use any ordinary jurisdiction or Episcopal power otherwise nor longer time then shall be limited by such Commission upon pain of the penalties mentioned in the Statute of Provisions made the 16. of Rich. 2. The King shall have authority to name Thirty two persons sixteen
from voluntary and contingent causes of man so contactus naturalis in bodies apted and disposed doth necessarily generate yet is there no necessity that this contactus should bee but it might not have beene c. Universall causes in nature produce nothing of themselves but as meeting with particular and materiall causes disposed to production the universall causes are alwaies prime and necessary but their meeting with particular causes are not alwaies so but often times contingent and voluntary As God by the confluence of naturall causes is alwaies the first cause of all creatures by Generation so is he the first cause of the preservation of all Creatures yet doth not he preserve them by any absolute necessity of his part alone but by such meanes as he hath ordained for every Creature I say this meanes doth not alwaies come to passe from inevitable necessity of the part of God but often times from the will of men and contingent causes for example no man lives but as he daily repaires nature by eating and drinking yet there is no necessity that he should eat or drink but he may choose whether he will or not Nor is God less the prime preserver of intellectuall and rationall creatures yet doth he not preserve them as other creatures void of understanding but thus using the intellectuall and rationall faculty of their Soul yet there is no man but may chuse whether he will use his understanding and reason in his actions and that man who doth not use his understanding in his actions but only his affections and passions how great soever he be will live to see misery enough And though Religion and Justice cannot of themselves preserve men in Peace and Happinesse but some superior cause which must order and dispose them thereunto yet so necessary are they for the preservation of peace and happiness that whersoever they are neglected men did ever degenerate into straction confusion and prophanenesse this superior cause which dignifies men above all other creatures as well intellectuall as sociable is God who is the prime efficient and necessary cause of peace and happinesse among sociable Creatures and Religion and Justice are the necessary meanes which he hath ordained therefore But though Religion and Justice be necessary for the peace and happinesse of any Nation yet is it not alwaies necessary on Gods part men should be Religious and Just but men may chuse whether they will do religious and just acts or not God therefore is the first and necessary cause of peace and happinesse among men and Religion and Justice the necessary meanes which he hath ordained thereunto and this to be performed by man and let no man thinke that God will save any man in this world or blesse him in the world to come against his Will when men will not endeavor these things by such meanes as hee hath ordained Man therefore by Religion and Justice ought to endeavour through God's blessing to attaine to Peace and Happinesse as well in this World as in the next without which hee cannot reasonably hope for eyther Having thus far treated of the causes of all society and vindicated the Government and Lawes of my native Country and mother-Church of England It will not be amisse before I conclude to add a word or two in vindication of Sir Edward Coke my most honored Ancestor since by words and writing he is so traduced as indeed Quis ille a tergo quem nulla aconia pinsit by men so maliciously or ignorantly or both Among the rest one a late writer of a Pamphlet I will not call it because of the subject being the life of our late Soveraigne yet it is without name although I thinke few men but are sufficiently assured of the Author upon a seditious and reproachfull speech he sayes tending to the dishonour of his Majesties Government made by Mr. Coke after the wonted rate of his lavish pen without any more adoe makes him a Chip of the old Block But of all men I am content he next after one of our Mercuries should say it since if he be not traduced unjustly hee can asperse the Nobility upon the faith of a Mercury and so many others upon none at all and his Quotations upon his Geography So fals that upon search made by a Reader and scarce any to be found to be true upon the reprinting he blotted out the pages and only quoted the Authors and left the Reader to finde them where he could If these be true then certainly his ipse dixit is of small account if false then let him deny them But I can tell our Historian newes of his Soldier whom he page 156. made openly to be shot to death in Saint Pauls Church yard for as is confidently reported and beleeved he was apprehended about Whitehall June 17. and is at this time in faire election of being hanged And being no lesse a more famous Geographer then Historian though his second Edition suffers much for want of his expunged pages to finde out his quotations hee page 123. makes the Town and Castle of Conway a place of principall command on that narrow channell which runs between the County of Carnarvan and the Isle of Anglesey whereas the Town and Castle of Conway stand upon the River Conway which parts Denbighshire from Carnarvanshire a little below the mouth of the River Gessen nay let any man see whether the River Conway falls not into the Irish or Virgivium Sea but whether it fals into the Irish or Virgivium Sea or not yet certainly it cannot fall into the narrow Channell which parts Carnarvanshire from Anglesey which begins at Abermenay ferry and ends at Porthathir ferry whereas the mouth of Conway is little lesse distant from Porthathir ferry then that is from Abermenay Porthathir ferry being upon the matter equidistant from either What heed then is to be taken to the ipse dixit of such a Geographer and Historian let any man Judge Sure he had more need mend his own Errors then be so rash and lavish a Censurer of other mens Although I take not this mans tongue to be any slander so not worth an answering or at most a bare denyall of what he sayes were sufficient which I doe since it is but gratis dictum yet since other men have assumed to themselves such licence of aspersing him it will not ill become mee to shew how unjustly he is aspersed in those things whereof they traduce him as first this man makes him a seditious man certainly it is very strange that in the living of 83 yeeres the many of his writings and his many imployments doth not produce so much as any suspicion thereof that I ever heard of One thing yet pleases me that in all these seditious commotions Judge Jenkins and almost all the assertors of the Kings Cause have next after Divine Laws maintained it principally out of his writings nor doe I remember that any of the adverse part I am sure
in derogation to Christian Faith or Religion they might plead Conscience because the Obedience they owe thereunto is superior to all Humane Laws But when as God is to be publickly Worshipped and your Majesty obeyed by the light of Humane Nature whenas he that heareth and obeyeth not the Church is to be accounted an Infidel and Heathen man and neither your Majesty nor Church enjoyning any thing contrary to the Law of Nature or Gods Will revealed in Scriptures but conformable to these for men your natural Subjects and Born and Baptized in a Christian Church in contradiction to all these to plead Liberty of Conscience to be Atheists Hypocrites and Schismaticks is such a monstrous Paradox as is not imaginable should proceed from reasonable creatures not aiming at some further mischief And when your Majesty shall with bleeding tears reflect upon the manners of these men thus pretending Liberty of Conscience you will finde them never to have made any conscience of Liberty their Manners no whit better then their Religion but as great enemies to Humane Society as Christian Religion For they no sooner upon pretence of Liberty of Conscience got licence of action but what followed Rapine Plunder Sequestration Sacriledge Regicidism and Murder upon the Estates of the Church Crown and the Sacred Person of your Royal Father and the principal members of Church and State who were your best and most Loyal and their Fellow-Subjects when as by the Law or Light of Nature no man ought to do that willingly to another which he would not have done to himself Nor is this humor only Topical or confined within the limits of your Dominion but wheresoever men would not pay the Duty they ought to God in the first Table they have never better perform'd that to their neighbor in the second although it hath not pleased God to permit them to attain such a degree of Impiety as here in your Majesties Dominions and your Majesty may believe it that the times are changed not these mens manners and dispositions to attempt the like again whensoever they get an opportunity however these things at present will be better cured by your Majesties Christian Patience and example then by your severe Execution of the established Laws against them yet if the Laborer be worthy of his Hire then is he who is Hired worthy to Labor and these men who pretending Conscience neglect or refuse to perform the Duties of the Church are utterly unworthy the Means of the Church Mans necessity is Gods oportunity It is Gods usual way in his Providence doubtless to manifest the greatness of his Power to us Mortals here below when mens extremities are at the highest then to relieve them having it may be the least reasons or hope to expect it and indeed what less then the power and grace of God in a Christian Prince so Religious so Just so Merciful and so descended at such a time could have cured the wide wounds of our miserable Church and distracted State D'avila reports of Coligny the Admiral of France that he would usually prefer himself before Caesar or Alexander because they acquired greatness by prosperous Fortune whereas notwithstanding that Fortune was always adverse to him he still rose more formidable and terrible to his adversaries Sure it is an admirable thing that after all the adversity of your Affairs God should without force or blood exalt your Sacred Head above the Storms and Waves of such Enemies who had neither Religion Law Justice or Reason but only force and blood in stead of and against these to maintain their Cause It cannot but be a consolation to any man in adversity rightly considering how God in the ordinary nature of things does afflict men who place happiness in things of this world and reward the afflictions of men especially who suffer for a good Conscience even in this world for no man placeing happiness in things here below can so enjoy them but necessarily a time will come when he shall say I take no pleasure in them and then it will be miserum fuisse beatum whereas other men who are afflicted and suffer persecution are no ways affrighted at the terrors of death but rather with joy expect happiness in another world after they shall be freed from the cares and troubles of this or if it pleases God to free them from their afflictions here then they truly convert miserum fuisse beatum into beatum fuisse miserum Besides your Majesties individual happiness in making so right construction of your precedent affections and the advantages you have acquired by your severe education therein your Subjects like men who have been long sick will better learn to esteem health from their many sufferings in your absence will for the future learn to set a truer estimation upon your Prosperity and Presence And may the God of Peace the God of Mercy and the God of Justice so Crown the antecedent adverse fortune of You Sir the most Peaceable the most Merciful Just and best of Princes that being as Good and Just as Trajan and as Devout and Religious as Constantine the Great or Theodosius the first you may be of your Subjects as beloved as was Augustus and the Arbitrator of Christendom as well as Defender of the Christian Faith And when this your Diadem shall descend to your next Heir you may then assume a Celestial one which shall never be subject to time variation or chance Which is and always shall be the daily Payer of SIR Your most Devoted and most Obedient Subject ROGER COKE OBSERVATIONS UPON Mr THO WHITE 's GROUNDS OF Obedience Government Mr HOBBS his BOOK De Cive AND UPON HVGO GROTIVS De Jure Belli Pacis Prematur nunquam Opprimitur veritas Nulla res magis operae pretium est sive ad utilitatem fructuosior sive ad animi voluptatem jucundior esse potest quà m Justitia quâ quidem post Deum Immortalem rerum omnium Publicarum Fundamenta nituntur Corruptio verò optimi est pessima By ROGER COKE LONDON Printed by T. N. for G. Bedel and T. Collins at the Middle-Temple Gate 1660. TO THE READER I Have often with great admiration considered in my self how that all men good and bad rich and poor noble and ignoble have with one voice commended Virtue and decried Vice and yet scarce any man in a thousand hath made Virtue the rule or reason of his actions Nor is it a thing less worth admiration to consider how that all men generally have not only a natural spight against their Superiors and are unwilling to obey them but also a propense desire to attain to Liberty and do tread under foot all things which may be called sacred to the attaining thereof and yet at no time or place in the world did ever men accomplish it I did therefore conclude with my self that not only all Moral Virtue but Humane Society did proceed from higher then any humane or voluntary causes
and impossible things to come from Men otherwise so learned For though Mr. Hobbs does lay down his Principles and persue his method much more clearly then Grotius does yet his Principles are so monstrous That to me it is impossible any ingenuous Man should assent to them Indeed if Mr. Hobbs would have supposed that the state of Man had been either in Society or out of Society and that out of Society Men had been in such a state as he makes them in his state of pure Nature I should never have stumbled at it But he forsooth requires it for a Yet thus much I will tell Mr. Hobbs he may as wel suppose a Brute an intellectual or rational Creature or a man no intellectual or rational Creature as no sociable or out of Society Principle That all Men jure naturali are in a parity and equal condition and may kill one another without any offence or sin and that Men continue in this estate until by their civil Pact they oblige themselves to one another that the will of the civitas shall be the will of them all Notwithstanding this I must needs say of Mr. Hobbs That if Men have so little understanding as to make Jus naturale to be contrary to Lex naturalis and so little grace as to believe that the civitas hath all its power from the Pacts and wills of Men and yet impossible to command any thing contrary to the Law of Nature which he says is the Law of God and tyranny to be onely ab exercitio when as it is impossible for Kings to command any thing contrary to the Law of Nature and all Faith and Ghostly Power which our Saviour left in his Church to be instrumental and subservient to it and never look how little he understands a Pact or from whence Men become obliged to it the cives of this Vtopia may do well enough If I edified but little by Mr. Hobbs yet I received much less satisfaction from Grotius for Mr. Hobbs defines his terms so clearly as to me he was easily understood whereas all Grotius his Principles are so perplexed and equivocal that it is not possible for any Man to understand any thing clearly from him As the first thing in his Preface he confounds is Societas Communitas whereas Societas is as different from Communitas as black is from white Societas according to the definition of Aristotle being Pol. lib. 1. cap 5. Vnum quid it a constans ex diversis personis ut sit unum quod imperet alterum quod pareat Society is one thing so made up of divers persons that one may command another obey Whereas community is where any company of Creatures are without the offices of commanding and obeying Well but having got out of his Preface after some Propositions of his Method c. he in the Tenth Paragraph of the First Chapter of the First Book De jure Belli Pacis defines Jus Naturale in a tedious general thing to be dictatum rectae rationis c. and this to be the Law of God and about the middle to be immutable by God himself and towards the latter end to continue but for a certain space and towards the beginning he makes the Dominion which is now in use to be brought in by the will of Man and this to be Jus Naturale too Now let any ingenuous Man judge what can be clearly deduced from Jus Naturale which is the Law of God and immutable by God and yet to continue but for a certain time until a Dominion brought in by the will of Man should abrogate what was immutable by God and this Dominion thus brought in against this Jus Naturale to be Jus Naturale too If I have slandered Grotius let any Man see the Paragraph aforesaid It was to me an admirable thing to consider that men so learned should one of them define the Law of Nature to be Dictamen rectae rationis the other Dictatum rectae rationis Well I will therefore see what Ratiocinatio is and what Dictamen or Dictatum rectae rationis which is the same thing and whether this can to any ingenuous man be any probable definition of the Law of Nature Aristotle Eth. Lib. 6. Cap. 3. makes Ratiocination and by consequence every dictate of Reason to be from Universals and that there are some Principles which do constitute the Ratiocination of which there can be no Ratiocination These Principles for which no Reason can be given and yet the reason of all those things which can be deduced from them are called Axiomata Dignitates or Communes Notiones and from these men by Ratiocination or Right Reason do infer Arts and Sciences a Scientia est actio ars effectio Eth. l. 6. c. 4. Both begotten by right Reason Ars est habitus ad faciendum idoneus cum verâ ratione conjunctus Nay all Ratiocination or Right reasoning whatsoever may be resolved into somewhat which is superior to this Ratiocination for which no reason can be given * These things thus premised I say it is impossible the Law of Nature should be the dictate of Right Reason and thus I prove it Every Principle which does constitute Ratiocination and for which no Reason can be given is no dictate of Right Reason But the Law of Nature is a Principle which does constitute Ratiocination and for which no reason can be given Therefore the Law of Nature is no dictate of Right Reason If Mr. Hobbs denies the Minor Proposition set him shew into what it can be further resolved or what can prove it For though God be the prime and efficient cause of all things but what proceeds from the will of man and into which all things may be ultimately resolved yet by Principles Aristotle and all Philosophers understand those things which immediately proceed from God and the Law of Nature could not be the Law of God if it did not immediately proceed from him but the Law of that thing from which it did immediately proceed the Law of Nature therefore is a Principle Well but let us suppose the Law of Nature to be the dictate of Right Reason and see the consequence Every dictate of Right Reason is of less Dignity Authority and Excellency then the Right Reason viz. The Effect then the Cause But ex hypothesi the Law of Nature viz. the Law of God the Creator is the dictate of Right Reason Therefore is the Law of the Creator of less Dignity authority and excellency then the faculty and attribute of the creature viz. Right reason then which what can be more monstrous and blasphemous Nor is this definition less ridiculous then impossible and blasphemous For the dictates of Right reason are understood by one man and not by another and may be learned and taught Suppose now one of these Masters of Reason should come to the most plain and ignorant man in the world who is
established several Laws for manners and by them have been often altered but that there is no such thing as the Law of Nature and that all men as well as other creatures are naturally carried to their profits And so there is no such thing as Justice or if there were it were the greatest folly because men by endeavoring the good of others prejudice themselves Since the Grecians and Romans were the first who in the world did make all power to be from the People I suppose that Mr. Hobbs and Grotius took their Principles from them Let us see whether by the People they understand the same thing with the Romans and Grecians or the same thing with one another By the People of Rome or Athens the Romans and Athenians understood them and them only who were civitate donati and not men born in a promiscuous rout and parity without all order and subordination but made so by violent usurpation By the People Mr. Hobbs understands the King or Court governing By the People Grotius every where I believe for he no where that I can find defines the People understands the Subjects governed and they who in a parity or equal condition constituted the Civitas Upon these and many other considerations and observations upon them I was so far from being convinc'd that I became much more firmly established then before in my Judgment for Opinion I will not have of those things wherein I am possest of the constant practice of the world in all ages places the plain undubitable and uncontrolled places of Scripture both in the Old and New Testament and no colour of allegation against them from any other places the Authority of the highest Philosopher my Country-Laws and all those Theses and Axiomes upon which almost all Reason and Philosophy are grounded and these things opposed by such monstrous feigned equivocal and silly beggings of the question which no man not blinded with faction or stupid ignorance can grant yet had not these Observations become publique if it had not been upon an odd occasion which was Upon a time being with a Brother-in-law a Kinsman of mine at dinner came to my Brothers where in discourse he asked me if I had seen a Book of Tho. Whites called The Grounds of Obedience and Government I answered no nor did I desire to see any thing of his doing having conceived a prejudice of the Mans ability and ingenuity He confidently replied that I should be convinced if I did but read it and that he would send me the book Yet was I so far from accepting his courtesie that I importunately desired him not to do it But he notwithstanding all importunity on purpose sent his man with it that night to me being at that time much afflicted with my wonted Melancholy which became more excited when I had read some part of it And seeing a thing so sensless and void of all humanity to be imposed upon the world which questionless was intended to prefer some Faction or Interest of his and yet forsooth he tells us it is a second Edition corrected and amended by the Author wheresoever therefore I name our Author I mean Tho. White Gent. I did in detestation of the Thing not of the Man for I never saw him in all my life set my self to make these Observations upon it He harps upon the same string with Mr. Hobbs and Grotius That all Supreme Power is originally created by Mens wills subject to it Yet being a fine Gentleman in quirpo he dances a Galliard by himself and most senselesly makes men out of society to be a Rational multitude and to have Property before they had Laws or Government and to be a People after they had given up their power to another to govern them But lest it should be objected that though our Author be hood-winked yet Mr. Hobbs and Grotius might be very clear-sighted and bare-faced I thought it not amiss to make these Observations upon them also As a Preparative to a Purge I pray Reader take these few Notes 1. First I say they falsly derive Government For though they all differ in the manner of it yet is all Government so far from being so derived as any of them would have it in the first Institution that if any of them can shew any one Government so derived since the beginning of the world I will yeeld the cause 2. They feign that for a Principle which never was viz. That men by nature are in a parity or equal condition For never were men since the Creation in any age or place of the world in such a condition But suppose somewhere in the world it might have been found that men in a like condition did by their acts and wills form themselves into a Society yet is it a most unreasonable thing to conclude from thence that all power in Government is from the People For Singulars are deduced and concluded from Universals not Universals by Singulars 3. The Principle they beg is destructive to all good manners for Justice is the fountain of all humane Virtues and Morality as all Philosophers and best and wisest men hold And if Justice be the duty which men owe their Superiors and that it may be truly and ultimately resolved into the first cause without any detriment or damage to it and if all order superiority and power in Government may truly and ultimately be resolved into the People or the wills of the Subjects or Party governed then the wills of the Subjects being the fountain and first cause of all Order and Justice that is Justice in the People to do what they list then which nothing can be more destructive to all Virtue Justice and Good manners 4. It is damnably destructive to Faith for All powers are of God Rom. 13. and No power can be given but from above S. John 19. 11. Nor were these Men when they wrote their several Treatises De Cive De Jure Belli Pacis and Grounds of Obedience and Government much better in their Religion if I conceive a right Notion of Religion viz. That it is Actus Divini cultus or the Publick worship and service of God in an unity form and communion then their Writings shew them to be for Justice and Government For though our Author be a Pretender to be of the Religion of the Church of Rome yet it would trouble the greatest Critique of this Age to shew where the Religion of either of the other were to be found And who but such men as these would pin their faith upon the tales and fictions of Poets before the most venerable and sacred Authority of Holy Scripture Nor can the eldest of Poets writings be compared in antiquity with the Scriptures For if it could Cur supra bellum Thebanum funera Trojae Non alias alii quoque res cecinêre Poetae And the Theban and Trojan War hapned after the Year of the World 2750. The Trojan War about the time
nimirum uno praeter multa quod in omnibus illis inest unum idem fit principium artis scientiae artis si pertineat ad generationem viz. agenda vel efficienda scientiae si pertineat ad id quod est viz. cognitionem entis Itaque nec insunt definiti habitus nec fiunt ex aliis habitibus notioribus sed ex sensu 3. From which words of Aristotle it is cleerly manifest by what order By the opinion of Dr. Harvey the Knowledge of every Art or Science is acquired viz. from the sense the thing perceived remains still from the permanency of the thing perceived comes the memory from the memory multiplied experience from experience ratio universalis definitiones maxima sive axiomata communia cognitionis certissima principia ex gr Idem eidem secundum idem esse non esse impossibile Omnis affirmatio vel negatio aut vera est aut falsa hujusmodi alia Wherefore as we said before there is no perfect Knowledge which may be called ours which is within us unless by some means it does proceed from experiment made by us and our sense or at least by these examined proved and firmly builded it may appear above any pre-existent Knowledge in us Because without memory there can be no experience which is nothing else but multiplied memory in like manner memory cannot be without permanence of the thing perceived and the thing perceived cannot remain in what it never was c. 4. But multi multa nemo omnia vidit I do not think that all light of understanding was so shut up in Aristotles braine that all things pronounced Apology by him are to be taken for granted Principles yet do I entertain so venerable an opinion of Aristotle that I do admire him as the most eminent of all men in all humane learning among the Ancients and not to be paralleld by any of the Moderns but inventis addere is one of the chiefest ends of Mans being and there are yet and so will be until the end of the World many things received for truth which upon more search will be found but verisimilitudes and infinite things hidden from our Forefathers which will be infinitely found out by the present and subsequent generation that the Infinity of God may appear as well to the present and subsequent age as to the antecedent in all his works 5. Well then Aristotle saies and the Doctor subscribes to it that All things were nor in the senses before they are in the understanding according to the opinion of Aristotle and the Doctor Nihil est intellectu quod non prius fuerit in sensu I deny that there is nothing in the understanding which was not first in the senses for there are many things intelligible which are not sensible as time does every article of it intelligibly pass away not sensibly I understand that the centre of a circle is a point and that a point by the definition of it est cujus nulla pars est it cannot therefore according to the true definition of it be so expressed as to be the object of sense So a right line is longitudo latitudinis expers but neither a right line nor a point can be truly represented to the sense according to the truth of them as they arise in the understanding and so two right or supposed right lines which are not parallel cannot be infinitely produced according to sense but they will cut one another but intelligibly they may for no Man can understand so small a quantity of distance before the intersection but I can understand a smaller and another smaller then that and so ad infinitum and so Quantitas divisibilis est in semper divisibila potest infinitè augeri minui but this is only intelligibly it cannot be actually or sensibly done and so the contactus of a right line with a circle is a point in the understanding and not sensibly and so is the touching of two circles either within one another or without Nay neither Art Science nor any rational production whatsoever a priori but must necessarily be in the understanding before it can be in the senses I understand Animal to comprehend not only the Creatures I have seen but all those which are were or ever shall be and so I understand things equal to a third thing are equal to one another yet nor I nor any Man else ever saw two things equal to a third and the whole body of Geometry is of all Sciences most intelligible and yet abstracted from all sensible matter 6. If it be true that both Aristotle and the Doctor affirm that all No Art or Science arises from the Senses and memory Art and Science is acquired from the receiving a thing into the senses and that from the permanence of the thing in the sense the memory is made and from the multiplication of the memory Experience and from Experience the Principles of all Art and Science and that it be true which Aristotle saies to which the Doctor subscribes Fit ex memoriâ experientia hominibus multae etenim ejusdem res memoriae unius experientiae vim efficiunt Meta. l. 1. c. 1. Quare experientia pene simile quid scientiae ac arti esse videtur then does it most evidently and perspicuously follow that he that can longest retain things in his sense that is hath the best memory is the most scientifical and most artificial Man whereas we daily see that the Man that hath the greatest memory is usually a very blockhead and that he remembers almost all the things which are done and said yet cannot tell from what cause they did proceed but only remembers the things Nor will that which the Doctor saies Quippe sine memoria nulla fit experientia mend the matter for as I do deny any Art or Science can proceed from the sense memory and experience so do I not affirm that without the memory any Art or Science can be made I say no Art nor Science can arise from the apprehension of singulars into the sense and retaining of them there and from experiment only For Arts and Sciences are not things meerly apprehended and received into the sense and so retained in memory but something else which is truly and rightly derived from those things which are universally true and never before known to the senses or remembred 7. And as all the particular stories and things in the world retained Nor from the understanding without the memory and senses in the memory cannot move one step to the attaining of any Art or Science so cannot the apprehension of universal causes in the understanding of themselves produce any thing in order to the attaining of any Art or Science For universal causes in nature prove nothing but as meeting particular causes do determine those and specifie their Acts. The truth of both these is easily and daily seen in Men who
49. All demonstrative Science being begotten from certain and necessary From whence the Confusions and Distractions in Christendom have arisen pre-existent Principles the Laws of God and Man being pre-existent where they are clear and not inevident which is not always the imperfection of Mans Law nor can ever be of Gods Law Men may as clearly and as demonstratively demonstrate Conclusions from thence as from the Axiomes in Geometry And no question that all the Confusions which have lately hapned in Christendom were not caused from any want of understanding of the Laws of God or Man but from the perverse wills of Men who would not be restrained from their wickedness neither by the Laws of God or Man 50. Reason is a faculty of the Understanding which does prepare apt What is Reason and define things either in the outward sences or memory so as they may be comprehended by something before known to the Understanding or Reason is that which does dictate the doing of any thing conformable to something in the Understanding 51. All Propositions by the authority of Aristotle are demonstrable What is an Axiom or common Notion or indemonstrable Indemonstrable Propositions are those Propositions which are Axioms or common Notions for which no reason can be given and though indemonstrable in themselves do demonstrate all the Conclusions which follow from them An Axiom or common Notion is such an indefinite prime and necessary Proposition which comprehending any definite thing within its terms does necessitate such a Conclusion 52. A Definition is the comprehending every such individual thing What is a Definition in such a term as may express such a thing excluding every thing else 53. Although Definitions are properly terms comprehending individual Wherein a Notion and Definition differ things yet is there oftentimes a necessity of comprehending Notions or Axioms too under significant terms as a Law is a term which may signifie all rightful commands which are prime and universal Propositions to them who ow obedience to such commands which comprehending any action does necessitate such an action to be just So Geometry not onely comprehends all Propositions which have reference to surveying or measuring of Ground but also all the Propositions in Euclids Elements are comprehended under the terms or notion of Geometry c. Definitions are of Singulars Notions of Generals or Universals the Reason Memory and outward Senses are of Definitions the Understanding of Axioms or common Notions The Doctor does not onely confound the Memory and Understanding Annot. Pag. 21. de Gen. An. where he says Quod in ipsa visione sive actu videndi singulare clarum indistinctum erat id ipsum remoto visibili in phantasia vel memoria reservatum thereby making the phantasie and memory the same thing obscurum indistinctum apparet c. But also here and Page 27. he confounds Axioms and common Notions with Definitions where he says That from experience comes ratio Universalis Definitiones maxima sive Axiomata communia cognitionis certissima And the instances he gives of his meaning is quite awry and nothing to the purpose For idem eidem secundum idem esse non esse impossible is not onely not known from experiment but is as much known to any intellectual Creature before experiment as after And so omnis affirmatio negatio aut vera aut falsa est These Axioms are not Axioms because they are found true by experience but because universally known to be true before any experiment was made of them nor is it possible that experiment should be made of all things wherein they hold true the truth therefore of them cannot proceed from experience 54. Although divers Men do phansie the same thing seen or remembred Why some Men are more rational then others yet if they do not rationally phansie it viz. by comprehending that thing seen or remembred in something before understood to be true or false c. Then do they never conclude or agree in their inference Those Men therefore who do not rightly conclude a thing either the Object of the outward Senses or the Idea of it reserved in the Memory from something before understood but because they affect or desire it to be so conclude affectionately not rationally And Men who do so are less rational then other Men who do not 55. Knowledge is the knowing of a thing from the causes What is Knowledge 56. a Knowledge or Science how manifold All Knowledge or Science is either rational or sensible 57. b What is rational Science All Rational Science is a right Inference or Conclusion mediately or immediately from some universal Cause known to the Understanding 58. c How Science differs from Reason Intellectus sit Principiorum Scientia cum Ratione conjuncta Eth. lib. 6. cap. 6. Reason is the Instrument of the Understanding begetting Science is the thing which from the Understanding by the Reason is begotten 59. A Demonstrative Proposition is when the Predicate or Axiome What is a Demonstrative Affirmative Proposition understood comprehends the thing defined which is remembred Or any right Inference Conclusion or Dictate of Right Reason from Necessary and Universal Causes may be the Predicate of any Demonstrative Proposition 60. A Negative Demonstration is when Reason shews that the Subject What is a Negative Demonstrative Proposition cannot be comprehended by the Predicate 61. Logicians make three necessary parts or terms in every Proposition The necessary Parts of every roposition viz. the Nomen antecedens the Nomen consequens and the Copula The Nomen antecedens is the subject or thing in the outward sense or memory defined The Nomen consequens is the Predicate or something known to the understanding which comprehends the Subject And the Copula is that which joins these two As Omnis homo est animal Homo is the Subject or the thing seen or remembred Animal is the Predicate or Notion which comprehends Homo which is the thing understood and Animal does not only comprehend Homo and all other Creatures which a man has seen or heard of but all those Creatures which he shall ever see or hear of And est is the Copula which unites the Subject Homo with the Predicate Animal Annot. When I say the Subject is the thing sensible or remembred I always except Metaphysicks and Mathematicks which are considered without any sensible matter And indeed it is an admirable thing to consider how intelligibly Mathematicks are understood without any sensible matter more then any corporeal things are 62. It is truly observed that every perfect creature is generated from Rational Science is produced from the understanding by the reason and memory or outward senses matter and form diffused in several bodies and creatures and that this matter and form so long as it continues thus diffused in divers bodies is never qualified for generation or production of any
not to us as the Quadrature of a Circle and what proportion or ratio rather the subtending side of an Isoceles right-angle Triangle hath to one of the comprehending sides And some Effects are certainly known to us but the Causes are not known either to the understanding or outward sense as that Summer is hotter then in Winter and that men are sick and indisposed I say therefore where the Causes are but probable and conjectural whatever the Effect be no Conclusion can possibly amount any higher for Conclusio sequitur deteriorem partem 69. All Arts and Sciences are begotten from pre-existent Principles No Art or Science arises from Argumentation à Posteriori which are known to be necessarily true But in argumentation à posteriori the Effects are only known to be but not the Causes which are only probable No Art therefore or Science does arise from argumentation à posteriori 70. By the 38. Proposition it is impossible that any thing in the memory No probable Conclusion arises from Experiment or Memory or the outward senses should be judged phansied or concluded but by something which was before in the understanding Experiment therefore memory or the outward senses which only apprehend the material forms and effects of things seen c. cannot conclude any thing probably any more then a dead body can move without life besides it is so ridiculous that I wonder every man does not deride it Will any man say a great Lout new whipt is probably like to make a good Schollar because he hath made experiment of the strokes of a Rod or that the Fool in St. Joneses is a wise fellow because he makes experiment of the power of the Sun by his every daies sleeping in the raies of it Or that a Butcher is an excellent Philosopher because he makes experiment of killing Cattel And that experiment and memory does not move one step to the attaining of any probable Conclusions the Physitian or Philosopher reads the lecture on the parts Anatomized whereas the Surgeon dissects and makes the experiment And if experiment were the only way to attain to probable conclusions in Physick and Philosophy then not the Physitian but the Apothecary were the There is no probable Conclusion without Experiment or Memory better Philosopher 71. If by the 7. Proposition the apprehension of universal Causes certainly and necessarily true in the understanding cannot produce or prove any thing without the concurrence of particular causes then in reason cannot probable causes of themselves without the concurrence of particular causes either known to the outward sense or remembred produce any thing I will not therefore give one rush for any Physitians or Philosophers judgment who is not an experienced man 72. There are some things which nature brings to pass without any From whence men attain to probable conclusions art or help of any Creature others never without art and industry as a House and all Arts and Sciences In the first God is the great and only Opificer And it is only He who made Man and all other Creatures not meerly spiritual of such principles and so compounded that they every minute tend to the resolution of their first principles and yet in their thus dying something should generate in them which should perpetuate the generation of them in their species as they shall dye in their individuals Thus we see some soyl brings forth without any art or industry of man Grass Firr Broom c. Some is of a petrifying quality in other are Mines of Silver Gold Coal c. non omnis fert omnia tellus Some men grow sick others well without any cause from themselves These causes therefore being only known to God there cannot be any demonstrative conclusion from them by men because the causes are not evidently and necessarily known But although it be not Gods pleasure that men should understand the causes of these things so as to conclude demonstratively from them yet as having made two lights of different splendor vix the Sun and Moon though men see clearly only by the light of the Sun yet do men see although obscurely and but probably by the light of the Moon so though men do not in natural Philosophy and Physick from prime and necessary causes as from the light of the Sun see so as to conclude demonstratively yet hath not God always in these things totally shut out all light from men but they see as by the light of the Moon and in Philosophy are Theses and Aphorisms in Physick from whence by these senses memory and experiment men proceed infinitely and daily probably finde out things which before were not so 73. As in all Argumentation a priori there must be Principles assented No argumentation a Posteriori where Men agree not upon Principles to which must be the rule and reason of the argumentation and where men either by stubbornness or defect of understanding apprehend not Principles there of necessity can be no Art or Science taught so in argumentation a posteriori men must agree upon some Theses or Aphorisms which must be the rules of the argumentation men may discourse of the causes of things and not improbably conclude where they can make no experiments as in the causes of Meteors and Comets but no man can from all the experiment in the world conclude any thing but from something in the understanding which must be assented and comprehend that thing of which the experiment was made When therefore men by a defect in the understanding cannot apprehend Theses or Aphorisms or by stubborness they will not there all argumentation in either Physick or Natural Philosophy is at an end and it is impossible such men should either learn or be taught 74. Only man can by his reason from causes probable in his intellect Why only man attains conclusions a Posteriori Annot. rightly infer and conclude the causes of things in the memory or outward sences only man therefore can attain probable conclusions or concludge a Posteriori King James would affirm of his Hounds that in their hunting they used reason for when they had overrun the scent they would return on both sices of the path where they came and if on neither side they hit the scent off they would run back concluding because it was not on nor off on neither side it must necessarily be back where they came But more narrowly looking into this is not done of the Hounds by any reason or acquired habit but from an internal excited apperite moving them as Birds make nests and Bees hony-combs which they cannot but do at such times but cannot at other times nor yet learn nor teach them other creatures nay nor of the same kinde with themselves take a Hare Dear or Fox c. and let them be kept among Hounds in their kennel or so that the venatious appetite of them is not excited and they will not meddle with them whereas men
do not acquire Arts and Sciences by any necessary impluse moving them and only at such times when they cannot do otherwise nor are they excited thereunto by any material outward object but may learn and teach them other men and not upon necessity but upon all occasions as they shall judge requisite 75. Since every conclusion does follow the weaker part of the premises and since in all conclusions a posteriori the effect is onely known to the Things known to the outward senses are more evident then any probable conclusion outward senses and the cause but probable in the intellect the conclusion cannot amount any higher then probable But Men by their outward senses do apprehend things more then probably Things therefore apprehended by the outward senses are more evident then any probable conclusion and by consequence no man will reasonably dispute probably against what another hath seen or felt c. 76. There is nothing so much resembles God or Heaven as Light nor Things known to the understanding are more evident then to the outward senses any thing so much Hell as Darkness So incomprehensible is Light that it cannot be defined In all other things the motions actions accidents or passions happen in succession of time only light diffunditur ab instanti The rays and effluence of the Sun notwithstanding the immense distance of all the created bodies in the Universe at the same instant of time not only give light to them all but their power and influence is the prime and efficient at least instrumental cause of the generation and preservation of all corporeal creatures in them If a man considers the Light of the little world Man in the eye how it at the same time sees notwithstanding the vast interposition of space so many and so admirable works of the Creation it cannot less then beget an astonishment in him of the great power and goodness of God towards him yet how infinitely short this outward visible sight of the eye is Note the divine excellency of the understanding to the Divine Ray in the understanding appears in this that more is to be applyed to one principle known to the understanding or to one demonstrative conclusion from thence then to the sight or sence of all the men of the world to the contrary Should therefore all the men in the world affirm That they had seen two things equal to a third and not equal to one another or that they had seen an Orthogonial Triangle the square of whose subtending side were not equal to the squares of the comprehending sides or a right lined Triangle whose three angles were not equal to two right c. yet would I ascribe more to the truth of these thinge known to the understanding and from thence truly demonstrated then to the affirmation of all the men in the world nay so necessary are these things that God who can annihilate all the Universe in a moment cannot make them otherwise or should all the men in the world affirm that I ought not to serve God nor honor my King and Parents nor keep promise nor give every man his due c. yet more is to be ascribed to these Laws engraven in the minde of every man then to the affirmation of all the world to the contrary 77. Arithmetical proportion is when three or four numbers are so The wonderful Harmony of the Faculties of the Soul ordained that they increase equally the extremes added make the same number with the mean added or doubled if the numbers be but three As 3. 4. 5. 6. are in Arithmetical proportion for they increase equally and 3. added to 6. is equal to 4. added to 5. And so 3. 5. 7. are in Arithmetical proportion for they increase equally and three added to 7. is equal to 5. doubled By Def. 4. lib. 5. Eucl. Proportio est rationum similitudo And Def. 5. it must consist of three terms at least though indeed it must of four For where the terms are but three the medium is iterated twice as what proportion 4. hath to 6. 6. hath to 9. All Geometrical proportion is either discrete or continued Discrete is when the similitudo rationum is only between the 1. and the 2. and the 3. and 4. term As 2. 3. 4. 6. is in Geometrical discrete proportion for the similitudo rationis of 3. to 2. and of 6. to 4. is the same viz. sesquialtera but the similitudo rationis of 4. to 3. is not the same it being sesquitertia In continued proportion the similitudo rationis is the same in all the terms as in 2. 4. 8. 16. the similitudo rationis of 4. to 2. and 8. to 4. and 16. to 8. is the same viz. dupla In all Geometrical proportion the extremes multiplied into themselves produce the same number with the mean terms multiplied into themselves Harmonical proportion increases neither equally nor proportionally nor do the extremes added or multiplied produce the like number with the mean And yet in an admirable manner and sweetness do the extremes so connect the mean that the proportion of the greater extreme to the lesser is the same with the differences between the two greater and the two lesser As 2. 3. 6. increase neither equally nor proportionally nor is the mean number 3. added or multiplied the same with the extremes 2. and 6. added or multiplied but is in harmonical proportion because the difference between 6. 3. the greater extreme is triple to the difference of 2. 3. the lesser extreme which is the proportion between 6. 2. viz. triple And if there be any variation of either of the extremes all Harmony ceases All Harmonical proportion consists only in three terms As in Harmonical proportion the terms are necessarily three so are the Faculties of the Soul viz. the Will the Understanding and Memory And as the mean term in Harmony is so placed that if there be any excess or defect in either of the extremes all Harmony ceases so hath God placed the Understanding in a mean between the Will and Memory that if there be any defect or excess in either or both do not conform to the Understanding all Harmony of good and prudent actions ceases and they become wicked and foolish 78. Experience is the trial or apprehension of things from the outward Of Experience and what Knowledge arises from thence Eth. lib. 9. c. â— senses and this is common to all sensible creatures as well as man And therefore although according to the judgment of Aristotle Scientia be activa and therefore being only in the immaterial object of the understanding it may be learned and taught without experience yet Art being faction as it is applicable to some material subject cannot be taught without experience Notwithstanding de facto from the outward senses only may many Conclusions in Arts be taught men who apprehend them not from their causes as we see in mechanical Handicraft-men
Father was wont to say his Son commanded all Greece For the Athenians commanded the other Grecians He commanded the Athenians his Wife him and his Son commanded his Wife How much greater power had our Author in this Government than Themistocles his Child had over the Grecians For in all our Authors Government you shall find two degrees of Comparison above the superlative viz. the peoples Power over their supreme and absolute Governor and our Authors supreme supremest Power who has a Power when he will to make what he list the Peoples Laws which shall oblige and tie up their absolute Governor And when the toy takes him they shall be the Governors Laws And Ground 11. latter end No supreme Magistrate can be bound to any Laws contrary to what our Author or Governor shall call good Government And now who would think so wise a fellow as our Author who in this Government had such a monstrous and most unlimited soveraignty should by shewing his power in giving his Rational multitude liberty to dissolve it lose it all in an instant sure this Icarus if he neither drowns nor otherwise kills himself in the fall will only rise up again to hang himself Well but let us see whether upon our Authors principles this Government can be dissolved or be in the power of his People or Rational multitude All Men who have written of the Cause and Nature of things have put a difference between Natural and Voluntary or Rational causes or things Natural causes or things are those which proceed immediately from God and are above the Will or Reason of Man Voluntary causes or things are those which do not immediately proceed from God but from the Will and Reason of Man But ex Hypothesi this Government Ground 7. page 48. is connatural and Ground 8. page 50. Natural and therefore this Government is superior to the Wills or Reason of the People and cannot be by them dissolved but the resisting of it is a violence upon Nature and not only Irrational but Immoral and unjust Thus have we seen our Author make a Government and thus have wee seen our Author marre his Government Let him tell us Ground 15 â—herein consists the Liberty of the Subject Ground 16. Of the dispossession of a Supreme Governor and his Right And Ground 17. Of a Governor dispossessed only because our Author Ground 17. tells us that Pope Urban the eight was an Intelligent generous Prince and well versed in publick Government and he made a decision that after five years quiet possession of an Estate the Church was not bound to take notice whether the title were lawful or no I will tell our Author that if Pope Urban might not take notice after five years who is the lawful Governor yet Pope Pius the fourth after above twice the time declared by Pope Urban might take notice of it as you may see Hist Con. Triden 423. and 443. So then Pope Pius may do that which Pope Urban is not bound to do or say what he will for me I am content if after all this pains on my part I shall not in the Judgment of wiser and more discerning Men then my Author or self have made my self like our Author in thus far answering him to his Grounds of Obedience and Government OBSERVATIONS ON Mr. HOBBS De Cive Observ HIs first Axiome or Principle he begs both in the Preface and second Article of the first Book De Cive is That the beginning of Civil Society is from Mutual Fear Yet in his Preface and second Annotation upon this Article He fears that some men may deny it yea it is true that very many men do deny it This therefore being required for a Principle and the first Principle and by consequence not to be proved but to prove all that may be inferred from it and since that he grants that very many do deny this Principle Then by very many men must the whole body of De Cive be rejected For Contra negantes principia non est disputandum But if men will not grant this Principle in the Pref. and Annot. abovesaid he will prove it so that he will make them ashamed of it and how think you It will be somewhat odd sure to prove Principles He tells you That all Cities although they be at peace with their neighbors yet keep Garrisons and Soldiers upon their Frontiers And that when men go to sleep they shut their doors and that men taking a journey do it with a sword and that men treat usually before they fight Observ All Science all Learning and all Reasoning whatsoever by the authority of Aristotle is begotten from pre-existing Principles which prove the Science and Learning but by the judgment of Aristotle and all Philosophers and men in their wits no Science Learning or Reasoning can prove the Principles Besides it is a contradiction to say any thing is a Principle which can be proved for that which proves it is prime and a principle to it Would any man now think that these Critiques and pretended Masters of Reason had ever read one line in Logick or Aristotle who go about to prove Principles by such silly things as have scarce any verisimilitude in them Nor does he only make Fear to be the prime cause of all Humane Government and Civil Society but also chap. 16. art 1. he makes it the cause of all Religion and Worship of God Observ As if that men were not obliged to submit to higher Powers not only for wrath take it in what sense you will either fear of the wrath of the higher Powers or mutual fear of the wrath of other men but also for conscience sake And that God were not in gratitude to be worshiped and served by ingenuous men because he is good and created them intellectual and reasonable creatures but only by a servile fear of his Judgments from whence only vile and vitious men seem to but never truly serve or honor him A pretty institution of Religion and Government for the Men of Bedlam and Wives of Billingsgate He divides the whole Treatise into three titles viz. Liberty Empire and Religion Under the title of Liberty he speaks of men as they are in a state of meer Nature viz. of a state of men before they have by Pact given up their natural right to one Person or one Court or Company of men so that the will of this Man or Court shall be the will of all of them and this he calls cap. 5. art 9. Civitas or Persona civilis If Mr. Hobbs had by a state of Nature understood such a state as S. Paul Observ Rom. 2. 14. does viz. of men who have only the Law of Nature and not Gods Divine Law supernaturally revealed in the Scriptures to be their rule and guide and that men in such a state not having the Law may by Nature do the things contained in the Law for this Law is ingraven in the hearts of all men he
should have disputed without an Adversary for me But when he makes all men Jure naturali which is superior and the cause of all Laws of Nature to be equal and in a parity of condition and every man by his own natural right to have a power over every man and to kill and destroy them whensoever it seems good unto him and yet without any sin and that this State is only to be cured by the Laws of Nature of his own making although he would have them to be Divine Laws and contrary to Natural rights is such a monstrous Paradox and absurdity as I wonder any Ingenuous man should assent to it Under the title of Empire he is not less wild and extravagant in his concessions to the thing be it King or Court created by Do or Dedi and not Dabo or Faciam For he makes it not only Soveraign Judge of all Ecclesiastical as well as Civil causes but also impossible to command any thing contrary to the Law of Nature Yet he makes the Law of Nature the Law of God and this Creature of creatures to be so infallible that it is impossible to command any thing contrary to it It is not worth the examining what he would have under the title of Religion for men say the man is of none himself and complains they say he cannot walk the streets but the Boys point at him saying There goes HOBBS the Atheist It may be therefore the reason why in all his Laws of Nature he allows no place for the Worship and Service of GOD. But it is time to examine the particular Articles upon which this Body De Cive is built 1. His marginal Note upon Art 3. Cap. 1. is Homines naturâ aequales esse inter se Observ There is no one Proposition in the world more false then this nor more destructive to all faith and truth of Sacred History For whereas he says that by nature Men are equal to one another if the Scriptures be true that God made Adam an Universal Monarch as he says as well over his Cap. 10. art 3. Wife and Children as other Creatures and that since Adam God did never create any Man but the species of Mankind was continued by generation and that as he says Primogeniture is preferred by the Law of Cap. 3. art 18. Nature which Cap. 3. Art 29. is immutable then it is impossible that Cap. 4. art 15. since Adam any two Men in the world can be equal where God does not make them so Indeed if Mr. Hobbs had been an Athenian who stiled the Men of Observ 2. Attica 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Men of the same Land or a Peripatetick who held that Men and the other things of the World were from Eternity as well as the World or an Egyptian who held that from the example of divers creatures generated out of the river Nile Men at first were generated from equivocal generation or that Men had sprung out of the ground fungorum more there might have been some small semblance for his opinion 2. His Argument to prove the Natural equality of all Men is Aequales sunt qui aequalia contra se invicem possunt At qui maxima possunt nimirum occidere aequalia possunt Ergo Homines natura aequales inter se His minor Proposition is no where proved and I am sure contrary Observ Gen. 9. 6. to what God says Whoso sheddeth mans blood by man shall his blood be shed for in the image of God made he man 3. Nature hath given to every Man a Right to all things Cap. 1. art 10. Observ What thing is mine naturali jure as he says or lege naturali is mine so that it is impossible it should be aliened or made anothers by any act of my will or the will of all the men in the world For natural causes do not depend upon voluntary humane actions and therefore the natural right which Nature has given to every man remains still with every man 4. Filium in statu naturali intelligi non posse Annot. art 10. Observ And therefore from Adam to our Saviour could there be no such natural state For S. Luke cap. 3. gives a Genealogie of Adams sons and sons sons to our Saviour And since I do not think Mr. Hobbs can shew that ever there was such a state in the world 5. The state of Man in Nature is hostile And cap. 8. art 10. he says Art 12. Men in the state of Nature may kill one another so often as it seems good unto them And therefore he must invent and seek to make himself in a better condition then God hath made him and that forsooth is by seeking Art 15. cap. 1. Observ Peace which he says is the first Law of Nature Is it not strange that a thing invented and made by the wit and will of Man and that contrary to the state and condition in which God hath made Man should here prove to be a Law of Nature which is the Law of God And is not more strange that God hath made Man upright and he hath Observ 2. Eccles 7. 27. sought out many inventions and yet Man should have need of Mr. Hobbs his help to invent and make him in a better state then God hath made him or else he says his conservation cannot be long expected Art 15. Neither is it possible in such a state where all men may kill one another Observ 3. and where all things are alike and common to all men that men should make any pacts or contracts one with another For besides that where men have nothing proper there men cannot make pacts or contract for any thing also where there is no precedent humane Law obliging there cannot any man be obliged or bound to any thing by his pact or contract for to be bound is in relation and must presuppose something which does bind but if nothing binds me but my Will which is a contradiction I may unbind me when I will for my Will is free I deny that any man or any company of men can will any thing to be Observ 4. a Law to themselves For Omnis potentia activa est principium transmutandi aliud And therefore the act of no mans Will can have a power or obligation upon himself and by consequence cannot any man or company of men will or make another who shall give them Laws for Nemo potest transferre id in alium quod ipse non habet 6. Legem naturalem esse dictamen rectae Rationis Cap. 2. art 1. Observ Wold any man think that these Critiques and pretended Masters of Reason did either understand Reason or Logick If Lex naturalis be dictamen rectae Rationis I ask of Mr. Hobbs what is the reason of it If it be a prime cause or principle then by the authority of Aristotle Eth. lib. 6. cap. 3. 6. does it constitute the
Ratiocination and no reason can be given of it for Mens sive Intellectus sit principiorum Scientia verò cum ratione conjuncta Dictamen therefore rectae Rationis cannot amount higher then rightly to infer or conclude from prime causes or principles and by consequence cannot be the Law of Nature or God if Mr. Hobbs cannot give something prime or superior to it from whence it may be inferred or deduced And if the Laws of Nature or God be the dictates of right Reason then are the Laws of God the Creator subject and inferior to the faculty of a creature which is not only absurd but most monstrous and blasphemous 7. But because to bind and to be bound cannot be in the same thing Cap. 2. art 5. 13. he makes obligans him who accepts the will of other men and obligatus him who does will and so forsooth is become bound by his own will Observ And had not this man more need to learn his Grammar better who makes obligans the patient and obligatus the agent then undertake to write Elements Philosophical De Cive whereas the contrary is true in both for obligans is he who doth will and obligatus is he who accepts or receives the will of another 8. The action of two men or more mutually transferring their Rights is Cap. 2. art 9. called a Contract Observ There was never I think two more gross mistakes committed in so few words For first he takes the fulfilling of a Contract for the Contract it self A Contract is the mutual stipulation of two or more that they will do or give and the mutual transferring of what is contracted for fulfills and adnulls the Contract and there have been and will be infinite Contracts where there is no transferring nay where there is a mutual transferring there can be no Contract Secondly no Contract can be of Rights but only of things in possession The act of two or more mutually transferring is the act of two or more giving not contracting In every Contract either both statim perform that which is contracted for Ibidem or one performs and the other is credited or neither perform Observ So that the Contract and the Performance are diverse things which immediately before he confounds Nor can his statim at all help him for the Contract must precede and the Performance be subsequent it matters not how much or little time for Majus minus non variant speciem Secondly If one may perform and the other be credited or neither perform then there may be Contracts where there is no mutual transferring which is absurd by his definition Where both soon after statim perform there the Contract so soon as it is performed is fulfilled or finished Observ Sure he takes great virtue to be in statim which makes a Contract and the annulling and fulfilling of a Contract to be the same thing Where one or both are credited there he cui creditur promiseth that he will afterwards perform such promise is called a Pact Observ I do wonder therefore from whence his una persona or una curia can derive their supreme power whenas nothing can pass from either or neither part by vertue of the civil pact And no doubt this Civitas will be a noble structure built upon such a foundation wherein I think no man did ever pronounce so much in so little more rashly 9. We are freed from Pacts by two things either when the Pact is performed Cap. 2. art 15. or forgiven Observ Therefore in the Civil pact if any Right passes from the Subject to the Supreme power then hath the Subject performed his pact and so becomes freed from his subjection 10. No man by his Pact is obliged to an Impossibility Cap. 2. art 14. Observ And therefore can no Supreme power be derived from the Pacts of men For where there is not Jus vitae necis there can be no Supreme power and no man hath a power over his own life and therefore no man can give it or transfer it to another 11. No man can be obliged by his Pact not to resist him who brings or intends damage to his body Art 18. Observ And therefore no penal Laws can be executed but Subjects are freed from their obedience whensoever they have so far transgressed Laws that they become liable to any corporal punishment for where men may resist there can be no subjection 12. Men must not resist where they cannot obey Princes because it is against Cap. 18. ar 13. the Civil pact Also by this article Men must suffer martyrdom rather then resist which is absurd by art 18. cap. 2. for martyrdom brings corporal punishment with it 13. An Oath adds nothing to the obligation of a Pact or Contract says Cap. 2. art 22. Tho. Hobbs Observ But if Perjury be a greater crime then single Falshood then no doubt but a man is more obliged to perform a Pact or Contract to which he hath sworne then he who hath not and a man may see many men afraid to forswear themselves who make no conscience of telling a lye And if no man be obliged by an Oath then is an Oath nothing but the taking of Gods name in vain and it had been a vain thing in Abraham to have made his eldest servant swear by the Lord God of heaven and the God of the earth that Gen. 24. 2 3. he should not take a wife to his son of the daughters of Cannaan 14. The second Law of Nature is Men must stand to their pacts Cap. 3. art 1. Observ Every Man is obliged to his promise by the Law of Nature and all Men are obliged to their pacts by the positive humane Laws of every place where they made them And to suppose that the Supreme power of any place is made from the pacts of Men and that Men are obliged to their pacts by the supreme Power of that place is absurd and Idem per Idem 15. See how learnedly he proves from Scripture the abolishing of Mens common Right to all things he cites Gen. 13. 8. And Abraham said to Lot let there be no strife I pray thee between thee and me and between my Cap. 4. art 4. Herdsmen and thy Herdsmen behold the whole Land is before thee depart from me I pray thee Observ Verse 7. is And there was a strife between the Herdsmen of Abrams cattel and the Herdsmen of Lots cattel So then before the abolishing of the common Right of all things Abram and Lot had property in their Servants and Cattel which is absurd and impossible for nothing can be common and proper 16. The succession was due to Esau by the Law of Nature being the Cap. 4. art 15. prope finem Observ eldest son of Isaac if he had not sold it or his Father otherwise appointed Yet he saies truly Cap. 3. Art 29. the Laws of Nature are immutable and here he saies
as they proceed from one thing to another and add to them in the specifications of them for Omnis additio probat minoritatem But no man who desires to be understood or who desires to understand himself will undertake such a task as Grotius here does to compile a Volume upon such contradictory equivocal and obscure Principles For Conclusio sequitur deteriorem partem And if any part of a Proposition be but probable though the Sillogism be made in the clearest Mood yet the Conclusion is no more And any man may much better thus reason then Grotius does A right-lined Figure is that which is comprehended under right lines and that which is comprehended under three right lines is a right-lined Triangle Sciendum praeterea c. It is to be further understood Right-lined Figures are not only such as are contained under right lines but may serve for many other things besides So Spherical Figures as they are now used by Astronomers the invention of man has found out but being found out these right-lined Figures may serve for them also for Spherical and right-lined Figures have many things common to them both as when they are cut transverse they are cut to right angles and in Spherical and right-lined Triangles two sides is more then the third howsoever taken and in both the sides have the same proportion one to another that their opposite angles have nor are they in any thing contrary one to another Yet if any man shall take a Spherical and right-lined Triangle for the same thing as Grotius does Jus Naturale which he makes to signifie Community and Property in the same Principle which are contrary one to another I make no doubt but he might compile as big a Volume and almost as little to be understood as this De jure Belli Pacis Well but let us see why Jus Naturale is immutable by God himself Note Grotius every where almost confounds Jus with Lex and here he takes Jus Naturale for Lex Naturae For Although says he the power of God is immense yet some things may be said to be to which it does not extend it self because those things so said are only said and have no sense which may express the thing but are repugnant to themselves So that twice Two should not make Four cannot be effected by God Observ It is true that God cannot make contradictory things and things repugnant to agree and to be the same But this is nothing to Grotius his purpose for a Similitude proves nothing nor is there any analogie between the things propounded by Grotius For though things simply necessary be If Lex lata had any obligation upon the Legislator then were the Creator obliged and subject to the creature than which there is nothing more blasphemous immutable by God yet the Law of Nature is the Law of God and therefore being a creature of God's it cannot have any obligation upon God but being the Law of God given to Mankind it is immutable by them and God might if it had pleased him have given something else for the Law of Nature to Mankind Both Grotius his Positions therefore in this Section are manifestly false absurd and blasphemous viz. That the Law of Nature is immutable by God himself And That Usus communis is Jure naturali and yet mutable by the will of Man And if I be demanded to shew an example that God is not obliged to the Law of Nature or that the Law of Nature is not immutable by God I say Jus suum cuique tribuere is from the Law of Nature yet did the Children of Israel borrow Jewels of gold of silver and raiment of the Ex. 12. 15 16. Egyptians and all such things as they required of them and spoiled them by not making restitution without any violence upon the Law of Nature because God commanded them nay they had sinned and disobeyed God if they had not done it And so by the Law of Nature every Father is obliged to preserve and nourish his children yet because when God commanded Abraham to offer up and kill his son Isaac Abraham was obedient to God and would have done it God takes it for the highest act of Abrahams faith and swears by himself That in blessing he would bless him and in Gen. 22. 17. multiplying he would multiply his seed as the stars of heaven c. Yet can no man borrow with a resolution of not-restitution nor any Father put his Son without cause to death where God does not command though all the world should command it without a violence upon the Law of Nature Nay I say the Laws of Nature being eternal there was never any time when men ought not to give every man his due and so by consequence no time when Grotius his Usus communis was since Men were born but ever since Men were in the world Dominion and Property have been Cain had his Gen. 4. 3 4. Fruit of the Tillage of the ground and Abel had his Flock and the Firstlings of his Flock neither of which could be if Grotius his Usus communis had been Object But you may say Property presupposes humane Laws which must give it and humane Laws must happen in succession of time And that therefore before these humane Laws were there could be no Property and by consequence all things were common and undivided Sol. For the satisfying of this doubt we must consider that God in the Creation only created one Man and out of him made Woman and that ever since no Man was ever made but the species of Mankind hath been continued by generation I grant that all things were common to Adam except the forbidden fruit but no Man that was ever born into the world and not a Posthumous King who was not born in subjection to humane Laws Nor did ever Adam derive this Legislative right which he had over his Wife and Children by any Pact Contract or Submission of his Wife and Children but had it from God because he was first made 1 Tim. 2. 13. It is therefore manifestly false which these men beg That by Nature all Men are equal and that the will of Man brought in Dominion Nor do these men shew out of any sacred or prophane History that ever Dominion was brought in by Man or that Men had things common and undivided among them Well but Grotius having in this Paragraph in a tedious unsignificant Lib. 1. cap. 1. para 10. thing defined the Law of Nature so as it may signifie any thing and made it the Law of God and that thing which hath quite routed this Law of God out of the world and set up another thing in stead of it to be the Law of Nature and made the Law of Nature to be immutable by God himself and yet to continue but for a certain season thinks he hath not so perspicuously done this but that a certain Image of mutation may
deceive them who take not heed whenas the Law of Nature which is immutable is not changed but the thing of which the Law of Nature does work receives some mutation For example If a Creditor to whom I am obliged takes what Lowe him now I am not bound to pay not because the Law of nature leaves to command to pay what I owe but because what I did owe ceases to be And to prove this he brings Greek in Epictetus Observ It is true that universal causes in nature produce nothing but as meeting with particular material causes the law of nature therefore of it self produces nothing but as meeting with particular material causes apted and disposed for the law of nature to work upon and therefore when these particular causes cease the obligation which the law of nature creates ceases also As Thou shalt honor thy Father and Mother is the law of nature but then there must be Parents Children or the law of nature creates no obligation and therefore when the particular cause ceases the obligation of the law of nature ceases also as when Parents are dead the law of nature in that particular can have no obligation upon their Children And so in the instance which Grotius gives a Debtor is by the law of nature obliged to pay his Creditor but this Debt being paid the particular cause ceasing the obligation of the law of nature ceases also What need therefore was there of Arrianus his Greek out of Epictetus to prove a prime and necessary truth which is of more authority then forty Arrianuses and all the Greek in Epictetus Grotius and all his Authors and Poets to boot Grotius goes on So if God commands any man to be killed or to take away any thing that is anothers It is not lawful that Murder or Theft be done which terms involve vice but it is not Murder or Theft which is done by God the Author of life and all things They say Nulla similitudo quatuor pedibus currit I am sure this similitude Observ 2. runs not upon one foot for in this last the particular cause remains whereas in the former it is taken away and if the law of nature be immutable by God and Thou shalt not kill or steal be from the law of nature then it is Murder and Theft although commanded by God Thus hath Grotius instead of clearly propounding his principles and orderly reasoning from them thatched a company of equivocal and contradictory principles with Poets and Authors brought in by head and heels so as not any one proposition is clearly stated and disputed but the whole Treatise a most perplexed and unsignificant thing God conferred upon Mankind generally Jus Right immediately after Lib. 2. cap. 2. Para. 2. the Creation and again when the world was repaired after the flood over all the things of this inferior nature There were as Justin saies all things common Lib. 43. Lib. 1. Para. 16. de jure Belli c. and undivided to all Men even as one Patrimony should be to all Men. God was pleased peculiarly to give rights dare jura to one only people viz. the Hebrews Observ Which is absurd and impossible by the ninth Notion of the first Book of Euclid viz. a part equal to the whole the Hebrews not being all mankind but a part Grotius goes on Hence it came to pass that every man gathered whatsoever Lib. 2. cap. 2. Para. 2. he could snatch to their own uses and consume what could be consumed and whatsoever any man had so snatched that could no man take from him but by injury but this State could not long continue Observ How 's this This is more monstrous and absurd then the other what God gave a Right to Mankind and that so immutable that it is unalterable by God himself and yet not possible long to continue To prove this first Common Right of all things common and undivided to Mankind he refers to Gen. 1. 29. 30. And God said I have given 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Septuagint has it to you in the plural number when Adam only was created every herb bearing seed which is upon the face of the earth and every tree in the which is the fruit of a tree yeelding seed to you it shall be for meat c. Now how could God speak to Adam in the plural number when Adam only was created It is said verse 27. So God created Adam in his own Image in the Image of God made he Man Male and Female created he them And therefore God speaks here to Adam and Eve Now whether God gave this Right to Adam and Eve in Community to both alike as Grotius would have it or to Eve in subordination to Adam I refer it to any Christian Man to judge Let the Woman learn in silence with all subjection c. and the 1 Tim. 2. 11. reason the Apostle giveth is Man was first made then Eve But suppose that God gave this Right not only to Adam and Eve but to all Mankind in Adam verse 13. and Eve yet by the authority of the Holy Ghost had Adam dominion over all Mankind because Adam was first made and therefore God at the Creation of Man made Government with Mankind Let us see whether Grotius has any better luck with his common and undivided Right of all things c. immediately from the time of the world repaired after the flood which to prove he refers to Gen. 9. 2. 3. And the feare 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast c. every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you even as the green herb have I given you all things Observ Now then if this were not given to Noah his Wife and Noahs Children in subordination to Noah but as Grotius would have it in community to all alike then had Sem as much Right to all things as Noah Ham as Sem Japheth as Ham Sems wife was an intercommoner with Noah Ham with Japheths wife and Noahs wife with them all if this be true Mr. Hobbs makes Noahs Sons in an ill case where he saies filium in statu naturali intelligi non Annot. art 10. cap. 1. posse no Son can be understood in the state of nature and Sem Ham and Japheth are Bastards and not Noahs Sons Well if Noah and his Wife his Son and their Wives had all things in common that is every one of them get what they could snatch to their own uses and consume what might be consumed from whence did Noah snatch his Vineyard and drank the wine thereof untill he was drunken If you beleeve Grotius it was Sems Vineyard Verse 20. as much as Noahs Japheths Wives as much as Sems and Hams Wife had as much right to it as any body else Poor Noah thou hast taken great pains here to little purpose if Hugo be thy Judge Well Mr. Hobbs rather then he
4. All Divine Laws are created and derived from that divine and From whence all Divine Laws are derived eternal Right which was inseparably in God before any such Laws were created by him 5. Humane Laws are threefold viz. Secular Temporal or Civil such are the Laws of every Country or Gamacal viz. the Laws of the How manifold are Humane Laws Husband or Paternal viz. the Laws of Parents to their Children 6. All Humane Laws are derived from that Right or Power which From whence derived the Law of Nature creates in supream Powers Husbands and Parents 7. They are called Humane Laws because they are made by Men Why called Humane Laws who by the Law of Nature have a Right to make or create them 8. All Ecclesiastical Laws are derived from that Right or Power From whence Ecclesiastical Laws are derived which by divine positive institution our Saviour Christ left to his Church to continue untill his second coming again 9. Ecclesiastical Laws are so called because they only relate to the discipline of the Church and worship and service of God Why so called 10. Despotical Laws are derived from the Right or Power Despotical Laws from whence derived which every Master of a Family hath over his Servants which Right or Power is created by Secular or Temporal Laws of the place where the Family is 11. Two things must necessarily precede every Law or it hath no What must precede every Law Obligation viz. the Legislative Right and the Declaration of it So that Jus divinum is one thing and Lex divina another and Jus naturale is one thing and Lex naturae another And so is Jus Humanum and Lex Humana and Jus Ecclesiasticum and Lex Ecclesiastica And he that will confound these things cannot possibly ever write clearly upon the subject 12. Humane and Despotical Laws are vindicative or oblige to corporal What Laws are vindicative punishment in this world 13. Only Humane Secular Temporal or Civil Laws are distributive and create property among Men in their Estates What Laws are distributive 14. Neither Divine nor Ecclesiastical Laws are vindicative but oblige in Conscience only What Laws are neither distributive nor vindicative * How Men come to be punished Temporally for not observing Ecclesiastical Laws 15. Although Ecclesiastical Laws as we shall prove in the next chap. bind in Conscience only and therefore cannot impose any Corporal mulct or punishment yet the Secular Laws do as if a Man be excommunicated he shall have no advantage or relief in any plea by the Common Law a Lit. vil sect 201. and by the Common Statute Law whoso is adjudged an Heretick or Blasphemer shall be burnt yet neither Common Law nor Statute Law take cognisance of either Excommnication Heresy or Blasphemy before the Statute of the 2 H. 5. 7. In curia Christianitatis id est Ecclesiae in qua servantur leges Christi cum tamen in foro Regio servantur Leges mundi saies Linwood who saies moreover b Com. Stat. de circumspecte agatis That the Probate of Wills and Testaments de consuetudine Angliae not de jure communi belong to the Court-Christian But whether Linwood saies true or not Hen. 8. began by the Statute Law to encroach upon the Rights of the Church and by confounding the jurisdictions both of Church and State making himself head of both has opened such a gap to let in all Schisme and dissention that the Common-Lawyers and Statute-Laws have upon the matter devoured all Church-rites and power nor are either the Common or Statute-Laws now in much more esteem then the Ecclesiastical Nor is it less then a Divine judgment upon those men who have so extravagantly attributed both powers to be in the King Between Supreme Head and Supreme Governor I understand no difference for if the Supreme Governor hath not supreme power or right of command then necessarily must such a Governor be an Usurper or unjust Invader in words only but indeed in their practice have denied him the exercise of the one or the other power and ascribed them both to themselves and Courts subordinate to the King That these men I say should be themselves and all the Courts in as little esteem as Ecclesiastical Rites and Constitutions and the King God knows upon what account for no colour of pretence was ever yet so much as reasonably pretended violently restrained from the exercise of any either Ecclesiastical or Civil power among us Here do not I admit of Mr. Hobbs his division of Civil Laws into Sacred Annot. and Secular Did ever man before hear of Sacred Civil Laws Sacred Laws are those Civil Laws he says which belong to Religion that is Cap. 14. art 5. the Ceremonies and Service of God and are called Ecclesiastical Secular Laws are those he says which are wont to be called Civil by a general name For though Ecclesiastical Laws be made by Men and therefore not Sacred as he says yet is the power by which they are made from Divine positive institution and therefore cannot have any right or power from Civil or Secular sanctions which at highest cannot amount to more then Humane 16. A Law differs from Counsel as my Understanding differs from How a Law differs from Counsel my Will my Will is that which imperates all my actions my Understanding informs my Will whether the doing or not not doing such an act be good or bad just or unjust reasonable or unreasonable A Law is the declared will of him who by right commands Counsel the reason advice or discourse of them to whom he who by right commands refers any thing to be debated who are usually called the Council whether the willing or passing such a thing into a Law will be probably convenient or inconvenient either to him or his Subjects CHAP. III. Of Virtue 1. THat Virtue is not always placed in a mean between two extremes Introduction Virtue is not fited always in a mean between two extremes and those extremes to be Vices according to the opinion of the antient Philosophers I do subscribe to Mr. Hobbs cap. 3. art 32. de Cive And that from the reason he there gives viz. that Fortitude in a good cause is a virtue although it be in the extreme Nor does quantity in giving be it much little or indifferent make Virtue but the cause of giving To these may be added Gratitude and Patience Justice and Obedience which are not placed between any extremes But if I assent to Mr. Hobbs in this I cannot less dissent from him where cap. 3. he makes Virtues to be the Laws of Nature and cap. 2. art 1. the Law of Nature to be the Dictate of Right reason For 2. Virtue is the doing or forbearing any action as it is dictated by What is Virtue Right reason from the Law of a Superior or from some Notion known to
an Intellectual creature 3. All Virtue is either Theological Moral Humane Familistical How manifold is Virtue Personal or Prudential 4. Virtue being by the definition the Dictate of Right reason from From whence Theological virtue is derived some superior cause or notion Theological virtue is a Dictate of Right reason from some revelation of God in the Scriptures which otherwise had been impossible for any man by the light of humane nature to have attained to By Theological virtues I do not mean only those three most eminent virtues of Faith Hope and Charity but all those actions of obedience due to them who have oversight of me in the Lord as a Christian and to whom I owe my obedience not by any Law of Nature but as commanded by God in the Scriptures 5. Moral Virtues are those Dictates of Right reason which flow from What are Moral virtues and from whence derived What are Humane virtues and from whence caused What are Familistical virtues What are Personal virtues that light of Nature engraven in the minds of Men for the conservation of peace and society among Men so long as they live in this world 6. Humane Virtues are those Dictates of Right reason by which Subjects Wives and Children conform their actions to the Laws or Precepts of Supreme powers Husbands and Parents 7. Familistical Virtues are those actions of Servants done in conformity to the commands of the Masters of Families 8. Personal Virtues are those actions which are dictated to divers men from principles of innate good nature of Temperance Continency Patience Liberality and Frugality whose contrary extremes are vices and sins 9. Prudential Virtues are not dictated from any Divine or Humane What are Prudential virtues and from whence derived Laws but from some Principles known to the understanding which are more or less as men are more or less intelligible whereby some Princes govern more prudently then others and some Masters of families govern their servants more prudently then others And these Virtues have not reference only to the government of Men but to other actions as Prudence in managing of an Estate is a Virtue or in mens governing their actions so that they are esteemed and not despised by other men are Virtues yet these actions are no where commanded or forbidden by any Divine or Humane Laws These Virtues are always placed in Empire not in Obedience 10. God having made Man a rational creature and endued him with The ratio finalis of all virtues and how they differ First of Theological virtues an immortal Soul capable of eternal happiness hath revealed himself supernaturally in the Scriptures to Men as reasonable creatures so that they directing their actions conformable to his precepts therein contained might by faith or believing on him hope for eternal happiness 11. The end of all Moral Virtue is that men may preserve peace and The end of Morality society so long as they live in this world And God hath made Man a sociable creature as well as intellectual and rational and therefore hath engraven these eternal and immutable Laws of Nature in the minds of all mortal men that by conforming their actions thereunto they might preserve peace and society with men And though these of themselves are not sufficient to pully man up to eternal happiness yet let no man hope that despising these Laws of the great God of Nature upon a pretended Faith he shall ever attain it 12. But because the Law of Nature does oftentimes command in Thesi The end of humane virtue only and Humane Laws ex Hypothesi as Thou shalt not steal and shalt give every man his due is from the Law of Nature but that this thing is mine and that thing another mans is by positive Humane laws So though Moral virtues be always the same yet Humane virtues differ accordingly as Laws in divers places are different Thus it is a Moral virtue in Wives and Children to honor and obey their Husbands and Parents but as a Humane virtue the doing of such a thing may be Virtue at one time and Vice at another as it is commanded or forbidden by the Husband or Parents So that Humane virtues in Subjects Wives and Children are necessary to the conservation of society where the laws or principles of such actions are not plainly repugnant to Divine laws 13. The end of all Familistical virtue is that Servants by all just and The end of Familistical virtues lawful means intend the good of their Masters and make no dissentions or discontents in their Families 14. God having made man after his own image as well in body as in The end of Personal virtues soul for He that sheds mans blood by man shall his blood be shed for in the image of God made he man It is not therefore to be expected that any man should without sin against God abuse the highest and noblest part of Gods creation All men therefore in the first place ought by all just and lawful means to do well to themselves and not by any excess or intemperance to abuse that body which God hath made in his own image 15. Theological virtues relate to the attaining of Eternal happiness The difference between Theological Moral Humane Familistical and Personal virtues Moral Humane and Familistical to the conservation of society and peace in their several places Personal virtues to the preservation of that body which God hath entrusted every man with keeping so long as he lives We have spoken of the end and difference of Prudential virtues Parag. 9. 16. In all prudent and profitable actions Prudentis est fortunam semper Whether just and moral actions or virtues are to be enquired into by fortune as are Prudential in concilio adhibere But that man who directs his just and moral actions to Fortune or the time and tide of mens affections shall soon be accounted a Weathercock and Time-server In all prudent actions or virtues there is no other obligation or penalty more then the reward or profit of the action and loss for the folly of imprudent actions But in just and moral actions men must consider their duties not profit and are obliged to them notwithstanding temporal loss or trouble CHAP. IV. Of Particular Moral Virtues 1. SInce that the Law of Nature is That there is one God infinitely Religion is the first and chief of Moral Virtues good to be worshipped and served and that all men should in their several stations endeavor by all just and lawful means to preserve Peace and Society in this World Then is Religion or the Publick Worship and Service of a Deity the first and chief of all Moral Virtues and so conspicuous was this Virtue in all ages and places to good men by the Light of Nature onely that it was always their first care to be in a Society of Men where God however misplaced in an Oak Osiris Iris Jupiter Apollo
c. was publickly worshipped and served And men who were of no Religion were always stigmatised with the most opprobrious name of Atheists as the most vile of Men. * Flaminem assiduum Jovi Sacerdotalem creavit Liv. lib. 1. Numa Pompilius therefore in the first place took care for the institution of a Religion among the Romans and to this end he created a Priest who should daily offer Sacrifice to Jupiter And so zealous were the * Selden Annal Angl. lib. 1. c 4. Caesar de Bell. Gal. lib. 6. Gamb Brit. p. 12. Druides in the old age of our Ancestors before Christianity was planted among us in their Religion or Publick Forms of Worshipping of God that none but the Priests and Schollars might learn them nor would they commit them to Letters both because they would not have them divulged least they should grow contemptible by being exposed to the view of the rude and ignorant multitude as also that their Schollars might the better retain them in their memory * Nicias Orat. Thucid. lib. 7. Nicias as the chief Argument of his justification and hope of belief from the gods in his greatest adversity says 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I have worshipped the gods frequently according to Law And heretofore in the Church of England set Forms of Prayers were not onely ordained that her sons of her Religion might meet at publick times to worship and serve God but the Minister or Priest was obliged every day to offer up the publick worship and service of God whether there were any present but himself or not for all sorts of men in their several vocations and stations That as the fire upon the Altar among the Jews might never go out so among us Christians might no day pass wherein the Publick Service of God was not offered up for all sorts of men 2. That Men honor and obey their Superiors Subjects their Soveraigns Children their Parents Servants their Masters 3. That Men be not Tale-bearers or Back-biters but avoid evil communication 4. That Men do not make advantage of anothers weakness to his damage 5. That Man in all things keep his Integrity that is not to answer so Integrity to another as to deceive him by equivocation or mental reservation if it does not appear that there is evil intent in the question 6. That Men perform their promise made although it be to their hinderance Promise 7. That Men bear a grateful minde for benefits received that is that Gratitude they do not suffer him from whom they receive a benefit to be in a worse condition then he was before he conferred it And if they have not in their power wherewith to satisfie yet that they bear it so in their mindes as to be ready to satisfie to their power Some Creatures who are not endued with Reason do imitate this Virtue the Storks when their Parents are viete and broken with age do relieve them by feeding and providing for them wherefore the Greeks called the Stork 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Beneficiorum retributorem See Grotius Annotations upon his Preface De Jure Belli Pac. 8. That men do well to their Wives Children and others as by nature and affinity allied unto them 9. That men be merciful wherein men ought not so much to observe the quantum as the cause of shewing mercy or pitty 10. That in revenge men do not respect the evil past but minde the future good which may happen from the punishment 11. That they neither by deeds words or countenance use another contumeliously 12. That they be not high-minded or over-conceited of their birth person or parts 13. That they be lowly minded and modest 14. Not to accept or respect persons in judgment 15. Where no Law gives propriety there ought community to be 16. Those things which can neither be divided or used in common that the decision be by lot 17. That the first-born be preferred and the Male before the Female 18. * That no man endeavor c. For that which is any mans by Divine Institution cannot be aliened neither by his will nor the will of all the men in the world and therefore cannot Episcopacy or Priesthood after Consecration and Imposition of hands be transferred because they are by Divine Institution Yet whatsoever Bishop or Priest shall endeavor for reward or price to alien it or deny it for safety of his life may as well be esteemed a prophane person as Esau was That no man endeavor to transfer or alien by Pact or Promise that right which God by the Law of Nature or Divine Institution hath given him 19. That Protection be granted to Ambassadors and Mediators of Peace 20. That no man seek private Revenge for any supposed Injury 21. That Judgment be pronounced without hope of reward or for applause of men 22. That where Evidence of Fact does not clearly appear that they take information from Witnesses 23. That the Judge be indifferent not byassed to either party either by Natural relations or by any precedent Obligation 24. These Moral Virtues are commanded by the Moral Law and are most truly and properly so as they are revealed and declared to mankinde by God in the holy Scriptures For the Will of God commanding in the Scriptures that is in the Old and New Testament is in all things by highest right to be obeyed and followed And because God hath created man with an immortal and eternal Soul and does not will the death that is the eternal death of a sinner he offers every man grace who does not refuse it by preferring some other things to lay hold of those means which he hath revealed in them for the obtaining of his eternal happiness 25. But because a man cannot well bear all these Virtues in his minde The sum or cause of all Moral Virtues contained in the Second Table in every action which a man intends if he would know whether it be against the Law of Nature or not Let him suppose himself in place of him with whom he intends this action and if he be not willing that this thing should be done to him let him not do it to another for upon this short and easie rule Whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you do ye even so unto them depends all the Law and the Prophets Matth. 7. 12. CHAP. V. Moral Virtues are commanded by God in the holy Scripture 1. THe Lord said Speak unto Aaron and unto his sons saying On this wise Religion or the worshiping of God in a Publick set form was instituted by God under the old and new Testament shall ye bless the children of Israel saying unto them The Lord bless thee and keep thee The Lord make his face shine upon thee and be gracious unto thee The Lord lift up his countenance upon thee and give thee peace And they shall put my name upon the children of Israel and I will bless them Numb 6. 22
it is impossible they should receive their origination and first power from the Pacts and Contracts of Men For where there is no precedent humane Law obliging men can neither make Pacts Contracts or Gifts nor have any thing to give and contract for And to suppose that humane laws must precede and oblige men to thei Contracts and Pacts and that Contracts and Pacts must precede humane laws and give them their power is most manifestly absurd and contradictory THE CONTENTS of the Second Book Chap. I. HAving thus far treated of Rights and Laws which are the prime and efficient cause of all Humane Christian and Legal Society We in the first Chapter of this Book proceed to declare the Causes of all Society Chap. II. This Chap. shews the cause and end of Regal power Chap. III. Declares the attributes of it and incidently the causes of Magistrates power Chap. IV. Compares the three species of Government viz. Monarchy Democracy and Aristocracy wherein the excellency of Monarchy appears above either of the other as well by reason and experience as by the institution of God and consent of the world Chap. V. Shews the internal causes disposing men to sedition as well from the Party governing as from the Subjects or party governed Chap. VI. Declares the causes and attributes of the Fathers power And Chap. VII The causes and attributes of the Husbands power In this Chap. is demonstrated that though the Fathers and Husbands power be from the Law of Nature yet may the exercise of them be restrained by the Supreme power of any place without any wrong or prejudice to them which could not be done without a violence upon the Law of Nature if the Fathers and Husbands power were an institution of God and Supreme powers an institution of Man Chap. VIII Contains the causes and attributes of Despotical or the Masters power wherein is declared that if it be impossible for any man to make another his Master then necessarily is it impossible any man should make another his Prince or Soveraign Chap. IX Treats of the causes and attributes of Ecclesiastical power DEFINITIONS 1. SOciety Aristotle in lib. 1. Pol. cap. 5. truly defines to be made up of many What is Society divided parts or persons so that there must necessarily be Unum quid quod imparet alterum quod pareat 2. There are six sorts of Society First of Supreme powers and Subjects How manifold is the Society of Men. Secondly of Magistrates and those committed to their care or government and this is most properly called the Civitas especially where the Magistrates and those in their jurisdiction have a priviledged or exempted authority peculiar to them and not the same with that which is not contained in their jurisdiction Such are the Societies of our Civitates Boroughs and Corporations in England where the Magistrates jurisdiction is exempt and priviledged from the ordinary jurisdiction of Magistrates where these priviledges and immunities are not Thirdly of Husband and Wife and this Society the Greeks called Gamaca Fourthly of Fathers and Children which is called Patrica Fifthly of Masters and Servants which is called Despotica Besides these there is a sixth Society which is proper only to Christians viz. of Bishops Curates and Congregations committed to their charge 3. Potestas est jus imperiale in aliqua persona cujus praeceptum continet What is power rationem obedientiae 4. There are four kinds of Powers viz. Divine Humane or Natural Legal How many kinds of powers are there What is Divine power and Ecclesiastical 5. Divine power or right of Command is that power which is by highest right solely and originally in God and incommunicable to any Creature from whence all other Powers are mediately or immediately derived 6. Humane power is a right of Command created immediately by God or What is Humane power immediately derived from the Law of Nature 7. Legal power is a right of Command which is not immediately derived What is Legal power from any positive or natural law of God but from some Humane law 8. Ecclesiastical power is an institution of our Saviour and left to continue What is Ecclesiastical power What is force or Tyranny in the Church of Christ until his second coming to Judgment 9. Force or Tyranny is an usurpation of Command of any Creature or company of Creatures not created by any law of God or Man Nor is it the commanding of one alone which makes Tyranny the very Grecians could account the Athenian Thirty to be Tyrants and so could the Romans the Decemviri and Triumviri And no question but it was malice and spight which made the Grecians call all Kings Tyrants and both Romans and Grecians to make all Kings to be Ravenous creatures And all those Kings who abuse their power are by men usually called Tyrants not justly I find no such title given to Saul Ahab Ahaz Nabuchadnezzar but Wicked and Idolatrous often Nor is a Father or Husband less a Father or Husband if they abuse their powers because they have a right of Command 10. Dominion or Government is the exercise of Command by any Creature What is Dominion or Government or company of Creatures who have a right or no right of Command So that though all Government or Dominion be the exercise of Command yet is not all Government the exercise of Power as the Dominion or Government of Thieves Robbers and Pyrates c. is the exercise of Command who yet have no right of Command 11. All Power is Right but all Right is not Power as Jus Proprietatis How Potestas differs from Jus. Usufructuarium is Right not Power Common Notion ALl Created Powers are from the Law of Nature or Divine posisive Institution or Humane Laws THE SECOND BOOK CHAP. I. Of Society or the mutual offices of Commanding and Obeying 1. IF all Commanding and Obeying had To command and to obey is no humane artifice or invention been an Humane artifice or invention then was there a time when Men lived out of Society and in a parity or equal condition without commanding and obeying But there is no such time recorded in Sacred or Prophane history wherein Men lived so or when or who first invented or introduced these offices of commanding and obeying Besides we see that Arts and Sciences are received in one place and not in another and in the same place and by the same men at one time and neglected at another But at no time or place did ever men live out of society or commanding and obeying All commanding therefore and obeying is no Humane artifice or invention 2. If then there was never any man born but was born in subjection To command and to obey is natural and all subjection being in the predicament of relation which must suppose something commanding and if all things which are not artificial or invented are natural Then is it as evident as that Homo
but our Saviour Patriarchs and Kings were the Lords anointed Nor is Gods anointed peculiar to them not the material anointing and the receiving and believing Gods revelation of him-self in the Scriptures is essential to the making of Gods anointed here but all rightful Kings are so whether they be materially anointed or believe Gods revelation of himself in the Scriptures or not For not only Cyrus was not Isa 45. 1. materially anointed and an unbeliever yet Gods anointed but Nabuchadnezzar also a cruel persecutor and destroyer of Gods people But Lam. 4. 20. God calls them Mortal Gods too Psal 82. 6. And is it not strange that our Saviour should say No power can be but from above data desuper and that Joh. 19. 11. Men should be so impudent as to affirm that there is no power unless data de subter and that against all sense and reason as well as faith For it is impossible that any Power should be superior to the cause of its being or that any thing should give that to another which it self hath not How then can an imaginary rout of Men give a power of life and death and of creating property which not any of them nor all of them together have to another 3. Humane Laws being the accidents or effects of Regal Power they Regal power not made by Humane laws cannot be superior to give or create a being to the cause Regal Power therefore cannot be made or created by Humane Laws 4. That in Regality as well as in Subjects estates jus proprietatis The possession or exercise of Regality does not create Regal power possessionis have been divided and Regal power usurped and exercised by them who had no right thereunto is not only testified by infinite Authorities out of prophane History but also many times in Sacred Writ as in the cases of Absolom Adonijah Athaliah c. It is true indeed that there is no visible power under Heaven but only Mens Consciences that can judge between an Usurper and a rightful Prince Yet ought men principally to have a care how they offend herein for God no where denounces a more dreadful sentence nor shewed a more terrible judgement then upon such Rom. 13. Men Num. 16. And if in Regality possession alone did create a just title then were summa injuria summa justitia it being no question the highest injury to invade the highest authority or dominion of another 5. If possession conjoyned with the submission and acknowledgement Possession with the Subjects acknowledgment and submission does not create Regal power of the Subjects did create regal power or right of command which Kings have over their Subjects then were the dominion of Theeves and Pirates where others submit to them just and Jeroboams title good to the kingdom of the Ten Tribes nor the Children of Israel Rebels but true Subjects after they had quietly submitted themselves to Jeroboam But this is false for God does denounce them Rebels to the house of David unto this day 1 Kings 12. 19. And Jeroboam himself a Rebel after he was quietly 1 King 12. 19. possessed and acknowledged by the Ten Tribes 2 Chron. 13. 6. It is a very remarkable thing that the Subjects of this Nation although Annot. pretending to be Christians have against all rules of Christian Faith placed all power in Government to be from the people and their obligation to it to be from their own submission to it and have by their often forswearing themselves to this and that Government not only habituated themselves into a belief that there is no such thing as right or power in Government but only possession but also taken away all Religion and Obligation of an Oath in things lawful and indifferent God no doubt permitting it that they who would not stand and be protected by his ordinance and institution should fall into all infidelity and perjury and never be true to any thing they sweare to and set up instead of it 6. If the Law of God or Nature did create Regal Power by the acknowledgement The Law of God or Nature does not create Regal power by the submission or any act of the Subject or submission of Men thereunto or that Subjects were the essential instruments by which Regal Power was originally created and yet is continued in the world then were not Men only free from Regal or Higher Powers before they did submit thereunto but also free to make whom they would their Prince and so by consequence there can be no such thing as Hereditary Monarchy in the world which for many Hundred nay Thousand years where God was not pleased to reign himself immediately over his peculiar people was in the old time the only Government in the world For above 3000 years after the Creation was neither Aristocracy Democracy or Elective Monarchy ever heard of in the world and yet Hereditary Monarchy is in above 19 of 20 parts in the world the only Government Nor would any Government that ever was or is in the world grant this liberty to any one born in their dominion but upon resisting it or renouncing it whether he ever submitted to it or not proceed against him not as an Enemy but as a Rebel and Traitor To suppose therefore that Subjects acknowledgment and submission is previous the essential means by which God does create Regal or Higher Powers is upon the matter to give the Lye to all the Powers and Governments that are or ever were in the world 7. None of these things therefore but some higher cause must create Regal power and that Regal Power is the Ordinance of God the Apostle Regal Power is the Ordinance of God and created by the Law of Nature saies expresly where he saies Rom. 13 that he which resisteth the Higher or Regal power resisteth the Ordinance of God And that this is not Gods Ordinance only to them who receive and believe his revelation of himself in the Scriptures is evident by his ordaining of Hazael Cyrus Nabuchadnezer c. and to put all out of question the Apostle here calls Higher or Regal Power Gods Ordinance and at that time whenas there was no King in the world which did receive the Scriptures for the revealed word of God Besides Kings reign by God c. Pro. 8. 5. and that Kings reign by God not only where he is believed as having extraordinarily revealed himself in the Scriptures Job in the state of nature long before the Job 3. 6 7. Moral Law was given by Moses saies Reges in solio collocat in aeternum Regal power therefore is Gods Ordinance and from the Law of Nature 8. Regal power being Gods Ordinance and created by the Law of Adam had Dominion over all Creatures and not as Father Husband or Master of a Family Nature there was never any time wherein Men were borne out of subjection to it not but that the Laws of Nature
Monarchy Aristocracy Democracy I answer that God hath made Man upright but he hath sought out many inventions Therefore let Aristocracies Democracies answer for themselves anciently there was no Government in the world but Monarchy nor does God ever command obedience to others and the very Athenians for above 800 years could find a Government under Kings hereditarily before any footsteps of Aristocracy or Democracy was ever heard of in the world nor did they ever transgress the bounds of Europe unless in the Carthaginian State and when the Magi usurped in Persia It was Pride in the Romans and Grecians who not only esteemed all the world barbarous besides themselves and all Kings to be of the kinde of ravenous beasts but were the first inventers of these Aristocracies and Democracies and made all Power in Government to be Artificial and Political not only in the exercise which is true but also in the cause This Jus Politicum was of a more large extent with the Grecians then the Jus Civile was with the Romans For the Grecians esteemed that to be Jus Politicum which is common to all Men conjoyned with any society the Romans called that Jus Civile which is proper to any City So to buy and sell was by the Grecians called Politick the Romans called not those things Civil unless to sell by such a measure and at such a time the Romans called the Cloaks and other habits of vestments used by themselves and other people civil But let any Man judge whether these Men Mr. Hobbs White and Grotius being Christians and two of them very learned Men do reasonably not only to reject all precepts and examples of Sacred writ and all Testimonies of the consent of the present World and Testimonies of all most antient Histories from the examples of those most unreasonable Men besides the case between them is as unlike as can be For though they agree that this Jus Politicum or Civile is so as well in the cause as exercise and all power to be originally with the people yet by the people did neither Romans nor Grecians understand a company of Men in a rout or promiscuous parity but they who were Civitate donati nor did ever the People of Athens or Rome acquire their Dominion from the people subject to them by do or dedi and not dabo or faciam as these men feign all power to be originally deduced but by rapine extorting it from their rightful Kings in whom it undubitably was If it be questioned how originally this power came into the world if not Annot 3 by the Pacts of Men or consent of Families I answer Rem teneo modum nescio for the manner of it how it came originally I am not bound to give an account where the Scriptures and most antient Historians do not confirm it it is enough that I having proved it to be natural and Gods Ordinance it was never otherwise especially having the practice of the present world and the Records of all prophane and sacred History 14. It is true indeed that the Humane Laws and the exercise of Regal Not only Kings but Kingdoms have their being from God and by the Law of Natore Power is Politick Voluntary and Artificial but that these Laws are received and exercised in those places where they ought to be which makes Kingdoms is expresly said by the Prophet Dan. cap. 4. in three places The most Highest ruleth in the kingdoms of men and giveth it to whom it pleaseth him ver 7. And it was Nebuchad-nezzars punishment for his pride that he should have his dwelling with the beasts of the field untill he knew that the most Highest ruleth in the kingdoms of Men and giveth it to whomsoever he will ver 25 and 32. So that it is evident not only Kings but Kingdoms not only their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 their Right but also Government is from God immediately and that this is a Declaration of the Law of Nature not only long before God by the Prophet Daniel speaks this were Kingdoms upon the earth but also no Kingdom or King which at the time that this was spoken that did receive or believe Gods Revelation of himself in the Scriptures Kingdoms therefore or the exercise of Regal Power is Gods Ordinance as well where the Scriptures are received as not and due by the Law of Nature and by consequence the obstinate resistance of Kings in their Government by their subjects is a violence upon the Law of Nature 15. Sir Francis Bacon in his life of Henry 7. relates that Perkin Warbeck How many waies Regality comes to pass by the often affirming himself to be Richard Duke of York second son of Ed. 4. did at last believe himself to be so indeed The violent and frequent usurpations of usurpers in this Island and some other Northern and European Region hath invested such a habit in Men that renouncing reason as well as all faith and belief of God in the Scriptures they with much confidence affirm nothing but possession or possession and submission of Subjects to be requisite with Kings Both which do no more make a rightful King then a Mans Deseisin Abetting or Intruding into the signiory of another and the Tenants attorning to him does make him rightful Lord of the Mannor But neither humane Laws nor Man nor any thing under Heaven can endue any Creature with a power over anothers life and fortune who is of the same kind with himself and without which there can be no supreme power and by consequence no society among Men. There are but four waies by which Regality can happen First When it is immediately and expresly given by God as it was to Saul David Solomon Hazael Cyrus c. Or Secondly derived from him who had Regality truly vested in him but this derivation must not be from the Election Adoption or the will of him who was invested with the Regal Power which at highest cannot amount higher then a humane Law which by the 3 para of this chap. cannot create Regal Power It must therefore be derived by Primegeniture which is derived from a higher cause then humane Laws for jura sanguinis nullo jure civili dirimi possint Or Thirdly by Lot which we have shewed to be by the Law of Nature Or Lastly Jure Primi Occupantis if its Occupant be capable thereof for Man being a sociable creature by Nature and society according to Aristotle being contained in many divided parts therefore in the society of Men there must be unum quid quod imparet alterum Lib. 1. cap. 5. Pol. quod pareat But whether Aristocracy and Democracy be unum quid that may jure imperare to me is a question neither of them being any Institution of God or from the Law of Nature but brought in by unjust usurpation and violence and against the universal consent and practice of the world for above Three
least Liberty and that which in other men is termed Anger in them is called Pride and Tyranny Besides in private men it is enough that they themselves do well but Princes must have a care that neither they nor their Ministers do ill 6. Tibi soli peccavi says the Psalmist Psal 50. Humane Laws are the The Supreme power is not obliged by his own Laws organs or instruments of the Power that governeth they cannot therefore extend themselves to bind him from whom they are derived for Omnis potentia activa est principium transmutandi aliud Besides the Prince may free other men from the obligation of the Laws and therefore much more himself And if Supreme Princes were obliged by their own Laws then were Humane Laws as well as the Laws of Nature eternal and immutable which is absurd nor could Humane Laws protect Subjects when any thing happens which comes to pass every day that was not foreseen at the making of the Laws Humane Laws are made to oblige and preserve the governed necessitate coactionis but they cannot have any obligation upon Lawgiver who is the Supreme power unless a man will grant that an Effect may be prime and superior to the Cause Nor were ever other Governments subject to their own Laws No man hath any thing proper against the Supreme power 7. No Subject hath any Property except Ecclesiasticks but by the Laws of his Country But by the precedent Proposition no Supreme Prince can be obliged by his own Laws and therefore no Subject can have property against him If any Subject had property against the Supreme power then could not the Supreme power impose a Forfeiture of Goods in case of Praemunire Attaint Conviction of Treason or Felony But the Consequence is false and therefore the Antecedent is false That any man hath any property against the Supreme power Besides there could no Fine nor Fine and Recovery be levied or suffered if he in Reversion or Remainder had property against the Supreme power Nor could an Act of Parliament enable Tenant for life to make sale of his Estate It is remarkable that the Children of Israel should not be content to Annot. have God to reign over them immediately who did himself give them Laws being enquired of by the High-Priest Samuel might well say therefore unto them Ye shall cry in that day because of your King which not ye shall choose but which ye shall have chosen you and the Lord shall not hear you in that day 1 Sam. 8. 18. For Gods ways and actions are always perfect whereas by the reason of humane frailty the best mans actions are subject to imperfections But if it seems grievous to any man that he holds his goods at the will of another let him consider that God since Adam did never give any Nation but only the Children of Israel Property but always used the mediation of his Vicegerents And since Property must be derived from some Humane act for the Law of Nature gives none but to Supreme Princes and therefore the possessions of Kings are called Sacra patrimonia because Kings have no Superior but God Almighty Proedium Domini Regis est directum dominium cujus nullus Author est nisi Deus How Sir Ed. Co. Com. on Lit. p. 1. 6. much better is it for Subjects to hold of one Man then of many For nothing can be objected against one but will have more force against many And let any man shew me in these last five hundred years any Subjects estate taken from him without due and legal proceeding by the act of any of the Kings of England and I will shew him five hundred who not being liable to any punishment by Law have been ruined themselves and their families in seven years and that for observing the Laws and against the will of the King Obj. But many Actions have been brought against the King which if no Annot. 2. man hath Property against him may seem inconsistent Answ But the question here is not what the King may do but what he hath done Not what the King may declare Law but what he hath already declared Law 8. Majesty is from the Law of Nature immediately but the power Power of Magistrates from him of Magistrates is not so but mediately that is from him who hath the Supreme power Magistracie is the instrument or organ by which Majesty is conveyed to every place whither its own power is extended And as Majesty is restrained to the Laws of Nature and is accountable to God for all the omissions and transgressions of them so Magistrates are restrained to Humane Laws and ought to give an account of their actions to him that hath the Supreme power And as no man can offer violence or contempt to Humane Majesty but it is a contempt and violence to the Majesty of Heaven so no man can offer violence to or contemn Magistrates but it is done to Humane Majesty from whence their authority is derived Wherefore Subjects must submit to Governors who are sent by Kings 1 Pet. 2. 14. By this Proposition it is evident that although Supreme power cannot Annot. be divided yet the exercise of it may For where a King is an Enfant he cannot exercise his power who can neither act any thing nor expres what he would have done nay it is impossible for the best and wisest King that ever was to exercise his power every where for one body can be but in one place at once though the power thereof may be diffused every where as the light and influence of the Sun is diffused every where although the body of it can be but in one place And the exercise of power by Magistrates is like Gods governing the world by natural causes who being the first Mover of all things produceth natural effects by the order of second causes Jethro his counsel to Moses therefore is to be taken Thou wilt surely weare away both thou and this people that is with thee for this thing is too heavy for thee thou art not able to perform it thy self alone Exod. 18. 18. 9. Quando lex aliquid alicui concedit concedere videtur id sine quo res The Right of calling Assemblies belongs to Christian Kings ipsa esse non potest where any Law Divine or Humane does give any thing it gives all the means by which this otherwise could not be had And that God by the Law of Nature has given Kings a power to protect their Subjects we have sufficiently demonstrated but it is impossible Princes should protect and govern their Subjects if they might not rule their actions Now all actions and motions are either regular or irregular All regular motions and actions may be reduced to one certain beginning where the beginning is not one and certain there they may be called commotions or confusions rather then motions or regular actions But all Assemblies are motions and therefore they
from the company of Tamar whenas he hated her because he had abused her but it was in Joseph that he refused to accompany his Mistress whenas he might have securely enjoyed her Nor is it any virtue for any man to do or forbear any thing for feare of punishment for so horses dogs and other irrational creatures will do or not do many things for feare of stripes which are commanded or forbidden by their Masters Nor is it any virtue in a Judg to pronounce true judgment if he be hired thereunto by any reward or bribe Where therefore neither worldly pleasure profit love feare hate nor any sublunary thing but it may be loss to all these do not move a man to the doing or not doing of what in conscience he ought to do or forbear there nothing less then Gods grace and power in such a man can be the true and efficient cause of such an action 6. It is a most admirable thing to consider how notwithstanding all Why only Man can do virtuous Actions the various natures dispositions and events of things this one Providence foresees and provides for all created things in the whole universe until she brings them all to their designed end Nor does this providence foresee and provide for all things from an eternal and fatal decree impelling all actions of all creatures For then there could be no such thing as good or bad men but God were the efficient cause of vice as well as virtue in men but by a mean foresight or knowledg does often determin necessary effects from contingent causes Which does not only plainly appear from very many places of Scripture as that the men of Keilah would have delivered David if he 1 Sam. 23. 12. had not escaped thence that God would have destroyed Niniveh within forty daies if the men had not repented that God would have gathered the children of Jerusalem together as a Hen gathereth her Chickens but Matth. 23. 27. they would not that if the mighty works had been done in Tire and Sidon which were done in Chorazin they had repented in dust and ashes c. Matth. 11. 21. but also all Gods promises and cursings upon men do depend upon their obedience or disobedience to what he commands And however this rigid opinion of Fate and the eternal determination of all things be asserted by the Stoicks yet do not I think that the most wicked man that ever was did ever attribute any wicked action to any such cause but pretended conscience pleasure profit or his own will never Gods It is true indeed that God hath made man in flesh and blood and so prone to desire many things which he ought not But though diverse men do naturally affect and desire things they ought not yet God hath so made every man a free Lord of all his actions that there is no man but may chuse whether he will do or not any thing to the attaining of his appetitions and affections And mans excellency above other creatures consists in this that his actions are not determined by his objects as other creatures are but he may freely do this action as it is moved in him from the appetition of pleasure profit pride c. or abstain from it as he apprehends it forbidden by him who may forbid And so may any man freely do or endeavor to do any thing which he ought to do though to his temporal disadvantage but this having no Temporal motive must proceed from Gods grace which no creature upon earth can do but only man only man therefore can do virtuous actions CHAP. III. Of Judgment 1. JUdgment is the definitive of him who by right commands permits What is Judgment or forbids a thing either by himself or instrument whether any thing be done conformable to a Law commanding permitting or forbidding it 2. Herein judgment differs from a Law A Law is the declared will of How it differs from a Law him who by right commands permits or forbids a thing together with a penalty annext for not observance after some reasonable time fixt whereby the obliged may take notice of such declaration Judgment is the sencence of him who so commands forbids or permits whether such an act were an omission or transgression of any Law so declared 3. Justice is the upright doing of any just or legal action conformable to the Law of him who by right commands Judgment is the discerning of How Judgment differs from Justice a good or bad action 4. All judgment must necessarily be the act of three persons at least What persons are necessary in Judgment viz. the Judge the accuser and the party accused or as we say the Judge the Plaintiff and Defendant 5. The end or ratio finalis of Judgment is either to determine differences The end of Judgment or punish offenders CHAP. IV. Of Equity 1. EQuity is twofold either a remission or moderation of the Laws How manifold is Equity when the execution of Laws will rather kill then cure a distemper in the Subject as when many Subjects either upon passion or being seduced have so far transgressed Laws that they have forfeited by Law their lives and estates yet in such case are not supream powers rigidly to exact all which the Law gives them but it is equity so to punish the principal Authors and other Subjects that others may be deterred from the like and the generality offending preserved So where the Law commands upon penalty and it becomes impossible for the Subject to perform as it ever was and will be there it is equity to remit the penalty Where therefore the Law obliges a Tenant to pay his Landlord such a Rent yet if by inundation of waters sterility of the season c. it comes to pass that the Tenant by no fault of his either cannot or it will be the ruine of himself and family to pay it there it is equity in the Landlord to remit or moderate what by Law he might justly exact Or secondly a supplement of the Law in cases wherein things in conscience ought to be done yet for want of some formalities or niceties they cannot in strictness of Law be exacted 2. Equity is when with a sincere intention men although it be to How Equity differs from Judgment their prejudice endeavor to please God Judgment a giving sentence according to Laws 3. In Courts of Judicature the Judges proceed according to the declared The necessity of Courts of Equity Laws and ought not in judgment to vary or swerve from them but proceed as they are impowred by Law and their Commission and Laws are made usually ad terrorem rather to affright men then to punish all offenders which Laws were they not moderated it were impossible for all men to subsist under the burden of them nor is there any man but has need of Gods mercy and the Kings Courts of Equity therefore are as necessary
as Judicial The end of the Fourth Book The Contents of the Fifth Book HAving before treated of the Causes of all Regal and Ecclesiastical power and having in the last Chapter of the Third Book treated of the Laws and Civil Government of this Nation being the exercise of Regal power in reference to the publick preservation of Peace and Society in it In this First Chap. we shall treat how far Ecclesiastical power has been exercised in this Nation and by whom Whether originally the Britanick and English-Saxon Churches were free or subject to the Papal power quoad exercitium And whether as well before the Conquest as after the Kings of this Nation were not Nursing Fathers to the Church of Christ And whether always before the Conquest the Royal Government did not extend as well to the Persons as Possessions of Ecclesiastical persons And whether all Bishopricks were not originally of the Kings foundation In the reciting the Ecclesiastical Laws made by the Kings and Queens of this Realm we shall observe three periods viz. The Ecclesiastical Laws made by the Kings of England before the Conquest The Laws made by the Conqueror and subsequent Kings until Henry the Eighth And lastly the Laws made by him and the Kings and Queens after him until the end of King Charls his Reign Note good Reader that in the reciting of these Laws I do not affirm that these Laws made by the Kings of this Realm did never incroach upon that Ghostly power which our Saviour by Divine positive institution left only to his Church and therefore make no construction upon them but only when they are recited and objected as Authorities against that Power My designe is to shew having already demonstrated that by the Law of Nature the persons of all Subjects born in the dominion of rightful Kings are their natural Subjects which is an indelible character and can never be washed out and therefore Subjects being Ecclesiastical persons cannot free them from it And that all priviledges and endowments which Ecclesiastical persons enjoy besides their ghostly power is created by the King That the exercise of the Kings power over the persons and possessions of Ecclesiasticks as also Laws made by them for the order and preservation of the extern peace of the Church is no new thing as hath been by some objected THE FIFTH BOOK CHAP. I. How far the Kings Popes and Bishops of England have exercised their Spiritual Jurisdiction in England before Henry the Eighth IT cannot sure be reasonably denied Apology by any man but that Ignorance is the mother of all Error nor is any man better in any kind whatsoever for being innurtured or ignorant We daily see no where more feuds If learning or knowledge were the cause of dissentions or distractions how then comes it to pass that all dissentions are determined by learned and knowing men or else they would be endless and dissentions then among ignorant and mean men which were there not Laws to decide their difference would be endless and Mankind left in a worse condition then any other creatures Nor is Education and Learning any cause of the dissentions and debates which arise among learned and better educated men but some internal cause proceeding from pride or some other appetitions or affection in them And though Education and Learning does not totally alter mens natures from bad to good yet does it soften mens manners and makes them not to be so bruitish as those who are destitute of Learning and Civil breeding For Didicisse fideliter Artes Emollit mores nec sinit esse feros It is true indeed that in that state in which God hath placed all men here they do not see all things truly but men are and always were and will be subject to humane error and frailty and in many things notwithstanding all the arts and helps which can be devised men will never be reconciled But that men should therefore condemn all Science and Learning is like to a man that if he sees and hears not all things distinctly and clearly although it may be he sees and hears well enough to do things which are necessary for his conservation that therefore he will put out his eyes and have his ears always stopped Nor shall ever ignorance of any mans duty totally excuse him for his not observance of Laws be they Divine or Humane Nor shall the blind belief of Subjects in their Superiors whether Ecclesiastical or Temporal ever totally excuse them from those things which are due and they believe that they owe to God I am not so very a Hobbian as to believe that it is impossible for Supreme powers to command any thing contrary to the Law of Nature nor yet so very a Papalian as to think that the Pope is infallible Especially since it is evident that Aarons joining with the people in their idolatry did not excuse Exod. 32. the Israelites of old nor did the command of both King and Priests ever under the Old Law excuse the subject Israelites from Gods judgments upon them for their idolatry Nor is this very opinion of them in the Church of Rome of the Popes infallibility believed by themselves however urged against others who are not of her communion For then were not only General Councils supervacaneous and useless things but also there could be no difference among them which is superior a Pope or General Council Nor do they less deny it in their practice then their opinion For when Sixtus Quintus had excommunicated 9 Sept. 1585. the King of Navar and Prince of Conde and as he affirmed made them uncapable of succession to the French Monarchy yet were most part of the French troubled at it doubting the Priviledges of the Gallic Church would be trodden under foot which they needed not have doubted or feared if they had believed the Pope to have been infallible and all the Parliament of Paris who were all of the Church of Rome desired the King Henry the Third to have the Bull torne in pieces as you may read Davila 575. And the Parliaments of Chalons and Tours did not only decree the Bull of Gregory 14. to the Prelates and Catholiques of the Kings party under pain of Excommunication of being deprived of their Dignities and Benefices and of being used as Hereticks and Sectaries that within a certain time they should withdraw themselves from those places that yielded obedience to Henry of Bourbon and from the union and fellowship of his Faction to be publikely burnt but it was so far rejected and scorned by the very Prelates and all other Catholiques of the Kings party that it did extreamly confirm them all in the Kings obedience being before unsetled and inclining to the Cardinal of Bourbons faction as you may read more at large in the Twelfth book of Davila's History But it may be they will say That this was not in matter of Faith and that the Popes infallibility is affixed to Faith
this Popes Letter but pleaded the Fundamental Laws and Customs of the Land Consuetudo regni mei est à patre meo instituta ut nullius praeter licentiam Regis appelletur Papae qui consuetudines regni mei tollit potestatem quoque coronam Regis violat It is a Custom of my Kingdom instituted by my Father that no man may appeal to the Pope without the Kings licence He that takes away the Customs of my Kingdom doth violate the Power and Crown of the King And these Laws were no other then the Laws of the Confessor viz. the old Saxon Laws but also in the execution of these things the Bishops of England adhered to the King and Laws and denied their suffrage to their Primate as you may read in the Bishop of Derry's Vindication of the Church of England p. 63 64. 14. After pag. 65. he instances out of Sir Hen Spelman conc an 78. Legations as rare as Appeals before the Conquest that Gregory Bishop of Ostium the Popes Legate did confess that he was the first Roman Priest that was sent into these parts of Britain from the time of Austin and that those Legates were no other then ordinary Messengers or Ambassadors sent from one Neighbour to another Such a thing as Legantine Court or a Nuntio's Court was not known in the British world and long after 15. See Speed in the Life of Stephen para 4. where Stephen having The Pope and all the English Hierarchy conspire with Stephen against Maud the undoubted Heir of Henry the first entred his Government in the year of our Lord 1135. the 2. of December and was crowned at Westminster the 26. of the same moneth being S Stephen's day by William Corbel the Archbishop of Canterbury who with the rest of the Bishops doing him homage and knowing now he would yield to any conditions for performance whereof his brother the Bishop of Winchester did there engage himself for a Pledge they all took their Oath of Allegiance conditionally traiterously I might say to obey him as their King so long as he should preserve their Liberties and the vigor of Discipline And that the Lay-Barons made use also of this policy appeareth by Robert Earl of Gloucester who sware to be true Liegeman to the King as long as the King would preserve to him his dignity and keep all covenants c. And having buried the body of Henry the First he went to Oxford where he acknowledged he attained the Crown by Election only and that the Pope Innocentius confirmed the same 16. The next contest which after Anselm happened between the King The second contest between the King and Pope and from what cause and the Pope was caused by Tho. Becket Archbishop of Canterbury For Stephen the Usurper having made a Law whereby the Temporal Judges might not meddle with Ecclesiastical persons Henry the Second upon many disorders committed by the Clergy did repeal this Law and restored the antient Laws of this Realm commonly called Avitae leges whereby the persons of Priests were not exempted from being judged by the Temporal Judges And though the Archbishop sware to observe the Laws restored by the King yet was he absolved by Pope Alexander 3. Nor could the Archbishop ever after be brought to conform to the Laws called Avitae leges which was the cause of his assassination and of great trouble to the King and Realm And whether this man did deserve to be canonized for his stubborn disobedience to the Laws of his Country which no ways concerned Faith but only Civil and Temporal obedience and those not new neither but a restitution of the antient Laws let any man judge 17. The first occasion of the quarrel between King John and Innocent The quarrel between King John and the Pope the Third was Hubert the Archbishop of Canterbury being dead the Monks of S. Augustine in that City elected without any licence of the King one Rainold and took an oath of him to go to Rome and take his investiture from the Pope The King incensed hereat caused John Gray to be chosen and desired the Pope to ratifie this last choice The Pope notwithstanding confirms the former The King hereupon grows angry and divers of the Monks against their own act refuse to accept him The Pope although Rainold were chosen by the Monks and confirmed by the Pope adviseth the Monks to choose Stephen Langton the Monks do so the King is highly exasperated and forbids all Appeals to Rome and did alleadge that he had Bishops Prelates Nobles and Magistrates of his own who could according to the Laws of the Land decide and determine all Controversies which should arise in Church or Commonweal The Pope insisted upon the election of the Cardinal Stephen Langton was Cardinal of Chirsogone and required the King not only to give him the quiet possession of the See but also to recall all such Monks as were exiled and to restore them to their Goods which were seised on by the King for the last choice and for default to interdict him and the whole Realm The King is so far from obeying that he seised upon the Lands and Goods of those Bishops to whom the Pope had forsooth given the power of Interdiction The Pope constant in his resolutions by Pandulphus and Durant interdicts the King and Kingdom and gives it the French King King John driven into a great strait gives his Crown and Kingdom to the Pope he good man had before given it to the French King Philip the second sirnamed Augustus and his son Lewis had gotten such footing in England that he would not be gotten out The Pope interdicts both father and son but his curses took not such place that they would give over what they had gotten by the first grant nor did these troubles end until the English Nation uniting themselves under Henry 3. did by plain force drive Lewis out of England to such an insufferable height was the Papacy grown in those days 18. Although the stubborn Barons made Henry 3. swear to observe The Bishops in H. 2 his reign conspire against him the Ordinances made in the Mad Parliament at Oxford and the Archbishop of Canterbury and nine other Bishops did denounce a Curse against all those who either by direction arms or otherwise should withstand the Ordinance of the Twelve Peers which gave the exercise of all Regality to them yet did the Pope absolve him from it very easily Addit Matth. Paris 990. 19. How zealous the most noble Prince Edward the first was in the Contests between the Pope and Ed. 2. cause of Christianity and how observant of the Papal power is evident by his victorious Voyage into Holy Land But he afterwards became hated by the Churchmen both in respect of the Statute of Mortmain made in the fourth year of his Reign and also because that by the advice of William Marchyan his chiefest Treasurer he seised into his hands the
Nor was that less abhorrent to me which men in this factious age beg for a Principle viz. That all men by Nature or the Law of Nature are in a like equal condition and that the Laws of Nature are eternal and immutable even by God himself And yet by a continued violence upon these eternal and immutable Laws men should every where in the world live in Society or in the mutual offices of commanding and obeying Yet did not I so confidently resolve these things as to exclude what I could argue against them I therefore did suppose in my self a company of such men as were in a parity of condition yet could I never conceive it possible that ever any Civitas or Supreme power could be derived or created by them For either this Civitas must be superior to the Cives or People that made it or not If it were not superior to it then could it not govern or rule them for dominion is always placed in the superior part If superior to it then was the Creature or Instrument superior to the Cause and Creator which is most absurd Nor was it to me less monstrous to imagine that any thing could give or transfer that to another which it self hath not but this people or multitude who should make this civitas had neither Jus vitae or necis nor Property seperately nor conjunctly they could not therefore endue another with that power which none of them nor all of them together had and without which there can be no supream power which may protect and defend Subjects But I did not insist onely upon this but supposed that the cives could make a civitas which should be superior to them and endew it with a power which none of them nor all of them had yet was I no less perplexed then before who these cives which should make this civil Pact should be and who should be subject to it If onely those be the cives who made this civitas and they onely subject to it then were Women and Children who were none of the cives that made this civitas free and independent from it Nor could all the people or multitude of both Sexes and all Ages in such an imaginary state be the cives which must constitute this civitas by virtue of the civil Pact For many must necessarily be so yong as not being compotes mentium they could have understanding sufficient for the doing such an act And if no Laws oblige Men to their Pacts and Contracts done under such an age then sure it must be unreasonable that Children and Infants should be obliged to their act if they then did it or therefore obliged because others had done it upon whom they had no dependence Well but suppose these men in such a condition to be qualified to do such an act yet did another doubt arise which I could no ways salve viz. Who should define at what age the Men should be who should constitute this civitas Well I went yet further I supposed it granted That it should be agreed at what age Men in such a condition might give up their wills and constitute a civitas yet was it not in reason probable that this civitas should be of one days continuance For being formally constituted of such individual cives it could not be of any longer continuance then the cause Sublata causa tollitur effectus but the next day some of the cives would be probably dead and others grown up to be of age who were none of those individuals which did constitute the civitas Well but I supposed the cives who made Formae rerum sicut numeri consistunt in indivisibili They could not therefore be the cives that did constitute the civitas and by consequence no such could remain as the civitas this civitas to be immortal and no posterity yet could not I in reason expect it to be of any continuance for cujus est velle ejus est nolle and not onely all just and legal actions but all Arts and Sciences may truly and ultimately be resolved into their first Principles without any diminution to them The People therefore constant in nothing but inconstancy could not in reason be expected constant and obedient to their Creature the civitas onely and yet so in nothing else Besides I always did believe and yet do that all Mens Pacts and Wills must be conformable to the Laws of every place and where they are against them then do they oblige no further then to Repentance Much more therefore ought all mens Wills and Pacts to conform and submit to the Laws of Nature and never transgress that and that all Pacts and Acts of mens Wills made against it oblige to nothing but Repentance Nor is there any thing more abominable then to conceive that the Acts of mens Wills should irritate the Law of Nature which they say is immutable by God Hence it is I conceive that Mr. Hobbs will not have all men to be of a like and equal condition lege naturae but jure naturae and therefore most absurdly makes jus naturae to be contrary to lex naturae and yet oftentimes in his Preface and Cap. 8. Art 10. confounds jus with lex and that the Acts of mens Wills to make them in a better estate then God hath made them should be the Law of Nature or of God Whereas on the contrary If no man that ever was born in the World which was not a Posthumus King but was born in subjection not onely to his Parents or as a Servant in a Family but to something superior to these then cannot the will of that man nor all the men in the World alter or make that man in another condition then that whereof neither any act of his will nor the will of any man else was the cause But yet did not I conclude things onely as I was an intellectual or rational Creature but being a Christian I submitted all my Reason and Understanding to the most high Authority of sacred Scripture in those plain places which admit of no Controversie where both in the Old and New Testament the first causes of supream Power are owned to be Gods Ordinance Rom. 13. By God Kings raign and Princes decree Prov. 8. Justice and there can be no power but from above Joh. 19. 11. And all power is in relation to something subject to it But because I would not seem to see only with mine own eyes I desired yet to be better informed of these things and from whom better then Mr. Hobbs and Hugo Grotius Men no doubt of as eminent learning and parts as any this last Age hath produced these Men both derive their civitas from such Principles as is before spoken of viz. From the Pacts and contracts of Men in a parity and equal condition but so far was I from being convinced that if I understand them aright I was amazed to see such inconsistible
expected in this World and if that may then by what means it is to be attained but that I might by degrees accomplish my end I begin with man in his first Cause and being Man then in his first being is to be considered either as created or begotten as created sure no man in his wits will deny but that God was the prime and only efficient cause of his creation who without any ordinary concurrence of naturall causes did so create him and that this was not from a confluence of naturall causes is evident for otherwise it had been a Generation not a Creation and necessarily something must be Created before any thing can be Generated of it Nor is God if a man rightly considers it lesse the prime and efficient cause of man in his Generation then in his Creation for it must needs be evident to every man That male and female are not the first cause of Generation because then they would alike of themselves without the influence of a superiour cause be apted for Generation and so every Creature of it selfe in a like power of Generating one as much as another the contrary of which every one daily sees Nor are all Creatures at all times alike disposed to Generation but apted and disposed thereunto from some exterior cause as we see in Foxes about the Brumall solstice and Ravens in January other creatures generally about the Vernal Equinox and Deere about the Autumnall which without all doubt doth proceed from the influence of the Sun which in those seasons disposes them thereunto but that the Sun is not the prime and efficient cause of Generation is confessed by Aristotle where hee faith * That in omni creature divinum quid reperiri respondens Elemento stellarum Lib. 2. cap. 3. de Gen. Anim. esseque omnipotentis creatoris vicarium It is not therefore the Sun nor male and female which can be the first cause of a man or any other creature but that minde or Soul which governs the innumerable and vast bodies of the Univers and by a perpetuall motion of the Earth from West to East according to the new Hypotheses in Astronomy or of the Sun from East to West after the former Hypotheses through the divers Regions of the Earth doth apt and dispose all things therein to their production and dissolution So that God is the prime efficient cause as wel in the generation as creation of man other creatures the manner only is different God in generation from the confluence of necessary contingent causes doth Generate Man and other creatures and originally did create them without any confluence of causes Nor is God lesse the prime preserver of all Creatures then the first cause of the Creation and Generation of them for not all the sublunary meanes of eating drinking sleeping exercise physick c. can preserve any creature thus Generated or Created but some internall cause whether it be called anima or pars animae or quid animae or aliquid habens animam aut intellectus aut denique numen and this is it in every Creature which doth worke towards its end and orders all these things with unimitable and incomprehensible art and providence alwaies procures what is best as well for its being as well-being as well for defence as ornament Spiritus intus alit totamque infusa per artus Mens agitat molem Virg Aenei And though all these outward things however necessary for the preservation of every Creature are accidentall and may be more or less acquired and communicated by every creature yet this internall cause this numen this Lar familiare or anima which disposes and orders all these outward causes is not to be acquired or communicated by any Creature So that a man must needs confesse That in all Creatures as well as Man there is some particle of divine Aire which doth order and dispose of all sublunary meanes in a wonderfull and diverse manner towards their preservation untill by a propense naturall disposition they all resolve into their first Principles But these outward meanes are acquired and communicated by severall Creatures divers and severall waies Some doe acquire these outward meanes from an innate impulse never with understanding or reason moving them others rarely without their understanding or reason and this latter only is Man Yet how fraile a mans reason and understanding is even to the acquiring of things necessary for his preservation is evidenly seen almost in all men for there is no man in this world who can by his understanding and reason so govern his actions that those things so directed by him have alwaies a like event nay often times the same thing propounded by the same man upon the same grounds and reasons hath so contrary an event that at this time it ruins him which other while was of much advantage to him And this is daily seen among all sorts of men so that it is most manifest that a mans understanding or reason cannot preserve him as he is an intellectuall rationall Creature nor Justice Religion and Piety as a sociable but somthing superior to these What then shall we say to these things Is Religion Justice and Piety and a mans understanding and reason of no account because they cannot procure peace and preservation Nothing lesse for God having first created man and other creatures without the confluence of naturall causes did ever after their first creation cease to make any other but the species of all things have ever since been renewed by Generation but in Generation God doth not renew the species of all creatures from an absolute act of his own but from the coition of male and female disposed thereunto in perfect creatures oftentimes from matter disposed many creatures are aequivocally generated without the coition of male and female which thing is evidently seene from the yeerly renuing of of frogs caterpillars c. The antient Aegyptians from the observation of the very many creatures thus generated in the River Nile did believe that all perfect creatures were originally not from creation but from aequivocal generation Yet though these spurious and imperfect creatures are thus generated yet do they all generate their like Aristotle Hist Anim. only excepts the Eele and I could never yet see either Row or Milt in any of them But though God be the prime efficient cause of the generation all creatures and therefore absolutely necessary to the production of every creature and though the conditions which he hath ordained be absolutely necessary to the generation of every creature yet are not these conditions alwaies performed from any absolute necessity of the part of God but oftentimes from contingent causes and the will of the creature For example it is necessary that the influence of the Sun from matter disposed in standing pools should produce Frogs yet are not alwaies those Pooles necessary to be but are often made and often filled up