Servants to bind hand and foot the man that had not on his Wedding garment and to cast him out 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Externall darknesse or Darknesse without which though translated Vtter darknesse does not signifie how great but where that darknesse is to be namely without the habitation of Gods Elect. Lastly whereas there was a place neer Jerusalem called the Valley of the Children of Hinnon in a part whereof called Tophet the Jews had committed most grievous Idolatry sacrificing their children to the Idol Moloch and wherein also God had afflicted his enemies with most grievous punishments and wherein Josias had burnt the Priests of Moloch upon their own Altars as appeareth at large in the 2 of Kings chap. 23. the place served afterwards to receive the filth and garbage which was carried thither on t of the City and there used to be fires made from time to time to purifie the aire and take away the stench of Carrion From this abominable place the Jews used ever after to call the place of the Damned by the name of Gehenna or Valley of Hinnon And this Gehenna is that word which is usually now translated HELL and from the fires from time to time there burning we have the notion of Everlasting and Vnquenchable Fire Seeing now there is none that so interprets the Scripture as that after the day of Judgment the wicked are all Eternally to be punished in the Valley of Hinnon or that they shall so rise again as to be ever after under ground or under water or that after the Resurrection they shall no more see one another nor stir from one place to another it followeth me thinks very necessarily that that which is thus said concerning Hell Fire is spoken metaphorically and that therefore there is a proper sense to bee enquired after for of all Metaphors there is some reall ground that may be expressed in proper words both of the Place of Hell and the nature of Hellish Torments and Tormenters And first for the Tormenters wee have their nature and properties exactly and properly delivered by the names of The Enemy or Satan The Accuser or Diabolus The Destroyer or Abaddon Which significant names Satan Devill Abaddon set not forth to us any Individuall person as proper names use to doe but onely an office or quality and are therefore Appellatives which ought not to have been left untranslated as they are in the Latine and Modern Bibles because thereby they seem to be the proper names of Daemons and men are the more easily seduced to beleeve the doctrine of Devills which at that time was the Religion of the Gentiles and contrary to that of Moses and of Christ. And because by the Enemy the Accuser and Destroyer is meant the Enemy of them that shall be in the Kingdome of God therefore if the Kingdome of God after the Resurrection bee upon the Earth as in the former Chapter I have shewn by Scripture it seems to be The Enemy and his Kingdome must be on Earth also For so also was it in the time before the Jews had deposed God For Gods Kingdome was in Palestine and the Nations round about were the Kingdomes of the Enemy and consequently by Satan is meant any Earthly Enemy of the Church The Torments of Hell are expressed sometimes by weeping and gnashing of teeth as Mat. 8. 12. Sometimes by the worm of Conscience as Isa. 66. 24. and Mark 9. 44 46 48 sometimes by Fire as in the place now quoted where the worm dyeth not and the fire is not quenched and many places beside sometimes by shame and contâ—…mpt as Daâ—… 12. 2. And many of them that sleep in the dust of the Earth shall awake some to Everlasting life and some to shame and everlasting contempt All which places design metaphorically a grief and discontent of mind from the sight of that Eternall felicity in others which they themselves through their own incredulity and disobedience have lost And because such felicity in others is not sensible but by comparison with their own actuall miseries it followeth that they are to suffer such bodily paines and calamities as are incident to those who not onely live under evill and cruell Governours but have also for Enemy the Eternall King of the Saints God Almighty And amongst these bodily paines is to be reckoned also to every one of the wicked a second Death For though the Scripture bee clear for an universall Resurrection yet wee do not read that to any of the Reprobate is promised an Eternall life For whereas St. Paul 1 Cor. 15. 42 43. to the question concerning what bodies men shall rise with again saith that the body is sown in corruption and is raised in incorruption It is sown in dishonour it is raised in glory it is sown in weaknesse it is raised in power Glory and Power cannot be applyed to the bodies of the wicked Nor can the name of Second Death bee applyed to those that can never die but once And although in Metaphoricall speech a Calamitous life Everlasting may bee called an Everasting Death yet it cannot well be understood of a Second Death The fire prepared for the wicked is an Everlasting Fire that is to say the estate wherein no man can be without torture both of body and mind after the Resurrection shall endure for ever and in that sense the Fire shall be unquenchable and the torments Everlasting but it cannot thence be inferred that hee who shall be cast into that fire or be tormented with those torments shall endure and resist them so as to be eternally burnt and tortured and yet never be destroyed nor die And though there be many places that affirm Everlasting Fire and Torments into which men may be cast successively one after another for ever yet I find none that affirm there shall bee an Eternall Life therein of any individuall person but to the contrary an Everlasting Death which is the Second Death For after Death and the Grave shall have delivered up the dead which were in them and every man be judged according to his works Death and the Grave shall also be cast into the Lake of Fire This is the Second Death Whereby it is evident that there is to bee a Second Death of every one that shall bee condemned at the day of Judgement after which hee shall die no more The joyes of Life Eternall are in Scripture comprehended all under the name of SALVATION or being saved To be saved is to be secured either respectively against speciall Evills or absolutely against all Evill comprehending Want Sicknesse and Death it self And because man was created in a condition Immortall not subject to corruption and consequently to nothing that tendeth to the dissolution of his nature and fell from that happinesse by the sin of Adam it followeth that to be saved from Sin is to be saved from all the Evill and Calamities that Sinne hath brought upon
not this revelation nor were yet in being yet they are a party to the Covenant and bound to obey what Abraham should declare to them for Gods Law which they could not be but in vertue of the obedience they owed to their Parents who if they be Subject to no other earthly power as here in the case of Abraham have Soveraign power over their children and servants Againe where God saith to Abraham In thee shall all Nations of the earth be blessed For I know thou wilt command thy children and thy house after thee to keep the way of the Lord and to observe Righteousnesse and Judgement it is manifest the obedience of his Family who had no Revelation depended on their former obligation to obey their Soveraign At Mount Sinai Moses only went up to God the people were forbidden to approach on paine of death yet were they bound to obey all that Moses declared to them for Gods Law Upon what ground but on this submission of their own Speak thou to us and we will heare thee but let not God speak to us lest we dye By which two places it sufficiently appeareth that in a Common-wealth a subject that has no certain and assured Revelation particularly to himself concerning the Will of God is to obey for such the Command of the Common-wealth for if men were at liberty to take for Gods Commandements their own dreams and fancies or the dreams and fancies of private men scarce two men would agree upon what is Gods Commandement and yet in respect of them every man would despise the Commandements of the Common-wealth I conclude therefore that in all things not contrary to the Morall Law that is to say to the Law of Nature all Subjects are bound to obey that for divine Law which is declared to be so by the Lawes of the Common-wealth Which also is evident to any mans reason for whatsoever is not against the Law of Nature may be made Law in the name of them that have the Soveraign power and there is no reason men should be the lesse obliged by it when t is propounded in the name of God Besides there is no place in the world where men are permitted to pretend other Commandements of God than are declared for such by the Common-wealth Christian States punish those that revolt from Christian Religion and all other States those that set up any Religion by them forbidden For in whatsoever is not regulated by the Common-wealth t is Equity which is the Law of Nature and therefore an eternall Law of God that every man equally enjoy his liberty There is also another distinction of Laws into Fundamentall and not Fundamentall but I could never see in any Author what a Fundamentall Law signifieth Neverthelesse one may very reasonably distinguish Laws in that manner For a Fundamentall Law in every Common-wealth is that which being taken away the Common-wealth faileth and is utterly dissolved as a building whose Foundation is destroyed And therefore a Fundamentall Law is that by which Subjects are bound to uphold whatsoever power is given to the Soveraign whether a Monarch or a Soveraign Assembly without which the Common-wealth cannot stand such as is the power of War and Peace of Judicature of Election of Officers and of doing whatsoever he shall think necessary for the Publique good Not Fundamentall is that the abrogating whereof draweth not with it the dissolution of the Common-Wealth such as are the Lawes concerning Controversies between subject and subject Thus much of the Division of Lawes I find the words Lex Civilis and Jus Civile that is to say Law and Right Civil promiscuously used for the same thing even in the most learned Authors which neverthelesse ought not to be so For Right is Liberty namely that Liberty which the Civil Law leaves us But Civill Law is an Obligation and takes from us the Liberty which the Law of Nature gave us Nature gave a Right to every man to secure himselfe by his own strength and to invade a suspected neighbour by way of prevention but the Civill Law takes away that Liberty in all cases where the protection of the Law may be safely stayd for Insomuch as Lex and Jus are as different as Obligation and Liberty Likewise Lawes and Charters are taken 〈◊〉 for the same thing Yet Charters are Donations of the Soveraign and not Lawes but exemptions from Law The phrase of a Law is Jubeo Injungo I Command and Enjoyn the phrase of a Charter is Dedi Concessi I have Given I have Granted but what is given or granted to a man is not forced upon him by a Law A Law may be made to bind All the Subjects of a Common-wealth a Liberty or Charter is only to One man or some One part of the people For to say all the people of a Common-wealth have Liberty in any case whatsoever is to say that in such case there hath been no Law made or else having been made is now abrogated CHAP. XXVII Of CRIMES EXCUSES and EXTENUATIONS A Sinne is not onely a Transgression of a Law but also any Contempt of the Legislator For such Contempt is a breach of all his Lawes at once And therefore may consist not onely in the Commission of a Fact or in the Speaking of Words by the Lawes forbidden or in the Omission of what the Law commandeth but also in the Intention or purpose to transgresse For the purpose to breake the Law is some degree of Contempt of him to whom it belongeth to see it executed To be delighted in the Imagination onely of being possessed of another mans goods servants or wife without any intention to take them from him by force or fraud is no breach of the Law that sayth Thou shalt not covet nor is the pleasure a man may have in imagining or dreaming of the death of him from whose life he expecteth nothing but dammage and displeasure a Sinne but the resolving to put some Act in execution that tendeth thereto For to be pleased in the fiction of that which would please a man if it were reall is a Passion so adhaerent to the Nature both of man and every other living creature as to make it a Sinne were to make Sinne of being a man The consideration of this has made me think them too severe both to themselves and others that maintain that the First motions of the mind though checked with the fear of God be Sinnes But I confesse it is safer to erre on that hand than on the other A CRIME is a sinne consisting in the Committing by Deed or Word of that which the Law forbiddeth or the Omission of what it hath commanded So that every Crime is a sinne but not every sinne a Crime To intend to steale or kill is a sinne though it never appeare in Word or Fact for God that seeth the thoughts of man can lay it to his charge but till it appear by some thing
deceive many more In this aptitude of mankind to give too hasty beleefe to pretended Miracles there can be no better nor I think any other caution then that which God hath prescribed first by Moses as I have said before in the precedent chapter in the beginning of the 13. and end of the 18. of Deuteronomy That wee take not any for Prophets that teach any other Religion then that which Gods Lieutenant which at that time was Moses hath established nor any though he teach the same Religion whose Praediction we doe not see come to passe Moses therefore in his time and Aaron and his successors in their times and the Soveraign Governour of Gods people next under God himself that is to say the Head of the Church in all times are to be consulted what doctrine he hath established before wee give credit to a pretended Miracle or Prophet And when that is done the thing they pretend to be a Miracle we must both see it done and use all means possible to consider whether it be really done and not onely so but whether it be such as no man can do the like by his naturall power but that it requires the immediate hand of God And in this also we must have recourse to Gods Lieutenant to whom in all doubtfull cases wee have submitted our private judgments For example if a man pretend that after certain words spoken over a peece of bread that presently God hath made it not bread but a God or a man or both and neverthelesse it looketh still as like bread as ever it did there is no reason for any man to think it really done nor consequently to fear him till he enquire of God by his Vicar or Lieutenant whether it be done or not If he say not then followeth that which Moses saith Deut. 18. 22. he hath spoken it presumptuously thou shalt not fear him If he say 't is done then he is not to contradict it So also if wee see not but onely hear tell of a Miracle we are to consult the Lawful Church that is to say the lawful Head thereof how far we are to give credit to the relators of it And this is chiefly the case of men that in these days live under Christian Soveraigns For in these times I do not know one man that ever saw any such wondrous work done by the charm or at the word or prayer of a man that a man endued but with a mediocrity of reason would think supernaturall and the question is no more whether what wee see done be a Miracle whether the Miracle we hear or read of were a reall work and not the Act of a tongue or pen but in plain terms whether the report be true or a lye In which question we are not every one to make our own private Reason or Conscience but the Publique Reason that is the reason of Gods Supreme Lieutenant Judge and indeed we have made him Judge already if wee have given him a Soveraign power to doe all that is necessary for our peace and defence A private man has alwaies the liberty because thought is free to beleeve or not beleeve in his heart those acts that have been given out for Miracles according as he shall see what benefit can accrew by mens belief to those that pretend or countenance them and thereby conjecture whether they be Miracles or Lies But when it comes to confession of that faith the Private Reason must submit to the Publique that is to say to Gods Lieutenant But who is this Lieutenant of God and Head of the Church shall be considered in its proper place hereafter CHAP. XXXVIII Of the Signification in Scripture of ETERNALL LIFE HELL SALVATION THE WORLD TO COME and RÉDEMPTION THe maintenance of Civill Society depending on Justice and Justice on the power of Life and Death and other lesse Rewards and Punishments residing in them that have the Soveraignty of the Common-wealth It is impossible a Common-wealth should stand where any other than the Soveraign hath a power of giving greater rewards than Life and of inflicting greater punishments then Death Now seeing Eternall life is a greater reward than the life present and Eternall torment a greater punishment than the death of Nature It is a thing worthy to be well considered of all men that desire by obeying Authority to avoid the calamities of Confusion and Civill war what is meant in holy Scripture by Life Eternall and Torment Eternall and for what offences and against whom committed men are to be Eternally tormented and for what actions they are to obtain Eternall life And first we find that Adam was created in such a condition of life as had he not broken the commandement of God he had enjoyed it in the Paradise of Eden Everlastingly For there was the Tree of life whereof he was so long allowed to eat as he should forbear to eat of the tree of Knowledge of Good and Evill which was not allowed him And therefore as soon as he had eaten of it God thrust him out of Paradise lest he should put forth his hand and take also of the tree of life and live for ever By which it seemeth to me with submission neverthelesse both in this and in all questions whereof the determination dependeth on the Scriptures to the interpretation of the Bible authorized by the Common-wealth whose Subject I am that Adam if he had not sinned had had an Eternall Life on Earth and that Mortality entred upon himself and his posterity by his first Sin Not that actuall Death then entred for Adam then could never have had children whereas he lived long after and saw a numerous posterity ere he dyed But where it it is said In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die it must needs bee meant of his Mortality and certitude of death Seeing then Eternall life was lost by Adams forfeiture in committing sin he that should cancell that forfeiture was to recover thereby that Life again Now Jesus Christ hath satisfied for the sins of all that beleeve in him and therefore recovered to all beleevers that ETERNALL LIFE which was lost by the sin of Adam And in this sense it is that the comparison of St. Paul holdeth Rom. 5. 18 19. As by the offence of one Iudgment came upon all men to condemnation even so by the righteousnesse of one the free gift came upon all men to Iustification of Life Which is again 1 Cor. 15. 21 22. more perspicuously delivered in these words For since by man came death by man came also the resurrection of the dead For as in Adam all die even so in Christ shall all be made alive Concerning the place wherein men shall enjoy that Eternall Life which Christ hath obtained for them the texts next before alledged seem to make it on Earth For if as in Adam all die that is have forfeited Paradise and Eternall Life on Earth even so in
Christ all shall bee made alive then all men shall be made to live on Earth for else the comparison were not proper Hereunto seemeth to agree that of the Psalmist Psal. 133. 3. Vpon Zion God commanded the blessing even Life for evermore for Zion is in Jerusalem upon Earth as also that of S. Joh. Rev. 2. 7. To him that overcommeth I will give to eat of the tree of life which is in the midst of the Paradise of God This was the tree of Adams Eternall life but his life was to have been on Earth The same seemeth to be confirmed again by St. Joh. Rev. 21. 2. where he saith I Iohn saw the Holy City New Ierusalem coming down from God out of heaven prepared as a Bride adorned for her husband and again v. 10. to the same effect As if he should say the new Jerusalem the Paradise of God at the coming again of Christ should come down to Gods people from Heaven and not they goe up to it from Earth And this differs nothing from that which the two men in white clothing that is the two Angels said to the Apostles that were looking upon Christ ascending Acts 1. 11. This same Iesus who is taken up from you into Heaven shall so come as you have seen him go up into Heaven Which soundeth as if they had said he should come down to govern them under his Father Eternally here and not take them up to govern them in Heaven and is conformable to the Restauration of the Kingdom of God instituted under Moses which was a Political government of the Jews on Earth Again that saying of our Saviour Mat. 22. 30. that in the Resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage but are as the Angels of God in heaven is a description of an Eternall Life resembling that which we lost in Adam in the point of Marriage For seeing Adam and Eve if they had not sinned had lived on Earth Eternally in their individuall persons it is manifest they should not continually have procreated their kind For if Immortals should have generated as Mankind doth now the Earth in a small time would not have been able to afford them place to stand on The Jews that asked our Saviour the question whose wife the woman that had married many brothers should be in the resurrection knew not what were the consequences of Life Eternall and therefore our Saviour puts them in mind of this consequence of Immortality that there shal be no Generation and consequētly no marriage no more then there is marriage or generatiō among the Angels The comparison between that Eternall life which Adam lost and our Saviour by his Victory over death hath recovered holdeth also in this that as Adam lost Eternall Life by his sin and yet lived after it for a time so the faithful Christian hath recovered Eternal Life by Christs passion though he die a natural death and remaine dead for a time namely till the Resurrection For as Death is reckoned from the Condemnation of Adam not from the Execution so Life is reckoned from the Absolution not from the Resurrection of them that are elected in Christ. That the place wherein men are to live Eternally after the Resurrection is the Heavens meaning by Heaven those parts of the world which are the most remote from Earth as where the stars are or above the stars in another Higher Heaven called Coelum Empyreum whereof there is no mention in Scripture nor ground in Reason is not easily to be drawn from any text that I can find By the Kingdome of Heaven is meant the Kingdom of the King that dwelleth in Heaven and his Kingdome was the people of Israel whom he ruled by the Prophets his Lieutenants first Moses and after him Eleazar and the Soveraign Priests till in the days of Samuel they rebelled and would have a mortall man for their King after the manner of other Nations And when our Saviour Christ by the preaching of his Ministers shall have perswaded the Jews to return and called the Gentiles to his obedience then shall there be a new Kingdom of Heaven because our King shall then be God whose throne is Heaven without any necessity evident in the Scripture that man shall ascend to his happinesse any higher than Gods footstool the Earth On the contrary we find written Ioh. 3. 13. that no man hath ascended into Heaven but he that came down from Heaven even the Son of man that is in Heaven Where I observe by the way that these words are not as those which go immediately before the words of our Saviour but of St. John himself for Christ was then not in Heaven but upon the Earth The like is said of David Acts 2. 34. where St. Peter to prove the Ascension of Christ using the words of the Psalmist Psal. 16. 10. Thou wilt not leave my soule in Hell not suffer thine Holy one to see corruption saith they were spoken not of David but of Christ and to prove it addeth this Reason For David is not ascended into Heaven But to this a man may easily answer and say that though their bodies were not to ascend till the generall day of Judgment yet their souls were in Heaven as soon as they were departed from their bodies which also seemeth to be confirmed by the words of our Saviour Luke 20. 37 38. who proving the Resurrection out of the words of Moses saith thus That the dead are raised even Moses shewed at the bush when he calleth the Lord the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Iacob For he is not a God of the Dead but of the Living for they all live to him But if these words be to be understood only of the Immortality of the Soul they prove not at all that which our Saviour intended to prove which was the Resurrection of the Body that is to say the Immortality of the Man Therefore our Saviour meaneth that those Patriarchs were Immortall not by a property consequent to the essence and nature of mankind but by the will of God that was pleased of his mere grace to bestow Eternall life upon the faithfull And though at that time the Patriarchs and many other faithfull men were dead yet as it is in the text they lived to God that is they were written in the Book of Life with them that were absolved of their sinnes and ordained to Life eternall at the Resurrection That the Soul of man is in its own nature Eternall and a living Creature inpedendent on the body or that any meer man is Immortall otherwise than by the Resurrection in the last day except Enos and Elias is a doctrine nor apparent in Scripture The whole 14. Chapter of Iob which is the speech not of his friends but of himselfe is a complaint of this Mortality of Nature and yet no contradiction of the Immortality at the Resurrection There is hope of a tree saith hee verse 7.
that word is understood Affliction for Sinne yet the Right of Afflicting is not alwayes derived from mens Sinne but from Gods Power This question Why Evill men often Prosper and Good men suffer Adversity has been much disputed by the Antient and is the same with this of ours by what Right God dispenseth the Prosperities and Adversities of this life and is of that difficulty as it hath shaken the faith not onely of the Vulgar but of Philosophers and which is more of the Saints concerning the Divine Providence How Good saith David is the God of Israel to those that are Upright in Heart and yet my feet were almost gone my treadings had well-nigh slipt for I was grieved at the Wicked when I saw the Ungodly in such Prosperity And Job how earnestly does he expostulate with God for the many Afflictions he suffered notwithstanding his Righteousnesse This question in the case of Job is decided by God himselfe not by arguments derived from Job's Sinne but his own Power For whereas the friends of Job drew their arguments from his Affliction to his Sinne and he defended himselfe by the conscience of his Innocence God himselfe taketh up the matter and having justified the Affliction by arguments drawn from his Power such as this Where wast thou when I layd the foundations of the earth and the like both approved Job's Innocence and reproved the Erroneous doctrine of his friends Conformable to this doctrine is the sentence of our Saviour concerning the man that was born Blind in these words Neither hath this man sinned nor his fathers but that the works of God might be made manifest in him And though it be said That Death entred into the world by sinne by which is meant that if Adam had never sinned he had never dyed that is never suffered any separation of his soule from his body it follows not thence that God could not justly have Afflicted him though he had not Sinned as well as he afflicteth other living creatures that cannot sinne Having spoken of the Right of Gods Soveraignty as grounded onely on Nature we are to consider next what are the Divine Lawes or Dictates of Naturall Reason which Lawes concern either the naturall Duties of one man to another or the Honour naturally due to our Divine Soveraign The first are the same Lawes of Nature of which I have spoken already in the 14. and 15. Chapters of this Treatise namely Equity Justice Mercy Humility and the rest of the Morall Vertues It remaineth therefore that we consider what Praecepts are dictated to men by their Naturall Reason onely without other word of God touching the Honour and Worship of the Divine Majesty Honour consisteth in the inward thought and opinion of the Power and Goodnesse of another and therefore to Honour God is to think as Highly of his Power and Goodnesse as is possible And of that opinion the externall signes appearing in the Words and Actions of men are called Worship which is one part of that which the Latines understand by the word Cultus For Cultus signifieth properly and constantly that labour which a man bestowes on any thing with a purpose to make benefit by it Now those things whereof we make benefit are either subject to us and the profit they yeeld followeth the labour we bestow upon them as a naturall effect or they are not subject to us but answer our labour according to their own Wills In the first sense the labour bestowed on the Earth is called Culture and the education of Children a Culture of their mindes In the second sense where mens wills are to be wrought to our purpose not by Force but by Compleasance it signifieth as much as Courting that is a winning of favour by good offices as by praises by acknowledging their Power and by whatsoever is pleasing to them from whom we look for any benefit And this is properly Worship in which sense Publicola is understood for a Worshipper of the People and Cultus Dei for the Worship of God From internall Honour consisting in the opinion of Power and Goodnesse arise three Passions Love which hath reference to Goodnesse and Hope and Fear that relate to Power And three parts of externall worship Praise Magnifying and Blessing The subject of Praise being Goodnesse the subject of Magnifying and Blessing being Power and the effect thereof Felicity Praise and Magnifying are signified both by Words and Actions By Words when we say a man is Good or Great By Actions when we thank him for his Bounty and obey his Power The opinion of the Happinesse of another can onely be expressed by words There be some signes of Honour both in Attributes and Actions that be Naturally so as amongst Attributes Good Just Liberall and the like and amongst Actions Prayers Thanks and Obedience Others are so by Institution or Custome of men and in some times and places are Honourable in others Dishonourable in others Indifferent such as are the Gestures in Salutation Prayer and Thanksgiving in different times and places differently used The former is Naturall the later Arbitrary Worship And of Arbitrary Worship there bee two differences For sometimes it is a Commanded sometimes Voluntary Worship Commanded when it is such as hee requireth who is Worshipped Free when it is such as the Worshipper thinks fit When it is Commanded not the words or gesture but the obedience is the Worship But when Free the Worship consists in the opinion of the beholders for if to them the words or actions by which we intend honour seem ridiculous and tending to contumely they are no Worship because no signes of Honour and no signes of Honour because a signe is not a signe to him that giveth it but to him to whom it is made that is to the spectator Again there is a Publique and a Private Worship Publique is the Worship that a Common-wealth performeth as one Person Private is that which a Private person exhibiteth Publique in respect of the whole Common-wealth is Free but in respect of Particular men it is not so Private is in secret Free but in the sight of the multitude it is never without some Restraint either from the Lawes or from the Opinion of men which is contrary to the nature of Liberty The End of Worship amongst men is Power For where a man seeth another worshipped he supposeth him powerfull and is the readier to obey him which makes his Power greater But God has no Ends the worship we do him proceeds from our duty and is directed according to our capacity by those rules of Honour that Reason dictateth to be done by the weak to the more potent men in hope of benefit for fear of dammage or in thankfulnesse for good already received from them That we may know what worship of God is taught us by the light of Nature I will begin with his Attributes Where First it is manifest we
us And therefore in the Holy Scripture Remission of Sinne and Salvation from Death and Misery is the same thing as it appears by the words of our Saviour who having cured a man sick of the Palsey by saying Mat. 9. 2. Son be of good cheer thy Sins be forgiven thee and knowing that the Scribes took for blasphemy that a man should pretend to forgive Sins asked them v. 5. whether it were easier to say Thy Sinnes be forgiven thee or Arise and walk signifying thereby that it was all one as to the saving of the sick to say Thy Sins are forgiven and Arise and walk and that he used that form of speech onely to shew he had power to forgive Sins And it is besides evident in reason that since Death and Misery were the punishments of Sin the discharge of Sinne must also be a discharge of Death and Misery that is to say Salvation absolute such as the faithfull are to enjoy after the day of Judgment by the power and favour of Jesus Christ who for that cause is called our SAVIOUR Concerning Particular Salvations such as are understood 1 Sam. 14. 39. as the Lord liveth that saveth Israel that is from their temporary enemies and 2 Sam. 22. 4. Thou art my Saviour thou savest me from violence and 2 Kings 13. 5. God gave the Israelites a Saviour and so they were delivered from the hand of the Assyrians and the like I need say nothing there being neither difficulty nor interest to corrupt the interpretation of texts of that kind But concerning the Generall Salvation hecause it must be in the Kingdome of Heaven there is great difficulty concerning the Place On one side by Kingdome which is an estate ordained by men for their perpetuall security against enemies and want it seemeth that this Salvation should be on Earth For by Salvation is set forth unto us a glorious Reign of our King by Conquest not a safety by Escape and therefore there where we look for Salvation we must look also for Triumph and before Triumph for Victory and before Victory for Battell which cannot well be supposed shall be in Heaven But how good soever this reason may be I will not trust to it without very evident places of Scripture The state of Salvation is described at large Isaiah 33. ver 20 21 22 23 24. Look upon Zion the City of our solemnities thine eyes shall see Ierusalem a quiet habitation a tabernacle that shall not be taken down not one of the stakes thereof shall ever be removed neither shâ—…ll any of the cords thereof be broken But there the glorious Lord will be unto us a place of broad rivers and streams wherein shall goe no Gally with oares neither shall gallant ship passe â—…hereby For the Lord is our Iudge the Lord is our Lawgiver the Lord is our King he will save us Thy tacklings are loosed they could not well strengthen their mast they could not spread the sail then is the prey of a great spoil divided the lame take the prey And the Inhabitant shall not say I am sicke the people that shall dwell therein shall be forgiven their Iniquity In which words wee have the place from whence Salvation is to proceed Ierusalem a quiet habitation the Eternity of it a tabernacle that shall not be taken down c. The Saviour of it the Lord their Iudge their Lawgiver their King he will save us the Salvation the Lord shall be to them as abroad mote of swift waters c. the condition of their Enemies their tacklings are loose their masts weak the lame shal take the spoil of them The condition of the Saved The Inhabitant shal not say I am sick And lastly all this is comprehended in Forgivenesse of sin The people that dwell therein shall be forgiven their iniquity By which â—…t is evident that Salvation shall be on Earth then when God shall reign at the coming again of Christ in Jerusalem and from Jerusalem shall proceed the Salvation of the Gentiles that shall be received into Gods Kingdome as is also more expressely declared by the same Prophet Chap. 65. 20 21. And they that is the Gentiles who had any Jew in bondage shall bring all your brethren for an offering to the Lord out of all nations upon horses and in charets and in litters and upon mules and upon swift beasts to my holy mountain Ierusalem saith the Lord as the Children of Israel bring an offering in a clean vessell into the House of the Lord. And I will also take of them for Priests and for Levâ—…tes saith the Lord Whereby it is manifest that the chief seat of Gods Kingdome which is the Place from whence the Salvation of us that were Gentiles shall proceed shall be Jerusalem And the same is also confirmed by our Saviour in his discourse with the woman of Samaria concerning the place of Gods worship to whom he saith Iohn 4. 22. that the Samaritans worshipped they knew not what but the Jews worship what they knew For Salvation is of the Iews ex Iudae is that is begins at the Jews as if he should say you worship God but know not by whom he wil save you as we doe that know it shall be by one of the tribe of Judah a Jew not a Samaritan And therefore also the woman not impertinently answered him again We know the Messias shall come So that which out Saviour saith Salvation is from the Iews is the same that Paul sayes Rom. 1. 16 17. The Gospel is the power of God to Salvation to every one that beleeveth To the Iew first and also to the Greek For therein is the righteousnesse of God revealed from faith to faith from the faith of the Jew to the faith of the Gentile In the like sense the Prophet Ioel describing the day of Judgment chap. 2. 30 31. that God 〈◊〉 shew wonders in heaven and in earth bloud and fire and pillars os smoak The Sun should be turned to darknesse and the Moon into bloud before the great and terrible day of the Lord come he addeth verse 32. and it shall come to passe that whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved For in Mount Zion and in Ierusalem shall be Salvation And Obadiah verse 17. saith the same Vpon Mount Zion shall be Deliverance and there shall be holinesse and the house of Iacob shall possesse their possessions that is the possessions of the Heathen which possessions he expresseth more particularly in the following verses by the mount of Esau the Land of the Philistines the fields of Ephraim of Samaria Gilead and the Cities of the South and concludes with these words the Kingdom shall be the Lords All these places are for Salvation and the Kingdome of God after the day of Judgement upon Earth On the other side I have not found any text that can probably be drawn to prove any Ascension of the Saints into Heaven that is to say into
among them Westward in all businesse of the Lord and in the service of the King Likewise verse 32. that hee made other Hebronites rulers over the Reubenites the Gadites and the halfe tribe of Manasseh these were the rest of Israel that dwelt beyond Jordan for every matter pertaining to God and affairs of the King Is not this full Power both temporall and spirituall as they call it that would divide it To conclude from the first institution of Gods Kingdome to the Captivity the Supremacy of Religion was in the same hand with that of the Civill Soveraignty and the Priests office after the election of Saul was not Magisteriall but Ministeriall Notwithstanding the government both in Policy and Religion were joined first in the High Priests and afterwards in the Kings so far forth as concerned the Right yet it appeareth by the same Holy History that the people understood it not but there being amongst them a great part and probably the greatest part that no longer than they saw great miracles or which is equivalent to a miracle great abilities or great felicity in the enterprises of their Governours gave sufficient credit either to the fame of Moses or to the Colloquies between God and the Priests they took occasion as oft as their Governours displeased them by blaming sometimes the Policy sometimes the Religion to change the Government or revolt from their Obedience at their pleasure And from thence proceeded from time to time the civill troubles divisions and calamities of the Nation As for example after the death of Eleazar and Joshua the next generation which had not seen the wonders of God but were left to their own weak reason not knowing themselves obliged by the Covenant of a Sacerdotall Kingdome regarded no more the Commandement of the Priest nor any law of Moses but did every man that which was right in his own eyes and obeyed in Civill affairs such men as from time to time they thought able to deliver them from the neighbour Nations that oppressed them and consulted not with God as they ought to doc but with such men or women as they guessed to bee Prophets by their Praedictions of things to come and though they had an Idol in their Chappel yet if they had a Levite for their Chaplain they made account they worshipped the God of Israel And afterwards when they demanded a King after the manner of the nations yet it was not with a design to depart from the worship of God their King but despairing of the justice of the sons of Samuel they would have a King to judg them in Civill actions but not that they would allow their King to change the Religion which they thought was recommended to them by Moses So that they alwaies kept in store a pretext either of Justice or Religion to discharge them selves of their obedience whensoever they had hope to prevaile Samuel was displeased with the people for that they desired a King for God was their King already and Samuel had but an authority under him yet did Samuel when Saul observed not his counsell in destroying Agag as God had commanded anoint another King namely David to take the succession from his heirs Rehoboam was no Idolater but when the people thought him an Oppressor that Civil pretence carried from him ten Tribes to Jeroboam an Idolater And generally through the whole History of the Kings as well of Judah as of Israel there were Prophets that alwaies controlled the Kings for transgressing the Religion and sometimes also for Errours of State as Jehosaphat was reproved by the Prophet Jehu for aiding the King of Israel against the Syrians and Hezekiah by Isaiah for shewing his treasures to the Ambassadors of Babylon By all which it appeareth that though the power both of State and Religion were in the Kings yet none of them were uncontrolled in the use of it but such as were gracious for their own naturall abilities or felicities So that from the practise of those times there can no argument be drawn that the Right of Supremacy in Religion was not in the Kings unlesse we place it in the Prophets and conclude that because Hezekiah praying to the Lord before the Cherubins was not answered from thence nor then but afterwards by the Prophet Isaiah therefore Isaiah was supreme Head of the Church or because Iosiah consulted Hulda the Prophetesse concerning the Book of the Law that therefore neither he nor the High Priest but Hulda the Prophetesse had the Supreme authority in matter of Religion which I thinke is not the opinion of any Doctor During the Captivity the Iews had no Common-wealth at all And after their return though they renewed their Covenant with God yet there was no promise made of obedience neither to Esdras nor to any other And presently after they became subjects to the Greeks from whose Customes and Daemonology and from the doctrine of the Cabalists their Religion became much corrupted In such sort as nothing can be gathered from their confusion both in State and Religion concerning the Supremacy in either And therefore so far forth as concerneth the Old Testament we may conclude that whosoever had the Soveraignty of the Common-wealth amongst the Jews the same had also the Supreme Authority in matter of Gods externall worship and represented Gods Person that is the person of God the Father though he were not called by the name of Father till such time as he sent into the world his Son Jesus Christ to redeem mankind from their sins and bring them into his Everlasting Kingdome to be saved for evermore Of which we are to speak in the Chapter following CHAP. XLI Of the OFFICE of our BLESSED SAVIOUR WE find in Holy Scripture three parts of the Office of the Messiah The first of a Redeemer or Saviour The second of a Pastor Counsellor or Teacher that is of a Prophet sent from God to convert such as God hath elected to Salvation The third of a King an eternall King but under his Father as Moses and the High Priests were in their severall times And to these three parts are correspondent three times For our Redemption he wrought at his first coming by the Sacrifice wherein he offered up himself for our sinnes upon the Crosse our Conversion he wrought partly then in his own Person and partly worketh now by his Ministers and will continue to work till his coming again And after his coming again shall begin that his glorious Reign over his elect which is to last eternally To the Office of a Redeemer that is of one that payeth the Ransome of Sin which Ransome is Death it appertaineth that he was Sacrificed and thereby bare upon his own head and carryed away from us our iniquities in such sort as God had required Not that the death of one man though without sinne can satisfie for the offences of all men in the rigour of Justice but in the Mercy of
God that ordained such Sacrifices for sin as he was pleased in his mercy to accept In the Old Law as we may read Leviticus the 16. the Lord required that there should every year once bee made an Atonement for the Sins of all Israel both Priests and others for the doing whereof Aaron alone was to sacrifice for himself and the Priests a young Bullock and for the rest of the people he was to receive from them two young Goates of which he was to sacrifice one but as for the other which was the Scape Goat he was to lay his hands on the head thereof and by a confession of the iniquities of the people to lay them all on that head and then by some opportune man to cause the Goat to be led into the wildernesse and there to escape and carry away with him the iniquities of the people As the Sacrifice of the one Goat was a sufficient because an acceptable price for the Ransome of all Israel so the death of the Messiah is a sufficient price for the Sins of all mankind because there was no more required Our Saviour Christs sufferings seem to be here figured as cleerly as in the oblation of Isaac or in any other type of him in the Old Testament He was both the sacrificed Goat and the Scape Goat Hee was oppressed and he was afflicted Esay 53. 7. he opened not his mouth he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter and as a sheep is dumbe before the shearer so opened he not his mouth Here he is the sacrificed Gâ—…at He hath born our Griefs ver 4. and carried our sorrows And again ver 6. the Lord hath laid upon him the iniquities of us all And so he is the Scape Goat He was cut off from the land of the living ver 8. for the transgression of my People There again he is the sacrificed Goat And again ver 11. he shall bear their sins Hee is the Scape Goat Thus is the Lamb of God equivalent to both those Goates sacrificed in that he dyed and escaping in his Resurrection being raised opportunely by his Father and removed from the habitation of men in his Ascension For as much therefore as he that redeemeth hath no title to the thing redeemed before the Redemption and Ransome paid and this Ransome was the Death of the Redeemer it is manifest that our Saviour as man was not King of those that he Redeemed before hee suffered death that is during that time hee conversed bodily on the Earth I say he was not then King in present by vertue of the Pact which the faithfull make with him in Baptisme Neverthelesse by the renewing of their Pact with God in tisme they were obliged to obey him for King under his Father whensoever he should be pleased to take the Kingdome upon him According whereunto our Saviour himself expressely saith Iohn 18. 36. My Kingdome is not of this world Now seeing the Scripture maketh mention but of two worlds this that is now and shall remain to the day of Judgment which is therefore also called the last day and that which shall bee after the day of Judgement when there shall bee a new Heaven and a new Earth the Kingdome of Christ is not to begin till the generall Resurrection And that is it which our Saviour saith Mat. 16. 27. The Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father with his Angels and then he shall reward every man according to his works To reward every man according to his works is to execute the Office of a King and this is not to be till he come in the glory of his Father with his Angells When our Saviour saith Mat. 23. 2. The Scribes and Pharisees sit in Moses seat All therefore whatsoever they bid you doe that observe and doe hee declareth plainly that hee ascribeth Kingly Power for that time not to himselfe but to them And so hee doth also where he saith Luke 12. 14. Who made mee a Iudge or Divider over you And Iohn 12. 47. I came not to judge the world but to save the world And yet our Saviour came into this world that hee might bee a King and a Judge in the world to come For hee was the Messiah that is the Christ that is the Anointed Priest and the Soveraign Prophet of God that is to say he was to have all the power that was in Moses the Prophet in the High Priests that succeeded Moses and in the Kings that succeeded the Priests And St. Iohn saies expressely chap. 5. ver 22. The Father judgeth no man but hath committed all judgment to the Son And this is not repugnant to that other place I came not to judge the world for this is spoken of the world present the other of the world to come as also where it is said that at the second coming of Christ Mat. 19. 28. Yee that have followed me in the Regeneration when the Son of man shall sit in the throne of his Glory yee shall also sit on twelve thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel If then Christ whilest hee was on Earth had no Kingdome in this world to what end was his first coming It was to restore unto God by a new Covenant the Kingdom which being his by the Old Covenant had been cut off by the rebellion of the Israelites in the election of Saul Which to doe he was to preach unto them that he was the Messiah that is the King promised to them by the Prophets and to offer himselfe in sacrifice for the sinnes of them that should by faith submit themselves thereto and in case the nation generally should refuse him to call to his obedience such as should beleeve in him amongst the Gentiles So that there are two parts of our Saviours Office during his aboad upon the Earth One to Proclaim himself the Christ and another by Teaching and by working of Miracles to perswade and prepare men to live so as to be worthy of the Immortality Beleevers were to enjoy at such tiâ—…e as he should come in majesty to take possession of his Fathers Kingdome And therefore it is that the time of his preaching is often by himself called the Regeneration which is not properly a Kingdome and thereby a warrant to deny obedience to the Magistrates that then were for hee commanded to obey those that sate then in Moses chaire and to pay tribute to Caesar but onely an earnest of the Kingdome of God that was to come to those to whom God had given the grace to be his disciples and to beleeve in him For which cause the Godly are said to bee already in the Kingdome of Grace as naturalized in that heavenly Kingdome Hitherto therefore there is nothing done or taught by Christ that tendeth to the diminution of the Civill Right of the Jewes or of Caesar. For as touching the Common-wealth which then was amongst the Jews both they that bare rule amongst them
Romane Church pretend to be tormented now in Purgatory For God that could give a life to a peece of clay hath the same power to give life again to a dead man and renew his inanimate and rotten Carkasse into a glorious spirituall and immortall Body Another place is that of 1 Cor. 3. where it is said that they which built Stubble Hay c. on the true Foundation their work shall perish but they themselves shall be saved but as through Fire This Fire he will have to be the Fire of Purgatory The words as I have said before are an allusion to those of Zach. 13. 9. where he saith I will bring the third part through the Fire and refine them as Silver is refined and will try them as Gold is tryed Which is spoken of the comming of the Messiah in Power and Glory that is at the day of Judgment and Conflagration of the present world wherein the Elect shall not be consumed but be refined that is depose their erroneous Doctrines and Traditions and have them as it were sindged of and shall afterwards call upon the name of the true God In like manner the Apostle saith of them that holding this Foundation Iesus is the Christ shall build thereon some other Doctrines that be erroneous that they shall not be consumed in that fire which reneweth the world but shall passe through it to Salvation but so as to see and relinquish their former Errours The Builders are the Pastors the Foundation that Iesus is the Christ the Stubble and Hay False Consequences drawn from it through Ignorance or Frailty the Gold Silver and pretious Stones are their True Doctrines and their Refining or Purging the Relinquishing of their Errors In all which there is no colour at all for the burning of Incorporeall that is to say Impatible Souls A third place is that of 1 Cor. 15. before mentioned concerning Baptisme for the Dead out of which he concludeth first that Prayers for the Dead are not unprofitable and out of that that there is a Fire of Purgatory But neither of them rightly For of many interpretations of the word Baptisme he approveth this in the first place that by Baptisme is meant metaphorically a Baptisme of Penance and that men are in this sense Baptized when they Fast and Pray and give Almes And so Baptisme for the Dead and Prayer for the Dead is the same thing But this is a Metaphor of which there is no example neither in the Scripture nor in any other use of language and which is also discordant to the harmony and scope of the Scripture The word Baptisme is used Mar. 10. 38. Luk. 12. 50. for being Dipped in ones own bloud as Christ was upon the Cross and as most of the Apostles were for giving testimony of him But it is hard to say that Prayer Fasting and Almes have any similitude with Dipping The same is used also Mat. 3. 11. which seemeth to make somewhat for Purgatory for a Purging with Fire But it is evident the Fire and Purging here mentioned is the same whereof the Prophet Zachary speaketh chap. 13. v. 9. I will bring the third part through the Fire and will Refine them c. And St. Peter after him 1 Epist. 1. 7. That the triall of your Faith which is much more precious than of Gold that perisheth though it be tryed with Fire might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the Appearing of Iesus Christ And St. Paul 1 Cor. 3. 13. The Fire shall trie every mans work of what sort it is But St. Peter and St. Paul speak of the Fire that shall be at the Second Appearing of Christ and the Prophet Zachary of the Day of Judgment And therefore this place of S. Mat. may be interpreted of the same and then there will be no necessity of the Fire of Purgatory Another interpretation of Baptisme for the Dead is that which I have before mentioned which he preferreth to the second place of probability And thence also he inferreth the utility of Prayer for the Dead For if after the Resurrection such as have not heard of Christ or not beleeved in him may be received into Christs Kingdome it is not in vain after their death that their friends should pray for them till they should be risen But granting that God at the prayers of the faithfull may convert unto him some of those that have not heard Christ preached and consequently cannot have rejected Christ and that the charity of men in that point cannot be blamed yet this concludeth nothing for Purgatory because to rise from Death to Life is one thing to rise from Purgatory to Life is another as being a rising from Life to Life from a Life in torments to a Life in joy A fourth place is that of Mat. 5. 25. Agree with thine Adversary quickly whilest thou art in the way with him left at any time the Adversary deliver thee to the Iudge and the Iudge deliver thee to the Officer and thou be cast into prison Verily I say unto thee thou shalt by no means come out thence till thou hast paid the uttermost farthing In which Allegory the Offender is the Sinner both the Adversary and the Judge is God the Way is this Life the Prison is the Grave the Officer Death from which the sinner shall not rise again to life eternall but to a second Death till he have paid the utmost farthing or Christ pay it for him by his Passion which is a full Ransome for all manner of sin as well lesser sins as greater crimes both being made by the passion of Christ equally veniall The fift place is that of Matth. 5. 22. Whosoever is angry with his Brother without a cause shall be guilty in Iudgment And whosoever shall say to his Brother RACHA shall be guilty in the Councel But whosoever shall say Thou Foole shall be guilty to hell fire From which words he inferreth three sorts of Sins and three sorts of Punishments and that none of those sins but the last shall be punished with hell fire and consequently that after this life there is punishment of lesser sins in Purgatory Of which inference there is no colour in any interpretation that hath yet been given of them Shall there be a distinction after this life of Courts of Justice as there was amongst the Jews in our Saviours time to hear and determine divers sorts of Crimes as the Judges and the Councell Shall not all Judicature appertain to Christ and his Apostles To undersand therefore this text we are not to consider it solitarily but jointly with the words precedent and subsequent Our Saviour in this Chapter interpreteth the Law of Moses which the Jews thought was then fulfilled when they had not transgressed the Grammaticall sense thereof howsoever they had transgressed against the sentence or meaning of the Legislator Therefore whereas they thought the Sixth Commandement was not broken but by Killing a man nor the
the terrour of Death or other great corporall punishment it is not Idolatry For the Worship which the Soveraign commandeth to bee done unto himself by the terrour of his Laws is not a sign that he that obeyeth him does inwardly honour him as a God but that he is desirous to save himselfe from death or from a miserable life and that which is not a sign of internall honor is no Worship and therefore no Idolatry Neither can it bee said that hee that does it scandalizeth or layeth any stumbling block before his Brother because how wise or learned soever he be that worshippeth in that manner another man cannot from thence argue that he approveth it but that he doth it for fear and that it is not his act but the act of his Soveraign To worship God in some peculiar Place or turning a mans faâ—… towards an Image or determinate Place is not to worship or honor the Place or Image but to acknowledge it Holy that is to say to acknowledge the Image or the Place to be set apart from common use for that is the meaning of the word Holy which implies no new quality in the Place or Image but onely a new Relation by Appropriation to God and therefore is not Idolatry no more than it was Idolatry to worship God before the Brazen Serpent or for the Jews when they were out of their owne countrey to turn their faces when they prayed toward the Temple of Jerusalem or for Moses to put off his Shoes when he was before the Flaming Bush the ground appertaining to Mount Sinai which place God had chosen to appear in and to give his Laws to the People of Israel and was therefore Holy ground not by inhaerent sanctity but by separation to Gods use or for Christians to worship in the Churches which are once solemnly dedicated to God for that purpose by the Authority of the King or other true Representant of the Church But to worship God as inanimating or inhabiting such Image or place that is to say an infinite substance in a finite place is Idolatry for such finite Gods are but Idols of the brain nothing reall and are commonly called in the Scripture by the names of Vanity and Lyes and Nothing Also to worship God not as inanimating or present in the place or Image but to the end to be put in mind of him or of some works of his in case the Place or Image be dedicated or set up by private authority and not by the authority of them that are our Soveraign Pastors is Idolatry For the Commandement is Thou shalt not make to thy selfe any graven Image God commanded Moses to set up the Brazen Serpent hee did not make it to himselfe it was not therefore against the Commandement But the making of the Golden Calfe by Aaron and the People as being done without authority from God was Idolatry not onely because they held it for God but also because they made it for a Religious use without warrant either from God their Soveraign or from Moses that was his Lieutenant The Gentiles worshipped for Gods Jupiter and others that living were men perhaps that had done great and glorious Acts and for the Children of God divers men and women supposing them gotten between an Immortall Deity and a mortall man This was Idolatry because they made them so to themselves having no authority from God neither in his eternall Law of Reason nor in his positive and revealed Will. But though our Saviour was a man whom wee also beleeve to bee God Immortall and the Son of God yet this is no Idolatry because wee build not that beleef upon our own fancy or judgment but upon the Word of God revealed in the Scriptures And for the adoration of the Eucharist if the words of Christ This is my Body signifie that he himselfe and the seeming bread in his hand and not onely so but that all the seeming morsells of bread that have ever since been and any time hereafter shall bee consecrated by Priests bee so many Christs bodies and yet all of them but one body then is that no Idolatry because it is authorized by our Saviour but if that text doe not signifie that for there is no other that can be alledged for it then because it is a worship of humane institution it is Idolatry For it is not enough to say God can transubstantiate the Bread into Christs Body For the Gentiles also held God to be Omnipotent and might upon that ground no lesse excuse their Idolatry by pretending as well as others a transubstantiation of their Wood and Stone into God Almighty Whereas there be that pretend Divine Inâ—…piration to be a supernaturall entring of the Holy Ghost into a man and not an acquisition of Gods graces by doctrine and study I think they are in a very dangerous Dilemma For if they worship not the men whom they beleeve to be so inspired they fall into Impiety as not adoring Gods supernaturall Presence And again if they worship him they commit Idolatry for the Apostles would never permit themselves to be so worshipped Therefore the safest way is to beleeve that by the Descending of the Dove upon the Apostles and by Christs Breathing on them when hee gave them the Holy Ghost and by the giving of it by Iâ—…position of Hands are understood the signes which God hath been pleased to use or ordain to bee used of his promise to assist those persons in their study to Preach his Kingdome and in their Conversation that it might not be Scandalous but Edifying to others Besides the Idolatrous Worship of Images there is also a Scandalous Worship of them which is also a sin but not Idolatry For Idolatry is to worship by signes of an internall and reall honour but Scandalous Worship is but Seeming Worship and may sometimes bee joined with an inward and hearty detestation both of the Image and of the Phantasticall Daemon or Idol to which it is dedicated and proceed onely from the fear of death or other grievous punishment and is neverthelesse a sin in them that so worship in case they be men whose actions are looked at by others as lights to guide them by because following their ways they cannot but stumble and fall in the way of Religion Whereas the example of those we regard not works not on us at all but leaves us to our own diligence and caution and consequently are no causes of our falling If therefore a Pastor lawfully called to teach and direct others or any other of whose knowledge there is a great opinion doe externall honor to an Idol for fear unlesse he make his feare and unwillingnesse to it as evident as the worship he Scandalizeth his Brother by seeming to approve Idolatry For his Brother arguing from the action of his teacher or of him whose knowledge he esteemeth great concludes it to bee lawfull in it selfe And this Scandall is Sin and a Scandall given But