such commands as will cut off the chief branches of our quarrels he now by saying Thou shalt not covet kills them in the root For because I cannot commit external upon another but what I had first approved and contrived in my self even so if I had not first by covetous desire invaded my neighbours property in my thoughts I should not have attempted his disseisin by act or force which force will then occasion resistance resistance quarrel and quarrel death And this death being against the whole course and rule of Gods providence Multiply increase and replenish the earth and in the noblest race of his Creatures man we may see plain reason why God should be so careful in giving these and other Rules for our preservation and why to enforce those Rules the better he should be so express and careful of his own honour and service as their ground and foundation Nor doth the Moral Law and Old Testament look this way onely but Gospel-Precepts by comparing those cardinal vertues of Faith Hope and Charity and giving to Charity the precedence as their end do teach us the same thing also For though Faith was enjoyned in the first place it was not for its pre-excellence but because as my belief of Deity or hope of Heaven stands in measure and degree increased or remitted so in proportion my practice in Precepts of Charity will follow Which vertue of Charity being the end thereof and the true substance of al other Graces they without it come to be reckoned but as sounding brass and tinkling Cymballs For as we before shewed that Gods glory is the end of all things and of man more especially so we must according to the precepts and rules of Charity take care of the life and welfare of our neighbor as we tender in any sort the glory and service of God And to the end this peace and safety may be the better acquired submit to the authority of such as have the soveraignty and command over us which shall now be our next discourse CHAP. VIII Of the Master of the Family THe discourses hitherto have been to shew the end of Government which is Peace and the foundation of it unity and subjection and the tye and Authority for both which is Religion For without this how could Nature have set one man above another And if reason grounded on such agreement and consent as before supposed should have done it yet what Obligation for continuance longer then the same reason of respective good that set them up should in the same measure make it reasonable for continuance For the same natural tye of self-seeking that caused men to submit at one time would be as available and just for them to take contrary course at another nor could Contract or Paction be then in force because a stronger Obligation then seeking our own could not be had Therefore untill the fear of an irresistable Power for punishing this breach was added that first conceit of mine own particular benefit which caused me to make my promise would also warrant me if I saw cause to break it Nor can fear of punishment from those to whom I submitted or fear of suffering my self by consequent or example from others prevail otherwise then as in my apprehension over-poyzing that benefit I expect which if yet by force fraud faction or other practice I can secure my self against and avoid the best course for my self is the most justifiable And until a positive Law comes from God to state and make sin sin there cannot be but folly there may be and is if through neglect or weakness I stray from Nature and prefer anothers benefit to mine own by any tye above self-consideration For Man considered in meer Nature must be presumed as inculpable in pursuit of his desires and remove of obstacles as all things else though like them it should extend to the death of the Oponent For that which warrants the end warrants the means and except the difference be made else how be they greater or less they are equally allowable And till Religion be Conscience or fear of guilt cannot be Therefore we may see just cause that God himself should come in with his Commands amongst us and enjoyn us so often to make him our onely fear for Precepts or Religion as they give us great light what to do in policy so are they the onely strong Obligations to make it valid Because from hence it comes to pass that men considered in Nature as self-seekers onely and thereby destructive to one another are now by policy made to do the same still and therewith to promote that good of others also so that whilst it is impossible without Natures subversion but for individuals as such to minde their own benefit onely they have now their hopes and fears arising out of all things to be done or omitted in their power so increased by promises and threats annexed to divine Precepts that the guidance of divine light and not of our own must be the choice of our reasonable Will Therefore if I do injure or do not love my neighbour as my self as God Commands I do thereby not love my self as Nature enjoyns and do in committing sin against Religion commit also folly against Reason by so much injuring my self And so again for keeping Commerce and Society He that sweareth to his neighbour and disappointeth him not though it be to his hinderance shall have the greatest of rewards And so further for honoring and obeying of Parents and Princes how many are the rewards and threats running that way So that should we not by natural Reason be led to see and follow those our benefits arising by obedience to those politick Governments yet out of natural prudence when such large good or evil to fall on our particulars is annexed we cannot without self-prejudice refuse And therefore being now come to set these Monarchies on their true foundations we will speak more particularly of their Powers and Jurisdictions beginning with the Father of the Family who in his less Territory is a little Prince as the other is a Master of a greater Family In the treating of this Oeconomical policy it is not to be expected that I should in this place descend to particulars so far as to set out the respective duties of all the Members of the Family one to another more then I do in Kingdoms but onely to set out the power of the Governor thereof and the grounds of the others obedience and that upon the like grounds of Reason and Scripture as I do in the other So that in the confirmation of the power of this Master whereby Children and Servants were to obey in all things we finde in holy Writ those many Precepts for perfect obedience and that Abraham had it as well in his power as duty to command his children and houshold to keep the way of the Lord and to do judgement and justice
OF GOVERNMENT AND OBEDIENCE As they stand Directed and Determined BY SCRIPTURE AND REASON Four Books BY JOHN HALL Of RICHMOND LONDON Printed By T. Newcomb for J. Kirton A. Roper G. Bedell and G. Sawbridge and are to be sold at their Shops in St. Pauls Church-yard Ludgate-hil and Fleet-street 1654. The Preface TO have undertaken a work of this nature was once as little in my thoughts as the occasion of it the sad distraction of my Nation But as they say of him that was born dumb that he burst into speech against those he saw ready to murther his Father even so the past and feared desolations of my native Country come with such pressing horror upon my soul that neither my general dumbness and insufficiency in all things else nor the particular difficulty of this can keep my natural affection in longer silence that is from endeavouring to warn posterity to avoid the like inconvenience for the future by discovery of both rise and cure of that which is introductive thereof namely disrespect and contempt of the present Soveraign power For they shall finde it plain that from the time that Subjects shall be taught and permitted rudely to press within those secret vails of Authority which their wiser Progenitors had set up for its support and defense that their ignorance not letting them see throughly the cause of these different respects given to Superiors more then others they shall like Cham no sooner see then despise their fathers nakedness And as with them it fareth that through remoteness and want of reading know of their King no otherwise then by report as of someting of Power Riches c. above that which is incident to ordinary men to apprehend him to be some other thing then man also even so when ambitious men finding Authority oppose them have for the peoples engagement laid open to publike view That he is but as other men are and it may be worse too that this power and greatness he hath above the people he had it but from them and for them They then begin to be so much ashamed of their old ignorance and so much taken with this new insinuating lesson that their industry and practise thereupon is not to be wondred at And as themselves are now pleased with these Schollies as matters of high discovery so each one is ready to stretch his fancy therein and in a kinde of pride we all take to seem more wise then ordinary these discourses are told and enlarged to his yet loyal neighbour with no little glory of his new illumination He looks on himself in his past ignorance and on others not yet apprehensive of so much light but as little Children admiring those Babies which themselves had drest up For he comes now to think all those Prerogatives ornaments and Ceremonies given to Majesty nay Majesty it self to be but a sort of Pageantry and shew to please the ignorant sort with And as Bell and the Dragon were sometimes made terrible that as in their names and right others might be the more superstitiously cozened by those that attended them so to no other end as they suppose was all this obedience and expence by some Polititians and Courtiers called for as of duty to this one but that themselves under colour of his name and Authority might make their private uses thereof Whenas by these and the like practises the sinews and foundation of Government and Authority shall be let loose and dissolved and men once precipitated in a course of stubbornness and insubjection all those usual Arguments and Discourses made of that respect which is to Monarchy it self due and how it was not an office and power of yesterdays devising but had the confirmation of Antiquity and Law or the like will all of them prove ineffectual to give a stop to these proceedings Even because most of the writers of this kinde to win readier belief did still argue under the same supposition of derivation of power from the people and so to Princes by Paction by force vvhereof they thought they might defend him and his Authority as in Justice against any violent or injurious attempt whence it proved that want of building on the true and sure ground made their labour unsuccessful and instead of conviction did for the most part but prompt with farther Arguments upon the same foundation to encrease perfect that structure they had already begun And although they again did strengthen their Arguments from the particular Laws and usages of the kingdom it self yet not diving deeper into the ground thereof and shewing that what is there done is but upon the general reason of Government and good of Obedience common to it with all places else the success was little For the people being once confident that power came al from them it must be supposed by them intrusted for their good and that when they saw it otherwise they might reassume it for else say they it was a dry Right without a remedy What if their Progenitors for their folly or cowardise herein had been punished with deserved slavery they would make use of the blessed opportunity to recover their native freedom with the same resolution courage that others had oppressed it before And as for Law the interpretation thereof was not in the King but them as was the Legislative power also That the sin of Rebellion was falsly imputed to them they were the supreme power and above Kings the whole people cannot rebel against the Prince more then the greater against the less In this case since Antiquity cannot be taken upon her bare word but that the reason why it was so formerly done must be also given unto men now there is no remedy but to let them see how that which hath been herein formerly appointed was for and will prove if observed the onely general good by which means people seeing their obedience to be their benefit as well as their duty cannot I conceive but more readily follow it So that now being forced to dig even to the very root of Government which could have no subsistance but by Religion nor that again without a Deity this drew us on in the first place to make some proof and discourse thereof and of that work of Creation to which Providence necessarily succeeding as Gods way of Government in all things besides was needful in some things to be here also treated of not onely as having man himself so considerable a part of it but as partly imitable in the Government of Kingdoms also For as the Laws and Rules of Nature are but for the establishment and security of Creatures in general so those for Peace and Unity in Kingdoms are for men in particular those are to make and keep all Creatures in their species serviceable one to another these to do the like between man and man Then being to consider men as linked in society it was expedient I should first search out what mans natural end
while it was pure For even then by right of Creation Providence and Protection man with other Creatures stood subject and had in the very state of innocence a Law to observe and well had it been for him to have had more regard to this power but now lapsed and depraved as we are our acknowledgement and subjection to this power and soveraignty will agree more both with our benefit and duty then before Nor can we think because our present distempers need or call for this coercive power that therefore we are the radical cause thereof no more then the sick patient can reckon himself the cause of cure or of the Physicians skill Whereupon since power cannot own its original to impotency we must derive it from its onely Author namely God and therefore the judgement which kings give is by God owned as his and he is called Gods Minister If power were from the people Democrity were the best form of government and Monarchy the worst as farthest from its patern and original but on the contrary we finde it on all hands confessed that Monarchy is best as having in it most apparent unity and coming neerest to its paterne and fountain God Almighty Again supposing power at first from the multitude it must be from each person according to that Maxim quisque nascitur liber and then if all be free by birth as each one must or none must how can the children of contractors be bound to the compacts of their fathers more then they were to theirs before or why have they not power of alteration aswel as they for if universal consent makes it it is a thing which never was nor never can be had women children servants and many people more under one arbitrary qualification or other made by such as bare sway being secluded And therefore the persons of Electors decaying and others of equal birth-right daily succeeding if general consent makes governors lawful the question must be daily asked Nay if major Votes of these Electors may in equity pretend to binde the other then no power can be of any continuance without new capitulation because part of the old Major Voters will be still dying and so a number of non-consenters now succeeding they must be still asking consent anew or else it may be doubted that these new ones added to the old minor vote of non-consenters may make the major number and so make it to be no lawful government And so farther by this maxime how can conquest or succession have any right which it hath by confession of all Again since rebellion is a resistance made by a less rightful power against a more for so disobedience and stuborness comes to be called Rebellion against God why should we not call Kings rebels to the people if his power be from them aswel as call them rebels to him acknowledging hereby all power of right in him We may further finde that God to express his own propriety in conferring the power of kingship taketh often to him the title of King as of the supream and high power amongst men and never of any Aristocratick or Democratick compellation sometimes putting it before and above his own name of power as if it were most highly emphatick to express the original thereof as when farther to set forth himself as a great God he adds and a great King above all Gods importing that as he had made them Elohims to men so would he still keep his own paramont right in being a Melech over them And so Moses for a greater honor and grace is called King as inferring none but such to have indubitable power to make Laws for it is said that Moses commanded in a Law even the inheritance of the congregation of Jacob and he was King in Jesurun when the people and tribes were gathered together that is he had power before and not from their assemblies And so againe God for the farther enabling and honoring of Kings usually gives unto them of his own titles of kingdome power might majesty honor c. which he doth not to any but these his own Lieutenants whom in the Psalms he most particularly owns as his second self and under the appellation of Gods there given them shews that their power must be acknowlegded from him onely I have said ye are Gods and all of you children of the most high And as this his so saying confers on them the stampe of his power so keeps he to himself the sole prerogative of being God of Gods and great King above all Gods for he judgeth among the Gods to see if they deliver the poor and needy rid them out of the hand of the oppressor And these texts of the 82 Psalm are by our Saviour thought so clear for proof not onely of Kings derived power from God but also of their neer representation of other his honorable attributes that he makes it the only Scripture argument to prove the assumption of Divinity to himself warrantable if he called them Gods unto whom the word of God came and the Scripture cannot be broken how say ye of him whom the Father hath sanctified and sent into the world thou blasphemest because I said I am the Son of God Wherein he proves that since Kings being but adopted children of the most High ought to be acknowledged Gods how much more he that being expresly by the Father sanctified and sent into the world might truely assume and say I am the Son of God and that he was eminently above others this natural Son of God he there attests his works which although the stronger proof abolisheth not the strength of the proof of the Kings power namely the word of God the Scripture that cannot be broken And for that exception of Kings unlikeness to God in regard of immortality But ye shall die like men and fall like one of the princes it makes their resemblance of God in power c. while they live yet more clear as being thence to be concluded as far above the ordinary sort of men and Magistrates also in their life time as now in death like unto them And by that differencing those there called Gods from an inferior ranke of Princes it must signifie that supream office of kingship onely because on earth Princes are under none else And therefore is Monarchical government there acknowledged the foundation of the earth for complaining of their present injustice it is said all the foundations of the earth are out of course Nay so far are people or subjects from having any authority to confer these high places or of having from God any rightful power over one another that they have it not wholly over themselves so that no man can kill or destroy himself but he is so far-forth culpable as a transgressor of the Laws of God and nature For as the measure of our good abearing to others is from presumption of our good inclinations to our selves
that there is not now any special Ordinances sent from Heaven by the Ministery of Angels or Prophets as amongst the Jews sometimes it was yet can we not hence infer that their power can now arise from nothing else amongst Christians but the pactions and agreements of such and such politick Corporations unless they will also say that nothing is to be acknowledged as from God but where himself or his express Messenger is seen But they should observe the difference of Gods pleasure in the degrees of his manifestations to us under the Gospel over it was to them of former times and how that since God was manifest in the flesh those former and more express extraordinary ways for setting up of Kings have ceased amongst other things For God who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in times past unto the Fathers by the Prophets hath in these last days spoken unto us by his son whom he hath appointed heir of all things by whom as God made the world so doth he now uphold all things by the word of his power A great part of which power is that power of Kingship whereby as God hath committed all power to the son so Christ again being ascended on high amongst other gifts he gave unto men this of power of Government was one And in Christs hand it shall alone continue till the end of the world at which time the son also himself shall be subject unto him that put all things under him that God might be all in all that is may personally and immediately again govern that new Heaven and new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness whereas the iniquities and violence of men in this world had by degrees caused him to make this his recess from appearing in their government himself as we shall in brief declare In the first age God appears as in person and speaks by lively voice in the emergencies of mans directions for so appears he to Adam in his instructions and although he hide himself for fear of guilt yet his acknowledging to have heard his voice in the Garden shews plainly he was used thereunto And that this appearance was not streightned to Paradise or good men alone may appear by Gods Colloquy with Cain who was not at all we see feared or startled at any unexpected strangeness but answers very familiarly Am I my brothers keeper But at such time as all flesh had corrupted their way and that God saw the immaginations of mans heart was evil and that continually he resolved his Spirit should no more strive with man that is he would not so immediately undertake his government here whereby to be provoked to any other repenting that he made man a Creature so polluted that he must be washed by a flood After the flood God begins to give standing directions for mans guidance and submits the execution of them to man also God will not longer immediately reprove and punish as in the case of Abel but whosoever sheddeth mans blood by man shall his blood be shed Which Precept as we may not as before noted conceive given that murther should be punished with murther by leaving every person power to kill in revenge as he saw cause so we may farther gather what was the Officer designed hereunto by that blessing which God gave unto Abraham the person he next appeared unto when he said I will make Nations of thee and Kings shall come out of thee After this promise we shall finde that Gods next appearance to Abraham is by Angels not by himself as formerly to him and others he may be noted to have onely done and in this way of manifestation he ordinarily continued till Moses after whom another sort of messengers succeeded of a lower allay namely Prophets The which as they served to give divine direction in that particular kingdom of the Jews during its time of Theocrity so did they cease at the coming of our Saviour and calling of the Gentiles for they prophesied but till John who may be said to conclude these appearances for direction in our Government which should come from that person of the God-head that made the world and to foreshew all power to be managed by that person that redeemed it that is by Christ by whose Authority and Precepts we were to be outwardly governed as well as to be inwardly guided by those of the Holy Ghost of which more in the Discourse of Religion as also of the surcease of miraculous appearances Christ being thus become King of Kings we are not to expect him expresly putting in these his several Deputies no more then while he is doing any thing else It is enough that he hath left us his own and his Apostles many Precepts for obedience unto them which surely he would never have done if such an office were not to have still continued It is enough we have Moses and the Prophets setting forth this succession of kingship as Gods Vicegerents if through stubbornness We will not believe them neither will we believe though one should rise from the dead Therefore as Christ was to succeed his Father in his Regency of men here below so doth he not alter the way and form of administration thereof by Kings formerly used nor yet the substance and general scope of those former Precepts by God given to that purpose but leaving the one as well as the other to stand in force by his not repealing them he may then be supposed also to have made his recess from personal administration for our good upon the same ground that God himself did before to wit that those frequent repetitions of impiety oppression and other sins which we hourly commit might not be continually provoking divine Justice to our destruction For so we finde God saying to the Israelites Exod. 33 3. I will not go up in the midst of thee for thou art a stiff-necked people lest I consume thee in the way And as this was by God spoken after the promulgation of the Law and just upon his promise of sending an Angel or chief governor like Joshua before them as is set down in the verse before so may we finde Christ also after he had for the space of forty days spoken of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God and that to the Apostles his then supreme Deputies to make his recess likewise from immediate administration in the things of this world reteining to himself still his high prerogative of King of Kings his actual Session at the right hand of God far above all principalities and powers And so far should this delegation be from lessening Gods or Christs just power in our esteem as it will upon due consideration increase it for omnipotency should not be omnipotency if potency of any kind were excluded And therefore as in the general course of Providence his Almightiness is the more apparent by enabling second causes and weak instruments to produce and
submission to authority they are to submit themselves to every ordinance of man for the Lords sake or as they render Gods glory or their own good And then least any factious pretence should alienate their duties in the true object of their allegeance it is appointed unto Kings as supreme and unto other governors as to such as are sent of him for such was the will of God and their well doing that hereby they should put to silence the ignorance and foolishness of men even of such men as not knowing that the foundation of Society was laid upon the united and irresistable authority of the person had under pretence of liberty vented their maliciousness and countenanced rebellion in favouring some subordinate authority against the supreme And then lastly least any should object that because as aforesaid these governors were but for the punishment of evildoers and praise of them that do well therefore if they should do the contrary as their Commission or authority would fail so their obedience to him might faile also We shall farther finde him giving precepts of suffering patiently though they knew it wrongfully And this he confirms by the example of our Saviour himself who as he vvas infinitely more innocent so vvas his usage more hard and unjust and thaâ— many times from under Kings that had neither natural nor rightful authority over him As for one instance in the case of paying tribute for although as appears by Peters ansvver it vvas but vvhat he had used to do he makes an expostulation purposly to cleer all doubt that might be made Of whom said he do the Kings of the earth take custome or tribute of their own children or of strangers Peter saith unto him of strangers Jesus saith unto him then are the children free notwithstanding least we should offend tâ—em go thou to the sea and cast an hook and take up the fish that cometh first and when thou hast opened his mouth thou shalt finde a piece of money that take and give unto them for me and thee So that you see rather then he vvill offend them that is resist authority and give occasion to rebellion by standing out and refusing as he proved he might have done in this illegal command he vvorks a miracle to perform it and doth it for Peter also of vvhom it vvas not demanded Nor vvas this done out of fear as vvanting povver to resist if resistance had been lavvful For he was able to have commanded more then twelve Legions of Angels a povver sufficient to have mastered any oppossion But he like a Prince of peace left us this example not to promote rebellion against the supreme authority but to commit all to him that judgeth righteously even to God to vvhom alone Kings are accountable and therefore to him alone vengeance in that kinde especially doth belong For as God vvas the alone author of their povver and Office so vvill he be the onely judge of their defaults therein according to that of David against thee onely have I sinned as if lying vvith another mans vvife vvere no wrong or trespass to her husband vvhich that it vvas so is cleerly evinced in that parable made by Nathan of the taking of the Evv-lamb and in Davids answer acknowledging it an offence and making a censure thereupon namely The man that hath done this shall surely dye and make restitution But although David had power thus to punish any of his subjects as having from God rightful jurisdiction over them yet when he understands himself to be the man he concludes none on earth above him but that he is subject to God onely in the said words Against thee only have I sinned Marke also the use of this kingly power in enforcing or abateing the rigor of the law For restitution was by Gods law onely set down as a punishment of theft which was the onely fault and not adultery which appeared in the parable of the Lamb but he for the punishment of a fault so aggravated by circumstances though fit to have death added and should no doubt have been therein by his subjects obeyed without imputation of guilt for using arbitrary power no more then when he took the shewbread altered the courses of the Priests erected new Offices amongst them brought in Musick and other Ceremonies into the Temple without particular direction from God or Moses law and when he commanded the numbering of the people as beforesaid and again made that law for the shares of such as stayed with the stuff both of them not onely without but against his present peoples liking To conclude therefore Soveraignty is the supreme judge and disposer of Publike interest where by â—ublike is meant whatever may be of general concern between that Kingdom and another or of mutual concern to others in the same kingdom although the same be kept as a propriety in private hands The particulars of this authority we will briefly here set down The chief is that so largely heretofore spoken of namely the sword of Justice or the last appeal aswel in Religious as Civil Causes and is inseparable and incommunicable The next is the power of making and interpreting of laws The next is to lay taxes and grant privilidges and exemptions and therefore had David and Solomon both their tribute Masters and so Saul also out of his known prerogative promised to them that should slay Goliah to make his fathers house free in Israel which power to free must suppose a power to impose The next is to make Magistrates and state officers for he having delegation from God and being the common Fountain and Center of power their power must be but derivative and part of his The next is to make peace and war all of them comprehended under those general terms of submission mentioned in the Jews first election of their Kings namely to judge them and fight their battailes And as for the other more separable and communicable markes of receiving homage coynage and valuing the mony weights and measures to grant Letters of Mart to have Crown and Scepter to have titles additions and donations of honor as they may be sometimes but complemental so may they be comprehended under some of the more general and express markes before spoken for if he have the last appeal and be in all causes and over all persons and estates in his dominions supream head and governor it will follow that he is so also in these Although in the passed Treatise the name of King be only commonly used yet what is spoken of him is to be applied unto Monarchy in general under what other title of Emperor Prince Duke Lord c. so they be free and holding of God onely For unto the Monarch in right of his Office and not to the name is the Power and Soveraignty due even as the head of the family is in relation to his wife called husband to his children
God for had it been true that a man might have served more then one Master his Argument had been nothing And why he puts it in the notion of Master and not of Prince may be for that the Jews had not any Prince of their own at that time nor was there any Polarchy elsewhere to make instance in so as his Auditors might conceive how inconsistent plurality of Commanders is with that singleness which belongs to the duty of obedience And therefore although he instance in a Family because to them best known yet it proportionably holds in all Governments namely that intireness of obedience can onely be from entireness of command For else I see not but a man may as well serve two or more Partners in a Family as he may do Partners in a Commonwealth But although our Saviour seem not to point against Polarchy expresly herein yet St. James that knew well his minde and perceived the mystery of Antichristianism already working doth it plainly saying My Brethren be not many Masters knowing that we shall receive the greater condemnation Surely he meant not by this word many to forbid any man to be Master of his own Servants or Family to which end as he did allow more Families then one so must he allow several Masters to them Nor could he be supposed generally to reprove Pride or any other Vice as barely Vices First for that he and others used to name such crimes more plainly that all might know them and next for that such like Vices being not allowable in any man at all it had been more fit to have said be not any then be not many And therefore I conceive the Master here meant is that one publike supreme Commander which is set over us into which rank he forbids any more then one to enter when he saith be not many And that his meaning was of these supreme Masters will farther appear by the consequential guilt likely to follow in the great account of these publike Stewards although rightfully undertaken for in many things we offend all that is we have so many offences to answer for in our seperate and private callings already in relation to things submitted to our own guidance that we need not increase them by increase of our charge and trust But if any there be that do yet doubt that these last alleadged Texts prohibiting parity in command do reach to Political or State Governors because set down many Masters onely or that the former alleadged woe of Solomon set down to attend the disability of the King were not applyable to that disability which his subjects stubbornness did cause as well as to that which his natural incapacity did produce let them here this wise man once again most plainly pronouncing them both My son fear thou the Lord and the King and meddle not with them that are given to change For their calamity shall rise suddenly and who knoweth the ruine of them both The first verse expresly points out the onely Officer and person who next unto God we are to make the object of our highest obedience and fear and the other plainly sets forth the woe and ruine following both to the seditious and seduced They that would interpret the prohibition against sedition and change here set down as also the fore-recited punishment of many Princes for the wickedness of a Land not to import the admission of Polarchy in the place of Monarchy but the change of Princes one after another do then thereupon confess that all Lands and People that practise such seditious courses are wicked inasmuch as fear and obedience to an evil King might else have been excepted and subjects themselves allowed to change him for a man of understanding without consideration that they were blessings or punishments sent and set over us by God onely If it had been said For the wickedness of a Land many are the evil Princes thereof or my son fear the present good King and meddle not with them that would change him for another then we might well indeed have thought the words many and change to import succession But then why should not many Princes or men of understanding ruling successively or at once be set down as a blessing and preservative to a state as well as one For if understanding make the blessing as in it self there will as before noted be more in this many then in one And lastly what evasion will they finde against the prohibition of many masters What must it intend suddain succession too and so tolerate many at once to be in equal command either in the Family or elsewhere in such sort as we might serve God and Mammon both at once but not presently one after another so as to change Mammon to serve God No certainly the word many can admit of no such wresting especially being put in the present Tense by are it must plainly denote them to be such as are to be at the same time and all at once and not such as shall or have been successively raigning and so may come to be called many in respect of those many ages and times wherein they reigned For if so how shall we do to state and compute any Lands Malediction for want of a determinate present time wherein these many Princes might be said to raign more then then at another time For if succession be unhappiness then are all Lands so It is not therefore to be doubted but that Solomon intended Polarchy by many as the plainest expression he could give thereof having not learnt his wisdom from their Schools where the notions of Aristocracies and Democracies were invented Or if the word many should be thought importing that condition of any people wherein many competitors are at once striving for the Regality so as to introduce Civil War then is the malediction confessed to be want of Monarchy For although it be the height of Polarchical mischief to be in actual Civil War and in open Arms yet it takes not off the cause thereof from being malediction too which is that faction and siding which must always be where many Governors are at once But if any there be who from Gods permission of these Governments to be in the world do therefore think them lawful and so are slow to interpret any place of Scripture to make against them there is no better way to discover their partiality to these forms above Monarchy then by supposing the one to be put in the others stead and so to think with themselves if it had been said For the wickedness of a Land one is the Prince thereof but by many men of understanding the state thereof is preserved and so also My son fear God and this or that sort of Polarchy c. whither they would not thereupon have more readily concluded against Monarchy then now against Polarchy And hence as our Preface noted we may observe that there is not in Scripture to be found the mention of any
is the right and Justice of Dominion between two contending Princes to depend as to manifestation thereof to subjects on the determination of the Lord of hosts manifested by victory The which undoubtedly in order to humane preservation and establishment of the peace of kingdoms may satisfie the Consciences of Subjects so far as to claim a just right to their submission and obedience however the Conquerer himself cannot farther expect peace in his own Conscience nor a blessing to himself or posterity from God then as he hath been just and Consciencious in his Claim and Conquest It faring in this case with subjects in general towards their Prince as with the Tenants of any particular Landlord For as these are to pay their Rents and Acknowledgements to him that by the present Judiciary power is put into possession without being bound to examine whether he be a deseisor or not or did by bribery or other fraud thrust out the former owner even so subjects being to pay their Obedience and Acknowledgements to their Prince as Gods Minister must likewise acknowledge him for such whom they finde by the usual way of Providence put into possession And further also as the Tenant hath no avoidance against encrease of Rent or Service at the Will of his present Lord but by leaving his Land and quitting his Tenancy even so is each subject lyable to such encrease of Taxes and personal duties as his present Prince shall impose whilst he is remaining within his Territories and Protection And as natural Reason will thus finde cause to submit to Gods rule of Providence now used for the establishment of the person of the conquering King so will the same reason lead them to suffer it to descend to his heir left they should again subject themselves to new Civil wars which is ever incident to Elective Monarchies And therefore this ought to be avoided by the observation of the Law of Primogeniture in these Offices now succeeding in paternal right of power upon the same consideration that this fixed Law of birth-right was instituted namely to avoid the like diffention and quarrel in succession to the heirship of the Family while this power was formerly seated in the natural Father thereof Nay this right of inheritance not onely follows in Reason but as graffed also and comprised in the right of meer natural possession For as the elder brother as aforesaid was to be presumed most natural heir to the Fathers Dominion in regard of his more probable degree of strength so also it is to be presumed that as being born he will have advantage of the natural way of right which is first seisure Upon which score if there were no Precepts for hereditary Monarchy natural Right as well as Reason would settle it in the possessors issue and particularly on the elder brother as heir to his Fathers acquisitions The which rule we shall finde approved by Saint Paul and upon the like words as God gave Cain the power of Eldership he confirms this right to the man over the woman saying Adam was first formed and then Eve Upon which grounds the lawfulness to Elect Monarchs or institute Poliarchies will be taken away inasmuch as the Office and Possession of Kingship in right of the Father and elder Brother having first Seisure before any other it must follow that none can have just right but God against him or his heir And if the beginnings and first rises of Kings be examined towards the proof of settlement by Conquest they will come so far short of deriving themselves from Adam in a natural line as it will appear how their Ancestors from a small stock have by success and encrease of force risen to that present height And even by this scale of Providence did David himself climbe although God had determined him the kingdom That is first by some magnanimous act to gain reputation and thereby some few friends and followers to assist upon occasion with these to encrease by degrees till he become so formidable that people had rather submit to his Government then adventure their lives in opposition In which case their power of Election is not so large as to choose him or not or him or another but whether they will take him on such terms as he proposeth or put lives liberties and all to the hazard of war In which condition since fear was their guide how are people more free before Election then afterwards when Princes for fear of punishment are obeyed in then Governments and commands And why should not fear be a wiser Passion then love For they that are governed in their choice by love consult not of dangers or inconveniences that may happen for this fear is against the nature of love and therfore the loved hath always power over the loving and not on the contrary And none do so usually curb the people as those that through flattery of the noise of liberty have gotten to be their darlings and so come to have sole trust and power at which time discretion bids him hold the streight reins of power upon their wavering affections lest by another using his policy he should be again supplanted When as all Princes entrances which are made through fear are made with as great deliberation and policy as may be at least with as much as the adverse Faction hath present power to use And it is probable that he that findes himself afterwards thus streightned through the peoples fearing him in his entrance will as in order to his own honor and release of fear seek as far as he may to gain their love And the truth is Princes cannot well rule without both the great difficulty resting when to use one when another And if any Prince should be by people elected into a Government hereditary out of particular love and affection to his person yet since his person and those Electors could not always have it alike or were sure at least to have sufficient degree of power and respect there might be occasion for him but much more for his successor to have power and force in readiness to make use of if reason should offer For as there might be reasons of mutual trust between the first Prince and people so of distrust in the other because nothing is more giddy or uncertain then popular liking So that although the present Prince his vertues were equal or alike to the others at first setled by them yet they being not the same people or having changed their mindes it is not reason he should be so much their enemy as not by force to keep them from forcible alteration and injuring themselves by Civil war And as for such Princes as come in by Conquest I see not why force in the continuance should not be as lawful as in acquisition more necessary to him I am sure it is at least to have it in readiness And this not onely in respect of custody answerable to that common rational maxim that
because it is the onely foundation for other foundation then this can no man lay and this foundation every man must lay or else all the faith and obedience to be framed thereupon will come to nothing For although their be other articles as depending on this and incident to our Christian profession which ought to be believed also even as all things by God proposed as truths are yet to add them as of themselves necessary to salvation it is to Christ and Christian faith as high derogation as to add circumcision or other observations as necessary to salvation in our Christian obedience And as for our obedience outward we are freed from those many rites ceremonies and observations of the Jewes which God in particular favour of the Jewish Nation had appointed most of them being but shadows of Christ himself and of that great and plain way which by the Gospel should be revealed Nay the very judicial part though instituted by God himself for that government bindes us not as positive laws but as useful presidents upon like occasion that is to say where their and our causes were alike which is not binding as such or such laws formerly made and authorised by God but as parts of the general law of reason For as unto them God was immediate lawgiver and being given before Kings was both God and King so was the litteral observation of them in both respects necessary that is as religious and as civil duties also For both were the same to them because God at that time undertaking the managery of the Civil as well as Ecclesiastical Estate made both one then no otherwise then his remitting both to the Prince makes both of one sort now that is under the same chief relation to duty and obedience namely that of conscience But because of Gods express undertaking herein to them it was do this and live but unto us for whom those directions were not particularly made by the deeds of the law shall no flesh be justified As Gods rule to them was outward and litteral so were his promises and threats for performance temporal and respecting this life onely Wherein they failed as needs they must their failing was expiated by sacrifice pointing at a Saviour to come to fulfill these things for them but Christ being now come and having fulfilled all righteousness the observation of the letter is released as to direct divine authority and we Christians standing bound but to the general precept of love and charity are referred for our particular managery and guidance therein to the higher powers whom we are to obey not onely for wrath but also for conscience sake not onely for fear of that present temporal punishment they may infflict as meer men in authority but out of conscience also of preservation of our owne innocence in preservation of our obedience to God in them All which in the Epistle to the Hebrews is plainly signified where God is brought in speaking of the difference of the Jewish and Christian Covenant and obedience according to the many Prophesies to that purpose and saying Not according to the Covenant that I made with their Fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt that is not like as it was whilst I gave them particular precepts for all their outward duties and did lead them in all their affairs my self as if I should have taken them by the hand But this course God now changeth because they continued not in my Covenant and I regarded them not saith the Lord that is because I found humane frailty so great that these litterall commands could not be kept therefore now I will put my laws into their minde and write them in their hearts and I will be to them a God and they shall be to me a people And they shall not teach every man his Neighbour and every man his brother saying know the Lord for all shall know me even from the least to the greatest that is by the love of God shed abroad in our hearts all shall be taught of God and by his Spirit led into all fundamental and saving truth so that by being all taught of God to love one another which is the life and soul of the moral law they shal by keeping that one precept of love keep the whole law But for our direction outward therein we are not come unto a mount that might not be touched and that burned with fire nor unto blackness and darkness and tempests that is to hear them from such a mountain which was made inaccessible through these terrible apparitions that accompanied Gods presence thereon and the sound of a Trumpet and the voice of words which voice they that heard entreated that the word should not be spoken to them any more for they could not endure that which was commanded That is neither are we now to be terrified as by hearing God speaking with his owne voice to our outward ears but we for our outward direction are come unto mount Sion and unto the City of the living God the Heavenly Jurusalem and to an innumerable company of Angels that is to the present Church militant and to such as do therein instruct us as Gods Messengers by their Angelical doctrine And to the general assembly and Church of the first born which are written in Heaven and to God the judge of all and to the spirits of just men made perfect that is unto the Catholick doctrine of the Church assisted by God the judge of all and attested by those many Martyrs which like their Captain are made perfeâ—t by suffering And then that both these may be made beneficial to us and to our salvation we are come to Jesus the Mediator of the New Covenant and to the blood of sprinkling that speaketh better things then the blood of Abel And these Gospel duties of love and obedience we shall find to be the verry errand also of him that was to conclude the Law and the Prophets and to be Christs forerunner as it is most fully though mystically expressed by the Prophet Malachy and also by Saint Luke in their descriptions of Iohn the Baptist his office and message The first of these duties is couched in these words He shall turn the hearts of the Father to the Children that is he shall prepare them to entertain the loving of one another in as high degree as the Father doth his Child And then secondly for performance of the duty of obedience whereby to make this love to be advantagious it is added by Malachy and the heart of the children to their Fathers the which Saint Luke expounding to mean the disobedient to the wisdome of the just doth plainly shew that the preparation of the Gospel of peace and the way to make ready a people prepared for the Lord was by bringing them into such a state of
words as himself findes most warrantable and behoofeful yet must it be acknowledged reasonable that all those publike forms of Worship and Praise whose practise is necessary for constituting each place an unite and distinct Christian Church or Assembly should be at the dispose and appointment of that publike person onely who under Christ is the supreme and entire head and Representativâ— thereof Even out of necessary consideration of keeping up conformity therein and by that means keeping Gods publike Worship in existence which else by mens differing practises in opposition to one another would come to be defeated and lost no otherwise then would our practises in the Precepts of Charity if not by uniform obedience directed For these things have a natural and necessary coherence the Unity of the end requires Coition and Unity in the means and that again requires uniformity in the directions themselves as well as Unity in the person directing all of them to be made useful by the Grace of Obedience before noted But because much dissention hath hitherto arisen about that Officer or person we are to give the obedience unto in regard of the different names of power in Scripture used We will speak something farther here of that Coition or succession of this supreme Officer now under the Gospel This we shall finde briefly done by Christ himself when he is impowring these several little ones Where he begins with those that should first represent him namely such as should presently succeed as his own Desciples and followers he that receiveth you receiveth me c. Under which no doubt the first Apostles were to be comprized who in regard of their mean worldly condition might sometimes be objects of Charity also even to the receiving a cup of cold water The next object of our obedience is set down under the notion of Prophet he that receiveth a Prophet in the name of a Prophet shall receive a Prophets reward Under this notion we may comprehend Episcopal or Patriarchical power succeeding which had power of instruction but little of jurisdiction the which was reserved for the last more glorious Officer the just man or righteous man And he that receiveth a righteous man in the name of a righteous man shall receive a righteous mans reward That is shall be made capable of justice or justification by means of his obedience to this chief representer of Christs Authority who is thereupon called a just or righteous man this appellation of righteous man being equivalent with that of Ruler in chief as divers places of the Old-Testament do also Warrant In which the attribute could not be formally due to him whose words were perverted by gifts Whenas by reason of the place they execute they ought always to be respected as righteous by those under them And therefore unto him as the person of jurisdiction and power shall those other Offices of Prophesie or Instruction be annexed and made subserviâ—nt no otherwise then in the Jewish Church it at first was unto Moses their first King For so we shall finde it plainly delivered concerning Aaron and him Thou shalt speak unto him meaning Moses to Aaron and put words in his mouth and I will be with thy mouth and with his mouth and will teach you what ye shall do Which is the same with being a spirit of judgement or Mishpat and of being in the mouth of their seed and seeds seed for ever before spoken of And then follows the subordination of the Prophets and he shall be thy spokesman or Angel unto the people and he shall be even he shall be to thee instead of a mouth and thou shalt be to him as a God And in the first verse of the seventh Chapter he is expresly called Moses Prophet Aaron thy brother shall be thy Prophet or Angel The which doth plainly foreshew the Coincidence of Christian Authority under each Christian King and Monarch to make useful the coition of the means before spoken of For he as the last most glorious deputed Minister to Christ amongst us is to claim our obedience in his name in all things done towards the stating of Charity and as Steward in the mysteries of God is to be obeyed in all our outward religious deportments Nay that very Argument of mysteriousness and profoundness in matters of divine truth and worship which some would urge in bar to the Kings intermedling in causes of Religion as the true Steward of the mysteries of God is by the wisest King and Preacher made to be the proper glory and part of his Office saying It is the glory of God to conceal a thing but the honor of Kings is to search out a matter In which words Kings being set in the plural number makes it appear that this of liberty searching into the mysteries of God was not reserved to Solomon onely but was belonging to each King as Gods Vicegerent on earth Nor was it so set down as to denote that every individual King could personally attain to such ability but to shew that each King being Gods chief Steward that therefore those things which by means of his Seers and Prophets under him were performed should be accompted to the honor of the King as being done by him because of their subordination to his supreme Authority therein And those persons that are most subject to inveigh against publike forms as Will-worship Superstition and Scandal are themselves the onely men that are truly guilty of Will-worship and Scandal by relying on their own private Wills and Judgements and preferring their own devises and forms to the practises of all others whereby to introduce general offence and scandal And so again when they refuse to joyn with others in their publike services out of the fear of superstition in giving too much and do choose to proceed in contrary or negative performances this as being induced and carryed on by superstitious and ungrounded fear to displease offends in the worse extream and turns to be true Superstition indeed And I verily believe that men are generally more superstitious in avoidance of Ceremonies then they are in observing them for this is Superstition upon Superstition For the truth is if publike reason and appointment be excluded in appointing forms of Gods Service and Worship then since himself hath appointed no form to us Christians as such he can now have no right external Worship given to him at all which doubtless for honor sake is eternally due to him as God and by way of gratitude to be returned from us But although he knew it to be a thing necessary to be done yet knowing also that we now have Moses and the Prophets as useful presidents for general directions in what we are to do that is since we have all that light which was formerly given to any people if these and those many general Precepts since given cannot be sufficient together without great helps of natural learning and reason
administration of power there also is unity of Doctrine lost and schism is also brought into the Church as well as confusion into the State The which needs the less to be wondered at in us on whom the ends of the earth are come if we consider what befel the Jews themselves when there was no King in Israel For although they had the oracles of God committed unto them that is they had not only more aboundance of divine precepts but had God himself also by his Priests and Prophets always ready to give them express direction in all doubts as from an oracle yet how plainly doth the instance of Micahs Idols tells us how subject each one is at such times to fraim to themselves not only new forms of Worship but new gods of their own devising and setting up Which by little and little may come to be taken up and countenanced by their divided authority as that was by the Danites who had many equal to and under them to be seduced by an evil example but none above them to keep them and all others conformable All which well considered may instruct us of the reason of our Saviours dark answer to such as had no minde to believe him therein when he saith My kingdom is not of this world This was true first in that this worlds kingdom being not to be compared to his Kingdom in heaven with his Father did not therefore deserve comparatively to be called his or had in that esteem which they that made this question did think of And then we must understand this denial not to reach to his right of Kingship or Super-eminence in the Church and Kingdoms of this world but to the present execution thereof by himself that probably being the very cause of Pilates demand Unto whom he having been by some reported as King of the Jews and he beholding his present mean condition so unlike that of a King it made him scornfully ask Art thou a King then aswel as afterwards scornfully write that he was so And therefore our Saviours answer can import no farther abnegation of his Kingship amongst us then to his own personal execution meaning not to be by him immediately managed here now but by Deputies whom he shall own and empower as King of Kings Whereupon he also saith The Father judgeth no man but hath committed all judgement to the Son And he is so far from renouncing his true being a King and title hereto that he says I am a King and that the testification of this truth meaning his right in this Office was the cause of his coming into the world adding that every one that is of the truth heareth his voyce that is he believeth and obeyeth him accordingly So that we are to interpret this denial of our Saviours Kingship to be upon the same reason at this time done as he had formerly charged his Disciples that they should tell no man that he was Jesus the Christ. For although he had wrought all those miracles to evince so much yet would he have them carefull not to cast pearls before swine that is he would have them to be wary in declaring his Divinity before unbelieving Jews as himself was now reserved in publishing his Kingship before a scornful Roman lest he being so straitly bound to another Master might be but the more moved thereupon to turn upon him with reproach And therefore they that think that Christ did deny his true Kingly Right and Office by that answer Thou sayest it may also by the same rule say that at the same time he did also deny himself to be Christ the Son of the living God because he also answereth to that question made by the high Priest Thou hast said it But in this place being newly spoken before the other he may be conceived to have made answer enough for both and so to adjoyn that time of fuller manifestation of his external regency and glory which was the occasion of their demand namely at that time when he as Son of man shall be sitting at the right hand of the power of God By which means his Deputies shall be endued with power of earthly dominion and at that time also when he shall make his own personal appearance in the clouds of Heaven to judge all men at the last day And that he had openly acknowledged this truth himself before appears by that request made to Pilate Write not the King of the Jews but that he said I am king of the Jews So that now unto the deniers or opposers of this truth of his Kingship by obejection of any other truth we may make demand with Pilate What is truth Unto which I suppose they can make no answer but by proposing to us some wilde fancies and collections of their own For whilst they would make the known duty of Charity producing real good by peace be interrupted by some of their speculative duties which cause division and all under pretence of preferring truth to peace they would have us leave that good which evidence of sense and experience tells us to be so in hope to enjoy some contemplative good by them called truth which we cannot apprehend But we conceive that when Christ the Way the Truth and the Life is once on our parts entertained and believed when we have once sought and attained the kingdom of God and its righteousness that is have to our utmost endeavoured to promote the glory and Administration of Christs regency in his Church the pillar and ground of truth then and there are we with gratitude to enjoy those additional blessings which peace bringeth Then and there are we to study to be quiet to seek peace and ensue it and the like which are the proper duties of such as being by Gods grace called are by the God of peace called unto peace And therefore although the Prophet Zachery speaking of the restauration of the Jews and their receipt of the Gospel would have them seek peace after truth that is prefer that truth before all worldly blessings yet where this truth is once received there peace is to be preferred to lesser truths according to good Hezekiahs saying now settled and confirmed in Gods Worship Peace and truth shall be in my days The like was promised to the Jews in their restauration or rather to the Gentile Church abundance of peace and truth And to doth holy David also put mercy before it in his blessing to Ittai saying Mercy and truth be with thee And other graces and blessings are elsewhere more often put before then after truth Nay of such advantage to the preservation of truth it self and of sanctify of life this grace is that we shall find it put first as the way to that Follow peace with all men and holiness without which no man shall see the Lord looking diligently lest any man should fail of
be For since these injust and oppressive acts are usual amongst men nay since in all kinde of judicature and dealing one party or another will think himself defrauded or oppressed if therefore divine Justice should interpose in all cases where wrong were done it must also proceed to reparation of the party wronged upon him that did it to the utter disheartening and defeat of humane Judicature where many times for want of sufficiency of judgement or information wrong sentence is given against their Wills Or should God appear but in some more remarkable occasions of redress how would their discontent be hereupon increased who were not in their distresses so righted and relieved also Each one being to be presumed to carry as partial a valuation of his own merits and to be as impatient in the sense of his own sufferings as he must be presumed to be separately persceptible of them by his proper Understanding and sense and not that of another It must therefore come to pass that either God Almighty by his remarkable appearance in some mens Causes must consequently leave others but so much the more discontented or else altering that more majestick way of Providence and Government he now exerciseth descend to judge in every case whatever Which done what neerer hope of general content since even therein the Verdict and Sentence can but pass on one side still and must thereupon leave the other as it were directly discontented with God himself and it will besides submit the justice of his proceedings to the censure of every one also Whereas now the party that by prosperity enjoys the things of this world is not at all taken off from the acknowledgement of Gods supreme guidance and favour and the other laying his misfortunes on humane partiality and corruption is the more stirred up to seek and relye upon supernatural redress and sustentation the sense of affliction and oppression here being by divine Providence made the most ordinary and effectual means of any for the bringing men to be Religious and to acknowledge both himself and his goodness as heretofore declared And then again why may we not from example in our selves finde reason on the other side to conclude both for Gods existence and Providence and that even from this his concealment from present sense in this case likewise For is it not usual with Parents Masters and persons in Authority out of design to reap to themselves the highest assurances they can of the loves and faithfulness of their Children and Servants wholly to leave unto their full dispose the execution of some Commands and Directions and then so to withdraw and conceal themselves as that the parties put in trust herein shall suppose them without the compass of any knowledge of theirs whether they have in these things done their duties or no And again is it not with them usual as to fix this tryal upon such objects and imployments wherein they had first used such Providence and circumspection that in case of failance of duty the evil thereby to happen should neither be general nor great so also it is usual not to take notice of the performance or neglect of duty in the present act but to suspend the reward and punishment thereupon due to be expressed in a fuller measure afterwards Even so may we conceive of God Almighty as on the one side trying our love and respect to him through these great obscurities and difficulties so also respiting our punishments or rewards till the world to come Beyond all which as that divers necessary regard which humane preservation doth require should be thereunto continually had with due respect to men as they are either naturally or politickly to be considered will in the conduct of these things lay such an exigence of having both a continual and steady and yet of a secret and impartial care so when it shall be well weighed it will be found a work proper and superable by Almightiness onely between things and actions in themselves so jarring and enterfering to carry so even and respective a hand to both that man shall neither be pined through want of care in one nor suffocated through indulgence in the other Should that natural thirst to pursue and obtain things pleasurable be unto men permitted as unto other Sensitive Agents without any stint of positive Rule or Law how soon as heretofore shewed should we finde this heady pursuit of each ones delight to prove each ones torment and ruine Or if again in all the actions and emergencies of mans life he should be onely considered as a sociable Agent and by strict rules of polity be wholly limited in his desires and attempts by the good of others and not permitted to follow in any thing his own pleasure must it not then follow that as each single man did by this way of restraint come to be defeated of his separate content so consequently must all men want it since all must needs want that which no one man could have And thereupon that natural way of serving and honoring that great God of all beneficence must for want of relish and more fresh resentment of the particulars of his bounty come to be smothered or lost As the necessity therefore of having regard to both is the reason on the one hand of all those natural instincts and abilities and of those large affordments of the Creature for mans use and delight so on the other hand is it the cause of all those positive Edicts and Precepts whereby in reference to Society we come to be directed and bounded in their use When therefore we finde God Almighty in the general way of sustentation of his Creation both working at distance and also by second Causes and yet doing it so strongly and assuredly as to manifest both care and Almightiness in him through weakness of the intermediate Agent and constancy of operation so in rules of Government and Society and in those ways and directions to be set for mens restraint it was on the other side likewise expedient that he should be no more apparently and convincingly express then in the other but ordinarily to submit and entrust to his Authorised Deputies the execution of those affairs which he held necessary for prosecuion of that course degree of providence which was by him appointed In the atchievement whereof as the Prince or Magistrate without his supreme influence and sustentation could be no more effectual to preserve mankinde politikely then second Causes could of themselves preserve them naturally so would it seem partial and destructive for God to appear more express in one then another as well as it would be a derogation to his Almightiness to be ordinarily express and personally working in either sort Even as we see in Kings and Governors the greatest difficulty to rest in their even carriage between acts of severity or indulgence in such ordering of positive Laws for preservation of mans life that through their abundance or
for the governed as heretofore noted even for the necessary preservation of those relations according to that saying If I be a father where is mine honor if I be a Master where is my fear For although a willing and hearty service be most acceptable and onely rewardable as to the doer yet the benefit of others will many times be gained by the deed itself Whereas a known impunity will by example and as it finds hope to attain the like procure common detriment both by neglect of the deed it self and by common invitation to disobedience But if the subject from his own or others experience once find that his obedience in respect of other damages and inforcements in the Princes power is unavoidable he must be supposed even through discreet willingness to submit and then through custom of so doing to arrive at last at a state of natural willingness in obedience it self experience telling us that steadiest loyalty is in such subjects as have been used to greatest subjection and most discontents and rebellions in such Families and Kingdoms where children and subjects have been most free And it will ever be a most certain truth that that obedience which must unavoidably be given will ever in equal things be more ready free and unreluctant then that which may have hopes of avoidance CONCLUSION BUt it is now time to have done having perhaps as much tyred others as my self in these tedious discourses driven so vehemently on to the cure of that evil which while men are men can never enter into a steady thought should be wholly done For when all is said Government will have its faults and when in the rule of nature we see it sometimes come to pass that the stobborness of the matter is such as will not admit of that form which to her policy in general or to the production of some more perfect creature were in particular species necessary but that pestilence murrains mildews c. to the destruction of men beasts and vegitables as also monstruous and imperfect shapes incident to the generation of each race and kind do sometimes happen why should we wonder at ineffectualness herein when besides matter there is a perpetual aversion of will in the governed and alas the while the workmans skill or care in this is too often so to seek that through his default also the malady is increased Since therefore nothing in this life can be to us perfect and without its inconveniences we can only call that Government good which is best and which upon tryal hath fewest and least settled mischiefs as not arising from its form but contingent accidents in its ministration and this is that which I have propounded as the drift of this whole Treatise Yet then again as the many unavoidable diseases of our natural bodies are not at all to discommend or excuse the Physicians care and pains for their mittigation or removal so I hope in this grand disease of the politique Body called Civil War although I cannot attain to a perfect or constant cure yet if the application of those remedies I have proposed shall sometimes cause diversion and sometimes mittigation I shall have comfort in my labours But in this as all things else we must leave the success to God whose work alone it is to still as the raging of the Sea so the madness of the people Even that mad and raging humor of liberty which being blown to a rebellious height by the breath of seditious Oratory as seas by the wind it is none other then if in our natural bodies the allurement of our pallats should tempt us to that food which should bring us to a feavor And as these surfeits seldom come but from such things as are best and then again loathing of that very thing doth follow so in the politique constitution though nothing more necessary and commodious then peace yet nothing more incident to mans fickle nature then in a giddy thirst for variety to grow weary thereof which as a thing bringing Kingdoms and States to their fatal periods no otherwise then bodily surfeits and sicknesses do single persons to their natural deaths shall we say that as they are permitted for the punishment of our sins which we can never want so to this end also And then shall we say that not so much in consideration of ours or our progenitors sins as that the will of God might be made manifest are these things befallen us Shall we say that since none of themselves can be called righteous or good that it may therefore be a reason that wickedness and vice are thus suffered as to the estating us good by comparison and that even again in Government as to the adorning loyalty and other civil vertues disobedience and rebellion is permitted also and to make us thereby more sensible and thankful when peace shall again be restored But be the reasons what they will our duties of obedience and submission being plain enough it is our parts to look to that and to leave these hidden things to God whose judgements are unsearchable and â—is ways past finding out For sure I am that however God for the punishing of a sinful people permit their Princes as he did David in the fact of numbring to fall upon such unwarrantable acts as may bring on their punishments yet can this punishment never warrant any active resistance of his Authority Or be the King not good as David was but such another as Saul was yet since he is our King and the Lords anointed who can without sin lift up their hand against him And why should we be more impatient of enduring those punishments from God that come from the hands of evil Kings then those of pestilence famine or the like that come more immediately from nature since all come from the same hand and to the same end the punishment of our sins And since God owns the giving of them in his anger and the having their hearts in his hand and turning them wheresoever he pleaseth why should we think of resisting one more then another Thus is wicked Pharoahs heart hardned and his subjects the â—gyptians thereby plagued And thus as aforesaid is good Davids heart stirred up to number the people and these people thereupon punished with pestilence And who would have thought a three years famine so long after Sauls death should be the punishment of surviving subjects for a past fact of zeal done by a King so long dead Or that the house of Jehu and his people by consequent should be threatned with Gods punishment for the execution of that his justice upon the house of Ahab three hundred years after the fact done when as yet the very fact it self was so plainly appointed and warranted by divine authority In which examples of Kings sins being made causes of punishing peoples sins with plagues pestilence famine civil war or the like I would know if resisting of Kings had not been resisting of God or
Author whose power is more rationally to be concluded the prime and sole cause of all things as standing in that supreme order he now doth then if he should be acting beneath and of but one thing at once And as he is more admirable in his own Throne of power ordering all things by his sole word and command then if he should descend to be personally doing of every thing so could we rightly consider it any one thing is in it self as miraculously and powerfully wrought in that kinde of efficiency which we call ordinary as when done in an extraordinary way So for example if wood should have been by God endued with power to draw Iron or one Iron to draw another as now the Load stone doth would not the ordinary effect that way have made the Load-stones attraction as great a miracle as it seemeth for wood to do it now And if none can give reason why other things should not have as great attractive force as these why should it not be a greater proof of Deity to be constantly powerful in all and every operation then to be so but now and then which is all the proof that miracles have And therefore as men of riper judgement and experience would much laugh at the folly and weakness of such as beholding the Mariners compass do ascribe the effect of the Needle to some hidden quality or secret property residing in it self and as again the ascribing and occult quality unto those operations of the Load-stone without farther knowledge or derivation of its cause is but a shift of ignorance as the setting down of all other hidden causes are each thing having a cause beyond it self so is there none but fools that say in their hearts or really think there is no God because they cannot discern his efficacy through and beyond intermediate causes And they are at most but middle witted men for that albeit they can from a little farther experience tell of Causes above the lowest degree of men yet are they not wise enough to search farther So that Athiesm is always bordering on folly and narrowness of comprehension being nothing else but a stubborn relyance on present sense as from the certainty of effects in things we ordinarily behold concluding those Causes within reach of our observation to be the most supreme And farther thinking that if a voluntary Agent were in those things universal Cause and Author he would as fancying his inclination by our own be more personally appearing for his greater credit-sake amongst us and make his present operation serve to direct our acknowledgements unto him Not duly considering that it would be so far from encreasing the worth as it would redound to the actors disesteem as arguing decay of the Vertue of Agency if the supreme and higher Cause should for want of strength otherwise be forced immediately to work on a lower effect for that hereby again the supreme Cause ceasing by becoming an intermediate one it must follow that as Causes were fewer Effects and Creatures must be fewer also And when all is done that supreme Cause that is now intermediate in operation would by its constancy in so doing be as far from discovering a Deity as the other was before unless they could imagine that for their onely satisfaction sake causes of things should not have been constant and uniform but on purpose various to have drawn on their notice Again if God Almighty should have been disabled to the degree of an humane Artificer and have been ineffectual farther then where his own hand hath been express as is the workmans in making the Watch then it must next follow that either Creatures must have been so few and perishable as Watches made by one hand or else they must have supposed this Agents power advanced to such degree that as a Monarch can manage a Kingdom by his Laws so as the same needed not to be afterwards guided by him but by instruments obedient to him or as the Artificer can frame and contrive a Watch to go for as long time as he pleaseth so as the same can now go without his appearance in like manner there should be also such procession of the first cause of operation and motion in these things as they shall be infinitely continued If this course could have gone on this first Cause would have been a God because his operation and existence must have been eternal But on it could not go to any degree of eternity inasmuch as all progressive operations and motions must be finite and determinate in regard that that end and rest which caused motion through desire of approach must cease it having now attained it And therefore to make things continue there must be a circulation of Causes and Effects allowed whereby each individual thing having attained that proper end for which its last Cause or next Agents produced it in Nature must return into its first matter through corruption and alteration of its last specifick forms and be ready to obey the more general Causes in Nature and the Laws of that matter which is most homogenius unto it in correspondence to the next more proper and powerful Agent Even as in the affairs and atchievements in kingdoms although the hands of the lowest sort of individual Officers is most immediate in the work yet these having their power from the next general Officer and so he again from next above him till these Officers growing higher and fewer do at last terminate in the King as Fountain of all their power so any of those next perishable individual Officers deceasing that formal power that made them such returns to the hands of those next Officers above him who constitutes others and those more or fewer in these places as they finde the exigence of that Kingdoms affairs call for in relation thereunto no otherwise then as with us a Constable dying the Justices as the more general Officers do by vertue of their Commissions and derived power constitute new in the place In which course as the affairs of the Kingdom is ordinarily managed without the Prince his appearance or again the spring can move the several wheels of the Watch without particular touch of any but that next him why may there not nay why must there not be a Deity to be the first mover in things of this universe Who according to his good pleasure ordering that the appointed continuance of this world should be maintained by perishable individuals hath in his providence to that end ordered that the corruption of one thing should be still progressive to the generation of another Why may he not again in the doing thereof be yet as far or more removed from our notice in ordinary operations as the cause of Government or the motion of Watches or the like is hid and unknown to the weaker sort of people and to other Creatures below us and are of them thought to proceed from no farther cause then what present sense can discover
For should the King be as much hidden from our bodily sence as God is and should we again know no more of the Commissions and powers granted to Justices in each Kingdom then we do of the Laws of matter and internal forms in Nature it would be as hard to apprehend any prime Agent above those Justices in the Kingdom as to conceive the power and existence of Deity in the world A supposition that may be well made good if consideration be had of those strange conceits of the form and figure of Kings which are entertained by some ignorant people that as yet never saw any nor heard them described And the reason is the same for our ignorance in appearance of Gods operation in Creation Providence and natural Causes as is for the ignorance of these before mentioned in the knowledge of the Causes of political or artificial productions with us unless we shall impiously as well as arrogantly conclude that we should have knowledge in this life in such perfection as to see him intuitively as Angels do now or as our selves shall do hereafter Of the reason of the present course of Gods proceeding in many particulars both of Creation and Providence we did speak in the beginning and other parts of this work in which we declared the divers sympathies and natural propensities wherewith Vegetatives and Inanimates are indued all of them tending to specifical and mutual preservation and Providence We also shewed how Sensitives were provoked by the affection of pleasure naturally implanted in them and accompanying things beneficial to be continually active in pursuance of what was to themselves and others behoof-ful We also manifested how rational Creatures by the affection of love and desire of beneficence and by the thirst of honor accompanying them as their reward were provoked also unto the like continual endeavors towards mutual good and preservation All of them infallibly concluding that there must be an Author or prime Agent of such universal concern and such continual care in constituting and ordering these things as to be their original Cause and perpetual guide and support according to the method of his own good pleasure For should there not be these natural propensions to love and pitty nay to acts of justice and of submission therein to others as to honor Parents and the like it would come to pass that through that too great thirst of self-seeking heretofore spoken of and through anger and envy of being crossed therein no one man would now be left alive inasmuch as there is no man but is by one or other so much hated as to cause his death to be heartily desired were not manifold hinderances by divine Providence and appointment put in to keep off execution And in this regard was may also collect another strong proof for Deity and Providence from that awful and reverential respect which is by each one born towards Authority For experience every day tells us that those very persons that are come to that height of daring as to challenge and enter the field for a lye an abuse to their Mistress or the like where besides the equal hazard of their lives in present they must have a certain expectation to suffer according to Law in case they do out-live the other are yet so kept in order by that divine and providential terror by God impressed on his Image of Authority here on earth as not to have courage to withstand the Attachment of a publike Officer Whereupon our Discourse formerly and ordinary reason it self always testifying that these his works and the way of Government of them are such as cannot be bettered why should we think Change and Alteration any ways convenient For if it be an act proper to goodness wisdom power c. to make things well and good and afterwards to dispose them so will not constancy herein be as commendable to the same goodness wisdom and power in their continuance in that order as it was for creating and thus stating them And so if God had not made and ordered all things so as cannot be bettered he could not have been God and if he should not keep them in the same order whilst they remain the same things he should not be God neither wisdom in designation requiring constancy in prosecution and irresistible power being the necessary attendant of both And having thus far spoken in defence of the constancy of the course of Nature and Providence against such as would not believe a God because since the Fathers fell asleep all things are alike till now so also for conviction of such as from inconstancy and irregularity of the actions in voluntary Agents and Gods permission of sin and oppression would conclude against Deity too according to that divine Aphorism because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil we shall now farther speak In this saying of the wise man we may apprehend the two usual grounds that make men lean to Atheism The first is in thinking all the acts and works of men evil which they cannot apprehend as good not being many times able to look through the mistaken or present particular suffering of some few unto that real and more lasting good thereby procured to many The other in thinking that the acts permitted unto and proceeding from humane Judgement and Will as it is seated in divers persons for the guidance of their own affairs should be alike constant to those of God in the Government of the world and course of his Providence who hath an uniform end to cause steadiness of his actions therein Unto which an answer may be also made out of the same consideration before spoken of namely the sufficiency of the one above the other And if they wil allow any Creature to be so perfect as to have Will and Understanding separate they must in order to their specifical freedom of Will allow them variety of actions also especially since their private ends must differ as before noted And therefore as we must conclude Gods works must be uniform and constant in reference to his Unity of Will and end to design and all-sufficiency of power to atchieve so we must allow to things submitted to the power of inferior voluntary Agents if at all you will grant them voluntary freedom unto variety of productions and execution and that in bad as well as in good Unless we shall at once and against sense conclude all men are alike good wise or powerful and that from such plurality and disparity of Judgement Interest and Will we should think that constant procession could be expected From which liberty and freedom of action in good or bad guided according to the true light or corruption of humane judgement and Will it must also follow that the evidences and directions given for mens guidance should not be in such continuing and pressing manner repeated to each single