to be regarded but the Truth yet this is not repugnant to regulating of the same by Peace For Doctrine repugnant to Peace can no more be True than Peace and Concord can be against the Law of Nature It is true that in a Common-wealth where by the negligence or unskilfullnesse of Governours and Teachers false Doctrines are by time generally received the contrary Truths may be generally offensive Yet the most sudden and rough busling in of a new Truth that can be does never breake the Peace but only somtimes awake the Warre For those men that are so remissely governed that they dare take up Armes to defend or introduce an Opinion are still in Warre and their condition not Peace but only a Cessation of Armes for feare of one another and they live as it were in the procincts of battaile continually It belongeth therefore to him that hath the Soveraign Power to be Judge or constitute all Judges of Opinions and Doctrines as a thing necessary to Peace therby to prevent Discord and Civill Warre Seventhly is annexed to the Soveraigntie the whole power of prescribing the Rules whereby every man may know what Goods he may enjoy and what Actions he may doe without being molested by any of his fellow Subjects And this is it men call Propriety For before constitution of Soveraign Power as hath already been shewn all men had right to all things which necessarily causeth Warre and therefore this Proprietie being necessary to Peace and depending on Soveraign Power is the Act of that Power in order to the publique peace These Rules of Propriety or Meum and Tuum and of Good Evill Lawfull and Unlawfull in the actions of Subjects are the Civill Lawes that is to say the Lawes of each Common-wealth in particular though the name of Civill Law be now restrained to the antient Civill Lawes of the City of Rome which being the head of a great part of the World her Lawes at that time were in these parts the Civill Law Eightly is annexed to the Soveraigntie the Right of Judicature that is to say of hearing and deciding all Controversies which may arise concerning Law either Civill or Naturall or concerning Fact For without the decision of Controversies there is no protection of one Subject against the injuries of another the Lawes concerning Meum and Tuum are in vaine and to every man remaineth from the naturall and necessary appetite of his own conservation the right of protecting himselfe by his private strength which is the condition of Warre and contrary to the end for which every Common-wealth is instituted Ninthly is annexed to the Soveraignty the Right of making Warre and Peace with other Nations and Common-wealths that is to say of Judging when it is for the publique good and how great forces are to be assembled armed and payd for that end and to levy mony upon the Subjects to defray the expences thereof For the Power by which the people are to be defended consisteth in their Armies and the strength of an Army in the union of their strength under one Command which Command the Soveraign Instituted therefore hath because the command of the Militia without other Institution maketh him that hath it Soveraign And therefore whosoever is made Generall of an Army he that hath the Soveraign Power is alwayes Generallissimo Tenthly is annexed to the Soveraignty the choosing of all Counsellours Ministers Magistrates and Officers both in Peace and War For seeing the Soveraign is charged with the End which is the common Peace and Defence he is understood to have Power to use such Means as he shall think most fit for his discharge Eleventhly to the Soveraign is committed the Power of Rewarding with riches or honour and of Punishing with corporall or pecuniary punishment or with ignominy every Subject according to the Law he hath formerly made or if there be no Law made according as he shall judge most to conduce to the encouraging of men to serve the Common-wealth or deterring of them from doing dis-service to the same Lastly considering what values men are naturally apt to set upon themselves what respect they look for from others and how little they value other men from whence continually arise amongst them Emulation Quarrells Factions and at last Warre to the destroying of one another and diminution of their strength against a Common Enemy It is necessary that there be Lawes of Honour and a publique rate of the worth of such men as have deserved or are able to deserve well of the Common-wealth and that there be force in the hands of some or other to put those Lawes in execution But it hath already been shewn that not onely the whole Militia or forces of the Common-wealth but also the Judicature of all Controversies is annexed to the Soveraignty To the Soveraign therefore it belongeth also to give titles of Honour and to appoint what Order of place and dignity each man shall hold and what signes of respect in publique or private meetings they shall give to one another These are the Rights which make the Essence of Soveraignty and which are the markes whereby a man may discern in what Man or Assembly of men the Soveraign Power is placed and resideth For these are incommunicable and inseparable The Power to coyn Mony to dispose of the estate and persons of Infant heires to have praeemption in Markets and all other Statute Praerogatives may be transferred by the Soveraign and yet the Power to protect his Subjects be retained But if he transferre the Militia he retains the Judicature in vain for want of execution of the Lawes Or if he grant away the Power of raising Mony the Militia is in vain or if he give away the government of Doctrines men will be frighted into rebellion with the feare of Spirits And so if we consider any one of the said Rights we shall presently see that the holding of all the rest will produce no effect in the conservation of Peace and Justice the end for which all Common-wealths are Instituted And this division is it whereof it is said a Kingdome divided in it selfe cannot stand For unlesse this division precede division into opposite Armies can never happen If there had not first been an opinion received of the greatest part of England that these Powers were divided between the King and the Lords and the House of Commons the people had never been divided and fallen into this Civill Warre first between those that disagreed in Politiques and after between the Dissenters about the liberty of Religion which have so instructed men in this point of Soveraign Right that there be few now in England that do not see that these Rights are inseparable and will be so generally acknowledged at the next return of Peace and so continue till their miseries are forgotten and no longer except the vulgar be better taught than they have hetherto been And because they are essentiall
were in a Child For as a Child wants the judgement to dissent from counsell given him and is thereby necessitated to take the advise of them or him to whom he is committed So an Assembly wanteth the liberty to dissent from the counsell of the major part be it good or bad And as a Child has need of a Tutor or Protector to preserve his Person and Authority So also in great Common-wealths the Soveraign Assembly in all great dangers and troubles have need of Custodes libertatis that is of Dictators or Protectors of their Authoritie which are as much as Temporary Monarchs to whom for a time they may commit the entire exercise of their Power and have at the end of that time been oftner deprived thereof than Infant Kings by their Protectors Regents or any other Tutors Though the Kinds of Soveraigntie be as I have now shewn but three that is to say Monarchie where One Man has it or Democracie where the generall Assembly of Subjects hath it or Aristocracie where it is in an Assembly of certain persons nominated or otherwise distinguished from the rest Yet he that shall consider the particular Common-wealthes that have been and are in the world will not perhaps easily reduce them to three and may thereby be inclined to think there be other Formes arising from these mingled together As for example Elective Kingdomes where Kings have the Soveraigne Power put into their hands for a time or Kingdomes wherein the King hath a power limited which Governments are nevertheles by most Writers called Monarchie Likewise if a Popular or Aristocraticall Common-wealth subdue an Enemies Countrie and govern the same by a President Procurator or other Magistrate this may seeme perhaps at first sight to be a Democraticall or Aristocraticall Government But it is not so For Elective Kings are not Soveraignes but Ministers of the Soveraigne nor limited Kings Soveraignes but Ministers of them that have the Soveraigne Power Nor are those Provinces which are in subjection to a Democracie or Aristocracie of another Common-wealth Democratically or Aristocratically governed but Monarchically And â—…irst concerning an Elective King whose power is limited to his life as it is in many places of Christendome at this day or to certaine Yeares or Moneths as the Dictators power amongst the Romans If he have Right to appoint his Successor he is no more Elective but Hereditary But if he have no Power to elect his Successor then there is some other Man or Assembly known which after his decease may elect a new or else the Common-wealth dieth and dissolveth with him and returneth to the condition of Warre If it be known who have the power to give the Soveraigntie after his death it is known also that the Soveraigntie was in them before For none have right to give that which they have not right to possesse and keep to themselves it they think good But if there be none that can give the Soveraigntie after the decease of him that was first elected then has he power nay he is obliged by the Law of Nature to provide by establishing his Successor to keep those that had trusted him with the Government from relapsing into the miserable condition of Civill warre And consequently he was when elected a Soveraign absolute Secondly that King whose power is limited is not superiour to him or them that have the power to limit it and he that is not superiour is not supreme that is to say not Soveraign The Soveraignty therefore was alwaies in that Assembly which had the Right to Limit him and by consequence the government not Monarchy but either Democracy or Aristocracy as of old time in Sparta where the Kings had a priviledge to lead their Armies but the Soveraignty was in the Ephori Thirdly whereas heretofore the Roman People governed the land of Judea for example by a President yet was not Judea therefore a Democracy because they were not governed by any Assembly into the which any of them had right to enter nor by an Aristocracy because they were not governed by any Assembly into which any man could enter by their Election but they were governed by one Person which though as to the people of Rome was an Assembly of the people or Democracy yet as to people of Judea which had no right at all of participating in the government was a Monarch For though where the people are governed by an Assembly chosen by themselves out of their own number the government is called a Democracy or Aristocracy yet when they are governed by an Assembly not of their own choosing 't is a Monarchy not of One man over another man but of one people over another people Of all these Formes of Government the matter being mortall so that not onely Monarchs but also whole Assemblies dy it is necessary for the conservation of the peace of men that as there was order taken for an Artificiall Man so there be order also taken for an Artificiall Eternity of life without which men that are governed by an Assembly should return into the condition of Warre in every age and they that are governed by One man assoon as their Governour dyeth This Artificiall Eternity is that which men call the Right of Succession There is no perfect forme of Government where the disposing of the Succession is not in the present Soveraign For if it be in any other particular Man or private Assembly it is in a person subject and may be assumed by the Soveraign at his pleasure and consequently the Right is in himselfe And if it be in no particular man but left to a new choyce then is the Common-wealth dissolved and the Right is in him that can get it contrary to the intention of them that did Institute the Common-wealth for their perpetuall and not temporary security In a Democracy the whole Assembly cannot faile unlesse the Multitude that are to be governed faile And therefore questions of the right of Succession have in that forme of Government no place at all In an Aristocracy when any of the Assembly dyeth the election of another into his room belongeth to the Assembly as the Soveraign to whom belongeth the choosing of all Counsellours and Officers For that which the Representative doth as Actor every one of the Subjects doth as Author And though the Soveraign Assembly may give Power to others to elect new men for supply of their Court yet it is still by their Authority that the Election is made and by the same it may when the publique shall require it be recalled The greatest difficultie about the right of Succession is in Monarchy And the difficulty ariseth from this that at first sight it is not manifest who is to appoint the Successor nor many times who it is whom he hath appointed For in both these cases there is required a more exact ratiocination than every man is accustomed to use As to the question who shall appoint the Successor of
them For it is a thing that dependeth not on Nature but on the scope of the Writer and is subservient to every mans proper method In the Institutions of Justinian we find seven sorts of Civill Lawes 1. The Edicts Constitutions and Epistles of the Prince that is of the Emperour because the whole power of the people was in him Like these are the Proclamations of the Kings of England 2. The Decrees of the whole people of Rome comprehending the Senate when they were put to the Question by the Senate These were Lawes at first by the vertue of the Soveraign Power residing in the people and such of them as by the Emperours were not abrogated remained Lawes by the Authority Imperiall For all Lawes that bind are understood to be Lawes by his authority that has power to repeale them Somewhat like to these Lawes are the Acts of Parliament in England 3. The Decrees of the Common people excluding the Senate when they were put to the question by the Tribune of the people For such of them as were not abrogated by the Emperours remained Lawes by the Authority Imperiall Like to these were the Orders of the House of Commons in England 4. Senatûs consulta the Orders of the Senate because when the people of Rome grew so numerous as it was inconvenient to assemble them it was thought fit by the Emperour that men should Consult the Senate in stead of the people And these have some resemblance with the Acts of Counsell 5. The Edicts of Praetors and in some Cases of the Aediles such as are the Chiefe Justices in the Courts of England 6. Responsa Prudentum which were the Sentences and Opinions of those Lawyers to whom the Emperour gave Authority to interpret the Law and to give answer to such as in matter of Law demanded their advice which Answers the Judges in giving Judgement were obliged by the Constitutions of the Emperour to observe And should be like the Reports of Cases Judged if other Judges be by the Law of England bound to observe them For the Judges of the Common Law of England are not properly Judges but Juris Consulti of whom the Judges who are either the Lords or Twelve men of the Country are in point of Law to ask advice 7. Also Unwritten Customes which in their own nature are an imitation of Law by the tacite consent of the Emperour in case they be not contrary to the Law of Nature are very Lawes Another division of Lawes is into Naturall and Positive Naturâ—…ll are those which have been Lawes from all Eternity and are called not onely Naturall but also Morall Lawes consisting in the Morall Vertues as Justice Equity and all habits of the mind that conduce to Peace and Charity of which I have already spoken in the fourteenth and fifteenth Chapters Positive are those which have not been from Eternity but have been made Lawes by the Will of those that have had the Soveraign Power over others and are either written or made known to men by some other argument of the Will of their Legislator Again of Positive Lawes some are Humane some Divine And of Humane positive lawes some are Distributive some Penal Distributive are those that determine the Rights of the Subjects declaring to every man what it is by which he acquireth and holdeth a propriety in lands or goods and a right or liberty of action and these speak to all the Subjects Penal are those which declare what Penalty shall be inflicted on those that violate the Law and speak to the Ministers and Officers ordained for execution For though every one ought to be informed of the Punishments ordained before-hand for their transgression neverthelesse the Command is not addressed to the Delinquent who cannot be supposed will faithfully punish himselfe but to publique Ministers appointed to see the Penalty executed And these Penal Lawes are for the most part written together with the Lawes Distributive and are sometimes called Judgements For all Lawes are generall Judgements or Sentences of the Legislator as also every particular Judgement is a Law to him whose case is Judged Divine Positive Lawes for Naturall Lawes being Eternall and Universall are all Divine are those which being the Commandements of God not from all Eternity nor universally addressed to all men but onely to a certain people or to certain persons are declared for such by those whom God hath authorised to declare them But this Authority of man to declare what be these Positive Lawes of God how can it be known God may command a man by a supernaturall way to deliver Lawes to other men But because it is of the essence of Law that he who is to be obliged be assured of the Authority of him that declareth it which we cannot naturally take notice to be from God How can a man without supernaturall Revelation be assured of the Revelation received by the declarer and how can he be bound to obey them For the first question how a man can be assured of the Revelation of another without a Revelation particularly to himselfe it is evidently impossible For though a man may be induced to believe such Revelation from the Miracles they see him doe or from seeing the Extraordinary sanctity of his life or from seeing the Extraordinary wisedome or Extraordinary felicity of his Actions all which are marks of God extraordinary favour yet they are not assured evidences of speciall Revelation Miracles are Marvellous workes but that which is marvellous to one may not be so to another Sanctity may be feigned and the visible felicities of this world are most often the work of God by Naturall and ordinary causes And therefore no man can infallibly know by naturall reason that another has had a supernaturall revelation of Gods will but only a beliefe every one as the signs thereof shall appear greater or lesser a firmer or a weaker belief But for the second how he can be bound to obey them it is not so hard For if the Law declared be not against the Law of Nature which is undoubtedly Gods Law and he undertake to obey it he is bound by his own act bound I say to obey it but not bound to believe it for mens beliefe and interiour cogitations are not subject to the commands but only to the operation of God ordinary or extraordinary Faith of Supernaturall Law is not a fulfilling but only an assenting to the same and not a duty that we exhibite to God but a gift which God freely giveth to whom he pleaseth as also Unbelief is not a breach of any of his Lawes but a rejection of them all except the Laws Naturall But this that I say will be made yet cleerer by the Examples and Testimonies concerning this point in holy Scripture The Covenant God made with Abraham in a Supernaturall manner was thus This is the Covenant which thou shalt observe between Me and Thee and thy Seed after thee Abrahams Seed had
Witnesse in himself In this Trinity on Earth the Unity is not of the thing for the Spirit the Water and the Bloud are not the same substance though they give the same testimony But in the Trinity of Heaven the Persons are the persons of one and the same God though Represented in three different times and occasions To conclude the doctrine of the Trinity as far as can be gathered directly from the Scripture is in substance this that the God who is alwaies One and the same was the Person Represented by Moses the Person Represented by his Son Incarnate and the Person Represented by the Apostles As Represented by the Apostles the Holy Spirit by which they spake is God As Represented by his Son that was God and Man the Son is that God As represented by Moses and the High Priests the Father that is to say the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is that God From whence we may gather the reason why those names Father Son and Holy Spirit in the signification of the Godhead are never used in the Old Testament For they are Persons that is they have their names from Representing which could not be till divers men had Represented Gods Person in ruling or in directing under him Thus wee see how the Power Ecclesiasticall was left by our Saviour to the Apostles and how they were to the end they might the better exercise that Power endued with the Holy Spirit which is therefore called sometime in the New Testament Paracletus which signifieth an Assister or one called to for helpe though it bee commonly translated a Comforter Let us now consider the Power it selfe what it was and over whom Cardinall Bellarmine in his third generall Controversie hath handled a great many questions concerning the Ecclesiasticall Power of the Pope of Rome and begins with this Whether it ought to be Monarchicall Aristocraticall or Democraticall All which sorts of Power are Soveraign and Coercive If now it should appear that there is no Coercive Power left them by our Saviour but onely a Power to proclaim the Kingdom of Christ and to perswade men to submit themselves thereunto and by precepts and good counsell to teach them that have submitted what they are to do that they may be received into the Kingdom of God when it comes and that the Apostles and other Ministers of the Gospel are our Schoolemasters and not our Commanders and their Precepts not Laws but wholesome Counsells then were all that dispute in vain I have shewn already in the last Chapter that the Kingdome of Christ is not of this world therefore neither can his Ministers unlesse they be Kings require obedience in his name For if the Supreme King have not his Regall Power in this world by what authority can obedience be required to his Officers As my Father sent me so saith our Saviour I send you But our Saviour was sent to perswade the Jews to return to and to invite the Gentiles to receive the Kingdome of his Father and not to reign in Majesty no not as his Fathers Lieutenant till the day of Judgment The time between the Ascension and the generall Resurrection is called not a Reigning but a Regeneration that is a Preparatiof men for the second and glorious coming of Christ at the day of Judgment as appeareth by the words of our Saviour Mat. 19. 28. You that have followed me in the Regeneration when the Son of man shall sit in the throne of his glory you shall also sit upon twelve Thrones And of St. Paul Ephes. 6. 15. Having your feet shod with the Preparation of the Gospell of Peace And is compared by our Saviour to Fishing that is to winning men to obedience not by Coercion and Punishing but by Perswasion and therefore he said not to his Apostles hee would make them so many Nimrods Hunters of men but Fishers of men It is compared also to Leaven to Sowing of Seed and to the Multiplication of a grain of Mustard-seed by all which Compulsion is excluded and consequently there can in that time be no actual Râ—…igning The work of Christs Ministers is Evangelization that is a Proclamation of Christ and a preparation for his second comming as the Evangelization of John Baptist was a preparation to his first coming Again the Office of Christs Ministers in this world is to make men Beleeve and have Faith in Christ But Faith hath no relation to nor dependence at all upon Compulsion or Commandement but onely upon certainty or probability of Arguments drawn from Reason or from something men beleeve already Therefore the Ministers of Christ in this world have no Power by that title to Punish any man for not Beleeving or for Contradicting what they say they have I say no Power by that title of Christs Ministers to Punish such but if they have Soveraign Civill Power by politick institution then they may indeed lawfully Punish any Contradiction to their laws whatsoever And St. Paul of himselfe and other the then Preachers of the Gospell saith in expresse words Wee have no Dominion over your Faith but are Helpers of your Ioy. Another Argument that the Ministers of Christ in this present world have no right of Commanding may be drawn from the lawfull Authority which Christ hath left to all Princes as well Christians as Infidels St. Paul saith Col. 3. 20. Children obey your Parents in all things for this is well pleasing to the Lord. And ver 22. Servants obey in all things your Masters according to the flesh not with eye-service as meâ—…-pleasers but in singlenesse of heart as fearing the Lord This is spoken to them whose Masters were Infidells and yet they are bidden to obey them in all things And again concerning obedience to Princes Rom. 13. the first 6. verses exhorting to be subject to the Higher Powers he saith that all Power is ordained of God and that we ought to be subject to them not onely for fear of incurring their wrath but also for conscience sake And St. Peter 1 Epist. chap. 2. ver 13 14 15. Submit your selves to every Ordinance of Man for the Lords sake whether it bee to the King as Supreme or unto Governours as to them that be sent by him for the punishment of evill doers and for the praise of them that doe well for so is the will of God And again St. Paul Tit. 3. 1. Put men in mind to be subject to Principalities and Powers and to obey Magistrates These Princes and Powers whereof St. Peter and St. Paul here speak were all Infidels much more therefore we are to observe those Christians whom God hath ordained to have Soveraign Power over us How then can wee be obliged to obey any Minister of Christ if he should command us to doe any thing contrary the Command of the King or other Soveraign Representant of the Common-wealth whereof we are members and by whom we look to be protected It is
to be without terrour The name of Fulmen Excommunicationis that is the Thunderbolt of Excommunication proceeded from an imagination of the Bishop of Rome which first used it that he was King of Kings as the Heathen made Jupiter King of the Gods and assigned him in their Poems and Pictures a Thunderbolt wherewith to subdue and punish the Giants that should dare to deny his power Which imagination was grounded on two errours one that the Kingdome of Christ is of this world contrary to our Saviours owne words My Kingdome is not of this world the other that hee is Christs Vicar not onely over his owne Subjects but over all the Christians of the World whereof there is no ground in Scripture and the contrary shall bee proved in its due place St. Paul coming to Thessalonica where was a Synagogue of the Jews Acts 17. 2 3. As his manner was went in unto them and three Sabbath dayes reasoned with them out of the Scriptures Opening and alledging that Christ must needs have suffered and râ—…sen again from the dead and that this Iesus whom he preached was the Christ. The Scriptures here mentioned were the Scriptures of the Jews that is the Old Testament The men to whom he was to prove that Jesus was the Christ and risen again from the dead were also Jews and did beleeve already that they were the Word of God Hereupon as it is verse 4. some of them beleeved and as it is in the 5. ver some beleeved not What was the reason when they all beleeved the Scripture that they did not all beleeve alike but that some approved others disapproved the Interpretation of St. Paul that cited them and every one Interpreted them to himself It was this S. Paul came to them without any Legall Commission and in the manner of one that would not Command but Perswade which he must needs do either by Miracles as Moses did to the Israelites in Egypt that they might see his Authority in Gods works or by Reasoning from the already received Scripture that they might see the truth of his doctrine in Gods Word But whosoever perswadeth by reasoning from principles written maketh him to whom hee speaketh Judge both of the meaning of those principles and also of the force of his inferences upon them If these Jews of Thessalonica were not who else was the Judge of what S. Paul alledgâ—…d out of Scripture If S. Paul what needed he to quote any places to prove his doctrine It had been enough to have said I find it so in Scripture that is to say in your Laws of which I am Interpreter as sent by Christ. The Interpreter therefore of the Scripture to whose Interpretation the Jews of Thessalonica were bound to stand could be none every one might beleeve or not beleeve according as the Allegations seemed to himselfe to be agreeable or not agreeable to the meaning of the places alledged And generally in all cases of the world hee that pretendeth any proofe maketh Judge of his proofe him to whom he addresseth his speech And as to the case of the Jews in particular they were bound by expresse words Deut. 17. to receive the determination of all hard questions from the Priests and Judges of Israel for the time being But this is to bee understood of the Jews that were yet unconverted For the conversion of the Gentiles there was no use of alledging the Scriptures which they beleeved not The Apostles therefore laboured by Reason to confute their Idolatry and that done to perswade them to the faith of Christ by their testimony of his Life and Resurrection So that there could not yet bee any controversie concerning the authority to Interpret Scripture seeing no man was obliged during his infidelity to follow any mans Interpretation of any Scripture except his Soveraigns Interpretation of the Laws of his countrey Let us now consider the Conversion it sâ—…lf and see what there was therein that could be cause of such an obligation Men were converted to no other thing then to the Beleef of that which the Apostles preached And the Apostles preached nothing but that Jesus was the Christ that is to say the King that was to save them and reign over them eternally in the world to come and consequently that hee was not dead but risen again from the dead and gone up into Heaven and should come again one day to jâ—…dg the world which also should rise again to be judged and reward every man according to his works None of them preached that himselfe or any other Apostle was such an Interpreter of the Scripture as all that became Christians ought to take their Interpretation for Law For to Interpret the Laws is part of the Administration of a present Kingdome which the Apostles had not They prayed then and all other Pastors ever since Let thy Kingdome come and exhorted their Converts to obey their then Ethnique Princes The New Testament was not yet published in one Body Every of the Evangelists was Interpreter of his own Gospel and every Apostle of his own Epistle And of the Old Testament our Saviour himselfe saith to the Jews Iohn 5. 39. Search the Scriptures for in them yee thinke to have eternall life and they are they that testifie of me If hee had not meant they should Interpret them hee would not have bidden them take thence the proof of his being the Christ he would either have Interpreted them himselfe or referred them to the Interpretation of the Priests When a difficulty arose the Apostles and Elders of the Church assembled themselves together and determined what should bee preached and taught and how they should Interpret the Scriptures to the People but took not from the People the liberty to read and Interpret them to themselves The Apostles sent divers Letters to the Churches and other Writings for their instruction which had been in vain if they had not allowed them to Interpret that is to consider the meaning of them And as it was in the Apostles time it must be till such time as there should be Pastors that could authorise an Interpreter whose Interpretation should generally be stood to But that could not be till Kings were Pastors or Pastors Kings There be two senses wherein a Writing may be said to be Canonicall for Canon signifieth a Rule and a Rule is a Precept by which a man is guided and directed in any action whatsoever Such Precepts though given by a Teacher to his Disciple or a Counsellor to his friend without power to Compell him to observe them are neverthelesse Canons because they are Rules But when they are given by one whom he that receiveth them is bound to obey then are those Canons not onely Rules but Laws The question therefore here is of the Power to make the Scriptures which are the Rules of Christian Faith Laws That part of the Scripture which was first Law was the Ten Commandements written in two Tables of Stone
and delivered by God himselfe to Moses and by Moses made known to the people Before that time there was no written Law of God who as yet having not chosen any people to bee his peculiar Kingdome had given no Law to men but the Law of Nature that is to say the Precepts of Naturall Reason written in every mans own heart Of these two Tables the first containeth the law of Soveraignty 1. That they should not obey nor honour the Gods of other Nations in these words Non-habebis Deos alienos coram me that is Thou shalt not have for Gods the Gods that other Nations worship but onely me whereby they were forbidden to obey or honor as their King and Governour any other God than him that spake unto them then by Moses and afterwards by the High Priest 2. That they should not make any Image to represent him that is to say they were not to choose to themselves neither in heaven nor in earth any Representative of their own fancying but obey Moses and Aaron whom he had appointed to that office 3. That they should not take the Name of God in vain that is they should not speak rashly of their King nor dispute his Right nor the commissions of Moses and Aaron his Lieutenants 4. That they should every Seventh day abstain from their ordinary labour and employ that time in doing him Publique Honor. The second Table containeth the Duty of one man towards another as To honor Parents Not to kill Not to Commit Adultery Not to steale Not to corrupt Iudgment by false witnesse and finally Not so much as to designe in their heart the doing of any injury one to another The question now is Who it was that gave to these written Tables the obligatory force of Lawes There is no doubt but they were made Laws by God himselfe But because a Law obliges not nor is Law to any but to them that acknowledge it to be the act of the Soveraign how could the people of Israel that were forbidden to approach the Mountain to hear what God said to Moses be obliged to obedience to all those laws which Moses propounded to them Some of them were indeed the Laws of Nature as all the Second Table and therefore to be acknowledged for Gods Laws not to the Israelites alone but to all people But of those that were peculiar to the Israelites as those of the first Table the question remains saving that they had obliged themselves presently after the propounding of them to obey Moses in these words Exod. 20. 19. Speak thou to us and we will hear thee but let not God speak to us lest we dye It was therefore onely Moses then and after him the High Priest whom by Moses God declared should administer this his peculiar Kingdome that had on Earth the power to make this short Scripture of the Decalogue to bee Law in the Common-wealth of Israel But Moses and Aaron and the succeeding High Priests were the Civill Soveraigns Therefore hitherto the Canonizing or making of the Scripture Law belonged to the Civill Soveraigne The Judiciall Law that is to say the Laws that God prescribed to the Magistrates of Israel for the rule of their administration of Justice and of the Sentences or Judgments they should pronounce in Pleas between man and man and the Leviticall Law that is to say the rule that God prescribed touching the Rites and Ceremonies of the Priests and Levites were all delivered to them by Moses onely and therefore also became Lawes by vertue of the same promise of obedience to Moses Whether these laws were then written or not written but dictated to the People by Moses after his forty dayes being with God in the Mount by word of mouth is not expressed in the Text but they were all positive Laws and equivalent to holy Scripture and made Canonicall by Moses the Civill Soveraign After the Israelites were come into the Plains of Moab over against Jericho and ready to enter into the land of Promise Moses to the former Laws added divers others which therefore are called Deuteronomy that is Second Laws And are as it is written Deut. 29. 1. The words of a Covenant which the Lord commanded Moses to make with the Children of Israel besides the Covenant which he made with them in Horeb. For having explained those former Laws in the beginning of the Book of Deuteronomy he addeth others that begin at the 12. Cha. and continue to the end of the 26. of the same Book This Law Deut. 27. 1. they were commanded to write upon great stones playstered over at their passing over Jordan This Law also was written by Moses himself in a Book and delivered into the hands of the Priests and to the Elders of Israel Deut. 31. 9. and commanded ve 26. to be put in the side of the Arke for in the Ark it selfe was nothing but the Ten Commandements This was the Law which Moses Deuteronomy 17. 18. commanded the Kings of Israel should keep a copie of And this is the Law which having been long time lost was found again in the Temple in the time of Josiah and by his authority received for the Law of God But both Moses at the writing and Josiah at the recovery thereof had both of them the Civill Soveraignty Hitherto therefore the Power of making Scripture Canonicall was in the Civill Soveraign Besides this Book of the Law there was no other Book from the time of Moses till after the Captivity received amongst the Jews for the Law of God For the Prophets except a few lived in the time of the Captivity it selfe and the rest lived but a little before it and were so far from having their Prophecies generally received for Laws as that their persons were persecuted partly by false Prophets and partly by the Kings which were seduced by them And this Book it self which was confirmed by Josiah for the Law of God and with it all the History of the Works of God was lost in the Captivity and sack of the City of Jerusalem as appears by that of 2 Esdras 14. 21. Thy Law is burnt therefore no man knoweth the things that are done of thee or the works that shall begin And before the Captivity between the time when the Law was lost which is not mentioned in the Scripture but may probably be thought to be the time of Rehoboam when Shishak King of Egypt took the spoile of the Temple and the time of Josiah when it was found againe they had no written Word of God but ruled according to their own discretion or by the direction of such as each of them esteemed Prophets From hence we may inferre that the Scriptures of the Old Testament which we have at this day were not Canonicall nor a Law unto the Jews till the renovation of their Covenant with God at their return from the Captivity and restauration of their Common-wealth under Esdras But from that time
forward they were accounted the Law of the Jews and for such translated into Greek by Seventy Elders of Judaea and put into the Library of Ptolemy at Alexandria and approved for the Word of God Now seeing Esdras was the High Priest and the High Priest was their Civill Soveraigne it is manifest that the Scriptures were never made Laws but by the Soveraign Civill Power By the Writings of the Fathers that lived in the time before that Christian Religion was received and authorised by Constantine the Emperour we may find that the Books wee now have of the New Testament were held by the Christians of that time except a few in respect of whose paucity the rest were called the Catholique Church and others Haeretiques for the dictates of the Holy Ghost and consequently for the Canon or Rule of Faith such was the reverence and opinion they had of their Teachers as generally the reverence that the Disciples bear to their first Masters in all manner of doctrine they receive from them is not small Therefore there is no doubt but when S. Paul wrote to the Churches he had converted or any other Apostle or Disciple of Christ to those which had then embraced Christ they received those their Writings for the true Christian Doctrine But in that time when not the Power and Authority of the Teacher but the Faith of the Hearer caused them to receive it it was not the Apostles that made their own Writings Canonicall but every Convert made them so to himself But the question here is not what any Christian made a Law or Canon to himself which he might again reject by the same right he received it but what was so made a Canon to them as without injustice they could not doe any thing contrary thereunto That the New Testament should in this sense be Canonicall that is to say a Law in any place where the Law of the Common-wealth had not made it so is contrary to the nature of a Law For a Law as hath been already shewn is the Commandement of that Man or Assembly to whom we have given Soveraign Authority to make such Rules for the direction of our actions as hee shall think fit and to punish us when we doe any thing contrary to the same When therefore any other man shall offer unto us any other Rules which the Soveraign Ruler hath not prescribed they are but Counsell and Advice which whether good or bad hee that is counselled may without injustice refuse to observe and when contrary to the Laws already established without injustice cannot observe how good soever he conceiveth it to be I say he cannot in this case observe the same in his actions nor in his dicourse with other men though he may without blame beleeve his private Teachers and wish he had the liberty to practise their advice and that it were publiquely received for Law For internall Faith is in its own nature invisible and consequently exempted from all humane jurisdiction whereas the words and actions that proceeed from it as breaches of our Civill obedience are injustice both before God and Man Seeing then our Saviour hath denyed his Kingdome to be in this world seeing he had said he came not to judge but to save the world he hath not subjected us to other Laws than those of the Common-wealth that is the Jews to the Law of Moses which he saith Mat. 5. he came not to destroy but to fulfill and other Nations to the Laws of their severall Soveraigns and all men to the Laws of Nature the observing whereof both he himselfe and his Apostles have in their teaching recommended to us as a necessary condition of being admitted by him in the last day into his eternall Kingdome wherein shall be Protection and Life everlasting Seeing then our Saviour and his Apostles left not new Laws to oblige us in this world but new Doctrine to prepare us for the next the Books of the New Testament which containe that Doctrine untill obedience to them was commanded by them that God had given power to on earth to be Legislators were not obligatory Canons that is Laws but onely good and safe advice for the direction of sinners in the way to salvation which every man might take and refuse at his owne perill without injustice Again our Saviour Christs Commission to his Apostles and Disciples was to Proclaim his Kingdome not present but to come and to Teach all Nations and to Baptize them that should beleeve and to enter into the houses of them that should receive them and where they were not received to shake off the dust of their feet against them but not to call for fire from heaven to destroy them nor to compell them to obedience by the Sword In all which there is nothing of Power but of Perswasion He sent them out as Sheep unto Wolves not as Kings to their Subjects They had not in Commission to make Laws but to obey and teach obedience to Laws made and consequently they could not make their Writings obligatory Canons without the help of the Soveraign Civill Power And therefore the Scripture of the New Testament is there only Law where the lawfull Civill Power hath made it so And there also the King or Soveraign maketh it a Law to himself by which he subjecteth himselfe not to the Doctor or Apostle that converted him but to God himself and his Son Jesus Christ as immediately as did the Apostles themselves That which may seem to give the New Testament in respect of those that have embraced Christian Doctrine the force of Laws in the times and places of persecution is the decrees they made amongst themselves in their Synods For we read Acts 15. 28. the stile of the Councell of the Apostles the Elders and the whole Church in this manner It seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us to lay upon you no greater burthen than these necessary things c. which is a stile that signifieth a Power to lay a burthen on them that had received their Doctrine Now to lay a burden on another seemeth the same that to oblige and therefore the Acts of that Councell were Laws to the then Christians Neverthelesse they were no more Laws than are these other Precepts Repent Be Baptized Keep the Commandements Beleeve the Gospel Come unto me Sell all that thou hast Give it to the poor and Follow me which are not Commands but Invitations and Callings of men to Christianity like that of Esay 55. 1. Ho every man that thirâ—…teth come yee to the waters come and buy wine and milke without money For first the Apostles power was no other than that of our Saviour to invite men to embrace the Kingdome of God which they themselves acknowledged for a Kingdome not present but to come and they that have no Kingdome can make no Laws And secondly if their Acts of Councell were Laws they could not without sin be disobeyed But we read
also the Power of Explaining them when there is need And are not the Scriptures in all places where they are Law made Law by the Authority of the Common-wealth and consequently a part of the Civill Law Of the same kind it is also when any but the Soveraign restraineth in any man that power which the Common-wealth hath not restrained as they do that impropriate the Preaching of the Gospell to one certain Order of men where the Laws have left it free If the State give me leave to preach or teach that is if it forbid me not no man can forbid me If I find my selfe amongst the Idolaters of America shall I that am a Christian though not in Orders think it a sin to preach Jesus Christ till I have received Orders from Rome or when I have preached shall not I answer their doubts and expound the Scriptures to them that is shall I not Teach But for this may some say as also for administring to them the Sacraments the necessity shall be esteemed for a sufficient Mission which is true But this is true also that for whatsoever a dispensation is due for the necessity for the same there needs no dispensation when there is no Law that forbids it Therefore to deny these Functions to those to whom the Civill Soveraigne hath not denyed them is a taking away of a lawfull Liberty which is contrary to the Doctrine of Civill Government More examples of Vain Philosophy brought into Religion by the Doctors of Schoole-Divinity might be produced but other men may if they please observe them of themselves I shall onely adde this that the Writings of Schoole-Divines are nothing else for the most part but insignificant Traines of strange and barbarous words or words otherwise used then in the common use of the Latine tongue such as would pose Cicero and Varro and all the Grammarians of ancient Rome Which if any man would see proved let him as I have said once before see whether he can translate any Schoole-Divine into any of the Modern tongues as French English or any other copious language for that which cannot in most of these be made Intelligible is not Intelligible in the Latine Which Insignificancy of language though I cannot note it for false Philosophy yet it hath a quality not onely to hide the Truth but also to make men think they have it and desist from further search Lastly for the Errors brought in from false or uncertain History what is all the Legend of fictitious Miracles in the lives of the Saints and all the Histories of Apparitions and Ghosts alledged by the Doctors of the Romane Church to make good their Doctrines of Hell and Purgatory the power of Exorcisme and other Doctrines which have no warrant neither in Reason nor Scripture as also all those Traditions which they call the unwritten Word of God but old Wives Fables Whereof though they find dispersed somewhat in the Writings of the ancient Fathers yet those Fathers were men that might too easily beleeve false reports and the producing of their opinions for testimony of the truth of what they beleeved hath no other force with them that according to the Counsell of St. Iohn 1 Epist. chap. 4. verse 1. examine Spirits than in all things that concern the power of the Romane Church the abuse whereof either they suspected not or had benefit by it to discredit their testimony in respect of too rash beleef of reports which the most sincere men without great knowledge of naturall causes such as the Fathers were are commonly the most subject to For naturally the best men are the least suspicious of fraudulent purposes Gregory the Pope and S. Bernard have somewhat of Apparitions of Ghosts that said they were in Purgatory and so has our Beda but no where I beleeve but by report from others But if they or any other relate any such stories of their own knowledge they shall not thereby confirm the more such vain reports but discover their own Infirmity or Fraud With the Introduction of False we may joyn also the suppression of True Philosophy by such men as neither by lawfull authority nor sufficient study are competent Judges of the truth Our own Navigations make manifest and all men learned in humane Sciences now acknowledge there are Antipodes And every day it appeareth more and more that Years and Dayes are determined by Motions of the Earth Neverthelesse men that have in their Writings but supposed such Doctrine as an occasion to lay open the reasons for and against it have been punished for it by Authority Ecclesiasticall But what reason is there for it Is it becaâ—…se such opinions are contrary to true Religion that cannot be if they be true Let therefore the truth be first examined by competent Judges or confuted by them that pretend to know the contrary Is it because they be contrary to the Religion established Let them be silenced by the Laws of those to whom the Teachers of them are subject that is by the Laws Civill For disobedience may lawfully be punished in them that against the Laws teach even true Philosophy Is it because they tend to disorder in Government as countenancing Rebellion or Sedition then let them be silenced and the Teachers punished by vertue of his Power to whom the care of the Publique quiet is committed which is the Authority Civill For whatsoever Power Ecclesiastiques take upon themselves in any place where they are subject to the State in their own Right though they call it Gods Right is but Usurpation CHAP. XLVII Of the BENEFIT that proceedeth from such Darknesse and to whom it accreweth CIcero maketh honorable mention of one of the Cassâ—… a severe Judge amongst the Romans for a custome he had in Criminall causes when the testimony of the witnesses was not sufficient to ask the Accusers Cuibono that is to say what Profit Honor or other Contentment the accused obtained or expected by the Fact For amongst Praesumptions there is none that so evidently declareth the Author as doth the BENEFIT of the Action By the same rule I intend in this place to examine who they may be that have possessed the People so long in this part of Christendome with these Doctrines contrary to the Peaceable Societies of Mankind And first to this Error that the present Church now Militant on Earth is the Kingdome of God that is the Kingdome of Glory or the Land of Promise not the Kingdome of Grace which is but a Promise of the Land are annexed these worldly Benefits First that the Pastors and Teachers of the Church are entitled thereby as Gods Publique Ministers to a Right of Governing the Church and consequently because the Church and Common-wealth are the same Persons to be Rectors and Governours of the Common-wealth By this title it is that the Pope prevailed with the subjects of all Christian Princes to beleeve that to disobey him was to disobey Christ himselfe
Redemption Church the Lords house Ecclesia properly what Acts 19. 39. In what sense the Church is one Person Church defined A Christian Common-wealth and a Church all one The Soveraign Rights of Abraham Abraham had the sole power of ordering the Religion of his own people No pretence of Private Spirit against the Religion of Abraham Abraham sole Judge and Interpreter of what God spake The authority of Moses whereon grounded John 5. 31. Moses was under God Soveraign of the Jews all his own time though Aaron had the Priesthood All spirits were subordinate to the spirit of Moses After Moses the Soveraignty was in the High Priest Of the Soveraign power between the time of Joshua and of Saul Of the Rights of the Kings of Israel The practice of Supremacy in Religion was not in the time of the Kings according to the Right thereof 2 Chro. 19. 2. After the Captivity the Iews â—…ad no setled Common-wealth Three parts of the Office of Christ. His Office as a Redeemer Christs Kingdome not of this woâ—…ld The End of Christs comming was to renew the Covenant of the Kingdome of God and to perswade the Elect to imbrace it which was the second part of his Office The preaching of Christ not contrary to the then law of the Iews nor of Caesar. The third part of his Office was to be King under his Father of the Elect. Christs authority in the Kingdome of God subordinate to that of his Father One and the same God is the Person represented by Moses and by Christ. Of the Holy Spirit that fel on the Apostles Of the Trinity The Power Ecclesiasticall is but the power to teach An argument thereof the Power of Christ himself From the name of Regeneration From the compariâ—…on of it with Fishing Leaven Seed Fâ—…om the nature of 〈◊〉 2 Cor. 1. 24. From the Authority Christ hath lâ—…st to Civill Princes What Christians may do to avoid persecution Of Martyrs Argument from the points of their Commission To Preach And Teach To Baptize And to Forgive and Retain Sinnes Mat. 18. 15 16 17. Of Excommunication The use of Excommunication without Civill Power Acts 9. 2. Of no effect upon an Apostate But upon the faithfull only For what fault lyeth Excommunication Ofpersons liaable to Excommunication 1 Sam. 8. Of the Interpreter of the Scriptures before Civil Soveraigns became Christians Of the Power to make Scripture Law Of the Ten Commandements Of the Iudiciall and Leviticall Law The Second Law * 1 Kings 14 26. The Old Testament when made Canonicall The New Testament began to be Canonicall under Christian Soveraigns Of the Power of Councells to make the Scriptures Law John 3. 36. John 3. 18. Of the Right of constituting Ecclesiasticall Officers in the time of the Apostles Matthias made Apostle by the Congregation Paul and Barnabas made Apostles by the Church of Antioch What Offices in the Church are Magisteriall Ordination of Teachers Ministers of the Church what And how chosen Of Ecclesiasticall Revenue under the Law of Moses In our Saviours time and after Mat. 10. 9 10. * Acts 4. 34. The Ministers of the Gospel lived on the Benevolence of their flocks 1 Cor. 9. 13. That the Civill Soveraign being a Christian hath the Right of appointing Pastors The Pastor all Authority of Soveraigns only is de Jure Divino that of other Pastors is Jure Civili Christian Kings have Power to execute all manner of Pastoral function * John 4. 2. * 1 Cor. 1. 14 16. * 1 Câ—…r 1. 17. The Civill Soveraigne if a Christian is head of the Church in his own Dominions Cardinal Bellarmines Books De Summo Pontifice considered The first book The second Book The third Book * Dan. 9. 27. The fourth Book Texts for the Infaâ—…ibility of the Popes Judgement in points of Faith Texts for the same in point of Manners The question of Superiority between the Pope and other Bishops Of the Popes â—…mporall Power The difficulty of obeying God and Man both at once Is none to them that distinguish between what is and what is not Necessary to Salvation All that is Necessary to Salvation is contained in Faith and Obedience What Obedience is Necessary And to what Laws In the Faith of a Christian who is the Person beleeved The causes of Christian Faith Faith comes by Hearing The onely Necessary Article of Christian Faith Proved from the Scope of the Evangelists From the Sermons of the Apostles From the Easinesse of the Doctrine From formall â—…ud cleer texts From that it is the Foundation of all other Articles 2 Pet. 3. v. 7 10 12. In what sense other Articles may be called Nâ—…cessary That Faith and Obedience are both of them Necessary to Salvation What each of them contributes thereunto Obedience to God and to the Civill Soveraign not inconsistent whether Christian Or Infidel The Kingdom of Darknesse what * Eph. 6. 12. * Mat. 12. 26. * Mat. 9. 34. * Eph. 2. 2. * Joh. 16. 11. The Church not yet fully â—…reed of Darknesse Four Causes of Spirituall Darknesse Errors from misinterpreting the Scriptures concerning the Kingdome of God As that the Kingdome of God is the present Church And that the Pope is his Vicar generall And that the Pastors are the Clergy Error from mistaking Consecration for Conjuration Incantation in the Ceremonies of Baptisme And in Marriage in Visitation of the Sick and in Consecration of Places Errors from mistaking Eternall Life and Everlasting Death As the Doctrine of Purgatory and Exorcismes and Invocation of Saints The Texts alledged for the Doctrines aforementioned have been answered before Answer to the text on which Beza inferreth that the Kingdome of Christ began at the Resurrection Explication of the Place in Mark 9. 1. Abuse of some other texts in defence of the Power of the Pope The manner of Consecrations in the Scripture was without Exorcisms The immortality of mans Soule not proved by Scripture to be of Nature but of Grace Eternall Torments what Answer of the Texts alledged for Purgatory Places of the New Testament for Purgatory answered Baptisme for the Dead how understood The Originall of Daemonclogy What were the Daemons of the Ancients How that Doctrine was spread How far received by the Jews John 8. 52. Why our Saviour controlled it not The Scriptures doe not teach that Spirits are Incorporeall The Power of Casting out Devills not the same it was in the Primitive Church Another relique of Gentilisme Worshipping of Images left in the Church not brought into it Answer to certain seeming texts for Images What is Worship Distinction between Divine and Civill Worship An Image what Phantasmes Fictions Materiall Images Idolatry what Scandalous worship of Images Answer 〈◊〉 the Argument from the Cherubins and Brazen Serpent * Exod. 32. 2. * Gen. 31. 30. Painting of Fancies no Idolatry but abusing them to Religious Worship is How Idolatry was left in the Church Canonizing of Saints The name of Pontifex Procession of Images Wax Candles and Torches lighted What Philosophy is Prudence no part of Philosophy No false Doctrine is part of Philosophy No more is Revelation supernaturall Nor learning taken upon credit of Authors Of the Beginnings and Progresse of Philosophy Of the Schools of Philosophy amongst the Athenians Of the Schools of the Jews The Schoole of the Graecians unprofitable The Schools of the Jews unprofitable University what it is Errors brought into Religion from Aristotles Metaphysiques Errors concerning Abstract Essences Nunc-stans One Body in many places and many Bodies in one place at once Absurdities in naturall Philosopy as Gravity the Cause of Heavinesse Quantity put into Body already made Powring in of Soules Ubiquity of Apparition Will the Cause of Willing Ignorance an occult Cause One makes the things incongruent another the Incongruity Private Appetite the rule of Publique good And that lawfull Marriage is Unchastity And that all Government but Popular is Tyranny That not Men but Law governs Laws over the Conscience Private Interpretation of Law Language of Schoole-Divines Errors from Tradition Suppression of Reason He that receiveth Benefit by a Fact is presumed to be the Author That the â—…hurch Militant is the Kingdome of God was first taught by the Church of Rome And maintained also by the Presbytery Infallibility Subjection of Bishops Exemptions of the Clergy The names of Saceâ—…dotes and Sacriâ—… The Sacramentation of Marriage The single life of Priests Auricular Confession Canonization of Saints and declaring of Martyrs Transubstantiation Pennance Absolution Purgatory Indulgences Externall works Daemonology and Exorcism School-Divinity The Authors of spirituall Darknesse who they be Comparison of the Papacy with the Kingdome of Fayries
Non est postestas Super terram quae Comparetur ei Iob. 41.24 LEVIATHAN Or THE MATTER FORME and POWER of a COMMON-WEALTH ECCLESIASTICALL and CIVIL By THOMAS HOBBES of MALMESBURY London Printed for Andrew Crooke 1651 LEVIATHAN OR The Matter Forme Power OF A COMMON-WEALTH ECCLESIASTICALL AND CIVILL By THOMAS HOBBES of Malmesbury LONDON Printed for ANDREW CROOKE at the Green Dragon in St. Pauls Church-yard 1651. FIDE ✚ ET ✚ FORTITUDINE The Right Hon. ble Algernon Capell Earl of Essex Viscount Maldon and Baron Capell of Hadham 1701. TO MY MOST HONOR'D FRIEND Mr FRANCIS GODOLPHIN of Godolphin Honor'd Sir YOur most worthy Brother Mr Sidney Godolphin when he lived was pleas'd to think my studies something and otherwise to oblige me as you know with reall testimonies of his good opinion great in themselves and the greater for the worthinesse of his person For there is not any vertue that disposeth a man either to the service of God or to the service of his Country to Civill Society or private Friendship that did not manifestly appear in his conversation not as acquired by necessity or affected upon occasion but inhaerent and shining in a generous constitution of his nature Therefore in honour and gratitude to him and with devotion to your selfe I humbly Dedicate unto you this my discourse of Common-wealth I know not how the world will receive it nor how it may reflect on those that shall seem to favour it For in a way beset with those that contend on one side for too great Liberty and on the other side for too much Authority 't is hard to passe between the points of both unwounded But yet me thinks the endeavour to advance the Civill Power should not be by the Civill Power condemned nor private men by reprehending it declare they think that Power too great Besides I speak not of the men but in the Abstract of the Seat of Power like to those simple and unpartiall creatures in the Roman Capitol that with their noyse defended those within it not because they were they but there offending none I think but those without or such within if there be any such as favour them That which perhaps may most offend are certain Texts of Holy Scripture alledged by me to other purpose than ordinarily they use to be by others But I have done it with due submission and also in order to my Subject necessarily for they are the Outworks of the Enemy from whence they impugne the Civill Power If notwithstanding this you find my labour generally decryed you may be pleased to excuse your selfe and say I am a man that love my own opinions and think all true I say that I honoured your Brother and honour you and have presum'd on that to assume the Title without your knowledge of being as I am SIR Your most humble and most obedient servant THO. HOBBES Paris Aprill 15 25. 1651. The Contents of the Chapters The first part Of MAN Chap. Introduction Page 1 Chap. 1. Of Sense Page 3 Chap. 2. Of Imagination Page 4 Chap. 3. Of the Consequence or Train of Imaginations Page 8 Chap. 4. Of Speech Page 12 Chap. 5. Of Reason and Science Page 18 Chap. 6. Of the interiour Beginnings of Voluntary Motions commonly called the Passions And the Speeches by which they are expressed Page 23 Chap. 7. Of the Ends or Resolutions of Discourse Page 30 Chap. 8. Of the Vertues commonly called Intellectuall and their contrary Defects Page 32 Chap. 9. Of the severall Subjects of Knowledge Page 40 Chap. 10. Of Power Worth Dignity Honour and Worthinesse Page 41 Chap. 11. Of the Difference of Manners Page 47 Chap. 12. Of Religion Page 52 Chap. 13. Of the Naturall Condition of Mankind as concerning their Felicity and Misery Page 60 Chap. 14. Of the first and second Naturall Lawes and of Contract Page 64 Chap. 15. Of other Lawes of Nature Page 71 Chap. 16. Of Persons Authors and things Personated Page 80 The second Part Of COMMON-WEALTH Chap. 17. Of the Causes Generation and Definition of a Common-wealth Page 85 Chap. 18. Of the Rights of Soveraignes by Institution Page 88 Chap. 19. Of severall Kinds of Common-wealth by Institution and of Succession to the Soveraign Power Page 94 Chap. 20. Of Dominion Paternall and Despoticall Page 101 Chap. 21. Of the Liberty of Subjects Page 107 Chap. 22. Of Systemes Subject Politicall and Private Page 115 Chap. 23. Of the Publique Ministers of Soveraign Power Page 123 Chap. 24. Of the Nutrition and Procreation of a Common-wealth Page 127 Chap. 25. Of Counsell Page 131 Chap. 26. Of Civill Lawes Page 136 Chap. 27. Of Crimes Excuses and Extenuations Page 151 Chap. 28. Of Punishments and Rewards Page 161 Chap. 29. Of those things that Weaken or tend to the Dissolution of a Common-wealth Page 167 Chap. 30. Of the Office of the Soveraign Representative Page 175 Chap. 31. Of the Kingdome of God by Nature Page 186 The third Part. Of A CHRISTIAN COMMON-WEALTH Chap. 32. Of the Principles of Christian Politiques Page 195 Chap. 33. Of the Number Antiquity Scope Authority and Interpreters of the Books of Holy Scripture Page 199 Chap. 34. Of the signification of Spirit Angell and Inspiration in the Books of Holy Scripture Page 207 Chap. 35. Of the signification in Scripture of the Kingdome of God of Holy Sacred and Sacrament Page 216 Chap. 36. Of the Word of God and of Prophets Page 222 Chap. 37. Of Miracles and their use Page 233 Chap. 38. Of the signification in Scripture of Eternall life Hel Salvation the World to come and Redemption Page 238 Chap. 39. Of the Signification in Scripture of the word Church Page 247 Chap. 40. Of the Rights of the Kingdome of God in Abraham Moses the High Priests and the Kings of Judah Page 249 Chap. 41. Of the Office of our Blessed Saviour Page 261 Chap. 42. Of Power Ecclesiasticall Page 267 Chap. 43. Of what is Necessary for a mans Reception into the Kingdome of Heaven Page 321 The fourth Part. Of THE KINGDOME OF DARKNESSE Chap. 44. Of Spirituall Darknesse from Misinterpretation of Scripture Page 333 Chap. 45. Of Daemonology and other Reliques of the Religion of the Gentiles Page 352 Chap. 46. Of Darknesse from Vain Philosophy and Fabulous Traditions Page 367 Chap. 47. Of the Benefit proceeding from such Darknesse and to whom it accreweth Page 381 A Review and Conclusion Page 389 Errata PAge 48. In the Margin for love Praise râ—…d love of Praise p. 75. l. 5. for signied r. signified p. 88. l. 1. for performe r. forme l. 35. for Soveraign r. the Soveraign p. 94. l. 14. for lands r. hands p. 100. l. 28. for in r. in his p. 102. l. 46. for in r. is p. 105. in the margin for ver 10. r. ver 19. c. p. 116. l. 46. for are involved r. are not involved p. 120. l. 42. for Those Bodies r. These Bodies p. 137. â—… a. for in generall r. in generall p. 139.
WORTHINESSE is a thing different from the worth or value of a man and also from his merit or desert and consisteth in a particular power or ability for that whereof he is said to be worthy which particular ability is usually named FITNESSE or Aptitude For he is Worthiest to be a Commander to be a Judge or to have any other charge that is best fitted with the qualities required to the well discharging of it and Worthiest of Riches that has the qualities most requisite for the well using of them any of which qualities being absent one may neverthelesse be a Worthy man and valuable for some thing else Again a man may be Worthy of Riches Office and Employment that neverthelesse can plead no right to have it before another and therefore cannot be said to merit or deserve it For Merit praesupposeth a right and that the thing deserved is due by promise Of which I shall say more hereafter when I shall speak of Contracts CHAP. XI Of the difference of MANNERS BY MANNERS I mean not here Decency of behaviour as how one man should salute another or how a man should wash his mouth or pick his teeth before company and such other points of the Small Moralls But those qualities of man-kind that concern their living together in Peace and Unity To which end we are to consider that the Felicity of this life consisteth not in the repose of a mind satisfied For there is no such Finis ultimus utmost ayme nor Summum Bonum greatest Good as is spoken of in the Books of the old Morall Philosophers Nor can a man any more live whose Desires are at an end than he whose Senses and Imaginations are at a stand Felicity is a continuall progresse of the desire from one object to another the attaining of the former being still but the way to the later The cause whereof is That the Object of mans desire is not to enjoy once onely and for one instant of time but to assure for ever the way of his future desire And therefore the voluntary actions and inclinations of all men tend not onely to the procuring but also to the assuring of a contented life and differ onely in the way which ariseth partly from the diversity of passions in divers men and partly from the difference of the knowledge or opinion each one has of the causes which produce the effect desired So that in the first place I put for a generall inclination of all mankind a perpetuall and restlesse desire of Power after power that ceaseth onely in Death And the cause of this is not alwayes that a man hopes for a more intensive delight than he has already attained to or that he cannot be content with a moderate power but because he cannot assure the power and means to live well which he hath present without the acquisition of more And from hence it is that Kings whose power is greatest turn their endeavours to the assuring it at home by Lawes or abroad by Wars and when that is done there succeedeth a new desire in some of Fame from new Conquest in others of ease and sensuall pleasure in others of admiration or being flattered for excellence in some art or other ability of the mind Competition of Riches Honour Command or other power enclineth to Contention Enmity and War Because the way of one Competitor to the attaining of his desire is to kill subdue supplant or repell the other Particularly competition of praise enclineth to a reverence of Antiquity For men contend with the living not with the dead to these ascribing more than due that they may obscure the glory of the other Desire of Ease and sensuall Delight disposeth men to obey a common Power Because by such Desires a man doth abandon the protection might be hoped for from his own Industry and labour Fear of Death and Wounds disposeth to the same and for the same reason On the contrary needy men and hardy not contented with their present condition as also all men that are ambitious of Military command are enclined to continue the causes of warre and to stirre up trouble and sedition for there is no honour Military but by warre nor any such hope to mend an ill game as by causing a new shuffle Desire of Knowledge and Arts of Peace enclineth men to obey a common Power For such Desire containeth a desire of leasure and consequently protection from some other Power than their own Desire of Praise disposeth to laudable actions such as please them whose judgement they value for of those men whom we contemn we contemn also the Praises Desire of Fame after death does the same And though after death there be no sense of the praise given us on Earth as being joyes that are either swallowed up in the unspeakable joyes of Heaven or extinguished in the extreme torments of Hell yet is not such Fame vain because men have a present delâ—…ght therein from the foresight of it and of the benefit that may redoâ—…nd thereby to their posterity which though they now see not yet they imagine and any thing that is pleasure in the sense the same also is pleasure in the imagination To have received from one to whom we think our selves equall greater benefits than there is hope to Requite disposeth to counterfeit love but really secret hatred and puts a man into the estate of a desperate debtor that in declining the sight of his creditor tacitely wishes him there where he might never see him more For benefits oblige and obligation is thraldome and unrequitable obligation perpetuall thraldome which is to ones equall hatefull But to have received benefits from one whom we acknowledge for superiour enclines to love because the obligation is no new depression and cheerfull acceptation which men call Gratitude is such an honour done to the obliger as is taken generally for retribution Also to receive benefits though from an equall or inferiour as long as there is hope of requitall disposeth to love for in the intention of the receiver the obligation is of ayd and service mutuall from whence proceedeth an Emulation of who shall exceed in benefiting the most noble and profitable contention possible wherein the victor is pleased with his victory and the other revenged by confessing it To have done more hurt to a man than he can or is willing to expiate enclineth the doer to hate the sufferer For he must expect revenge or forgivenesse both which are hatefull Feare of oppression disposeth a man to anticipate or to seek ayd by society for there is no other way by which a man can secure his life and liberty Men that distrust their own subtilty are in tumult and sedition better disposed for victory than they that suppose themselves wife or crafty For these love to consult the other fearing to be circumvented to strike first And in sedition men being alwayes in
with lands and houses and officers and revenues set apart from all other humane uses that is consecrated and made holy to those their Idols as Caverns Groves Woods Mountains and whole Ilands and have attributed to them not onely the shapes some of Men some of Beasts some of Monsters but also the Faculties and Passions of men and beasts as Sense Speech Sex Lust Generation and this not onely by mixing one with another to propagate the kind of Gods but also by mixing with men and women to beget mongrill Gods and but inmates of Heaven as Bacchus Hercules and others besides Anger Revenge and other passions of living creatures and the actions proceeding from them as Fraud Theft Adultery Sodomie and any vice that may be taken for an effect of Power or a cause of Pleasure and all such Vices as amongst men are taken to be against Law rather than against Honour Lastly to the Prognostiques of time to come which are naturally but Conjectures upon the Experience of time past and supernaturally divine Revelation the same authors of the Religion of the Gentiles partly upon pretended Experience partly upon pretended Revelation have added innumerable other superstitious wayes of Divination and made men believe they should find their fortunes sometimes in the ambiguous or senslesse answers of the Priests at Delphi Delos Ammon and other famous Oracles which answers were made ambiguous by designe to own the event both wayes or absurd by the intoxicating vapour of the place which is very frequent in sulphurous Cavernes Sometimes in the leaves of the Sibills of whose Prophecyes like those perhaps of Nostradamus for the fragments now extant seem to be the invention of later times there were some books in reputation in the time of the Roman Republiques Sometimes in the insignificant Speeches of Mad-men supposed to be possessed with a divine Spirit which Possession they called Enthusiasme and these kinds of foretelling events were accounted Theomancy or Prophecy Sometimes in the aspect of the Starres at their Nativity which was called Horoscopy and esteemed a part of judiciary Astrology Sometimes in their own hopes and feares called Thumomancy or Presage Sometimes in the Prediction of Witches that pretended conference with the dead which is called Necromancy Conjuring and Witchcraft and is but juggling and confederate knavery Sometimes in the Casuall flight or feeding of birds called Augury Sometimes in the Entrayles of a sacrificed beast which was Aruspicina Sometimes in Dreams Sometimes in Croaking of Ravens or chattering of Birds Sometimes in the Lineaments of the face which was called Metoposcopy or by Palmistry in the lines of the hand in casuall words called Omina Sometimes in Monsters or unusuall accidents as Ecclipses Comets rare Meteors Earthquakes Inundations uncouth Births and the like which they called Portenta and Ostenta because they thought them to portend or foreshew some great Calamity to come Somtimes in meer Lottery as Crosse and Pile counting holes in a sive dipping of Verses in Homer and Virgil and innumerable other such vaine conceipts So easie are men to be drawn to believe any thing from such men as have gotten credit with them and can with gentlenesse and dexterity take hold of their fear and ignorance And therefore the first Founders and Legislators of Common-wealths amongst the Gentiles whose ends were only to keep the people in obedience and peace have in all places taken care First to imprint in their minds a beliefe that those precepts which they gave concerning Religion might not be thought to proceed from their own device but from the dictates of some God or other Spirit or else that they themselves were of a higher nature than mere mortalls that their Lawes might the more easily be received So Numa Pompilius pretended to receive the Ceremonies he instituted amongst the Romans from the Nymph Egeria and the first King and founder of the Kingdome of Peru pretended himselfe and his wife to be the children of the Sunne and Mahomet to set up his new Religion pretended to have conferences with the Holy Ghost in forme of a Dove Secondly they have had a care to make it believed that the same things were displeasing to the Gods which were forbidden by the Lawes Thirdly to prescribe Ceremonies Supplications Sacrifices and Festivalls by which they were to believe the anger of the Gods might be appeased and that ill success in War great contagions of Sicknesse Earthquakes and each mans private Misery came from the Anger of the Gods and their Anger from the Neglect of their Worship or the forgetting or mistaking some point of the Ceremonies required And though amongst the antient Romans men were not forbidden to deny that which in the Poets is written of the paines and pleasures after this life which divers of great authority and gravity in that state have in their Harangues openly derided yet that beliefe was alwaies more cherished than the contrary And by these and such other Institutions they obtayned in order to their end which was the peace of the Commonwealth that the common people in their misfortunes laying the fault on neglect or errour in their Ceremonies or on their own disobedience to the lawes were the lesse apt to mutâ—…ny against their Governors And being entertained with the pomp and pastime of Festivalls and publike Games made in honour of the Gods needed nothing else but bread to keep them from discontent murmuring and commotion against the State And therefore the Romans that had conquered the greatest part of the then known World made no scruple of tollerating any Religion whatsoeuer in the City of Rome it selfe unlesse it had somthing in it that could not consist with their Civill Government nor do we read that any Religion was there forbidden but that of the Jewes who being the peculiar Kingdome of God thought it unlawfull to acknowledge subjection to any mortall King or State whatsoever And thus you see how the Religion of the Gentiles was a part of their Policy But where God himselfe by supernaturall Revelation planted Religion there he also made to himselfe a peculiar Kingdome and gave Lawes not only of behaviour towards himselfe but also towards one another and thereby in the Kingdome of God the Policy and lawes Civill are a part of Religion and therefore the distinction of Temporall and Spirituall Domination hath there no place It is true that God is King of all the Earth Yet may he be King of a peculiar and chosen Nation For there is no more incongruity therein than that he that hath the generall command of the whole Army should have withall a peculiar Regiment or Company of his own God is King of all the Earth by his Power but of his chosen people he is King by Covenant But to speake more largly of the Kingdome of God both by Nature and Covenant I have in the following discourse assigned an other place From the propagation of Religion it is not hard to understand the causes
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
a Monarch that hath the Soveraign Authority that is to say who shall determine of the right of Inheritance for Elective Kings and Princes have not the Soveraign Power in propriety but in use only we are to consider that either he that is in possession has right to dispose of the Succession or else that right is again in the dissolved Multitude For the death of him that hath the Soveraign power in propriety leaves the Multitude without any Soveraign at all that is without any Representative in whom they should be united and be capable of doing any one action at all And therefore they are incapable of Election of any new Monarch every man having equall right to submit himselfe to such as he thinks best able to protect him or if he can protect himselfe by his owne sword which is a returne to Confusion and to the condition of a War of every man against every man contrary to the end for which Monarchy had its first Institution Therfore it is manifest that by the Institution of Monarchy the disposing of the Successor is alwaies left to the Judgment and Will of the present Possessor And for the question which may arise sometimes who it is that the Monarch in possession hath designed to the succession and inheritance of his power it is determined by his expresse Words and Testament or by other tacite signes sufficient By expresse Words or Testament when it is declared by him in life time viva voce or by Writing as the first Emperours of Rome declared who should be their Heires For the word Heire does not of it selfe imply the Children or nearest Kindred of a man but whomsoever a man shall any way declare he would have to succeed him in his Estate If therefore a Monarch declare expresly that such a man shall be his Heire either by Word or Writing then is that man immediatly after the decease of his Predecessor Invested in the right of being Monarch But where Testament and expresse Words are wanting other naturall signes of the Will are to be followed whereof the one is Custome And therefore where the Custome is that the next of Kindred absolutely succeedeth there also the next of Kindred hath right to the Succession for that if the will of him that was in posession had been otherwise he might easily have declared the same in his life time And likewise where the Custome is that the next of the Male Kindred succeedeth there also the right of Succession is in the next of the Kindred Male for the same reason And so it is if the Custome were to advance the Female For whatsoever Custome a man may by a word controule and does not it is a naturall signe he would have that Custome stand But where neither Custome nor Testament hath preceded there it is to be understood First that a Monarchs will is that the government remain Monarchicall because he hath approved that government in himselfe Secondly that a Child of his own Male or Female be preferred before any other because men are presumed to be more enclined by nature to advance their own children than the children of other men and of their own rather a Male than a Female because men are naturally fitter than women for actions of labour and danger Thirdly where his own Issue faileth rather a Brother than a stranger and so still the neerer in bloud rather than the more remote because it is alwayes presumed that the neerer of kin is the neerer in affection and 't is evident that a man receives alwayes by reflexion the most honour from the greatnesse of his neerest kindred But if it be lawfull for a Monarch to dispose of the Succession by words of Contract or Testament men may perhaps object a great inconvenience for he may sell or give his Right of governing to a stranger which because strangers that is men not used to live under the same government nor speaking the same language do commonly undervalue one another may turn to the oppression of his Subjects which is indeed a great inconvenience but it proceedeth not necessarily from the subjection to a strangers government but from the unskilfulnesse of the Governours ignorant of the true rules of Politiques And therefore the Romans when they had subdued many Nations to make their Government digestible were wont to take away that grievance as much as they thought necessary by giving sometimes to whole Nations and sometimes to Principall men of every Nation they conquered not onely the Privileges but also the Name of Romans and took many of them into the Senate and Offices of charge even in the Roman City And this was it our most wise King King James aymed at in endeavouring the Union of his two Realms of England and Scotland Which if he could have obtained had in all likelihood prevented the Civill warres which make both those Kingdomes at this present miserable It is not therefore any injury to the people for a Monarch to dispose of the Succession by Will though by the fault of many Princes it hath been sometimes found inconvenient Of the lawfulnesse of it this also is an argument that whatsoever inconvenience can arrive by giving a Kingdome to a stranger may arrive also by so marrying with strangers as the Right of Succession may descend upon them yet this by all men is accounted lawfull CHAP. XX. Of Dominion PATERNALL and DESPOTICALL A Common-wealth by Acquisition is that where the Soveraign Power is acquired by Force And it is acquired by force when men singly or many together by plurality of voyces for fear of death or bonds do authorise all the actions of that Man or Assembly that hath their lives and liberty in his Power And this kind of Dominion or Soveraignty differeth from Soveraignty by Institution onely in this That men who choose their Soveraign do it for fear of one another and not of him whom they Institute But in this case they subject themselves to him they are afraid of In both cases they do it for fear which is to be noted by them that hold all such Covenants as proceed from fear of death or violence voyd which if it were true no man in any kind of Common-wealth could be obliged to Obedience It is true that in a Common-wealth once Instituted or acquired Promises proceeding from fear of death or violence are no Covenants nor obliging when the thing promised is contrary to the Lawes But the reason is not because it was made upon fear but because he that promiseth hath no right in the thing promised Also when he may lawfully performe and doth not it is not the Invalidity of the Covenant that absolveth him but the Sentence of the Soveraign Otherwise whensoever a man lawfully promiseth he unlawfully breaketh But when the Soveraign who is the Actor acquitteth him then he is acquitted by him that extorted the promise as by the Author of such absolution But the
him with his corporall liberty For Slaves that work in Prisons or Fetters do it not of duty but to avoyd the cruelty of their task-masters The Master of the Servant is Master also of all he hath and may exact the use thereof that is to say of his goods of his labour of his servants and of his children as often as he shall think fit For he holdeth his life of his Master by the covenant of obedience that is of owning and authorising whatsoever the Master shall do And in case the Master if he refuse kill him or cast him into bonds or otherwise punish him for his disobedience he is himselfe the author of the same and cannot accuse him of injury In summe the Rights and Consequences of both Paternall and Despoticall Dominion are the very same with those of a Soveraign by Institution and for the same reasons which reasons are set down in the precedent chapter So that for a man that is Monarch of divers Nations whereof he hath in one the Soveraignty by Institution of the people assembled and in another by Conquest that is by the Submission of each particular to avoyd death or bonds to demand of one Nation more than of the other from the title of Conquest as being a Conquered Nation is an act of ignorance of the Rights oâ—… Soveraignty For the Soveraign is absolute over both alike or else there is no Soveraignty at all and so every man may Lawfully protect himselfe if he can with his own sword which is the condition of war By this it appears that a great Family if it be not part of some Common-wealth is of it self as to the Rights of Soveraignty a little Monarchy whether that Family consist of a man and his children or of a man and his servants or of a man and his children and servants together wherein the Father or Master is the Soveraign But yet a Family is not properly a Common-wealth unlesse it be of that power by its own number or by other opportunities as not to be subdued without the hazard of war For where a number of men are manifestly too weak to defend themselves united every one may use his own reason in time of danger to save his own life either by flight or by submission to the enemy as hee shall think best in the same manner as a very small company of souldiers surprised by an army may cast down their armes and demand quarter or run away rather than be put to the sword And thus much shall suffice concerning what I find by speculation and deduction of Soveraign Rights from the nature need and designes of men in erecting of Common-wealths and putting themselves under Monarchs or Assemblies entrusted with power enough for their protection Let us now consider what the Scripture teacheth in the same point To Moses the children of Israel say thus Speak thou to us and we will heare thee but let not God speak to us lest we dye This is absolute obedience to Moses Concerning the Right of Kings God himself by the mouth of Samuel saith This shall be the Right of the King you will have to reigne over you He shall take your sons and set them to drive his Chariots and to be his horsemen and to run before his chariots and gather in his harvest and to make his engines of War and Instruments of his chariots and shall take your daughters to make perfumes to be his Cookes and Bakers He shall take your fields your vine-yards and your olive-yards and give them to his servants He shall take the tyth of your corne and wine and give it to the men of his chamber and to his other servants He shall take your man-servants and your maid-servants and the choice of your youth and employ them in his businesse He shall take the tyth of your flocks and you shall be his servants This is absolute power and â—…ummed up in the last words you shall be his servants Againe when the people heard what power their King was to have yet they consented thereto and say thus We will be as all other nations and our King shall judge our causes and goe before us to conduct our wars Here is confirmed the Right that Soveraigns have both to the Militia and to all Judicature in which is conteined as absolute power as one man can possibly transferre to another Again the prayer of King Salomon to God was this Give to thy servant understanding to judge thy people and to diâ—…cerne between Good and Evill It belongeth therefore to the Soveraigne to bee Judge and to praescribe the Rules of discerning Good and Evill which Rules are Lawes and therefore in him is the Legislative Power Saul sought the life of David yet when it was in his power to slay Saul and his Servants would have done it David forbad them saying God forbid I should do such an act against my Lord the anoynted of God For obedience of servants St. Paul saith Servants obey your masters in All things and Children obey your Parents in All things There is simple obedience in those that are subject to Paternall or Despoticall Dominion Again The Scribes and Pharisees sit in Moses chayre and therefore All that they shall bid you observe that observe and do There again is simple obedience And St Paul Warn them that they subject themselves to Princes and to those that are in Authority obey them This obedience is also simple Lastly our Saviour himselfe acknowledges that men ought to pay such taxes as are by Kings impoâ—…ed where he sayes Give to Caesar that which is Caesars and payed such taxes himselfe And that the Kings word is sufficient to take any thing from any Subject when there is need and that the King is Judge of that need For he himselfe as King of the Jewes commanded his Disciples to take the Asse and Asses Colt to carry him into Jerusalem saying Go into the Village over against you and you shall find a shee Asse tyed and her Colt with her unty them and bring them to me And if any man ask you what you mean by it Say the Lord hath need of them And they will let them go They will not ask whether his necessity be a sufficient title nor whether he be judge of that necessity but acquiesce in the will of the Lord. To these places may be added also that of Genesis You shall be as Gods knowing Good and Evill And verse 11. Who told thee that thou wast naked hast thou eaten of the tree of which I commanded thee thou shouldest not eat For the Cognisance or Judicature of Good and Evill being forbidden by the name of the fruit of the tree of Knowledge as a triall of Adams obedience The Divel to enflame the Ambition of the woman to whom that fruit already seemed beautifull told her that by tasting it they should be as Gods knowing Good
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
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
and Learned men any thing that discovereth their errours and thereby lesseneth their Authority whereas the Common-peoples minds unlesse they be tainted with dependance on the Potent or scribbled over with the opinions of their Doctors are like clean paper fit to receive whatsoever by Publique Authority shall be imprinted in them Shall whole Nations be brought to acquiescé in the great Mysteries of Christian Religion which are above Reason and millions of men be made believe that the same Body may be in innumerable places at one and the same time which is against Reason and shall not men be able by their teaching and preaching protected by the Law to make that received which is so consonant to Reason that any unprejudicated man needs no more to learn it than to hear it I conclude therefore that in the instruction of the people in the Essentiall Rights which are the Naturall and Fundamentall Lawes of Soveraignty there is no difficulty whilest a Soveraign has his Power entire but what proceeds from his own fault or the fault of those whom he trusteth in the administration of the Common-wealth and consequently it is his Duty to cause them so to be instructed and not onely his Duty but his Benefit also and Security against the danger that may arrive to himselfe in his naturall Person from Rebellion And to descend to particulars the People are to be taught First that they ought not to be in love with any forme of Government they see in their neighbour Nations more than with their own nor whatsoever present prosperity they behold in Nations that are otherwise governed than they to desire change For the prosperity of a People ruled by an Aristocraticall or Democraticall assembly commeth not from Aristocracy nor from Democracy but from the Obedience and Concord of the Subjects nor do the people flourish in a Monarchy because one man has the right to rule them but because they obey him Take away in any kind of State the Obedience and consequently the Concord of the People and they shall not onely not flourish but in short time be dissolved And they that go about by disobedience to doe no more than reforme the Common-wealth shall find they do thereby destroy it like the foolish daughters of Peleus in the fable which desiring to renew the youth of their decrepit Father did by the Counsell of Medea cut him in pieces and boyle him together with strange herbs but made not of him a new man This desire of change is like the breach of the first of Gods Commandements For there God sayes Non habebis Does alienos Thou shalt not have the Gods of other Nations and in another place concerning Kings that they are Gods Secondly they are to be taught that they ought not to be led with admiration of the vertue of any of their fellow Subjects how high soever he stand nor how conspicuously soever he shine in the Common-wealth nor of any Assembly except the Soveraign Assembly so as to deferre to them any obedience or honour appropriate to the Soveraign onely whom in their particular stations they represent nor to receive any influence from them but such as is conveighed by them from the Soveraign Authority For that Soveraign cannot be imagined to love his People as he ought that is not Jealous of them but suffers them by the flattery of Popular men to be seduced from their loyalty as they have often been not onely secretly but openly so as to proclaime Marriage with them in facie Ecclesiae by Preachers and by publishing the same in the open streets which may fitly be compared to the violation of the second of the ten Commandements Thirdly in consequence to this they ought to be informed how great a fault it is to speak evill of the Soveraign Representative whether One man or an Assembly of men or to argue and dispute his Power or any way to use his Name irreverently whereby he may be brought into Contempt with his People and their Obedience in which the safety of the Common-wealth consisteth slackened Which doctrine the third Commandement by resemblance pointeth to Fourthly seeing people cannot be taught this nor when 't is taught remember it nor after one generation past so much as know in whom the Soveraign Power is placed without setting a part from their ordinary labour some certain times in which they may attend those that are appointed to instruct them It is necessary that some such times be determined wherein they may assemble together and after prayers and praises given to God the Soveraign of Soveraigns hear those their Duties told them and the Positive Lawes such as generally concern them all read and expounded and be put in mind of the Authority that maketh them Lawes To this end had the Jewes every seventh day a Sabbath in which the Law was read and expounded and in the solemnity whereof they were put in mind that their King was God that having created the world in six dayes he rested the seventh day and by their resting on it from their labour that that God was their King which redeemed them from their servile and painfull labour in Egypt and gave them a time after they had rejoyced in God to take joy also in themselves by lawfull recreation So that the first Table of the Commandements is spent all in setting down the summe of Gods absolute Power not onely as God but as King by pact in peculiar of the Jewes and may therefore give light to those that have Soveraign Power conferred on them by the consent of men to see what doctrine they Ought to teach their Subjects And because the first instruction of Children dependeth on the care of their Parents it is necessary that they should be obedient to them whilest they are under their tuition and not onely so but that also afterwards as gratitude requireth they acknowledge the benefit of their education by externall signes of honour To which end they are to be taught that originally the Father of every man was also his Soveraign Lord with power over him of life and death and that the Fathers of families when by instituting a Common-wealth they resigned that absolute Power yet it was never intended they should lose the honour due unto them for their education For to relinquish such right was not necessary to the Institution of Soveraign Power nor would there be any reason why any man should desire to have children or take the care to nourish and instruct them if they were afterwards to have no other benefit from them than from other men And this accordeth with the fifth Commandement Again every Soveraign Ought to cause Justice to be taught which consisting in taking from no man what is his is as much asto say to cause men to be taught not to deprive their Neighbours by violence or fraud of any thing which by the Soveraign Authority is theirs Of things held in propriety those
contriving their Titles to save the People from the shame of receiving them To have a known Right to Soveraign Power is so popular a quality as he that has it needs no more for his own part to turn the hearts of his Subjects to him but that they see him able absolutely to govern his own Family Nor on the part of his enemies but a disbanding of their Armies For the greatest and most active part of Mankind has never hetherto been well contented with the present Concerning the Offices of one Soveraign to another which are comprehended in that Law which is commonly called the Law of Nations I need not say any thing in this place because the Law of Nations and the Law of Nature is the same thing And every Soveraign hath the same Right in procuring the safety of his People that any particular man can have in procuring the safety of his own Body And the same Law that diâ—…tateth to men that have no Civil Government what they ought to do and what to avoyd in regard of one another dictateth the same to Common-wealths that is to the Consciences of Soveraign Princes and Soveraign Assemblies there being no Court of Naturall Justice but in the Conscience onely where not Man but God raigneth whose Lawes such of them as oblige all Mankind in respect of God as he is the Author of Nature are Naturall and in respect of the same God as he is King of Kings are Lawes But of the Kingdome of God as King of Kings and as King also of a peculiar People I shall speak in the rest of this discourse CHAP. XXXI Of the KINGDOME OF GOD BY NATURE THat the condition of meer Nature that is to say of absolute Liberty such as is theirs that neither are Soveraigns nor Subjects is Anarchy and the condition of Warre That the Praecepts by which men are guided to avoyd that condition are the Lawes of Nature That a Common-wealth without Soveraign Power is but a word without substance and cannot stand That Subjects owe to Soveraigns simple Obedience in all things wherein their obedience is not repugnant to the Lawes of God I have sufficiently proved in that which I have already written There wants onely for the entire knowledge of Civill duty to know what are those Lawes of God For without that a man knows not when he is commanded any thing by the Civill Power whether it be contrary to the â—…aw of God or not and so either by too much civill obedience offends the Divine Majesty or through feare of offending God transgresses the commandements of the Common-wealth To avoyd both these Rocks it is necessary to know what are the Lawes Divine And seeing the knowledge of all Law dependeth on the knowledge of the Soveraign Power I shall say something in that which followeth of the KINGDOME OF GOD. God is King let the Earth rejoyce saith the Psalmist And again God is King though the Nations be angry and he that sitteth on the Cherubins though the earth be moved Whether men will or not they must be subject alwayes to the Divine Power By denying the Existence or Providence of God men may shake off their Ease but not their Yoke But to call this Power of God which extendeth it selfe not onely to Man but also to Beasts and Plants and Bodies inanimate by the name of Kingdome is but a metaphoricall use of the word For he onely is properly said to Raigne that governs his Subjects by his Word and by promise of Rewards to those that obey it and by threatning them with Punishment that obey it not Subjects therefore in the Kingdome of God are not Bodies Inanimate nor creatures Irrationall because they understand no Precepts as his Nor Atheists nor they that believe not that God has any care of the actions of mankind because they acknowledge no Word for his nor have hope of his rewards or fear of his threatnings They therefore that believe there is a God that goeverneth the world and hath given Praecepts and propounded Rewards and Punishments to Mankind are Gods Subjects all the rest are to be understood as Enemies To rule by Words requires that such Words be manifestly made known for else they are no Lawes For to the nature of Lawes belongeth a sufficient and clear Promulgation such as may take away the excuse of Ignorance which in the Lawes of men is but of one onely kind and that is Proclamation or Promulgation by the voyce of man But God declareth his Lawes three wayes by the Dictates of Naturall Reason by Revelation and by the Voyce of some man to whom by the operation of Miracles he procureth credit with the rest From hence there ariseth a triple Word of God Rational Sensible and Prophetique to which Correspondeth a triple Hearing Right Reason Sense Supernaturall and Faith As for Sense Supernaturall which consisteth in Revelation or Inspiration there have not been any Universall Lawes so given because God speaketh not in that manner but to particular persons and to divers men divers things From the difference between the other two kinds of Gods Word Rationall and Prophetique there may be attributed to God a twofold Kingdome Naturall and Prophetique Naturall wherein he governeth as many of Mankind as acknowledge his Providence by the naturall Dictates of Right Reason And Prophetique wherein having chosen out one peculiar Nation the Jewes for his Subjects he governed them and none but them not onely by naturall Reason but by Positive Lawes which he gave them by the mouths of his holy Prophets Of the Naturall Kingdome of God I intend to speak in this Chapter The Right of Nature whereby God reigneth over men and punisheth those that break his Lawes is to be derived not from his Creating them as if he required obedience as of Gratitude for his benefits but from his Irresistible Power I have formerly shewn how the Soveraign Right ariseth from Pact To shew how the same Right may arise from Nature requires no more but to shew in what case it is never taken away Seeing all men by Nature had Right to All things they had Right every one to reigne over all the rest But because this Right could not be obtained by force it concerned the safety of every one laying by that Right to set up men with Soveraign Authority by common consent to rule and defend them whereas if there had been any man of Power Irresistible there had been no reason why he should not by that Power have ruled and defended both himselfe and them according to his own discretion To those therefore whose Power is irresistible the dominion of all men adhaereth naturally by their excellence of Power and consequently it is from that Power that the Kingdome over men and the Right of afflicting men at his pleasure belongeth Naturally to God Almighty not as Creator and Gracious but as Omnipotent And though Punishment be due for Sinne onely because by
and necessarily such as the things we see hear and consider suggest unto us and therefore are not effects of our Will but our Will of them We then Captivate our Understanding and Reason when we forbear contradiction when we so speak as by lawfull Authority we are commanded and when we live accordingly which in sum is Trust and Faith reposed in him that speaketh though the mind be incapable of any Notion at all from the words spoken When God speaketh to man it must be either immediately or by mediation of another man to whom he had formerly spoken by himself immediately How God speaketh to a man immediately may be understood by those well enough to whom he hath so spoken but how the same should be understood by another is hard if not impossible to know For if a man pretend to me that God hath spoken to him supernaturally and immediately and I make doubt of it I cannot easily perceive what argument he can produce to oblige me to beleeve it It is true that if he be my Soveraign he may oblige me to obedience so as not by act or word to declare I beleeve him not but not to think any otherwise then my reason perswades me But if one that hath not such authority over me shall pretend the same there is nothing that exacteth either beleefe or obedience For to say that God hath spoken to him in the Holy Scripture is not to say God hath spoken to him immediately but by mediation of the Prophets or of the Apostles or of the Church in such manner as he speaks to all other Christian men To say he hath spoken to him in a Dream is no more then to say he dreamed that God spake to him which is not of force to win beleef from any man that knows dreams are for the most part naturall and may proceed from former thoughts and such dreams as that from selfe conceit and foolish arrogance and false opinion of a mans own godlinesse or other vertue by which he thinks he hath merited the favour of extraordinary Revelation To say he hath seen a Vision or heard a Voice is to say that he hath dreamed between sleeping and waking for in such manner a man doth many times naturally take his dream for a vision as not having well observed his own slumbering To say he speaks by supernaturall Inspiration is to say he finds an ardent desire to speak or some strong opinion of himself for which hee can alledge no naturall and sufficient reason So that though God Almighty can speak to a man by Dreams Visions Voice and Inspiration yet he obliges no man to beleeve he hath so done to him that pretends it who being a man may erre and which is more may lie How then can he to whom God hath never revealed his Wil immediately saving by the way of natural reason know when he is to obey or not to obey his Word delivered by him that sayes he is a Prophet Of 400 Prophets of whom the K. of Israel asked counsel concerning the warre he made against Ramoth Gilead only Micaiah was a true one The Prophet that was sent to prophecy against the Altar set up by Ieroboam though a true Prophet and that by two miracles done in his presence appears to be a Prophet sent from God was yet deceived by another old Prophet that perswaded him as from the mouth of God to eat and drink with him If one Prophet deceive another what certainty is there of knowing the will of God by other way than that of Reason To which I answer out of the Holy Scripture that there be two marks by which together not asunder a true Prophet is to be known One is the doing of miracles the other is the not teaching any other Religion than that which is already established Asunder I say neither of these is sufficient If a Prophet rise amongst you or a Dreamer of dreams and shall pretend the doing of amiracle and the miracle come to passe if he say Let us follow strange Gods which thou hast not known thou shalt not hearken to him c. But that Prophet and Dreamer of dreams shall be put to death because be hath spoken to you to Revolt from the Lord your God In which words two things are to be observed First that God wil not have miracles alone serve for arguments to approve the Prophets calling but as it is in the third verse for an experiment of the constancy of our adherence to himself For the works of the Egyptian Sorcerers though not so great as those of Moses yet were great miracles Secondly that how great soever the miracle be yet if it tend to stir up revolt against the King or him that governeth by the Kings authority he that doth such miracle is not to be considered otherwise than as sent to make triall of their allegiance For these words revâ—…lt from the Lord your God are in this place equivalent to revolt from your King For they had made God their King by pact at the foot of Mount Sinai who ruled them by Moses only for he only spake with God and from time to time declared Gods Commandements to the people In like manner after our Saviour Christ had made his Disciples acknowledge him for the Messiah that is to say for Gods anointed whom the nation of the Iews daily expected for their King but refused when he came he omitted not to advertise them of the danger of miracles There shall arise saith he false Christs and false Prophets and shall doe great wonders and miracles even to the seducing if it were possible of the very Elect. By which it appears that false Prophets may have the power of miracles yet are wee not to take their doctrin for Gods Word St. Paul says further to the Galatians that if himself or an Angell from heaven preach another Gospel to them than he had preached let him be accursed That Gospel was that Christ was King so that all preaching against the power of the King received in consequence to these words is by St. Paul accursed For his speech is addressed to those who by his preaching had already received Iesus for the Christ that is to say for King of the Iews And as Miracles without preaching that Doctrine which God hath established so preaching the true Doctrine without the doing of miracles is an unsufficient argument of immediate Revelation For if a man that teacheth not false Doctrine should pretend to bee a Prophet without shewing any Miracle he is never the more to bee regarded for his pretence as is evident by Deut. 18. v. 21 22. If thou say in thy heart How shall we know that the Word of the Prophet is not that which the Lord hath spoken When the Prophet shall have spoken in the name of the Lord that which shall not come to passe that 's the word which the Lord hath not spoken but the
scorn with a crown of Thornes and for the proclaiming of him it is said of the Disciples Acts 17. 7. That they did all of them contrary to the decrees of Caesar saying there was another King one Iesus The Kingdome therefore of God is a reall not a metaphoricall Kingdome and so taken not onely in the Old Testament but the New when we say For thine is the Kingdome the Power and Glory it is to be understood of Gods Kingdome by force of our Covenant not by the Right of Gods Power for such a Kingdome God alwaies hath so that it were superfluous to say in our prayer Thy Kingdome come unlesse it be meant of the Restauration of that Kingdome of God by Christ which by revolt of the Israelites had been interrupted in the election of Saul Nor had it been proper to say The Kingdome of Heaven is at hand ot to pray Thy Kingdome come if it had still continued There be so-many other places that confirm this interpretation that it were a wonder there is no greater notice taken of it but that it gives too much light to Christian Kings to see their right of Ecclesiasticall Government This they have observed that in stead of a Sacerdotall Kingdome translate a Kingdome of Priests for they may as well translate a Royall Priesthood as it is in St. Peter into a Priesthood of Kings And whereas for a peculiar people they put a pretious jewel or treasure a man might as well call the speciall Regiment or Company of a Generall the Generalls pretious Jewel or his Treasure In short the Kingdome of God is a Civill Kingdome which consisted first in the obligation of the people of Israel to those Laws which Moses should bring unto them from Mount Sinai and which afterwards the High Priest for the time being should deliver to them from before the Cherubins in the Sanctum Sanctorum and which Kingdome having been cast off in the election of Saul the Prophets foretold should be restored by Christ and the Restauration whereof we daily pray for when we say in the Lords Prayer Thy Kingdome come and the Right whereof we acknowledge when we adde For thine is the Kingdome the Power and Glory for ever and ever Amen and the Proclaiming whereof was the Preaching of the Apostles and to which men are prepared by the Teachers of the Gospel to embrace which Gospel that is to say to promise obedience to Gods government is to bee in the Kingdome of Grace because God hath gratis given to such the power to bee the Subjects that is Children of God hereafter when Christ shall come in Majesty to judge the world and actually to govern his owne people which is called the Kingdome of Glory If the Kingdome of God called also the Kingdome of Heaven from the gloriousnesse and admirable height of that throne were not a Kingdome which God by his Lieutenants or Vicars who deliver his Commandements to the people did exercise on Earth there would not have been so much contention and warre about who it is by whom God speaketh to us neither would many Priests have troubled themselves with Spirituall Jurisdiction nor any King have denied it them Out of this literall interpretation of the Kingdome of God ariseth also the true interpretation of the word HOLY For it is a word which in Gods Kingdome answereth to that which men in their Kingdomes use to call Publique or the Kings The King of any Countrey is the Publique Person or Representative of all his own Subjects And God the King of Israel was the Holy one of Israel The Nation which is subject to one earthly Soveraign is the Nation of that Soveraign that is of the Publique Person So the Jews who were Gods Nation were called Exod. 19. 6. a Holy Nation For by Holy is alwaies understood either God himselfe or that which is Gods in propriety as by Publique is alwaies meant either the Person of the Common-wealth it self or something that is so the Common-wealths as no private person can claim any propriety therein Therefore the Sabbath Gods day is a Holy day the Temple Gods house a Holy house Sacrifices Tithes and Offerings Gods tribute Holy duties Priests Prophets and anointed Kings under Christ Gods Ministers Holy men the Coelestiall ministring Spirits Gods Messengers Holy Angels and the like and wheresoever the word Holy is taken properly there is still something signified of Propriety gotten by consent In saying Hallowed be thy name we do but pray to God for grace to keep the first Commandement of having no other Gods but him Mankind is Gods Nation in propriety but the Jews only were a Holy Nation Why but because they became his Propriety by covenant And the word Profane is usually taken in the Scripture for the same with Common and consequently their contraries Holy and Proper in the Kingdome of God must be the same also But figuratively those men also are called Holy that led such godly lives as if they had forsaken all worldly designs and wholly devoted and given themselves to God In the proper sense that which is made Holy by Gods appropriating or separating it to his own use is said to be sanctified by God as the Seventh day in the fourth Commandement and as the Elect in the New Testament were said to bee sanctified when they were endued with the Spirit of godlinesse And that which is made Holy by the dedication of men and given to God so as to be used onely in his publique service is called aso SACRED and said to be consecrated as Temples and other Houses of Publique Prayer and their Utensils Priests and Ministers Victimes Offerings and the externall matter of Sacraments Of Holinesse there be degrees for of those things that are set apart for the service of God there may bee some set apart again for a neerer and more especial service The whole Nation of the Israelites were a people Holy to God yet the tribe of Levi was amongst the Israelites a Holy tribe and amongst the Levites the Priests were yet more Holy and amongst the Priests the High Priest was the most Holy So the Land of Judea was the Holy Land but the Holy City wherein God was to be worshipped was more Holy and again the Temple more Holy than the City and the Sanctum Sanctorum more Holy than the rest of the Temple A SACRAMENT is a separation of some visible thing from common use and a consecration of it to Gods service for a sign either of our admission into the Kingdome of God to be of the number of his peculiar people or for a Commemoration of the same In the Old Testament the sign of Admission was Circumcision in the New Testament Baptisme The Commemoration of it in the Old Testament was the Eating at a certaine time which was Anniversary of the Paschall Lamb by which they were put in mind of the night wherein they were delivered out of their bondage in
and gave it to the Seventy Elders But as I have shewn before chap. 36. by Spirit is understood the Mind so that the sense of the place is no other than this that God endued them with a mind conformable and subordinate to that of Moses that they might Prophecy that is to say speak to the people in Gods name in such manner as to set forward as Ministers of Moses and by his authority such doctrine as was agreeable to Moses his doctrine For they were but Ministers and when two of them Prophecyed in the Camp it was thought a new and unlawfull thing and as it is in the 27. and 28. verses of the same Chapter they were accused of it and Joshua advised Moses to forbid them as not knowing that it was by Moses his Spirit that they Prophecyed By which it is manifest that no Subject ought to pretend to Prophecy or to the Spirit in opposition to the doctrine established by him whom God hath set in the place of Moses Aaron being dead and after him also Moses the Kingdome as being a Sacerdotall Kingdome descended by vertue of the Covenant to Aarons Son Eleazar the High Priest And God declared him next under himself for Soveraign at the same time that he appointed Joshua for the Generall of their Army For thus God saith expressely Numb 27. 21. concerning Joshua He shall stand before Eleazar the Priest who shall ask counsell for him before the Lord at his word shall they goe out and at his word they shall come in both he aâ—…d all the Children of Israel with him Therefore the Supreme Power of making War and Peace was in the Priest The Supreme Power of Judicature belonged also to the High Priest For the Book of the Law was in their keeping and the Priests and Levites onely were the subordinate Judges in causes Civill as appears in Deut. 17. 8 9 10. And for the manner of Gods worship there was never doubt made but that the High Priest till the time of Saul had the Supreme Authority Therefore the Civill and Ecclesiasticall Power were both joined together in one and the same person the High Priest and ought to bee so in whosoever governeth by Divine Right that is by Authority immediate from God After the death of Joshua till the time of Saul the time between is noted frequently in the Book of Judges that there was in those dayes no King in Israel and sometimes with this addition that every man did that which was right in his own eyes By which is to bee understood that where it is said there was no King is meant there was no Soveraign Power in Israel And so it was if we consider the Act and Exercise of such power For after the death of Joshua Eleazar there arose another generation Judges 2. 10. that knew not the Lord nor the works which he had done for Israel but did evill in the sight of the Lord and served Baalim And the Jews had that quality which St. Paul noteth to look for a sign not onely before they would submit themselves to the government of Moses but also after they had obliged themselves by their submission Whereas Signs and Miracles had for End to procure Faith not to keep men from violating it when they have once given it for to that men are obliged by the law of Nature But if we consider not the Exercise but the Right of Governing the Soveraign power was still in the High Priest Therefore whatsoever obedience was yeelded to any of the Judges who were men chosen by God extraordinarily to save his rebellious subjects out of the hands of the enemy it cannot bee drawn into argument against the Right the High Priest had to the Soveraign Power in all matters both of Policy and Religion And neither the Judges nor Samuel himselfe had an ordinary but extraordinary calling to the Government and were obeyed by the Israelites not out of duty but out of reverence to their favour with God appearing in their wisdome courage or felicity Hitherto therefore the Right of Regulating both the Policy and the Religion were inseparable To the Judges succeeded Kings And whereas before all authority both in Religion and Policy was in the High Priest so now it was all in the King For the Soveraignty over the people which was before not onely by vertue of the Divine Power but also by a particular pact of the Israelites in God and next under him in the High Priest as his Vicegerent on earth was cast off by the People with the consent of God himselfe For when they said to Samuel 1 Sam. 8. 5. make us a King to judge us like all the Nations they signified that they would no more bee governed by the commands that should bee laid upon them by the Priest in the name of God but by one that should command them in the same manner that all other nations were commandcd and consequently in deposing the High Priest of Royall authority they deposed that peculiar Government of God And yet God consented to it saying to Samuel verse 7. Hearken unto the voice of the People in all that they shall say unto thee for they have not rejected thee but they have rejected mee that I should not reign over them Having therefore rejected God in whose Right the Priests governed there was no authority left to the Priests but such as the King was pleased to allow them which was more or lesse according as the Kings were good or evill And for the Government of Civill affaires it is manifest it was all in the hands of the King For in the same Chapter verse 20. They say they will be like all the Nations that their King shall be their Judge and goe before them and fight their battells that is he shall have the whole authority both in Peace and War In which is contained also the ordering of Religion for there was no other Word of God in that time by which to regulate Religion but the Law of Moses which was their Civill Law Besides we read 1 Kings 2. 27. that Solomon thrust out Abiathar from being Priest before the Lord He had therefore authority over the High Priest as over any other Subject which is a great mark of Supremacy in Religion And we read also 1 Kings 8. that hee dedicated the Temple that he blessed the People and that he himselfe in person made that excellent prayer used in the Consecrations of all Churches and houses of Prayer which is another great mark of Supremacy in Religion Again we read 2 Kings 22. that when there was question concerning the Book of the Law found in the Temple the same was not decided by the High Priest but Josiah sent both him and others to enquire concerning it of Hulda the Prophetesse which is another mark of the Supremacy in Religion Lastly wee read 1 Chron. 26. 30. that David made Hashabiah and his brethren Hebronites Officers of Israel
among them Westward in all businesse of the Lord and in the service of the King Likewise verse 32. that hee made other Hebronites rulers over the Reubenites the Gadites and the halfe tribe of Manasseh these were the rest of Israel that dwelt beyond Jordan for every matter pertaining to God and affairs of the King Is not this full Power both temporall and spirituall as they call it that would divide it To conclude from the first institution of Gods Kingdome to the Captivity the Supremacy of Religion was in the same hand with that of the Civill Soveraignty and the Priests office after the election of Saul was not Magisteriall but Ministeriall Notwithstanding the government both in Policy and Religion were joined first in the High Priests and afterwards in the Kings so far forth as concerned the Right yet it appeareth by the same Holy History that the people understood it not but there being amongst them a great part and probably the greatest part that no longer than they saw great miracles or which is equivalent to a miracle great abilities or great felicity in the enterprises of their Governours gave sufficient credit either to the fame of Moses or to the Colloquies between God and the Priests they took occasion as oft as their Governours displeased them by blaming sometimes the Policy sometimes the Religion to change the Government or revolt from their Obedience at their pleasure And from thence proceeded from time to time the civill troubles divisions and calamities of the Nation As for example after the death of Eleazar and Joshua the next generation which had not seen the wonders of God but were left to their own weak reason not knowing themselves obliged by the Covenant of a Sacerdotall Kingdome regarded no more the Commandement of the Priest nor any law of Moses but did every man that which was right in his own eyes and obeyed in Civill affairs such men as from time to time they thought able to deliver them from the neighbour Nations that oppressed them and consulted not with God as they ought to doc but with such men or women as they guessed to bee Prophets by their Praedictions of things to come and though they had an Idol in their Chappel yet if they had a Levite for their Chaplain they made account they worshipped the God of Israel And afterwards when they demanded a King after the manner of the nations yet it was not with a design to depart from the worship of God their King but despairing of the justice of the sons of Samuel they would have a King to judg them in Civill actions but not that they would allow their King to change the Religion which they thought was recommended to them by Moses So that they alwaies kept in store a pretext either of Justice or Religion to discharge them selves of their obedience whensoever they had hope to prevaile Samuel was displeased with the people for that they desired a King for God was their King already and Samuel had but an authority under him yet did Samuel when Saul observed not his counsell in destroying Agag as God had commanded anoint another King namely David to take the succession from his heirs Rehoboam was no Idolater but when the people thought him an Oppressor that Civil pretence carried from him ten Tribes to Jeroboam an Idolater And generally through the whole History of the Kings as well of Judah as of Israel there were Prophets that alwaies controlled the Kings for transgressing the Religion and sometimes also for Errours of State as Jehosaphat was reproved by the Prophet Jehu for aiding the King of Israel against the Syrians and Hezekiah by Isaiah for shewing his treasures to the Ambassadors of Babylon By all which it appeareth that though the power both of State and Religion were in the Kings yet none of them were uncontrolled in the use of it but such as were gracious for their own naturall abilities or felicities So that from the practise of those times there can no argument be drawn that the Right of Supremacy in Religion was not in the Kings unlesse we place it in the Prophets and conclude that because Hezekiah praying to the Lord before the Cherubins was not answered from thence nor then but afterwards by the Prophet Isaiah therefore Isaiah was supreme Head of the Church or because Iosiah consulted Hulda the Prophetesse concerning the Book of the Law that therefore neither he nor the High Priest but Hulda the Prophetesse had the Supreme authority in matter of Religion which I thinke is not the opinion of any Doctor During the Captivity the Iews had no Common-wealth at all And after their return though they renewed their Covenant with God yet there was no promise made of obedience neither to Esdras nor to any other And presently after they became subjects to the Greeks from whose Customes and Daemonology and from the doctrine of the Cabalists their Religion became much corrupted In such sort as nothing can be gathered from their confusion both in State and Religion concerning the Supremacy in either And therefore so far forth as concerneth the Old Testament we may conclude that whosoever had the Soveraignty of the Common-wealth amongst the Jews the same had also the Supreme Authority in matter of Gods externall worship and represented Gods Person that is the person of God the Father though he were not called by the name of Father till such time as he sent into the world his Son Jesus Christ to redeem mankind from their sins and bring them into his Everlasting Kingdome to be saved for evermore Of which we are to speak in the Chapter following CHAP. XLI Of the OFFICE of our BLESSED SAVIOUR WE find in Holy Scripture three parts of the Office of the Messiah The first of a Redeemer or Saviour The second of a Pastor Counsellor or Teacher that is of a Prophet sent from God to convert such as God hath elected to Salvation The third of a King an eternall King but under his Father as Moses and the High Priests were in their severall times And to these three parts are correspondent three times For our Redemption he wrought at his first coming by the Sacrifice wherein he offered up himself for our sinnes upon the Crosse our Conversion he wrought partly then in his own Person and partly worketh now by his Ministers and will continue to work till his coming again And after his coming again shall begin that his glorious Reign over his elect which is to last eternally To the Office of a Redeemer that is of one that payeth the Ransome of Sin which Ransome is Death it appertaineth that he was Sacrificed and thereby bare upon his own head and carryed away from us our iniquities in such sort as God had required Not that the death of one man though without sinne can satisfie for the offences of all men in the rigour of Justice but in the Mercy of
God that ordained such Sacrifices for sin as he was pleased in his mercy to accept In the Old Law as we may read Leviticus the 16. the Lord required that there should every year once bee made an Atonement for the Sins of all Israel both Priests and others for the doing whereof Aaron alone was to sacrifice for himself and the Priests a young Bullock and for the rest of the people he was to receive from them two young Goates of which he was to sacrifice one but as for the other which was the Scape Goat he was to lay his hands on the head thereof and by a confession of the iniquities of the people to lay them all on that head and then by some opportune man to cause the Goat to be led into the wildernesse and there to escape and carry away with him the iniquities of the people As the Sacrifice of the one Goat was a sufficient because an acceptable price for the Ransome of all Israel so the death of the Messiah is a sufficient price for the Sins of all mankind because there was no more required Our Saviour Christs sufferings seem to be here figured as cleerly as in the oblation of Isaac or in any other type of him in the Old Testament He was both the sacrificed Goat and the Scape Goat Hee was oppressed and he was afflicted Esay 53. 7. he opened not his mouth he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter and as a sheep is dumbe before the shearer so opened he not his mouth Here he is the sacrificed Gâ—…at He hath born our Griefs ver 4. and carried our sorrows And again ver 6. the Lord hath laid upon him the iniquities of us all And so he is the Scape Goat He was cut off from the land of the living ver 8. for the transgression of my People There again he is the sacrificed Goat And again ver 11. he shall bear their sins Hee is the Scape Goat Thus is the Lamb of God equivalent to both those Goates sacrificed in that he dyed and escaping in his Resurrection being raised opportunely by his Father and removed from the habitation of men in his Ascension For as much therefore as he that redeemeth hath no title to the thing redeemed before the Redemption and Ransome paid and this Ransome was the Death of the Redeemer it is manifest that our Saviour as man was not King of those that he Redeemed before hee suffered death that is during that time hee conversed bodily on the Earth I say he was not then King in present by vertue of the Pact which the faithfull make with him in Baptisme Neverthelesse by the renewing of their Pact with God in tisme they were obliged to obey him for King under his Father whensoever he should be pleased to take the Kingdome upon him According whereunto our Saviour himself expressely saith Iohn 18. 36. My Kingdome is not of this world Now seeing the Scripture maketh mention but of two worlds this that is now and shall remain to the day of Judgment which is therefore also called the last day and that which shall bee after the day of Judgement when there shall bee a new Heaven and a new Earth the Kingdome of Christ is not to begin till the generall Resurrection And that is it which our Saviour saith Mat. 16. 27. The Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father with his Angels and then he shall reward every man according to his works To reward every man according to his works is to execute the Office of a King and this is not to be till he come in the glory of his Father with his Angells When our Saviour saith Mat. 23. 2. The Scribes and Pharisees sit in Moses seat All therefore whatsoever they bid you doe that observe and doe hee declareth plainly that hee ascribeth Kingly Power for that time not to himselfe but to them And so hee doth also where he saith Luke 12. 14. Who made mee a Iudge or Divider over you And Iohn 12. 47. I came not to judge the world but to save the world And yet our Saviour came into this world that hee might bee a King and a Judge in the world to come For hee was the Messiah that is the Christ that is the Anointed Priest and the Soveraign Prophet of God that is to say he was to have all the power that was in Moses the Prophet in the High Priests that succeeded Moses and in the Kings that succeeded the Priests And St. Iohn saies expressely chap. 5. ver 22. The Father judgeth no man but hath committed all judgment to the Son And this is not repugnant to that other place I came not to judge the world for this is spoken of the world present the other of the world to come as also where it is said that at the second coming of Christ Mat. 19. 28. Yee that have followed me in the Regeneration when the Son of man shall sit in the throne of his Glory yee shall also sit on twelve thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel If then Christ whilest hee was on Earth had no Kingdome in this world to what end was his first coming It was to restore unto God by a new Covenant the Kingdom which being his by the Old Covenant had been cut off by the rebellion of the Israelites in the election of Saul Which to doe he was to preach unto them that he was the Messiah that is the King promised to them by the Prophets and to offer himselfe in sacrifice for the sinnes of them that should by faith submit themselves thereto and in case the nation generally should refuse him to call to his obedience such as should beleeve in him amongst the Gentiles So that there are two parts of our Saviours Office during his aboad upon the Earth One to Proclaim himself the Christ and another by Teaching and by working of Miracles to perswade and prepare men to live so as to be worthy of the Immortality Beleevers were to enjoy at such tiâ—…e as he should come in majesty to take possession of his Fathers Kingdome And therefore it is that the time of his preaching is often by himself called the Regeneration which is not properly a Kingdome and thereby a warrant to deny obedience to the Magistrates that then were for hee commanded to obey those that sate then in Moses chaire and to pay tribute to Caesar but onely an earnest of the Kingdome of God that was to come to those to whom God had given the grace to be his disciples and to beleeve in him For which cause the Godly are said to bee already in the Kingdome of Grace as naturalized in that heavenly Kingdome Hitherto therefore there is nothing done or taught by Christ that tendeth to the diminution of the Civill Right of the Jewes or of Caesar. For as touching the Common-wealth which then was amongst the Jews both they that bare rule amongst them
his successors may probably enough have crept into the Religion of the Jews But seeing it is not likely our Saviour would countenance a Heathen rite it is most likely it proceeded from the Legall Ceremony of Washing after Leprosie And for the other Sacrament of eating the Paschall Lambe it is manifestly imitated in the Sacrament of the Lords Supper in which the Breaking of the Bread and the pouring out of the Wine do keep in memory our deliverance from the Misery of Sin by Christs Passion as the eating of the Paschall Lambe kept in memory the deliverance of the Jewes out of the Bondage of Egypt Seeing therefore the authority of Moses was but subordinate and hee but a Lieutenant to God it followeth that Christ whose authority as man was to bee like that of Moses was no more but subordinate to the authority of his Father The same is more expressely signified by that that hee teacheth us to pray Our Father Let thy Kingdome come and For thine is the Kingdome the Power and the Glory and by that it is said that Hee shall come in the Glory of his Father and by that which St. Paul saith 1 Cor. 15. 24. then commeth the end when hee shall have delivered up the Kingdome to God even the Father and by many other most expresse places Our Saviour therefore both in Teaching and Reigning representeth as Moses did the Person of God which God from that time forward but not before is called the Father aud being still one and the same substance is one Person as represented by Moses and another Person as represented by his Sonne the Christ. For Person being a relative to a Representer it is consequent to plurality of Representers that there bee a plurality of Persons though of one and the same Substance CHAP. XLII Of POWER ECCLESIASTICALL FOr the understanding of POVVER ECCLESIASTICALL what and in whom it is we are to distinguish the time from the Ascension of our Saviour into two parts one before the Conversion of Kings and men endued with Soveraign Civill Power the other after their Conversion For it was long after the Ascension before any King or Civill Soveraign embraced and publiquely allowed the teaching of Christian Religion And for the time between it is manifest that the Power Ecclesiasticall was in the Apostles and after them in such as were by them ordained to Preach the Gospell and to convert men to Christianity and to direct them that were converted in the way of Salvation and after these the Power was delivered again to others by these ordained and this was done by Imposition of hands upon such as were ordained by which was signified the giving of the Holy Spirit or Spirit of God to those whom they ordained Ministers of God to advance his Kingdome So that Imposition of hands was nothing else but the Seal of their Commission to Preach Christ and teach his Doctrine and the giving of the Holy Ghost by that ceremony of Imposition of hands was an imitation of that which Moses did For Moses used the same ceremony to his Minister Joshua as wee read Deâ—…teronomy 34. ver 9. And Ioshua the Son of Nun was full of the Spirit of VVisdome for Moses had laid his hands upon him Our Saviour therefore between his Resurrection and Ascension gave his Spirit to the Apostles first by Breathing on them and saying Iohn 20. 22. Receive yee the Holy Spirit and after his Ascension Acts 2. 2 3. by sending down upon them a mighty wind and Cloven tongues of fire and not by Imposition of hands as neither did God lay his hands on Moses and his Apostles afterward transmitted the same Spirit by Imposition of hands as Moses did to Joshua So that it is manifest hereby in whom the Power Ecclesiasticall continually remained in those first times where there was not any Christian Common-wealth namely in them that received the same from the Apostles by successive laying on of hands Here wee have the Person of God born now the third time For as Moses and the High Priests were Gods Representative in the Old Testament and our Saviour himselfe as Man during his abode on earth So the Holy Ghost that is to say the Apostles and their successors in the Office of Preaching and Teaching that had received the Holy Spirit have Represented him ever since But a Person as I have shewn before chapt 13. is he that is Represented as often as hee is Represented and therefore God who has been Represented that is Personated thrice may properly enough be said to be three Persons though neither the word Person nor Trinity be ascribed to him in the Bible St. Iohn indeed 1 Epist. 5. 7. saith There be three that bear witnesse in heaven the Father the Word and the Holy Spirit and these Three are One But this disagreeth not but accordeth fitly with three Persons in the proper signification of Persons which is that which is Represented by another For so God the Father as Represented by Moses is one Person and as Represented by his Sonne another Person and as Represented by the Apostles and by the Doctors that taught by authority from them derived is a third Person and yet every Person here is the Person of one and the same God But a man may here ask what it was whereof these three bare witnesse St. Iohn therefore tells us verse 11. that they bear witnesse that God hath given us eternall life in his Son Again if it should bee asked wherein that testimony appeareth the Answer is easie for he hath testified the same by the miracles he wrought first by Moses secondly by his Son himself and lastly by his Apostles that had received the Holy Spirit all which in their times Represented the Person of God and either prophecyed or preached Jesus Christ. And as for the Apostles it was the character of the Apostleship in the twelve first and great Apostles to bear Witnesse of his Resurrection as appeareth expressely Acts 1. ver 21 22. where St. Peter when a new Apostle was to be chosen in the place of Judas Iscariot useth these words Of these men which have companied with us all the time that the Lord Iesus went in and out amongst us beginning at the Baptisme of Iohn unto that same day that hee was taken up from us must one bee ordained to be a Witnesse with us of his Resurrection which words interpret the bearing of Witnesse mentioned by St. John There is in the same place mentioned another Trinity of Witnesses in Earth For ver 8. he saith there are three that bear VVitnesse in Earth the Spirit and the VVater and the Bloud and these three agree in one that is to say the graces of Gods Spirit and the two Sacraments Baptisme and the Lords Supper which all agree in one Testimony to assure the consciences of beleevers of eternall life of which Testimony he saith verse 10. He that beleeveth on the Son of man hath the
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
God himself was their King and Moses Aaron and the succeeding High Priests were his Lieutenants it is manifest that the Right of Tythes and Offerings was constituted by the Civill Power After their rejection of God in the demanding of a King they enjoyed still the same revenue but the Right thereof was derived from that that the Kings did never take it from them for the Publique Revenue was at the disposing of him that was the Publique Person and that till the Captivity was the King And again after the return from the Captivity they paid their Tythes as before to the Priest Hitherto therefore Church Livings were determined by the Civill Soveraign Of the maintenance of our Saviour and his Apostles we read onely they had a Purse which was carried by Judas Iscariot and that of the Apostles such as were Fisher-men did sometimes use their trade and that when our Saviour sent the Twelve Apostles to Preach he forbad them to carry Gold and Silver and Brasse in their purses for that the workman is worthy of his hire By which it is probable their ordinary maintenance was not unsuitable to their employment for their employment was ver 8. freely to give because they had freely received and their maintenance was the free gift of those that beleeved the good tyding they carryed about of the coming of the Messiah their Saviour To which we may adde that which was contributed out of gratitude by such as our Saviour had healed of diseases of which are mentioned Certain women Luke 8. 2 3. which had been healed of evill spirits and infirmities Mary Magdalen out of whom went seven Devills and Ioanna the wife of Chuza Herods Steward and Susanna and many others which ministred unto him of their substance After our Saviours Ascension the Christians of every City lived in Common upon the mony which was made of the sale of their lands and possessions and laid down at the feet of the Apostles of good will not of duty for whilest the Land remained saith S. Peter to Ananias Acts 5. 4. was it not thine and after it was sold was it not in thy power which sheweth he needed not have saved his land nor his money by lying as not being bound to contribute any thing at all unlesse he had pleased And as in the time of the Apostles so also all the time downward till after Constantine the Great we shall find that the maintenance of the Bishops and Pastors of the Christian Church was nothing but the voluntary contribution of them that had embraced their Doctrine There was yet no mention of Tythes but such was in the time of Constantine and his Sons the affection of Christians to their Pastors as Ammianus Marcellinus saith describing the sedition of Damasus and Vrsicinus about the Bishopricke that it was worth their contention in that the Bishops of those times by the liberality of their flock and especially of Matrons lived splendidly were carryed in Coaches and were sumptuous in their fare and apparell But here may some ask whether the Pastor were then bound to live upon voluntary contribution as upon almes For who saith S. Paul 1 Cor. 9. 7. goeth to war at his own charges or who feedeth a flock and eateth not of the milke of the flock And again Doe ye not know that they which minister about holy things live of the things of the Temple and they which wait at the Altar partake with the Altar that is to say have part of that which is offered at the Altar for their maintenance And then he concludeth Even so hath the Lord appointed that they which preach the Gospel should live of the Gospel From which place may be inferred indeed that the Pastors of the Church ought to be maintained by their flocks but not that the Pastors were to determine either the quantity or the kind of their own allowance and be as it were their own Carvers Their allowance must needs therefore be determined either by the gratitude and liberality of every particular man of their flock or by the whole Congregation By the whole Congregation it could not be because their Acts were then no Laws Therefore the maintenance of Pastors before Emperours and Civill Soveraigns had made Laws to settle it was nothing but Benevolence They that served at the Altar lived on what was offered So may the Pastors also take what is offered them by their flock but not exact what is not offered In what Court should they sue for it who had no Tribunalls Or if they had Arbitrators amongst themselves who should execute their Judgments when they had no power to arme their Officers It remaineth therefore that there could be no certaire maintenance assigned to any Pastors of the Church but by the whole Congregation and then onely when their Decrees should have the force not onely of Canons but also of Laws which Laws could not be made but by Emperours Kings or other Civill Soveraignes The Right of Tythes in Moses Law could not be applyed to the then Ministers of the Gospell because Moses and the High Priests were the Civill Soveraigns of the people under God whose Kingdom amongst the Jews was present whereas the Kingdome of God by Christ is yet to come Hitherto hath been shewn what the Pastors of the Church are what are the points of their Commission as that they were to Preach to Teach to Baptize to be Presidents in their severall Congregations what is Ecclesiasticall Censure viz. Excommunication that is to say in those places where Christanity was forbidden by the Civill Laws a putting of themselves out of the company of the Excommunicate and where Christianity was by the Civill Law commanded a putting the Excommunicate out of the Congregations of Christians who elected the Pastors and Ministers of the Church that it was the Congregation who consecrated and blessed them that it was the Pastor what was their due revenue that it was none but their own possessions and their own labour and the voluntary contributions of devout and gratefull Christians We are to consider now what Office in the Church those persons have who being Civill Soveraignes have embraced also the Christian Faith And first we are to remember that the Right of Judging what Doctrines are fit for Peace and to be taught the Subjects is in all Common-wealths inseparably annexed as hath been already proved cha 18. to the Soveraign Power Civill whether it be in one Man or in one Assembly of men For it is evident to the meanest capacity that mens actions are derived from the opinions they have of the Good or Evill which from those actions redound unto themselves and consequently men that are once possessed of an opinion that their obedience to the Soveraign Power will bee more hurtfull to them than their disobedience will disobey the Laws and thereby overthrow the Common-wealth and introduce confusion and Civill war for the avoiding whereof all Civill Government was
ordained And therefore in all Common-wealths of the Heathen the Soveraigns have had the name of Pastors of the People because there was no Subject that could lawfully Teach the people but by their permission and authority This Right of the Heathen Kings cannot bee thought taken from them by their conversion to the Faith of Christ who never ordained that Kings for beleeving in him should be deposed that is subjected to any but himself or which is all one be deprived of the power necessary for the conservation of Peace amongst their Subjects and for their defence against foraign Enemies And therefore Christian Kings are still the Supreme Pastors of their people and have power to ordain what Pastors they please to teach the Church that is to teach the People committed to their charge Again let the right of choosing them be as before the conversion of Kings in the Church for so it was in the time of the Apostles themselves as hath been shewn already in this chapter even so also the Right will be in the Civill Soveraign Christian. For in that he is a Christian he allowes the Teaching and in that he is the Soveraign which is as much as to say the Church by Representation the Teachers hee elects are elected by the Church And when an Assembly of Christians choose their Pastor in a Christian Common-wealth it is the Soveraign that electeth him because t is done by his Authority In the same manner as when a Town choose their Maior it is the act of him that hath the Soveraign Power For every act done is the act of him without whose consent it is invalid And therefore whatsoever examples may be drawn out of History concerning the Election of Pastors by the People or by the Clergy they are no arguments against the Right of any Civill Soveraign because they that elected them did it by his Authority Seeing then in every Christian Common-wealth the Civill Soveraign is the Supreme Pastor to whose charge the whole flock of his Subjects is committed and consequently that it is by his authority that all other Pastors are made and have power to teach and performe all other Pastorall offices it followeth also that it is from the Civill Soveraign that all other Pastors derive their right of Teaching Preaching and other functions pertaining to that Office and that they are but his Ministers in the same manner as the Magistrates of Towns Judges in Courts of Justice and Commanders of Armies are all but Ministers of him that is the Magistrate of the whole Common-wealth Judge of all Causes and Commander of the whole Militia which is alwaies the Civill Soveraign And the reason hereof is not because they that Teach but because they that are to Learn are his Subjects For let it be supposed that a Christian King commit the Authority of Ordaining Pastors in his Dominions to another King as divers Christian Kings allow that power to the Pope he doth not thereby constitute a Pastor over himself nor a Soveraign Pastor over his People for that were to deprive himself of the Civill Power which depending on the opinion men have of their Duty to him and the fear they have of Punishment in another world would depend also on the skill and loyalty of Doctors who are no lesse subject not only to Ambition but also to Ignorance than any other sort of men So that where a stranger hath authority to appoint Teachers it is given him by the Soveraign in whose Dominions he teacheth Christian Doctors are our Schoolmasters to Christianity But Kings are Fathers of Families and may receive Schoolmasters for their Subjects from the recommendation of a stranger but not from the command especially when the ill teaching them shall redound to the great and manifest profit of him that recommends them nor can they be obliged to retain them longer than it is for the Publique good the care of which they stand so long charged withall as they retain any other essentiall Right of the Soveraignty If a man therefore should ask a Pastor in the execution of his Office as the chief Priests and Elders of the people Mat. 21. 23. asked our Saviour By what authority dost thou these things and who gave thee this authority he can make no other just Answer but that he doth it by the Authority of the Common-wealth given him by the King or Assembly that representeth it All Pastors except the Supreme execute their charges in the Right that is by the Authority of the Civill Soveraign that is Iure Civili But the King and every other Soveraign executeth his Office of Supreme Pastor by immediate Authority from God that is to say in Gods Right or Iure Divino And therefore none but Kings can put into their Titles a mark of their submission to God onely Dei gratiâ Rex c. Bishops ought to say in the beginning of their Mandates By the favour of the Kings Majesty Bishop of such a Diocesse or as Civill Ministers In his Majesties Name For in saying Divinâ providentiâ which is the same with Dei gratiâ though disguised they deny to have received their authority from the Civill State and sliely slip off the Collar of their Civill Subjection contrary to the unity and defence of the Common-wealth But if every Christian Soveraign be the Supreme Pastor of his own Subjects it seemeth that he hath also the Authority not only to Preach which perhaps no man will deny but also to Baptize and to Administer the Sacrament of the Lords Supper and to Consecrate both Temples and Pastors to Gods service which most men deny partly because they use not to do it and partly because the Administration of Sacraments and Consecration of Persons and Places to holy uses requireth the Imposition of such mens hands as by the like Imposition successively from the time of the Apostles have been ordained to the like Ministery For proof therefore that Christian Kings have power to Baptize and to Consecrate I am to render a reason both why they use not to doe it and how without the ordinary ceremony of Imposition of hands they are made capable of doing it when they will There is no doubt but any King in case he were skilfull in the Sciences might by the same Right of his Office read Lectures of them himself by which he authorizeth others to read them in the Universities Neverthelesse because the care of the summe of the businesse of the Common-wealth taketh up his whole time it were not convenient for him to apply himself in Person to that particular A King may also if he please sit in Judgment to hear and determine all manner of Causes as well as give others authority to doe it in his name but that the charge that lyeth upon him of Command and Government constrain him to bee continually at the Helm and to commit the Ministeriall Offices to others under him In the like manner our Saviour who surely had
Laws if any else can make a Law besides himselfe all Common-wealth and consequently all Peace and Justice must cease which is contrary to all Laws both Divine and Humane Nothing therefore can be drawn from these or any other places of Scripture to prove the Decrees of the Pope where he has not also the Civill Soveraignty to be Laws The last point hee would prove is this That our Saviour Christ has committed Ecclesiasticall Iurisdiction immediately to none but the Pope Wherein he handleth not the Question of Supremacy between the Pope and Christian Kings but between the Pope and other Bishops And first he sayes it is agreed that the Jurisdiction of Bishops is at least in the generall de Iure Divino that is in the Right of God for which he alledges S. Paul Ephes. 4. 11. where hee sayes that Christ after his Ascension into heaven gave gifts to men some Apostles some Prophets and some Evangelists and some Pastors and some Teachers And thence inferres they have indeed their Jurisdiction in Gods Right but will not grant they have it immediately from God but derived through the Pope But if a man may be said to have his Jurisdiction de Jure Divino and yet not immediately what lawfull Jurisdiction though but Civill is there in a Christian Common-wealth that is not also de Jure Divino For Christian Kings have their Civill Power from God immediately and the Magistrates under him exercise their severall charges in vertue of his Commission wherein that which they doe is no lesse de Jure Divino mediato than that which the Bishops doe in vertue of the Popes Ordination All lawfull Power is of God immediately in the Supreme Governour and mediately in those that have Authority under him So that either hee must grant every Constable in the State to hold his Office in the Right of God or he must not hold that any Bishop holds his so besides the Pope himselfe But this whole Dispute whether Christ left the Jurisdiction to the Pope onely or to other Bishops also if considered out of those places where the Pope has the Civill Soveraignty is a contention de lana Caprina For none of them where they are not Soveraigns has any Jurisdiction at all For Jurisdiction is the Power of hearing and determining Causes between man and man and can belong to none but him that hath the Power to prescribe the Rules of Right and Wrong that is to make Laws and with the Sword of Justice to compell men to obey his Decisions pronounced either by himself or by the Judges he ordaineth thereunto which none can lawfully do but the Civill Soveraign Therefore when he alledgeth out of the 6 of Luke that our Saviour called his Disciples together and chose twelve of them which he named Apostles he proveth that he Elected them all except Matthias Paul and Barnabas and gave them Power and Command to Preach but not to Judge of Causes between man and man for that is a Power which he refused to take upon himselfe saying Who made me a Iudge or a Divider amongst you and in another place My Kingdome is not of this world But hee that hath not the Power to hear and determine Causes between man and man cannot be said to have any Jurisdiction at all And yet this hinders not but that our Saviour gave them Power to Preach and Baptize in all parts of the world supposing they were not by their own lawfull Soveraign forbidden For to our own Soveraigns Christ himself and his Apostles have in sundry places expressely commanded us in all things to be obedient The arguments by which he would prove that Bishops receive their Jurisdiction from the Pope seeing the Pope in the Dominions of other Princes hath no Jurisdiction himself are all in vain Yet because they prove on the contrary that all Bishops receive Jurisdiction when they have it from their Civill Soveraigns I will not omit the recitall of them The first is from Numbers 11. where Moses not being able alone to undergoe the whole burthen of administring the affairs of the People of Israel God commanded him to choose Seventy Elders and took part of the spirit of Moses to put it upon those Seventy Elders by which is understood not that God weakned the spirit of Moses for that had not eased him at all but that they had all of them their authority from him wherein he doth truly and ingenuously interpret that place But seeing Moses had the entire Soveraignty in the Common-wealth of the Jews it is manifest that it is thereby signified that they had their Authority from the Civill Soveraign and therefore that place proveth that Bishops in every Christian Common-wealth have their Authority from the Civill Soveraign and from the Pope in his own Territories only and not in the Territories of any other State The second argument is from the nature of Monarchy wherein all Authority is in one Man and in others by derivation from him But the Government of the Church he says is Monarchicall This also makes for Christian Monarchs For they are really Monarchs of their own people that is of their own Church for the Church is the same thing with a Christian people whereas the Power of the Pope though hee were S. Peter is neither Monarchy nor hath any thing of Archicall nor Craticall but onely of Didacticall For God accepteth not a forced but a willing obedience The third is from that the Sea of S. Peter is called by S. Cyprian the Head the Source the Roote the Sun from whence the Authority of Bishops is derived But by the Law of Nature which is a better Principle of Right and Wrong than the word of any Doctor that is but a man the Civill Soveraign in every Common-wealth is the Head the Source the Root and the Sun from which all Jurisdiction is derived And therefore the Jurisdiction of Bishops is derived from the Civill Soveraign The fourth is taken from the Inequality of their Jurisdictions For if God saith he had given it them immediately he had given aswell Equality of Jurisdiction as of Order But wee see some are Bishops but of own Town some of a hundred Towns and some of many whole Provinces which differences were not determined by the command of God their Jurisdiction therefore is not of God but of Man and one has a greater another a lesse as it pleaseth the Prince of the Church Which argument if he had proved before that the Pope had had an Universall Jurisdiction over all Christians had been for his purpose But seeing that hath not been proved and that it is notoriously known the large Jurisdiction of the Pope was given him by those that had it that is by the Emperours of Rome for the Patriarch of Constantinople upon the same title namely of being Bishop of the Capitall City of the Empire and Seat of the Emperour claimed to be equall to him it followeth that all other Bishops
have their Jurisdiction from the Soveraigns of the place wherein they exercise the same And as for that cause they have not their Authority de Iure Divino so neither hath the Pope his de Iure Divino except onely where hee is also the Civill Soveraign His fift argument is this If Bishops have their Iurisdiction immediately from God the Pope could not take it from them for he can doe nothing contrary to Gods ordination And this consequence is good and well proved But saith he the Pope can do this and has done it This also is granted so he doe it in his own Dominions or in the Dominions of any other Prince that hath given him that Power but not universally in Right of the Popedome For that power belongeth to every Christian Soveraign within the bounds of his owne Empire and is inseparable from the Soveraignty Before the People of Israel had by the commandment of God to Samuel set over themselves a King after the manner of other Nations the High Priest had the Civill Government and none but he could make nor depose an inferiour Priest But that Power was afterwards in the King as may be proved by this same argument of Bellarmine For if the Priest be he the High Priest or any other had his Jurisdiction immediately from God then the King could not take it from him for he could doe nothing contrary to Gods ordinance But it is certain that King Solomon 1 Kings 2. 26. deprived Abiathar the High Priest of his Office and placed Zadok verse 35. in his room Kings therefore may in the like manner Ordaine and Deprive Bishops as they shall thinke fit for the well governing of their Subjects His sixth argument is this If Bishops have their Jurisdiction de Iure Divino that is immediately from God they that maintaine it should bring some Word of God to prove it But they can bring none The argument is good I have therefore nothing to say against it But it is an argument no lesse good to prove the Pope himself to have no Jurisdiction in the Dominion of any other Prince Lastly hee bringeth for argument the testimony of two Popes Innocent and Leo and I doubt not but hee might have alledged with as good reason the testimonies of all the Popes almost since S. Peter For considering the love of Power naturally implanted in mankind whosoever were made Pope he would be tempted to uphold the same opinion Neverthelesse they should therein but doe as Innocent and Leo did bear witnesse of themselves and therefore their witnesse should not be good In the fift Book he hath four Conclusions The first is That the Pope is not Lord of all the world The second That the Pope is not Lord of all the Christian world The third That the Pope without his owne Territory has not any Temporall Jurisdiction DIRECTLY These three Conclusions are easily granted The fourth is That the Pope has in the Dominions of other Princes the Supreme Temporall Power INDIRECTLY which is denyed unlesse hee mean by Indirectly that he has gotten it by Indirect means then is that also granted But I understand that when he saith he hath it Indirectly he means that such Temporall Jurisdiction belongeth to him of Right but that this Right is but a Consequence of his Pastorall Authority the which he could not exercise unlesse he have the other with it And therefore to the Pastorall Power which he calls Spirituall the Supreme Power Civill is necessarily annexed and that thereby hee hath a Right to change Kingdomes giving them to one and taking them from another when he shall think it conduces to the Salvation of Souls Before I come to consider the Arguments by which hee would prove this Doctrine it will not bee amisse to lay open the Consequences of it that Princes and States that have the Civill Soveraignty in their severall Common-wealths may bethink themselves whether it bee convenient for them and conducing to the good of their Subjects of whom they are to give an account at the day of Judgment to admit the same When it is said the Pope hath not in the Territories of other States the Supreme Civill Power Directly we are to understand he doth not challenge it as other Civill Soveraigns doe from the originall submission thereto of those that are to be governed For it is evident and has already been sufficiently in this Treatise demonstrated that the Right of all Soveraigns is derived originally from the consent of every one of those that are to bee governed whether they that choose him doe it for their common defence against an Enemy as when they agree amongst themselves to appoint a Man or an Assembly of men to protect them or whether they doe it to save their lives by submission to a conquering Enemy The Pope therefore when he disclaimeth the Supreme Civill Power over other States Directly denyeth no more but that his Right cometh to him by that way He ceaseth not for all that to claime it another way and that is without the consent of them that are to be governed by a Right given him by God which hee calleth indirectly in his Assumption to the Papacy But by what way soever he pretend the Power is the same and he may if it bee granted to be his Right depose Princes and States as often as it is for the Salvation of Soules that is as often as he will for he claimeth also the Sole Power to Judge whether it be to the Salvation of mens Souls or not And this is the Doctrine not onely that Bellarmine here and many other Doctors teach in their Sermons and Books but also that some Councells have decreed and the Popes have accordingly when the occasion hath served them put in practise For the fourth Councell of Lateran held under Pope Innocent the third in the third Chap. De Haereticis hath this Canon If a King at the Popes admonition doe not purge his Kingdome of Haeretiques and being Excommunicate for the same make not satisfaction within a yeer his Subjects are absolved of their Obedience And the practise hereof hath been seen on divers occasions as in the Deposing of Chilperique King of France in the Translation of the Roman Empire to Charlemaine in the Oppression of Iohn King of England in Transferring the Kingdome of Navarre and of late years in the League against Henry the third of France and in many more occâ—…rrences I think there be few Princes that consider not this as Injust and Inconvenient but I wish they would all resolve to be Kings or Subjects Men cannot serve two Masters They ought therefore to ease them either by holding the Reins of Government wholly in their own hands or by wholly delivering them into the hands of the Pope that such men as are willing to be obedient may be protected in their obedience For this distinction of Temporall and Spirituall Power is but words Power is as really divided and as
dangerously to all purposes by sharing with another Indirect Power as with a Direct one But to come now to his Arguments The first is this The Civill Power is subject to the Spirituall Therefore he that hath the Supreme Power Spirituall hath right to command Temporall Princes and dispose of their Temporalls in order to the Spirituall As for the dictinction of Temporall and Spirituall let us consider in what sense it may be said intelligibly that the Temporall or Civill Power is subject to the Spirituall There be but two ways that those words can be made sense For when wee say one Power is subject to another Power the meaning either is that he which hath the one is subject to him that hath the other or that the one Power is to the other as the means to the end â—…r wee cannot understand that one Power hath Power over another Power or that one Power can have Right or Command over another For Subjection Command Right and Power are accidents not of Powers but of Persons One Power may be subordinate to another as the art of a Sadler to the art of a Rider If then it bee granted that the Civill Government be ordained as a means to bring us to a Spirituall felicity yet it does not follow that if a King have the Civill Power and the Pope the Spirituall that therefore the King is bound to obey the Pope more then every Sadler is bound to obey every Rider Therefore as from Subordination of an Art cannot be inferred the Subjection of the Professor so from the Subordination of a Government cannot be inferred the Subjection of the Governor When therefore he saith the Civill Power is Subject to the Spirituall his meaning is that the Civill Soveraign is Subject to the Spirituall Soveraign And the Argument stands thus The Civil Soveraign is subject to the Spirituall Therefore the Spirituall Prince may command Temporall Princes Where the Conclusion is the same with the Antecedent he should have proved But to prove it he alledgeth first this reason Kings and Popes Clergy and Laity make but one Common-wealth that is to say but one Church And in all Bodies the Members depend one upon another But things Spirituall depend not of things Temporall Therefore Temporall depend on Spirituall And therefore are Subject to them In which Argumentation there be two grosse errours one is that all Christian Kings Popes Clergy and all other Christian men make but one Common-wealth For it is evident that France is one Common-wealth Spain another and Venice a third c. And these consist of Christians and therefore also are severall Bodies of Christians that is to say severall Churches And their severall Soveraigns Represent them whereby they are capable of commanding and obeying of doing and suffering as a naturall man which no Generall or Universall Church is till it have a Representant which it hath not on Earth for if it had there is no doubt but that all Christendome were one Common-wealth whose Soveraign were that Representant both in things Spirituall and Temporall And the Pope to make himself this Representant wanteth three things that our Saviour hath not given him to Command and to Iudge and to Punish otherwise than by Excommunication to run from those that will not Learn of him For though the Pope were Christs onely Vicar yet he cannot exercise his government till our Saviours second coming And then also it is not the Pope but St. Peter himselfe with the other Apostles that are to be Judges of the world The other errour in this his first Argument is that he sayes the Members of every Common-wealth as of a naturall Body depend one of another It is true they cohaere together but they depend onely on the Soveraign which is the Soul of the Common-wealth which failing the Common-wealth is dissolved into a Civill war no one man so much as cohaering to another for want of a common Dependance on a known Soveraign Just as the Members of the naturall Body dissolve into Earth for want of a Soul to hold them together Therefore there is nothing in this similitude from whence to inferre a dependance of the Laity on the Clergy or of the Temporall Officers on the Spirituall but of both on the Civill Soveraign which ought indeed to direct his Civill commands to the Salvation of Souls but is not therefore subject to any but God himselfe And thus you see the laboured fallacy of the first Argument to deceive such men as distinguish not between the Subordination of Actions in the way to the End and the Subjection of Persons one to another in the administration of the Means For to every End the Means are determined by Nature or by God himselfe supernaturally but the Power to make men use the Means is in every nation resigned by the Law of Nature which forbiddeth men to violate their Faith given to the Civill Soveraign His second Argument is this Every Common-wealth because it is supposed to â—…e perfect and sufficient in it self may command any other Common-wealth not subject to it and force it to change the administration of the Government nay depose the Prince and set another in his room if it cannot otherwise defend it selfe against the injuries he goes about to doe them much more may a Spirituâ—…ll Common-wealth command a Temporall one to change the administration of their Government and may depose Princes and institute others when they cannot otherwise defend the Spirituall Good That a Common-wealth to defend it selfe against injuries may lawfully doe all that he hath here said is very true and hath already in that which hath gone before been sufficiently demonstrated And if it were also true that there is now in this world a Spirituall Common-wealth distinct from a Civill Common-wealth then might the Prince thereof upon injury done him or upon want of caution that injury be not done him in time to come repaire and secure himself by Warre which is in summe deposing killing or subduing or doing any act of Hostility But by the same reason it would be no lesse lawfull for a Civill Soveraign upon the like injuries done or feared to make warre upon the Spirituall Soveraign which I beleeve is more than Cardinall Bellarmine would have inferred from his own proposition But Spirituall Common-wealth there is none in this world for it is the same thing with the Kingdome of Christ which he himselfe saith is not of this world but shall be in the next world at the Resurrection when they that have lived justly and beleeved that he was the Christ shall though they died Naturall bodies rise Spirituall bodies and then it is that our Saviour shall judge the world and conquer his Adversaries and make a Spirituall Common-wealth In the mean time seeing there are no men on earth whose bodies are Spirituall there can be no Spirituall Common-wealth amongst men that are yet in the flesh unlesse wee call Preachers that have Commission to Teach and
prepare men for their reception into the Kingdome of Christ at the Resurrection a Common-wealth which I have proved already to bee none The third Argument is this It is not lawfull for Christians to tolerate an Infidel or Haereticall King in case he endeavour to draw them to his Haeresie or Infidelity But to judge whether a King draw his subjects to Haeresie or not belongeth to the Pope Therefore hath the Pope Right to determine whether the Prince be to be deposed or not deposed To this I answer that both these assertions are false For Christians or men of what Religion soever if they tolerate not their King whatsoever law hee maketh though it bee concerning Religion doe violate their faith contrary to the Divine Law both Naturall and Positive Nor is there any Judge of Haeresie amongst Subjects but their owne Civill Soveraign For Haeresie is nothing else but a private opinion obstinately maintained contrary to the opinion which the Publique Person that is to say the Representant of the Common-wealth hath commanded to bee taught By which it is manifest that an opinion publiquely appointed to bee taught cannot be Haeresie nor the Soveraign Princes that authorize them Haeretiques For Haeretiques are none but private men that stubbornly defend some Doctrine prohibited by their lawfull Soveraigns But to prove that Christians are not to tolerate Infidell or Haereticall Kings he alledgeth a place in Deut. 17. where God forbiddeth the Jews when they shall set a King over themselves to choose a stranger And from thence inferreth that it is unlawfull for a Christian to choose a King that is not a Christian. And 't is true that he that is a Christian that is hee that hath already obliged himself to receive our Saviour when he shall come for his King shal tempt God too much in choosing for King in this world one that hee knoweth will endeavour both by terrour and perswasion to make him violate his faith But it is saith hee the same danger to choose one that is not a Christian for King and not to depose him when hee is chosen To this I say the question is not of the danger of not deposing but of the Justice of deposing him To choose him may in some cases bee unjust but to depose him when he is chosen is in no case Just. For it is alwaies violation of faith and consequently against the Law of Nature which is the eternall Law of God Nor doe wee read that any such Doctrine was accounted Christian in the time of the Apostles nor in the time of the Romane Emperours till the Popes had the Civill Soveraignty of Rome But to this he hath replyed that the Christians of old deposed not Nero nor Dioclesian nor Iulian nor Valens an Arrian for this cause onely that they wanted Temporall forces Perhaps so But did our Saviour who for calling for might have had twelve Legions of immortall invulnerable Angels to assist him want forces to depose Caesar or at least Pilate that unjustly without finding fault in him delivered him to the Jews to bee crucified Or if the Apostles wanted Temporall forces to depose Nero was it therefore necessary for them in their Epistles to the new made Christians to teach them as they did to obey the Powers constituted over them whereof Nero in that time was one and that they ought to obey them not for fear of their wrath but for conscience sake Shall we say they did not onely obey but also teach what they meant not for want of strength It is not therefore for want of strength but for conscience sake that Christians are to tolerate their Heathen Princes or Princes for I cannot call any one whose Doctrine is the Publique Doctrine an Haeretique that authorize the teaching of an Errour And whereas for the Temporall Power of the Pope he alledgeth further that St. Paul 1 Cor. 6. appointed Judges under the Heathen Princes of those times such as were not ordained by those Princes it is not true For St. Paul does but advise them to take some of their Brethren to compound their differences as Arbitrators rather than to goe to law one with another before the Heathen Judges which is a wholsome Precept and full of Charity fit to bee practised also in the best Christian Common-wealths And for the danger that may arise to Religion by the Subjects tolerating of an Heathen or an Erring Prince it is a point of which a Subject is no competent Judgâ—… or if hee bee the Popes Temporall Subjects may judge also of the Popes Doctrine For every Christian Prince as I have formerly proyed is no lesse Supreme Pastor of his own Subjects than the Pope of his The fourth Argument is taken from the Baptisme of Kings wherein that they may be made Christians they submit their Scepters to Christ and promise to keep and defend the Christian Faith This is true for Christian Kings are no more but Christs Subjects but they may for all that bee the Popes Fellowes for they are Supreme Pastors of their own Subjects and the Pope is no more but King and Pastor even in Rome it selfe The fifth Argument is drawn from the words spoken by our Saviour Feed my sheep by which was given all Power necessary for a Pastor as the Power to chase away Wolves such as are Haeretiques the Power to shut up Rammes if they be mad or push at the other Sheep with their Hornes such as are Evill though Christian Kings and Power to give the Flock convenient food From whence hee inferreth that St. Peter had these three Powers given him by Christ. To which I answer that the last of these Powers is no more than the Power or rather Command to Teach For the first which is to chase away Wolves that is Haeretiques the place hee quoteth is Matth. 7. 15. Beware of false Prophets which come to you in Sheeps clothing but inwardly are ravening Wolves But neither are Haeretiques false Prophets or at all Prophets nor admitting Haeretiques for the Wolves there meant were the Apostles commanded to kill them or if they were Kings to depose them but to beware of fly and avoid them nor was it to St. Peter nor to any of the Apostles but to the multitude of the Jews that followed him into the mountain men for the most part not yet converted that hee gave this Counsell to Beware of false Prophets which therefore if it conferre a Power of chasing away Kings was given not onely to private men but to men that were not at all Christians And as to the Power of Separating and Shutting up of furious Rammes by which hee meaneth Christian Kings that refuse to submit themselves to the Roman Pastor our Saviour refused to take upon him that Power in this world himself but advised to let the Corn and Tares grow up together till the day of Judgment much lesse did hee give it to St. Peter or can S. Peter give it to the Popes St. Peter and all
single Texts without considering the main Designe can derive no thing from them cleerly but rather by casting atomes of Scripture as dust before mens eyes make every thing more obscure than it is an ordinary artifice of those that seek not the truth but their own advantage OF THE KINGDOME OF DARKNESSE CHAP. XLIV Of Spirituall Darknesse from MISINTERPRETATION of Scripture BEsides these Soveraign Powers Divine and Humane of which I have hitherto discoursed there is mention in Scripture of another Power namely that of the Rulers of the Darknesse of this world the Kingdome of Sâ—…tan and the Princpality of 〈◊〉 over Daemons that is to say over Phantasmes that appear in the Air For which cause Satan is also called the Prince of the Power of the Air and because he ruleth in the darknesse of this world The Prince of this world And in consequence hereunto they who are under his Dominion in opposition to the faithfull who are the Children of the Light are called the Children of Darknesse For seeing Beelzebub is Prince of Phantasmes Inhabitants of his Dominion of Air and Darknesse the Children of Darknesse and these Daemons Phantasmes or Spirits of Illusion signifie allegorically the same thing This considered the Kingdome of Darknesse as it is set forth in these and other places of the Scripture is nothing else but a Confederacy of Deceâ—…vers that to obtain doâ—… over men in this present world endeavour by dark and erroneons Doctrines to extinguish in them the Light both of Nature and of the Gospell and so to dis-prepare them for the Kingdome of God to coâ—… As men that are utterly deprived from their Nativity of the light of the bodily Eye have no Idea at all of any such light and no man conceives in his imagination any greater light than he hath at some time or other perceived by his outward Senses so also is it of the light of the Gospel and of the light of the Understanding that no man can conceive there is any greater degree of it than that which he hath already attained unto And from hence it comes to passe that men have no other means to acknowledge their owne Darknesse but onely by reasoning from the un-foreseen mischances that befall them in their ways The Darkest part of the Kingdom of Satan is that which is without the Church of God that is to say amongst them that beleeve not in Jesus Christ. But we cannot say that therefore the Church enjoyeth as the land of Goshen all the light which to the performance of the work enjoined us by God is necessary Whence comes it that in Christendome there has been almost from the time of the Apostles such justling of one another out of their places both by forraign and Civill war such stumbling at every little asperity of their own fortune and every little eminence of that of other men and such diversity of ways in running to the same mark Felicity if it be not Night amongst us or at least a Mist wee are therefore yet in the Dark The Enemy has been here in the Night of our naturall Ignorance and sown the tares of Spirituall Errors and that First by abusing and putting out the light of the Scriptures For we erre not knowing the Scriptures Secondly by introducing the Daemonology of the Heathen Poets that is to say their fabulous Doctrine concerning Daemons which are but Idols or Phantasms of the braine without any reall nature of their own distinct from humane fancy such as are dead mens Ghosts and Fairies and other matter of old Wives tales Thirdly by mixing with the Scripture divers reliques of the Religion and much of the vain and erroneous Philosophy of the Greeks especially of Aristotle Fourthly by mingling with both these false or uncertain Traditions and fained or uncertain History And so we come to erre by giving heed to seducing Spirits and the Daemonology of such as speak lies in Hypocrisie or as it is in the Originall 1 Tim. 4. 1 2. of those that play the part of lyars with a seared conscience that is contrary to their own knowledge Concerning the first of these which is the Seducing of men by abuse of Scripture I intend to speak briefly in this Chapter The greatest and main abuse of Scripture and to which almost all the rest are either consequent or subservient is the wresting of it to prove that the Kingdome of God mentioned so often in the Scripture is the present Church or multitude of Christian men now living or that being dead are to rise again at the last day whereas the Kingdome of God was first instituted by the Ministery of Moses over the Jews onely who were therefore called his Peculiar People and ceased afterward in the election of Saul when they refused to be governed by God any more and demanded a King after the manner of the nations which God himself consented unto as I have more at large proved before in the 35. Chapter After that time there was no other Kingdome of God in the world by any Pact or otherwise than he ever was is and shall be King of all men and of all creatures as governing according to his Will by his infinite Power Neverthelesse he promised by his Prophets to restore this his Government to them again when the time he hath in his secret counsell appointed for it shall bee fully come and when they shall turn unto him by repentance and amendment of life and not onely so but he invited also the Gentiles to come in and enjoy the happinesse of his Reign on the same conditions of conversion and repentance and hee promised also to send his Son into the world to expiate the sins of them all by his death and to prepare them by his Doctrine to receive him at his second coming Which second coming not yet being the Kingdome of God is not yet come and wee are not now under any other Kings by Pact but our Civill Soveraigns saving onely that Christian men are already in the Kingdome of Grace in as much as they have already the Promise of being received at his comming againe Consequent to this Errour that the present Church is Christs Kingdome there ought to be some one Man or Assembly by whose mouth our Saviour now in heaven speaketh giveth law and which representeth his Person to all Christians or divers Men or divers Assemblies that doe the same to divers parts of Christendome This power Regal under Christ being challenged universally by the Pope and in particular Common-wealths by Assemblies of the Pastors of the place when the Scripture gives it to none but to Civill Soveraigns comes to be so passionately disputed that it putteth out the Light of Nature and causeth so great a Darknesse in mens understanding that they see not who it is to whom they have engaged their obedience Consequent to this claim of the Pope to Vicar Generall of Christ in the present
every Living Creature And likewise of Man God made him of the dust of the earth and breathed in his face the breath of Life factus est Homo in animam viventem that is and Man was made a Living Creature And after Noah came out of the Arke God saith hee will no more smite omnem animam viventem that is every Living Creature And Deut. 12. 23. Eate not the Bloud for the Bloud is the Soule that is the Life From which places if by Soule were meant a Substance Incorporeall with an existence separated from the Body it might as well be inferred of any other living Creature as of Man But that the Souls of the Faithfull are not of theirown Nature but by Gods speciall Grace to remaine in their Bodies from the Resurrection to all Eternity I have already I think sufficiently proved out of the Scriptures in the 38. Chapter And for the places of the New Testament where it is said that any man shall be cast Body and Soul into Hell fire it is no more than Body and Life that is to say they shall be cast alive into the perpetuall fire of Gehenna This window it is that gives entrance to the Dark Doctrine first of Eternall Torments and afterwards of Purgatory and consequently of the walking abroad especially in places Consecrated Solitary or Dark of the Ghosts of men deceased and thereby to the pretences of Exorcisme and Conjuration of Phantasmes as also of Invocation of men dead and to the Doctrine of Indulgences that is to say of exemption for a time or for ever from the fire of Purgatory wherein these Incorporeall Substances are pretended by burning to be cleansed and made fit for Heaven For men being generally possessed before the time of our Saviour by contagion of the Daemonology of the Greeks of an opinion that the Souls of men were substances distinct from their Bodies and therefore that when the Body was dead the Soulâ—… of every man whether godly or wicked must subsist somewhere by vertue of its own nature without acknowledging therein any supernaturall gift of Gods the Doctors of the Church doubted a long time what was the place which they were to abide in till they should be re-united to their Bodies in the Resurrection supposing for a while they lay under the Altars but afterward the Church of Rome found it more profitable to build for them this place of Purgatory which by some other Churches in this later age has been demolished Let us now consider what texts of Scripture seem most to confirm these three generall Errors I have here touched As for those which Cardinall Bellarmine hath alledged for the present Kingdome of God administred by the Pope than which there are none that make a better shew of proof I have already answered them and made it evident that the Kingdome of God instituted by Moses ended in the election of Saul After which time the Priest of his own authority never deposed any King That which the High Priest did to Athaliah was not done in his owne right but in the right of the young King Joash her Son But Solomon in his own right deposed the High Priest Abiathar and set up another in his place The most difficult place to answer of all those that can be brought to prove the Kingdome of God by Christ is already in this world is alledged not by Bellarmine nor any other of the Church of Rome but by Beza that will have it to begin from the Resurrection of Christ. But whether hee intend thereby to entitle the Presbytery to the Supreme Power Ecclesiasticall in the Common-wealth of Geneva and consequently to every Presbytery in every other Common-wealth or to Princes and other Civill Soveraigns I doe not know For the Presbytery hath challenged the power to Excomunicate their owne Kings and to bee the Supreme Moderators in Religion in the places where they have that form of Church government no lesse then the Pope callengeth it universally The words are Marke 9. 1. Verily I say unto you that there be some of them that stand here which shall not tast of death till they have seene the Kingdome of God come with power Which words if taken grammatically make it certaine that either some of those men that stood by Christ at that time are yet alive or else that the Kingdome of God must be now in this present world And then there is another place more difficult For when the Apostles after our Saviours Resurrection and immediately before his Ascension asked our Saviour saying Acts 1. 6. Wilt thou at this time restore again the Kingdome to Israel he answered them It is not for you to know the times and the seasons which the Father hath put in his own power But ye shall receive power by the comming of the Holy Ghost upon you and yee shall be my Martyrs witnesses both in Ierusalem in all Iudaea and in Samaria and unto the uttermost part of the Earth Which is as much as to say My Kingdome is not yet come nor shall you foreknow when it shall come for it shall come as a theefe in the night But I will send you the Holy Ghost and by him you shall have power to beare witnesse to all the world by your preaching of my Resurrection and the workes I have done and the doctrine I have taught that they may beleeve in me and expect eternall life at my comming againe How does this agree with the comming of Christs Kingdome at the Resurrection And that which St. Paul saies 1 Thessal 1. 9 10. That they turned from Idols to serve the living and true God and to waite for his Sonne from Heaven Where to waite for his Sonne from Heaven is to wait for his comming to be King in power which were not necessary if his Kingdome had beene then present Againe if the Kingdome of God began as Beza on that place Mark 9. 1. would have it at the Resurrection what reason is there for Christians ever since the Resurrection to say in their prayers Let thy Kingdome Come It is therefore manifest that the words of St. Mark are not so to be interpreted There be some of them that stand here saith our Saviour that shall not tast of death till they have seen the Kingdome of God come in power If then this Kingdome were to come at the Resurrection of Christ why is it said some of them rather than all For they all lived till after Christ was risen But they that require an exact interpretation of this text let them interpret first the like words of our Saviour to St. Peter concerning St. John chap. 21. 22. If I will that he tarry till I come what is that to thee upon which was grounded a report that hee should not dye Neverthelesse the truth of that report was neither confirmed as well grounded nor refuted as ill grounded on those words but left as a saying not understood
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
if one being no Pastor nor of eminent reputation for knowledge in Christian Doctrine doe the same and another follow him this is no Scandall given for he had no cause to follow such example but is a pretence of Scandall which hee taketh of himselfe for an excuse before mâ—…n For an unlearned man that is in the power of an Idolatrous King or State if commanded on pain of death to worship before an Idoll hee detesteth the Idoll in his heart hee doth well though if he had the fortitude to suffer death rather than worship it he should doe better But if a Pastor who as Christs Messenger has undertaken to teach Christs Doctrine to all nations should doe the same it were not onely a sinfull Scandall in respect of other Christian mens consciences but a perfidious forsaking of his charge The summe of that which I have said hitherto concerning the Worship of Images is this that he that worshippeth in an Image or any Creature either the Matter thereof or any Fancy of his own which he thinketh to dwell in it or both together or beleeveth that such things hear his Prayers or see his Devotions without Ears or Eyes committeth Idolatry and he that counterfeiteth such Worship for fear of punishment if he bee a man whose example hath power amongst his Brethren committeth a sin But he that worshippeth the Creator of the world before such an Image or in such a place as he hath not made or chosen of himselfe but taken from the commandement of Gods Word as the Jewes did in worshipping God before the Cherubins and before the Brazen Serpent for a time and in or towards the Temple of Jerusalem which was also but for a time committeth not Idolatry Now for the Worship of Saints and Images and Reliques and other things at this day practised in the Church of Rome I say they are not allowed by the Word of God nor brought into the Church of Rome from the Doctrine there taught but partly left in it at the first conversion of the Gentiles and afterwards countenanced and confirmed and augmented by the Bishops of Rome As for the proofs alledged out of Scripture namely those examples of Images appointed by God to bee set up They were not set up for the people or any man to worship but that they should worship God himselfe before them as before the Cherubins over the Ark and the Brazen Serpent For we read not that the Priest or any other did worship the Cherubins but contrarily wee read 2 Kings 18.4 that Hezekiah brake in pieces the Brazen Serpent which Moses had set up because the People burnt incense to it Besides those examples are not put for our Imitation that we also should set up Images under pretence of worshipping God before them because the words of the second Commandement Thou shalt not make to thy selfe any graven Image c. distinguish between the Images that God commanded to be set up and those which wee set up to our selves And therefore from the Cherubins or Brazen Serpent to the Images of mans devising and from the Worship commanded by Godâ—… to the Willâ—… Worship of men the argument is not good This also is to bee considered that as Hezekiah brake in pieces the Brazen Serpent because the Jews did worship it to the end they should doe so no more so also Christian Soveraigns ought to break down the Images which their Subjects have been accustomed to worship that there be no more occasion of such Idolatry For at this day the ignorant People where Images are worshipped doe really beleeve there is a Divine Power in the Images and are told by their Pastors that some of them have spoken and have bled and that miracles have been done by them which they apprehend as done by the Saint which they think either is the Image it self or in it The Israelites when they worshipped the Calfe did think they worshipped the God that brought them out of Egypt and yet it was Idolatry because they thought the Calfe either was that God or had him in his belly And though some man may think it impossible for people to be so stupid as to think the Image to be God or a Saint or to worship it in that notion yet it is manifest in Scripture to the contrary where when the Golden Calfe was made the people said These are thy Gods O Israel and where the Images of Laban are called his Gods And wee see daily by experience in all sorts of People that such men as study nothing but their food and ease are content to beleeve any absurdity rather than to trouble themselves to examine it holding their faith as it were by entaile unalienable except by an expresse and new Law But they inferre from some other places that it is lawfull to paint Angels and also God himselfe as from Gods walking in the Garden from Jacobs seeing God at the top of the ladder and from other Visions and Dreams But Visions and Dreams whether naturall or snpernaturall are but Phantasmes and he that painteth an Image of any of them maketh not an Image of God but of his own Phantasm which is making of an Idol I say not that to draw a Picture after a fancy is a Sin but when it is drawn to hold it for a Representation of God is against the second Commandement and can be of no use but to worship And the same may be said of the Images of Angels and of men dead unlesse as Monuments of friends or of men worthy remembrance For such use of an Image is not Worship of the Image but a civill honoring of the Person not that is but that was But when it is done to the Image which we make of a Saint for no other reason but that we think he heareth our prayers and is pleased with the honour wee doe him when dead and without sense wee attribute to him more than humane power and therefore it is Idolatry Seeing therefore there is no authority neither in the Law of Moses nor in the Gospel for the religious Worship of Images or other Representations of God which men set up to themselves or for the Worship of the Image of any Creature in Heaven or Earth or under the Earth And whereas Christian Kings who are living Representants of God are not to be worshipped by their Subjects by any act that signifieth a greater esteem of his power than the nature of mortall man is capable of It cannot be imagined that the Religious Worship now in use was brought into the Church by misunderstanding of the Scripture It resteth therefore that it was left in it by not destroying the Images themselves in the conversion of the Gentiles that worshipped them The cause whereof was the immoderate esteem and prices set upon the workmanship of them which made the owners though converted from worshipping them as they had done Religiously for Daemons to retain them still in their
and in all differences between him and other Princes charmed with the word Power Spirituall to abandon their lawfull Soveraigns which is in effect an universall Monarchy over all Christendome For though they were first invested in the right of being Supreme Teachers of Christian Doctrine by and under Christian Emperors within the limits of the Romane Empire as is acknowledged by themselves by the title of Pontifex Maximus who was an Officer subject to the Civill State yet after the Empire was divided and dissolved it was not hard to obtrude upon the people already subject to them another Title namely the Right of St. Peter not onely to save entire their pretended Power but also to extend the same over the same Christian Provinces though no more united in the Empire of Rome This Benefit of an Universall Monarchy considering the desire of men to bear Rule is a sufficient Presumption that the Popes that pretended to it and for a long time enjoyed it were the Authors of the Doctrine by which it was obtained namely that the Church now on Earth is the Kingdome of Christ. For that granted it must be understood that Christ hath some Lieutenant amongst us by whom we are to be told what are his Commandements After that certain Churches had renounced this universall Power of the Pope one would expect in reason that the Civill Soveraigns in all those Churches should have recovered so much of it as before they had unadvisedly let it goe was their own Right and in their own hands And in England it was so in effect saving that they by whom the Kings administred the Government of Religion by maintaining their imployment to be in Gods Right seemed to usurp if not a Supremacy yet an Independency on the Civill Power and they but seemed to usurpe it in as much as they acknowledged a Right in the King to deprive them of the Exercise of their Functions at his pleasure But in those places where the Presbytery took that Office though many other Doctrines of the Church of Rome were forbidden to be taught yet this Doctrine that the Kingdome of Christ is already come and that it began at the Resurrection of our Saviour was still retained But cui bono What Profit did they expect from it The same which the Popes expected to have a Soveraign Power over the People For what is it for men to excommunicate their lawful King but to keep him from all places of Gods publique Service in his own Kingdom and with force to resist him when he with force endeavoureth to correct them Or what is it without Authority from the Civill Soveraign to excommunicate any person but to take from him his Lawfull Liberty that is to usurpe an unlawfull Power over their Brethren The Authors therefore of this Darknesse in Religion are the Romane and the Presbyterian Clergy To this head I referre also all those Doctrines that serve them to keep the possession of this spirituall Soveraignty after it is gotten As first that the Pope in his publique capacity cannot erre For who is there that beleeving this to be true will not readily obey him in whatsoever he commands Secondly that all other Bishops in what Common-wealth soever have not their Right neither immediately from God nor mediately from their Civill Soveraigns but from the Pope is a Doctrine by which there comes to be in every Christian Common-wealth many potent men for so are Bishops that have their dependance on the Pope and owe obedience to him though he be a forraign Prince by which means he is able as he hath done many times to raise a Civill War against the State that submits not it self to be governed according to his pleasure and Interest Thirdly the exemption of these and of all other Priests and of all Monkes and Fryers from the Power of the Civill Laws For by this means there is a great part of every Common-wealth that enjoy the benefit of the Laws and are protected by the Power of the Civill State which neverthelesse pay no part of the Publique expence nor are lyable to the penalties as other Subjects due to their crimes and consequently stand not in fear of any man but the Pope and adhere to him onely to uphold his universall Monarchy Fourthly the giving to their Priests which is no more in the New Testament but Presbyters that is Elders the name of Sacerdotes that is Sacrificers which was the title of the Civill Soveraign and his publique Ministers amongst the Jews whilest God was their King Also the making the Lords Supper a Sacrifice serveth to make the People beleeve the Pope hath the same power over all Christians that Moses and Aaron had over the Jews that is to say all Power both Civill and Ecclesiasticall as the High Priest then had Fiftly the teaching that Matrimony is a Sacrament giveth to the Clergy the Judging of the lawfulnesse of Marriages and thereby of what Children are Legitimate and consequently of the Right of Succession to haereditary Kingdomes Sixtly the Deniall of Marriage to Priests serveth to assure this Power of the Pope over Kings For if a King be a Priest he cannot Marry and transmit his Kingdome to his Posterity If he be not a Priest then the Pope pretendeth this Authority Ecclesiasticall over him and over his people Seventhly from Auricular Confession they obtain for the assurance of their Power better intelligence of the designs of Princes and great persons in the Civill State than these can have of the designs of the State Ecclesiasticall Eighthly by the Canonization of Saints and declaring who are Martyrs they assure their Power in that they induce simple men into an obstinacy against the Laws and Commands of their Civill Soveraigns even to death if by the Popes excommunication they be declared Heretiques or Enemies to the Church that is as they interpret it to the Pope Ninthly they assure the same by the Power they ascribe to every Priest of making Christ and by the Power of ordaining Pennance and of Remitting and Retaining of sins Tenthly by the Doctrine of Purgatory of Justification by externall works and of Indulgences the Clergy is enriched Eleventhly by their Daemonology and the use of Exorcisme and other things appertaining thereto they keep or thinke they keep the People more in awe of their Power Lastly the Metaphysiques Ethiques and Politiques of Aristotle the frivolous Distinctions barbarous Terms and obscure Language of the Schoolmen taught in the Universities which have been all erected and regulated by the Popes Authority serve them to keep these Errors from being detected and to make men mistake the Ignis fatuus of Vain Philosophy for the Light of the Gospell To these if they sufficed not might be added other of their dark Doctrines the profit whereof redoundeth manifestly to the setting up of an unlawfull Power over the lawfull Soveraigns of Christian People or for