protection when their Offices are invaded as the Prince is to the Fathers and Monarchs again being not unanimous and active in upholding each others rights as Fathers are it is no wonder if we finde here and there an Anarchical Kingdom even daring to profess themselves so which Families do not But would Monarchs take the common interest to heart as Fathers do and be as vigilant to preserve their neighbors power as others are to overthrow them they would finde that it would be the steadiest course to maintain their own power at home and that when other Kingdoms could never have been known successful in enterprising their Kings subversion their subjects would never undertake it no more then the Children or Servants of a Family dare for the like cause attempt the like against their Father and Master The main reason that Subjects usually have to desire such Change being the example of such or such a neighboring people as have thriven therein and so making fortune and success the onely judge of right and wrong they do proceed accordingly all stories telling us that until Anarchies came into the world such a thing as limited Monarchy was not in being Let us now again see their likeness in Rebellions and its pretences The Wife if she be of greater spirit then to be confined in her proper employment takes occasion from her Husbands remisness or too great trust in her to enlarge her power in the Family and to encroach on her Husbands also With these she lays Obligations and raises dependances as to her self and having now as she believes gotten strength to stand alone or above her Husband she becomes more insolent and open Which if it shall awake him to curb by his just power then comes she to spread through the Family the charge and power she hath She saith That the power of the head of the Family grew from the Family for as the Family was in greatness or power so was the head thereof also and therefore that they as the fountains of power might use the same to their just vindication from oppression She saith that as all kindes of good is increased by communication so the good of the whole Family is to be preferred in reason to the single good of any one especially since as the case now stands that one seeks but his own hurt also led and blinded with evil Counsel In which case necessity of self-preservation will not onely justifie but duty to their Master requires the other members to joyn in a course to force these from him and take the charge of his person and Government themselves She tells them that a Family as a Family hath foundation on the Wife and that as without Religion well instructed there could be no firm obligation for subjects obedience so without a Wife no Children no Family and so no Master thereof Besides though truly she is loth to say so much her self yet her Husbands late disrespect and forwardness to cross her makes her fear as men are now easily enclined to heresie so he hath turned his affection to some other women and therefore she would divorce her self from him that so he might be as excommunicate in his Family For although it is true that obedience is to be given to him by the Law of God yet again it is as true that he is to keep Gods Laws as well as we if not we must obey God rather then men Nay when he hath neglected his duty to his Family in not providing for them as this man hath done Saint Paul expressly saith He is worse then an infidel Now whether it be not fit that one that hath denied the Faith an Infidel nay worse then an Infidel should not onely be excommunicated but put from Government she thinks none can doubt But above all through her Husbands often absence about other imployments and remitting the directive part of Government to her in many particulars she lays the greatest claim to make herself as it were Governor in chief leaving to her Husband as pertinent to him that hath none but the coercive part the honor and authority only of a subservient officer that is to execute punish according to her determination and censure No otherwise then as the popish and Presbyterian Clergy upon advantage of their sole exercise in the Office of publike instruction do come to believe at last they are supreme and uncontrolable herein and do thence infer that as the body is to be subservient to the mind so the Prince or Civil Magistrate as they call him ought with his coercive part of Government to be reckoned but as subordinate and Ministerial to what they in their spiritual capacities shall enjoyn Not remembring that all that external jurisdiction and power she exerciseth in tâ—e Family is subordinate and to be acknowledged as derived from his supreme headship even as done by her as his Wife in his family by vertue of that choice and designation he then made at the time he personally ordained her to be his Wife and so consequently took her into this consortship and share of power For although the positive power and honor belonging to her as a mother and Mistris of a family be to be derived from God onely even from the sacramental efficacy of marriage and Ordination it self yet since it cannot be imagined that the constitution of a less and subordinate power was intended to be the overthrow of a greater therefore should she have considered that she is negatively in all things by him restrainable in the execution thereof Nay more in those things which she acts as Mistress of the Family over any but her own Children she is to hold her self as well impowered as restrainable by him although in respect of that obedience or honor rather which her own children give her she be not to acknowledge any humane derivation therein but is impowered as mother both by the Laws of God and Nature and that in chief where no other head or Monarch is With these and such like insinuations she may be supposed to win Children and others of the Family into a faction and association with her by whose help she may be able to work her ends For although women be rather more desirous of Government then men yet they wanting bodily strength are forced to draw in others to their assistance by setting up of their interests also Thus Children shall be won in by hope of some parity of power with the Father as well as Peerage among themselves for by the Text of Fathers provoke noâ— your children to wrath they would both have the duty of Fathers implyed of not commanding more to their Children then what they are willing to act for fear of angring them and also that being provoked by their Father it was just and reasonable for them to prosecute this wrath of theirs unto the abating his power for the future Then the Children when they meet with an easie and
For should the King be as much hidden from our bodily sence as God is and should we again know no more of the Commissions and powers granted to Justices in each Kingdom then we do of the Laws of matter and internal forms in Nature it would be as hard to apprehend any prime Agent above those Justices in the Kingdom as to conceive the power and existence of Deity in the world A supposition that may be well made good if consideration be had of those strange conceits of the form and figure of Kings which are entertained by some ignorant people that as yet never saw any nor heard them described And the reason is the same for our ignorance in appearance of Gods operation in Creation Providence and natural Causes as is for the ignorance of these before mentioned in the knowledge of the Causes of political or artificial productions with us unless we shall impiously as well as arrogantly conclude that we should have knowledge in this life in such perfection as to see him intuitively as Angels do now or as our selves shall do hereafter Of the reason of the present course of Gods proceeding in many particulars both of Creation and Providence we did speak in the beginning and other parts of this work in which we declared the divers sympathies and natural propensities wherewith Vegetatives and Inanimates are indued all of them tending to specifical and mutual preservation and Providence We also shewed how Sensitives were provoked by the affection of pleasure naturally implanted in them and accompanying things beneficial to be continually active in pursuance of what was to themselves and others behoof-ful We also manifested how rational Creatures by the affection of love and desire of beneficence and by the thirst of honor accompanying them as their reward were provoked also unto the like continual endeavors towards mutual good and preservation All of them infallibly concluding that there must be an Author or prime Agent of such universal concern and such continual care in constituting and ordering these things as to be their original Cause and perpetual guide and support according to the method of his own good pleasure For should there not be these natural propensions to love and pitty nay to acts of justice and of submission therein to others as to honor Parents and the like it would come to pass that through that too great thirst of self-seeking heretofore spoken of and through anger and envy of being crossed therein no one man would now be left alive inasmuch as there is no man but is by one or other so much hated as to cause his death to be heartily desired were not manifold hinderances by divine Providence and appointment put in to keep off execution And in this regard was may also collect another strong proof for Deity and Providence from that awful and reverential respect which is by each one born towards Authority For experience every day tells us that those very persons that are come to that height of daring as to challenge and enter the field for a lye an abuse to their Mistress or the like where besides the equal hazard of their lives in present they must have a certain expectation to suffer according to Law in case they do out-live the other are yet so kept in order by that divine and providential terror by God impressed on his Image of Authority here on earth as not to have courage to withstand the Attachment of a publike Officer Whereupon our Discourse formerly and ordinary reason it self always testifying that these his works and the way of Government of them are such as cannot be bettered why should we think Change and Alteration any ways convenient For if it be an act proper to goodness wisdom power c. to make things well and good and afterwards to dispose them so will not constancy herein be as commendable to the same goodness wisdom and power in their continuance in that order as it was for creating and thus stating them And so if God had not made and ordered all things so as cannot be bettered he could not have been God and if he should not keep them in the same order whilst they remain the same things he should not be God neither wisdom in designation requiring constancy in prosecution and irresistible power being the necessary attendant of both And having thus far spoken in defence of the constancy of the course of Nature and Providence against such as would not believe a God because since the Fathers fell asleep all things are alike till now so also for conviction of such as from inconstancy and irregularity of the actions in voluntary Agents and Gods permission of sin and oppression would conclude against Deity too according to that divine Aphorism because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil we shall now farther speak In this saying of the wise man we may apprehend the two usual grounds that make men lean to Atheism The first is in thinking all the acts and works of men evil which they cannot apprehend as good not being many times able to look through the mistaken or present particular suffering of some few unto that real and more lasting good thereby procured to many The other in thinking that the acts permitted unto and proceeding from humane Judgement and Will as it is seated in divers persons for the guidance of their own affairs should be alike constant to those of God in the Government of the world and course of his Providence who hath an uniform end to cause steadiness of his actions therein Unto which an answer may be also made out of the same consideration before spoken of namely the sufficiency of the one above the other And if they wil allow any Creature to be so perfect as to have Will and Understanding separate they must in order to their specifical freedom of Will allow them variety of actions also especially since their private ends must differ as before noted And therefore as we must conclude Gods works must be uniform and constant in reference to his Unity of Will and end to design and all-sufficiency of power to atchieve so we must allow to things submitted to the power of inferior voluntary Agents if at all you will grant them voluntary freedom unto variety of productions and execution and that in bad as well as in good Unless we shall at once and against sense conclude all men are alike good wise or powerful and that from such plurality and disparity of Judgement Interest and Will we should think that constant procession could be expected From which liberty and freedom of action in good or bad guided according to the true light or corruption of humane judgement and Will it must also follow that the evidences and directions given for mens guidance should not be in such continuing and pressing manner repeated to each single
needful to keep of mutual injury through interfering desires But yet some kinde of guardians there must be to provide food and things necessary to cram down these appetite-less innocents lest their reward of preserving others should turn to their own destruction But if we cannot fancy desiring and not desiring equal but must acknowledge appetites the wheels of the soul then is there no way left but to admit of degrees of command amongst men themselves for our orderly enjoying those stocks of blessings by God afforded us and to keep us at unity and from the common destruction of one another To this end God placeth man at first in a state of subjection to one head so that no doubt had Adam lived he had been as natural Father so King of all mankinde But his death being sentenced left brethren as in equality should contend this power of one mans command over another was the established due of birthright for else we cannot think it personally indulged to Cain over one so much better then himself By this course if observed men should have continued in due quiet and subjection until the numerousness of the several subject families might make the common head of them assume another Title And therefore we find that where God promiseth to any person a great encrease of race and posterity he promiseth withal as a compleating of that blessing that Kings should be born of them But after such time as Ambition Covetousness Revenge and the like began so to prevail amongst men that neither Gods Precepts nor fellow-feeling of the miseries of rebellion could keep them in obedience how just is it with God to make our own stubbornness our punishments So that if we impartially look amongst all those desolations of Nations they are but the issues of their own Civil wars and contentions which had their first rise from popular discontent and insurrection An Argument more popular and pleasing I know it had been to have extolled such Kings as measured their power by Justice and their Laws but I being not now to write to Kings but to subjects and in what concerned them in order to peace shall respit that till the Kings part in order to Peace and Prenty shall be treated of Therefore writing to such onely I chose to prefer their certain benefit by obedience before Discourses that should flatter them to their ruine by insinuating unto them a power they can never make use of without the mischief of disagreement and Civil war For there is certainly a vulgar and popular flattery as well as there is a flattery which is personal and this is doubtless the most dangerous of the two as having more to seduce The which kinde of insinuation is but too apparent in many writers of this kinde wherein men considering that those that are to be their Readers and from whom they expect encouragement and applause are such as stand interessed in the relation of subjects they do thereupon deal with them in their discourses of freedom power or the like as those do that tell black women they are fair that is to be wholly respective to those their own private interects and designs to be by this courtship gained and not at all to the truth of things themselves or to the benefit of those they pretend to instruct whom they do really abuse by this their unfriendly information As for example whensoever this unhappy controversie between Prerogative on the one hand and Liberty on the other shall for decision be by both King and people referred to Law for no Kings nor no people do professedly decline them who then shall be the Judge shall the King No he is a party and to be ruled by them Well then we will suppose the Subjects no parties nor to be ruled by them but to interpret and perchance make and alter them as they shall finde cause what shall follow but that they thereupon divide into Factions again some putting the power into I know not what and how many Magistrates and some into such and such Representatives all of them as far from truth as differing from one another But as in either case they set the Law above the King so they set the Subject above the Law dealing in the one as preposterously as the other But in this as in all other cases the natural tie of self interest and respect doth so blinde and byass us in our judgement and practise that we will bring in as reasonable and practicale in the Kingdom and Commonwealth what we think highly unfit to be exercised towards our selves in our own Families that is not onely to think it lawful and convenient that more then one should be there governing at once because our selves may happily be one of that number but also we are always ready to entertain and practise all rules of restraint whereby under colour of Divine or Humane Law all that live under him as Subjects may make themselves otherwise when they please upon allegation that the Laws and rules of Justice and Reason are to be in the first place obeyed Whereas if the children or servants of our own Family should in our Government and Commands demean themselves with like stubbornness either by disputing the soleness or arbitrariness of our power in general or by scrupling their obedience to each command in particular until they finde it by God or their Prince Authorized how would we then cry out against this sin of disobedience in them when as yet we think it but duty in us that the Obedience we owe to our King the Father of our Country should be answered with such demurrers pride and prejudice always equally prepossessing us to bring down and level all power that is above as well as to subject and keep under that which is already below But say men what they will Obedience as obedience must be implicite and he that in any command of lawful Authority obeys no farther then he findes reason so to do obeys but himself and not another And yet are Princes and Governors the less to wonder at this stubborn inquisitivenes in subjectâ— since it is no other then what hath been and is daily offered to God himself in prying into the reasonableness and morality of his Laws and Justice even from our first Parents to this very hour A thing of well known advantage to that proto-Rebel whereby to rule in the Children of disobedience For if once we come so far to arrogate as to believe the reasons of Gods Actions and Councels are apparent to ours his will as of course must be submitted to ours also Therefore as then it was hath God said you shal not eat so every day still it is such and such Commands and Laws are but for such and such ends and whether those ends were expressed by Cod or no every man is ready according to his own interpretation to obey or not obey or so far and no farther even to a perpetual distraction in Religion and
degree of submission yet more apparent which was to be given to this high Officer who should succeed in this Divine place of Authority which as it might subject them to many unavoidable miseries when evil Kings came so on the other hand they might foresee much benefit to ensue when good ones came as it proved shortly after in the days of David and Solomon So that untill this latter age of the world that men through vulgar and popular flattery could be brought both to forget Gods precepts and their own reason such Maximes and positions as are now frequent in the mouths of some seditious persons would have been abandoned as undutiful aswell as scorned as ridiculous It would have sounded strange in their ears to have heard men affirm That they had contrived a way of limitation for Kings whereby he should yet have all power left him to do good unto his people but none at all to hurt them and yet such is our present aversion to government that the hasty and inconsiderate swallowing down of such like Maxims for the limitation of Monarchical Power hath been the cause of all our publike disturbances All which right reason must say we are ever in danger of whilst Soveraignty is not entire and perfect in the person it ought to be For what shall he have such power of doing good as it shall not be in the power of others to hinder it if so then supposing him a voluntary Agent you must also suppose that if he think fit he hath power of forbearing it and so doth ill by not doing good Or if he work as an instrument and necessary Agent by the force and impulsion of another then is the power of doing good to be properly ascribed where this direction is because the Ministerial Vertue or Power of the instrument may be thereby implyed other wayes or not at all And so if you make him to carry the same force in the work of government as the Carpenters chizel doth in all his work then how shall a voluntary Agent be imagined such or what is the difference of the Kings power from that of the meanest subject when he must do so as he is directed and no otherwise And so lastly how can that be called good which is done necessarily and unwillingly But these things will be best seen by instance The power of each kingdom is in the Militia now as he that hath power hereof may benefit the kingdom by the invasion of another or by defence of his own and as he may use the same at home in maintenance of laws and equity against opposers so may he thereby do the contrary Whereupon Reason and Experience tells us how ridiculous this their device is For since the Militia must be somwhere and of absolute power if it be not in one mans hand it will be in more What will they then be the neer will they now set some in trust over these again to the end that as those were trusted above the King to hinder him from doing wrong so these again shall have power to be over them that they abuse not that their power which they before had over the King when will they have done setting of watchmen upon watchmen and must they not be men still that they shall so entrust In which respect being alike subject to transgress will they not necessarily be more in danger of injury being now under the power of many then they were before while under one And truely they that thus can fancy a possibility of stating a person in such a condition as he should alwayes have power to do good must next contrive him such a will as he shall be doing it also or else this power is but vain because he may do ill in forbearing it And they again that on the other side would take from him all power to do evil and yet think he may be all this while a voluntary Agent do in both respects seem to me to condemn God Almighty of imprudence or injustice in not governing all men in the world as these would do some in kingdoms That is not knowing how thus to take from men the power of doing ill without taking from them thereby also the power of doing well but suffering sin thus needlesly to raigne in the world Out of what hath been hitherto spoken we may gather the reason both for the establishment of Monarchy and also for annexing unto it those absolute degrees of Soveraignty not to be wrested or alienated from the person of the Prince by any of his subjects who cannot without overthrow of Monarchy be such sharers or engrossers of the Soveraignty as under pretence of bridling him from evil To say unto him what dost thou because he hath power by his Office to do whatsoever pleaseth him To which end we may also see the reason why Oaths of obedience and subjection are by subjects taken as for other ends so in case of resistance to take their part against all others The people being for this very subjection sake called the subjects of such and such Kings And this Oath in regard it is made in Gods name and presence and in regard it is the tye and obligation to maintaine policy and peace and thereby humane preservation the end of God also it is called the Oath of God as aforesaid And therefore to Kings are we to give obedience not onely for wrath but for conscience sake for so Solomon directs it the fear of a King is as the roaring of a Lyon he that provoketh him to anger sinneth against his own soul it is not a crime in policy onely to disobey and resist him whose wrath is as messengers of death but a sin also against Religion And least any should use their Christian liberty for a cloak to their maliciousness and the better to act their own revenge or ambition pretend that in unlawful commands obedience is not due which once granted how easie would it be to make any thing unlawful we had no minde to obey we are enjoyned to be subject Not onely to the good and gentle superiors but also to the froward for this is thank worthy if a man for conscience towards God endure grief suffering wrongfully for what glory is it if when we be buffeted for our faults we take it patiently but if when we do well and suffer for it we take it patiently this is acceptible with God for even hereunto were we called because Christ also suffered as leaving us an example that we should follow his steps who did no sin neither was guile found in his mouth who when he was reviled reviled not again when he suffered threatned not but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously What could have been more expresly and rationally said for perfect submission to our superiors then here for first whereas the glory of God consists as amongst other things in the prâ—servation of man and that againe by
desperate as directly to profess to introduce the one by destroying the other but deceived sometimes themselves are and always they strive to deceive others by shew of Liberty and Freedom either from suffering some evil or for attaining some forbidden content For say they the more general good and content is ever to be preferred to the more particular which is the good of the whole people to that of the Rulers For look into Nature she made them equal intending no more the satisfaction of one then another And the very end and aim of Society it self was primarily the good of the governed and of the Governors but in order thereunto That hereupon all or most people subject not themselves to the arbitrary rule of the Prince but unto the known and established Law by which onely according to his oath and compact he is bound to govern For could men say they be imagined to have parted with their native freedom of Will and debar themselves of the many pleasures of life to no other end but hereby to advance to a state of felicity some one or more men unto whom they could in nothing acknowledge themselves inferior No since Kings and Rulers were set up and had obedience given unto them for the onely good of the people for of them is the whole power derived and they may at pleasure settle what Government they please and as they think fit to restrain or enlarge it therefore when they shall be found to fail of this trust and turn their power to their peoples hurt they might with good reason re-assume their own strength and imploy it to the attainment of those benefits which by the wilfulness or foolishness of the other is crossed or neglected And if in pursuance of this course civil war and slaughter do follow it must be imputed to the stubbornness of them in Authority which then must be endured as a cure to the state when as by a momentany suffering of some mens loss the perpetual hazard of all mens slavery is avoided and is no other then like tolerating a less evil to avoid a greater And this power of resistance say they must be in all limited Monarchies else the limitation is nothing but he remains as absolute as the other But because these and the like propositions have for the most part been bred and countenanced by some of the Romish and Jesuited Clergy we will by the way look thereunto leaving the farther censure of their intermedling to another place and also referring the full answer and satisfaction in other things to the ensuing chapters wherein under the titles of Liberty Slavery Property c. shall be shewed how Faction and Rebellion have unjustly laid claim to any justification under these notion A great Argument and associate of mans frailty it is that even from our best and most holy performances advantages to sin and impiety have been taken Arising chiefly from the malice of that wicked one always ready if the sowing of the Wheat cannot be wholly hindred by his Agents to cause such Tares to spring amongst and from it that for their very sakes the other might have none or at least less use and esteem For who would else have thought that that very height of Piety Religion and Devotion that caused the first nursing Fathers of the Church as in honor and duty to God to bestow divers great Priviledges and Powers upon the at that time well-deserving Clergy should by a strange and inconsiderate ingratitude prove the readiest Feathers with which the shafts were made for their own destruction For so we finde when Popes became inheritors onely of the Revenue and Prerogative of the Church and not at all of their predecessors devotion or humility they first begin to seat themselves above Kings and all that is called God and thinking they could never bring low enough that power whose due height they had just cause to fear would be a curb to their pride they not onely tread on their necks themselves but by their Agents and Factors they everywhere teach and authorise the Princes own Subjects to do the like Telling them that all civil power is originally in the people and that from them and their underived majesty it was that Kings had their Soveraignties which as they might be by them streightened as they saw occasion so were they to judge of his defaults in case of tyranny or oppression And then reserving to themselves the power of deposing and sentencing them in case of heresie or schism and of defining what they were they had poor Kings they thought beneath them low enough even as far as man is beneath God Kings being the peoples but themselves as jure divino Gods Deputies These things seem not so to be wondred at in a time when implicit devotion and superstition had caused such general ignorance that any thing almost would take but for a sort of men undertaking to reform all errors even according to Gods Word and professing such great hatred to Popery as to cast off some harmless things onely because they think them popish for these I say to contradict a thing so expresly taught in Scripture and on the contrary to assert a thing onely fraudulently brought in and by none taught but Jesuits can have no other ground but that they agree in common aim the aim of ambition and insubjection For so as the Pope puts Kings under the people to advance himself in his room as in Gods stead so do Presbyters put him under too that themselves in their consistories may dethrone and be above him as in Christs stead By which means Christ being no longer King of Kings but King of Presbyters we should for advancement of our Liberties have besides the domineering consistories a King and a Pope in every Parish Concerning the sum of which Doctrine namely that all power and that of Kings is from God onely we have already spoken but because I finde that divers learned men favorers to neither of these sects but lovers of Monarchy did yet hold by consequent the same opinions it will not be amiss to speak something hereof and of the inconveniencies absurdities arising from that conceit of derivation of power from Paction and consent leaving the more particular handling of the Nature and reality of Paction it self to its proper place These though they thought that notwithstanding this Concession they would still evince all active resistance to be unlawful even because it broke a Paction made between I know not what King and their people and so I also sometimes thought from the plausibleness of the scholly yet upon stricter enquiry an error on one hand or other cannot be avoided That is either acknowledging that this is a thing useless and serving the people to no purpose or else all those consequences of Rebellion will naturally flow from it For you admitting it the peoples right they put you to shew where you finde that they by any Paction utterly resigned
observe this Monarchical administration so much owned by God as to declare the absence thereof as the fittest and surest token of his dereliction and punishment of a people that had been first false to himself and were now repudiated by him as may appear in that other Prophesie For the Children of Israel shall abide many dayes without a King and without a Prince without a Sacrifice and without an Image and without an Ephod and without Teraphim And by the last words we may observe by the way not onely a depravation in religion and Church order to follow this no King in Israel by making use of Teraphim in the Ephod instead of Urim as the man Michah did but this disorder should increase till that remaining Priesthood who by their consistorial parity were as the Teraphims in this Ephod should be taken away also For this use of Teraphim amongst Israelites was to bee looked upon but as a shift in Jeroboam who wanting that order of Aaron and his Sons made use of the meanest of the people but in the Christian Church and when Christ typified in David shall be their King then also shall those several Kings under him maintain and settle order amongst the Priesthood and in religion it self as David also did Now concerning that separate jurisdiction which some Church-men would claim under colour of dividing our duties into religious and civil it cannot I conceive but plainly appear that notwithstanding sacred pretence this division is but of humane invention being not to be found in the Scripture and as it is for the most part made of no other use but to make division and discord by abating our obedience to the Magistrate under colour of giving it to God so are men not at agreement in stating thereof For while some think that whatever the Magistrate commands it but of civil obedience and so lyable to temporal reward and punishment onely and again what is of Gods command that is expresly set down in Scripture is to be only obeyed out of conscience of divine authority and then leaving men to private judgement what precepts are thence deduceable or when the Magistrates commands be such they must consequently leave them no certain rule whereby either to preserve duty or unity As also those other sort do who distinguishing men in their several relations by them phancied say that in whatever we do as subjects and men linked in Society the same is of civil cognizance and duty but in whatever we act as Christians we are to be guided by precept from God alone In which doing also being neither able to bring from Scripture all things that concern Gods outward worship and finding many precepts of Ethical Political and Oeconomical nature and which do concern our duty and good even as men although we had not been Christians they must needs fall themselves and drive others by these doubtfull precepts from giving any right obedience at all instead of directing them therein For although as to some intents men may be usefully considered in these different relations yet when the same person is now both a man and a Christian such distinctions as should â—imply a possibility of personal devision again so as for the same Christian to act as a man in any thing without being a Christian must besides absurdity bring upon us the many inconveniences of rebellion and civil war And therefore although in our being Christian we lose not the reality of manhood more then in being rational creatures or men we lose the properties of sensitive Creatures yet inasmuch as being rational Creatures and so having a greater and surer light to direct our actions all that we do answerable to other meer sensitives is therefore now to be attributed to us in the capacity of men as of the nobler and higher relation Even so also it fareth with us after and while we are Christians namely that all those actions in which in execution and direction I mean so far as is humane we resemble other meer natural men onely yet these things being by us now acted under the inseparable relation of Christians are although not of express litteral divine precept yet if done in obedience to lawful authority a Christian duty or if acted against it a Christian fault And it will follow that what was in us as men before but moral vertue or vice is now righteousness or sin even to the degree of an idle word And so again considering us as subjects those things that are onely by the light of nature investigable as civil duties when they come to be enforced by a Superiour having his power and office from God have the obligations of religious actions as being part of our obedience to that God who said them to be in that respect Gods also and children of the most high Therefore when God sometimes commands what would concern us and be our benefit as men although we had not been Christians as indeed if we had reason enough all precepts for outward direction would appear such or when again many things appertaining to our religion it self and our outward worship therein are by the Churches authority enjoyned whether the same be found in Scripture or no they are both of them to be held as religious dutyes to us and we being not able while we are Christians to act in any other personal capacity must be obedient and subject as in and to the Lord that is till something be enjoyned to overthorw Christianity we as Christians must obey in all things and it is as sinful to disobey Supream authority in the payment of taxes as in the observation of the Sabboth For God not now giving particular precepts as unto the Iewes but leaving us herein to the direction of the higher power ordained for that purpose of him we are to be obedient to our Masters in the flesh as unto Christ and willingly to do them service as unto the Lord and not as men That is we are now always to obey him as Christs Minister and head of our particular Church and not left at liberty to obey as in a religious tye no farther then we please For the actions and precepts of each State Kingdom are upon their conversion to Christianity to be called and reputed the actings of such or such a Church and not of such or such a State the name and notion of Church including that of State even as in the particular members whereof it is compounded the notion of man is involved in that of Christian. So that now as the entire trust power of Vniversal headship of the Catholike Church is unto Christ resigned and he thereupon to be obeyed as under a religious tye in all causes whatsoever by all such as acknowledge themselves Christians although they seem of never so civil a nature even so his supream deputy in each Christian Church or Kingdome being entirely entrusted like him from whom his power is derived is
OF GOVERNMENT AND OBEDIENCE As they stand Directed and Determined BY SCRIPTURE AND REASON Four Books BY JOHN HALL Of RICHMOND LONDON Printed By T. Newcomb for J. Kirton A. Roper G. Bedell and G. Sawbridge and are to be sold at their Shops in St. Pauls Church-yard Ludgate-hil and Fleet-street 1654. The Preface TO have undertaken a work of this nature was once as little in my thoughts as the occasion of it the sad distraction of my Nation But as they say of him that was born dumb that he burst into speech against those he saw ready to murther his Father even so the past and feared desolations of my native Country come with such pressing horror upon my soul that neither my general dumbness and insufficiency in all things else nor the particular difficulty of this can keep my natural affection in longer silence that is from endeavouring to warn posterity to avoid the like inconvenience for the future by discovery of both rise and cure of that which is introductive thereof namely disrespect and contempt of the present Soveraign power For they shall finde it plain that from the time that Subjects shall be taught and permitted rudely to press within those secret vails of Authority which their wiser Progenitors had set up for its support and defense that their ignorance not letting them see throughly the cause of these different respects given to Superiors more then others they shall like Cham no sooner see then despise their fathers nakedness And as with them it fareth that through remoteness and want of reading know of their King no otherwise then by report as of someting of Power Riches c. above that which is incident to ordinary men to apprehend him to be some other thing then man also even so when ambitious men finding Authority oppose them have for the peoples engagement laid open to publike view That he is but as other men are and it may be worse too that this power and greatness he hath above the people he had it but from them and for them They then begin to be so much ashamed of their old ignorance and so much taken with this new insinuating lesson that their industry and practise thereupon is not to be wondred at And as themselves are now pleased with these Schollies as matters of high discovery so each one is ready to stretch his fancy therein and in a kinde of pride we all take to seem more wise then ordinary these discourses are told and enlarged to his yet loyal neighbour with no little glory of his new illumination He looks on himself in his past ignorance and on others not yet apprehensive of so much light but as little Children admiring those Babies which themselves had drest up For he comes now to think all those Prerogatives ornaments and Ceremonies given to Majesty nay Majesty it self to be but a sort of Pageantry and shew to please the ignorant sort with And as Bell and the Dragon were sometimes made terrible that as in their names and right others might be the more superstitiously cozened by those that attended them so to no other end as they suppose was all this obedience and expence by some Polititians and Courtiers called for as of duty to this one but that themselves under colour of his name and Authority might make their private uses thereof Whenas by these and the like practises the sinews and foundation of Government and Authority shall be let loose and dissolved and men once precipitated in a course of stubbornness and insubjection all those usual Arguments and Discourses made of that respect which is to Monarchy it self due and how it was not an office and power of yesterdays devising but had the confirmation of Antiquity and Law or the like will all of them prove ineffectual to give a stop to these proceedings Even because most of the writers of this kinde to win readier belief did still argue under the same supposition of derivation of power from the people and so to Princes by Paction by force vvhereof they thought they might defend him and his Authority as in Justice against any violent or injurious attempt whence it proved that want of building on the true and sure ground made their labour unsuccessful and instead of conviction did for the most part but prompt with farther Arguments upon the same foundation to encrease perfect that structure they had already begun And although they again did strengthen their Arguments from the particular Laws and usages of the kingdom it self yet not diving deeper into the ground thereof and shewing that what is there done is but upon the general reason of Government and good of Obedience common to it with all places else the success was little For the people being once confident that power came al from them it must be supposed by them intrusted for their good and that when they saw it otherwise they might reassume it for else say they it was a dry Right without a remedy What if their Progenitors for their folly or cowardise herein had been punished with deserved slavery they would make use of the blessed opportunity to recover their native freedom with the same resolution courage that others had oppressed it before And as for Law the interpretation thereof was not in the King but them as was the Legislative power also That the sin of Rebellion was falsly imputed to them they were the supreme power and above Kings the whole people cannot rebel against the Prince more then the greater against the less In this case since Antiquity cannot be taken upon her bare word but that the reason why it was so formerly done must be also given unto men now there is no remedy but to let them see how that which hath been herein formerly appointed was for and will prove if observed the onely general good by which means people seeing their obedience to be their benefit as well as their duty cannot I conceive but more readily follow it So that now being forced to dig even to the very root of Government which could have no subsistance but by Religion nor that again without a Deity this drew us on in the first place to make some proof and discourse thereof and of that work of Creation to which Providence necessarily succeeding as Gods way of Government in all things besides was needful in some things to be here also treated of not onely as having man himself so considerable a part of it but as partly imitable in the Government of Kingdoms also For as the Laws and Rules of Nature are but for the establishment and security of Creatures in general so those for Peace and Unity in Kingdoms are for men in particular those are to make and keep all Creatures in their species serviceable one to another these to do the like between man and man Then being to consider men as linked in society it was expedient I should first search out what mans natural end
disturbance of one another where a supreme definitive sentence is not kept up And as we usually thus search into his Councels for the Reason of his Laws so set we up models of equity of our own for measuring his Justice Insomuch as upon every extraordinary and remarkable event how peremptory are we to assign this or this for a cause each one judging his own apprehensions of right and wrong as the onely necessary patterns for Gods proceedings and intentions herein Which whilest they shall differ so much one from another and can be but one true if any be must they not charge God foolishly For example amongst us that have now felt in so high measure his deserved hand those that are of the Romish opinion say This late revolt is in Justice for our Kings deserting his Obedience to that See and our particular Schisms the punishment of our grand Schism from them and the more particular pressure thereof lighting on the Nobility and Gentry are the punishments of their ingrossing the Churches Patrimony which like the coal from the Altar hath almost consumed their nests These looking upon this kingdom as the head and pillar of Protestantism say That as Reformation of Religion was first set up by our Princes out of State designs of alteration of Government and of being independent on the power of Rome so are they now but justly punished with the same pretensions by their own Subjects who in their risings they presume have as great Authority to interpret Scripture against their Civil Governors now as formerly against their spiritual head And they farther say That as to gain strength and general assistance from the Laity was the onely reason we first made the Scriptures vulgar and common that under the obliegingness of so high a favor whereby their abilities seemed to be flattered to an equal pitch with the Clergy they might be gained to that side that therefore our present requital from popular wresting these Scriptures again to publik disturbance amongst our selves is but just also Others that are from them in opinion most contrary so are their reasons also They tell you that Popery and Superstion were here too much and too long countenanced and abetted they tell you that the Clergy were yet too high and powerful and their maintenance too great and unbecoming that things have thus happened because the true sense of Scriptures and thorough Reformation from Rome were too little regarded Others that it may be regard neither of those extreams but look on things as polititians will tell you That the assistance of the Scots formerly against their Queen the assistance of the Dutch and Rocheller against their Kings were the just causes of insurrection now and they will tell you also that the beheading of the Queen of Scots was ominous to the like fatal blow Believing it a Vice against common prudence for Princes out of consideration of any mischief to one another to do that which should be destructive to all as well as it is a sin against Religion neglecting the rule of Do as thou wouldst be done unto By all which and many more instances which might be given of like nature being first bewitched with our Understandings and then idolizing our own justice to be the same with Gods we do cause Rebellion to creep on us as the sin of witchcraft and stubbornness as Idolatry That is we will then onely begin to serve God and obey his Laws when we have first interpreted them to serve our own turns which is in effect never to obey them more Whereas that more remarkable token of Obedience that was to Abraham imputed for righteousness was in fact seeming as contradictory to justice and goodness so far as humane ability could reach as it was to the stream of his own particular affection For my own part I am not more in love with those four letters that spell King then with the rest of the Alphabet And could I see probable hope how that thirst of governing might be satisfied to general liking and agreement by that soveraignty which each subject should by this means have over the common vassal the King I should have rest contented with my share therein and have rather given encouragement to this so common a benefit where first all of us should have had our contents by being real governor of this one and then that one contented again with the titles formalities and shews of his Government also then have made my self subject to so much labour and censure But as in all works that are to be done there must be the worker the work and the instruments whereby he brings it to pass the which in order to the work must be at the workmans appointment and choice so in this work of Polity and Government the commanding are workers the commanded the work and the Law Magistracy Councellors c. are the instruments for effecting it Whether Prince or people shall be workmen I will not here say onely thus much is evident that Laws Magistrates c. must be at the choice and dispose of such as rule and also above the ruled as holding necessarily a middle term to unite and agree them in the work it self If as considering how things are now practised and the many opinions to the contrary I shall be by any hastily condemned of ungrounded novelty for that not contenting my self in the modest and equal way of commending Monarchy above other Governments I have quite cast Aristocraty and Democraty out of the right number and reckoned of them but as Anarchies I shall entreat them to consider that I onely undertake to look into Government and its forms as they stand authorized in Scripture or Reason and not as they stood in humane device or practise and therefore I hold my self no further blamable then failing hereof For unto my strictest enquiry there could not be found one Text amongst those we call Canonical countenancing and mentioning any other form not so much as one word of the power of People or Nobility Parliaments Senate c. which the restless wits of men have since devised as in derogation to the other Nay when God means to express himself by titles of power common to men it is either of King or Father which as the greater and lesser Monarchs have alone divine Authority to command over mens persons And I believe all knowing men will confess that as onely God expresly appointed this form so nature also at least at first in her golden age and whilst she was at the best insomuch as for some thousands of yeers it is by all concluded there was no one sort of people otherwise governed then by Kings And therefore by that same rule of strangeness and wonder where with others may behold my Positions in condemning I may behold theirs in approving them even that a sort of men there should be that pretending their utmost and onely subjection to Gods word should yet contemn the power of Kings
pleasure that is the means For so usually the forbearance of the parties own pleasure in private enjoyments is made the way of getting and increasing honor For if naturally and ordinarily there were more pleasure or self-benefit in performing the act whereout honor is sought then in the contrary what thanks or honor can be due In which case honor is plainly preferred to the sensitive pleasure of my particular And honor for the most part is difficultly attainable and the other is in custom varied And on the other side they that have this sensible pleasure lose no honor thereby and perhaps at another time may gain honor by like means so that neither then did they prefer sensitive pleasure to honor and now they plainly put honor before it That is they do on both hands prefer the gain of some honor to the loss of some pleasure although none would prefer a continual torment to a continual shame It faring in this case between the comparison of pleasure and honor as between meat and mony for although each man is ready to spare and abate of his diet to advance his estate yet would none choose to be rather wholly deprived of the sure and natural way of sustentation by food then of the artificial way of doing it by mony So that honor seems the onely reward to vertue For as nature by sensitive pleasure stirs us up to beneficial things to our own behoofs so the politick pleasure of honor to what is good for others For the pleasure or suffering of others being not perceptible by my bodily sense how should I else be provoked if this politick sense of shame and reward had not been as aforesaid entertained whereby still retaining my natural appetite of self-seeking I covet and promote mine own pleasure by advancing that of others And this appetite of honor seems natural also for beasts and children have some sense thereof but this is as far as they are sociable and have lookers on For though children in their sports make preheminence or honor their end it is not till they come to some ripeness but then honor being only due where vertue or beneficial actions did precede and children having no knowledge of them how should honor be due to them so that then it is not honor but pride And then by the same rule as none know good and vertue perfectly it will fall out that all men are both comparatively honorable or proud one to another and that none but God can be truely honorable For in men honor is so far from being estranged from pride that pride is its usual parent honorable things and actions please us but in reference to publication which may be then termed ostentation And so it fareth also in matters of shame for we blush not when faults are spoken of in such company where we think they suspect us not guilty of them nor blush we when we are alone or privately thinking on the same or other things which we are guilty of and again are ready to blush though not guilty if we think the present company suspect and observe us as guilty Honor being thus made the mark and reward of vertuous and beneficial actions we need not wonder at the esteem of it amongst men and consequently of the great strife amongst us for the having all kinds of things pleasurable and beneficial in our power insomuch as the poorest vassal in the world cannot be so far destitute of this appetite as not always to covet and sometimes to presume he hath laid an obligation whereby some honor at least in the lowest degree thanks seems to him due And hence on the other side it is that Soveraigns themselves are so jealous of powers under them to eclipse obligations For honor being in a manner all that subjects can give him he cannot but be herein very tender And truely man is in nothing brought neerer to resemble his Maker whose glory and praise was the end of all he did nor in any thing so truely differenced and exalted above beasts being in pleasure of sense ready to equal him then in this appetite But we must take heed of the extreams thereof Pride and Ambition that seek it without desert or order the one as slothful and the other as restless deserving it not For as it is necessary only to Deity to be unlimited in power and consequently to have all obligations due so to other creatures this omnipotency being denyed their merit in honor can but rise according to that limited power their species is naturally bounded with So that for any to attempt to ascend and be like the most High in power will prove their weakness and fall as to that first man it was who would be like him in knowledge As thus in nature and the course of providence so in policy also where it is by Law and rule set down how each one shall be serviceable to another and which doth limit a degree of obligation by limiting their powers according to their ranks and callings the same rule of moderation must take place We may hereupon define true honor to consist in the ful discharge of the beneficial duties belonging to each mans rank or place For if he do assume till this be done it is arrogance and pride and if he seek honor by gaining power beyond political limits it is ambition And hence it is that ambition is one leading cause in all publike disturbance and rebellion For so glorious a thing it seems to have power to lay general obligations that finding it no otherwise attainable but by seising on that power which now hinders I am provoked to use all the means I can thereunto and although the same good I now seek to do be already done by others yet my restless desire of estimation will not let me alone till by engrossing all power I shall be able to merit all obligation And nothing in a Kingdom can be more dangerous then this affected popularity for it puts all in disorder by its unorderly proceeding in the search of honor For as beforesaid all honor is Gods right whether you take him as the universal Author of all benefits or whether you take it as the onely thing inferiours as such have power to bestow in both respects it is to him in the first place due as by way of gratitude for his benefits so by way of submission to his power and therefore we shall finde that in Scripture phrase to honor and to obey signifie usually the same And as to God primarily so to others according to the trust and charge he allows them to be more or less publikely serviceable honor as derived from him must be holden and acknowledged so that whatever benefit others by our means receive and do therefore acknowledge obligation we must take heed we forget not like Herod the true Author of this power in assuming it wholly to our selves Amongst the persons by God trusted with charge for
beneficial actions the chief are Kings for these in their several Dominions are as under him fountains of power so of honor also For they in Gods stead are the onely able and authorized Judges of the reality and generallity of publike benefits insomuch as if receivers should be sole Judges they as parties would but regard their own satisfactions onely and call that publike which was but private benefit For these are subject both to flatter and mistake but he having the publike in his peculiar trust and looking on all with like interest can as the representative whole or common Sensory best and most impartially judge of common utilities and to him onely it must therefore belong to confer honor and the marks thereof for else while ambitious and proud persons were seeking and arrogating as they like true honor would not be and while people did through continual strife and slaughter of one another set up such as should be still undertaking their greater benefit they should lose as in the Fable their bone for a shadow We must therefore as before said reckon honor as it is in the subjects or people but as Bullion of no use to them nor to those that have it and that the value of it must be according to the coynage of that Prince whose image and authority it bears Hence we may observe that in Republikes and where Monarchies are not setled honors are not neither For there is onely applause estimation or the like momentany and uncertain shadows because with them honoring and honored are the same in degree honor signifying pre-excellence must needs be to none when it is equal to all or at least equally divided amongst so many And then how shall they confer on others what they have not themselves And as upon this ground honor can be onely in Monarchy so must it also follow from what hath hitherto been spoken that it must therein also flow from him to the people and not from the people to him as some would construe that maxime That honor is in the honoring and not in the honored For since as before noted the honorable or beneficial act must precede the honor or thanks thereof as the cause must precede the effect even so the honorable person which must again precede as the cause of that act must also much more precede and be the cause of the honor that follows thereupon And in this respect the subjects or people are so far from being originals of honor that they can therein at most but carry the force of an Eccho in the return and report of that voice or rate of honor which must come from above to wit from God or such as from him have benefits to give As for example when all the people said God save King Solomon as they could not be understood thereby radically and primarily to confer the Office and power it self so neither to be fountains and originals of the honor then given but the power and pleasure of David testified by the presence of his own servants and other attestations of his approbation and assent must be looked upon as efficient causes of this honor and the people but as subservient and instrumental therein Even as also that honor which Mordecai received by being brought on horse back through the street of the City was originally to be ascribed to Abasuerus that had commanded it to be so done to the man whom the King would honor and in testimony that this honor was derived from and authorized by him the fountain of honor and that the people were but to be the reporters and publishers thereof had also commanded him to be attended with some of his own royal retinue and some ensigns of honor and estate proper to himself And as thus the honorable must precede the honoring in time so must they in dignity too as the cause doth the effect For although as to the present act wherein the cause and the effect stand as relatives they are alike in time and constitute equally one another as all Relatives do so that one cannot as to that relation be set or substracted without establishment or overthrow of the other yet if we measure excellency by that power vertue and force whereby any act is maintained between two relatives we may well in that regard account the Agent before the Patient even because he was first and more eminent in the action by which the relation was effected as the father is before and more excellent then the son although as to the relation it self he was not a father till he had a son So in Monarchy although there cannot be a King till there be Subjects because as they stand in the relation of governour and governed one must constitute another yet because even in that very act of Government the Monarch or King must as the Agent precede both in time and dignity any vertue or worth that can come from the subjects he must be accounted original of the power thereto belonging and not they who can be onely passive and that at most in proportion answerable to the power of him that rules For if his power and force therein be never so little yet cannot they in their relation of obedience exceed it whereas they may very often be defective in the ability of their performance of what he doth command Whereupon as the command must precede the execution so must the Commander precede the commanded both in time and dignity even so far as to be the constitutive and efficient cause thereof that is as to the whole relation although in the single and separate acts they may stand reciprocally and equally constituted Nay although in respect of each single act honor may be said to be in the honoring first as the ball projected for the rebound sake must as to that rebound proceed from the place it was thrown against before it can come to the projectors self yet because this rebound took beginning from the ability and intention of the projector even as the honorable act did at first from the honored person we must therefore confess the honored to be the original of the honor thence arising and not they that are passive For so far as the peoples honor shall proceed without or beyond consideration of approved desert so far it is flattery and not honor And therefore upon the same reason that the Creator may be said to precede the Creature even in that very work of Creation although he were not as to that relation Creator till there were a Creature and as again the Father doth precede in time and dignity the son even in reference to that very constitution of sonship although he were not a Father till he had a son so for conclusion the Monarch and Governor is so far from receiving his essential honor and power from the subjects and governed as he may on the otherside be accounted constitutive of them even in that very relation and must
indulgent Father and one that hath never so much as said to them why do you so but hath suffered them to rule and sway over the servants as of their own right by his too great trust to them given these I say are apt to forget the joynt and common interest they have in their Fathers support and thereupon to be drawn into these insurrections But when the Father shall now finde himself despised and shall discover that they as contemning his Authority are begining to make factions amongst his servants as seeking their own interest and ends and thereupon would now begin to curb them and it may be according to Solomons advice put wise servants over these his sons that cause his shame how will they begin to cry out on their slavery when strangers and servants shall be made favorites How ill natured is his own children to his Peers But it is no marvail they tell the rest of the Family and people that they are so used for it is for their sakes and onely because they have ever held up against such as would enslave them for if they would flatter him in such a course they might have preferment and favor enough No no their Conscience and zeal to the publike would not let them be of this Bed-chamber and Court-Junto they are publike spirited and all for the common liberty and good and will maintain the Families or peoples liberties and properties and above all the true Religion If the Father finding his Wife more true do particularly use her assistance or advice Oh what scorn will they cast upon their mother What shall they be ruled by the distaff Are women fit for such employment What shall they be Priest-ridden Let women on Gods Name spin and govern their own maids have they not Callings of their own As if there could not be a greater injury offered them then to tell them that they must be subject to any other precepts of Religion but what was of their own contrivance But all other clamorous maxims come far short of those used by the ordinary servants being now left with none above them the Children and Nobility being dead or disheartned by long contention and others now content to joyn with them in their heady alterations Now come they to conceive and cry out That since the main body of the Family or Kingdom consists of the servants or subjects that therefore their good and advice should be most taken into concern The Master had no other power over them then what he had by paction they by that made him to be a Master and since they entered thereinto but in order to their own good why should they be hindered at any other mans pleasure for the future No since they are now restored to their own just natural freedom again they will not be subject to any sort of rule but what shall be for their own good yea and at their own choice Which once resolved what strange fancies and models of Government do they at once contrive practise over one another What a many of play-days will they make till under the notion of slavery all necessary ways to sustain the Family be neglected How are the names of Tyranny Slavery Liberty Freedom c. tossed up and down like Tennis-balls And because their weakness and inexperience cannot let them see what proportion of Liberty just Government will admit they for fear of want are still crying out Liberty Liberty and as amongst Children there is a contest by way of sport for saying some word or sentence oftenest in a breath so amongst them these that in their Proposals of Government can name and promise Liberty most and can put the other political railing terms of Tyranny Slavery Oppression c. oftenest upon others are concluded to have most infallibly found out the best Government for them to follow In the passed discourse of the power of the Father and Master of the Family and of the subjection and obedience which those that are under them do owe it will not I hope be expected I should enter into the particulars of his duty again in the government of them or of things belonging to the Family more then I shall afterwards set forth the manner of kingly administration therefore upon the reasons before given leaving the Masters part towards his Family to be treated of when I shall speak of the Kings towards his Subjects what hath been said will I conceive be sufficient to set forth the ground and right of the Masters power so far as to estate the obedience of all under him and the inferences thereupon will I hope prove pertinent by their likeness to encourage our subjection and disprove our insurrection against Kings to which end this Discourse was chiefly intended CHAP. IX Of Soveraignty and its Original and of Monarchy or Kingly power BY what hath been delivered both in explaining those many particular Laws from God himself and those many Documents deduceable from the light of Nature for the establishment of Government we cannot in reason now own its Original or that power whereby it is made and foundâ—d to any other then him For in respect the thing it self is of so great honor we may well think God to relate to the particular glory of conferring hereof when upon occasion of impowring the King of Kings he saith My glory will I not give to another For God that hath all power belonging to him having resigned this Scepter into the hands of Chriâ—t to set judgement in the earth and cause the Isles to wait for his Law it is not for men to set up to themselves such Images of Authority as are of their own graving and contrivance lest we be found resisting and opposing him in these his proper attributes of kingdom power and glory even by refusing or opposing such Ministers and forms of Administration as are by him to this end appointed amongst us Insomuch that if any should think it of humane production and argue that because the good and preservation of the people was the cause of this power in Princes that therefore these people must be the originals thereof also they would by this assertion rob God of his due For although they and their good are partly the final cause yet are they so passive therein as it cannot be reasonably conceived how they shall be able to act above or upon that power they must suffer under and their good again being subservient and much inferior to a higher and better end Gods glory it will follow that this as the more worthy must upon the same ground prove the final cause also and the other remain but as a means thereunto And if the people be thus weak herein what claim shall they lay to be efficient causes How can they be brought to bestow what they had not Or shall we think that now in corrupted Nature men have farther power to order and govern themselves then
while it was pure For even then by right of Creation Providence and Protection man with other Creatures stood subject and had in the very state of innocence a Law to observe and well had it been for him to have had more regard to this power but now lapsed and depraved as we are our acknowledgement and subjection to this power and soveraignty will agree more both with our benefit and duty then before Nor can we think because our present distempers need or call for this coercive power that therefore we are the radical cause thereof no more then the sick patient can reckon himself the cause of cure or of the Physicians skill Whereupon since power cannot own its original to impotency we must derive it from its onely Author namely God and therefore the judgement which kings give is by God owned as his and he is called Gods Minister If power were from the people Democrity were the best form of government and Monarchy the worst as farthest from its patern and original but on the contrary we finde it on all hands confessed that Monarchy is best as having in it most apparent unity and coming neerest to its paterne and fountain God Almighty Again supposing power at first from the multitude it must be from each person according to that Maxim quisque nascitur liber and then if all be free by birth as each one must or none must how can the children of contractors be bound to the compacts of their fathers more then they were to theirs before or why have they not power of alteration aswel as they for if universal consent makes it it is a thing which never was nor never can be had women children servants and many people more under one arbitrary qualification or other made by such as bare sway being secluded And therefore the persons of Electors decaying and others of equal birth-right daily succeeding if general consent makes governors lawful the question must be daily asked Nay if major Votes of these Electors may in equity pretend to binde the other then no power can be of any continuance without new capitulation because part of the old Major Voters will be still dying and so a number of non-consenters now succeeding they must be still asking consent anew or else it may be doubted that these new ones added to the old minor vote of non-consenters may make the major number and so make it to be no lawful government And so farther by this maxime how can conquest or succession have any right which it hath by confession of all Again since rebellion is a resistance made by a less rightful power against a more for so disobedience and stuborness comes to be called Rebellion against God why should we not call Kings rebels to the people if his power be from them aswel as call them rebels to him acknowledging hereby all power of right in him We may further finde that God to express his own propriety in conferring the power of kingship taketh often to him the title of King as of the supream and high power amongst men and never of any Aristocratick or Democratick compellation sometimes putting it before and above his own name of power as if it were most highly emphatick to express the original thereof as when farther to set forth himself as a great God he adds and a great King above all Gods importing that as he had made them Elohims to men so would he still keep his own paramont right in being a Melech over them And so Moses for a greater honor and grace is called King as inferring none but such to have indubitable power to make Laws for it is said that Moses commanded in a Law even the inheritance of the congregation of Jacob and he was King in Jesurun when the people and tribes were gathered together that is he had power before and not from their assemblies And so againe God for the farther enabling and honoring of Kings usually gives unto them of his own titles of kingdome power might majesty honor c. which he doth not to any but these his own Lieutenants whom in the Psalms he most particularly owns as his second self and under the appellation of Gods there given them shews that their power must be acknowlegded from him onely I have said ye are Gods and all of you children of the most high And as this his so saying confers on them the stampe of his power so keeps he to himself the sole prerogative of being God of Gods and great King above all Gods for he judgeth among the Gods to see if they deliver the poor and needy rid them out of the hand of the oppressor And these texts of the 82 Psalm are by our Saviour thought so clear for proof not onely of Kings derived power from God but also of their neer representation of other his honorable attributes that he makes it the only Scripture argument to prove the assumption of Divinity to himself warrantable if he called them Gods unto whom the word of God came and the Scripture cannot be broken how say ye of him whom the Father hath sanctified and sent into the world thou blasphemest because I said I am the Son of God Wherein he proves that since Kings being but adopted children of the most High ought to be acknowledged Gods how much more he that being expresly by the Father sanctified and sent into the world might truely assume and say I am the Son of God and that he was eminently above others this natural Son of God he there attests his works which although the stronger proof abolisheth not the strength of the proof of the Kings power namely the word of God the Scripture that cannot be broken And for that exception of Kings unlikeness to God in regard of immortality But ye shall die like men and fall like one of the princes it makes their resemblance of God in power c. while they live yet more clear as being thence to be concluded as far above the ordinary sort of men and Magistrates also in their life time as now in death like unto them And by that differencing those there called Gods from an inferior ranke of Princes it must signifie that supream office of kingship onely because on earth Princes are under none else And therefore is Monarchical government there acknowledged the foundation of the earth for complaining of their present injustice it is said all the foundations of the earth are out of course Nay so far are people or subjects from having any authority to confer these high places or of having from God any rightful power over one another that they have it not wholly over themselves so that no man can kill or destroy himself but he is so far-forth culpable as a transgressor of the Laws of God and nature For as the measure of our good abearing to others is from presumption of our good inclinations to our selves
unto me seventy men of the Elders of Israel whom thou knowest to be Elders of the people c. and I will come down and talk with thee and will take of the spirit which is upon thee and will put it upon them and they shall bear the burthen of the people with thee that thou bear it not thy self alone Which places plainly shew that although God at Moses suit did give others power to bear part of the burthen yet is their manner of constitution so ordered as to minde them of subordination to the Monarch and again there is nothing of popular consent herein All which would be well considered by such as are so credulous of the soveraign power of the Sanhedrim This delegation of power from God to Kings was usually conferred under the name of Unction for so saith Samuel in annointing Saul is it not because the Lord hath annointed thee to be Captain over his inheritance plainly implying the power and office to be conferred with the unction and that also as coming from God the Lord hath annointed thee And therefore under this incommunicable and sacred title of Gods anointed their protection is again by God more expresly owned then of other persons This unction or mark of power is in the first place due and proper to Christ thereupon called the Christ or the annointed of God Hereupon all the kingdoms of the earth are our Lords and he also is King of kings and Lord of lords and prince of the Kings of the earth Moreover he being the eternal wisdom of his father by and under him it is that kings raign and princes decree justice nay the very heathen are his inheritance and the utmost ends of the earth his possession And as in acknowledgement of derivation of office and power from Christ Kings as anointed under him do waer his cross on their Crowns so by vertue of this Unction as by a kinde of Sacrament it is that their persons have ever been held so sacred that none have ever yet found out a way or dared to practice the annihilation of the stile it self of King more then that of Father from the same persons that were really so as in other officers set up by humane authority is usually done by way of degradation The which amongst Christians hath been chiefly confirmed by the example of Davids usage towards Saul and Ishbosheth both of them his open and professed enemies Against the first of which although there might be high faults objected and that against God also who did thereupon by Samuel make so much known of his will of rejecting him that the people could not be ignorant thereof yet because they wanted express warrant from God to be actors therein as Jehu had they durst not presume to lift up their hands against the Lords annointed Nay David himself durst not do it although his advantage by his overthrow and his oportunity to do it were most apparant and who also had as high provocations from Saul as might have tempted any ordinary humor of revenge and had farther beyond the pretence of any ordinary subject or any order of them as great a presumption of insubjection as could be because of his own Unction by Gods appointment and from his knowdledge of Sauls rejection Yet he in proof of derivation of kingly Power from God only findes nothing but express authority from that God that hath set them up to be warrantable for the pulling them down they were the Lords anointed not the peoples It was therefore his part and much more is it the part of others now to permit that powerful hand that brought this rod upon them to have liberty to remove it in a way and time of his own For how can they do it as subjects and from whence should they derive insubjection If then they be Gods anointed the rightful power to govern accordingly must be therewith conferred or else the Unction were vaine and in a mockery of God If the politick corporation confer the power let the charter and seal of Office that speaks it be produced let us see the hands and seals of those that conferred this power as also their Commissions and authorities for so doing that we may be satisfied with the just derivation thereof But now as donations and assignations of humane interests use to pass and be conferred from one party to another by such like wayes of conveyance and none else so this passing by anointing it must shew it to be confessedly of a different nature But to give a cleerer light to the comprehension and distinction of Divine Right and Authority in these things we shall here take leave a little to digress As to deny God Almighty to be the prime and supreme cause of all things and of those vertues and abilities whereby each thing is effected is perfect Atheism so on the other hand to submit and fasten on him as immediate Agent those operations which by the ordinary course of his Providence he hath appointed to be the productions of natural causes doth as strongly argue ignorance but if in those effects and productions which may to our sense be observed to come to pass by the interposition of such second Agents as neither by any naturalness in themselves nor observation of ours could be reasonably concluded the causes of them in that case again to deny divine power and ascribe to Nature and second Agents what is above their reach is both Athiesm and folly too To ascribe the hardening of the Clay to God Almighty and not to the Sun or Fire is to be foolishly derogatory to him even as it is also to deny him to be the cause of that heat and vertue in the Sun or Fire whereby it came to pass And no less then so it is to ascribe to the vertue of the Clay that Cure which our Saviour wrought on the blinde man for neither any known naturalness in that Agent nor observation of the like elswhere could reasonably warrant such presumption therein As thus in Inanimates and the general course of Providence there ought to be a discreet distinction made by us in the setting down of what operations are immediately Divine and what Natural so much more in those things which are wrought by Creatures reasonable and where as well the Agent as Patient are voluntary as in Matters of Government and instruction it fareth In which respect since there cannot be any natural Reason or Cause assigned why the will of one should be efficatious to the Government of the will of another as in it self it must follow that that constant course and setled way of so doing must be attributed to Divine Authority only Constant and setled way I say for that there may many humane contrivances be made to introduce temporary subjection and agreement which cannot lay claim to be of divine institution and because again although this Monarchical Government be alone Jure Divino and so onely
constant as to the way and form yet through humane frailty it may many times fail in the measure and end of its efficacy The Officers that are to claim their Functions and Authority as Jure Divino are first the King or Monarch who is from and under God himself established as well in causes Ecclesiastical as Civil supreme Governor And then Fathers Masters and Husbands as Civil Governors And then those of the Clergy as spiritual guides and directors under this their chief guide and director unless it be where and when this Master or Father of the Family is insubjected and independent at which time he being himself a supreme Monarch hath as Elder Brother those Priest-like and Civil Offices of instruction and coertion by the Law of God united in the same unsubordinate person even as amongst those great and more ancient Families it fared before Nations came to be under kingship or that the Priesthood was divided from the Civil power Nor doth matter of Reason alone as already and hereafter to be shewed prove the Authority of these Functions to be Divine but the express precepts by God himself to that purpose given do beyond dispute settle these Officers and none else as of Divine right immediately to them derived for authorising them in their acts of Government and Power By which words of immediately derived we may know how to put a difference between that Power and Authority which is exercised by Kings themselves who hold of none but God above them and that which others their Magistrates perform who being ordained in their power by the Prince cannot be said to hold their powers otherwise then as immediately received from him But although in this regard of subordination it may be in some sense true that the Priest and Master of the Family may be also said to derive their power from the King where Kingship is even because in the exercise thereof they may be by him directed or limited yet is there a great difference to be put between them and Magistrates in respect of claim to divine right in performance of their Functions The Magistrate as he is positively affirmatively impowred by the Prince so is he also negatively under him in the execution thereof the Priest and Master of the Family on the other side have all their positive power of instruction and jurisdiction from God alone derived being negatively onely restrainable by the Monarch in the outward act and execution thereof whereas to the King himself it is alone peculiar as to be by none but God affirmatively impowered so to be by none but him negatively restrainable But then again although in each independent family the offices of instruction and coercion be united in chief in the person of the same Master yet between the Authorities which those of the Priesthood and the Masters of Families do severally execute where they are not united there is unto the Order of Priesthood a greater honor annexed in respect of divine Claym and Authority then to the other and that not onely because instruction must be supposed to precede coercion in time and order but also in dignity in respect or the different dignities of those that are to be the objects of their Authorities the Priestly Function presupposing always a more noble Object namely such an one as is indued with understanding and wit whereas bare coercion can reach unto neither of them And under the Gospel again a farther addition of honor and divine Authority will arise from the observation of that more spiritual charge and Function they inwardly claim towards the promotion and exercise of Gods kingdom in our hearts whereas amongst the Jews the drift of the Priests instructions had for objects the outward acts and Ceremonies chiefly In which regard of instruction and preaching the Fundamentals of Christianity taken as Gospel duties they stand by means of special ordination thereto not onely separately distinguished and enabled above other humane power as the persons to instruct and teach Gods will are distinct and in that respect above those that are to obey but also whilst they meddle not with such things as have tendency to civil Peace and Duty they are unsubordinate to the Prince himself nay above him too as his spiritual Fathers and as having their efficacy and holding their authority herein immediately from Christ as his Ministers and not of the political head of the Commonweal The Father and Master of the family enter upon their authorities and function according to natural course and equity without personal designation and appointment from the Prince and his power and are afterwards restrainable in all things as he shall think good but those of the Priesthood although they were by the laws and authority of the prince personally ordained to stand as Gods Ministers yet are they on the other side as Gods immediate Ambassadors and prophets subordinate to none And this Gospel duty of preaching besides publike prayers and administrations of the Sacraments are to remaine as the proper duties of persons in holy orders without exemption of the prince himself For although to each prince in order to peace and government the chief and general care of instruction in the wayes of righteousness doth appertain as it doth also in each family to the Master thereof yet doth the office and efficacy of instruction in the mysteries of Gods inward kingdome depend on the authority of none but God himself But these things are to be understood of the Clergy in their spiritual Functions onely and as they relate to one another as equally Gods Ministers and not as they are differenced amongst themselves in reference to that distinct proportion of external jurisdiction and power alotted them for peace and order sake For as in the first respect they are under none but God so in the second they are wholly subjected to the Prince he being as great Bishop and overseer of the whole Church to preside over the Bishops of the particular Diocesses thereof upon the same Reason and divine Authority that the Diocesan doth preside over the Parochial Minister And upon the same ground that the Prince as great and general Father and Master of the whole kingdom doth preside in the Government of each Family by means of that civil Magistracy which is exercised under him in like manner doth he as head of the Church preside over the whole Clergy in Ecclesiastical administrations by means of this Episcopal jurisdiction which is to be by him directed or restrained of all which more hereafter Having thus far premised in the declaration and distinction of Officers and Functions of Divine right for the better understanding the present Question as well as many other discourses which will hereafter follow where the same shall be farther proved by Scripture I hope it will to all unprejudiced men appear That although God doth not now as sometimes formerly so immediately expresly operate in the unction and designation of particular persons or
and yet it was by Gods secret appointment ordered to be done to make good the threat against Elies house namely to fulfil the word of the Lord concerning the house of Elie even so we may interpret the punishment of Sauls first fault that is the cutting off his blood from the Crown to be accomplished in Michal and his other fault in sparing Agag threatned to be punished in the rejection of his person to be made good by his untimely slaughter And the due observation of these Stories will also instruct us how that the building of the Temple signifying the glory of the Church and the settlement of Kingship and Priesthood were all accomplished together and how Kingship was the leader in this Chorus of happiness as Gods chief Instrument for compleating of them For so are we instructed by the direction which Moses gave concerning matters of Appeals wherein the expression of the Judge that shall be in those dayes not only denotes another manner of Judge then formerly but the Priests and he and the place which the Lord should choose being conjoyned must signifie their contemporary establishment for perpetuity for to none of the other Judges God had said Why have yee not built me an house nor was Kingship nor Preisthood setled but in Solomon and Zadock the sons of David and Samuel and immediate instruments in building this Temple the figure of the Christian Church to succeed Nay this Office and power of kingship is so cleer in Scripture that it is usual with the abetters of Polarchies now adays to balk it in the plain sense thereof and to hearken to Philo Josephus and I know not what Antichristian Authors to learn from them the Authority of the people of the Sanhedrim and such like Magistrates not considering the interest and prejudice wherewith these men writ For they designing to bring their Writings and Nation into the more esteem amongst the learned persons of those times and having so long lived and been so well entertained the first among the Grecians and the other amongst the Romans as to be affected with their humors and way of learning they had the same reason to commend those other Forms and to depress this Kingly Office and Power as they had to commend thereby their own writings and Country And as in Kings all power is thus united so he alone it is that is the true Representative whole and whose actions may binde the people without their consent but not theirs without his And so much is often by God acknowledged making the good or ill of the King and Kingdom all one Thus Abimilechs particular detaining of Sarai is by him apprehended as an evil threatning his whole kingdom and we finde Sauls particular act against the Gibeonites punished with the peoples famine as Davids numbring the people afterward was punished with their Pestilence And in that whole story we may observe the punishment or reward the good or ill of the people still to answer and be proportioned with the Vertues or Vices of their Princes and that though the people did offer in the high places or had not prepared their hearts to seek the God of their Fathers or the like yet if this general Representative person was upright before God even for his sake a blessing did ensue which is nowhere observed to be done in respect of any subjects piety And this may seem less strange since we finde that Adam being made Monarch of all Creatures should have the violence of his race imputed and charged on them so as to involve them in the same guilt and destruction by flood Nor is this degree of power before spoken of much more then what before was practised by Moses himself according to the advice of his Father-in-Law as we read Exod. 18.20 namely to make Laws and Ordinances for them to live by and where Law was already made by God to reserve to himself the interpretation thereof as also all appeals and all difficult and important causes and for the better dispatch sake to refer common causes to subordinate Judges All which is again farther expressed Deut. 19 to the 18. where he owns the making Judges and last appeal Our of all which it may be found that the most material marks of Soveraignty were in many of these temporary Judges as the power of making some Laws and interpreting them the last appeal and supreme decision of controversies especially in Moses because he was a King too as formerly noted and so made by God and not by the people And unto Ioshua next as made by Moses for on him by Gods appointment was he by imposition of hands to put some of his honor that all the Congregation of Israel might be obedient that is that he by receit of this justly derived power from God his Vicegerent might have full power to command them And therefore are they also called Kings as in the inte-rregnum when there was no Judge it is said there was no King in Israel and yet was these Judges power inferior to that of Kings coming after This soveraign power of Kings we may finde implyed in that answer of Samuel to the people of the manner or power of a King which had it but been equal to that of their former Judges what needed it have been told the people And they that will not have the things there set down to be in his power but that he was to give account thereof or that his actions were controleable by any order or body of the people do yet commit a greater absurdity for then to what purpose should Samuel go about to fright the people with a thing of no danger and which was in their power to remedy For so it follows that they should cry out in that day because of their King and the Lord should not hear them meaning that they had none but God in that case to appeal to by whose forbearance to hear them therein they had no lawful remedy left them For had his words imported no more terror to their understanding but what they had right and power to remedy they might have answered Nay but we will have a King under us and not over us No he shall be onely King of the less number of the people and their Representatives but unto the major part or Vote he shall be subject upon all occasions they shall think good and so making our selves Soveraigns over our Soveraign we shall prevent those threats for thereby having upon the matter no King we shall do but what unto every one seems good in his own eys And by the expression over thee so often there used must be meant over the whole people being the same thee that should choose him so that if his election were by the major part or such as stood for them as so it must be or elese it could be no Election his power must be above the major part or their
he should therefore not have his heart lifted up above them by nation his brethren and by nature his equals but the consideration hereof imprinting the sense of compassion and fellow-feeling in him it might restraine all exorbitance in the exercise of this high power so far as not to insult or afflict beyond measure And this is the cause why succession of Princes and continuance in the same stock is so generally preferred before election namely that they are then sure to have one of their own nation or brethren Even so again by forbidding him to multiply horses or much silver and gold to himself there also expressed it was not simply to forbid him these things as unlawful for the two next and greatest Kings of eminency David and Solomon had them in great abundance without blame but to give another like caveat against pride that is least presuming upon these advantages he might be brought to forget God his strength and think to keep under his subjects more by the fear of tyranny then the love of a brother And also to admonish him that he should not put his people to unnecessary charges in supplying him beyond publike use And to cleer this by instance in multiplying horses we shall finde the prohibition point particularly towards Egypt as a prophetick admonition against their leaning of the strength of that staffe which should run into their hands which was afterwards verified in Hosea and Zedekiah who put vain trust in these Egyptian forces and the 24 and 43 Chapters of Jeremiah are full of disswasions from this Egyptian confidence and from returning again thither And as that people were extreamly inclined to set their faces towards that place so could not these admonitions but be very necessary for their King both to keep them from so doing and to forbear making flesh his arme himself To which purpose Isaiah is very full Wo to them that go down to Egypt for help and stay on horses and trust in Chariots because they are many and in horsemen because they are strong but they look not unto the holy one of Israel neither seek unto the Lord. As for the law there mentioned it cannot be understood of any particular one made for his restraint and so proper to him as King but of those general Laws of Moses given for all men to live by And therefore it is enjoyned him write it out of that which was before the Priest to whom he is now to succeed in the chief charge thereof In which charge although he differed from others yet that the Law was the same appears by the intent thereof there mentioned common to him with the rest namely that He might learn to fear the Lord his God and to keep the word of this law and statutes to do them He is not bidden you see to be affraid of his People Representative or Collective nor are they or any one earth hereby authorised to look unto his performance of this law or to resist or punish him in case he transgress the which is the thing in question and not whether Kings are subject to God and his Laws or no for none will deny but they are and are also for many considerations more obliged to keep and press these laws then any of their subjects As none on the other side will I hope say that his subjects are to be to him in Gods stead so as to judge and punish him if he do not But then it may be answered that the people have a dry right without a remedy They have a right indeed to be free from oppression but such an one as serves to no stead since it may be taken from them at the pleasure of another What shall we call an appeal to God no remedy or shall we say there is no remedy or justice for subjects but when and where themselves shall be judges and executioners in it for if so what use of this common judiciary power when one part of the people may still have power to judge of another It was the partiallity and injustice incident to this way of proceeding that made it reasonable for people to subject themselves to a common umpire or judge whose sentence should alwayes be taken as indifferent Because else they did nothing and are yet but in the same first state of Anarchy they were For he that is not supreme in all causes and things but onely such as the people shall assent unto is not truely supreme in any thing forasmuch as their judgement coming after his as of power to confirme or disanull they will still be without a supreme and their Major vote allowing his affirmative or rejecting his negative sentence will at last conclude the whole definitive sentence to be come into their hands No if rulers of policy peace and government be maintained the King onely as aforesaid can be supreme and all other of his subjects can have but derivative powers that is aâ— sent of him The complaint of misusage must still run to the higher the people cannot appeal to the people when the King their onely supreme Judge on earth hath oppressed them They have in this condition none but God above him to appeal unto he is the onely King of Kings and to him onely in this case vengeance doth belong All which was well intimated in Samuels reply foreshewing that these oppressions should irremediably happen sometimes In that day shall ye cry unto the Lord but he shall not hear you So that then after all these warnings and threats the people chusing to submit to this government and power it makes their resignation of power and trust to him to be implicite and for better or worse It makes it appear that they had considered before hand of these things as mischiefs that might sometimes befall them the which patience and sufferance not rebellion and resistance were to remedy And so far were they from pretending or desiring any caution against it that their reply Nay but me will have a King over us that we also may be like all the nations and that our King may Judge us and go out before us and fight our battailes imports an acknowledgement of his unquestionable supremacy over them and that aswell in Civil as Martial affairs which is meant by judging them and fighting their battailes And then by their proposing herein to be like other Nations whose Kings it is well known had at that time absolute Soveraignty the condition of perfect subjection will be farther manifest And again in desiring a King in the place of Judges who already had supreme authority as far as positive law went must farther imply their acknowledgements of an extraordinary obedience to this new and extraordinary power For when Samuel tells them that now God was their King meaning that in all extraordinary and urgent occasions his advice and direction was to be sought and they notwithstanding this chusing to have a King it makes that absolute
submission to authority they are to submit themselves to every ordinance of man for the Lords sake or as they render Gods glory or their own good And then least any factious pretence should alienate their duties in the true object of their allegeance it is appointed unto Kings as supreme and unto other governors as to such as are sent of him for such was the will of God and their well doing that hereby they should put to silence the ignorance and foolishness of men even of such men as not knowing that the foundation of Society was laid upon the united and irresistable authority of the person had under pretence of liberty vented their maliciousness and countenanced rebellion in favouring some subordinate authority against the supreme And then lastly least any should object that because as aforesaid these governors were but for the punishment of evildoers and praise of them that do well therefore if they should do the contrary as their Commission or authority would fail so their obedience to him might faile also We shall farther finde him giving precepts of suffering patiently though they knew it wrongfully And this he confirms by the example of our Saviour himself who as he vvas infinitely more innocent so vvas his usage more hard and unjust and thaâ— many times from under Kings that had neither natural nor rightful authority over him As for one instance in the case of paying tribute for although as appears by Peters ansvver it vvas but vvhat he had used to do he makes an expostulation purposly to cleer all doubt that might be made Of whom said he do the Kings of the earth take custome or tribute of their own children or of strangers Peter saith unto him of strangers Jesus saith unto him then are the children free notwithstanding least we should offend tâ—em go thou to the sea and cast an hook and take up the fish that cometh first and when thou hast opened his mouth thou shalt finde a piece of money that take and give unto them for me and thee So that you see rather then he vvill offend them that is resist authority and give occasion to rebellion by standing out and refusing as he proved he might have done in this illegal command he vvorks a miracle to perform it and doth it for Peter also of vvhom it vvas not demanded Nor vvas this done out of fear as vvanting povver to resist if resistance had been lavvful For he was able to have commanded more then twelve Legions of Angels a povver sufficient to have mastered any oppossion But he like a Prince of peace left us this example not to promote rebellion against the supreme authority but to commit all to him that judgeth righteously even to God to vvhom alone Kings are accountable and therefore to him alone vengeance in that kinde especially doth belong For as God vvas the alone author of their povver and Office so vvill he be the onely judge of their defaults therein according to that of David against thee onely have I sinned as if lying vvith another mans vvife vvere no wrong or trespass to her husband vvhich that it vvas so is cleerly evinced in that parable made by Nathan of the taking of the Evv-lamb and in Davids answer acknowledging it an offence and making a censure thereupon namely The man that hath done this shall surely dye and make restitution But although David had power thus to punish any of his subjects as having from God rightful jurisdiction over them yet when he understands himself to be the man he concludes none on earth above him but that he is subject to God onely in the said words Against thee only have I sinned Marke also the use of this kingly power in enforcing or abateing the rigor of the law For restitution was by Gods law onely set down as a punishment of theft which was the onely fault and not adultery which appeared in the parable of the Lamb but he for the punishment of a fault so aggravated by circumstances though fit to have death added and should no doubt have been therein by his subjects obeyed without imputation of guilt for using arbitrary power no more then when he took the shewbread altered the courses of the Priests erected new Offices amongst them brought in Musick and other Ceremonies into the Temple without particular direction from God or Moses law and when he commanded the numbering of the people as beforesaid and again made that law for the shares of such as stayed with the stuff both of them not onely without but against his present peoples liking To conclude therefore Soveraignty is the supreme judge and disposer of Publike interest where by â—ublike is meant whatever may be of general concern between that Kingdom and another or of mutual concern to others in the same kingdom although the same be kept as a propriety in private hands The particulars of this authority we will briefly here set down The chief is that so largely heretofore spoken of namely the sword of Justice or the last appeal aswel in Religious as Civil Causes and is inseparable and incommunicable The next is the power of making and interpreting of laws The next is to lay taxes and grant privilidges and exemptions and therefore had David and Solomon both their tribute Masters and so Saul also out of his known prerogative promised to them that should slay Goliah to make his fathers house free in Israel which power to free must suppose a power to impose The next is to make Magistrates and state officers for he having delegation from God and being the common Fountain and Center of power their power must be but derivative and part of his The next is to make peace and war all of them comprehended under those general terms of submission mentioned in the Jews first election of their Kings namely to judge them and fight their battailes And as for the other more separable and communicable markes of receiving homage coynage and valuing the mony weights and measures to grant Letters of Mart to have Crown and Scepter to have titles additions and donations of honor as they may be sometimes but complemental so may they be comprehended under some of the more general and express markes before spoken for if he have the last appeal and be in all causes and over all persons and estates in his dominions supream head and governor it will follow that he is so also in these Although in the passed Treatise the name of King be only commonly used yet what is spoken of him is to be applied unto Monarchy in general under what other title of Emperor Prince Duke Lord c. so they be free and holding of God onely For unto the Monarch in right of his Office and not to the name is the Power and Soveraignty due even as the head of the family is in relation to his wife called husband to his children
God for had it been true that a man might have served more then one Master his Argument had been nothing And why he puts it in the notion of Master and not of Prince may be for that the Jews had not any Prince of their own at that time nor was there any Polarchy elsewhere to make instance in so as his Auditors might conceive how inconsistent plurality of Commanders is with that singleness which belongs to the duty of obedience And therefore although he instance in a Family because to them best known yet it proportionably holds in all Governments namely that intireness of obedience can onely be from entireness of command For else I see not but a man may as well serve two or more Partners in a Family as he may do Partners in a Commonwealth But although our Saviour seem not to point against Polarchy expresly herein yet St. James that knew well his minde and perceived the mystery of Antichristianism already working doth it plainly saying My Brethren be not many Masters knowing that we shall receive the greater condemnation Surely he meant not by this word many to forbid any man to be Master of his own Servants or Family to which end as he did allow more Families then one so must he allow several Masters to them Nor could he be supposed generally to reprove Pride or any other Vice as barely Vices First for that he and others used to name such crimes more plainly that all might know them and next for that such like Vices being not allowable in any man at all it had been more fit to have said be not any then be not many And therefore I conceive the Master here meant is that one publike supreme Commander which is set over us into which rank he forbids any more then one to enter when he saith be not many And that his meaning was of these supreme Masters will farther appear by the consequential guilt likely to follow in the great account of these publike Stewards although rightfully undertaken for in many things we offend all that is we have so many offences to answer for in our seperate and private callings already in relation to things submitted to our own guidance that we need not increase them by increase of our charge and trust But if any there be that do yet doubt that these last alleadged Texts prohibiting parity in command do reach to Political or State Governors because set down many Masters onely or that the former alleadged woe of Solomon set down to attend the disability of the King were not applyable to that disability which his subjects stubbornness did cause as well as to that which his natural incapacity did produce let them here this wise man once again most plainly pronouncing them both My son fear thou the Lord and the King and meddle not with them that are given to change For their calamity shall rise suddenly and who knoweth the ruine of them both The first verse expresly points out the onely Officer and person who next unto God we are to make the object of our highest obedience and fear and the other plainly sets forth the woe and ruine following both to the seditious and seduced They that would interpret the prohibition against sedition and change here set down as also the fore-recited punishment of many Princes for the wickedness of a Land not to import the admission of Polarchy in the place of Monarchy but the change of Princes one after another do then thereupon confess that all Lands and People that practise such seditious courses are wicked inasmuch as fear and obedience to an evil King might else have been excepted and subjects themselves allowed to change him for a man of understanding without consideration that they were blessings or punishments sent and set over us by God onely If it had been said For the wickedness of a Land many are the evil Princes thereof or my son fear the present good King and meddle not with them that would change him for another then we might well indeed have thought the words many and change to import succession But then why should not many Princes or men of understanding ruling successively or at once be set down as a blessing and preservative to a state as well as one For if understanding make the blessing as in it self there will as before noted be more in this many then in one And lastly what evasion will they finde against the prohibition of many masters What must it intend suddain succession too and so tolerate many at once to be in equal command either in the Family or elsewhere in such sort as we might serve God and Mammon both at once but not presently one after another so as to change Mammon to serve God No certainly the word many can admit of no such wresting especially being put in the present Tense by are it must plainly denote them to be such as are to be at the same time and all at once and not such as shall or have been successively raigning and so may come to be called many in respect of those many ages and times wherein they reigned For if so how shall we do to state and compute any Lands Malediction for want of a determinate present time wherein these many Princes might be said to raign more then then at another time For if succession be unhappiness then are all Lands so It is not therefore to be doubted but that Solomon intended Polarchy by many as the plainest expression he could give thereof having not learnt his wisdom from their Schools where the notions of Aristocracies and Democracies were invented Or if the word many should be thought importing that condition of any people wherein many competitors are at once striving for the Regality so as to introduce Civil War then is the malediction confessed to be want of Monarchy For although it be the height of Polarchical mischief to be in actual Civil War and in open Arms yet it takes not off the cause thereof from being malediction too which is that faction and siding which must always be where many Governors are at once But if any there be who from Gods permission of these Governments to be in the world do therefore think them lawful and so are slow to interpret any place of Scripture to make against them there is no better way to discover their partiality to these forms above Monarchy then by supposing the one to be put in the others stead and so to think with themselves if it had been said For the wickedness of a Land one is the Prince thereof but by many men of understanding the state thereof is preserved and so also My son fear God and this or that sort of Polarchy c. whither they would not thereupon have more readily concluded against Monarchy then now against Polarchy And hence as our Preface noted we may observe that there is not in Scripture to be found the mention of any
overborn be obliged to the determinations of a major Vote not by them elected or entrusted if by their joynt subordination to the Monarch who did before give them power thus to elect they stood not still obliged So that they that alleadge a major Vote ought of it self to prevail because it is to be presumed that in case of opposition even by by strength it would so fall out where is then their Government founded on pretended consent if meer force must be the rule For what think they shall become of Equity which alone should take place as having Reason and Wisdom for its guide what doth Equity and Reason so abound as that the major part of men in general or of any Society in particular should be always the juster and wiser if not what do we but endanger to follow a multitude to do evil and speak in a cause to decline after many to wrest judgement For if the minor side must acquiesse onely because it is the minor and weaker in number and power what differs this from the Government of Beasts and Fishes which prevail not by strength of Reason or Argument but by force of body and number Again if the fewer must be always overborn and governed who shall govern the other Or how can the major part be without subjection or government and yet the whole State or Society be truely said to be governed And while they shall pretend to determine the differences of the people who shall have power to determine theirs Will they set a major Vote upon a major Vote or will they as most usually remain so many Ex Lex or unbridled persons in pursuit of their own Wills onely In a word in this fained Government or political Paction how can Peace or Unity be expected where it is not so much as designed in shew or appearance For whereas the submission of all in general to some kinde of coercive and superior power is in Government on all hands necessary here the greater part are exempted and left at liberty And where political order appoints an Union in the body by means of an Union in the head in Democracy the head is made of many and by a monstrous deformity made biger then the body And where again in Monarchy the whole people are subject to the Prince and he to God so that there remains but one personate Liberty as to the Laws of the Kingdom here the greater part have no Laws to restrain them but according to the dictates of unbridled Nature good and bad Justice and injustice are at their own determination Against which it will be bootless to object that the good of the major part is in reason to be preferred to that of the fewer for that none will deny supposing it in things equally concerning them but who shall judge of that when instead of one person of common concern and interest in the whole people one faction shall thus be still judging another and so reckoning themselves the whole State endeavor the subversion of their opposites without conceit of publike detriment But that which is most direct to shew this Government null or unlawful is their want of Authority For their deriving power from the people onely must argue they sâ—ill want it because the people having it not themselves they cannot as elsewhere proved give it to others For how can the people give power to the people more then a man can be said to give power to himself whereupon these Polarchs having no mission from God or Authority from that rule of Government by him set down how can they be but in their administrations tyrannical and be in danger when they put any man to death to commit murther with the sword of Justice And where again it is alleadged That all power is founded in the Will and that voluntary submission makes Authority lawful and tolerable these forms are but so in pretence and carry on their executions by continual and irresistable terror and force in regard of their number not to be withstood Whereas the single Prince can be obeyed but voluntarily according as sense of Loyalty Duty or Love shall direct and when or so far as he shall use force so as to be called tyranny or oppression this must arise as he makes use of a major number or strength and by the force of other men prevails against a minor part which he thinks fit to punish but as King or as one person in himself considered he can never be but voluntarily obeyed For it is the gross vulgar mistake that because there is in some Republikes freedom to elect Representatives allowed to the people by such as sway in the present domineering faction that therefore they are also free and personally consenting in what these Representatives do And under this flattering disguise popular Orators prevail affirming that as we singly cannot will to destroy or harm our selves so communities also cannot be supposed to injure themselves For although say they they should enact a Law of some universal damage yet since their enacting of it must conclude this damage was to them insensible they cannot therein be harmful to themselves in general or injurious to others in particular Not harmful to themselves because upon any experience thereof they may alter it not injurious to others because according to the foresaid supposition each one being consenting the Maxim of volenti non fit injuria acquits them thereof Whereas in truth these formal Elections can never be general nor free nor can the particular actings and Laws of Governors be any more stiled the voluntary actings of the governed then any other arbitrary Authoriry for such it must be if it be any can be called the voluntary act of such as must obey But when they say a Community cannot harm it self the falacy lies under the notion of Community For they would have it comprehend in our conceits the whole people as though each one should be still personally acting and consenting in all things concerning their own harm or benefit It is true this community of Trustees and Representatives who indeed usually make themselves signifie the whole Community can never as taking them to be of one minde and interest hurt themselves irremediably but why may they not nay why must they not as a separate body have a separate interest from the people under them and so joyn for enacting such things as may concern their power or riches in general And why must they not again as having several proprieties and seperate places of Honor and Power of their own to seek seperate from these of their fellow Senators and divide amongst themselves likewise and also divide the people by siding to gain and joyn a major Vote to attain them at which time truely those that are of that part of the Community which is on the minor and weaker side will think and finde themselves harmed although the major community taking on them to be the whole community do
party and those that joyn not enemies to the publike ill-affected c. By this means having gotten such strength as to be able to pursue their own interests in opposition to lawful Authority they proceed with less fear towards the accomplishment thereof whether it be that more neer interest the advantage of pleasure belonging to each ones person commonly included under riches and desire of property or that which is more distant as of Wives Children Kindred Friends c. which may be ranked under the sense of Honor. For still our pursuit in attaining them is heightned as we conceive our propriety and interest in them to lye Now as the leaders private ends were as beforesaid Ambition Covetousness or Revenge so to joyn interest and engage the people they flatter them with the notions of Liberty Propriety and Justice corresponding with their own aims before mentioned For Liberty answers Ambition both proceeding from Pride and impatience of Government The desire of increase of Propriety answers Covetousness And popular Justice is nothing else but Cruelty and Revenge And now have they engaged all affections too For Ambition is the extream of Honor the pleasure of the Minde Covetousness includes all the pleasures that sense can desire And Revenge is the utmost bound of our malice against the things we hate tending to the satisfaction of the irrascible faculty as the other did of the concupiscible Therefore the Leaders never defining or telling what civil Liberty Property or Justice is or ought to be they leave it for the people who have them promised as great matters to think that by Liberty they mean not onely freedom from all subjection themselves but because they are told all Power comes from them and is at their dispose they think they shall now have power over others also By Propriety they are led to think not onely to have their own estates altogether independâ—nt but to be freed of all Taxes and Obligations besides For the meanest cannot but expect if he be not directly promised that upon overthrow of the enemy great encrease will then come to his share And then as the weakest Natures are ever most revengeful and cruel so Subjects can never want objects of this kinde whom under shew of publike Justice they will always implacably prosecute Nor do the Leaders of Factions hide themselves and meanings on the naming of things onely but of persons also For having themselves cast off subjection and teaching others to do the like they use not the name of Subject any longer it is now the people a word which as used in Anarchies signifies insubjection and therefore can be never proper but in Anarchy and sometimes it is the Commons they represent and stand for And then there is none so low but thinks he is included in one of these notions there is not one of the meanest servants in a Family but is in his conceit one of the People or one of the Commons at least and answerably he is ready to take the side that makes him such fair promises And he may hope also that as the greater includes the less so a free-born Subject as he is shall be freed of Master as well as Prince for he is sure that all his bondage hath been from the one and not from the other They poor souls little thought that by People and Commons are meant onely such as the Leaders shall choose after they have made themselves by their helps Masters of the other party to stand as for the People or to choose or to be their Representatives At which time I hope being the people themselves they will not break their former Promises of having no intention but the good of the People Upon occasion of which deceits and mistakes it comes to pass that the generality of the people are ever murmuring against these Governments and more ready to change again then the Subjects in Monarchies as now finding that those large promises of general Liberty c. comes to none other end then to be at the continual dispose of their fellows and that their own share in power or riches answers not that great hopes they had thereof when they deposed their former Prince When this Association or Faction divides against the Ecclesiastical Government it is called by a peculiar name of Schism which is seldom wanting where the other is For Religion being taken of general concern to all the reaping up of abuses herein cannot but deeply engage and in order to this the peoples Liberty in interpreting Scripture must be asserted and then having set up Levites to scholly them to their purpose Conscience comes to be engaged for them also in this pretended Reformation and as much as much as may be drawn from the other side But now as all Faction hath in its aim the overthrow of Government so it is from its own divisions again always a ruine to it self as it had been to the Kingdom by division before For the common enemy as they call them now subdued which was the cause of their uniting they begin to reflect upon themselves both in the division and managery of the power and profits now come into their hands and also of the neerer prosecution of those particular interests that brought them into this association Both which occasions will again necessarily break them into sub-divisions and lead them to finde out new associations of such as come yet neerest to correspond with them against such as are farthest off and upon like Grounds and Arguments as they had associated against others before they associate against one another now Nor can this well be otherwise because as I said publike good was not the cause of their joyning except a forraign fear yet remain or do arise to keep them united or except the Leaders be allyed by kindred or have all of them a common interest The last commonly happens when claim is laid to the Crown and Government For then as one mans interest made them associate it will keep them so The other is when the heads are few and their interests so agreeing that more is probably to be got by a great and sure share now possessed in the Government then in adventuring for all Therefore the present successors to Monarchies overthrown by Faction are Aristocracies but these many times so short-lived as their Government is not to be setled and known For one or some amongst them as courting more the people will still by their help set themselves in the Throne or if that fail rather then submit again to his incensed fellows he perswades and sets up the peoples general power above them under shew of more liberty and so comes usually Democracies which if they fall not into Monarchy again by the force and choice of their souldiery grow by degrees more Aristocratick For those that call themselves the people secluding always as many as they can and taking in none to share with them in power their number at last must
were to fight against God and his purpose and to have Rehoboam beaten were to countenance rebellion in people But if you look to the fruit of these Concessions in David you will finde him the fittest instance for retaliation in both kindes whether you respect him as a gracious Prince or an indulgent Father as may appear by some instances formerly given The like will all other stories do being but confirmations of this Maxim That those people that have largest Immunities and Liberties are ever the most seditious for more and that civil war and rebellion doth not arise from want of Liberty and Freedom in the Subjects but from having too much That is from Princes intrusting so great a portion of Soveraign power into their hands under colour of giving them Liberty as shall encourage and enable them to stand in open opposition and defiance against him and his remaining Authority for more and by degrees to demand or rather command all if they shall think good For as it comes to pass with all such prodigal persons as well Princes as others as use or know no other way for gaining love and credit then by wasting of that whereby it should have had foundation and continuance they in the end finde that as before their estates was the cause of their Loves so this being now gone the other would fail also And therefore they should beforehand have considered that what was the onely mean to their desire should have been the chiefest object of their care lest in the end they come to finde that too great liberality unto private and undeserving beggers makes them but publique and unpittied beggars themselves Even so when Princes are soothed up with the specious shews of winning love by condescension and parting with the fundamental rights of Soveraignty to please and gain the people they must now expect that what directed their love to them while they had it will be a cause of want of love being parted with They must consider that since the different love and respect of Princes above others was but in regard of their different power whereby it also came to pass that what was beneficially by them done was therefore more meritorious as less constrained abate them then this power of doing so or otherwise and how shall the love and thanks to Princes differ from that of other men And since Government as Government requires the administration and execution of things according to the will of the Governors when as the pretended government by love respects onely the desires of the loved how can it then be government And Princes so governing that is by the will of the governed as he and they are in their wills different so must one necessarily be the overthrow of another Wherefore if fear and reverence be not made use of but Subjects always courted by loving condiscentions Experience as well as Reason tells us that his Authority will stand on fickle ground Nor do Princes hereby onely offend against interest but Duty also to wit against that prime and incommunicable trust of power from God to them derived to enable them to govern their subjects according to his Laws When they beyond their own Commission to give or the peoples capacity to receive shall strive to dis-invest themselves of so inherent a propriety and by a strange and preposterous way of proceeding endeavor to invert Nature Reason and all kinde of Order and Rule to their own ruine by this setting the commanded above the Commander and making the Subject not subject Whereof what other sequel can we expect but that as a punishment justly deserved and most adequate and congruous to such an offence all Insurrections and Rebellions against them from hence most naturally should proceed So that when it shall once come to pass that either fear to enjoyn or command what he knows to be fit or the hopes for countenance or assistance in what he believes otherwise shall so far work on his resolution as to make his Subjects the objects of his fear and courtship he shall finde that what is hereby for the present gained will come to him at so dear a rate as upon the issue to endanger and cost him his whole estate whereas Nations under absolute Soveraigns are in respect of these but seldom observed to rebel For as when the childe hath once so far prevailed over his indulgent Father as that his wanton appetite cannot be satisfied without the enjoyment of what is offensive to others nay not without those very morsels and what else belongs to the necessary sustentation of the Parent which must now be the only object and remedy of its peevishness it wil be found that as this too great kindness was the cause this stubbornness so it will at last prove a lessening of respect and duty in the childe and the childe will thereupon also be more truely called the guide of the Father then the Father of him And seldom have the Concessions of Princes any other fruit then to be invitations to new demands till at last Subjects have so wholly freed themselves from the more milde and tolerable government of one that through the greedy pursuit of such natural and universal liberty as is with government it self inconsistent they again fall into the perfect slavery of Anarchy where every man is oppressed of his neighbour and instead of one have many Tyrants to disturb them The usual issue of all unhappy people grown wanton with too much Liberty where the commonnels and easiness of former grants is made the onely rule for desiring and obtaining new Petitions which come at length to be reckoned as acts of duty not of grace But to these in brief it may be answered if they may not be denyed why do they petition if they may why do they rebel And having so far considered Rebellion in its prime cause the division of Soveraignty we will examine it by its usual pretences and give some answers In the mean time I shall desire such as may conceive these last passed discourses or others elsewhere used to be impertiment for a Treatise where Subjects and not Princes parts are to be set forth to consider that I intend not here to shew Kings what to do but to shew Subjects what to obey And if this encroachment of Subjects on the Prerogatives of Princes be well considered it will be found no less needful to be propounded to their consideratitions in regard of the inconveniences thereof inticing them to Rebellion then in regard of that proneness again which Princes do hereupon take to fall into acts of Tyranny insomuch as all tyrannous and severe regiment may be observed to have arisen either to remove or prevent this danger tyranny being nothing else but soveraign revenge or severity according to the presumption of injury past or to be feared The evil of Anarchy and benefits of Government have ever been in all mens eys so apparent that none have been hitherto found so
how can any be supposed to be so equally and universally interessed as the Prince How will they have this liberty stinted both for persons and causes And who shall be superiour to see it on all hands performed Will they allow subjects indefinitely to have power herein as they themselves shall see cause they then invert and overthrow government If these prudent considerations cannot prevaile with rational men to stop the current of rebelion yet methinks the conscientious ties of Religion and the due observation of those Gospel duties of patience humility obedience long-suffering c. might Christian Subjects should consider how Princes are of Gods setting up and not theirs so that when he that hath their hearts in his hand shall send them such an one as they deserve and in a fatherly way shall make them his rods to punish their faults they are not to attempt the throwing these rods into the fire themselves but to kiss them in acknowledgement of submission and unless they will undertake to measure their own sins they must leave it to the same hand to withdraw that did impose And to this purpose let them well consider that place of Job Is it fit to say to a King thou art wicked or to Princes ye are ungodly if not to say so much less to strike Princes for equity Nay although they be such as appear to us to hate right yet being our King and Gods Minister over whom we can have no lawful jurisdiction we cannot condemn them more then he that is most just For so he must be esteemed of us and left to God for punishment Who shall in his own way and time break in pieces mighty men without number and set others in their stead CHAP. IV. Of Liberty AS we have heretofore shewed the glory of God to be the end of creation and that this glory was encreased from the variety of creatures inasmuch as from their augmentation of benefit one above another the encrease of his praise must proportionably arise As we have also declared mankinde amongst other creatures greatest receivers and most capable of return so now as to the same end we are to consider men amongst themselves as they stand in degrees of honour and power one above another For as we shall finde them generally much elevated above other creatures so also much differenced by their own degrees of perfection Insomuch as whilst the meanest rank of men have great degrees of Divine resemblance above other creatures below them so have also men of higher stations as coming hereby to be called Gods by God himself both an advantage and obligation above those of ordinary condition to the end that as their power and eminence did encrease above others below so their gratitude upwards should encrease also For as every workman is himself expressed in his work and hath his goodness power and skil made apparent by the general perfection of all he doth so is he yet more eminently herein represented when of the same lumpe or kind again he shall cause vessels of different honor and perfection to arise In order to this as we finde that those large abilities which men in general have above other creatures do chalenge and establish their right of dominion over them so since one man hath as great almost above another it is supposeable thereby to chalenge also proportionable superiority amongst themselves Nor fares it so with man alone but it is generally observable that as the Species of creatures have more of perfection one then another so have they also more variety of degrees in the individuals thereof one above another In inanimates that have not wil their different vertues are without claim or use in the exercise of power and dominion yet comparatively we may see one Loadstone of greater efficacy then another so as to draw from him upon even tearms the same mass of Iron Look amongst plants their different perfections in the same kinds are to all apparant and how also one tree or fruit that is perfectest in the same kind or plant over powereth that which is less In such sort as when we are to set forth Gods power and bounty in the vertues and endowments of stones or plants of any kind it is our custome and duety to instance it in such as are the most rare and perfect particulars of the same kind which may by their worth eminently include the whole Beasts have their degrees of prudence and courage whereby they come to resemble men and be differenced above others of the same kind recompensed with the dominion over one another also Look above our selves and although our happiness cannot yet extend to know any thing of the true nature of Angels yet supposing them in that one known relation of ministring spirits their different degrees and orders in this office of ministration must assure to us their different gifts and abilities in performance thereof And here again we are more particularly to consider what was before spoken namely that as creatures are in their kinds more perfect so are the degrees in the same kind more various that from eminence herein eminence in power might proportionably arise For as to have made any one Species imperfect in it self could not be imagined from the power of such an Author so also not to have made some individuals thereof more perfect then others whereby as it were to confess that the Authors power by this certain stint was come to its highest pitch could not be expected from omnipotency either no more then it could from his justice or goodness not to Communicate more of his power and particular presence in things thus made perfect Not that any the lowest thing hath hereupon cause or reason to complain because each one having a stock of blessing suitable to its capacity and the smaller and greater vessel being both alike full they must in that respect be alike pleased Nor could God but hereby be much advantaged in general acknowledgement whilst in their grateful sense of enjoyment all things rest contented with the measure of their receits Thus while each superiour order of Angels in that celestial Hierarchy looks upon those successively below they must acknowledge their encreased obligations of praise whilst the lowest of all standing yet satisfied with continual benefit and also beholding it self so far enabled above other creatures all that it can do will be thought too little to requite so large a gratuity If men take also the same course how shall those of higher power have reason to acknowledge higher praise and the meanest Subject even for his being man and for that proportion of Religion Liberty Protection c. which he enjoyes above other creatures have cause also to bless that inexhaustible fountain of goodness Whereas if men and other creatures had been made for vertue or power equal in the individuals of the same kind then for want of eminent obligation and examples of vertue and power
Gods and so they being but Stewards or Tennants no humane right of prescription can prevail against his original right And in a word to keep his right and our gratitude in continual memory were all those sacrifices and other feasts instituted serving but as so many Indexes and Lessons to shew that the earth is the Lords and the fulness thereof And although we on whom the dregs of Time are come are too prone to forget this everlasting precept of honouring God with our substance yet as a continual remembrance of his undoubted propriety it is our custome and duty as to pray to him for what we want so to thank him for all we receive which thanks in the receit of our ordinary food is called grace as denying all right of our own and acknowledging all to be his grace and bounty Which being so all Societies and men must be looked upon but as Tennant for such term and condition as the Landlord pleaseth So that when this great King after the manner of going into a far country shall be pleased not so immediately to operate in worldly affairs and dispensations but trust the several talents of his bounty to others as namely to Kings from whom he expects account to himself onely as by him onely trusted we are still to acknowledge Gods propriety in them and For this cause are to pay tribute for they are Gods Ministers attending continually upon this very thing That is for to be as Gods unto us aswel in fastening and assuring our proprieties amongst our selves by his laws which could not be else distinguished from the common natural claim to one man more then another by any meer humane right as they are to continue again Gods universal claim and propriety by taking and demanding some part to keep us in continual memory and acknowledgement of Gods supreme right still and of this establishment of propriety by loyalty and obedience And as for Gods acknowledging his Minister herein for himself it is well set forth by that speech of Zelophedads daughters pleading that their inheritances should still remaine in propriety to them because their father had not forfeited them by any rebellion against Gods chief Minister that is against Moses the then King of Jesurun or Israel saying Our father died in the wilderness and was not in the company of them that gathered themselves together against the Lord in the company of Rorah but died in his own sin By which we may plainly perceive that they claim right for continuance of those the proprieties of their family which were by Gods Minister formerly settled because their family had not made any such forfeiture by Rebellion as to cause them to revert again to the first Proprietor God and the Prince Which was the reason why in the case of Naboths vineyard before mentioned Jezabel did advise to have him accused For blaspheming God and the King that under colour of these crimes she might cause that inheritance to return which could not be otherwise done And therefore as Kings are Gods Deputies and Vicegerents to us in representation of his power so are they to be acknowledged his Deputies amongst us in respect of his undoubted and unquestionable propriety even by their receit of such proportions back from their subjects out of those their proprieties by their laws made as those Ministers of God attending continually upon this very thing shall see fit either for advancement of Gods the great owners service or the good of himself or others in order thereunto Which portions in the New Testament are usually included under the general names of custome and tribute because amongst the Romans to whom these taxes and contributions were given they were the usual appellations for publike leavies And this precept of Saint Paul for acknowledging the Prince his paramount propriety under the notion of paying tribute is answerable to another of our Saviours including Caesars propriety in all things under the proper notion of money For in deciding that question of the lawfulness of paying tribute he takes a sure way towards making our proprieties to be Caesars In that calling the piece of money Caesars because it had Caesars image upon it he concludes him to have the same right to all money as to that peice for that all money had his image upon it He doth not say give unto Caesar of your money but give him his own Or give unto Caesar the things that are Caesars concluding that Gods immediate propriety being for the present entrusted and delegated to these in his stead we were now to acknowledge them so far as by our readiness in yeilding of tribute to whom tribute custome to whom custome c. we should thereby amidst our common duties of giving to all their dues give to God his due also And by our readiness in yeilding to his Ministers to this end appointed testifie our proportionable readiness to have done the like to himself in case he had demanded it And demand it no doubt he doth aswel from Christians now as from the Jews formerly nor hath he lost his true right although he be not so immediate in his claim For then because the law was instituted in the time when God himself was King that is had no such direct Officer under him amongst the Jews the acknowledgement of his propriety as under the notion of tenths and offerings was claimed in his own name and God having thereupon disposed of it takes the wrong done in Tythes and offerings as robberies of himself But although these tenths and offerings as Gods gift to them instituted by that Law which was still to continue were to remain to the Priests and Levites unalterably without the impeachment of those Kings that succeeded inasmuch as they had their taxes besides yet now amongst Christians whom that Law binds not as positive but as natural those Tythes where they are collected are or should be paid to Princes in the first place as Gods next Ministers And although Princes do upon just grounds appropriate them to the Clergies maintenance yet in acknowledgement of his headship and propriety above them also he hath tenths fifteens c. reserved from them again And this is done to each King under the Gospel even as King that is as Christs Deputy after the example of Abraham Who on the behalf of the Levites paid Tythes of all he had For as Melchisedeck the King of righteousness and of peace was a Type of our Saviour unto whom all kingdoms do belong so do the tenths and tributes as Gods and Christs right belong to Kings their Deputies now unto whose Office that of High Priest is subordinately annexed Whereupon as Kings are Tenants to God for their whole territories be they greater or less so are the people again Tenants to him according to their several allotments and trusts Upon which ground we may observe that as every Prince hath the whole power and propriety of all within
superiors Whereupon we may farther say that justice and â—quity so far as it concerns a Commonwealth is to be that way and course which is most advantageous to publike utility and that Law is the rule set down by those that have chief Authority and trust therein And therefore is that maxim avowed as the ground of Law and Equity in a popular State Salus populi suprema lex For the directest course to that end is the greatest Equity and those that have the charge of the end have also the charge of the means in assigning that which is most just and fit And therefore in this case we must reckon the society as it is united for common good as one person So that then as Nature teacheth all men to benefit themselves so doth polity direct the publike But then again as each man in wronging another doth wrong himself so societies when they practice injustice oppression c. do in regard of Gods punishments feared to follow thereupon wrong themselves also and do as we before observed of particular men prefer a less and momentany benefit to a more high and lasting one Upon which ground there is another maxim avowed in Monarchy that the King can do no wrong Not denying he may do himself and others harm but so long as we do according to our duties submit to that he doth command he can do no wrong For he can of himself have no private respect but must judge all alike as out of common regard except where and when some persons or order of the people taking on them his Office of judging equity and in partiality to themselves thinking and seeking more then is already allotted make it a wrong to the other side by having the cause decided by a private and partial judgement for take away Justice in the fountain you may vainly seek it in the streams And thereupon Solomon prays to God to give him an understanding heart to judge the people and to discern between good and bad And such as are not openly denying supreme Authority to be obeyed and would yet by consequent overthrow it by allowing inferiors a liberty to judg and act beyond or otherwise then is enjoyned let them consider the answer that God gives to his chief Magistrate that would undertake to know the way and means of honoring and serving God better then himself and would make that solemn established Law of Sacrifice defeat his present command which was but extemporary namely that Obedience is better then sacrifice and to hearken better then the fat of Rams For I verily believe that no subordinate Magistrate or subject can have a fairer plea for disobeying his King commanding in Gods stead then Saul might have had here for refusing Samuel For if it had been at all lawful for inferiors to judge of fitness and morality or to set a former command or Law against a latter what more just and reasonable then first to preserve innocent creatures whose destruction on one hand could have been a benefit to none when as on the other side they being thus imployed should have so expresly advanced Gods way of service constituted so solemnly already And we might thereunto add that which some would make of highest value in judging good and bad that the importunity and request of the people ran that way also And as our prying into the reason of Gods Laws and not obeying his direct Precepts was our Original fault and a sin in the government of nature as shewing a mistrust of Gods wisdom or care of us so in obedience to civil Laws to seek out another equity then they import is not to be subject to Law but to controle it And as God said to Adam Who told thee that thou wast naked hast thou eaten the fruit I commanded thee that thou shouldst not eat So Princes may say to subjects that without authority undertake to judge of publike good and bad Justice and injustice how come you to know these things except you have transgressed the bounds I set you Have you not proper stations of your own to walk in Why meddle you with mine For if thou judge the law thou art not a doer of the law but a Judge So that then all obedience to Laws must be implicite that is to Gods Laws as his and Civil Laws as the Princes For if in either sort I obey but what upon examination I finde reasonable I take the Law-makers part upon me and obey not him but my self For Law and Justice being the instruments whereby Governors Act upon the Governed they must be at the choice and guidance of the workman and agent and not of the work or patient as heretofore noted Law then is Councel imposed Justice is equity executed In Laws the Subjects are to act in Justice the Prince or Magistrate for him In Laws he shews how much of his Will Subjects shall do in Justice how much he will do himself So that Law may be called Equity taught and Justice Equity practised and is when the Judges own Councels are acted by himself whether in pursuance of Law or not For Justice and Equity may be without standing Law as in the less government of a family but not Law without them that is the Authority of the Prince Now for Justice it self it proceeding from Equity as being the sentence of the Judge upon the judged it may be blinde as to execution because that part concerns Ministerial Officers but cannot as to the sentence and Judge for taking seeing for understanding his eyes must be only open as to stating of Equity Disinterest nor equal interest alone cannot make men competent Judges because they may be so qualified and yet strangers and unknowing of the cause And therefore Judges must besides knowledge have Concern equal Concern and whole Concern and the like we must say of Power For if all the matter and persons contending be not at his dispose to what purpose his sentence Nay if his propriety be not the highest and his power highest he will in judgement proceed but faintly for want of compleat interest and courage For though the Concern and Power of the Judge may be equal in and over both or all the subject persons yet if be not supreme he must so far want the perfection of a Judge as he wants interest to make him concerned to judge at all and power to execute his sentence And more persons then one or not having authority from one cannot be competent Judges over others for they must have unequal concern through unequal passions and interests and must through unequal power also as being of different strength or courage proceed differently and partially in their sentence For whilst the same Plea or Cause is estimated by divers ballances according to that divers judgement and interest abiding in those divers persons in the seat of Justice their sentence can never be uniform to the interest of the persons and the cause they
judge however they may be in their sentence outwardly agreeing amongst themselves as in order to fear or other interests of their own Nor can two or more persons judge their own causes because of the same reasons and also for that in this equality none can have whole interest or power But to make these things plainer by instance When any two parties that are at difference shall have their cause decided by any of the ordinary Judges appointed to that purpose the failing of that Judge therein so far as to make him culpable must happen upon the grounds before noted For if he have not concern enough so as to think his duty honor and benefit to be founded and established by the practice of his imployment of a Judge he will then wholly neglect it or proceed so coldly therein as for want of through examination of the full evidence of the truth of things on both sides his judgement can be no otherwise then accidentally true and upright And this inconvenience will not only be subject to mislead him in his first sentence and decision of causes but farther also in case that bribery friendship c. have caused partial judgement through want of entire and equal concern it is the usual hindrance to all re-examination that should arise from equity by way of appeal insomuch as untill the oppressed party can find a way how to make the redress of his grivance appear of more availe and concern to the party appealed unto then it is to him in the state it now stands he can never rationally expect reparation or furtherance from him therein From all which it must come to pass that none but God Almighty can be held as the onely universal ready and upright Judge so far as to be the onely true object of appeal Because as he hath onely omniscience sufficient to know all circumstances that are necessary to the stating of Equity in each cause so hath he alwayes such whole and high interest and concern in the good of his creatures as to make him always ready to hear all complaints Whereas all other subordinate Judges must as they stand in degree below him and so differenced in respect of concern differ in their readiness to entertain appeals and make redress By which means the Monarch who hath highest interest power and trust delegated from God and hath his honor and interest of more concern in performance of Acts of Justice then any other even in such degree that he cannot find any reward else so valuable to divert him must be presumed thereupon the readiest to hear and amend when any thing in this kind shall be offered And if the ordinary grievances of the poor or meaner sort be not by him taken into consideration like the more remarkable appeals from great ones it proceeds still from the same cause of want of concern not in him who if he be an entire Monarch and no wayes made obnoxious or defective in propriety would hear poor and rich alike as equally subâ—ects but for want of concern in other persons of ranke and eminence that should present it and state it unto him Which is a thing so difficult to be done as experience tells us that it is the great obstacle of all redress namely for want of concern to make another take so much pains as throughly to examine the state of the grievance and so apply himself towards redress For we shall finde all private men to be still so full of their own business as not to be sufficiently enclined to make any other of such equal concern as to remit the present care thereof to intend his beyond respect to themselves And although the sense of pitty and Justice be in all men naturally yet the difficulty will still lye How for want of concern to make him attentive in such length of discourse as must be requisite to make my cause appear so Upon which ground it is that Fees are given to Advocates Councellors c. by those that are appellants and suters hereby engaging them to take their Clients business into concern and make it their own Men have hitherto thought Justice in the abstract to be before it in the concrete as though truth or the affections or adjuncts of things could have been before the things themselves But as Divine Justice is but the procession of that equity which resideth in God the supreme Judge of all whereby the affairs of all creatures are disposed and ordered according to the known measure and equality which their respective merits in relation to the good and Oeconomy of the whole doth require so neither was humane Justice before the administrators thereof no more then positive Law was before the Law-maker who by that did publikly determine what was fittest to be done in the Vierge of his jurisdiction also Therefore men making Justice to be juris statio or dependant on the sentence or determination of the Law could not choose but to have considered onward that that jus or law must again have dependance on the Law-maker or him that hath juris-dictio had not a kind of conspiracy in the flattery of private mens abilities towards the judging right and wrong made them determine Justice measurable by Law and Law by themselves that so onward publike Justice might be submitted to private sense of equity whereby at last all should resolve into opinion In which regard it is no wonder that subjects in general do in order to obtain their fancyed degree of liberty agree amongst themselves upon such maximes as they conceive restrictive of the exercise of their Princes power over them upon the same ground as servants use to do towards that of their masters For so experience tells us of those measures of good and bad masters which are by servants usually entertained amongst themselvs in order to deny all masters and their actions to be good farther then they are respective to or carried on towards their interests or approbations Thus the master that is most profuse for diet apparel c. is called the best and most kind by his own and by all other servants too Whereas that master that measures these things by his own conveniencies of estate c. and makes restraint accordingly is called Churle and miserable And so again such masters as permit liberty and licentiousness have the servants joynt applause as just and kinde unto them whereas such as restrain and punish them for faults are by them called cruel and unjust For how should it be expected they should like to be straightned or punished for what they had formerly approved Nor can men under servitude of any kind separate themselves so far from their interests in relation that way that is in desiring freedom as to take the interest of the correlate into equal concern with their own and not rather still to chose and fix upon such reasons and maximes as shall most confine the will of their governor to be submitted to theirs and
in order thereunto to fancy as we see it come to pass that there are general rules and laws whereby justice and right are as measurable by inferiors as others yea even whilst they are inferiors But suppose there is in every man implanted the maximes and grounds of general Justice as God to be worshiped parents and superiors to be honoured every man to have his own or the like yet since they were in several men variously concluded from several inductions and observations in the course of humane affairs for they encrease and differ in men as yeers and ability do it must come to pass that when they come to refer back and are to be applyed to particular occasions they must be both different and falible also as not determining how to worship God or wâ—erein to obey susuperiors or what every mans due is Upon which grounds it is no wonder that Astraea was fained to leave the world about the same time when Laws began most to abound and men undertook to fancy that that obedience to the Laws which was constitutive of Magistrates and subjects justice towards one another was also to be definitive and bounding of justice in the original But if we make not justice to be residing in that sentence and determination of equity which each rightful superiour imposeth then hath it indeed no certain aboad amongst men Or if they bound it by any other positive Law then what is to be by him interpreted and enforced then they not onely take away all justice from the golden age of the world which was therefore chiefly called so because the publike person to whose sence of equity things were intrusted did particularly judge in emergencies and so more exactly measure causes then can be now by standing rules and laws but they also for the present take it from fathers masters of families and the like where right and justice is depending on their arbitrary and accasional directions And therefore as Divine Justice or the general rule of equity in government of the world is dependent on the Divine Edict and determination of God who hath the government hereof and as the rule of justice of the family is dependant on him that hath that charge also so is the same to be granted in each kingdom even to be the decision of him that hath Legislative power and trust to determine of things towards the stating political peace or happiness To which purpose some have conceived the word jus to be the abrievation of Jovis os which we may call the Divine sentence in the lips of the King making it the positive decree of the soveraign power For although this Synterisis or inward assent to the general maxims of equity be usefully in all men because they must more or less have dominion yet for inferiors or â—quals as such at any time to use them upon their own authority cannot make the execution take the name of Justice however the sentence may be in it self equal or proportionable to the equity of the cause And indeed that common definition of this vertue of giving every one his own would have caused men necessarily to conclude this the proper vertue of the person in supreme power and propriety for how else shall he have right to distribute had not as before noted private covetousness and arrogance of judgement made men conclude it not to be justice except under that notion of his own each man had such distribution as should not onely be directed by positive Law but by it according to their interpretation also As though there could be private propriety against the publike or that the Prince the Master of a Family or other publike superior were to regard the good and propriety of the contenders or any other separate private persons without regard to the whole propriety and good and not rather make his distributions of the publike stock of honor riches c. to private persons with repsective care to the whole In which respect we may again call publike Justice The exercise of authority proceeding from each rightful superior as his sense of equity in particular distributions shall lead them with regard to publike advantage So that he judging according to sense of equity as between two both the parties contending are to be taken as one and decission is to be so made between them that the other more worthy party the Commonwealth be Geometrically considered And this although the whole present people be present contenders in the two parties yet is the succeeding community or their own future inconveniencies to be considered From whence we may conclude a just man and a governor to be convertible as also is the notion of Justice with that of government having both issue from his authority and determination Saving that under the notion of government as more general we usually comprehend both equity and justice that is both the directive and coercive parts but by Justice we commonly conceive but the bare vindicative part to be acted separate from the Legislative If in this his sentence he bear such particular eye to the parties in competition as to forget or neglect common interest he is unjust to God his superior as failling in his general trust however to his inferiors he must alwayes upon the same reason be acknowledged just We are also accustomed to apprehend the notion of justice to have in reference to the persons subjected a more particular regard then that of government namely when then the Justiciar shall more expresly respect the comparative fitness or interest of any two separate parties at which time the governor being more remarkable by an explicite determination it may thence be called particular government as government it self may be called general and implicite Justice both of them being stated and defined by the due exercise and receit of that power which caused their relations that is of the governor or Justiciar as agent upon the governed or justified as patient In which case the Agent and patient standing reciprocally constituting each other according to their relations to impose and receive it follows that where the governor is not endued with his proper power to impose on the governed according to his vertue of Agency and the governed on the other hand endued with the vertue of receit and patibillity there cannot be government But in proportion as the inferior invades the power of Agency or is insusceptible of the others Agency so far the political harmony and order is broken and inverted and approach is made unto Anarchy And many times also we difference Justice from Government by its object as making it conversant about the Government of our proprieties and apprehending the notion of the Government to have most particular reward to the Subjects personall liberties and this way that definition of giving every man his own and of the division of Justice into distributive and commutative may seem to look Philosophers in their usual Scholy desiring to make it
execution approaching and derived from its originall Whereupon we must say that when the tearm of Justice is given to inferiors as denoting their upright dealing in the discharge of any trust it is then as before noted confounded with the vertue or honesty for honesty is the proper commendation of any in that case even as denoting trust and inferiority Whereas to do justice or justly supposeth a power to impose and distribute But when we do suppose any inferior person as such to be capable of justice so far as he hath been equal to the rule and proportion of his trust we do thereby grant justice not to be any wayes originally in him but to be properly onely assignable where the rule is that is to the party that holds the ballances as being possessed of power And therefore is Justice painted with a sword in the right hand and scales in the lest as betokening that the estimation and decision of causes and controversies is the proper office of him that is in the supreme seat of authority and power who is to be conceived the Trustor and not on the judgement or censure of such as are inferior or trusted And this because the Trusted's justice or equal dealing being to be measured by the Trustor or superior he can no otherwise be just then by him justified which is not to be actively or formally just but proportionably so For although he might have been upright or honest in his return as having herein done to the utmost of his abillity or conscience yet cannot he be therefore truely called just because the superior in his trust might have had other ends or intentions in the assignment of the trust then hath been or could be by him adequately returned in which case falling short of the rule he failes in point of Justice also And to manifest these things more clearly namely that the Justice of superiors is not dependent on the judgement and sentence of men below and that againe our own conscience cannot justifie alone we shall finde Saint Paul saying With me it is a very small thing to be judged of you or mans judgement yea I judge not mine own self for I know nothing by my self yet am I not thereby justified but he that justifieth me is the Lord. From whence we may truly infer that no man can be just before God in this life not onely because not fully knowing his will but also in respect of inabillity in coming short thereof even when we are most conscientious And so again taking injustice to import negatively that is absence of justice we may call all inferiors more or less unjust and that also whilst to their utmost they are most honest Even as on the contrary we may say all inferiors are more or less just as more or less justified Upon which ground the Publican a neglecter of the Law went away rather justified then the Pharisee a most exact keeper thereof In which regard justification being according to supremacy in power it follows that any man may be called just when justified before God the fountain of all rule and power although to his Prince or Parents he may in some particulars fall short of his trust like as upon the same rule again the justification of the Prince may include justice to any subject notwithstanding his failing in any inferior charge So that now the attribute of Justice being formally proper onely to supreme power hence it comes that the acts of no superior but God can be universally and strictly called just For Princes being as his chief Magistrates in some things restrained and to be directed by his Laws they can in those things be no farther esteemed just in execution then as they are observant of them Whereas in other things by God referred to them as to his next entrusted Deputies the stating of right or law must be dependant again on their sentence In which case as those Magistrates by them entrusted with execution of their Laws must have above other subjects power to interpret and act according to their own sense of equity and right which is to be obeyed as justice by all others even so again the actions of Princes as Gods supreme Magistrates must as in duty to God be submitted unto by subjects in general And we must farther also say that as Gods universal power and interest makes his actions to be alwayes equal and just even because they are his even so in proportion Princes must be held in their actions more or less just as they are more or less powerful or whole proprietors in what they judge And farther that as no man can be the proper and formal subject of justice but he that stands in relation a superior so none unjust but as he stands by relation an inferior even as failing of or exceeding in the execution of that trust of power and propriety received from such as were herein above him And from the premises we may farther say that as the true stating and observance of the relations of governing and governed makes government and the execution of this government makes Justice so in Republicks where these relations are not fixed and certain but that the governed as Agents do sometimes act on the governing as patients there Justice must be proportionably wanting or uncertain Out of all hitherto spoken it will I hope appear to be each mans duty now as he would be freed of the guilt of doing ill aswell as that of stubborness and disobedience not to take upon him to judge of the morality of laws and institutions above or without the leave of his superior For as sin in the wil must proceed from error in the understanding if I respite my particular inquisitivenes and suffer my self to be guided by the general perswasion that right and wrong are better known to these I am bound to obey then to my self the result of my actions whether they did what was good or no must yet be safer to me that perform them by implicite obedience then they can be otherwise For if they be right and good the merit of that obedience by which they were done will encrease their good and if otherwise it will abate it as being therein my just excuse For the less will I had therein the less sin I must also have as shall be more fully discoursed of when we treat of Religion And bootless it is to say that obedience to humane authority is to be given in things indifferent For if the doing or not doing be indifferent for legality or benefit in my conceit I yeild to authority not as out of duty as such but as doing what I should have done to any ordinary request Or if besides the sense of duty I go to set my self a rule how far and how far nâ—t my own reason and conscience is to submit so far as I take on me to juâ—ge of the equity of the precept and the measure of my obedience so
what share of humane actions they please they have on the one hand almost taken peace from the earth by substracting that our bounden obedience from his immediate vicegerent which should have been the tye thereof whilst others again out of a desire to make themselves absolute in the managery of State affairs have come to seclude God and the rules of religigion from having any immediate influence and authority therein which are in these things and to the support of that obedience which is on their behalf necessary the chiefe securities and directions Against some inconveniencies arising from the practise and opinions of those of the last sort I have framed much of my discourse in the two precedent books in which by reason as well as Scripture I have plainly shewn the necessary tye and dependance of political good and peace on religion and its precepts and how it is not onely injurious to God but wrong to our selves to deprive him of superintendant dominion and administration either in the government of our persons or estates And indeed to deny Gods care and superintendency over moral agents and actions as well as natural ones is an opinion bordering not only on Atheism but on absurdity also when as men shall be hereby thought not so valuable in the eye of Divine care and providence as beasts nay as stocks and stones In this present work my intention is to set forth the inconveniences that arise from the sole undertakings of those of the other sort that is such as oppose this power upon the score of religion And more particularly those of the Romish party who first made use of and applyed that notion of Civil Magistrate unto the Christian Prince that thereby he might under that distinction of Civil be not only separated secluded from any farther intermedling in the Church then as if he had still been a pagan but also that under the appellation of Magistrate instead of that of King he might be but thought subordinate herein neither even to that their own supream head as well as were the Bishops and other Church guides and Officers whom certainly they intend should be opposed unto him in this his civil relation and be not onely absolute in Ecclesiastical jurisdiction and government of the Church but to be super-eminent in the State also And although amongst Protestants this sole superintendency is not given to any Ecclesiastical person yet when we find those that pretend greatest reformation departure from Rome stil retaining this notion of Civil Magistrate and applying it to the Prince we may conceive it purposely also so done that thereupon another independent Magistracy even themselves might be closely insinuated and also acknowledged and obeyed in Church affairs Which done and having hereby made themselves the next and more immediate Ministers to God and Christ their next work is to stretch and draw out religious cognizance as far as they can to leave unto Kings as persons in a sphere below them the managery of such other duties and vertues as they are pleased to list under the notion of Moral calling the greatest proficients in vertue in a kinde of scorne Moral men or men civilly honest As though the very Decalogue and the whole Jewish law given from God himself carried not moral consideration with them and were any otherwise binding then as moral precepts to us now In farther evidence whereof I shall also shew how the very Gospel-precepts do make moral duties their subject also even as our Saviour ordinarily made mans body the subject of his miracles and that the substance of the former more large moral direction is abreviated and fulfilled in the gospel precept of love and how again love is made useful by the tye and effects thereof obedience humility patience c. in such sort that civil good and society is by Gospel-directions more neerly and directly pointed to and maintained then before Of all which by Gods assistance in that which follows CHAP. I. Of Religion in its true ground OUR discourse hitherto hath been to manifest that the end of all divine natura and positive laws are both for the preservation of the whole world and of man in particular In which doing we are not to consider God Almighty like our selves in our sports as taking delight in the action it self and entertaining it by way of pastime as having nothing else to do but as an understanding free and voluntary Agent and having an end in all things he doth For otherwise would not his works be regulated and stinted as now they are but there being no end of doing the deeds would be also infinite as the Author End he could have none above or without respect to himself because this must be the necessary consequent of choice also For to do or not to do anything wherein self-good interest or liking is no wayes concerned is not imaginable but in all knowing and voluntary Agents must be presupposed Therefore now to come to examine what this end of God is and how it is both true that all things were made for his own sake again how all was made for the use of man we must take care that in no consideration we entrench upon Gods alsufficiency in himself and think him hereby or from the Creature as in a kinde of supply any way advantaged For when we eat or drink or make use of any thing it is in us a contribution towards some necessary want and sustentation of our being but when God keeps on the course of his Providence and hereby enables all Creatures to do him that service he requires we must not imagine any indigence in him to be the cause thereof for he having none his superiour or equal nor any thing without the verge of his power how should fear or want approach his almightiness Therefore he not being like other Creatures who have their being and wel-being dependent on him but being truly independent of any but himself his operations outward that can have no end higher or better then himself must have it onely by reflection and return Whereupon he being all good and it being proper to the nature of goodness to be extensive and communicable he did according to his good pleasure Confer on other Creatures those different resemblances and the participation of those beatitudes and perfections which were before solitary and in himself confined All which proceeding from him without substraction he is so far from suffering diminution herein that by a kind of multiplication he hath the goodness and content of his owne now encreased by that of others even by their just and grateful acknowledgements of so much from him received So that from hence we may conclude the reason how all things come to be said made for his owne sake namely to express his honour and glory which return of praise and glory being justly expected of each creature as a duty is by Gods acceptance reckoned as a service But because returnes
to be void also However before the time that the Magistrate was Christian the claim of immediate succession or possession were a good plea in it self and fit to be observed by others to avoide the danger of Schism as it was also then reasonable enough that in consideration the Bishop in each place was also supream head of the same under Christ that thereupon the designation or ordination of persons into offices of power might be at his dispose too yet since even then this his own ordination or choice and appointment into office was done by the people and in the same form whereby they constituted other Magistrates it will thereupon appear but reasonable that as this power to govern was by them then executed not as Evangelists barely but as the present supream Christian heads so should it be afterwards resigned to him that did succeed as supream in causes Ecclesiastical as well as Civil And as their ordination that is personal succession and appointment into these functions of power not their consecrations doth or should depend on his choice or negative voice as it did formerly on the people and Emperours it cannot be now thought reasonable they should claime any outward independent jurisdiction over the liberties or estates of others By due consideration whereof we may know how to distinguish between those several ordintions of power and Office which Saint Paul admonisheth Timothy to make use of For by that which in his first Epistle to him is set down as a gift given by Prophesie with the laying on of the hands of the Presbytery we may understand that more civil election and ordination whereby those Presbyters or Elders the representative authority of that Church had it may be at Saint Pauls recommendation chosen him as their chief guide or instructor even because of that eminent guift of Prophesie or instruction they found in him into which Office we may suppose him afterwards confirmed and also consecrared by Saint Paul which he calls the gift of God which is in thee by the putting on of my hands For those places and cities being but partly Christians as yet whereby Saint Paul and other primitive Christian heads could not have entire jurisdiction it was reasonable even for the better obedience sake of those that did believe to submit the election of their Church guide to that very form they used in the choice of their other Magistrates And as in these last alledged Texts we finde both election and consecration set down in that phrase proper to Priestly administration onely namely laying on of hands so shall we elsewhere finde them both at once comprised under the expression proper to election of other Magistrates signifying holding up of hands called there ordaining The which Presbyterial way of choice continued still in the Church after the time that Emperors and Kings were Christian but not as at first for then these Presbyters did it as Rulers and Representatives of those places some of them being Preachers and some not whereas afterwads when whole Cities became Christians those of the chief of the Clergy of each diocess or jurisdiction took upon them to make these elections as the Chapiter of that place but it was still done or supposed to be according to recommendation or licence of that Prince or Emperour that had supream power over them all And however at first before the people of any place or City were wholly converted so as the jurisdiction could be entire under one Church head they might well be distinguished under the notions of Church and state as each might be under a separate authority yet when and where these power shall be united then and there all election and jurisdiction in the one sort as well as the other must be held dependant on this one supream Church head If we suppose those of the Clergy to be successors to Apostolical power by vertue of ordination received from the hands of one another as by a kinde of confederacy then since the efficacy of ordination is the same to all of them there must be now amongst us as many men in Apostolical power as there are men in orders because ordination having its efficacy as primarily inherent in the Apostles it must follow that all those derived ordinations must be equal one to another even as that fâ—rst act of ordination from the Apostles received was the same or equal to it self But of those that would set up an Vniversal Pope and of those that would set up a Pope by this means in every Parish I would ask how far they would have their jurisdiction to extend If they say they have right to all the Apostles had then have they right to command and be obeyed in all things for such right had the Apostles as shall be shewed anon If they say they have right to no more them was by then practised and so claime to succeed in the power of excommunication and Church censure so far as to extend it to corporal punishment then they will have much ado to make this all one with a spiritual jurisdiction and censure The truth is that we must look on the Apostles in their sentence of excommunication as punishing men in the highest measure they then could in regard of the engrosment of all coercive and vindicative power by the then Pagan Magistrates they lived under and not as thinking their refraining to keep a Blasphemer or an incestuous person company were a punishment adequate to such offences as by their hainousness and nature did argue already no regard to their society And again this act of excommunication was not then to banish him from them but themselves from him For as they could not force any to be of their society or come to their meetings so as the case stood then could not they force them from coming to any their publike meetings as well as others even when they were to celebrate the communion although they might forbear to eat whilst he was in the company So that now if the Church-men claime but the same measure of power the Apostles did or might then exercise and againe allow the person now excommunicate the like power with the other they will then finde the force and terrour of their excommunication as from themselves alone proceeding and without leave and assistance from the Magistrate to amount to just nothing If they claime all the jurisdiction and power that the Apostles as heads of Churches then had right unto they will have right to all power whatever that is power outward and civil as well as inward and spiritual For of that nature we shall finde many things that were taken into cognisance by those primitive heads and so lyable also to the censure and punishment of the Magistrates and civil laws of the Countrey as was that Incestuous act and would no doubt upon notice have been by them that had present power punished in a more remarkable and sensible degree then could
of mine hands in the midst of him that is such as are begotten to him through the power of mine inward Kingdom they shall sanctifie my name and shall sanctifie the holy one of Jacob and shall fear the God of Israel that is shall walk righteously and obediently according to their calling They also that erred in spirit that is such as were not yet thus inwardly guided but were led by multitude of litteral precepts shall come to understond that is to know this right way of sanctifying me and they that murmured that is such as were made stubborn by relyance upon their own interpretations of legality shall learn Doctrine that is shall learn the doctrine of obedeince a fit lesson for murmurers As this Office of Teaching or Instruction is to be understood here set down as in the first place proper to Christ who was anointed to preach good tydings so because this could be but in small measure done and supplyed by himself at least amongst the Gentiles in the glory of whose Church it is to be understood that of the Jews was prophesied it is therefore to be supposed that Christian Princes are to be his chief deputies in this office of instruction also For as they under him Shall build the old wasts and raise up the former desolations of the Jewish Church by this advancement of Christs kingdome amongst the Gentiles so These strangers shall stand and feed the Churches flock and the sons of the Aliens shall be her plowmen and vine-dressers all which are the Gospel expressions for Christs Shepherds or Pastors Nor can it appear otherwise then reasonable and necessary that those that are to be in the seat of judgement under Christ should have in chief the power and office to teach and instruct as well as to censure and reform Which although not fit to be personally practised by Kings in that sence of preaching as now understood especially having under them persons in holy orders to that purpose separately ordained yet is that general Office of instruction to be esteemed so properly their right as that for the matter and measure thereof it is alwayes subordinately to be executed by others For as they are to be the keepers of both tables so upon extraordinary and exorbitant occasions they may also no doubt as Gods Ministers entrusted in chief with the advancement of his glory and service publikely and personally also perform that Office under the Gospel much more rightfully then good Josiah under the Law Who to his great commendations had formerly done the like In the ears of the Priests and Prophets and all the people both small and great and yet was the custody and interpretation of the Law much more appropriate to the Priesthood then than now Nay indeed this Office must both be in the same person and in the first place setled also or else I see not how they should have power or ability to reprove in such things where they had no power or right to constitute and ordaine And therefore we may observe that the first Mission of power which our Saviour gave was under the notion of this Office of Preachers or Evangelists and by vertue thereof and obedience thereunto did the Apostles at first claim obedience from their Churches in other things as shall more fully appear anon But to return so much of the prophesie as concerns the Church her encrease and prosperity is to be interpreted as not made good fully in Christ himself nor in some time after that is whilst the Church was so under persecution that those deputies of Christ in the seat of judgement had not power and honor enough to preserve the members from shame or fear But it is to be compleated unto the residue or latter time of the Church when God shall more eminently appear like a Crown and diadem in being the spirit of judgement and strength to them that have the crown and diadem That is when Christ as King shall raign in righteousness and his deputies of Princes shall rule in judgement then shall a man the Prince in Christs seat be for a hiding place from the winde of divers doctrines wherewith they were formerly tossed and a cover from the tempest that is of persecution he shall be as rivers of waters in a dry place That is from the spirit of truth now met in the seat of mercy and judgement he shall cause instructions to flow forth as waters in a dry land and by means of strength to him that is to turn the battle to the gate he shall be as the shaddow of a great rock even for strength and defence to the Church formerly wearied with persecution And so the Prophet goes on to shew how the eyes and ears of them that yet see and hearken to his instructions shall be reclaimed from their former rashness and come to understand knowledge By this word man set down in this second verse in the singular number saying A man shall be c. we may gather first that there should be but one at once in each Church that should supply the place of a rock and spirit of judgement although in respect of the whole number of Christs deputies in the Catholike Church they were to be Princes in the plural number under him the Churches universal head and King of Kings And then again this person being set down under the notion of a man will denote unto us that it could not be meant of Christ himself neither But this as before said shall chiefly come to pass after the former Palaces of the Jewish Church shall be forsaken and by means of the spirit from on high to be powered on the Gentile Church judgement shall dwell in the wilderness that is in the Gentile Church formerly a wilderness and righteousness remain in the fruitful field meaning the now flourishing Gentile Church And the work of righteousness shall be peace and the effects of righteousness shall be quietness and assurance for ever That is by means of righteousness looking down from heaven and so causing righteousness and judgement to kiss each other The Church shall dwell in a peaceable habitation and in sure dwellings and in quiet resting places that is the Church by the means of this blessed protection of kingship shall be no more in danger of persecution as before These blessings of peace and prosperity to come to the Church by means of Gods judgement and righteousness given to the King and the Kings son that is Christ and his sons of oile David under the type of himself and Solomon at large setteth down in the 72 Psalm Where it being set down to last so long as the Moon shall endure we may know how to interpret Isaiahs prediction of quietness and assurance for ever and so be confirmed that these promises import temporal happiness to acrew to us by a temporal Saviour All which prophesies were to be fullfilled after
in it self worthy of preservation doth by Grace restore and rectifie what in our fall had been corrupted Thus that love which Nature provokes me to express out of inward delight Religion enjoyns and directs me to execute according to explicite precept That good which for Honor or Vertue sake I seek to act as a moral man I must now for Duty and Conscience sake re-inforce and prosecute as a Christian. That degree of beneficence which in nature I might arbitrarily and differently dispense according to mine own relations of Family Friends or the like I must now according to the tye of conscience and subjection distribute indifferently or according to such rules as he that hath publike charge shall direct For our state of innocency consisteth more in negative then in positive acts that is more in being harmless then beneficial because innocence or abstinence from harm is always a praise and compatible to all men inferior as well as others but to be positively beneficial is the attribute and sole honor of the Fountain of good and is to mankind no otherwise communicable and proper then as impowered and deputed from him and acting in his stead And therefore is Lord said to be the fulfilling of the Law because it worketh no ill to his neighbor And in that Chapter as obedience to the Higher Power is most strictly enjoyned and may be understood compleating the Precepts of the first Table and so inclusive of that Law of Honor thy father and mother So is the love of our neighbors as our selves set all down in negative Precepts Thou shalt not commit adultery Thou shalt not steal c. Nay our justification and the forgiveness of our offences and sins against God is made to depend most on our forgiving one another which was chiefly hinted at in that perfect model of Prayer Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those that trespass against us Heaven it self being the reward of our innocence not of our merit and that because we cannot without derogation to Gods honor take on us to act in matters of beneficence without him And so again the Devil being the father of malice the more we take upon us to act therein the more we shew our selves his servants Of which his delight in malice contrary to the Precept of love we have a plain instance in Witches who spend their whole power in things destructive and mischievous being wholly swayed by desire of revenge which as it did at first grow from being crossed in their own designs so they had beneficence in their aims And therefore so far as any is malicious to others that is is wilfully set to prosecute his own ways of doing future good by present evil so far hath he listed himself under this Destroyer and thrust himself out of Divine favour and protection by renouncing Divine obedience whereas others may know they are passed from death to life not only because they love the brethren but also for that they are obedient to Gods minister in the manner thereof For without God every one may be truly said to act that hath not from him as great and full direction and authority as was in his power to procure even in that particular in which he acts but doth relie only on such general directions as were for ought he knows not proper to the cause in question And so not being by Gods Minister interpreted and warranted as to license therein he must remain still as much as before without true warrant to act on another and the other again without just cause of suffering at his hands For since both of these having from Reason and Scripture alike power to judge interpret and impose upon each other he must be concluded to have been most innocent and obeyed God most that hath most obeyed his Vicegerent and stuck to his direction therein And this because the positive Precepts of Scripture and Religion coming only to supply and make more applyable those general and ambiguous rules of natural reason to which end determinate Interpreters were again put to see the meaning of these Scriptures applyed to these cases and persons unto which they are proper it must thereupon follow that as those that undertake to judge cases by the light of nature only without regard therein had to Scripture cannot in so doing be guiltless so also they that undertake to be their own judges from the immediate rules of Scripture and do balk the the direction of the authorized Intepreter and Keeper they must thereby become lyable to guilt also So that now to sum up all these Discourses concerning love and obedience it is still to shew how men under the second Adam stand in respect of works in a like condition for innocence as they did at first For as then the only Precept was to forbear tasting of the knowledge of good and evil even so it is the only Precept still For so much in brief our Saviour explains saying For judgement am I come into this world that they which see not might see and they that see might be made blind And again as before noted answered those that presumed to derive Innocence and Righteousness from their own light If ye were blind ye should have no sin But now ye say we see therefore your sin remaineth The which and other places are certainly plain enough to convince any whom The God of this World hath not blinded to their own destruction And however formerly amongst the Jews where God was immediate Law-giver and by plain litteral Precepts did set down his pleasure to be observed by each one in particular the differencing of obedience into active and passive was useful that thereby upon occasion subjects might perform their duties to God and his Vicegerent also as also it was before the higher Powers were Christians yet now unto Christian Subjects that have not from Christ rules set down for their external abearance one towards another but they are to be taught his commands from his Deputies and Ambassadors the case is otherwise For so the words are Teaching them to observe whatsoever I have commanded you not what I have commanded them So that when subjects are by their Christian head now commanded to be actively obedient in any thing they are then disobedient if they are not so because where doing is required their doing to their power and not their suffering must shew their obedience For as I cannot find that the Crown of Martyrdom was promised to any but such as were persecuted for the name of Christ or Christianity which in Heathenish persecutions was to come to pass so cannot I tell what other title then that of Rebel to give to such as oppose or resist their Christian Prince Nor can I find what other reason to give for that expression of our Saviours saying that God hath given him authority to execute judgement because he is the son of man then thereby to shew how
and on the contrary indignation and wrath unto them that are contentious and do not obey the truth if besides the benefits arising to mankinde by this Vertue formerly spoken of we also consider its efficacy in advancement of the Praise and Honor of God amongst us also For where Patience and Humility are practised as all outward strife ceases so general contentment will arise Wherupon Kings as well as subjects being reciprocally pleased in having and yeilding ready obedience men on all hands will have cause to Thank and Praise their Maker whose greatest delight being in the good of his Creature and their grateful acknowledgement thereupon so is their murmuring and affliction to him most unpleasant as abating the sense of his goodness and praise From which grounds we may easily discern the Reason why this Vertue should be so especially commended to us by that great preserver of men So that since it was necessary that in token of our zeal and love to his service something of difficulty should be enjoyned what in the eye of his all-seeing Providence more fit then this whereby as his glory is upheld by the establishment of the Kingdoms peace here so are the Patient themselves besides the reward of his Grace in this life to receive the deserved Crown thereof in the world to come Wherefore now lift up the hands that hang down and the feeble knees and seeing also we are compassed with so great a cloud of witnesses let us lay aside every weight and the sin namely of rebellion that doth so easily beset us and let us run with patience the race that is set before us looking unto c. For though no chastning for the present seemeth joyous but grievous nevertheless afterward it yeildeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby For although here at the pleasure of fleshly Fathers we be for a few days câ—astened yet God turns it to our profit that we might be partakers of his holiness By this proper note of persecutions and afflictions left unto us as a Legacy by him that was the Author and finisher of our Faith and that once so highly suffered for us we stand in a peculiar manner not onely distinguished from the rest of the world as in testimony of the truth of our Religion above theirs who as an Argument of their humane device and extraction are still closing with Nature in promises of sensual delights but according to the true and sanctified use of these afflictions again by the several members of the Church each Christian professor therein comes to be a more true Disciple and Christian one then another Inasmuch as my being by my profession and belief a Christian cannot of it self make me a true one because it may be a thing not of my choice or bestowed on me out of particular Grace and Election but happening for ought I know from no other ground or assurance nor having other reason or influence then the hazard of birth or Education Had I been born and educated where other Religions are professed I had in all probability been even such an one in belief as they and those others of those Religions had doubtless upon like change been of mine In which case as I should have thought it hard that they for their good fortune of being Christened when I was Circumcised should be thereupon rewarded and I punished so cannot I reasonably now think that as regeneration must be something else then this so also that that Baptism that must purge out the old man must be where it may be had something else then that of outward washing the Baptism of the Holy Ghost and of fire must be added to that of John Yea and baptism of afflictions rightly applyed it must also be For that else it may be again that as they came but occasionally upon me so was I by my own natural constitution and softness of temper drawn both to the search after God by these afflictions and to the Patient enduring of them It may be ignorance or inability to resist or avoid my sufferings in the condition I am now in makes me as in a kinde of Melancholly revenge appeal to Heaven for reparation and for want of natural fortitude dejectedly to yeild and sit down in some Stoical contempt or melancholly retirement If so what praise can I expect for my seeming neglect thereof when it was but what I cannot overcome and avoid In which doing I may also naturally reap inward satisfaction and so far flatter my self in this my degree of Patience and well-doing that I may go yet one step farther and receive consolation and content by my endurance of those things and be yet no true partaker of that baptism with which the Captain of my salvation was made perfect If I finde not my self still ready for fresh encounters and that out of sense of duty and publike regard as one that is strengthened with all might according to his glorious power unto all Patience and Long-suffering with joyfulness but do now hide or cloyster up my self from being any more publikely beneficial to others onely because I am afraid I shall be thereby prejudiced my self and be rendred obnoxious again what do I but thereby acknowledge that I am both privately affected in being thus regardful to my self alone and also to be as poorly spirited since I am so over mastered by their weight that I can endure no more And as Patience may in it self alone be an uncertain sign of true Regeneration so may faith also For if in many a Christian we should examine the ground of this too it would be found grounded on Nature also even although it should be so strong as to submit to martyrdom For since I in another Religion or another in mine might have so dyed had we been so brought up it can in it self evidence little of the truth of that duty we profess but oftentimes may have issue from peevishness or stubbornness without respect to Love or Obedience And certainly to suffer for disobedience to Christian Authority can scarce deserve the honor of Martyrdom onely due to those that undergo it for the honor of Christs Name For that Childe deserves little pitty that would rather die under the rod and perish by famine then accept of such wholsom food as is appointed him by his Father onely because it is not such or so dressed as to be altogether suitable to his present fancy Nay neither is love only a sure sign of this Regeneration for this also may proceed from natural propension and respect to honor and thanks may make us Charitable as well as Martyrs Whereas he that is the true Christian and fitted with grace of Regeneration is never slothful but stands always diligent in works and labour of love because God who is not unrighteous will not forget to be continually assisting him with his grace of perseverance here or reward hereafter therefore
they being now Christians it follows that all that intermeddle without their leave are usurpers also From all which and what hath heretofore been said in the Argument we may easily conceive how to determine concerning Apostolical succession in right whereof those of the Romish Prelacy would at this day take to themselves supreme and independent power in Church affairs even because the Apostles had so in relation to their contemporary Pagan Kings and Magistrates and would on the other side leave to Christian Kings onely civil coercion and Authority because so much and no more was formerly possessed by Infidels We shall therefore say that where the Bishop is in his City or Diocess the supreme Christian Governor as to many of those Ancient Bishops and Patriarchs it happened before Kings were Christians and at this day in Rome Collen Trier c. is practised there and then are they to lay claim to direct Apostolical succession as having none on earth their superior in Ecclesiastical power But when and where that City or Diocess is but part of a greater Church united under a Christian head superior to these particular and inferior heads then and there is that chief Bishop or overseer of that Church to be held the rightful successor of Apostolical power and the other Bishops to be subordinate unto him even as Timothy and Titus were formerly to St. Paul It is not to be doubted but as this office of Ecclesiastical super-intendency is to be acknowledged as of Divine Right so may Bishops so far as their power is extensive account themselves the Apostles successors therein which as it will estate them in rightful power to govern the Presbyters and others below them so will it again subject them to their head in chief even to him that is the more direct and entire successor of Apostolical jurisdiction From whom in that regard they are to derive their personal Ordination or appointment into determinate jurisdiction and power even as Zadock the type of Evangelical Priesthood received his from Solomon the Type of Christian Kingship although the act and Ceremonies of Consecration are to be under the Gospel as formerly under the Law received from those of the Priesthood onely in acknowledgement of divine constitution of that Function But for this omission of Princes in assuming their right upon their conversion he may easily see the reason that shall consider that great splendor of the Roman Emperors and that poverty and more mean condition which the Bishops and such like Church heads did at first live in who being at that time well studyed in their Masters Precepts of Obedience and Humility had so little strugled for jurisdiction or riches that there might seem rather scorn to take then desire to assume and engross what they had And it may be more fresh sense of Piety and Devotion might make these first Christian Emperors willingly rather enlargers then detractors from men of such pious and harmless conversation The which might make them also less studious of those inconveniences which might grow from hence afterwards not only to themselves but all other Christian Kings who from their examples were often made believe that their highest expressions of devotion was to be measured by their advancemene of Christs Church meaning Clergy-men and that also by taking the Jewels out of their own Crowns and therewith embellishing their Myters Whether this omission were begun and continued through ignorance pride or blinded zeal is not so certain as is that absurdity which from thence hath arisen namely of Kings having no more power in the Church allowed them being become Christians then they had before nay and less too since some of these will now put in for so great a share But it is to be considered that as the admonition was then most proper of fear not them that can kill the body c. in respect that Pagan Kings had not Ecclesiastical coertion so was the distinction of duties and obedience into Religious and Civil then most proper also The which will upon the same reason come now to be united because of the union of that person commanding under Christ in chief in both And therefore had the Primitive Christian Princes well examined Saint Pauls distinction of his own and others Apostolical jurisdiction they would have found in them the whole rights of their Crowns comprised when he said Let a man so account of us as Ministers of Christ and Stewards of the mysteries of God Under the first expression of Ministers of Christ or his Deacons or Deputies they shall finde Magistracy and more Civil power over Christian persons and actions within their Church contained in the other all power given over the way and manner of Gods outward worship and also the chief charge and care of Preaching or Instruction Which makes St. Paul proceed in the description of his Stewards Office onely because he undertook little in the other For since it was the most natural and reasonable course to lay down Rules and Instructions for men to follow before any outward execution of Government by Rewards or Punishments in observing or neglecting them could be established we may finde good reason why our Saviour did delegate his Authority to those first Fathers and heads of the Church by vertue of that power they should from him receive to represent him herein saying to them all power is given to me in Heaven and in Earth Go ye therefore and teach all Nations c. teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you and lo I am with you always even unto the end of the world And it must be acknowledged a thing reasonable that since the actions of voluntary Agents must have issue from their understanding that therefore in order to that obedience which was expected to follow there should be appointed a powerful way of instruction to precede Which Office of instruction although it did for this cause precede yet since Christ had promised the continuance of his presence or power with it unto the end of the world as knowing it to be at all times necessary for him that is to have the charge of Government under him we cannot but resolve that this Office of Instruction or Preaching is to be held and exercised by all others but subordinately and in dependence of that present head of the Church who holds amongst other Unctions a deputation herein in chief from Christ himself who was anointed to preach In the first heads the attestation of miracles which gave them Authority to be hearkened unto in their message of Instruction gave them thereby also upon all necessary occasions Authority to be obeyed as Heads and Governors In the last heads as Conquest and the ordinary ways of Providence doth design the Governor first so doth it therewith also estate him in the right of supreme Instruction as necessary thereto And surely they that would deny the necessary conjunction of these two essential parts of
words as himself findes most warrantable and behoofeful yet must it be acknowledged reasonable that all those publike forms of Worship and Praise whose practise is necessary for constituting each place an unite and distinct Christian Church or Assembly should be at the dispose and appointment of that publike person onely who under Christ is the supreme and entire head and Representativâ— thereof Even out of necessary consideration of keeping up conformity therein and by that means keeping Gods publike Worship in existence which else by mens differing practises in opposition to one another would come to be defeated and lost no otherwise then would our practises in the Precepts of Charity if not by uniform obedience directed For these things have a natural and necessary coherence the Unity of the end requires Coition and Unity in the means and that again requires uniformity in the directions themselves as well as Unity in the person directing all of them to be made useful by the Grace of Obedience before noted But because much dissention hath hitherto arisen about that Officer or person we are to give the obedience unto in regard of the different names of power in Scripture used We will speak something farther here of that Coition or succession of this supreme Officer now under the Gospel This we shall finde briefly done by Christ himself when he is impowring these several little ones Where he begins with those that should first represent him namely such as should presently succeed as his own Desciples and followers he that receiveth you receiveth me c. Under which no doubt the first Apostles were to be comprized who in regard of their mean worldly condition might sometimes be objects of Charity also even to the receiving a cup of cold water The next object of our obedience is set down under the notion of Prophet he that receiveth a Prophet in the name of a Prophet shall receive a Prophets reward Under this notion we may comprehend Episcopal or Patriarchical power succeeding which had power of instruction but little of jurisdiction the which was reserved for the last more glorious Officer the just man or righteous man And he that receiveth a righteous man in the name of a righteous man shall receive a righteous mans reward That is shall be made capable of justice or justification by means of his obedience to this chief representer of Christs Authority who is thereupon called a just or righteous man this appellation of righteous man being equivalent with that of Ruler in chief as divers places of the Old-Testament do also Warrant In which the attribute could not be formally due to him whose words were perverted by gifts Whenas by reason of the place they execute they ought always to be respected as righteous by those under them And therefore unto him as the person of jurisdiction and power shall those other Offices of Prophesie or Instruction be annexed and made subserviâ—nt no otherwise then in the Jewish Church it at first was unto Moses their first King For so we shall finde it plainly delivered concerning Aaron and him Thou shalt speak unto him meaning Moses to Aaron and put words in his mouth and I will be with thy mouth and with his mouth and will teach you what ye shall do Which is the same with being a spirit of judgement or Mishpat and of being in the mouth of their seed and seeds seed for ever before spoken of And then follows the subordination of the Prophets and he shall be thy spokesman or Angel unto the people and he shall be even he shall be to thee instead of a mouth and thou shalt be to him as a God And in the first verse of the seventh Chapter he is expresly called Moses Prophet Aaron thy brother shall be thy Prophet or Angel The which doth plainly foreshew the Coincidence of Christian Authority under each Christian King and Monarch to make useful the coition of the means before spoken of For he as the last most glorious deputed Minister to Christ amongst us is to claim our obedience in his name in all things done towards the stating of Charity and as Steward in the mysteries of God is to be obeyed in all our outward religious deportments Nay that very Argument of mysteriousness and profoundness in matters of divine truth and worship which some would urge in bar to the Kings intermedling in causes of Religion as the true Steward of the mysteries of God is by the wisest King and Preacher made to be the proper glory and part of his Office saying It is the glory of God to conceal a thing but the honor of Kings is to search out a matter In which words Kings being set in the plural number makes it appear that this of liberty searching into the mysteries of God was not reserved to Solomon onely but was belonging to each King as Gods Vicegerent on earth Nor was it so set down as to denote that every individual King could personally attain to such ability but to shew that each King being Gods chief Steward that therefore those things which by means of his Seers and Prophets under him were performed should be accompted to the honor of the King as being done by him because of their subordination to his supreme Authority therein And those persons that are most subject to inveigh against publike forms as Will-worship Superstition and Scandal are themselves the onely men that are truly guilty of Will-worship and Scandal by relying on their own private Wills and Judgements and preferring their own devises and forms to the practises of all others whereby to introduce general offence and scandal And so again when they refuse to joyn with others in their publike services out of the fear of superstition in giving too much and do choose to proceed in contrary or negative performances this as being induced and carryed on by superstitious and ungrounded fear to displease offends in the worse extream and turns to be true Superstition indeed And I verily believe that men are generally more superstitious in avoidance of Ceremonies then they are in observing them for this is Superstition upon Superstition For the truth is if publike reason and appointment be excluded in appointing forms of Gods Service and Worship then since himself hath appointed no form to us Christians as such he can now have no right external Worship given to him at all which doubtless for honor sake is eternally due to him as God and by way of gratitude to be returned from us But although he knew it to be a thing necessary to be done yet knowing also that we now have Moses and the Prophets as useful presidents for general directions in what we are to do that is since we have all that light which was formerly given to any people if these and those many general Precepts since given cannot be sufficient together without great helps of natural learning and reason
administration of power there also is unity of Doctrine lost and schism is also brought into the Church as well as confusion into the State The which needs the less to be wondered at in us on whom the ends of the earth are come if we consider what befel the Jews themselves when there was no King in Israel For although they had the oracles of God committed unto them that is they had not only more aboundance of divine precepts but had God himself also by his Priests and Prophets always ready to give them express direction in all doubts as from an oracle yet how plainly doth the instance of Micahs Idols tells us how subject each one is at such times to fraim to themselves not only new forms of Worship but new gods of their own devising and setting up Which by little and little may come to be taken up and countenanced by their divided authority as that was by the Danites who had many equal to and under them to be seduced by an evil example but none above them to keep them and all others conformable All which well considered may instruct us of the reason of our Saviours dark answer to such as had no minde to believe him therein when he saith My kingdom is not of this world This was true first in that this worlds kingdom being not to be compared to his Kingdom in heaven with his Father did not therefore deserve comparatively to be called his or had in that esteem which they that made this question did think of And then we must understand this denial not to reach to his right of Kingship or Super-eminence in the Church and Kingdoms of this world but to the present execution thereof by himself that probably being the very cause of Pilates demand Unto whom he having been by some reported as King of the Jews and he beholding his present mean condition so unlike that of a King it made him scornfully ask Art thou a King then aswel as afterwards scornfully write that he was so And therefore our Saviours answer can import no farther abnegation of his Kingship amongst us then to his own personal execution meaning not to be by him immediately managed here now but by Deputies whom he shall own and empower as King of Kings Whereupon he also saith The Father judgeth no man but hath committed all judgement to the Son And he is so far from renouncing his true being a King and title hereto that he says I am a King and that the testification of this truth meaning his right in this Office was the cause of his coming into the world adding that every one that is of the truth heareth his voyce that is he believeth and obeyeth him accordingly So that we are to interpret this denial of our Saviours Kingship to be upon the same reason at this time done as he had formerly charged his Disciples that they should tell no man that he was Jesus the Christ. For although he had wrought all those miracles to evince so much yet would he have them carefull not to cast pearls before swine that is he would have them to be wary in declaring his Divinity before unbelieving Jews as himself was now reserved in publishing his Kingship before a scornful Roman lest he being so straitly bound to another Master might be but the more moved thereupon to turn upon him with reproach And therefore they that think that Christ did deny his true Kingly Right and Office by that answer Thou sayest it may also by the same rule say that at the same time he did also deny himself to be Christ the Son of the living God because he also answereth to that question made by the high Priest Thou hast said it But in this place being newly spoken before the other he may be conceived to have made answer enough for both and so to adjoyn that time of fuller manifestation of his external regency and glory which was the occasion of their demand namely at that time when he as Son of man shall be sitting at the right hand of the power of God By which means his Deputies shall be endued with power of earthly dominion and at that time also when he shall make his own personal appearance in the clouds of Heaven to judge all men at the last day And that he had openly acknowledged this truth himself before appears by that request made to Pilate Write not the King of the Jews but that he said I am king of the Jews So that now unto the deniers or opposers of this truth of his Kingship by obejection of any other truth we may make demand with Pilate What is truth Unto which I suppose they can make no answer but by proposing to us some wilde fancies and collections of their own For whilst they would make the known duty of Charity producing real good by peace be interrupted by some of their speculative duties which cause division and all under pretence of preferring truth to peace they would have us leave that good which evidence of sense and experience tells us to be so in hope to enjoy some contemplative good by them called truth which we cannot apprehend But we conceive that when Christ the Way the Truth and the Life is once on our parts entertained and believed when we have once sought and attained the kingdom of God and its righteousness that is have to our utmost endeavoured to promote the glory and Administration of Christs regency in his Church the pillar and ground of truth then and there are we with gratitude to enjoy those additional blessings which peace bringeth Then and there are we to study to be quiet to seek peace and ensue it and the like which are the proper duties of such as being by Gods grace called are by the God of peace called unto peace And therefore although the Prophet Zachery speaking of the restauration of the Jews and their receipt of the Gospel would have them seek peace after truth that is prefer that truth before all worldly blessings yet where this truth is once received there peace is to be preferred to lesser truths according to good Hezekiahs saying now settled and confirmed in Gods Worship Peace and truth shall be in my days The like was promised to the Jews in their restauration or rather to the Gentile Church abundance of peace and truth And to doth holy David also put mercy before it in his blessing to Ittai saying Mercy and truth be with thee And other graces and blessings are elsewhere more often put before then after truth Nay of such advantage to the preservation of truth it self and of sanctify of life this grace is that we shall find it put first as the way to that Follow peace with all men and holiness without which no man shall see the Lord looking diligently lest any man should fail of
execution Thus when â— knifes point empowered by touch from the Load-stone or an Iron or othâ—r thing heated by fire do in such degree draw and burn as if the Loadstone or fire were present it must undeniably argue more strength in that case then where without personal presence the same could not be performed And to proceed in examination and comparison of the causes of things according to distance if there could be found a Load-stone or fire of such efficacy as to have empowered or heated any Iron to such perfection as it should have continued that vertue without itteration or could again one Load-stone or fire without so much as touch but only with one efflux of power have at distance so strongly impowered all iron that each piece and part thereof can now as of an inherent and proper vertue of its own effectually and perpetually burn and attract without farther immediate communication with its first cause or original power it should then happen that the power of that power must be acknowledged so much greater in it self although its efficatiousness herein must through its distance in operation be in a manner wholly concealed and clowded from our knowledge Even as in our sports that gamester that can make one Bowl or Ball strike another and that another in such certain places successively as to cause the last of them to rest or move as he desires is more to be admired for his power and artifice then he that can do it but with his hand and he most that can do it at greatest distance and with most itteration and repetition of successive stroaks in the Bowls or Balls After the same manner we may conceive of Deity making one thing the cause to another for the effecting of that course of providence he determined In which doing his working in and through all intervenient causes and occurrents without being seen in any and making them to do it with so great ease to himself as not to be seen therein must discover as well his real being as our ignorance in not conceiving it For to fix and fasten those effects we daily behold as issuing onely from nature chance or I know not what occult quality without through light into Deity and Providence as the prime cause is as if one cast at Dice or Bowls were more from chance then another and not necessarily depending on and following that strength of casting and those occurrences of bounds rubs c. as well as others but these having turns beyond our expectations or notice we put them on chance because we cannot see through all that variety of intervenient causes that must make them such For as the several motions and change of place in the particular Cards in shuffling and cutting if leasurely demonstrated to us would make those dealings we count most strange and depending on chance seem most reasonable even so also were we artificial enough when the hits of a Bowl or bound of a Ball is shewed us we might by estimation and measuring the effect know and measure the cause and say that Bowl or Ball that did it must come from such and such a point and be projected with such and such a strength In which regard as we finde such different abilities even amongst our selves in the comprehension and practice how these things are or may be effected so may it easily be conceived that by degrees of proportion he that could not be by any defect impeded in notice or comprehension no more then in act and execution must have both his existence and providence made apparent hereby for as the Bowl or Ball have no power to act of themselves without our impulsion or a forraign mover even so the Elements of which they are composed cannot without the influence of a Deity be reasonably presumed to have power to move and act also Although these instances of fire of Load-stone and of sports may serve to bring to our conceits something of the manner of appearance of Gods Omnipotency in his works of Providence and Government of the world yet being themselves but created bodies and vertues they must in proportion of vigor even in that kinde wherein they so much excel all other things be infinitely excelled by that power that caused it and that even by the same reason of ability of power before mentioned namely working at greater distance For as the Load-stone doth excel in vertue of attraction that of the touched knife as being thereof the formal cause so must that again which was the cause hereof in the Loadstone excel in power that also especially being the cause of other things besides and so on till we come to the universal cause of all things and their Vertues who as the more distant from the immediate effect and execution must proportionably have the prime and highest degree of energy and power ascribed unto him And then again although absence from present execution prove distance and distance prove power in that cause which is the cause of any thing yet because unto men the inward and formal causes of effects are seldom known but our knowledge is meerly experience that is to say from the experience of so many constant effects proceeding from such or such an immediate Agent to conclude that to be the sole cause thereof It is therefore hard for us to look beyond that present cause especially if its cause had but few effects and those hardly remarkable and so to look on till we come to God the cause of all As for example could the effect of the Load-stone upon iron or the Mariners Needle have been to invisibly repeated as no man could have by present sense known it to be the cause we should beyond all peradventure from the constancy of effects proceeding from the same Needle have imagined it the sole cause thereof So then we that can neither from true inspection into the formal Nature and activity of heat and of the influence of the superior bodies nor susceptibility of the lower Elements as severally mingled tell from thence that such and such species must be produced or that again cannot tell that these principles we finde in Nature were necessarily to be such and so many for maintenance of the effects of unity and propriety of place as those were again for maintenance of Creation we I say cannot be wondred at for not being able to forejudge more or other species in Nature then those we know by sense and that also in productions neerest us And since in our most ordinary and familiar sports as aforesaid we cannot judge of events although their true causes be within the compass of present sense we are still less to be wondred at when ignorance and doubtings shall often arise of a cause so far of which is never but by way of miracle made the Author of any immediate effect Whereas in truth and plain reason this Ascension and Progression of causes must as elsewhere declared end in an omnipotent
Author whose power is more rationally to be concluded the prime and sole cause of all things as standing in that supreme order he now doth then if he should be acting beneath and of but one thing at once And as he is more admirable in his own Throne of power ordering all things by his sole word and command then if he should descend to be personally doing of every thing so could we rightly consider it any one thing is in it self as miraculously and powerfully wrought in that kinde of efficiency which we call ordinary as when done in an extraordinary way So for example if wood should have been by God endued with power to draw Iron or one Iron to draw another as now the Load stone doth would not the ordinary effect that way have made the Load-stones attraction as great a miracle as it seemeth for wood to do it now And if none can give reason why other things should not have as great attractive force as these why should it not be a greater proof of Deity to be constantly powerful in all and every operation then to be so but now and then which is all the proof that miracles have And therefore as men of riper judgement and experience would much laugh at the folly and weakness of such as beholding the Mariners compass do ascribe the effect of the Needle to some hidden quality or secret property residing in it self and as again the ascribing and occult quality unto those operations of the Load-stone without farther knowledge or derivation of its cause is but a shift of ignorance as the setting down of all other hidden causes are each thing having a cause beyond it self so is there none but fools that say in their hearts or really think there is no God because they cannot discern his efficacy through and beyond intermediate causes And they are at most but middle witted men for that albeit they can from a little farther experience tell of Causes above the lowest degree of men yet are they not wise enough to search farther So that Athiesm is always bordering on folly and narrowness of comprehension being nothing else but a stubborn relyance on present sense as from the certainty of effects in things we ordinarily behold concluding those Causes within reach of our observation to be the most supreme And farther thinking that if a voluntary Agent were in those things universal Cause and Author he would as fancying his inclination by our own be more personally appearing for his greater credit-sake amongst us and make his present operation serve to direct our acknowledgements unto him Not duly considering that it would be so far from encreasing the worth as it would redound to the actors disesteem as arguing decay of the Vertue of Agency if the supreme and higher Cause should for want of strength otherwise be forced immediately to work on a lower effect for that hereby again the supreme Cause ceasing by becoming an intermediate one it must follow that as Causes were fewer Effects and Creatures must be fewer also And when all is done that supreme Cause that is now intermediate in operation would by its constancy in so doing be as far from discovering a Deity as the other was before unless they could imagine that for their onely satisfaction sake causes of things should not have been constant and uniform but on purpose various to have drawn on their notice Again if God Almighty should have been disabled to the degree of an humane Artificer and have been ineffectual farther then where his own hand hath been express as is the workmans in making the Watch then it must next follow that either Creatures must have been so few and perishable as Watches made by one hand or else they must have supposed this Agents power advanced to such degree that as a Monarch can manage a Kingdom by his Laws so as the same needed not to be afterwards guided by him but by instruments obedient to him or as the Artificer can frame and contrive a Watch to go for as long time as he pleaseth so as the same can now go without his appearance in like manner there should be also such procession of the first cause of operation and motion in these things as they shall be infinitely continued If this course could have gone on this first Cause would have been a God because his operation and existence must have been eternal But on it could not go to any degree of eternity inasmuch as all progressive operations and motions must be finite and determinate in regard that that end and rest which caused motion through desire of approach must cease it having now attained it And therefore to make things continue there must be a circulation of Causes and Effects allowed whereby each individual thing having attained that proper end for which its last Cause or next Agents produced it in Nature must return into its first matter through corruption and alteration of its last specifick forms and be ready to obey the more general Causes in Nature and the Laws of that matter which is most homogenius unto it in correspondence to the next more proper and powerful Agent Even as in the affairs and atchievements in kingdoms although the hands of the lowest sort of individual Officers is most immediate in the work yet these having their power from the next general Officer and so he again from next above him till these Officers growing higher and fewer do at last terminate in the King as Fountain of all their power so any of those next perishable individual Officers deceasing that formal power that made them such returns to the hands of those next Officers above him who constitutes others and those more or fewer in these places as they finde the exigence of that Kingdoms affairs call for in relation thereunto no otherwise then as with us a Constable dying the Justices as the more general Officers do by vertue of their Commissions and derived power constitute new in the place In which course as the affairs of the Kingdom is ordinarily managed without the Prince his appearance or again the spring can move the several wheels of the Watch without particular touch of any but that next him why may there not nay why must there not be a Deity to be the first mover in things of this universe Who according to his good pleasure ordering that the appointed continuance of this world should be maintained by perishable individuals hath in his providence to that end ordered that the corruption of one thing should be still progressive to the generation of another Why may he not again in the doing thereof be yet as far or more removed from our notice in ordinary operations as the cause of Government or the motion of Watches or the like is hid and unknown to the weaker sort of people and to other Creatures below us and are of them thought to proceed from no farther cause then what present sense can discover
vertue or goodness And hence it comes that we not onely stand liking and disliking others as they are friends or enemies to our prime favorite but because love and hatred do arise and encrease by comparison it may be also observed how that in the same family that greater affection which one brother or servant carrieth towards another above the rest doth by consequence draw him into as great hatred and dis-esteem of others in the same relation upon that onely consideration Insomuch as we shall find anger and revenge no where so implacably prosecuted as by one brother against another No otherwise then as subjects in the same Kingdom are ready to break into factions and sidings through those diversities of sects and opinions amongst themselves whereby we see it come to pass that by reason of that continual exasperation which must arise from the daily sight and discourses of such things wherein they stand contrary this repeated difference doth more strongly engage them to mutual discontent and deadly hatred then it doth against strangers and such as do more differ from them Insomuch as there are more Christians slain by one another upon the score of Religion then are by them upon others or those of all other Religions upon them upon the like ground nay we too truly find it that even in the sub-divisions and sects of Christianity those that have lesser differences will yet by reason of vicinity be drawn into more and more dangerous quarrels against one another then against that sect which differs most from them both In which case if the publike rule and judgement for determination be not regarded it will fare with them as it doth with men falling out about a mistaken word gesture look or the like even that for want of a sit means of reconciliation the discontent and hatred will daily encrease until it come to be determined in the field The names of Sympathy and Antipathy are usually given to the affections of both sorts as well to those strong likings and aversions introduced at the nostrils as those at the eyes but if we respect more occult naturalness herein then those of the first sort may be onely called natural because they take their impression so inwardly and by such insensible degrees as seldom to admit controulment by other senses or the impressions drawn from them Whereas the other that hath its rise from more artificial collections as loving or liking other things according to their conformity to these Figures or Ideas of perfection which in each kind are raised in mens fancies may in both respects be brought to be controuled and examined by other Figures and Methods as they shall be called up and judged by the Spirits and Humors which in the other case cannot be because these Spirits themselves do in the affections that way brought in become tainted in their own nature and substance Those kinds of aversions which proceed from sight as from difference and abhorrence of figure may be easily reconciled and made familar by an ingenious patience nor is it dangerous to give them of that food to eat Whereas those things that have contrariety to the particular humors or temperament of the stomach are not in that kinde to be jested with for that although outward smell or taste should not be perceptive of difference which many times it wonderfully is in that case yet it is not to be questioned but the vitiated stomack of the party will quickly nauseat and disgust it and therefore we find that these sorts of longings or aversions are incident to the weaker and more sickly constitutions Here and in other places we have been the more copious for setting down the more concealed causes of those operations which use to pass under the rank of natural instincts that by placing every wheel of providence in its due order and motion the real existence wisdom and power of God might be more readily seen and acknowledged The usual ground that leads men to Atheism and doubt whether there be any God at all being many times scandal taken at the vulgar and ordinary assignation of effects unto God himself as if they were by him immediately done when as they coming to find the same like other things to have their own natural cause of production also they thereby come to think that men are mistaken in the one as well as the other When as by help of a through insight and sufficiency of their own to discover how noâ—hing is by chance done but that the greatest and most important things being by divine wisdom and order brought to pass by those things which to us do appear most weak and contemptible they may thereby and by means of that obseavable gradation of causes come to discern a God at the top of all From whom as they did at first take their source and original as being in their whole mass but rays of divine bounty so do they in all their variations amongst themselves still make some expressions and demonstrations of that perfection and simplicity which at first gave them their being Thus the natural desire of union induced through custom is by providence directed towards variety and multiplication as before declared In which again as the individuals do through their natural pursuit of pleasure attain to their several perfections they do then again as in pursuit of the highest of these natural provocations aim at a new union and coition also By successive repetitions whereof as each man and each sensitive seems to reintegrate it self into that first Parent of their kind so doth the submission of them in their several kinds to the same common Laws of Adam or first matter bring on a confession also that there is a common Parent and cause of union for them all In which course custom and variety are affections semblably made use of for the sustentation of Sensitives as motion and rest are for prrservation of Naturals Whereby it comes to pass that as matter doth naturally affect closeness and settlement which is answerable to union and rest so doth it by customary degrees observed in motion release it self in and of that tendency to separation which its own sublimed part by means of heat had forced upon it All things cheerfully dancing those rounds which are by Divine Rule and Providence appointed unto them As we are thus prevailed upon by custom to cast a different choice and liking towards things and persons as they are in their naturals so come we through custom and constancy in company and conversation to stand diversly affected towards them also as in relation to their morals there being a gracefulness and winning insinuation taken from behaviour as well as from person And this especially towards years when as time sufficient hath passed for making observation of difference herein and naturalizing our fancies to those garbs and habits which cohabitation brings within our notice at which time the other affections induced from personal beauty c. do
for the governed as heretofore noted even for the necessary preservation of those relations according to that saying If I be a father where is mine honor if I be a Master where is my fear For although a willing and hearty service be most acceptable and onely rewardable as to the doer yet the benefit of others will many times be gained by the deed itself Whereas a known impunity will by example and as it finds hope to attain the like procure common detriment both by neglect of the deed it self and by common invitation to disobedience But if the subject from his own or others experience once find that his obedience in respect of other damages and inforcements in the Princes power is unavoidable he must be supposed even through discreet willingness to submit and then through custom of so doing to arrive at last at a state of natural willingness in obedience it self experience telling us that steadiest loyalty is in such subjects as have been used to greatest subjection and most discontents and rebellions in such Families and Kingdoms where children and subjects have been most free And it will ever be a most certain truth that that obedience which must unavoidably be given will ever in equal things be more ready free and unreluctant then that which may have hopes of avoidance CONCLUSION BUt it is now time to have done having perhaps as much tyred others as my self in these tedious discourses driven so vehemently on to the cure of that evil which while men are men can never enter into a steady thought should be wholly done For when all is said Government will have its faults and when in the rule of nature we see it sometimes come to pass that the stobborness of the matter is such as will not admit of that form which to her policy in general or to the production of some more perfect creature were in particular species necessary but that pestilence murrains mildews c. to the destruction of men beasts and vegitables as also monstruous and imperfect shapes incident to the generation of each race and kind do sometimes happen why should we wonder at ineffectualness herein when besides matter there is a perpetual aversion of will in the governed and alas the while the workmans skill or care in this is too often so to seek that through his default also the malady is increased Since therefore nothing in this life can be to us perfect and without its inconveniences we can only call that Government good which is best and which upon tryal hath fewest and least settled mischiefs as not arising from its form but contingent accidents in its ministration and this is that which I have propounded as the drift of this whole Treatise Yet then again as the many unavoidable diseases of our natural bodies are not at all to discommend or excuse the Physicians care and pains for their mittigation or removal so I hope in this grand disease of the politique Body called Civil War although I cannot attain to a perfect or constant cure yet if the application of those remedies I have proposed shall sometimes cause diversion and sometimes mittigation I shall have comfort in my labours But in this as all things else we must leave the success to God whose work alone it is to still as the raging of the Sea so the madness of the people Even that mad and raging humor of liberty which being blown to a rebellious height by the breath of seditious Oratory as seas by the wind it is none other then if in our natural bodies the allurement of our pallats should tempt us to that food which should bring us to a feavor And as these surfeits seldom come but from such things as are best and then again loathing of that very thing doth follow so in the politique constitution though nothing more necessary and commodious then peace yet nothing more incident to mans fickle nature then in a giddy thirst for variety to grow weary thereof which as a thing bringing Kingdoms and States to their fatal periods no otherwise then bodily surfeits and sicknesses do single persons to their natural deaths shall we say that as they are permitted for the punishment of our sins which we can never want so to this end also And then shall we say that not so much in consideration of ours or our progenitors sins as that the will of God might be made manifest are these things befallen us Shall we say that since none of themselves can be called righteous or good that it may therefore be a reason that wickedness and vice are thus suffered as to the estating us good by comparison and that even again in Government as to the adorning loyalty and other civil vertues disobedience and rebellion is permitted also and to make us thereby more sensible and thankful when peace shall again be restored But be the reasons what they will our duties of obedience and submission being plain enough it is our parts to look to that and to leave these hidden things to God whose judgements are unsearchable and â—is ways past finding out For sure I am that however God for the punishing of a sinful people permit their Princes as he did David in the fact of numbring to fall upon such unwarrantable acts as may bring on their punishments yet can this punishment never warrant any active resistance of his Authority Or be the King not good as David was but such another as Saul was yet since he is our King and the Lords anointed who can without sin lift up their hand against him And why should we be more impatient of enduring those punishments from God that come from the hands of evil Kings then those of pestilence famine or the like that come more immediately from nature since all come from the same hand and to the same end the punishment of our sins And since God owns the giving of them in his anger and the having their hearts in his hand and turning them wheresoever he pleaseth why should we think of resisting one more then another Thus is wicked Pharoahs heart hardned and his subjects the â—gyptians thereby plagued And thus as aforesaid is good Davids heart stirred up to number the people and these people thereupon punished with pestilence And who would have thought a three years famine so long after Sauls death should be the punishment of surviving subjects for a past fact of zeal done by a King so long dead Or that the house of Jehu and his people by consequent should be threatned with Gods punishment for the execution of that his justice upon the house of Ahab three hundred years after the fact done when as yet the very fact it self was so plainly appointed and warranted by divine authority In which examples of Kings sins being made causes of punishing peoples sins with plagues pestilence famine civil war or the like I would know if resisting of Kings had not been resisting of God or
that there is not now any special Ordinances sent from Heaven by the Ministery of Angels or Prophets as amongst the Jews sometimes it was yet can we not hence infer that their power can now arise from nothing else amongst Christians but the pactions and agreements of such and such politick Corporations unless they will also say that nothing is to be acknowledged as from God but where himself or his express Messenger is seen But they should observe the difference of Gods pleasure in the degrees of his manifestations to us under the Gospel over it was to them of former times and how that since God was manifest in the flesh those former and more express extraordinary ways for setting up of Kings have ceased amongst other things For God who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in times past unto the Fathers by the Prophets hath in these last days spoken unto us by his son whom he hath appointed heir of all things by whom as God made the world so doth he now uphold all things by the word of his power A great part of which power is that power of Kingship whereby as God hath committed all power to the son so Christ again being ascended on high amongst other gifts he gave unto men this of power of Government was one And in Christs hand it shall alone continue till the end of the world at which time the son also himself shall be subject unto him that put all things under him that God might be all in all that is may personally and immediately again govern that new Heaven and new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness whereas the iniquities and violence of men in this world had by degrees caused him to make this his recess from appearing in their government himself as we shall in brief declare In the first age God appears as in person and speaks by lively voice in the emergencies of mans directions for so appears he to Adam in his instructions and although he hide himself for fear of guilt yet his acknowledging to have heard his voice in the Garden shews plainly he was used thereunto And that this appearance was not streightned to Paradise or good men alone may appear by Gods Colloquy with Cain who was not at all we see feared or startled at any unexpected strangeness but answers very familiarly Am I my brothers keeper But at such time as all flesh had corrupted their way and that God saw the immaginations of mans heart was evil and that continually he resolved his Spirit should no more strive with man that is he would not so immediately undertake his government here whereby to be provoked to any other repenting that he made man a Creature so polluted that he must be washed by a flood After the flood God begins to give standing directions for mans guidance and submits the execution of them to man also God will not longer immediately reprove and punish as in the case of Abel but whosoever sheddeth mans blood by man shall his blood be shed Which Precept as we may not as before noted conceive given that murther should be punished with murther by leaving every person power to kill in revenge as he saw cause so we may farther gather what was the Officer designed hereunto by that blessing which God gave unto Abraham the person he next appeared unto when he said I will make Nations of thee and Kings shall come out of thee After this promise we shall finde that Gods next appearance to Abraham is by Angels not by himself as formerly to him and others he may be noted to have onely done and in this way of manifestation he ordinarily continued till Moses after whom another sort of messengers succeeded of a lower allay namely Prophets The which as they served to give divine direction in that particular kingdom of the Jews during its time of Theocrity so did they cease at the coming of our Saviour and calling of the Gentiles for they prophesied but till John who may be said to conclude these appearances for direction in our Government which should come from that person of the God-head that made the world and to foreshew all power to be managed by that person that redeemed it that is by Christ by whose Authority and Precepts we were to be outwardly governed as well as to be inwardly guided by those of the Holy Ghost of which more in the Discourse of Religion as also of the surcease of miraculous appearances Christ being thus become King of Kings we are not to expect him expresly putting in these his several Deputies no more then while he is doing any thing else It is enough that he hath left us his own and his Apostles many Precepts for obedience unto them which surely he would never have done if such an office were not to have still continued It is enough we have Moses and the Prophets setting forth this succession of kingship as Gods Vicegerents if through stubbornness We will not believe them neither will we believe though one should rise from the dead Therefore as Christ was to succeed his Father in his Regency of men here below so doth he not alter the way and form of administration thereof by Kings formerly used nor yet the substance and general scope of those former Precepts by God given to that purpose but leaving the one as well as the other to stand in force by his not repealing them he may then be supposed also to have made his recess from personal administration for our good upon the same ground that God himself did before to wit that those frequent repetitions of impiety oppression and other sins which we hourly commit might not be continually provoking divine Justice to our destruction For so we finde God saying to the Israelites Exod. 33 3. I will not go up in the midst of thee for thou art a stiff-necked people lest I consume thee in the way And as this was by God spoken after the promulgation of the Law and just upon his promise of sending an Angel or chief governor like Joshua before them as is set down in the verse before so may we finde Christ also after he had for the space of forty days spoken of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God and that to the Apostles his then supreme Deputies to make his recess likewise from immediate administration in the things of this world reteining to himself still his high prerogative of King of Kings his actual Session at the right hand of God far above all principalities and powers And so far should this delegation be from lessening Gods or Christs just power in our esteem as it will upon due consideration increase it for omnipotency should not be omnipotency if potency of any kind were excluded And therefore as in the general course of Providence his Almightiness is the more apparent by enabling second causes and weak instruments to produce and
execute effects proper to deity onely so in this particular of Government by delegation to authorise and enable others which of themselves could otherwise claim neither power nor right herein it doth by conferring one another without diminution in himself so far by addition imply an augmentation of power inasmuch as self-ability simply considered is not so large as when unconfinedly all things or any thing can be made susceptible of this strength In which doing the weakness of the instrument will also increase the reputation of the Agent by having his strength made perfect and apparent in weakness when from so low a degree its honor and power shall be so advanced that it shall be as it were a second deity able to act things proper to deity onely as in right of government and that without all just pretence of arrogating to themselves or derogating from him So that now we ought rather to admire and magnifie the ways of Gods government amongst us then by such reprobate and Athiestical Tenents seek to dethrone him and set up our selves in his stead For if our Pactions and Associations here below can once make us independent on him what will they be but Conjurations and Conspiracies against Heaven and so upon the matter must he be subject to our apprehensions and appetites and either in the way of government operate as expresly and personally as in former times or else must we conclude it reasonable to deny his care or interest therein at all As if because God was onely known more immediately to create the first man therefore all now must owe their Creation to their Parents only as not having in our sense any other cause of production then the known way of generation common to us with all other things Or because God doth not now rain Manna Quails or other things from Heaven as to the Jews he sometimes did but that the Sun the Earth and other Elements together with mans industry are the onely sensible immediate conveyers and causes of all our food and other benefits we enjoy it is therefore reason that our ignorance in his ways of dispensation should forthwith exclude our acknowledgement of his care and providence and make the usual returns of thanks we give for such things appear rather to proceed from complement then duty By this Doctrine we may as well also conclude against mans right of Dominion over other Creatures because the first Dominion was immediately given to Adam and Noah onely when yet by priviledge of birth we have right to inherit also whatsoever belonged to them as men this being a natural and common and not a personal prerogative onely The like we must hold of heirship to the government of a Family not making its power dependant on the Will or any consent to be derived from Wife Children or Servants but he exercising and enjoying it as proper to the Office And what were this Doctrine but to overthrow and walk quite contrary to the Doctrine of Christianity which constitutes and commends Faith where present sense is wanting and in matters of divine doctrine or example pronounceth him happy that shall not see and yet believe For if God muâ—t be always tyed to evident demonstrations in the manifold dispensations of his Spirit and of every good and perfect gift from him proceeding then must miracles be continual as that of the fiery tongues otherwise in such spiritual donations how shall sense be sâ—tisfied we are receivers at all Or if no such manifestation now be must we thereupon make answer that we know not so much as whether there be a Holy Ghost or no or because there is now no such manifest breathings used nor no persons of equal authority to Christ or his Apostles to confer ordination must we say therefore that that power whereby Priests and Ministers exercise their spiritual Functions is meerly humane and from them onely received that are immediate workers therein What were this but as before we had thrust God out of Government and superintendency of the state by reckoning his Vicegerent as the peoples so now to interdict him any particular care or Authority of the Church also by accounting his Ministers our own But in sum this power of Kings belongs to them as Kings and by vertue of these their Offices it is that God owns the very Heathen as servants and Deputies to himself for so Nebuchadnezzar Cyrus c. held and exercised their Authorities and yet had no special revelation or Ministery for their enthroning as had Saul or David or different from other Princes And indeed if this power came not by office then are all hereditary Princes but usurpers and falsly said to reign in their fathers stead for how could they reign without power and have power without special ministration As for example Solomon held his Kingdom from God and by as good right as his Father and that by force of his Office and Unction although ministred but in the ordinary way and at his Fathers command onely he held it not from any paction of the people who rather looked on Adoniah as the true heir and accordingly joyned with him in rebellion And if any think that it was in regard of some special occasion God was to employ Nebuchadnezzar c. that they were thus particularly owned this is not denyed but the question is whether that extraordinary power or that ordinary one over their Subjects common to them with other Princes came by any extraordinary revelation or designation from Heaven so as both to enable their subjects to elect and appoint those individual persons without regard to their right otherwise and then those persons also to act and execute accordingly But although nothing extraordinarily appeared yet do these Kings confess their power from God and we finde it the custom for all Kings to write themselves Dei Gratia and acknowledge the holding their kingdoms and powers from God onely To this purpose amongst Christians especially their Crowns Scepters Swords c. as Emblems of power are first offered and then received from the Altar by the last act acknowledging their power from God onely by the other offering it to his glory and service the main end of policy And therefore though Jephtah had an ordinary way of entrance to the Government namely by making Association he was brought in by the faction and assistance of the Gileadites yet is he reckoned sent of God as well as Jerubaal Bedan and Samuel who had extraordinary ministration So that although God do leave those intervenient actions of Succession Election Conquest c. to the same ordinary event of Providence with other things in mens choice and dispose which may therefore in a sort be called a humane Creature yet the collation of power is from him onely no otherwise then in marriage the Husbands power over the Wife depends of it self and not on any resignation from 〈◊〉 although for her greater obligation toobedience her
strange act That is God shall be powerfull present in assisting his Vicegerents as formerly with David and Ioshua and by these that sit in Iudgement and turn the battail to the gate shall cause the waters of Mount Perazim to overflow their hiding places and the hailstones of his wrath to sweep away the refuge of lyes And then shall those Prophets Rulers and Seers finde themselves so confounded by the spirit of deep sleep from the Lord that their delusive speculations shall afford them no better satisfaction then the dream of Meat or drink to him that is hungry or thirsty And all because of these pretenders to serve God in another way then by the direction of their Superior Do but draw near to him with their mouth and honour him with their lips but their hearts is far from him in vain making semblance of worshipping him teaching for doctrines the commandments of Men That is preferring the rule of righteousness or judgment of their own setting up before those set up by my authority which was our Saviours own interpretation of this prophesie who no doubt best knew the meaning thereof The like also doth St Mark set down to be the interpretation of this prophesie namely that this pharisaicall pretension of legal or traditional sanctity under the notion of Corban serves but to defeat the positive precept of Gods Vicegerent Therefore saith the Prophet behold I will proceed to doe a marvailous work amongst this people even a marvailous work and a wonder for the wisdome of their wise Men shall perish and the understanding of the prudent Men shall be hid That is the wisdom of these pretenders shall come to nought And therefore it is added Woe to them that seek deep to hide their counsell from the Lord and their works in the dark and they say Who seeth us and who knoweth us That is they finde such multiplication of contrivances as if they would out-wit God Almighty But he saith Surely your turning of things upside down a fit expression for such as will be judging their Iudge shall be esteemed as the Potters clay for shall the work say of him that made it he made it not Or shall the thing framed say of him that framed it he had no understanding That is shall man be wiser then his Maker Will they not allow God his own way and season for things Why will they be again seeking to be under Morall righteousness and legall bondage as when the Lord himself led them by the hand and so would have God tyed to harder conditions then the Plowman Who when he hath made plain the face of the Earth and cast in his appointed grain doth not then continue ploughing himself still but expecting such Crop as this prepared earthy Heart of man will yeeld he doth afterwards by divers afflictions cause those severall sorts of Grain to be cleansed and made acceptable But as for them that think there can be no fruitful place where God is not the immediate holder of the Plough and where are not many Precepts from him given he adds Is it not a very little while and Lebanon shall be turned into a fruitfull field and the fruitfull field shall be esteemed as a forrest and in that day shall the deaf eares hear the word of the Book and the eyes of the blinde shall see out of obscurity and out of darkness That is the Jewes that had heretofore had Gods precepts and worship so plentifull amongst them shall be darkned and the Gentiles formerly sitting in darkness shall have a marvailous light appear and by reason of that precept of Love by God inwardly taught them they shall know and perform the words of the Book or precepts of the Law and so being made obedient to the Gospel and become of the number of Meek and Poor they shall increase their joy in the Lord For the terrible one is brought to nought and the scorner is consumed and all that waiteth for Iniquity is cut off Even suck kinde of men as would scare men with the multitude and strength of their Precepts as if they were all expresly Divine and doe again scorn the simplicity of the Gospel-rule and so make themselves workers of iniquity That make a Man an offender for a Word and lay a snare for him that reproveth in the Gate and turn aside the just for a thing of naught Which verse cleerly expresseth all their practice first by making Religious and Divine precepts to stretch to every thing they cause men to be in danger to be offenders to God for ordinary matters and so make him that is in the seat of judgement appear a stumbling block or rock of offence seeming to them an usurper of authority in offering to direct and reprove us thereby causing the just or the rule of Justice to cease and desist upon no occasion As though a King sitting in the seat of judgement did not scatter away evil with his eyes as though he that doth righteousness were not righteous as though judgement and righteousness had not a certain line and plummet for their measure or that the weight or measure of justice appointed by Cods Vicegerents were not to be the true standard but that men might make divers weights and measures thereof For when subjects take on them to interpret and judge of righteousness and justice by any other way and rule then that set up by Christs deputy they then make him a stumbling block to them as Christ himself being laid as the chief corner stone for the Churches direction was made unto the Jews who would be still following legal righteousness and not submit to that which was of faith in Christ. By means of these snares laid for him that reproveth in the gate we may also interpret that these Priests and Prophets should not onely through strong drink err in vision and stumble themselves in judgement but that they should thereby sometimes ensnare those persons sitting in judgement and so cause them also to err through wine and strong drink that is in too much listening to their shews of Divine revelation and authority But generally the ensnaring there spoken of is in regard of those vulgar errors which should prevaile in the Christian Church notwithstanding this judgement seat of Christ executed by his deputies even as it formerly had done amongst the Israelites called there the drunkards of Ephraim Therefore saith the Lord who redeemed Abraham concerning the house of Jacob Jacob shall not now be ashamed neither shall his face wax pale In which words God expressing himself under the notion of Redeemer shews the condition of the Christian Church the house of Iacob under Christ their Redeemer typified under Iacob himself namely that all cause of fear and shame shall be banished through the succeeding glory of the Christian Church For so it followeth But when he seeth his children the work