an evident mark of God's Ordination whereby this Power is convey'd to a Person and how we shall know it God's Lordship and Sovreignty over us does originally arise from the right of a Creatour In that he is the cause and authour of our being he must necessarily have an absolute dominion over us who are produced and created by him It is he that hath made us and not we our selves says the Psalmist And then it follows regularly in the next words We are his people c. And as he was pleas'd not to produce all men as he did Adam solely and immediately by Himself though he had the residue of the Spirit as the Prophet speaks but to take in man as a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Copartner with him in the production of the rest deriving them by Generation one from another He has hereby admitted man likewise into a partnership of his Sovreignty made him naturally a Sovreign over those who receive their being and production from him And thus Parents are petty gods in relation to their children And children have the obligation of creatures upon them in respect unto their Parents And this not onely to their next and immediate parents who beget them but upon the same Tenure for Causa causae est causa causati to their Parent 's Parents Avus Proavus Tritavus Grandfather Great-grandfather and so upwards Every one in the whole Category and Succession of them being a Subalternum genus That is to say a Power in respect of those under them but a Species and Subject still in respect of the Summum Genus the Supreme Parent from whom they flow and by whom they are sent And thus a Family becomes a Kingdom and the King or Pater patriae Father of the Countrey is the very Paterfamilias Master of the Family And as Noah if he were still alive would certainly be Rex Catholicus not in Title onely but in Truth the Catholick or Universal Monarch of the whole World as being the Father of all the Families and Kingdoms now in being So this Universal Monarchy must necessarily expire upon his death and become divided as it was between his three Sons Shem Ham and Japhet None of them being a Father and therefore not a King over the other but every one a Father and absolute in his own Family Shem the elder brother being still but a Brother and so though he had many privileges and priorities even a double portion above the rest as due by his Birthright Yet not necessarily or by the law of Nature to succeed into a paternal power over his brethren no more than he could be a natural Father to them And as here began the distinction of Kings and Kingdoms in these three Brethren and their Families So they all multiplying into many Sons and those Sons into many more who were all after their Fathers deaths as their Fathers before them had been absolute and Independent Monarchs over their respective children Every Family being still a several Kingdom it must needs be that in process of time among so many Kings and Kingdoms all absolute and independent from one another there could not but fall matter of continual and endless Controversie Every lesser Family oppress'd by the greater Every difference with a Neighbour being onely determinable by the sword and to be managed by a bloudy war For the avoiding of which great inconvenience manifestly arising from the multiplicity of Kings and Kingdoms we must suppose That either admonished by God or prompted by right Reason these several Fathers of Families so many of them as were adjoyn'd by any nearness of place and Kindred meeting together in one body and others in another and so of the rest did give up this their absolute power which they had severally before over their own Families into the hands of some one person incorporating themselves and their Families into his Family adopting themselves his children and by uniting their several paternal powers in him alone did thereby make and acknowledge him the common Father of them all And that not personally onely or with limitation to his particular self For then at his death they must have return'd to the same inconveniences as before Which by the greater increase of Families would then become much greater and which therefore they were concern'd the rather and with greater diligence to prevent but to his Heirs after him So making his Family to be a Family of Fathers in their several generations to them and their Families for ever And that this is indeed the true original of Kings and Monarchs all particular paternal powers being really transferr'd and united in them is very evident as Mr. Diggs observes Because else we should be bound to obey our Fathers commands before those of the Kings For divine precept stands in full force Honour thy Father c. Which being as St. Paul says the first commandment with promise and the first in the second Table does certainly in its own weight and obligation and so ought to do in our value and observance out-strip all other after Commandments of the same Nature with it or relating to Man And were not therefore to be set lower in the least by honouring and obeying the King before our Father if it were not certain that the King is more our Father than our Father that does beget us Tam pater nemo est in terris No man is so much our Father as the King And to whom therefore the honour enjoyn'd us towards our Father does most eminently and in the first place upon that very account belong But if this derivation of Kingly Power should not become perhaps so plain and intelligible to ordinary apprehensions as too far removed out of their sight I shall endeavour in a new draught to bring it nearer and by clear and evident instances to facilitate the understanding of it God doth impower a Person or call and ordain him to power by two manner of ways Either mediately or immediately Immediately and by himself so he called Aaron to the Priesthood Saul and after him David to the Kingdom mediately or by right from these as Eleazar and his Sons after him succeeded to Aaron So Solomon and his Sons after him succeeded David in the Kingdom Though all these may be rather said to be immediately call'd by God in as much as in the first investiture and conferring authority on Aaron and David the promise and so the Power was made to them and their seeds for ever Which yet while it was immediately done by God was never so immediately done by him as not to take in the Ministery of men for the doing of it even some known authentick Prophet to convey this message to call and consecrate the person to this authority Thus Moses by God's appointment settles the Priesthood upon Aaron and Samuel the Kingdom upon David And whoever will derive from this claim even this immediate call from God must not pretend I know not
the Law of Moses there was no such express Law or Revelation from Heaven against it And where no Law is there is no transgression God winking at those times of Ignorance whereas now he commands all men every where Not to lye one to another and That no man go beyond or defraud his Brother in any matter Not to forswear our selves but to perform unto the Lord our Oaths And to keep our promise though it were to our own hindrance and the like The administration of the Spirit then differing from that since and generally under the Gospel not onely in the degrees of it whereby we are obliged to a higher pitch and proficiency now in the same duty than they of old but also in the very kind and Species of it whereby many things were lawfull and indifferent then which now are not so Nay many things pious and holy then which are now wicked and damnable And for full proof of this I instanc'd particularly in Elias Whose calling for fire from Heaven and destroying his enemies was questionless in him an act of Zeal and Piety acceptable to God Whereas the same motion and offer is condemned by Christ in his Disciples as being wholly inconsistent and contrary to that Spirit He was to plant in them or to that manifestation of the Spirit rather of suffering and saving He came to shew forth among men For I am not come says He to destroy mens lives but to save them And certainly all that are called Christians or pretend to his Spirit must so walk as they have Christ for their pattern SECTION II. To all which You are pleased to answer for your self That you are so far from making any Rule of the Old Testament much less any practice there a certain guide for us now without the same Spirit That you do not hold that any Rule of the New Testament will justify an action that is conform'd thereunto unless it be done also in a New Testament Spirit Truely Sir what you say is very right That a New Testament Spirit i. e. Charity is a necessary qualification to denominate any action to be truly good For Though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor and have not Charity saith St. Paul it profiteth me nothing But this comes not home at all to the case For the Question between us is not Whether any action can be good now without Charity But Whether Charity or a good end can make any action how foul and lawless soever to be good Bonum say the Schoolmen fit ex Integris Malum è quolibet defectu To make a thing evil it is sufficient that it fail in any one circumstance but it must be perfect and complete throughout to make it good And therefore though to be done without Charity or a New Testament Spirit be enough indeed to make any action evil it will by no means follow from hence That whereever Charity is the action must streight be good supposing it to fail yet in some other particular For then all actions will be alike Treason Perjury Lying and the rest in an equal degree of vertue and capacity to good as Alms and Prayers and Martyrdom As neither of them good if not done in Charity So by that they may all be sublim'd into necessary acts of Piety and Religion Whereas these things are so intrinsecally evil and ex natura Rei that they can never be otherwise Lying for example being so contrary to the nature and essence of God who is Truth it self that He can no more lye than not be God God cannot lye And what He cannot doe himself no Spirit of his whether of the Old or New Testament can authorize or approve any in the doing of it But yet farther The question is Whether in the New Testament times an Old Testament spirit can be pretended to justify any in those old practices For so your professing not to make that instance of Jael a rule or example for any to act by without the same spirit And afterwards That those who are exercised in these ways by virtue of such an example if they have not a spirit proportionable will bring but the greater wrath upon themselves does pretty well imply what I onely charged you with That you pretend therefore to the spirit of Jael and so fall back from Christ to Moses from the Gospel to the Law Nay from that glorious midday-light in the Gospel which he that runs may reade to secure your selves as in Jael in the darkness and ignorance of the first Times The Old Testament spirit was indeed the spirit of God but fitted and proportion'd to Circumcision the Old Testament or Old Covenant it self to which it served Which being now out-dated and superseded by a better a Covenant established upon better promises There is likewise a better spirit that is to say a higher and more excellent administration of the same spirit in proportion to it For as the Apostle argues that The Priesthood being chang'd there is made of necessity a change also of the Law So the Law or Testament being chang'd there is made of necessity a change also of the spirit Though both from God the Old Testament and the Old spirit yet both to be altered and made better by him Ye know not what spirit ye are of saith our Saviour to his three Disciples For the Son of man came not to destroy c. Thereby evidently distinguishing his spirit not in these three Disciples onely but in all that belong to the Son of man and own him for their Saviour from that destroying spirit of Elias which ruled and govern'd in the Old Testament The Law was given in Thunder and Lightning as being the letter of condemnation and so to be managed by a killing and destroying spirit always expressing it self in Zeal and fiery indignation And from hence came that Jus Zelotarum among the Jews as in Phinehas Elias and the whole Tribe of Levi who consecrated themselves to the service of God and attendance on his Altar in the bloud of their Brethren Whereas the Gospel of peace coming down like the rain into a fleece of wool as being the ministry for reconciling sinners to God of seeking and saving that which was lost is accordingly actuated with a spirit of Charity born upon the wings of a mighty love and immortal patience spreading and stretching it self to our greatest enemies and the highest opposers of Religion for edification and not for their destruction And in a contrary method to the Levitical consecration in the Old Testament a main qualification to adapt or consecrate any one for the service of the New is That he be no striker The old spirit of Zeal is become it self now a work of the Flesh Mercy meekness and moderation are the proper vertues and a New commandment of Love superinstituted in the stead of it Old things are passed away
behold all things are become New A new Testament and a new spirit like new wine put into new bottles for the preservation of both And as the old Covenant of Circumcision which while it was in force was urg'd by God with so much strictness and severity that the omitting of it was instant death and excision Whosoever among you is not circumcis'd that soul shall be cut off from his people Is yet become in the New Testament not unnecessary onely but far more hurtfull and pernicious in the use of it than the contempt or neglect of it could formerly have been If ye be circumcised says St. Paul Christ shall profit you nothing So the Old Testament spirit which was accounted for righteousness to Phinehas Elias and the rest will bring as swift destruction upon any now who pretend to it As many of you as are justifyed by the Law are faln from Grace 'T is a plain renouncing and bidding farewell to the spirit of Grace to justify your actions by the spirit of the Law a preferring Moses before Christ a direct apostatizing to the sect of the Jews and the most hatefull opposition to Christ and his Gospel Which is made so much more odious than the Judaism of Old in as much as it pretends to this from a height and growth in Christianity A Judaism not from the Jews but Judas who in appearance of kindness and greater interest and familiarity with his Master did shamelesly betray him Thus they are forsooth lifted above Ordinances and while the rest of the Apostles are put upon duties Watching and Praying in the garden While all other Christians are under command to their Superiours Defrauding no man Truth in their promisses and the like and not thinking our selves worthy to sit down with Christ on his Throne esteem it a special privilege to enjoy him in his Sacraments To shew forth the Lord's death till he come as we are bidden in the Holy Supper and to be born again of water and the spirit as a necessary condition of seeing the Kingdom of God Judas rushes in with a hasty kiss And so these overgrown Christians with their lanterns and weapons and armed men fall presently a kissing of Christ no longer to be kept off at the distance of a Sacrament or the reverence of a duty but under colour of a greater growth and interest in him betray him manifestly to the Jews and that Old Testament spirit in all his Laws and Sacraments and services to be crucified by them at their will That there are indeed several degrees and growths in Christanity is perfectly true There is the Babe and the perfect man in Christ there is the weaker and the stronger Christian and that both in respect of knowledge and in respect of Grace whereby some Christians are more regenerate have mortified farther than others Some Christians are more knowing and so at greater freedom and liberty than others But yet certainly they are all within the same inclosure of Obedience to the Laws and Commandments of Christ The less knowing Christian may perhaps miss some part of that liberty which Christ hath purchased for him but the most knowing must not dare to transgress the least law or command of his Master The freedom onely lies in matters of a middle nature which being under no command or prohibition at all the weak or ignorant Christian does by his want of knowledge conceive otherwise and so obliges himself to doe or not to doe accordingly And thus likewise in the growth of Grace and degrees of mortification He that mortifies least must yet be supposed to mortifie every known lust and to practise an Uniform obedience to the Laws of Christ He that is partial to himself in either is but almost a Christian The degree consists not in mortifying this sin which another does not or in obeying this law or command of Christ which another Christian on the same occasion would not But in mortifying this sin in a greater measure hating it with a more perfect hatred watching more diligently against the occasions and provocations which lead to it praying more frequently and earnestly against it So in obeying the command with a greater desire and delight Virtutis amore making it our own choice judging the command most fit and reasonable the yoke to be an easie yoke and so our obedience and submission to it the very pleasurable part of our lives And yet farther enlarging our mortification to some freedoms and Indulgences allow'd unto us by God and his Church wherein we think fit to restrain our selves All things are lawfull for me says the Apostle but I will not be brought under the power of any And thus in our obedience not confining it barely to the plain laws and commands of our Lord but aiming likewise at his counsels and endeavouring towards perfection And while we might without sin nay doe well as S. Paul says by giving our Virgin in marriage yet resolve by giving her not in marriage to doe better Put our selves with the Apostle into the Theatre when we might have the benefit to escape Persecution Labour with our hands when we have a power to live of the Gospel and the like SECTION III. But yet all this makes nothing at all against obliging men to some certain measures of doctrine and worship gather'd out of the New Testament For that some doctrines there are in the New Testament so apprimely necessary that he is not a Christian that is ignorant of them or does not believe them Some parts of God's worship are of such universal interest and concernment that no Christian Church or communion can be without them And to pretend a weakness or unsuitableness of our spirits unto them is to profess our selves really Infidels And for other doctrines as Stars of a lesser magnitude yet certainly God's revealing them unto us in the New Testament does lay an obligation upon us of receiving them as soon as they are propounded unto us by authority of his word And so for our worship if it take in all that is commanded by God in this matter and add nothing forbidden by him supplying the rest with a suitable respect to God and our selves and the whole Church I know not what fault there can be in obliging men to an observation of it Weakness of Conscience was very pleadable in the days of the Apostles and first planting of Christanity When all men being Jews or Gentiles the Christian Jews were to receive Doctrines and Sacraments utterly destructive to what they had received before from the mouth of God which was given unto them by the Ministery of Angels confirm'd by Miracles and endear'd unto them by the Wisedom and witness of all Ages And no marvel if pious souls stuck now and then could not instantly unlearn the Religion of the Prophets and Patriarchs of God and his holy Angels nor swallow down every Camel without chewing And so the Gentiles
what Revelations from Heaven between God and his own Soul the secret whisperings of a private spirit to impower him in it For besides that a man 's own ambition will easily whisper and prompt him to such motions God's own secret and immediate way is not so very secret and immediate And upon this reason because Power and authority being a relative to obedience the Power of the King to the obedience of the people if it were thus privately and secretly conveyed to him onely whose interest and advantage it is to pretend it how could this draw after it the subjection and obedience of the people unless we should resolve quite contrary to David's Omnis homo mendax All men are liars that every man speaks right and truth in his own cause Which principle as soon as ever it could be taken up must necessarily be proved false by so many pretenders as would arise under the favour of it one against another And therefore the revelation in this case must be to the People as well as to the Prince or as God has better design'd it to a Prophet known and acknowledged by all Otherwise if God should secretly call him to be the Prince or Protector yet where has the People by this any call or warrant to be his subjects If he have a revelation to be our Sovreign yet we have no revelation to be his subjects And how is he a Prince then that has no People Let the Prince therefore that pretends this tenure produce his Prophet and the Prophet produce his Commission Which if he can confirm with no better miracle than that lying wonder of success and causing Fire to come down from Heaven killing and slaying as many as will not receive him he proves himself but a false Prophet by all this As appears Rev. 13.13 And he and the Beast which he worships the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 shall both be cast alive says God into a lake of fire burning with brimstone But indeed whatsoever is said this immediate way and call could onely be expected when God was pleas'd to govern immediately by a voice and revelation from Heaven as among the Jews But for the generality of mankind and the rest of the world he has left them as the Wise man tells us in the hands of their own counsels Christ's Kingdom is not of this world Nor has he ever been known from the first day of his Incarnation to call or consecrate any man to Power and Dominion merely Secular by any of his Apostles or Prophets in an extraordinary way All that he does peculiarly in this matter is by giving laws to hold us fast to duty and Allegiance confirm and ratify the Covenants we have made and the Oaths we have taken impower the Person whom the Law has appointed for our Prince over-rule all the actions and counsels both of Prince and People as seems best to his divine Wisedom and for the good of his Church And lastly when he pleases to alter the Government not by permission barely which wicked and unreasonable men may extort from him but by his own act and approbation he so disposes and orders affairs and Persons that by the laws and rights among men it is transferred to another Think not that I am come to destroy the Law I am not come to destroy but to fulfill This though spoken by our Saviour in relation to the Mosaical law is verified likewise of him in relation to the law of Nature and of Nations and the Municipal laws of every particular Kingdom so far as they are not repugnant to that Supreme Law of his laid down in the Holy Scripture He comes not to destroy but to fulfill them not to supersede or evacuate them but to hold us the faster and the closer to them to make us the more dutifull and observant to them in our several places and relations whether of Nature Nations or those of our own Land And this the Apostle has plainly intimated When as a motive of all chearfull ready obedience of wives to their Husbands of children to their Parents of servants to their Masters and so of subjects to their Sovreigns he tell us that in obeying them we obey not men but God even the Lord Christ Whereby it appears that their laws are not their laws but Christ's And that he dictates to us by their mouths this being that which as it preserves peace and a decent Subordination among men does admirably set forth the Excellency of Christ's Oeconomy and Government of the world with such a power of Wisedom as becomes him that is the Wisedom of the Father as without making use of the strength of his arm or doing every thing by mere force he does yet effect and bring to pass what alterations he pleases in the world by his wonderfull and wise disposing the counsels and affairs of men to his designed issue Attingit à fine usque ad finem fortiter says the Wiseman disponit omnia suaviter Wisedom reacheth from one end to another mightily and sweetly does she order all things Fortiter suaviter mightily and sweetly And therefore supposing onely Paternal power or the authority of Parents over their children immediately from God and wherein the child to be under obedience was never askt his I or No to assent or differ The mediate or more remote way I shall grant to be in our own choice and Election Which yet after we have determined and bound our selves boared our selves as it were through the Ear by entring into Oaths and promise of Obedience those two 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Heb. 6. we are then as fast and as irreversibly bound for so long as we have bound our selves as if we were bound immediately by God and a voice from Heaven And as it was with the servant boared through the Ear there is no Jubilee to set us free Consider the case of Ananias's sacrilege Acts 5. The same sin as Achan's Josh 7. And both punished with death though Achan's was in stealing part of that which God had immediately and by himself consecrated to himself The wedge of Gold and the Babilonish garment Ananias's in detaining part of that which he himself of himself had dedicated to God's service Which to shew it was by this promise and consecration of his as holy now and irrevocable as if God had immediately consecrated it himself St. Peter tells him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Thou hast not lyed unto or cheated men but God So to whom we give our lawfull promise of subjection and obedience thereby discriminating that Person from the rest of the lump setting him up in a peculiar reference to God Almighty to whom all our obedience and subjection is especially due which is the proper notion of Consecration He is then as truely sacred and to be used cum discrimine with respect and reverence by us as if God had plac'd