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.
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
a man should say an Incorporeall Body But in the sense of cōmon people not all the Universe is called Body but only such parts thereof as they can discern by the sense of Feeling to resist their force or by the sense of their Eyes to hinder them from a farther prospect Therefore in the common language of men Aire and aeriall substances use not to be taken for Bodies but as often as men are sensible of their effects are called Wind or Breath or because the same are called in the Latine Spiritus Spirits as when they call that aeriall substance which in the body of any living creature gives it life and motion Vitall and Animall spirits But for those Idols of the brain which represent Bodies to us where they are not as in a Looking-glasse in a Dream or to a Distempered brain waking they are as the Apostle saith generally of all Idols nothing Nothing at all I say there where they seem to be◅ and in the brain it self nothing but tumult proceeding either from the action of the objects or from the disorderly agitation of the Organs of our Sense And men that are otherwise imployed then to search into their causes know not of themselves what to call them and may therefore easily be perswaded by those whose knowledge they much reverence some to call them Bodies and think them made of aire compacted by a power supernaturall because the sight judges them corporeall and some to call them Spirits because the sense of Touch discerneth nothing in the place where they appear to resist their fingers So that the proper signification of Spirit in common speech is either a subtile fluid and invisible Body or a Ghost or other Idol or Phantasme of the Imagination But for metaphoricall significations there be many for sometimes it is taken for Disposition or Inclination of the mind as when for the disposition to controwl the sayings of other men we say a spirit of contradiction For a disposition to uncleannesse an unclean spirit for perversenesse a froward spirit for sullennesse a dumb spirit and for inclination to godlinesse and Gods service the Spirit of God sometimes for any eminent ability or extraordinary passion or disease of the mind as when great wisdome is called the spirit of wisdome and mad men are said to be possessed with a spirit Other signification of Spirit I find no where any and where none of these can satisfie the sense of that word in Scripture the place falleth not under humane Understanding and our Faith therein consisteth not in our Opinion but in our Submission as in all places where God is said to be a Spirit or where by the Spirit of God is meant God himselfe For the nature of God is incomprehensible that is to say we understand nothing of what he is but only that he is and therefore the Attributes we give him are not to tell one another what he is nor to signifie our opinion of his Nature but our desire to honor him with such names as we conceiv◅ most honorable amongst our selves Gen. 1. 2. The Spirit of God moved upon the face of the Waters Here if by the Spirit of God be meant God himself then is Motion attributed to God and consequently Place which are intelligible only of Bodies and not of substances incorporeall and so the place is above our understanding that can conceive nothing moved that changes not place or that has not dimension and whatsoever has dimension is Body But the meaning of those words is best understood by the like place Gen. 8. 1. Where when the earth was covered with Waters as in the beginning God intending to abate them and again to discover the dry land useth the like words I will bring my Spirit upon the Earth and the waters shall be diminished in which place by Spirit is understood a Wind that is an Aire or Spirit moved which might be called as in the former place the Spirit of God because it was Gods work Gen. 41. 38. Pharaoh calleth the Wisdome of Joseph the Spirit of God For Joseph having advised him to look out a wise and discreet man and to set him over the land of Egypt he saith thus Can we find such a man as this is in whom is the Spirit of God And Exod. 28. 3. Thou shalt speak saith God to all that are wise hearted whom I have filled with the Spirit of VVisdome to make Aaron Garments to consecrate him Where extraordinary Understanding though but in making Garments as being the Gift of God is called the Spirit of God The same is found again Exod. 31. 3 4 5 6. and 35. 31. And Isaiah 11. 2 3. where the Prophet speaking of the Messiah saith The Spirit of the Lord shall abide upon him the Spirit of wisdome and understanding the Spirit of counsell and fortitude and the Spirit of the fear of the Lord. Where manifestly is meant not so many Ghosts but so many eminent graces that God would give him In the Book of Judges an extraordinary Zeal and Courage in the the defence of Gods people is called the Spirit of God as when it excited Othoniel Gideon Jephtha and Samson to deliver them from servitude Judg. 3. 10. 6. 34. 11. 29. 13. 25. 14. 6 19. And of Saul upon the newes of the insolence of the Ammonites towards the men of Jabesh Gilead it is said 1 Sam. 11. 6. that The Spirit of God came upon Saul and his Anger or as it is in the Latine his Fury was kindled greatly Where it is not probable was meant a Ghost but an extraordinary Zeal to punish the cruelty of the Ammonites In like manner by the Spirit of God that came upon Saul when hee was amongst the Prophets that praised God in Songs and Musick 1 Sam. 19. 20. is to be understood not a Ghost but an unexpected and sudden Zeal to join with them in their devotion The false Prophet Zedekiah saith to Micaiah 1 Kings 22. 24. Which way went the Spirit of the Lord from me to speak to thee Which cannot be understood of a Ghost for Micaiah declared before the Kings of Israel and Judah the event of the battle as from a Vision and not as from a Spirit speaking in him In the same manner it appeareth in the Books of the Prophets that though they spake by the Spirit of God that is to say by a speciall grace of Prediction yet their knowledge of the future was not by a Ghost within them but by some supernaturall Dream or Vision Gen. 2. 7. It is said God made man of the dust of the Earth and breathed into his nostrills spiraculum vitae the breath of life and man was made a living soul. There the breath of life inspired by God signifies no more but that God gave him life And Job 27. 3. as long as the Spirit of God is in my nostrils is no more then to say as long as I live So
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
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
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
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
Vision or Dream Nor is there any thing in his Law Morall or Ceremoniall by which they were taught there was any such Enthusiasme or any Possession When God is sayd Numb 11. 25. to take from the Spirit that was in Moses and give to the 70. Elders the Spirit of God taking it for the substance of God is not divided The Scriptures by the Spirit of God in man mean a mans spirit enclined to Godlinesse And where it is said Exod. 28. 3. Whom I have filled with the spirit of wisdome to make garments for Aaron is not meant a spirit put into them that can make garments but the wisdome of their own spirits in that kind of work In the like sense the spirit of man when it produceth unclean actions is ordinarily called an unclean spirit and so other spirits though not alwayes yet as often as the vertue or vice so stiled is extraordinary and Eminent Neither did the other Prophets of the old Testament pretend Enthusiasme or that God spake in them but to them by Voyce Vision or Dream and the Burthen of the Lord was not Possession but Command How then could the Jewes fall into this opinion of possession I can imagine no reason but that which is common to all men namely the want of curiosity to search naturall causes and their placing Felicity in the acquisition of the grosse pleasures of the Senses and the things that most immediately conduce thereto For they that see any strange and unusuall ability or defect in a mans mind unlesse they see withall from what cause it may probably proceed can hardly think it naturall and if not naturall they must needs thinke it supernaturall and then what can it be but that either God or the Divell is in him And hence it came to passe when our Saviour Mark 3. 21. was compassed about with the multitude those of the house doubted he was mad and went out to hold him but the Scribes said he had Belzebub and that was it by which he cast out divels as if the greater mad-man had awed the lesser And that John 10. 20. some said He hath a Divell and is mad whereas others holding him for a Prophet sayd These are not the words of one that hath a Divell So in the old Testament he that came to anoynt Jehu 2 Kings 9. 11. was a Prophet but some of the company asked Jehu What came that mad-man for So that in summe it is manifest that whosoever behaved himselfe in extraordinory manner was thought by the Jewes to be possessed either with a good or evill spirit except by the Sadduces who erred so farre on the other hand as not to believe there were at all any spirits which is very neere to direct Atheisme and thereby perhaps the more provoked others to terme such men Daemoniacks rather than mad-men But why then does our Saviour proceed in the curing of them as if they were possest and not as if they were mad To which I can give no other kind of answer but that which is given to those that urge the Scripture in like manner against the opinion of the motion of the Earth The Scripture was written to shew unto men the kingdome of God and to prepare their mindes to become his obedient subjects leaving the world and the Philosophy thereof to the disputation of men for the exercising of their naturall Reason Whether the Earths or Suns motion make the day and night or whether the Exorbitant actions of men proceed from Passion or from the Divell so we worship him not it is all one as to our obedience and subjection to God Almighty which is the thing for which the Scripture was written As for that our Saviour speaketh to the disease as to a person it is the usuall phrase of all that cure by words onely as Christ did and Inchanters pretend to do whether they speak to a Divel or not For is not Christ also said Math. 8. 26. to have rebuked the winds Is not he said also Luk. 4. 39. to rebuke a Fever Yet this does not argue that a Fever is a Divel And whereas many of those Divels are said to confesse Christ it is not necessary to interpret those places otherwise than that those mad-men confessed him And whereas our Saviour Math. 12. 43. speaketh of an unclean Spirit that having gone out of a man wandreth through dry places seeking rest and finding none and returning into the same man with seven other spirits worse than himselfe It is manifestly a Parable alluding to a man that after a little endeavour to quit his lusts is vanquished by the strength of them and becomes seven times worse than he was So that I see nothing at all in the Scripture that requireth a beliefe that Daemoniacks were any other thing but Mad-men There is yet another fault in the Discourses of some men which may also be numbred amongst the sorts of Madnesse namely that abuse of words whereof I have spoken before in the fifth chapter by the Name of Absurdity And that is when men speak such words as put together have in them no signification at all but are fallen upon by some through misunderstanding of the words they have received and repeat by rote by others from intention to deceive by obscurity And this is incident to none but those that converse in questions of matters incomprehensible as the Schoole-men or in questions of abstruse Philosophy The common sort of men seldome speak Insignificantly and are therefore by those other Egregious persons counted Idiots But to be assured their words are without any thing correspondent to them in the mind there would need some Examples which if any man require let him take a Schooleman into his hands and see if he can translate any one chapter concerning any difficult point as the Trinity the Deity the nature of Christ Transubstantiation Free-will c. into any of the moderne tongues so as to make the same intelligible or into any tolerable Latine such as they were acquainted withall that lived when the Latine tongue was Vulgar What is the meaning of these words The first cause does not necessarily inflow any thing into the second by force of the Essentiall subordination of the second causes by Which it may help it to worke They are the Translation of the Title of the sixth chapter of Suarez first Booke Of the Concourse Motion and Help of God When men write whole volumes of such stuffe are they not Mad or intend to make others so And particularly in the question of Transubstantiation where after certain words spoken they that say the White nesse Round nesse Magnitude Quality Corruptibility all which are incorporeall c. go out of the Wafer into the Body of our blessed Saviour do they not make those Nessles Tudes and Ties to be so many spirits possessing his body For by Spirits they mean alwayes things that being incorporeall are neverthelesse moveable from one place to another So
in Ezek. 1. 20. the Spirit of life was in the wheels is equivalent to the wheels were alive And Ezek. 2. 30. the Spirit entred into me and set me on my feet that is I recovered my vitall strength not that any Ghost or incorporeall substance entred into and possessed his body In the 11 chap. of Numbers verse 17. I will take saith God of the Spirit which is upon thee and will put it upon them and they shall bear the burthen of the people with thee that is upon the seventy Elders whereupon two of the seventy are said to prophecy in the campe of whom some complained and Joshua desired Moses to forbid them which Moses would not doe Whereby it appears that Joshua knew not they had received authority so to do and prophecyed according to the mind of Moses that is to say by a Spirit or Authority subordinate to his own In the like sense we read Deut. 34. 9. that Joshua was full of the Spirit of wisdome because Moses had laid his hands upon him that is because he was ordained by Moses to prosecute the work hee had himselfe begun namely the bringing of Gods peoplâ—… into the promised land but prevented by death could not finish In the like sense it is said Rom. 8. 9. If any man have not the Spirit of Christ he is none of his not meaning thereby the Ghost of Christ but a submission to his Doctrine As also 1 John 4. 2. Hereby you shall know the Spirit of God Every Spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flâ—…sh is of God by which is meant the Spirit of unfained Christianity or submission to that main Article of Christian faith that Jesus is the Christ which cannot be interpreted of a Ghost Likewise these words Luke 4. 1. And Jesus full of the Holy Ghost that is as it is exprest Mat. 4. 1. and Mar. 1. 12. of the Holy Spirit may be understood for Zeal to doe the work for which heâ—… was sent by God the Father but to interpret it of a Ghost is to say that God himselfe for so our Saviour was was filled with God which is very unproper and unsignificant How we came to translate Spirits by the word Ghosts which signifieth nothing neither in heaven nor earth but the Imaginary inhabitants of mans brain I examine not but this I say the word Spirit in the text signifieth no such thing but either properly a reall substance or Metaphorically some extraordinary ability or affection of the Mind or of the Body The Disciples of Christ seeing him walking upon the sea Mat. 14. 26. and Marke 6. 49. supposed him to be a Spirit meaning thereby an Aeriall Body and not a Phantasme for it is said they all saw him which cannot be understood of the delusions of the brain which are not common to many at once as visible Bodies are but singular because of the differences of Fancies but of Bodies only In like manner where he was taken for a Spirit by the same Apostles Luke 24. 3 7. so also Acts 12. 15. when St. Peter was delivered out of Prison it would not be beleeved but when the Maid said he was at the dore they said it was his Angel by which must be meant a corporeall substance or we must say the Disciples themselves did follow the common opinion of both Jews and Gentiles that some such apparitions were not Imaginary but Reall and such as needed not the fancy of man for their Existence These the Jews called Spirits and Angels Good or Bad as the Greeks called the same by the name of Daemons And some such apparitions may be reall and substantiall that is to say subtile Bodies which God can form by the same power by which he formed all things and make use of as of Ministers and Messengers that is to say Angels to declare his will and execute the same when he pleaseth in extraordinary and suâ—…naturall manner But when hee hath so formed them they are Substances endued with dimensions and take up roome and can be moved from place to place which is peculiar to Bodies and thâ—…refore are not Ghosts incorporeall that is to say Ghosts that are in no place that is to say that are no where that is to say that seeâ—…ing to be somewhat are nothing But if Corporeall be taken in the most vulgar manner for such Substances as are perceptible by our externall Senses then is Substance Incorporeall a thing not Imaginary but Reall namely a thin Substance Invisible but that hath the same dimensions that are in grosser Bodies By the name of ANGEL is signified generally a Messenger and most often a Messenger of God And by a Messenger of God is signified any thing that makes known his extraordinary Presence that is to say the extraordinary manifestation of his power especially by a Dream or Vision Concerning the creation of Angels there is nothing delivered in the Scriptures That they are Spirits is often repeated but by the name of Spirit is signified both in Scripture and vulgarly both amongst Jews and Gentiles sometimes thin Bodies as the Aire the Wind the Spirits Vitall and Animall of living creatures and sometimes the Images that rise in the fancy in Dreams and Visions which are not reall Substances nor last any longer then the Dream or Vision they appear in which Apparitions though no reall Substances but Accidents of the brain yet when God raiseth them supernaturally to signifie his Will they are not unproperly termed Gods Messengers that is to say his Angels And as the Gentiles did vulgarly conceive the Imagery of the brain for things really subsistent without them and not dependent on the fancy and out of them framed their opinions of Daemons Good and Evill which because they seemed to subsist really they called Substances and because they could not feel them with their hands Incorporeall so also the Jews upon the same ground without any thing in the Old Testament that constrained them thereunto had generally an opinion except the sect of the Sadduces that those apparitions which it pleased God sometimes to produce in the fancie of men for his own service and therefore called them his Angels were substances not dependent on the fancy but permanent creatures of God whereof those which they thought were good to them they esteemed the Angels of God and those they thought would hurt them they called Evill Angels or Evill Spirits such as was the Spirit of Python and the Spirits of Mad-men of Lunatiques and Epileptiques For they esteemed such as were troubled with such diseases Daemoniaques But if we consider the places of the Old Testament where Angels are mentioned we shall find that in most of them there can nothing else be understood by the word Angel but some image raised supernaturally in the fancy to signifie the presence of God in the execution of some supernaturall work and therefore in the rest where their nature is not exprest it may be
speaking by the Spirit or Inspiration was not a particular manner of Gods speaking different from Vision when they that were said to speak by the Spirit were extraordinary Prophets such as for every new message were to have a particular Commission or which is all one a new Dream or Vision Of Prophets that were so by a perpetuall Calling in the Old Testament some were supreme and some subordinate Supreme were first Moses and after him the High Priests every one for his time as long as the Priesthood was Royall and after the people of the Jews had rejected God that he should no more reign over them those Kings which submitted themselves to Gods government were also his chief Prophets and the High Priests oâ—…fice became Ministeriall And when God was to be consulted they put on the holy vestments and enquired of the Lord as the King commanded them and were deprived of their office when the King thought fit For King Saul 1 Sam. 13. 9. commanded the burnt offering to be brought and 1 Sam. 14. 18. he commands the Priest to bring the Ark neer him and ver 19. again to let it alone because he saw an advantage upon his enemies And in the same chapter Saul asketh counsell of God In like manner King David after his being anointed though before he had possession of the Kingdome is said to enquire of the Lord 1 Sam. 23. 2. whether he should fight against the Philistines at Keilah and verse 10. David commandeth the Priest to bring him the Ephod to enquire whether he should stay in Keilah or not And King Solomon 1 Kings 2. 27. took the Priesthood from Abiathar and gave it verse 35. to Zadoc Therefore Moses and the High Priests and the pious Kings who enquired of God on all extraordinary occasions how they were to carry themselves or what event they were to have were all Soveraign Prophets But in what manner God spake unto them is not manifest To say that when Moses went up to God in Mount Sinai it was a Dream or Vision such as other Prophets had is contrary to that distinction which God made between Moses and other Prophets Numb 12. 6 7 8. To say God spake or appeared as he is in his own nature is to deny his Infinitenesse Invisibility Incomprehensibility To say he spake by Inspiration or Infusion of the Holy Spirit as the Holy Spirit signifieth the Deity is to make Moses equall with Christ in whom onely the Godhead as St. Paul speaketh Col. 2. 9. dwelleth bodily And lastly to say he spake by the Holy Spirit as it signifieth the graces or gifts of the Holy Spirit is to attribute nothing to him supernaturall For God disposeth men to Piety Justice Mercy Truth Faith and all manner of Vertue both Morall and Intellectuall by doctrine example and by severall occasions naturall and ordinary And as these ways cannot be applyed to God in his speaking to Moses at Mouut Sinai so also they cannot be applyed to him in his speaking to the High Priests from the Mercy-Seat Therefore in what manner God spake to those Soveraign Prophets of the Old Testament whose office it was to enquire of him is not intelligible In the time of the New Testament there was no Soveraign Prophet but our Saviour who was both God that spake and the Prophet to whom he spake To subordinate Prophets of perpetuall Calling I find not any place that proveth God spake to them supernaturally but onely in such manner as naturally he inclineth men to Piety to Beleef to Righteousnesse and to other vertues all other Christian men Which way though it consist in Constitution Instruction Education and the occasions and invitements men have to Christian vertues yet it is truly attributed to the operation of the Spirit of God or Holy Spirit which we in our language call the Holy Ghost For there is no good inclination that is not of the operation of God But these operations are not alwaies supernaturall When therefore a Prophet is said to speak in the Spirit or by the Spirit of God we are to understand no more but that he speaks according to Gods will declared by the supreme Prophet For the most common acceptation of the word Spirit is in the signification of a mans intention mind or disposition In the time of Moses there were seventy men besides himself that Prophecyed in the Campe of the Israelites In what manner God spake to them is declared in the 11 of Numbers verse 25. The Lord came down in a cloud and spake unto Moses and took of the Spirit that was upon him and gave it to the seventy Elders And it came to passe when the Spirit rested upon them they Prophecyed and did not cease By which it is manifest first that their Prophecying to the people was subservient and subordinate to the Prophecying of Moses for that God took of the Spirit of Moses to put upon them so that they Prophecyed as Moses would have them otherwise they had not been suffered to Prophecy at all For there was verse 27. a complaint made against them to Moses and Joshua would have Moses to have forbidden them which he did not but said to Joshua Bee not jealous in my behalf Secondly that the Spirit of God in that place signifieth nothing but the Mind and Disposition to obey and assist Moses in the administration of the Government For if it were meant they had the substantiall Spirit of God that is the Divine nature inspired into them then they had it in no lesse manner then Christ himself in whom onely the Spirit of God dwelt bodily It is meant therefore of the Gift and Grace of God that guided them to co-operate with Moses from whom their Spirit was derived And it appeareth verse 16. that they were such as Moses himself should appoint for Elders and Officers of the People For the words are Gather unto me seventy men whom thou knowest to be Elders and Officers of the people where thou knowest is the same with thou appointest or hast appointed to be such For we are told before Exod. 18. that Moses following the counsell of Jethro his Father-in-law did appoint Judges and Officers over the people such as feared God and of these were those Seventy whom God by putting upon them Moses spirit inclined to aid Moses in the Administration of the Kingdome and in this sense the Spirit of God is said 1 Sam. 16. 13 14. presently upon the anointing of David to have come upon David and left Saul God giving his graces to him he chose to govern his people and taking them away from him he rejected So that by the Spirit is meant Inclination to Gods service and not any supernaturall Revelation God spake also many times by the event of Lots which were ordered by such as he had put in Authority over his people So wee read that God manifested by the Lots which Saul caused to be drawn 1 Sam. 14. 43. the
should not violate our Faith that is a commandement to obey our Civill Soveraigns which wee constituted over us by mutuall pact one with another And this Law of God that commandeth Obedience to the Law Civill commandeth by consequence Obedience to all the Precepts of the Bible which as I have proved in the precedent Chapter is there onely Law where the Civill Soveraign hath made it so and in other places but Counsell which a man at his own perill may without injustice refuse to obey Knowing now what is the Obedience Necessary to Salvation and to whom it is due we are to consider next concerning Faith whom and why we beleeve and what are the Articles or Points necessarily to be beleeved by them that shall be saved And first for the Person whom we beleeve because it is impossible to beleeve any Person before we know what he saith it is necessary he be one that wee have heard speak The Person therefore whom Abraham Isaac Jacob Moses and the Prophets beleeved was God himself that spake unto them supernaturally And the Person whom the Apostles and Disciples that conversed with Christ beleeved was our Saviour himself But of them to whom neither God the Father nor our Saviour ever spake it cannot be said that the Person whom they beleeved was God They beleeved the Apostles and after them the Pastors and Doctors of the Church that recommended to their faith the History of the Old and New Testament so that the Faith of Christians ever since our Saviours time hath had for foundation first the reputation of their Pastors and afterward the authority of those that made the Old and New Testament to be received for the Rule of Faith which none could do but Christian Soveraignes who are therefore the Supreme Pastors and the onely Persons whom Christians now hear speak from God except such as God speaketh to in these days supernaturally But because there be many false Prophets gone out into the world other men are to examine such Spirits as St. Iohn adviseth us 1 Epistle Chap. 4. ver 1. whether they be of God or not And therefore seeing the Examination of Doctrines belongeth to the Supreme Pastor the Person which all they that have no speciall revelation are to beleeve is in every Common-wealth the Supreme Pastor that is to say the Civill Soveraigne The causes why men beleeve any Christian Doctrine are various For Faith is the gift of God and he worketh it in each severall man by such wayes as it seemeth good unto himself The most ordinary immediate cause of our beleef concerning any point of Christian Faith is that wee beleeve the Bible to be the Word of God But why wee beleeve the Bible to be the Word of God is much disputed as all questions must needs bee that are not well stated For they make not the question to be Why we Beleeve it but How wee Know it as if Beleeving and Knowing were all one And thence while one side ground their Knowledge upon the Infallibility of the Church and the other side on the Testimony of the Private Spirit neither side concludeth what it pretends For how shall a man know the Infallibility of the Church but by knowing first the Infallibility of the Scripture Or how shall a man know his own Private spirit to be other than a beleef grounded upon the Authority and Arguments of his Teachers or upon a Presumption of his own Gifts Besides there is nothing in the Scripture from which can be inferred the Infallibility of the Church much lesse of any particular Church and least of all the Infallibility of any particular man It is manifest therefore that Christian men doe not know but onely beleeve the Scripture to be the Word of God and that the means of making them beleeve which God is pleased to afford men ordinarily is according to the way of Nature that is to say from their Teachers It is the Doctrine of St. Paul concerning Christian Faith in generall Rom. 10. 17. Faith cometh by Hearing that is by Hearing our lawfull Pastors He saith also ver 14 15. of the same Chapter How shall they beleeve in him of whom they have not heard and how shall they hear without a Preacher and how shall they Preach except they be sent Whereby it is evident that the ordinary cause of beleeving that the Scriptures are the Word of God is the same with the cause of the beleeving of all other Articles of our Faith namely the Hearing of those that are by the Law allowed and appointed to Teach us as our Parents in their Houses and our Pastors in the Churches Which also is made more manifest by experience For what other cause can there bee assigned why in Christian Common-wealths all men either beleeve or at least professe the Scripture to bee the Word of God and in other Common-wealths scarce any but that in Christian Common-wealths they are taught it from their infancy and in other places they are taught otherwise But if Teaching be the cause of Faith why doe not all beleeve It is certain therefore that Faith is the gift of God and hee giveth it to whom he will Neverthelesse because to them to whom he giveth it he giveth it by the means of Teachers the immediate cause of Faith is Hearing In a School where many are taught and some profit others profit not the cause of learning in them that profit is the Master yet it cannot be thence inferred that learning is not the gift of God All good things proceed from God yet cannot all that have them say they are Inspired for that implies a gift supernaturall and the immediate hand of God which he that pretends to pretends to be a Prophet and is subject to the examination of the Church But whether men Know or Beleeve or Grant the Scriptures to be the Word of God if out of such places of them as are without obscurity I shall shew what Articles of Faith are necessary and onely necessary for Salvation those men must needs Know Beleeve or Grant the same The Vnum Necessarium Onely Article of Faith which the Scripture maketh simply Necessary to Salvation is this that JESUS IS THE CHRIST By the name of Christ is understood the King which God had before promised by the Prophets of the Old Testament to send into the world to reign over the Jews and over such of other nations as should beleeve in him under himself eternally and to give them that eternall life which was lost by the sin of Adam Which when I have proved out of Scripture I will further shew when and in what sense some other Articles may bee also called Necessary For Proof that the Beleef of this Article Iesus is the Christ is all the Faith required to Salvation my first Argument shall bee from the Scope of the Evangelists which was by the description of the life of our Saviour to establish that one
single Texts without considering the main Designe can derive no thing from them cleerly but rather by casting atomes of Scripture as dust before mens eyes make every thing more obscure than it is an ordinary artifice of those that seek not the truth but their own advantage OF THE KINGDOME OF DARKNESSE CHAP. XLIV Of Spirituall Darknesse from MISINTERPRETATION of Scripture BEsides these Soveraign Powers Divine and Humane of which I have hitherto discoursed there is mention in Scripture of another Power namely that of the Rulers of the Darknesse of this world the Kingdome of Sâ—…tan and the Princpality of 〈◊〉 over Daemons that is to say over Phantasmes that appear in the Air For which cause Satan is also called the Prince of the Power of the Air and because he ruleth in the darknesse of this world The Prince of this world And in consequence hereunto they who are under his Dominion in opposition to the faithfull who are the Children of the Light are called the Children of Darknesse For seeing Beelzebub is Prince of Phantasmes Inhabitants of his Dominion of Air and Darknesse the Children of Darknesse and these Daemons Phantasmes or Spirits of Illusion signifie allegorically the same thing This considered the Kingdome of Darknesse as it is set forth in these and other places of the Scripture is nothing else but a Confederacy of Deceâ—…vers that to obtain doâ—… over men in this present world endeavour by dark and erroneons Doctrines to extinguish in them the Light both of Nature and of the Gospell and so to dis-prepare them for the Kingdome of God to coâ—… As men that are utterly deprived from their Nativity of the light of the bodily Eye have no Idea at all of any such light and no man conceives in his imagination any greater light than he hath at some time or other perceived by his outward Senses so also is it of the light of the Gospel and of the light of the Understanding that no man can conceive there is any greater degree of it than that which he hath already attained unto And from hence it comes to passe that men have no other means to acknowledge their owne Darknesse but onely by reasoning from the un-foreseen mischances that befall them in their ways The Darkest part of the Kingdom of Satan is that which is without the Church of God that is to say amongst them that beleeve not in Jesus Christ. But we cannot say that therefore the Church enjoyeth as the land of Goshen all the light which to the performance of the work enjoined us by God is necessary Whence comes it that in Christendome there has been almost from the time of the Apostles such justling of one another out of their places both by forraign and Civill war such stumbling at every little asperity of their own fortune and every little eminence of that of other men and such diversity of ways in running to the same mark Felicity if it be not Night amongst us or at least a Mist wee are therefore yet in the Dark The Enemy has been here in the Night of our naturall Ignorance and sown the tares of Spirituall Errors and that First by abusing and putting out the light of the Scriptures For we erre not knowing the Scriptures Secondly by introducing the Daemonology of the Heathen Poets that is to say their fabulous Doctrine concerning Daemons which are but Idols or Phantasms of the braine without any reall nature of their own distinct from humane fancy such as are dead mens Ghosts and Fairies and other matter of old Wives tales Thirdly by mixing with the Scripture divers reliques of the Religion and much of the vain and erroneous Philosophy of the Greeks especially of Aristotle Fourthly by mingling with both these false or uncertain Traditions and fained or uncertain History And so we come to erre by giving heed to seducing Spirits and the Daemonology of such as speak lies in Hypocrisie or as it is in the Originall 1 Tim. 4. 1 2. of those that play the part of lyars with a seared conscience that is contrary to their own knowledge Concerning the first of these which is the Seducing of men by abuse of Scripture I intend to speak briefly in this Chapter The greatest and main abuse of Scripture and to which almost all the rest are either consequent or subservient is the wresting of it to prove that the Kingdome of God mentioned so often in the Scripture is the present Church or multitude of Christian men now living or that being dead are to rise again at the last day whereas the Kingdome of God was first instituted by the Ministery of Moses over the Jews onely who were therefore called his Peculiar People and ceased afterward in the election of Saul when they refused to be governed by God any more and demanded a King after the manner of the nations which God himself consented unto as I have more at large proved before in the 35. Chapter After that time there was no other Kingdome of God in the world by any Pact or otherwise than he ever was is and shall be King of all men and of all creatures as governing according to his Will by his infinite Power Neverthelesse he promised by his Prophets to restore this his Government to them again when the time he hath in his secret counsell appointed for it shall bee fully come and when they shall turn unto him by repentance and amendment of life and not onely so but he invited also the Gentiles to come in and enjoy the happinesse of his Reign on the same conditions of conversion and repentance and hee promised also to send his Son into the world to expiate the sins of them all by his death and to prepare them by his Doctrine to receive him at his second coming Which second coming not yet being the Kingdome of God is not yet come and wee are not now under any other Kings by Pact but our Civill Soveraigns saving onely that Christian men are already in the Kingdome of Grace in as much as they have already the Promise of being received at his comming againe Consequent to this Errour that the present Church is Christs Kingdome there ought to be some one Man or Assembly by whose mouth our Saviour now in heaven speaketh giveth law and which representeth his Person to all Christians or divers Men or divers Assemblies that doe the same to divers parts of Christendome This power Regal under Christ being challenged universally by the Pope and in particular Common-wealths by Assemblies of the Pastors of the place when the Scripture gives it to none but to Civill Soveraigns comes to be so passionately disputed that it putteth out the Light of Nature and causeth so great a Darknesse in mens understanding that they see not who it is to whom they have engaged their obedience Consequent to this claim of the Pope to Vicar Generall of Christ in the present
at his comming again gloriously to reign over his Elect and to save them from their Enemies eternally To which the opinion of Possession by Spirits or Phantasmes are no impediment in the way though it be to some an occasion of going out of the way and to follow their own Inventions If wee require of the Scripture an account of all questions which may be raised to trouble us in the performance of Gods commands we may as well complaine of Moses for not having set downe the time of the creation of such Spirits as well as of the Creation of the Earth and Sea and of Men and Beasts To conclude I find in Scripture that there be Angels and Spirits good and evill but not that they are Incorporeall as are the Apparitions men see in the Dark or in a Dream or Vision which the Latines call Spectra and took for Daemons And I find that there are Spirits Corporeall though subtile and Invisible but not that any mans body was possessed or inhabited by them And that the Bodies of the Saints shall be such namely Spirituall Bodies as St. Paul calls them Neverthelesse the contrary Doctrine namely that there be Incorporeall Spirits hath hitherto so prevailed in the Church that the use of Exorcisme that is to say of ejection of Devills by Conjuration is thereupon built and though rarely and faintly practised is not yet totally given over That there were many Daemoniaques in the Primitive Church and few Mad-men and other such singular diseases whereas in these times we hear of and see many Mad-men and few Daemoniaques proceeds not from the change of Nature but of Names But how it comes to passe that whereas heretofore the Apostles and after them for a time the Pastors of the Church did cure those singular Diseases which now they are not seen to doe as likewise why it is not in the power of every true Beleever now to doe all that the Faithfull did then that is to say as we read Mark 16. 17. In Christs name to cast out Devills to speak with new Tongues to take up Serpents to drink deadly Poison without harm taking and to cure the Sick by the laying on of their hands and all this without other words but in the Name of Iesus is another question And it is probable that those extraordinary gifts were given to the Church for no longer a time than men trusted wholly to Christ and looked for their felicity onely in his Kingdome to come and consequently that when they sought Authority and Riches and trusted to their own Subtilty for a Kingdome of this world these supernaturall gifts of God were again taken from them Another relique of Gentilisme is the Worship of Images neither instituted by Moses in the Old nor by Christ in the New Testament nor yet brought in from the Gentiles but left amongst them after they had given their names to Christ. Before our Saviour preached it was the generall Religion of the Gentiles to worship for Gods those Apparences that remain in the Brain from the impression of externall Bodies upon the organs of their Senses which are commonly called Ideas Idols Phantasmes Conceits as being Representations of those externall Bodies which cause them and have nothing in them of reality no more than there is in the things that seem to stand before us in a Dream And this is the reason why St. Paul says Wee know that an Idol is Nothing Not that he thought that an Image of Metall Stone or Wood was nothing but that the thing which they honored or feared in the Image and held for a God was a meer Figment without place habitation motion or existence but in the motions of the Brain And the worship of these with Divine Honour is that which is in the Scripture called Idolatry and Rebellion against God For God being King of the Jews and his Lieutenant being first Moses and afterward the High Priest if the people had been permitted to worship and pray to Images which are Representations of their own Fancies they had had no farther dependence on the true God of whom their can be no similitude nor on his prime Ministers Moses and the High Priests but every man had governed himself according to his own appetite to the utter eversion of the Common-wealth and their own destruction for want of Union And therefore the first Law of God was They should not take for Gods ALIENOS DEOS that is the Gods of other nations but that onely true God who vouchsafed to commune with Moses and by him to give them laws and directions for their peace and for their salvation from their enemies And the second was that they should not make to themselves any Image to Worship of their own Invention For it is the same deposing of a King to submit to another King whether he be set up by a neighbour nation or by our selves The places of Scripture pretended to countenance the setting up of Images to worship them or to set them up at all in the places where God is worshipped are First two Examples one of the Cherubins over the Ark of God the other of the Brazen Serpent Secondly some texts whereby we are commanded to worship certain Creatures for their relation to God as to worship his Footstool And lastly some other texts by which is authorized a religious honoring of Holy things But before I examine the force of those places to prove that which is pretended I must first explain what is to be understood by Worshipping and what by Images and Idols I have already shewn in the 20 Chapter of this Discourse that to Honor is to value highly the Power of any person and that such value is measured by our comparing him with others But because there is nothing to be compared with God in Power we Honor him not but Dishonour him by any Value lesse than Infinite And thus Honor is properly of its own nature secret and internall in the heart But the inward thoughts of men which appeare outwardly in their words and actions are the signes of our Honoring and these goe by the name of WORSHIP in Latine CULTUS Therefore to Pray to to Swear by to Obey to bee Diligent and Officious in Serving in summe all words and actions that betoken Fear to Offend or Desire to Please is Worship whether those words and actions be sincere or feigned and because they appear as signes of Honoring are ordinarily also called Honor. The Worship we exhibite to those we esteem to be but men as to Kings and men in Authority is Civill Worship But the worship we exhibite to that which we think to bee God whatsoever the words ceremonies gestures or other actions be is Divine VVorship To fall prostrate before a King in him that thinks him but a Man is but Civill Worship And he that but putteth off his hat in the Church for this cause that he thinketh it the House of
it to the Schools Plato that was the best Philosopher of the Greeks forbad entrance into his Schoole to all that were not already in some measure Geometricians There were many that studied that Science to the great advantage of mankind but there is no mention of their Schools nor was there any Sect of Geometricians nor did they then passe under the name of Philosophers The naturall Philosophy of those Schools was rather a Dream than Science and set forth in senselesse and insignificant Language which cannot be avoided by those that will teach Philosophy without having first attained great knowledge in Geometry For Nature worketh by Motion the Wayes and Degrees whereof cannot be known without the knowledge of the Proportions and Properties of Lines and Figures Their Morall Philosophy is but a description of their own Passions For the rule of Manners without Civill Government is the Law of Nature and in it the Law Civill that determineth what is Honest and Dishonest what is Iust and Vnjust and generally what is Good and Evill whereas they make the Rules of Good and Bad by their own Liking and Disliking By which means in so great diversity of taste there is nothing generally agreed on but every one doth as far as he dares whatsoever seemeth good in his owne eyes to the subversion of Common-wealth Their Loigque which should bee the Method of Reasoning is nothing else but Captions of Words and Inventions how to puzzle such as should goe about to pose them To conclude there is nothing so absurd that the old Philosophers as Cicero saith who was one of them have not some of them maintained And I beleeve that scarce any thing can be more absurdly said in naturall Philosophy than that which now is called Aristotles Metaphysiques nor more repugnant to Government than much of that hee hath said in his Politiques nor more ignorantly than a great part of his Ethiques The Schoole of the Jews was originally a Schoole of the Law of Moses who commanded Deut. 31. 10. that at the end of every seventh year at the Feast of the Tabernacles it should be read to all the people that they might hear and learn it Therefore the reading of the Law which was in use after the Captivity every Sabbath day ought to have had no other end but the acquainting of the people with the Commandements which they were to obey and to expound unto them the writings of the Prophets But it is manifest by the many reprehensions of them by our Saviour that they corrupted the Text of the Law with their false Commentaries and vain Traditions and so little understood the Prophets that they did neither acknowledge Christ nor the works he did of which the Prophets prophecyed So that by their Lectures and Disputations in their Synagogues they turned the Doctrine of their Law into a Phantasticall kind of Philosophy concerning the incomprehensible nature of God and of Spirits which they compounded of the Vain Philosophy and Theology of the Graecians mingled with their own fancies drawn from the obscurer places of the Scripture and which might most easily bee wrested to their purpose and from the Fabulous Traditions of their Ancestors That which is now called an Vniversity is a Joyning together and an Incorporation under one Government of many Publique Schools in one and the same Town or City In which the principall Schools were ordained for the three Professions that is to say of the Romane Religion of the Romane Law and of the Art of Medicine And for the study of Philosophy it hath no otherwise place then as a handmaid to the Romane Religion And since the Authority of Aristotle is onely current there that study is not properly Philosophy the nature whereof dependeth not on Authors but Aristotelity And for Geometry till of very late times it had no place at all as being subservient to nothing but rigide Truth And if any man by the ingenuity of his owne nature had attained to any degree of perfection therein hee was commonly thought a Magician and his Art Diabolicall Now to descend to the particular Tenets of Vain Philosophy derived to the Universities and thence into the Church partly from Aristotle partly from Blindnesse of understanding I shall first consider their Principles There is a certain Philosophia prima on which all other Philosophy ought to depend and consisteth principally in right limiting of the significations of such Appellations or Names as are of all others the most Universall Which Limitations serve to avoid ambiguity and aequivocation in Reasoning and are commonly called Definitions such as are the Definitions of Body Time Place Matter Forme Essence Subject Substance Accident Power Act Finite Infinite Quantity Quality Motion Action Passion and divers others necessary to the explaining of a mans Conceptions concerning the Nature and Generation of Bodies The Explication that is the setling of the meaning of which and the like Terms is commonly in the Schools called Metaphysiques as being a part of the Philosophy of Aristotle which hath that for title but it is in another sense for there it signifieth as much as Books written or placed after his naturall Philosophy But the Schools take them for Books of supernaturall Philosophy for the word Metaphysiques will bear both these senses And indeed that which is there written is for the most part so far from the possibility of being understood and so repugnant to naturall Reason that whosoever thinketh there is any thing to bee understood by it must needs think it supernaturall From these Metaphysiques which are mingled with the Scripture to make Schoole Divinity wee are told there be in the world certaine Essences separated from Bodies which they call Abstract Essences and Substantiall Formes For the Interpreting of which Iargon there is need of somewhat more than ordinary attention in this place Also I ask pardon of those that are not used to this kind of Discourse for applying my selfe to those that are The World I mean not the Earth onely that denominates the Lovers of it Worldly men but the Vniverse that is the whole masse of all things that are is Corporeall that is to say Body and hath the dimensions of Magnitude namely Length Bredth and Depth also every part of Body is likewise Body and hath the like dimeâ—…ions and consequently every part of the Universe is Body and that which is not Body is no part of the Universe And because the Universe is All that which is no part of it is Nothing and consequently no where Nor does it follow from hence that Spirits are nothing for they have dimensions and are therefore really Bodies though that name in common Speech be given to such Bodies onely as are visible or palpable that is that have some degree of Opacity But for Spirits they call them Incorporeall which is a name of more honour and may therefore with more piety bee attributed to God himselfe in whom wee consider not what
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.
the Law which is the Will and Appetite of the State is the measure And yet is this Doctrine still practised and men judge the Goodnesse or Wickednesse of their own and of other mens actions and of the actions of the Common-wealth it selfe by their own Passions and no man calleth Good or Evill but that which is so in his own eyes without any regard at all to the Publique Laws except onely Monks and Friers that are bound by Vow to that simple obedience to their Superiour to which every Subject ought to think himself bound by the Law of Nature to the Civill Soveraign And this private measure of Good is a Doctrine not onely Vain but also Pernicious to the Publique State It is also Vain and false Philosophy to say the work of Marriage is repugnant to Chastity or Continence and by consequence to make them Morall Vices as they doe that pretend Chastity and Continence for the ground of denying Marriage to the Clergy For they confesse it is no more but a Constitution of the Church that requireth in those holy Orders that continually attend the Altar and administration of the Eucharist a continuall Abstinence from women under the name of continuall Chastity Continence and Purity Therefore they call the lawfull use of Wives want of Chastity and Continence and so make Marriage a Sin or at least a thing so impure and unclean as to render a man unfit for the Altar If the Law were made because the use of Wives is Incontinence and contrary to Chastity then all Marriage is vice If because it is a thing too impure and unclean for a man consecrated to God much more should other naturall necessary and daily works which all men doe render men unworthy to bee Priests because they are more unclean But the secret foundation of this prohibition of Marriage of Priests is not likely to have been laid so slightly as upon such errours in Morall Philosophy nor yet upon the preference of single life to the estate of Matrimony which proceeded from the wisdome of St. Paul who perceived how inconvenient a thing it was for those that in those times of persecution were Preachers of the Gospel and forced to fly from one countrey to another to be clogged with the care of wife and children but upon the designe of the Popes and Priests of after times to make themselves the Clergy that is to say sole Heirs of the Kingdome of God in this world to which it was necessary to take from them the use of Marriage because our Saviour saith that at the coming of his Kingdome the Children of God shall neither Marry nor bee given in Marriage but shall bee as the Angels in heaven that is to say Spirituall Seeing then they had taken on them the name of Spirituall to have allowed themselves when there was no need the propriety of Wives had been an Incongruity From Aristotles Civill Philosophy they have learned to call all manner of Common-wealths but the Popular such as was at that time the state of Athens Tyranny All Kings they called Tyrants and the Aristocracy of the thirty Governours â—…et up there by the Lacedemonians that subdued them the thirty Tyrants As also to call the condition of the people under the Democracy Liberty A Tyrant originally signified no more simply but a Monarch But when afterwards in most parts of Greece that kind of government was abolished the name began to signifie not onely the thing it did before but with it the hatred which the Popular States bare towards it As also the name of King became odious after the deposing of the Kings in Rome as being a thing naturall to all men to conceive some great Fault to be signified in any Attribute that is given in despight and to a great Enemy And when the same men shall be displeased with those that have the administration of the Democracy or Aristocracy they are not to seek for disgracefull names to expresse their anger in but call readily the one Anarchy and the other Oligarchy or the Tyranny of a Few And that which offendeth the People is no other thing but that they are governed not as every one of them would himselfe but as the Publique Representant be it one Man or an Assembly of men thinks fit that is by an Arbitrary government for which they give evill names to their Superiors never knowing till perhaps a little after a Civill warre that without such Arbitrary government such Warre must be perpetuall and that it is Men and Arms not Words and Promises that make the Force and Power of the Laws And therefore this is another Errour of Aristotles Politiques that in a wel ordered Common-wealth not Men should govern but the Laws What man that has his naturall Senses though he can neither write nor read does not find himself governed by them he fears and beleeves can kill or hurt him when he obeyeth not or that beleeves the Law can hurt him that is Words and Paper without the Hands and Swords of men And this is of the number of pernicious Errors for they induce men as oft as they like not their Governours to adhaere to those that call them Tyrants and to think it lawfull to raise warre against them And yet they are many times cherished from the Pulpit by the Clergy There is another Errour in their Civill Philosophy which they never learned of Aristotle nor Cicero nor any other of the Heathen to extend the power of the Law which is the Rule of Actions onely to the very Thoughts and Consciences of men by Examination and Inquisition of what they Hold notwithstanding the Conformity of their Speech and Actions By which men are either punished for answering the truth of their thoughts or constrained to answer an untruth for fear of punishment It is true that the Civill Magistrate intending to employ a Minister in the charge of Teaching may enquire of him if hee bee content to Preach such and such Doctrines and in case of refusall may deny him the employment But to force him to accuse himselfe of Opinions when his Actions are not by Law forbidden is against the Law of Nature and especially in them who teach that a man shall bee damned to Eternall and extream torments if he die in a false opinion concerning an Article of the Christian Faith For who is there that knowing there is so great danger in an error whom the naturall care of himself compelleth not to hazard his Soule upon his own judgement rather than that of any other man that is unconcerned in his damnation For a Private man without the Authority of the Common-wealth that is to say without permission from the Representant thereof to Interpret the Law by his own Spirit is another Error in the Politiques but not drawn from Aristotle nor from any other of the Heathen Philosophers For none of them deny but that in the Power of making Laws is comprehended
also the Power of Explaining them when there is need And are not the Scriptures in all places where they are Law made Law by the Authority of the Common-wealth and consequently a part of the Civill Law Of the same kind it is also when any but the Soveraign restraineth in any man that power which the Common-wealth hath not restrained as they do that impropriate the Preaching of the Gospell to one certain Order of men where the Laws have left it free If the State give me leave to preach or teach that is if it forbid me not no man can forbid me If I find my selfe amongst the Idolaters of America shall I that am a Christian though not in Orders think it a sin to preach Jesus Christ till I have received Orders from Rome or when I have preached shall not I answer their doubts and expound the Scriptures to them that is shall I not Teach But for this may some say as also for administring to them the Sacraments the necessity shall be esteemed for a sufficient Mission which is true But this is true also that for whatsoever a dispensation is due for the necessity for the same there needs no dispensation when there is no Law that forbids it Therefore to deny these Functions to those to whom the Civill Soveraigne hath not denyed them is a taking away of a lawfull Liberty which is contrary to the Doctrine of Civill Government More examples of Vain Philosophy brought into Religion by the Doctors of Schoole-Divinity might be produced but other men may if they please observe them of themselves I shall onely adde this that the Writings of Schoole-Divines are nothing else for the most part but insignificant Traines of strange and barbarous words or words otherwise used then in the common use of the Latine tongue such as would pose Cicero and Varro and all the Grammarians of ancient Rome Which if any man would see proved let him as I have said once before see whether he can translate any Schoole-Divine into any of the Modern tongues as French English or any other copious language for that which cannot in most of these be made Intelligible is not Intelligible in the Latine Which Insignificancy of language though I cannot note it for false Philosophy yet it hath a quality not onely to hide the Truth but also to make men think they have it and desist from further search Lastly for the Errors brought in from false or uncertain History what is all the Legend of fictitious Miracles in the lives of the Saints and all the Histories of Apparitions and Ghosts alledged by the Doctors of the Romane Church to make good their Doctrines of Hell and Purgatory the power of Exorcisme and other Doctrines which have no warrant neither in Reason nor Scripture as also all those Traditions which they call the unwritten Word of God but old Wives Fables Whereof though they find dispersed somewhat in the Writings of the ancient Fathers yet those Fathers were men that might too easily beleeve false reports and the producing of their opinions for testimony of the truth of what they beleeved hath no other force with them that according to the Counsell of St. Iohn 1 Epist. chap. 4. verse 1. examine Spirits than in all things that concern the power of the Romane Church the abuse whereof either they suspected not or had benefit by it to discredit their testimony in respect of too rash beleef of reports which the most sincere men without great knowledge of naturall causes such as the Fathers were are commonly the most subject to For naturally the best men are the least suspicious of fraudulent purposes Gregory the Pope and S. Bernard have somewhat of Apparitions of Ghosts that said they were in Purgatory and so has our Beda but no where I beleeve but by report from others But if they or any other relate any such stories of their own knowledge they shall not thereby confirm the more such vain reports but discover their own Infirmity or Fraud With the Introduction of False we may joyn also the suppression of True Philosophy by such men as neither by lawfull authority nor sufficient study are competent Judges of the truth Our own Navigations make manifest and all men learned in humane Sciences now acknowledge there are Antipodes And every day it appeareth more and more that Years and Dayes are determined by Motions of the Earth Neverthelesse men that have in their Writings but supposed such Doctrine as an occasion to lay open the reasons for and against it have been punished for it by Authority Ecclesiasticall But what reason is there for it Is it becaâ—…se such opinions are contrary to true Religion that cannot be if they be true Let therefore the truth be first examined by competent Judges or confuted by them that pretend to know the contrary Is it because they be contrary to the Religion established Let them be silenced by the Laws of those to whom the Teachers of them are subject that is by the Laws Civill For disobedience may lawfully be punished in them that against the Laws teach even true Philosophy Is it because they tend to disorder in Government as countenancing Rebellion or Sedition then let them be silenced and the Teachers punished by vertue of his Power to whom the care of the Publique quiet is committed which is the Authority Civill For whatsoever Power Ecclesiastiques take upon themselves in any place where they are subject to the State in their own Right though they call it Gods Right is but Usurpation CHAP. XLVII Of the BENEFIT that proceedeth from such Darknesse and to whom it accreweth CIcero maketh honorable mention of one of the Cassâ—… a severe Judge amongst the Romans for a custome he had in Criminall causes when the testimony of the witnesses was not sufficient to ask the Accusers Cuibono that is to say what Profit Honor or other Contentment the accused obtained or expected by the Fact For amongst Praesumptions there is none that so evidently declareth the Author as doth the BENEFIT of the Action By the same rule I intend in this place to examine who they may be that have possessed the People so long in this part of Christendome with these Doctrines contrary to the Peaceable Societies of Mankind And first to this Error that the present Church now Militant on Earth is the Kingdome of God that is the Kingdome of Glory or the Land of Promise not the Kingdome of Grace which is but a Promise of the Land are annexed these worldly Benefits First that the Pastors and Teachers of the Church are entitled thereby as Gods Publique Ministers to a Right of Governing the Church and consequently because the Church and Common-wealth are the same Persons to be Rectors and Governours of the Common-wealth By this title it is that the Pope prevailed with the subjects of all Christian Princes to beleeve that to disobey him was to disobey Christ himselfe