end to bee able to produce as far as matter and humane force permit such Effects as â—…umane life requireth So the Geometrician from the Construction of Figures findeth out many Properties thereof and from the Properties new Ways of their Construction by Reasoning to the end to be able to measure Land and Water and for infinite other uses So the Astronomer from the Rising Setting and Moving of the Sun and Starres in divers parts of the Heavens findeth out the Causes of Day and Night and of the different Seasons of the Year whereby he keepeth an account of Time And the like of other Sciences By which Definition it is evident that we are not to account as any part thereof that originall knowledge called Experience in which consisteth Prudence Because it is not attained by Reasoning but found as well in Brute Beasts as in Man and is but a Memory of successions of events in times past wherein the omission of every little circumstance altering the effect frustrateth the expectation of the most Prudent whereas nothing is produced by Reasoning aright but generall eternall and immutable Truth Nor are we therefore to give that name to any false Conclusions For he that Reasoneth aright in words he understandeth can never conclude an Error Nor to that which any man knows by supernaturall Revelation because it is not acquired by Reasoning Nor that which is gotten by Reasoning from the Authority of Books because it is not by Reasoning from the Cause to the Effect nor from the Effect to the Cause and is not Knowledg but Faith The faculty of Reasoning being consequent to the use of Speech it was not possible but that there should have been some generall Truthes found out by Reasoning as ancient almost as Language it selfe The Savages of America are not without some good Morall Sentences also they have a little Arithmetick to adde and divide in Numbers not too great but they are not therefore Philosophers For as there were Plants of Corn and Wine in small quantity dispersed in the Fields and Woods before men knew their vertue or made use of them for their nourishment or planted them apart in Fields and Vineyards in which time they fed on Akorns and drank Water so also there have been divers true generall and profitable Speculations from the beginning as being the naturall plants of humane Reason But they were at first but few in number men lived upon grosse Experience there was no Method that is to say no Sowing nor Planting of Knowledge by it self apart from the Weeds and common Plants of Errour and Conjecture And the cause of it being the want of leasure from procuring the necessities of life and defending themselves against their neighbors it was impossible till the erecting of great Common-wealths it should be otherwise Leasure is the mother of Philosophy and Common-wealth the mother of Peace and Leasure Where first were great and flourishing Cities there was first the study of Philosophy The Gymnosophists of India the Magi of Persia and the Priests of Chaldaea and Egypt are counted the most ancient Philosophers and those Countreys were the most ancient of Kingdomes Philosophy was not risen to the Graecians and other people of the West whose Common-wealths no greater perhaps then Lucca or Geneva had never Peace but when their fears of one another were equall nor the Leasure to observe any thing but one another At length when Warre had united many of these Graecian lesser Cities into fewer and greater then began Seven men of severall parts of Greece to get the reputation of being Wise some of them for Morall and Politique Sentences and others for the learning of the Chaldaeans and Egyptians which was Astronomy and Geometry But we hear not yet of any Schools of Philosophy After the Athenians by the overthrow of the Persian Armies had gotten the Dominion of the Sea and thereby of all the Islands and Maritime Cities of the Archipelago as well of Asia as Europe and were grown wealthy they that had no employment neither at home nor abroad had little else to employ themselves in but either as St. Luke says Acts 17. 21. in telling and hearing news or in discoursing of Philosophy publiquely to the youth of the City Every Master took some place for that purpose Plato in certain publique Walks called Academia from one Acâ—…demus Aristotle in the Walk of the Temple of Pan called Lycaeum others in the Stoa or covered Walk wherein the Merchants Goods were brought to land others in other places where they spent the time of their Leasure in teaching or in disputing of their Opinions and some in any place where they could get the youth of the City together to hear them talk And this was it which Carneades also did at Rome when he was Ambassadour which caused Cato to advise the Senate to dispatch him quickly for feare of corrupting the manners of the young men that delighted to hear him speak as they thought fine things From this it was that the place where any of them taught and disputed was called Schola which in their Tongue signifieth Leasure and their Disputations Diatribae that is to say Passing of the time Also the Philosophers themselves had the name of their Sects some of them from these their Schools For they that followed 〈◊〉 Doctrine were called Academiques The followers of Aristotle Peripatetiques from the Walk hee taught in and those that Zeno taught Stoiques from the Stoa as if we should denominate men from More-fields from Pauls-Church and from the Exchange because they meet there often to prate and loyter Neverthelesse men were so much taken with this custome that in time it spread it selfe over all Europe and the best part of Afrique so as there were Schools publiquely erected and maintained for Lectures and Disputations almost in every Common-wealth There were also Schools anciently both before and after the time of our Saviour amongst the Iews but they were Schools of their Law For though they were called Synagogues that is to say Congregations of the People yet in as much as the Law was every Sabbath day read expounded and disputed in them they differed not in nature but in name onely from Publique Schools and were not onely in Jerusalem but in every City of the Gentiles where the Jews inhabited There was such a Schoole at Damascus whereinto Paul entred to persecute There were others at Antioch Iconium and Thessalonica whereinto he entred to dispute And such was the Synagogue of the Libertines Cyrenâ—…ans Alexandrians Cilicians and those of Asia that is to say the Schoole of Libertines and of Iewes that were strangers in Ierusalem And of this Schoole they were that disputed Act. 6. 9. with Saint Steven But what has been the Utility of those Schools what Science is there at this day acquired by their Readings and Disputings That wee have of Geometry which is the Mother of all Naturall Science wee are not indebted for
be the work of the Schooles but they rather nourish such doctrine For not knowing what Imagination or the Senses are what they receive they reach some saying that Imaginations rise of themselves and have no cause Others that they rise most commonly from the Will and that Good thoughts are blown inspired into a man by God and Evill thoughts by the Divell or that Good thoughts are powred infused into a man by God and Evill ones by the Divell Some say the Senses receive the Species of things and deliver them to the Common-sense and the Common Sense delivers them over to the Fancy and the Fancy to the Memory and the Memory to the Judgement like handing of things from one to another with many words making nothing understood The Imagination that is raysed in man or any other creature indued with the faculty of imagining by words or other voluntary signes is that we generally call Understanding and is common to Man and Beast For a dogge by custome will understand the call or the rating of his Master and so will many other Beasts That Understanding which is peculiar to man is the Understanding not onely his will but his conceptions and thoughts by the sequell and contexture of the names of things into Affirmations Negations and other formes of Speech And of this kinde of Understanding I shall speak hereafter CHAP. III. Of the Consequence or TRAYNE of Imaginations BY Consequence or TRAYNE of Thoughts I understand that succession of one Thought to another which is called to distinguiâ—…h it from Discourse in words Mentall Discourse When a man thinketh on any thing whatsoever His next Thought after is not altogether so casuall as it seems to be Not every Thought to every Thought succeeds indifferently But as wee have no Imagination whereof we have not formerly had Sense in whole or in parts so we have no Transition from one Imagination to another whereof we never had the like before in our Senses The reason whereof is this All Fancies are Motions within us reliques of those made in the Sense And those motions that immediately succeeded one another in the sense continue also together after Sense In so much as the former comming again to take place and be praedominant the later followeth by coherence of the matter moved in such manner as water upon a plain Table is drawn which way any one part of it is guided by the finger But because in sense to one and the same thing perceived sometimes one thing sometimes another succeedeth it comes to passe in â—…ime that in the Imagining of any thing there is no certainty what we shall Imagine next Onely this is certain it shall be something that succeeded the same before at one time or another This Trayne of Thoughts or Mentall Discourse is of two sorts The first is Vnguided without Designe and inconstant Wherein there is no Passionate Thought to govern and direct those that follow to it self as the end and scope of some desire or other passion In which case the thoughts are said to wander and seem impertinent one to another as in a Dream Such are Commonly the thonghts of men that are not onely without company but also without care of any thing though even then their Thoughts are as busie as at other times but without harmony as the sound which a Lute out of tune would yeeld to any man or in tune to one that could not play And yet in this wild ranging of the mind a man may oft-times perceive the way of it and the dependance of one thought upon another For in a Discourse of our present civill warre what could seem more impertinent than to ask as one did what was the value of a Roman Penny Yet the Cohaerence to me was manifest enough For the Thought of the warre introduced the Thought of the delivering up the King to his Enemies The Thought of that brought in the Thought of the delivering up of Christ and that again the Thought of the 30 pence which was the price of that treason and thence easily followed that malicious question and all this in a moment of time for Thought is quick The second is more constant as being regulated by some desire and designe For the impression made by such things as wee desire or feare is strong and permanent or if it cease for a time of quick return so strong it is sometimes as to hinder and break our sleep From Desire ariseth the Thought of some means we have seen produce the like of that which we ayme at and from the thought of that the thought of means to that mean and so continually till we come to some beginning within our own power And because the End by the greatnesse of the impression comes often to mind in case our thoughts begin to wander they are quickly again reduced into the way which observed by one of the seven wise men made him give men this praecept which is now worne out Respice finem that is to say in all your actions look often upon what you would have as the thing that directs all your thoughts in the way to attain it The Trayn of regulated Thoughts is of two kinds One when of an effect imagined wee seek the causes or means that produce it and this is common to Man and Beast The other is when imagining any thing whatsoever wee seek all the possible effects that can by it be produced that is to say we imagine what we can do with it when wee have it Of which I have not at any time seen any signe but in man onely for this is a curiosity hardly incident to the nature of any living creature that has no other Passion but sensuall such as are hunger thirst lust and anger In summe the Disconrse of the Mind when it is governed by designe is nothing but Seeking or the faculty of Invention which the Latines call Sagacitas and Solertia a hunting out of the causes of some effect present or past or of the effects of some present or past cause Sometimes a man seeks what he hath lost and from that place and time wherein hee misses it his mind runs back from place to place and time to time to find where and when he had it that is to say to find some certain and limited time and place in which to begin a method of seeking Again from thence his thoughts run over the same places and times to find what action or other occasion might make him lose it This we call Remembrance or Calling to mind the Latines call it Reminiscentia as it were a Re-conning of our former actions Sometimes a man knows a place determinate within the compasse whereof he is to seek and then his thoughts run over all the parts thereof in the same manner as one would sweep a room to find a jewell or as a Spaniel ranges the field till he find a sent or as a man should run
Idea of him in their mind answerable to his nature For as a man that is born blind hearing men talk of warming themselves by the fire and being brought to warm himself by the same may easily conceive and assure himselfe there is somewhat there which men call Fire and is the cause of the heat he feeles but cannot imagine what it is like nor have an Idea of it in his mind such as they have that see it so also by the visible things of this world and their admirable order a man may conceive there is a cause of them which men call God and yet not have an Idea or Image of him in his mind And they that make little or no enquiry into the naturall causes of things yet from the feare that proceeds from the ignorance it selfe of what it is that hath the power to do them much good or harm are enclined to suppose and feign unto themselves severall kinds of Powers Invisible and to stand in awe of their own imaginations and in time of distresse to invoke them as also in the time of an expected good successe to give them thanks making the creatures of their own fancy their Gods By which means it hath come to passe that from the innumerable variety of Fancy men have created in the world innumerable sorts of Gods And this Feare of things invisible is the naturall Seed of that which every one in himself calleth Religion and in them that worship or feare that Power otherwise than they do Superstition And this seed of Religion having been observed by many some of those that have observed it have been enclined thereby to nourish dresse and forme it into Lawes and to adde to it of their own invention any opinion of the causes of future events by which they thought they should best be able to govern others and make unto themselves the greatest use of their Powers CHAP. XII OF RELIGION SEeing there are no signes nor fruit of Religion but in Man onely there is no cause to doubt but that the seed of Religion is also onely in Man and consisteth in some peculiar quality or at least in some eminent degree therof not to be found in other Living creatures And first it is peculiar to the nature of Man to be inquisitive into the Causes of the Events they see some more some lesse but all men so much as to be curious in the search of the causes of their own good and evill fortune Secondly upon the sight of any thing that hath a Beginning to think also it had a cause which determined the same to begin then when it did rather than sooner or later Thirdly whereas there is no other Felicity of Beasts but the enjoying of their quotidian Food Ease and Lusts as having little or no foresight of the time to come for want of observation and memory of the order consequence and dependance of the things they see Man observeth how one Event hath been produced by another and remembreth in them Antecedence and Consequence And when he cannot assure himselfe of the true causes of things for the causes of good and evill fortune for the most part are invisible he supposes causes of them either such as his own fancy suggesteth or trusteth to the Authority of other men such as he thinks to be his friends and wiser than himselfe The two first make Anxiety For being assured that there be causes of all things that have arrived hitherto or shall arrive hereafter it is impossible for a man who continually endeavoureth to secure himselfe against the evill he feares and procure the good he desireth not to be in a perpetuall solicitude of the time to come So that every man especially those that are over provident are in an estate like to that of Prometheus For as Prometheus which interpreted is The prudent man was bound to the hill Caucasus a place of large prospect where an Eagle feeding on his liver devoured in the day as much as was repayred in the night So that man which looks too far before him in the care of future time hath his heart all the day long gnawed on by feare of death poverty or other calamity and has no repose nor pause of his anxiety but in sleep This perpetuall feare alwayes accompanying mankind in the ignorance of causes as it were in the Dark must needs have for object something And therefore when there is nothing to be seen there is nothing to accuse either of their good or evill fortune but some Power or Agent Invisible In which sense perhaps it was that some of the old Poets said that the Gods were at first created by humane Feare which spoken of the Gods that is to say of the many Gods of the Gentiles is very true But the acknowledging of one God Eternall Infinite and Omnipotent may more easily be derived from the desire men have to know the causes of naturall bodies and their severall vertues and operations than from the feare of what was to be fall them in time to come For he that from any effect hee seeth come to passe should reason to the next and immediate cause thereof and from thence to the cause of that cause and plonge himselfe profoundly in the pursuit of causes shall at last come to this that there must be as even the Heathen Philosophers confessed one First Mover that is a First and an Eternall cause of all things which is that which men mean by the name of God And all this without thought of their fortune the solicitude whereof both enclines to fear and hinders them from the search of the causes of other things and thereby gives occasion of feigning of as many Gods as there be men that feigne them And for the matter or substance of the Invisible Agents so fancyed they could not by naturall cogitation fall upon any other conceipt but that it was the same with that of the Soule of man and that the Soule of man was of the same substance with that which appeareth in a Dream to one that sleepeth or in a Looking-glasse to one that is awake which men not knowing that such apparitions are nothing else but creatures of the Fancy think to be reall and externall Substances and therefore call them Ghosts as the Latines called them Imagines and Umbrae and thought them Spirits that is thin aëreall bodies and those Invisible Agents which they feared to bee like them save that they appear and vanish when they please But the opinion that such Spirits were Incorporeall or Immateriall could never enter into the mind of any man by nature because though men may put together words of contradictory signification as Spirit and Incorporeall yet they can never have the imagination of any thing answering to them And therefore men that by their own meditation arrive to the acknowledgement of one Infinite Omnipotent and Eternall God choose rather to confesse he is Incomprehensible and
should not violate our Faith that is a commandement to obey our Civill Soveraigns which wee constituted over us by mutuall pact one with another And this Law of God that commandeth Obedience to the Law Civill commandeth by consequence Obedience to all the Precepts of the Bible which as I have proved in the precedent Chapter is there onely Law where the Civill Soveraign hath made it so and in other places but Counsell which a man at his own perill may without injustice refuse to obey Knowing now what is the Obedience Necessary to Salvation and to whom it is due we are to consider next concerning Faith whom and why we beleeve and what are the Articles or Points necessarily to be beleeved by them that shall be saved And first for the Person whom we beleeve because it is impossible to beleeve any Person before we know what he saith it is necessary he be one that wee have heard speak The Person therefore whom Abraham Isaac Jacob Moses and the Prophets beleeved was God himself that spake unto them supernaturally And the Person whom the Apostles and Disciples that conversed with Christ beleeved was our Saviour himself But of them to whom neither God the Father nor our Saviour ever spake it cannot be said that the Person whom they beleeved was God They beleeved the Apostles and after them the Pastors and Doctors of the Church that recommended to their faith the History of the Old and New Testament so that the Faith of Christians ever since our Saviours time hath had for foundation first the reputation of their Pastors and afterward the authority of those that made the Old and New Testament to be received for the Rule of Faith which none could do but Christian Soveraignes who are therefore the Supreme Pastors and the onely Persons whom Christians now hear speak from God except such as God speaketh to in these days supernaturally But because there be many false Prophets gone out into the world other men are to examine such Spirits as St. Iohn adviseth us 1 Epistle Chap. 4. ver 1. whether they be of God or not And therefore seeing the Examination of Doctrines belongeth to the Supreme Pastor the Person which all they that have no speciall revelation are to beleeve is in every Common-wealth the Supreme Pastor that is to say the Civill Soveraigne The causes why men beleeve any Christian Doctrine are various For Faith is the gift of God and he worketh it in each severall man by such wayes as it seemeth good unto himself The most ordinary immediate cause of our beleef concerning any point of Christian Faith is that wee beleeve the Bible to be the Word of God But why wee beleeve the Bible to be the Word of God is much disputed as all questions must needs bee that are not well stated For they make not the question to be Why we Beleeve it but How wee Know it as if Beleeving and Knowing were all one And thence while one side ground their Knowledge upon the Infallibility of the Church and the other side on the Testimony of the Private Spirit neither side concludeth what it pretends For how shall a man know the Infallibility of the Church but by knowing first the Infallibility of the Scripture Or how shall a man know his own Private spirit to be other than a beleef grounded upon the Authority and Arguments of his Teachers or upon a Presumption of his own Gifts Besides there is nothing in the Scripture from which can be inferred the Infallibility of the Church much lesse of any particular Church and least of all the Infallibility of any particular man It is manifest therefore that Christian men doe not know but onely beleeve the Scripture to be the Word of God and that the means of making them beleeve which God is pleased to afford men ordinarily is according to the way of Nature that is to say from their Teachers It is the Doctrine of St. Paul concerning Christian Faith in generall Rom. 10. 17. Faith cometh by Hearing that is by Hearing our lawfull Pastors He saith also ver 14 15. of the same Chapter How shall they beleeve in him of whom they have not heard and how shall they hear without a Preacher and how shall they Preach except they be sent Whereby it is evident that the ordinary cause of beleeving that the Scriptures are the Word of God is the same with the cause of the beleeving of all other Articles of our Faith namely the Hearing of those that are by the Law allowed and appointed to Teach us as our Parents in their Houses and our Pastors in the Churches Which also is made more manifest by experience For what other cause can there bee assigned why in Christian Common-wealths all men either beleeve or at least professe the Scripture to bee the Word of God and in other Common-wealths scarce any but that in Christian Common-wealths they are taught it from their infancy and in other places they are taught otherwise But if Teaching be the cause of Faith why doe not all beleeve It is certain therefore that Faith is the gift of God and hee giveth it to whom he will Neverthelesse because to them to whom he giveth it he giveth it by the means of Teachers the immediate cause of Faith is Hearing In a School where many are taught and some profit others profit not the cause of learning in them that profit is the Master yet it cannot be thence inferred that learning is not the gift of God All good things proceed from God yet cannot all that have them say they are Inspired for that implies a gift supernaturall and the immediate hand of God which he that pretends to pretends to be a Prophet and is subject to the examination of the Church But whether men Know or Beleeve or Grant the Scriptures to be the Word of God if out of such places of them as are without obscurity I shall shew what Articles of Faith are necessary and onely necessary for Salvation those men must needs Know Beleeve or Grant the same The Vnum Necessarium Onely Article of Faith which the Scripture maketh simply Necessary to Salvation is this that JESUS IS THE CHRIST By the name of Christ is understood the King which God had before promised by the Prophets of the Old Testament to send into the world to reign over the Jews and over such of other nations as should beleeve in him under himself eternally and to give them that eternall life which was lost by the sin of Adam Which when I have proved out of Scripture I will further shew when and in what sense some other Articles may bee also called Necessary For Proof that the Beleef of this Article Iesus is the Christ is all the Faith required to Salvation my first Argument shall bee from the Scope of the Evangelists which was by the description of the life of our Saviour to establish that one
and extravagant Passion proceedeth from the evill constitution of the organs of the Body or harme done them and sometimes the hurt and indisposition of the Organs is caused by the vehemence or long continuance of the Passion But in both cases the Madnesse is of one and the same nature The Passion whose violence or continuance maketh Madnesse is either great vaine-Glory which is commonly called Pride and selfe-conceipt or great Dejection of mind Pride subjecteth a man to Anger the excesse whereof is the Madnesse called RAGE and FURY And thus it comes to passe that excessive desire of Revenge when it becomes habituall hurteth the organs and becomes Rage That excessive love with jealousie becomes also Rage Excessive opinion of a mans own selfe for divine inspiration for wisdome learning forme and the like becomes Distraction and Giddinesse The same joyned with Envy Rage Vehement opinion of the truth of any thing contradicted by others Rage Dejection subjects a man to causelesse fears which is a Madnesse commonly called MELANCHOLY apparent also in divers manners as in haunting of solitudes and graves in superstitious behaviour and in fearing some one some another particular thing In summe all Passions that produce strange and unusuall behaviour are called by the generall name of Madnesse But of the severall kinds of Madnesse he that would take the paines might enrowle a legion And if the Excesses be madnesse there is no doubt but the Passions themselves when they tend to Evill are degrees of the same For example Though the effect of folly in them that are possessed of an opinion of being inspired be not visible alwayes in one man by any very extravagant action that proceedeth from such Passion yet when many of them conspire together the Rage of the whole multitude is visible enough For what argument of Madnesse can there be greater than to clamour strike and throw stones at our best friends Yet this is somewhat lesse than such a multitude will do For they will clamour fight against and destroy those by whom all their life-time before they have been protected and secured from injury And if this be Madnesse in the multitude it is the same in every particular man For as in the middest of the sea though a man perceive no sound of that part of the water next him yet he is well assured that part contributes as much to the Roaring of the Sea as any other part of the same quantity so also though wee perceive no great unquietnesse in one or two men yet we may be well assured that their singular Passions are parts of the Seditious roaring of a troubled Nation And if there were nothing else that bewrayed their madnesse yet that very arrogating such inspiration to themselves is argument enough If some man in Bedlam should entertaine you with sober discourse and you desire in taking leave to know what he were that you might another time requite his civility and he should tell you he were God the Father I think you need expect no extravagant action for argument of his Madnesse This opinion of Inspiration called commonly Private Spirit begins very often from some lucky finding of an Errour generally held by others and not knowing or not remembring by what conduct of reason they came to so singular a truth as they think it though it be many times an untruth they light on they presently admire themselves as being in the speciall grace of God Almighty who hath â—…evealed the same to them supernaturally by his Spirit Again that Madnesse is nothing else but too much appearing Passion may be gathered out of the effects of Wine which are the same with those of the evill disposition of the organs For the variety of behaviour in men that have drunk too much is the same with that of Mad-men some of them Raging others Loving others Laughing all extravagantly but according to their severall domineering Passions For the effect of the wine does but remove Dissimulation and take from them the sight of the deformity of their Passions For I believe the most sober men when they walk alone without care and employment of the mind would be unwilling the vanity and Extravagance of their thoughts at that time should be publiquely seen which is a confession that Passions unguided are for the most part meere Madnesse The opinions of the world both in antient and later ages concerning the cause of madnesse have been two Some deriving them from the Passions some from Daemons or Spirits either good or bad which they thought might enter into a man possesse him and move his organs in such strange and uncouth manner as mad-men use to do The former sort therefore called such men Mad-men but the Later called them sometimes Daemoniacks that is possessed with spirits sometimes Energumeni that is agitated or moved with spirits and now in Italy they are called not onely Pazzi Mad-men but also Spiritati men possest There was once a great conflux of people in Abdera a City of the Greeks at the acting of the Tragedy of Andromeda upon an extream hot day whereupon a great many of the spectators falling into Fevers had this accident from the heat and from the Tragedy together that they did nothing but pronounce Iambiques with the names of Perseus and Andromeda which together with the Fever was cured by the comming on of Winter And this madnesse was thought to proceed from the Passion imprinted by the Tragedy Likewise there raigned a fit of madnesse in another Graecian City which seized onely the young Maidens and caused many of them to hang themselves This was by most then thought an act of the Divel But one that suspected that contempt of life in them might proceed from some Passion of the mind and supposing they did not contemne also their honour gave counsell to the Magistrates to strip such as so hang'd themselves and let them hang out naked This the story sayes cured that madnesse But on the other side the same Graecians did often ascribe madnesse to the operation of the Eumenides or Furyes and sometimes of Ceres Phoebus and other Gods so much did men attribute to Phantasmes as to think them aëreal living bodies and generally to call them Spirits And as the Romans in this held the same opinion with the Greeks so also did the Jewes For they called mad-men Prophets or according as they thought the spirits good or bad Daemoniacks and some of them called both Prophets and Daemoniacks mad-men and some called the same man both Daemoniack and mad-man But for the Gentiles 't is no wonder because Diseases and Health Vices and Vertues and many naturall accidents were with them termed and worshipped as Daemons So that a man was to understand by Daemon as well sometimes an Ague as a Divell But for the Jewes to have such opinion is somewhat strange For neither Moses nor Abraham pretended to Prophecy by possession of a Spirit but from the voyce of God or by a
WORTHINESSE is a thing different from the worth or value of a man and also from his merit or desert and consisteth in a particular power or ability for that whereof he is said to be worthy which particular ability is usually named FITNESSE or Aptitude For he is Worthiest to be a Commander to be a Judge or to have any other charge that is best fitted with the qualities required to the well discharging of it and Worthiest of Riches that has the qualities most requisite for the well using of them any of which qualities being absent one may neverthelesse be a Worthy man and valuable for some thing else Again a man may be Worthy of Riches Office and Employment that neverthelesse can plead no right to have it before another and therefore cannot be said to merit or deserve it For Merit praesupposeth a right and that the thing deserved is due by promise Of which I shall say more hereafter when I shall speak of Contracts CHAP. XI Of the difference of MANNERS BY MANNERS I mean not here Decency of behaviour as how one man should salute another or how a man should wash his mouth or pick his teeth before company and such other points of the Small Moralls But those qualities of man-kind that concern their living together in Peace and Unity To which end we are to consider that the Felicity of this life consisteth not in the repose of a mind satisfied For there is no such Finis ultimus utmost ayme nor Summum Bonum greatest Good as is spoken of in the Books of the old Morall Philosophers Nor can a man any more live whose Desires are at an end than he whose Senses and Imaginations are at a stand Felicity is a continuall progresse of the desire from one object to another the attaining of the former being still but the way to the later The cause whereof is That the Object of mans desire is not to enjoy once onely and for one instant of time but to assure for ever the way of his future desire And therefore the voluntary actions and inclinations of all men tend not onely to the procuring but also to the assuring of a contented life and differ onely in the way which ariseth partly from the diversity of passions in divers men and partly from the difference of the knowledge or opinion each one has of the causes which produce the effect desired So that in the first place I put for a generall inclination of all mankind a perpetuall and restlesse desire of Power after power that ceaseth onely in Death And the cause of this is not alwayes that a man hopes for a more intensive delight than he has already attained to or that he cannot be content with a moderate power but because he cannot assure the power and means to live well which he hath present without the acquisition of more And from hence it is that Kings whose power is greatest turn their endeavours to the assuring it at home by Lawes or abroad by Wars and when that is done there succeedeth a new desire in some of Fame from new Conquest in others of ease and sensuall pleasure in others of admiration or being flattered for excellence in some art or other ability of the mind Competition of Riches Honour Command or other power enclineth to Contention Enmity and War Because the way of one Competitor to the attaining of his desire is to kill subdue supplant or repell the other Particularly competition of praise enclineth to a reverence of Antiquity For men contend with the living not with the dead to these ascribing more than due that they may obscure the glory of the other Desire of Ease and sensuall Delight disposeth men to obey a common Power Because by such Desires a man doth abandon the protection might be hoped for from his own Industry and labour Fear of Death and Wounds disposeth to the same and for the same reason On the contrary needy men and hardy not contented with their present condition as also all men that are ambitious of Military command are enclined to continue the causes of warre and to stirre up trouble and sedition for there is no honour Military but by warre nor any such hope to mend an ill game as by causing a new shuffle Desire of Knowledge and Arts of Peace enclineth men to obey a common Power For such Desire containeth a desire of leasure and consequently protection from some other Power than their own Desire of Praise disposeth to laudable actions such as please them whose judgement they value for of those men whom we contemn we contemn also the Praises Desire of Fame after death does the same And though after death there be no sense of the praise given us on Earth as being joyes that are either swallowed up in the unspeakable joyes of Heaven or extinguished in the extreme torments of Hell yet is not such Fame vain because men have a present delâ—…ght therein from the foresight of it and of the benefit that may redoâ—…nd thereby to their posterity which though they now see not yet they imagine and any thing that is pleasure in the sense the same also is pleasure in the imagination To have received from one to whom we think our selves equall greater benefits than there is hope to Requite disposeth to counterfeit love but really secret hatred and puts a man into the estate of a desperate debtor that in declining the sight of his creditor tacitely wishes him there where he might never see him more For benefits oblige and obligation is thraldome and unrequitable obligation perpetuall thraldome which is to ones equall hatefull But to have received benefits from one whom we acknowledge for superiour enclines to love because the obligation is no new depression and cheerfull acceptation which men call Gratitude is such an honour done to the obliger as is taken generally for retribution Also to receive benefits though from an equall or inferiour as long as there is hope of requitall disposeth to love for in the intention of the receiver the obligation is of ayd and service mutuall from whence proceedeth an Emulation of who shall exceed in benefiting the most noble and profitable contention possible wherein the victor is pleased with his victory and the other revenged by confessing it To have done more hurt to a man than he can or is willing to expiate enclineth the doer to hate the sufferer For he must expect revenge or forgivenesse both which are hatefull Feare of oppression disposeth a man to anticipate or to seek ayd by society for there is no other way by which a man can secure his life and liberty Men that distrust their own subtilty are in tumult and sedition better disposed for victory than they that suppose themselves wife or crafty For these love to consult the other fearing to be circumvented to strike first And in sedition men being alwayes in
the procincts of battell to hold together and use all advantages of force is a better stratagem than any that can proceed from subtilty of Wit Vain-glorious men such as without being conscious to themselves of great sufficiency delight in supposing themselves gallant men are enclined onely to ostentation but not to attempt Because when danger or difficulty appears they look for nothing but to have their insufficiency discovered Vain-glorious men such as estimate their sufficiency by the flattery of other men or the fortune of some precedent action without assured ground of hope from the true knowledge of themselves are enclined to rash engaging and in the approach of danger or difficulty to retire if they can because not seeing the way of safety they will rather hazard their honour which may be salved with an excuse than their lives for which no salve is sufficient Men that have a strong opinion of their own wisdome in matter of government are disposed to Ambition Because without publique Employment in counsell or magistracy the honour of their wisdome is lost And therefore Eloquent speakers are enclined to Ambition for Eloquence seemeth wisedome both to themselves and others Pusillanimity disposeth men to Irresolution and consequently to lose the occasions and fittest opportunities of action For after men have been in deliberation till the time of action approach if it be not then manifest what is best to be done 't is a signe the difference of Motives the one way and the other are not great Therefore not to resolve then is to lose the occasion by weighing of trifles which is Pusillanimity Frugality though in poor men a Vertue maketh a man unapt to atchieve such actions as require the strength of many men at once For it weakeneth their Endeavour which is to be nourished and kept in vigor by Reward Eloquence with flattery disposeth men to confide in them that have it because the former is seeming Wisdome the later seeming Kindnesse Adde to them Military reputation and it disposeth men to adhaere and subject themselves to those men that have them The two former having given them caution against danger from him the later gives them caution against danger from others Want of Science that is Ignorance of causes disposeth or rather constraineth a man to rely on the advise and authority of others For all men whom the truth concernes if they rely not on their own must rely on the opinion of some other whom they think wiser than themselves and see not why he should deceive them Ignorance of the signification of words which is want of understanding disposeth men to take on trust not onely the truth they know not but also the errors and which is more the non-sense of them they trust For neither Error nor non-sense can without a perfect understanding of words be detected From the same it proceedeth that men give different names to one and the same thing from the difference of their own passions As they that approve a private opinion call it Opinion but they that mislike it Haeresie and yet haeresie signifies no more than private opinion but has onely a greater tincture of choler From the same also it proceedeth that men cannot distinguish without study and great understanding between one action of many men and many actions of one multitude as for example between the one action of all the Senators of Rome in killing Catiline and the many actions of a number of Senators in killing Caesar and therefore are disposed to take for the action of the people that which is a multitude of actions done by a multitude of men led perhaps by the perswasion of one Ignorance of the causes and originall constitution of Right Equity Law and Justice disposeth a man to make Custome and Example the rule of his actions in such manner as to think that Unjust which it hath been the custome to punish and that Just of the impunity and approbation whereof they can produce an Example or as the Lawyers which onely use this false measure of Justice barbarously call it a Precedent like little children that have no other rule of good and evill manners but the correction they receive from their Parents and Masters save that children are constant to their rule whereas men are not so because grown strong and stubborn they appeale from custome to reason and from reason to custome as it serves their turn receding from custome when their interest requires it and setting themselves against reason as oft as reason is against them Which is the cause that the doctrine of Right and Wrong is perpetually disputed both by the Pen and the Sword Whereas the doctrine of Lines and Figures is not so because men care not in that subject what be truth as a thing that crosses no mans ambition profit or lust For I doubt not but if it had been a thing contrary to any mans right of dominion or to the interest of men that have dominion That the three Angles of a Triangle should be equall to two Angles of a Square that doctrine should have been if not disputed yet by the burning of all books of Geometry suppressed as farre as he whom it concerned was able Ignorance of remote causes disposeth men to attribute all events to the causes immediate and Instrumentall For these are all the causes they perceive And hence it comes to passe that in all places men that are grieved with payments to the Publique discharge their anger upon the Publicans that is to say Farmers Collectors and other Officers of the publique Revenue and adhaere to such as find fault with the publike Government and thereby when they have engaged themselves beyond hope of justification fall also upon the Supreme Authority for feare of punishment or shame of receiving pardon Ignorance of naturall causes disposeth a man to Credulity so as to believe many times impossibilities For such know nothing to the contrary but that they may be true being unable to detect the Impossibility And Credulity because men love to be hearkened unto in company disposeth them to lying so that Ignorance it selfe without Malice is able to make a man both to believe lyes and tell them and sometimes also to invent them Anxiety for the future time disposeth men to enquire into the causes of things because the knowledge of them maketh men the better able to order the present to their best advantage Curiosity or love of the knowledge of causes draws a man from consideration of the effect to seek the cause and again the cause of that cause till of necessity he must come to this thought at last that there is some cause whereof there is no former cause but is eternall which is it men call God So that it is impossible to make any profound enquiry into naturall causes without being enclined thereby to believe there is one God Eternall though they cannot have any
above their understanding than to define his Nature by Spirit Incorporeall and then confesse their definition to be unintelligible or if they give him such a title it is not Dogmatically with intention to make the Divine Nature understood but Piously to honour him with attributes of significations as remote as they can from the grossenesse of Bodies Visible Then for the way by which they think these Invisible Agents wrought their effects that is to say what immediate causes they used in bringing things to passe men that know not what it is that we call causing that is almost all men have no other rule to guesse by but by observing and remembring what they have seen to precede the like effect at some other time or times before without seeing between the antecedent and subsequent Event any dependance or connexion at all And therefore from the like things past they expect the like things to come and hope for good or evill luck superstitiously from things that have no part at all in the causing of it As the Athenians did for their war at Lepanto demand another Phormio The Pompeian faction for their warre in Afrique another Scipio and others have done in divers other occasions since In like manner they attribute their fortune to a stander by to a lucky or unlucky place to words spoken especially if the name of God be amongst them as Charming and Conjuring the Leiturgy of Witches insomuch as to believe they have power to turn a stone into bread bread into a man or any thing into any thing Thirdly for the worship which naturally men exhibite to Powers invisible it can be no other but such expressions of their reverence as they would use towards men Gifts Petitions Thanks Submission of Body Considerate Addresses sober Behaviour premeditated Words Swearing that is assuring one another of their promises by invoking them Beyond that reason suggesteth nothing but leaves them either to rest there or for further ceremonies to rely on those they believe to be wiser than themselves Lastly concerning how these Invisible Powers declare to men the things which shall hereafter come to passe especially concerning their good or evill fortune in generall or good or ill successe in any particular undertaking men are naturally at a stand save that using to conjecture of the time to come by the time past they are very apt not onely to take casuall things after one or two encounters for Prognostiques of the like encounter ever after but also to believe the like Prognostiques from other men of whom they have once conceived a good opinion And in these foure things Opinion of Ghosts Ignorance of second causes Devotion towards what men fear and Taking of things Casuall for Prognostiques consisteth the Naturall seed of Religion which by reason of the different Fancies Judgements and Passions of severall men hath grown up into ceremonies so different that those which are used by one man are for the most part ridiculous to another For these seeds have received culture from two sorts of men One sort have been they that have nourished and ordered them according to their own invention The other have done it by Gods commandement and direction but both sorts have done it with a purpose to make those men that relyed on them the more apt to Obedience Lawes Peace Charity and civill Society So that the Religion of the former sort is a part of humane Politiques and teacheth part of the duty which Earthly Kings require of their Subjects And the Religion of the later sort is Divine Politiques and containeth Precepts to those that have yeelded themselves subjects in the Kingdome of God Of the former sort were all the founders of Common-wealths and the Law-givers of the Gentiles Of the later sort were Abraham Moses and our Blessed Saviour by whom have been derived unto us the Lawes of the Kingdome of God And for that part of Religion which consisteth in opinions concerning the nature of Powers Invisible there is almost nothing that has a name that has not been esteemed amongst the Gentiles in one place or another a God or Divell or by their Poets feigned to be inanimated inhabited or possessed by some Spirit or other The unformed matter of the World was a God by the name of Chaos The Heaven the Ocean the Planets the Fire the Earth the Winds were so many Gods Men Women a Bird a Crocodile a Calf a Dogge a Snake an Onion a Leeke Deâ—…fied Besides that they filled almost all places with spirits called Daemons the plains with Pan and Panises or Satyres the Woods with Fawnes and Nymphs the Sea with Tritons and other Nymphs every River and Fountayn with a Ghost of his name and with Nymphs every house with its Lares or Familiars every man with his Genius Hell with Ghosts and spirituall Officers as Charon Cerberus and the Furies and in the night time all places with Larvae Lemures Ghosts of men deceased and a whole kingdome of Fayries and Bugbears They have also ascribed Divinity and built Temples to meer Accidenâ—…s and Qualities such as are Time Night Day Peace Concord Love Contention Vertue Honour Health Rust Fever and the like which when they prayed for or against they prayed to as if there were Ghosts of those names hanging over their heads and letting fall or withholding that Good or Evill for or against which they prayed They invoked also their own Wit by the name of Muses their own Ignorance by the name of Fortune their own Lust by the name of Cupid their own Rage by the name Furies their own privy members by the name of Priapus and attributed their pollutions to â—…ncubi and Succubae insomuch as there was nothing which a Poet could introduce as a person in his Poem which they did not make either a God or a Divel The same authors of the Religion of the Gentiles observing the second ground for Religion which is mens Ignorance of causes and thereby their aptnesse to attribute their fortune to causes on which there was no dependance at all apparent took occasion to obtrude on their ignorance in stead of second causes a kind of second and ministeriall Gods ascribing the cause of Foecundity to Venus the cause of Arts to Apolla of Subtilty and Craft to Mercury of Tempests and stormes to Aeolus and of other effects to other Gods insomuch as there was amongst the Heathen almost as great variety of Gods as of businesse And to the Worship which naturally men conceived fit to bee used towards their Gods namely Oblations Prayers Thanks and the rest formerly named the same Legislators of the Gentiles have added their Images both in Picture and Sculpture that the more ignorant sort that is to say the most part or generality of the people thinking the Gods for whose representation they were made were really included and as it were housed within them might so much the more stand in feare of them And endowed them
with lands and houses and officers and revenues set apart from all other humane uses that is consecrated and made holy to those their Idols as Caverns Groves Woods Mountains and whole Ilands and have attributed to them not onely the shapes some of Men some of Beasts some of Monsters but also the Faculties and Passions of men and beasts as Sense Speech Sex Lust Generation and this not onely by mixing one with another to propagate the kind of Gods but also by mixing with men and women to beget mongrill Gods and but inmates of Heaven as Bacchus Hercules and others besides Anger Revenge and other passions of living creatures and the actions proceeding from them as Fraud Theft Adultery Sodomie and any vice that may be taken for an effect of Power or a cause of Pleasure and all such Vices as amongst men are taken to be against Law rather than against Honour Lastly to the Prognostiques of time to come which are naturally but Conjectures upon the Experience of time past and supernaturally divine Revelation the same authors of the Religion of the Gentiles partly upon pretended Experience partly upon pretended Revelation have added innumerable other superstitious wayes of Divination and made men believe they should find their fortunes sometimes in the ambiguous or senslesse answers of the Priests at Delphi Delos Ammon and other famous Oracles which answers were made ambiguous by designe to own the event both wayes or absurd by the intoxicating vapour of the place which is very frequent in sulphurous Cavernes Sometimes in the leaves of the Sibills of whose Prophecyes like those perhaps of Nostradamus for the fragments now extant seem to be the invention of later times there were some books in reputation in the time of the Roman Republiques Sometimes in the insignificant Speeches of Mad-men supposed to be possessed with a divine Spirit which Possession they called Enthusiasme and these kinds of foretelling events were accounted Theomancy or Prophecy Sometimes in the aspect of the Starres at their Nativity which was called Horoscopy and esteemed a part of judiciary Astrology Sometimes in their own hopes and feares called Thumomancy or Presage Sometimes in the Prediction of Witches that pretended conference with the dead which is called Necromancy Conjuring and Witchcraft and is but juggling and confederate knavery Sometimes in the Casuall flight or feeding of birds called Augury Sometimes in the Entrayles of a sacrificed beast which was Aruspicina Sometimes in Dreams Sometimes in Croaking of Ravens or chattering of Birds Sometimes in the Lineaments of the face which was called Metoposcopy or by Palmistry in the lines of the hand in casuall words called Omina Sometimes in Monsters or unusuall accidents as Ecclipses Comets rare Meteors Earthquakes Inundations uncouth Births and the like which they called Portenta and Ostenta because they thought them to portend or foreshew some great Calamity to come Somtimes in meer Lottery as Crosse and Pile counting holes in a sive dipping of Verses in Homer and Virgil and innumerable other such vaine conceipts So easie are men to be drawn to believe any thing from such men as have gotten credit with them and can with gentlenesse and dexterity take hold of their fear and ignorance And therefore the first Founders and Legislators of Common-wealths amongst the Gentiles whose ends were only to keep the people in obedience and peace have in all places taken care First to imprint in their minds a beliefe that those precepts which they gave concerning Religion might not be thought to proceed from their own device but from the dictates of some God or other Spirit or else that they themselves were of a higher nature than mere mortalls that their Lawes might the more easily be received So Numa Pompilius pretended to receive the Ceremonies he instituted amongst the Romans from the Nymph Egeria and the first King and founder of the Kingdome of Peru pretended himselfe and his wife to be the children of the Sunne and Mahomet to set up his new Religion pretended to have conferences with the Holy Ghost in forme of a Dove Secondly they have had a care to make it believed that the same things were displeasing to the Gods which were forbidden by the Lawes Thirdly to prescribe Ceremonies Supplications Sacrifices and Festivalls by which they were to believe the anger of the Gods might be appeased and that ill success in War great contagions of Sicknesse Earthquakes and each mans private Misery came from the Anger of the Gods and their Anger from the Neglect of their Worship or the forgetting or mistaking some point of the Ceremonies required And though amongst the antient Romans men were not forbidden to deny that which in the Poets is written of the paines and pleasures after this life which divers of great authority and gravity in that state have in their Harangues openly derided yet that beliefe was alwaies more cherished than the contrary And by these and such other Institutions they obtayned in order to their end which was the peace of the Commonwealth that the common people in their misfortunes laying the fault on neglect or errour in their Ceremonies or on their own disobedience to the lawes were the lesse apt to mutâ—…ny against their Governors And being entertained with the pomp and pastime of Festivalls and publike Games made in honour of the Gods needed nothing else but bread to keep them from discontent murmuring and commotion against the State And therefore the Romans that had conquered the greatest part of the then known World made no scruple of tollerating any Religion whatsoeuer in the City of Rome it selfe unlesse it had somthing in it that could not consist with their Civill Government nor do we read that any Religion was there forbidden but that of the Jewes who being the peculiar Kingdome of God thought it unlawfull to acknowledge subjection to any mortall King or State whatsoever And thus you see how the Religion of the Gentiles was a part of their Policy But where God himselfe by supernaturall Revelation planted Religion there he also made to himselfe a peculiar Kingdome and gave Lawes not only of behaviour towards himselfe but also towards one another and thereby in the Kingdome of God the Policy and lawes Civill are a part of Religion and therefore the distinction of Temporall and Spirituall Domination hath there no place It is true that God is King of all the Earth Yet may he be King of a peculiar and chosen Nation For there is no more incongruity therein than that he that hath the generall command of the whole Army should have withall a peculiar Regiment or Company of his own God is King of all the Earth by his Power but of his chosen people he is King by Covenant But to speake more largly of the Kingdome of God both by Nature and Covenant I have in the following discourse assigned an other place From the propagation of Religion it is not hard to understand the causes
further and will not have the Law of Nature to be those Rules which conduce to the preservation of mans life on earth but to the attaining of an eternall felicity after death to which they think the breach of Covenant may conduce and consequently be just and reasonable such are they that think it a work of merit to kill or depose or rebell against the Soveraigne Power constituted over them by their own consent But because there is no naturall knowledge of mans estate after death much lesse of the reward that is then to be given to breach of Faith but onely a beliefe grounded upon other mens saying that they know it supernaturally or that they know those that knew them that knew others that knew it supernaturally Breach of Faith cannot be called a Precept of Reason or Nature Others that allow for a Law of Nature the keeping of Faith do neverthelesse make exception of certain persons as Heretiques and such as use not to performe their Covenant to others And this also is against reason For if any fault of a man be sufficient to discharge our Covenant made the same ought in reason to have been sufficient to have hindred the making of it The names of Just and Injust when they are attributed to Men signifie one thing and when they are attributed to Actions another When they are attributed to Men they signifie Conformity or Inconformity of Manners to Reason But when they are attributed to Actions they signifie the Conformity or Inconformity to Reason not of Manners or manner of life but of particular Actions A Just man therefore is he that taketh all the care he can that his Actions may be all Just and an Unjust man is he that neglecteth it And such men are more often in our Language stiled by the names of Righteous and Unrighteous then Just and Unjust though the meaning be the same Therefore a Righteous man does not lose that Title by one or a few unjust Actions that proceed from sudden Passion or mistake of Things or Persons nor does an Unrighteous man lose his character for such Actions as he does or forbeares to do for feare because his Will is not framed by the Justice but by the apparent benefit of what he is to do That which gives to humane Actions the relish of Justice is a certain Noblenesse or Gallantnesse of courage rarely found by which a man scorns to be beholding for the contentment of his life to fraud or breach of promise This Justice of the Manners is that which is meant where Justice is called a Vertue and Injustice a Vice But the Justice of Actions denominates men not Just but Guiltlesse and the Injustice of the same which is also called Injury gives them but the name of Guilty Again the Injustice of Manners is the disposition or aptitude to do Injurie and is Injustice before it proceed to Act and without supposing any individuall person injured But the Injustice of an Action that is to say Injury supposeth an individuall person Injured namely him to whom the Covenant was made And therefore many times the injury is received by one man when the dammage redoundeth to another As when the Master commandeth his servant to give mony to a stranger if it be not done the Injury is done to the Master whom he had before Covenanted to obey but the dammage redoundeth to the stranger to whom he had no Obligation and therefore could not Injure him And so also in Common-wealths private men may remit to one another their debts but not robberies or other violences whereby they are endammaged becaâ—…se the detaining of Debt is an Injury to themselves but Robbery and Violence are Injuries to the Person of the Common-wealth Whatsoever is done to a man conformable to his own Will signied to the doer is no Injury to him For if he that doeth it hath not passed away his originall right to do what he please by some Antecedent Covenant there is no breach of Covenant and therefore no Injury done him And if he have then his Will to have it done being signified is a release of that Covenant and so again there is no Injury done him Justice of Actions is by Writers divided into Commutative and Distributive and the former they say consisteth in proportion Arithmeticall the later in proportion Geometricall Commutative therefore they place in the equality of value of the things contracted for And Distributive in the distribution of equall benefit to men of equall merit As if it were Injustice to sell dearer than we buy or to give more to a man than he merits The value of all things contracted for is measured by the Appetite of the Contractors and therefore the just value is that which they be contented to give And Merit besides that which is by Covenant where the performance on one part meriteth the performance of the other part and falls under Justice Commutative not Distributive is not due by Justice but is rewarded of Grace onely And therefore this distinction in the sense wherein it useth to be expounded is not right To speak properly Commutative Justice is the Justice of a Contractor that is a Performance of Covenant in Buying and Selling Hiring and Letting to Hire Lending and Borrowing Exchanging Bartering and other acts of Contract And Distributive Justice the Justice of an Arbitrator that is to say the act of defining what is Just. Wherein being trusted by them that make him Arbitrator if he performe his Trust he is said to distribute to every man his own and this is indeed Just Distribution and may be called though improperly Distributive Justice but more properly Equity which also is a Law of Nature as shall be shewn in due place As Justice dependeth on Antecedent Covenant so does GRATITUDE depend on Antecedent Grace that is to say Antecedent Free-gift and is the fourth Law of Nature which may be conceived in this Forme That a man which receiveth Benefit from another of meer Grace Endeavour that he which giveth it have no reasonable cause to repent him of his good will For no man giveth but with intention of Good to himselfe because Gift is Voluntary and of all Voluntary Acts the Object is to every man his own Good of which if men see they shall be frustrated there will be no beginning of benevolence or trust nor consequently of mutuall help nor of reconciliation of one man to another and therefore they are to remain still in the condition of War which is contrary to the first and Fundamentall Law of Nature which commandeth men to Seck Peace The breach of this Law is called Ingratitude and hath the same relation to Grace that Injustice hath to Obligation by Covenant A fifth Law of Nature is COMPLEASANCE that is to say That every man strive to accommodate himselfe to the rest For the understanding whereof we may consider that there is in mens aptnesse to Society
ought to attribute to him Existence For no man can have the will to honour that which he thinks not to have any Beeing Secondly that those Philosophers who sayd the World or the Soule of the World was God spake unworthily of him and denyed his Existence For by God is understood the cause of the World and to say the World is God is to say there is no cause of it that is no God Thirdly to say the World was not Created but Eternall seeing that which is Eternall has no cause is to deny there is a God Fourthly that they who attributing as they think Ease to God take from him the care of Man-kind take from him his Honour for it takes away mens love and fear of him which is the root of Honour Fifthly in those things that signifie Greatnesse and Power to say he is Finite is not to Honour him For it is not a signe of the Will to Honour God to attribute to him lesse than we can and Finite is lesse than we can because to Finite it is easie to adde more Therefore to attribute Figure to him is not Honour for all Figure is Finite Nor to say we conceive and imagine or have an Idea of him in our mind for whatsoever we conceive is Finite Nor to attribute to him Parts or Totality which are the Attributes onely of things Finite Nor to say he is in this or that Place for whatsoever is in Place is bounded and Finite Nor that he is Moved or Resteth for both these Attributes ascribe to him Place Nor that there be more Gods than one because it implies them all Finite for there cannot be more than one Infinite Nor to ascribe to him unlesse Metaphorically meaning not the Passion but the Effect Passions that partake of Griefe as Repentance Anger Mercy or of Want as Appetite Hope Desire or of any Passive faculty For Passion is Power limited by somewhat else And therefore when we ascribe to God a Will it is not to be understood as that of Man for a Rationall Appetite but as the Power by which he effecteth every thing Likewise when we attribute to him Sight and other acts of Sense as also Knowledge and Understanding which in us is nothing else but a tumult of the mind raised by externall things that presse the organicall parts of mans body For there is no such thing in God and being things that depend on naturall causes cannot be attributed to him Hee that will attribute to God nothing but what is warranted by naturall Reason must either use such Negative Attributes as Infinite Eternall Incomprehensible or Superlatives as Most High most Great and the like or Indefinite as Good Just Holy Creator and in such sense as if he meant not to declare what he is for that were to circumscribe him within the limits of our Fancy but how much wee admire him and how ready we would be to obey him which is a signe of Humility and of a Will to honour him as much as we can For there is but one Name to signifie our Conception of his Nature and that is I AM and but one Name of his Relation to us and that is God in which is contained Father King and Lord. Concerning the actions of Divine Worship it is a most generall Precept of Reason that they be signes of the Intention to Honour God such as are First Prayers For not the Carvers when they made Images were thought to make them Gods but the People that Prayed to them Secondly Thanksgiving which differeth from Prayer in Divine Worship no otherwise than that Prayers precede and Thanks succeed the benefit the end both of the one and the other being to acknowledge God for Author of all benefits as well past as future Thirdly Gifts that is to say Sacrifices and Oblations if they be of the best are signes of Honour for they are Thanksgivings Fourthly Not to swear by any but God is naturally a signe of Honour for it is a confession that God onely knoweth the heart and that no mans wit or strength can protect a man against Gods vengeance on the perjured Fifthly it is a part of Rationall Worship to speak Considerately of God for it argues a Fear of him and Fear is a confession of his Power Hence followeth That the name of God is not to be used rashly and to no purpose for that is as much as in Vain And it is to no purpose unlesse it be by way of Oath and by order of the Common-wealth to make Judgements certain or between Common-wealths to avoyd Warre And that disputing of Gods nature is contrary to his Honour For it is supposed that in this naturall Kingdome of God there is no other way to know any thing but by naturall Reason that is from the Principles of naturall Science which are so farre from teaching us any thing of Gods nature as they cannot teach us our own nature nor the nature of the smallest creature living And therefore when men out of the Principlès of naturall Reason dispute of the Attributes of God they but dishonour him For in the Attributes which we give to God we are not to consider the signification of Philosophicall Truth but the signification of Pious Intention to do him the greatest Honour we are able From the want of which consideration have proceeded the volumes of disputation about the Nature of God that tend not to his Honour but to the honour of our own wits and learning and are nothing else but inconsiderate and vain abuses of his Sacred Name Sixthly in Prayers Thanksgiving Offerings and Sacrifices it is a Dictate of naturall Reason that they be every one in his kind the best and most significant of Honour As for example that Prayers and Thanksgiving be made in Words and Phrases not sudden nor light nor Plebeian but beautifull and well composed For else we do not God as much honour as we can And therefore the Heathens did absurdly to worship Images for Gods But their doing it in Verse and with Musick both of Voyce and Instruments was reasonable Also that the Beasts they offered in sacrifice and the Gifts they offered and their actions in Worshipping were full of submission and commemorative of benefits received was according to reason as proceeding from an intention to honour him Seventhly Reason directeth not onely to worship God in Secret but also and especially in Publique and in the sight of men For without that that which in honour is most acceptable the procuring others to honour him is lost Lastly Obedience to his Lawes that is in this case to the Lawes of Nature is the greatest worship of all For as Obedience is more acceptable to God than Sacrifice so also to set light by his Commandements is the greatest of all contumelies And these are the Lawes of that Divine Worship which naturall Reason dictateth to private men But seeing a Common-wealth is but one Person it ought also to exhibite
that the end of Miracles was to beget beleef not universally in all men elect and reprobate but in the elect only that is to say in such as God had determined should become his Subjects For those miraculous plagues of Egypt had not for end the conversion of Pharaoh For God had told Moses before that he would harden the heart of Pharaoh that he should not let the people goe And when he let them goe at last not the Miracles perswaded him but the plagues forced him to it So also of our Saviour it is written Mat. 13. 58. that he wrought not many Miracles in his own countrey because of their unbeleef and in Marke 6. 5. in stead of he wrought not many it is he could work none It was not because he wanted power which to say were blasphemy against God nor that the end of Miracles was not to convert incredulous men to Christ for the end of all the Miracles of Moses of the Prophets of our Saviour and of his Apostles was to adde men to the Church but it was because the end of their Miracles was to adde to the Church not all men but such as should be saved that is to say such as God had elected Seeing therefore our Saviour was sent from his Father hee could not use his power in the conversion of those whom his Father had rejected They that expounding this place of St. Marke say that this word Hee could not is put for He would not do it without example in the Greek tongue where Would not is put sometimes for Could not in things inanimate that have no will but Could not for Would not never and thereby lay a stumbling block before weak Christians as if Christ could doe no Miracles but amongst the credulous From that which I have here set down of thenature and use of a Miracle we may define it thus A MIRACLE is a work of God besides his operation by the way of Nature ordained in the Creation done for the making manifest to his elect the mission of an extraordinary Minister for their salvation And from this definition we may inferre First that in all Miracles the work done is not the effect of any vertue in the Prophet because it is the effect of the immediate hand of God that is to say God hath done it without using the Prophet therein as a subordinate cause Secondly that no Devil Angel or other created Spirit can do a Miracle For it must either be by vertue of some naturall science or by Incantation that is vertue of words For if the Inchanters do it by their own power independent there is some power that proceedeth not from God which all men deny and if they doe it by power given them then is the work not from the immediate hand of God but naturall and consequently no Miracle There be some texts of Scripture that seem to attribute the power of working wonders equall to some of those immediate Miracles wrought by God himself to certain Arts of Magick and Incantation As for example when we read that after the Rod of Moses being east on the ground became a Serpent the Magicians of Egypt did the like by their Enchantments and that after Moses had turned the waters of the Egyptian Streams Rivers Ponds and Pooles of water into blood the Magicians of Egypt did so likewise with their Enchantments and that after Moses had by the power of God brought frogs upon the land the Magicians also did so with their Enchantments and brought up frogs upon the land of Egypt will not a man be apt to attribute Miracles to Enchantments that is to say to the efficacy of the sound of Words and think the samâ—… very well proved out of this and other such places and yet there is no place of Scripture that telleth us what an Enchantment is If therefore Enchantment be not as many think it a working of strange effects by spells and words but Imposture and delusion wrought by ordinary means and so far from supernaturall as the Impostors need not the study so much as of naturall causes but the ordinary ignorance stupidity and superstition of mankind to doe them those texts that seem to countenance the power of Magick Witcheraft and Enchantment must needs have another sense than at first sight they seem to bear For it is evident enough that Words have no effect but on those that understand them and then they have no other but to signifie the intentions or passions of them that speak and thereby produce hope fear or other passions or conceptions in the hearer Therefore when a Rod seemeth a Serpent or the Waters Bloud or any other Miracle seemeth done by Enchantment if it be not to the edification of Gods people not the Rod nor the Water nor any other thing is enchanted that is to say wrought upon by the Words but the Spectator So that all the Miracle consisteth in this that the Enchanter has deceived a man which is no Miracle but a very easie matter to doe For such is the ignorance and aptitude to error generally of all men but especially of them that have not much knowledge of naturall causes and of the nature and interests of men as by innumerable and easie tricks to be abused What opinion of miraculous power before it was known there was a Science of the course of the Stars might a man have gained that should have told the people This hour or day the Sun should be darkned A Juggler by the handling of his goblets and other trinkets if it were not now ordinarily practised would be thought to do his wonders by the power at least of the Devil A man that hath practised to speak by drawing in of his breath which kind of men in antient time were called Ventriloqui and so make the weaknesse of his voice seem to proceed not from the weak impulsion of the organs of Speech but from distance of place is able to make very many men beleeve it is a voice from Heaven whatsoever he please to tell them And for a crafty man that hath enquired into the secrets and familiar confessions that one man ordinarily maketh to another of his actions and adventures past to tell them him again is no hard matter and yet there be many that by such means as that obtain the reputation of being Conjurers But it is too long a businesse to reckon up the severall sorts of those men which the Greeks called Thaumaturgi that is to say workers of things wonderfull and yet these do all they do by their own single dexterity But if we looke upon the Impostures wrought by Confederacy there is nothing how impossible soever to be done that is impossible to bee beleeved For two men conspiring one to seem lame the other to cure him with a charme will deceive many but many conspiring one to seem lame another so to cure him and all the rest to bear witnesse will
equally applicable to any difficulty whatsoever For the meaning of Eternity they will not have it to be an Endlesse Succession of Time for then they should not be able to render a reason how Gods Will and Praeordaining of things to come should not be before his Praescience of the same as the Efficient Cause before the Effect or Agent before the Action nor of many other their bold opinions concerning the Incomprehensible Nature of God But they will teach us that Eternity is the Standing still of the Present Time a Nunc-stans as the Schools call it which neither they nor any else understand no more than they would a Hic-stans for an Infinite greatnesse of Place And whereas men divide a Body in their thought by numbring parts of it and in numbring those parts number also the parts of the Place it filled it cannot be but in making many parts wee make also many places of those parts whereby there cannot bee conceived in the mind of any man more or fewer parts than there are places for yet they will have us beleeve that by the Almighty power of God one body may be at one and the same time in many places and many bodies at one and the same time in one place as if it were an acknowledgment of the Divine Power to say that which is is not or that which has been has not been And these are but a small part of the Incongruities they are forced to from their disputing Philosophically in stead of admiring and adoring of the Divine and Incomprehensible Nature whose Attributes cannot signifie what he is but ought to signifie our desire to honour him with the best Appellations we can think on But they that venture to reason of his Nature from these Attributes of Honour losing their understanding in the very first attempt fall from one Inconvenience into another without end and without number in the same manner as when a man ignorant of the Ceremonies of Court comming into the presence of a greater Person than he is used to speak to and stumbling at his entrance to save himselfe from falling le ts slip his Cloake to recover his Cloake le ts fall his Hat and with one disorder after another discovers his astonishment and rusticity Then for Physiques that is the knowledge of the subordinate and secundary causes of naturall events they render none at all but empty words If you desire to know why some kind of bodies sink naturally downwards toward the Earth and others goe naturally from it The Schools will tell you out of Aristotle that the bodies that sink downwards are Heavy and that this Heavinesse is it that causes them to descend But if you ask what they mean by Heavinesse they will define it to bee an endeavour to goe to the center of the Earth so that the cause why things sink downward is an Endeavour to be below which is as much as to say that bodies descend or ascend because they doe Or they will tell you the center of the Earth is the place of Rest and Conservation for Heavy things and therefore they endeavour to be there As if Stones and Metalls had a desire or could discern the place they would bee at as Man does or loved Rest as Man does not or that a peece of Glasse were lesse safe in the Window than falling into the Street If we would know why the same Body seems greater without adding to it one time than another they say when it seems lesse it is Condensed when greater Rarefied What is that Condensed and Rarefied Condensed is when there is in the very same Matter lesse Quantity than before and Rarefied when more As if there could be Matter that had not some determined Quantity when Quantity is nothing else but the Determination of Matter that is to say of Body by which we say one Body is greater or lesser than another by thus or thus much Or as if a Body were made without any Quantity at all and that afterwards more or lesse were put into it according as it is intended the Body should be more or lesse Dense For the cause of the Soule of Man they say Creatur Infundendo and Creando Infunditur that is It is Created by Powring it in and Powred in by Creation For the Cause of Sense an ubiquity of Species that is of the Shews or Apparitions of objects which when they be Apparitions to the Eye is Sight when to the Eare Hearing to the Palate Tast to the Nostrill Smelling and to the rest of the Body Feeling For cause of the Will to doe any particular action which is called Volitio they assign the Faculty that is to say the Capacity in generall that men have to will sometimes one thing sometimes another which is called Voluntas making the Power the cause of the Act As if one should assign for cause of the good or evill Acts of men their Ability to doe them And in many occasions they put for cause of Naturall events their own Ignorance but disguised in other words As when they say Fortune is the cause of things contingent that is of things whereof they know no cause And as when they attribute many Effects to occult qualities that is qualities not known to them and therefore also as they thinke to no Man else And to Sympathy Antipathy Antiperistasis Specificall Qualities and other like Termes which signifie neither the Agent that produceth them nor the Operation by which they are produced If such Metaphysiques and Physiques as this be not Vain Philosophy there was never any nor needed St. Paul to give us warning to avoid it And for their Morall and Civill Philosophy it hath the same or greater absurdities If a man doe an action of Injustice that is to say an action contrary to the Law God they say is the prime cause of the Law and also the prime cause of that and all other Actions but no cause at all of the Injustice which is the Inconformity of the Action to the Law This is Vain Philosophy A man might as well say that one man maketh both a streight line and a crooked and another maketh their Incongruity And such is the Philosophy of all men that resolve of their Conclusions before they know their Premises pretending to comprehend that which is Incomprehensible and of Attributes of Honour to make Attributes of Nature as this distinction was made to maintain the Doctrine of Free-Will that is of a Will of man not subject to the Will of God Aristotle and other Heathen Philosophers define Good and Evill by the Appetite of men and well enough as long as we consider them governed every one by his own Law For in the condition of men that have no other Law but their own Appetites there can be no generall Rule of Good and Evill Actions But in a Common-wealth this measure is false Not the Appetite of Private men but
of Soveraigns and both the Duty and Liberty of Subjects upon the known naturall Inclinations of Mankind and upon the Articles of the Law of Nature of which no man that pretends but reason enough to govern his private family ought to be ignorant And for the Power Ecclesiasticall of the same Soveraigns I ground it on such Texts as are both evident in themselves and consonant to the Scope of the whole Scripture And therefore am perswaded that he that shall read it with a purpose onely to be informed shall be informed by it But for those that by Writing or Publique Discourse or by their eminent actions have already engaged themselves to the maintaining of contrary opinions they will not bee so easily satisfied For in such cases it is naturall for men at one and the same time both to proceed in reading and to lose their attention in the search of objections to that they had read before Of which in a time wherein the interests of men are changed seeing much of that Doctrine which serveth to the establishing of a new Government must needs be contrary to that which conduced to the dissolution of the old there cannot choose but be very many In that part which treateth of a Christian Common-wealth there are some new Doctrines which it may be in a State where the contrary were already fully determined were a fault for a Subject without leave to divulge as being an usurpation of the place of a Teacher But in this time that men call not onely for Peace but also for Truth to offer such Doctrines as I think True and that manifestly tend to Peace and Loyalty to the consideration of those that are yet in deliberation is no more but to offer New Wine to bee put into New Cask that both may be preserved together And I suppose that then when Novelty can breed no trouble nor disorder in a State men are not generally so much inclined to the reverence of Antiquity as to preferre Ancient Errors before New and well proved Truth There is nothing I distrust more than my Elocution which neverthelesse I am confident excepting the Mischances of the Presse is not obscure That I have neglected the Ornament of quoting ancient Poets Orators and Philosophers contrary to the custome of late time whether I have done well or ill in it proceedeth from my judgment grounded on many reasons For first all Truth of Doctrine dependeth either upon Reason or upon Scripture both which give credit to many but never receive it from any Writer Secondly the matters in question are not of Fact but of Right wherein there is no place for Witnesses There is scarce any of those old Writers that contradicteth not sometimes both himself and others which makes their Testimonies insufficient Fourthly such Opinions as are taken onely upon Credit of Antiquity are not intrin◅ecally the Judgment of those that cite them but Words that passe like gaping from mouth to mouth Fiftly it is many times with a fraudulent Designe that men stick their corrupt Doctrine with the Cloves of other mens Wit Sixtly I find not that the Ancients they cite took it for an Ornament to doe the like with those that wrote before them Seventhly it is an argument of Indigestion when Greek and Latine Sentences unchewed come up again as they use to doe unchanged Lastly though I reverence those men of Ancient time that either have written Truth perspicuously or set us in a better way to find it out our selves yet to the Antiquity it self I think nothing due For if we will reverence the Age the Present is the Oldest If the Antiquity of the Writer I am not sure that generally they to whom such honor is given were more Ancient when they wrote than I am that am Writing But if it bee well considered the praise of Ancient Authors proceeds not from the reverence of the Dead but from the competition and mutuall envy of the Living To conclude there is nothing in this whole Discourse nor in that I writ before of the same Subject in Latine as far as I can perceive contrary either to the Word of God or to good Manners or to the disturbance of the Publique Tranquillity Therefore I think it may be profitably printed and more profitably taught in the Universities in case they also think so to whom the judgment of the same belongeth For seeing the Universities are the Fountains of Civill and Morall Doctrine from whence the Preachers and the Gentry drawing such water as they find use to sprinkle the same both from the Pulpit and in their Conversation upon the People there ought certainly to be great care taken to have it pure both from the Venime of Heathen Politicians and from the Incantation of Deceiving Spirits And by that means the most men knowing their Duties will be the less subject to serve the Ambition of a few discōtented persons in their purposes against the State and be the lesse grieved with the Contributions necessary for their Peace and Defence and the Governours themselves have the lesse cause to maintain at the Common charge any greater Army than is necessary to make good the Publique Liberty against the Invasions and Encroachments of forraign Enemies And thus I have brought to an end my Discourse of Civill and Ecclesiasticall Government occasioned by the disorders of the present time without partiality without application and without other designe than to set before mens eyes the mutuall Relation between Protection and Obedience of which the condition of Humane Nature and the Laws Divine both Naturall and Positive require an inviolable observation And though in the revolution of States there can be no very good Constellation for Truths of this nature to be born under as having an angry aspect from the dissolvers of an old Government and seeing but the backs of them that erect a new yet I cannot think it will be condemned at this time either by the Publique Judge of Doctrine or by any that desires the continu◅nce of Publique Peace And in this hope I return to my interrupted Speculation of Bodies Naturall wherein if God give me health to finish it I hope the Novelty will as much please as in the Doctrine of this Artificiall Body it useth to offend For such Truth as opposeth no mans profit nor pleasure is to all men welcome FINIS Memory Dreams Apparitions or Visions Understanding Trayne of Thoughts unguided Trayne of Thoughts regulated Remembrance Prudence Signes Con◅ecture of the time past Originall of Speech The use of Speech Abuses of Speech Names Proper Common Universall Necessity of D◅ons Subject to Names Use of Names Positive Negative Names with their Vses Words insignificant Understanding Inconstant names Reason what it is Reason defined Right Reason where The use of Reason Of Error and Absurdity Causes of absurditie 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. Science Prudence Sapience with their difference Signes of Science Motion Vitall and Animal Endeavour Appetite Desire Hunger
Redemption Church the Lords house Ecclesia properly what Acts 19. 39. In what sense the Church is one Person Church defined A Christian Common-wealth and a Church all one The Soveraign Rights of Abraham Abraham had the sole power of ordering the Religion of his own people No pretence of Private Spirit against the Religion of Abraham Abraham sole Judge and Interpreter of what God spake The authority of Moses whereon grounded John 5. 31. Moses was under God Soveraign of the Jews all his own time though Aaron had the Priesthood All spirits were subordinate to the spirit of Moses After Moses the Soveraignty was in the High Priest Of the Soveraign power between the time of Joshua and of Saul Of the Rights of the Kings of Israel The practice of Supremacy in Religion was not in the time of the Kings according to the Right thereof 2 Chro. 19. 2. After the Captivity the Iews â—…ad no setled Common-wealth Three parts of the Office of Christ. His Office as a Redeemer Christs Kingdome not of this woâ—…ld The End of Christs comming was to renew the Covenant of the Kingdome of God and to perswade the Elect to imbrace it which was the second part of his Office The preaching of Christ not contrary to the then law of the Iews nor of Caesar. The third part of his Office was to be King under his Father of the Elect. Christs authority in the Kingdome of God subordinate to that of his Father One and the same God is the Person represented by Moses and by Christ. Of the Holy Spirit that fel on the Apostles Of the Trinity The Power Ecclesiasticall is but the power to teach An argument thereof the Power of Christ himself From the name of Regeneration From the compariâ—…on of it with Fishing Leaven Seed Fâ—…om the nature of 〈◊〉 2 Cor. 1. 24. From the Authority Christ hath lâ—…st to Civill Princes What Christians may do to avoid persecution Of Martyrs Argument from the points of their Commission To Preach And Teach To Baptize And to Forgive and Retain Sinnes Mat. 18. 15 16 17. Of Excommunication The use of Excommunication without Civill Power Acts 9. 2. Of no effect upon an Apostate But upon the faithfull only For what fault lyeth Excommunication Ofpersons liaable to Excommunication 1 Sam. 8. Of the Interpreter of the Scriptures before Civil Soveraigns became Christians Of the Power to make Scripture Law Of the Ten Commandements Of the Iudiciall and Leviticall Law The Second Law * 1 Kings 14 26. The Old Testament when made Canonicall The New Testament began to be Canonicall under Christian Soveraigns Of the Power of Councells to make the Scriptures Law John 3. 36. John 3. 18. Of the Right of constituting Ecclesiasticall Officers in the time of the Apostles Matthias made Apostle by the Congregation Paul and Barnabas made Apostles by the Church of Antioch What Offices in the Church are Magisteriall Ordination of Teachers Ministers of the Church what And how chosen Of Ecclesiasticall Revenue under the Law of Moses In our Saviours time and after Mat. 10. 9 10. * Acts 4. 34. The Ministers of the Gospel lived on the Benevolence of their flocks 1 Cor. 9. 13. That the Civill Soveraign being a Christian hath the Right of appointing Pastors The Pastor all Authority of Soveraigns only is de Jure Divino that of other Pastors is Jure Civili Christian Kings have Power to execute all manner of Pastoral function * John 4. 2. * 1 Cor. 1. 14 16. * 1 Câ—…r 1. 17. The Civill Soveraigne if a Christian is head of the Church in his own Dominions Cardinal Bellarmines Books De Summo Pontifice considered The first book The second Book The third Book * Dan. 9. 27. The fourth Book Texts for the Infaâ—…ibility of the Popes Judgement in points of Faith Texts for the same in point of Manners The question of Superiority between the Pope and other Bishops Of the Popes â—…mporall Power The difficulty of obeying God and Man both at once Is none to them that distinguish between what is and what is not Necessary to Salvation All that is Necessary to Salvation is contained in Faith and Obedience What Obedience is Necessary And to what Laws In the Faith of a Christian who is the Person beleeved The causes of Christian Faith Faith comes by Hearing The onely Necessary Article of Christian Faith Proved from the Scope of the Evangelists From the Sermons of the Apostles From the Easinesse of the Doctrine From formall â—…ud cleer texts From that it is the Foundation of all other Articles 2 Pet. 3. v. 7 10 12. In what sense other Articles may be called Nâ—…cessary That Faith and Obedience are both of them Necessary to Salvation What each of them contributes thereunto Obedience to God and to the Civill Soveraign not inconsistent whether Christian Or Infidel The Kingdom of Darknesse what * Eph. 6. 12. * Mat. 12. 26. * Mat. 9. 34. * Eph. 2. 2. * Joh. 16. 11. The Church not yet fully â—…reed of Darknesse Four Causes of Spirituall Darknesse Errors from misinterpreting the Scriptures concerning the Kingdome of God As that the Kingdome of God is the present Church And that the Pope is his Vicar generall And that the Pastors are the Clergy Error from mistaking Consecration for Conjuration Incantation in the Ceremonies of Baptisme And in Marriage in Visitation of the Sick and in Consecration of Places Errors from mistaking Eternall Life and Everlasting Death As the Doctrine of Purgatory and Exorcismes and Invocation of Saints The Texts alledged for the Doctrines aforementioned have been answered before Answer to the text on which Beza inferreth that the Kingdome of Christ began at the Resurrection Explication of the Place in Mark 9. 1. Abuse of some other texts in defence of the Power of the Pope The manner of Consecrations in the Scripture was without Exorcisms The immortality of mans Soule not proved by Scripture to be of Nature but of Grace Eternall Torments what Answer of the Texts alledged for Purgatory Places of the New Testament for Purgatory answered Baptisme for the Dead how understood The Originall of Daemonclogy What were the Daemons of the Ancients How that Doctrine was spread How far received by the Jews John 8. 52. Why our Saviour controlled it not The Scriptures doe not teach that Spirits are Incorporeall The Power of Casting out Devills not the same it was in the Primitive Church Another relique of Gentilisme Worshipping of Images left in the Church not brought into it Answer to certain seeming texts for Images What is Worship Distinction between Divine and Civill Worship An Image what Phantasmes Fictions Materiall Images Idolatry what Scandalous worship of Images Answer 〈◊〉 the Argument from the Cherubins and Brazen Serpent * Exod. 32. 2. * Gen. 31. 30. Painting of Fancies no Idolatry but abusing them to Religious Worship is How Idolatry was left in the Church Canonizing of Saints The name of Pontifex Procession of Images Wax Candles and Torches lighted What Philosophy is Prudence no part of Philosophy No false Doctrine is part of Philosophy No more is Revelation supernaturall Nor learning taken upon credit of Authors Of the Beginnings and Progresse of Philosophy Of the Schools of Philosophy amongst the Athenians Of the Schools of the Jews The Schoole of the Graecians unprofitable The Schools of the Jews unprofitable University what it is Errors brought into Religion from Aristotles Metaphysiques Errors concerning Abstract Essences Nunc-stans One Body in many places and many Bodies in one place at once Absurdities in naturall Philosopy as Gravity the Cause of Heavinesse Quantity put into Body already made Powring in of Soules Ubiquity of Apparition Will the Cause of Willing Ignorance an occult Cause One makes the things incongruent another the Incongruity Private Appetite the rule of Publique good And that lawfull Marriage is Unchastity And that all Government but Popular is Tyranny That not Men but Law governs Laws over the Conscience Private Interpretation of Law Language of Schoole-Divines Errors from Tradition Suppression of Reason He that receiveth Benefit by a Fact is presumed to be the Author That the â—…hurch Militant is the Kingdome of God was first taught by the Church of Rome And maintained also by the Presbytery Infallibility Subjection of Bishops Exemptions of the Clergy The names of Saceâ—…dotes and Sacriâ—… The Sacramentation of Marriage The single life of Priests Auricular Confession Canonization of Saints and declaring of Martyrs Transubstantiation Pennance Absolution Purgatory Indulgences Externall works Daemonology and Exorcism School-Divinity The Authors of spirituall Darknesse who they be Comparison of the Papacy with the Kingdome of Fayries