Redemption Church the Lords house Ecclesia properly what Acts 19. 39. In what sense the Church is one Person Church defined A Christian Common-wealth and a Church all one The Soveraign Rights of Abraham Abraham had the sole power of ordering the Religion of his own people No pretence of Private Spirit against the Religion of Abraham Abraham sole Judge and Interpreter of what God spake The authority of Moses whereon grounded John 5. 31. Moses was under God Soveraign of the Jews all his own time though Aaron had the Priesthood All spirits were subordinate to the spirit of Moses After Moses the Soveraignty was in the High Priest Of the Soveraign power between the time of Joshua and of Saul Of the Rights of the Kings of Israel The practice of Supremacy in Religion was not in the time of the Kings according to the Right thereof 2 Chro. 19. 2. After the Captivity the Iews â—…ad no setled Common-wealth Three parts of the Office of Christ. His Office as a Redeemer Christs Kingdome not of this woâ—…ld The End of Christs comming was to renew the Covenant of the Kingdome of God and to perswade the Elect to imbrace it which was the second part of his Office The preaching of Christ not contrary to the then law of the Iews nor of Caesar. The third part of his Office was to be King under his Father of the Elect. Christs authority in the Kingdome of God subordinate to that of his Father One and the same God is the Person represented by Moses and by Christ. Of the Holy Spirit that fel on the Apostles Of the Trinity The Power Ecclesiasticall is but the power to teach An argument thereof the Power of Christ himself From the name of Regeneration From the compariâ—…on of it with Fishing Leaven Seed Fâ—…om the nature of 〈◊〉 2 Cor. 1. 24. From the Authority Christ hath lâ—…st to Civill Princes What Christians may do to avoid persecution Of Martyrs Argument from the points of their Commission To Preach And Teach To Baptize And to Forgive and Retain Sinnes Mat. 18. 15 16 17. Of Excommunication The use of Excommunication without Civill Power Acts 9. 2. Of no effect upon an Apostate But upon the faithfull only For what fault lyeth Excommunication Ofpersons liaable to Excommunication 1 Sam. 8. Of the Interpreter of the Scriptures before Civil Soveraigns became Christians Of the Power to make Scripture Law Of the Ten Commandements Of the Iudiciall and Leviticall Law The Second Law * 1 Kings 14 26. The Old Testament when made Canonicall The New Testament began to be Canonicall under Christian Soveraigns Of the Power of Councells to make the Scriptures Law John 3. 36. John 3. 18. Of the Right of constituting Ecclesiasticall Officers in the time of the Apostles Matthias made Apostle by the Congregation Paul and Barnabas made Apostles by the Church of Antioch What Offices in the Church are Magisteriall Ordination of Teachers Ministers of the Church what And how chosen Of Ecclesiasticall Revenue under the Law of Moses In our Saviours time and after Mat. 10. 9 10. * Acts 4. 34. The Ministers of the Gospel lived on the Benevolence of their flocks 1 Cor. 9. 13. That the Civill Soveraign being a Christian hath the Right of appointing Pastors The Pastor all Authority of Soveraigns only is de Jure Divino that of other Pastors is Jure Civili Christian Kings have Power to execute all manner of Pastoral function * John 4. 2. * 1 Cor. 1. 14 16. * 1 Câ—…r 1. 17. The Civill Soveraigne if a Christian is head of the Church in his own Dominions Cardinal Bellarmines Books De Summo Pontifice considered The first book The second Book The third Book * Dan. 9. 27. The fourth Book Texts for the Infaâ—…ibility of the Popes Judgement in points of Faith Texts for the same in point of Manners The question of Superiority between the Pope and other Bishops Of the Popes â—…mporall Power The difficulty of obeying God and Man both at once Is none to them that distinguish between what is and what is not Necessary to Salvation All that is Necessary to Salvation is contained in Faith and Obedience What Obedience is Necessary And to what Laws In the Faith of a Christian who is the Person beleeved The causes of Christian Faith Faith comes by Hearing The onely Necessary Article of Christian Faith Proved from the Scope of the Evangelists From the Sermons of the Apostles From the Easinesse of the Doctrine From formall â—…ud cleer texts From that it is the Foundation of all other Articles 2 Pet. 3. v. 7 10 12. In what sense other Articles may be called Nâ—…cessary That Faith and Obedience are both of them Necessary to Salvation What each of them contributes thereunto Obedience to God and to the Civill Soveraign not inconsistent whether Christian Or Infidel The Kingdom of Darknesse what * Eph. 6. 12. * Mat. 12. 26. * Mat. 9. 34. * Eph. 2. 2. * Joh. 16. 11. The Church not yet fully â—…reed of Darknesse Four Causes of Spirituall Darknesse Errors from misinterpreting the Scriptures concerning the Kingdome of God As that the Kingdome of God is the present Church And that the Pope is his Vicar generall And that the Pastors are the Clergy Error from mistaking Consecration for Conjuration Incantation in the Ceremonies of Baptisme And in Marriage in Visitation of the Sick and in Consecration of Places Errors from mistaking Eternall Life and Everlasting Death As the Doctrine of Purgatory and Exorcismes and Invocation of Saints The Texts alledged for the Doctrines aforementioned have been answered before Answer to the text on which Beza inferreth that the Kingdome of Christ began at the Resurrection Explication of the Place in Mark 9. 1. Abuse of some other texts in defence of the Power of the Pope The manner of Consecrations in the Scripture was without Exorcisms The immortality of mans Soule not proved by Scripture to be of Nature but of Grace Eternall Torments what Answer of the Texts alledged for Purgatory Places of the New Testament for Purgatory answered Baptisme for the Dead how understood The Originall of Daemonclogy What were the Daemons of the Ancients How that Doctrine was spread How far received by the Jews John 8. 52. Why our Saviour controlled it not The Scriptures doe not teach that Spirits are Incorporeall The Power of Casting out Devills not the same it was in the Primitive Church Another relique of Gentilisme Worshipping of Images left in the Church not brought into it Answer to certain seeming texts for Images What is Worship Distinction between Divine and Civill Worship An Image what Phantasmes Fictions Materiall Images Idolatry what Scandalous worship of Images Answer 〈◊〉 the Argument from the Cherubins and Brazen Serpent * Exod. 32. 2. * Gen. 31. 30. Painting of Fancies no Idolatry but abusing them to Religious Worship is How Idolatry was left in the Church Canonizing of Saints The name of Pontifex Procession of Images Wax Candles and Torches lighted What Philosophy is Prudence no part of Philosophy No false Doctrine is part of Philosophy No more is Revelation supernaturall Nor learning taken upon credit of Authors Of the Beginnings and Progresse of Philosophy Of the Schools of Philosophy amongst the Athenians Of the Schools of the Jews The Schoole of the Graecians unprofitable The Schools of the Jews unprofitable University what it is Errors brought into Religion from Aristotles Metaphysiques Errors concerning Abstract Essences Nunc-stans One Body in many places and many Bodies in one place at once Absurdities in naturall Philosopy as Gravity the Cause of Heavinesse Quantity put into Body already made Powring in of Soules Ubiquity of Apparition Will the Cause of Willing Ignorance an occult Cause One makes the things incongruent another the Incongruity Private Appetite the rule of Publique good And that lawfull Marriage is Unchastity And that all Government but Popular is Tyranny That not Men but Law governs Laws over the Conscience Private Interpretation of Law Language of Schoole-Divines Errors from Tradition Suppression of Reason He that receiveth Benefit by a Fact is presumed to be the Author That the â—…hurch Militant is the Kingdome of God was first taught by the Church of Rome And maintained also by the Presbytery Infallibility Subjection of Bishops Exemptions of the Clergy The names of Saceâ—…dotes and Sacriâ—… The Sacramentation of Marriage The single life of Priests Auricular Confession Canonization of Saints and declaring of Martyrs Transubstantiation Pennance Absolution Purgatory Indulgences Externall works Daemonology and Exorcism School-Divinity The Authors of spirituall Darknesse who they be Comparison of the Papacy with the Kingdome of Fayries
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
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
people were obliged to take him for Gods Lieutenant longer than they beleeved that God spake unto him And therefore his authority notwithstanding the Covenant they made with God depended yet merely upon the opinion they had of his Sanctity and of the reality of his Conferences with God and the verity of his Miracles which opinion coming to change they were no more obliged to take any thing for the law of God which he propounded to them in Gods name We are therefore to consider what other ground there was of their obligation to obey him For it could not be the commandement of God that could oblige them because God spake not to them immediately but by the mediation of Moses himself And our Saviour saith of himself If I bear witnesse of my self my witnesse is not true much lesse if Moses bear witnesse of himselfe especially in a claim of Kingly power over Gods people ought his testimony to be received His authority therefore as the authority of all other Princes must be grounded on the Consent of the People and their Promise to obey him And so it was For the people Exod. 20. 18. when they saw the Thunderings and the Lightnings and the noyse of the Trumpet and the monntaine smoaking removed and stood a far off And they said unto Moses speak thou with us and we will hear but let not God speak with us lest we die Here was their promise of obedience and by this it was they obliged themselves to obey whatsoever he should deliver unto them for the Commandement of God And notwithstanding the Covenant constituteth a Sacerdotall Kingdome that is to say a Kingdome hereditary to Aaron yet that is to be understood of the succession after Moses should bee dead For whosoever ordereth and establisheth the Policy as first founder of a Common-wealth be it Monarchy Aristocracy or Democracy must needs have Soveraign Power over the people all the while he is doing of it And that Moses had that power all his own time is evidently affirmed in the Scripture First in the text last before cited because the people promised obedience not to Aaron but to him Secōdly Exod. 24. 1 2. And God said unto Moses Come up unto the Lord thou and Aaron Nadab and Abihu and seventy of the Elders of Israel And Moses alone shall come neer the Lord but they shall not come nigh neither shall the people goe up with him By which it is plain that Moses who was alone called up to God and not Aaron nor the other Priests nor the Seventy Elders nor the People who were forbidden to come up was alone he that represented to the Israelites the Person of God that is to say was their sole Soveraign under God And though afterwards it be said verse 9. Then went up Moses and Aaron Nadab and Abihu and seventy of the Elders of Israel and they saw the God of Israel and there was under his feet as it were a paved work of a saphire stone c. yet this was not till after Moses had been with God before and had brought to the people the words which God had said to him He onely went for the bnsinesse of the people the others as the Nobles of his retinue were admitted for honour to that speciall grace which was not allowed to the people which was as in the verse after appeareth to see God and live God laid not his hand upon them they saw God and did eat and drink that is did live but did not carry any commandement from him to the people Again it is every where said The Lord spake unto Moses as in all other occasions of Government so also in the ordering of the Ceremonies of Religion contained in the 25 26 27 28 29 30 and 31 Chapters of Exodus and throughout Leviticus to Aaron seldome The Calfe that Aaron made Moses threw into the fire Lastly the question of the Authority of Aaron by occasion of his and Miriams mutiny agaiust Moses was Numbers 12. judged by God himself for Moses So also in the question between Moses and the People who had the Right of Governing the People when Corah Dathan and Abiram and two hundred and fifty Princes of the Assembly gathered themselves together Numb 16. 3. against Moses and against Aaron and said unto them Ye take too much upon you seeing all the congregation are Holy every one of them and the Lord is amongst them why lift you up your selves above the congregation of the Lord God caused the Earth to swallow Corah Dathan and Abiram with their wives and children alive and consumed those two hundred and fifty Princes with fire Therefore neither Aaron nor the People nor any Aristocracy of the chief Princes of the People but Moses alone had next under God the Soveraignty over the Israelites And that not onely in causes of Civill Policy but also of Religion For Moses onely spake with God and therefore onely could tell the People what it was that God required at their hands No man upon pain of death might be so presumptuous as to approach the Mountain where God talked with Moses Thou shalt set bounds saith the Lord Exod. 19. 12. to the people round about and say Take heed to your selves that you goe not up into the Mount or touch the border of it whosoever toucheth the Mount shall surely be put to death And again verse 21. Goe down charge the people lest they break through unto the Lord to gaze Out of which we may conclude that whosoever in a Christian Common-wealth holdeth the place of Moses is the sole Messenger of God and Interpreter of his Commandements And according hereunto no man ought in the interpretation of the Scripture to proceed further then the bounds which are set by their severall Soveraigns For the Scriptures since God now speaketh in them are the Mount Sinai the bounds whereof are the Laws of them that represent Gods Person on Earth To look upon them and therein to behold the wondrous works of God and learn to fear him is allowed but to interpret them that is to pry into what God saith to him whom he appointeth to govern under him and make themselves Judges whether he govern as God commandeth him or not is to transgresse the bounds God hath set us and to gaze upon God irreverently There was no Prophet in the time of Moses nor pretender to the Spirit of God but such as Moses had approved and Authorized For there were in his time but Seventy men that are said to Prophecy by the Spirit of God and these were of all Moses his election concerning whom God said to Moses Numb 11. 16. Gather to mee Seventy of the Elders of Israel whom thou knowest to be the Elders of the People To these God imparted his Spirit but it was not a different Spirit from that of Moses for it is said verse 25. God came down in a cloud and took of the Spirit that was upon Moses