cloth'd with our Vileness and Infirmities But the Bishop hath more relation to God as Wisdom and Reason incarnate and compass'd about with our Infirmities than as absolute and independent Power to Jesus Christ upon Earth conversing familiarly with Men than to Jesus Christ glorified and made supreme Lord of all the Nations of the World Ye know saith our Saviour to his Apostles Mat. 20.25 that the Princes of the Gentiles exercise Dominion over them and they that are great exercise Authority upon them But it shall not be so among you The Son of Man came not to be ministred unto but to minister and to give his life a Ransom for many Not that Princes have a Right to use their Authority without Reason God himself hath not this miserable Right he is essentially Just and the universal Reason is his inviolable Law But the abuse of the Ecclesiastical Authority is more criminal in the sight of God than the abuse of Royal Authority not only because there is an infinite difference between spiritual and temporal Goods but also because the Ecclesiastical Power that acts imperiously and arbitrarily acts directly contrary to the Character which it bears of Jesus Christ who is always Reason and Reason humbled and proportion'd to the capacity of Men for their Instruction and Salvation V. The end of the institution of these two Powers is very different The Civil Power is ordain'd for the maintenance of Civil Societies The Ecclesiastical Power for the establishment and preservation of the heavenly Society which is begun upon Earth and shall never end The Duty of the Prince regards only the peace of the State the Duty of the Bishop the peace of Christ's Church The Prince should preserve and augment those Conveniences that are necessary for the temporal Life The Bishop by his Preaching and Example should instruct and enlighten the People and as the Minister of Christ diffuse inward Grace by the Sacraments in the Members of the Church and thereby communicate the life of the Spirit to those that are committed to his charge In a word the Power of the Prince is ordain'd for the temporal Good of his Subjects that of the Bishop for the spiritual Good of his Children VI. This being laid down as the first Principle the second which follows from it is That since God is the absolute Lord of all Things his Orders give a Right to all necessary and reasonable means for the execution of them A Servant who receives Orders from his Master to carry a message of importance with all speed to his Friend hath no right to take his Neighbour's Horse for the execution of his Master's commands because his Master himself hath not that right But God being the absolute Lord of all Things when he saith to St. Peter Feed my Sheep or when he commands the King to preserve his Subjects in Peace he gives to these two sovereign Powers as far as Order permits an absolute right to all Things necessary for the execution of his Will So that the natural essential and primitive Rights of the temporal Sovereignty are as far as Order permits all necessary means for the preservation of the State and the natural rights of the Ecclesiastical Power are all lawful means necessary for the edification of the Church of Christ VII But the Church and the State being compos'd of the same Persons who at the same time are both Christians and Members of a Body Politick Children of the Church and Subjects of the Prince it is impossible for these two Powers which ought to have a mutual regard to each other and should be absolute and independent in the Administration of their several Functions to exercise their Jurisdiction and execute the Orders of their common Master if they do not perfectly agree together and even in some Cases depart with something of their Rights to one another For this Reason it is that the Prince by the concession of the Church hath now a right of Presentation to many Benefices and the Church by the concession of the Prince enjoys temporal Possessions These are not natural rights because they are not necessary or natural consequences of the Commission which these different Powers have receiv'd from God They are only rights of concession depending on a mutual Agreement whose end ought to be no other than that which God propos'd to himself in the institution of these two Powers VIII The building of the Church of Christ the eternal Temple being the great or indeed the only design of God for all the Societies and Kingdoms of this World shall be dissolv'd when the Work of him who alone is immutable in his designs shall be compleated it is evident that the State hath a reference and should be subservient to the good of the Church rather than the Church to the glory or even the preservation of the State and that one of the principal Duties of a Christian Prince is to furnish Christ with Materials fit to be sanctified by his Grace under the care of the Bishop and to build up the spiritual Edefice of the Church For this end chiefly it is that the Prince should prefer the State in Peace give Orders that his Subjects be instructed in solid Learning such as gives perfection to the Mind and regulates the Heart and take care that the Laws ordain'd for the punishment of Vice and Injustice be strictly observ'd For a People well instructed and obedient to reasonable Laws is better fitted to receive effectually the influence of Grace than a rude vicious and ignorant People For this Reason the Prince ought to employ his Authority in causing the Decrees of Councils to be observ'd and keeping the People in the Obedience which they owe to their Mother the Church of Christ For in fine there is so close an Union between the Church and the State that he who troubles the State troubles the Church which consists of the same Members and he that makes a Schism in the Church is really a disturber of the publick Peace and Tranquility IX But whether a Prince doth or doth not propose to himself this great design of gaining immortal Glory by labouring for Eternity and carrying on a Work which alone shall last for ever it is not for private Men to censure his Conduct And provided that he requires nothing but what flows from the natural Rights given him by the Commission which he hath receiv'd from God he ought to be obey'd in all things even by those that hold the greatest Dignities in the Church X. It doth not belong to me to deduce from the certain Principles which I have here laid down such consequences as contain the particular Duties of those that have a right to command and besides there is more difficulty in it than may be imagin'd There are a great many circumstances to be consider'd which vary or determine these Duties Princes should examine their own Obligations in the sight of God by the light of the
Merits consist in eminent Qualities of Mind and Body Civil and Religious Merits arise from the Offices Men bear either in Church or State and from such Qualifications as are proper for the discharge of those Offices All Perfection is valuable in it self but many times it is much more comparatively or relatively A Diamond is not so perfect as a Fly but it is a great deal more valuable because of the Use Men make of it Also those Beings which have no other Perfection but that of their own Nature are preferable to those which have acquir'd Perfections A rough Diamond hath not so much Beauty as Glass well cut and polish'd but it hath much more Value as Things go So that a Man might justly be counted a Fool who would play the Philosopher so much as to prefer a Fly before an Emerald and to look upon a rough Diamond of very great Value as no better than a Pebble XII For to judge rightly of the Esteem we ought to make of Things and Persons it is not sufficient to consider them in themselves but we must also examine the several Relations which they may have to others of far greater Value The favour of the Prince gives a lustre to the vilest Persons and the Esteem Men have for Things should regulate their Price and consequently our outward and relative Esteem unless we resolve to despise Men too and make our selves ridiculous and contemptible Only we must take care not to let our Mind to be corrupted by the Judgments that are commonly made of Things Our Esteem must be only relative if the worth of the Thing be but relative for tho' Men esteem Gold and Silver more than Copper and Iron or the organis'd Bodies of Flies yet we must not pay the Duty of Esteem to Gold and Silver but to Men who make a wrong Judgment of them We must not judge of Persons or Things as Men do who attribute to the Objects of their Passions imaginary Perfections But whether they are deceiv'd in their Judgments or not we should have a relative Esteem for that which they esteem perhaps without Reason because in human Society the Worth of Things is generally measur'd by the Esteem Men have of them XIII The relative Merit of Men is many times much greater than their personal Merit and since our Duties are to be govern'd as well by the former as the latter I say again That nothing is more difficult than to judge rightly of what we ought to do in the infinite combinations of these different Merits Things may fall out so sometimes that we must unavoidably come short in the Payment of what we owe either to a Relation in such a degree or to a Man that hath done us such a Service or who bears such an Office in the Society and is serviceable to the State in such a capacity What must we do in this Case What is the common Measure whereby we may precisely discover the Proportion of our Duties For tho' it be certainly contain'd in the immutable Order yet it is not exactly known to us and if it were yet many times there are so many Relations to compare that we should never know what to resolve on if we staid till Evidence precisely noted to us every thing that we ought to do XIV We know well enough that all other things being equal we should prefer some Relations before others our Relations before our Friends and our Prince before them both But must we prefer one Relation before six or eight Friends A Relation who is our Enemy before a particular Friend Herein lies the difficulty For we must at the same time have regard to the Rights of Kindred of Friendship and of Society So that it often happens that we are oblig'd to prefer an Enemy before a Friend an Enemy who is a Friend of our Relations esteem'd by the Prince and serviceable to the State before a Friend who is a Person useless to the Publick or hath little or no affection for those who ought to be most dear to us Therefore there is no general Rule for the Government of our selves in the Duties of Esteem Respect and Benevolence which we owe to other Men but what is liable to a great many exceptions And that which extremely perplexes all that can be said in this Matter is That the Duties of Esteem Respect and Benevolence are of different kinds and many times in the same kind we ought to prefer one Man as to the Duties of Benevolence before another to whom we absolutely owe the Duties of Esteem and Respect XV. Seeing then the Order of our Duties is chang'd and govern'd by the different Circumstances of Things which it is not possible to foresee every Man should carefully examine them and retire into himself to consult the immutable Law without regarding those false Interests which the Passions continually represent and when he finds himself at a loss he should have recourse to such as are better skill'd than I in these matters he should consult Persons of the greatest Charity Prudence and Capacity rather than those who have their Memory only fill'd with general Rules which are insufficient to give a decision in particular circumstances and many times have neither Sense nor Charity The only general Rule that I shall venture to give at present a Rule which is not much follow'd but which seems to me to be the most certain one that can be given is this That we should prefer the Laws of Friendship in Jesus Christ and of the eternal Society before the common Rights of a Friendship and a Society which must end with our Life I shall explain my self more particularly XVI That which is finite how great soever it be hath of it self no proportion to infinity Ten thousand Ages in respect of eternity is nothing The proportion of the Universe to immense and boundless Spaces can be express'd only by a Cypher An Unite divided by a thousand Millions of Cyphers by a progression from one to a thousand Millions instead of from One to Ten would be a Fraction infinitely too great to express this proportion for indeed there is none this is my Position Now we shall enjoy God in the other life and enjoy him for ever Therefore the possession of the Empire of the Universe in respect of the possession of the true Good and the time of the enjoyment of this Empire compar'd with the eternity of the life to come are Cyphers there is no proportion between them They are totally eclips'd and annihilated by the presence of Eternity Human Greatness and Pleasures which pass away with our life nay let us join whatever we can think of for our Satisfaction all this disappears when we reflect a little and consider that we are immortal It is nothing and ought to be counted for nothing This I think every one will allow XVII Now let us observe this Principle and we shall see that he who is an occasion of falling
the Woman for it expresly figures the Union of Chirst with his Church It is an indissoluble Union for God being immutable in his Designs the Marriage of Christ and his Church shall continue for ever it is a natural Union and the two Sexes by their particular constitution in consequences of the admirable Laws of the Union of the Soul and Body have the most violent of all the Passions for each other because the love of Christ to his Church and that of the Church to her Lord her Saviour and her Husband is the greatest love that can be imagin'd as appears from the Canticles For in short the Man and the Woman are made for one another And if we can conceive that God in creating them had not a design to join them together then we may also conceive that the Incarnation of the Word was not necessary and that the principal or the only design of God which is figur'd by the marriage of the Man and the Woman more particularly than by any other thing is not the establishment of his Church in Jesus Christ who is the Basis and Foundation of it in whom also the whole Universe subsists who brings the whole Work of God out of its prophane State and by his quality of Son renders it worthy of the Majesty of the Father III. This Principle sufficiently shews that the mutual Duties of Christ and his Church are the Model of those of Husbands and Wives and that the Marriage of Christians like that of the first Man and Woman being the figure of the marriage of Christ and the Church ought not to differ in any of its consequences or circumstances from the reality which it represents And therefore St. Paul derives from this very Principle the mutual Duties of the Husband and Wife His Words are these IV. Eph. 5.22 Wives submit your selves unto your own Husbands as unto the Lord. For the Husband is the Head of the Wife even as Christ is the Head of the Church and he is the Saviour of the Body Therefore as the Church is subject unto Christ so let the Wives be to their own Husbands in every thing Husbands love your Wives even as Christ also loved the Church and gave himself for it that he might sanctifie and cleanse it with the washing of Water by the word that he might present it to himself a glorious Church not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing but that it should be holy and without blemish So ought Men to love their Wives as their own Bodies he that loveth his Wife loveth himself For no Man ever yet hated his own Flesh but nourisheth and cherisheth it even as the Lord the Church for we are Members of his Body of his Flesh and of his Bones For this cause shall a Man leave his Father and his Mother and shall be join'd unto his Wife and they two shall be one Flesh This is a great mystery but I speak concerning Christ and the Church Nevertheless let every one of you in particular so love his Wife even as himself and the Wife see that she reverence her Husband V. From these admirable Words of St. Paul we see that the Duty of a Husband is to maintain his Wife and to supply her abundantly with all things necessary for her subsistence to assist and guide her by his Wisdom and Counsels and to comfort her in her Afflictions and Infirmities in a word to love her as himself and after the example of Christ to expose his life for her defense And that the Wife on her part ought to obey her Husband as her Lord to fear and respect him to seek to please none but him and to govern the Family in subordination to his Authority and with a dependence on his Designs provided they are agreeable or at least not contrary to the designs of God VI. Now the design of God in the institution of Marriage is not only to supply the State with Members to compose the Body of it and to defend and maintain its Honour and Reputation but more especially to furnish Christ with Materials for the external Temple with Members of the Church and perpetual Worshippers of the divine Majesty For married Persons are not only the Figures but also the natural Ministers of Christ and the Church God hath join'd them together not only to express his great design but also to act in it It is true since Sin came into the World they beget Children only for the Devil and by an action altogether brutish and if it were not for Christ our Mediatour it would be a hainous Crime to communicate to a Woman that miserable fertility of bringing forth an Enemy of God to damn a Soul for ever to labour for the Glory of Satan and the establishment of the infernal Babylon But Christ came to remedy the disorders of Sin and it is permitted by the Sacrament of Marriage the Figure of his eternal Alliance to give our Children as I may say to the Devil that Christ may have the glory to snatch them out of his Hands and having wash'd them in his own Blood to make them enter into his Building VII Now the principal Duty of Parents is to educate their Children in such a manner that they may not lose their Baptismal Innocence and Purity Married Persons may live in continence as Adam and Eve did before their Sin Christ doth not want Materials for the building of his Temple How many Nations are there still that are ignorant of the Mystery of our Reconciliation But that Parents by their Ambition their Avarice their disorderly course of Life their ill Example nay by barely neglecting to instruct their Children should deprive them of the possession of the true Goods and make them fall again into the slavery of the Devil in which they were Born and from which they had been once deliver'd this is the greatest Crime that Men are capable of committing VIII A Father may educate his Children so as to be the Honour of his Family the delight of their Country and the support of the State he may leave them the peaceable enjoyment of large Possessions and all possible Splendour Yet still he is a cruel and unnatural Father and the more cruel because he charms their Maladies in such a manner that they will not be sensible of them till they are past remedy He is Impious and Wicked and so much the more because with that which he pulls down from the sacred Temple of the living God he builds up the prophane Babylon He is Senseless and stupid and the more because there cannot be a greater degreee of Folly a more gross Stupidity a more brutish and surious Despair than that of a Father who is regardless of the inevitable alternative of Two very different Eternities which shall succeed our latest Moments who builds for himself and his Family on the Brow of a Precipice expos'd to Storms and Tempests and just ready to bury for ever the
miserable Object of his Glory and Pleasures IX A Parent therefore that would preserve to his Children the inestimable right which they have acquir'd by Baptism to the inheritance of Christ must be always watchful in removing out of their sight all Objects that may tempt them He is their guardian Angel and should take up out of their way every Stone that may make them fall It is his Duty to instruct them in the Mysteries of Faith and by Faith to lead them by degrees to the understanding of the fundamental Truths of Religion to fix in them a firm hope of the true Goods and a generous contempt of humane Greatness He should shape their Mind to Perfection and teach them to exercise the faculties of it He should govern them by Reason for there cannot be a more perfect Law than that which God himself inviolably follows But he must begin with Faith For Men especially the younger sort are too sensual too carnal too much abroad to consult the Reason which dwels within them It must shew it self without cloth'd with a Body to strike their Senses They must submit to a visible Authority before they can contemplate the evidence of intellectual Truths Again a Father should never grant his Children any thing that they ask themselves and never deny them any thing that Reason asks for them for Reason should be the common Law the general Rule of all our Wills He should accustom them to obey as well as consult it He should make them give a reason either a good or a plausible one for every thing that they ask and then he may gratify their desires tho' they are not so agreable to Reason if he is satisfied that their intent was to obey Reason He should not chide them too much for fear of discouraging them But this is an indispensable Precept never to act but according to Reason The Soul should will nothing of it self For it is not its own Rule or its own Law It doth not possess Power it is not Independent It ought not to will but with a dependence on the immutable Law because it cannot think act nor enjoy Good but by a dependence on the divine Power This is what young People ought to know But it is perhaps what the old ones do not know It is certainly what all Men do not practise X. We should take care not to burden the Memory of Children with a great number of Actions which are of little use and serve only to confound and agitate a Mind which hath as yet but very little Strength and Capacity and is but too much disturb'd and shaken already by the action of sensible Objects But we should endeavour to make them clearly comprehend the certain Principles of solid Sciences We should use them to contemplate clear Ideas and above all we should teach them to distinguish the Soul from the Body and to know the different properties and modifications of these two Substances of which they are compos'd We should be so far from confirming them in their Error of taking their Senses for Judges of Truth by talking to them of sensible Objects as of the true causes of their Pleasure and Pain that we should be always telling them that their Senses deceive them and should use them in their Presence like false Witnesses that clash with one another to discover their Cheats and Illusions XI Children dye at ten Years old as well as Men at Fifty or Threescore What then will become of a Child at his Death whose Heart is already corrupted who is swell'd with esteem of his Quality and full of the love of sensual Enjoyments What Good will it do him in the other World to understand perfectly the the Geography of this and in Eternity to know the Epochas of Times All our knowledge perishes in Death and the knowledge of these things leads to nothing beyond A Lad knows how to Decline and Conjugate he understands Greek and Latin it may be perfectly well nay perhaps he is already well vers'd in History and acquainted with the Interests of Princes he promises much for this World for which he is not made but what signify all these Vanities with which his Mind and Heart is sill'd Are there solid rewards in Heaven for empty Studies Are there places of Honour destin'd for those that make a correct Theme Will God judge Children by any other Law than the immutable Order than the Precepts of the Gospel which they have neither observ'd nor known Is it the Duty of Fathers to breed up their Children for the State and not for Heaven for their Prince and not for Jesus Christ for a Society of a few Days and not for an eternal Society But let them take notice that those that are best skill'd in these vain Sciences are they that do most mischief to the State and raise the greatest Tempests in it I do not say but they may learn those Sciences But it should be then when their Mind is form'd and when they are capable of making a good use of it and the instructing of them in essential Truths should not be put off to a time when they shall be no more or at least not in a condition to Tast Meditate and Feed upon them XII The labour of Attention being the only way that leads to the understanding of Truth a Father should use all means of accustoming his Children to be Attentive Therefore I think it proper to teach them the most sensible part of the Mathematicks Not that these Sciences tho' preferable to many others are in themselves of any great value but because the Study of them is of such a Nature that a Man makes no progress in them any farther than he is Attentive For in reading a Book of Geometry if the Mind doth not labour by its Attention it gets nothing Now People should be us'd to the labour of the Mind when they are young For then the parts of the Brain are flexible and may be bent any way It is easy then to acquire a habit of being Attentive in which Part I. Chap. V. as I have shewn the whole strength of the Mind consists And therefore those that have accustom'd themselves from their youth to meditate on clear Principles are not only capable of learning all the Sciences but are also able to judge solidly of every thing to govern themselves by abstracted Principles to make ingenious discoveries and to foresee the consequences and events of Enterprises XIII But the Soâ—…nces of Memory confound the Mind they disturb its clear Ideas and furnish it with a Thousand probabilities on all sorts of Subjects which Men take up with because they know not how to distinguish between seeing in part and obscurely and seeing fully and clearly This resting on probabilities makes them wrangle and dispute endlesly For as Truth alone is one indivisible and immutable so that alone can closely and for ever unite Men's Minds Besides the Sciences of Memory do naturally