on the contrary what interpretation shall we give besides the literall sense of the words of Solomon Eccles. 3. 19. That which befalleth the Sons of Men befalleth Beasts even one thing befalleth them as the one dyeth so doth the other yea they have all one breath one spirit so that a Man hath no praeeminence above a Beast for all is vanity By the literall sense here is no Naturall Immortality of the Soule nor yet any repugnancy with the Life Eternall which the Elect shall enjoy by Grace And chap. 4. ver 3. Better is he that hath not yet been than both they that is than they that live or have lived which if the Soule of all them that have lived were Immortall were a hard saying for then to have an Immortall Soule were worse than to have no Soule at all And againe Chapt. 9. 5. The living know they shall die but the dead know not any thing that is Naturally and before the resurrection of the body Another place which seems to make for a Naturall Immortality of the Soule is that where our Saviour saith that Abraham Isaac and Jacob are living but this is spoken of the promise of God and of their certitude to rise again not of a Life then actuall and in the same sense that God said to Adam that on the day hee should eate of the forbidden fruit he should certainly die from that time forward he was a dead man by sentence but not by execution till almost a thousand years after So Abraham Isaac and Jacob were alive by promise then when Christ spake but are not actually till the Resurrection And the History of Dives and Lazarus make nothing against this if wee take it as it is for a Parable But there be other places of the New Testament where an Immortality seemeth to be directly attributed to the wicked For it is evident that they shall all rise to Judgement And it is said besides in many places that they shall goe into Everlasting fire Everlasting torments Everlasting punishments and that the worm of conscience never dyeth and all this is comprehended in the word Everlasting Death which is ordinarily interpreted Everlasting Life in torments And yet I can find no where that any man shall live in torments Everlastingly Also it seemeth hard to say that God who is the Father of Mercies that doth in Heaven and Earth all that hee will that hath the hearts of all men in his disposing that worketh in men both to doe and to will and without whose free gift a man hath neither inclination to good nor repentance of evill should punish mens transgressions without any end of time and with all the extremity of torture that men can imagine and more We are therefore to consider what the meaning is of Everlasting Fire and other the like phrases of Scripture I have shewed already that the Kingdome of God by Christ beginneth at the day of Judgment That in that day the Faithfull shall rise again with glorious and spirituall Bodies and bee his Subjects in that his Kingdome which shall be Eternall That they shall neither marry nor be given in marriage nor eate and drink as they did in their naturall bodies but live for ever in their individuall persons without the specificall eternity of generation And that the Reprobates also shall rise again to receive punishments for their sins As also that those of the Elect which shall be alive in their earthly bodies at that day shall have their bodies suddenly changed and made spirituall and Immortall But that the bodies of the Reprobate who make the Kingdome of Satan shall also be glorious or spirituall bodies or that they shall bee as the Angels of God neither eating nor drinking nor engendring or that their life shall be Eternall in their individuall persons as the life of every faithfull man is or as the life of Adam had been if hee had not sinned there is no place of Scripture to prove it save onely these places concerning Eternall Torments which may otherwise be interpreted From whence may be inferred that as the Elect after the Resurrection shall be restored to the estate wherein Adam was before he had sinned so the Reprobate shall be in the estate that Adam and his posterity were in after the sin committed saving that God promised a Redeemer to Adam and such of his seed as should trust in him and repent but not to them that should die in their sins as do the Reprobate These things considered the texts that mention Eternall Fire Eternall Torments or the Worm that never dieth contradict not the Doctrine of a Second and Everlasting Death in the proper and naturall sense of the word Death The Fire or Torments prepared for the wicked in Gehenna Tophet or in what place soever may continue for ever and there may never want wicked men to be tormented in them though not every nor any one Eternally For the wicked being left in the estate they were in after Adams sin may at the Resurrection live as they did marry and give in marriage and have grosse and corruptible bodies as all mankind now have and consequently may engender perpetually after the Resurrection as they did before For there is no place of Scripture to the contrary For St. Paul speaking of the Resurrection 1 Cor. 15. understandeth it onely of the Resurrection to Life Eternall and not the Resurrection to Punishment And of the first he saith that the Body is Sown in Corruption raised in Incorruption sown in Dishonour raised in Honour sown in Weaknesse raised in Power sown a Naturall body raised a Spirituall body There is no such thing can be said of the bodies of them that rise to Punishment So also our Saviour when hee speaketh of the Nature of Man after the Resurrection meaneth the Resurrection to Life Eternall not to Punishment The text is Luke 20. verses 34. 35 36. a fertile text The Children of this world marry and are given in marriage but they that shall be counted worthy to obtaine that world and the Resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage Neither can they die any more for they are equall to the Angells and are the Children of God being the Children of the Resurrection The Children of this world that are in the estate which Adam left them in shall marry and be given in marriage that is corrupt and generate successively which is an Immortality of the Kind but not of the Persons of men They are not worthy to be counted amongst them that shall obtain the next world and an absolute Resurrection from the dead but onely a short time as inmates of that world and to the end onely to receive condign punishment for their contumacy The Elect are the onely children of the Resurrection that is to say the sole heirs of Eternall Life they only can die no more it is they that are equall to the Angels and that are the children of God
that this kind of Absurdity may rightly be numbred amongst the many sorts of Madnesse and all the time that guided by clear Thoughts of their worldly lust they forbear disputing or writing thus but Lucide Intervals And thus much of the Vertues and Defects Intellectuall CHAP. IX Of the Severall SUBIECTS of KNOWLEDGE THere are of KNOWLEDGE two kinds whereof one is Knowledge of Fact the other Knowledge of the Consequence of one Affirmation to another The former is nothing else but Sense and Memory and is Absolute Knowledge as when we see a Fact doing or remember it done And this is the Knowledge required in a Witnesse The later is called Science and is Conditionall as when we know that If the figure showne be a Circle then any straight line through the Center shall divide it into two equall parts And this is the Knowledge required in a Philosopher that is to say of him that pretends to Reasoning The Register of Knowledge of Fact is called History Whereof there be two sorts one called Naturall History which is the History of such Facts or Effects of Nature as have no Dependance on Mans Will Such as are the Histories of Metalls Plants Animals Regions and the like The other is Civill History which is the History of the Voluntary Actions of men in Common-wealths The Registers of Science are such Books as contain the Demonstrations of Consequences of one Affirmation to another and are commonly called Books of Philosophy whereof the sorts are many according to the diversity of the Matter And may be divided in such manner as I have divided them in the following Table SCIENCE that is Knowledge of Consequences which is called also PHILOSOPHY Consequences from the Accidents of Bodies Naturall which is called NATURALL PHILOSOPHY Consequences from the Accidents common to all Bodies Naturall which are Quantity and Motion Consequences from Quantity and Motion indeterminate which being the Principles or first foundation of Philosophy is called Philosophia Prima PHILOSOPH PRIMA Consequences from Motion and Quantity determined Consequences from Quantity and Motion determined By Figure ..... Mathematiques GEOMETRY ARITHMETI QU By Number .... Mathematiques GEOMETRY ARITHMETI QU Consequences from the Motion and Quantity of Bodies in speciall Consequences from the Motion and Quantity of the great parts of the World as the Earth and Starres Cosmography ASTRONOMY GEOGRAPHY Consequences from the Motion of Speciall kinds and Figures of Body Mechaniques Science of EN NEERS ARCHITECTUR NAVIGATION Doctrine of Weight PHYSIQUES or Consequences froÌ„ Qualities Consequences from the Qualities of Bodyes Transient such as sometimes appear sometimes vanish ............ METEOROLOG Consequences from the Qualities of Bodies Permanent Consequences from the Qualities of the Starres Consequences from the Light of the Starres Out of this and the Motion of the Sunne is made the Science of ...................... SCIOGRAPHY Consequences from the Influence of the Starres ............... ASTROLOGY Consequences of the Qualities from Liquid Bodies that fill the space between the Starres such as are the Ayre or substance aetheriall Consequences from the Qualities of Bodies Terrestriall Consequences from the parts of the Earth that are without Sense Consequences from the Qualities of Minerals as Stones Metalls c. Consequences from the Qualities of Vegetables Consequences from the Qualitiâ—…s of Animals Consequences from the Qualities of Animals in generall Consequences from Vision .... OPTIQUES Consequences from Sounds .... MUSIQUE Consequences from the rest of the Senses Consequences from the Qualities of Men in speciall Consequences from the Passions of Men ............ ETHIQUES Consequences from Speech In Magnifying Vilifying c. POETRY In Perswadiâ—…g RHETHORI QU In Reasoning ... LOGIQUE In Contracting The Science of 〈◊〉 and UNIUST Consequences from the Accidents of Politique Bodies which is called POLITIQUES and CIVILL PHILOSOPHY 1. Of Consequences from the Institution of COMMON-WEALTHS to the Rights and Duties of the Body Politique or Soveraigâ—… 2. Of Consequences from the same to the Duty and Right of the Subjects Place this Table between folio 40. and 41. CHAP. X. Of POWER WORTH DIGNITY HONOUR and WORTHINESSE THe POWER of a Man to take it Universally is his present means to obtain some future apparent Good And is either Originall or Instrumentall Naturall Power is the eminence of the Faculties of Body or Mind as extraordinary Strength Forme Prudence Arts Eloquence Liberality Nobility Instrumentall are those Powers which acquired by these or by fortune are means and Instruments to acquire more as Riches Reputation Friends and the secret working of God which men call Good Luck For the nature of Power is in this point like to Fame increasing as it proceeds or like the motion of heavy bodies which the further they go make still the more hast The Greatest of humane Powers is that which is compounded of the Powers of most men united by consent in one person Naturall or Civill that has the use of all their Powers depending on his will such as is the Power of a Common-wealth Or depending on the wills of each particular such as is the Power of a Faction or of divers factions leagued Therefore to have servants is Power To have friends is Power for they are strengths united Also Riches joyned with liberality is Power because it procureth friends and servants Without liberality not so because in this case they defend not but expose men to Envy as a Prey Reputation of power is Power because it draweth with it the adhaerence of those that need protection So â—…s Reputation of love of a mans Country called Popularity for the same Reason Also what quality soever maketh a man beloved or feared of many or the reputation of such quality is Power because it is a means to have the assistance and service of many Good successe is Power because it maketh reputation of Wisdome or good fortune which makes men either feare him or rely on him Affability of men already in power is encrease of Power because it gaineth love Reputation of Prudence in the conduct of Peace or War is Power because to prudent men we commit the government of our selves more willingly than to others Nobility is Power not in all places but onely in those Common-wealths where it has Priviledges for in such priviledges consisteth their Power Eloquence is power because it is seeming Prudence Forme is Power because being a promise of Good it recommendeth men to the favour of women and strangers The Sciences are small Power because not eminent and therefore not acknowledged in any man nor are at all but in a few and in them but of a few things For Science is of that nature as none can understand it to be but such as in a good measure have attayned it Arts of publique use as Fortification making of Engines and other Instruments of War because they conferre to Defence and Victory are Power And though the true Mother of them be Science namely the Mathematiques yet because they are brought into the Light by
their present greatnesse to be taken off they cannot without the help of a very able Architect be compiled into any other than a crasie building such as hardly lasting out their own time must assuredly fall upon the heads of their posterity Amongst the Infirmities therefore of a Common-wealth I will reckon in the first place those that arise from an Imperfect Institution and resemble the diseases of a naturall body which proceed from a Defectuous Procreation Of which this is one That a man to obtain a Kingdome is sometimes content with lesse Power than to the Peace and defence of the Common-wealth is necessarily required From whence it commeth to passe that when the exercise of the Power layd by is for the publique safety to be resumed it hath the resemblance of an unjust act which disposeth great numbers of men when occasion is presented to rebell In the same manner as the bodies of children gotten by diseased parents are subject either to untimely death or to purge the ill quality derived from their vicious conception by breaking out into biles and scabbs And when Kings deny themselves some such necessary Power it is not alwayes though sometimes out of ignorance of what is necessary to the office they undertake but many times out of a hope to recover the same again at their pleasure Wherein they reason not well because such as will hold them to their promises shall be maintained against them by forraign Common-wealths who in order to the good of their own Subjects let slip few occasions to weaken the estate of their Neighbours So was Thomas Becket Archbishop of Canterbury supported against Henry the Second by the Pope the subjection of Ecclesiastiques to the Common-wealth having been dispensed with by William the Conquerour at his reception when he took an Oath not to infringe the liberty of the Church And so were the Barons whose power was by William Rufus to have their help in transferring the Succession from his Elder brother to himselfe encreased to a degree inconsistent with the Soveraign Power maintained in their Rebellion against King John by the French Nor does this happen in Monarchy onely For whereas the stile of the antient Roman Common-wealth was The Senate and People of Rome neither Senate nor People pretended to the whole Power which first caused the seditions of Tiberius Gracchus Caius Gracchus Lucius Saturninus and others and afterwards the warres between the Senate and the People under Marius and Sylla and again under Pompey and Caesar to the Extinction of their Democraty and the setting up of Monarchy The people of Athens bound themselves but from one onely Action which was that no man on pain of death should propound the renewing of the warre for the Island of Salamis And yet thereby if Solon had not caused to be given out he was mad and afterwards in gesture and habit of a mad-man and in verse propounded it to the People that flocked about him they had had an enemy perpetually in readinesse even at the gates of their Citie such dammage or shifts are all Common-wealths forced to that have their Power never so little limited In the second place I observe the Diseases of a Common-wealth that proceed from the poyson of seditious doctrines whereof one is That every private man is Judge of Good and Evill actions This is true in the condition of meer Nature where there are no Civill Lawes and also under Civill Government in such cases as are not determined by the Law But otherwise it is manifest that the measure of Good and Evill actions is the Civill Law and the Judge the Legislator who is alwayes Representative of the Common-wealth From this false doctrine men are disposed to debate with themselves and dispute the commands of the Common-wealth and afterwards to obey or disobey them as in their private judgements they shall think fit Whereby the Common-wealth is distracted and Weakened Another doctrine repugnant to Civill Society is that whatsoever a man does against his Conscience is Sinne and it dependeth on the presumption of making himself judge of Good and Evill For a mans Conscience and his Judgement is the same thing and as the Judgement so also the Conscience may be erroneous Therefore thought he that is subject to no Civill Law sinneth in all he does against his Conscience because he has no other rule to follow but his own reason yet it is not so with him that lives in a Common-wealth because the Law is the publique Conscience by which he hath already undertaken to be guided Otherwise in such diversity as there is of private Consciences which are but private opinions the Common-wealth must needs be distracted and no man dare to obey the Soveraign Power farther than it shall seem good in his own eyes It hath been also commonly taught That Faith and Sanctity are not to be attained by Study and Reason but by supernaturall Inspiration or Infusion which granted I see not why any man should render a reason of his Faith or why every Christian should not be also a Prophet or why any man should take the Law of his Country rather than his own Inspiration for the rule of his action And thus wee fall again into the fault of taking upon us to Judge of Good and Evill or to make Judges of it such private men as pretend to be supernaturally Inspired to the Dissolution of all Civill Government Faith comes by hearing and hearing by those accidents which guide us into the presence of them that speak to us which accidents are all contrived by God Almighty and yet are not supernaturall but onely for the great number of them that concurre to every effect unobservable Faith and Sanctity are indeed not very frequent but yet they are not Miracles but brought to passe by education discipline correction and other naturall wayes by which God worketh them in his elect at such time as he thinketh fit And these three opinions pernicious to Peace and Government have in this part of the world proceeded chiefly from the tongues and pens of unlearned Divines who joyning the words of Holy Scripture together otherwise than is agreeable to reason do what they can to make men think that Sanctity and Naturall Reason cannot stand togâ—…ther A fourth opinion repugnant to the nature of a Common-wealth is this That he that hath the Soveraign Power is subject to the Civill Lawes It is true that Soveraigns are all subject to the Lawes of Nature because such lawes be Divine and cannot by any man or Common-wealth be abrogated But to those Lawes which the Soveraign himselfe that is which the Common-wealth maketh he is not subject For to be subject to Lawes is to be subject to the Common-wealth that is to the Soveraign Representative that is to himselfe which is not subjection but freedome from the Lawes Which errour because it setteth the Lawes above the Soveraign setteth also a Judge above him and
of naturall reason cannot choose but draw to it in all times a very considerable part of the people And the Spirituall though it stand in the darknesse of Schoole distinctions and hard words yet because the fear of Darknesse and Ghosts is greater than other fears cannot want a party sufficient to Trouble and sometimes to Destroy a Common-wealth And this is a Disease which not unfitly may be compared to the Epilepsie or Falling-sicknesse which the Jewes took to be one kind of possession by Spirits in the Body Naturall For as in this Disease there is an unnaturall spirit or wind in the head that obstructeth the roots of the Nerves and moving them violently taketh away the motion which naturally they should have from the power of the Soule in the Brain and thereby causeth violent and irregular motions which men call Convulsions in the parts insomuch as he that is seized therewith falleth down sometimes into the water and sometimes into the fire as a man deprived of his senses so also in the Body Politique when the Spirituall power moveth the Members of a Common-wealth by the terrour of punishments and hope of rewards which are the Nerves of it otherwise than by the Civill Power which is the Soule of the Common-wealth they ought to be moved and by strange and hard words suffocates their understanding it must needs thereby Distract the people and either Overwhelm the Common-wealth with Oppression or cast it into the Fire of a Civill warre Sometimes also in the meerly Civill government there be more than one Soule As when the Power of levying mony which is the Nutritive faculty has depended on a generall Assembly the Power of conduct and command which is the Motive faculty on one man and the Power of making Lawes which is the Rationall faculty on the accidentall consent not onely of those two but also of a third This endangereth the Common-wealth somtimes for want of consent to good Lawes but most often for want of such Nourishment as is necessary to Life and Motion For although few perceive that such government is not government but division of the Common-wealth into three Factions and call it mixt Monarchy yet the truth is that it is not one independent Common-wealth but three independent Factions nor one Representative Person but three In the Kingdome of God there may be three Persons independent without breach of unity in God that Reigneth but where men Reigne that be subject to diversity of opinions it cannot be so And therefore if the King bear the person of the People and the generall Assembly bear also the person of the People and another Assembly bear the person of a Part of the people they are not one Person nor one Soveraign but three Persons and three Soveraigns To what Disease in the Naturall Body of man I may exactly compare this irregularity of a Common-wealth I know not But I have seen a man that had another man growing out of his side with an head armes breast and stomach of his own If he had had another man growing out of his other side the comparison might then have been exact Hitherto I have named such Diseases of a Common-wealth as are of the greatest and most present danger There be other not so great which neverthelesse are not unfit to be observed As first the difficulty of raising Mony for the necessary uses of the Common-wealth especially in the approach of warre This difficulty ariseth from the opinion that every Subject hath of a Propriety in his lands and goods exclusive of the Soveraigns Right to the use of the same From whence it commeth to passe that the Soveraign Power which foreseeth the necessities and dangers of the Common-wealth finding the passage of mony to the publique Treasure obstructed by the tenacity of the people whereas it ought to extend it selfe to encounter and prevent such dangers in their beginnings contracteth it selfe as long as it can and when it cannot longer struggles with the people by stratagems of Law to obtain little summes which not sufficing he is fain at last violently to open the way for present supply or Perish and being put often to these extremities at last reduceth the people to their due temper or else the Common-wealth must perish Insomuch as we may compare this Distemper very aptly to an Ague wherein the fleshy parts being congealed or by venomous matter obstructed the Veins which by their naturall course empty themselves into the Heart are not as they ought to be supplyed from the Arteries whereby there succeedeth at first a cold contraction and trembling of the limbes and afterwards a hot and strong endeavour of the Heart to force a passage for the Bloud and before it can do that contenteth it selfe with the small refreshments of such things as coole for a time till if Nature be strong enough it break at last the contumacy of the parts obstructed and dissipateth the venome into sweat or if Nature be too weak the Patient dyeth Again there is sometimes in a Common-wealth a Disease which resembleth the Pleurisie and that is when the Treasure of the Common-wealth flowing out of its due course is gathered together in too much abundance in one or a few private men by Monopolies or by Farmes of the Publique Revenues in the same manner as the Blood in a Pleurisie getting into the Membrane of the breast breedeth there an Inflammation accompanied with a Fever and painfull stitches Also the Popularity of a potent Subject unlesse the Common-wealth have very good caution of his fidelity is a dangerous Disease because the people which should receive their motion from the Authority of the Soveraign by the flattery and by the reputation of an ambitious man are drawn away from their obedience to the Lawes to follow a man of whose vertues and designes they have no knowledge And this is commonly of more danger in a Popular Government than in a Monarchy because an Army is of so great force and multitude as it may easily be made believe they are the People By this means it was that Julius Caesar who was set up by the People against the Senate having won to himselfe the affections of his Army made himselfe Master both of Senate and People And this proceeding of popular and ambitious men is plain Rebellion and may be resembled to the effects of Witchcraft Another infirmity of a Common-wealth is the immoderate greatnesse of a Town when it is able to furnish out of its own Circuit the number and expence of a great Army As also the great number of Corporations which are as it were many lesser Common-wealths in the bowels of a greater like wormes in the entrayles of a naturall man To which may be added the Liberty of Disputing against absolute Power by pretenders to Politicall Prudence which though bred for the most part in the Lees of the people yet animated by False Doctrines are perpetually medling with
above their understanding than to define his Nature by Spirit Incorporeall and then confesse their definition to be unintelligible or if they give him such a title it is not Dogmatically with intention to make the Divine Nature understood but Piously to honour him with attributes of significations as remote as they can from the grossenesse of Bodies Visible Then for the way by which they think these Invisible Agents wrought their effects that is to say what immediate causes they used in bringing things to passe men that know not what it is that we call causing that is almost all men have no other rule to guesse by but by observing and remembring what they have seen to precede the like effect at some other time or times before without seeing between the antecedent and subsequent Event any dependance or connexion at all And therefore from the like things past they expect the like things to come and hope for good or evill luck superstitiously from things that have no part at all in the causing of it As the Athenians did for their war at Lepanto demand another Phormio The Pompeian faction for their warre in Afrique another Scipio and others have done in divers other occasions since In like manner they attribute their fortune to a stander by to a lucky or unlucky place to words spoken especially if the name of God be amongst them as Charming and Conjuring the Leiturgy of Witches insomuch as to believe they have power to turn a stone into bread bread into a man or any thing into any thing Thirdly for the worship which naturally men exhibite to Powers invisible it can be no other but such expressions of their reverence as they would use towards men Gifts Petitions Thanks Submission of Body Considerate Addresses sober Behaviour premeditated Words Swearing that is assuring one another of their promises by invoking them Beyond that reason suggesteth nothing but leaves them either to rest there or for further ceremonies to rely on those they believe to be wiser than themselves Lastly concerning how these Invisible Powers declare to men the things which shall hereafter come to passe especially concerning their good or evill fortune in generall or good or ill successe in any particular undertaking men are naturally at a stand save that using to conjecture of the time to come by the time past they are very apt not onely to take casuall things after one or two encounters for Prognostiques of the like encounter ever after but also to believe the like Prognostiques from other men of whom they have once conceived a good opinion And in these foure things Opinion of Ghosts Ignorance of second causes Devotion towards what men fear and Taking of things Casuall for Prognostiques consisteth the Naturall seed of Religion which by reason of the different Fancies Judgements and Passions of severall men hath grown up into ceremonies so different that those which are used by one man are for the most part ridiculous to another For these seeds have received culture from two sorts of men One sort have been they that have nourished and ordered them according to their own invention The other have done it by Gods commandement and direction but both sorts have done it with a purpose to make those men that relyed on them the more apt to Obedience Lawes Peace Charity and civill Society So that the Religion of the former sort is a part of humane Politiques and teacheth part of the duty which Earthly Kings require of their Subjects And the Religion of the later sort is Divine Politiques and containeth Precepts to those that have yeelded themselves subjects in the Kingdome of God Of the former sort were all the founders of Common-wealths and the Law-givers of the Gentiles Of the later sort were Abraham Moses and our Blessed Saviour by whom have been derived unto us the Lawes of the Kingdome of God And for that part of Religion which consisteth in opinions concerning the nature of Powers Invisible there is almost nothing that has a name that has not been esteemed amongst the Gentiles in one place or another a God or Divell or by their Poets feigned to be inanimated inhabited or possessed by some Spirit or other The unformed matter of the World was a God by the name of Chaos The Heaven the Ocean the Planets the Fire the Earth the Winds were so many Gods Men Women a Bird a Crocodile a Calf a Dogge a Snake an Onion a Leeke Deâ—…fied Besides that they filled almost all places with spirits called Daemons the plains with Pan and Panises or Satyres the Woods with Fawnes and Nymphs the Sea with Tritons and other Nymphs every River and Fountayn with a Ghost of his name and with Nymphs every house with its Lares or Familiars every man with his Genius Hell with Ghosts and spirituall Officers as Charon Cerberus and the Furies and in the night time all places with Larvae Lemures Ghosts of men deceased and a whole kingdome of Fayries and Bugbears They have also ascribed Divinity and built Temples to meer Accidenâ—…s and Qualities such as are Time Night Day Peace Concord Love Contention Vertue Honour Health Rust Fever and the like which when they prayed for or against they prayed to as if there were Ghosts of those names hanging over their heads and letting fall or withholding that Good or Evill for or against which they prayed They invoked also their own Wit by the name of Muses their own Ignorance by the name of Fortune their own Lust by the name of Cupid their own Rage by the name Furies their own privy members by the name of Priapus and attributed their pollutions to â—…ncubi and Succubae insomuch as there was nothing which a Poet could introduce as a person in his Poem which they did not make either a God or a Divel The same authors of the Religion of the Gentiles observing the second ground for Religion which is mens Ignorance of causes and thereby their aptnesse to attribute their fortune to causes on which there was no dependance at all apparent took occasion to obtrude on their ignorance in stead of second causes a kind of second and ministeriall Gods ascribing the cause of Foecundity to Venus the cause of Arts to Apolla of Subtilty and Craft to Mercury of Tempests and stormes to Aeolus and of other effects to other Gods insomuch as there was amongst the Heathen almost as great variety of Gods as of businesse And to the Worship which naturally men conceived fit to bee used towards their Gods namely Oblations Prayers Thanks and the rest formerly named the same Legislators of the Gentiles have added their Images both in Picture and Sculpture that the more ignorant sort that is to say the most part or generality of the people thinking the Gods for whose representation they were made were really included and as it were housed within them might so much the more stand in feare of them And endowed them
and inseparable Rights it follows necessarily that in whatsoever words any of them seem to be granted away yet if the Soveraign Power it selfe be not in direct termes renounced and the name of Soveraign no more given by the Grantees to him that Grants them the Grant is voyd for when he has granted all he can if we grant back the Soveraignty all is restored as inseparably annexed thereunto This great Authority being Indivisible and inseparably annexed to the Soveraignty there is little ground for the opinion of them that say of Soveraign Kings though they be singulis majores of greater Power than every one of their Subjects yet they be Universis minores of lesse power than them all together For if by all together they mean not the collective body as one person then all together and every one signifie the same and the speech is absurd But if by all together they understand them as one Person which person the Soveraign bears then the power of all together is the same with the Soveraigns power and so again the speech is absurd which absurdity they see well enough when the Soveraignty is in an Assembly of the people but in a Monarch they see it not and yet the power of Soveraignty is the same in whomsoever it be placed And as the Power so also the Honour of the Soveraign ought to be greater than that of any or all the Subjects For in the Soveraignty is the fountain of Honour The dignities of Lord Earle Duke and Prince are his Creatures As in the presence of the Master the Servants are equall and without any honour at all So are the Subjects in the presence of the Soveraign And though they shine some more some lesse when they are out of his sight yet in his presence they shine no more than the Starres in presence of the Sun But a man may here object that the Condition of Subjects is very miserable as being obnoxious to the lusts and other irregular passions of him or them that have so unlimited a Power in their hands And commonly they that live under a Monarch think it the fault of Monarchy and they that live under the government of Democracy or other Soveraign Assembly attribute all the inconvenience to that forme of Common-wealth whereas the Power in all formes if they be perfect enough to protect them is the same not considering that the estate of Man can never be without some incommodity or other and that the greatest that in any forme of Government can possibly happen to the people in generall is scarce sensible in respect of the miseries and horrible calamities that accompany a Civill Warre or that dissolute condition of masterlesse men without subjection to Lawes and a coërcive Power to tye their lands from rapine and revenge nor considering that the greatest pressure of Soveraign Governours proceedeth not from any delight or profit they can expect in the dammage or weakening of their Subjects in whose vigor consisteth their own strength and glory but in the restiveness of themselves that unwillingly contributing to their own defence make it necessary for their Governours to draw from them what they can in time of Peace that they may have means on any emergent occasion or sudden need to resist or take advantage on their Enemies For all men are by nature provided of notable multiplying glasses that is their Passions and Selfe-love through which every little payment appeareth a great grievance but are destitute of those prospective glasses namely Morall and Civill Science to see a farre off the miseries that hang over them and cannot without such payments be avoyded CHAP. XIX Of the severall Kinds of Common-wealth by Institution and of Succession to the Soveraigne Power THe difference of Common-wealths consisteth in the difference of the Soveraign or the Person representative of all and every one of the Multitude And because the Soveraignty is either in one Man or in an Assembly of more than one and into that Assembly either Every man hath right to enter or not every one but Certain men distinguished from the rest it is manifest there can be but Three kinds of Common-wealth For the Representative must needs be One man or 〈◊〉 and if more then it is the Assembly of All or but of a Part. When the Representative is One man then is the Common-wealth a MONARCHY when an Assembly of All that will come together then it is a DEMOCRACY or Popular Common-wealth when an Assembly of a Part onely then it is called an ARISTOCRACY Other kind of Common-wealth there can be none for either One or More or All must have the Soveraign Power which I have shewn to be indivisible entire There be other names of Government in the Histories and books of Policy as Tyranny and Oligarchy But 〈◊〉 are not the names of other Formes of Government but of the same Formes misliked For they that are discontented under Monarchy call it Tyranny and they that are displeased with Aristocracy called it Oligarchy So also they which find themselves grieved under a Democracy call it Anarchy which signifies want of Government and yet I think no man believes that want of Government is any new kind of Government nor by the same reason ought they to believe that the Government is of one kind when they like it and another when they mislike it or are oppressed by the Governours It is manifest that men who are in absolute liberty may if they please give Authority to One man to represent them every one as well as give such Authority to any Assembly of men whatsoever and consequently may subject themselves if they think good to a Monarch as absolutely as to any other Representative Therefore where there is already erected a Soveraign Power there can be no other Representative of the same people but onely to certain 〈◊〉 ends by the Soveraign limited For that were to erect two Soveraigns and every man to have his person represented by two Actors that by opposing one another must needs divide that Power which if men will live in Peace is indivisible and thereby reduce the Multitude into the condition of Warre contrary to the end 〈◊〉 which all Soveraignty is instituted And therefore as it is absurd to think that a Soveraign Assembly inviting the People of their Dominion to send up their Deputies with power to make known their Advise or Desires should therefore hold such Deputies rather than themselves for the absolute Representative of the people so it is absurd also to think the same in a Monarchy And I know not how this so manifest a truth should of late be so little observed that in a Monarchy he that had the Soveraignty from a descent of 600 years was alone called Soveraign had the title of Majesty from every one of his Subjects and was unquestionably taken by them for their King was notwithstanding never considered as their Representative that name
King in Parliament And in some places of the world men have the Liberty of many wives in other places such Liberty is not allowed If a Subject have a controversie with his Soveraigne of debt or of right of possession of lands or goods or concerning any service required at his hands or concerning any penalty corporall or pecuniary grounded on a precedent Law he hath the same Liberty to sue for his right as if it were against a Subject and before such Judges as are appointed by the Soveraign For seeing the Soveraign demandeth by force of a former Law and not by vertue of his Power he declareth thereby that he requireth no more than shall appear to be due by that Law The sute therefore is not contrary to the will of the Soveraign and consequently the Subject hath the Liberty to demand the hearing of his Cause and sentence according to that Law But if he demand or take any thing by pretence of his Power there lyeth in that case no action of Law for all that is done by him in Vertue of his Power is done by the Authority of every Subject and consequently he that brings an action against the Soveraign brings it against himselfe If a Monarch or Soveraign Assembly grant a Liberty to all or any of his Subjects which Grant standing he is disabled to provide for their safety the Grant is voyd unlesse he directly renounce or transferre the Soveraignty to another For in that he might openly if it had been his will and in plain termes have renounced or transferred it and did not it is to be understood it was not his will but that the Grant proceeded from ignorance of the repugnancy between such a Liberty and the Soveraign Power and therefore the Soveraignty is still retayned and consequently all those Powers which are necessary to the exercising thereof such as are the Power of Warre and Peace of Judicature of appointing Officers and Councellours of levying Mony and the rest named in the 18th Chapter The Obligation of Subjects to the Soveraign is understood to last as long and no longer than the power lasteth by which he is able to protect them For the right men have by Nature to protect themselves when none else can protect them can by no Covenant be relinquished The Soveraignty is the Soule of the Common-wealth which once departed from the Body the members doe no more receive their motion from it The end of Obedience is Protection which wheresoever a man seeth it either in his own or in anothers sword Nature applyeth his obedience to it and his endeavour to maintaine it And though Soveraignty in the intention of them that make it be immortall yet is it in its own nature not only subject to violent death by forreign war but also through the ignorance and passions of men it hath in it from the very institution many seeds of a naturall mortality by Intestine Discord If a Subject be taken prisoner in war or his person or his means of life be within the Guards of the enemy and hath his life and corporall Libertie given him on condition to be Subject to the Victor he hath Libertie to accept the condition and having accepted it is the subject of him that took him because he had no other way to preserve himself The case is the same if he be deteined on the same termes in a forreign country But if a man be held in prison or bonds or is not trusted with the libertie of his bodie he cannot be understood to be bound by Covenant to subjection and therefore may if he can make his escape by any means whatsoever If a Monarch shall relinquish the Soveraignty both for himself and his heires His Subjects returne to the absolute Libertie of Nature because though Nature may declare who are his Sons and who are the nerest of his Kin yet it dependeth on his own will as hath been said in the precedent chapter who shall be his Heyr If therefore he will have no Heyre there is no Soveraignty nor Subjection The case is the same if he dye without known Kindred and without declaration of his Heyre For then there can no Heire be known and consequently no Subjection be due If the Soveraign Banish his Subject during the Banishment he is not Subject But he that is sent on a message or hath leave to travell is still Subject but it is by Contract between Soveraigns not by vertue of the covenant of Subjection For whosoever entreth into anothers dominion is Subject to all the Laws thereof unlesse he have a privilege by the amity of the Soveraigns or by speciall licence If a Monarch subdued by war render himself Subject to the Victor his Subjects are delivered from their former obligation and become obliged to the Victor But if he be held prisoner or have not the liberty of his own Body he is not understood to have given away the Right of Soveraigntie and therefore his Subjects are obliged to yield obedience to the Magistrates formerly placed governing not in their own name but in his For his Right remaining the question is only of the Administration that is to say of the Magistrates and Officers which if he have not means to name he is supposed to approve those which he himself had formerly appointed CHAP. XXII Of SYSTEMES Subject Politicall and Private HAving spoken of the Generation Forme and Power of a Common-wealth I am in order to speak next of the parts thereof And first of Systemes which resemble the similar parts or Muscles of a Body naturall By SYSTEMES I understand any numbers of men joyned in one Interest or one Businesse Of which some are Regular and some Irregular Regular are those where one Man or Assembly of men is constituted Representative of the whole number All other are Irregular Of Regular some are Absolute and Independent subject to none but their own Representative such are only Common-wealths Of which I have spoken already in the 5. last precedent chapters Others are Dependent that is to say Subordinate to some Soveraign Power to which every one as also their Representative is Subject Of Systemes subordinate some are Politicall and some Private Politicall otherwise Called Bodies Politique and Persons in Law are those which are made by authority from the Soveraign Power of the Common-wealth Private are those which are constituted by Subjects amongst themselves or by authoritie from a stranger For no authority derived from forraign power within the Dominion of another is Publique there but Private And of Private Systemes some are Lawfull some Unlawfull Lawfull are those which are allowed by the Common-wealth all other are Unlawfull Irregular Systemes are those which having no Representative consist only in concourse of People which if not forbidden by the Common-wealth nor made on evill designe such as are conflux of People to markets or shews or any other harmelesse end are Lawfull But when the
Intention is evill or if the number be considerable unknown they are Unlawfull In Bodies Politique the power of the Representative is alwaies Limited And that which prescribeth the Limits thereof is the Power Soveraign For Power Unlimited is absolute Soveraignty And the Soveraign in every Commonwealth is the absolute Representative of all the subjects and therefore no other can be Representative of any part of them but so far forth as he shall give leave And to give leave to a Body Politique of Subjects to have an absolute Representative to all intents and purposes were to abandon the government of so much of the Commonwealth and to divide the Dominion contrary to their Peace and Defence which the Soveraign cannot be understood to doe by any Grant that does not plainly and directly discharge them of their subjection For consequences of words are not the signes of his will when other consequences are signes of the contrary but rather signes of errour and misreckonning to which all mankind is too prone The bounds of that Power which is given to the Representative of a Bodie Politique are to be taken notice of from two things One is their Writt or Letters from the Soveraign the other is the Law of the Common-wealth For though in the Institution or Acquisition of a Common-wealth which is independent there needs no Writing because the Power of the Representative has there no other bounds but such as are set out by the unwritten Law of Nature yet in subordinate bodies there are such diversities of Limitation necessary concerning their businesses times and places as can neither be remembred without Letters nor taken notice of unlesse such Letters be Patent that they may be read to them and withall sealed or testified with the Seales or other permanent signes of the Authority Soveraign And because such Limitation is not alwaies easie or perhaps possible to be described in writing the ordinary Lawes common to all Subjects must determine what the Representative may lawfully do in all Cases where the Letters themselves are silent And therefore In a Body Politique if the Representative be one man whatsoever he does in the Person of the Body which is not warranted in his Letters nor by the Lawes is his own act and not the act of the Body nor of any other Member thereof besides himselfe Because further than his Letters or the Lawes limit he representeth no mans person but his own But what he does according to these is the act of every one For of the Act of the Soveraign every one is Author because he is their Representative unlimited and the act of him that recedes not from the Letters of the Soveraign is the act of the Soveraign and therefore every member of the Body is Author of it But if the Representative be an Assembly whatsoever that Assembly shall Decree not warranted by their Letters or the Lawes is the act of the Assembly or Body Politique and the act of every one by whose Vote the Decree was made but not the act of any man that being present Voted to the contrary nor of any man absent unlesse he Voted it by procuration It is the act of the Assembly because Voted by the major part and if it be a crime the Assembly may be punished as farre-forth as it is capable as by dissolution or forfeiture of their Letters which is to such artificiall and fictitious Bodies capitall or if the Assembly have a Common stock wherein none of the Innocent Members have propriety by pecuniary Mulct For from corporall penalties Nature hath exempted all Bodies Politique But they that gave not their Vote are therefore Innocent because the Assembly cannot Represent any man in things unwarranted by their Letters and consequently are involved in their Votes If the person of the Body Politique being in one man borrow mony of a stranger that is of one that is not of the same Body for no Letters need limit borrowing seeing it is left to mens own inclinations to limit lending the debt is the Representatives For if he should have Authority from his Letters to make the members pay what he borroweth he should have by consequence the Soveraignty of them and therefore the grant were either voyd as proceeding from Errour commonly incident to humane Nature and an unsufficient signe of the will of the Granter or if it be avowed by him then is the Representer Soveraign and falleth not under the present question which is onely of Bodies subordinate No member therefore is obliged to pay the debt so borrowed but the Representative himselfe because he that lendeth it being a stranger to the Letters and to the qualification of the Body understandeth those onely for his debtors that are engaged and seeing the Representer can ingage himselfe and none else has him onely for Debtor who must therefore pay him out of the common stock if there be any or if there be none out of his own estate If he come into debt by Contract or Mulct the case is the same But when the Representative is an Assembly and the debt to a stranger all they and onely they are responsible for the debt that gave their votes to the borrowing of it or to the Contract that made it due or to the fact for which the Mulct was imposed because every one of those in voting did engage himselfe for the payment For he that is author of the borrowing is obliged to the payment even of the whole debt though when payd by any one he be discharged But if the debt be to one of the Assembly the Assembly onely is obliged to the payment out of their common stock if they have any For having liberty of Vote if he Vote the Mony shall be borrowed he Votes it shall be payd If he Vote if shall not be borrowed or be absent yet because in lending he voteth the borrowing he contradicteth his former Vote and is obliged by the later and becomes both borrower and lender and consequently cannot demand payment from any particular man but from the common Treasure onely which fayling he hath no remedy nor complaint but against himselfe that being privy to the acts of the Assembly and to their means to pay and not being enforced did neverthelesse through his own folly lend his mony It is manifest by this that in Bodies Politique subordinate and subject to a Soveraign Power it is sometimes not onely lawfull but expedient for a particular man to make open protestation against the decrees of the Representative Assembly and cause their dissent to be Registred or to take witnesse of it because otherwise they may be obliged to pay debts contracted and be responsible for crimes committed by other men But in a Soveraign Assembly that liberty is taken away both because he that protesteth there denies their Soveraignty and also because whatsoever is commanded by the Soverign Power is as to the Subject though not so alwayes
in the sight of God justified by the Command for of such command every Subject is the Author The variety of Bodies Politique is almost infinite for they are not onely distinguished by the severall affaires for which they are constituted wherein there is an unspeakable diversitie but also by the times places and numbers subject to many limitations And as to their affaires some are ordained for Government As first the Government of a Province may be committed to an Assembly of men wherein all resolutions shall depend on the Votes of the major part and then this Assembly is a Body Politique and their power limited by Commission This word Province signifies a charge or care of businesse which he whose businesse it is committeth to another man to be administred for and under him and therefore when in one Common-wealth there be divers Countries that have their Lawes distinct one from another or are farre distant in place the Administration of the Government being committed to divers persons those Countries where the Soveraign is not resident but governs by Commission are called Provinces But of the government of a Province by an Assembly residing in the Province it selfe there be few examples The Romans who had the Soveraignty of many Provinces yet governed them alwaies by Presidents and Praetors and not by Assemblies as they governed the City of Rome and Territories adjacent In like manner when there were Colonies sent from England to Plant Virginia and Sommer-Ilands though the government of them here were committed to Assemblies in London yet did those Assemblies never commit the Government under them to any Assembly there but did to each Plantation send one Governour For though every man where he can be present by Nature desires to participate of government yet where they cannot be present they are by Nature also enclined to commit the Government of their common Interest rather to a Monarchicall then a Popular form of Government which is also evident in those men that have great private estates who when they are unwilling to take the paines of administring the buâ—…inesse that belongs to them choose rather to trust one Servant then an Assembly either of their friends or servants But howsoever it be in fact yet we may suppose the Government of a Province or Colony committed to an Assembly and when it is that which in this place I have to say is this that whatsoever debt is by that Assembly contracted or whatsoever unlawfull Act is decreed is the Act onely of those that assented and not of any that dissented or were absent for the reasons before alledged Also that an Assembly residing out of the bounds of that Colony whereof they have the government cannot execute any power over the persons or goods of any of the Colonie to seize on them for debt or other duty in any place without the Colony it selfe as having no Jurisdiction nor Authoritie elsewhere but are left to the remedie which the Law of the place alloweth them And though the Assembly have right to impose a Mulct upon any of their members that shall break the Lawes they make yet out of the Colonie it selfe they have no right to execute the same And that which is said here of the Rights of an Assembly for the government of a Province or a Colony is appliable also to an Assembly for the Government of a Town an University or a College or a Church or for any other Government over the persons of men And generally in all Bodies Politique if any particular member conceive himself Injuried by the Body it self the Cognisance of his cause belongeth to the Soveraign and those the Soveraign hath ordained for Judges in such causes or shall ordaine for that particular cause and not to the Body it self For the whole Body is in this case his fellow subject which in a Soveraign Assembly is otherwise for there if the Soveraign be not Judge though in his own cause there can be no Judge at all In a Bodie Politique for the well ordering of forraigne Traffique the most commodious Representative is an Assembly of all the members that is to say such a one as every one that adventureth his mony may be present at all the Deliberations and Resolutions of the Body if they will themselves For proof whereof we are to consider the end for which men that are Merchants and may buy and sell export and import their Merchandise according to their own discretions doe neverthelesse bind themselves up in one Corporation It is true there be few Merchants that with the Merchandise they buy at home can fraight a Ship to export it or with that they buy abroad to bring it home and have therefore need to joyn together in one Society where every man may either participate of the gaine according to the proportion of his adventure or take his own and sell what he transports or imports at such prices as he thinks fit But this is no Body Politique there being no Common Representative to oblige them to any other Law than that which is common to all other subjects The End of their Incorporating is to make their gaine the greater which is done two wayes by sole buying and sole selling both at home and abroad So that to grant to a Company of Merchants to be a Corporation or Body Politique is to grant them a double Monopoly whereof one is to be sole buyers another to be sole sellers For when there is a Company incorporate for any particular forraign Country they only export the Commodities vendible in that Country which is sole buying at home and sole selling abroad For at home there is but one buyer and abroad but one that selleth both which is gainfull to the Merchant because thereby they buy at home at lower and sell abroad at higher rates And abroad there is but one buyer of forraign Merchandise and but one that sels them at home both which againe are gainfull to the adventurers Of this double Monopoly one part is disadvantageous to the people at home the other to forraigners For at home by their sole exportation they set what price they please on the husbandry and handy works of the people and by the sole importation what price they please on all forraign commodities the people have need of both which are ill for the people On the contrary by the sole selling of the native commodities abroad and sole buying the forraign commodities upon the place they raise the price of those and abate the price of these to the disadvantage of the forraigner For where but one selleth the Merchandise is the dearer and where but one buyeth the cheaper Such Corporations therefore are no other then Monopolies though they would be very profitable for a Common-wealth if being bound up into one body in forraigne Markets they were at liberty at home every man to buy and sell at what price he could The end then of these Bodies of Merchants being
interest But if he whose private interest is to be debated and judged in the Assembly make as many friends as he can in him it is no Injustice because in this case he is no part of the Assembly And though he hire such friends with mony unlesse there be an expresse Law against it yet it is not Injustice For sometimes as mens manners are Justice cannot be had without mony and every man may think his own cause just till it be heard and judged In all Common-wealths if a private man entertain more servants than the government of his estate and lawfull employment he has for them requires it is Faction and unlawfull For having the protection of the Common-wealth he needeth not the defence of private force And whereas in Nations not throughly civilized severall numerous Families have lived in continuall hostility and invaded one another with private force yet it is evident enough that they have done unjustly or else that they had no Common-wealth And as Factions for Kindred so also Factions for Government of Religion as of Papists Protestants c. or of State as Patricians and Plebeians of old time in Rome and of Aristocraticalls and Democraticalls of old time in Greece are unjust as being contrary to the peace and safety of the people and a taking of the Sword out of the hand of the Soveraign Concourse of people is an Irregular Systeme the lawfulnesse or unlawfulnesse whereof dependeth on the occasion and on the number of them that are assembled If the occasion be lawfull and manifest the Concourse is lawfull as the usuall meeting of men at Church or at a publique Shew in usuall numbers for if the numbers be extraordinarily great the occasion is not evident and consequently he that cannot render a particular and good account of his being amongst them is to be judged conscious of an unlawfull and tumultuous designe It may be lawfull for a thousand men to joyn in a Petition to be delivered to a Judge or Magistrate yet if a thousand men come to present it it is a tumultuous Assembly because there needs but one or two for that purpose But in such cases as these it is not a set number that makes the Assembly Unlawfull but such a number as the present Officers are not able to suppresse and bring to Justice When an unusuall number of men assemble against a man whom they accuse the Assembly is an Unlawfull tumult because they may deliver their accusation to the Magistrate by a few or by one man Such was the case of St. Paul at Ephesus where Demetrius and a great number of other men brought two of Pauls companions before the Magistrate saying with one Voyce Great is Diana of the Ephesians which was their way of demanding Justice against them for teaching the people such doctrine as was against their Religion and Trade The occasion here considering the Lawes of that People was just yet was their Assembly Judged Unlawfull and the Magistrate reprehended them for it in these words If Demetrius and the other work-men can accuse any man of any thing there be Pleas and Deputies let them accuse one another And if you have any other thing to demand your case may be judged in an Assembly Lawfully called For we are in danger to be accused for this dayes sedition because there is no cause by which any man can render any reason of this Concourse of People Where he calleth an Assembly whereof men can give no just account a Sedition and such as they could not answer for And this is all I shall say concerning Systemes and Assemblyes of People which may be compared as I said to the Similar parts of mans Body such as be Lawfull to the Muscles such as are Unlawfull to Wens Biles and Apostemes engendred by the unnaturall conflux of evill humours CHAP. XXIII Of the PUBLIQUE MINISTERS of Soveraign Power IN the last Chapter I have spoken of the Similar parts of a Common-wealth In this I shall speak of the parts Organicall which are Publique Ministers A PUBLIQUE MINISTER is he that by the Soveraign whether a Monarch or an Assembly is employed in any affaires with Authority to represent in that employment the Person of the Common-wealth And whereas every man or assembly that hath Soveraignty representeth two Persons or as the more common phrase is has two Capacities one Naturall and another Politique as a Monarch hath the person not onely of the Common-wealth but also of a man and a Soveraign Assembly hath the Person not onely of the Common-wealth but also of the Assembly they that be servants to them in their naturall Capacity are not Publique Ministers but those onely that serve them in the Administration of the Publique businesse And therefore neither Ushers nor Sergeants nor other Officers that waite on the Assembly for no other purpose 〈◊〉 for the commodity of the men assembled in an Aristocracy or Democracy nor Stewards Chamberlains Cofferers or any other Officers of the houshold of a Monarch are Publique Ministers in a Monarchy Of Publique Ministers some have charge committed to them of a generall Administration either of the whole Dominion or of a part thereof Of the whole as to a Protector or Regent may bee committed by the Predecessor of an Infant King during his minority the whole Administration of his Kingdome In which case every Subject is so far obliged to obedience as the Ordinances he â—…all make and the commands he shall give be in the Kings name and not inconsistent with his Soveraigne Power Of a part or Province as when either a Monarch or a Soveraign Assembly shall give the generall charge thereof to a Governour Lieutenant Praefect or Vice-Roy And in this case also every one of that Province is obliged to all he shall doe in the name of the Soveraign and that not incompatible with the Soveraigns Right For such Protectors Vice-Roys and Governors have no other right but what depends on the Soveraigns Will and no Commission that can be given them can be interpretâ—…d for a Declaration of the will to transferre the Sovernignty without expresse and perspicuous words to that purpose And this kind of Publique Ministers resembleth the Nerves and Tendons that move the severall limbs of a body naturall Others have speciall Administration that is to say charges of some speciall businesse either at home or abroad As at home First for the Oeconomy of a Common-wealth They that have Authority concerning the Treasure as Tributes Impositions Rents Fines or whatsoever publique revenue to collect receive issue or take the Accounts thereof are Publique Ministers Ministers because they serve the Person Representative and can doe nothing against his Command nor without his Authority Publique because they serve him in his Politicall Capacity Secondly they that have Authority concerning the Militia to have the custody of Armes Forts Ports to Levy Pay or Conduct Souldiers or to provide for any necessary
Woods and divers services reserved on the Land he gave his Subjects yet it seems they were not reserved for his Maintenance in his Publique but in his Naturall capacity For he and his Successors did for all that lay Arbitrary Taxes on all Subjects Land when they judged it necessary Or if those publique Lands and Services were ordained as a sufficient maintenance of the Common-wealth it was contrary to the scope of the Institution being as it appeared by those ensuing Taxes insufficient and as it appeares by the late small Revenue of the Crown Subject to Alienation and Diminution It is therefore in vaine to assign a portion to the Common-wealth which may sell or give it away and does â—…sell and give it away when t is done by their Representative As the Distribution of Lands at home so also to assigne in what places and for what commodities the Subject shall traffique abroad belongeth to the Soveraign For if it did belong to private persons to use their own discretion therein some of them would bee drawn for gaine both to furnish the enemy with means to hurt the Common-wealth and hurt it themselves by importing such things as pleasing mens appetites be neverthelesse noxious or at least unprofitable to them And therefore it belongeth to the Common-wealth that is to the Soveraign only to approve or disapprove both of the places and matter of forraign Traffique Further seeing it is not enough to the Sustentation of a Common-wealth that every man have a propriety in a portion of Land or in some few commodities or a naturall property in some usefull art and there is no art in the world but is necessary either for the being or well being almost of every particular man it is necessary that men distribute that which they can spare and transferre their propriety therein mutually one to another by exchange and mutuall contract And therefore it belongeth to the Common-wealth that is to say to the Soveraign to appoint in what manner all kinds of contract between Subjects as buying selling exchanging borrowing lending letting and taking to hire are to bee made and by what words and signes they shall be understood for valid And for the Matter and Distribution of the Nourishment to the severall Members of the Common-wealth thus much considering the modell of the whole worke is sufficient By Concoction I understand the reducing of all commodities which are not presently consumed but reserved for Nourishment in time to come to some thing of equall value and withall so portable as not to hinder the motion of men from place to place to the end a man may have in what place soever such Nourishment as the place affordeth And this is nothing else but Gold and Silver and Mony For Gold and Silver being as it happens almost in all Countries of the world highly valued is a commodious measure of the value of all things else between Nations and Mony of what matter soever coyned by the Soveraign of a Common-wealth is a sufficient measure of the value of all things else between the Subjects of that Common-wealth By the means of which measures all commodities Moveable and Immoveable are made to accompany a man to all places of his resort within and without the place of his ordinary residence and the same passeth from Man to Man within the Common-wealth and goes round about Nourishing as it passeth every part thereof In so much as this Concoction is as it were the Sanguification of the Common-wealth For naturall Bloud is in like manner made of the fruits of the Earth and circulating nourisheth by the way every Member of the Body of Man And because Silver and Gold have their value from the matter it self they have first this priviledge that the value of them cannot be altered by the power of one nor of a few Common-wealths as being a common measure of the commodities of all places But base Mony may easily be enhansed or abased Secondly they have the priviledge to make Common-wealths move and stretch out their armes when need is into forraign Countries and supply not only private Subjects that travell but also whole Armies with Provision But that Coyne which is not considerable for the Matter but for the Stamp of the place being unable to endure change of ayr hath its effect at home only where also it is subject to the change of Laws and thereby to have the value diminished to the prejudice many times of those that have it The Conduits and Wayes by which it is conveyed to the Publique use are of two sorts One that Conveyeth it to the Publique Coffers The other that Issueth the same out againe for publique payments Of the first sort are Collectors Receivers and Treasurers of the second are the Treasurers againe and the Officers appointed for payment of severall publique or private Ministers And in this also the Artificiall Man maintains his resemblance with the Naturall whose Veins receiving the Bloud from the severall Parts of of the Body carry it to the Heart where being made Vitall the Heart by the Arteries sends it out again to enliven and enable for motion all the Members of the same The Procreation or Children of a Common-wealth are those we call Plantations or Colonies which are numbers of men sent out from the Common-wealth under a Conductor or Governour to inhabit a Forraign Country either formerly voyd of Inhabitants or made voyd then by warre And when a Colony is setled they are either a Common-wealth of themselves discharged of their subjection to their Soveraign that sent them as hath been done by many Common-wealths of antient time in which case the Common-wealth from which they went was called their Metropolis or Mother and requires no more of them then Fathers require of the Children whom they emancipate and make free from their domestique government which is Honour and Friendship or else they remain united to their Metropolis as were the Colonies of the people of Rome and then they are no Common-wealths themselves but Provinces and parts of the Common-wealth that sent them So that the Right of Colonies saving Honour and League with their Metropolis dependeth wholly on their Licence or Letters by which their Soveraign authorised them to Plant. CHAP. XXV Of COUNSELL HOw fallacious it is to judge of the nature of things by the ordinary and inconstant use of words appeareth in nothing more than in the confusion of Counsels and Commands arising from the Imperative manner of speaking in them both and in many other occasions besides For the words Doe this are the words not onely of him that Commandeth but also of him that giveth Counsell and of him that Exhorteth and yet there are but few that see not that these are very different things or that cannot distinguish between them when they perceive who it is that speaketh and to whom the Speech is directed and upon what occcasion But finding those phrases in mens
done or said by which the intention may be argued by a humane Judge it hath not the name of Crime which distinction the Greeks observed in the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 wherof the former which is translated Sinne signifieth any swarving from the Law whatsoever but the two later which are translated Crime signifie that sinne onely whereof one man may accuse another But of Intentions which never appear by any outward act there is no place for humane accusation In like manner the Latines by Peccatum which is Sinne signifie all manner of deviation from the Law but by Crimen which word they derive from Cerno which signifies to perceive they mean onely such sinnes as may be made appear before a Judge and therfore are not meer Intentions From this relation of Sinne to the Law and of Crime to the Civill Law may be inferred First that where Law ceaseth Sinne ceaseth But because the Law of Nature is eternall Violation of Covenants Ingratitude Arrogance and all Facts contrary to any Morall vertue can never cease to be Sinne. Secondly that the Civill Law ceasing Crimes cease for there being no other Law remaining but that of Nature there is no place for Accusation every man being his own Judge and accused onely by his own Conscience and cleared by the Uprightnesse of his own Intention When therefore his Intention is Right his fact is no Sinne if otherwise his fact is Sinne but not Crime Thirdly That when the Soveraign Power ceaseth Crime also ceaseth for where there is no such Power there is no protection to be had from the Law and therefore every one may protect himself by his own power for no man in the Institution of Soveraign Power can be supposed to give away the Right of preserving his own body for the safety whereof all Soveraignty was ordained But this is to be understood onely of those that have not themselves contributed to the taking away of the Power that protected them for that was a Crime from the beginning The source of every Crime is some defect of the Understanding or some errour in Reasoning or some sudden force of the Passions Defect in the Understanding is Ignoranâ—…e in Reasoning Erroneous Opinion Again Ignorance is of three sorts of the Law and of the Soveraign and of the Penalty Ignorance of the Law of Nature Excuseth no man because every man that hath attained to the use of Reason is supposed to know he ought not to do to another what he would not have done to himselfe Therefore into what place soever a man shall come if he do any thing contrary to that Law it is a Crime If a man come from the Indies hither and perswade men here to receive a new Religion or teach them any thing that tendeth to disobedience of the Lawes of this Country though he be never so well perswaded of the truth of what he teacheth he commits a Crime and may be justly punished for the same not onely because his doctrine is false but also because he does that which he would not approve in another namely that comming from hence he should endeavour to alter the Religion there But ignorance of the Civill Law shall Excuse a man in a strange Country till it be declared to him because till then no Civill Law is binding In the like manner if the Civill Law of a mans own Country be not so sufficiently declared as he may know it if he will nor the Action against the Law of Nature the Ignorance is a good Excuse In other cases Ignorance of the Civill Law Excuseth not Ignorance of the Soveraign Power in the place of a mans ordinary residence Excuseth him not because he ought to take notice of the Power by which he hath been protected there Ignorance of the Penalty where the Law is declared Excuseth no man For in breaking the Law which without a fear of penalty to follow were not a Law but vain words he undergoeth the penalty though he know not what it is because whosoever voluntarily doth any action accepteth all the known consequences of it but Punishment is a known consequence of the violation of the Lawes in every Common-wealth which punishment if it be determined already by the Law he is subject to that if not then is he subject to Arbitrary punishment For it is reason that he which does Injury without other limitation than that of his own Will should suffer punishment without other limitation than that of his Will whose Law is thereby violated But when a penalty is either annexed to the Crime in the Law it selfe or hath been usually inflicted in the like cases there the Delinquent is Excused from a greater penalty For the punishment foreknown if not great enough to deterre men from the action is an invitement to it because when men compare the benefit of their Injustice with the harm of their punishment by necessity of Nature they choose that which appeareth best for themselves and therefore when they are punished more than the Law had formerly determined or more than others were punished for the same Crime it is the Law that tempted and deceiveth them No Law made after a Fact done can make it a Crime because if the Fact be against the Law of Nature the Law was before the Fact and a Positive Law cannot be taken notice of before it be made and therefore cannot be Obligatory But when the Law that forbiddeth a Fact is made before the Fact be done yet he that doth the Fact is lyable to the Penalty ordained after in case no lesser Penalty were made known before neither by Writing nor by Example for the reason immediatly before alledged From defect in Reasoning that is to say from Errour men are prone to violate the Lawes three wayes First by Presumption of false Principles as when men from having observed how in all places and in all ages unjust Actions have been authorised by the force and victories of those who have committed them and that potent men breaking through the Cob-web Lawes of their Country the weaker sort and those that have failed in their Enterprises have been esteemed the onely Criminals have thereupon taken for Principles and grounds of their Reasoning That Justice is but a vain word That whatsoever a man can get by his own Industry and hazard is his own That the Practice of all Nations cannot be unjust That Examples of former times are good Arguments of doing the like again and many more of that kind Which being granted no Act in it selfe can be a Crime but must be made so not by the Law but by the successe of them that commit it and the same Fact be vertuous or vicious as Fortune pleaseth so that what Marius makes a Crime Sylla shall make meritorious and Caesar the same Lawes standing turn again into a Crime to the perpetuall
a man should say an Incorporeall Body But in the sense of cōmon people not all the Universe is called Body but only such parts thereof as they can discern by the sense of Feeling to resist their force or by the sense of their Eyes to hinder them from a farther prospect Therefore in the common language of men Aire and aeriall substances use not to be taken for Bodies but as often as men are sensible of their effects are called Wind or Breath or because the same are called in the Latine Spiritus Spirits as when they call that aeriall substance which in the body of any living creature gives it life and motion Vitall and Animall spirits But for those Idols of the brain which represent Bodies to us where they are not as in a Looking-glasse in a Dream or to a Distempered brain waking they are as the Apostle saith generally of all Idols nothing Nothing at all I say there where they seem to be◅ and in the brain it self nothing but tumult proceeding either from the action of the objects or from the disorderly agitation of the Organs of our Sense And men that are otherwise imployed then to search into their causes know not of themselves what to call them and may therefore easily be perswaded by those whose knowledge they much reverence some to call them Bodies and think them made of aire compacted by a power supernaturall because the sight judges them corporeall and some to call them Spirits because the sense of Touch discerneth nothing in the place where they appear to resist their fingers So that the proper signification of Spirit in common speech is either a subtile fluid and invisible Body or a Ghost or other Idol or Phantasme of the Imagination But for metaphoricall significations there be many for sometimes it is taken for Disposition or Inclination of the mind as when for the disposition to controwl the sayings of other men we say a spirit of contradiction For a disposition to uncleannesse an unclean spirit for perversenesse a froward spirit for sullennesse a dumb spirit and for inclination to godlinesse and Gods service the Spirit of God sometimes for any eminent ability or extraordinary passion or disease of the mind as when great wisdome is called the spirit of wisdome and mad men are said to be possessed with a spirit Other signification of Spirit I find no where any and where none of these can satisfie the sense of that word in Scripture the place falleth not under humane Understanding and our Faith therein consisteth not in our Opinion but in our Submission as in all places where God is said to be a Spirit or where by the Spirit of God is meant God himselfe For the nature of God is incomprehensible that is to say we understand nothing of what he is but only that he is and therefore the Attributes we give him are not to tell one another what he is nor to signifie our opinion of his Nature but our desire to honor him with such names as we conceiv◅ most honorable amongst our selves Gen. 1. 2. The Spirit of God moved upon the face of the Waters Here if by the Spirit of God be meant God himself then is Motion attributed to God and consequently Place which are intelligible only of Bodies and not of substances incorporeall and so the place is above our understanding that can conceive nothing moved that changes not place or that has not dimension and whatsoever has dimension is Body But the meaning of those words is best understood by the like place Gen. 8. 1. Where when the earth was covered with Waters as in the beginning God intending to abate them and again to discover the dry land useth the like words I will bring my Spirit upon the Earth and the waters shall be diminished in which place by Spirit is understood a Wind that is an Aire or Spirit moved which might be called as in the former place the Spirit of God because it was Gods work Gen. 41. 38. Pharaoh calleth the Wisdome of Joseph the Spirit of God For Joseph having advised him to look out a wise and discreet man and to set him over the land of Egypt he saith thus Can we find such a man as this is in whom is the Spirit of God And Exod. 28. 3. Thou shalt speak saith God to all that are wise hearted whom I have filled with the Spirit of VVisdome to make Aaron Garments to consecrate him Where extraordinary Understanding though but in making Garments as being the Gift of God is called the Spirit of God The same is found again Exod. 31. 3 4 5 6. and 35. 31. And Isaiah 11. 2 3. where the Prophet speaking of the Messiah saith The Spirit of the Lord shall abide upon him the Spirit of wisdome and understanding the Spirit of counsell and fortitude and the Spirit of the fear of the Lord. Where manifestly is meant not so many Ghosts but so many eminent graces that God would give him In the Book of Judges an extraordinary Zeal and Courage in the the defence of Gods people is called the Spirit of God as when it excited Othoniel Gideon Jephtha and Samson to deliver them from servitude Judg. 3. 10. 6. 34. 11. 29. 13. 25. 14. 6 19. And of Saul upon the newes of the insolence of the Ammonites towards the men of Jabesh Gilead it is said 1 Sam. 11. 6. that The Spirit of God came upon Saul and his Anger or as it is in the Latine his Fury was kindled greatly Where it is not probable was meant a Ghost but an extraordinary Zeal to punish the cruelty of the Ammonites In like manner by the Spirit of God that came upon Saul when hee was amongst the Prophets that praised God in Songs and Musick 1 Sam. 19. 20. is to be understood not a Ghost but an unexpected and sudden Zeal to join with them in their devotion The false Prophet Zedekiah saith to Micaiah 1 Kings 22. 24. Which way went the Spirit of the Lord from me to speak to thee Which cannot be understood of a Ghost for Micaiah declared before the Kings of Israel and Judah the event of the battle as from a Vision and not as from a Spirit speaking in him In the same manner it appeareth in the Books of the Prophets that though they spake by the Spirit of God that is to say by a speciall grace of Prediction yet their knowledge of the future was not by a Ghost within them but by some supernaturall Dream or Vision Gen. 2. 7. It is said God made man of the dust of the Earth and breathed into his nostrills spiraculum vitae the breath of life and man was made a living soul. There the breath of life inspired by God signifies no more but that God gave him life And Job 27. 3. as long as the Spirit of God is in my nostrils is no more then to say as long as I live So
in Ezek. 1. 20. the Spirit of life was in the wheels is equivalent to the wheels were alive And Ezek. 2. 30. the Spirit entred into me and set me on my feet that is I recovered my vitall strength not that any Ghost or incorporeall substance entred into and possessed his body In the 11 chap. of Numbers verse 17. I will take saith God of the Spirit which is upon thee and will put it upon them and they shall bear the burthen of the people with thee that is upon the seventy Elders whereupon two of the seventy are said to prophecy in the campe of whom some complained and Joshua desired Moses to forbid them which Moses would not doe Whereby it appears that Joshua knew not they had received authority so to do and prophecyed according to the mind of Moses that is to say by a Spirit or Authority subordinate to his own In the like sense we read Deut. 34. 9. that Joshua was full of the Spirit of wisdome because Moses had laid his hands upon him that is because he was ordained by Moses to prosecute the work hee had himselfe begun namely the bringing of Gods peoplâ—… into the promised land but prevented by death could not finish In the like sense it is said Rom. 8. 9. If any man have not the Spirit of Christ he is none of his not meaning thereby the Ghost of Christ but a submission to his Doctrine As also 1 John 4. 2. Hereby you shall know the Spirit of God Every Spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flâ—…sh is of God by which is meant the Spirit of unfained Christianity or submission to that main Article of Christian faith that Jesus is the Christ which cannot be interpreted of a Ghost Likewise these words Luke 4. 1. And Jesus full of the Holy Ghost that is as it is exprest Mat. 4. 1. and Mar. 1. 12. of the Holy Spirit may be understood for Zeal to doe the work for which heâ—… was sent by God the Father but to interpret it of a Ghost is to say that God himselfe for so our Saviour was was filled with God which is very unproper and unsignificant How we came to translate Spirits by the word Ghosts which signifieth nothing neither in heaven nor earth but the Imaginary inhabitants of mans brain I examine not but this I say the word Spirit in the text signifieth no such thing but either properly a reall substance or Metaphorically some extraordinary ability or affection of the Mind or of the Body The Disciples of Christ seeing him walking upon the sea Mat. 14. 26. and Marke 6. 49. supposed him to be a Spirit meaning thereby an Aeriall Body and not a Phantasme for it is said they all saw him which cannot be understood of the delusions of the brain which are not common to many at once as visible Bodies are but singular because of the differences of Fancies but of Bodies only In like manner where he was taken for a Spirit by the same Apostles Luke 24. 3 7. so also Acts 12. 15. when St. Peter was delivered out of Prison it would not be beleeved but when the Maid said he was at the dore they said it was his Angel by which must be meant a corporeall substance or we must say the Disciples themselves did follow the common opinion of both Jews and Gentiles that some such apparitions were not Imaginary but Reall and such as needed not the fancy of man for their Existence These the Jews called Spirits and Angels Good or Bad as the Greeks called the same by the name of Daemons And some such apparitions may be reall and substantiall that is to say subtile Bodies which God can form by the same power by which he formed all things and make use of as of Ministers and Messengers that is to say Angels to declare his will and execute the same when he pleaseth in extraordinary and suâ—…naturall manner But when hee hath so formed them they are Substances endued with dimensions and take up roome and can be moved from place to place which is peculiar to Bodies and thâ—…refore are not Ghosts incorporeall that is to say Ghosts that are in no place that is to say that are no where that is to say that seeâ—…ing to be somewhat are nothing But if Corporeall be taken in the most vulgar manner for such Substances as are perceptible by our externall Senses then is Substance Incorporeall a thing not Imaginary but Reall namely a thin Substance Invisible but that hath the same dimensions that are in grosser Bodies By the name of ANGEL is signified generally a Messenger and most often a Messenger of God And by a Messenger of God is signified any thing that makes known his extraordinary Presence that is to say the extraordinary manifestation of his power especially by a Dream or Vision Concerning the creation of Angels there is nothing delivered in the Scriptures That they are Spirits is often repeated but by the name of Spirit is signified both in Scripture and vulgarly both amongst Jews and Gentiles sometimes thin Bodies as the Aire the Wind the Spirits Vitall and Animall of living creatures and sometimes the Images that rise in the fancy in Dreams and Visions which are not reall Substances nor last any longer then the Dream or Vision they appear in which Apparitions though no reall Substances but Accidents of the brain yet when God raiseth them supernaturally to signifie his Will they are not unproperly termed Gods Messengers that is to say his Angels And as the Gentiles did vulgarly conceive the Imagery of the brain for things really subsistent without them and not dependent on the fancy and out of them framed their opinions of Daemons Good and Evill which because they seemed to subsist really they called Substances and because they could not feel them with their hands Incorporeall so also the Jews upon the same ground without any thing in the Old Testament that constrained them thereunto had generally an opinion except the sect of the Sadduces that those apparitions which it pleased God sometimes to produce in the fancie of men for his own service and therefore called them his Angels were substances not dependent on the fancy but permanent creatures of God whereof those which they thought were good to them they esteemed the Angels of God and those they thought would hurt them they called Evill Angels or Evill Spirits such as was the Spirit of Python and the Spirits of Mad-men of Lunatiques and Epileptiques For they esteemed such as were troubled with such diseases Daemoniaques But if we consider the places of the Old Testament where Angels are mentioned we shall find that in most of them there can nothing else be understood by the word Angel but some image raised supernaturally in the fancy to signifie the presence of God in the execution of some supernaturall work and therefore in the rest where their nature is not exprest it may be
Servants to bind hand and foot the man that had not on his Wedding garment and to cast him out 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Externall darknesse or Darknesse without which though translated Vtter darknesse does not signifie how great but where that darknesse is to be namely without the habitation of Gods Elect. Lastly whereas there was a place neer Jerusalem called the Valley of the Children of Hinnon in a part whereof called Tophet the Jews had committed most grievous Idolatry sacrificing their children to the Idol Moloch and wherein also God had afflicted his enemies with most grievous punishments and wherein Josias had burnt the Priests of Moloch upon their own Altars as appeareth at large in the 2 of Kings chap. 23. the place served afterwards to receive the filth and garbage which was carried thither on t of the City and there used to be fires made from time to time to purifie the aire and take away the stench of Carrion From this abominable place the Jews used ever after to call the place of the Damned by the name of Gehenna or Valley of Hinnon And this Gehenna is that word which is usually now translated HELL and from the fires from time to time there burning we have the notion of Everlasting and Vnquenchable Fire Seeing now there is none that so interprets the Scripture as that after the day of Judgment the wicked are all Eternally to be punished in the Valley of Hinnon or that they shall so rise again as to be ever after under ground or under water or that after the Resurrection they shall no more see one another nor stir from one place to another it followeth me thinks very necessarily that that which is thus said concerning Hell Fire is spoken metaphorically and that therefore there is a proper sense to bee enquired after for of all Metaphors there is some reall ground that may be expressed in proper words both of the Place of Hell and the nature of Hellish Torments and Tormenters And first for the Tormenters wee have their nature and properties exactly and properly delivered by the names of The Enemy or Satan The Accuser or Diabolus The Destroyer or Abaddon Which significant names Satan Devill Abaddon set not forth to us any Individuall person as proper names use to doe but onely an office or quality and are therefore Appellatives which ought not to have been left untranslated as they are in the Latine and Modern Bibles because thereby they seem to be the proper names of Daemons and men are the more easily seduced to beleeve the doctrine of Devills which at that time was the Religion of the Gentiles and contrary to that of Moses and of Christ. And because by the Enemy the Accuser and Destroyer is meant the Enemy of them that shall be in the Kingdome of God therefore if the Kingdome of God after the Resurrection bee upon the Earth as in the former Chapter I have shewn by Scripture it seems to be The Enemy and his Kingdome must be on Earth also For so also was it in the time before the Jews had deposed God For Gods Kingdome was in Palestine and the Nations round about were the Kingdomes of the Enemy and consequently by Satan is meant any Earthly Enemy of the Church The Torments of Hell are expressed sometimes by weeping and gnashing of teeth as Mat. 8. 12. Sometimes by the worm of Conscience as Isa. 66. 24. and Mark 9. 44 46 48 sometimes by Fire as in the place now quoted where the worm dyeth not and the fire is not quenched and many places beside sometimes by shame and contâ—…mpt as Daâ—… 12. 2. And many of them that sleep in the dust of the Earth shall awake some to Everlasting life and some to shame and everlasting contempt All which places design metaphorically a grief and discontent of mind from the sight of that Eternall felicity in others which they themselves through their own incredulity and disobedience have lost And because such felicity in others is not sensible but by comparison with their own actuall miseries it followeth that they are to suffer such bodily paines and calamities as are incident to those who not onely live under evill and cruell Governours but have also for Enemy the Eternall King of the Saints God Almighty And amongst these bodily paines is to be reckoned also to every one of the wicked a second Death For though the Scripture bee clear for an universall Resurrection yet wee do not read that to any of the Reprobate is promised an Eternall life For whereas St. Paul 1 Cor. 15. 42 43. to the question concerning what bodies men shall rise with again saith that the body is sown in corruption and is raised in incorruption It is sown in dishonour it is raised in glory it is sown in weaknesse it is raised in power Glory and Power cannot be applyed to the bodies of the wicked Nor can the name of Second Death bee applyed to those that can never die but once And although in Metaphoricall speech a Calamitous life Everlasting may bee called an Everasting Death yet it cannot well be understood of a Second Death The fire prepared for the wicked is an Everlasting Fire that is to say the estate wherein no man can be without torture both of body and mind after the Resurrection shall endure for ever and in that sense the Fire shall be unquenchable and the torments Everlasting but it cannot thence be inferred that hee who shall be cast into that fire or be tormented with those torments shall endure and resist them so as to be eternally burnt and tortured and yet never be destroyed nor die And though there be many places that affirm Everlasting Fire and Torments into which men may be cast successively one after another for ever yet I find none that affirm there shall bee an Eternall Life therein of any individuall person but to the contrary an Everlasting Death which is the Second Death For after Death and the Grave shall have delivered up the dead which were in them and every man be judged according to his works Death and the Grave shall also be cast into the Lake of Fire This is the Second Death Whereby it is evident that there is to bee a Second Death of every one that shall bee condemned at the day of Judgement after which hee shall die no more The joyes of Life Eternall are in Scripture comprehended all under the name of SALVATION or being saved To be saved is to be secured either respectively against speciall Evills or absolutely against all Evill comprehending Want Sicknesse and Death it self And because man was created in a condition Immortall not subject to corruption and consequently to nothing that tendeth to the dissolution of his nature and fell from that happinesse by the sin of Adam it followeth that to be saved from Sin is to be saved from all the Evill and Calamities that Sinne hath brought upon
take with thee one or two more And if he shall neglect to hear them tell it unto the Church but if he neglect to hear the Church let him be unto thee as an Heathen man and a Publican By which it is manifest that the Judgment concerning the truth of Repentance belonged not to any one Man but to the Church that is to the Assembly of the Faithull or to them that have authority to bee their Representant But besides the Judgment there is necessary also the pronouncing of Sentence And this belonged alwaies to the Apostle or some Pastor of the Church as Prolocutor and of this our Saviour speaketh in the 18 verse Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven And conformable hereunto was the practise of St. Paul 1 Cor. 5. 3 4 5. where he saith For I verily as absent in body but present in spirit have determined already as though I were present concerning him that hath so done this deed In the name of our Lord Iesus Christ when ye are gathered together and my spirit with the power of our Lord Iesus Christ To deliver such a one to Satan that is to say to cast him out of the Châ—…rch as a man whose Sins are not Forgiven Paul here pronounceth the Sentence but the Assembly was first to hear the Cause for St. Paul was absent and by consequence to condemn him But in the same chapter ver 11 12. the Judgment in such a case is more expressely attributed to the Assembly But now I have written unto you not to keep company if any man that is called a Brother be a Fornicator c. with such a one no not to eat For what have I to do to judg them that are without Do not ye judg them that are within The Sentence therefore by which a man was put out of Church was pronounced by the Apostle or Pastor but the Judgment concerning the merit of the cause was in the Church that is to say as the times were before the conversion of Kings and men that had Soveraign Authority in the Common-wealth the Assembly of the Christians dwelling in the same City as in Corinth in the Assembly of the Christians of Corinth This part of the Power of the Keyes by which men were thrust out from the Kingdom of God is that which is called Excommunication and to excommunicate is in the Originall 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to cast out of the Synagogue that is out of the place of Divine service a word drawn from the custome of the Jews to cast out of their Synagogues such as they thought in manners or doctrine contagious as Lepers were by the Law of Moses separated from the congregation of Israel till such time as they should be by the Priest pronounced clean The Use and Effect of Excommunication whilest it was not yet strengthened with the Civill Power was no more than that they who were not Excommunicate were to avoid the company of them that were It was not enough to repute them as Heathen that never had been Christians for with such they might eate and drink which with Excommunicate persons they might not do as appeareth by the words of St. Paul 1 Cor. 5. ver 9 10 c. where he telleth them he had formerly forbidden them to company with Fornicators but because that could not bee without going out of the world he restraineth it to such Fornicators and otherwise vicious persons as were of the brethren with such a one he saith they ought not to keep company no not to eat And this is no more than our Saviour saith Mat. 18. 17. Let him be to thee as a Heathen and as a Publican For Publicans which signifieth Farmers and Receivers of the revenue of the Common-wealth were so hated and detested by the Jews that were to pay it as that Publican and Sinner were taken amongst them for the same thing Insomuch as when our Saviour accepted the invitation of Zacchaeus a Publican though it were to Convert him yet it was ohjected to him as a Crime And therefore when our Saviour to Heathen added Publican he did forbid them to eat with a man Excommunicate As for keeping them out of their Synagogues or places of Assembly they had no Power to do it but that of the owner of the place whether he were Christian or Heathen And because all places are by right in the Dominion of the Common-wealth as well hee that was Excommunicated as hee that never was Baptized might enter inter into them by Commission from the Civill Magistrate as Paul before his conversion entred into their Synagogues at Damascus to apprehend Christians men and women and to carry them bound to Jerusalem by Commission from the High Priest By which it appears that upon a Christian that should become an Apostate in a place where the Civill Power did persecute or not assist the Church the effect of Excommunication had nothiug in it neither of dammage in this world nor of terrour Not of terrour because of their unbeleef nor of dammage because they are retâ—…rned thereby into the favour of the world and in the world to come were to be in no worse estate then they which never had beleeved The dammage redounded rather to the Church by provocation of them they cast out to a freer execution of their malice Excommunication therefore had its effect onely upon those that beleeved that Jesus Christ was to come again in Glory to reign over and to judge both the quick and the dead and should therefore refuse entrance into his Kingdom to those whose Sins were Retained that is to those that were Excommunicated by the Church And thence it is that St. Paul calleth Excommunication a delivery of the ExcoÌ„municate person to Satan For without the Kingdom of Christ all other Kingdomes after Judgment are comprehended in the Kingdome of Satan This is it that the faithfull stood in fear of as long as they stood Excommunicate that is to say in an estate wherein their sins were not Forgiven Whereby wee may understand that Excommunication in the time that Christian Religion was not authorized by the Civill Power was used onely for a correction of manners not of errours in opinion for it is a punishment whereof none could be sensible but such as beleeved and expected the coming again of our Saviour to judge the world and they who so beleeved needed no other opinion but onely uprightnesse of life to be saved There lyeth Excommunication for Injustice as Mat. 18. If thy Brother offend thee tell it him privately then with Witnesses lastly tell the Church and then if he obey not Let him be to thee as an Heathen man and a Publican And there lieth Excommunication for a Scandalous Life as 1 Cor. 5. 11. If any man that is called a Brother be a Fornicator or Covetous or an Idolater
of them if there had appeared in their Rods nothing like a Serpent and in the Water enchanted nothing like Bloud nor like any thing else but Water but that they had faced down the King that they were Serpents that looked like Rods and that it was Bloud that seemed Water That had been both Enchantment and Lying And yet in this daily act of the Priest they doe the very same by turning the holy words into the manner of a Charme which produceth nothing new to the Sense but they face us down that it hath turned the Bread into a Man nay more into a God and require men to worship it as if it were our Saviour himself present God and Man and thereby to commit most grosse Idolatry For if it bee enough to excuse it of Idolatry to say it is no more Bread but God why should not the same excuse serve the Egyptians in case they had the faces to say the Leeks and Onyons they worshipped were not very Leeks and Onyons but a Divinity under their species or likenesse The words This is my Body are aequivalent to these This signifies or represents my Body and it is an ordinary figure of Speech but to take it literally is an abuse nor though so taken can it extend any further than to the Bread which Christ himself with his own hands Consecrated For hee never said that of what Bread soever any Priest whatsoever should say This is my Body or This is Christs Body the same should presently be transubstantiated Nor did the Church of Rome ever establish this Transubstantiation till the time of Innocent the third which was not above 500. years agoe when the Power of Popes was at the Highest and the Darknesse of the time grown so great as men discerned not the Bread that was given them to eat especially when it was stamped with the figure of Christ upon the Crosse as if they would have men beleeve it were Transubstantiated not onely into the Body of Christ but also into the Wood of his Crosse and that they did eat both together in the Sacrament The like Incantation in stead of Consecration is used also in the Sacrament of Baptisme Where the abuse of Gods name in each severall Person and in the whole Trinity with the sign of the Crosse at each name maketh up the Charm As first when they make the Holy water the Priest saith I Conjure thee thou Creature of Water in the name of God the Father Almighty and in the name of Iesus Christ his onely Son our Lord and in vertue of the Holy Ghost that thou become Conjured water to drive away all the Powers of the Enemy and to eradicate and supplant the Enemy c. And the same in the Benediction of the Salt to be mingled with it That thou become Conjured Salt that all Phantasmes and Knavery of the Devills fraud may fly and depart from the place wherein thou art sprinkled and every unclean Spirit bee Conjured by Him that shall come to judg the quicke and the dead The same in the Benediction of the Oyle That all the Power of the Enemy all the Host of the Devill all Assaults and Phantasmes of Satan may be driven away by this Creature of Oyle And for the Infant that is to be Baptized he is subject to many Charms First at the Church dore the Priest blows thrice in the Childs face and sayes Goe out of him unclean Spirit and give place to the Holy Ghost the Comforter As if all Children till blown on by the Priest were Daemoniaques Again before his entrance into the Church he saith as before I Conjure thee c. to goe out and depart from this Servant of God And again the same Exorcisme is repeated once more before he be Baptized These and some other Incantations are those that are used in stead of Benedictions and Consecrations in administration of the Sacraments of Baptisme and the Lords Supper wherein every thing that serveth to those holy uses except the unhallowed Spittle of the Priest hath some set form of Exorcisme Nor are the other rites as of Marriage of Extreme Unction of Visitation of the Sick of Consecrating Churches and Church-yards and the like exempt from Charms in as much as there is in them the use of Enchanted Oyle and Water with the abuse of the Crosse and of the holy word of David Asperges me Domine Hyssopo as things of efficacy to drive away Phantasmes and Imaginary Spirits Another generall Error is from the Misinterpretation of the words Eternall Life Everlasting Death and the Second Death For though we read plainly in holy Scripture that God created Adam in an estate of Living for Ever which was conditionall that is to say if he disobeyed not his Commandement which was not essentiall to Humane Nature but consequent to the vertue of the Tree of Life whereof hee had liberty to eat as long as hee had not sinned and that hee was thrust out of Paradise after he had sinned lest hee should eate thereof and live for ever and that Christs Passion is a Discharge of sin to all that beleeve on him and by consequence a restitution of Eternall Life to all the Faithfull and to them onely yet the Doctrine is now and hath been a long time far otherwise namely that every man hath Eternity of Life by Nature in as much as his Soul is Immortall So that the flaming Sword at the entrance of Paradise though it hinder a man from coming to the Tree of Life hinders him not from the Immortality which God took from him for his Sin nor makes him to need the sacrificing of Christ for the recovering of the same and consequently not onely the faithfull and righteous but also the wicked and the Heathen shall enjoy Eternall Life without any Death at all much lesse a Second and Everlasting Death To salve this it is said that by Second and Everlasting Death is meant a Second and Everlasting Life but in Torments a Figure never used but in this very Case All which Doctrine is founded onely on some of the obscurer places of the New Testament which neverthelesse the whole scope of the Scripture considered are cleer enough in a different sense and unnecessary to the Christian Faith For supposing that when a man dies there remaineth nothing of him but his carkasse cannot God that raised inanimated dust and clay into a living creature by his Word as easily raise a dead carkasse to life again and continue him alive for Ever or make him die again by another Word The Soule in Scripture signifieth alwaies either the Life or the Living Creature and the Body and Soule jointly the Body alive In the fift day of the Creation God said Let the waters produce Reptile animae viventis the creeping thing that hath in it a Living Soule the English translate it that hath Life And again God created Whales omnem animam viventem which in the English is
God worshippeth with Divine Worship They that seek the distinction of Divine and Civill Worship not in the intention of the Worshipper but in the Words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 deceive themselves For whereas there be two sorts of Servants that sort which is of those that are absolutely in the power of their Masters as Slaves taken in war and their Issue whose bodies are not in their own power their lives depending on the Will of their Masters in such manner as to forfeit them upon the least disobedience and that are bought and sold as Beasts were called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is properly Slaves and their Service 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The other which is of those that serve for hire or in hope of benefit from their Masters voluntarily are called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is Domestique Servants to whose service the Masters have no further right than is contained in the Covenants made betwixt them These two kinds of Servants have thus much common to them both that their labour is appointed them by another And the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is the generall name of both signifying him that worketh for another whether as a Slave or a voluntary Servant So that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifieth generally all Service but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the service of Bondmen onely and the condition of Slavery And both are used in Scripture to signifie our Service of God promiscuously 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because we are Gods Slaves 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because wee Serve him and in all kinds of Service is contained not onely Obedience but also Worship that is such actions gestures and words as signifie Honor. An IMAGE in the most strict signification of the word is the Resemblance of some thing visible In which sense the Phantasticall Formes Apparitions or Seemings of visible Bodies to the Sight are onely Images such as are the Shew of a man or other thing in the Water by Reflexion or Refraction or of the Sun or Stars by Direct Vision in the Air which are nothing reall in the things seen nor in the place where they seem to bee nor are their magnitudes and figures the same with that of the object but changeable by the variation of the organs of Sight or by glasses and are present oftentimes in our Imagination and in our Dreams when the object is absent or changed into other colours and shapes as things that depend onely upon the Fancy And these are the Images which are originally and most properly called Ideas and IDOLS and derived from the language of the Graecians with whom the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifieth to See They are also called PHANTASMES which is in the same language Apparitions And from these Images it is that one of the faculties of mans Nature is called the Imagination And from hence it is manifest that there neither is nor can bee any Image made of a thing Invisible It is also evident that there can be no Image of a thing Infinite for all the Images and Phantasmes that are made by the Impression of things visible are figured but Figure is a quantity every way determined And therefore there can bee no Image of God nor of the Soâ—…le of Man nor of Spirits but onely of Bodies Visible that is Bodies that have light in themselves or are by such â—…nligtened And whereas a man can fancy Shapes he never saw making up a Figure out of the parts of divers creatures as the Poets make their Centaures Chimaeras and other Monsters never seen So can he also give Matter to those Shapes and make them in Wood Clay or Metall And these are also called Images not for the resemblance of any corporeall thing but for the resemblance of some Phantasticall Inhabitants of the Brain of the Maker But in these Idols as they are originally in the Brain and as they are painted carved moulded or moulten in matter there is a similitude of the one to the other for which the Materiall Body made by Art may be said to be the Image of the Phantasticall Idoll made by Nature But in a larger use of the word Image is contained also any Representation of one thing by another So an earthly Soveraign may be called the Image of God And an inferiour Magistrate the Image of an earthly Soveraign And many times in the Idolatry of the Gentiles there was little regard to the similitude of their Materiall Idol to the Idol in their fancy and yet it was called the Image of it For a Stone unhewn has been set up for Neptune and divers other shapes far different from the shapes they conceived of their Gods And at this day we see many Images of the Virgin Mary and other Saints unlike one another and without correspondence to any one mans Fancy and yet serve well enough for the purpose they were erected for which was no more but by the Names onely to represent the Persons mentioned in the History to which every man applyeth a Mentall Image of his owne making or none at all And thus an Image in the largest sense is either the Resemblance or the Representation of some thing Visible or both together as it happeneth for the most part But the name of Idoll is extended yet further in Scripture to signifie also the Sunne or a Starre or any other Creature visible or invisible when they are worshipped for Gods Having shewn what is Worship and what an Image I will now put them together and examine what that IDOLATRY is which is forbidden in the Second Commandement and other places of the Scripture To worship an Image is voluntarily to doe those externall acts which are signes of honoring either the matter of the Image which is Wood Stone Metall or some other visible creature or the Phantasme of the brain for the resemblance or representation whereof the matter was formed and figured or both together as one â—…nimate Body composed of the Matter and the Phantasme as of a Body and Soule To be uncovered before a man of Power and Authority or before the Throne of a Prince or in such other places as hee ordaineth to that purpose in his absence is to Worship that man or Prince with Civill Worship as being a signe not of honoring the stoole or place but the Person and is not Idolatry But if hee that doth it should suppose the Soule of the Prince to be in the Stool or should present a Petition to the Stool it were Divine Worship and Idolatry To pray to a King for such things as hee is able to doe for us though we prostrate our selves before him is but Civill Worship because we acknowledge no other power in him but humane But voluntarily to pray unto him for fair weather or for any thing which God onely can doe for us is Divine Worship and Idolatry On the other side if a King compell a man to it by
it to the Schools Plato that was the best Philosopher of the Greeks forbad entrance into his Schoole to all that were not already in some measure Geometricians There were many that studied that Science to the great advantage of mankind but there is no mention of their Schools nor was there any Sect of Geometricians nor did they then passe under the name of Philosophers The naturall Philosophy of those Schools was rather a Dream than Science and set forth in senselesse and insignificant Language which cannot be avoided by those that will teach Philosophy without having first attained great knowledge in Geometry For Nature worketh by Motion the Wayes and Degrees whereof cannot be known without the knowledge of the Proportions and Properties of Lines and Figures Their Morall Philosophy is but a description of their own Passions For the rule of Manners without Civill Government is the Law of Nature and in it the Law Civill that determineth what is Honest and Dishonest what is Iust and Vnjust and generally what is Good and Evill whereas they make the Rules of Good and Bad by their own Liking and Disliking By which means in so great diversity of taste there is nothing generally agreed on but every one doth as far as he dares whatsoever seemeth good in his owne eyes to the subversion of Common-wealth Their Loigque which should bee the Method of Reasoning is nothing else but Captions of Words and Inventions how to puzzle such as should goe about to pose them To conclude there is nothing so absurd that the old Philosophers as Cicero saith who was one of them have not some of them maintained And I beleeve that scarce any thing can be more absurdly said in naturall Philosophy than that which now is called Aristotles Metaphysiques nor more repugnant to Government than much of that hee hath said in his Politiques nor more ignorantly than a great part of his Ethiques The Schoole of the Jews was originally a Schoole of the Law of Moses who commanded Deut. 31. 10. that at the end of every seventh year at the Feast of the Tabernacles it should be read to all the people that they might hear and learn it Therefore the reading of the Law which was in use after the Captivity every Sabbath day ought to have had no other end but the acquainting of the people with the Commandements which they were to obey and to expound unto them the writings of the Prophets But it is manifest by the many reprehensions of them by our Saviour that they corrupted the Text of the Law with their false Commentaries and vain Traditions and so little understood the Prophets that they did neither acknowledge Christ nor the works he did of which the Prophets prophecyed So that by their Lectures and Disputations in their Synagogues they turned the Doctrine of their Law into a Phantasticall kind of Philosophy concerning the incomprehensible nature of God and of Spirits which they compounded of the Vain Philosophy and Theology of the Graecians mingled with their own fancies drawn from the obscurer places of the Scripture and which might most easily bee wrested to their purpose and from the Fabulous Traditions of their Ancestors That which is now called an Vniversity is a Joyning together and an Incorporation under one Government of many Publique Schools in one and the same Town or City In which the principall Schools were ordained for the three Professions that is to say of the Romane Religion of the Romane Law and of the Art of Medicine And for the study of Philosophy it hath no otherwise place then as a handmaid to the Romane Religion And since the Authority of Aristotle is onely current there that study is not properly Philosophy the nature whereof dependeth not on Authors but Aristotelity And for Geometry till of very late times it had no place at all as being subservient to nothing but rigide Truth And if any man by the ingenuity of his owne nature had attained to any degree of perfection therein hee was commonly thought a Magician and his Art Diabolicall Now to descend to the particular Tenets of Vain Philosophy derived to the Universities and thence into the Church partly from Aristotle partly from Blindnesse of understanding I shall first consider their Principles There is a certain Philosophia prima on which all other Philosophy ought to depend and consisteth principally in right limiting of the significations of such Appellations or Names as are of all others the most Universall Which Limitations serve to avoid ambiguity and aequivocation in Reasoning and are commonly called Definitions such as are the Definitions of Body Time Place Matter Forme Essence Subject Substance Accident Power Act Finite Infinite Quantity Quality Motion Action Passion and divers others necessary to the explaining of a mans Conceptions concerning the Nature and Generation of Bodies The Explication that is the setling of the meaning of which and the like Terms is commonly in the Schools called Metaphysiques as being a part of the Philosophy of Aristotle which hath that for title but it is in another sense for there it signifieth as much as Books written or placed after his naturall Philosophy But the Schools take them for Books of supernaturall Philosophy for the word Metaphysiques will bear both these senses And indeed that which is there written is for the most part so far from the possibility of being understood and so repugnant to naturall Reason that whosoever thinketh there is any thing to bee understood by it must needs think it supernaturall From these Metaphysiques which are mingled with the Scripture to make Schoole Divinity wee are told there be in the world certaine Essences separated from Bodies which they call Abstract Essences and Substantiall Formes For the Interpreting of which Iargon there is need of somewhat more than ordinary attention in this place Also I ask pardon of those that are not used to this kind of Discourse for applying my selfe to those that are The World I mean not the Earth onely that denominates the Lovers of it Worldly men but the Vniverse that is the whole masse of all things that are is Corporeall that is to say Body and hath the dimensions of Magnitude namely Length Bredth and Depth also every part of Body is likewise Body and hath the like dimeâ—…ions and consequently every part of the Universe is Body and that which is not Body is no part of the Universe And because the Universe is All that which is no part of it is Nothing and consequently no where Nor does it follow from hence that Spirits are nothing for they have dimensions and are therefore really Bodies though that name in common Speech be given to such Bodies onely as are visible or palpable that is that have some degree of Opacity But for Spirits they call them Incorporeall which is a name of more honour and may therefore with more piety bee attributed to God himselfe in whom wee consider not what
equally applicable to any difficulty whatsoever For the meaning of Eternity they will not have it to be an Endlesse Succession of Time for then they should not be able to render a reason how Gods Will and Praeordaining of things to come should not be before his Praescience of the same as the Efficient Cause before the Effect or Agent before the Action nor of many other their bold opinions concerning the Incomprehensible Nature of God But they will teach us that Eternity is the Standing still of the Present Time a Nunc-stans as the Schools call it which neither they nor any else understand no more than they would a Hic-stans for an Infinite greatnesse of Place And whereas men divide a Body in their thought by numbring parts of it and in numbring those parts number also the parts of the Place it filled it cannot be but in making many parts wee make also many places of those parts whereby there cannot bee conceived in the mind of any man more or fewer parts than there are places for yet they will have us beleeve that by the Almighty power of God one body may be at one and the same time in many places and many bodies at one and the same time in one place as if it were an acknowledgment of the Divine Power to say that which is is not or that which has been has not been And these are but a small part of the Incongruities they are forced to from their disputing Philosophically in stead of admiring and adoring of the Divine and Incomprehensible Nature whose Attributes cannot signifie what he is but ought to signifie our desire to honour him with the best Appellations we can think on But they that venture to reason of his Nature from these Attributes of Honour losing their understanding in the very first attempt fall from one Inconvenience into another without end and without number in the same manner as when a man ignorant of the Ceremonies of Court comming into the presence of a greater Person than he is used to speak to and stumbling at his entrance to save himselfe from falling le ts slip his Cloake to recover his Cloake le ts fall his Hat and with one disorder after another discovers his astonishment and rusticity Then for Physiques that is the knowledge of the subordinate and secundary causes of naturall events they render none at all but empty words If you desire to know why some kind of bodies sink naturally downwards toward the Earth and others goe naturally from it The Schools will tell you out of Aristotle that the bodies that sink downwards are Heavy and that this Heavinesse is it that causes them to descend But if you ask what they mean by Heavinesse they will define it to bee an endeavour to goe to the center of the Earth so that the cause why things sink downward is an Endeavour to be below which is as much as to say that bodies descend or ascend because they doe Or they will tell you the center of the Earth is the place of Rest and Conservation for Heavy things and therefore they endeavour to be there As if Stones and Metalls had a desire or could discern the place they would bee at as Man does or loved Rest as Man does not or that a peece of Glasse were lesse safe in the Window than falling into the Street If we would know why the same Body seems greater without adding to it one time than another they say when it seems lesse it is Condensed when greater Rarefied What is that Condensed and Rarefied Condensed is when there is in the very same Matter lesse Quantity than before and Rarefied when more As if there could be Matter that had not some determined Quantity when Quantity is nothing else but the Determination of Matter that is to say of Body by which we say one Body is greater or lesser than another by thus or thus much Or as if a Body were made without any Quantity at all and that afterwards more or lesse were put into it according as it is intended the Body should be more or lesse Dense For the cause of the Soule of Man they say Creatur Infundendo and Creando Infunditur that is It is Created by Powring it in and Powred in by Creation For the Cause of Sense an ubiquity of Species that is of the Shews or Apparitions of objects which when they be Apparitions to the Eye is Sight when to the Eare Hearing to the Palate Tast to the Nostrill Smelling and to the rest of the Body Feeling For cause of the Will to doe any particular action which is called Volitio they assign the Faculty that is to say the Capacity in generall that men have to will sometimes one thing sometimes another which is called Voluntas making the Power the cause of the Act As if one should assign for cause of the good or evill Acts of men their Ability to doe them And in many occasions they put for cause of Naturall events their own Ignorance but disguised in other words As when they say Fortune is the cause of things contingent that is of things whereof they know no cause And as when they attribute many Effects to occult qualities that is qualities not known to them and therefore also as they thinke to no Man else And to Sympathy Antipathy Antiperistasis Specificall Qualities and other like Termes which signifie neither the Agent that produceth them nor the Operation by which they are produced If such Metaphysiques and Physiques as this be not Vain Philosophy there was never any nor needed St. Paul to give us warning to avoid it And for their Morall and Civill Philosophy it hath the same or greater absurdities If a man doe an action of Injustice that is to say an action contrary to the Law God they say is the prime cause of the Law and also the prime cause of that and all other Actions but no cause at all of the Injustice which is the Inconformity of the Action to the Law This is Vain Philosophy A man might as well say that one man maketh both a streight line and a crooked and another maketh their Incongruity And such is the Philosophy of all men that resolve of their Conclusions before they know their Premises pretending to comprehend that which is Incomprehensible and of Attributes of Honour to make Attributes of Nature as this distinction was made to maintain the Doctrine of Free-Will that is of a Will of man not subject to the Will of God Aristotle and other Heathen Philosophers define Good and Evill by the Appetite of men and well enough as long as we consider them governed every one by his own Law For in the condition of men that have no other Law but their own Appetites there can be no generall Rule of Good and Evill Actions But in a Common-wealth this measure is false Not the Appetite of Private men but
â—…im also belongeth the Right of all Judicature and decision of Controversise 9. And of making War and Peace as he shall think best 10. And of choosing all Counsellours and Ministers both of Peace and Warre 11. And of Rewarding and Punishing and that where no former Law hath determined the measure of it arbitrary 12. And of Honour and Order These Rights are indivisible And can by no Grant passe away without direct renouncing of the Soveraign Power The Power and Honour of Subjects vanisheth in the presence of the Power Soveraign Soveraigne Power not so hurtfull as the want of it and the hurt proceeds for the greatest part from not submitting readily to a lesse The different Formes of Common-wealths but three Tyranny and Oligarchy but different names of Monarchy and Aristocracy Subordinate Representatives dangerous Comparison of Monarchy with Soveraign Assemblyes Of the Right of Succession The present Monarch hath Right to dispose of the Succâ—…ssim Succession passeth by expresse Words Or by not controlling a Custome Or by presumption of naturall affecâ—… To dispose of the Succession though to a King of another Nation not unlawfull A Common-wealth by Acquisition Wherein 〈◊〉 from a Common-wealth by Insâ—…on The Rights of Soveraignty the same in both Dominion Paternall how attained Not by Gâ—…neration but by Contract Or Education Or Precedent subjection of one of the Parents to the other The Right of Succession followeth the Rules of the Right of Possession Despoticall Dominion how attained Not by the Victory but by the Consent of the Vanquished Difference between a Family and a Kingdom The Rights of Monarchy from Scripture * Exod. 20. 19. * Exod. 20. 19. * 1 Sam. 8. 11 12 c. * Verse 10. * 1 Kings 3. 9. * 1 Sam. 24. 9. * Coll. 3. 20. * Verse 22. * Math. 23. 2 3. * Tit. 3. 2. * Mat. 21. 2 3. * Gen. 3 5. Soveraign Power ought in all Common-wealths to be absolute Liberty what What it is to be Free Feare and Liberty consistent Liberty and Necessity Consistent Artificiall Bonds or Covenants Liberty of Subjects consisteth in Liberty from covenants Liberty of the Subject consistent with the unlimited power of the Soveraign The Liberty which writers praise is the Liberty of Soveraigns not of Private men Liberty of Subjects how to be measured Subjects have Liberty to defend their own bodies even against them that lawsully invade them Are not bound to hurt themselves Nor to warfare unlesse they voluntarily undertake it The Greatest Liberty of Subjects dependeth on the Silence of the Law In what Cases Subjects are absolved of their obedience to their Soveraign In case of Captivity In case the Soveraign cast off the government from himself and his Heyrs In case of Banishment In case the Soveraign render himself Subject to another The divers sorts of Systemes of People In all Bodies Politique the power of the Representative is Limited By Letters Patents And the Lawes When the Representative is one man his unwarranted Acts are his own onely When it is an Assembly it is the act of them that assented onely When the Representative is one man if he borrow mony or owe it by Contract he is lyable onely the members not When it is an Assembly they onely are liable that have assented If the debt be to one of the Assembly the Body onely is obliged Protestation against the Decrees of Bodies Politique sometimes lawful but against Soveraign Power never Bodies Politique for Government of a Province Colony or Town Bodies Politique for ordering of Trade A Bodie Politique for Counsel to be given to the Soveraign A Regular Private Body Lawfull as a Family Private Bodies Regular but Unlawfull Systemes Irregular such as are Private Leagues Secret Cabals Feuds of private Families Factions for Government * Acts 19. 40. Publique Minister Who. Ministers for the generall Administration For speciall Administration as for Oecoâ—…my For instruction of the People For Judicature For 〈◊〉 Counsellers without other employment then to Advise are not Publique Ministers The Nourishment of a Common-wealth consisteth in the Commodities of Sea and Land And the right Distribution of them All private Estates of land proceed originally from the Arbitrary Distribution of the Soveraign Propriety of a Subject excludes not the Dominion of the Soveraign but onely of another Subject The Publique is not to be dieted The Places and matter of Traffique depend as their Distribution on the Soveraign The Laws of transferring propriety belong also 〈◊〉 the Soveraign Mony the Bloud of a Common-wealth The Conduits and Way of mony to the Publique use The Children of a Common-wealth Colonies Counsell whaâ—… Differences between Command and Counsell Exhortation and Dehortation what Differennceâ—… of fit and unfit Counsellours Civill Law what The Soveraign is Legistator And not Subject to Civill Law Use a Law not by vertue of Time but of the Soveraigns consent The Law of Nature and the Civill Law contain each other Provinciall Lawes are not made by Custome but by the Soveraign Power Some foolish opinions of Lawyers concerning the making of Lawes Sir Edw. Coke upon Lâ—…tleton Lib. 2. Ch. 6. 〈◊〉 97. b. Law made â—…f not also made known is no Law Unwritten Lawes are all of them Lawes of Nature * Prov. 7. 3. Deut. 11. 19. * Deut. 31. 12. Nothing is Law where the Legislator cannot be known Difference between Verifying and Authorising The Law Verifyed by the subordinate Judge By the Publique Registers By Letters Patent and Publique Seale The Interpretation of the Law dependeth on the Soveraign Power All Lawâ—… need Interpretation The Aâ—…thenticall Interpretation of Law is not that of writers The Interpreter of the Law is the Judge giving sentence vivâ voce in every particular case The Sentence of a Judge does not bind him or another Judge to give like Sentence in like Cases ever after The difference between the Letter and Sentence of the Law The abilities required in a Judge Divisions of Law Another Division of Law Divine Positive Law how made known to be Law Gen. 17. 10. Another division of Lawes A Fundamentall Law what Difference between Law and Right And between a Law and a Charter Sinne what A Crime what Where no Civill Law is there is 〈◊〉 Crime Ignorance of the Law of Nature excuseth no man Ignorance of the Civill Law excuseth sometimes Ignorance of the Soveraign excuseth not Ignorance of the Penalty excuseth not Punishments declared before the Fact excuse from greater punishments after it Nothing can be made a Crime by a Law made after the Fact False Principles of Right and Wrong causes of Crime False Teachers mis-interpreting the Law of Nature And false Inferences from true 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Teachers By their Passions Presumption of Riches And FrieÌ„ds Wisedome Hatred Lust Ambition Covetousnesse causes of Crime Fear sometimes cause of Crime as when the danger is neither present nor corporeall Crimes not equall Totall Excuses Excuses against the Author Preseumption of Power aggravateth Evill Teachers Extenuate
and not the Reprobate To the Reprobate there remaineth after the Resurrection a Second and Eternall Death between which Resurrection and their Second and Eternall death is but a time of Punishment and Torment and to last by succession of sinners thereunto as long as the kind of Man by propagation shall endure which is Eternally Upon this Doctrine of the Naturall Eternity of separated Soules is founded as I said the Doctrine of Purgatory For supposing Eternall Life by Grace onely there is no Life but the Life of the Body and no Immortality till the Resurrection The texts for Purgatory alledged by Bellarmine out of the Canonicall Scripture of the old Testament are first the Fasting of David for Saul and Ionathan mentioned 2 Kings 1. 12. and againe 2 Sam. 3. 35. for the death of Abner This Fasting of David he saith was for the obtaining of something for them at Gods hands after their death because after he had Fasted to procure the recovery of his owne child assoone as he knew it was dead he called for meate Seeing then the Soule hath an existence separate from the Body and nothing can be obtained by mens Fasting for the Soules that are already either in Heaven or Hell it followeth that there be some Soules of dead men that are neither in Heaven nor in Hell and therefore they must bee in some third place which must be Purgatory And thus with hard straining hee has wrested those places to the proofe of a Purgatory whereas it is manifest that the ceremonies of Mourning and Fasting when they are used for the death of men whose life was not profitable to the Mourners they are used for honours sake to their persons and when t is done for the death of them by whose life the Mourners had benefit it proceeds from their particular dammage And so David honoured Saul and Abner with his Fasting and in the death of his owne child recomforted himselfe by receiving his ordinary food In the other places which he alledgeth out of the old Testamēt there is not so much as any shew or colour of proofe He brings in every text wherein there is the word Anger or Fire or Burning or Purging or Clensing in case any of the Fathers have but in a Sermon rhetorically applied it to the Doctrine of Purgatory already beleeved The first verse of Psalme 37. O Lord rebuke me not in thy wrath nor chasten me in thy hot displeasure What were this to Purgatory if Augustine had not applied the Wrath to the fire of Hell and the Displeasure to that of Purgatory And what is it to Purgatory that of Psalme 66. 12. Wee went through fire and water and thou broughtest us to a moist place and other the like texts with which the Doctors of those times entended to adorne or extend their Sermons or Commentaries haled to their purposes by force of wit But he alledgeth other places of the New Testament that are not so easie to be answered And first that of Matth. 12. 32. Whosoever speaketh a word against the Sonne of man it shall be forgiven him but whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost it shall not bee forgiven him neither in this world nor in the world to come Where he will have Purgatory to be the World to come wherein some sinnes may be forgiven which in this World were not forgiven notwithstanding that it is manifest there are but three Worlds one from the Creation to the Flood which was destroyed by Water and is called in Scripture the Old World another from the Flood to the day of Judgement which is the Present World and shall bee destroyed by Fire and the third which shall bee from the day of Judgement forward everlasting which is called the World to come and in which it is agreed by all there shall be no Purgatory And therefore the World to come and Purgatory are inconsistent But what then can bee the meaning of those our Saviours words I confesse they are very hardly to bee reconciled with all the Doctrines now unanimously received Nor is it any shame to confesse the profoundnesse of the Scripture to bee too great to be sounded by the shortnesse of humane understanding Neverthelesse I may propound such things to the consideration of more learned Divines as the text it selfe suggesteth And first seeing to speake against the Holy Ghost as being the third Person of the Trinity is to speake against the Church in which the Holy Ghost resideth it seemeth the comparison is made betweene the Easinesse of our Saviour in bearing with offences done to him while hee himselfe taught the world that is when he was on earth and the Severity of the Pastors after him against those which should deny their authority which was from the Holy Ghost As if he should say You that deny my Power nay you that shall crucifie me shall be pardoned by mee as often as you turne unto mee by Repentance But if you deny the Power of them that teach you hereafter by vertue of the Holy Ghost they shall be inexorable and shall not forgive you but persecute you in this World and leave you without absolution though you turn to me unlesse you turn also to them to the punishments as much as lies in them of the World to come And so the words may be taken as a Prophecy or Praediction concerning the times as they have along been in the Christian Church Or if this be not the meaning for I am not peremptory in such difficult places perhaps there may be place left after the Resurrection for the Repentance of some sinners And there is also another place that seemeth to agree therewith For considering the words of St. Paul 1 Cor. 15. 29. What shall they doe which are Baptized for the dead if the dead rise not at all why also are they Baptized for the dead a man may probably inferre as some have done that in St. Pauls time there was a custome by receiving Baptisme for the dead as men that now beleeve are Sureties and Undertakers for the Faith of Infants that are not capable of beleeving to undertake for the persons of their deceased friends that they should be ready to obey and receive our Saviour for their King at his his coming again and then the forgivenesse of sins in the world to come has no need of a Purgatory But in both these interpretations there is so much of paradox that I trust not to them but propound them to those that are throughly versed in the Scripture to inquire if there be no clearer place that contradicts them Onely of thus much I see evident Scripture to perswade me that there is neither the word nor the thing of Purgatory neither in this nor any other text nor any thing that can prove a necessity of a place for the Soule without the Body neither for the Soule of Lazarus during the four days he was dead nor for the Soules of them which the
Romane Church pretend to be tormented now in Purgatory For God that could give a life to a peece of clay hath the same power to give life again to a dead man and renew his inanimate and rotten Carkasse into a glorious spirituall and immortall Body Another place is that of 1 Cor. 3. where it is said that they which built Stubble Hay c. on the true Foundation their work shall perish but they themselves shall be saved but as through Fire This Fire he will have to be the Fire of Purgatory The words as I have said before are an allusion to those of Zach. 13. 9. where he saith I will bring the third part through the Fire and refine them as Silver is refined and will try them as Gold is tryed Which is spoken of the comming of the Messiah in Power and Glory that is at the day of Judgment and Conflagration of the present world wherein the Elect shall not be consumed but be refined that is depose their erroneous Doctrines and Traditions and have them as it were sindged of and shall afterwards call upon the name of the true God In like manner the Apostle saith of them that holding this Foundation Iesus is the Christ shall build thereon some other Doctrines that be erroneous that they shall not be consumed in that fire which reneweth the world but shall passe through it to Salvation but so as to see and relinquish their former Errours The Builders are the Pastors the Foundation that Iesus is the Christ the Stubble and Hay False Consequences drawn from it through Ignorance or Frailty the Gold Silver and pretious Stones are their True Doctrines and their Refining or Purging the Relinquishing of their Errors In all which there is no colour at all for the burning of Incorporeall that is to say Impatible Souls A third place is that of 1 Cor. 15. before mentioned concerning Baptisme for the Dead out of which he concludeth first that Prayers for the Dead are not unprofitable and out of that that there is a Fire of Purgatory But neither of them rightly For of many interpretations of the word Baptisme he approveth this in the first place that by Baptisme is meant metaphorically a Baptisme of Penance and that men are in this sense Baptized when they Fast and Pray and give Almes And so Baptisme for the Dead and Prayer for the Dead is the same thing But this is a Metaphor of which there is no example neither in the Scripture nor in any other use of language and which is also discordant to the harmony and scope of the Scripture The word Baptisme is used Mar. 10. 38. Luk. 12. 50. for being Dipped in ones own bloud as Christ was upon the Cross and as most of the Apostles were for giving testimony of him But it is hard to say that Prayer Fasting and Almes have any similitude with Dipping The same is used also Mat. 3. 11. which seemeth to make somewhat for Purgatory for a Purging with Fire But it is evident the Fire and Purging here mentioned is the same whereof the Prophet Zachary speaketh chap. 13. v. 9. I will bring the third part through the Fire and will Refine them c. And St. Peter after him 1 Epist. 1. 7. That the triall of your Faith which is much more precious than of Gold that perisheth though it be tryed with Fire might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the Appearing of Iesus Christ And St. Paul 1 Cor. 3. 13. The Fire shall trie every mans work of what sort it is But St. Peter and St. Paul speak of the Fire that shall be at the Second Appearing of Christ and the Prophet Zachary of the Day of Judgment And therefore this place of S. Mat. may be interpreted of the same and then there will be no necessity of the Fire of Purgatory Another interpretation of Baptisme for the Dead is that which I have before mentioned which he preferreth to the second place of probability And thence also he inferreth the utility of Prayer for the Dead For if after the Resurrection such as have not heard of Christ or not beleeved in him may be received into Christs Kingdome it is not in vain after their death that their friends should pray for them till they should be risen But granting that God at the prayers of the faithfull may convert unto him some of those that have not heard Christ preached and consequently cannot have rejected Christ and that the charity of men in that point cannot be blamed yet this concludeth nothing for Purgatory because to rise from Death to Life is one thing to rise from Purgatory to Life is another as being a rising from Life to Life from a Life in torments to a Life in joy A fourth place is that of Mat. 5. 25. Agree with thine Adversary quickly whilest thou art in the way with him left at any time the Adversary deliver thee to the Iudge and the Iudge deliver thee to the Officer and thou be cast into prison Verily I say unto thee thou shalt by no means come out thence till thou hast paid the uttermost farthing In which Allegory the Offender is the Sinner both the Adversary and the Judge is God the Way is this Life the Prison is the Grave the Officer Death from which the sinner shall not rise again to life eternall but to a second Death till he have paid the utmost farthing or Christ pay it for him by his Passion which is a full Ransome for all manner of sin as well lesser sins as greater crimes both being made by the passion of Christ equally veniall The fift place is that of Matth. 5. 22. Whosoever is angry with his Brother without a cause shall be guilty in Iudgment And whosoever shall say to his Brother RACHA shall be guilty in the Councel But whosoever shall say Thou Foole shall be guilty to hell fire From which words he inferreth three sorts of Sins and three sorts of Punishments and that none of those sins but the last shall be punished with hell fire and consequently that after this life there is punishment of lesser sins in Purgatory Of which inference there is no colour in any interpretation that hath yet been given of them Shall there be a distinction after this life of Courts of Justice as there was amongst the Jews in our Saviours time to hear and determine divers sorts of Crimes as the Judges and the Councell Shall not all Judicature appertain to Christ and his Apostles To undersand therefore this text we are not to consider it solitarily but jointly with the words precedent and subsequent Our Saviour in this Chapter interpreteth the Law of Moses which the Jews thought was then fulfilled when they had not transgressed the Grammaticall sense thereof howsoever they had transgressed against the sentence or meaning of the Legislator Therefore whereas they thought the Sixth Commandement was not broken but by Killing a man nor the