bound to obey God more then man and as his subjection unto man is but conditional and subordinate to his subjection to God so his obedience to man is limited and only to be performed in such things as his supreme and absolute Lord doth allow him And though man may suffer for his disobedience to humane Laws yet he had better suffer a temporal then an eternal penalty and offend man rather then God Neither doth this doctrine any waies prejudice the civil power nor encourage any man to disobedience and violation of civil Laws if they be just and good as they ought to be and the subject hath not only liberty but a command to examine the Laws of his Soveraign and judge within himself and for himself whether they be not contrary to the Laws of his God T. H. The third Doctrine That faith and sanctity are not to be attained by Study and Reason but by supernatural inspiration and infusion G. L. That divine faith wherby we believe on Jesus Christ and obtain eternal life in him and that sanctity of life whereby we please God and are accepted of him are no doubt both merited by Christ and inspired and wrought in us supernaturally by the power of the Holy-Ghost And there can be no doubt of this to such as believe the Scripture to be the Word of God written wherein we read That except a man be born again of water and the spirit he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God John 3.5 And no man can come unto me except the Father draw him cap. 6.44 And to believe that Jesus was the Son of the living God was not from flesh and blood but by revelation of his heavenly Father Christ himself teacheth us Mat. 16.17 This revelation was an inspiration or infusion except we will quarrel with words and it was not natural for then it might have been by and from flesh and blood but it was supernatural and from God revealing not only outwardly but inwardly too It is also further taught us in Scripture That no man can say that Jesus Christ is the Lord but by the Spirit 1 Cor. 12.3 Yet this faith and sanctity are so wrought in us as that ordinarily God makes use of the Scriptures taught explained applyed unto mans heart of hearing study and meditation which are acts of reason and such acts as man may naturally perform and also so neglect them as to give God just cause to deny the inspiration of his Spirit for to make the word taught heard meditated effectual upon his heart This Doctrine hath been believed and professed in the most peaceable Common-wealths of the world and did strengthen not weaken much less dissolve the same If he understand by the professors of this Doctrine the phanatick Enthusiasts of these times who pretend so much that Spirit which God never gave them and upon this pretence boast themselves to be spiritual men judging all and to be judged of none as they use to abuse the Scripture then its true that these are enemies to all Government and their Doctrine tends to the dissolution of all order Ecclesiastical and Civil and is to be rooted out of all Common-wealths T. H. A fourth opinion repugnant to the nature of a Common-wealth is this That he that hath the Soveraign power is subject to the Civil Laws G. L. There is no doubt but this is destructive of Government and contrary to the very nature and essence of a Common-wealth the essential parts whereof are imperans subditus the Soveraign and the subject take this difference away you confound all and turn the Common-wealth into a Community yet though Soveraigns are above their own Laws how otherwise could they dispense with them and repeal them wise men have given advice to Princes for to observe their own Laws and that for example unto others and good Princes have followed this advice Soveraigns are to govern by Laws not to be subject unto them or as Subjects obey them or be punished by them But what this man means by Soveraign in the hypothesis is hard to know For he presupposeth all Soveraigns absolute and all Kings of England such Soveraigns and so in general it may be granted that all Soveraigns are above the Laws civil yet the application of this rule to particular Princes of limited power may be false and no waies tolerable The question is not so much concerning the superiority of the Soveraign over the Laws but whether a Soveraign by Law for Administration who is not sole Legislator is not in divers respects inferiour to the Law or whether an an absolute Soveraign may not cease to be such and ex obligatione criminis ex superiore fieri inferior T. H. A fifth Doctrine which tendeth to the dissolution of a Common-wealth is That every man hath an absolute propriety in his goods such as excludeth the right of the Soveraign Every man hath indeed a propriety that excludes the right of the subject which is derived from the Soveraign without whose protection every man should have equal right to the same G. L. 1. If the subject have propriety as the Author grants it must needs be absolute and must needs exclude not only the right of the fellow-subject but of the Soveraign too For propriety in proper sense is an independent right of total alienation without any license of a Superiour or any other 2. This propriety is not derived from the Soveraign except he be despotical and such indeed the Author affirmeth all Soveraigns to be and in that respect the subjects can neither have propriety nor liberty therefore he contradicts himself when he saith in many places that the Soveraign is absolute and here that the subject hath propriety 3. It s to be granted that even in a free-State the subjects proprity cannot free from the publick charges for as a Member of the whole body he is bound to contribute to the maintenance of the State without the preservation whereof he cannot so well preserve his own private right 4. Propriety is by the Law of Nature and Nations at least agreeable unto both And when men agree to constitute a Common-wealth they retain their proper right which they had unto their goods before the Constitution which doth not destroy but preserve propriety if well ordered For men may advance a Soveraign without any alienation of their estates No man hath any propriety from God but so as to be bound to give unto the poor relieve the distressed and maintain the Soveraign in his just Government yet this doth not take away but prove propriety because every one gives even unto the Common-wealth that which is his own not another mans nor his Soveraigns who may justly in necessary cases for the preservation of the State impose a just rate upon the subject But if the Reader seriously consider the Authors discourse in other parts of his Book he may easily know whereat he aims For 1. He makes all Soveraigns absolute 2. The Kings
Common-wealths be absolute in their own territories immediately under God or subject to one Vicar of Christ c. Whereas neither civil Soveraigns nor Popes can make the Scripture to be Law but all Christians are bound to believe the Scriptures to be the Law of God upon better grounds then civil laws or Ecclesiastical Canon or else they cannot be saved by them CAP. III. Of the third Part And 34. of the Book Of the signification of Spirit Angel Inspiration in the Book of holy Scriptures A Great part of his discourse in this division of his Book is spent in the explication of certain words and terms much used in the Scriptures and as he informs us the reason of this labour is to take away the ambiguity of the words that his inferences from them may be more clear and distinct Yet he hath done it in that manner that he hath perverted the genuine sense of Gods Word and so much as in him was made it more obscure and which is worse hath falsifyed the same These terms have been examined and explained far better by more learned men which I desire the ignorant to consult and advise with least they be seduced from the truth For Mr. Hobbs in this particular work as in others is not to be trusted But let us hear him T. H. Substance and body signifie the same thing and therefore substance incorporeal when they are joyned together destroy one another as if a man should say an incorporeal body G. L. The signification of words whereby we signifie our minds to others is of great consequence and without the distinct knowledge of the several significations of one and the same words we can neither understand the Scriptures nor any other rational Author This signification of words is either proper and Grammatical or Tropical and Rhetorical Of some words we have lost the proper sense and therefore must understand them according as they are most usually taken in the best Authors These words Body and Substance wherewith he begins his Scripture Lexicon are sometimes taken in the same sense to signifie the same thing yet neither properly nor most usually We find some of the antient Divines affirming Angels to be bodies and bodily creatures yet by body they meant substance and yet did acknowledge them to be Spirits And for my part I cannot be perswaded that either Angels or souls rational are pure forms as some nay many Peripateticks do affirm Yet they may be spirits and this nature better expressed by the word Spirits then the word Bodies And the vanity and presumption of this man is very much who would perswade us that incorporeal substance is a contradiction Some have observed that the word Guf in Arabick and Rabbinical Authors signifies 1. A body 2. A person 3. The substance or principal of a thing yet no rational man will hence conclude that body and substance are the same The next word he undertakes to explain is Spirit of which he saith T. H. That the proper signification of Spirit in common speech is either a subtile fluid invisible body or a Ghost or other idol or phantasm of the imagination But for Metaphorical significations there be many c. G. L. One word hath but one proper signification according to the first imposition therefore it s not true that there be three proper significations of this word and as for the improper there may be and are many and the same not only Metaphorical but Metonymical Ironical and Synechdochical Yet he hath observed seven distinct senses of the word Spirit in the Scripture But he fearfully abuseth some of those places alledged by him doth not reach the multitude of the significations of the same in that holy Book much less doth he reduce them into any Grammatical Rhetorical or Natural method If any man will but search the Scriptures he shall find the word Spirit therein to signifie above twenty several things The original Concordances will make this apparent to an intelligent Reader if he look but in the word Ruach which the Septuagint express and turn by 14. several Greek words the first whereof is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Spirit which is used by them most frequently by far yet so as that by that one word they signifie many things And this word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Spiritus we find in the New Testament about 360. times and in many places is very differently taken The Latine use the word Spiritus in 15. several senses at least By which it doth appear that this part of the Chapter cannot be read by Schollars but with disdain and scorn and especially when he writes T. H. Other significations of Spirt I find nowhere any and where none of these can satisfie the sense of the word in Scripture the place falleth not under humane understanding c as where God is said to be a Spirit G. L. He had said that sometime the word is taken for the disposition or inclination of the mind and then infers these words when he doth not tell us whether these be proper significations usual in common speech as the three former were or they be Metaphorical If he mean that besides the three proper and these two he finds none his observation and so his learning in this kind is very poor But whereas he will not have the place of Scripture where it s used in another sense to fall under our understanding he is absurd For the place where it s said by our Saviour that God is a Spirit may be and is understood though we have no demonstrative or intuitive knowledge of the Deity in it self There is a great difference between a word and the thing signified by the word The word may be perfectly understood though the thing be not and we may know something of the thing by some measure of knowledge though we do not perfectly know it with the most perfect knowledge Christ by these words did teach us something and if he did how can it be said that the place falleth not under our understanding For there is nothing teachable which is not intelligible And by that place we may easily understand that God is a far more perfect and excellent substance or being then any inanimate or irrational body can possibly be The next term to be explained is that of Angel whereof he saith T. H. There is no place in the Old Testament or New from whence we can conclude that Angels are any thing permanent and incorporeal or created or any thing but an extraordinary manifestation of Gods power especially by dream or vision and the Angel Gabriel was nothing but a supernatural phantasm Yet from my feeble understanding was by the plain texts of the New Testament extorted an acknowledgement and belief that there be Angels substantial and permanent G. L. Much to this purpose in this part of the Chapter we may read And in this particular he most wofully perverts several texts of Scripture eludes the plain sense
confutes his own belief and is in effect a Sadducean To let him and others see his vanity and impiety I will produce one place out of the New Testament where it s written Let all the Angels of God worship him And of the Angels he saith He maketh his Angels Spirits and his Ministers a flame of fire Heb. 1.6 7. where we may observe 1. That Angels are persons and so permanent substances for else how could they worship the Son of God incarnate How could they be capable of this command 2. They were Spirits and spiritual substances 3. They were made and created 4. All these words are cited out of the Old Testament the first out of Psalm 97.7 The second place out of Psal 104.4 And both the Epistle to the Hebrews and the Psalms are declared to be Canonical and that by the Church of England to which he submits himself This is sufficient to discover his ignorance and damnable errours in this particular and to admonish all such as are taken with him and esteem him to beware of him and in no wise to trust him T. H. Inspiration properly is the blowing into a man some thin and subtile air or wind c. or if spirits be not corporeal but have their existence only in the fancy it is nothing but the blowing in of some phantasm For Scripture to be inspired or given by inspiration from God is the inclining of the minds of those men to write c. For the holy men of God to speak as they were moved by the holy Spirit is for these men to receive the voice of God in a dream or vision supernatural For the holy Spirit is nothing else it s not inspiration c. G. L. More to this purpose you may read in the close of this Chapter where he undertakes to tell us what inspiration and infusion are I will not here quarrel with him about the proper or improper signification of these words but consider how they are used do signifie when they are appropriate unto the spirit which is God working some special thing in the intellectual or rational creature Significant enim ineffabilem invisibilem Dei praesentiam operationem productionem alicujus effectus specialis supernaturalis sive ordinarii sive extraordinarii They signifie 1. A special vertue and power of God in Angel or man 2. His presence in the creation 3. His special operation 4. His production of some special supernatural effect either upon the soul as understanding or affecting the thing understood or as they usually speak upon the understanding by illumination or the will by some sanctification whereby the soul or spirit is elevated above his natural pitch And the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 used by the Apostle and translated in Latine divinitus inspirata and in English given by inspiration from God must needs signifie more then a flat and meer inclination For if God had not immediately by his Spirit dictated unto them what they should both speak and write and also in both directed them infallibly the holy writings had not been of divine infallible and unquestionable authority as all Christians who deserve that name believe them for to be Neither could they contain the Word of God but only the word of man who in ordinary things is subject unto errour The same is also to be said of the words of another Apostle That the holy men of God did speak as they were moved by the Spirit of God 2 Pet. 1.21 That in this place by holy Spirit should be meant the voice of God in a dream or vision supernatural cannot be true The holy Spirit is one thing the voice of God another thing vision a third thing distinct from both and both the voice and vision may be called inspiration either actively or else passively For vision sometimes is an act of the party inspired and an effect of inspiration which is an invisible and wonderful manner of communicating of Gods will and counsels immediately unto the intellectual creature We are not so sottish as to understand the words inspiration and infusion in the Grammatical sense as they signifie the breathing of one body upon another or the pouring of water out of one vessel into another For then the Holy-Ghost should be breath of a body and water But we do understand them Metaphorically as they signifie a supernatural communication of gifts CAP. IV. Of the third Part. The 35. of the Book Of the signification in Scripture of the Kingdom of God of Holy Sacred Sacrament T. H. THE Kingdom of God in the writings of Divines especially in Sermons and Treatises of devotion is taken most commonly for eternal felicity and is called the Kingdom of glory or for sanctification which is called by them the Kingdom of grace but never for the Soveraign power of God over any subjects acquired by their own consent which is the proper signification of Kingdom G. L. The Kingdom of God mentioned in Scripture is threefold 1. The Government of God over men in their spiritual capacity as they are capable according to their obedience or disobedience of an immortal estate of felicity or misery 2. His government over them in respect of their temporallife liberty estates on earth 3. His special government both Civil and Ecclesiastial over the people of Israel after their deliverance out of Egypt until the time of the last ruine of Jerusalem and dispersion of them into all Nations The first begun presently upon the fall of man the second upon the first constitution of civil States the 3 about 2000 years after the Creation and continued till the captivity of Babylon yet did not totally expire till our blessed Saviours ascension into Heaven and the fatal dissolution of that Policy upon the destruction of the Temple Whosoever in reading the Scripture doth not observe these three distinct and different Kingdoms cannot well challenge the name of a learned Divine These may properly be called Kingdoms because in every one of these there is a Soveraign subjects Laws Judgements and executions That Divines sometimes understand by the Kingdom of God eternal life which is the final estate of the subjects of his spiritual Kingdom they cannot be blamed justly for in the New Testament many times the term is so taken yet these exclude either Soveraign nor subjects nor laws nor any thing essential or proper to a Kingdom neither do they any ways by these take away or deny this three-fold difference of Gods Government But that any of these Kingdoms should be acquired by the consent of the subjects they have no reason to affirm For God as Creatour and Preserver universal he hath absolute power and dominion over mens souls lives liberties estates as Redeemer he hath power over their immortal souls as well as by creation and preservation As he delivered Israel out of Aegypt he acquired a special and peculiar right unto and dominion over that people Their consent and voluntary submission
that though no Reason can prove yet no Reason can contradict justly because there is nothing in them contrary to the principles of pure Reason They are proposed unto us with such credit and urged upon us as matters of greatest concernment in the world in so much that he cannot be rational that shall refuse either to give assent unto them or make trial of them with the sincere heart which once done he shall find by reall effects in the heart not only that God did reveal them as he believed before by an acquired faith but have an intuitive knowledge that they are Gods testimony because he who spake by the Scriptures and the Ministers hath spoken to him immediately by his spirit working in his heart and then Reason is satisfied and convinced that God hath spoken and thereupon ceaseth to deny and oppose and yields a firm assent And to conclude this point whereof 〈◊〉 had formerly spoken if we will but consider what kind of men have questioned or opposed the divinity of the Scripture we shall find it in that very thing to be much honoured 〈◊〉 and the reason why men do not believe them is not onely the imperfection but the corruption of Reason and mans will For most men love darkness rather then the light and the Doctrine of the Cross of Christ as it declares a deep design of Gods Eternal Wisdom so it s directly contrary to our false notions and base lusts And this is a plain reason why an acquired faith cannot be sufficient to save any man without the powerful sanctification of the Spirit both to prepare the heart and work a Divine Faith which can never take kindly in an heart that is not prepared These Scriptures he pretends to make the rule of his ensuing discourse yet it s but a bare pretence for he followes his own fancies and false notions not the sense and genuine mind of God in them He doth not re ferre sed ferre sensum as grave Hilary saith He doth not conform his notions to the Scripture but wrests it and makes it to speak that which God never intended CAP 2. Of the third part the 33. of the Book of the Number Antiquity Scope Authority and Interpreters of the holy Scripture SEeing he had made the Scripture to be his Rule he thought good to say something of the Scripture in general And 1. Of the number of the Books and seeing herein he follows the Church of England which followed the Ancient Canon I agree with with him in this as I have no reason to the contrary neither will I debate with him in the second point of Antiquity It s the most Ancient writing in the world and the doctrine more ancient then the writing And its remarkable that though it contain the History of 4000. years yet it was written within the space of 2000. 2. That all the Writers of it if Luke be not excepted were of the seed of Abraham by Jacob and of no other Nation all of them according to the flesh kinsmen to our Saviour Christ 3. That the Prophetical part reacheth the end as the Historical did the beginning of the world and this no other book in the world doth 4. That neither Jews nor Mahumetans have any thing good just and rational but that which is contained in these books and retained by them 5. That these Scriptures are found translated into the languages of the most if not all civil Nations of the world The scope of these writings is to direct sinful man unto eternal life And because this eternal life is virtually in God and issues from him as the Fountain and Author thereof therefore in the same is revealed the Eternal Infinite glorious perfection of God in himself and also his glorious works of Creation and Preservation his supreme and universal Dominion his Laws and Judgements and special government of man And because man as sinful and guilty is no ways capable of eternal life in strict justice therefore the Scripture directs him to God as Redeemer in Jesus Christ that by the observation of the Laws of Redemption he may be for ever blessed Christ our Lord Redeemer is the principal subject of that Book of books For Moses and all the Prophets speak of him as well as the writers of the New Testament though not so clearly and the doctrine of his Laws takes up the greatest part of that Revelation though many other things are therein declared yet in reference unto the principal subject and End In a word the end of the Scripture is to teach us to believe and obey God the Father Son and Holy Ghost Creating Redeeming and Sanctifying us if it speak of civil Kingdoms Laws and judgements it s upon the by with reference to the eternal spiritual Kingdom of God Redeemer and Sanctifier This end and scope is both obscurely and confusedly declared by the Author as will more appear hereafter The Authority of the Scripture is Divine and so perfect that it cannot be improved or impaired by all the Laws of all the civil Soveraigns of the world Neither can the Angels in Heaven add any degree of Authority unto it but if any of them should as they cannot contradict it they are by the divine Apostle declared to be accursed That any person or persons do not apprehend it to be Divine that 's accidental and cannot prejudice it Therefore how vain and false is that of Mr. Hobs when he gives the supreme power of making it to be Law and interpreting the same so made unto the Civil Soveraignss There is a two-fold Law the one is Divine and binds the conscience immediately the other is humane and Civil and cannot bind the conscience but per accidens The Doctrine of the Scripture not onely in Morals but in Positives is Divine and the precepts thereof as being the precepts of God do bind the conscience immediately The Laws of Civil Soveraigns may bind their subjects upon peril of civil and temporal punishment to receive them as authentick But Laws they are and binding to obedience and belief though there were no civil government in the world The State and Church may declare them to be Divine but no wayes make them to be such And as our Saviour said of his Doctrine so its true of all the Scripture that if any man will do the will of God declared therein he shall know it to be of God It s not so much the imperfection of our understanding or the difficulty of the thing to be understood as our disobedience which is the cause why we do not see the divinity of these blessed Books These things being so how absurdly and falsly hath he stated the Question concerning the Authority of the Scripture so as to make it depend either upon the civil Soveraign in his Territory or upon the Pope For thus he writes The Question of the Authority of the Scripture is reduced to this Whether Christian Kings and the Soveraign Assemblies in Christian