and not the Reprobate To the Reprobate there remaineth after the Resurrection a Second and Eternall Death between which Resurrection and their Second and Eternall death is but a time of Punishment and Torment and to last by succession of sinners thereunto as long as the kind of Man by propagation shall endure which is Eternally Upon this Doctrine of the Naturall Eternity of separated Soules is founded as I said the Doctrine of Purgatory For supposing Eternall Life by Grace onely there is no Life but the Life of the Body and no Immortality till the Resurrection The texts for Purgatory alledged by Bellarmine out of the Canonicall Scripture of the old Testament are first the Fasting of David for Saul and Ionathan mentioned 2 Kings 1. 12. and againe 2 Sam. 3. 35. for the death of Abner This Fasting of David he saith was for the obtaining of something for them at Gods hands after their death because after he had Fasted to procure the recovery of his owne child assoone as he knew it was dead he called for meate Seeing then the Soule hath an existence separate from the Body and nothing can be obtained by mens Fasting for the Soules that are already either in Heaven or Hell it followeth that there be some Soules of dead men that are neither in Heaven nor in Hell and therefore they must bee in some third place which must be Purgatory And thus with hard straining hee has wrested those places to the proofe of a Purgatory whereas it is manifest that the ceremonies of Mourning and Fasting when they are used for the death of men whose life was not profitable to the Mourners they are used for honours sake to their persons and when t is done for the death of them by whose life the Mourners had benefit it proceeds from their particular dammage And so David honoured Saul and Abner with his Fasting and in the death of his owne child recomforted himselfe by receiving his ordinary food In the other places which he alledgeth out of the old Testamēt there is not so much as any shew or colour of proofe He brings in every text wherein there is the word Anger or Fire or Burning or Purging or Clensing in case any of the Fathers have but in a Sermon rhetorically applied it to the Doctrine of Purgatory already beleeved The first verse of Psalme 37. O Lord rebuke me not in thy wrath nor chasten me in thy hot displeasure What were this to Purgatory if Augustine had not applied the Wrath to the fire of Hell and the Displeasure to that of Purgatory And what is it to Purgatory that of Psalme 66. 12. Wee went through fire and water and thou broughtest us to a moist place and other the like texts with which the Doctors of those times entended to adorne or extend their Sermons or Commentaries haled to their purposes by force of wit But he alledgeth other places of the New Testament that are not so easie to be answered And first that of Matth. 12. 32. Whosoever speaketh a word against the Sonne of man it shall be forgiven him but whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost it shall not bee forgiven him neither in this world nor in the world to come Where he will have Purgatory to be the World to come wherein some sinnes may be forgiven which in this World were not forgiven notwithstanding that it is manifest there are but three Worlds one from the Creation to the Flood which was destroyed by Water and is called in Scripture the Old World another from the Flood to the day of Judgement which is the Present World and shall bee destroyed by Fire and the third which shall bee from the day of Judgement forward everlasting which is called the World to come and in which it is agreed by all there shall be no Purgatory And therefore the World to come and Purgatory are inconsistent But what then can bee the meaning of those our Saviours words I confesse they are very hardly to bee reconciled with all the Doctrines now unanimously received Nor is it any shame to confesse the profoundnesse of the Scripture to bee too great to be sounded by the shortnesse of humane understanding Neverthelesse I may propound such things to the consideration of more learned Divines as the text it selfe suggesteth And first seeing to speake against the Holy Ghost as being the third Person of the Trinity is to speake against the Church in which the Holy Ghost resideth it seemeth the comparison is made betweene the Easinesse of our Saviour in bearing with offences done to him while hee himselfe taught the world that is when he was on earth and the Severity of the Pastors after him against those which should deny their authority which was from the Holy Ghost As if he should say You that deny my Power nay you that shall crucifie me shall be pardoned by mee as often as you turne unto mee by Repentance But if you deny the Power of them that teach you hereafter by vertue of the Holy Ghost they shall be inexorable and shall not forgive you but persecute you in this World and leave you without absolution though you turn to me unlesse you turn also to them to the punishments as much as lies in them of the World to come And so the words may be taken as a Prophecy or Praediction concerning the times as they have along been in the Christian Church Or if this be not the meaning for I am not peremptory in such difficult places perhaps there may be place left after the Resurrection for the Repentance of some sinners And there is also another place that seemeth to agree therewith For considering the words of St. Paul 1 Cor. 15. 29. What shall they doe which are Baptized for the dead if the dead rise not at all why also are they Baptized for the dead a man may probably inferre as some have done that in St. Pauls time there was a custome by receiving Baptisme for the dead as men that now beleeve are Sureties and Undertakers for the Faith of Infants that are not capable of beleeving to undertake for the persons of their deceased friends that they should be ready to obey and receive our Saviour for their King at his his coming again and then the forgivenesse of sins in the world to come has no need of a Purgatory But in both these interpretations there is so much of paradox that I trust not to them but propound them to those that are throughly versed in the Scripture to inquire if there be no clearer place that contradicts them Onely of thus much I see evident Scripture to perswade me that there is neither the word nor the thing of Purgatory neither in this nor any other text nor any thing that can prove a necessity of a place for the Soule without the Body neither for the Soule of Lazarus during the four days he was dead nor for the Soules of them which the
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.
writings and being not able or not willing to enter into a consideration of the circumstances they mistake sometimes the Precepts of Counsellours for the Precepts of them that Command and sometimes the contrary according as it best agreeth with the conclusions they would inferre or the actions they approve To avoyd which mistakes and render to those termes of Commanding Counselling and Exhorting their proper and distinct significations I define them thus COMMAND is where a man saith Doe this or Doe not this without expecting other reason than the Will of him that sayes it From this it followeth manifestly that he that Commandeth pretendeth thereby his own Benefit For the reason of his Command is his own Will onely and the proper object of every mans Will is some Good to himselfe COUNSELL is where a man saith Doe or Doe not this and deduceth his reasons from the benefit that arriveth by it to him to whom he saith it And from this it is evident that he that giveth Counsell pretendeth onely whatsoever he intendeth the good of him to whom he giveth it Therefore between Counsell and Command one great difference is that Command is directed to a mans own benefit and Counsell to the benefit of another man And from this ariseth another difference that a man may be obliged to do what he is Commanded as when he hath covenanted to obey But he cannot be obliged to do as he is Counselled because the hurt of not following it is his own or if he should covenant to follow it then is the Counsell turned into the nature of a Command A third difference between them is that no man can pretend a right to be of another mans Counsell because he is not to pretend benefit by it to himselfe but to demand right to Counsell another argues a will to know his designes or to gain some other Good to himselfe which as I said before is of every mans will the proper object This also is incident to the nature of Counsell that whatsoever it be he that asketh it cannot in equity accuse or punish it For to ask Counsell of another is to permit him to give such Counsell as he shall think best And consequently he that giveth counsell to his Soveraign whether a Monarch or an Assembly when he asketh it cannot in equity be punished for it whether the same be conformable to the opinion of the most or not so it be to the Proposition in debate For if the sense of the Assembly can be taken notice of before the Debate be ended they should neither ask nor take any further Counsell For the Sense of the Assembly is the Resolution of the Debate and End of all Deliberation And generally he that demandeth Counsell is Author of it and therefore cannot punish it and what the Soveraign cannot no man else can But if one Subject giveth Counsell to another to do any thing contrary to the Lawes whether that Counsell proceed from evill intention or from ignorance onely it is punishable by the Common-wealth because ignorance of the Law is no good excuse where every man is bound to take notice of the Lawes to which he is subject EXHORTATION and DEHORTATION is Counsell accompanied with signes in him that giveth it of vehement desire to have it followed or to say it more briefly Counsell vehemently pressed For he that Exhorteth doth not deduce the consequences of what he adviseth to be done and tye himselfe therein to the rigour of true reasoning bnt encourages him he Counselleth to Action As he that Dehorteth deterreth him from it And therefore they have in their speeches a regard to the common Passions and opinions of men in deducing their reasons and make use of Similitudes Metaphors Examples and other tooles of Oratory to perswade their Hearers of the Utility Honour or Justice of following their advise From whence may be inferred First that Exhortation and Dehortation is directed to the Good of him that giveth the Counsell not of him that asketh it which is contrary to the duty of a Counsellour who by the definition of Counsell ought to regard not his own benefit but his whom he adviseth And that he directeth his Counsell to his own benefit is manifest enough by the long and vehement urging or by the artificiall giving thereof which being not required of him and consequently proceeding from his own occasions is directed principally to his own benefit and but accidentarily to the good of him that is Counselled or not at all Secondly that the use of Exhortation and Dehortation lyeth onely where a man is to speak to a Multitude because when the Speech is addressed to one he may interrupt him and examine his reasons more rigorously than can be done in a Multitude which are too many to enter into Dispute and Dialogue with him that speaketh indifferently to them all at once Thirdly that they that Exhort and Dehort where they are required to give Counsell are corrupt Counsellours and as it were bribed by their own interest For though the Counsell they give be never so good yet he that gives it is no more a good Counsellour than he that giveth a Just Sentence for a reward is a Just Judge But where a man may lawfully Command as a Father in his Family or a Leader in an Army his Exhortations and Dehortations are not onely lawfull but also necessary and laudable But then they are no more Counsells but Commands which when they are for Execution of soure labour sometimes necessity and alwayes humanity requireth to be sweetned in the delivery by encouragement and in the tune and phrase of Counsell rather then in harsher language of Command Examples of the difference between Command and Counsell we may take from the formes of Speech that expresse them in Holy Scripture Have no other Gods but me Make to thy selfe no graven Image Take not Gods name in vain Sanctifie the Sabbath Honour thy Parents Kill not Steale not c. are Commands because the reason for which we are to obey them is drawn from the will of God our King whom we are obliged to obey But these words Sell all thou hast give it to the poore and follow me are Counsell because the reason for which we are to do so is drawn from our own benefit which is this that we shall have Treasure in heaven These words Go into the Village over against you and you shall find an Asse tyed and her Colt loose her and bring her to me are a Command for the reason of their fact is drawn from the will of their Master but these words Repent and be Baptized in the Name of Jesus are Counsell because the reason why we should so do tendeth not to any benefit of God Almighty who shall still be King in what manner soever we rebell but of our selves who have no other means of avoyding the punishment hanging over us for our sins As the difference of Counsell from Command hath been now
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
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 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
Prophet has spoken it out of the pride of his own heart fear him not But a man may here again ask When the Prophet hath foretold a thing how shal we know whether it will come to passe or not For he may foretel it as a thing to arrive after a certain long time longer then the time of mans life or indefinitely that it will come to passe one time or other in which case this mark of a Prophet is unusefull and therefore the miracles that oblige us to beleeve a Prophet ought to be confirmed by an immediate or a not long deferr'd event So that it is manifest that the teaching of the Religion which God hath established and the shewing of a pâ—…esent Miracle joined together were the only marks whereby the Scripture would have a true Prophet that is to say immediate Revelation to be acknowledged neither of them being singly sufficient to oblige any other man to regard what he saith Seeing therefore Miracles now cease we have no sign left whereby to acknowledge the pretended Revelations or Inspirations of any private man nor obligation to give ear to any Doctrine farther than it is conformable to the Holy Scriptures which since the time of our Saviour supply the place and sufficiently recompense the want of all other Prophecy and from which by wise and learned interpretation and carefull ratiocination all rules and precepts necessary to the knowledge of our duty both to God and man without Enthusiasme or supernaturall Inspiration may easily be deduced And this Scripture is it out of which I am to take the Principles of my Discourse concerning the Rights of those that are the Supream Governors on earth of Christian Common-wealths and of the duty of Christian Subjects towards their Soveraigns And to that end I shall speak in the next Chapter of the Books Writers Scope and Authority of the Bible CHAP. XXXIII Of the Number Antiquity Scope Authority and Interpreters of the Books of Holy SCRIPTURE BY the Books of Holy SCRIPTURE are understood those which ought to be the Canon that is to say the Rules of Christian life And because all Rules of life which men are in conscience bound to observe are Laws the question of the Scripture is the question of what is Law throughout all Christendome both Naturall and Civill For though it be not determined in Scripture what Laws every Christian King shall constitute in his own Dominions yet it is determined what laws he shall not constitute Seeing therefore I have already proved that Soveraigns in their own Dominions are the sole Legislators those Books only are Canonicall that is Law in every nation which are established for such by the Soveraign Authority It is true that God is the Soveraign of all Soveraigns and therefore when he speaks to any Subject he ought to be obeyed whatsoever any earthly Potentate command to the contrary But the question is not of obedience to God but of when and what God hath said which to Subjects that have no supernaturall revelation cannot be known but by that naturall reason which guided them for the obtaining of Peace and Justice to obey the authority of their severall Common-wealths that is to say of their lawfull Soveraigns According to this obligation I can acknowledge no other Books of the Old Testament to be Holy Scripture but those which have been commanded to be acknowledged for such by the Authority of the Church of England What Books these are is sufficiently known without a Catalogue of them here and they are the same that are acknowledged by St. Ierome who holdeth the rest namely the Wisdome of Solomon Ecclesiasticus Iudith Tobias the first and the second of Maccabees though he had seen the first in Hebrew and the third and fourth of Esdras for Apocrypha Of the Canonicall Iosephus a learned Iew that wrote in the time of the Emperour Domitian reckoneth twenty two making the number agree with the Hebrew Alphabet St. Ierome does the same though they reckon them in different manner For Iosephus numbers five Books of Moses thirteen of Prophets that writ the History of their own times which how it agrees with the Prophets writings contained in the Bible wee shall see hereafter and four of Hymnes and Morall Precepts But St. Ierome reckons five Books of Moses eight of Prophets and nine of other Holy writ which he calls of Hagiographa The Septuagint who were 70. learned men of the Iews sent for by Ptoiemy King of Egypt to translate the Iewish law out of the Hebrew into the Greek have left us no other for holy Scripture in the Greek tongue but the same that are received in the Church of England As for the Books of the New Testament they are equally acknowledged for Canon by all Christian Churches and by all Sects of Christians that admit any Books at all for Canonicall Who were the originall writers of the severall Books of Holy Scripture has not been made evident by any sufficient testimony of other History which is the only proof of matter of fact nor can be by any arguments of naturall Reason for Reason serves only to convince the truth not of fact but of consequence The light therefore that must guide us in this question must be that which is held out unto us from the Bookes themselves And this light though it shew us not the writer of every book yet it is not unusefull to give us knowledge of the time wherein they were written And first for the Pentateuch it is not argument enough that they were written by Moses because they are called the five Books of Moses no more than these titles The Book of Ioshua the Book of Iudges the Book of Ruth and the Books of the Kings are arguments sufficient to prove that they were written by Ioshua by the Iudges by Ruth and by the Kings For in titles of Books the subject is marked as often as the writer The History of Livy denotes the Writer but the History of Scanderbeg is denominated from the subject We read in the last Chapter of Deuteronomie ver 6. concerning the sepulcher of Moses that no man knoweth of his sepulcher â—…o this day that is to the day wherein those words were written It is therefore manifest that those words were written after his interrement For it were a strange interpretation to say Moses spake of his own sepulcher though by Prophesie that it was not found to that day wherein he was yet living But it may perhaps be alledged that the last Chapter only not the whole Penâ—… was written by some other man but the rest not Let us therefore consider that which we find in the Book of Genesis chap. 12. ver 6. And Abraham passed through the land to the place of Sichem unto the plain of Moreh and the Canaanite was then in the land which must needs bee the words of one that wrote when the Canaanite was not in the land and consequently not of
and the Gospels and Epistles of the New Testament have had one and the same scope to convert men to the obedience of God 1. in Moses and the Priests 2. in the man Christ and 3. in the Apostles and the successors to Apostolicall power For these three at several times did represent the person of God Moses and his successors the High Priests and Kings of Judah in the Old Testament Christ himself in the time he lived on earth and the Apostles and their successors from the day of Pentecost when the Holy Ghost descended on them to this day It is a question much disputed between the divers sects of Christian Religion From whence the Scriptures derive their Authority which question is also propounded sometimes in other terms as How wee know them to be the Word of God or Why we b◅leeve them to be so And the difficulty of resolving it ariseth chiefly from the impropernesse of the words wherein the question it self is couched For it is beleeved on all hands that the first and originall Author of them is God and consequently the question disputed is not that Again it is manifest that none can know they are Gods Word though all true Christians beleeve it but those to whom God himself hath revealed it supernaturally and therefore the question is not rightly moved of our Know edge of it Lastly when the question is propounded of our Beleefe because some are moved to beleeve for one and others for other reasons there can be rendred no one generall answer for them all The question truly stated is By what Authority they are made Law As far as they differ not from the Laws of Nature there is no doubt but they are the Law of God and carry their Authority with them legible to all men that have the use of naturall reason but this is no other Authority then that of all other Morall Doctrine consonant to Reason the Dictates whereof are Laws not made but Eternall If they be made Law by God himselfe they are of the nature of written Law which are Laws to them only to whom God hath so sufficiently published them as no man can excuse himself by saying he knew not they were his He therefore to whom God hath not supernaturally revealed that they are his nor that those that published them were sent by him is not obliged to obey them by any Authority but his whose Commands have already the force of Laws that is to say by any other Authority then that of the Common-wealth residing in the Soveraign who only has the Legislative power Again if it be not the Legislative Authority of the Common-wealth that giveth them the force of Laws it must bee some other Authority derived from God either private or publique if private it obliges onely him to whom in particular God hath been pleased to reveale it For if every man should be obliged to take for Gods Law what particular men on pretence of private Inspiration or Revelation should obtrude upon him in such a number of men that out of pride and ignorance take their own Dreams and extravagant Fancies and Madnesse for testimonies of Gods Spirit or out of ambition pretend to such Divine testimonies falsely and contrary to their own consciences it were impossible that any Divine Law should be acknowledged If publique it is the Authority of the Common-wealth or of the Church But the Church if it be one person is the same thing with a Common-wealth of Christians called a Common-wealth because it consisteth of men united in one person their Soveraign and a Church because it consisteth in Christian men united in one Christian Soveraign But if the Church be not one person then it hath no authority at all it can neither command nor doe any action at all nor is capable of having any power or right to any thing nor has any Will Reason nor Voice for all these qualities are personall Now if the whole number of Christians be not contained in one Common-wealth they are not one person nor is there an Universall Church that hath any authority over them and therefore the Scriptures are not made Laws by the Universall Church or if it bee one Common-wealth then all Christian Monarchs and States are private persons and subject to bee judged deposed and punished by an Universall Soveraigne of all Christendome So that the question of the Authority of the Scriptures is reduced to this Whether Christian Kings and the Soveraigne Assemblies in Christian Common-wealths be absolute in their own Territories immediately under God or subject to one Vicar of Christ constituted of the Vniversall Church to bee judged condemned deposed and put to death as hee shall think expedient or necessary for the common good Which question cannot bee resolved without a more particular consideration of the Kingdome of God from whence also wee are to judge of the Authority of Interpreting the Scripture For whosoever hath a lawfull power over any Writing to make it Law hath the power also to approve or disapprove the interpretation of the same CHAP. XXXIV Of the Signification of SPIRIT ANGEL and INSPIRATION in the Books of Holy Scripture SEeing the foundation of all true Ratiocination is the constant Signification of words which in the Doctrine following dependeth not as in naturall science on the Will of the Writer nor as in common conversation on vulgar use but on the sense they carry in the Scripture It is necessary before I proceed any further to determine out of the Bible the meaning of such words as by their ambiguity may render what I am to inferre upon them obscure or disputable I will begin with the words BODY and SPIRIT which in the language of the Schools are termed Substances Corporeall and Incorporeall The Word Body in the most generall acceptation signifieth that which filleth or occupyeth some certain room or imagined place and dependeth not on the imagination but is a reall part of that we call the Vniverse For the Vniverse being the Aggregate of all Bodies there is no reall part thereof that is not also Body nor any thing properly a Body that is not also part of that Aggregate of all Bodies the Vniverse The same also because Bodies are subject to change that is to say to variety of apparence to the sense of living creatures is called Substance that is to say Subject to various accidents as sometimes to be Moved sometimes to stand Still and to seem to our senses sometimes Hot sometimes Cold sometimes of one Colour Smel Tast or Sound somtimes of another And this diversity of Seeming produced by the diversity of the operatiō of bodies on the organs of our sense we attribute to alterations of the Bodies that operate call them Accidents of those Bodies And according to this acceptation of the word Substance and Body signifie the same thing and therefore Substance incorporeall are words which when they are joined together destroy one another as if
nature of Dreams and Visions that happen to men by the ordinary way of Nature I was enclined to this opinion that Angels were nothing but supernaturall apparitions of the Fancy raised by the speciall and extraordinary operation of God thereby to make his presence and commandements known to mankind and chiefly to his own people But the many places of the New Testament and our Saviours own words and in such texts wherein is no suspicion of corruption of the Scripture have extorted from my feeble Reason an acknowledgment and beleef that there be also Angels substantiall and permanent But to beleeve they be in no place that is to say no where that is to say nothing as they though indirectly say that will have them Incorporeall cannot by Scripture bee evinced On the signification of the word Spirit dependeth that of the word INSPIRATION which must either be taken properly and then it is nothing but the blowing into a man some thin and subtile aire or wind in such manner as a man filleth a bladder with his breath or if Spirits be not corporeall but have their existence only in the fancy it is nothing but the blowing in of a Phantasme which is improper to say and impossible for Phantasmes are not but only seem to be somewhat That word therefore is used in the Scripture metaphorically onely As Gen. 2. 7. where it is said that God inspired into man the breath of life no more is meant then that God gave unto him vitall motion For we are not to think that God made first a living breath and then blew it into Adam after he was made whether that breath were reall or seeming but only as it is Acts 17. 25. that he gave him life and breath that is made him a living creature And where it is said 2 Tim. 3. 16. all Scripture is given by Inspiration from God speaking there of the Scripture of the Old Testament it is an easie metaphor to signifie that God enclined the spirit or mind of those Writers to write that which should be usefull in teaching reproving correcting and instructing men in the way of righteous living But where St. Peter 2 Pet. 1. 21. saith that Prophecy came not in old time by the will of man but the holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Spirit by the Holy Spirit is meant the voice of God in a Dream or Vision supernaturall which is not Inspâ—…ration Nor when our Saviour breathing on his Disciples said Receive the Holy Spirit was that Breath the Spirit but a sign of the spirituall graces he gave unto them And though it be said of many and of our Saviour himself that he was full of the Holy Spirit yet that Fulnesse is not to be understood for Infusion of the substance of God but for accumulation of his gifts such as are the gift of sanctity of life of tongues and the like whether attained supernaturally or by study and industry for in all cases they are the gifts of God So likewise where God sayes Joel 2. 28. I will powre out my Spirit upon all flesh and your Sons and your Daughters shall prophecy your Old men shall dream Dreams and your Young men shall see Visions wee are not to understand it in the proper sense as if his Spirit were like water subject to effusion or infusion but as if God had promised to give them Propheticall Dreams and Vision For the proper use of the word infused in speaking of the graces of God is an abuse of it for those graces are Vertues not Bodies to be carryed hither and thither and to be powred into men as into barrels In the same manner to take Inspiration in the proper sense or to say that Good Spirits entred into men to make them prophecy or Evill Spirits into those that became Phrenetique Lunatique or Epileptique is not to take the word in the sense of the Scripture for the Spirit there is taken for the power of God working by causes to us unknown As also Acts 2. 2. the wind that is there said to fill the house wherein the Apostles were assembled on the day of Pentecost is not to be understood for the Holy Spirit which is the Deity it self but for an Externall sign of Gods speciall working on their hearts to effect in them the internall graces and holy vertues hee thought requisite for the performance of their Apostleship CHAP. XXXV Of the Signification in Scripture of KINGDOME OF GOD of HOLY SACRED and SACRAMENT THe Kingdome of God in the Writings of Divines and specially in Sermons and Treatises of Devotion is taken most commonly for Eternall Felicity after this life in the Highest Heaven which they also call the Kingdome of Glory and sometimes for the earnest of that felicity Sanctification which they terme the Kingdome of Grace but never for the Monarchy that is to say the Soveraign Power of God over any Subjects acquired by their own consent which is the proper signification of Kingdome To the contrary I find the KINGDOME OF GOD to signifie in most places of Scripture a Kingdome properly so named constituted by the Votes of the People of Israel in peculiar manner wherein they chose God for their King by Covenant made with him upon Gods promising them the possession of the land of Canaan and but seldom metaphorically and then it is taken for Dominion over sinne and only in the New Testament because such a Dominion as that every Subject shall have in the Kingdome of God and without prejudice to the Soveraign From the very Creation God not only reigned over all men naturally by his might but also had peculiar Subjects whom he commanded by a Voice as one man speaketh to another In which manner he reigned over Adam and gave him commandement to abstaine from the tree of cognizance of Good and Evill which when he obeyed not but tasting thereof took upon him to be as God judging between Good and Evill not by his Creators commandement but by his own sense his punishment was a privation of the estate of Eternall life wherein God had at first created him And afterwards God punished his posterity for their vices all but eight persons with an universall deluge And in these eight did consist the then Kingdom of God After this it pleased God to speak to Abraham and Gen. 17. 7 8. to make a Covenant with him in these words I will establish my Covenant between me and thee and thy seed after thee in their generations for an evâ—…rlasting Covenant to be a God to thee and to thy seed after thee And I will give unto thee and to thy seed after thee the land wherein thou art a stranger all the land of Canaan for an everlasting possession In this Covenant Abraham promiseth for himselfe and his posterity to obey as God the Lord that spake to him and God on his part promiseth to Abraham the land of Canaan for an everlasting
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
say the Word or Promise that Christ should come into the world who in the beginning was with God that is to say it was in the purpose of God the Father to send God the Son into the world to enlighten men in the way of Eternall life but it was not till then put in execution and actually incarnate So that our Saviour is there called the Word not because he was the promise but the thing promised They that taking occasion from this place doe commonly call him the Verbe of God do but render the text more obscure They might as well term him the Nown of God for as by Nown so also by Verbe men understand nothing but a part of speech a voice a sound that neither affirms nor denies nor commands nor promiseth nor is any substance corporeall or spirituall and therefore it cannot be said to bee either God or Man whereas our Saviour is both And this VVord which St. Iohn in his Gospel saith was with God is in his 1 Epistle verse 1. called the VVord of life and verse 2. the Eternall life which was with the Father so that he can be in no other sense called the Word then in that wherein he is called Eternall life that is he that hath procured us Eternall life by his comming in the flesh So also Apocalypse 19. 13. the Apostle speaking of Christ clothed in a garment dipt in bloud saith his name is the VVord of God which is to be understood as if he had said his name had been He that was come according to the purpose of God from the beginning and according to his Word and promises delivered by the Prophets So that there is nothing here of the Incarnation of a Word but of the Incarnation of God the Son therefore called the VVord because his Incarnation was the Performance of the Promise In like manner as the Holy Ghost is called the Promise There are also places of the Scripture where by the Word of God is signified such Words as are consonant to reason and equity though spoken sometimes neither by Prophet nor by a holy man For Pharaoh Necho was an Idolater yet his Words to the good King Josiah in which he advised him by Messengers not to oppose him in his march against Carchemish are said to have proceeded from the mouth of God and that Josiah not hearkning to them was slain in the battle as is to be read 2 Chron. 35. vers 21 22 23. It is true that as the same History is related in the first Book of Esdras not Pharaoh but Jeremiah spake these words to Josiah from the mouth of the Lord. But wee are to give credit to the Canonicall Scripture whatsoever be written in the Apocrypha The VVord of God is then also to be taken for the Dictates of reason and equity when the same is said in the Scriptures to bee written in mans heart as Psalm 36. 31. Ierem. 31. 33. Deut. 30. 11 14. and many other like places The name of PROPHET signifieth in Scripture sometimes Prolocutor that is he that speaketh from God to Man or from man to God And sometimes Praedictor or a foreteller of things to come And sometimes one that speaketh incoherently as men that are distracted It is most frequently used in the sense of speaking from God to the People So Moses Samuel Elijah Isaiah Ieremiah and others were Prophets And in this sense the High Priest was a Prophet for he only went into the Sanctum Sanctorum to enquire of God and was to declare his answer to the people And therefore when Caiphas said it was expedient that one man should die for the people St. John saith chap. 11. 51. that He spake not this of himselfe but being High Priest that year he prophesied that one man should dye for the nation Also they that in Christian Congregations taught the people 1 Cor. 14. 3. are said to Prophecy In the like sense it is that God saith to Moses Exod. 4. 16. concerning Aaron He shall be thy Spokes-man to the People and he shall be to thee a mouth and thou shalt be to him instead of God that which here is Spokes-man is chap. 7. 1. interpreted Prophet See saith God I have made thee a God to Pharaoh and Aaron thy Brother shall be thy Prophet In the sense of speaking from man to God Abraham is called a Prophet Genes 20. 7. where God in a Dream speaketh to Abimelech in this manner Now therefore restore the man his wife for he is a Prophet and shall pray for thee whereby may be also gathered that the name of Prophet may be given not unproperly to them that in Christian Churches have a Calling to say publique prayers for the Congregation In the same sense the Prophets that came down from the High place or Hill of God with a Psaltery and a Tabret and a Pipe and a Harp 1 Sam. 10. 5 6. and vers 10. Saul amongst them are said to Prophecy in that they praised God in that manner publiquely In the like sense is Miriam Exod. 15. 20. called a Prophetesâ—…e So is it also to be taken 1 Cor. 11. 4 5. where St. Paul saith Every man that prayeth or prophecyeth with his head covered c. and every woman that prayeth or prophecyeth with her head uncovered For Prophecy in that place signifieth no more but praising God in Psalmes and Holy Songs which women might doe in the Church though it were not lawfull for them to speak to the Congregation And in this signification it is that the Poets of the Heathen that composed Hymnes and other sorts of Poems in the honor of their Gods were called Vates Prophets as is well enough known by all that are versed in the Books of the Gentiles and as is evident Tit. 1. 12. where St. Paul saith of the Cretians that a Prophet of their owne said they were Liars not that St. Paul held their Poets for Prophets but acknowledgeth that the word Prophet was commonly used to signifie them that celebrated the honour of God in Verse When by Prophecy is meant Praediction or foretelling of future Contigents not only they were Prophets who were Gods Spokesmen and foretold those things to others which God had foretold to them but also all those Impostors that pretend by the helpe of familiar spirits or by superstitious divination of events past from false causes to foretell the like events in time to come of which as I have declared already in the 12. chapter of this Discourse there be many kinds who gain in the opinion of the common sort of men a greater reputation of Prophecy by one casuall event that may bee but wrested to their purpose than can be lost again by never so many failings Prophecy is not an Art nor when it is taken for Praediction a constant Vocation but an extraordinary and temporary Employment from God most often of Good men but sometimes also of the Wicked The woman of
Endor who is said to have had a familiar spirit and thereby to have raised a Phantasme of Samuel and foretold Saul his death was not therefore a Prophetesse for neither had she any science whereby she could raise such a Phantasme nor does it appear that God commanded the raising of it but onely guided that Imposture to be a means of Sauls terror and discouragement and by consequent of the discomfiture by which he fell And for Incoherent Speech it was amongst the Gentiles taken for one sort of Prophecy because the Prophets of their Oracles intoxicated with a spirit or vapor from the cave of the Pythian Oracle at Delphi were for the time really mad and spake like mad-men of whose loose words a sense might be made to fit any event in such sort as all bodies are said to be made of Materia prima In the Scripture I find it also so taken 1 Sam. 18. 10. in these words And the Evill spirit came upon Saul and he Prophecyed in the midst of the house And although there be so many significations in Scripture of the word Prophet yet is that the most frequent in which it is taken for him to whom God speaketh immediately that which the Prophet is to say from him to some other man or to the people And hereupon a question may be asked in what manner God speaketh to such a Prophet Can it may some say be properly said that God hath voice and language when it cannot be properly said he hath a tongue or other organs as a man The Prophet David argueth thus Shall he that made the eye not see or he that made the ear not hear But this may be spoken not as usually to signifie Gods nature but to signifie our intention to honor him For to see and hear are Honorable Attributes and may be given to God to declare as far as our capacity can conceive his Almighty power But if it were to be taken in the strict and proper sense one might argue from his making of all other parts of mans body that he had also the same use of them which we have which would be many of them so uncomely as it would be the greatest contumely in the world to ascribe them to him Therefore we are to interpret Gods speaking to men immediately for that way whatsoever it be by which God makes them understand his will And the wayes whereby he doth this are many and to be sought onely in the Holy Scripture where though many times it be said that God spake to this and that person without declaring in what manner yet there be again many places that deliver also the signes by which they were to acknowledge his presence and commandement and by these may be understood how he spake to many of the rest In what manner God spake to Adam and Eve and Cain and Noah is not expressed nor how he spake to Abraham till such time as he came out of his own countrey to Sichem in the land of Canaan and then Gen. 12. 7. God is said to have appeared to him So there is one way whereby God made his presence manifest that is by an Apparition or Vision And again Gen. 15. 1. The Word of the Lord came to Abraham in a Vision that is to say somewhat as a sign of Gods presence appeared as Gods Messenger to speak to him Again the Lord appeared to Abraham Gen. 18. 1. by an apparition of three Angels and to Abimelech Gen. 20. 3. in a dream To Lot Gen. 19. 1. by an apparition of two Angels And to Hagar Gen. 21. 17. by the apparition of one Angel And to Abraham again Gen. 22. 11. by the apparition of a voice from heaven And Gen. 26. 24. to Isaac in the night that is in his sleep or by dream And to Jacob Gen. 18. 12. in a dream that is to say as are the words of the text Iacob dreamed that he saw a ladder c. And Gen. 32. 1. in a Vision of Angels And to Moses Exod. 3. 2. in the apparition of a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush And after the time of Moses where the manner how God spake immediately to man in the Old Testament is expressed hee spake alwaies by a Vision or by a Dream as to Gideon Samuel Eliah Elisha Isaiah Ezekiel and the rest of the Prophets and often in the New Testament as to Ioseph to St. Peter to St. Paul and to St. Iohn the Evangelist in the Apocalypse Onely to Moses hee spake in a more extraordinary manner in Mount Sinai and in the Tabernaele and to the High Priest in the Tabernacle and in the Sanctum Sanctorum of the Temple But Moses and after him the High Priests were Prophets of a more eminent place and degree in Gods favour And God himself in express words declareth that to other Prophets hee spake in Dreams and Visions but to his servant Moses in such manner as a man speaketh to his friend The words are these Numb 12. 6 7 8. If there be a Prophet among you I the Lord will make my self known to him in a Vision and will speak unto him in a Dream My servant Moses is not so who is faithfull in all my house with him I will speak mouth to mouth even apparently not in dark speeches and the similitude of the Lord shall he behold And Exod. 33. 11. The Lord spake to Moses face to face as a man speaketh to his friend And yet this speaking of God to Moses was by mediation of an Angel or Angels as appears expressely Acts 7. ver 35. and 53. and Gal. 3. 19. and was therefore a Vision though a more cleer Vision than was given to other Prophets And conformable hereunto where God saith Deut. 13. 1. If there arise amongst you a Prophet or Dreamer of Dreams the later word is but the interpretation of the former And Ioel 2. 28. Your sons and your daughters shall Prophecy your old men shall dream Dreams and your young men shall see Visions where again the word Prophecy is expounded by Dream and Vision And in the same manner it was that God spake to Solomon promising him Wisdome Riches and Honor for the text saith 1 Kings 3. 15. And Solomon awoak and behold it was a Dream So that generally the Prophets extraordinary in the Old Testament took notice of the Word of God no otherwise than from their Dreams or Visions that is to say from the imaginations which they had in their sleep or in an Extasie which imaginations in every true Prophet were supernaturall but in false Prophets were either naturall or feigned The same Prophets were neverthelesse said to speak by the Spirit as Zach. 7. 12. where the Prophet speaking of the Jewes saith They made their hearts hard as Adamant lest they should hear the law and the words which the Lord of Hosts hath sent in his Spirit by the former Prophets By which it is manifest that
Soveraign as they did to Moses to uphold or to forbid them as hee should see cause and if hee disavow them then no more to obey their voice or if he approve them then to obey them as men to whom God hath given a part of the Spirit of their Soveraigne For when Christian men take not their Christian Soveraign for Gods Prophet they must either take their owne Dreames for the Prophecy they mean to bee governed by and the tumour of their own hearts for the Spirit of God or they must suffer themselves to bee lead by some strange Prince or by some of their fellow subjects that can bewitch them by slaunder of the government into rebellion without other miracle to confirm their calling then sometimes an extraordinary successe and Impunity and by this means destroying all laws both divine and humane reduce all Order Government and Society to the first Chaos of Violence and Civill warre CHAP. XXXVII Of MIRACLES and their Use. BY Miracles are signified the Admirable works of God therefore they are also called Wonders And because they are for the most part done for a signification of his commandement in such occasions as without them men are apt to doubt following their private naturall reasoning what he hath commanded and what not they are commonly in Holy Scripture called Signes in the same sense as they are called by the Latines Ostenta and Portenta from shewing and fore-signifying that which the Almighty is about to bring to passe To understand therefore what is a Miracle we must first understand what works they are which men wonder at and call Admirable And there be but two things which make men wonder at any event The one is if it be strange that is to say such as the like of it hath never or very rarely been produced The other is if when it is produced we cannot imagine it to have been done by naturall means but onely by the immediate hand of God But when wee see some possible naturall cause of it how rarely soever the like has been done or if the like have been often done how impossible soever it be to imagine a naturall means thereof we no more wonder nor esteem it for a Miracle Therefore if a Horse or Cow should speak it were a Miracle because both the thing is strange the naturall cause difficult to imagin So also were it to see a strange deviation of nature in the production of some new shape of a living creature But when a man or other Animal engenders his like though we know no more how this is done than the other yet because 't is usuall it is no Miracle In like manner if a man be metamorphosed into a stone or into a pillar it is a Miracle because strange but if a peece of wood be so changed because we see it often it is no Miracle and yet we know no more by what operation of God the one is brought to passe than the other The first Rainbow that was seen in the world was a Miracle because the first and consequently strange and served for a sign from God placed in heaven to assure his people there should be no more an universall destruction of the world by Water â—…ut at this day because they are frequent they are not Miracles neither to them that know their naturall causes nor to them who know them not Again there be many rare works produced by the Art of man yet when we know they are done because thereby wee know also the means how they are done we count them not for Miracles because not wrought by the immediate hand of God but of humane Industry Furthermore seeing Admiration and Wonder is consequent to the knowledge and experience wherewith men are endued some more some lesse it followeth that the same thing may be a Miracle to one and not to another And thence it is that ignorant and superstitious men make great Wonders of those works which other men knowing to proceed from Nature which is not the immediate but the ordinary work of God admire not at all As when Ecclipses of the Sun and Moon have been taken for supernaturall works by the common people when neverthelesse there were others could from their naturall causes have foretold the very hour they should arrive Or as when a man by confederacy and secret intelligence getting knowledge of the private actions of an ignorant unwary man and thereby tells him what he has done in former time it seems to him a Miraculous thing but amongst wise and cautelous men such Miracles as those cannot easily be done Again it belongeth to the nature of a Miracle that it be wrought for the procuring of credit to Gods Messengers Ministers and Prophets that thereby men may know they are called sent and employed by God and thereby be the better inclined to obey them And therefore though the creation of the world and after that the destruction of all living creatures in the universall deluge were admirable works yet because they were not done to procure credit to any Prophet or other Minister of God they use not to be called Miracles For how admirable soever any work be the Admiration consisteth not in that it could be done because men naturally beleeve the Almighty can doe all things but because he does it at the Prayer or Word of a man But the works of God in Egypt by the hand of Moses were properly Miracles because they were done with intention to make the people of Israel beleeve that Moses came unto them not out of any design of his owne interest but as sent from God Therefore after God had commanded him to deliver the Israelites from the Egyptian bondage when he said They will not beleeve me but will say the Lord hath not appeared unto me God gave him power to turn the Rod he had in his hand into a Serpent and again to return it into a Rod and by putting his hand into his bosome to make it leprous and again by putting it out to make it whole to make the Children of Israel beleeve as it is verse 5. that the God of their Fathers had appeared unto him And if that were not enough he gave him power to turn their waters into bloud And when hee had done these Miracles before the people it is said verse 41. that they beleeved him Neverthelesse for fear of Pharaoh they durst not yet obey him Therefore the other works which were done to plague Pharaoh and the Egyptians tended all to make the Israelites beleeve in Moses and were properly Miracles In like manner if we consider all the Miracles done by the hand of Moses and all the rest of the Prophets till the Captivity and those of our Saviour and his Apostles afterward we shall find their end was alwaies to beget or confirme beleefe that they came not of their own motion but were sent by God Wee may further observe in Scripture
deceive many more In this aptitude of mankind to give too hasty beleefe to pretended Miracles there can be no better nor I think any other caution then that which God hath prescribed first by Moses as I have said before in the precedent chapter in the beginning of the 13. and end of the 18. of Deuteronomy That wee take not any for Prophets that teach any other Religion then that which Gods Lieutenant which at that time was Moses hath established nor any though he teach the same Religion whose Praediction we doe not see come to passe Moses therefore in his time and Aaron and his successors in their times and the Soveraign Governour of Gods people next under God himself that is to say the Head of the Church in all times are to be consulted what doctrine he hath established before wee give credit to a pretended Miracle or Prophet And when that is done the thing they pretend to be a Miracle we must both see it done and use all means possible to consider whether it be really done and not onely so but whether it be such as no man can do the like by his naturall power but that it requires the immediate hand of God And in this also we must have recourse to Gods Lieutenant to whom in all doubtfull cases wee have submitted our private judgments For example if a man pretend that after certain words spoken over a peece of bread that presently God hath made it not bread but a God or a man or both and neverthelesse it looketh still as like bread as ever it did there is no reason for any man to think it really done nor consequently to fear him till he enquire of God by his Vicar or Lieutenant whether it be done or not If he say not then followeth that which Moses saith Deut. 18. 22. he hath spoken it presumptuously thou shalt not fear him If he say 't is done then he is not to contradict it So also if wee see not but onely hear tell of a Miracle we are to consult the Lawful Church that is to say the lawful Head thereof how far we are to give credit to the relators of it And this is chiefly the case of men that in these days live under Christian Soveraigns For in these times I do not know one man that ever saw any such wondrous work done by the charm or at the word or prayer of a man that a man endued but with a mediocrity of reason would think supernaturall and the question is no more whether what wee see done be a Miracle whether the Miracle we hear or read of were a reall work and not the Act of a tongue or pen but in plain terms whether the report be true or a lye In which question we are not every one to make our own private Reason or Conscience but the Publique Reason that is the reason of Gods Supreme Lieutenant Judge and indeed we have made him Judge already if wee have given him a Soveraign power to doe all that is necessary for our peace and defence A private man has alwaies the liberty because thought is free to beleeve or not beleeve in his heart those acts that have been given out for Miracles according as he shall see what benefit can accrew by mens belief to those that pretend or countenance them and thereby conjecture whether they be Miracles or Lies But when it comes to confession of that faith the Private Reason must submit to the Publique that is to say to Gods Lieutenant But who is this Lieutenant of God and Head of the Church shall be considered in its proper place hereafter CHAP. XXXVIII Of the Signification in Scripture of ETERNALL LIFE HELL SALVATION THE WORLD TO COME and RÉDEMPTION THe maintenance of Civill Society depending on Justice and Justice on the power of Life and Death and other lesse Rewards and Punishments residing in them that have the Soveraignty of the Common-wealth It is impossible a Common-wealth should stand where any other than the Soveraign hath a power of giving greater rewards than Life and of inflicting greater punishments then Death Now seeing Eternall life is a greater reward than the life present and Eternall torment a greater punishment than the death of Nature It is a thing worthy to be well considered of all men that desire by obeying Authority to avoid the calamities of Confusion and Civill war what is meant in holy Scripture by Life Eternall and Torment Eternall and for what offences and against whom committed men are to be Eternally tormented and for what actions they are to obtain Eternall life And first we find that Adam was created in such a condition of life as had he not broken the commandement of God he had enjoyed it in the Paradise of Eden Everlastingly For there was the Tree of life whereof he was so long allowed to eat as he should forbear to eat of the tree of Knowledge of Good and Evill which was not allowed him And therefore as soon as he had eaten of it God thrust him out of Paradise lest he should put forth his hand and take also of the tree of life and live for ever By which it seemeth to me with submission neverthelesse both in this and in all questions whereof the determination dependeth on the Scriptures to the interpretation of the Bible authorized by the Common-wealth whose Subject I am that Adam if he had not sinned had had an Eternall Life on Earth and that Mortality entred upon himself and his posterity by his first Sin Not that actuall Death then entred for Adam then could never have had children whereas he lived long after and saw a numerous posterity ere he dyed But where it it is said In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die it must needs bee meant of his Mortality and certitude of death Seeing then Eternall life was lost by Adams forfeiture in committing sin he that should cancell that forfeiture was to recover thereby that Life again Now Jesus Christ hath satisfied for the sins of all that beleeve in him and therefore recovered to all beleevers that ETERNALL LIFE which was lost by the sin of Adam And in this sense it is that the comparison of St. Paul holdeth Rom. 5. 18 19. As by the offence of one Iudgment came upon all men to condemnation even so by the righteousnesse of one the free gift came upon all men to Iustification of Life Which is again 1 Cor. 15. 21 22. more perspicuously delivered in these words For since by man came death by man came also the resurrection of the dead For as in Adam all die even so in Christ shall all be made alive Concerning the place wherein men shall enjoy that Eternall Life which Christ hath obtained for them the texts next before alledged seem to make it on Earth For if as in Adam all die that is have forfeited Paradise and Eternall Life on Earth even so in
us And therefore in the Holy Scripture Remission of Sinne and Salvation from Death and Misery is the same thing as it appears by the words of our Saviour who having cured a man sick of the Palsey by saying Mat. 9. 2. Son be of good cheer thy Sins be forgiven thee and knowing that the Scribes took for blasphemy that a man should pretend to forgive Sins asked them v. 5. whether it were easier to say Thy Sinnes be forgiven thee or Arise and walk signifying thereby that it was all one as to the saving of the sick to say Thy Sins are forgiven and Arise and walk and that he used that form of speech onely to shew he had power to forgive Sins And it is besides evident in reason that since Death and Misery were the punishments of Sin the discharge of Sinne must also be a discharge of Death and Misery that is to say Salvation absolute such as the faithfull are to enjoy after the day of Judgment by the power and favour of Jesus Christ who for that cause is called our SAVIOUR Concerning Particular Salvations such as are understood 1 Sam. 14. 39. as the Lord liveth that saveth Israel that is from their temporary enemies and 2 Sam. 22. 4. Thou art my Saviour thou savest me from violence and 2 Kings 13. 5. God gave the Israelites a Saviour and so they were delivered from the hand of the Assyrians and the like I need say nothing there being neither difficulty nor interest to corrupt the interpretation of texts of that kind But concerning the Generall Salvation hecause it must be in the Kingdome of Heaven there is great difficulty concerning the Place On one side by Kingdome which is an estate ordained by men for their perpetuall security against enemies and want it seemeth that this Salvation should be on Earth For by Salvation is set forth unto us a glorious Reign of our King by Conquest not a safety by Escape and therefore there where we look for Salvation we must look also for Triumph and before Triumph for Victory and before Victory for Battell which cannot well be supposed shall be in Heaven But how good soever this reason may be I will not trust to it without very evident places of Scripture The state of Salvation is described at large Isaiah 33. ver 20 21 22 23 24. Look upon Zion the City of our solemnities thine eyes shall see Ierusalem a quiet habitation a tabernacle that shall not be taken down not one of the stakes thereof shall ever be removed neither shâ—…ll any of the cords thereof be broken But there the glorious Lord will be unto us a place of broad rivers and streams wherein shall goe no Gally with oares neither shall gallant ship passe â—…hereby For the Lord is our Iudge the Lord is our Lawgiver the Lord is our King he will save us Thy tacklings are loosed they could not well strengthen their mast they could not spread the sail then is the prey of a great spoil divided the lame take the prey And the Inhabitant shall not say I am sicke the people that shall dwell therein shall be forgiven their Iniquity In which words wee have the place from whence Salvation is to proceed Ierusalem a quiet habitation the Eternity of it a tabernacle that shall not be taken down c. The Saviour of it the Lord their Iudge their Lawgiver their King he will save us the Salvation the Lord shall be to them as abroad mote of swift waters c. the condition of their Enemies their tacklings are loose their masts weak the lame shal take the spoil of them The condition of the Saved The Inhabitant shal not say I am sick And lastly all this is comprehended in Forgivenesse of sin The people that dwell therein shall be forgiven their iniquity By which â—…t is evident that Salvation shall be on Earth then when God shall reign at the coming again of Christ in Jerusalem and from Jerusalem shall proceed the Salvation of the Gentiles that shall be received into Gods Kingdome as is also more expressely declared by the same Prophet Chap. 65. 20 21. And they that is the Gentiles who had any Jew in bondage shall bring all your brethren for an offering to the Lord out of all nations upon horses and in charets and in litters and upon mules and upon swift beasts to my holy mountain Ierusalem saith the Lord as the Children of Israel bring an offering in a clean vessell into the House of the Lord. And I will also take of them for Priests and for Levâ—…tes saith the Lord Whereby it is manifest that the chief seat of Gods Kingdome which is the Place from whence the Salvation of us that were Gentiles shall proceed shall be Jerusalem And the same is also confirmed by our Saviour in his discourse with the woman of Samaria concerning the place of Gods worship to whom he saith Iohn 4. 22. that the Samaritans worshipped they knew not what but the Jews worship what they knew For Salvation is of the Iews ex Iudae is that is begins at the Jews as if he should say you worship God but know not by whom he wil save you as we doe that know it shall be by one of the tribe of Judah a Jew not a Samaritan And therefore also the woman not impertinently answered him again We know the Messias shall come So that which out Saviour saith Salvation is from the Iews is the same that Paul sayes Rom. 1. 16 17. The Gospel is the power of God to Salvation to every one that beleeveth To the Iew first and also to the Greek For therein is the righteousnesse of God revealed from faith to faith from the faith of the Jew to the faith of the Gentile In the like sense the Prophet Ioel describing the day of Judgment chap. 2. 30 31. that God 〈◊〉 shew wonders in heaven and in earth bloud and fire and pillars os smoak The Sun should be turned to darknesse and the Moon into bloud before the great and terrible day of the Lord come he addeth verse 32. and it shall come to passe that whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved For in Mount Zion and in Ierusalem shall be Salvation And Obadiah verse 17. saith the same Vpon Mount Zion shall be Deliverance and there shall be holinesse and the house of Iacob shall possesse their possessions that is the possessions of the Heathen which possessions he expresseth more particularly in the following verses by the mount of Esau the Land of the Philistines the fields of Ephraim of Samaria Gilead and the Cities of the South and concludes with these words the Kingdom shall be the Lords All these places are for Salvation and the Kingdome of God after the day of Judgement upon Earth On the other side I have not found any text that can probably be drawn to prove any Ascension of the Saints into Heaven that is to say into
any Coelum Empyreum or other aetheriall Region saving that it is called the Kingdome of Heaven which name it may have because God that was King of the Jews governed them by his commands sent to Moses by Angels from Heaven and after their revolt sent his Son from Heaven to reduce them to their obedience and shall send him thence again to rule both them and all other faithfull men from the day of Judgment Everlastingly or from that that the Throne of this our Great King is in Heaven whereas the Earth is but his Footstoole But that the Subjects of God should have any place as high as his Throne or higher than his Footstoole it seemeth not sutable to the dignity of a King nor can I find any evident text for it in holy Scripture From this that hath been said of the Kingdom of God and of Salvation it is not hard to interpret what is meant by the WORLD TO COME There are three worlds mentioned in Scripture the Old World the Present VVorld and the VVorld to come Of the first St. Peter speaks If God spared not the Old VVorld but saved Noah the eighth person a Preacher of righteousnesse bringing the flood upon the world of the ungodly c. So the first World was from Adam to the generall Flood Of the present World our Saviour speaks Iohn 18. 36. My Kingdome is not of this VVorld For he came onely to teach men the way of Salvation and to renew the Kingdome of his Father by his doctrine Of the World to come St. Peter speaks Neverthelesse we according to his promise look for new Heavens and a new Earth This is that WORLD wherein Christ coming down from Heaven in the clouds with great power and glory shall send his Angels and shall gather together his elect from the four winds and from the uttermost parts of the Earth and thence forth reign over them under his Father Everlastingly Salvation of a sinner suppposeth a precedent REDEMPTION for he that is once guilty of Sin is obnoxious to the Penalty of the same and must pay or some other for him such Ransome as he that is offended and has him in his power shall require And seeing the person offended is Almighty God in whose power are all things such Ransome is to be paid before Salvation can be acquired as God hath been pleased to require By this Ransome is not intended a satisfaction for Sin equivalent to the Offence which no sinner for himselfe nor righteous man can ever be able to make for another The dammage a man does to another he may make amends for by restitution or recompence but sin cannot be taken away by recompence for that were to make the liberty to sin a thing vendible But sins may bee pardoned to the repentant either gratis or upon such penalty as God is pleased to accept That which God usually accepted in the Old Testament was some Sacrifice or Oblation To forgive sin is not an act of Injustice though the punishment have been threatned Even amongst men though the promise of Good bind the promiser yet threats that is to say promises of Evill bind them not much lesse shall they bind God who is infinitely more mercifull then men Our Saviour Christ therefore to Redeem us did not in that sense satisfie for the Sins of men as that his Death of its own vertue could make it unjust in God to punish sinners with Eternall death but did make that Sacrifice and Oblation of himself at his first coming which God was pleased to require for the Salvation at his second coming of such as in the mean time should repent and beleeve in him And though this act of our Redemption be not alwaies in Scripture called a Sacrifice and Oblation but sometimes a Price yet by Price we are not to understand any thing by the value whereof he could claim right to a pardon for us from his offended Father but that Price which God the Father was pleased in mercy to demand CHAP. XXXIX Of the signification in Scripture of the word CHURCH THe word Church Ecclesia signifieth in the Books of Holy Scripture divers things Sometimes though not often it is taken for Gods House that is to say for a Temple wherein Christians assemble to perform holy duties publiquely as 1 Cor. 14. ver 34. Let your women keep silence in the Churches but this is Metaphorically put for the Congregation there assembled and hath been since used for the Edifice it self to distinguish between the Temples of Christians and Idolaters The Temple of Jerusalem was Gods house and the House of Prayer and so is any Edifice dedicated by Christians to the worship of Christ Christs house and therefore the Greek Fathers call it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Lords house and thence in our language it came to be called Kyrke and Church Church when not taken for a House signifieth the same that Ecclesia signified in the Grecian Common-wealths that is to say a Congregation or an Assembly of Citizens called forth to hear the Magistrate speak unto them and which in the Common-wealth of Rome was called Concio as he that spake was called Ecclesiastes and Concionator And when they were called forth by lawfull Authority it was Ecclesia legitima a Lawfull Church 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But when they were excited by tumultuous and seditious clamor then it was a confused Church 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is taken also sometimes for the men that have right to be of the Congregation though not actually assembled that is to say for the whole multitude of Christian men how far soever they be dispersed as Act. 8. 3. where it is said that Saul made havock of the Church And in this sense is Christ said to be Head of the Church And sometimes for a certain part of Christians as Col. 4. 15. Salute the Church that is in his house Sometimes also for the Elect onely as Ephes. 5. 27. A Glorious Church without spot or wrinkle holy and without blemâ—…sh which is meant of the Church triumphant or Church to come Sometimes for a Congregation assembled of professors of Christianity whether their profession be true or counterfeit as it is understood Mat. 18. 17. where it is said Tell it to the Church and if hee neglect to hear the Church let him be to thee as a Gentile or Publican And in this last sense only it is that the Church can be taken for one Person that is to say that it can be said to have power to will to pronounce to command to be obeyed to make laws or to doe any other action whatsoever For without authority from a lawfull Congregation whatsoever act be done in a concourse of people it is the particular act of every one of those that were present and gave their aid to the performance of it and not the act of them all in grosse as of one body much lesse the act
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
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
we or an Angell from Heaven preach any other Gospell unto you than that wee have preached unto you let him bee accursed But the Gospell which Paul and the other Apostles preached was onely this Article that Jesus is the Christ Therefore for the Beleef of this Article we are to reject the Authority of an Angell from heaven much more of any mortall man if he teach the contrary This is therefore the Fundamentall Article of Christian Faith A third place is 1 Joh. 4. 1. Beloved beleâ—…ve not every spirit Hereby yee shall know the Spirit of God every spirit that confesseth that Iesus Christ is come in the flâ—…sh is of God By which it is evident that this Article is the measure and rule by which to estimate and examine all other Articles and is therefore onely Fundamentall A fourth is Matt. 16. 18. where after St. Peter had professed this Article saying to our Saviour Thou art Christ the Son of the living God Our Saviour answered Thou art Peter and upon this Rock I will build my Church from whence I inferre that this Article is that on which all other Doctrines of the Church are built as on their Foundation A fift is 1 Cor. 3. ver 11 12 c. Other Foundation can no man lay than that which is laid Jesus is the Christ. Now if any man build upon this Foundation Gold Silver pretious Stones Wood Hay Stubble Every mans work shall be made manifest For the Day shall declare it because it shall be revealed by fire and the fire shall try every mans work of what sort it is If any mans work abide which he hath built thereupon he shall receive a reward If any mans work shall bee burnt he shall suffer losse but he himself shall be saved yet so as by fire Which words being partly plain and easie to understand and partly allegoricall and difficult out of that which is plain may be inferred that Pastors that teach this Foundation that Jesus is the Christ though they draw from it false consequences which all men are sometimes subject to they may neverthelesse bee saved much more that they may bee saved who being no Pastors but Hearers beleeve that which is by their lawfull Pastors taught them Therefore the beleef of this Article is sufficient and by consequence there is no other Article of Faith Necessarily required to Salvation Now for the part which is Allegoricall as That the fire shall try every mans work and that They shall be saved but so as by fire or through fire for the originall is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it maketh nothing against this conclusion which I have drawn from the other words that are plain Neverthelesse because upon this place there hath been an argument taken to prove the fire of Purgatory I will also here offer you my conjecture concerning the meaning of this triall of Doctrines and saving of men as by Fire The Apostle here seemeth to allude to the words of the Prophet Zachary Ch. 13. 8 9. who speaking of the Restauration of the Kingdome of God saith thus Two parts therein shall be cut off and die but the third shall be left therein And I will bring the third part through the Fire and will refine them as Silver is refined and will try them as Gold is tryed they shall call on the name of the Lord and I will hear them The day of Judgment is the day of the Restauration of the Kingdome of God and at that day it is that St. Peter tells us * shall be the Conflagration of the world wherein the wicked shall perish but the remnant which God will save shall passe through that Fire unhurt and be therein as Silver and Gold are refined by the fire from their drosse tryed and refined from their Idolatry and be made to call upon the name of the true God Alluding whereto St. Paul here saith That the Day that is the Day of Judgment the Great Day of our Saviours comming to restore the Kingdome of God in Israel shall try every mans doctrine by Judging which are Gold Silver Pretious Stones Wood Hay Stubble And then they that have built false Consequences on the true Foundation shall see their Doctrines condemned neverthelesse they themselves shall be saved and passe unhurt through this universall Fire and live eternally to call upon the name of the true and onely God In which sense there is nothing that accordeth not with the rest of Holy Scripture or any glimpse of the fire of Purgatory But a man may here aske whether it bee not as necessary to Salvation to beleeve that God is Omnipotent Creator of the world that Jesus Christ is risen and that all men else shall rise again from the dead at the last day as to beleeve that Jesus is the Christ. To which I answer they are and so are many more Articles but they are such as are contained in this one and may be deduced from it with more or lesse difficulty For who is there that does not see that they who beleeve Jesus to be the Son of the God of Israel and that the Israelites had for God the Omnipotent Creator of all things doe therein also beleeve that God is the Omnipotent Creator of all things Or how can a man beleeve that Jesus is the King that shall reign eternally unlesse hee beleeve him also risen again from the dead For a dead man cannot exercise the Office of a King In summe he that holdeth this Foundation Jesus is the Christ holdeth Expressely all that hee seeth rightly deduced from it and Implicitely all that is consequent thereunto though he have not skill enough to discern the consequence And therefore it holdeth still good that the beleef of this one Article is sufficient faith to obtaine remission of sinnes to the Penitent and consequently to bring them into the Kingdome of Heaven Now that I have shewn that all the Obedience required to Salvation consisteth in the will to obey the Law of God that is to say in Repentance and all the Faith required to the same is comprehended in the beleef of this Article Jesus is the Christ I will further alledge those places of the Gospell that prove that all that is Necessary to Salvation is contained in both these joined together The men to whom St. Peter preached on the day of Pentecost next after the Ascension of our Saviour asked him and the rest of the Apostles saying Act. 2. 37. Men and Brethren what shall we doe To whom St. Peter answered in the next verse Repent and be Baptized every one of you for the remission of sins and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost Therefore Repentance and Baptisme that is beleeving that Jesus is the Christ is all that is Necessary to Salvation Again our Saviour being asked by a certain Ruler Luke 18. 18. What shall I doe to inherite eternall life Answered verse 20. Thou knowest the Commandements Doe not commit
Adultery Doe not Kill Doe not Steal Doe not bear false witnesse Honor thy Father and thy Mother which when he said he had observed our Saviour added Sell all thou hast give it to the Poor and come and follow me which was as much as to say Relye on me that am the King Therefore to fulfill the Law and to beleeve that Jesus is the King is all that is required to bring a man to eternall life Thirdly St. Paul saith Rom. 1. 17. The Just shall live by Faith not every one but the Just therefore Faith and Justice that is the will to be Just or Repentance are all that is Necessary to life eternall And Mark 1. 15. our Saviour preached saying The time is fulfilled and the Kingdom of God is at hand Repent and Beleeve the Evangile that is the Good news that the Christ was come Therefore to Repent and to Beleeve that Jesus is the Christ is all that is required to Salvation Seeing then it is Necessary that Faith and Obedience implyed in the word Repentance do both concurre to our Salvation the question by which of the two we are Justified is impertinently disputed Neverthelesse it will not be impertinent to make manifest in what manner each of them contributes thereunto and in what sense it is said that we are to be Justified by the one and by the other And first if by Righteousnesse be understood the Justice of the Works themselves there is no man that can be saved for there is none that hath not transgressed the Law of God And therefore when wee are said to be Justified by Works it is to be understood of the Will which God doth alwaies accept for the Work it selfe as well in good as in evill men And in this sense onely it is that a man is callod Iust or Vnjust and that his Justice Justifies him that is gives him the title in Gods acceptation of Just and renders him capable of living by his Faith which before he was not So that Justice Justifies in that sense in which to Justifie is the same that to Denominate a man Iust and not in the signification of discharging the Law whereby the punishment of his sins should be unjust But a man is then also said to be Justified when his Plea though in it selfe unsufficient is accepted as when we Plead our Will our Endeavour to fulfill the Law and Repent us of our failings and God accepteth it for the Performance it selfe And because God accepteth not the Will for the Deed but onely in the Faithfull it is therefore Faith that makes good our Plea and in this sense it is that Faith onely Justifies So that Faith and Obedience are both Necessary to Salvation yet in severall senses each of them is said to Justifie Having thus shewn what is Necessary to Salvation it is not hard to reconcile our Obedience to God with our Obedience to the Civill Soveraign who is either Christian or Infidel If he bee a Christian he alloweth the beleefe of this Article that Iesus is the Christ and of all the Articles that are contained in or are by evident consequence deduced from it which is all the Faith Necessary to Salvation And because he is a Soveraign he requireth Obedience to all his owne that is to all the Civill Laws in which also are contained all the Laws of Nature that is all the Laws of God for besides the Laws of Nature and the Laws of the Church which are part of the Civill Law for the Church that can make Laws is the Common-wealth there bee no other Laws Divine Whosoever therefore obeyeth his Christian Soveraign is not thereby hindred neither from beleeving nor from obeying God But suppose that a Christian King should from this Foundation Iesus is the Christ draw some false consequences that is to say make some superstructions of Hay or Stubble and command the teaching of the same yet seeing St. Paul says he shal be saved much more shall he be saved that teacheth them by his command and much more yet he that teaches not but onely beleeves his lawfull Teacher And in case a Subject be forbidden by the Civill Soveraign to professe some of those his opinions upon what just ground can he disobey Christian Kings may erre in deducing a Consequence but who shall Judge Shall a private man Judge when the question is of his own obedience or shall any man Judg but he that is appointed thereto by the Church that is by the Civill Soveraign that representeth it or if the Pope or an Apostle Judge may he not erre in deducing of a consequence did not one of the two St. Peter or St. Paul erre in a superstructure when St. Paul withstood St. Peter to his face There can therefore be no contradiction between the Laws of God and the Laws of a Christian Common-wealth And when the Civill Soveraign is an Infidel every one of his own Subjects that resisteth him sinneth against the Laws of God for such as are the Laws of Nature and rejecteth the counsell of the Apostles that admonisheth all Christians to obey their Princes and all Children and Servants to obey their Parents and Masters in all things And for their Faith it is internall and invisible They have the licence that Naaman had and need not put themselves into danger for it But if they do they ought to expect their reward in Heaven and not complain of their Lawfull Soveraign much lesse make warre upon him For he that is not glad of any just occasion of Martyrdome has not the faith he professeth but pretends it onely to set some colour upon his own contumacy But what Infidel King is so unreasonable as knowing he has a Subject that waiteth for the second comming of Christ after the present world shall bee burnt and intendeth then to obey him which is the intent of beleeving that Iesus is the Christ and in the mean time thinketh himself bound to obey the Laws of that Infidel King which all Christians are obliged in conscience to doe to put to death or to persecute such a Subject And thus much shall suffice concerning the Kingdome of God and Policy Ecclesiasticall Wherein I pretend not to advance any Position of my own but onely to shew what are the Consequences that seem to me deducible from the Principles of Christian Politiques which are the holy Scriptures in confirmation of the Power of Civill Soveraigns and the Duty of their Subjects And in the allegation of Scripture I have endeavoured to avoid such texts as are of obscure or controverted Interpretation and to alledge none but in such sense as is most plain and agreeable to the harmony and scope of the whole Bible which was written for the re-establishment of the Kingdome of God in Christ. For it is not the bare Words but the Scope of the writer that giveth the true light by which any writing is to bee interpreted and they that insist upon
of them if there had appeared in their Rods nothing like a Serpent and in the Water enchanted nothing like Bloud nor like any thing else but Water but that they had faced down the King that they were Serpents that looked like Rods and that it was Bloud that seemed Water That had been both Enchantment and Lying And yet in this daily act of the Priest they doe the very same by turning the holy words into the manner of a Charme which produceth nothing new to the Sense but they face us down that it hath turned the Bread into a Man nay more into a God and require men to worship it as if it were our Saviour himself present God and Man and thereby to commit most grosse Idolatry For if it bee enough to excuse it of Idolatry to say it is no more Bread but God why should not the same excuse serve the Egyptians in case they had the faces to say the Leeks and Onyons they worshipped were not very Leeks and Onyons but a Divinity under their species or likenesse The words This is my Body are aequivalent to these This signifies or represents my Body and it is an ordinary figure of Speech but to take it literally is an abuse nor though so taken can it extend any further than to the Bread which Christ himself with his own hands Consecrated For hee never said that of what Bread soever any Priest whatsoever should say This is my Body or This is Christs Body the same should presently be transubstantiated Nor did the Church of Rome ever establish this Transubstantiation till the time of Innocent the third which was not above 500. years agoe when the Power of Popes was at the Highest and the Darknesse of the time grown so great as men discerned not the Bread that was given them to eat especially when it was stamped with the figure of Christ upon the Crosse as if they would have men beleeve it were Transubstantiated not onely into the Body of Christ but also into the Wood of his Crosse and that they did eat both together in the Sacrament The like Incantation in stead of Consecration is used also in the Sacrament of Baptisme Where the abuse of Gods name in each severall Person and in the whole Trinity with the sign of the Crosse at each name maketh up the Charm As first when they make the Holy water the Priest saith I Conjure thee thou Creature of Water in the name of God the Father Almighty and in the name of Iesus Christ his onely Son our Lord and in vertue of the Holy Ghost that thou become Conjured water to drive away all the Powers of the Enemy and to eradicate and supplant the Enemy c. And the same in the Benediction of the Salt to be mingled with it That thou become Conjured Salt that all Phantasmes and Knavery of the Devills fraud may fly and depart from the place wherein thou art sprinkled and every unclean Spirit bee Conjured by Him that shall come to judg the quicke and the dead The same in the Benediction of the Oyle That all the Power of the Enemy all the Host of the Devill all Assaults and Phantasmes of Satan may be driven away by this Creature of Oyle And for the Infant that is to be Baptized he is subject to many Charms First at the Church dore the Priest blows thrice in the Childs face and sayes Goe out of him unclean Spirit and give place to the Holy Ghost the Comforter As if all Children till blown on by the Priest were Daemoniaques Again before his entrance into the Church he saith as before I Conjure thee c. to goe out and depart from this Servant of God And again the same Exorcisme is repeated once more before he be Baptized These and some other Incantations are those that are used in stead of Benedictions and Consecrations in administration of the Sacraments of Baptisme and the Lords Supper wherein every thing that serveth to those holy uses except the unhallowed Spittle of the Priest hath some set form of Exorcisme Nor are the other rites as of Marriage of Extreme Unction of Visitation of the Sick of Consecrating Churches and Church-yards and the like exempt from Charms in as much as there is in them the use of Enchanted Oyle and Water with the abuse of the Crosse and of the holy word of David Asperges me Domine Hyssopo as things of efficacy to drive away Phantasmes and Imaginary Spirits Another generall Error is from the Misinterpretation of the words Eternall Life Everlasting Death and the Second Death For though we read plainly in holy Scripture that God created Adam in an estate of Living for Ever which was conditionall that is to say if he disobeyed not his Commandement which was not essentiall to Humane Nature but consequent to the vertue of the Tree of Life whereof hee had liberty to eat as long as hee had not sinned and that hee was thrust out of Paradise after he had sinned lest hee should eate thereof and live for ever and that Christs Passion is a Discharge of sin to all that beleeve on him and by consequence a restitution of Eternall Life to all the Faithfull and to them onely yet the Doctrine is now and hath been a long time far otherwise namely that every man hath Eternity of Life by Nature in as much as his Soul is Immortall So that the flaming Sword at the entrance of Paradise though it hinder a man from coming to the Tree of Life hinders him not from the Immortality which God took from him for his Sin nor makes him to need the sacrificing of Christ for the recovering of the same and consequently not onely the faithfull and righteous but also the wicked and the Heathen shall enjoy Eternall Life without any Death at all much lesse a Second and Everlasting Death To salve this it is said that by Second and Everlasting Death is meant a Second and Everlasting Life but in Torments a Figure never used but in this very Case All which Doctrine is founded onely on some of the obscurer places of the New Testament which neverthelesse the whole scope of the Scripture considered are cleer enough in a different sense and unnecessary to the Christian Faith For supposing that when a man dies there remaineth nothing of him but his carkasse cannot God that raised inanimated dust and clay into a living creature by his Word as easily raise a dead carkasse to life again and continue him alive for Ever or make him die again by another Word The Soule in Scripture signifieth alwaies either the Life or the Living Creature and the Body and Soule jointly the Body alive In the fift day of the Creation God said Let the waters produce Reptile animae viventis the creeping thing that hath in it a Living Soule the English translate it that hath Life And again God created Whales omnem animam viventem which in the English is
the Falling Sicknesse or that spoke any thing which they for want of understanding thought absurd As also of an Unclean person in a notorious degree they used to say he had an Unclean Spirit of a Dumbe man that he had a Dumbe Devill and of Iohn Baptist Math. 11. 18. for the singularity of his fasting that he had a Devill and of our Saviour because he said hee that keepeth his sayings should not see Death in aeternum Now we know thou hast a Devill Abraham is dead and the Prophets are dead And again because he said Iohn 7. 20. They went about to kill him the people answered Thou hast a Devill who goeth about to kill thee Whereby it is manifest that the Jewes had the same opinions concerning Phantasmes namely that they were not Phantasmes that is Idols of the braine but things reall and independent on the Fancy Which doctrine if it be not true why may some say did not our Saviour contradict it and teach the contrary nay why does he use on diverse occasions such forms of speech as seem to confirm it To this I answer that first where Christ saith A spirit hath not flesh and bone though hee shew that there be Spirits yet hee denies not that they are Bodies And where St. Paul saies We shall rise spirituall Bodies he acknowledgeth the nature of Spirits but that they are Bodily Spirits which is not difficult to understand For Air and many other things are Bodies though not Flesh and Bone or any other grosse body to bee discerned by the eye But when our Saviour speaketh to the Devill and commandeth him to go out of a man if by the Devill be meant a Disease as Phrenesy or Lunacy or a corporeal Spirit is not the speech improper can Diseases heare or can there be a corporeall Spirit in a Body of Flesh and Bone full already of vitall and animall Spirits Are there not therefore Spirits that neither have Bodies nor are meer Imaginations To the first I answer that the addressing of our Saviours command to the Madnesse or Lunacy he cureth is no more improper than was his rebuking of the Fever or of the Wind and Sea for neither do these hear Or than was the command of God to the Light to the Firmament to the Sunne and Starres when he commanded them to bee for they could not heare before they had a beeing But those speeches are not improper because they signifie the power of Gods Word no more therefore is it improper to command Madnesse or Lunacy under the appellation of Devils by which they were then commonly understood to depart out of a mans body To the second concerning their being Incorporeall I have not yet observed any place of Scripture from whence it can be gathered that any man was ever possessed with any other Corporeall Spirit but that of his owne by which his body is naturally moved Our Saviour immediately after the Holy Ghost descended upon him in the form of a Dove is said by St. Matthew Chapt. 4. 1. to have been led up by the Spirit into the Wildernesse and the same is recited Luke 4. 1. in these words Iesus being full of the Holy Ghost was led in the Spirit into the Wildernesse Whereby it is evident that by Spirit there is meant the Holy Ghost This cannot be interpreted for a Possession For Christ and the Holy Ghost are but one and the same substance which is no possession of one substance or body by another And whereas in the verses following he is said to have been taken up by the Devill into the Holy City and set upon a pinnacle of the Temple shall we conclude thence that hee was possessed of the Devill or carryed thither by violence And again carryed thence by the Devill into an exceeding high mountain who shewed him thence all the Kingdomes of the world Wherein wee are not to beleeve he was either possessed or forced by the Devill nor that any Mountaine is high enough according to the literall sense to shew him one whole Hemisphere What then can be the meaning of this place other than that he went of himself into the Wildernesse and that this carrying of him up and down from the Wildernesse to the City and from thence into a Mountain was a Vision Conformable whereunto is also the phrase of St. Luke that hee was led into the Wildernesse not by but in the Spirit whereas concerning His being Taken up into the Mountaine and unto the Pinnacle of the Temple hee speaketh as St. Matthew doth Which suiteth with the nature of a Vision Again where St. Luke sayes of Judas Iscariot that Satan entred into him and thereupon that he went and communed with the Chief Priests and Captaines how he might betray Christ unto them it may be answered that by the Entring of Satan that is the Enemy into him is meant the hostile and traiterours intention of selling his Lord and Master For as by the Holy Ghost is frequently in Scripture understood the Graces and good Inclinations given by the Holy Ghost so by the Entring of Satan may bee understood the wicked Cogitations and Designes of the Adversaries of Christ and his Disciples For as it is hard to say that the Devill was entred into Judas before he had any such hostile designe so it is impertinent to say he was first Christs Enemy in his heart and that the Devill entred into him afterwards Therefore the Entring of Satan and his Wicked Purpose was one and the same thing But if there be no Immateriall Spirit nor any Possession of mens bodies by any Spirit Corporeall it may again be asked why our Saviour and his Apostles did not teach the People so and in such cleer words as they might no more doubt thereof But such questions as these are more curious than necessary for a Christian mans Salvation Men may as well aske why Christ that could have given to all men Faith Piety and all manner of morall Vertues gave it to some onely and not to all and why he left the search of naturall Causes and Sciences to the naturall Reason and Industry of men and did not reveal it to all or any man supernaturally and many other such questions Of which neverthelesse there may be alledged probable and pious reasons For as God when he brought the Israelites into the Land of Promise did not secure them therein by subduing all the Nations round about them but left many of them as thornes in their sides to awaken from time to time their Piety and Industry so our Saviour in conducting us toward his heavenly Kingdome did not destroy all the difficulties of Naturall Questions but left them to exercise our Industry and Reason the Scope of his preaching being onely to shew us this plain and direct way to Salvation namely the beleef of this Article that he was the Christ the Son of the living God sent into the world to sacrifice himselfe for our Sins and
Examples of Impunity Extenuate Praemeditation Aggravateth Tacite approbation of the Soveraign Extenuates Comparison of Crimes from their Effects Laesa Majestas Bribery and False testimony Depeculation Counterfeiting Authority Crimes against private men compared Publique Crimes what The definition of Punishment Right to Punish whence derived Private injuries and revenges no Punishments Nor denyall of preferment Nor pain inflicted without publique hearing Nor pain inflicted by Usurped power Nor pain inflicted without respect to to the future good Naturall evill consequences no Punishments Hurt inflicted if lesse than the benefit of transgressing is not Punishment Where the Punishment is annexed to the Law a greater hurt is not Punishment but 〈◊〉 Hurt inflicted for a fact done before the Law no Punishment The Representative of the Common-wealth Unpunishable Hurt to Revolted Subjects is done by right of War not by way of Punishment Punishments Corporall Capitall Ignominy Imprisonment Exile The Punishment of Innocent Subjects is contrary to the Law of Nature But the Harme done to Innocents in War not so Nor that which is done to declared Rebels Reward is either Salary or Grace Benefits bestowed for fear are not Rewards Salaries Certain and Casuall Dissolution of Common-wealths proceedeth from their Imperfect Institution Want of Absolute power Private Judgement of Good and Evill Erroneous conscience Pretence of Inspiration Subjecting the Soveraign Power to Civill Lawes Attributing of absolute Propriâ—…ty to 〈◊〉 Dividing of the Soveraign Power Imitatioâ—… of Neighbour Natiouâ—… Imitation of the Greâ—…ks and Romans Mixt Government Want of Mony Monopolies and abuses of Publicans Popular men Excessive greatnesse of a â—…own multitude of Corporations Liberty of disputing against Soveraign Power Dissolution of the Common-wealth The Procuration of the Good of the People By Instrâ—…ction Lawes Against the duty of a Soveraign to relinquish any Essentiall Right of Soveraignty Or not to seâ—… the people taught the grounds of them Objection of those that say there are no Principles of Reason for absolute Soveraigâ—…ty Objection from the Incapacity of the vulgar Subjects are to be taught not to affect change of Government Nor adhere against the Soveraign to Popular men Nor to Dispute the Soveraign Power And to have dayes set apart to learn their Duty And to Honour their Parents And to avoyd doing of Injury And to do all this sincerely from the heart The use of Uâ—…iversities Equall â—…xes Publique Charity 〈◊〉 of Idlenesse Goâ—… Laweâ—… whâ—…t Such as are Necessary Such as are Perspicuous Punishments Rewards Counsellours Commanders The scope of the following Chapters Psal. 96 1. Psal. 98. 1. Who are subjects in the kingdome of God A Threefold Word of God Reason Revelation Prophâ—…y A twofold Kingdome of God Naturall and Prophetique The Right of Gods Soveraignty is derived from his Omnipotence Sinne not the cause of all Affliction Psal. 72. ver 1 2 3. Job 38. v. 4. Divine Lawes Honour and Worship what Severall signes of Honour Worship Naturall and Arbitrary Worship Commanded and Free Worship Publique and Private The End of Worship Attributes of Divine Honour Actions that are signes of Divine Honour Publique Worship consisteth in Uniformity All Attributes depend on the Lawes Civill Not all Actions Naturall Punishments The Conclusion of the Second Part. The Word of God delivered by Prophets is the mainprinciple of Christian Politiques Yet is not naturall Reason to be renounced What it is to captivate the Understanding How God speaketh to men By what marks Prophets are known 1 Kings 22. 1 Kings 13. Deut. 13. v. 1 2 3 4 5. Mat. 24. 24. Gal. 1. 8. The marks of a Prophet in the old law Miracles and Doctrin conformable to the law Miracles ceasing Prophets cease and the Scripture supplies their place Of the Books of Holy Scripture Their Antiquity The Pentaâ—… not written by Moses Deut. 31. 9. Deut. 31. 26. 2 King 22. 8. 23. 1 2 3. The Book of Joshua written after his time Josh. 4. 9. Josh. 5. 9. Josh. 7. 26. The Booke of Judges and Ruth written long after the Captivity The like of the Bookes of Samuel 2 Sam. 6. 4. The Books of the Kings and the Chronicles Ezra and Nehemiah Esther Job The Psalter The Proverbs Ecclesiastes and the Canticles The Prophets The New Testament Their Scope The question of the Authority of the Scriptures stated Their Authority and Interpretation Body and Spirit how taken in the Scripture The Spirit of God taken in the Scripture sometimes for a Wind or Breath Secondly for extraordinary gifts of the Vnderstanding Thirdly for extraordinary Affections Fourthly for the gift of Prediction by Dreams and Visions Fifâ—…ly for Life Sixtly for a subordination to authority Seventhly for Aeriall Bodies Angel what Inspiration what The Kingdom of God taken by Divines Metaphorically but in the Scriptures properly The originall of the Kingdome of God That the Kingdome of God is properly his Civill Soveraignty over a peculiar people by pact Holy what Sacred what Degrees of Sanctity Sacrament Word what The words spoken by God and concerning God both are called God 's Word in Scripture 1 Tim. 4. 1. The Word of God metaphorically used first for the Decrees and Power of God Secondly for the effect of his Word Acts 1. 4. Luke 24. 49. Thirdly for the words of reason and equity Divers acceptions of the word Prophet Praediction of future contingents not alwaies Prophecy The manner how God hath spoken to the Prophets To the Extraordinary Prophets of the Old Testament he spake by Dreams or Visions To Prophets of perpetuall Calling and Supreme God spake in the Old Testament from the Mercy Seat in a manner not expressed in the Scripture To Prophets of perpetuall Calling but subordinate God spake by the Spirit â—…od sometimes also spake by Lots Every man ought to examine the probability of a pretended Prophets Calling All prophecy but of the Soveraign Prophet is to be examined by every Subject A Miracle is a work that causeth Admiration And must therefore be rare and whereof there is no naturall cause known That which seemeth a Miracle to one man may seem otherwise to another The End of Miracles Exo. 4. 1 c. The definition of a Miracle Exod. 7. 11. Exod. 7. 22. Exod. 8. 7. That men are apt to be deceived by false Miracles Cautions against the Imposture of Miracles The place of Adams Eternity if he had not sinned had been the terrestiall Paradise Gen. 3. 22. Texts concerning the place of Life Eternall for Beleevers Ascension into heaven The place after Judgment of those who were never in the Kingdome of God 〈◊〉 having been in are cast out Tartarus The congregation of Giants Lake of Fire Vtter Darknesse Gehenna and Tophet Of the literall sense of the Scripture concerning Hell Satan Devill not Proper names but Appellatives Torments of Hell Apoc. 20. 13 14. The Joyes of Life Eternall and Salvation the same thing Salvation from Sin and from Misery all one The Place of Eternall Salvation 2 Pet. 2. 5. 2 Pet. 3. 13.