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
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
Egypt and in the New Testament the celebrating of the Lords Supper by which we are put in mind of our deliverance from the bondage of sin by our Blessed Saviours death upon the crosse The Sacraments of Admission are but once to be used because there needs but one Admission but because we have need of being often put in mind of our deliverance and of our Alleagance the Sacraments of Commemoration have need to be reiterated And these are the principall Sacraments and as it were the solemne oathes we make of our Alleageance There be also other Consecrations that may be called Sacraments as the word implyeth onely Consecration to Gods service but as it implies an oath or promise of Alleageance to God there were no other in the Old Testament but Circumcision and the Passeover nor are there any other in the New Testament but Baptisme and the Lords Supper CHAP. XXXVI Of the WORD OF GOD and of PROPHETS WHen there is mention of the VVord of God or of Man it doth not signifie a part of Speech such as Grammarians call a Nown or a Verb or any simple voice without a contexture with other words to make it significative but a perfect Speech or Discourse whereby the speaker affirmeth denieth commandeth promiseth threatneth wisheth or interrogateth In which sense it is not Vocabulum that signifies a Word but Sermo in Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is some Speech Discourse or Saying Again if we say the Word of God or of Man it may bee understood sometimes of the Speaker as the words that God hath spoken or that a Man hath spoken In which sense when we say the Gospel of St. Matthew we understand St. Matthew to be the Writer of it and sometimes of the Subject In which sense when we read in the Bible The words of the days of the Kings of Israel or Iudah 't is meant that the acts that were done in those days were the Subject of those Words And in the Greek which in the Scripture retaineth many Hebraismes by the Word of God is oftentimes meant not that which is spoken by God but concerning God and his government that is to say the Doctrine of Religion Insomuch as it is all one to say 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Theologia which is that Doctrine which wee usually call Divinity as is manifest by the places following Acts 13. 46. Then Paul and Barnabas waxed bold and said It was necessary that the Word of God should first have been spoken to you but seeing you put it from you and judge your selves unworthy of everiasting life loe we turn to the Gentiles That which is here called the Word of God was the Doctrine of Christian Religion as it appears evidently by that which goes before And Acts 5. 20. where it is said to the Apostles by an Angel Go stand and speak in the Temple all the VVords of this life by the Words of this life is meant the Doctrine of the Gospel as is evident by what they did in the Temple and is expressed in the last verse of the same Chap. Daily in the Temple and in every house they ceased not to teach and preach Christ Iesus In which place it is manifest that Jesus Christ was the subject of this Word of life or which is all one the subject of the VVords of this life eternall that our Saviour offered them So Acts 15. 7. the Word of God is called the Word of the Gospel because it containeth the Doctrine of the Kingdome of Christ and the same Word Rom. 10. 8 9. is called the Word of Faith that is as is there expressed the Doctrine of Christ come and raised from the dead Also Mat. 13. 19. VVhen any one heareth the VVord of the Kingdome that is the Doctrine of the Kingdome taught by Christ. Again the same Word is said Acts 12. 24. to grow and to be multiplyed which to understand of the Evangelicall Doctrine is easie but of the Voice or Speech of God hard and strange In the same sense the Doctrine of Devils signifieth not the Words of any Devill but the Doctrine of Heathen men concerning Daemons and those Phantasms which they worshipped as Gods Considering these two significations of the WORD OF GOD as it is taken in Scripture it is manifest in this later sense where it is taken for the Doctrine of Christian Religion that the whole Scripture is the Word of God but in the former sense not so For example though these words I am the Lord thy God c. to the end of the Ten Commandements were spoken by God to Moses yet the Preface God spake these words and said is to be understood for the Words of him that wrote the holy History The Word of God as it is taken for that which he hath spoken is understood sometimes Properly sometimes Metaphorically Properly as the words he hath spoken to his Prophets Metaphorically for his Wisdome Power and eternall Decree in making the world in which sense those Fiats Let their be light Let there be a firmament Let us make man c. Gen. 1. are the Word of God And in the same sense it is said Iohn 1. 3. All things were made by it and without it was nothing made that was made And Heb. 1. 3. He upholdeth all things by the VVord of his Power that is by the Power of his Word that is by his Power and Heb. 11. 3. The worlds were framed by the VVord of God and many other places to the same sense As also amongst the Latines the name of Fate which signifieth properly The word spoken is taken in the same sense Secondly for the effect of his Word that is to say for the thing it self which by his Word is Affirmed Commanded Threatned or Promised as Psalm 105. 19. where Joseph is said to have been kept in prison till his VVord was come that is till that was come to passe which he had Gen. 40. 13. foretold to Pharaohs Butler concerning his being restored to his office for there by his word was come is meant the thing it self was come to passe So also 1 King 18. 36. Elijah saith to God I have done all these thy VVords in stead of I have done all these things at thy Word or commandement and Ier. 17. 15. VVhere is the VVord of the Lord is put for VVhere is the Evill he threatned And Ezek. 12. 28. There shall none of my VVords be prolonged any more by words are understood those things which God promised to his people And in the New Testament Mat. 24. 35. heaven and earth shal pass away but my VVords shal not pass away that is there is nothing that I have promised or foretold that shall not come to passe And in this sâ—…nse it is that St. John the Evangelist and I think St. John onely calleth our Saviour himself as in the flesh the VVord of God as Ioh. 1. 14. the Word was made Flesh that is to
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.
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
any Coelum Empyreum or other aetheriall Region saving that it is called the Kingdome of Heaven which name it may have because God that was King of the Jews governed them by his commands sent to Moses by Angels from Heaven and after their revolt sent his Son from Heaven to reduce them to their obedience and shall send him thence again to rule both them and all other faithfull men from the day of Judgment Everlastingly or from that that the Throne of this our Great King is in Heaven whereas the Earth is but his Footstoole But that the Subjects of God should have any place as high as his Throne or higher than his Footstoole it seemeth not sutable to the dignity of a King nor can I find any evident text for it in holy Scripture From this that hath been said of the Kingdom of God and of Salvation it is not hard to interpret what is meant by the WORLD TO COME There are three worlds mentioned in Scripture the Old World the Present VVorld and the VVorld to come Of the first St. Peter speaks If God spared not the Old VVorld but saved Noah the eighth person a Preacher of righteousnesse bringing the flood upon the world of the ungodly c. So the first World was from Adam to the generall Flood Of the present World our Saviour speaks Iohn 18. 36. My Kingdome is not of this VVorld For he came onely to teach men the way of Salvation and to renew the Kingdome of his Father by his doctrine Of the World to come St. Peter speaks Neverthelesse we according to his promise look for new Heavens and a new Earth This is that WORLD wherein Christ coming down from Heaven in the clouds with great power and glory shall send his Angels and shall gather together his elect from the four winds and from the uttermost parts of the Earth and thence forth reign over them under his Father Everlastingly Salvation of a sinner suppposeth a precedent REDEMPTION for he that is once guilty of Sin is obnoxious to the Penalty of the same and must pay or some other for him such Ransome as he that is offended and has him in his power shall require And seeing the person offended is Almighty God in whose power are all things such Ransome is to be paid before Salvation can be acquired as God hath been pleased to require By this Ransome is not intended a satisfaction for Sin equivalent to the Offence which no sinner for himselfe nor righteous man can ever be able to make for another The dammage a man does to another he may make amends for by restitution or recompence but sin cannot be taken away by recompence for that were to make the liberty to sin a thing vendible But sins may bee pardoned to the repentant either gratis or upon such penalty as God is pleased to accept That which God usually accepted in the Old Testament was some Sacrifice or Oblation To forgive sin is not an act of Injustice though the punishment have been threatned Even amongst men though the promise of Good bind the promiser yet threats that is to say promises of Evill bind them not much lesse shall they bind God who is infinitely more mercifull then men Our Saviour Christ therefore to Redeem us did not in that sense satisfie for the Sins of men as that his Death of its own vertue could make it unjust in God to punish sinners with Eternall death but did make that Sacrifice and Oblation of himself at his first coming which God was pleased to require for the Salvation at his second coming of such as in the mean time should repent and beleeve in him And though this act of our Redemption be not alwaies in Scripture called a Sacrifice and Oblation but sometimes a Price yet by Price we are not to understand any thing by the value whereof he could claim right to a pardon for us from his offended Father but that Price which God the Father was pleased in mercy to demand CHAP. XXXIX Of the signification in Scripture of the word CHURCH THe word Church Ecclesia signifieth in the Books of Holy Scripture divers things Sometimes though not often it is taken for Gods House that is to say for a Temple wherein Christians assemble to perform holy duties publiquely as 1 Cor. 14. ver 34. Let your women keep silence in the Churches but this is Metaphorically put for the Congregation there assembled and hath been since used for the Edifice it self to distinguish between the Temples of Christians and Idolaters The Temple of Jerusalem was Gods house and the House of Prayer and so is any Edifice dedicated by Christians to the worship of Christ Christs house and therefore the Greek Fathers call it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Lords house and thence in our language it came to be called Kyrke and Church Church when not taken for a House signifieth the same that Ecclesia signified in the Grecian Common-wealths that is to say a Congregation or an Assembly of Citizens called forth to hear the Magistrate speak unto them and which in the Common-wealth of Rome was called Concio as he that spake was called Ecclesiastes and Concionator And when they were called forth by lawfull Authority it was Ecclesia legitima a Lawfull Church 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But when they were excited by tumultuous and seditious clamor then it was a confused Church 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is taken also sometimes for the men that have right to be of the Congregation though not actually assembled that is to say for the whole multitude of Christian men how far soever they be dispersed as Act. 8. 3. where it is said that Saul made havock of the Church And in this sense is Christ said to be Head of the Church And sometimes for a certain part of Christians as Col. 4. 15. Salute the Church that is in his house Sometimes also for the Elect onely as Ephes. 5. 27. A Glorious Church without spot or wrinkle holy and without blemâ—…sh which is meant of the Church triumphant or Church to come Sometimes for a Congregation assembled of professors of Christianity whether their profession be true or counterfeit as it is understood Mat. 18. 17. where it is said Tell it to the Church and if hee neglect to hear the Church let him be to thee as a Gentile or Publican And in this last sense only it is that the Church can be taken for one Person that is to say that it can be said to have power to will to pronounce to command to be obeyed to make laws or to doe any other action whatsoever For without authority from a lawfull Congregation whatsoever act be done in a concourse of people it is the particular act of every one of those that were present and gave their aid to the performance of it and not the act of them all in grosse as of one body much lesse the act
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
first that of Luke 22. 31. Simon Simon Satan hath desired you that hee may sist you as wheat but I have prayed for thee that thy faith faile not and when thou art converted strengthen thy thy Brethren This according to Bellarmines exposition is that Christ gave here to Simon Peter two priviledges one that neither his Faith should fail nor the Faith of any of his successors the other that neither he nor any of his successors should ever define any point concerning Faith or Manners erroneously or contrary to the definition of a former Pope Which is a strange and very much strained interpretation But he that with attention readeth that chapter shall find there is no place in the whole Scripture that maketh more against the Popes Authority than this very place The Priests and Scribes seeking to kill our Saviour at the Passeover and Judas possessed with a resolution to betray him and the day of killing the Passeover being come our Saviour celebrated the same with his Apostles which he said till the Kingdome of God was come hee would doe no more and withall told them that one of them was to betray him Hereupon they questioned which of them it should be and withall seeing the next Passeover their Master would celebrate should be when he was King entred into a contention who should then be the greatest man Our Saviour therefore told them that the Kings of the Nations had Dominion over their Subjects and are called by a name in Hebrew that signifies Bountifull but I cannot be so to you you must endeavour to serve one another I ordain you a Kingdome but it is such as my Father hath ordained mee a Kingdome that I am now to purchase with my blood and not to possesse till my second coming then yee shall eat and drink at my Table and sit on Thrones judging the twelve Tribes of Israel And then addressing himself to St. Peter he saith Simon Simon Satan seeks by suggesting a present domination to weaken your faith of the future but I have prayed for thee that thy faith shall not fail Thou therefore Note this being converted and understanding my Kingdome as of another world confirm the same faith in thy Brethren To which S. Peter answered as one that no more expected any authority in this world Lord I am ready to goe with thee not onely to Prison but to Death Whereby it is manifest S. Peter had not onely no jurisdiction given him in this world but a charge to teach all the other Apostles that they also should have none And for the Infallibility of St. Peters sentence definitive in matter of Faith there is no more to be attributed to it out of this Text than that Peter should continue in the beleef of this point namely that Christ should come again and possesse the Kingdome at the day of Judgement which was not given by this Text to all his Successors for wee see they claime it in the World that now is The second place is that of Matth. 16. Thou art Peter and upon this rocke I will build my Church and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it By which as I have already shewn in this chapter is proved no more than that the gates of Hell shall not prevail against the confession of Peter which gave occasion to that speech namely this that Iesus is Christ the Sonne of God The third Text is Iohn 21. ver 16 17. Feed my sheep which contains no more but a Commission of Teaching And if we grant the rest of the Apostles to be contained in that name of Sheep then it is the supreme Power of Teaching but it was onely for the time that there were no Christian Soveraigns already possessed of that Supremacy But I have already proved that Christian Soveraignes are in their owne Dominions the supreme Pastors and instituted thereto by vertue of their being Baptized though without other Imposition of Hands For such Imposition being a Ceremony of designing the person is needlesse when hee is already designed to the Power of Teaching what Doctrine he will by his institution to an Absolute Power over his Subjects For as I have proved before Soveraigns are supreme Teachers in generall by their Office and therefore oblige themselves by their Baptisme to teach the Doctrine of Christ And when they suffer others to teach their people they doe it at the perill of their own souls for it is at the hands of the Heads of Families that God will require the account of the instruction of his Children and Servants It is of Abraham himself not of a hireling that God saith Gen. 18. 19. I know him that he will command his Children and his houshold after him that they keep the way of the Lord and do justice and judgement The fourth place is that of Exod. 28. 30. Thou shalt put in the Breastplate of Iudgment the Vrim and the Thummin which hee saith is interpreted by the Septuagint 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is Evidence and Truth And thence concludeth God had given Evidence and Truth which is almost Infallibility to the High Priest But be it Evidence and Truth it selfe that was given or be it but Admonition to the Priest to endeavour to inform himself cleerly and give judgment uprightly yet in that it was given to the High Priest it was given to the Civill Soveraign For such next under God was the High Priest in the the Common-wealth of Israel and is an argument for Evidence and Truth that is for the Ecclesiasticall Supremacy of Civill Soveraigns over their own Subjects against the pretended Power of the Pope These are all the Texts hee bringeth for the Infallibility of the Judgement of the Pope in point of Faith For the Infallibility of his Judgment concerning Manners hee bringeth one Text which is that of Iohn 16. 13. When the Spirit of truth is come hee will lead you into all truth where saith he by all truth is meant at least all truth necessary to salvation But with this mitigation he attributeth no more Infallibility to the Pope than to any man that professeth Christianity and is not to be damned For if any man 〈◊〉 in any point wherein not to erre is necessary to Salvation it is impossible he should be saved for that onely is necessary to Salvation without which to be saved is impossible What points these are I shall declare out of the Scripture in the Chapter following In this place I say no more but that though it were granted the Pope could not possibly teach any error at all yet doth not this entitle him to any Jurisdiction in the Dominions of another Prince unlesse we shall also say a man is obliged in conscience to set on work upon all occasions the best workman even then also when he hath formerly promised his work to another Besides the Text he argueth from Reason thus If the Pope could erre in necessaries then Christ hath not sufficiently provided
for the Churches Salvation because he hath commanded her to follow the Popes directions But this Reason is invalid unlesse he shew when and where Christ commanded that or took at all any notice of a Pope Nay granting whatsoever was given to S. Peter was given to the Pope yet seeing there is in the Scripture no command to any man to obey St. Peter no man can bee just that obeyeth him when his commands are contrary to those of his lawfull Soveraign Lastly it hath not been declared by the Church nor by the Pope himselfe that he is the Civill Soveraign of all the Christians in the world and therefore all Christians are not bound to acknowledge his Jurisdiction in point of Manners For the Civill Soveraignty and supreme Judicature in controversies of Manners are the same thing And the Makers of Civill Laws are not onely Declarers but also Makers of the justice and injustice of actions there being nothing in mens Manners that makes them righteous or unrighteous but their conformity with the Law of the Soveraign And therefore when the Pope challengeth Supremacy in controversies of Manners hee teacheth men to disobey the Civill Soveraign which is an erroneous Doctrine contrary to the many precepts of our Saviour and his Apostles delivered to us in the Scripture To prove the Pope has Power to make Laws he alledgeth many places as first Deut. 17. 12. The man that will doe presumptuously and will not he arken unto the Priest that standeth to Minister there before the Lord thy God or unto the Iudge even that man shall die and thou shalt put away the evill from Israel For answer whereunto we are to remember that the High Priest next and immediately under God was the Civill Soveraign and all Judges were to be constituted by him The words alledged sound therefore thus The man that will presume to disobey the Civill Soveraign for the time being or any of his Officers in the execution of their places that man shall die c. which is cleerly for the Civill Soveraignty against the Universall power of the Pope Secondly he alledgeth that of Matth. 16. Whatsoever yee shall bind c. and interpreteth it for such binding as is attributed Matth. 23. 4. to the Scribes and Pharisees They bind heavy burthens and grievous to be born and lay them on mens shoulders by which is meant he sayes Making of Laws and concludes thence that the Pope can make Laws But this also maketh onely for the Legislative power of Civill Soveraigns For the Scribes and Pharisees sat in Moses Chaire but Moses next under God was Soveraign of the People of Israel and therefore our Saviour commanded them to doe all that they should say but not all that they should do That is to obey their Laws but not follow their Example The third place is Iohn 21. 16. Feed my sheep which is not a Power to make Laws but a command to Teach Making Laws belongs to the Lord of the Family who by his owne discretion chooseth his Chaplain as also a Schoolmaster to Teach his children The fourth place Iohn 20. 21. is against him The words are As my Father sent me so send I you But our Saviour was sent to Redeeem by his Death such as should Beleeve and by his own and his Apostles preaching to prepare them for their entrance into his Kingdome which he himself saith is not of this world and hath taught us to pray for the coming of it hereafter though hee refused Acts 1. 6 7. to tell his Apostles when it should come and in which when it comes the twelve Apostles shall sit on twelve Thrones every one perhaps as high as that of St. Peter to judge the twelve tribes of Israel Seeing then God the Father sent not our Saviour to make Laws in this present world wee may conclude from the Text that neither did our Saviour send S. Peter to make Laws here but to perswade men to expect his second comming with a stedfast faith and in the mean time if Subjects to obey their Princes and if Princes both to beleeve it themselves and to do their best to make their Subjects doe the same which is the Office of a Bishop Therefore this place maketh most strongly for the joining of the Ecclesiasticall Supremacy to the Civill Soveraignty contrary to that which Cardinall Bellarmine alledgeth it for The fift place is Acts 15. 28. It hath seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary things that yee abstain from meats offered to Idoles and from bloud and from things strangled and from fornication Here hee notes the word Laying of burdens for the Legislative Power But who is there that reading this Text can say this stile of the Apostles may not as properly be used in giving Counsell as in making Laws The stile of a Law is VVe command But VVe think good is the ordinary stile of them that but give Advice and they lay a Burthen that give Advice though it bee conditionall that is if they to whom they give it will attain their ends And such is the Burthen of abstaining from things strangled and from bloud not absolute but in case they will not erre I have shewn before chap. 25. that Law is distinguished from Counsell in this that the reason of a Law is taken from the designe and benefit of him that prescribeth it but the reason of a Counsell from the designe and benefit of him to whom the Counsell is given But here the Apostles aime onely at the benefit of the converted Gentiles namely their Salvation not at their own benefit for having done their endeavour they shall have their reward whether they be obeyed or not And therefore the Acts of this Councell were not Laws but Counsells The sixt place is that of Rom. 13. Let every Soul be subject to the Higher Powers for there is no Power but of God which is meant he saith not onely of Secular but also of Ecclesiasticall Princes To which I answer first that there are no Ecclesiasticall Princes but those that are also Civill Soveraignes and their Principalities exceed not the compasse of their Civill Soveraignty without those bounds though they may be received for Doctors they cannot be acknowledged for Princes For if the Apostle had meant we should be subject both to our own Princes and also to the Pope he had taught us a doctrine which Christ himself hath told us is impossible namely to serve two Masters And though the Apostle say in another place I write these things being absent lest being present I should use sharpnesse according to the Power which the Lord hath given me it is not that he challenged a Power either to put to death imprison banish whip or fine any of them which are Punishments but onely to Excommunicate which without the Civill Power is no more but a leaving of their company and having no more to doe with them than
other Pastors are bidden to esteem those Christians that disobey the Church that is that disobey the Christian Soveraigne as Heathen men and as Publicans Seeing then men challenge to the Pope no authority over Heathen Princes they ought to challenge none over those that are to bee esteemed as Heathen But from the Power to Teach onely hee inferreth also a Coercive Power in the Pope over Kings The Pastor saith he must give his flock convenient food Therefore the Pope may and ought to compell Kings to doe their duty Out of which it followeth that the Pope as Pastor of Christian men is King of Kings which all Christian Kings ought indeed either to Confesse or else they ought to take upon themselves the Supreme Pastorall Charge every one in his own Dominion His sixth and last Argument is from Examples To which I answer first that Examples prove nothing Secondly that the Examples he alledgeth make not so much as a probability of Right The fact of Jehoiada in Killing Athaliah 2 Kings 11. was either by the Authority of King Joash or it was a horrible Crime in the High Priest which ever after the election of King Saul was a mere Subject The fact of St. Ambrose in Excommunicating Theodosius the Emperour if it were true hee did so was a Capitall Crime And for the Popes Gregory 1. Greg. 2. Zachary and Leo 3. their Judgments are void as given in their own Cause and the Acts done by them conformably to this Doctrine are the greatest Crimes especially that of Zachary that are incident to Humane Nature And thus much of Power Ecclesiasticall wherein I had been more briefe forbearing to examine these Arguments of Bellarmine if they had been his as a Private man and not as the Champion of the Papacy against all other Christian Princes and States CHAP. XLIII Of what is NECESSARY for a Mans Reception into the Kingdome of Heaven THe most frequent praetext of Sedition and Civill Warre in Christian Common-wealths hath a long time proceeded from a difficulty not yet sufficiently resolved of obeying at once both God and Man then when their Commandements are one contrary to the other It is manifest enough that when a man receiveth two contrary Commands and knows that one of them is Gods he ought to obey that and not the other though it be the command even of his lawfull Soveraign whether a Monarch or or a soveraign Assembly or the command of his Father The difficulty therefore consisteth in this that men when they are commanded in the name of God know not in divers Cases whether the command be from God or whether he that commandeth doe but abuse Gods name for some private ends of his own For as there were in the Church of the Jews many false Prophets that sought reputation with the people by feigned Dreams and Visions so there have been in all times in the Church of Christ false Teachers that seek reputation with the people by phantasticall and false Doctrines and by such reputation as is the nature of Ambition to govern them for their private benefit But this difficulty of obeying both God and the Civill Soveraign on earth to those that can distinguish between what is Necessary and what is not Necessary for their Reception into the Kingdome of God is of no moment For if the command of the Civill Soveraign bee such as that it may be obeyed without the forfeiture of life Eternall not to obey it is unjust and the precept of the Apostle takes place Servants obey your Masters in all things and Children obey your Parents in all things and the precept of our Saviour The Scribes and Pharisees sit in Moses Chaire All therefore they shall say that observe and doe But if the command be such as cannot be obeyed without being damned to Eternall Death then it were madnesse to obey it and the Counsell of our Saviour takes place Mat. 10. 28. Fear not those that kill the body but cannot kill the soule All men therefore that would avoid both the punishments that are to be in this world inflicted for disobedience to their earthly Soveraign and those that shall be inflicted in the world to come for disobedience to God have need be taught to distinguish well between what is and what is not Necessary to Eternall Salvation All that is NECESSARY to Salvatian is contained in two Vertues Faith in Christ and Obedience to Laws The latter of these if it were perfect were enough to us But because wee are all guilty of disobedience to Gods Law not onely originally in Adam but also actually by our own transgressions there is required at our hands now not onely Obedience for the rest of our time but also a Remission of sins for the time past which Remission is the reward of our Faith in Christ. That nothing else is Necessarily required to Salvation is manifest from this that the Kingdome of Heaven is shut to none but to Sinners that is to say to the disobedient or transgressors of the Law nor to them in case they Repent and Beleeve all the Articles of Christian Faith Necessary to Salvation The Obedience required at our hands by God that accepteth in all our actions the Will for the Deed is a serious Endeavour to Obey him and is called also by all such names as signifie that Endeavour And therefore Obedience is sometimes called by the names of Charity and Love because they imply a Will to Obey and our Saviour himself maketh our Love to God and to one another a Fulfilling of the whole Law and sometimes by the name of Righteousnesse for Righteousnesse is but the will to give to every one his owne that is to say the will to obey the Laws and sometimes by the name of Repentance because to Repent implyeth a turning away from finne which is the same with the return of the will to Obedience Whosoever therefore unfeignedly desireth to fulfill the Commandements of God or repenteth him truely of his transgressions or that loveth God with all his heart and his neighbor as himself hath all the Obedience Necessary to his Reception into the Kingdom of God For if God should require perfect Innocence there could no flesh be saved But what Commandements are those that God hath given us Are all those Laws which were given to the Jews by the hand of Moses the Commandements of God If they bee why are not Christians taught to Obey them If they be not what others are so besides the Law of Nature For our Saviour Christ hath not given us new Laws but Counsell to observe those wee are subject to that is to say the Laws of Nature and the Laws of our severall Soveraigns Nor did he make any new Law to the Jews in his Sermon on the Mouut but onely expounded the Laws of Moses to which they were subject before The Laws of God therefore are none but the Laws of Nature whereof the principall is that we
single Texts without considering the main Designe can derive no thing from them cleerly but rather by casting atomes of Scripture as dust before mens eyes make every thing more obscure than it is an ordinary artifice of those that seek not the truth but their own advantage OF THE KINGDOME OF DARKNESSE CHAP. XLIV Of Spirituall Darknesse from MISINTERPRETATION of Scripture BEsides these Soveraign Powers Divine and Humane of which I have hitherto discoursed there is mention in Scripture of another Power namely that of the Rulers of the Darknesse of this world the Kingdome of Sâ—…tan and the Princpality of 〈◊〉 over Daemons that is to say over Phantasmes that appear in the Air For which cause Satan is also called the Prince of the Power of the Air and because he ruleth in the darknesse of this world The Prince of this world And in consequence hereunto they who are under his Dominion in opposition to the faithfull who are the Children of the Light are called the Children of Darknesse For seeing Beelzebub is Prince of Phantasmes Inhabitants of his Dominion of Air and Darknesse the Children of Darknesse and these Daemons Phantasmes or Spirits of Illusion signifie allegorically the same thing This considered the Kingdome of Darknesse as it is set forth in these and other places of the Scripture is nothing else but a Confederacy of Deceâ—…vers that to obtain doâ—… over men in this present world endeavour by dark and erroneons Doctrines to extinguish in them the Light both of Nature and of the Gospell and so to dis-prepare them for the Kingdome of God to coâ—… As men that are utterly deprived from their Nativity of the light of the bodily Eye have no Idea at all of any such light and no man conceives in his imagination any greater light than he hath at some time or other perceived by his outward Senses so also is it of the light of the Gospel and of the light of the Understanding that no man can conceive there is any greater degree of it than that which he hath already attained unto And from hence it comes to passe that men have no other means to acknowledge their owne Darknesse but onely by reasoning from the un-foreseen mischances that befall them in their ways The Darkest part of the Kingdom of Satan is that which is without the Church of God that is to say amongst them that beleeve not in Jesus Christ. But we cannot say that therefore the Church enjoyeth as the land of Goshen all the light which to the performance of the work enjoined us by God is necessary Whence comes it that in Christendome there has been almost from the time of the Apostles such justling of one another out of their places both by forraign and Civill war such stumbling at every little asperity of their own fortune and every little eminence of that of other men and such diversity of ways in running to the same mark Felicity if it be not Night amongst us or at least a Mist wee are therefore yet in the Dark The Enemy has been here in the Night of our naturall Ignorance and sown the tares of Spirituall Errors and that First by abusing and putting out the light of the Scriptures For we erre not knowing the Scriptures Secondly by introducing the Daemonology of the Heathen Poets that is to say their fabulous Doctrine concerning Daemons which are but Idols or Phantasms of the braine without any reall nature of their own distinct from humane fancy such as are dead mens Ghosts and Fairies and other matter of old Wives tales Thirdly by mixing with the Scripture divers reliques of the Religion and much of the vain and erroneous Philosophy of the Greeks especially of Aristotle Fourthly by mingling with both these false or uncertain Traditions and fained or uncertain History And so we come to erre by giving heed to seducing Spirits and the Daemonology of such as speak lies in Hypocrisie or as it is in the Originall 1 Tim. 4. 1 2. of those that play the part of lyars with a seared conscience that is contrary to their own knowledge Concerning the first of these which is the Seducing of men by abuse of Scripture I intend to speak briefly in this Chapter The greatest and main abuse of Scripture and to which almost all the rest are either consequent or subservient is the wresting of it to prove that the Kingdome of God mentioned so often in the Scripture is the present Church or multitude of Christian men now living or that being dead are to rise again at the last day whereas the Kingdome of God was first instituted by the Ministery of Moses over the Jews onely who were therefore called his Peculiar People and ceased afterward in the election of Saul when they refused to be governed by God any more and demanded a King after the manner of the nations which God himself consented unto as I have more at large proved before in the 35. Chapter After that time there was no other Kingdome of God in the world by any Pact or otherwise than he ever was is and shall be King of all men and of all creatures as governing according to his Will by his infinite Power Neverthelesse he promised by his Prophets to restore this his Government to them again when the time he hath in his secret counsell appointed for it shall bee fully come and when they shall turn unto him by repentance and amendment of life and not onely so but he invited also the Gentiles to come in and enjoy the happinesse of his Reign on the same conditions of conversion and repentance and hee promised also to send his Son into the world to expiate the sins of them all by his death and to prepare them by his Doctrine to receive him at his second coming Which second coming not yet being the Kingdome of God is not yet come and wee are not now under any other Kings by Pact but our Civill Soveraigns saving onely that Christian men are already in the Kingdome of Grace in as much as they have already the Promise of being received at his comming againe Consequent to this Errour that the present Church is Christs Kingdome there ought to be some one Man or Assembly by whose mouth our Saviour now in heaven speaketh giveth law and which representeth his Person to all Christians or divers Men or divers Assemblies that doe the same to divers parts of Christendome This power Regal under Christ being challenged universally by the Pope and in particular Common-wealths by Assemblies of the Pastors of the place when the Scripture gives it to none but to Civill Soveraigns comes to be so passionately disputed that it putteth out the Light of Nature and causeth so great a Darknesse in mens understanding that they see not who it is to whom they have engaged their obedience Consequent to this claim of the Pope to Vicar Generall of Christ in the present
of them if there had appeared in their Rods nothing like a Serpent and in the Water enchanted nothing like Bloud nor like any thing else but Water but that they had faced down the King that they were Serpents that looked like Rods and that it was Bloud that seemed Water That had been both Enchantment and Lying And yet in this daily act of the Priest they doe the very same by turning the holy words into the manner of a Charme which produceth nothing new to the Sense but they face us down that it hath turned the Bread into a Man nay more into a God and require men to worship it as if it were our Saviour himself present God and Man and thereby to commit most grosse Idolatry For if it bee enough to excuse it of Idolatry to say it is no more Bread but God why should not the same excuse serve the Egyptians in case they had the faces to say the Leeks and Onyons they worshipped were not very Leeks and Onyons but a Divinity under their species or likenesse The words This is my Body are aequivalent to these This signifies or represents my Body and it is an ordinary figure of Speech but to take it literally is an abuse nor though so taken can it extend any further than to the Bread which Christ himself with his own hands Consecrated For hee never said that of what Bread soever any Priest whatsoever should say This is my Body or This is Christs Body the same should presently be transubstantiated Nor did the Church of Rome ever establish this Transubstantiation till the time of Innocent the third which was not above 500. years agoe when the Power of Popes was at the Highest and the Darknesse of the time grown so great as men discerned not the Bread that was given them to eat especially when it was stamped with the figure of Christ upon the Crosse as if they would have men beleeve it were Transubstantiated not onely into the Body of Christ but also into the Wood of his Crosse and that they did eat both together in the Sacrament The like Incantation in stead of Consecration is used also in the Sacrament of Baptisme Where the abuse of Gods name in each severall Person and in the whole Trinity with the sign of the Crosse at each name maketh up the Charm As first when they make the Holy water the Priest saith I Conjure thee thou Creature of Water in the name of God the Father Almighty and in the name of Iesus Christ his onely Son our Lord and in vertue of the Holy Ghost that thou become Conjured water to drive away all the Powers of the Enemy and to eradicate and supplant the Enemy c. And the same in the Benediction of the Salt to be mingled with it That thou become Conjured Salt that all Phantasmes and Knavery of the Devills fraud may fly and depart from the place wherein thou art sprinkled and every unclean Spirit bee Conjured by Him that shall come to judg the quicke and the dead The same in the Benediction of the Oyle That all the Power of the Enemy all the Host of the Devill all Assaults and Phantasmes of Satan may be driven away by this Creature of Oyle And for the Infant that is to be Baptized he is subject to many Charms First at the Church dore the Priest blows thrice in the Childs face and sayes Goe out of him unclean Spirit and give place to the Holy Ghost the Comforter As if all Children till blown on by the Priest were Daemoniaques Again before his entrance into the Church he saith as before I Conjure thee c. to goe out and depart from this Servant of God And again the same Exorcisme is repeated once more before he be Baptized These and some other Incantations are those that are used in stead of Benedictions and Consecrations in administration of the Sacraments of Baptisme and the Lords Supper wherein every thing that serveth to those holy uses except the unhallowed Spittle of the Priest hath some set form of Exorcisme Nor are the other rites as of Marriage of Extreme Unction of Visitation of the Sick of Consecrating Churches and Church-yards and the like exempt from Charms in as much as there is in them the use of Enchanted Oyle and Water with the abuse of the Crosse and of the holy word of David Asperges me Domine Hyssopo as things of efficacy to drive away Phantasmes and Imaginary Spirits Another generall Error is from the Misinterpretation of the words Eternall Life Everlasting Death and the Second Death For though we read plainly in holy Scripture that God created Adam in an estate of Living for Ever which was conditionall that is to say if he disobeyed not his Commandement which was not essentiall to Humane Nature but consequent to the vertue of the Tree of Life whereof hee had liberty to eat as long as hee had not sinned and that hee was thrust out of Paradise after he had sinned lest hee should eate thereof and live for ever and that Christs Passion is a Discharge of sin to all that beleeve on him and by consequence a restitution of Eternall Life to all the Faithfull and to them onely yet the Doctrine is now and hath been a long time far otherwise namely that every man hath Eternity of Life by Nature in as much as his Soul is Immortall So that the flaming Sword at the entrance of Paradise though it hinder a man from coming to the Tree of Life hinders him not from the Immortality which God took from him for his Sin nor makes him to need the sacrificing of Christ for the recovering of the same and consequently not onely the faithfull and righteous but also the wicked and the Heathen shall enjoy Eternall Life without any Death at all much lesse a Second and Everlasting Death To salve this it is said that by Second and Everlasting Death is meant a Second and Everlasting Life but in Torments a Figure never used but in this very Case All which Doctrine is founded onely on some of the obscurer places of the New Testament which neverthelesse the whole scope of the Scripture considered are cleer enough in a different sense and unnecessary to the Christian Faith For supposing that when a man dies there remaineth nothing of him but his carkasse cannot God that raised inanimated dust and clay into a living creature by his Word as easily raise a dead carkasse to life again and continue him alive for Ever or make him die again by another Word The Soule in Scripture signifieth alwaies either the Life or the Living Creature and the Body and Soule jointly the Body alive In the fift day of the Creation God said Let the waters produce Reptile animae viventis the creeping thing that hath in it a Living Soule the English translate it that hath Life And again God created Whales omnem animam viventem which in the English is
every Living Creature And likewise of Man God made him of the dust of the earth and breathed in his face the breath of Life factus est Homo in animam viventem that is and Man was made a Living Creature And after Noah came out of the Arke God saith hee will no more smite omnem animam viventem that is every Living Creature And Deut. 12. 23. Eate not the Bloud for the Bloud is the Soule that is the Life From which places if by Soule were meant a Substance Incorporeall with an existence separated from the Body it might as well be inferred of any other living Creature as of Man But that the Souls of the Faithfull are not of theirown Nature but by Gods speciall Grace to remaine in their Bodies from the Resurrection to all Eternity I have already I think sufficiently proved out of the Scriptures in the 38. Chapter And for the places of the New Testament where it is said that any man shall be cast Body and Soul into Hell fire it is no more than Body and Life that is to say they shall be cast alive into the perpetuall fire of Gehenna This window it is that gives entrance to the Dark Doctrine first of Eternall Torments and afterwards of Purgatory and consequently of the walking abroad especially in places Consecrated Solitary or Dark of the Ghosts of men deceased and thereby to the pretences of Exorcisme and Conjuration of Phantasmes as also of Invocation of men dead and to the Doctrine of Indulgences that is to say of exemption for a time or for ever from the fire of Purgatory wherein these Incorporeall Substances are pretended by burning to be cleansed and made fit for Heaven For men being generally possessed before the time of our Saviour by contagion of the Daemonology of the Greeks of an opinion that the Souls of men were substances distinct from their Bodies and therefore that when the Body was dead the Soulâ—… of every man whether godly or wicked must subsist somewhere by vertue of its own nature without acknowledging therein any supernaturall gift of Gods the Doctors of the Church doubted a long time what was the place which they were to abide in till they should be re-united to their Bodies in the Resurrection supposing for a while they lay under the Altars but afterward the Church of Rome found it more profitable to build for them this place of Purgatory which by some other Churches in this later age has been demolished Let us now consider what texts of Scripture seem most to confirm these three generall Errors I have here touched As for those which Cardinall Bellarmine hath alledged for the present Kingdome of God administred by the Pope than which there are none that make a better shew of proof I have already answered them and made it evident that the Kingdome of God instituted by Moses ended in the election of Saul After which time the Priest of his own authority never deposed any King That which the High Priest did to Athaliah was not done in his owne right but in the right of the young King Joash her Son But Solomon in his own right deposed the High Priest Abiathar and set up another in his place The most difficult place to answer of all those that can be brought to prove the Kingdome of God by Christ is already in this world is alledged not by Bellarmine nor any other of the Church of Rome but by Beza that will have it to begin from the Resurrection of Christ. But whether hee intend thereby to entitle the Presbytery to the Supreme Power Ecclesiasticall in the Common-wealth of Geneva and consequently to every Presbytery in every other Common-wealth or to Princes and other Civill Soveraigns I doe not know For the Presbytery hath challenged the power to Excomunicate their owne Kings and to bee the Supreme Moderators in Religion in the places where they have that form of Church government no lesse then the Pope callengeth it universally The words are Marke 9. 1. Verily I say unto you that there be some of them that stand here which shall not tast of death till they have seene the Kingdome of God come with power Which words if taken grammatically make it certaine that either some of those men that stood by Christ at that time are yet alive or else that the Kingdome of God must be now in this present world And then there is another place more difficult For when the Apostles after our Saviours Resurrection and immediately before his Ascension asked our Saviour saying Acts 1. 6. Wilt thou at this time restore again the Kingdome to Israel he answered them It is not for you to know the times and the seasons which the Father hath put in his own power But ye shall receive power by the comming of the Holy Ghost upon you and yee shall be my Martyrs witnesses both in Ierusalem in all Iudaea and in Samaria and unto the uttermost part of the Earth Which is as much as to say My Kingdome is not yet come nor shall you foreknow when it shall come for it shall come as a theefe in the night But I will send you the Holy Ghost and by him you shall have power to beare witnesse to all the world by your preaching of my Resurrection and the workes I have done and the doctrine I have taught that they may beleeve in me and expect eternall life at my comming againe How does this agree with the comming of Christs Kingdome at the Resurrection And that which St. Paul saies 1 Thessal 1. 9 10. That they turned from Idols to serve the living and true God and to waite for his Sonne from Heaven Where to waite for his Sonne from Heaven is to wait for his comming to be King in power which were not necessary if his Kingdome had beene then present Againe if the Kingdome of God began as Beza on that place Mark 9. 1. would have it at the Resurrection what reason is there for Christians ever since the Resurrection to say in their prayers Let thy Kingdome Come It is therefore manifest that the words of St. Mark are not so to be interpreted There be some of them that stand here saith our Saviour that shall not tast of death till they have seen the Kingdome of God come in power If then this Kingdome were to come at the Resurrection of Christ why is it said some of them rather than all For they all lived till after Christ was risen But they that require an exact interpretation of this text let them interpret first the like words of our Saviour to St. Peter concerning St. John chap. 21. 22. If I will that he tarry till I come what is that to thee upon which was grounded a report that hee should not dye Neverthelesse the truth of that report was neither confirmed as well grounded nor refuted as ill grounded on those words but left as a saying not understood
on the contrary what interpretation shall we give besides the literall sense of the words of Solomon Eccles. 3. 19. That which befalleth the Sons of Men befalleth Beasts even one thing befalleth them as the one dyeth so doth the other yea they have all one breath one spirit so that a Man hath no praeeminence above a Beast for all is vanity By the literall sense here is no Naturall Immortality of the Soule nor yet any repugnancy with the Life Eternall which the Elect shall enjoy by Grace And chap. 4. ver 3. Better is he that hath not yet been than both they that is than they that live or have lived which if the Soule of all them that have lived were Immortall were a hard saying for then to have an Immortall Soule were worse than to have no Soule at all And againe Chapt. 9. 5. The living know they shall die but the dead know not any thing that is Naturally and before the resurrection of the body Another place which seems to make for a Naturall Immortality of the Soule is that where our Saviour saith that Abraham Isaac and Jacob are living but this is spoken of the promise of God and of their certitude to rise again not of a Life then actuall and in the same sense that God said to Adam that on the day hee should eate of the forbidden fruit he should certainly die from that time forward he was a dead man by sentence but not by execution till almost a thousand years after So Abraham Isaac and Jacob were alive by promise then when Christ spake but are not actually till the Resurrection And the History of Dives and Lazarus make nothing against this if wee take it as it is for a Parable But there be other places of the New Testament where an Immortality seemeth to be directly attributed to the wicked For it is evident that they shall all rise to Judgement And it is said besides in many places that they shall goe into Everlasting fire Everlasting torments Everlasting punishments and that the worm of conscience never dyeth and all this is comprehended in the word Everlasting Death which is ordinarily interpreted Everlasting Life in torments And yet I can find no where that any man shall live in torments Everlastingly Also it seemeth hard to say that God who is the Father of Mercies that doth in Heaven and Earth all that hee will that hath the hearts of all men in his disposing that worketh in men both to doe and to will and without whose free gift a man hath neither inclination to good nor repentance of evill should punish mens transgressions without any end of time and with all the extremity of torture that men can imagine and more We are therefore to consider what the meaning is of Everlasting Fire and other the like phrases of Scripture I have shewed already that the Kingdome of God by Christ beginneth at the day of Judgment That in that day the Faithfull shall rise again with glorious and spirituall Bodies and bee his Subjects in that his Kingdome which shall be Eternall That they shall neither marry nor be given in marriage nor eate and drink as they did in their naturall bodies but live for ever in their individuall persons without the specificall eternity of generation And that the Reprobates also shall rise again to receive punishments for their sins As also that those of the Elect which shall be alive in their earthly bodies at that day shall have their bodies suddenly changed and made spirituall and Immortall But that the bodies of the Reprobate who make the Kingdome of Satan shall also be glorious or spirituall bodies or that they shall bee as the Angels of God neither eating nor drinking nor engendring or that their life shall be Eternall in their individuall persons as the life of every faithfull man is or as the life of Adam had been if hee had not sinned there is no place of Scripture to prove it save onely these places concerning Eternall Torments which may otherwise be interpreted From whence may be inferred that as the Elect after the Resurrection shall be restored to the estate wherein Adam was before he had sinned so the Reprobate shall be in the estate that Adam and his posterity were in after the sin committed saving that God promised a Redeemer to Adam and such of his seed as should trust in him and repent but not to them that should die in their sins as do the Reprobate These things considered the texts that mention Eternall Fire Eternall Torments or the Worm that never dieth contradict not the Doctrine of a Second and Everlasting Death in the proper and naturall sense of the word Death The Fire or Torments prepared for the wicked in Gehenna Tophet or in what place soever may continue for ever and there may never want wicked men to be tormented in them though not every nor any one Eternally For the wicked being left in the estate they were in after Adams sin may at the Resurrection live as they did marry and give in marriage and have grosse and corruptible bodies as all mankind now have and consequently may engender perpetually after the Resurrection as they did before For there is no place of Scripture to the contrary For St. Paul speaking of the Resurrection 1 Cor. 15. understandeth it onely of the Resurrection to Life Eternall and not the Resurrection to Punishment And of the first he saith that the Body is Sown in Corruption raised in Incorruption sown in Dishonour raised in Honour sown in Weaknesse raised in Power sown a Naturall body raised a Spirituall body There is no such thing can be said of the bodies of them that rise to Punishment So also our Saviour when hee speaketh of the Nature of Man after the Resurrection meaneth the Resurrection to Life Eternall not to Punishment The text is Luke 20. verses 34. 35 36. a fertile text The Children of this world marry and are given in marriage but they that shall be counted worthy to obtaine that world and the Resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage Neither can they die any more for they are equall to the Angells and are the Children of God being the Children of the Resurrection The Children of this world that are in the estate which Adam left them in shall marry and be given in marriage that is corrupt and generate successively which is an Immortality of the Kind but not of the Persons of men They are not worthy to be counted amongst them that shall obtain the next world and an absolute Resurrection from the dead but onely a short time as inmates of that world and to the end onely to receive condign punishment for their contumacy The Elect are the onely children of the Resurrection that is to say the sole heirs of Eternall Life they only can die no more it is they that are equall to the Angels and that are the children of God
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
Reason and â—…loquence though not perhaps in the Naturall Sciences yet in the Morall may stand very well together For wheresoever there is place for adorning and preferring of Errour there is much more place for adorning and preferring of Truth if they have it to adorn Nor is there any repugnancy between fearing the Laws and not fearing a publique Enemy nor between abstaining from Injury and pardoning it in others There is therefore no such Inconsistence of Humane Nature with Civill Duties as some think I have known cleernesse of Judgment and largenesse of Fancy strength of Reason and gracefull Elocution a Courage for the Warre and a Fear for the Laws and all eminently in one man and that was my most noble and honored friend Mr. Sidney Godolphin who hating no man nor hated of any was unfortunately slain in the beginning of the late Civill warre in the Publique quarrell by an undiscerned and an undiscerning hand To the Laws of Nature declared in the 15. Chapter I would have this added That every man is bound by Nature as much as in him lieth to protect in Warre the Authority by which he is himself protected in time of Peace For he that pretendeth a Right of Nature to preserve his owne body cannot pretend a Right of Nature to destroy him by whose strength he is preserved It is a manifest contradiction of himselfe And though this Law may bee drawn by consequence from some of those that are there already mentioned yet the Times require to have it inculcated and remembred And because I find by divers English Books lately printed that the Civill warres have not yet sufficiently taught men in what point of time it is that a Subject becomes obliged to the Conquerour nor what is Conquest nor how it comes about that it obliges men to obey his Laws Therefore for farther satisfaction of men therein I say the point of time wherein a man becomes subject to a Conquerour is that point wherein having liberty to submit to him he consenteth either by expresse words or by other sufficient sign to be his Subject When it is that a man hath the liberty to submit I have shewed before in the end of the 21. Chapter namely that for him that hath no obligation to his former Soveraign but that of an ordinary Subject it is then when the means of his life is within the Guards and Garrisons of the Enemy for it is then that he hath no longer Protection from him but is protected by the adverse party for his Contribution Seeing therefore such contribution is every where as a thing inevitable notwithstanding it be an assistance to the Enemy esteemed lawfull a totall Submission which is but an assistance to the Enemy cannot be esteemed unlawful Besides if a man consider that they who submit assist the Enemy but with part of their estates whereas they that refuse assist him with the whole there is no reason to call their Submission or Composition an Assistance but rather a Detriment to the Enemy But if a man besides the obligation of a Subject hath taken upon him a new obligation of a Souldier then he hath not the liberty to submit to a new Power as long as the old one keeps the field and giveth him means of subsistence either in his Armies or Garrisons for in this case he cannot complain of want of Protection and means to live as a Souldier But when that also failes a Souldier also may seek his Protection wheresoever he has most hope to have it and may lawfully submit himself to his new Master And so much for the Time when he may do it lawfully if hee will If therefore he doe it he is undoubtedly bound to be a true Subject For a Contract lawfully made cannot lawfully be broken By this also a man may understand when it is that men may be said to be Conquered and in what the nature of Conquest and the Right of a Conquerour consisteth For this Submission is it implyeth them all Conquest is not the Victory it self but the Acquisition by Victory of a Right over the persons of men He therefore that is slain is Overcome but not Conquered He that is taken and put into prison or chaines is not Conquered though Overcome for he is still an Enemy and may save himself if hee can But he that upon promise of Obedience hath his Life and Liberty allowed him is then Conquered and a Subject and not before The Romanes used to say that their Generall had Pacified such a Province that is to say in English Conquerea it and that the Countrey was Pacified by Victory when the people of it had promised Imperata facere that is To doe what the Romane People commanded them this was to be Conquered But this promise may be either expresse or tacite Expresse by Promise Tacite by other signes As for example a man that hath not been called to make such an expresse Promise because he is one whose power perhaps is not considerable yet if he live under their Protection openly hee is understood to submit himselfe to the Government But if he live there secretly he is lyable to any thing that may bee done to a Spie and Enemy of the State I say not hee does any Injustice for acts of open Hostility bear not that name but that he may be justly put to death Likewise if a man when his Country is conquered be out of it he is not Conquered nor Subject but if at his return he submit to the Government he is bound to obey it So that Conquest to define it is the Acquiring of the Right of Soveraignty by Victory Which Right is acquired in the peoples Submission by which they contract with the Victor promising Obedience for Life and Liberty In the 29. Chapter I have set down for one of the causes of the Dissolutions of Common-wealths their Imperfect Generation consisting in the want of an Absolute and Arbitrary Legislative Power for want whereof the Civill Soveraign is fain to handle the Sword of Justice unconstantly and as if it were too hot for him to hold One reason whereof which I have not there mentioned is this That they will all of them justifie the War by which their Power was at first gotten and whereon as they think their Right dependeth and not on the Possession As if for example the Right of the Kings of England did depend on the goodnesse of the cause of William the Conquerour and upon their lineall and directest Descent from him by which means there would perhaps be no tie of the Subjects obedience to their Soveraign at this day in all the world wherein whilest they needlessely think to justifie themselves they justifie all the successefull Rebellions that Ambition shall at any time raise against them and their Successors Therefore I put down for one of the most effectuall seeds of the Death of any State that the Conquerors require not onely a Submission of mens actions to them
for the future but also an Approbation of all their actions past when there is scarce a Common-wealth in the world whose beginnings can in conscience be justified And because the name of Tyranny signifieth nothing more nor lesse than the name of Soveraignty be it in one or many men saving that they that use the former word are understood to bee angry with them they call Tyrants I think the toleration of a professed hatred of Tyranny is a Toleration of hatred to Common-wealth in generall and another evill seed not differing much from the former For to the Justification of the Cause of a Conqueror the Reproach of the Cause of the Conquered is for the most part necessary but neither of them necessary for the Obligation of the Conquered And thus much I have thought fit to say upon the Review of the first and second part of this Discourse In the 35. Chapter I have sufficiently declared out of the Scripture that in the Common-wealth of the Jewes God himselfe was made the Soveraign by Pact with the People who were therefore called his Peculiar People to distinguish them from the rest of the world over whom God reigned not by their Consent but by his own Power And that in this Kingdome Moses was Gods Lieutenant on Earth and that it was he that told them what Laws God appointed them to be ruled by But I have omitted to set down who were the Officers appointed to doe Execution especially in Capitall Punishments not then thinking it a matter of so necessary consideration as I find it since Wee know that generally in all Common-wealths the Execution of Corporeall Punishments was either put upon the Guards or other Souldiers of the Soveraign Power or given to those in whom want of means contempt of honour and hardnesse of heart concurred to make them sue for such an Office But amongst the Israelites it was a Positive Law of God their Soveraign that he that was convicted of a capitall Crime should be stoned to death by the People and that the Witnesses should cast the first Stone and after the Witnesses then the rest of the People This was a Law that designed who were to be the Executioners but not that any one should throw a Stone at him before Conviction and Sentence where the Congregation was Judge The Witnesses were neverthelesse to be heard before they proceeded to Execution unlesse the Fact were committed in the presence of the Congregation it self or in sight of the lawfull Judges for then there needed no other Witnesses but the Judges themselves Neverthelesse this manner of proceeding being not throughly understood hath given occasion to a dangerous opinion that any man may kill another in some cases by a Right of Zeal as if the Executions done upon Offenders in the Kingdome of God in old time proceeded not from the Soveraign Command but from the Authority of Private Zeal which if we consider the texts that seem to favour it is quite contrary First where the Levites fell upon the People that had made and worshipped the Golden Calfe and slew three thousand of them it was by the Commandement of Moses from the mouth of God as is manifest Exod. 32. 27. And when the Son of a woman of Israel had blasphemed God they that heard it did not kill him but brought him before Moses who put him under custody till God should give Sentence against him as appears Levit. 25. 11 12. Again Numbers 25. 6 7. when Phinehas killed Zimri and Cosbi it was not by right of Private Zeale Their Crime was committed in the sight of the Assembly there needed no Witnesse the Law was known and he the heir apparent to the Soveraignty and which is the principall point the Lawfulnesse of his Act depended wholly upon a subsequent Ratification by Moses whereof he had no cause to doubt And this Presumption of a future Ratification is sometimes necessary to the safety a Common-wealth as in a sudden Rebellion any man that can suppresse it by his own Power in the Countrey where it begins without expresse Law or Commission may lawfully doe it and provide to have it Ratified or Pardoned whilest it is in doing or after it is done Also Numb 35. 30. it is expressely said Whosoever shall kill the Murtherer shall kill him upon the word of Witnesses but Witnesses suppose a formall Judicature and consequently condemn that pretence of Ius Zelotarum The Law of Moses concerning him that enticeth to Idolatry that is to say in the Kingdome of God to a renouncing of his Allegiance Deut. 13. 8. forbids to conceal him and commands the Accuser to cause him to be put to death and to cast the first stone at him but not to kill him before he be Condemned And Deut. 17. ver 4 5 6. the Processe against Idolatry is exactly set down For God there speaketh to the People as Judge and commandeth them when a man is Accused of Idolatry to Enquire diligently of the Fact and finding it true then to Stone him but still the hand of the Witnesse throweth the first stone This is not Private Zeale but Publique Condemnation In like manner when a Father hath a rebellious Son the Law is Deut. 21. 18. that he shall bring him before the Judges of the Town and all the people of the Town shall Stone him Lastly by pretence of these Laws it was that St. Steven was Stoned and not by pretence of Private Zeal for before hee was carried away to Execution he had Pleaded his Cause before the High Priest There is nothing in all this nor in any other part of the Bible to countenance Executions by Private Zeal which being oftentimes but a conjunction of Ignorance and Passion is against both the Justice and Peace of a Common-wealth In the 36. Chapter I have said that it is not declared in what manner God spake supernaturally to Moses Not that he spake not to him sometimes by Dreams and Visions and by a supernaturall Voice as to other Prophets For the manner how he spake unto him from the Mercy-Seat is expressely set down Numbers 7. 89. in these words From that time forward when Moses entred into the Tabernacle of the Congregation to speak with God he heard a Voice which spake unto him from over the Mercy-Seate which is over the Arke of the Testimony from between the Cherubins he spake unto him But it is not declared in what consisted the praeeminence of the manner of Gods speaking to Moses above that of his speaking to other Prophets as to Samuel and to Abraham to whom he also spake by a Voice that is by Vision Unlesse the difference consist in the cleernesse of the Vision For Face to Face and Mouth to Mouth cannot be literally understood of the Infinitenesse and Incomprehensibility of the Divine Nature And as to the whole Doctrine I see not yet but the Principles of it are true and proper and the Ratiocination solid For I ground the Civill Right