Witnesse in himself In this Trinity on Earth the Unity is not of the thing for the Spirit the Water and the Bloud are not the same substance though they give the same testimony But in the Trinity of Heaven the Persons are the persons of one and the same God though Represented in three different times and occasions To conclude the doctrine of the Trinity as far as can be gathered directly from the Scripture is in substance this that the God who is alwaies One and the same was the Person Represented by Moses the Person Represented by his Son Incarnate and the Person Represented by the Apostles As Represented by the Apostles the Holy Spirit by which they spake is God As Represented by his Son that was God and Man the Son is that God As represented by Moses and the High Priests the Father that is to say the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is that God From whence we may gather the reason why those names Father Son and Holy Spirit in the signification of the Godhead are never used in the Old Testament For they are Persons that is they have their names from Representing which could not be till divers men had Represented Gods Person in ruling or in directing under him Thus wee see how the Power Ecclesiasticall was left by our Saviour to the Apostles and how they were to the end they might the better exercise that Power endued with the Holy Spirit which is therefore called sometime in the New Testament Paracletus which signifieth an Assister or one called to for helpe though it bee commonly translated a Comforter Let us now consider the Power it selfe what it was and over whom Cardinall Bellarmine in his third generall Controversie hath handled a great many questions concerning the Ecclesiasticall Power of the Pope of Rome and begins with this Whether it ought to be Monarchicall Aristocraticall or Democraticall All which sorts of Power are Soveraign and Coercive If now it should appear that there is no Coercive Power left them by our Saviour but onely a Power to proclaim the Kingdom of Christ and to perswade men to submit themselves thereunto and by precepts and good counsell to teach them that have submitted what they are to do that they may be received into the Kingdom of God when it comes and that the Apostles and other Ministers of the Gospel are our Schoolemasters and not our Commanders and their Precepts not Laws but wholesome Counsells then were all that dispute in vain I have shewn already in the last Chapter that the Kingdome of Christ is not of this world therefore neither can his Ministers unlesse they be Kings require obedience in his name For if the Supreme King have not his Regall Power in this world by what authority can obedience be required to his Officers As my Father sent me so saith our Saviour I send you But our Saviour was sent to perswade the Jews to return to and to invite the Gentiles to receive the Kingdome of his Father and not to reign in Majesty no not as his Fathers Lieutenant till the day of Judgment The time between the Ascension and the generall Resurrection is called not a Reigning but a Regeneration that is a Preparatiof men for the second and glorious coming of Christ at the day of Judgment as appeareth by the words of our Saviour Mat. 19. 28. You that have followed me in the Regeneration when the Son of man shall sit in the throne of his glory you shall also sit upon twelve Thrones And of St. Paul Ephes. 6. 15. Having your feet shod with the Preparation of the Gospell of Peace And is compared by our Saviour to Fishing that is to winning men to obedience not by Coercion and Punishing but by Perswasion and therefore he said not to his Apostles hee would make them so many Nimrods Hunters of men but Fishers of men It is compared also to Leaven to Sowing of Seed and to the Multiplication of a grain of Mustard-seed by all which Compulsion is excluded and consequently there can in that time be no actual Râ—…igning The work of Christs Ministers is Evangelization that is a Proclamation of Christ and a preparation for his second comming as the Evangelization of John Baptist was a preparation to his first coming Again the Office of Christs Ministers in this world is to make men Beleeve and have Faith in Christ But Faith hath no relation to nor dependence at all upon Compulsion or Commandement but onely upon certainty or probability of Arguments drawn from Reason or from something men beleeve already Therefore the Ministers of Christ in this world have no Power by that title to Punish any man for not Beleeving or for Contradicting what they say they have I say no Power by that title of Christs Ministers to Punish such but if they have Soveraign Civill Power by politick institution then they may indeed lawfully Punish any Contradiction to their laws whatsoever And St. Paul of himselfe and other the then Preachers of the Gospell saith in expresse words Wee have no Dominion over your Faith but are Helpers of your Ioy. Another Argument that the Ministers of Christ in this present world have no right of Commanding may be drawn from the lawfull Authority which Christ hath left to all Princes as well Christians as Infidels St. Paul saith Col. 3. 20. Children obey your Parents in all things for this is well pleasing to the Lord. And ver 22. Servants obey in all things your Masters according to the flesh not with eye-service as meâ—…-pleasers but in singlenesse of heart as fearing the Lord This is spoken to them whose Masters were Infidells and yet they are bidden to obey them in all things And again concerning obedience to Princes Rom. 13. the first 6. verses exhorting to be subject to the Higher Powers he saith that all Power is ordained of God and that we ought to be subject to them not onely for fear of incurring their wrath but also for conscience sake And St. Peter 1 Epist. chap. 2. ver 13 14 15. Submit your selves to every Ordinance of Man for the Lords sake whether it bee to the King as Supreme or unto Governours as to them that be sent by him for the punishment of evill doers and for the praise of them that doe well for so is the will of God And again St. Paul Tit. 3. 1. Put men in mind to be subject to Principalities and Powers and to obey Magistrates These Princes and Powers whereof St. Peter and St. Paul here speak were all Infidels much more therefore we are to observe those Christians whom God hath ordained to have Soveraign Power over us How then can wee be obliged to obey any Minister of Christ if he should command us to doe any thing contrary the Command of the King or other Soveraign Representant of the Common-wealth whereof we are members and by whom we look to be protected It is
single Texts without considering the main Designe can derive no thing from them cleerly but rather by casting atomes of Scripture as dust before mens eyes make every thing more obscure than it is an ordinary artifice of those that seek not the truth but their own advantage OF THE KINGDOME OF DARKNESSE CHAP. XLIV Of Spirituall Darknesse from MISINTERPRETATION of Scripture BEsides these Soveraign Powers Divine and Humane of which I have hitherto discoursed there is mention in Scripture of another Power namely that of the Rulers of the Darknesse of this world the Kingdome of Sâ—…tan and the Princpality of 〈◊〉 over Daemons that is to say over Phantasmes that appear in the Air For which cause Satan is also called the Prince of the Power of the Air and because he ruleth in the darknesse of this world The Prince of this world And in consequence hereunto they who are under his Dominion in opposition to the faithfull who are the Children of the Light are called the Children of Darknesse For seeing Beelzebub is Prince of Phantasmes Inhabitants of his Dominion of Air and Darknesse the Children of Darknesse and these Daemons Phantasmes or Spirits of Illusion signifie allegorically the same thing This considered the Kingdome of Darknesse as it is set forth in these and other places of the Scripture is nothing else but a Confederacy of Deceâ—…vers that to obtain doâ—… over men in this present world endeavour by dark and erroneons Doctrines to extinguish in them the Light both of Nature and of the Gospell and so to dis-prepare them for the Kingdome of God to coâ—… As men that are utterly deprived from their Nativity of the light of the bodily Eye have no Idea at all of any such light and no man conceives in his imagination any greater light than he hath at some time or other perceived by his outward Senses so also is it of the light of the Gospel and of the light of the Understanding that no man can conceive there is any greater degree of it than that which he hath already attained unto And from hence it comes to passe that men have no other means to acknowledge their owne Darknesse but onely by reasoning from the un-foreseen mischances that befall them in their ways The Darkest part of the Kingdom of Satan is that which is without the Church of God that is to say amongst them that beleeve not in Jesus Christ. But we cannot say that therefore the Church enjoyeth as the land of Goshen all the light which to the performance of the work enjoined us by God is necessary Whence comes it that in Christendome there has been almost from the time of the Apostles such justling of one another out of their places both by forraign and Civill war such stumbling at every little asperity of their own fortune and every little eminence of that of other men and such diversity of ways in running to the same mark Felicity if it be not Night amongst us or at least a Mist wee are therefore yet in the Dark The Enemy has been here in the Night of our naturall Ignorance and sown the tares of Spirituall Errors and that First by abusing and putting out the light of the Scriptures For we erre not knowing the Scriptures Secondly by introducing the Daemonology of the Heathen Poets that is to say their fabulous Doctrine concerning Daemons which are but Idols or Phantasms of the braine without any reall nature of their own distinct from humane fancy such as are dead mens Ghosts and Fairies and other matter of old Wives tales Thirdly by mixing with the Scripture divers reliques of the Religion and much of the vain and erroneous Philosophy of the Greeks especially of Aristotle Fourthly by mingling with both these false or uncertain Traditions and fained or uncertain History And so we come to erre by giving heed to seducing Spirits and the Daemonology of such as speak lies in Hypocrisie or as it is in the Originall 1 Tim. 4. 1 2. of those that play the part of lyars with a seared conscience that is contrary to their own knowledge Concerning the first of these which is the Seducing of men by abuse of Scripture I intend to speak briefly in this Chapter The greatest and main abuse of Scripture and to which almost all the rest are either consequent or subservient is the wresting of it to prove that the Kingdome of God mentioned so often in the Scripture is the present Church or multitude of Christian men now living or that being dead are to rise again at the last day whereas the Kingdome of God was first instituted by the Ministery of Moses over the Jews onely who were therefore called his Peculiar People and ceased afterward in the election of Saul when they refused to be governed by God any more and demanded a King after the manner of the nations which God himself consented unto as I have more at large proved before in the 35. Chapter After that time there was no other Kingdome of God in the world by any Pact or otherwise than he ever was is and shall be King of all men and of all creatures as governing according to his Will by his infinite Power Neverthelesse he promised by his Prophets to restore this his Government to them again when the time he hath in his secret counsell appointed for it shall bee fully come and when they shall turn unto him by repentance and amendment of life and not onely so but he invited also the Gentiles to come in and enjoy the happinesse of his Reign on the same conditions of conversion and repentance and hee promised also to send his Son into the world to expiate the sins of them all by his death and to prepare them by his Doctrine to receive him at his second coming Which second coming not yet being the Kingdome of God is not yet come and wee are not now under any other Kings by Pact but our Civill Soveraigns saving onely that Christian men are already in the Kingdome of Grace in as much as they have already the Promise of being received at his comming againe Consequent to this Errour that the present Church is Christs Kingdome there ought to be some one Man or Assembly by whose mouth our Saviour now in heaven speaketh giveth law and which representeth his Person to all Christians or divers Men or divers Assemblies that doe the same to divers parts of Christendome This power Regal under Christ being challenged universally by the Pope and in particular Common-wealths by Assemblies of the Pastors of the place when the Scripture gives it to none but to Civill Soveraigns comes to be so passionately disputed that it putteth out the Light of Nature and causeth so great a Darknesse in mens understanding that they see not who it is to whom they have engaged their obedience Consequent to this claim of the Pope to Vicar Generall of Christ in the present
Non est postestas Super terram quae Comparetur ei Iob. 41.24 LEVIATHAN Or THE MATTER FORME and POWER of a COMMON-WEALTH ECCLESIASTICALL and CIVIL By THOMAS HOBBES of MALMESBURY London Printed for Andrew Crooke 1651 LEVIATHAN OR The Matter Forme Power OF A COMMON-WEALTH ECCLESIASTICALL AND CIVILL By THOMAS HOBBES of Malmesbury LONDON Printed for ANDREW CROOKE at the Green Dragon in St. Pauls Church-yard 1651. FIDE ✚ ET ✚ FORTITUDINE The Right Hon. ble Algernon Capell Earl of Essex Viscount Maldon and Baron Capell of Hadham 1701. TO MY MOST HONOR'D FRIEND Mr FRANCIS GODOLPHIN of Godolphin Honor'd Sir YOur most worthy Brother Mr Sidney Godolphin when he lived was pleas'd to think my studies something and otherwise to oblige me as you know with reall testimonies of his good opinion great in themselves and the greater for the worthinesse of his person For there is not any vertue that disposeth a man either to the service of God or to the service of his Country to Civill Society or private Friendship that did not manifestly appear in his conversation not as acquired by necessity or affected upon occasion but inhaerent and shining in a generous constitution of his nature Therefore in honour and gratitude to him and with devotion to your selfe I humbly Dedicate unto you this my discourse of Common-wealth I know not how the world will receive it nor how it may reflect on those that shall seem to favour it For in a way beset with those that contend on one side for too great Liberty and on the other side for too much Authority 't is hard to passe between the points of both unwounded But yet me thinks the endeavour to advance the Civill Power should not be by the Civill Power condemned nor private men by reprehending it declare they think that Power too great Besides I speak not of the men but in the Abstract of the Seat of Power like to those simple and unpartiall creatures in the Roman Capitol that with their noyse defended those within it not because they were they but there offending none I think but those without or such within if there be any such as favour them That which perhaps may most offend are certain Texts of Holy Scripture alledged by me to other purpose than ordinarily they use to be by others But I have done it with due submission and also in order to my Subject necessarily for they are the Outworks of the Enemy from whence they impugne the Civill Power If notwithstanding this you find my labour generally decryed you may be pleased to excuse your selfe and say I am a man that love my own opinions and think all true I say that I honoured your Brother and honour you and have presum'd on that to assume the Title without your knowledge of being as I am SIR Your most humble and most obedient servant THO. HOBBES Paris Aprill 15 25. 1651. The Contents of the Chapters The first part Of MAN Chap. Introduction Page 1 Chap. 1. Of Sense Page 3 Chap. 2. Of Imagination Page 4 Chap. 3. Of the Consequence or Train of Imaginations Page 8 Chap. 4. Of Speech Page 12 Chap. 5. Of Reason and Science Page 18 Chap. 6. Of the interiour Beginnings of Voluntary Motions commonly called the Passions And the Speeches by which they are expressed Page 23 Chap. 7. Of the Ends or Resolutions of Discourse Page 30 Chap. 8. Of the Vertues commonly called Intellectuall and their contrary Defects Page 32 Chap. 9. Of the severall Subjects of Knowledge Page 40 Chap. 10. Of Power Worth Dignity Honour and Worthinesse Page 41 Chap. 11. Of the Difference of Manners Page 47 Chap. 12. Of Religion Page 52 Chap. 13. Of the Naturall Condition of Mankind as concerning their Felicity and Misery Page 60 Chap. 14. Of the first and second Naturall Lawes and of Contract Page 64 Chap. 15. Of other Lawes of Nature Page 71 Chap. 16. Of Persons Authors and things Personated Page 80 The second Part Of COMMON-WEALTH Chap. 17. Of the Causes Generation and Definition of a Common-wealth Page 85 Chap. 18. Of the Rights of Soveraignes by Institution Page 88 Chap. 19. Of severall Kinds of Common-wealth by Institution and of Succession to the Soveraign Power Page 94 Chap. 20. Of Dominion Paternall and Despoticall Page 101 Chap. 21. Of the Liberty of Subjects Page 107 Chap. 22. Of Systemes Subject Politicall and Private Page 115 Chap. 23. Of the Publique Ministers of Soveraign Power Page 123 Chap. 24. Of the Nutrition and Procreation of a Common-wealth Page 127 Chap. 25. Of Counsell Page 131 Chap. 26. Of Civill Lawes Page 136 Chap. 27. Of Crimes Excuses and Extenuations Page 151 Chap. 28. Of Punishments and Rewards Page 161 Chap. 29. Of those things that Weaken or tend to the Dissolution of a Common-wealth Page 167 Chap. 30. Of the Office of the Soveraign Representative Page 175 Chap. 31. Of the Kingdome of God by Nature Page 186 The third Part. Of A CHRISTIAN COMMON-WEALTH Chap. 32. Of the Principles of Christian Politiques Page 195 Chap. 33. Of the Number Antiquity Scope Authority and Interpreters of the Books of Holy Scripture Page 199 Chap. 34. Of the signification of Spirit Angell and Inspiration in the Books of Holy Scripture Page 207 Chap. 35. Of the signification in Scripture of the Kingdome of God of Holy Sacred and Sacrament Page 216 Chap. 36. Of the Word of God and of Prophets Page 222 Chap. 37. Of Miracles and their use Page 233 Chap. 38. Of the signification in Scripture of Eternall life Hel Salvation the World to come and Redemption Page 238 Chap. 39. Of the Signification in Scripture of the word Church Page 247 Chap. 40. Of the Rights of the Kingdome of God in Abraham Moses the High Priests and the Kings of Judah Page 249 Chap. 41. Of the Office of our Blessed Saviour Page 261 Chap. 42. Of Power Ecclesiasticall Page 267 Chap. 43. Of what is Necessary for a mans Reception into the Kingdome of Heaven Page 321 The fourth Part. Of THE KINGDOME OF DARKNESSE Chap. 44. Of Spirituall Darknesse from Misinterpretation of Scripture Page 333 Chap. 45. Of Daemonology and other Reliques of the Religion of the Gentiles Page 352 Chap. 46. Of Darknesse from Vain Philosophy and Fabulous Traditions Page 367 Chap. 47. Of the Benefit proceeding from such Darknesse and to whom it accreweth Page 381 A Review and Conclusion Page 389 Errata PAge 48. In the Margin for love Praise râ—…d love of Praise p. 75. l. 5. for signied r. signified p. 88. l. 1. for performe r. forme l. 35. for Soveraign r. the Soveraign p. 94. l. 14. for lands r. hands p. 100. l. 28. for in r. in his p. 102. l. 46. for in r. is p. 105. in the margin for ver 10. r. ver 19. c. p. 116. l. 46. for are involved r. are not involved p. 120. l. 42. for Those Bodies r. These Bodies p. 137. â—… a. for in generall r. in generall p. 139.
with lands and houses and officers and revenues set apart from all other humane uses that is consecrated and made holy to those their Idols as Caverns Groves Woods Mountains and whole Ilands and have attributed to them not onely the shapes some of Men some of Beasts some of Monsters but also the Faculties and Passions of men and beasts as Sense Speech Sex Lust Generation and this not onely by mixing one with another to propagate the kind of Gods but also by mixing with men and women to beget mongrill Gods and but inmates of Heaven as Bacchus Hercules and others besides Anger Revenge and other passions of living creatures and the actions proceeding from them as Fraud Theft Adultery Sodomie and any vice that may be taken for an effect of Power or a cause of Pleasure and all such Vices as amongst men are taken to be against Law rather than against Honour Lastly to the Prognostiques of time to come which are naturally but Conjectures upon the Experience of time past and supernaturally divine Revelation the same authors of the Religion of the Gentiles partly upon pretended Experience partly upon pretended Revelation have added innumerable other superstitious wayes of Divination and made men believe they should find their fortunes sometimes in the ambiguous or senslesse answers of the Priests at Delphi Delos Ammon and other famous Oracles which answers were made ambiguous by designe to own the event both wayes or absurd by the intoxicating vapour of the place which is very frequent in sulphurous Cavernes Sometimes in the leaves of the Sibills of whose Prophecyes like those perhaps of Nostradamus for the fragments now extant seem to be the invention of later times there were some books in reputation in the time of the Roman Republiques Sometimes in the insignificant Speeches of Mad-men supposed to be possessed with a divine Spirit which Possession they called Enthusiasme and these kinds of foretelling events were accounted Theomancy or Prophecy Sometimes in the aspect of the Starres at their Nativity which was called Horoscopy and esteemed a part of judiciary Astrology Sometimes in their own hopes and feares called Thumomancy or Presage Sometimes in the Prediction of Witches that pretended conference with the dead which is called Necromancy Conjuring and Witchcraft and is but juggling and confederate knavery Sometimes in the Casuall flight or feeding of birds called Augury Sometimes in the Entrayles of a sacrificed beast which was Aruspicina Sometimes in Dreams Sometimes in Croaking of Ravens or chattering of Birds Sometimes in the Lineaments of the face which was called Metoposcopy or by Palmistry in the lines of the hand in casuall words called Omina Sometimes in Monsters or unusuall accidents as Ecclipses Comets rare Meteors Earthquakes Inundations uncouth Births and the like which they called Portenta and Ostenta because they thought them to portend or foreshew some great Calamity to come Somtimes in meer Lottery as Crosse and Pile counting holes in a sive dipping of Verses in Homer and Virgil and innumerable other such vaine conceipts So easie are men to be drawn to believe any thing from such men as have gotten credit with them and can with gentlenesse and dexterity take hold of their fear and ignorance And therefore the first Founders and Legislators of Common-wealths amongst the Gentiles whose ends were only to keep the people in obedience and peace have in all places taken care First to imprint in their minds a beliefe that those precepts which they gave concerning Religion might not be thought to proceed from their own device but from the dictates of some God or other Spirit or else that they themselves were of a higher nature than mere mortalls that their Lawes might the more easily be received So Numa Pompilius pretended to receive the Ceremonies he instituted amongst the Romans from the Nymph Egeria and the first King and founder of the Kingdome of Peru pretended himselfe and his wife to be the children of the Sunne and Mahomet to set up his new Religion pretended to have conferences with the Holy Ghost in forme of a Dove Secondly they have had a care to make it believed that the same things were displeasing to the Gods which were forbidden by the Lawes Thirdly to prescribe Ceremonies Supplications Sacrifices and Festivalls by which they were to believe the anger of the Gods might be appeased and that ill success in War great contagions of Sicknesse Earthquakes and each mans private Misery came from the Anger of the Gods and their Anger from the Neglect of their Worship or the forgetting or mistaking some point of the Ceremonies required And though amongst the antient Romans men were not forbidden to deny that which in the Poets is written of the paines and pleasures after this life which divers of great authority and gravity in that state have in their Harangues openly derided yet that beliefe was alwaies more cherished than the contrary And by these and such other Institutions they obtayned in order to their end which was the peace of the Commonwealth that the common people in their misfortunes laying the fault on neglect or errour in their Ceremonies or on their own disobedience to the lawes were the lesse apt to mutâ—…ny against their Governors And being entertained with the pomp and pastime of Festivalls and publike Games made in honour of the Gods needed nothing else but bread to keep them from discontent murmuring and commotion against the State And therefore the Romans that had conquered the greatest part of the then known World made no scruple of tollerating any Religion whatsoeuer in the City of Rome it selfe unlesse it had somthing in it that could not consist with their Civill Government nor do we read that any Religion was there forbidden but that of the Jewes who being the peculiar Kingdome of God thought it unlawfull to acknowledge subjection to any mortall King or State whatsoever And thus you see how the Religion of the Gentiles was a part of their Policy But where God himselfe by supernaturall Revelation planted Religion there he also made to himselfe a peculiar Kingdome and gave Lawes not only of behaviour towards himselfe but also towards one another and thereby in the Kingdome of God the Policy and lawes Civill are a part of Religion and therefore the distinction of Temporall and Spirituall Domination hath there no place It is true that God is King of all the Earth Yet may he be King of a peculiar and chosen Nation For there is no more incongruity therein than that he that hath the generall command of the whole Army should have withall a peculiar Regiment or Company of his own God is King of all the Earth by his Power but of his chosen people he is King by Covenant But to speake more largly of the Kingdome of God both by Nature and Covenant I have in the following discourse assigned an other place From the propagation of Religion it is not hard to understand the causes
of the resolution of the same into its first seeds or principles which are only an opinion of a Deity and Powers invisible and supernaturall that can never be so abolished out of humane nature but that new Religions may againe be made to spring out of them by the culture of such men as for such purpose are in reputation For seeing all formed Religion is founded at first upon the faith which a multitude hath in some one person whom they believe not only to be a wise man and to labouâ—… to procure their happiness but also to be a holy man to whom God himselfe vouchsafeth to declare his will supernaturally It followeth necessarily when they that have the Government of Religion shall come to have either the wisedome of those men their sincerity or their love suspected or that they shall be unable to shew any probable token of Divine Revelation that the Religion which they desire to uphold must be suspected likewise and without the feare of the Civill Sword contradicted and rejected That which taketh away the reputation of Wisedome in him that formeth a Religion or addeth to it when it is allready formed is the enjoyning of a beliefe of contradictories For both parts of a contradiction cannot possibly be true and therefore to enjoyne the beleife of them is an argument of ignorance which detects the Author in that and discredits him in all things else he shall propound as from revelation supernaturall which revelation a man may indeed have of many things above but of nothing against naturall reason That which taketh away the reputation of Sincerity is the doing or saying of such things as appeare to be signes that what they require other men to believe is not believed by themselves all which doings or sayings are therefore called Scandalous because they be stumbling blocks that make men to fall in the way of Religion as Injustice Cruelty Prophanesse Avarice and Luxury For who can believe that he that doth ordinarily such actions as proceed from any of these rootes believeth there is any such Invisible Power to be feared as he affrighteth other men withall for lesser faults That which taketh away the reputation of Love is the being detected of private ends as when the beliefe they require of others conduceth or seemeth to conduce to the acquiring of Dominion Riches Dignity or secure Pleasure to themselves onely or specially For that which men reap benefit by to themselves they are thought to do for their own sakes and not for love of others Lastly the testimony that men can render of divine Calling can be no other than the operation of Miracles or true Prophecy which also is a Miracle or extraordinary Felicity And therefore to those points of Religion which have been received from them that did such Miracles those that are added by such as approve not their Calling by some Miracle obtain no greater beliefe than what the Custome and Lawes of the places in which they be educated have wrought into them For as in naturall things men of judgement require naturall signes and arguments so in supernaturall things they require signes supernaturall which are Miracles before they consent inwardly and from their hearts All which causes of the weakening of mens faith do manifestly appear in the Examples following First we have the Example of the children of Israel who when Moses that had approved his Calling to them by Miracles and by the happy conduct of them out of Egypt was absent but 40. dayes revolted from the worship of the true God recommended to them by him and setting up a Golden Calfe for their God relapsed into the Idolatry of the Egyptians from whom they had been so lately delivered And again after Moses Aaron Joshua and that generation which had seen the great works of God in Israel were dead another generation arose and served Baal So that Miracles fayling Faith also failed Again when the sons of Samuel being constituted by their father Judges in Bersabee received bribes and judged unjustly the people of Israel refused any more to have God to be their King in other manner than he was King of other people and therefore cryed out to Samuel to choose them a King after the manner of the Nations So that Justice fayling Faith also fayled Insomuch as they deposed their God from reigning over them And whereas in the planting of Christian Religion the Oracles ceased in all parts of the Roman Empire and the number of Christians encreased wonderfully every day and in every place by the preaching of the Apostles and Evangelists a great part of that successe may reasonably be attributed to the contempt into which the Priests of the Gentiles of that time had brought themselves by their uncleannesse avarice and jugling between Princes Also the Religion of the Church of Rome was partly for the same cause abolished in England and many other parts of Christendome insomuch as the fayling of Vertue in the Pastors maketh Faith faile in the People and partly from bringing of the Philosophy and doctrine of Aristotle into Religion by the Schoole-men from whence there arose so many contradictions and absurdities as brought the Clergy into a reputation both of Ignorance and of Fraudulent intention and enclined people to revolt from them either against the will of their own Princes as in France and Holland or with their will as in England Lastly amongst the points by the Church of Rome declared necessary for Salvation there be so many manifestly to the advantage of the Pope and of his spirituall subjects residing in the territories of other Christian Princes that were it not for the mutuall emulation of those Princes they might without warre or trouble exclude all forraign Authority as easily as it has been excluded in England For who is there that does not see to whose benefit it conduceth to have it believed that a King hath not his Authority from Christ unlesse a Bishop crown him That a King if he be a Priest cannot Marry That whether a Prince be born in lawfull Marriage or not must be judged by Authority from Rome That Subjects may be freed from their Alleageance if by the Court of Rome the King be judged an Heretique That a King as Chilperique of France may be deposed by a Pope as Pope Zachary for no cause and his Kingdome given to one of his Subjects That the Clergy and Regulars in what Country soever shall be exempt from the Jurisdiction of their King in cases criminall Or who does not see to whose profit redound the Fees of private Masses and Vales of Purgatory with other signes of private interest enough to mortifie the most lively Faith if as I sayd the civill Magistrate and Custome did not more sustain it than any opinion they have of the Sanctity Wisdome or Probity of their Teachers So that I may attribute all the changes of Religion in the world to one and the same cause and
were in a Child For as a Child wants the judgement to dissent from counsell given him and is thereby necessitated to take the advise of them or him to whom he is committed So an Assembly wanteth the liberty to dissent from the counsell of the major part be it good or bad And as a Child has need of a Tutor or Protector to preserve his Person and Authority So also in great Common-wealths the Soveraign Assembly in all great dangers and troubles have need of Custodes libertatis that is of Dictators or Protectors of their Authoritie which are as much as Temporary Monarchs to whom for a time they may commit the entire exercise of their Power and have at the end of that time been oftner deprived thereof than Infant Kings by their Protectors Regents or any other Tutors Though the Kinds of Soveraigntie be as I have now shewn but three that is to say Monarchie where One Man has it or Democracie where the generall Assembly of Subjects hath it or Aristocracie where it is in an Assembly of certain persons nominated or otherwise distinguished from the rest Yet he that shall consider the particular Common-wealthes that have been and are in the world will not perhaps easily reduce them to three and may thereby be inclined to think there be other Formes arising from these mingled together As for example Elective Kingdomes where Kings have the Soveraigne Power put into their hands for a time or Kingdomes wherein the King hath a power limited which Governments are nevertheles by most Writers called Monarchie Likewise if a Popular or Aristocraticall Common-wealth subdue an Enemies Countrie and govern the same by a President Procurator or other Magistrate this may seeme perhaps at first sight to be a Democraticall or Aristocraticall Government But it is not so For Elective Kings are not Soveraignes but Ministers of the Soveraigne nor limited Kings Soveraignes but Ministers of them that have the Soveraigne Power Nor are those Provinces which are in subjection to a Democracie or Aristocracie of another Common-wealth Democratically or Aristocratically governed but Monarchically And â—…irst concerning an Elective King whose power is limited to his life as it is in many places of Christendome at this day or to certaine Yeares or Moneths as the Dictators power amongst the Romans If he have Right to appoint his Successor he is no more Elective but Hereditary But if he have no Power to elect his Successor then there is some other Man or Assembly known which after his decease may elect a new or else the Common-wealth dieth and dissolveth with him and returneth to the condition of Warre If it be known who have the power to give the Soveraigntie after his death it is known also that the Soveraigntie was in them before For none have right to give that which they have not right to possesse and keep to themselves it they think good But if there be none that can give the Soveraigntie after the decease of him that was first elected then has he power nay he is obliged by the Law of Nature to provide by establishing his Successor to keep those that had trusted him with the Government from relapsing into the miserable condition of Civill warre And consequently he was when elected a Soveraign absolute Secondly that King whose power is limited is not superiour to him or them that have the power to limit it and he that is not superiour is not supreme that is to say not Soveraign The Soveraignty therefore was alwaies in that Assembly which had the Right to Limit him and by consequence the government not Monarchy but either Democracy or Aristocracy as of old time in Sparta where the Kings had a priviledge to lead their Armies but the Soveraignty was in the Ephori Thirdly whereas heretofore the Roman People governed the land of Judea for example by a President yet was not Judea therefore a Democracy because they were not governed by any Assembly into the which any of them had right to enter nor by an Aristocracy because they were not governed by any Assembly into which any man could enter by their Election but they were governed by one Person which though as to the people of Rome was an Assembly of the people or Democracy yet as to people of Judea which had no right at all of participating in the government was a Monarch For though where the people are governed by an Assembly chosen by themselves out of their own number the government is called a Democracy or Aristocracy yet when they are governed by an Assembly not of their own choosing 't is a Monarchy not of One man over another man but of one people over another people Of all these Formes of Government the matter being mortall so that not onely Monarchs but also whole Assemblies dy it is necessary for the conservation of the peace of men that as there was order taken for an Artificiall Man so there be order also taken for an Artificiall Eternity of life without which men that are governed by an Assembly should return into the condition of Warre in every age and they that are governed by One man assoon as their Governour dyeth This Artificiall Eternity is that which men call the Right of Succession There is no perfect forme of Government where the disposing of the Succession is not in the present Soveraign For if it be in any other particular Man or private Assembly it is in a person subject and may be assumed by the Soveraign at his pleasure and consequently the Right is in himselfe And if it be in no particular man but left to a new choyce then is the Common-wealth dissolved and the Right is in him that can get it contrary to the intention of them that did Institute the Common-wealth for their perpetuall and not temporary security In a Democracy the whole Assembly cannot faile unlesse the Multitude that are to be governed faile And therefore questions of the right of Succession have in that forme of Government no place at all In an Aristocracy when any of the Assembly dyeth the election of another into his room belongeth to the Assembly as the Soveraign to whom belongeth the choosing of all Counsellours and Officers For that which the Representative doth as Actor every one of the Subjects doth as Author And though the Soveraign Assembly may give Power to others to elect new men for supply of their Court yet it is still by their Authority that the Election is made and by the same it may when the publique shall require it be recalled The greatest difficultie about the right of Succession is in Monarchy And the difficulty ariseth from this that at first sight it is not manifest who is to appoint the Successor nor many times who it is whom he hath appointed For in both these cases there is required a more exact ratiocination than every man is accustomed to use As to the question who shall appoint the Successor of
possession And for a memoriall and a token of this Covenant he ordaineth verse II. the Sacrament of Circumcision This is it which is called the Old Covenant or Testament and containeth a Contract between God and Abraham by which Abraham obligeth himself and his posterity in a peculiar manner to be subject to Gods positive Law for to the Law Morall he was obliged before as by an Oath of Allegiance And though the name of King be not yet given to God nor of Kingdome to Abraham and his seed yet the thing is the same namely an Institution by pact of Gods peculiar Soveraignty over the seed of Abraham which in the renewing of the same Covenant by Moses at Mount Sinai is expressely called a peculiar Kingdome of God over the Jews and it is of Abraham not of Moses St. Paul saith Rom. 4. 11. that he is the Father of the Faithfull that is of those that are loyall and doe not violate their Allegiance sworn to God then by Circumcision and afterwards in the New Covenant by Baptisme This Covenant at the Foot of Mount Sinai was renewed by Moses Exod. 19. 5. where the Lord commandeth Moses to speak to the people in this manner If you will obey my voice indeed and keep my Covenant then yee shall be a peculiar people to me for all the Earth is mine And yee shall be unto me a Sacerdotall Kingdome and an holy Nation For a Peculiar people the vulgar Latine hath Peculium de cunctis populis the English Translation made in the beginning of the Reign of King James hath a Peculiar treasure unto me above all Nations and the Geneva French the most precious Iewel of all Nations But the truest Translation is the first because it is confirmed by St. Paul himself Tit. 2. 14. where he saith alluding to that place that our blessed Saviour gave himself for us that he might purifie us to himself a peculiar that is an extraordinary people for the word is in the Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is opposed commonly to the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and as this signifieth ordinary quotidian or as in the Lords Prayer of daily use so the other signifieth that which is overplus and stored up and enjoyed in a speciall manner which the Latines call Peculium and this meaning of the place is confirmed by the reason God rendereth of it which followeth immediately in that he addeth For all the Earth is mine as if he should say All the Nations of the world are mine but it is not so that you are mine but in a speciall manner For they are all mine by reason of my Power but you shall be mine by your own Consent and Covenant which is an addition to his ordinary title to all nations The same is again confirmed in expresse words in the same text Yee shall be to me a Sacerdotall Kingdome and an holy Nation The Vulgar Latine hath it Regnum Sacerdotale to which agreeth the Translation of that place 1 Pet. 2. 9. Sacerdotium Regale a Regal Priesthood as also the Institution it self by which no man might enter into the Sanctum Sanctorum that is to say no man might enquire Gods will immediately of God himselfe but onely the High Priest The English Translation before mentioned following that of Geneva has a Kingdom of Priests which is either meant of the succession of one High Priest after another or else it accordeth not with St. Peter nor with the exercise of the High priesthood For there was never any but the High priest onely that was to informe the People of Gods Will nor any Convocation of Priests ever allowed to enter into the Sanctum Sanctorum Again the title of a Holy Nation confirmes the same For Holy signifies that which is Gods by speciall not by generall Right All the Earth as is said in the text is Gods but all the Earth is not called Holy but that onely which is set apart for his especiall service as was the Nation of the Jews It is therefore manifest enough by this one place that by the Kingdome of God is properly meant a Common-wealth instituted by the consent of those which were to be subject thereto for their Civill Government and the regulating of their behaviour not onely towards God their King but also towards one another in point of justice and towards other Nations both in peace and warre which properly was a Kingdome wherein God was King and the High priest was to be after the death of Moses his sole Viceroy or Lieutenant But there be many other places that clearly prove the same As first 1 Sam. 8. 7. when the Elders of Israel grieved with the corruption of the Sons of Samuel demanded a King Samuel displeased therewith prayed unto the Lord and the Lord answering said unto him Hearken unto the voice of the People for they have not rejected thee but they have rejected me that I should not reign over them Out of which it is evident that God himself was then their King and Samuel did not command the people but only delivered to them that which God from time to time appointed him Again 1 Sam. 12. 12. where Samuel saith to the People When yee saw that Nahash King of the Children of Ammon came against you ye said unto me Nay but a King shall reign over us when the Lord your God was your King It is manifest that God was their King and governed the Civill State of their Common-wealth And after the Israelites had rejected God the Prophets did foretell his restitution as Isaiah 24. 23. Then the Moon shall be confounded and the Sun ashamed when the Lord of Hosts shall reign in Mount Zion and in Ierusalem where he speaketh expressely of his Reign in Zion and Jerusalem that is on Earth And Micah 4. 7. And the Lord shall reign over them in Mount Zion This Mount Zion is in Jerusalem upon the Earth And Ezek. 20. 33. As I live saith the Lord God surely with a mighty hand and a stretched out arme and with fury powred out I wil rule over you and verse 37. I will cause you to passe under the rod and I will bring you into the bond of the Covenant that is I will reign over you and make you to stand to that Covenant which you made with me by Moses and brake in your rebellion against me in the days of Samuel and in your election of another King And in the New Testament the Angel Gabriel saith of our Saviour Luke 1. 32 33. He shall be great and be called the Son of the most High and the Lord shall give him the throne of his Father David and he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever and of his Kingdome there shall be no end This is also a Kingdome upon Earth for the claim whereof as an enemy to Caesar he was put to death the title of his crosse was Iesus of Nazareth King of the Iews hee was crowned in
scorn with a crown of Thornes and for the proclaiming of him it is said of the Disciples Acts 17. 7. That they did all of them contrary to the decrees of Caesar saying there was another King one Iesus The Kingdome therefore of God is a reall not a metaphoricall Kingdome and so taken not onely in the Old Testament but the New when we say For thine is the Kingdome the Power and Glory it is to be understood of Gods Kingdome by force of our Covenant not by the Right of Gods Power for such a Kingdome God alwaies hath so that it were superfluous to say in our prayer Thy Kingdome come unlesse it be meant of the Restauration of that Kingdome of God by Christ which by revolt of the Israelites had been interrupted in the election of Saul Nor had it been proper to say The Kingdome of Heaven is at hand ot to pray Thy Kingdome come if it had still continued There be so-many other places that confirm this interpretation that it were a wonder there is no greater notice taken of it but that it gives too much light to Christian Kings to see their right of Ecclesiasticall Government This they have observed that in stead of a Sacerdotall Kingdome translate a Kingdome of Priests for they may as well translate a Royall Priesthood as it is in St. Peter into a Priesthood of Kings And whereas for a peculiar people they put a pretious jewel or treasure a man might as well call the speciall Regiment or Company of a Generall the Generalls pretious Jewel or his Treasure In short the Kingdome of God is a Civill Kingdome which consisted first in the obligation of the people of Israel to those Laws which Moses should bring unto them from Mount Sinai and which afterwards the High Priest for the time being should deliver to them from before the Cherubins in the Sanctum Sanctorum and which Kingdome having been cast off in the election of Saul the Prophets foretold should be restored by Christ and the Restauration whereof we daily pray for when we say in the Lords Prayer Thy Kingdome come and the Right whereof we acknowledge when we adde For thine is the Kingdome the Power and Glory for ever and ever Amen and the Proclaiming whereof was the Preaching of the Apostles and to which men are prepared by the Teachers of the Gospel to embrace which Gospel that is to say to promise obedience to Gods government is to bee in the Kingdome of Grace because God hath gratis given to such the power to bee the Subjects that is Children of God hereafter when Christ shall come in Majesty to judge the world and actually to govern his owne people which is called the Kingdome of Glory If the Kingdome of God called also the Kingdome of Heaven from the gloriousnesse and admirable height of that throne were not a Kingdome which God by his Lieutenants or Vicars who deliver his Commandements to the people did exercise on Earth there would not have been so much contention and warre about who it is by whom God speaketh to us neither would many Priests have troubled themselves with Spirituall Jurisdiction nor any King have denied it them Out of this literall interpretation of the Kingdome of God ariseth also the true interpretation of the word HOLY For it is a word which in Gods Kingdome answereth to that which men in their Kingdomes use to call Publique or the Kings The King of any Countrey is the Publique Person or Representative of all his own Subjects And God the King of Israel was the Holy one of Israel The Nation which is subject to one earthly Soveraign is the Nation of that Soveraign that is of the Publique Person So the Jews who were Gods Nation were called Exod. 19. 6. a Holy Nation For by Holy is alwaies understood either God himselfe or that which is Gods in propriety as by Publique is alwaies meant either the Person of the Common-wealth it self or something that is so the Common-wealths as no private person can claim any propriety therein Therefore the Sabbath Gods day is a Holy day the Temple Gods house a Holy house Sacrifices Tithes and Offerings Gods tribute Holy duties Priests Prophets and anointed Kings under Christ Gods Ministers Holy men the Coelestiall ministring Spirits Gods Messengers Holy Angels and the like and wheresoever the word Holy is taken properly there is still something signified of Propriety gotten by consent In saying Hallowed be thy name we do but pray to God for grace to keep the first Commandement of having no other Gods but him Mankind is Gods Nation in propriety but the Jews only were a Holy Nation Why but because they became his Propriety by covenant And the word Profane is usually taken in the Scripture for the same with Common and consequently their contraries Holy and Proper in the Kingdome of God must be the same also But figuratively those men also are called Holy that led such godly lives as if they had forsaken all worldly designs and wholly devoted and given themselves to God In the proper sense that which is made Holy by Gods appropriating or separating it to his own use is said to be sanctified by God as the Seventh day in the fourth Commandement and as the Elect in the New Testament were said to bee sanctified when they were endued with the Spirit of godlinesse And that which is made Holy by the dedication of men and given to God so as to be used onely in his publique service is called aso SACRED and said to be consecrated as Temples and other Houses of Publique Prayer and their Utensils Priests and Ministers Victimes Offerings and the externall matter of Sacraments Of Holinesse there be degrees for of those things that are set apart for the service of God there may bee some set apart again for a neerer and more especial service The whole Nation of the Israelites were a people Holy to God yet the tribe of Levi was amongst the Israelites a Holy tribe and amongst the Levites the Priests were yet more Holy and amongst the Priests the High Priest was the most Holy So the Land of Judea was the Holy Land but the Holy City wherein God was to be worshipped was more Holy and again the Temple more Holy than the City and the Sanctum Sanctorum more Holy than the rest of the Temple A SACRAMENT is a separation of some visible thing from common use and a consecration of it to Gods service for a sign either of our admission into the Kingdome of God to be of the number of his peculiar people or for a Commemoration of the same In the Old Testament the sign of Admission was Circumcision in the New Testament Baptisme The Commemoration of it in the Old Testament was the Eating at a certaine time which was Anniversary of the Paschall Lamb by which they were put in mind of the night wherein they were delivered out of their bondage in
among them Westward in all businesse of the Lord and in the service of the King Likewise verse 32. that hee made other Hebronites rulers over the Reubenites the Gadites and the halfe tribe of Manasseh these were the rest of Israel that dwelt beyond Jordan for every matter pertaining to God and affairs of the King Is not this full Power both temporall and spirituall as they call it that would divide it To conclude from the first institution of Gods Kingdome to the Captivity the Supremacy of Religion was in the same hand with that of the Civill Soveraignty and the Priests office after the election of Saul was not Magisteriall but Ministeriall Notwithstanding the government both in Policy and Religion were joined first in the High Priests and afterwards in the Kings so far forth as concerned the Right yet it appeareth by the same Holy History that the people understood it not but there being amongst them a great part and probably the greatest part that no longer than they saw great miracles or which is equivalent to a miracle great abilities or great felicity in the enterprises of their Governours gave sufficient credit either to the fame of Moses or to the Colloquies between God and the Priests they took occasion as oft as their Governours displeased them by blaming sometimes the Policy sometimes the Religion to change the Government or revolt from their Obedience at their pleasure And from thence proceeded from time to time the civill troubles divisions and calamities of the Nation As for example after the death of Eleazar and Joshua the next generation which had not seen the wonders of God but were left to their own weak reason not knowing themselves obliged by the Covenant of a Sacerdotall Kingdome regarded no more the Commandement of the Priest nor any law of Moses but did every man that which was right in his own eyes and obeyed in Civill affairs such men as from time to time they thought able to deliver them from the neighbour Nations that oppressed them and consulted not with God as they ought to doc but with such men or women as they guessed to bee Prophets by their Praedictions of things to come and though they had an Idol in their Chappel yet if they had a Levite for their Chaplain they made account they worshipped the God of Israel And afterwards when they demanded a King after the manner of the nations yet it was not with a design to depart from the worship of God their King but despairing of the justice of the sons of Samuel they would have a King to judg them in Civill actions but not that they would allow their King to change the Religion which they thought was recommended to them by Moses So that they alwaies kept in store a pretext either of Justice or Religion to discharge them selves of their obedience whensoever they had hope to prevaile Samuel was displeased with the people for that they desired a King for God was their King already and Samuel had but an authority under him yet did Samuel when Saul observed not his counsell in destroying Agag as God had commanded anoint another King namely David to take the succession from his heirs Rehoboam was no Idolater but when the people thought him an Oppressor that Civil pretence carried from him ten Tribes to Jeroboam an Idolater And generally through the whole History of the Kings as well of Judah as of Israel there were Prophets that alwaies controlled the Kings for transgressing the Religion and sometimes also for Errours of State as Jehosaphat was reproved by the Prophet Jehu for aiding the King of Israel against the Syrians and Hezekiah by Isaiah for shewing his treasures to the Ambassadors of Babylon By all which it appeareth that though the power both of State and Religion were in the Kings yet none of them were uncontrolled in the use of it but such as were gracious for their own naturall abilities or felicities So that from the practise of those times there can no argument be drawn that the Right of Supremacy in Religion was not in the Kings unlesse we place it in the Prophets and conclude that because Hezekiah praying to the Lord before the Cherubins was not answered from thence nor then but afterwards by the Prophet Isaiah therefore Isaiah was supreme Head of the Church or because Iosiah consulted Hulda the Prophetesse concerning the Book of the Law that therefore neither he nor the High Priest but Hulda the Prophetesse had the Supreme authority in matter of Religion which I thinke is not the opinion of any Doctor During the Captivity the Iews had no Common-wealth at all And after their return though they renewed their Covenant with God yet there was no promise made of obedience neither to Esdras nor to any other And presently after they became subjects to the Greeks from whose Customes and Daemonology and from the doctrine of the Cabalists their Religion became much corrupted In such sort as nothing can be gathered from their confusion both in State and Religion concerning the Supremacy in either And therefore so far forth as concerneth the Old Testament we may conclude that whosoever had the Soveraignty of the Common-wealth amongst the Jews the same had also the Supreme Authority in matter of Gods externall worship and represented Gods Person that is the person of God the Father though he were not called by the name of Father till such time as he sent into the world his Son Jesus Christ to redeem mankind from their sins and bring them into his Everlasting Kingdome to be saved for evermore Of which we are to speak in the Chapter following CHAP. XLI Of the OFFICE of our BLESSED SAVIOUR WE find in Holy Scripture three parts of the Office of the Messiah The first of a Redeemer or Saviour The second of a Pastor Counsellor or Teacher that is of a Prophet sent from God to convert such as God hath elected to Salvation The third of a King an eternall King but under his Father as Moses and the High Priests were in their severall times And to these three parts are correspondent three times For our Redemption he wrought at his first coming by the Sacrifice wherein he offered up himself for our sinnes upon the Crosse our Conversion he wrought partly then in his own Person and partly worketh now by his Ministers and will continue to work till his coming again And after his coming again shall begin that his glorious Reign over his elect which is to last eternally To the Office of a Redeemer that is of one that payeth the Ransome of Sin which Ransome is Death it appertaineth that he was Sacrificed and thereby bare upon his own head and carryed away from us our iniquities in such sort as God had required Not that the death of one man though without sinne can satisfie for the offences of all men in the rigour of Justice but in the Mercy of
take with thee one or two more And if he shall neglect to hear them tell it unto the Church but if he neglect to hear the Church let him be unto thee as an Heathen man and a Publican By which it is manifest that the Judgment concerning the truth of Repentance belonged not to any one Man but to the Church that is to the Assembly of the Faithull or to them that have authority to bee their Representant But besides the Judgment there is necessary also the pronouncing of Sentence And this belonged alwaies to the Apostle or some Pastor of the Church as Prolocutor and of this our Saviour speaketh in the 18 verse Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven And conformable hereunto was the practise of St. Paul 1 Cor. 5. 3 4 5. where he saith For I verily as absent in body but present in spirit have determined already as though I were present concerning him that hath so done this deed In the name of our Lord Iesus Christ when ye are gathered together and my spirit with the power of our Lord Iesus Christ To deliver such a one to Satan that is to say to cast him out of the Châ—…rch as a man whose Sins are not Forgiven Paul here pronounceth the Sentence but the Assembly was first to hear the Cause for St. Paul was absent and by consequence to condemn him But in the same chapter ver 11 12. the Judgment in such a case is more expressely attributed to the Assembly But now I have written unto you not to keep company if any man that is called a Brother be a Fornicator c. with such a one no not to eat For what have I to do to judg them that are without Do not ye judg them that are within The Sentence therefore by which a man was put out of Church was pronounced by the Apostle or Pastor but the Judgment concerning the merit of the cause was in the Church that is to say as the times were before the conversion of Kings and men that had Soveraign Authority in the Common-wealth the Assembly of the Christians dwelling in the same City as in Corinth in the Assembly of the Christians of Corinth This part of the Power of the Keyes by which men were thrust out from the Kingdom of God is that which is called Excommunication and to excommunicate is in the Originall 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to cast out of the Synagogue that is out of the place of Divine service a word drawn from the custome of the Jews to cast out of their Synagogues such as they thought in manners or doctrine contagious as Lepers were by the Law of Moses separated from the congregation of Israel till such time as they should be by the Priest pronounced clean The Use and Effect of Excommunication whilest it was not yet strengthened with the Civill Power was no more than that they who were not Excommunicate were to avoid the company of them that were It was not enough to repute them as Heathen that never had been Christians for with such they might eate and drink which with Excommunicate persons they might not do as appeareth by the words of St. Paul 1 Cor. 5. ver 9 10 c. where he telleth them he had formerly forbidden them to company with Fornicators but because that could not bee without going out of the world he restraineth it to such Fornicators and otherwise vicious persons as were of the brethren with such a one he saith they ought not to keep company no not to eat And this is no more than our Saviour saith Mat. 18. 17. Let him be to thee as a Heathen and as a Publican For Publicans which signifieth Farmers and Receivers of the revenue of the Common-wealth were so hated and detested by the Jews that were to pay it as that Publican and Sinner were taken amongst them for the same thing Insomuch as when our Saviour accepted the invitation of Zacchaeus a Publican though it were to Convert him yet it was ohjected to him as a Crime And therefore when our Saviour to Heathen added Publican he did forbid them to eat with a man Excommunicate As for keeping them out of their Synagogues or places of Assembly they had no Power to do it but that of the owner of the place whether he were Christian or Heathen And because all places are by right in the Dominion of the Common-wealth as well hee that was Excommunicated as hee that never was Baptized might enter inter into them by Commission from the Civill Magistrate as Paul before his conversion entred into their Synagogues at Damascus to apprehend Christians men and women and to carry them bound to Jerusalem by Commission from the High Priest By which it appears that upon a Christian that should become an Apostate in a place where the Civill Power did persecute or not assist the Church the effect of Excommunication had nothiug in it neither of dammage in this world nor of terrour Not of terrour because of their unbeleef nor of dammage because they are retâ—…rned thereby into the favour of the world and in the world to come were to be in no worse estate then they which never had beleeved The dammage redounded rather to the Church by provocation of them they cast out to a freer execution of their malice Excommunication therefore had its effect onely upon those that beleeved that Jesus Christ was to come again in Glory to reign over and to judge both the quick and the dead and should therefore refuse entrance into his Kingdom to those whose Sins were Retained that is to those that were Excommunicated by the Church And thence it is that St. Paul calleth Excommunication a delivery of the ExcoÌ„municate person to Satan For without the Kingdom of Christ all other Kingdomes after Judgment are comprehended in the Kingdome of Satan This is it that the faithfull stood in fear of as long as they stood Excommunicate that is to say in an estate wherein their sins were not Forgiven Whereby wee may understand that Excommunication in the time that Christian Religion was not authorized by the Civill Power was used onely for a correction of manners not of errours in opinion for it is a punishment whereof none could be sensible but such as beleeved and expected the coming again of our Saviour to judge the world and they who so beleeved needed no other opinion but onely uprightnesse of life to be saved There lyeth Excommunication for Injustice as Mat. 18. If thy Brother offend thee tell it him privately then with Witnesses lastly tell the Church and then if he obey not Let him be to thee as an Heathen man and a Publican And there lieth Excommunication for a Scandalous Life as 1 Cor. 5. 11. If any man that is called a Brother be a Fornicator or Covetous or an Idolater
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
every Living Creature And likewise of Man God made him of the dust of the earth and breathed in his face the breath of Life factus est Homo in animam viventem that is and Man was made a Living Creature And after Noah came out of the Arke God saith hee will no more smite omnem animam viventem that is every Living Creature And Deut. 12. 23. Eate not the Bloud for the Bloud is the Soule that is the Life From which places if by Soule were meant a Substance Incorporeall with an existence separated from the Body it might as well be inferred of any other living Creature as of Man But that the Souls of the Faithfull are not of theirown Nature but by Gods speciall Grace to remaine in their Bodies from the Resurrection to all Eternity I have already I think sufficiently proved out of the Scriptures in the 38. Chapter And for the places of the New Testament where it is said that any man shall be cast Body and Soul into Hell fire it is no more than Body and Life that is to say they shall be cast alive into the perpetuall fire of Gehenna This window it is that gives entrance to the Dark Doctrine first of Eternall Torments and afterwards of Purgatory and consequently of the walking abroad especially in places Consecrated Solitary or Dark of the Ghosts of men deceased and thereby to the pretences of Exorcisme and Conjuration of Phantasmes as also of Invocation of men dead and to the Doctrine of Indulgences that is to say of exemption for a time or for ever from the fire of Purgatory wherein these Incorporeall Substances are pretended by burning to be cleansed and made fit for Heaven For men being generally possessed before the time of our Saviour by contagion of the Daemonology of the Greeks of an opinion that the Souls of men were substances distinct from their Bodies and therefore that when the Body was dead the Soulâ—… of every man whether godly or wicked must subsist somewhere by vertue of its own nature without acknowledging therein any supernaturall gift of Gods the Doctors of the Church doubted a long time what was the place which they were to abide in till they should be re-united to their Bodies in the Resurrection supposing for a while they lay under the Altars but afterward the Church of Rome found it more profitable to build for them this place of Purgatory which by some other Churches in this later age has been demolished Let us now consider what texts of Scripture seem most to confirm these three generall Errors I have here touched As for those which Cardinall Bellarmine hath alledged for the present Kingdome of God administred by the Pope than which there are none that make a better shew of proof I have already answered them and made it evident that the Kingdome of God instituted by Moses ended in the election of Saul After which time the Priest of his own authority never deposed any King That which the High Priest did to Athaliah was not done in his owne right but in the right of the young King Joash her Son But Solomon in his own right deposed the High Priest Abiathar and set up another in his place The most difficult place to answer of all those that can be brought to prove the Kingdome of God by Christ is already in this world is alledged not by Bellarmine nor any other of the Church of Rome but by Beza that will have it to begin from the Resurrection of Christ. But whether hee intend thereby to entitle the Presbytery to the Supreme Power Ecclesiasticall in the Common-wealth of Geneva and consequently to every Presbytery in every other Common-wealth or to Princes and other Civill Soveraigns I doe not know For the Presbytery hath challenged the power to Excomunicate their owne Kings and to bee the Supreme Moderators in Religion in the places where they have that form of Church government no lesse then the Pope callengeth it universally The words are Marke 9. 1. Verily I say unto you that there be some of them that stand here which shall not tast of death till they have seene the Kingdome of God come with power Which words if taken grammatically make it certaine that either some of those men that stood by Christ at that time are yet alive or else that the Kingdome of God must be now in this present world And then there is another place more difficult For when the Apostles after our Saviours Resurrection and immediately before his Ascension asked our Saviour saying Acts 1. 6. Wilt thou at this time restore again the Kingdome to Israel he answered them It is not for you to know the times and the seasons which the Father hath put in his own power But ye shall receive power by the comming of the Holy Ghost upon you and yee shall be my Martyrs witnesses both in Ierusalem in all Iudaea and in Samaria and unto the uttermost part of the Earth Which is as much as to say My Kingdome is not yet come nor shall you foreknow when it shall come for it shall come as a theefe in the night But I will send you the Holy Ghost and by him you shall have power to beare witnesse to all the world by your preaching of my Resurrection and the workes I have done and the doctrine I have taught that they may beleeve in me and expect eternall life at my comming againe How does this agree with the comming of Christs Kingdome at the Resurrection And that which St. Paul saies 1 Thessal 1. 9 10. That they turned from Idols to serve the living and true God and to waite for his Sonne from Heaven Where to waite for his Sonne from Heaven is to wait for his comming to be King in power which were not necessary if his Kingdome had beene then present Againe if the Kingdome of God began as Beza on that place Mark 9. 1. would have it at the Resurrection what reason is there for Christians ever since the Resurrection to say in their prayers Let thy Kingdome Come It is therefore manifest that the words of St. Mark are not so to be interpreted There be some of them that stand here saith our Saviour that shall not tast of death till they have seen the Kingdome of God come in power If then this Kingdome were to come at the Resurrection of Christ why is it said some of them rather than all For they all lived till after Christ was risen But they that require an exact interpretation of this text let them interpret first the like words of our Saviour to St. Peter concerning St. John chap. 21. 22. If I will that he tarry till I come what is that to thee upon which was grounded a report that hee should not dye Neverthelesse the truth of that report was neither confirmed as well grounded nor refuted as ill grounded on those words but left as a saying not understood
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
above their understanding than to define his Nature by Spirit Incorporeall and then confesse their definition to be unintelligible or if they give him such a title it is not Dogmatically with intention to make the Divine Nature understood but Piously to honour him with attributes of significations as remote as they can from the grossenesse of Bodies Visible Then for the way by which they think these Invisible Agents wrought their effects that is to say what immediate causes they used in bringing things to passe men that know not what it is that we call causing that is almost all men have no other rule to guesse by but by observing and remembring what they have seen to precede the like effect at some other time or times before without seeing between the antecedent and subsequent Event any dependance or connexion at all And therefore from the like things past they expect the like things to come and hope for good or evill luck superstitiously from things that have no part at all in the causing of it As the Athenians did for their war at Lepanto demand another Phormio The Pompeian faction for their warre in Afrique another Scipio and others have done in divers other occasions since In like manner they attribute their fortune to a stander by to a lucky or unlucky place to words spoken especially if the name of God be amongst them as Charming and Conjuring the Leiturgy of Witches insomuch as to believe they have power to turn a stone into bread bread into a man or any thing into any thing Thirdly for the worship which naturally men exhibite to Powers invisible it can be no other but such expressions of their reverence as they would use towards men Gifts Petitions Thanks Submission of Body Considerate Addresses sober Behaviour premeditated Words Swearing that is assuring one another of their promises by invoking them Beyond that reason suggesteth nothing but leaves them either to rest there or for further ceremonies to rely on those they believe to be wiser than themselves Lastly concerning how these Invisible Powers declare to men the things which shall hereafter come to passe especially concerning their good or evill fortune in generall or good or ill successe in any particular undertaking men are naturally at a stand save that using to conjecture of the time to come by the time past they are very apt not onely to take casuall things after one or two encounters for Prognostiques of the like encounter ever after but also to believe the like Prognostiques from other men of whom they have once conceived a good opinion And in these foure things Opinion of Ghosts Ignorance of second causes Devotion towards what men fear and Taking of things Casuall for Prognostiques consisteth the Naturall seed of Religion which by reason of the different Fancies Judgements and Passions of severall men hath grown up into ceremonies so different that those which are used by one man are for the most part ridiculous to another For these seeds have received culture from two sorts of men One sort have been they that have nourished and ordered them according to their own invention The other have done it by Gods commandement and direction but both sorts have done it with a purpose to make those men that relyed on them the more apt to Obedience Lawes Peace Charity and civill Society So that the Religion of the former sort is a part of humane Politiques and teacheth part of the duty which Earthly Kings require of their Subjects And the Religion of the later sort is Divine Politiques and containeth Precepts to those that have yeelded themselves subjects in the Kingdome of God Of the former sort were all the founders of Common-wealths and the Law-givers of the Gentiles Of the later sort were Abraham Moses and our Blessed Saviour by whom have been derived unto us the Lawes of the Kingdome of God And for that part of Religion which consisteth in opinions concerning the nature of Powers Invisible there is almost nothing that has a name that has not been esteemed amongst the Gentiles in one place or another a God or Divell or by their Poets feigned to be inanimated inhabited or possessed by some Spirit or other The unformed matter of the World was a God by the name of Chaos The Heaven the Ocean the Planets the Fire the Earth the Winds were so many Gods Men Women a Bird a Crocodile a Calf a Dogge a Snake an Onion a Leeke Deâ—…fied Besides that they filled almost all places with spirits called Daemons the plains with Pan and Panises or Satyres the Woods with Fawnes and Nymphs the Sea with Tritons and other Nymphs every River and Fountayn with a Ghost of his name and with Nymphs every house with its Lares or Familiars every man with his Genius Hell with Ghosts and spirituall Officers as Charon Cerberus and the Furies and in the night time all places with Larvae Lemures Ghosts of men deceased and a whole kingdome of Fayries and Bugbears They have also ascribed Divinity and built Temples to meer Accidenâ—…s and Qualities such as are Time Night Day Peace Concord Love Contention Vertue Honour Health Rust Fever and the like which when they prayed for or against they prayed to as if there were Ghosts of those names hanging over their heads and letting fall or withholding that Good or Evill for or against which they prayed They invoked also their own Wit by the name of Muses their own Ignorance by the name of Fortune their own Lust by the name of Cupid their own Rage by the name Furies their own privy members by the name of Priapus and attributed their pollutions to â—…ncubi and Succubae insomuch as there was nothing which a Poet could introduce as a person in his Poem which they did not make either a God or a Divel The same authors of the Religion of the Gentiles observing the second ground for Religion which is mens Ignorance of causes and thereby their aptnesse to attribute their fortune to causes on which there was no dependance at all apparent took occasion to obtrude on their ignorance in stead of second causes a kind of second and ministeriall Gods ascribing the cause of Foecundity to Venus the cause of Arts to Apolla of Subtilty and Craft to Mercury of Tempests and stormes to Aeolus and of other effects to other Gods insomuch as there was amongst the Heathen almost as great variety of Gods as of businesse And to the Worship which naturally men conceived fit to bee used towards their Gods namely Oblations Prayers Thanks and the rest formerly named the same Legislators of the Gentiles have added their Images both in Picture and Sculpture that the more ignorant sort that is to say the most part or generality of the people thinking the Gods for whose representation they were made were really included and as it were housed within them might so much the more stand in feare of them And endowed them
bee Lawes and publike Officers armed to revenge all injuries shall bee done him what opinion he has of his fellow subjects when he rides armed of his fellow Citizens when he locks his dores and of his children and servants when he locks his chests Does he not there as much accuse mankind by his actions as I do by my words But neither of us accuse mans nature in it The Desires and other Passions of man are in themselves no Sin No more are the Actions that proceed from those Passions till they know a Law that forbids them which till Lawes be made they cannot know nor can any Law be made till they have agreed upon the Person that shall make it It may peradventure be thought there was never such a time nor condition of warre as this and I believe it was never generally so over all the world but there are many places where they live so now For the savage people in many places of America except the government of small Families the concord whereof dependeth on naturall lust have no government at all and live at this day in that brutish manner as I said before Howsoever it may be perceived what manner of life there would be where there were no common Power to feare by the manner of life which men that have formerly lived under a peacefull government use to degenerate into in a civill Warre But though there had never been any time wherein particular men were in a condition of warre one against another yet in all times Kings and Persons of Soveraigne authority because of their Independency are in continuall jealousies and in the state and posture of Gladiators having their weapons pointing and their eyes fixed on one another that is their Forts Garrisons and Guns upon the Frontiers of their Kingdomes and continuall Spyes upon their neighbours which is a posture of War But because they uphold thereby the Industry of their Subjects there does not follow from it that misery which accompanies the Liberty of particular men To this warre of every man against every man this also is consequent that nothing can be Unjust The notions of Right and Wrong Justice and Injustice have there no place Where there is no common Power there is no Law where no Law no Injustice Force and Fraud are in warre the two Cardinall vertues Justice and Injustice are none of the Faculties neither of the Body nor Mind If they were they might be in a man that were alone in the world as well as his Senses and Passions They are Qualities that relate to men in Society not in Solitude It is consequent also to the same condition that there be no Propriety no Dominion no Mine and Thine distinct but onely that to be every mans that he can get and for so long as he can keep it And thus much for the ill condition which man by meer Nature is actually placed in though with a possibility to come out of it consisting partly in the Passions partly in his Reason The Passions that encline men to Peace are Feare of Death Desire of such things as are necessary to commodious living and a Hope by their Industry to obtain them And Reason suggesteth convenient Articles of Peace upon which men may be drawn to agreement These Articles are they which otherwise are called the Lawes of Nature whereof I shall speak more particularly in the two following Chapters CHAP. XIV Of the first and sâ—…cond NATURALL LAWES and of CONTRACTS THe RIGHT OF NATURE which Writers commonly call Jus Naturale is the Liberty each man hath to use his own power as he will himselfe for the preservation of his own Nature that is to say of his own Life and consequently of doing any thing which in his own Judgement and Reason hee shall conceive to be the aptest means thereunto By LIBERTY is understood according to the proper signification of the word the absence of externall Impediments which Impediments may oft take away part of a mans power to do what hee would but cannot hinder him from using the power left him according as his judgement and reason shall dictate to him A LAW OF NATURE Lex Naturalis is a Precept or generall Rule found out by Reason by which a man is forbidden to do that which is destructive of his life or taketh away the means of preserving the same and to omit that by which he thinketh it may be best preserved For though they that speak of this subject use to confound Jus and Lex Right and Law yet they ought to be distinguished because RIGHT consisteth in liberty to do or to forbeare Whereas LAW determineth and bindeth to one of them so that Law and Right differ as much as Obligation and Liberty which in one and the same matter are inconsistent And because the condition of Man as hath been declared in the precedent Chapter is a condition of Warre of every one against every one in which case every one is governed by his own Reason and there is nothing he can make use of that may not be a help unto him in preserving his life against his enemyes It followeth that in such a condition every man has a Right to every thing even to one anothers body And therefore as long as this naturall Right of every man to every thing endureth there can be no security to any man how strong or wise soever he be of living out the time which Nature ordinarily alloweth men to live And consequently it is a precept or generall rule of Reason That every man ought to endeavour Peace as farre as he has hope of obtaining it and when he cannot obtain it that he may seek and use all helps and advantages of Warre The first branch of which Rule containeth the first and Fundamentall Law of Nature which is to seek Peace and follow it The Second the summe of the Right of Nature which is By all means we can to defend our selves From this Fundamentall Law of Nature by which men are commanded to endeavour Peace is derived this second Law That a man be willing when others are so too as farre-forth as for Peace and defence of himselfe he shall think it necessary to lay down this right to all things and be contented with so much liberty against other men as he would allow other men against himselfe For as long as every man holdeth this Right of doing any thing he liketh so long are all men in the condition of Warre But if other men will not lay down their Right as well as he then there is no Reason for any one to devest himselfe of his For that were to expose himselfe to Prey which no man is bound to rather than to dispose himselfe to Peace This is that Law of the Gospell Whatsoever you require that others should do to you that do ye to them And that Law of all men Quod tibi fieri non vis
a Monarch that hath the Soveraign Authority that is to say who shall determine of the right of Inheritance for Elective Kings and Princes have not the Soveraign Power in propriety but in use only we are to consider that either he that is in possession has right to dispose of the Succession or else that right is again in the dissolved Multitude For the death of him that hath the Soveraign power in propriety leaves the Multitude without any Soveraign at all that is without any Representative in whom they should be united and be capable of doing any one action at all And therefore they are incapable of Election of any new Monarch every man having equall right to submit himselfe to such as he thinks best able to protect him or if he can protect himselfe by his owne sword which is a returne to Confusion and to the condition of a War of every man against every man contrary to the end for which Monarchy had its first Institution Therfore it is manifest that by the Institution of Monarchy the disposing of the Successor is alwaies left to the Judgment and Will of the present Possessor And for the question which may arise sometimes who it is that the Monarch in possession hath designed to the succession and inheritance of his power it is determined by his expresse Words and Testament or by other tacite signes sufficient By expresse Words or Testament when it is declared by him in life time viva voce or by Writing as the first Emperours of Rome declared who should be their Heires For the word Heire does not of it selfe imply the Children or nearest Kindred of a man but whomsoever a man shall any way declare he would have to succeed him in his Estate If therefore a Monarch declare expresly that such a man shall be his Heire either by Word or Writing then is that man immediatly after the decease of his Predecessor Invested in the right of being Monarch But where Testament and expresse Words are wanting other naturall signes of the Will are to be followed whereof the one is Custome And therefore where the Custome is that the next of Kindred absolutely succeedeth there also the next of Kindred hath right to the Succession for that if the will of him that was in posession had been otherwise he might easily have declared the same in his life time And likewise where the Custome is that the next of the Male Kindred succeedeth there also the right of Succession is in the next of the Kindred Male for the same reason And so it is if the Custome were to advance the Female For whatsoever Custome a man may by a word controule and does not it is a naturall signe he would have that Custome stand But where neither Custome nor Testament hath preceded there it is to be understood First that a Monarchs will is that the government remain Monarchicall because he hath approved that government in himselfe Secondly that a Child of his own Male or Female be preferred before any other because men are presumed to be more enclined by nature to advance their own children than the children of other men and of their own rather a Male than a Female because men are naturally fitter than women for actions of labour and danger Thirdly where his own Issue faileth rather a Brother than a stranger and so still the neerer in bloud rather than the more remote because it is alwayes presumed that the neerer of kin is the neerer in affection and 't is evident that a man receives alwayes by reflexion the most honour from the greatnesse of his neerest kindred But if it be lawfull for a Monarch to dispose of the Succession by words of Contract or Testament men may perhaps object a great inconvenience for he may sell or give his Right of governing to a stranger which because strangers that is men not used to live under the same government nor speaking the same language do commonly undervalue one another may turn to the oppression of his Subjects which is indeed a great inconvenience but it proceedeth not necessarily from the subjection to a strangers government but from the unskilfulnesse of the Governours ignorant of the true rules of Politiques And therefore the Romans when they had subdued many Nations to make their Government digestible were wont to take away that grievance as much as they thought necessary by giving sometimes to whole Nations and sometimes to Principall men of every Nation they conquered not onely the Privileges but also the Name of Romans and took many of them into the Senate and Offices of charge even in the Roman City And this was it our most wise King King James aymed at in endeavouring the Union of his two Realms of England and Scotland Which if he could have obtained had in all likelihood prevented the Civill warres which make both those Kingdomes at this present miserable It is not therefore any injury to the people for a Monarch to dispose of the Succession by Will though by the fault of many Princes it hath been sometimes found inconvenient Of the lawfulnesse of it this also is an argument that whatsoever inconvenience can arrive by giving a Kingdome to a stranger may arrive also by so marrying with strangers as the Right of Succession may descend upon them yet this by all men is accounted lawfull CHAP. XX. Of Dominion PATERNALL and DESPOTICALL A Common-wealth by Acquisition is that where the Soveraign Power is acquired by Force And it is acquired by force when men singly or many together by plurality of voyces for fear of death or bonds do authorise all the actions of that Man or Assembly that hath their lives and liberty in his Power And this kind of Dominion or Soveraignty differeth from Soveraignty by Institution onely in this That men who choose their Soveraign do it for fear of one another and not of him whom they Institute But in this case they subject themselves to him they are afraid of In both cases they do it for fear which is to be noted by them that hold all such Covenants as proceed from fear of death or violence voyd which if it were true no man in any kind of Common-wealth could be obliged to Obedience It is true that in a Common-wealth once Instituted or acquired Promises proceeding from fear of death or violence are no Covenants nor obliging when the thing promised is contrary to the Lawes But the reason is not because it was made upon fear but because he that promiseth hath no right in the thing promised Also when he may lawfully performe and doth not it is not the Invalidity of the Covenant that absolveth him but the Sentence of the Soveraign Otherwise whensoever a man lawfully promiseth he unlawfully breaketh But when the Soveraign who is the Actor acquitteth him then he is acquitted by him that extorted the promise as by the Author of such absolution But the
interest But if he whose private interest is to be debated and judged in the Assembly make as many friends as he can in him it is no Injustice because in this case he is no part of the Assembly And though he hire such friends with mony unlesse there be an expresse Law against it yet it is not Injustice For sometimes as mens manners are Justice cannot be had without mony and every man may think his own cause just till it be heard and judged In all Common-wealths if a private man entertain more servants than the government of his estate and lawfull employment he has for them requires it is Faction and unlawfull For having the protection of the Common-wealth he needeth not the defence of private force And whereas in Nations not throughly civilized severall numerous Families have lived in continuall hostility and invaded one another with private force yet it is evident enough that they have done unjustly or else that they had no Common-wealth And as Factions for Kindred so also Factions for Government of Religion as of Papists Protestants c. or of State as Patricians and Plebeians of old time in Rome and of Aristocraticalls and Democraticalls of old time in Greece are unjust as being contrary to the peace and safety of the people and a taking of the Sword out of the hand of the Soveraign Concourse of people is an Irregular Systeme the lawfulnesse or unlawfulnesse whereof dependeth on the occasion and on the number of them that are assembled If the occasion be lawfull and manifest the Concourse is lawfull as the usuall meeting of men at Church or at a publique Shew in usuall numbers for if the numbers be extraordinarily great the occasion is not evident and consequently he that cannot render a particular and good account of his being amongst them is to be judged conscious of an unlawfull and tumultuous designe It may be lawfull for a thousand men to joyn in a Petition to be delivered to a Judge or Magistrate yet if a thousand men come to present it it is a tumultuous Assembly because there needs but one or two for that purpose But in such cases as these it is not a set number that makes the Assembly Unlawfull but such a number as the present Officers are not able to suppresse and bring to Justice When an unusuall number of men assemble against a man whom they accuse the Assembly is an Unlawfull tumult because they may deliver their accusation to the Magistrate by a few or by one man Such was the case of St. Paul at Ephesus where Demetrius and a great number of other men brought two of Pauls companions before the Magistrate saying with one Voyce Great is Diana of the Ephesians which was their way of demanding Justice against them for teaching the people such doctrine as was against their Religion and Trade The occasion here considering the Lawes of that People was just yet was their Assembly Judged Unlawfull and the Magistrate reprehended them for it in these words If Demetrius and the other work-men can accuse any man of any thing there be Pleas and Deputies let them accuse one another And if you have any other thing to demand your case may be judged in an Assembly Lawfully called For we are in danger to be accused for this dayes sedition because there is no cause by which any man can render any reason of this Concourse of People Where he calleth an Assembly whereof men can give no just account a Sedition and such as they could not answer for And this is all I shall say concerning Systemes and Assemblyes of People which may be compared as I said to the Similar parts of mans Body such as be Lawfull to the Muscles such as are Unlawfull to Wens Biles and Apostemes engendred by the unnaturall conflux of evill humours CHAP. XXIII Of the PUBLIQUE MINISTERS of Soveraign Power IN the last Chapter I have spoken of the Similar parts of a Common-wealth In this I shall speak of the parts Organicall which are Publique Ministers A PUBLIQUE MINISTER is he that by the Soveraign whether a Monarch or an Assembly is employed in any affaires with Authority to represent in that employment the Person of the Common-wealth And whereas every man or assembly that hath Soveraignty representeth two Persons or as the more common phrase is has two Capacities one Naturall and another Politique as a Monarch hath the person not onely of the Common-wealth but also of a man and a Soveraign Assembly hath the Person not onely of the Common-wealth but also of the Assembly they that be servants to them in their naturall Capacity are not Publique Ministers but those onely that serve them in the Administration of the Publique businesse And therefore neither Ushers nor Sergeants nor other Officers that waite on the Assembly for no other purpose 〈◊〉 for the commodity of the men assembled in an Aristocracy or Democracy nor Stewards Chamberlains Cofferers or any other Officers of the houshold of a Monarch are Publique Ministers in a Monarchy Of Publique Ministers some have charge committed to them of a generall Administration either of the whole Dominion or of a part thereof Of the whole as to a Protector or Regent may bee committed by the Predecessor of an Infant King during his minority the whole Administration of his Kingdome In which case every Subject is so far obliged to obedience as the Ordinances he â—…all make and the commands he shall give be in the Kings name and not inconsistent with his Soveraigne Power Of a part or Province as when either a Monarch or a Soveraign Assembly shall give the generall charge thereof to a Governour Lieutenant Praefect or Vice-Roy And in this case also every one of that Province is obliged to all he shall doe in the name of the Soveraign and that not incompatible with the Soveraigns Right For such Protectors Vice-Roys and Governors have no other right but what depends on the Soveraigns Will and no Commission that can be given them can be interpretâ—…d for a Declaration of the will to transferre the Sovernignty without expresse and perspicuous words to that purpose And this kind of Publique Ministers resembleth the Nerves and Tendons that move the severall limbs of a body naturall Others have speciall Administration that is to say charges of some speciall businesse either at home or abroad As at home First for the Oeconomy of a Common-wealth They that have Authority concerning the Treasure as Tributes Impositions Rents Fines or whatsoever publique revenue to collect receive issue or take the Accounts thereof are Publique Ministers Ministers because they serve the Person Representative and can doe nothing against his Command nor without his Authority Publique because they serve him in his Politicall Capacity Secondly they that have Authority concerning the Militia to have the custody of Armes Forts Ports to Levy Pay or Conduct Souldiers or to provide for any necessary
contriving their Titles to save the People from the shame of receiving them To have a known Right to Soveraign Power is so popular a quality as he that has it needs no more for his own part to turn the hearts of his Subjects to him but that they see him able absolutely to govern his own Family Nor on the part of his enemies but a disbanding of their Armies For the greatest and most active part of Mankind has never hetherto been well contented with the present Concerning the Offices of one Soveraign to another which are comprehended in that Law which is commonly called the Law of Nations I need not say any thing in this place because the Law of Nations and the Law of Nature is the same thing And every Soveraign hath the same Right in procuring the safety of his People that any particular man can have in procuring the safety of his own Body And the same Law that diâ—…tateth to men that have no Civil Government what they ought to do and what to avoyd in regard of one another dictateth the same to Common-wealths that is to the Consciences of Soveraign Princes and Soveraign Assemblies there being no Court of Naturall Justice but in the Conscience onely where not Man but God raigneth whose Lawes such of them as oblige all Mankind in respect of God as he is the Author of Nature are Naturall and in respect of the same God as he is King of Kings are Lawes But of the Kingdome of God as King of Kings and as King also of a peculiar People I shall speak in the rest of this discourse CHAP. XXXI Of the KINGDOME OF GOD BY NATURE THat the condition of meer Nature that is to say of absolute Liberty such as is theirs that neither are Soveraigns nor Subjects is Anarchy and the condition of Warre That the Praecepts by which men are guided to avoyd that condition are the Lawes of Nature That a Common-wealth without Soveraign Power is but a word without substance and cannot stand That Subjects owe to Soveraigns simple Obedience in all things wherein their obedience is not repugnant to the Lawes of God I have sufficiently proved in that which I have already written There wants onely for the entire knowledge of Civill duty to know what are those Lawes of God For without that a man knows not when he is commanded any thing by the Civill Power whether it be contrary to the â—…aw of God or not and so either by too much civill obedience offends the Divine Majesty or through feare of offending God transgresses the commandements of the Common-wealth To avoyd both these Rocks it is necessary to know what are the Lawes Divine And seeing the knowledge of all Law dependeth on the knowledge of the Soveraign Power I shall say something in that which followeth of the KINGDOME OF GOD. God is King let the Earth rejoyce saith the Psalmist And again God is King though the Nations be angry and he that sitteth on the Cherubins though the earth be moved Whether men will or not they must be subject alwayes to the Divine Power By denying the Existence or Providence of God men may shake off their Ease but not their Yoke But to call this Power of God which extendeth it selfe not onely to Man but also to Beasts and Plants and Bodies inanimate by the name of Kingdome is but a metaphoricall use of the word For he onely is properly said to Raigne that governs his Subjects by his Word and by promise of Rewards to those that obey it and by threatning them with Punishment that obey it not Subjects therefore in the Kingdome of God are not Bodies Inanimate nor creatures Irrationall because they understand no Precepts as his Nor Atheists nor they that believe not that God has any care of the actions of mankind because they acknowledge no Word for his nor have hope of his rewards or fear of his threatnings They therefore that believe there is a God that goeverneth the world and hath given Praecepts and propounded Rewards and Punishments to Mankind are Gods Subjects all the rest are to be understood as Enemies To rule by Words requires that such Words be manifestly made known for else they are no Lawes For to the nature of Lawes belongeth a sufficient and clear Promulgation such as may take away the excuse of Ignorance which in the Lawes of men is but of one onely kind and that is Proclamation or Promulgation by the voyce of man But God declareth his Lawes three wayes by the Dictates of Naturall Reason by Revelation and by the Voyce of some man to whom by the operation of Miracles he procureth credit with the rest From hence there ariseth a triple Word of God Rational Sensible and Prophetique to which Correspondeth a triple Hearing Right Reason Sense Supernaturall and Faith As for Sense Supernaturall which consisteth in Revelation or Inspiration there have not been any Universall Lawes so given because God speaketh not in that manner but to particular persons and to divers men divers things From the difference between the other two kinds of Gods Word Rationall and Prophetique there may be attributed to God a twofold Kingdome Naturall and Prophetique Naturall wherein he governeth as many of Mankind as acknowledge his Providence by the naturall Dictates of Right Reason And Prophetique wherein having chosen out one peculiar Nation the Jewes for his Subjects he governed them and none but them not onely by naturall Reason but by Positive Lawes which he gave them by the mouths of his holy Prophets Of the Naturall Kingdome of God I intend to speak in this Chapter The Right of Nature whereby God reigneth over men and punisheth those that break his Lawes is to be derived not from his Creating them as if he required obedience as of Gratitude for his benefits but from his Irresistible Power I have formerly shewn how the Soveraign Right ariseth from Pact To shew how the same Right may arise from Nature requires no more but to shew in what case it is never taken away Seeing all men by Nature had Right to All things they had Right every one to reigne over all the rest But because this Right could not be obtained by force it concerned the safety of every one laying by that Right to set up men with Soveraign Authority by common consent to rule and defend them whereas if there had been any man of Power Irresistible there had been no reason why he should not by that Power have ruled and defended both himselfe and them according to his own discretion To those therefore whose Power is irresistible the dominion of all men adhaereth naturally by their excellence of Power and consequently it is from that Power that the Kingdome over men and the Right of afflicting men at his pleasure belongeth Naturally to God Almighty not as Creator and Gracious but as Omnipotent And though Punishment be due for Sinne onely because by
when the Books of Scripture were gathered into one body of the Law to the end that not the Doctrine only but the Authors also might be extant Of the Prophets the most ancient are Sophoniah Jonas Amos Hosea Isaiah and Michaiah who lived in the time of Amaziah and Azariah otherwise Ozias Kings of Judah But the Book of Jonas is not properly a Register of his Prophecy for that is contained in these few words Fourty dayes and Ninivy shall be destroyed but a History or Narration of his frowardnesse and disputing Gods commandements so that there is small probability he should be the Author seeing he is the subject of it But the Book of Amos is his Prophecy Jeremiah Abdias Nahum and Habakkuk prophecyed in the time of Josiah Ezekiel Daniel Aggeus and Zacharias in the Captivity When Ioel and Malachi prophecyed is not evident by their Writings But considering the Inscriptions or Titles of their Books it is manifest enough that the whole Scripture of the Old Testament was set forth in the form we have it after the return of the Iews from their Captivity in Babylon and before the time of Ptolemaeus Philadelphus that caused it to bee translated into Greek by seventy men which were sent him out of Iudea for that purpose And if the Books of Apocrypha which are recommended to us by the Church though not for Canonicall yet for profitable Books for our instruction may in this point be credited the Scripture was set forth in the form wee have it in by Esdâ—… as may appear by that which he himself saith in the second book chapt 14. verse 21 22 c. where speaking to God he saith thus Thy law is burnt therefore no man knoweth the things which thou hast done or the works that are to begin But if I have found Grace before thee send down the holy Spirit into me and I shall write all that hath been done in the world since the beginning which were written in thy Law that men may find thy path and that they which will live in the later days may live And verse 45. And it came to passe when the forty dayes were fulfilled that the Highest spake saying The first that thou hast written publish openly that the worthy and unworthy may read it but keep the seventy last that thou mayst deliver them onely to such as be wise among the people And thus much concerning the time of the writing of the Bookes of the Old Testament The Writers of the New Testament lived all in lesse then an age after Christs Ascension and had all of them seen our Saviour or been his Disciples except St. Paul and St. Luke and consequently whatsoever was written by them is as ancient as the time of the Apostles But the time wherein the Books of the New Testament were received and acknowledged by the Church to be of their writing is not altogether so ancient For as the Bookes of the Old Testament are derived to us from no other time then that of Esdras who by the direction of Gods Spirit retrived them when they were lost Those of the New Testament of which the copies were not many nor could easily be all in any one private mans hand cannot bee derived from a higher time than that wherein the Governours of the Church collected approved and recommended them to us as the writings of those Apostles and Disciples under whose names they go The first enumeration of all the Bookes both of the Old and New Testament is in the Canons of the Apostles supposed to be collected by Clement the first after St. Peter Bishop of Rome But because that is but supposed and by many questioned the Councell of Laodicea is the first we know that recommended the Bible to the then Christian Churches for the Writings of the Prophets and Apostles and this Councell was held in the 364. yeer after Christ. At which time though ambition had so far prevailed on the great Doctors of the Church as no more to esteem Emperours though Christian for the Shepherds of the people but for Sheep and Emperours not Christian for Wolves and endeavoured to passe their Doctrine not for Counsell and Information as Preachers but for Laws as absolute Governours and thought such frauds as tended to make the people the more obedient to Christian Doctrine to be pious yet I am perswaded they did not therefore falsifie the Scriptures though the copies of the Books of the New Testament were in the hands only of the Ecclesiasticks because if they had had an intention so to doe they would surely have made them more favorable to their power over Christian Princes and Civill Soveraignty than they are I see not therefore any reason to doubt but that the Old and New Testament as we have them now are the true Registers of those things which were done and said by the Prophets and Apostles And so perhaps are some of those Books which are called Apocrypha and left out of the Canon not for inconformity of Doctrine with the rest but only because they are not found in the Hebrew For after the conquest of Asia by Alexander the Great there were few learned Jews that were not perfect in the Greek tongue For the seventy Interpreters that converted the Bible into Greek were all of them Hebrews and we have extant the works of Philo and Josephus both Jews written by them eloquently in Greek But it is not the Writer but the authority of the Church that maketh a Book Canonicall And although these Books were written by divers men yet it is manifest the Writers were all indued with one and the same Spirit in that they conspire to one and the same end which is the setting forth of the Rights of the Kingdome of God the Father Son and Holy Ghost For the Book of Genesis deriveth the Genealogy of Gods people from the creation of the World to the going into Egypt the other four Books of Moses contain the Election of God for their King and the Laws which hee prescribed for their Government The Books of Joshua Judges Ruth and Samuel to the time of Saul describe the acts of Gods people till the time they cast off Gods yoke and called for a King after the manner of their neighbour nations The rest of the History of the Old Testament derives the succession of the line of David to the Captivity out of which line was to spring the restorer of the Kingdome of God even our blessed Saviour God the Son whose coming was foretold in the Bookes of the Prophets after whom the Evangelists write his life and actions and his claim to the Kingdome whilst he lived on earth and lastly the Acts and Epistles of the Apostles declare the coming of God the Holy Ghost and the Authority he left with them and their successors for the direction of the Jews and for the invitation of the Gentiles In summe the Histories and the Prophecies of the old Testament
nature of Dreams and Visions that happen to men by the ordinary way of Nature I was enclined to this opinion that Angels were nothing but supernaturall apparitions of the Fancy raised by the speciall and extraordinary operation of God thereby to make his presence and commandements known to mankind and chiefly to his own people But the many places of the New Testament and our Saviours own words and in such texts wherein is no suspicion of corruption of the Scripture have extorted from my feeble Reason an acknowledgment and beleef that there be also Angels substantiall and permanent But to beleeve they be in no place that is to say no where that is to say nothing as they though indirectly say that will have them Incorporeall cannot by Scripture bee evinced On the signification of the word Spirit dependeth that of the word INSPIRATION which must either be taken properly and then it is nothing but the blowing into a man some thin and subtile aire or wind in such manner as a man filleth a bladder with his breath or if Spirits be not corporeall but have their existence only in the fancy it is nothing but the blowing in of a Phantasme which is improper to say and impossible for Phantasmes are not but only seem to be somewhat That word therefore is used in the Scripture metaphorically onely As Gen. 2. 7. where it is said that God inspired into man the breath of life no more is meant then that God gave unto him vitall motion For we are not to think that God made first a living breath and then blew it into Adam after he was made whether that breath were reall or seeming but only as it is Acts 17. 25. that he gave him life and breath that is made him a living creature And where it is said 2 Tim. 3. 16. all Scripture is given by Inspiration from God speaking there of the Scripture of the Old Testament it is an easie metaphor to signifie that God enclined the spirit or mind of those Writers to write that which should be usefull in teaching reproving correcting and instructing men in the way of righteous living But where St. Peter 2 Pet. 1. 21. saith that Prophecy came not in old time by the will of man but the holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Spirit by the Holy Spirit is meant the voice of God in a Dream or Vision supernaturall which is not Inspâ—…ration Nor when our Saviour breathing on his Disciples said Receive the Holy Spirit was that Breath the Spirit but a sign of the spirituall graces he gave unto them And though it be said of many and of our Saviour himself that he was full of the Holy Spirit yet that Fulnesse is not to be understood for Infusion of the substance of God but for accumulation of his gifts such as are the gift of sanctity of life of tongues and the like whether attained supernaturally or by study and industry for in all cases they are the gifts of God So likewise where God sayes Joel 2. 28. I will powre out my Spirit upon all flesh and your Sons and your Daughters shall prophecy your Old men shall dream Dreams and your Young men shall see Visions wee are not to understand it in the proper sense as if his Spirit were like water subject to effusion or infusion but as if God had promised to give them Propheticall Dreams and Vision For the proper use of the word infused in speaking of the graces of God is an abuse of it for those graces are Vertues not Bodies to be carryed hither and thither and to be powred into men as into barrels In the same manner to take Inspiration in the proper sense or to say that Good Spirits entred into men to make them prophecy or Evill Spirits into those that became Phrenetique Lunatique or Epileptique is not to take the word in the sense of the Scripture for the Spirit there is taken for the power of God working by causes to us unknown As also Acts 2. 2. the wind that is there said to fill the house wherein the Apostles were assembled on the day of Pentecost is not to be understood for the Holy Spirit which is the Deity it self but for an Externall sign of Gods speciall working on their hearts to effect in them the internall graces and holy vertues hee thought requisite for the performance of their Apostleship CHAP. XXXV Of the Signification in Scripture of KINGDOME OF GOD of HOLY SACRED and SACRAMENT THe Kingdome of God in the Writings of Divines and specially in Sermons and Treatises of Devotion is taken most commonly for Eternall Felicity after this life in the Highest Heaven which they also call the Kingdome of Glory and sometimes for the earnest of that felicity Sanctification which they terme the Kingdome of Grace but never for the Monarchy that is to say the Soveraign Power of God over any Subjects acquired by their own consent which is the proper signification of Kingdome To the contrary I find the KINGDOME OF GOD to signifie in most places of Scripture a Kingdome properly so named constituted by the Votes of the People of Israel in peculiar manner wherein they chose God for their King by Covenant made with him upon Gods promising them the possession of the land of Canaan and but seldom metaphorically and then it is taken for Dominion over sinne and only in the New Testament because such a Dominion as that every Subject shall have in the Kingdome of God and without prejudice to the Soveraign From the very Creation God not only reigned over all men naturally by his might but also had peculiar Subjects whom he commanded by a Voice as one man speaketh to another In which manner he reigned over Adam and gave him commandement to abstaine from the tree of cognizance of Good and Evill which when he obeyed not but tasting thereof took upon him to be as God judging between Good and Evill not by his Creators commandement but by his own sense his punishment was a privation of the estate of Eternall life wherein God had at first created him And afterwards God punished his posterity for their vices all but eight persons with an universall deluge And in these eight did consist the then Kingdom of God After this it pleased God to speak to Abraham and Gen. 17. 7 8. to make a Covenant with him in these words I will establish my Covenant between me and thee and thy seed after thee in their generations for an evâ—…rlasting Covenant to be a God to thee and to thy seed after thee And I will give unto thee and to thy seed after thee the land wherein thou art a stranger all the land of Canaan for an everlasting possession In this Covenant Abraham promiseth for himselfe and his posterity to obey as God the Lord that spake to him and God on his part promiseth to Abraham the land of Canaan for an everlasting
speaking by the Spirit or Inspiration was not a particular manner of Gods speaking different from Vision when they that were said to speak by the Spirit were extraordinary Prophets such as for every new message were to have a particular Commission or which is all one a new Dream or Vision Of Prophets that were so by a perpetuall Calling in the Old Testament some were supreme and some subordinate Supreme were first Moses and after him the High Priests every one for his time as long as the Priesthood was Royall and after the people of the Jews had rejected God that he should no more reign over them those Kings which submitted themselves to Gods government were also his chief Prophets and the High Priests oâ—…fice became Ministeriall And when God was to be consulted they put on the holy vestments and enquired of the Lord as the King commanded them and were deprived of their office when the King thought fit For King Saul 1 Sam. 13. 9. commanded the burnt offering to be brought and 1 Sam. 14. 18. he commands the Priest to bring the Ark neer him and ver 19. again to let it alone because he saw an advantage upon his enemies And in the same chapter Saul asketh counsell of God In like manner King David after his being anointed though before he had possession of the Kingdome is said to enquire of the Lord 1 Sam. 23. 2. whether he should fight against the Philistines at Keilah and verse 10. David commandeth the Priest to bring him the Ephod to enquire whether he should stay in Keilah or not And King Solomon 1 Kings 2. 27. took the Priesthood from Abiathar and gave it verse 35. to Zadoc Therefore Moses and the High Priests and the pious Kings who enquired of God on all extraordinary occasions how they were to carry themselves or what event they were to have were all Soveraign Prophets But in what manner God spake unto them is not manifest To say that when Moses went up to God in Mount Sinai it was a Dream or Vision such as other Prophets had is contrary to that distinction which God made between Moses and other Prophets Numb 12. 6 7 8. To say God spake or appeared as he is in his own nature is to deny his Infinitenesse Invisibility Incomprehensibility To say he spake by Inspiration or Infusion of the Holy Spirit as the Holy Spirit signifieth the Deity is to make Moses equall with Christ in whom onely the Godhead as St. Paul speaketh Col. 2. 9. dwelleth bodily And lastly to say he spake by the Holy Spirit as it signifieth the graces or gifts of the Holy Spirit is to attribute nothing to him supernaturall For God disposeth men to Piety Justice Mercy Truth Faith and all manner of Vertue both Morall and Intellectuall by doctrine example and by severall occasions naturall and ordinary And as these ways cannot be applyed to God in his speaking to Moses at Mouut Sinai so also they cannot be applyed to him in his speaking to the High Priests from the Mercy-Seat Therefore in what manner God spake to those Soveraign Prophets of the Old Testament whose office it was to enquire of him is not intelligible In the time of the New Testament there was no Soveraign Prophet but our Saviour who was both God that spake and the Prophet to whom he spake To subordinate Prophets of perpetuall Calling I find not any place that proveth God spake to them supernaturally but onely in such manner as naturally he inclineth men to Piety to Beleef to Righteousnesse and to other vertues all other Christian men Which way though it consist in Constitution Instruction Education and the occasions and invitements men have to Christian vertues yet it is truly attributed to the operation of the Spirit of God or Holy Spirit which we in our language call the Holy Ghost For there is no good inclination that is not of the operation of God But these operations are not alwaies supernaturall When therefore a Prophet is said to speak in the Spirit or by the Spirit of God we are to understand no more but that he speaks according to Gods will declared by the supreme Prophet For the most common acceptation of the word Spirit is in the signification of a mans intention mind or disposition In the time of Moses there were seventy men besides himself that Prophecyed in the Campe of the Israelites In what manner God spake to them is declared in the 11 of Numbers verse 25. The Lord came down in a cloud and spake unto Moses and took of the Spirit that was upon him and gave it to the seventy Elders And it came to passe when the Spirit rested upon them they Prophecyed and did not cease By which it is manifest first that their Prophecying to the people was subservient and subordinate to the Prophecying of Moses for that God took of the Spirit of Moses to put upon them so that they Prophecyed as Moses would have them otherwise they had not been suffered to Prophecy at all For there was verse 27. a complaint made against them to Moses and Joshua would have Moses to have forbidden them which he did not but said to Joshua Bee not jealous in my behalf Secondly that the Spirit of God in that place signifieth nothing but the Mind and Disposition to obey and assist Moses in the administration of the Government For if it were meant they had the substantiall Spirit of God that is the Divine nature inspired into them then they had it in no lesse manner then Christ himself in whom onely the Spirit of God dwelt bodily It is meant therefore of the Gift and Grace of God that guided them to co-operate with Moses from whom their Spirit was derived And it appeareth verse 16. that they were such as Moses himself should appoint for Elders and Officers of the People For the words are Gather unto me seventy men whom thou knowest to be Elders and Officers of the people where thou knowest is the same with thou appointest or hast appointed to be such For we are told before Exod. 18. that Moses following the counsell of Jethro his Father-in-law did appoint Judges and Officers over the people such as feared God and of these were those Seventy whom God by putting upon them Moses spirit inclined to aid Moses in the Administration of the Kingdome and in this sense the Spirit of God is said 1 Sam. 16. 13 14. presently upon the anointing of David to have come upon David and left Saul God giving his graces to him he chose to govern his people and taking them away from him he rejected So that by the Spirit is meant Inclination to Gods service and not any supernaturall Revelation God spake also many times by the event of Lots which were ordered by such as he had put in Authority over his people So wee read that God manifested by the Lots which Saul caused to be drawn 1 Sam. 14. 43. the
Christ all shall bee made alive then all men shall be made to live on Earth for else the comparison were not proper Hereunto seemeth to agree that of the Psalmist Psal. 133. 3. Vpon Zion God commanded the blessing even Life for evermore for Zion is in Jerusalem upon Earth as also that of S. Joh. Rev. 2. 7. To him that overcommeth I will give to eat of the tree of life which is in the midst of the Paradise of God This was the tree of Adams Eternall life but his life was to have been on Earth The same seemeth to be confirmed again by St. Joh. Rev. 21. 2. where he saith I Iohn saw the Holy City New Ierusalem coming down from God out of heaven prepared as a Bride adorned for her husband and again v. 10. to the same effect As if he should say the new Jerusalem the Paradise of God at the coming again of Christ should come down to Gods people from Heaven and not they goe up to it from Earth And this differs nothing from that which the two men in white clothing that is the two Angels said to the Apostles that were looking upon Christ ascending Acts 1. 11. This same Iesus who is taken up from you into Heaven shall so come as you have seen him go up into Heaven Which soundeth as if they had said he should come down to govern them under his Father Eternally here and not take them up to govern them in Heaven and is conformable to the Restauration of the Kingdom of God instituted under Moses which was a Political government of the Jews on Earth Again that saying of our Saviour Mat. 22. 30. that in the Resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage but are as the Angels of God in heaven is a description of an Eternall Life resembling that which we lost in Adam in the point of Marriage For seeing Adam and Eve if they had not sinned had lived on Earth Eternally in their individuall persons it is manifest they should not continually have procreated their kind For if Immortals should have generated as Mankind doth now the Earth in a small time would not have been able to afford them place to stand on The Jews that asked our Saviour the question whose wife the woman that had married many brothers should be in the resurrection knew not what were the consequences of Life Eternall and therefore our Saviour puts them in mind of this consequence of Immortality that there shal be no Generation and consequētly no marriage no more then there is marriage or generatiō among the Angels The comparison between that Eternall life which Adam lost and our Saviour by his Victory over death hath recovered holdeth also in this that as Adam lost Eternall Life by his sin and yet lived after it for a time so the faithful Christian hath recovered Eternal Life by Christs passion though he die a natural death and remaine dead for a time namely till the Resurrection For as Death is reckoned from the Condemnation of Adam not from the Execution so Life is reckoned from the Absolution not from the Resurrection of them that are elected in Christ. That the place wherein men are to live Eternally after the Resurrection is the Heavens meaning by Heaven those parts of the world which are the most remote from Earth as where the stars are or above the stars in another Higher Heaven called Coelum Empyreum whereof there is no mention in Scripture nor ground in Reason is not easily to be drawn from any text that I can find By the Kingdome of Heaven is meant the Kingdom of the King that dwelleth in Heaven and his Kingdome was the people of Israel whom he ruled by the Prophets his Lieutenants first Moses and after him Eleazar and the Soveraign Priests till in the days of Samuel they rebelled and would have a mortall man for their King after the manner of other Nations And when our Saviour Christ by the preaching of his Ministers shall have perswaded the Jews to return and called the Gentiles to his obedience then shall there be a new Kingdom of Heaven because our King shall then be God whose throne is Heaven without any necessity evident in the Scripture that man shall ascend to his happinesse any higher than Gods footstool the Earth On the contrary we find written Ioh. 3. 13. that no man hath ascended into Heaven but he that came down from Heaven even the Son of man that is in Heaven Where I observe by the way that these words are not as those which go immediately before the words of our Saviour but of St. John himself for Christ was then not in Heaven but upon the Earth The like is said of David Acts 2. 34. where St. Peter to prove the Ascension of Christ using the words of the Psalmist Psal. 16. 10. Thou wilt not leave my soule in Hell not suffer thine Holy one to see corruption saith they were spoken not of David but of Christ and to prove it addeth this Reason For David is not ascended into Heaven But to this a man may easily answer and say that though their bodies were not to ascend till the generall day of Judgment yet their souls were in Heaven as soon as they were departed from their bodies which also seemeth to be confirmed by the words of our Saviour Luke 20. 37 38. who proving the Resurrection out of the words of Moses saith thus That the dead are raised even Moses shewed at the bush when he calleth the Lord the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Iacob For he is not a God of the Dead but of the Living for they all live to him But if these words be to be understood only of the Immortality of the Soul they prove not at all that which our Saviour intended to prove which was the Resurrection of the Body that is to say the Immortality of the Man Therefore our Saviour meaneth that those Patriarchs were Immortall not by a property consequent to the essence and nature of mankind but by the will of God that was pleased of his mere grace to bestow Eternall life upon the faithfull And though at that time the Patriarchs and many other faithfull men were dead yet as it is in the text they lived to God that is they were written in the Book of Life with them that were absolved of their sinnes and ordained to Life eternall at the Resurrection That the Soul of man is in its own nature Eternall and a living Creature inpedendent on the body or that any meer man is Immortall otherwise than by the Resurrection in the last day except Enos and Elias is a doctrine nor apparent in Scripture The whole 14. Chapter of Iob which is the speech not of his friends but of himselfe is a complaint of this Mortality of Nature and yet no contradiction of the Immortality at the Resurrection There is hope of a tree saith hee verse 7.
any Coelum Empyreum or other aetheriall Region saving that it is called the Kingdome of Heaven which name it may have because God that was King of the Jews governed them by his commands sent to Moses by Angels from Heaven and after their revolt sent his Son from Heaven to reduce them to their obedience and shall send him thence again to rule both them and all other faithfull men from the day of Judgment Everlastingly or from that that the Throne of this our Great King is in Heaven whereas the Earth is but his Footstoole But that the Subjects of God should have any place as high as his Throne or higher than his Footstoole it seemeth not sutable to the dignity of a King nor can I find any evident text for it in holy Scripture From this that hath been said of the Kingdom of God and of Salvation it is not hard to interpret what is meant by the WORLD TO COME There are three worlds mentioned in Scripture the Old World the Present VVorld and the VVorld to come Of the first St. Peter speaks If God spared not the Old VVorld but saved Noah the eighth person a Preacher of righteousnesse bringing the flood upon the world of the ungodly c. So the first World was from Adam to the generall Flood Of the present World our Saviour speaks Iohn 18. 36. My Kingdome is not of this VVorld For he came onely to teach men the way of Salvation and to renew the Kingdome of his Father by his doctrine Of the World to come St. Peter speaks Neverthelesse we according to his promise look for new Heavens and a new Earth This is that WORLD wherein Christ coming down from Heaven in the clouds with great power and glory shall send his Angels and shall gather together his elect from the four winds and from the uttermost parts of the Earth and thence forth reign over them under his Father Everlastingly Salvation of a sinner suppposeth a precedent REDEMPTION for he that is once guilty of Sin is obnoxious to the Penalty of the same and must pay or some other for him such Ransome as he that is offended and has him in his power shall require And seeing the person offended is Almighty God in whose power are all things such Ransome is to be paid before Salvation can be acquired as God hath been pleased to require By this Ransome is not intended a satisfaction for Sin equivalent to the Offence which no sinner for himselfe nor righteous man can ever be able to make for another The dammage a man does to another he may make amends for by restitution or recompence but sin cannot be taken away by recompence for that were to make the liberty to sin a thing vendible But sins may bee pardoned to the repentant either gratis or upon such penalty as God is pleased to accept That which God usually accepted in the Old Testament was some Sacrifice or Oblation To forgive sin is not an act of Injustice though the punishment have been threatned Even amongst men though the promise of Good bind the promiser yet threats that is to say promises of Evill bind them not much lesse shall they bind God who is infinitely more mercifull then men Our Saviour Christ therefore to Redeem us did not in that sense satisfie for the Sins of men as that his Death of its own vertue could make it unjust in God to punish sinners with Eternall death but did make that Sacrifice and Oblation of himself at his first coming which God was pleased to require for the Salvation at his second coming of such as in the mean time should repent and beleeve in him And though this act of our Redemption be not alwaies in Scripture called a Sacrifice and Oblation but sometimes a Price yet by Price we are not to understand any thing by the value whereof he could claim right to a pardon for us from his offended Father but that Price which God the Father was pleased in mercy to demand CHAP. XXXIX Of the signification in Scripture of the word CHURCH THe word Church Ecclesia signifieth in the Books of Holy Scripture divers things Sometimes though not often it is taken for Gods House that is to say for a Temple wherein Christians assemble to perform holy duties publiquely as 1 Cor. 14. ver 34. Let your women keep silence in the Churches but this is Metaphorically put for the Congregation there assembled and hath been since used for the Edifice it self to distinguish between the Temples of Christians and Idolaters The Temple of Jerusalem was Gods house and the House of Prayer and so is any Edifice dedicated by Christians to the worship of Christ Christs house and therefore the Greek Fathers call it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Lords house and thence in our language it came to be called Kyrke and Church Church when not taken for a House signifieth the same that Ecclesia signified in the Grecian Common-wealths that is to say a Congregation or an Assembly of Citizens called forth to hear the Magistrate speak unto them and which in the Common-wealth of Rome was called Concio as he that spake was called Ecclesiastes and Concionator And when they were called forth by lawfull Authority it was Ecclesia legitima a Lawfull Church 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But when they were excited by tumultuous and seditious clamor then it was a confused Church 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is taken also sometimes for the men that have right to be of the Congregation though not actually assembled that is to say for the whole multitude of Christian men how far soever they be dispersed as Act. 8. 3. where it is said that Saul made havock of the Church And in this sense is Christ said to be Head of the Church And sometimes for a certain part of Christians as Col. 4. 15. Salute the Church that is in his house Sometimes also for the Elect onely as Ephes. 5. 27. A Glorious Church without spot or wrinkle holy and without blemâ—…sh which is meant of the Church triumphant or Church to come Sometimes for a Congregation assembled of professors of Christianity whether their profession be true or counterfeit as it is understood Mat. 18. 17. where it is said Tell it to the Church and if hee neglect to hear the Church let him be to thee as a Gentile or Publican And in this last sense only it is that the Church can be taken for one Person that is to say that it can be said to have power to will to pronounce to command to be obeyed to make laws or to doe any other action whatsoever For without authority from a lawfull Congregation whatsoever act be done in a concourse of people it is the particular act of every one of those that were present and gave their aid to the performance of it and not the act of them all in grosse as of one body much lesse the act
of them that were absent or that being present were not willing it should be done According to this sense I define a CHURCH to be A company of men professing Christian Religion united in the person of one Soveraign at whose command they ought to assemble and without whose authority they ought not to assemble And because in all Common-wealths that Assembly which is without warrant from the Civil Soveraign is unlawful that Church also which is assembled in any Common-wealth that hath forbidden them to assemble is an unlawfull Assembly It followeth also that there is on Earth no such universall Church as all Christians are bound to obey because there is no power on Earth to which all other Common-wealths are subject There are Christians in the Dominions of severall Princes and States but every one of them is subject to that Common-wealth whereof he is himself a member and consequently cannot be subject to the commands of any other Person And therefore a Church such a one as is capable to Command to Judge Absolve Condemn or do any other act is the same thing with a Civil Common-wealth consisting of Christian men and is called a Civill State for that the subjects of it are Men and a Church for that the subjects thereof are Christians Temporall and Spirituall Government are but two words brought into the world to make men see double and mistake their Lawfull Soveraign It is true that the bodies of the faithfull after the Resurrection shall be not onely Spirituall but Eternall but in this life they are grosse and corruptible There is therefore no other Government in this life neither of State nor Religion but Temporall nor teaching of any doctrine lawfull to any Subject which the Governour both of the State and of the Religion forbiddeth to be taught And that Governor must be one or else there must needs follow Faction and Civil war in the Common-wealth between the Church and State between Spiritualists and Temporalists between the Sword of Iustice and the Shield of Faith and which is more in every Christian mans own brest between the Christian and the Man The Doctors of the Church are called Pastors so also are Civill Soveraignes But if Pastors be not subordinate one to another so as that there may bee one chief Pastor men will be taught contrary Doctrines whereof both may be and one must be false Who that one chief Pastor is according to the law of Nature hath been already shewn namely that it is the Civill Soveraign And to whom the Scripture hath assigned that Office we shall see in the Chapters following CHAP. XL. Of the RIGHTS of the Kingdome of God in Abraham Moses the High Priests and the Kings of Judah THe Father of the Faithfull and first in the Kingdome of God by Covenant was Abraham For with him was the Covenant first made wherein he obliged himself and his seed after him to acknowledge and obey the commands of God not onely such as he could take notice of as Morall Laws by the light of Nature but also such as God should in speciall manner deliver to him by Dreams and Visions For as to the Morall law they were already obliged and needed not have been contracted withall by promise of the Land of Canaan Nor was there any Contract that could adde to or strengthen the Obligation by which both they and all men else were bound naturally to obey God Almighty And therefore the Covenant which Abraham made with God was to take for the Commandement of God that which in the name of God was commanded him in a Dream or Vifion and to deliver it to his family and cause them to observe the same In this Contract of God with Abraham wee may observe three points of important consequence in the government of Gods people First that at the making of this Covenant God spake onely to Abraham and therefore contracted not with any of his family or seed otherwise then as their wills which make the essence of all Covenants were before the Contract involved in the will of Abraham who was therefore supposed to have had a lawfull power to make them perform all that he covenanted for them According whereunto Gen. 18. 18 19. God saith All the Nations of the Earth shall be blessed in him For I know him that he will command his children and his houshold after him and they shall keep the way of the Lord. From whence may be concluded this first point that they to whom God hath not spoken immediately are to receive the positive commandements of God from their Soveraign as the family and seed of Abraham did from Abraham their Father and Lord and Civill Soveraign And consequently in every Common-wealth they who have no supernaturall Revelation to the contrary ought to obey the laws of their own Soveraign in the externall acts and profession of Religion As for the inward thought and beleef of men which humane Governours can take no notice of for God onely knoweth the heart they are not voluntary nor the effect of the laws but of the unrevealed will and of the power of God and consequently fall not under obligation From whence proceedeth another point that it was not unlawfull for Abraham when any of his Subjects should pretend Private Vision or Spirit or other Revelation from God for the countenancing of any doctrine which Abraham should forbid or when they followed or adhered to any such pretender to punish them and consequently that it is lawfull now for the Soveraign to punish any man that shall oppose his Private Spirit against the Laws For hee hath the same place in the Common-wealth that Abraham had in his own Family There ariseth also from the same a third point that as none but Abraham in his family so none but the Soveraign in a Christian Common-wealth can take notice what is or what is not the Word of God For God spake onely to Abraham and it was he onely that was able to know what God said and to interpret the same to his family And therefore also they that have the place of Abraham in a Common-wealth are the onely Interpreters of what God hath spoken The same Covenant was renewed with Isaac and afterwards with Jacob but afterwards no more till the Israelites were freed from the Egyptians and arrived at the Foot of Mount Sinai and then it was renewed by Moses as I have said before chap. 35. in such manner as they became from that time forward the Peculiar Kingdome of God whose Lieutenant was Moses for his owne time and the succession to that office was setled upon Aaron and his heirs after him to bee to God a Sacerdotall Kingdome for ever By this constitution a Kingdome is acquired to God But seeing Moses had no authority to govern the Israelites as a successor to the right of Abraham because he could not claim it by inheritance it appeareth not as yet that the
God that ordained such Sacrifices for sin as he was pleased in his mercy to accept In the Old Law as we may read Leviticus the 16. the Lord required that there should every year once bee made an Atonement for the Sins of all Israel both Priests and others for the doing whereof Aaron alone was to sacrifice for himself and the Priests a young Bullock and for the rest of the people he was to receive from them two young Goates of which he was to sacrifice one but as for the other which was the Scape Goat he was to lay his hands on the head thereof and by a confession of the iniquities of the people to lay them all on that head and then by some opportune man to cause the Goat to be led into the wildernesse and there to escape and carry away with him the iniquities of the people As the Sacrifice of the one Goat was a sufficient because an acceptable price for the Ransome of all Israel so the death of the Messiah is a sufficient price for the Sins of all mankind because there was no more required Our Saviour Christs sufferings seem to be here figured as cleerly as in the oblation of Isaac or in any other type of him in the Old Testament He was both the sacrificed Goat and the Scape Goat Hee was oppressed and he was afflicted Esay 53. 7. he opened not his mouth he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter and as a sheep is dumbe before the shearer so opened he not his mouth Here he is the sacrificed Gâ—…at He hath born our Griefs ver 4. and carried our sorrows And again ver 6. the Lord hath laid upon him the iniquities of us all And so he is the Scape Goat He was cut off from the land of the living ver 8. for the transgression of my People There again he is the sacrificed Goat And again ver 11. he shall bear their sins Hee is the Scape Goat Thus is the Lamb of God equivalent to both those Goates sacrificed in that he dyed and escaping in his Resurrection being raised opportunely by his Father and removed from the habitation of men in his Ascension For as much therefore as he that redeemeth hath no title to the thing redeemed before the Redemption and Ransome paid and this Ransome was the Death of the Redeemer it is manifest that our Saviour as man was not King of those that he Redeemed before hee suffered death that is during that time hee conversed bodily on the Earth I say he was not then King in present by vertue of the Pact which the faithfull make with him in Baptisme Neverthelesse by the renewing of their Pact with God in tisme they were obliged to obey him for King under his Father whensoever he should be pleased to take the Kingdome upon him According whereunto our Saviour himself expressely saith Iohn 18. 36. My Kingdome is not of this world Now seeing the Scripture maketh mention but of two worlds this that is now and shall remain to the day of Judgment which is therefore also called the last day and that which shall bee after the day of Judgement when there shall bee a new Heaven and a new Earth the Kingdome of Christ is not to begin till the generall Resurrection And that is it which our Saviour saith Mat. 16. 27. The Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father with his Angels and then he shall reward every man according to his works To reward every man according to his works is to execute the Office of a King and this is not to be till he come in the glory of his Father with his Angells When our Saviour saith Mat. 23. 2. The Scribes and Pharisees sit in Moses seat All therefore whatsoever they bid you doe that observe and doe hee declareth plainly that hee ascribeth Kingly Power for that time not to himselfe but to them And so hee doth also where he saith Luke 12. 14. Who made mee a Iudge or Divider over you And Iohn 12. 47. I came not to judge the world but to save the world And yet our Saviour came into this world that hee might bee a King and a Judge in the world to come For hee was the Messiah that is the Christ that is the Anointed Priest and the Soveraign Prophet of God that is to say he was to have all the power that was in Moses the Prophet in the High Priests that succeeded Moses and in the Kings that succeeded the Priests And St. Iohn saies expressely chap. 5. ver 22. The Father judgeth no man but hath committed all judgment to the Son And this is not repugnant to that other place I came not to judge the world for this is spoken of the world present the other of the world to come as also where it is said that at the second coming of Christ Mat. 19. 28. Yee that have followed me in the Regeneration when the Son of man shall sit in the throne of his Glory yee shall also sit on twelve thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel If then Christ whilest hee was on Earth had no Kingdome in this world to what end was his first coming It was to restore unto God by a new Covenant the Kingdom which being his by the Old Covenant had been cut off by the rebellion of the Israelites in the election of Saul Which to doe he was to preach unto them that he was the Messiah that is the King promised to them by the Prophets and to offer himselfe in sacrifice for the sinnes of them that should by faith submit themselves thereto and in case the nation generally should refuse him to call to his obedience such as should beleeve in him amongst the Gentiles So that there are two parts of our Saviours Office during his aboad upon the Earth One to Proclaim himself the Christ and another by Teaching and by working of Miracles to perswade and prepare men to live so as to be worthy of the Immortality Beleevers were to enjoy at such tiâ—…e as he should come in majesty to take possession of his Fathers Kingdome And therefore it is that the time of his preaching is often by himself called the Regeneration which is not properly a Kingdome and thereby a warrant to deny obedience to the Magistrates that then were for hee commanded to obey those that sate then in Moses chaire and to pay tribute to Caesar but onely an earnest of the Kingdome of God that was to come to those to whom God had given the grace to be his disciples and to beleeve in him For which cause the Godly are said to bee already in the Kingdome of Grace as naturalized in that heavenly Kingdome Hitherto therefore there is nothing done or taught by Christ that tendeth to the diminution of the Civill Right of the Jewes or of Caesar. For as touching the Common-wealth which then was amongst the Jews both they that bare rule amongst them
and they that were governed did all expect the Messiah and Kingdome of God which they could not have done if their Laws had forbidden him when he came to manifest and declare himself Seeing therefore he did nothing but by Preaching and Miracles go about to prove himselfe to be that Messiah hee did therein nothing against their laws The Kingdome hee claimed was to bee in another world He taught all men to obey in the mean time them that sate in Moses seat He allowed them to give Caesar his tribute and refused to take upon himselfe to be a Judg. How then could his words or actions bee seditious or tend to the overthrow of their then Civill Government But God having determined his sacrifice for the reduction of his elect to their former covenanted obedience for the means whereby he would bring the same to effect made use of their malice and ingratitude Nor was it contrary to the laws of Caesar. For though Pilate himself to gratifie the Jews delivered him to be crucified yet before he did so he pronounced openly that he found no fault in him And put for title of his condemnation not as the Jews required that he pretended to bee King bnt simply That hee was King of the Iews and notwithstanding their clamour refused to alter it saying What I have written I have written As for the third part of his Office which was to be King I have already shewn that his Kingdome was not to begin till the Resurrection But then he shall be King not onely as God in which sense he is King already and ever shall be of all the Earth in vertue of his omnipotence but also peculiarly of his own Elect by vertue of the pact they make with him in their Baptisme And therefore it is that our Saviour saith Mat. 19. 28. that his Apostles should sit upon twelve thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel When the Son of man shall sit in the throne of his glory whereby he signified that he should reign then in his humane nature and Mat. 16. 27. The Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father with his Angels and then he shall reward every man according to his works The same we may read Marke 13. 26. and 14. 62. and more expressely for the time Luke 22. 29 30. I appoint unto you a Kingdome as my Father hath appointed to mee that you may eat and drink at my table in my Kingdome and sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel By which it is manifest that the Kingdome of Christ appointed to him by his Father is not to be before the Son of Man shall come in Glory and make his Apostles Judges of the twelve tribes of Israel But a man may here ask seeing there is no marriage in the Kingdome of Heaven whether men shall then eat and drink what eating therefore is meant in this place This is expounded by our Saviour Iohn 6. 27. where he saith Labour not for the meat which perisheth but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life which the Son of man shall give you So that by eating at Christs table is meant the eating of the Tree of Life that is to say the enjoying of Immortality in the Kingdome of the Son of Man By which places and many more it is evident that our Saviours Kingdome is to bee exercised by him in his humane nature Again he is to be King then no otherwise than as subordinate or Vicegerent of God the Father as Moses was in the wildernesse and as the High Priests were before the reign of Saul and as the Kings were after it For it is one of the Prophecies concerning Christ that he should be like in Office to Moses I will raise them up a Prophet saith the Lord Deut. 18. 18. from amongst their Brethren like unto thee and will put my words into his mouth and this similitude with Moses is also apparent in the actions of our Saviour himself whilest he was conversant on Earth For as Moses chose twelve Princes of the tribes to govern under him so did our Saviour choose twelve Apostles who shall sit on twelve thrones and judge the twelve tribes of Israel And as Moses authorized Seventy Elders to receive the Spirit of God and to Prophecy to the people that is as I have said before to speak unto them in the name of God so our Saviour also ordained seventy Disciples to preach his Kingdome and Salvation to all Nations And as when a complaint was made to Moses against those of the Seventy that prophecyed in the camp of Israel he justified them in it as being subservient therein to his government so also our Saviour when St. John complained to him of a certain man that cast out Devills in his name justified him therein saying Luke 9. 50. Forbid him not for hee that is not against us is on our part Again our Saviour resembled Moses in the institution of Sacraments both of Admission into the Kingdome of God and of Commemoration of his deliverance of his Elect from their miserable condition As the Children of Israel had for Sacrament of their Reception into the Kingdome of God before the time of Moses the rite of Circumcision which rite having been omitted in the Wildernesse was again restored as soon as they came into the land of Promise so also tâ—…e Jews before the coming of our Saviour had a rite of Baptizing that is of washing with water all those that being Gentiles embraced the God of Israel This rite St. John the Baptist used in the reception of all them that gave their names to the Christ whom hee preached to bee already come into the world and our Saviour instituted the same for a Sacrament to be taken by all that beleeved in him From what cause the rite of Baptisme first proceeded is not expressed formally in the Scripture but it may be probably thought to be an imitation of the law of Moses concerning Leprousie wherein the Leprous man was commanded to be kept out of the campe of Israel for a certain time after which time being judged by the Priest to be clean hee was admitted into the campe after a solemne Washing And this may therefore bee a type of the Washing in Baptisme wherein such men as are cleansed of the Leprousie of Sin by Faith are received into the Church with the solemnity of Baptisme There is another conjecture drawn from the Ceremonies of the Gentiles in a certain case that rarely happens and that is when a man that was thought dead chanced to recover other men made scruple to converse with him as they would doe to converse with a Ghost unlesse hee were received again into the number of men by Washing as Children new born were washed from the uncleannesse of their nativity which was a kind of new birth This ceremony of the Greeks in the time that Judaea was under the Dominion of Alexander and the Greeks
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
God himself was their King and Moses Aaron and the succeeding High Priests were his Lieutenants it is manifest that the Right of Tythes and Offerings was constituted by the Civill Power After their rejection of God in the demanding of a King they enjoyed still the same revenue but the Right thereof was derived from that that the Kings did never take it from them for the Publique Revenue was at the disposing of him that was the Publique Person and that till the Captivity was the King And again after the return from the Captivity they paid their Tythes as before to the Priest Hitherto therefore Church Livings were determined by the Civill Soveraign Of the maintenance of our Saviour and his Apostles we read onely they had a Purse which was carried by Judas Iscariot and that of the Apostles such as were Fisher-men did sometimes use their trade and that when our Saviour sent the Twelve Apostles to Preach he forbad them to carry Gold and Silver and Brasse in their purses for that the workman is worthy of his hire By which it is probable their ordinary maintenance was not unsuitable to their employment for their employment was ver 8. freely to give because they had freely received and their maintenance was the free gift of those that beleeved the good tyding they carryed about of the coming of the Messiah their Saviour To which we may adde that which was contributed out of gratitude by such as our Saviour had healed of diseases of which are mentioned Certain women Luke 8. 2 3. which had been healed of evill spirits and infirmities Mary Magdalen out of whom went seven Devills and Ioanna the wife of Chuza Herods Steward and Susanna and many others which ministred unto him of their substance After our Saviours Ascension the Christians of every City lived in Common upon the mony which was made of the sale of their lands and possessions and laid down at the feet of the Apostles of good will not of duty for whilest the Land remained saith S. Peter to Ananias Acts 5. 4. was it not thine and after it was sold was it not in thy power which sheweth he needed not have saved his land nor his money by lying as not being bound to contribute any thing at all unlesse he had pleased And as in the time of the Apostles so also all the time downward till after Constantine the Great we shall find that the maintenance of the Bishops and Pastors of the Christian Church was nothing but the voluntary contribution of them that had embraced their Doctrine There was yet no mention of Tythes but such was in the time of Constantine and his Sons the affection of Christians to their Pastors as Ammianus Marcellinus saith describing the sedition of Damasus and Vrsicinus about the Bishopricke that it was worth their contention in that the Bishops of those times by the liberality of their flock and especially of Matrons lived splendidly were carryed in Coaches and were sumptuous in their fare and apparell But here may some ask whether the Pastor were then bound to live upon voluntary contribution as upon almes For who saith S. Paul 1 Cor. 9. 7. goeth to war at his own charges or who feedeth a flock and eateth not of the milke of the flock And again Doe ye not know that they which minister about holy things live of the things of the Temple and they which wait at the Altar partake with the Altar that is to say have part of that which is offered at the Altar for their maintenance And then he concludeth Even so hath the Lord appointed that they which preach the Gospel should live of the Gospel From which place may be inferred indeed that the Pastors of the Church ought to be maintained by their flocks but not that the Pastors were to determine either the quantity or the kind of their own allowance and be as it were their own Carvers Their allowance must needs therefore be determined either by the gratitude and liberality of every particular man of their flock or by the whole Congregation By the whole Congregation it could not be because their Acts were then no Laws Therefore the maintenance of Pastors before Emperours and Civill Soveraigns had made Laws to settle it was nothing but Benevolence They that served at the Altar lived on what was offered So may the Pastors also take what is offered them by their flock but not exact what is not offered In what Court should they sue for it who had no Tribunalls Or if they had Arbitrators amongst themselves who should execute their Judgments when they had no power to arme their Officers It remaineth therefore that there could be no certaire maintenance assigned to any Pastors of the Church but by the whole Congregation and then onely when their Decrees should have the force not onely of Canons but also of Laws which Laws could not be made but by Emperours Kings or other Civill Soveraignes The Right of Tythes in Moses Law could not be applyed to the then Ministers of the Gospell because Moses and the High Priests were the Civill Soveraigns of the people under God whose Kingdom amongst the Jews was present whereas the Kingdome of God by Christ is yet to come Hitherto hath been shewn what the Pastors of the Church are what are the points of their Commission as that they were to Preach to Teach to Baptize to be Presidents in their severall Congregations what is Ecclesiasticall Censure viz. Excommunication that is to say in those places where Christanity was forbidden by the Civill Laws a putting of themselves out of the company of the Excommunicate and where Christianity was by the Civill Law commanded a putting the Excommunicate out of the Congregations of Christians who elected the Pastors and Ministers of the Church that it was the Congregation who consecrated and blessed them that it was the Pastor what was their due revenue that it was none but their own possessions and their own labour and the voluntary contributions of devout and gratefull Christians We are to consider now what Office in the Church those persons have who being Civill Soveraignes have embraced also the Christian Faith And first we are to remember that the Right of Judging what Doctrines are fit for Peace and to be taught the Subjects is in all Common-wealths inseparably annexed as hath been already proved cha 18. to the Soveraign Power Civill whether it be in one Man or in one Assembly of men For it is evident to the meanest capacity that mens actions are derived from the opinions they have of the Good or Evill which from those actions redound unto themselves and consequently men that are once possessed of an opinion that their obedience to the Soveraign Power will bee more hurtfull to them than their disobedience will disobey the Laws and thereby overthrow the Common-wealth and introduce confusion and Civill war for the avoiding whereof all Civill Government was
Apostle Simon was surnamed Stone which is the signification of the Syriacke word Cephas and of the Greek word Petrus Our Saviour therefore after the confession of that Fundamentall Article alluding to his name said as if it were in English thus Thou art Stone and upon this Stone I will build my Church which is as much as to say this Article that I am the Christ is the Foundation of all the Faith I require in those that are to bee members of my Church Neither is this allusion to a name an unusuall thing in common speech But it had been a strange and obscure speech if our Saviour intending to build his Church on the Person of S. Peter had said thou art a Stone and upon this Stone I will build my Church when it was so obvious without ambiguity to have said I will build my Church on thee and yet there had been still the same allusion to his name And for the following words I will give thee the Keyes of Heaven c. it is no more than what our Saviour gave also to all the rest of his Disciples Matth. 18. 18. Whatsoever yee shall bind on Earth shall be bound in Heaven And whatsoever ye shall loose on Earth shall be loosed in Heaven But howsoever this be interpreted there is no doubt but the Power here granted belongs to all Supreme Pastors such as are all Christian Civill Soveraignes in their own Dominions In so much as if St. Peter or our Saviour himself had converted any of them to beleeve him and to acknowledge his Kingdome yet because his Kingdome is not of this world he had left the supreme care of converting his subjects to none but him or else hee must have deprived him of the Soveraignty to which the Right of Teaching is inseparably annexed And thus much in refutation of his first Book wherein hee would prove St. Peter to have been the Monarch Universall of the Church that is to say of all the Christians in the world The second Book hath two Conclusions One that S. Peter was Bishop of Rome and there dyed The other that the Popes of Rome are his Successors Both which have been disputed by others But supposing them true yet if by Bishop of Rome bee understood either the Monarch of the Church or the Supreme Pastor of it not Silvester but Constantine who was the first Christian Emperour was that Bishop and as Constantine so all other Christian Emperors were of Right supreme Bishops of the Roman Empire I say of the Roman Empire not of all Christendome For other Christian Soveraigns had the same Right in their severall Territories as to an Office essentially adhaerent to their Soveraignty Which shall serve for answer to his second Book In the third Book he handleth the question whether the Pope be Antichrist For my part I see no argument that proves he is so in that sense the Scripture useth the name nor will I take any argument from the quality of Antichrist to contradict the Authority he exerciseth or hath heretofore exercised in the Dominions of any other Prince or State It is evident that the Prophets of the Old Testament foretold and the Jews expected a Messiah that is a Christ that should re-establish amongst them the kingdom of God which had been rejected by them in the time of Samuel when they required a King after the manner of other Nations This expectation of theirs made them obnoxious to the Imposture of all such as had both the ambition to attempt the attaining of the Kingdome and the art to deceive the People by counterfeit miracles by hypocriticall life or by orations and doctrine plausible Our Saviour therefore and his Apostles forewarned men of False Prophets and of False Christs False Christs are such as pretend to be the Christ but are not and are called properly Antichrists in such sense as when there happeneth a Schisme in the Church by the election of two Popes the one calleth the other Antipapa or the false Pope And therefore Antichrist in the proper signification hath two essentiall marks One that he denyeth Jesus to be Christ and another that he professeth himselfe to bee Christ. The first Mark is set down by S. Iohn in his 1 Epist. 4. ch 3. ver Every Spirit that confesseth not that Iesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God And this is the Spirit of Antichrist The other Mark is expressed in the words of our Saviour Mat. 24. 5. Many shall come in my name saying I am Christ and again If any man shall say unto you Lâ—…e here is Christ there is Christ beleeve it not And therefore Antichrist must be a False Christ that is some one of them that shall pretend themselves to be Christ. And out of these two Marks to deny Iesus to be the Christ and to affirm himselfe to be the Christ it followeth that he must also be an Adversary of Iesus the true Christ which is another usuall signification of the word Antichrist But of these many Antichrists there is one speciall one 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Antichrist or Antichrist definitely as one certaine person not indefinitely an Antichrist Now seeing the Pope of Rome neither pretendeth himself nor denyeth Jesus to bee the Christ I perceive not how he can be called Antichrist by which word is not meant one that falsely pretendeth to be His Lieutenant or Vicar generall but to be Hee There is also some Mark of the time of this speciall Antichrist as Mat. 24. 15. when that abominable Destroyer spoken of by Daniel shall stand in the Holy place and such tribulation as was not since the beginning of the world nor ever shall be again insomuch as if it were to last long ver 22. no flesh could be saved but for the elects sake those days shall be shortened made fewer But that tribulation is not yet come for it is to be followed immediately ver 29. by a darkening of the Sun and Moon a falling of the Stars a concussion of the Heavens and the glorious coming again of our Saviour in the cloudes And therefore The Antichrist is not yet come whereas many Popes are both come and gone It is true the Pope in taking upon him to give Laws to all Christian Kings and Nations usurpeth a Kingdome in this world which Christ took not on him but he doth it not as Christ but as for Christ wherein there is nothing of The Antichrist In the fourth Book to prove the Pope to be the supreme Judg in all questions of Faith and Manners which is as much as to be the absolute Monarch of all Christians in the world he bringeth three Propositions The first that his Judgments are Infallible The second that he can make very Laws and punish those that observe them not The third that our Saviour conferred all Jurisdiction Ecclesiasticall on the Pope of Rome For the Infallibility of his Judgments he alledgeth the Scriptures and
first that of Luke 22. 31. Simon Simon Satan hath desired you that hee may sist you as wheat but I have prayed for thee that thy faith faile not and when thou art converted strengthen thy thy Brethren This according to Bellarmines exposition is that Christ gave here to Simon Peter two priviledges one that neither his Faith should fail nor the Faith of any of his successors the other that neither he nor any of his successors should ever define any point concerning Faith or Manners erroneously or contrary to the definition of a former Pope Which is a strange and very much strained interpretation But he that with attention readeth that chapter shall find there is no place in the whole Scripture that maketh more against the Popes Authority than this very place The Priests and Scribes seeking to kill our Saviour at the Passeover and Judas possessed with a resolution to betray him and the day of killing the Passeover being come our Saviour celebrated the same with his Apostles which he said till the Kingdome of God was come hee would doe no more and withall told them that one of them was to betray him Hereupon they questioned which of them it should be and withall seeing the next Passeover their Master would celebrate should be when he was King entred into a contention who should then be the greatest man Our Saviour therefore told them that the Kings of the Nations had Dominion over their Subjects and are called by a name in Hebrew that signifies Bountifull but I cannot be so to you you must endeavour to serve one another I ordain you a Kingdome but it is such as my Father hath ordained mee a Kingdome that I am now to purchase with my blood and not to possesse till my second coming then yee shall eat and drink at my Table and sit on Thrones judging the twelve Tribes of Israel And then addressing himself to St. Peter he saith Simon Simon Satan seeks by suggesting a present domination to weaken your faith of the future but I have prayed for thee that thy faith shall not fail Thou therefore Note this being converted and understanding my Kingdome as of another world confirm the same faith in thy Brethren To which S. Peter answered as one that no more expected any authority in this world Lord I am ready to goe with thee not onely to Prison but to Death Whereby it is manifest S. Peter had not onely no jurisdiction given him in this world but a charge to teach all the other Apostles that they also should have none And for the Infallibility of St. Peters sentence definitive in matter of Faith there is no more to be attributed to it out of this Text than that Peter should continue in the beleef of this point namely that Christ should come again and possesse the Kingdome at the day of Judgement which was not given by this Text to all his Successors for wee see they claime it in the World that now is The second place is that of Matth. 16. Thou art Peter and upon this rocke I will build my Church and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it By which as I have already shewn in this chapter is proved no more than that the gates of Hell shall not prevail against the confession of Peter which gave occasion to that speech namely this that Iesus is Christ the Sonne of God The third Text is Iohn 21. ver 16 17. Feed my sheep which contains no more but a Commission of Teaching And if we grant the rest of the Apostles to be contained in that name of Sheep then it is the supreme Power of Teaching but it was onely for the time that there were no Christian Soveraigns already possessed of that Supremacy But I have already proved that Christian Soveraignes are in their owne Dominions the supreme Pastors and instituted thereto by vertue of their being Baptized though without other Imposition of Hands For such Imposition being a Ceremony of designing the person is needlesse when hee is already designed to the Power of Teaching what Doctrine he will by his institution to an Absolute Power over his Subjects For as I have proved before Soveraigns are supreme Teachers in generall by their Office and therefore oblige themselves by their Baptisme to teach the Doctrine of Christ And when they suffer others to teach their people they doe it at the perill of their own souls for it is at the hands of the Heads of Families that God will require the account of the instruction of his Children and Servants It is of Abraham himself not of a hireling that God saith Gen. 18. 19. I know him that he will command his Children and his houshold after him that they keep the way of the Lord and do justice and judgement The fourth place is that of Exod. 28. 30. Thou shalt put in the Breastplate of Iudgment the Vrim and the Thummin which hee saith is interpreted by the Septuagint 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is Evidence and Truth And thence concludeth God had given Evidence and Truth which is almost Infallibility to the High Priest But be it Evidence and Truth it selfe that was given or be it but Admonition to the Priest to endeavour to inform himself cleerly and give judgment uprightly yet in that it was given to the High Priest it was given to the Civill Soveraign For such next under God was the High Priest in the the Common-wealth of Israel and is an argument for Evidence and Truth that is for the Ecclesiasticall Supremacy of Civill Soveraigns over their own Subjects against the pretended Power of the Pope These are all the Texts hee bringeth for the Infallibility of the Judgement of the Pope in point of Faith For the Infallibility of his Judgment concerning Manners hee bringeth one Text which is that of Iohn 16. 13. When the Spirit of truth is come hee will lead you into all truth where saith he by all truth is meant at least all truth necessary to salvation But with this mitigation he attributeth no more Infallibility to the Pope than to any man that professeth Christianity and is not to be damned For if any man 〈◊〉 in any point wherein not to erre is necessary to Salvation it is impossible he should be saved for that onely is necessary to Salvation without which to be saved is impossible What points these are I shall declare out of the Scripture in the Chapter following In this place I say no more but that though it were granted the Pope could not possibly teach any error at all yet doth not this entitle him to any Jurisdiction in the Dominions of another Prince unlesse we shall also say a man is obliged in conscience to set on work upon all occasions the best workman even then also when he hath formerly promised his work to another Besides the Text he argueth from Reason thus If the Pope could erre in necessaries then Christ hath not sufficiently provided
have their Jurisdiction from the Soveraigns of the place wherein they exercise the same And as for that cause they have not their Authority de Iure Divino so neither hath the Pope his de Iure Divino except onely where hee is also the Civill Soveraign His fift argument is this If Bishops have their Iurisdiction immediately from God the Pope could not take it from them for he can doe nothing contrary to Gods ordination And this consequence is good and well proved But saith he the Pope can do this and has done it This also is granted so he doe it in his own Dominions or in the Dominions of any other Prince that hath given him that Power but not universally in Right of the Popedome For that power belongeth to every Christian Soveraign within the bounds of his owne Empire and is inseparable from the Soveraignty Before the People of Israel had by the commandment of God to Samuel set over themselves a King after the manner of other Nations the High Priest had the Civill Government and none but he could make nor depose an inferiour Priest But that Power was afterwards in the King as may be proved by this same argument of Bellarmine For if the Priest be he the High Priest or any other had his Jurisdiction immediately from God then the King could not take it from him for he could doe nothing contrary to Gods ordinance But it is certain that King Solomon 1 Kings 2. 26. deprived Abiathar the High Priest of his Office and placed Zadok verse 35. in his room Kings therefore may in the like manner Ordaine and Deprive Bishops as they shall thinke fit for the well governing of their Subjects His sixth argument is this If Bishops have their Jurisdiction de Iure Divino that is immediately from God they that maintaine it should bring some Word of God to prove it But they can bring none The argument is good I have therefore nothing to say against it But it is an argument no lesse good to prove the Pope himself to have no Jurisdiction in the Dominion of any other Prince Lastly hee bringeth for argument the testimony of two Popes Innocent and Leo and I doubt not but hee might have alledged with as good reason the testimonies of all the Popes almost since S. Peter For considering the love of Power naturally implanted in mankind whosoever were made Pope he would be tempted to uphold the same opinion Neverthelesse they should therein but doe as Innocent and Leo did bear witnesse of themselves and therefore their witnesse should not be good In the fift Book he hath four Conclusions The first is That the Pope is not Lord of all the world The second That the Pope is not Lord of all the Christian world The third That the Pope without his owne Territory has not any Temporall Jurisdiction DIRECTLY These three Conclusions are easily granted The fourth is That the Pope has in the Dominions of other Princes the Supreme Temporall Power INDIRECTLY which is denyed unlesse hee mean by Indirectly that he has gotten it by Indirect means then is that also granted But I understand that when he saith he hath it Indirectly he means that such Temporall Jurisdiction belongeth to him of Right but that this Right is but a Consequence of his Pastorall Authority the which he could not exercise unlesse he have the other with it And therefore to the Pastorall Power which he calls Spirituall the Supreme Power Civill is necessarily annexed and that thereby hee hath a Right to change Kingdomes giving them to one and taking them from another when he shall think it conduces to the Salvation of Souls Before I come to consider the Arguments by which hee would prove this Doctrine it will not bee amisse to lay open the Consequences of it that Princes and States that have the Civill Soveraignty in their severall Common-wealths may bethink themselves whether it bee convenient for them and conducing to the good of their Subjects of whom they are to give an account at the day of Judgment to admit the same When it is said the Pope hath not in the Territories of other States the Supreme Civill Power Directly we are to understand he doth not challenge it as other Civill Soveraigns doe from the originall submission thereto of those that are to be governed For it is evident and has already been sufficiently in this Treatise demonstrated that the Right of all Soveraigns is derived originally from the consent of every one of those that are to bee governed whether they that choose him doe it for their common defence against an Enemy as when they agree amongst themselves to appoint a Man or an Assembly of men to protect them or whether they doe it to save their lives by submission to a conquering Enemy The Pope therefore when he disclaimeth the Supreme Civill Power over other States Directly denyeth no more but that his Right cometh to him by that way He ceaseth not for all that to claime it another way and that is without the consent of them that are to be governed by a Right given him by God which hee calleth indirectly in his Assumption to the Papacy But by what way soever he pretend the Power is the same and he may if it bee granted to be his Right depose Princes and States as often as it is for the Salvation of Soules that is as often as he will for he claimeth also the Sole Power to Judge whether it be to the Salvation of mens Souls or not And this is the Doctrine not onely that Bellarmine here and many other Doctors teach in their Sermons and Books but also that some Councells have decreed and the Popes have accordingly when the occasion hath served them put in practise For the fourth Councell of Lateran held under Pope Innocent the third in the third Chap. De Haereticis hath this Canon If a King at the Popes admonition doe not purge his Kingdome of Haeretiques and being Excommunicate for the same make not satisfaction within a yeer his Subjects are absolved of their Obedience And the practise hereof hath been seen on divers occasions as in the Deposing of Chilperique King of France in the Translation of the Roman Empire to Charlemaine in the Oppression of Iohn King of England in Transferring the Kingdome of Navarre and of late years in the League against Henry the third of France and in many more occâ—…rrences I think there be few Princes that consider not this as Injust and Inconvenient but I wish they would all resolve to be Kings or Subjects Men cannot serve two Masters They ought therefore to ease them either by holding the Reins of Government wholly in their own hands or by wholly delivering them into the hands of the Pope that such men as are willing to be obedient may be protected in their obedience For this distinction of Temporall and Spirituall Power is but words Power is as really divided and as
Adultery Doe not Kill Doe not Steal Doe not bear false witnesse Honor thy Father and thy Mother which when he said he had observed our Saviour added Sell all thou hast give it to the Poor and come and follow me which was as much as to say Relye on me that am the King Therefore to fulfill the Law and to beleeve that Jesus is the King is all that is required to bring a man to eternall life Thirdly St. Paul saith Rom. 1. 17. The Just shall live by Faith not every one but the Just therefore Faith and Justice that is the will to be Just or Repentance are all that is Necessary to life eternall And Mark 1. 15. our Saviour preached saying The time is fulfilled and the Kingdom of God is at hand Repent and Beleeve the Evangile that is the Good news that the Christ was come Therefore to Repent and to Beleeve that Jesus is the Christ is all that is required to Salvation Seeing then it is Necessary that Faith and Obedience implyed in the word Repentance do both concurre to our Salvation the question by which of the two we are Justified is impertinently disputed Neverthelesse it will not be impertinent to make manifest in what manner each of them contributes thereunto and in what sense it is said that we are to be Justified by the one and by the other And first if by Righteousnesse be understood the Justice of the Works themselves there is no man that can be saved for there is none that hath not transgressed the Law of God And therefore when wee are said to be Justified by Works it is to be understood of the Will which God doth alwaies accept for the Work it selfe as well in good as in evill men And in this sense onely it is that a man is callod Iust or Vnjust and that his Justice Justifies him that is gives him the title in Gods acceptation of Just and renders him capable of living by his Faith which before he was not So that Justice Justifies in that sense in which to Justifie is the same that to Denominate a man Iust and not in the signification of discharging the Law whereby the punishment of his sins should be unjust But a man is then also said to be Justified when his Plea though in it selfe unsufficient is accepted as when we Plead our Will our Endeavour to fulfill the Law and Repent us of our failings and God accepteth it for the Performance it selfe And because God accepteth not the Will for the Deed but onely in the Faithfull it is therefore Faith that makes good our Plea and in this sense it is that Faith onely Justifies So that Faith and Obedience are both Necessary to Salvation yet in severall senses each of them is said to Justifie Having thus shewn what is Necessary to Salvation it is not hard to reconcile our Obedience to God with our Obedience to the Civill Soveraign who is either Christian or Infidel If he bee a Christian he alloweth the beleefe of this Article that Iesus is the Christ and of all the Articles that are contained in or are by evident consequence deduced from it which is all the Faith Necessary to Salvation And because he is a Soveraign he requireth Obedience to all his owne that is to all the Civill Laws in which also are contained all the Laws of Nature that is all the Laws of God for besides the Laws of Nature and the Laws of the Church which are part of the Civill Law for the Church that can make Laws is the Common-wealth there bee no other Laws Divine Whosoever therefore obeyeth his Christian Soveraign is not thereby hindred neither from beleeving nor from obeying God But suppose that a Christian King should from this Foundation Iesus is the Christ draw some false consequences that is to say make some superstructions of Hay or Stubble and command the teaching of the same yet seeing St. Paul says he shal be saved much more shall he be saved that teacheth them by his command and much more yet he that teaches not but onely beleeves his lawfull Teacher And in case a Subject be forbidden by the Civill Soveraign to professe some of those his opinions upon what just ground can he disobey Christian Kings may erre in deducing a Consequence but who shall Judge Shall a private man Judge when the question is of his own obedience or shall any man Judg but he that is appointed thereto by the Church that is by the Civill Soveraign that representeth it or if the Pope or an Apostle Judge may he not erre in deducing of a consequence did not one of the two St. Peter or St. Paul erre in a superstructure when St. Paul withstood St. Peter to his face There can therefore be no contradiction between the Laws of God and the Laws of a Christian Common-wealth And when the Civill Soveraign is an Infidel every one of his own Subjects that resisteth him sinneth against the Laws of God for such as are the Laws of Nature and rejecteth the counsell of the Apostles that admonisheth all Christians to obey their Princes and all Children and Servants to obey their Parents and Masters in all things And for their Faith it is internall and invisible They have the licence that Naaman had and need not put themselves into danger for it But if they do they ought to expect their reward in Heaven and not complain of their Lawfull Soveraign much lesse make warre upon him For he that is not glad of any just occasion of Martyrdome has not the faith he professeth but pretends it onely to set some colour upon his own contumacy But what Infidel King is so unreasonable as knowing he has a Subject that waiteth for the second comming of Christ after the present world shall bee burnt and intendeth then to obey him which is the intent of beleeving that Iesus is the Christ and in the mean time thinketh himself bound to obey the Laws of that Infidel King which all Christians are obliged in conscience to doe to put to death or to persecute such a Subject And thus much shall suffice concerning the Kingdome of God and Policy Ecclesiasticall Wherein I pretend not to advance any Position of my own but onely to shew what are the Consequences that seem to me deducible from the Principles of Christian Politiques which are the holy Scriptures in confirmation of the Power of Civill Soveraigns and the Duty of their Subjects And in the allegation of Scripture I have endeavoured to avoid such texts as are of obscure or controverted Interpretation and to alledge none but in such sense as is most plain and agreeable to the harmony and scope of the whole Bible which was written for the re-establishment of the Kingdome of God in Christ. For it is not the bare Words but the Scope of the writer that giveth the true light by which any writing is to bee interpreted and they that insist upon
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
Redemption Church the Lords house Ecclesia properly what Acts 19. 39. In what sense the Church is one Person Church defined A Christian Common-wealth and a Church all one The Soveraign Rights of Abraham Abraham had the sole power of ordering the Religion of his own people No pretence of Private Spirit against the Religion of Abraham Abraham sole Judge and Interpreter of what God spake The authority of Moses whereon grounded John 5. 31. Moses was under God Soveraign of the Jews all his own time though Aaron had the Priesthood All spirits were subordinate to the spirit of Moses After Moses the Soveraignty was in the High Priest Of the Soveraign power between the time of Joshua and of Saul Of the Rights of the Kings of Israel The practice of Supremacy in Religion was not in the time of the Kings according to the Right thereof 2 Chro. 19. 2. After the Captivity the Iews â—…ad no setled Common-wealth Three parts of the Office of Christ. His Office as a Redeemer Christs Kingdome not of this woâ—…ld The End of Christs comming was to renew the Covenant of the Kingdome of God and to perswade the Elect to imbrace it which was the second part of his Office The preaching of Christ not contrary to the then law of the Iews nor of Caesar. The third part of his Office was to be King under his Father of the Elect. Christs authority in the Kingdome of God subordinate to that of his Father One and the same God is the Person represented by Moses and by Christ. Of the Holy Spirit that fel on the Apostles Of the Trinity The Power Ecclesiasticall is but the power to teach An argument thereof the Power of Christ himself From the name of Regeneration From the compariâ—…on of it with Fishing Leaven Seed Fâ—…om the nature of 〈◊〉 2 Cor. 1. 24. From the Authority Christ hath lâ—…st to Civill Princes What Christians may do to avoid persecution Of Martyrs Argument from the points of their Commission To Preach And Teach To Baptize And to Forgive and Retain Sinnes Mat. 18. 15 16 17. Of Excommunication The use of Excommunication without Civill Power Acts 9. 2. Of no effect upon an Apostate But upon the faithfull only For what fault lyeth Excommunication Ofpersons liaable to Excommunication 1 Sam. 8. Of the Interpreter of the Scriptures before Civil Soveraigns became Christians Of the Power to make Scripture Law Of the Ten Commandements Of the Iudiciall and Leviticall Law The Second Law * 1 Kings 14 26. The Old Testament when made Canonicall The New Testament began to be Canonicall under Christian Soveraigns Of the Power of Councells to make the Scriptures Law John 3. 36. John 3. 18. Of the Right of constituting Ecclesiasticall Officers in the time of the Apostles Matthias made Apostle by the Congregation Paul and Barnabas made Apostles by the Church of Antioch What Offices in the Church are Magisteriall Ordination of Teachers Ministers of the Church what And how chosen Of Ecclesiasticall Revenue under the Law of Moses In our Saviours time and after Mat. 10. 9 10. * Acts 4. 34. The Ministers of the Gospel lived on the Benevolence of their flocks 1 Cor. 9. 13. That the Civill Soveraign being a Christian hath the Right of appointing Pastors The Pastor all Authority of Soveraigns only is de Jure Divino that of other Pastors is Jure Civili Christian Kings have Power to execute all manner of Pastoral function * John 4. 2. * 1 Cor. 1. 14 16. * 1 Câ—…r 1. 17. The Civill Soveraigne if a Christian is head of the Church in his own Dominions Cardinal Bellarmines Books De Summo Pontifice considered The first book The second Book The third Book * Dan. 9. 27. The fourth Book Texts for the Infaâ—…ibility of the Popes Judgement in points of Faith Texts for the same in point of Manners The question of Superiority between the Pope and other Bishops Of the Popes â—…mporall Power The difficulty of obeying God and Man both at once Is none to them that distinguish between what is and what is not Necessary to Salvation All that is Necessary to Salvation is contained in Faith and Obedience What Obedience is Necessary And to what Laws In the Faith of a Christian who is the Person beleeved The causes of Christian Faith Faith comes by Hearing The onely Necessary Article of Christian Faith Proved from the Scope of the Evangelists From the Sermons of the Apostles From the Easinesse of the Doctrine From formall â—…ud cleer texts From that it is the Foundation of all other Articles 2 Pet. 3. v. 7 10 12. In what sense other Articles may be called Nâ—…cessary That Faith and Obedience are both of them Necessary to Salvation What each of them contributes thereunto Obedience to God and to the Civill Soveraign not inconsistent whether Christian Or Infidel The Kingdom of Darknesse what * Eph. 6. 12. * Mat. 12. 26. * Mat. 9. 34. * Eph. 2. 2. * Joh. 16. 11. The Church not yet fully â—…reed of Darknesse Four Causes of Spirituall Darknesse Errors from misinterpreting the Scriptures concerning the Kingdome of God As that the Kingdome of God is the present Church And that the Pope is his Vicar generall And that the Pastors are the Clergy Error from mistaking Consecration for Conjuration Incantation in the Ceremonies of Baptisme And in Marriage in Visitation of the Sick and in Consecration of Places Errors from mistaking Eternall Life and Everlasting Death As the Doctrine of Purgatory and Exorcismes and Invocation of Saints The Texts alledged for the Doctrines aforementioned have been answered before Answer to the text on which Beza inferreth that the Kingdome of Christ began at the Resurrection Explication of the Place in Mark 9. 1. Abuse of some other texts in defence of the Power of the Pope The manner of Consecrations in the Scripture was without Exorcisms The immortality of mans Soule not proved by Scripture to be of Nature but of Grace Eternall Torments what Answer of the Texts alledged for Purgatory Places of the New Testament for Purgatory answered Baptisme for the Dead how understood The Originall of Daemonclogy What were the Daemons of the Ancients How that Doctrine was spread How far received by the Jews John 8. 52. Why our Saviour controlled it not The Scriptures doe not teach that Spirits are Incorporeall The Power of Casting out Devills not the same it was in the Primitive Church Another relique of Gentilisme Worshipping of Images left in the Church not brought into it Answer to certain seeming texts for Images What is Worship Distinction between Divine and Civill Worship An Image what Phantasmes Fictions Materiall Images Idolatry what Scandalous worship of Images Answer 〈◊〉 the Argument from the Cherubins and Brazen Serpent * Exod. 32. 2. * Gen. 31. 30. Painting of Fancies no Idolatry but abusing them to Religious Worship is How Idolatry was left in the Church Canonizing of Saints The name of Pontifex Procession of Images Wax Candles and Torches lighted What Philosophy is Prudence no part of Philosophy No false Doctrine is part of Philosophy No more is Revelation supernaturall Nor learning taken upon credit of Authors Of the Beginnings and Progresse of Philosophy Of the Schools of Philosophy amongst the Athenians Of the Schools of the Jews The Schoole of the Graecians unprofitable The Schools of the Jews unprofitable University what it is Errors brought into Religion from Aristotles Metaphysiques Errors concerning Abstract Essences Nunc-stans One Body in many places and many Bodies in one place at once Absurdities in naturall Philosopy as Gravity the Cause of Heavinesse Quantity put into Body already made Powring in of Soules Ubiquity of Apparition Will the Cause of Willing Ignorance an occult Cause One makes the things incongruent another the Incongruity Private Appetite the rule of Publique good And that lawfull Marriage is Unchastity And that all Government but Popular is Tyranny That not Men but Law governs Laws over the Conscience Private Interpretation of Law Language of Schoole-Divines Errors from Tradition Suppression of Reason He that receiveth Benefit by a Fact is presumed to be the Author That the â—…hurch Militant is the Kingdome of God was first taught by the Church of Rome And maintained also by the Presbytery Infallibility Subjection of Bishops Exemptions of the Clergy The names of Saceâ—…dotes and Sacriâ—… The Sacramentation of Marriage The single life of Priests Auricular Confession Canonization of Saints and declaring of Martyrs Transubstantiation Pennance Absolution Purgatory Indulgences Externall works Daemonology and Exorcism School-Divinity The Authors of spirituall Darknesse who they be Comparison of the Papacy with the Kingdome of Fayries