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
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
time and of a horse at another we conceive in our mind a Centaure So when a man compoundeth the image of his own person with the image of the actions of an other man as when a man imagins himselfe a Herâ—…s or an Alexander which happeneth often to them that are much taken with reading of Romants it is a compound imagination and properly but a Fiction of the mind There be also other Imaginations that rise in men though waking from the great impression made in sense As from gazing upon the Sun the impression leaves an image of the Sun before our eyes a long time after and from being long and vehemently attent upon Geometricall Figures a man shall in the dark though awake have the Images of Lines and Angles before his eyes which kind of Fancy hath no particular name as being a thing that doth not commonly fall into mens discourse The imaginations of them that sleep are those we call Dreams And these also as all other Imaginations have been before either totally or by parcells in the Sense And because in sense the Brain and Nerves which are the necessary Organs of sense are so benummed in sleep as not easily to be moved by the action of Externall Objects there can happen in sleep no Imagination and therefore no Dreame but what proceeds from the agitation of the inward parts of mans body which inward parts for the connexion they have with the Brayn and other Organs when they be distempered do keep the same in motion whereby the Imaginations there formerly made appeare as if a man were waking saving that the Organs of Sense being now benummed so as there is no new object which can master and obseure them with a more vigorous impression a Dreame must needs be more cleare in this silence of sense than are our waking thoughts And hence it cometh to passe that it is a hard matter and by many thought impossible to distinguish exactly between Sense and Dreaming For my part when I consider that in Dreames I do not often nor constantly think of the same Persons Places Objects and Actions that I do waking nor remember so long a trayne of coherent thoughts Dreaming as at other times And because waking I often observe the absurdity of Dreames but never dream of the absurdities of my waking Thoughts I am well satisfied that being awake I know I dreame not though when I dreame I think my selfe awake And seeing dreames are caused by the distemper of some of the inward parts of the Body divers distempers must needs cause different Dreams And hence it is that lying cold breedeth Dreams of Feare and raiseth the thought and Image of some fearfull object the motion from the brain to the inner parts and from the inner parts to the Brain being reciprocall And that as Anger causeth heat in some parts of the Body when we are awake so when we sleep the over heating of the same parts causeth Anger and raiseth up in the brain the Imagination of an Enemy In the same manner as naturall kindness when we are awake causeth desire and desire makes heat in certain other parts of the body so also too much heat in those parts while wee sleep raiseth in the brain an imagination of some kindness sâ—…ewn In summe our Dreams are the reverse of our waking Imaginations The motion when we are awake beginning at one end and when we Dream at another The most difficult discerning of a mans Dream from his waking thoughts is then when by some accident we observe not that we have slept which is easie to happen to a man full of fearfull thoughts and whose conscience is much troubled and that sleepeth without the circumstances of going to bed or putting off his clothes as one that noddeth in a chayre For he that taketh pains and industriously layes himself to sleep in case any uncouth and exorbitant fancy come unto him cannot easily think it other than a Dream We read of Marcus Brutus one that had his life given him by Iulius Caesar and was also his favorite and notwithstanding murthered him how at Philippi the night before he gave battell to Augustus Câ—…sar hee saw a fearfull apparition which is commonly related by Historians as a Vision but considering the circumstances one may easily judge to have been but a short Dream For sitting in his tent pensive and troubled with the horrour of his rash act it was not hard for him slumbering in the cold to dream of that which most affrighted him which feare as by degrees it made him wake so also it must needs make the Apparition by degrees to vanish And having no assurance that he slept he could have no cause to think it a Dream or any thing but a Vision And this is no very rare Accident for even they that be perfectly awake if they be timorous and supperstitious possessed with fearfull tales and alone in the dark are subject to the like fancies and believe they see spirits and dead mens Ghosts walking in Church-yards whereas it is either their Fancy onely or els the knavery of such persons as make use of such superstitious feare to passe disguised in the night to places they would not be known to haunt From this ignorance of how to distinguish Dreams and other strong Fancies from Vision and Sense did arise the greatest part of the Religion of the Gentiles in time past that worshipped Satyres Fawnes Nymphs and the like and now adayes the opinion that rude people have of Fayries Ghosts and Goblins and of the power of Witches For as for Witches I think not that their witchcraft is any reall power but yet that they are justly punished for the false beliefe they have that they can do such mischiefe joyned with their purpose to do it if they can their trade being neerer to a new Religion than to a Craft or Science And for Fayries and walking Ghosts the opinion of them has I think been on purpose either taught or not confuted to keep in credit the use of Exorcisme of Crosses of holy Water and other such inventions of Ghostly men Neverthelesse there is no doubt but God can make unnaturall Apparitions But that he does it so often as men need to feare such things more than they feare the stay or change of the course of Nature which he also can stay and change is no point of Christian faith But evill men under pretext that God can do any thing are so bold as to say any thing when it serves their turn though they think it untrue It is the part of a wise man to believe them no further than right reason makes that which they say appear credible If this superstitious fear of Spirits were taken away and with it Prognostiques from Dreams false Prophecies and many other things depending thereon by which crafty ambitious persons abuse the simple people men would be much more fitted than they are for civill Obedience And this ought to
and extravagant Passion proceedeth from the evill constitution of the organs of the Body or harme done them and sometimes the hurt and indisposition of the Organs is caused by the vehemence or long continuance of the Passion But in both cases the Madnesse is of one and the same nature The Passion whose violence or continuance maketh Madnesse is either great vaine-Glory which is commonly called Pride and selfe-conceipt or great Dejection of mind Pride subjecteth a man to Anger the excesse whereof is the Madnesse called RAGE and FURY And thus it comes to passe that excessive desire of Revenge when it becomes habituall hurteth the organs and becomes Rage That excessive love with jealousie becomes also Rage Excessive opinion of a mans own selfe for divine inspiration for wisdome learning forme and the like becomes Distraction and Giddinesse The same joyned with Envy Rage Vehement opinion of the truth of any thing contradicted by others Rage Dejection subjects a man to causelesse fears which is a Madnesse commonly called MELANCHOLY apparent also in divers manners as in haunting of solitudes and graves in superstitious behaviour and in fearing some one some another particular thing In summe all Passions that produce strange and unusuall behaviour are called by the generall name of Madnesse But of the severall kinds of Madnesse he that would take the paines might enrowle a legion And if the Excesses be madnesse there is no doubt but the Passions themselves when they tend to Evill are degrees of the same For example Though the effect of folly in them that are possessed of an opinion of being inspired be not visible alwayes in one man by any very extravagant action that proceedeth from such Passion yet when many of them conspire together the Rage of the whole multitude is visible enough For what argument of Madnesse can there be greater than to clamour strike and throw stones at our best friends Yet this is somewhat lesse than such a multitude will do For they will clamour fight against and destroy those by whom all their life-time before they have been protected and secured from injury And if this be Madnesse in the multitude it is the same in every particular man For as in the middest of the sea though a man perceive no sound of that part of the water next him yet he is well assured that part contributes as much to the Roaring of the Sea as any other part of the same quantity so also though wee perceive no great unquietnesse in one or two men yet we may be well assured that their singular Passions are parts of the Seditious roaring of a troubled Nation And if there were nothing else that bewrayed their madnesse yet that very arrogating such inspiration to themselves is argument enough If some man in Bedlam should entertaine you with sober discourse and you desire in taking leave to know what he were that you might another time requite his civility and he should tell you he were God the Father I think you need expect no extravagant action for argument of his Madnesse This opinion of Inspiration called commonly Private Spirit begins very often from some lucky finding of an Errour generally held by others and not knowing or not remembring by what conduct of reason they came to so singular a truth as they think it though it be many times an untruth they light on they presently admire themselves as being in the speciall grace of God Almighty who hath â—…evealed the same to them supernaturally by his Spirit Again that Madnesse is nothing else but too much appearing Passion may be gathered out of the effects of Wine which are the same with those of the evill disposition of the organs For the variety of behaviour in men that have drunk too much is the same with that of Mad-men some of them Raging others Loving others Laughing all extravagantly but according to their severall domineering Passions For the effect of the wine does but remove Dissimulation and take from them the sight of the deformity of their Passions For I believe the most sober men when they walk alone without care and employment of the mind would be unwilling the vanity and Extravagance of their thoughts at that time should be publiquely seen which is a confession that Passions unguided are for the most part meere Madnesse The opinions of the world both in antient and later ages concerning the cause of madnesse have been two Some deriving them from the Passions some from Daemons or Spirits either good or bad which they thought might enter into a man possesse him and move his organs in such strange and uncouth manner as mad-men use to do The former sort therefore called such men Mad-men but the Later called them sometimes Daemoniacks that is possessed with spirits sometimes Energumeni that is agitated or moved with spirits and now in Italy they are called not onely Pazzi Mad-men but also Spiritati men possest There was once a great conflux of people in Abdera a City of the Greeks at the acting of the Tragedy of Andromeda upon an extream hot day whereupon a great many of the spectators falling into Fevers had this accident from the heat and from the Tragedy together that they did nothing but pronounce Iambiques with the names of Perseus and Andromeda which together with the Fever was cured by the comming on of Winter And this madnesse was thought to proceed from the Passion imprinted by the Tragedy Likewise there raigned a fit of madnesse in another Graecian City which seized onely the young Maidens and caused many of them to hang themselves This was by most then thought an act of the Divel But one that suspected that contempt of life in them might proceed from some Passion of the mind and supposing they did not contemne also their honour gave counsell to the Magistrates to strip such as so hang'd themselves and let them hang out naked This the story sayes cured that madnesse But on the other side the same Graecians did often ascribe madnesse to the operation of the Eumenides or Furyes and sometimes of Ceres Phoebus and other Gods so much did men attribute to Phantasmes as to think them aëreal living bodies and generally to call them Spirits And as the Romans in this held the same opinion with the Greeks so also did the Jewes For they called mad-men Prophets or according as they thought the spirits good or bad Daemoniacks and some of them called both Prophets and Daemoniacks mad-men and some called the same man both Daemoniack and mad-man But for the Gentiles 't is no wonder because Diseases and Health Vices and Vertues and many naturall accidents were with them termed and worshipped as Daemons So that a man was to understand by Daemon as well sometimes an Ague as a Divell But for the Jewes to have such opinion is somewhat strange For neither Moses nor Abraham pretended to Prophecy by possession of a Spirit but from the voyce of God or by a
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
when the Books of Scripture were gathered into one body of the Law to the end that not the Doctrine only but the Authors also might be extant Of the Prophets the most ancient are Sophoniah Jonas Amos Hosea Isaiah and Michaiah who lived in the time of Amaziah and Azariah otherwise Ozias Kings of Judah But the Book of Jonas is not properly a Register of his Prophecy for that is contained in these few words Fourty dayes and Ninivy shall be destroyed but a History or Narration of his frowardnesse and disputing Gods commandements so that there is small probability he should be the Author seeing he is the subject of it But the Book of Amos is his Prophecy Jeremiah Abdias Nahum and Habakkuk prophecyed in the time of Josiah Ezekiel Daniel Aggeus and Zacharias in the Captivity When Ioel and Malachi prophecyed is not evident by their Writings But considering the Inscriptions or Titles of their Books it is manifest enough that the whole Scripture of the Old Testament was set forth in the form we have it after the return of the Iews from their Captivity in Babylon and before the time of Ptolemaeus Philadelphus that caused it to bee translated into Greek by seventy men which were sent him out of Iudea for that purpose And if the Books of Apocrypha which are recommended to us by the Church though not for Canonicall yet for profitable Books for our instruction may in this point be credited the Scripture was set forth in the form wee have it in by Esdâ—… as may appear by that which he himself saith in the second book chapt 14. verse 21 22 c. where speaking to God he saith thus Thy law is burnt therefore no man knoweth the things which thou hast done or the works that are to begin But if I have found Grace before thee send down the holy Spirit into me and I shall write all that hath been done in the world since the beginning which were written in thy Law that men may find thy path and that they which will live in the later days may live And verse 45. And it came to passe when the forty dayes were fulfilled that the Highest spake saying The first that thou hast written publish openly that the worthy and unworthy may read it but keep the seventy last that thou mayst deliver them onely to such as be wise among the people And thus much concerning the time of the writing of the Bookes of the Old Testament The Writers of the New Testament lived all in lesse then an age after Christs Ascension and had all of them seen our Saviour or been his Disciples except St. Paul and St. Luke and consequently whatsoever was written by them is as ancient as the time of the Apostles But the time wherein the Books of the New Testament were received and acknowledged by the Church to be of their writing is not altogether so ancient For as the Bookes of the Old Testament are derived to us from no other time then that of Esdras who by the direction of Gods Spirit retrived them when they were lost Those of the New Testament of which the copies were not many nor could easily be all in any one private mans hand cannot bee derived from a higher time than that wherein the Governours of the Church collected approved and recommended them to us as the writings of those Apostles and Disciples under whose names they go The first enumeration of all the Bookes both of the Old and New Testament is in the Canons of the Apostles supposed to be collected by Clement the first after St. Peter Bishop of Rome But because that is but supposed and by many questioned the Councell of Laodicea is the first we know that recommended the Bible to the then Christian Churches for the Writings of the Prophets and Apostles and this Councell was held in the 364. yeer after Christ. At which time though ambition had so far prevailed on the great Doctors of the Church as no more to esteem Emperours though Christian for the Shepherds of the people but for Sheep and Emperours not Christian for Wolves and endeavoured to passe their Doctrine not for Counsell and Information as Preachers but for Laws as absolute Governours and thought such frauds as tended to make the people the more obedient to Christian Doctrine to be pious yet I am perswaded they did not therefore falsifie the Scriptures though the copies of the Books of the New Testament were in the hands only of the Ecclesiasticks because if they had had an intention so to doe they would surely have made them more favorable to their power over Christian Princes and Civill Soveraignty than they are I see not therefore any reason to doubt but that the Old and New Testament as we have them now are the true Registers of those things which were done and said by the Prophets and Apostles And so perhaps are some of those Books which are called Apocrypha and left out of the Canon not for inconformity of Doctrine with the rest but only because they are not found in the Hebrew For after the conquest of Asia by Alexander the Great there were few learned Jews that were not perfect in the Greek tongue For the seventy Interpreters that converted the Bible into Greek were all of them Hebrews and we have extant the works of Philo and Josephus both Jews written by them eloquently in Greek But it is not the Writer but the authority of the Church that maketh a Book Canonicall And although these Books were written by divers men yet it is manifest the Writers were all indued with one and the same Spirit in that they conspire to one and the same end which is the setting forth of the Rights of the Kingdome of God the Father Son and Holy Ghost For the Book of Genesis deriveth the Genealogy of Gods people from the creation of the World to the going into Egypt the other four Books of Moses contain the Election of God for their King and the Laws which hee prescribed for their Government The Books of Joshua Judges Ruth and Samuel to the time of Saul describe the acts of Gods people till the time they cast off Gods yoke and called for a King after the manner of their neighbour nations The rest of the History of the Old Testament derives the succession of the line of David to the Captivity out of which line was to spring the restorer of the Kingdome of God even our blessed Saviour God the Son whose coming was foretold in the Bookes of the Prophets after whom the Evangelists write his life and actions and his claim to the Kingdome whilst he lived on earth and lastly the Acts and Epistles of the Apostles declare the coming of God the Holy Ghost and the Authority he left with them and their successors for the direction of the Jews and for the invitation of the Gentiles In summe the Histories and the Prophecies of the old Testament
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
fault that Jonathan had committed in eating a honey-comb contrary to the oath taken by the people And Iosh. 18. 10. God divided the land of Canaan amongst the Israelite by the lots that Ioshua did cast before the Lord in Shiloh In the same manner it seemeth to be that God discovered Ioshua 7. 16 c. the crime of Achan And these are the wayes whereby God declared his Will in the Old Testament All which ways he used also in the New Testament To the Virgin Mary by a Vision of an Angel To Ioseph in a Dream again to Paul in the way to Damascus in a Vision of our Saviour and to Peter in the Vision of a sheet let down from heaven with divers sorts of flesh of clean and unclean beasts and in prison by Vision of an Angel And to all the Apostles and Writers of the New Testament by the graces of his Spirit and to the Apostles again at the choosing of Matthias in the place of Judas Iscariot by lot Seeing then all Prophecy supposeth Vision or Dream which two when they be naturall are the same or some especiall gift of God so rarely observed in mankind as to be admired where observed And seeing as well such gifts as the most extraordinary Dreams and Visions may proceed from God not onely by his supernaturall and immediate but also by his naturall operation and by mediation of second causes there is need of Reason and Judgment to discern between naturall and supernaturall Gifts and between naturall and supernaturall Visions or Dreams And consequently men had need to be very circumspect aud wary in obeying the voice of man that pretending himself to be a Prophet requires us to obey God in that way which he in Gods name telleth us to be the way to happinesse For he that pretends to teach men the way of so great felicity pretends to govern them that is to say to rule and reign over them which is a thing that all men naturally desire and is therefore worthy to be suspected of Ambition and Imposture and consequently ought to be examined and tryed by every man before hee yeeld them obedience unlesse he have yeelded it them already in the institution of a Common-wealth as when the Prophet is the Civill Soveraign or by the Civil Soveraign Authorized And if this examination of Prophets and Spirits were not allowed to every one of the people it had been to no purpose to set out the marks by which every man might be able to distinguish between those whom they ought and those whom they ought not to follow Seeing therefore such marks are set out Deut. 13. 1 c. to know a Prophet by and 1 Iohn 4. 1. c. to know a Spirit by and seeing there is so much Prophecying in the Old Testament and so much Preaching in the New Testament against Prophets and so much greater a number ordinarily of false Prophets then of true every one is to beware of obeying their directions at their own perill And first that there were many more false then true Prophets appears by this that when Ahab 1 Kings 12. consulted four hundred Prophets they were all false Impostors but onely one Michaiah And a little before the time of the Captivity the Prophets were generally lyars The Prophets saith the Lord by Ieremy cha 14. verse 14. prophecy Lies in my name I sent them not neither have I commanded them nor spake unto them they prophecy to you a false Vision a thing of naught and the deceit of their heart In so much as God commanded the People by the mouth of the Prophet Iâ—…remiah chap. 23. 16. not to obey them Thus saith the Lord of Hosts hearken not unto the words of the Prophets that prophecy to you They make you vain they speak a Vision of their own heart and not out of the mouth of the Lord. Seeing then there was in the time of the Old Testament such quarrells amongst the Visionary Prophets one contesting with another and asking When departed the Spirit from me to go to thee as between Michaiah and the rest of the four hundred and such giving of the Lye to one another as in Ierem. 14. 14. and such controversies in the New Testament at this day amongst the Spirituall Prophets Every man then was and now is bound to make use of his Naturall Reason to apply to all Prophecy those Rules which God hath given us to discern the true from the false Of which Rules in the Old Testament one was conformable doctrine to that which Moses the Soveraign Prophet had taught them and the other the miraculous power of foretelling what God would bring to passe as I have already shewn out of Deut. 13. 1. c. And in the New Testament there was but one onely mark and that was the preaching of this Doctrine That Iesus is the Christ that is the King of the Jews promised in the Old Testament Whosoever denyed that Article he was a false Prophet whatsoever miracles he might seem to work and he that taught it was a true Prophet For St. Iohn 1 Epist. 4. 2 c. speaking expressely of the means to examine Spirits whether they be of God or not after he had told them that there would arise false Prophets saith thus Hereby know ye the Spirit of God Every Spirit that confesseth that Iesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God that is is approved and allowed as a Prophet of God not that he is a godly man or one of the Elect for this that he confesseth professeth or preacheth Jesus to be the Christ but for that he is a Prophet avowed For God sometimes speaketh by Prophets whose persons he hath not accepted as he did by Baalam and as he foretold Saul of his death by the Witch of Endor Again in the next verse Every Spirit that confesseth not that Iesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of Christ. And this is the Spirit of Antichrist So that the Rule is perfect on both sides that he is a true Prophet which preacheth the Messiah already come in the person of Jesus and he a false one that denyeth him come and looketh for him in some future Impostor that shall take upon him that honour falsely whom the Apostle there properly calleth Antichrist Every man therefore ought to consider who is the Soveraign Prophet that is to say who it is that is Gods Vicegerent on Earth and hath next under God the Authority of Governing Christian men and to observe for a Rule that Doctrine which in the name of God hee hath commanded to bee taught and thereby to examine and try out the truth of those Doctrines which pretended Prophets with miracle or without shall at any time advance and if they find it contrary to that Rule to doe as they did that came to Moses and complained that there were some that Propecyed in the Campe whose Authority so to doe they doubted of and leave to the
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
and gave it to the Seventy Elders But as I have shewn before chap. 36. by Spirit is understood the Mind so that the sense of the place is no other than this that God endued them with a mind conformable and subordinate to that of Moses that they might Prophecy that is to say speak to the people in Gods name in such manner as to set forward as Ministers of Moses and by his authority such doctrine as was agreeable to Moses his doctrine For they were but Ministers and when two of them Prophecyed in the Camp it was thought a new and unlawfull thing and as it is in the 27. and 28. verses of the same Chapter they were accused of it and Joshua advised Moses to forbid them as not knowing that it was by Moses his Spirit that they Prophecyed By which it is manifest that no Subject ought to pretend to Prophecy or to the Spirit in opposition to the doctrine established by him whom God hath set in the place of Moses Aaron being dead and after him also Moses the Kingdome as being a Sacerdotall Kingdome descended by vertue of the Covenant to Aarons Son Eleazar the High Priest And God declared him next under himself for Soveraign at the same time that he appointed Joshua for the Generall of their Army For thus God saith expressely Numb 27. 21. concerning Joshua He shall stand before Eleazar the Priest who shall ask counsell for him before the Lord at his word shall they goe out and at his word they shall come in both he aâ—…d all the Children of Israel with him Therefore the Supreme Power of making War and Peace was in the Priest The Supreme Power of Judicature belonged also to the High Priest For the Book of the Law was in their keeping and the Priests and Levites onely were the subordinate Judges in causes Civill as appears in Deut. 17. 8 9 10. And for the manner of Gods worship there was never doubt made but that the High Priest till the time of Saul had the Supreme Authority Therefore the Civill and Ecclesiasticall Power were both joined together in one and the same person the High Priest and ought to bee so in whosoever governeth by Divine Right that is by Authority immediate from God After the death of Joshua till the time of Saul the time between is noted frequently in the Book of Judges that there was in those dayes no King in Israel and sometimes with this addition that every man did that which was right in his own eyes By which is to bee understood that where it is said there was no King is meant there was no Soveraign Power in Israel And so it was if we consider the Act and Exercise of such power For after the death of Joshua Eleazar there arose another generation Judges 2. 10. that knew not the Lord nor the works which he had done for Israel but did evill in the sight of the Lord and served Baalim And the Jews had that quality which St. Paul noteth to look for a sign not onely before they would submit themselves to the government of Moses but also after they had obliged themselves by their submission Whereas Signs and Miracles had for End to procure Faith not to keep men from violating it when they have once given it for to that men are obliged by the law of Nature But if we consider not the Exercise but the Right of Governing the Soveraign power was still in the High Priest Therefore whatsoever obedience was yeelded to any of the Judges who were men chosen by God extraordinarily to save his rebellious subjects out of the hands of the enemy it cannot bee drawn into argument against the Right the High Priest had to the Soveraign Power in all matters both of Policy and Religion And neither the Judges nor Samuel himselfe had an ordinary but extraordinary calling to the Government and were obeyed by the Israelites not out of duty but out of reverence to their favour with God appearing in their wisdome courage or felicity Hitherto therefore the Right of Regulating both the Policy and the Religion were inseparable To the Judges succeeded Kings And whereas before all authority both in Religion and Policy was in the High Priest so now it was all in the King For the Soveraignty over the people which was before not onely by vertue of the Divine Power but also by a particular pact of the Israelites in God and next under him in the High Priest as his Vicegerent on earth was cast off by the People with the consent of God himselfe For when they said to Samuel 1 Sam. 8. 5. make us a King to judge us like all the Nations they signified that they would no more bee governed by the commands that should bee laid upon them by the Priest in the name of God but by one that should command them in the same manner that all other nations were commandcd and consequently in deposing the High Priest of Royall authority they deposed that peculiar Government of God And yet God consented to it saying to Samuel verse 7. Hearken unto the voice of the People in all that they shall say unto thee for they have not rejected thee but they have rejected mee that I should not reign over them Having therefore rejected God in whose Right the Priests governed there was no authority left to the Priests but such as the King was pleased to allow them which was more or lesse according as the Kings were good or evill And for the Government of Civill affaires it is manifest it was all in the hands of the King For in the same Chapter verse 20. They say they will be like all the Nations that their King shall be their Judge and goe before them and fight their battells that is he shall have the whole authority both in Peace and War In which is contained also the ordering of Religion for there was no other Word of God in that time by which to regulate Religion but the Law of Moses which was their Civill Law Besides we read 1 Kings 2. 27. that Solomon thrust out Abiathar from being Priest before the Lord He had therefore authority over the High Priest as over any other Subject which is a great mark of Supremacy in Religion And we read also 1 Kings 8. that hee dedicated the Temple that he blessed the People and that he himselfe in person made that excellent prayer used in the Consecrations of all Churches and houses of Prayer which is another great mark of Supremacy in Religion Again we read 2 Kings 22. that when there was question concerning the Book of the Law found in the Temple the same was not decided by the High Priest but Josiah sent both him and others to enquire concerning it of Hulda the Prophetesse which is another mark of the Supremacy in Religion Lastly wee read 1 Chron. 26. 30. that David made Hashabiah and his brethren Hebronites Officers of Israel
and they that were governed did all expect the Messiah and Kingdome of God which they could not have done if their Laws had forbidden him when he came to manifest and declare himself Seeing therefore he did nothing but by Preaching and Miracles go about to prove himselfe to be that Messiah hee did therein nothing against their laws The Kingdome hee claimed was to bee in another world He taught all men to obey in the mean time them that sate in Moses seat He allowed them to give Caesar his tribute and refused to take upon himselfe to be a Judg. How then could his words or actions bee seditious or tend to the overthrow of their then Civill Government But God having determined his sacrifice for the reduction of his elect to their former covenanted obedience for the means whereby he would bring the same to effect made use of their malice and ingratitude Nor was it contrary to the laws of Caesar. For though Pilate himself to gratifie the Jews delivered him to be crucified yet before he did so he pronounced openly that he found no fault in him And put for title of his condemnation not as the Jews required that he pretended to bee King bnt simply That hee was King of the Iews and notwithstanding their clamour refused to alter it saying What I have written I have written As for the third part of his Office which was to be King I have already shewn that his Kingdome was not to begin till the Resurrection But then he shall be King not onely as God in which sense he is King already and ever shall be of all the Earth in vertue of his omnipotence but also peculiarly of his own Elect by vertue of the pact they make with him in their Baptisme And therefore it is that our Saviour saith Mat. 19. 28. that his Apostles should sit upon twelve thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel When the Son of man shall sit in the throne of his glory whereby he signified that he should reign then in his humane nature and Mat. 16. 27. The Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father with his Angels and then he shall reward every man according to his works The same we may read Marke 13. 26. and 14. 62. and more expressely for the time Luke 22. 29 30. I appoint unto you a Kingdome as my Father hath appointed to mee that you may eat and drink at my table in my Kingdome and sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel By which it is manifest that the Kingdome of Christ appointed to him by his Father is not to be before the Son of Man shall come in Glory and make his Apostles Judges of the twelve tribes of Israel But a man may here ask seeing there is no marriage in the Kingdome of Heaven whether men shall then eat and drink what eating therefore is meant in this place This is expounded by our Saviour Iohn 6. 27. where he saith Labour not for the meat which perisheth but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life which the Son of man shall give you So that by eating at Christs table is meant the eating of the Tree of Life that is to say the enjoying of Immortality in the Kingdome of the Son of Man By which places and many more it is evident that our Saviours Kingdome is to bee exercised by him in his humane nature Again he is to be King then no otherwise than as subordinate or Vicegerent of God the Father as Moses was in the wildernesse and as the High Priests were before the reign of Saul and as the Kings were after it For it is one of the Prophecies concerning Christ that he should be like in Office to Moses I will raise them up a Prophet saith the Lord Deut. 18. 18. from amongst their Brethren like unto thee and will put my words into his mouth and this similitude with Moses is also apparent in the actions of our Saviour himself whilest he was conversant on Earth For as Moses chose twelve Princes of the tribes to govern under him so did our Saviour choose twelve Apostles who shall sit on twelve thrones and judge the twelve tribes of Israel And as Moses authorized Seventy Elders to receive the Spirit of God and to Prophecy to the people that is as I have said before to speak unto them in the name of God so our Saviour also ordained seventy Disciples to preach his Kingdome and Salvation to all Nations And as when a complaint was made to Moses against those of the Seventy that prophecyed in the camp of Israel he justified them in it as being subservient therein to his government so also our Saviour when St. John complained to him of a certain man that cast out Devills in his name justified him therein saying Luke 9. 50. Forbid him not for hee that is not against us is on our part Again our Saviour resembled Moses in the institution of Sacraments both of Admission into the Kingdome of God and of Commemoration of his deliverance of his Elect from their miserable condition As the Children of Israel had for Sacrament of their Reception into the Kingdome of God before the time of Moses the rite of Circumcision which rite having been omitted in the Wildernesse was again restored as soon as they came into the land of Promise so also tâ—…e Jews before the coming of our Saviour had a rite of Baptizing that is of washing with water all those that being Gentiles embraced the God of Israel This rite St. John the Baptist used in the reception of all them that gave their names to the Christ whom hee preached to bee already come into the world and our Saviour instituted the same for a Sacrament to be taken by all that beleeved in him From what cause the rite of Baptisme first proceeded is not expressed formally in the Scripture but it may be probably thought to be an imitation of the law of Moses concerning Leprousie wherein the Leprous man was commanded to be kept out of the campe of Israel for a certain time after which time being judged by the Priest to be clean hee was admitted into the campe after a solemne Washing And this may therefore bee a type of the Washing in Baptisme wherein such men as are cleansed of the Leprousie of Sin by Faith are received into the Church with the solemnity of Baptisme There is another conjecture drawn from the Ceremonies of the Gentiles in a certain case that rarely happens and that is when a man that was thought dead chanced to recover other men made scruple to converse with him as they would doe to converse with a Ghost unlesse hee were received again into the number of men by Washing as Children new born were washed from the uncleannesse of their nativity which was a kind of new birth This ceremony of the Greeks in the time that Judaea was under the Dominion of Alexander and the Greeks
the Falling Sicknesse or that spoke any thing which they for want of understanding thought absurd As also of an Unclean person in a notorious degree they used to say he had an Unclean Spirit of a Dumbe man that he had a Dumbe Devill and of Iohn Baptist Math. 11. 18. for the singularity of his fasting that he had a Devill and of our Saviour because he said hee that keepeth his sayings should not see Death in aeternum Now we know thou hast a Devill Abraham is dead and the Prophets are dead And again because he said Iohn 7. 20. They went about to kill him the people answered Thou hast a Devill who goeth about to kill thee Whereby it is manifest that the Jewes had the same opinions concerning Phantasmes namely that they were not Phantasmes that is Idols of the braine but things reall and independent on the Fancy Which doctrine if it be not true why may some say did not our Saviour contradict it and teach the contrary nay why does he use on diverse occasions such forms of speech as seem to confirm it To this I answer that first where Christ saith A spirit hath not flesh and bone though hee shew that there be Spirits yet hee denies not that they are Bodies And where St. Paul saies We shall rise spirituall Bodies he acknowledgeth the nature of Spirits but that they are Bodily Spirits which is not difficult to understand For Air and many other things are Bodies though not Flesh and Bone or any other grosse body to bee discerned by the eye But when our Saviour speaketh to the Devill and commandeth him to go out of a man if by the Devill be meant a Disease as Phrenesy or Lunacy or a corporeal Spirit is not the speech improper can Diseases heare or can there be a corporeall Spirit in a Body of Flesh and Bone full already of vitall and animall Spirits Are there not therefore Spirits that neither have Bodies nor are meer Imaginations To the first I answer that the addressing of our Saviours command to the Madnesse or Lunacy he cureth is no more improper than was his rebuking of the Fever or of the Wind and Sea for neither do these hear Or than was the command of God to the Light to the Firmament to the Sunne and Starres when he commanded them to bee for they could not heare before they had a beeing But those speeches are not improper because they signifie the power of Gods Word no more therefore is it improper to command Madnesse or Lunacy under the appellation of Devils by which they were then commonly understood to depart out of a mans body To the second concerning their being Incorporeall I have not yet observed any place of Scripture from whence it can be gathered that any man was ever possessed with any other Corporeall Spirit but that of his owne by which his body is naturally moved Our Saviour immediately after the Holy Ghost descended upon him in the form of a Dove is said by St. Matthew Chapt. 4. 1. to have been led up by the Spirit into the Wildernesse and the same is recited Luke 4. 1. in these words Iesus being full of the Holy Ghost was led in the Spirit into the Wildernesse Whereby it is evident that by Spirit there is meant the Holy Ghost This cannot be interpreted for a Possession For Christ and the Holy Ghost are but one and the same substance which is no possession of one substance or body by another And whereas in the verses following he is said to have been taken up by the Devill into the Holy City and set upon a pinnacle of the Temple shall we conclude thence that hee was possessed of the Devill or carryed thither by violence And again carryed thence by the Devill into an exceeding high mountain who shewed him thence all the Kingdomes of the world Wherein wee are not to beleeve he was either possessed or forced by the Devill nor that any Mountaine is high enough according to the literall sense to shew him one whole Hemisphere What then can be the meaning of this place other than that he went of himself into the Wildernesse and that this carrying of him up and down from the Wildernesse to the City and from thence into a Mountain was a Vision Conformable whereunto is also the phrase of St. Luke that hee was led into the Wildernesse not by but in the Spirit whereas concerning His being Taken up into the Mountaine and unto the Pinnacle of the Temple hee speaketh as St. Matthew doth Which suiteth with the nature of a Vision Again where St. Luke sayes of Judas Iscariot that Satan entred into him and thereupon that he went and communed with the Chief Priests and Captaines how he might betray Christ unto them it may be answered that by the Entring of Satan that is the Enemy into him is meant the hostile and traiterours intention of selling his Lord and Master For as by the Holy Ghost is frequently in Scripture understood the Graces and good Inclinations given by the Holy Ghost so by the Entring of Satan may bee understood the wicked Cogitations and Designes of the Adversaries of Christ and his Disciples For as it is hard to say that the Devill was entred into Judas before he had any such hostile designe so it is impertinent to say he was first Christs Enemy in his heart and that the Devill entred into him afterwards Therefore the Entring of Satan and his Wicked Purpose was one and the same thing But if there be no Immateriall Spirit nor any Possession of mens bodies by any Spirit Corporeall it may again be asked why our Saviour and his Apostles did not teach the People so and in such cleer words as they might no more doubt thereof But such questions as these are more curious than necessary for a Christian mans Salvation Men may as well aske why Christ that could have given to all men Faith Piety and all manner of morall Vertues gave it to some onely and not to all and why he left the search of naturall Causes and Sciences to the naturall Reason and Industry of men and did not reveal it to all or any man supernaturally and many other such questions Of which neverthelesse there may be alledged probable and pious reasons For as God when he brought the Israelites into the Land of Promise did not secure them therein by subduing all the Nations round about them but left many of them as thornes in their sides to awaken from time to time their Piety and Industry so our Saviour in conducting us toward his heavenly Kingdome did not destroy all the difficulties of Naturall Questions but left them to exercise our Industry and Reason the Scope of his preaching being onely to shew us this plain and direct way to Salvation namely the beleef of this Article that he was the Christ the Son of the living God sent into the world to sacrifice himselfe for our Sins and