of Soveraigns and both the Duty and Liberty of Subjects upon the known naturall Inclinations of Mankind and upon the Articles of the Law of Nature of which no man that pretends but reason enough to govern his private family ought to be ignorant And for the Power Ecclesiasticall of the same Soveraigns I ground it on such Texts as are both evident in themselves and consonant to the Scope of the whole Scripture And therefore am perswaded that he that shall read it with a purpose onely to be informed shall be informed by it But for those that by Writing or Publique Discourse or by their eminent actions have already engaged themselves to the maintaining of contrary opinions they will not bee so easily satisfied For in such cases it is naturall for men at one and the same time both to proceed in reading and to lose their attention in the search of objections to that they had read before Of which in a time wherein the interests of men are changed seeing much of that Doctrine which serveth to the establishing of a new Government must needs be contrary to that which conduced to the dissolution of the old there cannot choose but be very many In that part which treateth of a Christian Common-wealth there are some new Doctrines which it may be in a State where the contrary were already fully determined were a fault for a Subject without leave to divulge as being an usurpation of the place of a Teacher But in this time that men call not onely for Peace but also for Truth to offer such Doctrines as I think True and that manifestly tend to Peace and Loyalty to the consideration of those that are yet in deliberation is no more but to offer New Wine to bee put into New Cask that both may be preserved together And I suppose that then when Novelty can breed no trouble nor disorder in a State men are not generally so much inclined to the reverence of Antiquity as to preferre Ancient Errors before New and well proved Truth There is nothing I distrust more than my Elocution which neverthelesse I am confident excepting the Mischances of the Presse is not obscure That I have neglected the Ornament of quoting ancient Poets Orators and Philosophers contrary to the custome of late time whether I have done well or ill in it proceedeth from my judgment grounded on many reasons For first all Truth of Doctrine dependeth either upon Reason or upon Scripture both which give credit to many but never receive it from any Writer Secondly the matters in question are not of Fact but of Right wherein there is no place for Witnesses There is scarce any of those old Writers that contradicteth not sometimes both himself and others which makes their Testimonies insufficient Fourthly such Opinions as are taken onely upon Credit of Antiquity are not intrin◅ecally the Judgment of those that cite them but Words that passe like gaping from mouth to mouth Fiftly it is many times with a fraudulent Designe that men stick their corrupt Doctrine with the Cloves of other mens Wit Sixtly I find not that the Ancients they cite took it for an Ornament to doe the like with those that wrote before them Seventhly it is an argument of Indigestion when Greek and Latine Sentences unchewed come up again as they use to doe unchanged Lastly though I reverence those men of Ancient time that either have written Truth perspicuously or set us in a better way to find it out our selves yet to the Antiquity it self I think nothing due For if we will reverence the Age the Present is the Oldest If the Antiquity of the Writer I am not sure that generally they to whom such honor is given were more Ancient when they wrote than I am that am Writing But if it bee well considered the praise of Ancient Authors proceeds not from the reverence of the Dead but from the competition and mutuall envy of the Living To conclude there is nothing in this whole Discourse nor in that I writ before of the same Subject in Latine as far as I can perceive contrary either to the Word of God or to good Manners or to the disturbance of the Publique Tranquillity Therefore I think it may be profitably printed and more profitably taught in the Universities in case they also think so to whom the judgment of the same belongeth For seeing the Universities are the Fountains of Civill and Morall Doctrine from whence the Preachers and the Gentry drawing such water as they find use to sprinkle the same both from the Pulpit and in their Conversation upon the People there ought certainly to be great care taken to have it pure both from the Venime of Heathen Politicians and from the Incantation of Deceiving Spirits And by that means the most men knowing their Duties will be the less subject to serve the Ambition of a few discōtented persons in their purposes against the State and be the lesse grieved with the Contributions necessary for their Peace and Defence and the Governours themselves have the lesse cause to maintain at the Common charge any greater Army than is necessary to make good the Publique Liberty against the Invasions and Encroachments of forraign Enemies And thus I have brought to an end my Discourse of Civill and Ecclesiasticall Government occasioned by the disorders of the present time without partiality without application and without other designe than to set before mens eyes the mutuall Relation between Protection and Obedience of which the condition of Humane Nature and the Laws Divine both Naturall and Positive require an inviolable observation And though in the revolution of States there can be no very good Constellation for Truths of this nature to be born under as having an angry aspect from the dissolvers of an old Government and seeing but the backs of them that erect a new yet I cannot think it will be condemned at this time either by the Publique Judge of Doctrine or by any that desires the continu◅nce of Publique Peace And in this hope I return to my interrupted Speculation of Bodies Naturall wherein if God give me health to finish it I hope the Novelty will as much please as in the Doctrine of this Artificiall Body it useth to offend For such Truth as opposeth no mans profit nor pleasure is to all men welcome FINIS Memory Dreams Apparitions or Visions Understanding Trayne of Thoughts unguided Trayne of Thoughts regulated Remembrance Prudence Signes Con◅ecture of the time past Originall of Speech The use of Speech Abuses of Speech Names Proper Common Universall Necessity of D◅ons Subject to Names Use of Names Positive Negative Names with their Vses Words insignificant Understanding Inconstant names Reason what it is Reason defined Right Reason where The use of Reason Of Error and Absurdity Causes of absurditie 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. Science Prudence Sapience with their difference Signes of Science Motion Vitall and Animal Endeavour Appetite Desire Hunger
them For it is a thing that dependeth not on Nature but on the scope of the Writer and is subservient to every mans proper method In the Institutions of Justinian we find seven sorts of Civill Lawes 1. The Edicts Constitutions and Epistles of the Prince that is of the Emperour because the whole power of the people was in him Like these are the Proclamations of the Kings of England 2. The Decrees of the whole people of Rome comprehending the Senate when they were put to the Question by the Senate These were Lawes at first by the vertue of the Soveraign Power residing in the people and such of them as by the Emperours were not abrogated remained Lawes by the Authority Imperiall For all Lawes that bind are understood to be Lawes by his authority that has power to repeale them Somewhat like to these Lawes are the Acts of Parliament in England 3. The Decrees of the Common people excluding the Senate when they were put to the question by the Tribune of the people For such of them as were not abrogated by the Emperours remained Lawes by the Authority Imperiall Like to these were the Orders of the House of Commons in England 4. Senatûs consulta the Orders of the Senate because when the people of Rome grew so numerous as it was inconvenient to assemble them it was thought fit by the Emperour that men should Consult the Senate in stead of the people And these have some resemblance with the Acts of Counsell 5. The Edicts of Praetors and in some Cases of the Aediles such as are the Chiefe Justices in the Courts of England 6. Responsa Prudentum which were the Sentences and Opinions of those Lawyers to whom the Emperour gave Authority to interpret the Law and to give answer to such as in matter of Law demanded their advice which Answers the Judges in giving Judgement were obliged by the Constitutions of the Emperour to observe And should be like the Reports of Cases Judged if other Judges be by the Law of England bound to observe them For the Judges of the Common Law of England are not properly Judges but Juris Consulti of whom the Judges who are either the Lords or Twelve men of the Country are in point of Law to ask advice 7. Also Unwritten Customes which in their own nature are an imitation of Law by the tacite consent of the Emperour in case they be not contrary to the Law of Nature are very Lawes Another division of Lawes is into Naturall and Positive Naturâ—…ll are those which have been Lawes from all Eternity and are called not onely Naturall but also Morall Lawes consisting in the Morall Vertues as Justice Equity and all habits of the mind that conduce to Peace and Charity of which I have already spoken in the fourteenth and fifteenth Chapters Positive are those which have not been from Eternity but have been made Lawes by the Will of those that have had the Soveraign Power over others and are either written or made known to men by some other argument of the Will of their Legislator Again of Positive Lawes some are Humane some Divine And of Humane positive lawes some are Distributive some Penal Distributive are those that determine the Rights of the Subjects declaring to every man what it is by which he acquireth and holdeth a propriety in lands or goods and a right or liberty of action and these speak to all the Subjects Penal are those which declare what Penalty shall be inflicted on those that violate the Law and speak to the Ministers and Officers ordained for execution For though every one ought to be informed of the Punishments ordained before-hand for their transgression neverthelesse the Command is not addressed to the Delinquent who cannot be supposed will faithfully punish himselfe but to publique Ministers appointed to see the Penalty executed And these Penal Lawes are for the most part written together with the Lawes Distributive and are sometimes called Judgements For all Lawes are generall Judgements or Sentences of the Legislator as also every particular Judgement is a Law to him whose case is Judged Divine Positive Lawes for Naturall Lawes being Eternall and Universall are all Divine are those which being the Commandements of God not from all Eternity nor universally addressed to all men but onely to a certain people or to certain persons are declared for such by those whom God hath authorised to declare them But this Authority of man to declare what be these Positive Lawes of God how can it be known God may command a man by a supernaturall way to deliver Lawes to other men But because it is of the essence of Law that he who is to be obliged be assured of the Authority of him that declareth it which we cannot naturally take notice to be from God How can a man without supernaturall Revelation be assured of the Revelation received by the declarer and how can he be bound to obey them For the first question how a man can be assured of the Revelation of another without a Revelation particularly to himselfe it is evidently impossible For though a man may be induced to believe such Revelation from the Miracles they see him doe or from seeing the Extraordinary sanctity of his life or from seeing the Extraordinary wisedome or Extraordinary felicity of his Actions all which are marks of God extraordinary favour yet they are not assured evidences of speciall Revelation Miracles are Marvellous workes but that which is marvellous to one may not be so to another Sanctity may be feigned and the visible felicities of this world are most often the work of God by Naturall and ordinary causes And therefore no man can infallibly know by naturall reason that another has had a supernaturall revelation of Gods will but only a beliefe every one as the signs thereof shall appear greater or lesser a firmer or a weaker belief But for the second how he can be bound to obey them it is not so hard For if the Law declared be not against the Law of Nature which is undoubtedly Gods Law and he undertake to obey it he is bound by his own act bound I say to obey it but not bound to believe it for mens beliefe and interiour cogitations are not subject to the commands but only to the operation of God ordinary or extraordinary Faith of Supernaturall Law is not a fulfilling but only an assenting to the same and not a duty that we exhibite to God but a gift which God freely giveth to whom he pleaseth as also Unbelief is not a breach of any of his Lawes but a rejection of them all except the Laws Naturall But this that I say will be made yet cleerer by the Examples and Testimonies concerning this point in holy Scripture The Covenant God made with Abraham in a Supernaturall manner was thus This is the Covenant which thou shalt observe between Me and Thee and thy Seed after thee Abrahams Seed had
done or said by which the intention may be argued by a humane Judge it hath not the name of Crime which distinction the Greeks observed in the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 wherof the former which is translated Sinne signifieth any swarving from the Law whatsoever but the two later which are translated Crime signifie that sinne onely whereof one man may accuse another But of Intentions which never appear by any outward act there is no place for humane accusation In like manner the Latines by Peccatum which is Sinne signifie all manner of deviation from the Law but by Crimen which word they derive from Cerno which signifies to perceive they mean onely such sinnes as may be made appear before a Judge and therfore are not meer Intentions From this relation of Sinne to the Law and of Crime to the Civill Law may be inferred First that where Law ceaseth Sinne ceaseth But because the Law of Nature is eternall Violation of Covenants Ingratitude Arrogance and all Facts contrary to any Morall vertue can never cease to be Sinne. Secondly that the Civill Law ceasing Crimes cease for there being no other Law remaining but that of Nature there is no place for Accusation every man being his own Judge and accused onely by his own Conscience and cleared by the Uprightnesse of his own Intention When therefore his Intention is Right his fact is no Sinne if otherwise his fact is Sinne but not Crime Thirdly That when the Soveraign Power ceaseth Crime also ceaseth for where there is no such Power there is no protection to be had from the Law and therefore every one may protect himself by his own power for no man in the Institution of Soveraign Power can be supposed to give away the Right of preserving his own body for the safety whereof all Soveraignty was ordained But this is to be understood onely of those that have not themselves contributed to the taking away of the Power that protected them for that was a Crime from the beginning The source of every Crime is some defect of the Understanding or some errour in Reasoning or some sudden force of the Passions Defect in the Understanding is Ignoranâ—…e in Reasoning Erroneous Opinion Again Ignorance is of three sorts of the Law and of the Soveraign and of the Penalty Ignorance of the Law of Nature Excuseth no man because every man that hath attained to the use of Reason is supposed to know he ought not to do to another what he would not have done to himselfe Therefore into what place soever a man shall come if he do any thing contrary to that Law it is a Crime If a man come from the Indies hither and perswade men here to receive a new Religion or teach them any thing that tendeth to disobedience of the Lawes of this Country though he be never so well perswaded of the truth of what he teacheth he commits a Crime and may be justly punished for the same not onely because his doctrine is false but also because he does that which he would not approve in another namely that comming from hence he should endeavour to alter the Religion there But ignorance of the Civill Law shall Excuse a man in a strange Country till it be declared to him because till then no Civill Law is binding In the like manner if the Civill Law of a mans own Country be not so sufficiently declared as he may know it if he will nor the Action against the Law of Nature the Ignorance is a good Excuse In other cases Ignorance of the Civill Law Excuseth not Ignorance of the Soveraign Power in the place of a mans ordinary residence Excuseth him not because he ought to take notice of the Power by which he hath been protected there Ignorance of the Penalty where the Law is declared Excuseth no man For in breaking the Law which without a fear of penalty to follow were not a Law but vain words he undergoeth the penalty though he know not what it is because whosoever voluntarily doth any action accepteth all the known consequences of it but Punishment is a known consequence of the violation of the Lawes in every Common-wealth which punishment if it be determined already by the Law he is subject to that if not then is he subject to Arbitrary punishment For it is reason that he which does Injury without other limitation than that of his own Will should suffer punishment without other limitation than that of his Will whose Law is thereby violated But when a penalty is either annexed to the Crime in the Law it selfe or hath been usually inflicted in the like cases there the Delinquent is Excused from a greater penalty For the punishment foreknown if not great enough to deterre men from the action is an invitement to it because when men compare the benefit of their Injustice with the harm of their punishment by necessity of Nature they choose that which appeareth best for themselves and therefore when they are punished more than the Law had formerly determined or more than others were punished for the same Crime it is the Law that tempted and deceiveth them No Law made after a Fact done can make it a Crime because if the Fact be against the Law of Nature the Law was before the Fact and a Positive Law cannot be taken notice of before it be made and therefore cannot be Obligatory But when the Law that forbiddeth a Fact is made before the Fact be done yet he that doth the Fact is lyable to the Penalty ordained after in case no lesser Penalty were made known before neither by Writing nor by Example for the reason immediatly before alledged From defect in Reasoning that is to say from Errour men are prone to violate the Lawes three wayes First by Presumption of false Principles as when men from having observed how in all places and in all ages unjust Actions have been authorised by the force and victories of those who have committed them and that potent men breaking through the Cob-web Lawes of their Country the weaker sort and those that have failed in their Enterprises have been esteemed the onely Criminals have thereupon taken for Principles and grounds of their Reasoning That Justice is but a vain word That whatsoever a man can get by his own Industry and hazard is his own That the Practice of all Nations cannot be unjust That Examples of former times are good Arguments of doing the like again and many more of that kind Which being granted no Act in it selfe can be a Crime but must be made so not by the Law but by the successe of them that commit it and the same Fact be vertuous or vicious as Fortune pleaseth so that what Marius makes a Crime Sylla shall make meritorious and Caesar the same Lawes standing turn again into a Crime to the perpetuall
have all manner of Power over their Subjects that can be given to man for the government of mens externall actions both in Policy and Religion and may make such Laws as themselves shall judge fittest for the government of their own Subjects both as they are the Common-wealth and as they are the Church for both State and Church are the same men If they please therefore they may as many Christian Kings now doe commit the government of their Subjects in matters of Religion to the Pope but then the Pope is in that point Subordinate to them and exerciseth that Charge in anothers Dominion Iure Civili in the Right of the Civill Soveraign not Iure Divino in Gods Right and may therefore be discharged of that Office when the Soveraign for the good of his Subjects shall think it necessary They may also if they please commit the care of Religion to one Supreme Pastor or to an Assembly of Pastors and give them what power over the Church or one over another they think most convenient and what titles of honor as of Bishops Archbishops Priests or Presbyters they will and make such Laws for their maintenance either by Tithes or otherwise as they please so they doe it out of a sincere conscience of which God onely is the Judge It is the Civill Soveraign that is to appoint Judges and Interpreters of the Canonicall Scriptures for it is he that maketh them Laws It is he also that giveth strength to Excommunications which but for such Laws and Punishments as may humble obstinate Libertines and reduce them to union with the rest of the Church would bee contemned In summe he hath the Supreme Power in all causes as well Ecclesiasticall as Civill as far as concerneth actions and words for those onely are known and may be accused and of that which cannot be accused there is no Judg at all but God that knoweth the heart And these Rights are incident to all Soveraigns whether Monarchs or Assemblies for they that are the Representants of a Christian People are Representants of the Church for a Church and a Common-wealth of Christian People are the same thing Though this that I have here said and in other places of this Book seem cleer enough for the asserting of the Supreme Ecclesiasticall Power to Christian Soveraigns yet because the Pope of Romes challenge to that Power universally hath been maintained chiefly and I think as strongly as is possible by Cardinall Bellarmine in his Controversie De Summo Pontifice I have thought it necessary as briefly as I can to examine the grounds and strength of his Discourse Of five Books he hath written of this subject the first containeth three Questions One Which is simply the best government Monarchy Aristocracy or Democracy and concludeth for neither but for a government mixt of all three Another which of these is the best Government of the Church and concludeth for the mixt but which should most participate of Monarchy The third whether in this mixt Monarchy St. Peter had the place of Monarch Concerning his first Conclusion I have already sufficiently proved chapt 18. that all Governments which men are bound to obey are Simple and Absolute In Monarchy there is but One Man Supreme and all other men that have any kind of Power in the State have it by his Commission during his pleasure and execute it in his name And in Aristocracy and Democracy but One Supreme Assembly with the same Power that in Monarchy belongeth to the Monarch which is not a Mixt but an Absolute Soveraignty And of the three sorts which is the best is not to be disputed where any one of them is already established but the present ought alwaies to be preferred maintained and accounted best because it is against both the Law of Nature and the Divine positive Law to doe any thing tending to the subversion thereof Besides it maketh nothing to the Power of any Pastor unlesse he have the Civill Soveraignty what kind of Government is the best because their Calling is not to govern men by Commandement but to teach them and perswade them by Arguments and leave it to them to consider whether they shall embrace or reject the Doctrine taught For Monarchy Aristocracy and Democracy do mark out unto us three sorts of Soveraigns not of Pastors or as we may say three sorts of Masters of Families not three sorts of Schoolmasters for their children And therefore the second Conclusion concerning the best form of Government of the Church is nothing to the question of the Popes Power without his own Dominions For in all other Common-wealths his Power if hee have any at all is that of the Schoolmaster onely and not of the Master of the Family For the third Conclusion which is that St. Peter was Monarch of the Church he bringeth for his chiefe argument the place of S. Matth. chap. 16. 18 19. Thou art Peter And upon this rock I will build my Church c. And I will give thee the keyes of Heaven whatsoever thou shalt bind on Earth shall be bound in Heaven and whatsoever thou shalt loose on Earth shall be loosed in Heaven Which place well considered proveth no more but that the Church of Christ hath for foundation one onely Article namely that which Peter in the name of all the Apostles professing gave occasion to our Saviour to speak the words here cited which that wee may cleerly understand we are to consider that our Saviour preached by himself by John Baptist and by his Apostles nothing but this Article of Faith that he was the Christ all other Articles requiring faith no otherwise than as founded on that John began first Mat. 3. 2. preaching only this The Kingdome of God is at hand Then our Saviour himself Mat. 4. 17. preached the same And to his Twelve Apostles when he gave them their Commission Mat. 10. 7. there is no mention of preaching any other Article but that This was the fundamentall Article that is the Foundation of the Churches Faith Afterwards the Apostles being returned to him he asketh them all Mat. 16. 13. not Peter onely Who men said he was and they answered that some said he was Iohn the Baptist some Elias and others Ieremias or one of the Prophets Then ver 15. he asked them all again not Peter onely Whom say yee that I am Therefore S. Peter answered for them all Thou art Christ the Son of the Living God which I said is the Foundation of the Faith of the whole Church from which our Saviour takes the occasion of saying Vpon this stone I will build my Church By which it is manifest that by the Foundation-Stone of the Church was meant the Fundamentall Article of the Churches Faith But why then will some object doth our Saviour interpose these words Thou art Peter If the originall of this text had been rigidly translated the reason would easily have appeared We are therefore to consider that the
Reason and â—…loquence though not perhaps in the Naturall Sciences yet in the Morall may stand very well together For wheresoever there is place for adorning and preferring of Errour there is much more place for adorning and preferring of Truth if they have it to adorn Nor is there any repugnancy between fearing the Laws and not fearing a publique Enemy nor between abstaining from Injury and pardoning it in others There is therefore no such Inconsistence of Humane Nature with Civill Duties as some think I have known cleernesse of Judgment and largenesse of Fancy strength of Reason and gracefull Elocution a Courage for the Warre and a Fear for the Laws and all eminently in one man and that was my most noble and honored friend Mr. Sidney Godolphin who hating no man nor hated of any was unfortunately slain in the beginning of the late Civill warre in the Publique quarrell by an undiscerned and an undiscerning hand To the Laws of Nature declared in the 15. Chapter I would have this added That every man is bound by Nature as much as in him lieth to protect in Warre the Authority by which he is himself protected in time of Peace For he that pretendeth a Right of Nature to preserve his owne body cannot pretend a Right of Nature to destroy him by whose strength he is preserved It is a manifest contradiction of himselfe And though this Law may bee drawn by consequence from some of those that are there already mentioned yet the Times require to have it inculcated and remembred And because I find by divers English Books lately printed that the Civill warres have not yet sufficiently taught men in what point of time it is that a Subject becomes obliged to the Conquerour nor what is Conquest nor how it comes about that it obliges men to obey his Laws Therefore for farther satisfaction of men therein I say the point of time wherein a man becomes subject to a Conquerour is that point wherein having liberty to submit to him he consenteth either by expresse words or by other sufficient sign to be his Subject When it is that a man hath the liberty to submit I have shewed before in the end of the 21. Chapter namely that for him that hath no obligation to his former Soveraign but that of an ordinary Subject it is then when the means of his life is within the Guards and Garrisons of the Enemy for it is then that he hath no longer Protection from him but is protected by the adverse party for his Contribution Seeing therefore such contribution is every where as a thing inevitable notwithstanding it be an assistance to the Enemy esteemed lawfull a totall Submission which is but an assistance to the Enemy cannot be esteemed unlawful Besides if a man consider that they who submit assist the Enemy but with part of their estates whereas they that refuse assist him with the whole there is no reason to call their Submission or Composition an Assistance but rather a Detriment to the Enemy But if a man besides the obligation of a Subject hath taken upon him a new obligation of a Souldier then he hath not the liberty to submit to a new Power as long as the old one keeps the field and giveth him means of subsistence either in his Armies or Garrisons for in this case he cannot complain of want of Protection and means to live as a Souldier But when that also failes a Souldier also may seek his Protection wheresoever he has most hope to have it and may lawfully submit himself to his new Master And so much for the Time when he may do it lawfully if hee will If therefore he doe it he is undoubtedly bound to be a true Subject For a Contract lawfully made cannot lawfully be broken By this also a man may understand when it is that men may be said to be Conquered and in what the nature of Conquest and the Right of a Conquerour consisteth For this Submission is it implyeth them all Conquest is not the Victory it self but the Acquisition by Victory of a Right over the persons of men He therefore that is slain is Overcome but not Conquered He that is taken and put into prison or chaines is not Conquered though Overcome for he is still an Enemy and may save himself if hee can But he that upon promise of Obedience hath his Life and Liberty allowed him is then Conquered and a Subject and not before The Romanes used to say that their Generall had Pacified such a Province that is to say in English Conquerea it and that the Countrey was Pacified by Victory when the people of it had promised Imperata facere that is To doe what the Romane People commanded them this was to be Conquered But this promise may be either expresse or tacite Expresse by Promise Tacite by other signes As for example a man that hath not been called to make such an expresse Promise because he is one whose power perhaps is not considerable yet if he live under their Protection openly hee is understood to submit himselfe to the Government But if he live there secretly he is lyable to any thing that may bee done to a Spie and Enemy of the State I say not hee does any Injustice for acts of open Hostility bear not that name but that he may be justly put to death Likewise if a man when his Country is conquered be out of it he is not Conquered nor Subject but if at his return he submit to the Government he is bound to obey it So that Conquest to define it is the Acquiring of the Right of Soveraignty by Victory Which Right is acquired in the peoples Submission by which they contract with the Victor promising Obedience for Life and Liberty In the 29. Chapter I have set down for one of the causes of the Dissolutions of Common-wealths their Imperfect Generation consisting in the want of an Absolute and Arbitrary Legislative Power for want whereof the Civill Soveraign is fain to handle the Sword of Justice unconstantly and as if it were too hot for him to hold One reason whereof which I have not there mentioned is this That they will all of them justifie the War by which their Power was at first gotten and whereon as they think their Right dependeth and not on the Possession As if for example the Right of the Kings of England did depend on the goodnesse of the cause of William the Conquerour and upon their lineall and directest Descent from him by which means there would perhaps be no tie of the Subjects obedience to their Soveraign at this day in all the world wherein whilest they needlessely think to justifie themselves they justifie all the successefull Rebellions that Ambition shall at any time raise against them and their Successors Therefore I put down for one of the most effectuall seeds of the Death of any State that the Conquerors require not onely a Submission of mens actions to them
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
without contradiction passing for the title of those men which at his command were sent up by the people to carry their Petitions and give him if he permitted it their advise Which may serve as an admonition for those that are the true and absolute Representative of a People to instruct men in the nature of that Office and to take heed how they admit of any other generall Representation upon any occasion whatsoever if they mean to discharge the 〈◊〉 committed to them The difference between these three kindes of Common-wealth consisteth not in the difference of Power but in the difference of Convenience or Aptitude to produce the Peace and Security of the people for which end they were instituted And to compare Monarchy with the other two we may observe First that whosoeuer beareth the Person of the people or is one of that Assembly that bears it 〈◊〉 also his own naturall Person And though he be carefull in his politique Person to procure the common interest yet he is more or no lesse carefull to procure the private good of himselfe his family kindred and friends and for the most part if the publique interest chance to crosse the private he preferrs the private for the Passions of men are commonly more potent than their Reason From whence it follows that where the publique and private interest are most closely united there is the publique most advanced Now in Monarchy the private interest is the same with the publique The riches power and honour of a Monarch arise onely from the riches strength and reputation of his Subjects For no King can be rich nor glorious nor secure whose Subjects are either poore or contemptible or too weak through want or dissention to maintain a war against their enemies Whereas in a Democracy or Aristocracy the publique prosperity conferres not so much to the private fortune of one that is corrupt or ambitious as doth many times a perfidious advice a treacherous action or a Civill warre Secondly that a Monarch receiveth counsell of whom when and where he pleaseth and consequently may heare the opinion of men versed in the matter about which he deliberates of what rank or quality soever and as long before the time of action and with as much secrecy as he will But when a Soveraigne Assembly has need of Counsell none are admitted but such as have a Right thereto from the beginning which for the most part are of those who have beene versed more in the acquisition of Wealth than of Knowledge and are to give their advice in long discourses which may and do commonly excite men to action but not governe them in it For the Understanding is by the flame of the Passions never enlightned but dazled Nor is there any place or time wherein an Assemblie can receive Counsell with secrecie because of their owne Multitude Thirdly that the Resolutions of a Monarch are subject to no other Inconstancy than that of Humane Nature but in Assemblies besides that of Nature there ariseth an Inconstancy from the Number For the absence of a few that would have the Resolution once taken continue firme which may happen by security negligence or private impediments or the diligent appearance of a few of the contrary opinion undoes to day all that was concluded yesterday Fourthly that a Monarch cannot disagree with himselfe out of envy or interest but an Assembly may and that to such a height as may produce a Civill Warre Fifthly that in Monarchy there is this inconvenience that any Subject by the power of one man for the enriching of a favourite or flatterer may be deprived of all he possesseth which I confesse is a great and inevitable inconvenience But the same may as well happen where the Soveraigne Power is in an Assembly For their power is the same and they are as subject to evill Counsell and to be seduced by Orators as a Monarch by Flatterers and becoming one an others Flatterers serve one anothers Covetousnesse and Ambition by turnes And whereas the Favorites of Monarchs are few and they have none els to advance but their owne Kindred the Favorites of an Assembly are many and the Kindred much more numerous than of any Monarch Besides there is no Favourite of a Monarch which cannot as well succour his friends as hurt his enemies But Orators that is to say Favourites of Soveraigne Assemblies though they have great power to hurt have little to save For to accuse requires lesse Eloquence such is mans Nature than to excuse and condemnation than absolution more resembles Justice Sixtly that it is an inconvenience in Monarchie that the Soveraigntie may descend upon an Infant or one that cannot discerne between Good and Evill and consisteth in this that the use of his Power must be in the hand of another Man or of some Assembly of men which are to governe by his right and in his name as Curators and Protectors of his Person and Authority But to say there is inconvenience in putting the use of the Soveraign Power into the hand of a Man or an Assembly of men is to say that all Government is more Inconvenient than Confusion and Civill Warre And therefore all the danger that can be pretended must arise from the Contention of those that for an office of so great honour and profit may become Competitors To make it appear that this inconvenience proceedeth not from that forme of Government we call Monarchy we are to consider that the precedent Monarch hath appointed who shall have the Tuition of his Infant Successor either expressely by Testament or tacitly by not controlling the Custome in that case received And then such inconvenience if it happen is to be attributed not to the Monarchy but to the Ambition and Injustice of the Subjects which in all kinds of Government where the people are not well instructed in their Duty and the Rights of Soveraignty is the same Or else the precedent Monarch hath not at all taken order for such Tuition And then the Law of Nature hath provided this sufficient rule That the Tuition shall be in him that hath by Nature most interest in the preservation of the Authority of the Infant and to whom least benefit can accrue by his death or diminution For seeing every man by nature seeketh his own benefit and promotion to put an Infant into the power of those that can promote themselves by his destruction or dammage is not Tuition but Trechery So that sufficient provision being taken against all just quarrell about the Government under a Child if any contention arise to the disturbance of the publique Peace it is not to be attributed to the forme of Monarchy but to the ambition of Subjects and ignorance of their Duty On the other side there is no great Common-wealth the Soveraignty whereof is in a great Assembly which is not as to consultations of Peace and Warre and making of Lawes in the same condition as if the Government
Intention is evill or if the number be considerable unknown they are Unlawfull In Bodies Politique the power of the Representative is alwaies Limited And that which prescribeth the Limits thereof is the Power Soveraign For Power Unlimited is absolute Soveraignty And the Soveraign in every Commonwealth is the absolute Representative of all the subjects and therefore no other can be Representative of any part of them but so far forth as he shall give leave And to give leave to a Body Politique of Subjects to have an absolute Representative to all intents and purposes were to abandon the government of so much of the Commonwealth and to divide the Dominion contrary to their Peace and Defence which the Soveraign cannot be understood to doe by any Grant that does not plainly and directly discharge them of their subjection For consequences of words are not the signes of his will when other consequences are signes of the contrary but rather signes of errour and misreckonning to which all mankind is too prone The bounds of that Power which is given to the Representative of a Bodie Politique are to be taken notice of from two things One is their Writt or Letters from the Soveraign the other is the Law of the Common-wealth For though in the Institution or Acquisition of a Common-wealth which is independent there needs no Writing because the Power of the Representative has there no other bounds but such as are set out by the unwritten Law of Nature yet in subordinate bodies there are such diversities of Limitation necessary concerning their businesses times and places as can neither be remembred without Letters nor taken notice of unlesse such Letters be Patent that they may be read to them and withall sealed or testified with the Seales or other permanent signes of the Authority Soveraign And because such Limitation is not alwaies easie or perhaps possible to be described in writing the ordinary Lawes common to all Subjects must determine what the Representative may lawfully do in all Cases where the Letters themselves are silent And therefore In a Body Politique if the Representative be one man whatsoever he does in the Person of the Body which is not warranted in his Letters nor by the Lawes is his own act and not the act of the Body nor of any other Member thereof besides himselfe Because further than his Letters or the Lawes limit he representeth no mans person but his own But what he does according to these is the act of every one For of the Act of the Soveraign every one is Author because he is their Representative unlimited and the act of him that recedes not from the Letters of the Soveraign is the act of the Soveraign and therefore every member of the Body is Author of it But if the Representative be an Assembly whatsoever that Assembly shall Decree not warranted by their Letters or the Lawes is the act of the Assembly or Body Politique and the act of every one by whose Vote the Decree was made but not the act of any man that being present Voted to the contrary nor of any man absent unlesse he Voted it by procuration It is the act of the Assembly because Voted by the major part and if it be a crime the Assembly may be punished as farre-forth as it is capable as by dissolution or forfeiture of their Letters which is to such artificiall and fictitious Bodies capitall or if the Assembly have a Common stock wherein none of the Innocent Members have propriety by pecuniary Mulct For from corporall penalties Nature hath exempted all Bodies Politique But they that gave not their Vote are therefore Innocent because the Assembly cannot Represent any man in things unwarranted by their Letters and consequently are involved in their Votes If the person of the Body Politique being in one man borrow mony of a stranger that is of one that is not of the same Body for no Letters need limit borrowing seeing it is left to mens own inclinations to limit lending the debt is the Representatives For if he should have Authority from his Letters to make the members pay what he borroweth he should have by consequence the Soveraignty of them and therefore the grant were either voyd as proceeding from Errour commonly incident to humane Nature and an unsufficient signe of the will of the Granter or if it be avowed by him then is the Representer Soveraign and falleth not under the present question which is onely of Bodies subordinate No member therefore is obliged to pay the debt so borrowed but the Representative himselfe because he that lendeth it being a stranger to the Letters and to the qualification of the Body understandeth those onely for his debtors that are engaged and seeing the Representer can ingage himselfe and none else has him onely for Debtor who must therefore pay him out of the common stock if there be any or if there be none out of his own estate If he come into debt by Contract or Mulct the case is the same But when the Representative is an Assembly and the debt to a stranger all they and onely they are responsible for the debt that gave their votes to the borrowing of it or to the Contract that made it due or to the fact for which the Mulct was imposed because every one of those in voting did engage himselfe for the payment For he that is author of the borrowing is obliged to the payment even of the whole debt though when payd by any one he be discharged But if the debt be to one of the Assembly the Assembly onely is obliged to the payment out of their common stock if they have any For having liberty of Vote if he Vote the Mony shall be borrowed he Votes it shall be payd If he Vote if shall not be borrowed or be absent yet because in lending he voteth the borrowing he contradicteth his former Vote and is obliged by the later and becomes both borrower and lender and consequently cannot demand payment from any particular man but from the common Treasure onely which fayling he hath no remedy nor complaint but against himselfe that being privy to the acts of the Assembly and to their means to pay and not being enforced did neverthelesse through his own folly lend his mony It is manifest by this that in Bodies Politique subordinate and subject to a Soveraign Power it is sometimes not onely lawfull but expedient for a particular man to make open protestation against the decrees of the Representative Assembly and cause their dissent to be Registred or to take witnesse of it because otherwise they may be obliged to pay debts contracted and be responsible for crimes committed by other men But in a Soveraign Assembly that liberty is taken away both because he that protesteth there denies their Soveraignty and also because whatsoever is commanded by the Soverign Power is as to the Subject though not so alwayes
the Plenty and Distribution of Materials conducing to Life In Concoction or Preparation and when concocted in the Conveyance of it by convenient conduits to the Publique use As for the Plenty of Matter it is a thing limited by Nature to those commodities which from the two breasts of our common Mother Land and Sea God usually either freely giveth or for labour selleth to man-kind For the Matter of this Nutriment consisting in Animals Vegetals and Minerals God hath freely layd them before us in or neer to the face of the Earth so as there needeth no more but the labour and industry of receiving them Insomuch as Plenty dependeth next to Gods favour meerly on the labour and industry of men This Matter commonly called Commodities is partly Native and partly Forraign Native that which is to be had within the Territory of the Common-wealth Forraign that which is imported from without And because there is no Territory under the Dominion of one Common-wealth except it be of very vast extent that produceth all things needfull for the maintenance and motion of the whole Body and few that produce not something more than necessary the superfluous commodities to be had within become no more superfluous but supply these wants at home by importation of that which may be had abroad either by Exchange or by just Warre or by Labour for a mans Labour also is a commodity exchangeable for benefit as well as any other thing And there have been Common-wealths that having no more Territory than hath served them for habitation have neverthelesse not onely maintained but also encreased their Power partly by the labour of trading from one place to another and partly by selling the Manifactures whereof the Materials were brought in from other places The Distribution of the Materials of this Nourishment is the constitution of Mine and Thine and His that is to say in one word Propriety and belongeth in all kinds of Common-wealth to the Soveraign Power For where there is no Common-wealth there is as hath been already shewn a perpetuall warre of every man against his neighbour And therefore every thing is his that getteth it and keepeth it by force which is neither Propriety nor Community but Uncertainty Which is so evident that even Cicero a passionate defender of Liberty in a publique pleading attributeth all Propriety to the Law Civil Let the Civill Law saith he be once abandoned or but negligently guarded not to say oppressed and there is nothing that any man can be sure to receive from his Ancestor or leave to his Children And again Take away the Civill Law and no man knows what is his own and what another mans Seeing therefore the Introduction of Propriety is an effect of Common-wealth which can do nothing but by the Person that Represents iâ—… it is the act onely of the Soveraign and consisteth in the Lawes which none can make that have not the Soveraign Power And this they well knew of old who called that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say Distribution which we call Law and defined Justice by distributing to every man his own In this Distribution the First Law is for Division of the Land it selfe wherein the Soveraign assigneth to every man a portion according as he and not according as any Subject or any number of them shall judge agreeable to Equity and the Common Good The Children of Israel were a Common-wealth in the Wildernesse but wanted the commodities of the Earth till they were masters of the Land of Promise which afterward was divided amongst them not by their own discretion but by the discretion of Eleazar the Priest and Joshua their Generall who when there were twelve Tribes making them thirteen by subdivision of the Tribe of Joseph made neverthelesse but twelve portions of the Land and ordained for the Tribe of Levi no land but assigned them the Tenth part of the whole fruits which division was therefore Arbitrary And though a People comming into possession of a Land by warre do not alwaies exterminate the antient Inhabitants as did the Jewes but leave to many or most or all of them their Estates yet it is manifest they hold them afterwards as of the Victors distribution as the people of England held all theirs of William the Conquerour From whence we may collect that the Propriety which a subject hath in his lands consisteth in a right to exclude all other subjects from the use of them and not to exclude their Soveraign be it an Assembly or a Monarch For seeing the Soveraign that is to say the Common-wealth whose Person he representeth is understood to do nothing but in order to the common Peace and Security this Distribution of lands is to be understod as done in order to the same And consequently whatsoever Distribution he shall make in prejudice thereof is contrary to the will of every subject that committed his Peace and safety to his discretion and conscience and therefore by the will of every one of them is to be reputed voyd It is true that a Soveraign Monarch or the greater part of a Soveraign Assembly may ordain the doing of many things in pursuit of their Passions contrary to their own consciences which is a breach of trust and of the Law of Nature but this is not enough to authorise any subject either to make warre upon or so much as to accuse of Injustice or any way to speak evill of their Soveraign because they have authorised all his actions and in bestowing the Soveraign Power made them their own But in what cases the Commands of Soveraigns are contrary to Equity and the Law of Nature is to be considered hereafter in another place In the Distribution of land the Common-wealth it selfe may bâ—… conceived to have a portion and possesse and improve the same by their Representative and that such portion may be made sufficient to susteine the whole expence to the common Peace and defence necessarily required Which were very true if there could be any Representative conceived free from humane passions and infirmities But the nature of men being as it is the setting forth of Publique Land or of any certaine Revenue for the Common-wealth is in vaine and tendeth to the dissolution of Government and to the condition of meere Nature and War assoon as ever the Soveraign Power falleth into the hands of a Monarch or of an Assembly that are either too negligent of mony or too hazardous in engaging the publique stock into a long or costly war Common-wealths can endure no Diet For seeing their expence is not limited by their own appetite but by externall Accidents and the appetites of their neighbours the Publique Riches cannot be limited by other limits than those which the emergent occasions shall require And whereas in England there were by the Conquerour divers Lands reserved to his own use besides Forrests and Chases either for his recreation or for preservation of
the same Authority controuleth it and in all Crimes that contain not in them a denyall of the Soveraign Power nor are against an evident Law Excuseth totally whereas he that groundeth his actions on his private Judgement ought according to the rectitude or errour thereof to stand or fall The same Fact if it have been constantly punished in other men is a greater Crime than if there have been many precedent Examples of impunity For those Examples are so many hopes of Impunity given by the Soveraign himselfe And because he which furnishes a man with such a hope and presumption of mercy as encourageth him to offend hath his part in the offence he cannot reasonably charge the offender with the whole A Crime arising from a sudden Passion is not so great as when the same ariseth from long meditation For in the former case there is a place for Extenuation in the common infirmity of humane nature but he that doth it with praemeditation has used circumspection and cast his eye on the Law on the punishment and on the consequence thereof to humane society all which in committing the Crime hee hath contemned and postposed to his own appetite But there is no suddennesse of Passion sufficient for a totall Excuse For all the time between the first knowing of the Law and the Commission of the Fact shall be taken for a time of deliberation because he ought by meditation of the Law to rectifie the irregularity of his Passions Where the Law is publiquely and with assiduity before all the people read and interpreted a fact done against it is a greater Crime than where men are left without such instrustion to enquire of it with difficulty uncertainty and interruption of their Callings and be informed by priuate men for in this case part of the fault is discharged upon common infirmity but in the former there is apparent negligence which is not without some contempt of the Sovetaign Power Those facts which the Law expresly condemneth but the Law-maker by other manifest signes of his will tacitly approveth are lesse Crimes than the same facts condemned both by the Law and Law-maker For seeing the will of the Law-maker is a Law there appear in this case two contradictory Lawes which would totally Excuse if men were bound to take notice of the Soveraigns approbation by other arguments than are expressed by his command But because there are punishments consequent not onely to the transgression of his Law but also to the observing of it he is in part a cause of the transgression and therefore cannot reasonably impute the whole Crime to the â—…quent For example the Law condemneth Duells the punishment is made capitall On the contrary part he that refuseth Duell is subject to contempt and 〈◊〉 without remedy and sometimes by the Soveraign himselfe thought unworthy to have any charge or preferment in Warre If thereupon he accept Duell considering all men lawfully endeavour to obtain the good opinion of them that have the Soveraign Power he ought not in reason to be 〈◊〉 punished seeing part of the fault may be discharged on the punisher which I say not as wishing liberty of private revenges or any other kind of disobedience but a care in Governours not to countenance any thing obliquely which directly they forbid The examples of Princes to those that see them are and ever have been more potent to govern their actions than the Lawes themselves And thought it be our duty to do not what they do but what they say yet will that duty never be performed till it please God to give men an extraordinary and supernaturall grace to follow that Precept Again if we compare Crimes by the mischiefe of their Effects First the same fact when it redounds to the dammage of many is greater than when it redounds to the hurt of few And therefore when a fact hurteth not onely in the present but also by example in the future it is a greater Crime than if it hurt onely in the present for the former is a fertile Crime and multiplyes to the hurt of many the later is barren To maintain doctrines contrary to the Religion established in the Common-wealth is a greater fault in an authorised Preacher than in a private person So also is it to live prophanely incontinently or do any irreligious act whatsoever Likewise in a Professor of the Law to maintain any point or do any act that tendeth to the weakning of the Soveraign Power is a greater Crime than in another man Also in a man that hath such reputation for wisedome as that his counsells are followed or his actions imitated by many his fact against the Law is a greater Crime than the same fact in another For such men not onely commit Crime but teach it for Law to all other men And generally all Crimes are the greater by the scandall they give that is to say by becomming stumbling-blocks to the weak that look not so much upon the way they go in as upon the light that other men carry before them Also Facts of hostility against the present state of the Common-wealth are greater Crimes than the same acts done to private men For the dammage extends it selfe to all Such are the betraying of the strengths or revealing of the secrets of the Common-wealth to an Enemy also all attempts upon the Representative of the Common-wealth be it a Monarch or an Assembly and all endeavours by word or deed to diminish the Authority of the same either in the present time or in succession which Crimes the Latines understand by Crimina laesae Majestatis and consist in designe or act contrary to a Fundamentall Law Likewise those Crimes which render Judgements of no effect are greater Crimes than Injuries done to one or a few persons as to receive mony to give False judgement or testimony is a greater Crime than otherwise to deceive a man of the like or a greater summe because not onely he has wrong that falls by such judgements but all Judgements are rendered uselesse and occasion ministred to force and private revenges Also Robbery and Depeculation of the Publique treasure or Revenues is a greater Crime than the robbing or defrauding of a Private man because to robbe the publique is to robbe many at once Also the Counterfeit usurpation of publique Ministery the Counterfeiting of publique Seales or publique Coine than counterfeiting of a private mans person or his seale because the fraud thereof extendeth to the dammage of many Of facts against the Law done to private men the greater Crime is that where the dammage in the common opinion of men is most sensible And therefore To kill against the Law is a greater Crime than any other injury life preserved And to kill with Torment greater than simply to kill And Mutilation of a limbe greater than the spoyling a man of his goods And the spoyling a man of his goods by
to God but one Worship which then it doth when it commandeth it to be exhibited by Private men Publiquely And this is Publique Worship the property whereof is to be Uniforme For those actions that are done differently by different men cannot be said to be a Publique Worship And therefore where many sorts of Worship be allowed proceeding from the different Religions of Private men it cannot be said there is any Publique Worship nor that the Common-wealth is of any Religion at all And because words and consequently the Attributes of God have their signification by agreement and constitution of men those Attributes are to be held significative of Honour that men intend shall so be and whatsoever may be done by the wills of particular men where there is no Law but Reason may be done by the will of the Common-wealth by Lawes Civill And because a Common-wealth hath no Will nor makes no Lawes but those that are made by the Will of him or them that have the Soveraign Power it followeth that those Attributes which the Soveraign ordaineth in the Worship of God for signes of Honour ought to be taken and used for such by private men in their publique Worship But because not all Actions are signes by Constitution but some are Naturally signes of Honour others of Contumely these later which are those that men are ashamed to do in the sight of them they reverence cannot be made by humane power a part of Divine worship nor the former such as are decent modest humble Behaviour ever be separated from it But whereas there be an infinite number of Actions and Gestures of an indifferent nature such of them as the Common-wealth shall ordain to be Publiquely and Universally in use as signes of Honour and part of Gods Worship are to be taken and used for such by the Subjects And that which is said in the Scripture It is better to obey God than men hath place in the kingdome of God by Pact and not by Nature Having thus briefly spoken of the Naturall Kingdome of God and his Naturall Lawes I will adde onely to this Chapter a short declaration of his Naturall Punishments There is no action of man in this life that is not the beginning of so long a chayn of Consequences as no humane Providence is high enough to give a man a prospect to the end And in this Chayn there are linked together both pleasing and unpleasing events in such manner as he that will do any thing for his pleasure must engage himselfe to suffer all the pains annexed to it and these pains are the Naturall Punishments of those actions which are the beginning of more Harme than Good And hereby it comes to passe that Intemperance is naturally punished with Diseases Rashnesse with Mischances Injustice with the Violence of Enemies Pride with Ruine Cowardise with Oppression Negligent government of Princes with Rebellion and Rebellion with Slaughter For seeing Punishments are consequent to the breach of Lawes Naturall Punishments must be naturally consequent to the breach of the Lawes of Nature and therfore follow them as their naturall not arbitrary effects And thus farre concerning the Constitution Nature and Right of Soveraigns and concerning the Duty of Subjects derived from the Principles of Naturall Reason And now considering how different this Doctrine is from the Practise of the greatest part of the world especially of these Western parts that have received their Morall learning from Rome and Athens and how much depth of Morall Philosophy is required in them that have the Administration of the Soveraign Power I am at the point of believing this my labour as uselesse as the Common-wealth of Plato For he also is of opinion that it is impossible for the disorders of State and change of Governments by Civill Warre ever to be taken away till Soveraigns be Philosophers But when I consider again that the Science of Naturall Justice is the onely Science necessary for Soveraigns and their principall Ministers and that they need not be charged with the Sciences Mathematicall as by Plato they are further than by good Lawes to encourage men to the study of them and that neither Plato nor any other Philosopher hitherto hath put into order and sufficiently or probably proved all the Theoremes of Morall doctrine that men may learn thereby both how to govern and how to obey I recover some hope that one time or other this writing of mine may fall into the hands of a Soveraign who will consider it himselfe for it is short and I think clear without the help of any interessed or envious Interpreter and by the exercise of entire Soveraignty in protecting the Publique teaching of it convert this Truth of Speculation into the Utility of Practice OF A CHRISTIAN COMMON-WEALTH CHAP. XXXII Of the Principles of CHRISTIAN POLITIQUES I Have derived the Rights of Soveraigne Power and the duty of Subjects hitherto from the Principles of Nature onely such as Experience has found true or Consent concerning the use of words has made so that is to say from the nature of Men known to us by Experience and from Definitions of such words as are Essentiall to all Politicall reasoning universally agreed on But in that I am next to handle which is the Nature and Rights of a CHRISTIAN COMMON-VVEALTH whereof there dependeth much upon Supernaturall Revelations of the Will of God the ground of my Discourse must be not only the Naturall Word of God but also the Propheticall Neverthelesse we are not to renounce our Senses and Experience nor that which is the undoubted Word of God our naturall Reason For they are the talents which he hath put into our hands to negotiate till the coming again of our blessed Saviour and therefore not to be folded up in the Napkin of an Implicite aith but employed in the purchase of Justice Peace and true Religion For though there be many things in Gods Word above Reason that it is to say which cannot by naturall reason be either demonstrated or confuted yet there is nothing contrary to it but when it seemeth so the fault is either in our unskilfull Interpretation or erroneous Ratiocination Therefore when any thing therein written is too hard for our examination wee are bidden to captivate our understanding to the Words and not to labour in sifting out a Philosophicall truth by Logick of such mysteries as are not comprehensible nor fall under any rule of naturall science For it is with the mysteries of our Religion as with wholsome pills for the sick which swallowed whole have the vertue to cure but chewed are for the most part cast up again without effect But by the Captivity of our Understanding is not meant a Submission of the Intellectuall faculty to the Opinion of any other man but of the Will to Obedience where obedience is due For Sense Memory Understanding Reason and Opinion are not in our power to change but alwaies
a man should say an Incorporeall Body But in the sense of cōmon people not all the Universe is called Body but only such parts thereof as they can discern by the sense of Feeling to resist their force or by the sense of their Eyes to hinder them from a farther prospect Therefore in the common language of men Aire and aeriall substances use not to be taken for Bodies but as often as men are sensible of their effects are called Wind or Breath or because the same are called in the Latine Spiritus Spirits as when they call that aeriall substance which in the body of any living creature gives it life and motion Vitall and Animall spirits But for those Idols of the brain which represent Bodies to us where they are not as in a Looking-glasse in a Dream or to a Distempered brain waking they are as the Apostle saith generally of all Idols nothing Nothing at all I say there where they seem to be◅ and in the brain it self nothing but tumult proceeding either from the action of the objects or from the disorderly agitation of the Organs of our Sense And men that are otherwise imployed then to search into their causes know not of themselves what to call them and may therefore easily be perswaded by those whose knowledge they much reverence some to call them Bodies and think them made of aire compacted by a power supernaturall because the sight judges them corporeall and some to call them Spirits because the sense of Touch discerneth nothing in the place where they appear to resist their fingers So that the proper signification of Spirit in common speech is either a subtile fluid and invisible Body or a Ghost or other Idol or Phantasme of the Imagination But for metaphoricall significations there be many for sometimes it is taken for Disposition or Inclination of the mind as when for the disposition to controwl the sayings of other men we say a spirit of contradiction For a disposition to uncleannesse an unclean spirit for perversenesse a froward spirit for sullennesse a dumb spirit and for inclination to godlinesse and Gods service the Spirit of God sometimes for any eminent ability or extraordinary passion or disease of the mind as when great wisdome is called the spirit of wisdome and mad men are said to be possessed with a spirit Other signification of Spirit I find no where any and where none of these can satisfie the sense of that word in Scripture the place falleth not under humane Understanding and our Faith therein consisteth not in our Opinion but in our Submission as in all places where God is said to be a Spirit or where by the Spirit of God is meant God himselfe For the nature of God is incomprehensible that is to say we understand nothing of what he is but only that he is and therefore the Attributes we give him are not to tell one another what he is nor to signifie our opinion of his Nature but our desire to honor him with such names as we conceiv◅ most honorable amongst our selves Gen. 1. 2. The Spirit of God moved upon the face of the Waters Here if by the Spirit of God be meant God himself then is Motion attributed to God and consequently Place which are intelligible only of Bodies and not of substances incorporeall and so the place is above our understanding that can conceive nothing moved that changes not place or that has not dimension and whatsoever has dimension is Body But the meaning of those words is best understood by the like place Gen. 8. 1. Where when the earth was covered with Waters as in the beginning God intending to abate them and again to discover the dry land useth the like words I will bring my Spirit upon the Earth and the waters shall be diminished in which place by Spirit is understood a Wind that is an Aire or Spirit moved which might be called as in the former place the Spirit of God because it was Gods work Gen. 41. 38. Pharaoh calleth the Wisdome of Joseph the Spirit of God For Joseph having advised him to look out a wise and discreet man and to set him over the land of Egypt he saith thus Can we find such a man as this is in whom is the Spirit of God And Exod. 28. 3. Thou shalt speak saith God to all that are wise hearted whom I have filled with the Spirit of VVisdome to make Aaron Garments to consecrate him Where extraordinary Understanding though but in making Garments as being the Gift of God is called the Spirit of God The same is found again Exod. 31. 3 4 5 6. and 35. 31. And Isaiah 11. 2 3. where the Prophet speaking of the Messiah saith The Spirit of the Lord shall abide upon him the Spirit of wisdome and understanding the Spirit of counsell and fortitude and the Spirit of the fear of the Lord. Where manifestly is meant not so many Ghosts but so many eminent graces that God would give him In the Book of Judges an extraordinary Zeal and Courage in the the defence of Gods people is called the Spirit of God as when it excited Othoniel Gideon Jephtha and Samson to deliver them from servitude Judg. 3. 10. 6. 34. 11. 29. 13. 25. 14. 6 19. And of Saul upon the newes of the insolence of the Ammonites towards the men of Jabesh Gilead it is said 1 Sam. 11. 6. that The Spirit of God came upon Saul and his Anger or as it is in the Latine his Fury was kindled greatly Where it is not probable was meant a Ghost but an extraordinary Zeal to punish the cruelty of the Ammonites In like manner by the Spirit of God that came upon Saul when hee was amongst the Prophets that praised God in Songs and Musick 1 Sam. 19. 20. is to be understood not a Ghost but an unexpected and sudden Zeal to join with them in their devotion The false Prophet Zedekiah saith to Micaiah 1 Kings 22. 24. Which way went the Spirit of the Lord from me to speak to thee Which cannot be understood of a Ghost for Micaiah declared before the Kings of Israel and Judah the event of the battle as from a Vision and not as from a Spirit speaking in him In the same manner it appeareth in the Books of the Prophets that though they spake by the Spirit of God that is to say by a speciall grace of Prediction yet their knowledge of the future was not by a Ghost within them but by some supernaturall Dream or Vision Gen. 2. 7. It is said God made man of the dust of the Earth and breathed into his nostrills spiraculum vitae the breath of life and man was made a living soul. There the breath of life inspired by God signifies no more but that God gave him life And Job 27. 3. as long as the Spirit of God is in my nostrils is no more then to say as long as I live So
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
other Pastors are bidden to esteem those Christians that disobey the Church that is that disobey the Christian Soveraigne as Heathen men and as Publicans Seeing then men challenge to the Pope no authority over Heathen Princes they ought to challenge none over those that are to bee esteemed as Heathen But from the Power to Teach onely hee inferreth also a Coercive Power in the Pope over Kings The Pastor saith he must give his flock convenient food Therefore the Pope may and ought to compell Kings to doe their duty Out of which it followeth that the Pope as Pastor of Christian men is King of Kings which all Christian Kings ought indeed either to Confesse or else they ought to take upon themselves the Supreme Pastorall Charge every one in his own Dominion His sixth and last Argument is from Examples To which I answer first that Examples prove nothing Secondly that the Examples he alledgeth make not so much as a probability of Right The fact of Jehoiada in Killing Athaliah 2 Kings 11. was either by the Authority of King Joash or it was a horrible Crime in the High Priest which ever after the election of King Saul was a mere Subject The fact of St. Ambrose in Excommunicating Theodosius the Emperour if it were true hee did so was a Capitall Crime And for the Popes Gregory 1. Greg. 2. Zachary and Leo 3. their Judgments are void as given in their own Cause and the Acts done by them conformably to this Doctrine are the greatest Crimes especially that of Zachary that are incident to Humane Nature And thus much of Power Ecclesiasticall wherein I had been more briefe forbearing to examine these Arguments of Bellarmine if they had been his as a Private man and not as the Champion of the Papacy against all other Christian Princes and States CHAP. XLIII Of what is NECESSARY for a Mans Reception into the Kingdome of Heaven THe most frequent praetext of Sedition and Civill Warre in Christian Common-wealths hath a long time proceeded from a difficulty not yet sufficiently resolved of obeying at once both God and Man then when their Commandements are one contrary to the other It is manifest enough that when a man receiveth two contrary Commands and knows that one of them is Gods he ought to obey that and not the other though it be the command even of his lawfull Soveraign whether a Monarch or or a soveraign Assembly or the command of his Father The difficulty therefore consisteth in this that men when they are commanded in the name of God know not in divers Cases whether the command be from God or whether he that commandeth doe but abuse Gods name for some private ends of his own For as there were in the Church of the Jews many false Prophets that sought reputation with the people by feigned Dreams and Visions so there have been in all times in the Church of Christ false Teachers that seek reputation with the people by phantasticall and false Doctrines and by such reputation as is the nature of Ambition to govern them for their private benefit But this difficulty of obeying both God and the Civill Soveraign on earth to those that can distinguish between what is Necessary and what is not Necessary for their Reception into the Kingdome of God is of no moment For if the command of the Civill Soveraign bee such as that it may be obeyed without the forfeiture of life Eternall not to obey it is unjust and the precept of the Apostle takes place Servants obey your Masters in all things and Children obey your Parents in all things and the precept of our Saviour The Scribes and Pharisees sit in Moses Chaire All therefore they shall say that observe and doe But if the command be such as cannot be obeyed without being damned to Eternall Death then it were madnesse to obey it and the Counsell of our Saviour takes place Mat. 10. 28. Fear not those that kill the body but cannot kill the soule All men therefore that would avoid both the punishments that are to be in this world inflicted for disobedience to their earthly Soveraign and those that shall be inflicted in the world to come for disobedience to God have need be taught to distinguish well between what is and what is not Necessary to Eternall Salvation All that is NECESSARY to Salvatian is contained in two Vertues Faith in Christ and Obedience to Laws The latter of these if it were perfect were enough to us But because wee are all guilty of disobedience to Gods Law not onely originally in Adam but also actually by our own transgressions there is required at our hands now not onely Obedience for the rest of our time but also a Remission of sins for the time past which Remission is the reward of our Faith in Christ. That nothing else is Necessarily required to Salvation is manifest from this that the Kingdome of Heaven is shut to none but to Sinners that is to say to the disobedient or transgressors of the Law nor to them in case they Repent and Beleeve all the Articles of Christian Faith Necessary to Salvation The Obedience required at our hands by God that accepteth in all our actions the Will for the Deed is a serious Endeavour to Obey him and is called also by all such names as signifie that Endeavour And therefore Obedience is sometimes called by the names of Charity and Love because they imply a Will to Obey and our Saviour himself maketh our Love to God and to one another a Fulfilling of the whole Law and sometimes by the name of Righteousnesse for Righteousnesse is but the will to give to every one his owne that is to say the will to obey the Laws and sometimes by the name of Repentance because to Repent implyeth a turning away from finne which is the same with the return of the will to Obedience Whosoever therefore unfeignedly desireth to fulfill the Commandements of God or repenteth him truely of his transgressions or that loveth God with all his heart and his neighbor as himself hath all the Obedience Necessary to his Reception into the Kingdom of God For if God should require perfect Innocence there could no flesh be saved But what Commandements are those that God hath given us Are all those Laws which were given to the Jews by the hand of Moses the Commandements of God If they bee why are not Christians taught to Obey them If they be not what others are so besides the Law of Nature For our Saviour Christ hath not given us new Laws but Counsell to observe those wee are subject to that is to say the Laws of Nature and the Laws of our severall Soveraigns Nor did he make any new Law to the Jews in his Sermon on the Mouut but onely expounded the Laws of Moses to which they were subject before The Laws of God therefore are none but the Laws of Nature whereof the principall is that we
of them if there had appeared in their Rods nothing like a Serpent and in the Water enchanted nothing like Bloud nor like any thing else but Water but that they had faced down the King that they were Serpents that looked like Rods and that it was Bloud that seemed Water That had been both Enchantment and Lying And yet in this daily act of the Priest they doe the very same by turning the holy words into the manner of a Charme which produceth nothing new to the Sense but they face us down that it hath turned the Bread into a Man nay more into a God and require men to worship it as if it were our Saviour himself present God and Man and thereby to commit most grosse Idolatry For if it bee enough to excuse it of Idolatry to say it is no more Bread but God why should not the same excuse serve the Egyptians in case they had the faces to say the Leeks and Onyons they worshipped were not very Leeks and Onyons but a Divinity under their species or likenesse The words This is my Body are aequivalent to these This signifies or represents my Body and it is an ordinary figure of Speech but to take it literally is an abuse nor though so taken can it extend any further than to the Bread which Christ himself with his own hands Consecrated For hee never said that of what Bread soever any Priest whatsoever should say This is my Body or This is Christs Body the same should presently be transubstantiated Nor did the Church of Rome ever establish this Transubstantiation till the time of Innocent the third which was not above 500. years agoe when the Power of Popes was at the Highest and the Darknesse of the time grown so great as men discerned not the Bread that was given them to eat especially when it was stamped with the figure of Christ upon the Crosse as if they would have men beleeve it were Transubstantiated not onely into the Body of Christ but also into the Wood of his Crosse and that they did eat both together in the Sacrament The like Incantation in stead of Consecration is used also in the Sacrament of Baptisme Where the abuse of Gods name in each severall Person and in the whole Trinity with the sign of the Crosse at each name maketh up the Charm As first when they make the Holy water the Priest saith I Conjure thee thou Creature of Water in the name of God the Father Almighty and in the name of Iesus Christ his onely Son our Lord and in vertue of the Holy Ghost that thou become Conjured water to drive away all the Powers of the Enemy and to eradicate and supplant the Enemy c. And the same in the Benediction of the Salt to be mingled with it That thou become Conjured Salt that all Phantasmes and Knavery of the Devills fraud may fly and depart from the place wherein thou art sprinkled and every unclean Spirit bee Conjured by Him that shall come to judg the quicke and the dead The same in the Benediction of the Oyle That all the Power of the Enemy all the Host of the Devill all Assaults and Phantasmes of Satan may be driven away by this Creature of Oyle And for the Infant that is to be Baptized he is subject to many Charms First at the Church dore the Priest blows thrice in the Childs face and sayes Goe out of him unclean Spirit and give place to the Holy Ghost the Comforter As if all Children till blown on by the Priest were Daemoniaques Again before his entrance into the Church he saith as before I Conjure thee c. to goe out and depart from this Servant of God And again the same Exorcisme is repeated once more before he be Baptized These and some other Incantations are those that are used in stead of Benedictions and Consecrations in administration of the Sacraments of Baptisme and the Lords Supper wherein every thing that serveth to those holy uses except the unhallowed Spittle of the Priest hath some set form of Exorcisme Nor are the other rites as of Marriage of Extreme Unction of Visitation of the Sick of Consecrating Churches and Church-yards and the like exempt from Charms in as much as there is in them the use of Enchanted Oyle and Water with the abuse of the Crosse and of the holy word of David Asperges me Domine Hyssopo as things of efficacy to drive away Phantasmes and Imaginary Spirits Another generall Error is from the Misinterpretation of the words Eternall Life Everlasting Death and the Second Death For though we read plainly in holy Scripture that God created Adam in an estate of Living for Ever which was conditionall that is to say if he disobeyed not his Commandement which was not essentiall to Humane Nature but consequent to the vertue of the Tree of Life whereof hee had liberty to eat as long as hee had not sinned and that hee was thrust out of Paradise after he had sinned lest hee should eate thereof and live for ever and that Christs Passion is a Discharge of sin to all that beleeve on him and by consequence a restitution of Eternall Life to all the Faithfull and to them onely yet the Doctrine is now and hath been a long time far otherwise namely that every man hath Eternity of Life by Nature in as much as his Soul is Immortall So that the flaming Sword at the entrance of Paradise though it hinder a man from coming to the Tree of Life hinders him not from the Immortality which God took from him for his Sin nor makes him to need the sacrificing of Christ for the recovering of the same and consequently not onely the faithfull and righteous but also the wicked and the Heathen shall enjoy Eternall Life without any Death at all much lesse a Second and Everlasting Death To salve this it is said that by Second and Everlasting Death is meant a Second and Everlasting Life but in Torments a Figure never used but in this very Case All which Doctrine is founded onely on some of the obscurer places of the New Testament which neverthelesse the whole scope of the Scripture considered are cleer enough in a different sense and unnecessary to the Christian Faith For supposing that when a man dies there remaineth nothing of him but his carkasse cannot God that raised inanimated dust and clay into a living creature by his Word as easily raise a dead carkasse to life again and continue him alive for Ever or make him die again by another Word The Soule in Scripture signifieth alwaies either the Life or the Living Creature and the Body and Soule jointly the Body alive In the fift day of the Creation God said Let the waters produce Reptile animae viventis the creeping thing that hath in it a Living Soule the English translate it that hath Life And again God created Whales omnem animam viventem which in the English is