and the Gospels and Epistles of the New Testament have had one and the same scope to convert men to the obedience of God 1. in Moses and the Priests 2. in the man Christ and 3. in the Apostles and the successors to Apostolicall power For these three at several times did represent the person of God Moses and his successors the High Priests and Kings of Judah in the Old Testament Christ himself in the time he lived on earth and the Apostles and their successors from the day of Pentecost when the Holy Ghost descended on them to this day It is a question much disputed between the divers sects of Christian Religion From whence the Scriptures derive their Authority which question is also propounded sometimes in other terms as How wee know them to be the Word of God or Why we b◅leeve them to be so And the difficulty of resolving it ariseth chiefly from the impropernesse of the words wherein the question it self is couched For it is beleeved on all hands that the first and originall Author of them is God and consequently the question disputed is not that Again it is manifest that none can know they are Gods Word though all true Christians beleeve it but those to whom God himself hath revealed it supernaturally and therefore the question is not rightly moved of our Know edge of it Lastly when the question is propounded of our Beleefe because some are moved to beleeve for one and others for other reasons there can be rendred no one generall answer for them all The question truly stated is By what Authority they are made Law As far as they differ not from the Laws of Nature there is no doubt but they are the Law of God and carry their Authority with them legible to all men that have the use of naturall reason but this is no other Authority then that of all other Morall Doctrine consonant to Reason the Dictates whereof are Laws not made but Eternall If they be made Law by God himselfe they are of the nature of written Law which are Laws to them only to whom God hath so sufficiently published them as no man can excuse himself by saying he knew not they were his He therefore to whom God hath not supernaturally revealed that they are his nor that those that published them were sent by him is not obliged to obey them by any Authority but his whose Commands have already the force of Laws that is to say by any other Authority then that of the Common-wealth residing in the Soveraign who only has the Legislative power Again if it be not the Legislative Authority of the Common-wealth that giveth them the force of Laws it must bee some other Authority derived from God either private or publique if private it obliges onely him to whom in particular God hath been pleased to reveale it For if every man should be obliged to take for Gods Law what particular men on pretence of private Inspiration or Revelation should obtrude upon him in such a number of men that out of pride and ignorance take their own Dreams and extravagant Fancies and Madnesse for testimonies of Gods Spirit or out of ambition pretend to such Divine testimonies falsely and contrary to their own consciences it were impossible that any Divine Law should be acknowledged If publique it is the Authority of the Common-wealth or of the Church But the Church if it be one person is the same thing with a Common-wealth of Christians called a Common-wealth because it consisteth of men united in one person their Soveraign and a Church because it consisteth in Christian men united in one Christian Soveraign But if the Church be not one person then it hath no authority at all it can neither command nor doe any action at all nor is capable of having any power or right to any thing nor has any Will Reason nor Voice for all these qualities are personall Now if the whole number of Christians be not contained in one Common-wealth they are not one person nor is there an Universall Church that hath any authority over them and therefore the Scriptures are not made Laws by the Universall Church or if it bee one Common-wealth then all Christian Monarchs and States are private persons and subject to bee judged deposed and punished by an Universall Soveraigne of all Christendome So that the question of the Authority of the Scriptures is reduced to this Whether Christian Kings and the Soveraigne Assemblies in Christian Common-wealths be absolute in their own Territories immediately under God or subject to one Vicar of Christ constituted of the Vniversall Church to bee judged condemned deposed and put to death as hee shall think expedient or necessary for the common good Which question cannot bee resolved without a more particular consideration of the Kingdome of God from whence also wee are to judge of the Authority of Interpreting the Scripture For whosoever hath a lawfull power over any Writing to make it Law hath the power also to approve or disapprove the interpretation of the same CHAP. XXXIV Of the Signification of SPIRIT ANGEL and INSPIRATION in the Books of Holy Scripture SEeing the foundation of all true Ratiocination is the constant Signification of words which in the Doctrine following dependeth not as in naturall science on the Will of the Writer nor as in common conversation on vulgar use but on the sense they carry in the Scripture It is necessary before I proceed any further to determine out of the Bible the meaning of such words as by their ambiguity may render what I am to inferre upon them obscure or disputable I will begin with the words BODY and SPIRIT which in the language of the Schools are termed Substances Corporeall and Incorporeall The Word Body in the most generall acceptation signifieth that which filleth or occupyeth some certain room or imagined place and dependeth not on the imagination but is a reall part of that we call the Vniverse For the Vniverse being the Aggregate of all Bodies there is no reall part thereof that is not also Body nor any thing properly a Body that is not also part of that Aggregate of all Bodies the Vniverse The same also because Bodies are subject to change that is to say to variety of apparence to the sense of living creatures is called Substance that is to say Subject to various accidents as sometimes to be Moved sometimes to stand Still and to seem to our senses sometimes Hot sometimes Cold sometimes of one Colour Smel Tast or Sound somtimes of another And this diversity of Seeming produced by the diversity of the operatiō of bodies on the organs of our sense we attribute to alterations of the Bodies that operate call them Accidents of those Bodies And according to this acceptation of the word Substance and Body signifie the same thing and therefore Substance incorporeall are words which when they are joined together destroy one another as if
if it be cast down Though the root thereof wax old and the stock thereof die in the ground yet when it senteth the water it will bud and bring forth boughes like a Plant. But man dyeth and wasteth away yea man giveth up the Ghost and where is he and verse 12. man lyeth down and riseth not till the heavens be no more But when is it that the heavens shall be no more St. Peter tells us that it is at the generall Resurrection For in his 2. Epistle 3. Chapter and 7 verse he saith that the Heavens and the Earth that are now are reserved unto fire against the day of Iudgment and perdition of ungodly men and verse 12. looking for and hasting to the comming of God wherein the Heavens shall be on fire and shall be dissolved and the Elements shall melt with fervent heat Neverthelesse we according to the promise look for new Heavens and a new Earth wherein dwelleth righteousnesse Therefore where Job saith man riseth not till the Heavens be no more it is all one as if he had said the Immortall Life and Soule and Life in the Scripture do usually signifie the same thing beginneth not in man till the Resurrection and day of Judgement and hath for cause not his specificall nature and generation but the Promise For St. Peter saies not Wee look for new heavens and a new earth from Nature but from Promise Lastly seeing it hath been already proved out of divers evident places of Scripture in the 35. chapter of this book that the Kingdom of God is a Civil Common-wealth where God himself is Soveraign by vertue first of the Old and since of the New Covenant wherein he reigneth by his Vicar or Lieutenant the same places do therefore also prove that after the comming again of our Saviour in his Majesty and glory to reign actually and Eternally the Kingdom of God is to be on Earth But because this doctrine though proved out of places of Scripture not few nor obscure will appear to most men a novelty I doe but propound it maintaining nothing in this or any other paradox of Religion but attending the end of that dispute of the sword concerning the Authority not yet amongst my Countrey-men decided by which all sorts of doctrine are to bee approved or rejected and whose commands both in speech and writing whatsoever be the opinions of private men must by all men that mean to be protected by their Laws be obeyed For the points of doctrine concerning the Kingdome God have so great influence on the Kingdome of Man as not to be determined but by them that under God have the Soveraign Power As the Kingdome of God and Eternall Life so also Gods Enemies and their Torments after Judgment appear by the Scripture to have their place on Earth The name of the place where all men remain till the Resurrection that were either buryed or swallowed up of the Earth is usually called in Scripture by words that signifie under ground which the Latines read generally Infernus and Inferi and the Greeks 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say a place where men cannot see and containeth as well the Grave as any other deeper place But for the place of the damned after the Resurrection it is not determined neither in the Old nor New Testament by any note of situation but onely by the company as that it shall bee where such wicked men were as God in former times in extraordinary and miraculous manner had destroyed from off the face of the Earth As for example that they are in Inferno in Tartarus or in the bottomelesse pit because Corah Dathan and Abirom were swallowed up alive into the earth Not that the Writers of the Scripture would have us beleeve there could be in the globe of the Earth which is not only finite but also compared to the height of the Stars of no considerable magnitude a pit without a bottome that is a hole of infinite depth such as the Greeks in their Daemonologie that is to say in their doctrine concerning Daemons and after them the Romans called Tartarus of which Virgill sayes Bis patet in praeceps tantum tenditque sub umbras Quantus ad â—…thereum coeli suspectus Olympum for that is a thing the proportion of Earth to Heaven cannot bear but that wee should beleeve them there indefinitely where those men are on whom God inflicted that Exemplary punnishment Again hecause those mighty men of the Earth that lived in the time of Noah before the floud which the Greeks called Heroes and the Scripture Giants and both say were begotten by copulation of the children of God with the children of men were for their wicked life destroyed by the generall deluge the place of the Damned is therefore also sometimes marked out by the company of those deceased Giants as Proverbs 21. 16. The man that wandreth out of the way of understanding shall remain in the congregation of the Giants and Job 26. 5. Behold the Giants groan under water and they that dwell with them Here the place of the Damned is under the water And Isaiah 14. 9. Hell is troubled how to meet thee that is the King of Babylon and will displace the Giants for thee and here again the place of the Damned if the sense be literall is to be under water Thirdly because the Cities of Sodom and Gomorrah by the extraordinary wrath of God were consumed for their wickednesse with Fire and Brimstone and together with them the countrey about made a stinking bituminous Lake the place of the Damned is sometimes expressed by Fire and a Fiery Lake as in the Apocalypse ch 21. 8. But the timorous incredulous and abominable and Murderers and Whoremongers and Sorcerers and Idolaters and all Lyars shall have their part in the Lake that burnetb with Fire and Brimstone which is the second Death So that it is manifest that Hell Fire which is here expressed by Metaphor from the reall Fire of Sodome signifieth not any certain kind or place of Torment but is to be taken indefinitely for Destruction as it is in the 20. Chapter at the 14. verse where it is said that Death and Hell were cast into the Lake of Fire that is to say were abolished and destroyed as if after the day of Judgment there shall be no more Dying nor no more going into Hell that is no more going to Hades from which word perhaps our word Hell is derived which is the same with no more Dying Fourthly from the Plague of Darknesse inflicted on the Egyptians of which it is written Exod. 10. 23. They saw not one another neither rose any man from his place for three days but all the Children of Israel had light in their dwellings the place of the wicked after Judgment is called Vtter Darknesse or as it is in the originall Darknesse without And so it is expressed Mat. 22. 13. where the King commandeth his
to be without terrour The name of Fulmen Excommunicationis that is the Thunderbolt of Excommunication proceeded from an imagination of the Bishop of Rome which first used it that he was King of Kings as the Heathen made Jupiter King of the Gods and assigned him in their Poems and Pictures a Thunderbolt wherewith to subdue and punish the Giants that should dare to deny his power Which imagination was grounded on two errours one that the Kingdome of Christ is of this world contrary to our Saviours owne words My Kingdome is not of this world the other that hee is Christs Vicar not onely over his owne Subjects but over all the Christians of the World whereof there is no ground in Scripture and the contrary shall bee proved in its due place St. Paul coming to Thessalonica where was a Synagogue of the Jews Acts 17. 2 3. As his manner was went in unto them and three Sabbath dayes reasoned with them out of the Scriptures Opening and alledging that Christ must needs have suffered and râ—…sen again from the dead and that this Iesus whom he preached was the Christ. The Scriptures here mentioned were the Scriptures of the Jews that is the Old Testament The men to whom he was to prove that Jesus was the Christ and risen again from the dead were also Jews and did beleeve already that they were the Word of God Hereupon as it is verse 4. some of them beleeved and as it is in the 5. ver some beleeved not What was the reason when they all beleeved the Scripture that they did not all beleeve alike but that some approved others disapproved the Interpretation of St. Paul that cited them and every one Interpreted them to himself It was this S. Paul came to them without any Legall Commission and in the manner of one that would not Command but Perswade which he must needs do either by Miracles as Moses did to the Israelites in Egypt that they might see his Authority in Gods works or by Reasoning from the already received Scripture that they might see the truth of his doctrine in Gods Word But whosoever perswadeth by reasoning from principles written maketh him to whom hee speaketh Judge both of the meaning of those principles and also of the force of his inferences upon them If these Jews of Thessalonica were not who else was the Judge of what S. Paul alledgâ—…d out of Scripture If S. Paul what needed he to quote any places to prove his doctrine It had been enough to have said I find it so in Scripture that is to say in your Laws of which I am Interpreter as sent by Christ. The Interpreter therefore of the Scripture to whose Interpretation the Jews of Thessalonica were bound to stand could be none every one might beleeve or not beleeve according as the Allegations seemed to himselfe to be agreeable or not agreeable to the meaning of the places alledged And generally in all cases of the world hee that pretendeth any proofe maketh Judge of his proofe him to whom he addresseth his speech And as to the case of the Jews in particular they were bound by expresse words Deut. 17. to receive the determination of all hard questions from the Priests and Judges of Israel for the time being But this is to bee understood of the Jews that were yet unconverted For the conversion of the Gentiles there was no use of alledging the Scriptures which they beleeved not The Apostles therefore laboured by Reason to confute their Idolatry and that done to perswade them to the faith of Christ by their testimony of his Life and Resurrection So that there could not yet bee any controversie concerning the authority to Interpret Scripture seeing no man was obliged during his infidelity to follow any mans Interpretation of any Scripture except his Soveraigns Interpretation of the Laws of his countrey Let us now consider the Conversion it sâ—…lf and see what there was therein that could be cause of such an obligation Men were converted to no other thing then to the Beleef of that which the Apostles preached And the Apostles preached nothing but that Jesus was the Christ that is to say the King that was to save them and reign over them eternally in the world to come and consequently that hee was not dead but risen again from the dead and gone up into Heaven and should come again one day to jâ—…dg the world which also should rise again to be judged and reward every man according to his works None of them preached that himselfe or any other Apostle was such an Interpreter of the Scripture as all that became Christians ought to take their Interpretation for Law For to Interpret the Laws is part of the Administration of a present Kingdome which the Apostles had not They prayed then and all other Pastors ever since Let thy Kingdome come and exhorted their Converts to obey their then Ethnique Princes The New Testament was not yet published in one Body Every of the Evangelists was Interpreter of his own Gospel and every Apostle of his own Epistle And of the Old Testament our Saviour himselfe saith to the Jews Iohn 5. 39. Search the Scriptures for in them yee thinke to have eternall life and they are they that testifie of me If hee had not meant they should Interpret them hee would not have bidden them take thence the proof of his being the Christ he would either have Interpreted them himselfe or referred them to the Interpretation of the Priests When a difficulty arose the Apostles and Elders of the Church assembled themselves together and determined what should bee preached and taught and how they should Interpret the Scriptures to the People but took not from the People the liberty to read and Interpret them to themselves The Apostles sent divers Letters to the Churches and other Writings for their instruction which had been in vain if they had not allowed them to Interpret that is to consider the meaning of them And as it was in the Apostles time it must be till such time as there should be Pastors that could authorise an Interpreter whose Interpretation should generally be stood to But that could not be till Kings were Pastors or Pastors Kings There be two senses wherein a Writing may be said to be Canonicall for Canon signifieth a Rule and a Rule is a Precept by which a man is guided and directed in any action whatsoever Such Precepts though given by a Teacher to his Disciple or a Counsellor to his friend without power to Compell him to observe them are neverthelesse Canons because they are Rules But when they are given by one whom he that receiveth them is bound to obey then are those Canons not onely Rules but Laws The question therefore here is of the Power to make the Scriptures which are the Rules of Christian Faith Laws That part of the Scripture which was first Law was the Ten Commandements written in two Tables of Stone
also the Power of Explaining them when there is need And are not the Scriptures in all places where they are Law made Law by the Authority of the Common-wealth and consequently a part of the Civill Law Of the same kind it is also when any but the Soveraign restraineth in any man that power which the Common-wealth hath not restrained as they do that impropriate the Preaching of the Gospell to one certain Order of men where the Laws have left it free If the State give me leave to preach or teach that is if it forbid me not no man can forbid me If I find my selfe amongst the Idolaters of America shall I that am a Christian though not in Orders think it a sin to preach Jesus Christ till I have received Orders from Rome or when I have preached shall not I answer their doubts and expound the Scriptures to them that is shall I not Teach But for this may some say as also for administring to them the Sacraments the necessity shall be esteemed for a sufficient Mission which is true But this is true also that for whatsoever a dispensation is due for the necessity for the same there needs no dispensation when there is no Law that forbids it Therefore to deny these Functions to those to whom the Civill Soveraigne hath not denyed them is a taking away of a lawfull Liberty which is contrary to the Doctrine of Civill Government More examples of Vain Philosophy brought into Religion by the Doctors of Schoole-Divinity might be produced but other men may if they please observe them of themselves I shall onely adde this that the Writings of Schoole-Divines are nothing else for the most part but insignificant Traines of strange and barbarous words or words otherwise used then in the common use of the Latine tongue such as would pose Cicero and Varro and all the Grammarians of ancient Rome Which if any man would see proved let him as I have said once before see whether he can translate any Schoole-Divine into any of the Modern tongues as French English or any other copious language for that which cannot in most of these be made Intelligible is not Intelligible in the Latine Which Insignificancy of language though I cannot note it for false Philosophy yet it hath a quality not onely to hide the Truth but also to make men think they have it and desist from further search Lastly for the Errors brought in from false or uncertain History what is all the Legend of fictitious Miracles in the lives of the Saints and all the Histories of Apparitions and Ghosts alledged by the Doctors of the Romane Church to make good their Doctrines of Hell and Purgatory the power of Exorcisme and other Doctrines which have no warrant neither in Reason nor Scripture as also all those Traditions which they call the unwritten Word of God but old Wives Fables Whereof though they find dispersed somewhat in the Writings of the ancient Fathers yet those Fathers were men that might too easily beleeve false reports and the producing of their opinions for testimony of the truth of what they beleeved hath no other force with them that according to the Counsell of St. Iohn 1 Epist. chap. 4. verse 1. examine Spirits than in all things that concern the power of the Romane Church the abuse whereof either they suspected not or had benefit by it to discredit their testimony in respect of too rash beleef of reports which the most sincere men without great knowledge of naturall causes such as the Fathers were are commonly the most subject to For naturally the best men are the least suspicious of fraudulent purposes Gregory the Pope and S. Bernard have somewhat of Apparitions of Ghosts that said they were in Purgatory and so has our Beda but no where I beleeve but by report from others But if they or any other relate any such stories of their own knowledge they shall not thereby confirm the more such vain reports but discover their own Infirmity or Fraud With the Introduction of False we may joyn also the suppression of True Philosophy by such men as neither by lawfull authority nor sufficient study are competent Judges of the truth Our own Navigations make manifest and all men learned in humane Sciences now acknowledge there are Antipodes And every day it appeareth more and more that Years and Dayes are determined by Motions of the Earth Neverthelesse men that have in their Writings but supposed such Doctrine as an occasion to lay open the reasons for and against it have been punished for it by Authority Ecclesiasticall But what reason is there for it Is it becaâ—…se such opinions are contrary to true Religion that cannot be if they be true Let therefore the truth be first examined by competent Judges or confuted by them that pretend to know the contrary Is it because they be contrary to the Religion established Let them be silenced by the Laws of those to whom the Teachers of them are subject that is by the Laws Civill For disobedience may lawfully be punished in them that against the Laws teach even true Philosophy Is it because they tend to disorder in Government as countenancing Rebellion or Sedition then let them be silenced and the Teachers punished by vertue of his Power to whom the care of the Publique quiet is committed which is the Authority Civill For whatsoever Power Ecclesiastiques take upon themselves in any place where they are subject to the State in their own Right though they call it Gods Right is but Usurpation CHAP. XLVII Of the BENEFIT that proceedeth from such Darknesse and to whom it accreweth CIcero maketh honorable mention of one of the Cassâ—… a severe Judge amongst the Romans for a custome he had in Criminall causes when the testimony of the witnesses was not sufficient to ask the Accusers Cuibono that is to say what Profit Honor or other Contentment the accused obtained or expected by the Fact For amongst Praesumptions there is none that so evidently declareth the Author as doth the BENEFIT of the Action By the same rule I intend in this place to examine who they may be that have possessed the People so long in this part of Christendome with these Doctrines contrary to the Peaceable Societies of Mankind And first to this Error that the present Church now Militant on Earth is the Kingdome of God that is the Kingdome of Glory or the Land of Promise not the Kingdome of Grace which is but a Promise of the Land are annexed these worldly Benefits First that the Pastors and Teachers of the Church are entitled thereby as Gods Publique Ministers to a Right of Governing the Church and consequently because the Church and Common-wealth are the same Persons to be Rectors and Governours of the Common-wealth By this title it is that the Pope prevailed with the subjects of all Christian Princes to beleeve that to disobey him was to disobey Christ himselfe
not a Common benefit to the whole Body which have in this case no common stock but what is deducted out of the particular adventures for building buying victualling and manning of Ships but the particular gaine of every adventurer it is reason that every one be acquainted with the employment of his own that is that every one be of the Assembly that shall have the power to order the same and be acquainted with their accounts And therefore the Representative of such a Body must be an Assembly where every member of the Body may be present at the consultations if he will If a Body Politique of Merchants contract a debt to a stranger by the act of their Representative Assembly every Member is lyable by himself for the whole For a stranger can take no notice of their private Lawes but considereth them as so many particular men obliged every one to the whole payment till payment made by one dischargeth all the rest But if the debt be to one of the Company the creditor is debter for the whole to himself and cannot therefore demand his debt but only from the common stock if there be any If the Common-wealth impose a Tax upon the Body it is understood to be layd upon every Member proportionably to his particular adventure in the Company For there is in this case no other common stock but what is made of their particular adventures If a Mulct be layd upon the Body for some unlawfull act they only are lyable by whose votes the act was decreed or by whose assistance it was executed for in none of the rest is there any other crime but being of the Body which if a crime because the Body was ordeyned by the authority of the Common-wealth is not his If one of the Members be indebted to the Body he may 〈◊〉 sued by the Body but his goods cannot be taken nor his person imprisoned by the authority of the Body but only by Authority of the Common-wealth for if they can doe it by their own Authority they can by their own Authority give judgement that the debt is due which is as much as to be Judge in their own Cause Those Bodies made for the government of Men or of Traffique be either perpetuall or for a time prescribed by writing But there be Bodies also whose times are limited and that only by the nature of their businesse For example if a Soveraign Monarch or a Soveraign Assembly shall think fit to give command to the towns and other severall parts of their territory to send to him their Deputies to enforme him of the condition and necessities of the Subjects or to advise with him for the making of good Lawes or for any other cause as with one Person representing the whole Country such Deputies having a place and time of meeting assigned them are there and at that time a Body Politique representing every Subject of that Dominion but it is onely for such matters as shall be propounded unto them by that Man or Assembly that by the Soveraign Authority sent for them and when it shall be declared that nothing more shall be propounded nor debated by them the Body is dissolved For if they were the absolute Representative of the people then were it the Soveraign Assembly and so there would be two Soveraign Assemblies or two Soveraigns over the same people which cannot consist with their Peace And therefore where there is once a Soveraignty there can be no absolute Representation of the people but by it And for the limits of how farre such a Body shall represent the whole People they are set forth in the Writing by which they were sent for For the People cannot choose their Deputies to other intent than is in the Writing directed to them from their Soveraign expressed Private Bodies Regular and Lawfull are those that are constituted without Letters or other written Authority saving the Lawes common to all other Subjects And because they be united in one Person Representative they are held for Regular such as are all Families in which the Father or Master ordereth the whole Family For he obligeth his Children and Servants as farre as the Law permitteth though not further because none of them are bound to obedience in those actions which the Law hath forbidden to be done In all other actions during the time they are under domestique government they are subject to their Fathers and Masters as to their immediate Soveraigns For the Father and Master being before the Institution of Common-wealth absolute Soveraigns in their own Families they lose afterward no more of their Authority than the Law of the Common-wealth taketh from them Private Bodies Regular but Unlawfull are those that unite themselves into one person Representative without any publique Authority at all such as are the Corporations of Beggars Theeves and Gipsies the better to order their trade of begging and stealing and the Corporations of men that by Authority from any forraign Person unite themselves in anothers Dominion for the easier propagation of Doctrines and for making a party against the Power of the Common-wealth Irregular Systemes in their nature but Leagues or sometimes meer concourse of people without union to any particular designe not by obligation of one to another but proceeding onely from a similitude of wills and inclinations become Lawfull or Unlawfull according to the lawfulnesse or unlawfulnesse of every particular mans designe therein And his designe is to be understood by the occasion The Leagues of Subjects because Leagues are commonly made for mutuall defence are in a Common wealth which is no more than a League of all the Subjects together for the most part unnecessary and savour of unlawfull designe and are for that cause Unlawfull and go commonly by the name of Factions or Conspiracies For a League being a connexion of men by Covenants if there be no power given to any one Man or Assembly as in the condition of meer Nature to compell them to performance is so long onely valid as there ariseth no just cause of distrust and therefore Leagues between Common-wealths over whom there is no humane Power established to keep them all in awe are not onely lawfull but also profitable for the time they last But Leagues of the Subjects of one and the same Common-wealth where every one may obtain his right by means of the Soveraign Power are unnecessary to the maintaining of Peace and Justice and in case the designe of them be evill or Unknown to the Common-wealth unlawfull For all uniting of strength by private men is if for evill intent unjust if for intent unknown dangerous to the Publique and unjustly concealed If the Soveraign Power be in a great Assembly and a number of men part of the Assembly without authority consult a part to contrive the guidance of the rest This is a Faction or Conspiracy unlawfull as being a fraudulent seducing of the Assembly for their particular
disturbance of the Peace of the Common-wealth Secondly by falsé Teachers that either mis-interpret the Law of Nature making it thereby repugnant to the Law Civill or by teaching for Lawes such Doctrines of their own or Traditions of former times as are inconsistent with the duty of a Subject Thirdly by Erroneous Inferences from True Principles which happens commonly to men that are hasty and praecipitate in concluding and resolving what to do such as are they that have both a great opinion of their own understanding and believe that things of this nature require not time and study but onely common experience and a good naturall wit whereof no man thinks himselfe unprovided whereas the knowledge of Right and Wrong which is no lesse difficult there is no man will pretend to without great and long study And of those defects in Reasoning there is none that can Excuse though some of them may Extenuate a Crime in any man that pretendeth to the administration of his own private businesse much lesse in them that undertake a publique charge because they pretend to the Reason upon the want whereof they would ground their Excuse Of the Passions that most frequently are the causes of Crime one is Vain-glory or a foolish over-rating of their own worth as if difference of worth were an effect of their wit or riches or bloud or some other naturall quality not depending on the Will of those that have the Soveraign Authority From whence proceedeth a Presumption that the punishments ordained by the Lawes and extended generally to all Subjects ought not to be inflicted on them with the same rigour they are inflicted on poore obscure and simple men comprehended under the name of the Vulgar Therefore it happeneth commonly that such as value themselves by the greatnesse of their wealth adventure on Crimes upon hope of escaping punishment by corrupting publique Justice or obtaining Pardon by Mony or other rewards And that such as have multitude of Potent Kindred and popular men that have gained reputation amongst the Multitude take courage to violate the Lawes from a hope of oppressing the Power to whom it belongeth to put them in execution And that such as have a great and false opinion of their own Wisedome take upon them to reprehend the actions and call in question the Authority of them that govern and so to unsettle the Lawes with their publique discourse as that nothing shall be a Crime but what their own designes require should be so It happeneth also to the same men to be prone to all such Crimes as consist in Craft and in deceiving of their Neighbours because they think their designes are too subtile to be perceived These I say are effects of a false presumption of their own Wisdome For of them that are the first movers in the disturbance of Common-wealth which can never happen without a Civill Warre very few are left alive long enough to see their new Designes established so that the benefit of their Crimes redoundeth to Posterity and such as would least have wished it which argues they were not so wise as they thought they were And those that deceive upon hope of not being observed do commonly deceive themselves the darknesse in which they believe they lye hidden being nothing else but their own blindnesse and are no wiser than Children that think all hid by hiding their own eyes And generally all vain-glorious men unlesse they be withall timorous are subject to Anger as being more prone than others to interpret for contempt the ordinary liberty of conversation And there are few Crimes that may not be produced by Anger As for the Passions of Hate Lust Ambition and Covetousnesse what Crimes they are apt to produce is so obvious to every mans experience and understanding as there needeth nothing to be said of them saving that they are infirmities so annexed to the nature both of man and all other living creatures as that their effects cannot be hindred but by extraordinary use of Reason or a constant severity in punishing them For in those things men hate they find a continuall and unavoydable molestation whereby either a mans patience must be everlasting or he must be eased by removing the power of that which molesteth him The former is difficult the later is many times impossible without some violation of the Law Ambition and Covetousnesse are Passions also that are perpetually incumbent and pressing whereas Reason is not perpetually present to resist them and therefore whensoever the hope of impunity appears their effects proceed And for Lust what it wants in the lasting it hath in the vehemence which sufficeth to weigh down the apprehension of all easie or uncertain punishments Of all Passions that which enclineth men least to break the Lawes is Fear Nay excepting some generous natures it is the onely thing when there is apparence of profit or pleasure by breaking the Lawes that makes men keep them And yet in many cases a Crime may be committed through Feare For not every Fear justifies the Action it produceth but the fear onely of corporeall hurt which we call Bodily Fear and from which a man cannot see how to be delivered but by the action A man is assaulted fears present death from which he sees not how to escape but by wounding him that assaulteth him If he wound him to death this is no Crime because no man is supposed at the making of a Common-wealth to have abandoned the defence of his life or limbes where the Law cannot arrive time enough to his assistance But to kill a man because from his actions or his threatnings I may argue he will kill me when he can seeing I have time and means to demand protection from the Soveraign Power is a Crime Again a man receives words of disgrace or some little injuries for which they that made the Lawes had assigned no punishment nor thought it worthy of a man that hath the use of Reason to take notice of and is afraid unlesse he revenge it he shall fall into contempt and consequently be obnoxious to the like injuries from others and to avoyd this breaks the Law and protects himselfe for the future by the terrour of his private revenge This is a Crime For the hurt is not Corporeall but Phantasticall and though in this corner of the world made sensible by a custome not many years since begun amongst young and vain men so light as a gallant man and one that is assured of his own courage cannot take notice of Also a man may stand in fear of Spirits either through his own superstition or through too much credit given to other men that tell him of strange Dreams and Visions and thereby be made believe they will hurt him for doing or omitting divers things which neverthelesse to do or omit is contrary to the Lawes And that which is so done or omitted is not to be Excused by this fear but is
the Fundamentall Lawes to the molestation of the Common-wealth like the little Wormes which Physicians call Ascarides We may further adde the insatiable appetite or Bulimia of enlarging Dominion with the incurable Wounds thereby many times received from the enemy And the Wens of ununited conquests which are many times a burthen and with lesse danger lost than kept As also the Lethargy of Ease and Consumption of Riot and Vain Expence Lastly when in a warre forraign or intestine the enemies get a finall Victory so as the forces of the Common-wealth keeping the field no longer there is no farther protection of Subjects in their loyaly then is the Common-wealth DISSOLVED and every man at liberty to protect himselfe by such courses as his own discretion shall suggest unto him For the Soveraign is the publique Soule giving Life and Motion to the Common-wealth which expiring the Members are governed by it no more than the Carcasse of a man by his departed though Immortall Soule For though the Right of a Soveraign Monarch cannot be extinguished by the act of another yet the Obligation of the members may For he that wants protection may seek it any where and when he hath it is obliged without fraudulent pretence of having submitted himselfe out of fear to protect his Protection as long as he is able But when the Power of an Assembly is once suppressed the Right of the same perisheth utterly because the Assembly it selfe is extinct and consequently there is no possibility for the Soveraignty to re-enter CHAP. XXX Of the OFFICE of the Soveraign Representative THe OFFICE of the Soveraign be it a Monarch or an Assembly consisteth in the end for which he was trusted with the Soveraign Power namely the procuration of the safety of the people to which he is obliged by the Law of Nature and to render an account thereof to God the Author of that Law and to none but him But by Safety here is not meant a bare Preservation but also all other Contentments of life which every man by lawfull Industry without danger or hurt to the Common-wealth shall acquire to himselfe And this is intended should be done not by care applyed to Individualls further than their protection from injuries when they shall complain but by a generall Providence contained in publique Instruction both of Doctrine and Example and in the making and executing of good Lawes to which individuall persons may apply their own cases And because if the essentiall Rights of Soveraignty specified before in the eighteenth Chapter be taken away the Common-wealth is thereby dissolved and every man returneth into the condition and calamity of a warre with every other man which is the greatest evill that can happen in this life it is the Office of the Soveraign to maintain those Rights entire and consequently against his duty First to transferre to another or to lay from himselfe any of them For he that deserteth the Means deserteth the Ends and he deserteth the Means that being the Soveraign acknowledgeth himselfe subject to the Civill Lawes and renounceth the Power of Supreme Judicature or of making Warre or Peace by his own Authority or of Judging of the Necessities of the Common-wealth or of levying Mony and Souldiers when and as much as in his own conscience he shall judge necessary or of making Officers and Ministers both of Warre and Peace or of appointing Teachers and examining what Doctrines are conformable or contrary to the Defence Peace and Good of the people Secondly it is against his Duty to let the people be ignorant or mis-informed of the grounds and reasons of those his essentiall Rights because thereby men are easie to be seduced and drawn to resist him when the Common-wealth shall require their use and exercise And the grounds of these Rights have the rather need to be diligently and truly taught because they cannot be maintained by any Civill Law or terrour of legall punishment For a Civill Law that shall forbid Rebellion and such is all resistance to the essentiall Rights of Soveraignty is not as a Civill Law any obligation but by vertue onely of the Law of Nature that forbiddeth the violation of Faith which naturall obligation if men know not they cannot know the Right of any Law the Soveraign maketh And for the Punishment they take it but for an act of Hostility which when they think they have strength enough they will endeavour by acts of Hostility to avoyd As I have heard some say that Justice is but a word without substance and that whatsoever a man can by force or art acquire to himselfe not onely in the condition of warre but also in a Common-wealth is his own which I have already shewed to be false So there be also that maintain that there are no grounds nor Principles of Reason to sustain those essentiall Rights which make Soveraignty absolute For if there were they would have been found out in some place or other whereas we see there has not hitherto been any Common-wealth where those Rights have been acknowledged or challenged Wherein they argue as ill as if the Savage people of America should deny there were any grounds or Principles of Reason so to build a house as to last as long as the materials because they never yet saw any so well built Time and Industry produce every day new knowledge And as the art of well building is derived from Principles of Reason observed by industrious men that had long studied the nature of materials and the divers effects of figure and proportion long after mankind began though poorly to build So long time after men have begun to constitute Common-wealths imperfect and apt to relapse into disorder there may Principles of Reason be found out by industrious meditation to make their constitution excepting by externall violence everlasting And such are those which I have in this discourse set forth Which whether they come not into the fight of those that have Power to make use of them or be neglected by them or not concerneth my particular interest at this day very little But supposing that these of mine are not such Principles of Reason yet I am sure they are Principles from Authority of Scripture as I shall make it appear when I shall come to speak of the Kingdome of God administred by Moses over the Jewes his peculiar people by Covenant But they say again that though the Principles be right yet Common people are not of capacity enough to be made to understand them I should be glad that the Rich and Potent Subjects of a Kingdome or those that are accounted the most Learned were no lesse incapable than they But all men know that the obstructions to this kind of doctrine proceed not so much from the difficulty of the matter as from the interest of them that are to learn Potent men digest hardly any thing that setteth up a Power to bridle their affections
fault that Jonathan had committed in eating a honey-comb contrary to the oath taken by the people And Iosh. 18. 10. God divided the land of Canaan amongst the Israelite by the lots that Ioshua did cast before the Lord in Shiloh In the same manner it seemeth to be that God discovered Ioshua 7. 16 c. the crime of Achan And these are the wayes whereby God declared his Will in the Old Testament All which ways he used also in the New Testament To the Virgin Mary by a Vision of an Angel To Ioseph in a Dream again to Paul in the way to Damascus in a Vision of our Saviour and to Peter in the Vision of a sheet let down from heaven with divers sorts of flesh of clean and unclean beasts and in prison by Vision of an Angel And to all the Apostles and Writers of the New Testament by the graces of his Spirit and to the Apostles again at the choosing of Matthias in the place of Judas Iscariot by lot Seeing then all Prophecy supposeth Vision or Dream which two when they be naturall are the same or some especiall gift of God so rarely observed in mankind as to be admired where observed And seeing as well such gifts as the most extraordinary Dreams and Visions may proceed from God not onely by his supernaturall and immediate but also by his naturall operation and by mediation of second causes there is need of Reason and Judgment to discern between naturall and supernaturall Gifts and between naturall and supernaturall Visions or Dreams And consequently men had need to be very circumspect aud wary in obeying the voice of man that pretending himself to be a Prophet requires us to obey God in that way which he in Gods name telleth us to be the way to happinesse For he that pretends to teach men the way of so great felicity pretends to govern them that is to say to rule and reign over them which is a thing that all men naturally desire and is therefore worthy to be suspected of Ambition and Imposture and consequently ought to be examined and tryed by every man before hee yeeld them obedience unlesse he have yeelded it them already in the institution of a Common-wealth as when the Prophet is the Civill Soveraign or by the Civil Soveraign Authorized And if this examination of Prophets and Spirits were not allowed to every one of the people it had been to no purpose to set out the marks by which every man might be able to distinguish between those whom they ought and those whom they ought not to follow Seeing therefore such marks are set out Deut. 13. 1 c. to know a Prophet by and 1 Iohn 4. 1. c. to know a Spirit by and seeing there is so much Prophecying in the Old Testament and so much Preaching in the New Testament against Prophets and so much greater a number ordinarily of false Prophets then of true every one is to beware of obeying their directions at their own perill And first that there were many more false then true Prophets appears by this that when Ahab 1 Kings 12. consulted four hundred Prophets they were all false Impostors but onely one Michaiah And a little before the time of the Captivity the Prophets were generally lyars The Prophets saith the Lord by Ieremy cha 14. verse 14. prophecy Lies in my name I sent them not neither have I commanded them nor spake unto them they prophecy to you a false Vision a thing of naught and the deceit of their heart In so much as God commanded the People by the mouth of the Prophet Iâ—…remiah chap. 23. 16. not to obey them Thus saith the Lord of Hosts hearken not unto the words of the Prophets that prophecy to you They make you vain they speak a Vision of their own heart and not out of the mouth of the Lord. Seeing then there was in the time of the Old Testament such quarrells amongst the Visionary Prophets one contesting with another and asking When departed the Spirit from me to go to thee as between Michaiah and the rest of the four hundred and such giving of the Lye to one another as in Ierem. 14. 14. and such controversies in the New Testament at this day amongst the Spirituall Prophets Every man then was and now is bound to make use of his Naturall Reason to apply to all Prophecy those Rules which God hath given us to discern the true from the false Of which Rules in the Old Testament one was conformable doctrine to that which Moses the Soveraign Prophet had taught them and the other the miraculous power of foretelling what God would bring to passe as I have already shewn out of Deut. 13. 1. c. And in the New Testament there was but one onely mark and that was the preaching of this Doctrine That Iesus is the Christ that is the King of the Jews promised in the Old Testament Whosoever denyed that Article he was a false Prophet whatsoever miracles he might seem to work and he that taught it was a true Prophet For St. Iohn 1 Epist. 4. 2 c. speaking expressely of the means to examine Spirits whether they be of God or not after he had told them that there would arise false Prophets saith thus Hereby know ye the Spirit of God Every Spirit that confesseth that Iesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God that is is approved and allowed as a Prophet of God not that he is a godly man or one of the Elect for this that he confesseth professeth or preacheth Jesus to be the Christ but for that he is a Prophet avowed For God sometimes speaketh by Prophets whose persons he hath not accepted as he did by Baalam and as he foretold Saul of his death by the Witch of Endor Again in the next verse Every Spirit that confesseth not that Iesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of Christ. And this is the Spirit of Antichrist So that the Rule is perfect on both sides that he is a true Prophet which preacheth the Messiah already come in the person of Jesus and he a false one that denyeth him come and looketh for him in some future Impostor that shall take upon him that honour falsely whom the Apostle there properly calleth Antichrist Every man therefore ought to consider who is the Soveraign Prophet that is to say who it is that is Gods Vicegerent on Earth and hath next under God the Authority of Governing Christian men and to observe for a Rule that Doctrine which in the name of God hee hath commanded to bee taught and thereby to examine and try out the truth of those Doctrines which pretended Prophets with miracle or without shall at any time advance and if they find it contrary to that Rule to doe as they did that came to Moses and complained that there were some that Propecyed in the Campe whose Authority so to doe they doubted of and leave to the
and gave it to the Seventy Elders But as I have shewn before chap. 36. by Spirit is understood the Mind so that the sense of the place is no other than this that God endued them with a mind conformable and subordinate to that of Moses that they might Prophecy that is to say speak to the people in Gods name in such manner as to set forward as Ministers of Moses and by his authority such doctrine as was agreeable to Moses his doctrine For they were but Ministers and when two of them Prophecyed in the Camp it was thought a new and unlawfull thing and as it is in the 27. and 28. verses of the same Chapter they were accused of it and Joshua advised Moses to forbid them as not knowing that it was by Moses his Spirit that they Prophecyed By which it is manifest that no Subject ought to pretend to Prophecy or to the Spirit in opposition to the doctrine established by him whom God hath set in the place of Moses Aaron being dead and after him also Moses the Kingdome as being a Sacerdotall Kingdome descended by vertue of the Covenant to Aarons Son Eleazar the High Priest And God declared him next under himself for Soveraign at the same time that he appointed Joshua for the Generall of their Army For thus God saith expressely Numb 27. 21. concerning Joshua He shall stand before Eleazar the Priest who shall ask counsell for him before the Lord at his word shall they goe out and at his word they shall come in both he aâ—…d all the Children of Israel with him Therefore the Supreme Power of making War and Peace was in the Priest The Supreme Power of Judicature belonged also to the High Priest For the Book of the Law was in their keeping and the Priests and Levites onely were the subordinate Judges in causes Civill as appears in Deut. 17. 8 9 10. And for the manner of Gods worship there was never doubt made but that the High Priest till the time of Saul had the Supreme Authority Therefore the Civill and Ecclesiasticall Power were both joined together in one and the same person the High Priest and ought to bee so in whosoever governeth by Divine Right that is by Authority immediate from God After the death of Joshua till the time of Saul the time between is noted frequently in the Book of Judges that there was in those dayes no King in Israel and sometimes with this addition that every man did that which was right in his own eyes By which is to bee understood that where it is said there was no King is meant there was no Soveraign Power in Israel And so it was if we consider the Act and Exercise of such power For after the death of Joshua Eleazar there arose another generation Judges 2. 10. that knew not the Lord nor the works which he had done for Israel but did evill in the sight of the Lord and served Baalim And the Jews had that quality which St. Paul noteth to look for a sign not onely before they would submit themselves to the government of Moses but also after they had obliged themselves by their submission Whereas Signs and Miracles had for End to procure Faith not to keep men from violating it when they have once given it for to that men are obliged by the law of Nature But if we consider not the Exercise but the Right of Governing the Soveraign power was still in the High Priest Therefore whatsoever obedience was yeelded to any of the Judges who were men chosen by God extraordinarily to save his rebellious subjects out of the hands of the enemy it cannot bee drawn into argument against the Right the High Priest had to the Soveraign Power in all matters both of Policy and Religion And neither the Judges nor Samuel himselfe had an ordinary but extraordinary calling to the Government and were obeyed by the Israelites not out of duty but out of reverence to their favour with God appearing in their wisdome courage or felicity Hitherto therefore the Right of Regulating both the Policy and the Religion were inseparable To the Judges succeeded Kings And whereas before all authority both in Religion and Policy was in the High Priest so now it was all in the King For the Soveraignty over the people which was before not onely by vertue of the Divine Power but also by a particular pact of the Israelites in God and next under him in the High Priest as his Vicegerent on earth was cast off by the People with the consent of God himselfe For when they said to Samuel 1 Sam. 8. 5. make us a King to judge us like all the Nations they signified that they would no more bee governed by the commands that should bee laid upon them by the Priest in the name of God but by one that should command them in the same manner that all other nations were commandcd and consequently in deposing the High Priest of Royall authority they deposed that peculiar Government of God And yet God consented to it saying to Samuel verse 7. Hearken unto the voice of the People in all that they shall say unto thee for they have not rejected thee but they have rejected mee that I should not reign over them Having therefore rejected God in whose Right the Priests governed there was no authority left to the Priests but such as the King was pleased to allow them which was more or lesse according as the Kings were good or evill And for the Government of Civill affaires it is manifest it was all in the hands of the King For in the same Chapter verse 20. They say they will be like all the Nations that their King shall be their Judge and goe before them and fight their battells that is he shall have the whole authority both in Peace and War In which is contained also the ordering of Religion for there was no other Word of God in that time by which to regulate Religion but the Law of Moses which was their Civill Law Besides we read 1 Kings 2. 27. that Solomon thrust out Abiathar from being Priest before the Lord He had therefore authority over the High Priest as over any other Subject which is a great mark of Supremacy in Religion And we read also 1 Kings 8. that hee dedicated the Temple that he blessed the People and that he himselfe in person made that excellent prayer used in the Consecrations of all Churches and houses of Prayer which is another great mark of Supremacy in Religion Again we read 2 Kings 22. that when there was question concerning the Book of the Law found in the Temple the same was not decided by the High Priest but Josiah sent both him and others to enquire concerning it of Hulda the Prophetesse which is another mark of the Supremacy in Religion Lastly wee read 1 Chron. 26. 30. that David made Hashabiah and his brethren Hebronites Officers of Israel
authority to preach he sent not all that beleeved And he sent them to unbeleevers I send you saith he as sheep amongst wolves not as sheep to other sheep Lastly the points of their Commission as they are expressely set down in the Gospel contain none of them any authority over the Congregation We have first Mat. 10. that the twelve Apostles were sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel and commanded to Preach that the Kingdome of God was at hand Now Preaching in the originall is that act which a Crier Herald or other Officer useth to doe publiquely in Proclaiming of a King But a Crier hath not right to Command any man And Luke 10. 2. the seventy Disciples are sent out as Labourers not as Lords of the Harvest and are bidden verse 9. to say The Kingdome of God is come nigh unto you and by Kingdom here is meant not the Kingdome of Grace but the Kingdome of Glory for they are bidden to denounce it ver 11. to those Cities which shall not receive them as a threatning that it shall be more tolerable in that day for Sodome than for such a City And Mat. 20. 28. our Saviour telleth his Disciples that sought Priority of place their Office was to minister even as the Son of man came not to be ministred unto but to minister Preachers therefore have not Magisteriall but Ministeriall power Bee not called Masters saith our Saviour Mat. 23. 10. for one is your Master even Christ. Another point of their Commission is to Teach all nations as it is in Mat. 28. 19. or as in St. Mark 16. 15. Goe into all the world and Preach the Gospel to every creature Teaching therefore and Preaching is the same thing For they that Proclaim the comming of a King must withall make known by what right he commeth if they mean men shall submit themselves unto him As St. Paul did to the Jews of Thessalonica when three Sabbath dayes he reasoned with them out of the Scriptures opening and alledging that Christ must needs have suffered and risen again from the dead and that this Iesus is Christ. But to teach out of the Old Testament that Jesus was Christ that is to say King and risen from the dead is not to say that men are bound after they beleeve it to obey those that tell them so against the laws and commands of their Soveraigns but that they shall doe wisely to expect the coming of Christ hereafter in Patience and Faith with Obedience to their present Magistrates Another point of their Commission is to Baptize in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost What is Baptisme Dipping into water But what is it to Dip a man into the water in the name of any thing The meaning of these words of Baptisme is this He that is Baptized is Dipped or Washed as a sign of becomming a new man and a loyall subject to that God whose Person was represented in old time by Moses and the High Priests when he reigned over the Jews and to Jesus Christ his Sonne God and Man that hath redeemed us and shall in his humane nature Represent his Fathers Person in his eternall Kingdome after the Resurrection and to acknowledge the Doctrine of the Apostles who assisted by the Spirit of the Father and of the Son were left for guides to bring us into that Kingdome to be the onely and assured way thereunto This being our promise in Baptisme and the Authority of Earthly Soveraigns being not to be put down till the day of Judgment for that is expressely affirmed by S. Paul 1 Cor. 15. 22 23 24 where he saith As in Adam all die so in Christ all shall be made alive But every man in his owne order Christ the first fruits afterward they that are Christs at his comming Then commeth the end when he shall have delivered up the Kingdom to God even the Father when he shall have put down all Rule and all Authority and Power it is manifest that we do not in Baptisme constitute over us another authority by which our externall actions are to bee governed in this life but promise to take the doctrine of the Apostles for our direction in the way to life eternall The Power of Remission and Retention of Sinnes called also the Power of Loosing and Binding and sometimes the Keyes of the Kingdome of Heaven is a consequence of the Authority to Baptize or refuse to Baptize For Baptisme is the Sacrament of Allegeance of them that are to be received into the Kingdome of God that is to say into Eternall life that is to say to Remission of Sin For as Eternall life was lost by the Committing so it is recovered by the Remitting of mens Sins The end of Baptisme is Remission of Sins and therefore St. Peter when they that were converted by his Sermon on the day of Pentecost asked what they were to doe advised them to repent and be Baptized in the name of Iesus for the Remission of Sins And therefore seeing to Baptize is to declare the Reception of men into Gods Kingdome and to refuse to Baptize is to declare their Exclusion it followeth that the Power to declare them Cast out or Retained in it was given to the same Apostles and their Substitutes and Successors And therefore after our Saviour had breathed upon them saying Iohn 20. 22. Receive the Holy Ghost hee addeth in the next verse VVhos 's soever Sins ye Remit they are Remitted unto them and whose soever Sins ye Retain they are Retained By which words is not granted an Authority to Forgive or Retain Sins simply and absolutely as God Forgiveth or Retaineth them who knoweth the Heart of man and truth of his Penitence and Conversion but conditionally to the Penitent And this Forgivenesse or Absolution in case the absolved have but a feigned Repentance is thereby without other act or sentence of the Absolvent made void and hath no effect at all to Salvation but on the contrary to the Aggravation of his Sin Therefore the Apostles and their Successors are to follow but the outward marks of Repentance which appearing they have no Authority to deny Absolution and if they appeare not they have no authority to Absolve The same also is to be observed in Baptisme for to a converted Jew or Gentile the Apostles had not the Power to deny Baptisme nor to grant it to the Un-penitent But seeing no man is able to discern the truth of another mans Repentance further than by externall marks taken from his words and actions which are subject to hypocrisie another question will arise Who it is that is constituted Judge of those marks And this question is decided by our Saviour himself If thy Brother saith he shal trespasse against thee go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone if shall hear thee thou hast gained thy Brother But if he will not hear thee then
not any where that they who received not the Doctrine of Christ did therein sin but that they died in their sins that is that their sins against the Laws to which they owed obedience were not pardoned And those Laws were the Laws of Nature and the Civill Laws of the State whereto every Christian man had by pact submitted himself And therefore by the Burthen which the Apostles might lay on such as they had converted are not to be understood Laws but Conditions proposed to those that sought Salvation which they might accept or refuse at their own perill without a new sin though not without the hazard of being condemned and excluded out of the Kingdome of God for their sins past And therefore of Infidels S. John saith not the wrath of God shall come upon them but the wrath of God remaineth upon them and not that they shall be condemned but that they are condemned already Nor can it be conceived that the benefit of Faith is Remission of sins unlesse we conceive withall that the dammage of Infidelity is the Retention of the same sins But to what end is it may some man aske that the Apostles and other Pastors of the Church after their time should meet together to agree upon what Doctrine should be taught both for Faith and Manners if no man were obliged to observe their Decrees To this may be answered that the Apostles and Elders of that Councell were obliged even by their entrance into it to teach the Doctrine therein concluded and decreed to be taught so far forth as no precedent Law to which they were obliged to yeeld obedience was to the contrary but not that all other Christians should be obliged to observe what they taught For though they might deliberate what each of them should teach yet they could not deliberate what others should do unless their Assembly had had a Legislative Power which none could have but Civil Soveraigns For though God be the Soveraign of all the world we are not bound to take for his Law whatsoever is propounded by every man in his name nor any thing contrary to the Civill Law which God hath expressely commanded us to obey Seeing then the Acts of Councell of the Apostles were then no Laws but Counsells much lesse are Laws the Acts of any other Doctors or Councells since if assembled without the Authority of the Civill Soveraign And consequently the Books of the New Testament though most perfect Rules of Christian Doctrine could not be made Laws by any other authority then that of Kings or Soveraign Assemblies The first Councell that made of the Scriptures we now have Canon is not extant For that Collection of the Canons of the Apostles attributed to Clemens the first Bishop of Rome after S. Peter is subject to question For though the Canonicall books bee there reckoned up yet these words Sint vobis omnibus Clericis Lâ—…icis Libri venerandi c. containe a distinction of Clergy and Laity that was not in use so neer St. Peters time The first Councell for setling the Canonicall Scripture that is extant is that of Laodicea Can. 59. which forbids the reading of other Books then those in the Churches which is a Mandate that is not addressed to every Châ—…istian but to those onely that had authority to read any thing publiquely in the Church that is to Ecclesiastiques onely Of Ecclesiasticall Officers in the time of the Apostles some were Magisteriall some Ministeriall Magisteriall were the Offices of preaching of the Gospel of the Kingdom of God to Infidels of administaing the Sacraments and Divine Service and of teaching the Rules of Faith and Manners to those that were converted Ministeriall was the Office of Deacons that is of them that were appointed to the administration of the secular necessities of the Church at such time as they lived upon a common stock of mony raised out of the voluntary contributions of the faithfull Amongst the Officers Magisteriall the first and principall were the Apostles whereof there were at first but twelve and these were chosen and constituted by our Saviour himselfe and their Office was not onely to Preach Teach and Baptize but also to be Narâ—…yrs Witnesses of our Saviours Resurrection This Testimony was the specificall and essentiall mark whereby the Apostleship was distinguished from other Magistracy Ecclesiasticall as being necessary for an Apostle either to have seen our Saviour after his Resurrection or to have conversed with him before and seen his works and other arguments of his Divinity whereby they might be taken for sufficient Witnesses And therefore at the election of a new Apostle in the place of Judas Iscariot S. Peter saith Acts 1. 21 22. Of these men that have companyed with us all the time that the Lord Iesus went in and out among us beginning from the Baptisme of Iohn unto that same day that he was taken up from us must one be ordained to be a Witnesse with us of his Resurrection where by this word must is implyed a necessary property of an Apostle to have companyed with the first and prime Apostles in the time that our Saviour manifested himself in the flesh The first Apostle of those which were not constituted by Christ in the time he was upon the Earth was Matthias chosen in this manner There were assembled together in Jerusalem about 120 Christians Acts 1. 15. These appointed two Ioseph the Iust and Matthias ver 23. and caused lots to be drawn and ver 26. the Lot fell on Matthias and he was numbred with the Apostles So that here we see the ordination of this Apostle was the act of the Congregation and not of St. Peter nor of the eleven otherwise then as Members of the Assembly After him there was never any other Apostle ordained but Paul and Barnabas which was done as we read Acts 13. 1 2 3. in this manner There were in the Church that was at Antioch certaine Prophets and Teachers as Barnabas and Simeon that was called Niger and Lucius of Cyrene and Manaen which had been brought up with Herod the Tetrarch and Saul As they ministred unto the Lord and fasted the Holy Ghost said Separate mee Barnabas and Saul for the worke whereunto I have called them And when they had fasted and prayed and laid their hands on them they sent them away By which it is manifest that though they were called by the Holy Ghost their Calling was declared unto them and their Mission authorized by the particular Church of Antioch And that this their calling was to the Apostleship is apparent by that that they are both called Acts 14. 14. Apostles And that it was by vertue of this act of the Church of Antioch that they were Apostles S. Paul declareth plainly Rom. 1. 1. in that hee useth the word which the Holy Ghost used at his calling For hee stileth himself An Apostle separated unto the Gospel of God alluding to the words of
with a Heathen man or a Publican which in many occasions might be a greater pain to the Excommunicant than to the Excommunicate The seventh place is 1 Cor. 4. 21. Shall I come unto you with a Rod or in love and the spirit of lenity But here again it is not the Power of a Magistrate to punish offenders that is meant by a Rod but onely the Power of Excommunication which is not in its owne nature a Punishment but onely a Denouncing of punishment that Christ shall inflict when he shall be in possession of his Kingdome at the day of Judgment Nor then also shall it bee properly a Punishment as upon a Subject that hath broken the Law but a Revenge as upon an Enemy or Revolter that denyeth the Right of our Saviour to the Kingdome And therefore this proveth not the Legislative Power of any Bishop that has not also the Civill Power The eighth place is Timothy 3. 2. A Bishop must be the husband but of one wife vigilant sober c. which he saith was a Law I thought that none could make a Law in the Church but the Monarch of the the Church St. Peter But suppose this Precept made by the authority of St. Peter yet I see no reason why to call it a Law rather than an Advice seeing Timothy was not a Subject but a Disciple of S. Paul nor the flock under the charge of Timothy his Subjects in the Kingdome but his Scholars in the Schoole of Christ If all the Precepts he giveth Timothy be Laws why is not this also a Law Drink no longer water but use a little wine for thy healths sake And why are not also the Precepts of good Physitians so many Laws but that it is not the Imperative manner of speaking but an absolute Subjection to a Person that maketh his Precepts Laws In like manner the ninth place 1 Tim. 5. 19. Against an Elder receive not an accusation but before two or three VVitnesses is a wise Precept but not a Law The tenth place is Luke 10. 16. He that heareth you heareth mee and he that despiseth you despiseth me And there is no doubt but he that despiseth the Counsell of those that are sent by Christ despiseth the Counsell of Christ himself But who are those now that are sent by Christ but such as are ordained Pastors by lawfull Authority and who are lawfully ordained that are not ordained by the Soveraign Pastor and who is ordained by the Soveraign Pastor in a Christian Common-wealth that is not ordained by the authority of the Soveraign thereof Out of this place therefore it followeth that he which heareth his Soveraign being a Christian heareth Christ and hee that despiseth the Doctrine which his King being a Christian authorizeth despiseth the Doctrine of Christ which is not that which Bellarmine intendeth here to prove but the contrary But all this is nothing to a Law Nay more a Christian King as a Pastor and Teacher of his Subjects makes not thereby his Doctrines Laws He cannot oblige men to beleeve though as a Civill Soveraign he may make Laws suitable to his Doctrine which may oblige men to certain actions and sometimes to such as they would not otherwise do and which he ought not to command and yet when they are commanded they are Laws and the externall actions done in obedience to them without the inward approbation are the actions of the Soveraign and not of the Subject which is in that case but as an instrument without any motion of his owne at all because God hath commanded to obey them The eleventh is every place where the Apostle for Counsell putteth some word by which men use to signifie Command or calleth the following of his Counsell by the name of Obedience And therefore they are alledged out of 1 Cor. 11. 2. I commend you for keeping my Precepts as I delivered them to you The Greek is I commend you for keeping those things I delivered to you as I delivered them Which is far from signifying that they were Laws or any thing else but good Counsell And that of 1. Thess. 4. 2. You know what commandements we gave you where the Greek word is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 equivalent to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 what wee delivered to you as in the place next before alledged which does not prove the Traditions of the Apostles to be any more than Counsells though as is said in the 8 verse he that despiseth them despiseth not man but God For our Saviour himself came not to Judge that is to be King in this world but to Sacrifice himself for Sinners and leave Doctors in his Church to lead not to drive men to Christ who never accepteth forced actions which is all the Law produceth but the inward conversion of the heart which is not the work of Laws but of Counsell and Doctrine And that of 2 Thess. 3. 14. If any man Obey not our word by this Epistle note that man and have no company with him that he may bee ashamed where from the word Obey he would inferre that this Epistle was a Law to the Thessalonians The Epistles of the Emperours were indeed Laws If therefore the Epistle of S. Paul were also a Law they were to obey two Masters But the word Obey as it is in the Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifieth hearkning to or putting in practice not onley that which is Commanded by him that has right to punish but also that which is delivered in a way of Counsell for our good and therefore St. Paul does not bid kill him that disobeys nor beat nor imprison nor amerce him which Legislators may all do but avoid his company that he may bee ashamed whereby it is evident it was not the Empire of an Apostle but his Reputation amongst the Faithfull which the Christians stood in awe of The last place is that of Heb. 13. 17. Obey your Leaders and submit your selves to them for they watch for your souls as they that must give account And here also is intended by Obedience a following of their Counsell For the reason of our Obedience is not drawn from the will and command of our Pastors but from our own benefit as being the Salvation of our Souls they watch for and not for the Exaltation of their own Power and Authority If it were meant here that all they teach were Laws then not onely the Pope but every Pastor in his Parish should have Legislative Power Again they that are bound to obey their Pastors have no power to examine their commands What then shall wee say to St. Iohn who bids us 1 Epist. chap. 4. ver 1. Not to beleeve every Spirit but to try the Spirits whether they are of God because many false Prophets are gone out into the world It is therefore manifest that wee may dispute the Doctrine of our Pastors but no man can dispute a Law The Commands of Civill Soveraigns are on all sides granted to be
Church supposed to be that Kingdom of his to which we are addressed in the Gospel is the Doctrine that it is necessary for a Christian King to receive his Crown by a Bishop as if it were from that Ceremony that he derives the clause of Dei gratiâ in his title and that then onely he is made King by the favour of God when he is crowned by the authority of Gods universall Vicegerent on earth and that every Bishop whosoever be his Soveraign taketh at his Consecration an oath of absolute Obedience to the Pope Consequent to the same is the Doctrine of the fourth Councell of Lateran held under Pope Innocent the third Chap. 3. de Haereticis That if a King at the Popes admonition doe not purge his Kingdome of Haeresies and being excommunicate for the same doe not give satisfaction within a year his Subjects are absolved of the bond of their obedience Where by Haeresies are understood all opinions which the Church of Rome hath forbidden to be maintained And by this means as often as there is any repugnancy between the Politicall designes of the Pope and other Christian Princes as there is very often there ariseth such a Mist amongst their Subjects that they know not a stranger that thrusteth himself into the throne of their lawfull Prince from him whom they had themselves placed there and in this Darknesse of mind are made to fight one against another without discerning their enemies from their friends under the conduct of another mans ambition From the same opinion that the present Church is the Kingdome of God it proceeds that Pastours Deacons and all other Ministers of the Church take the name to themselves of the Clergy giving to other Christians the name of Laity that is simply People For Clergy signifies those whose maintenance is that Revenue which God having reserved to himselfe during his Reigne over the Israelites assigned to the tribe of Levi who were to be his publique Ministers and had no portion of land set them out to live on as their brethren to be their inheritance The Pope therefore pretending the present Church to be as the Realme of Israel the Kingdome of God challenging to himselfe and his subordinate Ministers the like revenue as the Inheritance of God the name of Clergy was sutable to that claime And thence it is that Tithes and other tributes paid to the Levites as Gods Right amongst the Israelites have a long time been demanded and taken of Christians by Ecclesiastiques Iure divino that is in Gods Right By which meanes the people every where were obliged to a double tribute one to the State another to the Clergy whereof that to the Clergy being the tenth of their revenue is double to that which a King of Athens and esteemed a Tyrant exacted of his subjects for the defraying of all publique charges For he demanded no more but the twentieth part and yet abundantly maintained therewith the Commonwealth And in the Kingdome of the Iewes during the Sacerdotall Reigne of God the Tithes and Offerings were the whole Publique Revenue From the same mistaking of the present Church for the Kingdom of God came in the distinction betweene the Civill and the Canon Laws The Civil Law being the Acts of Soveraigns in their own Dominions and the Canon Law being the Acts of the Pope in the same Dominions Which Canons though they were but Canons that is Rules Propounded and but voluntarily received by Christian Princes till the translation of the Empire to Charlemain yet afterwards as the power of the Pope encreased became Rules Commanded and the Emperours themselves to avoyd greater mischiefes which the people blinded might be led into were forced to let them passe for Laws From hence it is that in all Dominions where the Popes Ecclesiasticall power is entirely received Jewes Turkes and Gentiles are in the Roman Church tolerated in their Religion as farre forth as in the exercise and profession thereof they offend not against the civill power whereas in a Christian though a stranger not to be of the Roman Religion is Capitall because the Pope pretendeth that all Christians are his Subjects For otherwise it were as much against the law of Nations to persecute a Christian stranger for professing the Religion of his owne country as an Infidell or rather more in as much as they that are not against Christ are with him From the same it is that in every Christian State there are certaine men that are exempt by Ecclesiasticall liberty from the tributes and from the tribunals of the Civil State for so are the secular Clergy besides Monks and Friars which in many places bear so great a proportion to the common people as if need were there might be raised out of them alone an Army sufficient for any warre the Church militant should imploy them in against their owne or other Princes A second generall abuse of Scripture is the turning of Consecration into Conjuration or Enchantment To Consecrate is in Scripture to Offer Give or Dedicate in pious and decent language and gesture a man or any other thing to God by separating of it from common use that is to say to Sanctifie or make it Gods and to be used only by those whom God hath appointed to be his Publike Ministers as I have already proved at large in the 35. Chapter and thereby to change not the thing Consecrated but onely the use of it from being Profane and common to be Holy and peculiar to Gods service But when by such words the nature or qualitie of the thing it selfe is pretended to be changed it is not Consecration but either an extraordinary worke of God or a vaine and impious Conjuration But seeing for the frequency of pretending the change of Nature in their Consecrations it cannot be esteemed a work extraordinary it is no other than a Conjuration or Incantation whereby they would have men to beleeve an alteration of Nature that is not contrary to the testimony of mans Sight and of all the rest of his Senses As for example when the Priest in stead of Consecrating Bread and Wine to Gods peculiar service in the Sacrament of the Lords Supper which is but a separation of it from the common use to signifie that is to put men in mind of their Redemption by the Passion of Christ whose body was broken and blood shed upon the Crosse for our transgressions pretends that by saying of the words of our Saviour This is my Body and This is my Blood the nature of Bread is no more there but his very Body notwithstanding there appeareth not to the Sight or other Sense of the Receiver any thing that appeared not before the Consecration The Egyptian Conjurers that are said to have turned their Rods to Serpents and the Water into Bloud are thought but to have deluded the senses of the Spectators by a false shew of things yet are esteemed Enchanters But what should wee have thought
Romane Church pretend to be tormented now in Purgatory For God that could give a life to a peece of clay hath the same power to give life again to a dead man and renew his inanimate and rotten Carkasse into a glorious spirituall and immortall Body Another place is that of 1 Cor. 3. where it is said that they which built Stubble Hay c. on the true Foundation their work shall perish but they themselves shall be saved but as through Fire This Fire he will have to be the Fire of Purgatory The words as I have said before are an allusion to those of Zach. 13. 9. where he saith I will bring the third part through the Fire and refine them as Silver is refined and will try them as Gold is tryed Which is spoken of the comming of the Messiah in Power and Glory that is at the day of Judgment and Conflagration of the present world wherein the Elect shall not be consumed but be refined that is depose their erroneous Doctrines and Traditions and have them as it were sindged of and shall afterwards call upon the name of the true God In like manner the Apostle saith of them that holding this Foundation Iesus is the Christ shall build thereon some other Doctrines that be erroneous that they shall not be consumed in that fire which reneweth the world but shall passe through it to Salvation but so as to see and relinquish their former Errours The Builders are the Pastors the Foundation that Iesus is the Christ the Stubble and Hay False Consequences drawn from it through Ignorance or Frailty the Gold Silver and pretious Stones are their True Doctrines and their Refining or Purging the Relinquishing of their Errors In all which there is no colour at all for the burning of Incorporeall that is to say Impatible Souls A third place is that of 1 Cor. 15. before mentioned concerning Baptisme for the Dead out of which he concludeth first that Prayers for the Dead are not unprofitable and out of that that there is a Fire of Purgatory But neither of them rightly For of many interpretations of the word Baptisme he approveth this in the first place that by Baptisme is meant metaphorically a Baptisme of Penance and that men are in this sense Baptized when they Fast and Pray and give Almes And so Baptisme for the Dead and Prayer for the Dead is the same thing But this is a Metaphor of which there is no example neither in the Scripture nor in any other use of language and which is also discordant to the harmony and scope of the Scripture The word Baptisme is used Mar. 10. 38. Luk. 12. 50. for being Dipped in ones own bloud as Christ was upon the Cross and as most of the Apostles were for giving testimony of him But it is hard to say that Prayer Fasting and Almes have any similitude with Dipping The same is used also Mat. 3. 11. which seemeth to make somewhat for Purgatory for a Purging with Fire But it is evident the Fire and Purging here mentioned is the same whereof the Prophet Zachary speaketh chap. 13. v. 9. I will bring the third part through the Fire and will Refine them c. And St. Peter after him 1 Epist. 1. 7. That the triall of your Faith which is much more precious than of Gold that perisheth though it be tryed with Fire might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the Appearing of Iesus Christ And St. Paul 1 Cor. 3. 13. The Fire shall trie every mans work of what sort it is But St. Peter and St. Paul speak of the Fire that shall be at the Second Appearing of Christ and the Prophet Zachary of the Day of Judgment And therefore this place of S. Mat. may be interpreted of the same and then there will be no necessity of the Fire of Purgatory Another interpretation of Baptisme for the Dead is that which I have before mentioned which he preferreth to the second place of probability And thence also he inferreth the utility of Prayer for the Dead For if after the Resurrection such as have not heard of Christ or not beleeved in him may be received into Christs Kingdome it is not in vain after their death that their friends should pray for them till they should be risen But granting that God at the prayers of the faithfull may convert unto him some of those that have not heard Christ preached and consequently cannot have rejected Christ and that the charity of men in that point cannot be blamed yet this concludeth nothing for Purgatory because to rise from Death to Life is one thing to rise from Purgatory to Life is another as being a rising from Life to Life from a Life in torments to a Life in joy A fourth place is that of Mat. 5. 25. Agree with thine Adversary quickly whilest thou art in the way with him left at any time the Adversary deliver thee to the Iudge and the Iudge deliver thee to the Officer and thou be cast into prison Verily I say unto thee thou shalt by no means come out thence till thou hast paid the uttermost farthing In which Allegory the Offender is the Sinner both the Adversary and the Judge is God the Way is this Life the Prison is the Grave the Officer Death from which the sinner shall not rise again to life eternall but to a second Death till he have paid the utmost farthing or Christ pay it for him by his Passion which is a full Ransome for all manner of sin as well lesser sins as greater crimes both being made by the passion of Christ equally veniall The fift place is that of Matth. 5. 22. Whosoever is angry with his Brother without a cause shall be guilty in Iudgment And whosoever shall say to his Brother RACHA shall be guilty in the Councel But whosoever shall say Thou Foole shall be guilty to hell fire From which words he inferreth three sorts of Sins and three sorts of Punishments and that none of those sins but the last shall be punished with hell fire and consequently that after this life there is punishment of lesser sins in Purgatory Of which inference there is no colour in any interpretation that hath yet been given of them Shall there be a distinction after this life of Courts of Justice as there was amongst the Jews in our Saviours time to hear and determine divers sorts of Crimes as the Judges and the Councell Shall not all Judicature appertain to Christ and his Apostles To undersand therefore this text we are not to consider it solitarily but jointly with the words precedent and subsequent Our Saviour in this Chapter interpreteth the Law of Moses which the Jews thought was then fulfilled when they had not transgressed the Grammaticall sense thereof howsoever they had transgressed against the sentence or meaning of the Legislator Therefore whereas they thought the Sixth Commandement was not broken but by Killing a man nor the
houses upon pretence of doing it in the honor of Christ of the Virgin Mary and of the Apostles and other the Pastors of the Primitive Church as being easie by giving them new names to make that an Image of the Virgin Mary and of her Sonne our Saviour which before perhaps was called the Image of Venus and Cupid and so of a Iupiter to make a Barnabas and of Mercury a Paul and the like And as worldly ambition creeping by degrees into the Pastors drew them to an endeavour of pleasing the new made Christians and also to a liking of this kind of honour which they also might hope for after their decease as well as those that had already gained it so the worshipping of the Images of Christ and his Apostles grew more and more Idolatrous save that somewhat after the time of Constantine divers Emperors and Bishops and generall Councells observed and opposed the unlawfulnesse thereof but too late or too weakly The Canonizing of Saints is another Relique of Gentilisme It is neither a misunderstanding of Scripture nor a new invention of the Roman Church but a custome as ancient as the Common-wealth of Rome it self The first that ever was canonized at Rome was Romulus and that upon the narration of Iulius Proculus that swore before the Senate he spake with him after his death and was assured by him he dwelt in Heaven and was there called Quirinus and would be propitious to the State of their new City And thereupon the Senate gave publique testimony of his Sanctity Iulius Caesar and other Emperors after him had the like testimony that is were Canonized for Saints for by such testimony is CANONIZATION now defined and is the same with the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Heathen It is also from the Roman Heathen that the Popes have received the name and power of PONTIFEX MAXIMUS This was the name of him that in the ancient Common-wealth of Rome had the Supreme Authority under the Senate and People of regulating all Ceremonies and Doctrines concerning their Religion And when Augustus Caesar changed the State into a Monarchy he took to himselfe no more but this office and that of Tribune of the People that is to say the Supreme Power both in State and Religion and the succeeding Emperors enjoyed the same But when the Emperour Constantine lived who was the first that professed and authorized Christian Religion it was consonant to his profession to cause Religion to be regulated under his authority by the Bishop of Rome Though it doe not appear they had so soon the name of Pontifex but rather that the succeeding Bishops took it of themselves to countenance the power they exercised over the Bishops of the Roman Provinces For it is not any Priviledge of St. Peter but the Priviledge of the City of Rome which the Emperors were alwaies willing to uphold that gave them such authority over other Bishops as may be evidently seen by that that the Bishop of Constantinople when the Emperour made that City the Seat of the Empire pretended to bee equall to the Bishop of Rome though at last not without contention the Pope carryed it and became the Pontifex Maximus but in right onely of the Emperour and not without the bounds of the Empire nor any where after the Emperour had lost his power in Rome though it were the Pope himself that took his power from him From whence wee may by the way observe that there is no place for the superiority of the Pope over other Bishops except in the territories whereof he is himself the Civill Soveraign and where the Emperour having Soveraign Power Civill hath expressely chosen the Pope for the chief Pastor under himselfe of his Christian Subjects The carrying about of Images in Procession is another Relique of the Religion of the Greeks and Romans For they also carried their Idols from place to place in a kind of Chariot which was peculiarly dedicated to that use which the Latines called Thensa and Vehiculum Deorum and the Image was placed in a frame or Shrine which they called Ferculum And that which they called Pompa is the same that now is named Procession According whereunto amongst the Divine Honors which were given to Iulius Caesar by the Senate this was one that in the Pompe or Procession at the Circaean games he should have Thensam Ferculum a sacred Chariot and a Shrine which was as much as to be carried up and down as a God Just as at this day the Popes are carried by Switzers under a Canopie To these Processions also belonged the bearing of burning Torches and Candles before the Images of the Gods both amongst the Greeks and Romans For afterwards the Emperors of Rome received the same honor as we read of Caligula that at his reception to the Empire he was carried from Misenum to Rome in the midst of a throng of People the wayes beset with Altars and Beasts for Sacrifice and burning Torches And of Caracalla that was received into Alexandria with Incense and with casting of Flowers and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is with Torches for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 were they that amongst the Greeks carried Torches lighted in the Processions of their Gods And in processe of time the devout but ignorant People did many times honor their Bishops with the like pompe of Wax Candles and the Images of our Saviour and the Saints constantly in the Church it self And thus came in the use of Wax Candles and was also established by some of the ancient Councells The Heathens had also their Aqua Lustralis that is to say Holy Water The Church of Rome imitates them also in their Holy Dayes They had their Bacchanalia and we have our Wakes answering to them They their Saturnalia and we our Carnevalls and Shrovetuesdays liberty of Servants They their Procession of Priapus wee our fetching in erection and dancing about May-poles and Dancing is one kind of Worship They had their Procession called Ambarvalia and we our Procession about the fields in the Rogation week Nor do I think that these are all the Ceremonies that have been left in the Church from the first conversion of the Gentiles but they are all that I can for the present call to mind and if a man would wel observe that which is delivered in the Histories concerning the Religious Rites of the Greeks and Romanes I doubt not but he might find many more of these old empty Bottles of Gentilisme which the Doctors of the Romance Church either by Negligence or Ambition have filled up again with the new Wine of Christianity that will not faile in time to break them CHAP. XLVI Of DARKNESSE from VAIN PHILOSOPHY and FABULOUS TRADITIONS BY PHILOLOSPHY is understood the Knowledge acquired by Reasoning from the Manner of the Generation of any thing to the Properties or from the Properties to some possible Way of Generation of the same to the
and in all differences between him and other Princes charmed with the word Power Spirituall to abandon their lawfull Soveraigns which is in effect an universall Monarchy over all Christendome For though they were first invested in the right of being Supreme Teachers of Christian Doctrine by and under Christian Emperors within the limits of the Romane Empire as is acknowledged by themselves by the title of Pontifex Maximus who was an Officer subject to the Civill State yet after the Empire was divided and dissolved it was not hard to obtrude upon the people already subject to them another Title namely the Right of St. Peter not onely to save entire their pretended Power but also to extend the same over the same Christian Provinces though no more united in the Empire of Rome This Benefit of an Universall Monarchy considering the desire of men to bear Rule is a sufficient Presumption that the Popes that pretended to it and for a long time enjoyed it were the Authors of the Doctrine by which it was obtained namely that the Church now on Earth is the Kingdome of Christ. For that granted it must be understood that Christ hath some Lieutenant amongst us by whom we are to be told what are his Commandements After that certain Churches had renounced this universall Power of the Pope one would expect in reason that the Civill Soveraigns in all those Churches should have recovered so much of it as before they had unadvisedly let it goe was their own Right and in their own hands And in England it was so in effect saving that they by whom the Kings administred the Government of Religion by maintaining their imployment to be in Gods Right seemed to usurp if not a Supremacy yet an Independency on the Civill Power and they but seemed to usurpe it in as much as they acknowledged a Right in the King to deprive them of the Exercise of their Functions at his pleasure But in those places where the Presbytery took that Office though many other Doctrines of the Church of Rome were forbidden to be taught yet this Doctrine that the Kingdome of Christ is already come and that it began at the Resurrection of our Saviour was still retained But cui bono What Profit did they expect from it The same which the Popes expected to have a Soveraign Power over the People For what is it for men to excommunicate their lawful King but to keep him from all places of Gods publique Service in his own Kingdom and with force to resist him when he with force endeavoureth to correct them Or what is it without Authority from the Civill Soveraign to excommunicate any person but to take from him his Lawfull Liberty that is to usurpe an unlawfull Power over their Brethren The Authors therefore of this Darknesse in Religion are the Romane and the Presbyterian Clergy To this head I referre also all those Doctrines that serve them to keep the possession of this spirituall Soveraignty after it is gotten As first that the Pope in his publique capacity cannot erre For who is there that beleeving this to be true will not readily obey him in whatsoever he commands Secondly that all other Bishops in what Common-wealth soever have not their Right neither immediately from God nor mediately from their Civill Soveraigns but from the Pope is a Doctrine by which there comes to be in every Christian Common-wealth many potent men for so are Bishops that have their dependance on the Pope and owe obedience to him though he be a forraign Prince by which means he is able as he hath done many times to raise a Civill War against the State that submits not it self to be governed according to his pleasure and Interest Thirdly the exemption of these and of all other Priests and of all Monkes and Fryers from the Power of the Civill Laws For by this means there is a great part of every Common-wealth that enjoy the benefit of the Laws and are protected by the Power of the Civill State which neverthelesse pay no part of the Publique expence nor are lyable to the penalties as other Subjects due to their crimes and consequently stand not in fear of any man but the Pope and adhere to him onely to uphold his universall Monarchy Fourthly the giving to their Priests which is no more in the New Testament but Presbyters that is Elders the name of Sacerdotes that is Sacrificers which was the title of the Civill Soveraign and his publique Ministers amongst the Jews whilest God was their King Also the making the Lords Supper a Sacrifice serveth to make the People beleeve the Pope hath the same power over all Christians that Moses and Aaron had over the Jews that is to say all Power both Civill and Ecclesiasticall as the High Priest then had Fiftly the teaching that Matrimony is a Sacrament giveth to the Clergy the Judging of the lawfulnesse of Marriages and thereby of what Children are Legitimate and consequently of the Right of Succession to haereditary Kingdomes Sixtly the Deniall of Marriage to Priests serveth to assure this Power of the Pope over Kings For if a King be a Priest he cannot Marry and transmit his Kingdome to his Posterity If he be not a Priest then the Pope pretendeth this Authority Ecclesiasticall over him and over his people Seventhly from Auricular Confession they obtain for the assurance of their Power better intelligence of the designs of Princes and great persons in the Civill State than these can have of the designs of the State Ecclesiasticall Eighthly by the Canonization of Saints and declaring who are Martyrs they assure their Power in that they induce simple men into an obstinacy against the Laws and Commands of their Civill Soveraigns even to death if by the Popes excommunication they be declared Heretiques or Enemies to the Church that is as they interpret it to the Pope Ninthly they assure the same by the Power they ascribe to every Priest of making Christ and by the Power of ordaining Pennance and of Remitting and Retaining of sins Tenthly by the Doctrine of Purgatory of Justification by externall works and of Indulgences the Clergy is enriched Eleventhly by their Daemonology and the use of Exorcisme and other things appertaining thereto they keep or thinke they keep the People more in awe of their Power Lastly the Metaphysiques Ethiques and Politiques of Aristotle the frivolous Distinctions barbarous Terms and obscure Language of the Schoolmen taught in the Universities which have been all erected and regulated by the Popes Authority serve them to keep these Errors from being detected and to make men mistake the Ignis fatuus of Vain Philosophy for the Light of the Gospell To these if they sufficed not might be added other of their dark Doctrines the profit whereof redoundeth manifestly to the setting up of an unlawfull Power over the lawfull Soveraigns of Christian People or for
the sustaining of the same when it is set up or to the worldly Riches Honour and Authority of those that sustain it And therefore by the aforesaid rule of Cui bono we may justly pronounce for the Authors of all this Spirituall Darknesse the Pope and Roman Clergy and all those besides that endeavour to settle in the mindes of men this erroneous Doctrine that the Church now on Earth is that Kingdome of God mentioned in the Old and New Testament But the Emperours and other Christian Soveraigns under whose Government these Errours and the like encroachments of Ecclesiastiques upon their Office at first crept in to the disturbance of their possessions and of the tranquillity of their Subjects though they suffered the same for want of foresight of the Sequel and of insight into the designs of their Teachers may neverthelesse bee esteemed accessaries to their own and the Publique dammage For without their Authority there could at first no seditious Doctrine have been publiquely preached I say they might have hindred the same in the beginning But when the people were once possessed by those spirituall men there was no humane remedy to be applyed that any man could invent And for the remedies that God should provide who never faileth in his good time to destroy all the Machinations of men against the Truth wee are to attend his good pleasure that suffereth many times the prosperity of his enemies together with their ambition to grow to such a height as the violence thereof openeth the eyes which the warinesse of their predecessours had before sealed up and makes men by too much grasping let goe all as Peters net was broken by the struggling of too great a multitude of Fishes whereas the Impatience of those that strive to resist such encroachment before their Subjects eyes were opened did but encrease the power they resisted I doe not therefore blame the Emperour Frederick for holding the stirrop to our countryman Pope Adrian for such was the disposition of his subjects then as if hee had not done it hee was not likely to have succeeded in the Empire But I blame those that in the beginning when their power was entire by suffering such Doctrines to be forged in the Universities of their own Dominions have holden the Stirrop to all the succeeding Popes whilest they mounted into the Thrones of all Christian Soveraigns to ride and tire both them and their people at their pleasure But as the Inventions of men are woven so also are they ravelled out the way is the same but the order is inverted The web begins at the first Elements of Power which are Wisdom Humility Sincerity and other vertues of the Apostles whom the people converted obeyed out of Reverence not by Obligation Their Consciences were free and their Words and Actions subject to none but the Civill Power Afterwards the Presbyters as the Flocks of Christ encreased assembling to consider what they should teach and thereby obliging themselves to teach nothing against the Decrees of their Assemblies made it to be thought the people were thereby obliged to follow their Doctrine and when they refused refused to keep them company that was then called Excommunication not as being Infidels but as being disobedient And this was the first knot upon their Liberty And the number of Presbyters encreasing the Presbyters of the chief City or Province got themselves an authority over the Parochiall Presbyters and appropriated to themselves the names of Bishops And this was a second knot on Christian Liberty Lastly the Bishop of Rome in regard of the Imperiall City took upon him an Authority partly by the wills of the Emperours themselves and by the title of Pontifex Maximus and at last when the Emperours were grown weak by the priviledges of St. Peter over all other Bishops of the Empire Which was the third and last knot and the whole Synthesis and Construction of the Pontificiall Power And therefore the Analysis or Resolution is by the same way but beginneth with the knot that was last tyed as wee may see in the dissolution of the praeterpoliticall Church Government in England First the Power of the Popes was dissolved totally by Queen Elizabeth and the Bishops who before exercised their Functions in Right of the Pope did afterwards exercise the same in Right of the Queen and her Successours though by retaining the phrase of Iure Divino they were thought to demand it by immediate Right from God And so was untyed the first knot After this the Presbyterians lately in England obtained the putting down of Episcopacy And so was the second knot dissolved And almost at the same time the Power was taken also from the Presbyterians And so we are reduced to the Independency of the Primitive Christians to follow Paul or Cephas or Apollos every man as he liketh best Which if it be without contention and without measuring the Doctrine of Christ by our affection to the Person of his Minister the fault which the Apostle reprehended in the Corinthians is perhaps the best First because there ought to be no Power over the Consciences of men but of the Word it selfe working Faith in every one not alwayes according to the purpose of them that Plant and Water but of God himself that giveth the Increase and secondly because it is unreasonable in them who teach there is such danger in every little Errour to require of a man endued with Reason of his own to follow the Reason of any other man or of the most voices of many other men Which is little better then to venture his Salvation at crosse and pile Nor ought those Teachers to be displeased with this losse of their antient Authority For there is none should know better then they that power is preserved by the same Vertues by which it is acquired that is to say by Wisdome Humility Clearnesse of Doctrine and sincerity of Conversation and not by suppression of the Naturall Sciences and of the Morality of Naturall Reason nor by obscure Language nor by Arrogating to themselves more Knowledge than they make appear nor by Pious Frauds nor by such other faults as in the Pastors of Gods Church are not only Faults but also scandalls apt to make men stumble one time or other upon the suppression of their Authority But after this Doctrine that the Church now Militant is the Kingdome of God spoken of in the Old and New Testament was received in the World the ambition and canvasing for the Offices that belong thereunto and especially for that great Office of being Christs Lieutenant and the Pompe of them that obtained therein the principall Publique Charges became by degrees so evident that they lost the inward Reverence due to the Pastorall Function in so much as the Wisest men of them that had any power in the Civill State needed nothing but the authority of their Princes to deny them any further Obedience For from the time that the Bishop of Rome had gotten