unaccountable that the Supreme Magistrate may not be permitted to determine the Circumstances and Appendages of the subordinate Ministeries to Moral Virtue and yet should be allowed in all Common-wealths to determine the particular Acts and Instances of these Virtues themselves For Example Justice is a prime and natural Virtue and yet its particular Cases depend upon humane Laws that determine the bounds of Meum and Tuum The Divine Law restrains Titius from invading Caius's Right and Propriety but what that is and when it is invaded only the Laws of the Society they live in can determine And there are some Cases that are Acts of Injustice in England that are not so in Italy otherwise all Places must be govern'd by the same Laws and what is a Law to one Nation must be so to all the World Whereas 't is undeniably evident That neither the Law of God nor of Nature determine the particular Instances of most Virtues but for the most part leave that to the Constitutions of National Laws They in general forbid Theft Incest Murther and Adultery but what these Crimes are they determine not in all Cases but is in most particulars to be explained by the Civil Constitutions and whatsoever the Law of the Land reckons among these Crimes that the Law of God and of Nature forbids And now is it not strangely humoursome to say That Magistrates are instrusted with so great a Power over mens Conscience in these great and weighty Designs of Religion and yet should not be trusted to govern the indifferent or at least less material Circumstances of those things that can pretend to no other Goodness than as they are Means serviceable to Moral Purposes That they should have Power to make that a Particular of the Divine Law that God has not made so and yet not be able to determine the use of an indifferent Circumstance because forsooth God has not determin'd it In a word That they should be fully impowered to declare new Instances of Vertue and Vice and to introduce new Duties in the most important parts of Religion and yet should not have Authority enough to declare the Use and decency of a few Circumstances in its subservient and less material Concerns § 5. The whole State of Affairs is briefly this Man is sent into the World to live happily here and prepare himself for happiness hereafter this is attain'd by the practice of Moral Vertues and Pious Devotions and wherein these mainly consist Almighty Goodness has declared by the Laws of Nature and Revelation but because in both there are changeable Cases and Circumstances of things therefore has God appointed his Trustees and Officials here on Earth to Act and Determine in both according to all Accidents and Emergencies of Affairs to assign new Particulars of the Divine Law to declare new Bounds of right and wrong which the Law of God neither does nor can limit because of necessity they must in a great measure depend upon the Customs and Constitutions of every Common-wealth And in the same manner are the Circumstances and outward Expressions of Divine Worship because they are variable according to the Accidents of Time and Place entrusted with less danger of Errour with the same Authority And what Ceremonies this appoints unless they are apparently repugnant to their Prime end become Religious Rites as what particular Actions it constitutes in any Species of Virtue become new Instances of that Virtue unless they apparently contradict its Nature and Tendency Now the two Primary Designs of all Religion are either to express our honourable Opinion of the Deity or to advance the Interests of Vertue and Moral Goodness so that no Rites or Ceremonies can be esteemed unlawful in the Worship of God unless they tend to debauch men either in their Practices or their Conceptions of the Deity And 't is upon one or both of these Accounts that any Rites and Forms of Worship become criminally superstitious and such were the Lupercalia the Eleusinian Mysteries the Feasts of Bacchus Flora and Venus because they were but so many Festivals of Lust and Debauchery and such were the Salvage and Bloody Sacrifices to Saturn Bellona Moloch Baal-Peor and all other 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Antient Paganism because they supposed the Divine Being to take pleasure in the Miseries and Tortures of its Creatures And such is all Idolatry in that it either gives right Worship to a wrong Object or wrong Worship to a right one or at least represents an infinite Majesty by Images and Resemblances of finite things and so reflects disparagement upon some of the Divine Attributes by fastning dishonourable Weaknesses and Imperfections upon the Divine Nature As for these and the like Rites and Ceremonies of Worship no Humane Power can command them because they are directly contradictory to the Ends of Religion but as for all others that are not so any lawful Authority may as well enjoyn them as it may adopt any Actions whatsoever into the Duties of Morality that are not contrary to the Ends of Morality § 6. But a little farther to illustrate this we may observe That in matters both of Moral Vertue and Divine Worship there are some Rules of Good and Evil that are of an Eternal and Unchangeable Obligation and these can never be prejudiced or altered by any Humane Power because the Reason of their Obligation arises from a necessity and constitution of Nature and therefore must be as Perpetual as that But then there are other Rules of Duty that are alterable according to the various Accidents Changes and Conditions of Humane Life and depend chiefly upon Contracts and Positive Laws of Kingdoms these suffer Variety because their Matter and their Reason does so Thus in the matter of Murther there are some Instances of an unalterable Nature and others that are changeable according to the various Provisions of Positive Laws and Constitutions To take away the life of an innocent Person is forbidden by such an indispensable Law of Nature that no Humane Power can any way directly or indirectly make it become lawful in that no Positive Laws can so alter the Constitution of Nature as to make this Instance of Villany cease to be mischievous to Mankind and therefore 't is Capital in all Nations of the World But then there are other particular Cases of this Crime that depend upon Positive Laws and so by consequence are liable to change according to the different Constitutions of the Common-wealths men live in Thus though in England 't is Murther for an injured Husband to kill an Adulteress taken in the Act of Uncleanness because 't is forbidden by the Laws of this Kingdom yet in Spain and among the old Romans it was not because their Laws permitted it and if the Magistrate himself may punish the Crime with Death he may appoint whom he pleases to be his Executioner And the Case is the same in reference to Divine Worship in which there are some things of
War It Enervates all its own Laws of Nature by Founding the Reason of their Obligation upon meer Self-Interest Which false and absurd Principle being removed all that is Base or peculiar in the whole Hypothesis is utterly Cashier'd § 1. WHen any thing that is Apparently and Intrinsecally Evil is the Matter of an Humane Law whether it be of a Civil or Ecclesiastical Concern here God is to be obeyed rather than Man No Circumstances can alter the Rules of Prime and Essential Rectitude their goodness is Eternal and Unchangeable And therefore in all such Actions Disobedience to Humane Laws is so far from being a Sin that it becomes an indispensable Duty Where the good or evil of an Action is determined by the Law of Nature no Positive Humane Law can take off its Morality because 't is in it self repugnant to the principles of right Reason by consequence as unchangeable as that And therefore if the Supreme Magistrate should make a Law not to believe the Being of God or Providence the Truth of the Gospel the Immortality of the Soul that Law can no more bind than if a Prince should command a man to murther his Father or to ravish his Mother because the Obligatory Power of all such Laws is antecedently rescinded by a stronger and more Indispensable Obligation And thus has every Man a natural right to be Virtuous and no Authority whatsoever can deny him the liberty of acting Virtuously without being guilty of the foulest Tyranny and Injustice Not so much because Subjects are in any thing free from the Authority of the Supreme Power on Earth as because they are subject to a Superiour in Heaven and they are only then excused from the duty of obedience to their Sovereign when they cannot give it without Rebellion against God So that it is not originally any right of their own that exempts them from a subjection to the Sovereign Power in all things but 't is purely Gods right of governing his own Creatures that Magistrates then invade when they make Edicts to violate or controul his Laws And those who would take off from the Consciences of men all obligations antecedent to those of humane Laws instead of making the Power of Princes supreme absolute and uncontroulable they utterly enervate all their Authority and set their Subjects at perfect liberty from all their Commands For if we once remove all the antecedent obligations of Conscience and Religion men will be no further bound to submit to their Laws than only as themselves shall see convenient and if they are under no other restraint it will be their wisdom to rebel as oft as it is their Interest In that the Laws of Superiours passing no Obligation upon the Consciences of Subjects they neither are nor can be under any stronger Engagements to Subjection than to preserve themselves from the Penalties and Inflictions of the Law and so by consequence may despise its Obligation whenever they can hope to escape its punishment Now how must this weaken the Power and supplant the Thrones of Princes if every Subject may despise their Laws or invade their Sovereignty whenever he can hope to build his own Fortune upon their Ruines How would it expose their Scepters to the continual Attempts of Rebels and Usurpers when every one that has strength enough to wrest it out of his Princes hands has Right and Title enough to hold it What security could Princes have of their Subjects Loyalty that will own their Power as long as it shall be their interest and when it ceases to be so call it Tyranny How shall they ever be secured by any Promises Oaths and Covenants of Allegiance that have no other band but self-security or hope of Exemption from the Penalties of the Law Will not the most sacred Bonds and Compacts leave them in as insecure a condition as they found them in In that Self-advantage would have kept their Subjects loyal and obedient without Oaths and nothing else will do it with them and therefore they can add no new Obligations to that of Interest For if to perform their Covenants be advantageous they are bound to perform them by the Laws of prudence and discretion without the Oath as much as with it if disadvantageous no Oath can oblige them in that Interest and Self-preservation is the only enforcement of all their Covenants and therefore when that Tye happens to cease their Obligation becomes Null and Void and they may observe them if they please and if they please break them § 2. But the vanity and groundlesness of this opinion will more fully appear by discovering the lamentable Foundation on which it stands and that is a late wild Hypothesis concerning the Nature and Original of Government which is briefly this That the natural condition of Mankind is a State and Posture of War of every man against every man in that all men being born in a condition of equality they have all an equal right to all things and because all cannot enjoy all hence every man becomes an Enemy to every man in which State of Hostility there is no way for any man to secure himself so reasonable as Anticipation that is by Force or Wiles to master the persons of all men he can till he see no other Power great enough to endanger himself so that there is no remedy but that in the State of Nature all men must be obliged to seek and contrive in order to their own security one anothers Destruction But because in this Condition Mankind must for ever groan under all the miseries and calamities of War therefore they have wisely chosen by mutual consent to enter into Contracts and Covenants of mutual trust in which every man has in order to his own Security been content to relinquish his natural and unlimited right to every thing and hereby they enter into a state of Peace and Government in which every man engages by solemn Oath and Covenant to submit himself to the Publick Laws in order to his own private safety So that according to this Hypothesis there are no Rules of Right or Wrong antecedent to the Laws of the Common-wealth but all men are at absolute liberty to do as they please and how cruel soever they may be to one another they can never be injurious there being nothing just or unjust but what is made so by the Laws of the Society to which all its Members covenant to submit when they enter into it This Hypothesis as odde as it is is become the Standard of our Modern Politicks by which men that pretend to understand the real Laws of Wisdom and Subtlety must square their Actions and therefore is swallowed down with as much greediness as an Article of Faith by the Wild and Giddy People of the Age. And of the reality of it none can doubt but Fops and raw-brain'd Fellows that understand nothing of the World or the Complexion of Humane Nature Now 't is but labour in vain
that distinguish their Parties And this cannot but be a mighty endearment of their Prince to them when he neglects and discountenances his best Subjects only because they are the godly Party for so every Party is to it self to join himself to their profest and irreconcileable Enemies And they will be wonderfully forward to assist a Patron of Idolatry and Superstition or an Enemy to the power of godliness for these are the softest words that different Sects can afford one another And withal I might adde That they must needs be much in love with him when they have reason to believe that they lie perpetually under his displeasure and that he looks upon them as little better than Enemies So that if a Prince permit different Parties and interests of Religion in his Dominions however he carries himself towards them he shall have at least all Parties discontented but one for if himself be of any he displeases all but that if of none he displeases all And Zealous and Religious People of all sorts must needs be wonderfully in love with an Atheist and there is no remedy but he must at least be thought so if he be not of any distinct and visible profession CHAP. VI. Of things Indifferent and of the Power of the Civil Magistrate in Things undetermined by the Word of God The Contents THe Mystery of Puritanism lies in this Assertion That nothing ought to be established in the Worship of God but what is expresly commanded in the Word of God The Wildness Novelty and unreasonableness of this Principle It makes meer Obedience to lawful Authority sinful It takes away all possibility of Settlement in any Church or Nation It is the main pretense of all pious Villanies It cancels all Humane Laws and makes most of the Divine Laws useless and impracticable It obliges men to be seditious in all Churches in the World in that there is no Church that has not some Customs and Vsages peculiar to it self All that pretend this Principle do and must act contrary to it The exorbitancy of this Principle makes all yielding and condescension to the men that plead it unsafe and impolitick Wherein the perfection and sufficiency of the Holy Scriptures consists Of the Vanity of their Distinction who tell us That the Civil Magistrate is to see the Laws of Christ executed but to make none of his own The dangerous consequents of their way of arguing who would prove That God ought to have determined all Circumstances of his own Worship 'T is scarce possible to determine all Circumstances of any outward action they are so many and so various The Magistrate has no way to make men of this perswasion comply with his will but by forbidding what he would have done The Puritans upbraided with Mr. Hooker's Book of Ecclesiastical Politie and challeng'd to answer it Their Out-cries against Popery Will-worship Superstition adding to the Law of God c. retorted upon themselves The main Objection against the Magistrates power in Religion proposed viz. That 't is possible that he may impose things sinful and superstitious This Objection lies as strongly against all manner of Government Our inquiry is after the best way of settling things not that possibly might be but that really is Though Ecclesiastical Iurisdiction may be abused yet 't is then less mischievous than Liberty of Conscience The Reason of the necessity of subjection to the worst of Governours because Tyranny is less mischievous than Rebellion or Anarchy The Author of the Book entituled Vindiciae contra Tyrannos confuted That it may and often does so happen that 't is necessary to punish men for such perswasions into which they have innocently abused themselves Actions are punishable by Humane Laws not for their sinfulness but for their ill Consequence to the Publick This applied to the Case of a well-meaning Conscience Sect. 1. ALL things as well Sacred as Civil that are not already determined as to their Morality i. e. that are not made necessary Duties by being commanded or sinful Actions by being forbidden either by the Law of Nature or positive Law of God may be lawfully determined either way by the Supreme Authority and the Conscience of every subject is tied to yield Obedience to all such Determinations This Assertion I lay down to oppose the first and the last and the great Pretence of Non-conformity and wherein as one observeth the very Mystery of Puritanism consisteth viz. That nothing ought to be established in the Worship of God but what is authorized by some Precept or Example in the Word of God that is the complete and adequate Rule of Worship and therefore Christian Magistrates are only to see that executed that Christ has appointed in Religion but to bring in nothing of their own they are tied up neither to add nor diminish neither in the matter nor manner So that whatever they injoin in Divine Worship if it be not expresly warranted by a Divine Command how innocent soever it may be in it self it presently upon that account loses not only its Liberty but its Lawfulness it being as requisite to Christian practice that things indifferent should still be kept indifferent as things necessary be held necessary This very Principle is the only Fountain and Foundation of all Puritanism from which it was at first derived and into which it is at last resolved A pretence so strangely wild and humorsom that it is to me an equal wonder either that they should be so absurd as seriously to believe it or if they do not that they should be so impudent as thus long and thus confidently to pretend it when it has not the least shadow of Foundation either from Reason or from Scripture and was scarce ever so much as thought of till some men having made an unreasonable Separation from the Church of England were forced to justifie themselves by as unreasonable Pretences For what can be more incredible than that things that were before lawful and innocent should become sinful upon no other score than their being commanded i. e. that meer obedience to lawful Authority should make innocent actions criminal For the matter of the Law is supposed of it self indifferent and therefore if obedience to the Law be unlawful it can be so for no other reason than because 't is Obedience So that if Christian Liberty be so awkard a thing as these men make it 't is nothing else but Christian Rebellion 't is a Duty that binds men to disobedience and forbids things under that formality because Authority commands them Now what a reproach to the Gospel is this that it should be made the only Plea for Sedition What a scandal to Religion that tenderness of Conscience should be made the only Principle of Disobedience and that nothing should so much incline men to be refractory to Authority as their being conscientious What a perverse folly is it to imagine That nothing but opposition to Government can secure our liberty And
most Learned and Inquisitive of the Philosophers could never raise Atheism above the certainty of a Grand Perhaps and therefore denied not but only doubted the Truth of Religion For none of them could ever be so utterly forsaken of his Reason as to attempt to demonstrate there could be no God but only by shewing how to solve the Phaenomena of Nature and Providence without him that possibly there might be none and therefore they were never so absurd as to affront the worship of the Deity but thought themselves as effectually obliged in Prudence to the duties of Vertue and Religion by the possibility as by the certainty of things Now I say when these men of Parts and Learning were so Modest and Diffident in their singular perswasions what an unhandsome thing is it for such empty Fops as you with so bold and frontless a Confidence to defie the Almighty to deride the wisdom of his Laws to cavil at his Sacred Oracles and to give the Lye to the Vniversal Sense of Mankind and all this at all adventure And yet methinks 't is pretty to hear one of these little Mushrome Wits Charge Religion with Credulity and easiness of Belief and talk confidently that 't is want of Iudgment and Enquiry that betrays Fools and Ignorant People to be scared with the tales and threatnings of Ambitious Priests though it be so utterly impossible that any men should be more chargeable with Credulity than themselves and no mans Faith is capable of being more implicit than their Vnbelief nor can the most illiterate Peasant take up his Countries Religion upon more slender Grounds and Motives than they do their Infidelity their being equally Ignorant forces them to be equally Credulous For not to repeat any of the forementioned particulars with what a greedy confidence do they swallow down the Principles of the Malmsbury Philosophy without any chewing or consideration How hussingly will they assert that the Notion of an Immaterial Substance implies a Contradiction for no other reason than because it does That men have no Faculties but of Sense and Imagination that Vnderstanding is Reaction and Reason a Train of Phantasmes that the Will is a Corporeal Motion that its determinations are Fatal and Mechanical and necessitated by the Impressions of External and Irresistible Causes that its Liberty of choice is as absurd and insignificant Nonsense as a round Quadrangle that Religion is the belief of Tales publickly allowed that Power is Right and justifies all Actions whatsoever whether good or bad that there is nothing just or unjust in it self that all Right and Wrong is the Result of Humane Contracts and that the Laws of Nature are nothing but Maxims and Principles of self-interest How boldly do they take up with these and other resembling Principles of Baseness and Irreligion upon the bare Authority and proofless Assertions of one proud and haughty Philosopher How much severe Study and Contemplation is required to a Competent Knowledge of these things And yet with what a stiff and peremptory Confidence are they determined by these men that cannot pretend to any other knowledge and 't is a very candid presumption to allow them so much than of the Laws of a Play or Poem In brief these empty Spunges suck in Opinions for their agreeableness with their debauched and licentious Practices without ever considering their Truth and Evidence for alas they never troubled their heads with such Enquiries And therefore whatever they pretend 't is not their Reasons but their Lusts and Vices that cavil at the Principles of Religion and they except against it not because it contradicts their understandings for that they never considered but their Appetites 't is their Sins and sensual Inclinations that prejudice and bar up their minds against it and though they were convinced of its Truth they would however be Infidels still in spight of all the Reason and Demonstration in the world Their Irreligion is an after-game of their Debauchery they are forced to it in their own Defence Their wickedness has made Infidelity their Interest and Atheism their Refuge and then they cannot will not believe for no other Reason but only because they dare not But that I may not pursue their Ignorance too unmercifully I will venture before I conclude to commend their skill For I cannot but acknowledge them guilty of one little piece of Art and Sophistry viz. That being Conscious to themselves that no tolerable exceptions can be raised against the Principles of True Goodness they affect to reproach it with forged and disingenuous Aspersions and wittingly disparage its native Beauty and Loveliness by representing it in false and uncouth Disguises For whereas there is nothing more noble and generous more cheerful and sprightly more courteous and affable more free and ingenuous more sober and rational than the Spirit and Genius of true Religion these witty Gentlemen are pleased to paint it out in sad and melancholy shapes with poor and wretched Features with soure and anxious Looks as an enemy to all Mirth and Cheerfulness and a thing that delights in nothing but Sighs and Groans and discoloured Faces They dress it up in all the Follies and Deformities of Superstition and then when they have made it ridiculous they make themselves sport with it And thus by representing it as a humour unworthy the entertainment of a generous mind that justifies their contempt of so weak a Passion and makes a sumptuous Apology for the gallantry of Atheism and Prophaneness And indeed if Religion were as mean and absurd as these men would make it and others have made it let it not only excuse but abet their practices let it be the mark of an high and gallant Spirit to be an Atheist let it be Gentility to despise and Wit to droll upon Religion let all Devotion be esteemed the Child of Folly and Weakness let it be an Argument of Wisdom to be prophane and vicious and let Vertue become a name of the greatest Reproach and Infamy But alas when 't is so demonstratively evident that true Piety though it were an Imposture is our greatest wisdom and perfection that it both adorns and advances Humane Nature that it is so highly advantageous to the peace and happiness of the World that it carries in it all that is amiable and lovely all that is cheerful and ingenuous all that is useful and profitable and that 't is whatever can advance either our Content or Interest or Reputation When all this is so amply evident What can be more unpardonably base and disingenuous than for these men in spight of all Remonstrances still to upbraid it with the Villanies of Hypocrisie and blast its Credit with the Absurdities of Superstition which is the greatest folly in the world for no other reason than because it debauches what is the greatest Wisdom And therefore they would do well to understand a little better what Religion means before they take upon them to disgrace and defame it and let
Common-wealths they could not want Prudence to Judge what Circumstances were conducive to Order and Decency in Publick Worship And if we take a Survey of all the Forms of Divine Service practised in the Christian Church there is not any of them can so much as pretend to be appointed in the Word of God but depend on the Authority of the Civil Power in the same manner as all Customs and Laws of Civil Government do And therefore to quarrel with those Forms of Publick Worship that are established by Authority only because they are Humane Institutions is at once notorious Schism and Rebellion For where a Religion is Establish'd by the Laws whoever openly refuses Obedience plainly rebels against the Government Rebellion being properly nothing else but an open denial of Obedience to the Civil Power Nor can Men of this Principle live Peaceably in any Church in Christendom in that there is not a Church in the World that has not peculiar Rites and Customs and Laws of Government and Discipline § 7. But of this I shall have occasion to account elsewhere and shall rather chuse to observe here from what I have discoursed of the Use and Nature of Outward Worship the Prodigious Impertinency of that clamour some men have for so many years kept up against the Institution of Significant Ceremonies when 't is the only Use of Ceremonies as well as all other outward Expressions of Religion to be significant In that all Worship is only an Outward Sign of Inward Honour and is indifferently perform'd either by Words or Actions for respect may as well be signified by Deeds and Postures and Visible Solemnities as by Solemn Expressions Thus to approach the Divine Majesty with such Gestures as are wont to betoken Reverence and Humility is as proper a Piece of Worship as to Celebrate his Greatness by Solemn Praises And to offer Sacrifices and Oblations was among the Ancients the same sort of Worship as to return Thanksgivings they being both equally outward Signs of Inward Love and Gratitude And therefore there can be no more Exception against the Signification of Ceremonies than of Words seeing this is the proper Office of both in the Worship of God And as all Forms and Ceremonies and Outward Actions of External Worship are in a manner equally Significant so are they equally Arbitrary only some happen to be more Universally Practised and others to be Confined to some particular Times and Places Kneeling lying Prostrate being Bare-headed Lifting up the Hands or Eyes are not more naturally Significant of Worship and Adoration than putting off the Shoes bowing the Head or bending the Body and if some are more generally used than others that proceeds not from their Natural Significancy but from Custom and Casual Prescriptions and to Bow the Body when we mention the Name of Iesus is as much a natural signification of Honour to his Person as Kneeling or being Bare-headed or lifting up the Hands or Eyes when we offer up our Prayers to him But if all Outward Actions become to betoken Honour by Institution then whatsoever Outward Signs are appointed by the Common-wealth unless they are Customary Marks of Contempt and so carry in them some Antecedent Vndecency are proper Signs of Worship for if Actions are made Significant by Agreement those are most so whose signification is ratified by Publick Consent § 8. So that all the Magistrates Power of instituting Significant Ceremonies amounts to no more than a Power of Determining what shall or shall not be Visible Signs of Honour and this certainly can be no more Usurpation upon the Consciences of men than if the Sovereign Authority should take upon it self as some Princes have done to define the Signification of Words For as Words do not naturally denote those things which they are used to represent but have their Import Stampt upon them by consent and Institution and and may if Men would agree to it among themselves be made Marks of Things quite contrary to what they now signifie So the same Gestures and Actions are indifferently capable of signifying either Honour or Contumely and therefore that they may have a certain and setled meaning 't is necessary their Signification should be Determined and unless this be done either by some Positive Command or Publick Consent or some other way there can be no such thing as Publick Worship in the World in that its proper End and Usefulness is to express Mens Agreement in giving Honour to the Divine Majesty and therefore unless the Signs by which this Honour is signified be Publick and Uniform 't is not Publick Worship because there is no Publick Signification of Honour So far is it from being unlawful for Governours to define Significant Ceremonies in Divine Worship that it is rather Necessary in that unless they were defined it would cease to be Publick Worship And when different men worship God by different Actions according to their different Fansies 't is not Publick but Private Worship in that they are not Publick but Private Signs of Honour So that Uniformity in the Outward Actions of Religious Worship is of the same Use as certainty in the Signification of Words because otherwise they were no Publick Expressions of Honour And therefore to sum up the whole Result of this Discourse If all Internal Actions of the Soul are beyond the Jurisdiction of Humane Power if by them the substance of Religious Worship be perform'd if all Outward Forms of Worship have no other Use than only to be Instruments to express Inward Religion and if the Signification of Actions be of the same Nature with that of Words then when the Civil Magistrate takes upon him to determine any particular Forms of Outward Worship 't is after all that hideous and ridiculous Noise that is raised against it of no worse Consequence than if he should go about to define the Signification of all Words used in the Worship of God CHAP. IV. Of the Nature of all Actions Intrinsecally Evil and their Exemption from the Authority of Humane Laws against Mr. Hobs with a full confutation of his whole Hypothesis of Government The Contents NO Magistrate can Command Actions Internally Evil. The Reason hereof is not because Men are in any thing free from the Supreme Authority in Earth but because they are subject to a Superiour in Heaven To take off all Obligations antecedent to Humane Laws is utterly to destroy all Government Mr. Hobs his Hypothesis concerning the Nature and Original of Government proposed It s Absurdity demonstrated from its Inconsistency with the Natural Constitution of Things The Principles of Government are to be Adapted not to an Imaginary but to the Real State of Nature This Hypothesis apparently denies either the Being of God or the Goodness and Wisdom of Providence It irrecoverably destroys the Safety of all Societies of Mankind in the World It leaves us in as miserable Condition under the State of Government as we were in his supposed Natural State of
to go about to confute the Phantastick Theory of things only by demonstrating the Groundlesness of the Conceit it being the fashion and humour of those men I have to do with to embrace any Hypothesis how precarious soever if it do but serve the purposes of Baseness and Irreligion and therefore I shall not content my self with barely proving the weakness of its Foundation but shall confute and shame it too by shewing it to be palpably false absurd and mischievous from these ensuing Considerations § 3. First then the Hypothesis which he lays as the Basis of all his Discourse is infinitely false and absurd For what can be more incongruous than to proceed upon the supposal of such a state of Nature as never was nor ever shall be and is so far from being sutable to the natural frame of things that 't is absolutely inconsistent with it And though Philosophers are so civil among themselves with how much reason I now determine not as to allow one another the Liberty when they frame Theories and Hypotheses of things to suppose some precarious Principles yet are they never so fond as to grant such Fundamental Suppositions as are apparently false and incongruous and repugnant to the Real State of things or if any will take upon them that unwarrantable liberty of Invention yet however it would be monstrously impertinent to lay down their own lamentable Fictions as the fundamental Reasons of the Truth and reality of things And yet with this gross and inexcusable absurdity is this Hypothesis most notoriously chargeable For when it has once supposed without ever attempting to prove it that the State of Nature is a State of War and that by Nature all men have a right to all things and come into the World without any Obligations to mutual Justice and Honesty it from thence concludes That in a bare State of Nature there can be no right and wrong That what mischiefs soever men may do to each other they can do no injuries That the first Reason and Foundation of all Natural Right is Self-preservation and that in pursuance of this Principle men enter into Societies bind themselves to an observance of the Laws of Justice and natural Equity by mutual Bonds and Covenants and think themselves engaged to observe them only in order to self-interest So that if we remove this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 this fundamental Falshood that the state of Nature is a state of War and Anarchy all the subsequent Propositions will immediately appear to be as Groundless as they are Unreasonable and there will not remain the least shadow of Reason to believe private Interest the only Reason of right and wrong or the first and fundamental Law of Nature and this Authors City will appear to stand upon no firmer Foundation than a Fable and a Falshood and his Hypothesis so grosly absurd and incongruous as would be highly blameable in the contrivance of a Dramatick Plot. But if instead of conforming the Principles of Justice and Government to this false and imaginary state of the World we take a serious view of the true and real posture of the Nature of things the dictates of Reason that must naturally result from thence will be as contrary to some of those this Author hath assign'd as the Natural State of things is to this imaginary one Namely that there was a first Cause of Humane Kind and that this First Cause is a Being endued with Goodness and Equity and therefore that when he made Mankind he design'd their Welfare and felicity and by consequence created them in such a condition in which they might acquire it All men therefore having by the Divine Appointment a common Right and Title to Happiness which cannot be obtain'd without Society nor Society subsist without mutual Aids of Love and Friendship because we are not self-sufficient but stand in need of mutual assistances from hence it follows That as every man is obliged to act for his own good so also to aim at the common good of Mankind because without this the natural Right that every individual man has to happiness cannot possibly be obtain'd so that there will plainly arise from the Constitution of Humane Nature an Essential Iustice that demands of every man Offices of love and kindness to others as well as to himself in that without this that Common welfare and happiness which Nature or rather that Divine Providence that made it design'd for all and every individual of Mankind must become utterly unattainable And hence the sole Fountain of all the Mischiefs and Miseries in the World is excess of unreasonable self-love and neglect of all other interests but our own and all such as separate their own Concerns from the Common Interest are the profess'd Enemies of Mankind and therefore 't is the only aim of all the just Laws and wise Philosophy in the world to assign reasonable allowances between Self-love and Society And if all men would be just and impartial between themselves and the Publick i. e. all others there would be no use of Laws nor Judges this being the only Office of Publick Justice to balance every mans private interest Well then because there is an absolute necessity that the Government of the World must be suited to and established upon the Natural Condition of Humane Nature hence it is that it is made as natural to the Being as 't is necessary to the preservation of Mankind and that as we cannot subsist so neither can we be born out of Society he that made us having made this our natural Condition that we could not possibly come into the World but under a state of Government all Children being actually as soon as born under the Power and Authority of their Parents and therefore as Mankind cannot continue without Propagation so neither can Propagation without Government and to be a Subject is as natural upon being born as to be a Man Now 't is certain that that only can be accounted the State of Nature that was made and design'd by the Author of Nature for if it be not suitable to that Order and Condition of things that he has establish'd 't is preternatural And therefore seeing he did not create Multitudes of men together out of each others Power and in a State of War and Hostility but begun the Race of Humane Kind in a Single Person by whom the Community of Men was to be Propagated that must be the State of Nature in which it was at first founded and by which it is still continued But if men will feign such an imaginary State of Nature as is utterly contradictory to the Real and then upon such an unnatural Frame of Affairs establish our natural Rights 't is no wonder if they prove contrary to our Common Interests seeing they are suited to a contrary State of things § 4. Secondly No man can seriously embrace this Hypothesis that does not firmly believe either 1. That there never was any Author
necessary that either the same or some other in their stead be establish'd that will be liable to the same inconvenience Besides 't is not unworthy Observation that it is not so properly the end of Government to punish Enormities as to prevent Disturbances and when they bring Malefactors to Justice as we term it they do not so much inflict a Punishment upon the Crime for that belongs peculiarly to the cognizance of another Tribunal as provide for the welfare of the Common-wealth by cutting off such Persons as are Pests and Enemies to it and by the example of their Punishment deter others from the like Practices And therefore there are some sins of which Governours take not so much notice that are more hainous in themselves and in the sight of God than others that they punish with Capital Inflictions because they are not in their own nature so destructive of the ends of Government and the good of Publick Societies So that actions being punishable by Humane Laws not according to the nature of the Crime but of their ill consequence to the Publick when any thing that is otherwise even innocent is in this regard injurious it as much concerns Authority to give it check by severity of Laws and Punishments as any the foulest Immoralities Temporal Punishments then are inflicted upon such persons that are turbulent against prescribed Rules of Publick Worship upon the same account as they are against those that offend against all other Publick Edicts of Government they are both equally intended to secure the Publick Peace and Interest of the Society and when either of them are violated they equally tend to its disturbance and therefore as mens actings against the Civil Laws of a Common-wealth are obnoxious to the Judgment of its Governours for the same reason are all their Offences against its Ecclesiastical Laws liable to the censure of the same Authority So that the matter debated in its last result is not so much a question of Religion as of Policy not so much of what is necessary to faith as to the quiet and preservation of a Common-wealth and 't is possible a man may be a good Christian and yet his Opinion be intolerable upon the score of its being inconsistent with the Preservation of the Publick Peace and the necessary ends of Government For 't is easily imaginable how an honest and well-meaning man may through meer ignorance fall into such Errours which though God will pardon yet Governours must punish His integrity may expiate the Crime but cannot prevent the Mischief of his Errour Nay so easie is it for men to deserve to be punished for their Consciences that there is no Nation in the world in which were Government rightly understood and duly managed mistakes and abuses of Religion would not supply the Gallies with vastly greater numbers than Villany CHAP. VII Of the Nature and Obligations of Scandal and of the Absurdity of Pretending it against the Commands of Lawful Authority The Contents THE Leaders of the Separation being asham'd of the silliness of the Principle with which they abuse the People think to shelter themselves by flying to the pretence of Scandal Scandal is any thing that occasions the sin of another and is not in it self determinately Good or Evil. All Scandal is equally taken but not equally Criminal Men are to govern themselves in this Affair by their own prudence and discretion Of St. Paul's contrary behaviour towards the Iews and Gentiles to avoid their contrary Scandal The reason of the seeming Contradiction in this point between his Epistles to the Romans and Galatians The proper obligations of Scandal are extended only to indifferent things The Cases in which it is concern'd are not capable of being determined by setled Laws and Constitutions How scandalously these men prevaricate with the World in their pretence of Scandal that may excuse their refusal of Conformity but gives no account of their Separation Of their scrupling to renounce the Covenant this is no reason to drive them from Divine Service into Conventicles How shamefully these men juggle with the World and impose upon their Followers If they would but perswade their Proselytes to be of their own minds it would end all our differences They first lead the people into the Scandal and then make this the formal reason why they must follow them If the peoples scruples are groundless then to comply with them is to keep them in a sinful disobedience A further account of their shameful prevarication The ridiculousness of the peoples pretending it concerning themselves that they are scandalized By their avoiding private Offences they run into publick Scandals They scandalize their own weak Brethren most of all by complying with them Old and inveterate Scandals are not to be complyed with but opposed and such are those of the Non-Conformists The Commands of Authority and the Obligations of Obedience infinitely outweigh and utterly evacuate all the pretences of Scandal Sect. 1. THough the former Principle viz. that no man may with a safe conscience do any thing in the Worship of God that is not warranted by some Precept or Precedent in the Word of God be riveted into the peoples minds as the first and fundamental Principle of the Puritan Separation yet their Leaders seem to be ashamed of their own folly and being driven from this and all their other little holds and shelters they have at length thought it the safest and the wisest course to flie to the pretence of Scandal This is their Fort Royal in which they have at last secured and entrench'd themselves As for their own parts they tell us they are not so fond as to believe That the Ceremonies of the Church of England are so superstitious and Antichristian and that themselves might lawfully use them were it not that there are great numbers of sincere but weak Christians that apprehend them to be sinful and for this reason they dare not conform to our Ceremonial Constitutions for fear of ensnaring and scandalizing weak Consciences which is in the Apostles account of it no less than spiritual murther And whatever is due to Authority the Souls of men are too high a Tribute None can be more ready than themselves to submit to all lawful Commands but here they desire to be excused when they cannot obey but at the price of Souls 'T is a dreadful Doom that our Saviour has denounced against those who offend any of his little ones i. e. Babes and Weaklings in Christianity And therefore though they would not stick to hazard their own lives in obedience to Authority yet nothing can oblige them to be so cruel and so uncharitable as to destroy any for whom Christ died which is certainly done by casting snares and scandals before their weak Brethren This is the last refuge of the Leaders of the Separation and therefore I cannot but think my self obliged to examine its strength and reasonableness and I doubt not but to make it appear as
his Governours with nice and curious disputes the Authority of the Law stifles all scruples and trifling objections And thus where there was no apparent repugnancy to the Law of God we find none more compliant and conformable in all other things than the Apostles freely using any Customs of the Synagogue or Iewish Church that were not expresly cancelled by some Divine Prohibition But further this their Apology is as forcible a Plea in concerns of Civil Justice and common honesty as in Matters of Religion it holds equally in both in cases of a certain and essential injustice and fails equally in both in doubtful and less material cases and was as fairly urged by that famous Lawyer Papinian who upon this account when the Emperor commanded him to defend and justifie the lawfulness of Parricide chose rather to die than to Patronize so monstrous a villany Here the wickedness was great and palpable But in matters more doubtful and less material where the case is nice and curious and not capable of any great Interest or great reason there Obedience out-weighs and evacuates all Doubts Jealousies and suspicions And what wise or honest man will offend or provoke his Superiours upon thin pretences and for little regards And if every man that can raise doubts and scruples and nice Exceptions against a Law shall therefore set himself free from its obligation then farewel all Peace and all Government For what more easie to any man that understands the Fundamental Grounds and Reasons of Moral Equity than to pick more material quarrels against the Civil Laws of any Common-wealth than our Adversaries can pretend to against our Ecclesiastical Constitutions And now shall a Philosopher be excused from obedience to the Laws of his Country because he thinks himself able to make exceptions to their Prudence and Convenience and to prove them not so useful to the Publick nor so agreeable to the Fundamental Rules of natural Justice and Equity as himself could have contrived What if I am really perswaded that I can raise much more considerable objections against Littletons Tenures than ever these men have or shall be able to produce against our Ceremonial Constitutions Though it be easie to be mistaken in my conceit yet whether I am or am not it is all one if I am confident And now it would be mightily conducive to the interests of Justice and Publick Peace for me and all others of my Fond Perswasion in this particular to make Remonstrances to the Laws of the Land to Petition the King and Parliament to leave us at the liberty of our own Conscience and Discretion to follow the best Light God has given us for the setlement of our own estates because we think we can do it more exactly according to the Laws of Natural Iustice than if we are tied up to the positive Laws of the Land Thus that groundless and arbitrary maxim of the Law That inheritances may lineally descend but not lineally ascend whereby the Father is made uncapable of being immediate Heir to the Son would be thought by a Philosopher prejudicial to one of the most equal and most ingenuous Laws of Nature viz. The gratitude of Children to Parents which this Law seems in a great measure to hinder by alienating those things from them whereby we are best able to express it What if I have been happy in a loving and tender Father that has been strangely solicitous to leave me furnished with all the comforts and conveniences of life that declined not to forego any share of his own ease and happiness to procure mine that has spent the greatest part of his care and industry to bless me according to the proportion of his abilities with a good fortune and a good education and has perhaps out of an over-tender solicitude for my welfare reduc'd himself to great streights and exigences How monstrous unnatural must the contrivance of this Law appear to me that when the bounty of Providence has blest me with a fortune answerable to the good old Mans desires and endeavours if I should happen to be cut off before him by an untimely death all that whereby I am able to recompence his Fatherly tenderness should in the common and ordinary course of Law be conveyed from him to another person the stream of whose affections was confined to another Channel and who being much concerned for his own Family could in all probability be but little concerned for me What an unnatural and unjust Law is this that designs as far as it can to cut off the streams of our natural Affections and disposes of our possessions contrary to the very first tendencies and obligations of Nature So easie a thing is it to talk little Plausibilities against any Laws whose obligation is positive and not of a prime and absolute necessity And yet down-right Rebellion it would be if I or any man else should refuse subjection to these and the like Laws upon these the like pretences And thus we see is the case all the way equal between Laws Civil and Laws Ecclesiastical In all matters greatly and notoriously wicked the nature of the action out-weighs the duty of Obedience but in all cases less certain and less material the duty of Obedience out-weighs the nature of the action And this may suffice to shew from the Subject Matters of all doubts and scruples That they are not of consideration great enough to be opposed to the commands of Authority And this leads me from the matter of a scrupulous Conscience to consider its Authority And therefore Sect. 5. As the objects of a scrupulous Conscience are of too mean importance to weigh against the mischiefs of Disobedience so are its obligations too weak to prevail against the commands of Publick Authority For when two contradictory obligations happen to encounter the greater ever cancels the less because if all good be eligible then so are all the degrees of goodness too And therefore to that side on which the greater good stands our duty must ever incline otherwise we despise all those degrees of goodness it contains in it above the other For in all the Rules of Goodness there is great inequality and variety of degrees some are prescribed for their own native excellency usefulness and others purely for their subserviency to these Now when a greater a lesser virtue happen to clash as it frequently falls out in the transaction of Humane Affairs there the less always gives place to the greater because it is good only in order to it and therefore where its subordination ceases there its goodness ceases and by consequence its obligation For no subordinate or instrumental dutys are absolutly commanded or commended but become good or evil by their Accidental Relations their goodness is not intrinsick but depends upon the goodness of their end and their being directed to a good end if they are not intrinsically evil makes them virtuous because their Morality is entirely relative and
affected and new-fangled singularity And from hence it is that it is so absolutely necessary that Governors injoin matters of no great moment and consequence in themselves thereby to avoid the evils that would naturally attend upon their being not injoined so that when they are determined though perhaps they are not of any great use to the Commonwealth in themselves yet they have at least this considerable usefulness as to prevent many great mischiefs that would probably follow from their being not determined And therefore the goodness of all such Laws is to be valued not so much by the nature of the things that the Law commands as by the mischiefs and evil effects that it prevents or redresses And thus the main decency of Order and Uniformity in Divine Worship lies not so properly in the positive use of the Rites themselves as in the prevention of all the indecencies of Confusion which could never be avoided if there were not some peculiar Rites positively determined So that the Law we see may be absolutely necessary when the thing it commands is but meerly indifferent because some things necessary cannot be obtained but by some things indifferent As in our present case there is an absolute necessity there should be Order and Decency in Publick Worship but Order and Decency there cannot be without the determination of some indifferent particular Circumstances because if every man were left to his own fancy and humor there could be no remedy against eternal Follies and Confusions So that it is in general necessary that some circumstances be determined though perhaps no one particular circumstance can be necessary yet when any one is singled out by Authority it gains as absolute a necessity as if it were so antecedently because though the thing it self be indifferent yet the Order and Decency of Publick Worship is not Which yet can never be provided for but by determining either this or some other Ceremony as perfectly indifferent and arbitrary And now upon the result of these particulars I leave it first to Publick Authority to consider whether it be not a wonderfully wise piece of good nature to be tender indulgent to these poor tender Consciences And then I leave it to all the World to judge Whether ever any Church or Nation in the World has been so wofully disturbed upon such slender and frivolous pretences as ours And thus have I at length finished what I designed and undertook i. e. I have proved the absolute necessity of governing mens Consciences and Perswasions in Matters of Religion the unavoidable dangers of tolerating or keeping up Religious Differences have shewn that there is not the least possibility of setling a Nation but by Uniformity in Religious Worship that Religion may and must be governed by the same Rules as all other Affairs Transactions of Humane life and that nothing can do it but severe Laws nor they neither unless severely executed And so I submit it to the consideration of Publick Authority and am but little doubtful of the Approbation of all that are friends to Peace and Government But whatever the event may prove to others it is not a little satisfaction that I reap to my self in reflecting upon that Candor and Integrity I have used through the whole Discourse In that as I have freely and impartially represented the most serious result of mine own thoughts so withal have I been not a little solicitous not to baulk any thing material in the Controversie have encountred all their most weighty and considerable Objections have prevented all manner of escapes and subterfuges and have not waved any thing because it was too hard to be answered though some things I have because too easie And upon review of the whole I have confidence perhaps it may be boldness enough to challenge the Reader if he will but be as ingenuous as he ought to be as severe as he will and in defiance to all Enemies of Peace and Government of what Name or Sect soever to conclude all in the words of Pilate to the turbulent Iews What I have written I have written FINIS * Vide Continuation of the Friendly Debate pag. 120 c. Socr. l. 5. Praes Lib. 3.
A DISCOURSE OF Ecclesiastical Politie WHEREIN The Authority of the Civil Magistrate over the Consciences of Subjects in Matters of External Religion is Asserted The Mischiefs and Inconveniences OF Toleration are Represented And all Pretenses Pleaded in Behalf of Liberty of Conscience are fully Answered The Third Edition LONDON Printed for Iohn Martyn at the Bell in S t Paul's Church-yard 1671. The PREFACE TO THE READER Reader I Cannot Imagine any thing that our Dissenting Zealots will be able to object against this Ensuing Treatise unless perhaps in some Places the Vehemence and Severity of its Style for cavil I know they must and if they can raise no Tolerable Exceptions against the Reasonableness of the Discourse it self it shall suffice to pick quarrels with Words and Phrases But I will assure thee the Author is a Person of such a tame and softly humour and so cold a Complexion that he thinks himself scarce capable of hot and passionate Impressions and therefore if he has sometimes twisted Invectives with his Arguments it proceeded not from Temper but from Choice and if there be any Tart and Vpbraiding Expressions they were not the Dictates of Anger or Passion but of the Iust and Pious Resentments of his Mind And I appeal to any Man who knows upon what sober Grounds and Principles the Reformation of the Church of England stands and how that its Forms and Institutions are not only countenanced by the best and purest times of Christianity but establisht by the Fundamental Laws of the Land whether he can so perfectly Charm and Stupifie his Passions as not to be chafed into some heat briskness when he seriously considers that this Church so rightly constituted and so duely authorised should be so savagely worried by a Wild and Fanatique Rabble that this Church so soberly modelled so warrantably reformed and so handsomly settled should have been so perpetually beleaguered and be yet not out of all danger of being rifled if not utterly demolisht by Folly and Ignorance that the publick Peace and Settlement of a Nation should be so wofully discomposed upon such slender and frivolous Pretenses and that after they have been so often and so shamefully baffled that both Church and State should be so lamentably embroyl'd by the Pride and Insolence of a few peevish ignorant and malepert Preachers And lastly that these Brain-sick People if not prevented by some speedy and effectual Remedy may in a little time grow to that Power and Confidence as to be able to use their own Language to shut the Heavens that they shall not rain i. e. to restrain the Highest Powers of Church and State from their wonted Influence and to have Power over the Waters to turn them into Blood i. e. to turn the still People of a State or Nation into War and Blood or to speak in our own plain English to tye the Hands of Authority to instigate the people of God to Rebellion and once more involve the Kingdom in Blood and Confusion Let the Reader consider all this as throughly and seriously as I have done and then be a Stoick if he can But besides this let any man that is acquainted with the Wisdom and Sobriety of True Religion tell me how 't is possible not to be provoked to scorn and indignation against such proud ignorant and supercilious Hypocrites who though they utterly defeat all the main Designs of Religion yet boast themselves its only Friends and Patrons signalize their Party by distinctive Titles and Characters of Godliness and brand all others howsoever Pious and Peaceable with bad Names and worse Suspicions who I say that loves and adores the Spirit of true Religion can forbear to be sharp and severe to such thick and fulsom abuses In that there is not any thing can so much expose or traduce true Piety as this sort of Hypocrisie because whilst Folly and Phantastry appears in the Vizour of Holiness it makes that seem as ridiculous as it self And hence the greatest Friends of true Goodness have always been the severest Satyrists upon False Godliness and our Blessed Saviour scarce seemed more concern'd to plant and propagate Christianity than to explode the Pharisaick Hypocrisie i. e. Religious Pride and Insolence I know but one single Instance in which Zeal or a high Indignation is just and warrantable and that is when it vents it self against the Arrogance of haughty peevish and sullen Religionists that under higher pretences to Godliness supplant all Principles of Civility and good Nature that strip Religion of its outside to make it a covering for Spight and Malice that adorn their peevishness with the Mask of Piety and shroud their Ill Nature under the demure pretences of Godly Zeal And stroak and applaud themselves as the only Darlings and Favourites of Heaven and with a scornful pride disdain all the Residue of Mankind as a Rout of worthless and unregenerate Reprobates Thus the only hot fit of Zeal we find our Saviour in was kindled by an Indignation against the Pride and Insolence of the Iews when he whipt the Buyers and Sellers out of the outward Court of the Temple For though they bore a blind and superstitious Reverence towards that part of it that was peculiar to their own Worship yet as for the outward Court the place where the Gentiles and Proselytes worship't that was so unclean unhallowed that they thought it could not be prophaned by being turn'd into an Exchange of Vsury Now this Insolent Contempt of the Gentiles and impudent conceit of their own holiness provoked the mild Spirit of our Blessed Saviour to such an height of Impatience and Indignation as made him with a seeming fury and transport of passion whip the Tradesmen thence and overthrow the Tables So hateful is all proud testy and factious Zeal to a loving and Divine Temper of mind And indeed what can we imagine more odious or mischievous than a spirit of Pride Peevishness and Animosity adopted into the Service of God This divides Religion into Factions and Parties engenders a sullen and unsociable Niceness towards all that herd not with themselves breeds nothing but rancour malice and envy and every thing that is destructive of the Common Peace and Amity of Mankind And when People Separate and Rendevouz themselves into distinct Sects and Parties they always confine all their kind Influences to their own Faction and look with a scornful and malignant Aspect upon all the rest of Mankind become Enemies and Outlaws to Humane Society and shatter in pieces that natural Peace and common Love that preserves the Welfare and Tranquillity of Humane Nature Their minds like the savage Americans are as contracted as their Herds and all that are not within the Fold of their Church are without the Sphere of their Charity this is entirely swallowed up within their own combination and 't is no part of their duty to commiserate or supply the Wants of the Vnregenerate As the Poet describes the Jewish Bigots Non
easily may they fire these heady people into tumults and outrages How eagerly will they flow into their Party in spight of all the Power and Opposition of their Governours And how prodigally will they empty their Bags and bring in even their Bodkins and Thimbles and Spoons to carry on the Cause He is a very silly man and understands nothing of the Follies Passions and Inclinations of Humane Nature who fees not that there is no Creature so ungovernable as a Wealthy Fanatick And therefore let not men flatter themselves with idle hopes of Settlement any other way than by suppressing all these dissentions and reducing the minds of men to an Agreement and Vnity in Religious Worship For it is just as impossible to keep different Factions of Religion quiet and peaceable as it is to make the common people wise men and Philosophers If indeed we could suppose them sober and discreet it were then no great danger to leave them to their Liberty but upon the same supposition we may as well let them loose from all the Laws of Government and Policy because if every private man had wit honesty enough to govern himself and his own Actions there would be no need of Publick Laws and Governours And yet upon this impossible Presumption stand all the Pretenses for Liberty of Conscience That if men were permitted it they would use it wisely and peaceably than which 't is hard to suppose a greater Impossibility For the Conscience of the multitude is the same thing with their Wisdom and Discretion and therefore 't is as natural for them to fall into the snare of an abused and vicious Conscience as 't is to be rash foolish For an erroneous Conscience is but one sort of Folly that relates to the Iudgment of their moral Actions in which they are as ignorant and as likely to mistake as in any other Affairs of Humane Life There is no Observation in the world establish'd upon a more certain and universal Experience than that the generality of mankind are not so obnoxious to any sort of Follies and Vices as to wild and unreasonable conceits of Religion and that when their heads are possess'd with them there are no principles so pregnant with mischief and disturbance as they And if Princes would but consider how liable mankind are to abuse themselves with serious and conscientious Villanies they would quickly see it to be absolutely necessary to the Peace and Happiness of their Kingdoms that there be set up a more severe Government over mens Consciences and Religious perswasions than over their Vices and Immoralities For of all Villains the well-meaning Zealot is the most dangerous Such men have no checks of Conscience nor fears of miscarriage to damp their Industry but their Godliness makes them bold and furious and however their Attempts succeed they are sure of the Rewards of Saints and Martyrs And what so glorious as to lose their lives in the Cause of God These men are ever prepared for any mischief if they have but a few active and crafty Knaves to manage and set them on and there is never want of such in any Common-wealth And there needs no other motive to engage their Zeal in any Seditious Attempt than to instil into their minds the Necessity of a thorow Reformation and then you may carry them wheresoever you please and they will never boggle at any Mischief Out-rage or Rebellion to advance the Cause And therefore it concerns the Civil Magistrate to beware of this sort of People above all others as a party that is always ready formed for any Publick Disturbance One would think the world were not now to be taught that there is nothing so difficult to be managed as Godly Zeal or to be appeased as Religious Dissentions People ever did and ever will pursue such Quarrels with their utmost rage and fury and therefore let us be content to govern the world as it ever has been and ever must be govern'd and not be so fond as to trouble our heads with contriving ways of Settling a Nation whilst 't is unsettled by Religion Agreement in this is the first if not the only foundation of Peace and therefore let that be first established upon firm and lasting Principles which it easily may by severe Laws faithfully executed but otherwise never can But till it is done 't is just as wise and safe for a Prince to enrich his Subjects with Trade and Commerce as 't is to load weak and unfinished Foundations with great and weighty Superstructures to conclude all Arguments are to be considered in their proper place and order and 't is but an unskilful and inartificial way of discoursing to argue from less weighty and considerable matters against the first and Fundamental reasons of things and yet of this preposterous Method are those men guilty who talk of the Interests of Trade in opposition to the Interests of Government And therefore for a fuller Answer to this and all other the like pretenses I shall now refer the Reader to my Book where I think I have proved enough to satisfie any man of an ordinary understanding That Indulgence and Toleration is the most absolute sort of Anarchy and that Princes may with less hazard give Liberty to mens Vices and Debaucheries than to their Consciences As for my Method 't is plain and familiar and suited to every man's Capacity I have reduced the state of the Controversie to a few easie and obvious Propositions under these I have couch'd all the particular matters concern'd in our present Debates and by Analogy to their Reasonableness have cleared off all Difficulties and Objections and have been careful all along to prove the absolute Necessity of what I assert from the most important ends and designs of Government compared with the Natural Passions and Inclinations of Mankind And whoever offers to talk of these Affairs without special regard both to the Nature of Government and to the Nature of Man may amuse himself with the fine Dreams and Hypotheses of a warm brain but shall be certain to miss the necessary Rules of Life and the most useful measures of practicable Policy that are suited only to the Humours and Passions of men and designed only to prevent their Follies and bridle their Enormities And therefore the main Notion I have pursued has been to make out how dangerous a thing Liberty of Conscience is considering the Tempers and Tendencies of Humane Nature to the most necessary ends and designs of Government A vein of which Reasoning I have been careful to run through all parts and Branches of my Discourse it being vastly the most considerable if not the only thing to be attended to in this Enquiry And as I have kept close to my main Question so have I cautiously avoided all other collateral and unnecessary Disputes and have not confined my self to any Hypothesis nor determined any Controversie in which it was not immediately concern'd but have expressed my
If the latter then the former Argument returns and as to one half of the concerns of the Common-wealth there must be a perfect Anarchy and no Government at all And there is no Provision to be made against all those publick mischiefs and disturbances that may arise from Errors and Enormities in Religion the Common-wealth must for ever be exposed to the follies of Enthusiasts and villanies of Impostors and any man that can but pretend Conscience may whenever he pleases endeavour its Ruine So that if Princes should forego their sovereignty over mens Consciences in matters of Religion they leave themselves less Power than is absolutely necessary to the Peace Defence of the Common-wealths they govern In brief the Supreme Government of every Common-wealth wherever it is lodged must of necessity be universal absolute and uncontroulable in all Afairs whatsoever that concern the Interests of mankind and the ends of Government For if it be limited it may be controul'd but 't is a thick and palpable Contradiction to call such a Power Supreme in that whatever controuls it must as to that case be its Superiour And therefore Affairs of Religion being so strongly influential upon Affairs of State and having so great a power either to advance or hinder the publick felicity of the Common-wealth they must be as uncontroulably subject to the Supreme Power as all other Civil Concerns because otherwise it will not have Authority enough to secure the Publick Interest of the Society to attain the necessary and most important ends of its Institution § 11. Now from these Premisses we may observe That all Supreme Power both in Civil and Ecclesiastical Affairs issues from the same Original and is founded upon the same Reason of things namely the indispensable necessity of Society to the preservation of Humane Nature and of Government to the preservation of Humane Society a Supreme Power being absolutely necessary to the decision of all those Quarrels and Controversies that are naturally consequent upon the Passions Appetites and Follies of men there being no other way of ending their Differences but by the Decrees of a final unappealable Judicature For if every man were to be his own Judge mens Determinations would be as contradictory as their Judgments their Judgments as their Humours or Interests and so must their Dissentions of necessity be endless And therefore to avoid these and all other Inconveniences that would naturally follow upon a state of War it was necessary there should be one Supreme and Publick Judgment to whose Determinations the private Judgment of every single person should be obliged to submit it self And hence the Wisdom of Providence knowing to what passions and irregularities mankind is obnoxious never suffered them to live without the restraints of Government but in the beginning of things so ordered affairs that no man could be born into the world without being subject to some Superior every father being by nature vested with a right to govern his children And the first governments in the world were established purely upon the natural Rights of paternal Authority which afterward grew up to a Kingly Power by the increase of posterity and he that was at first but Father of a Family in process of time as that multiplied became Father of a City or Province and hence it came to pass that in the first Ages of the World Monarchy was its only Government necessarily arising out of the Constitution of humane Nature it being so natural for Families to enlarge themselves into Cities by uniting into a body according to their several Kindreds whence by consequence the Supreme Head of those Families must become Prince and Governour of a larger more diffused Society And therefore Cedrenus makes Adam the first Monarch in the World 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And thus afterwards in the division of the Earth among the Posterity of Noah the heads of Families became Kings and Monarchs of the Nations of which they were Founders from whence were propagated the several Kingdoms of the first and elder times as appears not only from the Mosaick History but also from all other the best and most ancient Records of the first Ages of the World But as for Common-wealths they are comparatively of a very late discovery being first contriv'd among the Grecians whose Democracies and Optimacies were made out of the Ruines of Monarchick Government which was but sutable to the proud factious and capricious humour of that Nation where scarce any one could pretend to a little skill in Poetry or Wrestling their two greatest accomplishments but he must immediately be an Vndertaker for new modelling the Common-wealth which doubtless was one of the main causes of their perpetual Confusions and frequent Charges in Government § 12. Having thus firmly founded all Civil Government upon Paternal Authority I may now proceed to shew That all Ecclesiastical Power bottoms upon the same Foundation For as in the first Ages of the world the Fathers of Families were vested with a Kingly Power over their own Posterity so also were they with the Priestly Office executing all the Holy Functions of Priesthood in their own Persons as appears from the unanimous testimony of Histories both Sacred and Prophane Thus we find all the Ancient Patriarchs Priests to their own Families which Office descended together with the Royal Dignity to the first-born of each Family And this custom of investing the Sovereign Power with the Supreme Priesthood was as divers Authors both Ancient and Modern observe universally practis'd over all Kingdoms of the world for well nigh 2500 years without any one president to the contrary In that among all Societies of men there is as great a necessity of publick Worship as of publick Justice the power whereof because it must be seated somewhere can properly belong to him alone in whom the Supreme Power resides in that he alone having authority to assign to every subject his proper function and among others this of the Priesthood the exercise whereof as he has power to transfer to another so may he if he please reserve it to himself And therefore this the wisdom of the elder Ages always practised in order to the better security of their Government as well knowing the tendency of Superstition and false notions of the divine worship to Tumults and Seditions and therfore to prevent the disturbances that might spring from Factions in Religion they were sollicitous to keep its management in their own immediate disposal And though in the Jewish Common-wealth the Priestly Office was upon reasons peculiar to that State separated by a divine positive command from the Kingly Power yet the Power and Jurisdiction of the Priest remained still subject to the Sovereign Prince their King always exercising a Supremacy over all persons and in all Causes Ecclesiastical Nothing can be more unquestionable than the precedents of David Solomon Hezekiah Iehu Iehosaphat Iosiah c. who exercised as full a Legislative Power in Affairs of
and such other Irreligious Debaucheries If he may why then they are matters that as directly and immediately relate to Religion as any Rites and Ceremonies of Worship whatsoever and for the Government of which they are as utterly to seek for any Precedent of our Saviour and his Apostles Nay more if this Argument were of any force it would equally deprive the Magistrate of any Power to compel his Subjects to obedience to any of the moral Precepts of the Gospel by secular Laws and Punishments because our Saviour and his Apostles never did it especially when all matters of Morality do as really belong to our spiritual concerns as any thing that relates immediately to Divine Worship and Affairs of meer Religion and therefore if the Civil Magistrate may not compel his Subjects to a right way of Worship with the Civil Sword because this is of a spiritual concernment as is pretended upon the same ground neither may he make use of the same force to compel men to Duties of Morality because they also equally relate to their spiritual Interests Besides the Magistrates Authority in both is founded upon the same Principle viz. The absolute necessity of their due Management in order to the Peace and Preservation of the Common-wealth We derive not therefore his Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction from any grant of our Saviours but from an antecedent right wherewith all Sovereign Power was indued before ever he was born into the world forasmuch as the same Providence that intrusted Princes with the Government of Humane Affairs must of necessity have vested them in at least as much Power as was absolutely necessary to the nature and ends of Government § 15. But further yet all the ways our Saviour has appointed in the Gospel for the advancement and propagation of Religion were prescribed to Subjects not to Governours and this indeed is certain that no private person can have any power to compel men to any part of the Doctrine Worship or Discipline of the Gospel for if he had he would upon that very account cease to be a Private person and be vested with a Civil Power But that no Magistrate may do this will remain to be proved till they can produce some express prohibition of our Saviour to restrain him and till that be done 't is but a strange rate of arguing when they would prove that Magistrates may not use any coercive Power to promote the Interests of Religion because this is forbidden to their Subjects especially when 't is to be considered that Christ and his Apostles acted themselves in the capacity of Subjects to the Common-wealth they lived in and so could neither use themselves nor impart to others any coercive Power for the advancement and propagation of their Doctrine but were confined to such prudent and peaceable Methods as were lawful for persons in their condition to make use of i. e. humble Intreaties and Perswasions Our Saviour never took any part of the Civil Power upon himself and upon that score could not make penal and coercive Laws the power of Coertion being so certainly inseparable from the Supreme Civil Power But though he back'd not his Commandments with temporal punishments because his Kingdom was not of this world yet he enforced them with the threatnings of Eternity which carry with them more compulsion upon mens Consciences than any Civil Sanctions can For the only reason why Punishments are annex'd to Laws is because they are strong Motives to Obedience and therefore when our Savour tied his Laws upon mankind under Eternal Penalties he used as much force to drive us to obedience as if he had abetted them with temporal Inflictions So that the only reason why he bound not the Precepts of the Gospel upon our Consciences by any secular Compulsories was not because Compulsion was an improper way to put his Laws in execution for then he had never established them with more enforcing sanctions but only because himself was not invested with any secular Power and so could not use those methods of Government that are proper to its Jurisdiction § 16. And therefore the Power wherewith Christ intrusted the Governours of his Church in the Apostolical Age was purely spiritual they had no Authority to inflict temporal Punishments or to force men to submit to their Canons Laws and Penalties they only declared the Laws of God and denounced the threatnings annexed to them having no Coercive Power to inflict the Judgments they declared and leaving the event of their Censures to the Divine Jurisdiction Though alas all this was too weak to attain the ends of Discipline viz. to reclaim the offending Person and by example of his Censure to awe others into Obedience and could have but little influence upon the most stubborn and notorious Offenders For to what purpose should they drive one from the Communion of the Church that has already renounced it To what purpose should they deny him the Instruments and Ministries of Religion that cares not for them To what purpose should they turn him out of their Society that has already prevented them by forsaking it How should offenders be reclaim'd by being condemn'd to what they chuse How should they be scared by threatnings that they neither fear nor believe And if they will turn Apostates how can they be awed back into their Faith by being told they are so And therefore because of the weakness of this spiritual Government to attain the ends of Discipline and because that the Governours of the Church being subject to those of the Common-wealth they were not capable of any coercive Power 't is wonderfully remarkable how God himself was pleased to supply their want of Civil Jurisdiction by his own immediate Providence and in a miraculous manner to inflict the Judgments they denounced that if their Censures could not affright refractory Offenders into Obedience his Dreadful execution of them might For 't is notoriously evident from the best Records of the Primitive and Apostolical Ages that the Divine Providence was pleased to abet the Censures of the Church by immediate and Miraculous inflictions from Heaven In those times torments and diseases of the Body were the usual consequents of Excommunication and this was as effectual to awe men into subjection to the Ecclesiastical Government as if it had been endued with coercive Iurisdiction For this consists only in a power of inflicting temporal punishments and therefore when the Anathema's of the Church were attended with such Inflictions Criminals must have as much reason to dread the Rod of the Apostles as the Sword of the Civil Magistrate in that it carried with it a power of inflicting temporal Penalties either of Death as on Ananias and Sapphira or of Diseases as on Elymas the Sorcerer And this is that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 wherewith St. Paul so often threatens to lash the factious Corinthians into a more quiet and peaceable temper Thus 1 Cor. 4. 21. What will ye shall I come unto you with a
Instruments of Morality Of the Villany of those mens Religion that are wont to distinguish between Grace and Virtue They exchange the substance of true Goodness for meer Metaphors and Allegories Metaphors the only cause of our present Schism and the only ground of the different Subdivisions among the Schismaticks themselves The Vnaccountableness of Mens Conceits That when the main Ends and Designs of Religion are undoubtedly subject to the Supreme Power they should be so eager to exempt its Means and Circumstances from the same Authority The Civil Magistrate may determine new Instances of Virtue how much more new Circumstances of Worship As he may enjoyn any thing in Morality that contradicts not the ends of Morality so may be in Religious Worship if he oppose not its design He may command any thing in the Worship of God that does not tend to debauch Mens practices or their conceptions of the Deity All the subordinate Duties both of Morality and Religious Worship are equally subject to the Determinations of Humane Authority § 1. HAving in the former Chapter sufficiently made out my first Proposition viz. That 't is absolutely necessary to the Peace and Government of the World that the Supreme Magistrate of every Common-wealth should be vested with a Power to govern the Consciences of Subjects in Affairs of Religion I now proceed to the proof of the second thing proposed viz. That those who would deprive the Supreme Civil Power of its Authority in reference to the Conduct of the Worship of God are forced to allow it in other more material parts of Religion though they are both liable to the same Inconveniences and Objections Where I shall have a fair opportunity to state the true extent of the Magistrates Power over Conscience in reference to Divine Worship by shewing it to be the same with his Power over Conscience in matters of Morality and all other Affairs of Religion And here it strikes me with wonder and amazement to consider That men should be so shy of granting the Supreme Magistrate a Power over their Consciences in the Rituals and External Circumstances of Religious Worship and yet be so free of forcing it upon him in the Essential Duties of Morality which are at least as great and material Parts of Religion as pleasing to God and as indispensably necessary to Salvation as any way of Worship in the World The Precepts of the Moral Law are both perfective of our own Natures and conducive to the Happiness of others and the Practice of Vertue consists in living suitably to the Dictates of Reason Nature And this is the substance and main Design of all the Laws of Religion to oblige Mankind to behave themselvs in all their actions as becomes Creatures endued with Reason and Understanding and in ways suitable to Rational Beings to prepare and qualifie themselves for the state of Glory and Immortality And as this is the proper End of all Religion That Mankind might live happily here and happily hereafter so to this end nothing contributes more than the practice of all Moral Vertues which will effectually preserve the Peace and Happiness of Humane Societies and advance the Mind of Man to a nearer approach to the Perfection of the Divine Nature every particular Vertue being therefore such because 't is a Resemblance and Imitation of some of the Divine Attributes So that Moral Vertue having the strongest and most necessary influence upon the End of all Religion viz. Mans Happiness 't is not only its most material and useful Part but the ultimate End of all its other Duties And all true Religion can consist in nothing else but either the Practice of Vertue it self or the use of those Means and Instruments that contribute to it § 2. And this beside the Rational Account of the thing it self appears with an undeniable evidence from the best of Demonstrations i. e. an Induction of all Particulars The whole Duty of Man refers either to his Creator or his Neighbour or himself All that concerns the two last is confessedly of a Moral Nature and all that concerns the first consists either in Praising of God or Praying to him The former is a Branch of the Vertue of Gratitude and is nothing but a thankful and humble temper of mind arising from a sense of Gods Greatness in himself and his Goodness to us so that this part of Devotion issues from the same virtuous quality that is the Principle of all other Resentments and Expressions of Gratitude only those Acts of it that are terminated on God as their Object are styled Religious and therefore Gratitude and Devotion are not divers Things but only different Names of the same Thing Devotion being nothing else but the Virtue of Gratitude towards God The latter viz. Prayer is either put up in our own or other mens behalfs If for others 't is an Act of that Virtue we call Kindness or Charity If for our selves the things we pray for unless they be the Comforts and Enjoyments of this life are some or other virtuous Qualities and therefore the proper and direct use of Prayer is to be instrumental to the Virtues of Morality So that all Duties of Devotion excepting only our returns of Gratitude are not Essential parts of Religion but are only in order to it as they tend to the Practice of Virtue and moral Goodness and their Goodness is derived upon them from the moral Virtues to which they contribute and in the same proportion they are conducive to the ends of Virtue they are to be valued among the Ministeries of Religion All Religion then I mean the Practical Part is either Virtue it self or some of its Instruments and the whole Duty of man consists in being Virtuous and all that is enjoin'd him beside is in order to it And what else do we find enforc'd and recommended in our Saviour's Sermons beside heights of Morality What does St. Paul discourse of to Felix but moral matters Righteousness and Temperance and Iudgment to come And what is it that men set up against Morality but a few figurative Expressions of it self that without it are utterly insignificant 'T is not enough say they to be completely Virtuous unless we have Grace too But when we have set aside all manner of Virtue let them tell me what remains to be call'd Grace and give me any Notion of it distinct from all Morality that consists in the right order and government of our Actions in all our Relations and so comprehends all our Duty and therefore if Grace be not included in it 't is but a Phantasm and an Imaginary thing So that if we strip those Definitions that some men of late have bestowed upon it of Metaphors and Allegories it will plainly signifie nothing but a vertuous temper of mind and all that the Scripture intends by the Graces of the Spirit are only Vertuous Qualities of the Soul that are therefore styled Graces because they were derived purely from Gods
Conscience in matters of Religious Worship as in Affairs of Justice and Honesty i. e. a Liberty of Iudgment but not of practice they have an inviolable freedom to examine the Goodness of all Laws Moral and Ecclesiastical and to judge of them by their suitableness to the natural Reasons of Good and Evil but as for the Practice and all outward Actions either of Virtue or Devotion they are equally governable by the Laws and Constitutions of Common-wealths and men may with the same pretences of Reason challenge an Exemption from all Humane Laws in Matters of common Honesty upon the score of the Freedom of their Consciences as they plead a liberty from all Authority in Duties of Religious Worship upon the same account because they have a freedom of Judgment in both but of Practice in neither § 2. And upon the reasonableness of this Principle is founded the Duty or rather Priviledge of Christian Liberty viz. To assert the Freedom of the Mind of Man as far as 't is not inconsistent with the Government of the World in that a sincere and impartial use of our own Understandings is the first and Fundamental Duty of Humane Nature Hence it is that the Divine Providence is so highly solicitous not to have it farther restrained than needs must and therefore in all matters of pure Speculation it leaves the mind of Man entirely free to judge of the Truth and Falshood of things and will not suffer it to be usurp'd upon by any Authority whatsoever And whatsoever Opinion any man entertains of things of this Nature he injures no man by it and therefore no man can have any reason to commence any Quarrel with him for it Every man here judges for himself and not for others and matters of meer Opinion having no reference to the Publick there is no need of any Publick Judgment to determine them But as for those Actions that are capable of having any Influence upon the Publick Good or ill of Mankind though they are liable to the Determinations of the Publick Laws yet the Law of God will not suffer them to be determin'd farther than is requisite to the Ends of Government And in those very things in which it has granted the Civil Magistrate a Power over the Practices of men it permits them not to exercise any Authority over their Judgments but leaves them utterly free to judge of them as far as they are Objects of meer Opinion and relate not to the Common Interest of mankind And hence though the Commands of our Lawful Superiours may change Indifferent things into Necessary Duties yet they cannot restrain the Liberty of our Minds from judging things thus determin'd to remain in their own Nature Indifferent and the Reason of our Obligation to do them is not fetcht from any Antecedent Necessity in themselves but from the Supervening Commands of Authority to which Obedience in all things Lawful is a Necessary Duty So that Christian Liberty or the Inward Freedom of our Judgments may be preserved inviolable under the Restraints of the Civil Magistrate which are Outward and concern only the Actions not Judgments of men because the Outward Determination to one Particular rather than another does not abrogate the Inward Indifferency of the thing it self and the Duty of our Acting according to the Laws arises not from any Opinion of the Necessity of the thing it self but either from some Emergent and Changeable Circumstances of Order and Decency or from a sense of the Absolute Indispensableness of the Duty of Obedience Therefore the whole Affair of Christian Liberty relates only to our Inward Judgment of things and provided this be kept inviolate it matters not as to that Concern what Restraints are laid upon our Cutward Actions In that though the Gospel has freed our Consciences from the Power of things yet it has not from that of Government we are free from the matter but not from the Authority of Humane Laws and as long as we obey the Determinations of our Superiours with an Opinion of the Indifferency of the things themselves we retain the Power of our Christian Liberty and are still free as to the matter of the Law though not as to the Duty of Obedience § 3. Neither is this Prerogative of our Christian Liberty so much any new Favour granted in the Gospel as the Restauration of the mind of Man to its Natural Priviledge by Exempting us from the Yoke of the Ceremonial Law whereby things in themselves indifferent were tied upon the Conscience with as indispensable an Obligation as the Rules of Essential Goodness Equity during the whole Period of the Mosaick Dispensation which being Cancell'd by the Gospel those Indifferent things that had been made necessary by a Divine positive Command return'd to their own Nature to be used or omitted only as occasion should direct And upon this Account was it that St. Paul though he were so earnest an Assertor of his Christian Liberty against the Doctrine of the Necessity of Jewish Ceremonies never scrupled to use them when ever he thought it serviceable to the Interests of Christianity as is apparent in his Circumcision of Timothy to which he would never have condescended out of Observation of the Mosaick Law and yet did not in the least scruple to do it for other Purposes as Prudence and Discretion should direct him And though in his Discourses of Christian Liberty he Instances only in Circumcision Meats and Drinks and other Ceremonial Ordinances which were then the Particulars most in Dispute between the Christians and the Jews yet by the clearest Analogy of Reason the Case is the same as to the Judicial Law and all other things commanded by Moses that were not either Rules of Eternal Goodness or expresly establish'd in the Gospel This being its clearest and most important Design to reprieve Mankind from all the burdensome and Arbitrary Impositions of Moses that were scarce capable of any other Goodness than their being Instances of Obedience and to restore us to such a Religion as was most suitable to the perfection of Humane Nature and to tye no other Laws upon us than such whose Natural and Intrinsick Goodness should carry with them their own Eternal Obligation And therefore whatsoever our Superiours impose upon us whether in Matters of Religious Worship or any other Duties of Morality it neither is nor can be any entrenchment upon our Christian Liberty provided it be not imposed with an Opinion of the Antecedent Necessity of the thing it self § 4. Now the Design of what I have discoursed upon this Article of Christian Liberty is not barely to shew the manifest Impertinency of all those little Objections men force from it against the Civil Magistrates Jurisdiction over the outward Concerns of Religion whereas this relates entirely to things of a quite different Nature and is only concern'd in the inward Actions of the Mind but withal my purpose is mainly by exempting all internal Acts of the Soul from
of Humane Nature but that a multitude of men hapned by chance to arise like Mushromes out of the Earth altogether who out of diffidence and jealousie one of another for want of acquaintance shun'd Society and withdrew like all other Beasts of Prey into Dens and secret retirements where they lived poor and solitary as Bats and Owls and subsisted like Vermine by robbing and filching from one another till finding this way of living lamentably unsafe and uneasie every man being always upon the guard against every man and in continual fear and danger from the whole Community they grew weary of this forlorn and comfortless way of living and thence some that were more wise or more cowardly than others when they chanced to meet in their wild rangings after Prey instead of belabouring one another with Snagsticks and beating out each others brains made signs of Parley and so began to treat of Terms of mutual Peace and Assistance and so by degrees to win others into their Party till they hearded together in small Rendezvouses like the little Common-wealths of the savage Americans which in process of time grew up into larger Societies from whence at length came the different Nations and Governments of the World But if this fortuitous Original of humane Nature be too absurd and ridiculous to be asserted then 2. It must be supposed that there was a first Author and Creator of Mankind and if there were then whoever believes this Hypothesis must withal believe that he contrived things so ill that unless his Creatures had by chance been more provident than himself they must of necessity have perish'd as soon as they were made and therefore that the Well-being of the World is to be entirely attributed to mans Wit and not to Gods Providence who sent his Creatures into it in such a condition as should oblige them to seek their own mutual ruine and destruction so that had they continued in that state of War he left them in they must have lived and died like Gladiators and have unavoidably perish'd at one time or other by one anothers Swords and therefore that Mankind owe the comfort of their lives not at all to their Creator but entirely to themselves forasmuch as the very Laws of Nature whereby according to this Hypothesis the World is preserved were not establish'd by the Divine Providence but are only so many Rules of Art being as all other Maximes of Prudence and Policy are Inventions of humane Wit and suppose man not in the natural state and posture of War in which God left him but in a preternatural one of his own contriving But certainly the Deity that made us if we suppose him good made us not to be miserable for so we must unavoidably have been in a perpetual state of War and therefore to suppose he both made and left us in that condition is directly to deny our Creators goodness And then if we suppose him wise we cannot imagine he would frame a Creation to destroy it self unless we can believe his only design was to sport himself in the folly and madness of his Creatures by beholding them by all the ways of force and fraud to conspire their own mutual destruction and therefore if the Creation of man were a product of the Divine Wisdom or Goodness his natural State must have been a condition of Peace and not such a State of War that should naturally tend to his misery ruine and utter destruction § 5. 3. This Hypothesis irrecoverably destroys the safety of all Societies of Mankind in the World for if personal safety and private interest be the only Foundation of all the Laws of Nature or Principles of Equity i. e. If men endeavour Peace and enter into Contracts of mutual Trust if they invade not the Proprieties of others if they think themselves obliged to promote the good of the Society if they submit themselves to the Laws of the Common-wealth if they practise Justice Equity Mercy and all other Virtues if they refrain from Cruelty Pride Revenge and all other Vices only to secure their own personal safety and interest then whenever this Obligation ceases all the Ties to Justice and Equity that derive all their Force and Reason from it must also cease and when any single Person can hope to advance his own private Interest by the ruine of the Publick it will be lawful for him to effect it and War Rebellion and injuries will be at least as innocent as Faith Justice and Obedience because these are good only in order to private Interest and therefore when those chance to be as conducive to it they will then be as just and lawful So that this single Principle does as effectually work the subversion of all Government as if men were taught the most professed Principles of Rebellion as that all Government is Tyranny and Usurpation that his Majesties possession of the Crown is his best Title that whoever has wit or strength enough to wrest his Scepter from him has right to hold it For as men of these and the like perswasions will never act them but when opportunity invites and will be obedient to any Government till they can destroy it So will those other rebel as soon as they think it their Interest For when ever they can hope to mend their Fortunes by Rebellion the same obligation that restrain'd them from it does now as forcibly invite them to it that is self-interest i. e. they cannot but think Rebellion lawful as oft as they think it safe And there are no Villains so mad or foolish as to attempt it upon other grounds So that though this Author has assign'd us some not unuseful Laws of Nature yet has he effectually enervated their force and usefulness by resolving the reason of their obligation into self-interest and so laying the Fundamental Principles of all Injustice as the only Foundation of all the Rules of Justice For as 't is the Nature and Office of Justice to maintain the Common Right of all and to secure my Neighbours happiness as well as my own so the formal obliquity of all Injustice lies in pursuing of a private Interest without regard to the Common good of all and every member of the Society And therefore if private Interest be the only reason and enforcement of the Laws of Nature men will have no other Motive to obey their Constitutions than what will as strongly oblige to break them i. e. if men are just and honest for no other reason than because 't is their Interest then when 't is their Interest they may and if they are wise will be unjust and dishonest And so men that owne the Laws of 〈…〉 this Principle may be Villains 〈…〉 of all their restraints and the most lewd and profligate Wretches will as well as they be just or unjust as it serves their turns For this Principle that engages men to be honest only as long as they must will as effectually oblige them
Enemies to the Faith Besides that all men are naturally more zealous about the Principles in which they differ than about those in which they agree Opposition whets and sharpens their zeal because it endangers the truths they contend for whereas those that are not opposed are secure and out of hazard of being stifled by the adverse Party that is concern'd equally with themselves for their preservation And hence we see by daily Experience that men who are tame and cool enough in the Fundamentals of Religion are yet utterly impatient about their own unlearned and impertinent Wranglings and lay a greater stress upon the Speculations of their own Sect than upon the Duties of an absolute and indispensable necessity only because those are contradicted by their Adversaries and these are not Well then seeing all dissenting Parties are possess'd with a furious and passionate zeal to promote their own perswasions and seeing they are perswaded that their zeal is in God's Cause and against the Enemies of God's Truths How vain is it to expect Peace and Settlement in a Common-wealth where their Religion keeps men in a state of War where zeal is arm'd against zeal and Conscience encounters Conscience where the Glory of God and the Salvation of Souls lies at stake and where Curse ye Meroz is the Word of both Parties So that whatsoever projects fansiful men may propose to themselves if we consider the passions of humane Nature as long as Differences and Competitions in Religion are kept up it will be impossible to keep down mutual hatreds jealousies and animosities and so many divided Churches as there are in a State there will ever be so many different Armies who though they are not always in actual fighting are always in a disposition to it Beside where there are divided Interests of Religion in the same Kingdom how shall the Prince behave himself towards them If he go about to ballance them against one another this is the ready way to forfeit his Interest in them all and whilst he seems concern'd for no Party no Party will be really concern'd for him every one having so much esteem for it self as to think it ought to enjoy more of his favour and countenance than any other And withal 't is an infinite trouble and difficulty to poise them so equally but that one Party shall grow more strong and numerous than the rest and then there is no appeasing their zeal till it has destroyed and swallowed up all the weaker Interests But suppose he be able to manage them so prudently as always to keep the ballance equal he does thereby but keep up so many Parties that are ready form'd to joyn with any emergent Quarrels of State and whenever the Grandees fall out 't is but heading one of these and there is an Army And let men but reflect upon all the late Civil Wars and Rebellions of Christendom and then tell me which way they could either have been commenced or continued had it not been for different Factions of Religion If he side with one Party and by his favour mount it above the rest that not only discontents but combines all the other dissenting Factions into an united opposition against his own and it becomes their common Interest to work and contrive its ruine its prosperity does but exasperate the competition of all its Rivals into rage and indignation and as success makes it self more secure in its settlement so it makes them more restless and industrious to overturn it No Party can ever be quiet or content as long as 't is under any other but will ever be heaving and struggling to dismount the Power that keeps it down and therefore we find that all Dissenters from the establish'd frame of things are always assaulting it with open violence or undermining it by secret practices and will hazard the State and all to free themselves from oppression and oppress'd they are as long as they are the weaker Party And therefore we never find this way of Toleration put in practice under any Government but where other Exigences of State required and kept up a standing Army and by this means 't is not so difficult to prevent the Broils and Contentions of Zeal but this is only a more violent way of governing mens Consciences and instead of restraining them by Laws Penalties it does the same thing with Forts and Cittadels So that unless we are willing to put our selves to the expence and hazard of keeping up standing Forces indulgence to dissenting Zealots does but expose the State to the perpetual squabbles and Wars of Religion And we may as well suppose all men to be wise and honest and upon that account cancel all the Laws of Justice and Civil Government as imagine where there are divided Factions in Religion that men will be temperate and peaceable in the enjoyment of their own conceits and not disturb the publick Peace to promote and establish them when 't is so well known from the experience of all Ages that nothing has ever been a more effectual Engine to work popular Commotions than Changes and Reformations in Religion Sect. 6. So that though the State think it self unconcern'd to restrain mens Perswasions and Opinions yet methinks they should be a little concern'd to prevent the Tumults and Disturbances that naturally arise from their propagation And could it be secured That if all men were indulged their liberty they would use it modestly and be satisfied with their own freedom then I confess Toleration of all Opinions would not be of so fatal and dangerous consequence as if all men were as wise and honest as Socrates they might as well as he be their own Law and left entirely to their own Liberty as to all the entercourses and transactions of Humane life But alas this is made infinitely impossible from the corrupt Passions and Humours of Men All Sects ever were and ever will be fierce and unruly to inlarge their own Interests invading or supplanting whatever opposes their increase and will all certainly conspire the Ruine of that Party that prevails and triumphs over the rest every Faction ever apprehending it its due to be Supreme and there will ever be a necessity of Reformation as long as all Factions are not uppermost and it will be crime enough in any one Party to be superiour to another So that if all our dissenting Sectaries were allowed their entire liberty nothing can be expected especially from people of their complexion but that they should all plot together against the present Establishment of the Church every Combination being fully perswaded of its worthlesness in comparison to it self for unless they had apprehended their own way more excellent they had never divided from ours Beside that 't is a fundamental Principle that runs through all their Sects That they are bound under pain of Eternal Damnation to labour their utmost to establish the Worship of God in in its greatest Purity and Perfection and withal
be expected if we consider the weaknesses and imperfections of humane Nature and therefore we must bear it as well as we can because if we go about to alter any present Setlement we must almost of necessity make it worse And all the effects of such attempts have seldom ended in any thing else but perpetual Confusions till things have at length resetled in the same or as bad if not a worse condition than they were in before The miseries of Tyranny are less than those of Anarchy and therefore 't is better to submit to the unreasonable Impositions of Nero or Caligula than to hazard the dissolution of the State and consequently all the Calamities of War and Confusion by denying our subjection to Tyrants And there never was any lawful Magistrate so bad whose Laws and Government were not more conducive to the preservation of the Common Good than his Oppression was to subvert it and 't is wisely eligible to suffer a less Evil rather than lose a greater good 'T is a known and a wise saying of Tacitus Bonos Principes voto expetere debemus qualescunque pati quomodo sterilitatem aut nimios imbres caetera Naturae mala sic luxum avaritiam dominantium tolerare And this in one word is not only a satisfactory Answer but an ample Confutation of that Pestilent Book Vindiciae contra Tyrannos the scope whereof is only to invite Subjects to rebel against Tyrannical Government by representing the evils of Tyranny which though they were as great as he supposes them to be yet they are abundantly less than those that follow upon Rebellion as himself and his Party were sufficiently taught by the Event And for one Common-wealth he can instance in that has gain'd by Rebellion 't is easie to produce an hundred that it has hazarded if not utterly ruined And therefore this Author not to mention Mariana and Buchanan and others has perform'd nothing in behalf of his Cause by displaying the miseries of a Tyrannical Power unless he had withal evinced them to be more calamitous than those of War and Confusion There is nothing in this World that depends upon the freedom of man's will can be so securely establish'd as not to be liable to sad inconveniences and therefore that Constitution of Affairs is most eligible that is liable to the fewest And upon this score I say it is that the Divine Law has so severely injoin'd us to submit to the worst of Governours because notwithstanding that Tyranny is an oppressing burden of Humane life yet 't is less intolerable than a state of War and Confusion Sect. 16. But to speak more expresly to the particular matter in debate 'T is necessary the world must be govern'd govern'd it cannot be without Religion Religion as harmless and peaceable as it is in it self yet when mixt with the Follies and Passions of men it does not usually inspire them with overmuch gentleness and goodness of Nature and therefore 't is necessary that it submit to the same Authority that commands over all the other affections of the mind of man And we may as well suppose all men just and honest and upon that account cancel all the Laws of Equity as suppose them wise and sober in their Religious Conceits and upon that score take off all restraints from the excesses and enormities of Zeal 'T is therefore as necessary to the preservation of Publick Peace that men should be govern'd in matters of Religion as in all other common Affairs of Humane life And as for all the inconveniences that may follow from it they are no other than what belong to all manner of Government and such as are and must be unavoidable as long as mankind is endued with liberty of Will for so long he cannot be intrusted with any Power how good soever that he may not abuse And therefore for men to go about to abrogate the Ecclesiastical Iurisdiction of the Civil Magistrate because he may abuse it to evil and irreligious ends by establishing Idolatry instead of the true Worship of God in which case 't is pity that good men should be exposed to ruine only for preserving a good Conscience 'T is just as reasonable as if they should cashier all manner of Government and set men free from all Oaths and Obligations of Allegiance because 't is possible some Usurper may gain the Supreme Power and then force his Subjects to abjure all their former Oaths to their lawful Sovereign and 't is pity that men of the gallantest and most honest Principles should be fined decimated hanged banish'd and Murdered only for their loyalty to their Prince And thus will the Parallel run equal in all Cases between the Civil and Ecclesiastical Authority of the Supreme Powers both may be and often are lamentably abused and therefore if that be reason enough to abolish one 't is so to abolish both so that the whole result of all amounts only to this Enquiry Whether it would not be a politick course to take away all Government because all Government may be abused Sect. 17. Though this be a sufficient reply to the Objection yet it will not be altogether impertinent or unnecessary to abet it with this one consideration more That it may and often does so happen that 't is necessary to punish men for such Perswasions into which they have perhaps innocently abused themselves for 't is easily possible for well-meaning People through ignorance and inadvertency to be betrayed into such unhappy Errors as may tend to the Publick Disturbance which though it be not so much their Crime as Infelicity yet is there no remedy but it must expose them to the Correction of the Publick Rods and Axes Magistrates are to take care of the Common-wealth and not of every particular mans concerns And the end of all their Laws is to provide for the welfare of the Publick that is their Charge and that they must secure and if any harmless and well-meaning man make himself obnoxious to the Penalties of the Law that is a misfortune they cannot prevent and therefore must deal with him as they do with all other Offenders that is pity and punish him Private interest must yield to Publick Good and therefore when they cannot stand together and there is no remedy but one must suffer 't is better certainly that one or a few should perish than the whole Community Neither is it possible that any Laws should be so warily contrived but that some innocent Persons may sometimes fall under their Penalties yet because 't is more beneficial to the Publick Welfare that now and then a guiltless person should suffer than that all the guilty should escape in that the former injures but one the latter all Therefore is it necessary to govern all Societies by Laws and Penalties without regard to the ill fortune that may befal a few single persons which can hardly be avoided whilst the Laws are in force and yet 't is
vain and frivolous as all their other Cavils and shuffling Pretences Sect. 2. Scandal then is a word of a large and ambiguous signification and the thing it imports is not determinately either good or evil but is sometimes innocent and sometimes criminal according to the different nature of those things from whence it arises or of those circumstances wherewith it is attended for in the full and proper extent of the word 't is any thing whether good or evil or indifferent that occasions the fall or sin of another Now if the matter of the Scandal or that which occasions anothers sin be in it self good and vertuous this casual event is not sufficient to reflect any charge or disparagement upon it and therefore 't is in Scripture frequently attributed to the best of things to the Cross of Christ to Christ himself and to the Grace of God If it be a thing in it self criminal though it be chiefly blameable upon its own account yet this usually aggravates and enhances the original guilt of the action But lastly if it be a thing indifferent and a matter of Christian liberty then is it either faultless or chargeable according to its different Cases and Circumstances as Christian prudence and discretion shall determine so various and contingent a thing not being capable to be govern'd by any fix'd and setled measures Some are scandalized out of weakness and some out of peevishness some before due information of their mistake and some after it some because they do not and some because they will not understand All which with infinite other Circumstances men ought to consider in the exercise of their Christian liberty and suitably to guide themselves by the same Rules of Wisdom and Charity that determine them in all the other affairs of humane life For the action it self is only the remote occasion and not the immediate cause of the scandal in that being in its own nature indifferent and by consequence innocent it cannot be directly and from it self productive of any criminal effect and therefore its being abused and perverted to purposes and opportunities of sin is purely accidental And the proper and immediate cause of every mans falling is something within himself 'T is either folly or malice or ignorance or wilfulness too little understanding or too much passion that betray some men into sin by occasion of other mens actions So that the Schools distinction of scandal into passive or that which is taken and active or that which is given is apparently false and impertinent and is the main thing that has perplexed and intricated all discourses of this Article Because Scandal properly so called is never given but when it is taken as being only an occasion of offence taken by one manfrom the actions of another Now if his taking offence where it was not given proceeds from weakness and ignorance then is his case pitiable and a good-natur'd man will out of tenderness and charity forbear such things as he seizes on to abuse to his own destruction For all the obligations of Scandal proceed purely from that extraordinary height of Charity and tenderness of good Nature that is so signally recommended in the Gospel which will oblige us to forbear any action that we may lawfully omit when we know it will prove an occasion of sin and mischief to some well-meaning but less knowing Christians But if it proceed from humour or pride or wilfulness or any other vicious Principle then is the man to be treated as a peevish and stubborn person and no man is bound to part with his own freedom because his Neighbour is froward and humorous and if he be resolved to fall there is no reason I should forego the use of my liberty because he is resolved to make that his stumbling-block So that we see all Scandal is equally taken but not equally criminal in that some take it only because they are weak and some because they are peevish according to which different cases we are to behave our selves with a different demeanour in this affair § 3. And for this we have variety of Examples in the practice of the Apostles whose actions were liable to the opposite Scandals of Jews and Gentiles If they complyed with the Jews in their rigorous Observation of the Mosaick Rites this was a Scandal to the Gentiles by leading them into a false and mischievous opinion of their necessity If they did not comply then that proved a Scandal to those Iews that were not as yet fully instructed in the right nature and extent of their Christian liberty and the dissolution of the Mosaick Law and so would be tempted to fall back from that Religion that inclin'd men to a scorn and contempt of the Law of Moses Now between these two extremes they were forced to walk with great prudence and wariness inclining sometimes to one and sometimes to the other as they apprehended most beneficial to the ends Interests of Christianity Thus though St. Paul condescended to the Circumcision of Timothy to humour and gratifie the Jews who could not be so suddenly wrought off from the prejudices and strong impressions of their Education and therefore were for a time indulged to the practice of their ancient Rites and Customs Yet when he was among the Gentiles he would not be perswaded to yield so far to the Jewish obstinacy as to suffer the Circumcision of Titus but opposed it with his utmost zeal and vehemence because this would in probability have frustrated the success of all his labour in propagating the Gospel among forein Nations if he who had before so vehemently asserted their Christian liberty and instructed them in their freedom from the Mosaick Law and particularly from this Ceremony should now seem inconsistent with himself by acting directly contrary to his former Doctrine and bringing men into a subjection to the Law of Moses after himself had so often declared its being revers'd and superannuated For what else could be probably expected than that his Gentile Proselytes being discouraged partly by his prevarication and partly by the weight of that Noke to which they foresaw or at least suspected they must submit should be strongly tempted to an utter Apostacy And therefore wisely weighing with himself that the scandal was less dangerous in angring the Jews than in hazarding the Gentiles he chose rather to leave them to their own peevishness than to hazard the revolt of these Gal. 2. 4 5. § 4. And this is the true reason as some learned men have observed of this great Apostles different deportment in this particular towards the Churches of Rome and Galatia because in the Roman Church there lived no small number of natural Jews who when they were first converted to Christianity were not so well instructed in the abrogation of the Mosaick Law The Method whereby the Apostles invited them at first to embrace the Christian Faith was barely to convince them of its Evidence and Divine Authority
And then as for their Declamations against adding to the Law of God to be short I appeal to the Reason of all mankind whether any men in the World are more notoriously guilty of unwarrantable Additions than these who forbid those things as sinful and consequently under pain of Damnation which the Law of God has no where forbidden What is it to teach the Commandments of men for Doctrines but to teach those things to be the Law of God that are not so And What can more charge the Divine Law of Imperfection than to teach that a man may perform all that it has commanded and yet perish for not doing something that it has not commanded And so do they who make it necessary not to do something that God has left indifferent Whereas nothing can be more Unreasonable than to tax the Church of making Additions to the Law of God because all her Laws are imposed not as Laws of God but as Laws of men and so are not more liable to this Charge than Iustinian's Institutes and Littleton's Tenures And then in the last place as for their noise against Popery a term that as well as some other angry words signifies any thing that some men dislike I shall say no more than that we have most reason to raise this out-cry when they take upon themselves as well as the old Gentleman at Rome to controul the Laws of the Secular Powers And what do they but set up a Pope in every mans Conscience whilst they vest it with a Power of countermanding the Decrees of Princes These things cannot but appear with an undeniable evidence to any man that is not invincibly either ignorant or wilful or both and therefore 't is time they should at least for shame if they will not for Conscience cease to disturb the Church with Clamour and Exceptions so miserably impertinent that I blush for having thus far pursued them with a serious Confutation And therefore leaving them and their impertinencies together for I despair of ever seeing these old and dear Acquaintances parted I shall now address my self to clear off one more material and more plausible Objection and so conclude this particular And 't is this Sect. 14. 'T is possible the Magistrate may be deceived in his Determinations and establish a Worship that is in its own nature sinful and superstitious in which case if what I contend for be true all his Subjects must either be Rebels or Idolaters if they obey they sin against God if they disobey they sin against their Sovereign This is the last Issue of all that is objected in this Controversie and the only Argument that gives gloss and colour to all their other trifling pretences And yet 't is no more than what may be as fairly objected against all Government of Moral and Political Affairs for there 't is as possible that the Supreme Power may be mistaken in its Judgment of good and evil and yet no man will deny the Civil Power of Princes because they are fallible and may perhaps abuse it And yet in this alone lies all the strength of this Objection against their Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction because forsooth 't is possible they may erre and manage it to evil purposes But whatever force it carries in it it rather strikes at the Divine Providence than my Assertion and charges that of being defective in making sufficient Provisions for the due Government of mankind in that it has not set over us infallible Judges and Governours For unless all Magistrates be guided by an unerring Spirit 't is possible they may act against the ends of their Institution and if this be a sufficient Objection against their Authority it must of necessity overthrow the Power of all fallible Judicatures and make Governours as incompetent Judges in matters of Morality and Controversies of right and wrong as in Articles of Faith and Religion And therefore our Enquiry is to find out the best way of setling the world that the state of things is capable of If indeed mankind were infallible this Controversie were at an end but seeing that all men are liable to Errors and Mistakes and seeing there is an absolute necessity of a Supreme Power in all Publick Affairs our Question I say is What is the most prudent and expedient way of setling them not that possibly might be but that really is And this as I have already sufficiently proved is to devolve their management on the Supreme Civil Power which though it may be imperfect and liable to Errors and Mistakes yet 't is the least so and is a much better way to attain Publick Peace and Tranquillity than if they were entirely left to the ignorance and folly of every private man which must of necessity be pregnant with all manner of Mischiefs and Confusions So that this method I have assign'd being comparatively the best way of Government of all Ecclesiastical as well as Civil Affairs is not to be rejected because 't is liable to some inconveniences but rather to be embraced above all others because 't is liable to incomparably the fewest And if it so happen that some private persons suffer wrong from this method of proceeding yet this private injury has an ample Compensation from the Publick benefit that arises from it and when it so falls out that either the whole Society or one individual must suffer 't is easie to determine that better one honest man perish than a million The inconveniences of a bad Government are inconsiderable in comparison to Anarchy and Confusion and the evils that fall upon particular men from its unskilful or irregular Administration are vastly too little to weigh against the necessity of its institution Sect. 15. And upon this Principle stands the necessity of subjection and obedience to all Authority in that though its ill management may happen to bring many and great inconveniences upon the Publick yet they cannot equal the mischiefs of that Confusion which must necessarily arise if Subjects are warranted to disobey or resist Government whenever they shall apprehend 't is ill administred Perhaps never any Government was so good as to be administred with exact Justice and Equity nor any Governour so wise as not to be chargeable with faults and miscarriages and therefore if upon every quarrel every wise or honest man can pick against the Laws of the Common-wealth he may lawfully withdraw his obedience What can follow but a certain and unavoidable dissolution of Government when every man will be commanded by nothing but his own Perswasions that is himself And upon this account 't is that the Law of God has tied upon us such an absolute and indispensable subjection to Authority which though it may be mischievous yet 't is less so than disobedience and the world must be govern'd as it can be by Men and not as it might be by Angels The management indeed of Humane Affairs is generally bad enough but 't is as well as can probably