of the resolution of the same into its first seeds or principles which are only an opinion of a Deity and Powers invisible and supernaturall that can never be so abolished out of humane nature but that new Religions may againe be made to spring out of them by the culture of such men as for such purpose are in reputation For seeing all formed Religion is founded at first upon the faith which a multitude hath in some one person whom they believe not only to be a wise man and to labouâ—… to procure their happiness but also to be a holy man to whom God himselfe vouchsafeth to declare his will supernaturally It followeth necessarily when they that have the Government of Religion shall come to have either the wisedome of those men their sincerity or their love suspected or that they shall be unable to shew any probable token of Divine Revelation that the Religion which they desire to uphold must be suspected likewise and without the feare of the Civill Sword contradicted and rejected That which taketh away the reputation of Wisedome in him that formeth a Religion or addeth to it when it is allready formed is the enjoyning of a beliefe of contradictories For both parts of a contradiction cannot possibly be true and therefore to enjoyne the beleife of them is an argument of ignorance which detects the Author in that and discredits him in all things else he shall propound as from revelation supernaturall which revelation a man may indeed have of many things above but of nothing against naturall reason That which taketh away the reputation of Sincerity is the doing or saying of such things as appeare to be signes that what they require other men to believe is not believed by themselves all which doings or sayings are therefore called Scandalous because they be stumbling blocks that make men to fall in the way of Religion as Injustice Cruelty Prophanesse Avarice and Luxury For who can believe that he that doth ordinarily such actions as proceed from any of these rootes believeth there is any such Invisible Power to be feared as he affrighteth other men withall for lesser faults That which taketh away the reputation of Love is the being detected of private ends as when the beliefe they require of others conduceth or seemeth to conduce to the acquiring of Dominion Riches Dignity or secure Pleasure to themselves onely or specially For that which men reap benefit by to themselves they are thought to do for their own sakes and not for love of others Lastly the testimony that men can render of divine Calling can be no other than the operation of Miracles or true Prophecy which also is a Miracle or extraordinary Felicity And therefore to those points of Religion which have been received from them that did such Miracles those that are added by such as approve not their Calling by some Miracle obtain no greater beliefe than what the Custome and Lawes of the places in which they be educated have wrought into them For as in naturall things men of judgement require naturall signes and arguments so in supernaturall things they require signes supernaturall which are Miracles before they consent inwardly and from their hearts All which causes of the weakening of mens faith do manifestly appear in the Examples following First we have the Example of the children of Israel who when Moses that had approved his Calling to them by Miracles and by the happy conduct of them out of Egypt was absent but 40. dayes revolted from the worship of the true God recommended to them by him and setting up a Golden Calfe for their God relapsed into the Idolatry of the Egyptians from whom they had been so lately delivered And again after Moses Aaron Joshua and that generation which had seen the great works of God in Israel were dead another generation arose and served Baal So that Miracles fayling Faith also failed Again when the sons of Samuel being constituted by their father Judges in Bersabee received bribes and judged unjustly the people of Israel refused any more to have God to be their King in other manner than he was King of other people and therefore cryed out to Samuel to choose them a King after the manner of the Nations So that Justice fayling Faith also fayled Insomuch as they deposed their God from reigning over them And whereas in the planting of Christian Religion the Oracles ceased in all parts of the Roman Empire and the number of Christians encreased wonderfully every day and in every place by the preaching of the Apostles and Evangelists a great part of that successe may reasonably be attributed to the contempt into which the Priests of the Gentiles of that time had brought themselves by their uncleannesse avarice and jugling between Princes Also the Religion of the Church of Rome was partly for the same cause abolished in England and many other parts of Christendome insomuch as the fayling of Vertue in the Pastors maketh Faith faile in the People and partly from bringing of the Philosophy and doctrine of Aristotle into Religion by the Schoole-men from whence there arose so many contradictions and absurdities as brought the Clergy into a reputation both of Ignorance and of Fraudulent intention and enclined people to revolt from them either against the will of their own Princes as in France and Holland or with their will as in England Lastly amongst the points by the Church of Rome declared necessary for Salvation there be so many manifestly to the advantage of the Pope and of his spirituall subjects residing in the territories of other Christian Princes that were it not for the mutuall emulation of those Princes they might without warre or trouble exclude all forraign Authority as easily as it has been excluded in England For who is there that does not see to whose benefit it conduceth to have it believed that a King hath not his Authority from Christ unlesse a Bishop crown him That a King if he be a Priest cannot Marry That whether a Prince be born in lawfull Marriage or not must be judged by Authority from Rome That Subjects may be freed from their Alleageance if by the Court of Rome the King be judged an Heretique That a King as Chilperique of France may be deposed by a Pope as Pope Zachary for no cause and his Kingdome given to one of his Subjects That the Clergy and Regulars in what Country soever shall be exempt from the Jurisdiction of their King in cases criminall Or who does not see to whose profit redound the Fees of private Masses and Vales of Purgatory with other signes of private interest enough to mortifie the most lively Faith if as I sayd the civill Magistrate and Custome did not more sustain it than any opinion they have of the Sanctity Wisdome or Probity of their Teachers So that I may attribute all the changes of Religion in the world to one and the same cause and
ordained And therefore in all Common-wealths of the Heathen the Soveraigns have had the name of Pastors of the People because there was no Subject that could lawfully Teach the people but by their permission and authority This Right of the Heathen Kings cannot bee thought taken from them by their conversion to the Faith of Christ who never ordained that Kings for beleeving in him should be deposed that is subjected to any but himself or which is all one be deprived of the power necessary for the conservation of Peace amongst their Subjects and for their defence against foraign Enemies And therefore Christian Kings are still the Supreme Pastors of their people and have power to ordain what Pastors they please to teach the Church that is to teach the People committed to their charge Again let the right of choosing them be as before the conversion of Kings in the Church for so it was in the time of the Apostles themselves as hath been shewn already in this chapter even so also the Right will be in the Civill Soveraign Christian. For in that he is a Christian he allowes the Teaching and in that he is the Soveraign which is as much as to say the Church by Representation the Teachers hee elects are elected by the Church And when an Assembly of Christians choose their Pastor in a Christian Common-wealth it is the Soveraign that electeth him because t is done by his Authority In the same manner as when a Town choose their Maior it is the act of him that hath the Soveraign Power For every act done is the act of him without whose consent it is invalid And therefore whatsoever examples may be drawn out of History concerning the Election of Pastors by the People or by the Clergy they are no arguments against the Right of any Civill Soveraign because they that elected them did it by his Authority Seeing then in every Christian Common-wealth the Civill Soveraign is the Supreme Pastor to whose charge the whole flock of his Subjects is committed and consequently that it is by his authority that all other Pastors are made and have power to teach and performe all other Pastorall offices it followeth also that it is from the Civill Soveraign that all other Pastors derive their right of Teaching Preaching and other functions pertaining to that Office and that they are but his Ministers in the same manner as the Magistrates of Towns Judges in Courts of Justice and Commanders of Armies are all but Ministers of him that is the Magistrate of the whole Common-wealth Judge of all Causes and Commander of the whole Militia which is alwaies the Civill Soveraign And the reason hereof is not because they that Teach but because they that are to Learn are his Subjects For let it be supposed that a Christian King commit the Authority of Ordaining Pastors in his Dominions to another King as divers Christian Kings allow that power to the Pope he doth not thereby constitute a Pastor over himself nor a Soveraign Pastor over his People for that were to deprive himself of the Civill Power which depending on the opinion men have of their Duty to him and the fear they have of Punishment in another world would depend also on the skill and loyalty of Doctors who are no lesse subject not only to Ambition but also to Ignorance than any other sort of men So that where a stranger hath authority to appoint Teachers it is given him by the Soveraign in whose Dominions he teacheth Christian Doctors are our Schoolmasters to Christianity But Kings are Fathers of Families and may receive Schoolmasters for their Subjects from the recommendation of a stranger but not from the command especially when the ill teaching them shall redound to the great and manifest profit of him that recommends them nor can they be obliged to retain them longer than it is for the Publique good the care of which they stand so long charged withall as they retain any other essentiall Right of the Soveraignty If a man therefore should ask a Pastor in the execution of his Office as the chief Priests and Elders of the people Mat. 21. 23. asked our Saviour By what authority dost thou these things and who gave thee this authority he can make no other just Answer but that he doth it by the Authority of the Common-wealth given him by the King or Assembly that representeth it All Pastors except the Supreme execute their charges in the Right that is by the Authority of the Civill Soveraign that is Iure Civili But the King and every other Soveraign executeth his Office of Supreme Pastor by immediate Authority from God that is to say in Gods Right or Iure Divino And therefore none but Kings can put into their Titles a mark of their submission to God onely Dei gratiâ Rex c. Bishops ought to say in the beginning of their Mandates By the favour of the Kings Majesty Bishop of such a Diocesse or as Civill Ministers In his Majesties Name For in saying Divinâ providentiâ which is the same with Dei gratiâ though disguised they deny to have received their authority from the Civill State and sliely slip off the Collar of their Civill Subjection contrary to the unity and defence of the Common-wealth But if every Christian Soveraign be the Supreme Pastor of his own Subjects it seemeth that he hath also the Authority not only to Preach which perhaps no man will deny but also to Baptize and to Administer the Sacrament of the Lords Supper and to Consecrate both Temples and Pastors to Gods service which most men deny partly because they use not to do it and partly because the Administration of Sacraments and Consecration of Persons and Places to holy uses requireth the Imposition of such mens hands as by the like Imposition successively from the time of the Apostles have been ordained to the like Ministery For proof therefore that Christian Kings have power to Baptize and to Consecrate I am to render a reason both why they use not to doe it and how without the ordinary ceremony of Imposition of hands they are made capable of doing it when they will There is no doubt but any King in case he were skilfull in the Sciences might by the same Right of his Office read Lectures of them himself by which he authorizeth others to read them in the Universities Neverthelesse because the care of the summe of the businesse of the Common-wealth taketh up his whole time it were not convenient for him to apply himself in Person to that particular A King may also if he please sit in Judgment to hear and determine all manner of Causes as well as give others authority to doe it in his name but that the charge that lyeth upon him of Command and Government constrain him to bee continually at the Helm and to commit the Ministeriall Offices to others under him In the like manner our Saviour who surely had
with a Heathen man or a Publican which in many occasions might be a greater pain to the Excommunicant than to the Excommunicate The seventh place is 1 Cor. 4. 21. Shall I come unto you with a Rod or in love and the spirit of lenity But here again it is not the Power of a Magistrate to punish offenders that is meant by a Rod but onely the Power of Excommunication which is not in its owne nature a Punishment but onely a Denouncing of punishment that Christ shall inflict when he shall be in possession of his Kingdome at the day of Judgment Nor then also shall it bee properly a Punishment as upon a Subject that hath broken the Law but a Revenge as upon an Enemy or Revolter that denyeth the Right of our Saviour to the Kingdome And therefore this proveth not the Legislative Power of any Bishop that has not also the Civill Power The eighth place is Timothy 3. 2. A Bishop must be the husband but of one wife vigilant sober c. which he saith was a Law I thought that none could make a Law in the Church but the Monarch of the the Church St. Peter But suppose this Precept made by the authority of St. Peter yet I see no reason why to call it a Law rather than an Advice seeing Timothy was not a Subject but a Disciple of S. Paul nor the flock under the charge of Timothy his Subjects in the Kingdome but his Scholars in the Schoole of Christ If all the Precepts he giveth Timothy be Laws why is not this also a Law Drink no longer water but use a little wine for thy healths sake And why are not also the Precepts of good Physitians so many Laws but that it is not the Imperative manner of speaking but an absolute Subjection to a Person that maketh his Precepts Laws In like manner the ninth place 1 Tim. 5. 19. Against an Elder receive not an accusation but before two or three VVitnesses is a wise Precept but not a Law The tenth place is Luke 10. 16. He that heareth you heareth mee and he that despiseth you despiseth me And there is no doubt but he that despiseth the Counsell of those that are sent by Christ despiseth the Counsell of Christ himself But who are those now that are sent by Christ but such as are ordained Pastors by lawfull Authority and who are lawfully ordained that are not ordained by the Soveraign Pastor and who is ordained by the Soveraign Pastor in a Christian Common-wealth that is not ordained by the authority of the Soveraign thereof Out of this place therefore it followeth that he which heareth his Soveraign being a Christian heareth Christ and hee that despiseth the Doctrine which his King being a Christian authorizeth despiseth the Doctrine of Christ which is not that which Bellarmine intendeth here to prove but the contrary But all this is nothing to a Law Nay more a Christian King as a Pastor and Teacher of his Subjects makes not thereby his Doctrines Laws He cannot oblige men to beleeve though as a Civill Soveraign he may make Laws suitable to his Doctrine which may oblige men to certain actions and sometimes to such as they would not otherwise do and which he ought not to command and yet when they are commanded they are Laws and the externall actions done in obedience to them without the inward approbation are the actions of the Soveraign and not of the Subject which is in that case but as an instrument without any motion of his owne at all because God hath commanded to obey them The eleventh is every place where the Apostle for Counsell putteth some word by which men use to signifie Command or calleth the following of his Counsell by the name of Obedience And therefore they are alledged out of 1 Cor. 11. 2. I commend you for keeping my Precepts as I delivered them to you The Greek is I commend you for keeping those things I delivered to you as I delivered them Which is far from signifying that they were Laws or any thing else but good Counsell And that of 1. Thess. 4. 2. You know what commandements we gave you where the Greek word is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 equivalent to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 what wee delivered to you as in the place next before alledged which does not prove the Traditions of the Apostles to be any more than Counsells though as is said in the 8 verse he that despiseth them despiseth not man but God For our Saviour himself came not to Judge that is to be King in this world but to Sacrifice himself for Sinners and leave Doctors in his Church to lead not to drive men to Christ who never accepteth forced actions which is all the Law produceth but the inward conversion of the heart which is not the work of Laws but of Counsell and Doctrine And that of 2 Thess. 3. 14. If any man Obey not our word by this Epistle note that man and have no company with him that he may bee ashamed where from the word Obey he would inferre that this Epistle was a Law to the Thessalonians The Epistles of the Emperours were indeed Laws If therefore the Epistle of S. Paul were also a Law they were to obey two Masters But the word Obey as it is in the Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifieth hearkning to or putting in practice not onley that which is Commanded by him that has right to punish but also that which is delivered in a way of Counsell for our good and therefore St. Paul does not bid kill him that disobeys nor beat nor imprison nor amerce him which Legislators may all do but avoid his company that he may bee ashamed whereby it is evident it was not the Empire of an Apostle but his Reputation amongst the Faithfull which the Christians stood in awe of The last place is that of Heb. 13. 17. Obey your Leaders and submit your selves to them for they watch for your souls as they that must give account And here also is intended by Obedience a following of their Counsell For the reason of our Obedience is not drawn from the will and command of our Pastors but from our own benefit as being the Salvation of our Souls they watch for and not for the Exaltation of their own Power and Authority If it were meant here that all they teach were Laws then not onely the Pope but every Pastor in his Parish should have Legislative Power Again they that are bound to obey their Pastors have no power to examine their commands What then shall wee say to St. Iohn who bids us 1 Epist. chap. 4. ver 1. Not to beleeve every Spirit but to try the Spirits whether they are of God because many false Prophets are gone out into the world It is therefore manifest that wee may dispute the Doctrine of our Pastors but no man can dispute a Law The Commands of Civill Soveraigns are on all sides granted to be
Laws if any else can make a Law besides himselfe all Common-wealth and consequently all Peace and Justice must cease which is contrary to all Laws both Divine and Humane Nothing therefore can be drawn from these or any other places of Scripture to prove the Decrees of the Pope where he has not also the Civill Soveraignty to be Laws The last point hee would prove is this That our Saviour Christ has committed Ecclesiasticall Iurisdiction immediately to none but the Pope Wherein he handleth not the Question of Supremacy between the Pope and Christian Kings but between the Pope and other Bishops And first he sayes it is agreed that the Jurisdiction of Bishops is at least in the generall de Iure Divino that is in the Right of God for which he alledges S. Paul Ephes. 4. 11. where hee sayes that Christ after his Ascension into heaven gave gifts to men some Apostles some Prophets and some Evangelists and some Pastors and some Teachers And thence inferres they have indeed their Jurisdiction in Gods Right but will not grant they have it immediately from God but derived through the Pope But if a man may be said to have his Jurisdiction de Jure Divino and yet not immediately what lawfull Jurisdiction though but Civill is there in a Christian Common-wealth that is not also de Jure Divino For Christian Kings have their Civill Power from God immediately and the Magistrates under him exercise their severall charges in vertue of his Commission wherein that which they doe is no lesse de Jure Divino mediato than that which the Bishops doe in vertue of the Popes Ordination All lawfull Power is of God immediately in the Supreme Governour and mediately in those that have Authority under him So that either hee must grant every Constable in the State to hold his Office in the Right of God or he must not hold that any Bishop holds his so besides the Pope himselfe But this whole Dispute whether Christ left the Jurisdiction to the Pope onely or to other Bishops also if considered out of those places where the Pope has the Civill Soveraignty is a contention de lana Caprina For none of them where they are not Soveraigns has any Jurisdiction at all For Jurisdiction is the Power of hearing and determining Causes between man and man and can belong to none but him that hath the Power to prescribe the Rules of Right and Wrong that is to make Laws and with the Sword of Justice to compell men to obey his Decisions pronounced either by himself or by the Judges he ordaineth thereunto which none can lawfully do but the Civill Soveraign Therefore when he alledgeth out of the 6 of Luke that our Saviour called his Disciples together and chose twelve of them which he named Apostles he proveth that he Elected them all except Matthias Paul and Barnabas and gave them Power and Command to Preach but not to Judge of Causes between man and man for that is a Power which he refused to take upon himselfe saying Who made me a Iudge or a Divider amongst you and in another place My Kingdome is not of this world But hee that hath not the Power to hear and determine Causes between man and man cannot be said to have any Jurisdiction at all And yet this hinders not but that our Saviour gave them Power to Preach and Baptize in all parts of the world supposing they were not by their own lawfull Soveraign forbidden For to our own Soveraigns Christ himself and his Apostles have in sundry places expressely commanded us in all things to be obedient The arguments by which he would prove that Bishops receive their Jurisdiction from the Pope seeing the Pope in the Dominions of other Princes hath no Jurisdiction himself are all in vain Yet because they prove on the contrary that all Bishops receive Jurisdiction when they have it from their Civill Soveraigns I will not omit the recitall of them The first is from Numbers 11. where Moses not being able alone to undergoe the whole burthen of administring the affairs of the People of Israel God commanded him to choose Seventy Elders and took part of the spirit of Moses to put it upon those Seventy Elders by which is understood not that God weakned the spirit of Moses for that had not eased him at all but that they had all of them their authority from him wherein he doth truly and ingenuously interpret that place But seeing Moses had the entire Soveraignty in the Common-wealth of the Jews it is manifest that it is thereby signified that they had their Authority from the Civill Soveraign and therefore that place proveth that Bishops in every Christian Common-wealth have their Authority from the Civill Soveraign and from the Pope in his own Territories only and not in the Territories of any other State The second argument is from the nature of Monarchy wherein all Authority is in one Man and in others by derivation from him But the Government of the Church he says is Monarchicall This also makes for Christian Monarchs For they are really Monarchs of their own people that is of their own Church for the Church is the same thing with a Christian people whereas the Power of the Pope though hee were S. Peter is neither Monarchy nor hath any thing of Archicall nor Craticall but onely of Didacticall For God accepteth not a forced but a willing obedience The third is from that the Sea of S. Peter is called by S. Cyprian the Head the Source the Roote the Sun from whence the Authority of Bishops is derived But by the Law of Nature which is a better Principle of Right and Wrong than the word of any Doctor that is but a man the Civill Soveraign in every Common-wealth is the Head the Source the Root and the Sun from which all Jurisdiction is derived And therefore the Jurisdiction of Bishops is derived from the Civill Soveraign The fourth is taken from the Inequality of their Jurisdictions For if God saith he had given it them immediately he had given aswell Equality of Jurisdiction as of Order But wee see some are Bishops but of own Town some of a hundred Towns and some of many whole Provinces which differences were not determined by the command of God their Jurisdiction therefore is not of God but of Man and one has a greater another a lesse as it pleaseth the Prince of the Church Which argument if he had proved before that the Pope had had an Universall Jurisdiction over all Christians had been for his purpose But seeing that hath not been proved and that it is notoriously known the large Jurisdiction of the Pope was given him by those that had it that is by the Emperours of Rome for the Patriarch of Constantinople upon the same title namely of being Bishop of the Capitall City of the Empire and Seat of the Emperour claimed to be equall to him it followeth that all other Bishops
other Pastors are bidden to esteem those Christians that disobey the Church that is that disobey the Christian Soveraigne as Heathen men and as Publicans Seeing then men challenge to the Pope no authority over Heathen Princes they ought to challenge none over those that are to bee esteemed as Heathen But from the Power to Teach onely hee inferreth also a Coercive Power in the Pope over Kings The Pastor saith he must give his flock convenient food Therefore the Pope may and ought to compell Kings to doe their duty Out of which it followeth that the Pope as Pastor of Christian men is King of Kings which all Christian Kings ought indeed either to Confesse or else they ought to take upon themselves the Supreme Pastorall Charge every one in his own Dominion His sixth and last Argument is from Examples To which I answer first that Examples prove nothing Secondly that the Examples he alledgeth make not so much as a probability of Right The fact of Jehoiada in Killing Athaliah 2 Kings 11. was either by the Authority of King Joash or it was a horrible Crime in the High Priest which ever after the election of King Saul was a mere Subject The fact of St. Ambrose in Excommunicating Theodosius the Emperour if it were true hee did so was a Capitall Crime And for the Popes Gregory 1. Greg. 2. Zachary and Leo 3. their Judgments are void as given in their own Cause and the Acts done by them conformably to this Doctrine are the greatest Crimes especially that of Zachary that are incident to Humane Nature And thus much of Power Ecclesiasticall wherein I had been more briefe forbearing to examine these Arguments of Bellarmine if they had been his as a Private man and not as the Champion of the Papacy against all other Christian Princes and States CHAP. XLIII Of what is NECESSARY for a Mans Reception into the Kingdome of Heaven THe most frequent praetext of Sedition and Civill Warre in Christian Common-wealths hath a long time proceeded from a difficulty not yet sufficiently resolved of obeying at once both God and Man then when their Commandements are one contrary to the other It is manifest enough that when a man receiveth two contrary Commands and knows that one of them is Gods he ought to obey that and not the other though it be the command even of his lawfull Soveraign whether a Monarch or or a soveraign Assembly or the command of his Father The difficulty therefore consisteth in this that men when they are commanded in the name of God know not in divers Cases whether the command be from God or whether he that commandeth doe but abuse Gods name for some private ends of his own For as there were in the Church of the Jews many false Prophets that sought reputation with the people by feigned Dreams and Visions so there have been in all times in the Church of Christ false Teachers that seek reputation with the people by phantasticall and false Doctrines and by such reputation as is the nature of Ambition to govern them for their private benefit But this difficulty of obeying both God and the Civill Soveraign on earth to those that can distinguish between what is Necessary and what is not Necessary for their Reception into the Kingdome of God is of no moment For if the command of the Civill Soveraign bee such as that it may be obeyed without the forfeiture of life Eternall not to obey it is unjust and the precept of the Apostle takes place Servants obey your Masters in all things and Children obey your Parents in all things and the precept of our Saviour The Scribes and Pharisees sit in Moses Chaire All therefore they shall say that observe and doe But if the command be such as cannot be obeyed without being damned to Eternall Death then it were madnesse to obey it and the Counsell of our Saviour takes place Mat. 10. 28. Fear not those that kill the body but cannot kill the soule All men therefore that would avoid both the punishments that are to be in this world inflicted for disobedience to their earthly Soveraign and those that shall be inflicted in the world to come for disobedience to God have need be taught to distinguish well between what is and what is not Necessary to Eternall Salvation All that is NECESSARY to Salvatian is contained in two Vertues Faith in Christ and Obedience to Laws The latter of these if it were perfect were enough to us But because wee are all guilty of disobedience to Gods Law not onely originally in Adam but also actually by our own transgressions there is required at our hands now not onely Obedience for the rest of our time but also a Remission of sins for the time past which Remission is the reward of our Faith in Christ. That nothing else is Necessarily required to Salvation is manifest from this that the Kingdome of Heaven is shut to none but to Sinners that is to say to the disobedient or transgressors of the Law nor to them in case they Repent and Beleeve all the Articles of Christian Faith Necessary to Salvation The Obedience required at our hands by God that accepteth in all our actions the Will for the Deed is a serious Endeavour to Obey him and is called also by all such names as signifie that Endeavour And therefore Obedience is sometimes called by the names of Charity and Love because they imply a Will to Obey and our Saviour himself maketh our Love to God and to one another a Fulfilling of the whole Law and sometimes by the name of Righteousnesse for Righteousnesse is but the will to give to every one his owne that is to say the will to obey the Laws and sometimes by the name of Repentance because to Repent implyeth a turning away from finne which is the same with the return of the will to Obedience Whosoever therefore unfeignedly desireth to fulfill the Commandements of God or repenteth him truely of his transgressions or that loveth God with all his heart and his neighbor as himself hath all the Obedience Necessary to his Reception into the Kingdom of God For if God should require perfect Innocence there could no flesh be saved But what Commandements are those that God hath given us Are all those Laws which were given to the Jews by the hand of Moses the Commandements of God If they bee why are not Christians taught to Obey them If they be not what others are so besides the Law of Nature For our Saviour Christ hath not given us new Laws but Counsell to observe those wee are subject to that is to say the Laws of Nature and the Laws of our severall Soveraigns Nor did he make any new Law to the Jews in his Sermon on the Mouut but onely expounded the Laws of Moses to which they were subject before The Laws of God therefore are none but the Laws of Nature whereof the principall is that we
houses upon pretence of doing it in the honor of Christ of the Virgin Mary and of the Apostles and other the Pastors of the Primitive Church as being easie by giving them new names to make that an Image of the Virgin Mary and of her Sonne our Saviour which before perhaps was called the Image of Venus and Cupid and so of a Iupiter to make a Barnabas and of Mercury a Paul and the like And as worldly ambition creeping by degrees into the Pastors drew them to an endeavour of pleasing the new made Christians and also to a liking of this kind of honour which they also might hope for after their decease as well as those that had already gained it so the worshipping of the Images of Christ and his Apostles grew more and more Idolatrous save that somewhat after the time of Constantine divers Emperors and Bishops and generall Councells observed and opposed the unlawfulnesse thereof but too late or too weakly The Canonizing of Saints is another Relique of Gentilisme It is neither a misunderstanding of Scripture nor a new invention of the Roman Church but a custome as ancient as the Common-wealth of Rome it self The first that ever was canonized at Rome was Romulus and that upon the narration of Iulius Proculus that swore before the Senate he spake with him after his death and was assured by him he dwelt in Heaven and was there called Quirinus and would be propitious to the State of their new City And thereupon the Senate gave publique testimony of his Sanctity Iulius Caesar and other Emperors after him had the like testimony that is were Canonized for Saints for by such testimony is CANONIZATION now defined and is the same with the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Heathen It is also from the Roman Heathen that the Popes have received the name and power of PONTIFEX MAXIMUS This was the name of him that in the ancient Common-wealth of Rome had the Supreme Authority under the Senate and People of regulating all Ceremonies and Doctrines concerning their Religion And when Augustus Caesar changed the State into a Monarchy he took to himselfe no more but this office and that of Tribune of the People that is to say the Supreme Power both in State and Religion and the succeeding Emperors enjoyed the same But when the Emperour Constantine lived who was the first that professed and authorized Christian Religion it was consonant to his profession to cause Religion to be regulated under his authority by the Bishop of Rome Though it doe not appear they had so soon the name of Pontifex but rather that the succeeding Bishops took it of themselves to countenance the power they exercised over the Bishops of the Roman Provinces For it is not any Priviledge of St. Peter but the Priviledge of the City of Rome which the Emperors were alwaies willing to uphold that gave them such authority over other Bishops as may be evidently seen by that that the Bishop of Constantinople when the Emperour made that City the Seat of the Empire pretended to bee equall to the Bishop of Rome though at last not without contention the Pope carryed it and became the Pontifex Maximus but in right onely of the Emperour and not without the bounds of the Empire nor any where after the Emperour had lost his power in Rome though it were the Pope himself that took his power from him From whence wee may by the way observe that there is no place for the superiority of the Pope over other Bishops except in the territories whereof he is himself the Civill Soveraign and where the Emperour having Soveraign Power Civill hath expressely chosen the Pope for the chief Pastor under himselfe of his Christian Subjects The carrying about of Images in Procession is another Relique of the Religion of the Greeks and Romans For they also carried their Idols from place to place in a kind of Chariot which was peculiarly dedicated to that use which the Latines called Thensa and Vehiculum Deorum and the Image was placed in a frame or Shrine which they called Ferculum And that which they called Pompa is the same that now is named Procession According whereunto amongst the Divine Honors which were given to Iulius Caesar by the Senate this was one that in the Pompe or Procession at the Circaean games he should have Thensam Ferculum a sacred Chariot and a Shrine which was as much as to be carried up and down as a God Just as at this day the Popes are carried by Switzers under a Canopie To these Processions also belonged the bearing of burning Torches and Candles before the Images of the Gods both amongst the Greeks and Romans For afterwards the Emperors of Rome received the same honor as we read of Caligula that at his reception to the Empire he was carried from Misenum to Rome in the midst of a throng of People the wayes beset with Altars and Beasts for Sacrifice and burning Torches And of Caracalla that was received into Alexandria with Incense and with casting of Flowers and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is with Torches for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 were they that amongst the Greeks carried Torches lighted in the Processions of their Gods And in processe of time the devout but ignorant People did many times honor their Bishops with the like pompe of Wax Candles and the Images of our Saviour and the Saints constantly in the Church it self And thus came in the use of Wax Candles and was also established by some of the ancient Councells The Heathens had also their Aqua Lustralis that is to say Holy Water The Church of Rome imitates them also in their Holy Dayes They had their Bacchanalia and we have our Wakes answering to them They their Saturnalia and we our Carnevalls and Shrovetuesdays liberty of Servants They their Procession of Priapus wee our fetching in erection and dancing about May-poles and Dancing is one kind of Worship They had their Procession called Ambarvalia and we our Procession about the fields in the Rogation week Nor do I think that these are all the Ceremonies that have been left in the Church from the first conversion of the Gentiles but they are all that I can for the present call to mind and if a man would wel observe that which is delivered in the Histories concerning the Religious Rites of the Greeks and Romanes I doubt not but he might find many more of these old empty Bottles of Gentilisme which the Doctors of the Romance Church either by Negligence or Ambition have filled up again with the new Wine of Christianity that will not faile in time to break them CHAP. XLVI Of DARKNESSE from VAIN PHILOSOPHY and FABULOUS TRADITIONS BY PHILOLOSPHY is understood the Knowledge acquired by Reasoning from the Manner of the Generation of any thing to the Properties or from the Properties to some possible Way of Generation of the same to the
the hand of the Artificer they be esteemed the Midwife passing with the vulgar for the Mother as his issue The Value or WORTH of a man is as of all other things his Price that is to say so much as would be given for the use of his Power and therefore is not absolute but a thing dependant on the need and judgement of another An able conductor of Souldiers is of great Price in time of War present or imminent but in Peace not so A learned and uncorrupt Judge is much Worth in time of Peace but not so much in War And as in other things so in men not the seller but the buyer determines the Price For let a man as most men do rate themselves at the highest Value they can yet their true Value is no more than it is esteemed by others The manifestation of the Value we set on one another is that which is commonly called Honouring and Dishonouring To Value a man at a high rate is to Honour him at a low rate is to Dishonour him But high and low in this case is to be understood by comparison to the rate that each man setteth on himselfe The publique worth of a man which is the Value set on him by the Common-wealth is that which men commonly call DIGNITY And this Value of him by the Common-wealth is understood by offices of Command Judicature publike Employment or by Names and Titles introduced for distinction of such Value To pray to another for ayde of any kind is to HONOUR because a signe we have an opinion he has power to help and the more difficult the ayde is the more is the Honour To obey is to Honour because no man obeyes them whom they think have no power to help or hurt them And consequently to disobey is to Dishonour To give great gifts to a man is to Honour him because 't is buying of Protection and acknowledging of Power To give little gifts is to Dishonour because it is but Almes and fignifies an opinion of the need of small helps To be sedulous in promoting anothers good also to flatter is to Honour as a signe we seek his protection or ayde To neglect is to Dishonour To give way or place to another in any Commodity is to Honour being a confession of greater power To arrogate is to Dishonour To sâ—…w any signe of love or feare of another is to Honour for both to love and to feare is to value To contemne or lesse to love or feare then he expects is to Dishonour for 't is undervaluing To praise magnifie or call happy is to Honour because nothing but goodnesse power and felicity is valued To revile mock or pitty is to Dishonour To speak to another with consideration to appear before him with decency and humility is to Honour him as signes of fear to offend To speak to him rashly to do any thing before him obscenely slovenly impudently is to Dishonour To believe to trust to rely on another is to Honour him signe of opinion of his vertue and power To distrust or not believe is to Dishonour To hearken to a mans counsell or discourse of what kind soever is to Honour as a signe we think him wise or eloquent or witty To sleep or go forth or talk the while is to Dishonour To do those things to another which he takes for signes of Honour or which the Law or Custome makes so is to Honour because in approving the Honour done by others he acknowledgeth the power which others acknowledge To refuse to do them is to Dishonour To agree with in opinion is to Honour as being a signe of approving his judgement and wisdome To dissent is Dishonour and an upbraiding of errour and if the dissent be in many things of folly To imitate is to Honour for it is vehemently to approve To imitate ones Enemy is to Dishonour To honour those another honours is to Honour him as a signe of approbation of his judgement To honour his Enemies is to Dishonour him To employ in counsell or in actions of difficulty is to Honour as a signe of opinion of his wisdome or other power To deny employment in the same cases to those that seek it is to Dishonour All these wayes of Honouring are naturall and as well within as without Common-wealths But in Common-wealths where he or they that have the supreme Authority can make whatsoever they please to stand for signes of Honour there be other Honours A Soveraigne doth Honour a Subject with whatsoever Title oâ—… Office or Employment or Action that he himselfe will have taken for a signe of his will to Honour him The King of Persia Honoured Mordecay when he appointed he should be conducted through the streets in the Kings Garment upon one of the Kings Horses with a Crown on his head and a Prince before him proclayming Thus shall it be done to him that the King will honour And yet another King of Persia or the same another time to one that demanded for some great service to weare one of the Kings robes gave him leave so to do but with this addition that he should weare it as the Kings foole and then it was Dishonour So that of Civill Honour the Fountain is in the person of the Common-wealth and dependeth on the Will of the Soveraigne and is therefore temporary and called Civill Honour such as are Magistracy Offices Titles and in some places Coats and Scutchions painted and men Honour such as have them as having so many signes of favour in the Common-wealth which favour is Power Honourable is whatsoever possession action or quality is an argument and signe of Power And therefore To be Honoured loved or feared of many is Honourable as arguments of Power To be Honoured of few or none Dishonourable Dominion and Victory is Honourable because acquired by Power and Servitude for need or feare is Dishonourable Good fortune if lasting Honourable as a signe of the favour of God Ill fortune and losses Dishonourable Riches are Honourable for they are Power Poverty Dishonourable Magnanimity Liberality Hope Courage Confidence are Honourable for they proceed from the conscience of Power Pusillanimity Parsimony Fear Diffidence are Dishonourable Timely Resolution or determination of what a man is to do is Honourable as being the contempt of small difficulties and dangers And Irresolution Dishonourable as a signe of too much valuing of little impediments and little advantages For when a man has weighed things as long as the time permits and resolves not the difference of weight is but little and therefore if he resolve not he overvalues little things which is Pusillanimity All Actions and Speeches that proceed or seem to proceed from much Experience Science Discretion or Wit are Honourable For all these are Powers Actions or Words that proceed from Errour Ignorance or Folly Dishonourable Gravity as farre forth as it seems to proceed from a mind employed on some thing else
and inseparable Rights it follows necessarily that in whatsoever words any of them seem to be granted away yet if the Soveraign Power it selfe be not in direct termes renounced and the name of Soveraign no more given by the Grantees to him that Grants them the Grant is voyd for when he has granted all he can if we grant back the Soveraignty all is restored as inseparably annexed thereunto This great Authority being Indivisible and inseparably annexed to the Soveraignty there is little ground for the opinion of them that say of Soveraign Kings though they be singulis majores of greater Power than every one of their Subjects yet they be Universis minores of lesse power than them all together For if by all together they mean not the collective body as one person then all together and every one signifie the same and the speech is absurd But if by all together they understand them as one Person which person the Soveraign bears then the power of all together is the same with the Soveraigns power and so again the speech is absurd which absurdity they see well enough when the Soveraignty is in an Assembly of the people but in a Monarch they see it not and yet the power of Soveraignty is the same in whomsoever it be placed And as the Power so also the Honour of the Soveraign ought to be greater than that of any or all the Subjects For in the Soveraignty is the fountain of Honour The dignities of Lord Earle Duke and Prince are his Creatures As in the presence of the Master the Servants are equall and without any honour at all So are the Subjects in the presence of the Soveraign And though they shine some more some lesse when they are out of his sight yet in his presence they shine no more than the Starres in presence of the Sun But a man may here object that the Condition of Subjects is very miserable as being obnoxious to the lusts and other irregular passions of him or them that have so unlimited a Power in their hands And commonly they that live under a Monarch think it the fault of Monarchy and they that live under the government of Democracy or other Soveraign Assembly attribute all the inconvenience to that forme of Common-wealth whereas the Power in all formes if they be perfect enough to protect them is the same not considering that the estate of Man can never be without some incommodity or other and that the greatest that in any forme of Government can possibly happen to the people in generall is scarce sensible in respect of the miseries and horrible calamities that accompany a Civill Warre or that dissolute condition of masterlesse men without subjection to Lawes and a coërcive Power to tye their lands from rapine and revenge nor considering that the greatest pressure of Soveraign Governours proceedeth not from any delight or profit they can expect in the dammage or weakening of their Subjects in whose vigor consisteth their own strength and glory but in the restiveness of themselves that unwillingly contributing to their own defence make it necessary for their Governours to draw from them what they can in time of Peace that they may have means on any emergent occasion or sudden need to resist or take advantage on their Enemies For all men are by nature provided of notable multiplying glasses that is their Passions and Selfe-love through which every little payment appeareth a great grievance but are destitute of those prospective glasses namely Morall and Civill Science to see a farre off the miseries that hang over them and cannot without such payments be avoyded CHAP. XIX Of the severall Kinds of Common-wealth by Institution and of Succession to the Soveraigne Power THe difference of Common-wealths consisteth in the difference of the Soveraign or the Person representative of all and every one of the Multitude And because the Soveraignty is either in one Man or in an Assembly of more than one and into that Assembly either Every man hath right to enter or not every one but Certain men distinguished from the rest it is manifest there can be but Three kinds of Common-wealth For the Representative must needs be One man or 〈◊〉 and if more then it is the Assembly of All or but of a Part. When the Representative is One man then is the Common-wealth a MONARCHY when an Assembly of All that will come together then it is a DEMOCRACY or Popular Common-wealth when an Assembly of a Part onely then it is called an ARISTOCRACY Other kind of Common-wealth there can be none for either One or More or All must have the Soveraign Power which I have shewn to be indivisible entire There be other names of Government in the Histories and books of Policy as Tyranny and Oligarchy But 〈◊〉 are not the names of other Formes of Government but of the same Formes misliked For they that are discontented under Monarchy call it Tyranny and they that are displeased with Aristocracy called it Oligarchy So also they which find themselves grieved under a Democracy call it Anarchy which signifies want of Government and yet I think no man believes that want of Government is any new kind of Government nor by the same reason ought they to believe that the Government is of one kind when they like it and another when they mislike it or are oppressed by the Governours It is manifest that men who are in absolute liberty may if they please give Authority to One man to represent them every one as well as give such Authority to any Assembly of men whatsoever and consequently may subject themselves if they think good to a Monarch as absolutely as to any other Representative Therefore where there is already erected a Soveraign Power there can be no other Representative of the same people but onely to certain 〈◊〉 ends by the Soveraign limited For that were to erect two Soveraigns and every man to have his person represented by two Actors that by opposing one another must needs divide that Power which if men will live in Peace is indivisible and thereby reduce the Multitude into the condition of Warre contrary to the end 〈◊〉 which all Soveraignty is instituted And therefore as it is absurd to think that a Soveraign Assembly inviting the People of their Dominion to send up their Deputies with power to make known their Advise or Desires should therefore hold such Deputies rather than themselves for the absolute Representative of the people so it is absurd also to think the same in a Monarchy And I know not how this so manifest a truth should of late be so little observed that in a Monarchy he that had the Soveraignty from a descent of 600 years was alone called Soveraign had the title of Majesty from every one of his Subjects and was unquestionably taken by them for their King was notwithstanding never considered as their Representative that name
were in a Child For as a Child wants the judgement to dissent from counsell given him and is thereby necessitated to take the advise of them or him to whom he is committed So an Assembly wanteth the liberty to dissent from the counsell of the major part be it good or bad And as a Child has need of a Tutor or Protector to preserve his Person and Authority So also in great Common-wealths the Soveraign Assembly in all great dangers and troubles have need of Custodes libertatis that is of Dictators or Protectors of their Authoritie which are as much as Temporary Monarchs to whom for a time they may commit the entire exercise of their Power and have at the end of that time been oftner deprived thereof than Infant Kings by their Protectors Regents or any other Tutors Though the Kinds of Soveraigntie be as I have now shewn but three that is to say Monarchie where One Man has it or Democracie where the generall Assembly of Subjects hath it or Aristocracie where it is in an Assembly of certain persons nominated or otherwise distinguished from the rest Yet he that shall consider the particular Common-wealthes that have been and are in the world will not perhaps easily reduce them to three and may thereby be inclined to think there be other Formes arising from these mingled together As for example Elective Kingdomes where Kings have the Soveraigne Power put into their hands for a time or Kingdomes wherein the King hath a power limited which Governments are nevertheles by most Writers called Monarchie Likewise if a Popular or Aristocraticall Common-wealth subdue an Enemies Countrie and govern the same by a President Procurator or other Magistrate this may seeme perhaps at first sight to be a Democraticall or Aristocraticall Government But it is not so For Elective Kings are not Soveraignes but Ministers of the Soveraigne nor limited Kings Soveraignes but Ministers of them that have the Soveraigne Power Nor are those Provinces which are in subjection to a Democracie or Aristocracie of another Common-wealth Democratically or Aristocratically governed but Monarchically And â—…irst concerning an Elective King whose power is limited to his life as it is in many places of Christendome at this day or to certaine Yeares or Moneths as the Dictators power amongst the Romans If he have Right to appoint his Successor he is no more Elective but Hereditary But if he have no Power to elect his Successor then there is some other Man or Assembly known which after his decease may elect a new or else the Common-wealth dieth and dissolveth with him and returneth to the condition of Warre If it be known who have the power to give the Soveraigntie after his death it is known also that the Soveraigntie was in them before For none have right to give that which they have not right to possesse and keep to themselves it they think good But if there be none that can give the Soveraigntie after the decease of him that was first elected then has he power nay he is obliged by the Law of Nature to provide by establishing his Successor to keep those that had trusted him with the Government from relapsing into the miserable condition of Civill warre And consequently he was when elected a Soveraign absolute Secondly that King whose power is limited is not superiour to him or them that have the power to limit it and he that is not superiour is not supreme that is to say not Soveraign The Soveraignty therefore was alwaies in that Assembly which had the Right to Limit him and by consequence the government not Monarchy but either Democracy or Aristocracy as of old time in Sparta where the Kings had a priviledge to lead their Armies but the Soveraignty was in the Ephori Thirdly whereas heretofore the Roman People governed the land of Judea for example by a President yet was not Judea therefore a Democracy because they were not governed by any Assembly into the which any of them had right to enter nor by an Aristocracy because they were not governed by any Assembly into which any man could enter by their Election but they were governed by one Person which though as to the people of Rome was an Assembly of the people or Democracy yet as to people of Judea which had no right at all of participating in the government was a Monarch For though where the people are governed by an Assembly chosen by themselves out of their own number the government is called a Democracy or Aristocracy yet when they are governed by an Assembly not of their own choosing 't is a Monarchy not of One man over another man but of one people over another people Of all these Formes of Government the matter being mortall so that not onely Monarchs but also whole Assemblies dy it is necessary for the conservation of the peace of men that as there was order taken for an Artificiall Man so there be order also taken for an Artificiall Eternity of life without which men that are governed by an Assembly should return into the condition of Warre in every age and they that are governed by One man assoon as their Governour dyeth This Artificiall Eternity is that which men call the Right of Succession There is no perfect forme of Government where the disposing of the Succession is not in the present Soveraign For if it be in any other particular Man or private Assembly it is in a person subject and may be assumed by the Soveraign at his pleasure and consequently the Right is in himselfe And if it be in no particular man but left to a new choyce then is the Common-wealth dissolved and the Right is in him that can get it contrary to the intention of them that did Institute the Common-wealth for their perpetuall and not temporary security In a Democracy the whole Assembly cannot faile unlesse the Multitude that are to be governed faile And therefore questions of the right of Succession have in that forme of Government no place at all In an Aristocracy when any of the Assembly dyeth the election of another into his room belongeth to the Assembly as the Soveraign to whom belongeth the choosing of all Counsellours and Officers For that which the Representative doth as Actor every one of the Subjects doth as Author And though the Soveraign Assembly may give Power to others to elect new men for supply of their Court yet it is still by their Authority that the Election is made and by the same it may when the publique shall require it be recalled The greatest difficultie about the right of Succession is in Monarchy And the difficulty ariseth from this that at first sight it is not manifest who is to appoint the Successor nor many times who it is whom he hath appointed For in both these cases there is required a more exact ratiocination than every man is accustomed to use As to the question who shall appoint the Successor of
a Monarch that hath the Soveraign Authority that is to say who shall determine of the right of Inheritance for Elective Kings and Princes have not the Soveraign Power in propriety but in use only we are to consider that either he that is in possession has right to dispose of the Succession or else that right is again in the dissolved Multitude For the death of him that hath the Soveraign power in propriety leaves the Multitude without any Soveraign at all that is without any Representative in whom they should be united and be capable of doing any one action at all And therefore they are incapable of Election of any new Monarch every man having equall right to submit himselfe to such as he thinks best able to protect him or if he can protect himselfe by his owne sword which is a returne to Confusion and to the condition of a War of every man against every man contrary to the end for which Monarchy had its first Institution Therfore it is manifest that by the Institution of Monarchy the disposing of the Successor is alwaies left to the Judgment and Will of the present Possessor And for the question which may arise sometimes who it is that the Monarch in possession hath designed to the succession and inheritance of his power it is determined by his expresse Words and Testament or by other tacite signes sufficient By expresse Words or Testament when it is declared by him in life time viva voce or by Writing as the first Emperours of Rome declared who should be their Heires For the word Heire does not of it selfe imply the Children or nearest Kindred of a man but whomsoever a man shall any way declare he would have to succeed him in his Estate If therefore a Monarch declare expresly that such a man shall be his Heire either by Word or Writing then is that man immediatly after the decease of his Predecessor Invested in the right of being Monarch But where Testament and expresse Words are wanting other naturall signes of the Will are to be followed whereof the one is Custome And therefore where the Custome is that the next of Kindred absolutely succeedeth there also the next of Kindred hath right to the Succession for that if the will of him that was in posession had been otherwise he might easily have declared the same in his life time And likewise where the Custome is that the next of the Male Kindred succeedeth there also the right of Succession is in the next of the Kindred Male for the same reason And so it is if the Custome were to advance the Female For whatsoever Custome a man may by a word controule and does not it is a naturall signe he would have that Custome stand But where neither Custome nor Testament hath preceded there it is to be understood First that a Monarchs will is that the government remain Monarchicall because he hath approved that government in himselfe Secondly that a Child of his own Male or Female be preferred before any other because men are presumed to be more enclined by nature to advance their own children than the children of other men and of their own rather a Male than a Female because men are naturally fitter than women for actions of labour and danger Thirdly where his own Issue faileth rather a Brother than a stranger and so still the neerer in bloud rather than the more remote because it is alwayes presumed that the neerer of kin is the neerer in affection and 't is evident that a man receives alwayes by reflexion the most honour from the greatnesse of his neerest kindred But if it be lawfull for a Monarch to dispose of the Succession by words of Contract or Testament men may perhaps object a great inconvenience for he may sell or give his Right of governing to a stranger which because strangers that is men not used to live under the same government nor speaking the same language do commonly undervalue one another may turn to the oppression of his Subjects which is indeed a great inconvenience but it proceedeth not necessarily from the subjection to a strangers government but from the unskilfulnesse of the Governours ignorant of the true rules of Politiques And therefore the Romans when they had subdued many Nations to make their Government digestible were wont to take away that grievance as much as they thought necessary by giving sometimes to whole Nations and sometimes to Principall men of every Nation they conquered not onely the Privileges but also the Name of Romans and took many of them into the Senate and Offices of charge even in the Roman City And this was it our most wise King King James aymed at in endeavouring the Union of his two Realms of England and Scotland Which if he could have obtained had in all likelihood prevented the Civill warres which make both those Kingdomes at this present miserable It is not therefore any injury to the people for a Monarch to dispose of the Succession by Will though by the fault of many Princes it hath been sometimes found inconvenient Of the lawfulnesse of it this also is an argument that whatsoever inconvenience can arrive by giving a Kingdome to a stranger may arrive also by so marrying with strangers as the Right of Succession may descend upon them yet this by all men is accounted lawfull CHAP. XX. Of Dominion PATERNALL and DESPOTICALL A Common-wealth by Acquisition is that where the Soveraign Power is acquired by Force And it is acquired by force when men singly or many together by plurality of voyces for fear of death or bonds do authorise all the actions of that Man or Assembly that hath their lives and liberty in his Power And this kind of Dominion or Soveraignty differeth from Soveraignty by Institution onely in this That men who choose their Soveraign do it for fear of one another and not of him whom they Institute But in this case they subject themselves to him they are afraid of In both cases they do it for fear which is to be noted by them that hold all such Covenants as proceed from fear of death or violence voyd which if it were true no man in any kind of Common-wealth could be obliged to Obedience It is true that in a Common-wealth once Instituted or acquired Promises proceeding from fear of death or violence are no Covenants nor obliging when the thing promised is contrary to the Lawes But the reason is not because it was made upon fear but because he that promiseth hath no right in the thing promised Also when he may lawfully performe and doth not it is not the Invalidity of the Covenant that absolveth him but the Sentence of the Soveraign Otherwise whensoever a man lawfully promiseth he unlawfully breaketh But when the Soveraign who is the Actor acquitteth him then he is acquitted by him that extorted the promise as by the Author of such absolution But the
him with his corporall liberty For Slaves that work in Prisons or Fetters do it not of duty but to avoyd the cruelty of their task-masters The Master of the Servant is Master also of all he hath and may exact the use thereof that is to say of his goods of his labour of his servants and of his children as often as he shall think fit For he holdeth his life of his Master by the covenant of obedience that is of owning and authorising whatsoever the Master shall do And in case the Master if he refuse kill him or cast him into bonds or otherwise punish him for his disobedience he is himselfe the author of the same and cannot accuse him of injury In summe the Rights and Consequences of both Paternall and Despoticall Dominion are the very same with those of a Soveraign by Institution and for the same reasons which reasons are set down in the precedent chapter So that for a man that is Monarch of divers Nations whereof he hath in one the Soveraignty by Institution of the people assembled and in another by Conquest that is by the Submission of each particular to avoyd death or bonds to demand of one Nation more than of the other from the title of Conquest as being a Conquered Nation is an act of ignorance of the Rights oâ—… Soveraignty For the Soveraign is absolute over both alike or else there is no Soveraignty at all and so every man may Lawfully protect himselfe if he can with his own sword which is the condition of war By this it appears that a great Family if it be not part of some Common-wealth is of it self as to the Rights of Soveraignty a little Monarchy whether that Family consist of a man and his children or of a man and his servants or of a man and his children and servants together wherein the Father or Master is the Soveraign But yet a Family is not properly a Common-wealth unlesse it be of that power by its own number or by other opportunities as not to be subdued without the hazard of war For where a number of men are manifestly too weak to defend themselves united every one may use his own reason in time of danger to save his own life either by flight or by submission to the enemy as hee shall think best in the same manner as a very small company of souldiers surprised by an army may cast down their armes and demand quarter or run away rather than be put to the sword And thus much shall suffice concerning what I find by speculation and deduction of Soveraign Rights from the nature need and designes of men in erecting of Common-wealths and putting themselves under Monarchs or Assemblies entrusted with power enough for their protection Let us now consider what the Scripture teacheth in the same point To Moses the children of Israel say thus Speak thou to us and we will heare thee but let not God speak to us lest we dye This is absolute obedience to Moses Concerning the Right of Kings God himself by the mouth of Samuel saith This shall be the Right of the King you will have to reigne over you He shall take your sons and set them to drive his Chariots and to be his horsemen and to run before his chariots and gather in his harvest and to make his engines of War and Instruments of his chariots and shall take your daughters to make perfumes to be his Cookes and Bakers He shall take your fields your vine-yards and your olive-yards and give them to his servants He shall take the tyth of your corne and wine and give it to the men of his chamber and to his other servants He shall take your man-servants and your maid-servants and the choice of your youth and employ them in his businesse He shall take the tyth of your flocks and you shall be his servants This is absolute power and â—…ummed up in the last words you shall be his servants Againe when the people heard what power their King was to have yet they consented thereto and say thus We will be as all other nations and our King shall judge our causes and goe before us to conduct our wars Here is confirmed the Right that Soveraigns have both to the Militia and to all Judicature in which is conteined as absolute power as one man can possibly transferre to another Again the prayer of King Salomon to God was this Give to thy servant understanding to judge thy people and to diâ—…cerne between Good and Evill It belongeth therefore to the Soveraigne to bee Judge and to praescribe the Rules of discerning Good and Evill which Rules are Lawes and therefore in him is the Legislative Power Saul sought the life of David yet when it was in his power to slay Saul and his Servants would have done it David forbad them saying God forbid I should do such an act against my Lord the anoynted of God For obedience of servants St. Paul saith Servants obey your masters in All things and Children obey your Parents in All things There is simple obedience in those that are subject to Paternall or Despoticall Dominion Again The Scribes and Pharisees sit in Moses chayre and therefore All that they shall bid you observe that observe and do There again is simple obedience And St Paul Warn them that they subject themselves to Princes and to those that are in Authority obey them This obedience is also simple Lastly our Saviour himselfe acknowledges that men ought to pay such taxes as are by Kings impoâ—…ed where he sayes Give to Caesar that which is Caesars and payed such taxes himselfe And that the Kings word is sufficient to take any thing from any Subject when there is need and that the King is Judge of that need For he himselfe as King of the Jewes commanded his Disciples to take the Asse and Asses Colt to carry him into Jerusalem saying Go into the Village over against you and you shall find a shee Asse tyed and her Colt with her unty them and bring them to me And if any man ask you what you mean by it Say the Lord hath need of them And they will let them go They will not ask whether his necessity be a sufficient title nor whether he be judge of that necessity but acquiesce in the will of the Lord. To these places may be added also that of Genesis You shall be as Gods knowing Good and Evill And verse 11. Who told thee that thou wast naked hast thou eaten of the tree of which I commanded thee thou shouldest not eat For the Cognisance or Judicature of Good and Evill being forbidden by the name of the fruit of the tree of Knowledge as a triall of Adams obedience The Divel to enflame the Ambition of the woman to whom that fruit already seemed beautifull told her that by tasting it they should be as Gods knowing Good
and Learned men any thing that discovereth their errours and thereby lesseneth their Authority whereas the Common-peoples minds unlesse they be tainted with dependance on the Potent or scribbled over with the opinions of their Doctors are like clean paper fit to receive whatsoever by Publique Authority shall be imprinted in them Shall whole Nations be brought to acquiescé in the great Mysteries of Christian Religion which are above Reason and millions of men be made believe that the same Body may be in innumerable places at one and the same time which is against Reason and shall not men be able by their teaching and preaching protected by the Law to make that received which is so consonant to Reason that any unprejudicated man needs no more to learn it than to hear it I conclude therefore that in the instruction of the people in the Essentiall Rights which are the Naturall and Fundamentall Lawes of Soveraignty there is no difficulty whilest a Soveraign has his Power entire but what proceeds from his own fault or the fault of those whom he trusteth in the administration of the Common-wealth and consequently it is his Duty to cause them so to be instructed and not onely his Duty but his Benefit also and Security against the danger that may arrive to himselfe in his naturall Person from Rebellion And to descend to particulars the People are to be taught First that they ought not to be in love with any forme of Government they see in their neighbour Nations more than with their own nor whatsoever present prosperity they behold in Nations that are otherwise governed than they to desire change For the prosperity of a People ruled by an Aristocraticall or Democraticall assembly commeth not from Aristocracy nor from Democracy but from the Obedience and Concord of the Subjects nor do the people flourish in a Monarchy because one man has the right to rule them but because they obey him Take away in any kind of State the Obedience and consequently the Concord of the People and they shall not onely not flourish but in short time be dissolved And they that go about by disobedience to doe no more than reforme the Common-wealth shall find they do thereby destroy it like the foolish daughters of Peleus in the fable which desiring to renew the youth of their decrepit Father did by the Counsell of Medea cut him in pieces and boyle him together with strange herbs but made not of him a new man This desire of change is like the breach of the first of Gods Commandements For there God sayes Non habebis Does alienos Thou shalt not have the Gods of other Nations and in another place concerning Kings that they are Gods Secondly they are to be taught that they ought not to be led with admiration of the vertue of any of their fellow Subjects how high soever he stand nor how conspicuously soever he shine in the Common-wealth nor of any Assembly except the Soveraign Assembly so as to deferre to them any obedience or honour appropriate to the Soveraign onely whom in their particular stations they represent nor to receive any influence from them but such as is conveighed by them from the Soveraign Authority For that Soveraign cannot be imagined to love his People as he ought that is not Jealous of them but suffers them by the flattery of Popular men to be seduced from their loyalty as they have often been not onely secretly but openly so as to proclaime Marriage with them in facie Ecclesiae by Preachers and by publishing the same in the open streets which may fitly be compared to the violation of the second of the ten Commandements Thirdly in consequence to this they ought to be informed how great a fault it is to speak evill of the Soveraign Representative whether One man or an Assembly of men or to argue and dispute his Power or any way to use his Name irreverently whereby he may be brought into Contempt with his People and their Obedience in which the safety of the Common-wealth consisteth slackened Which doctrine the third Commandement by resemblance pointeth to Fourthly seeing people cannot be taught this nor when 't is taught remember it nor after one generation past so much as know in whom the Soveraign Power is placed without setting a part from their ordinary labour some certain times in which they may attend those that are appointed to instruct them It is necessary that some such times be determined wherein they may assemble together and after prayers and praises given to God the Soveraign of Soveraigns hear those their Duties told them and the Positive Lawes such as generally concern them all read and expounded and be put in mind of the Authority that maketh them Lawes To this end had the Jewes every seventh day a Sabbath in which the Law was read and expounded and in the solemnity whereof they were put in mind that their King was God that having created the world in six dayes he rested the seventh day and by their resting on it from their labour that that God was their King which redeemed them from their servile and painfull labour in Egypt and gave them a time after they had rejoyced in God to take joy also in themselves by lawfull recreation So that the first Table of the Commandements is spent all in setting down the summe of Gods absolute Power not onely as God but as King by pact in peculiar of the Jewes and may therefore give light to those that have Soveraign Power conferred on them by the consent of men to see what doctrine they Ought to teach their Subjects And because the first instruction of Children dependeth on the care of their Parents it is necessary that they should be obedient to them whilest they are under their tuition and not onely so but that also afterwards as gratitude requireth they acknowledge the benefit of their education by externall signes of honour To which end they are to be taught that originally the Father of every man was also his Soveraign Lord with power over him of life and death and that the Fathers of families when by instituting a Common-wealth they resigned that absolute Power yet it was never intended they should lose the honour due unto them for their education For to relinquish such right was not necessary to the Institution of Soveraign Power nor would there be any reason why any man should desire to have children or take the care to nourish and instruct them if they were afterwards to have no other benefit from them than from other men And this accordeth with the fifth Commandement Again every Soveraign Ought to cause Justice to be taught which consisting in taking from no man what is his is as much asto say to cause men to be taught not to deprive their Neighbours by violence or fraud of any thing which by the Soveraign Authority is theirs Of things held in propriety those
and necessarily such as the things we see hear and consider suggest unto us and therefore are not effects of our Will but our Will of them We then Captivate our Understanding and Reason when we forbear contradiction when we so speak as by lawfull Authority we are commanded and when we live accordingly which in sum is Trust and Faith reposed in him that speaketh though the mind be incapable of any Notion at all from the words spoken When God speaketh to man it must be either immediately or by mediation of another man to whom he had formerly spoken by himself immediately How God speaketh to a man immediately may be understood by those well enough to whom he hath so spoken but how the same should be understood by another is hard if not impossible to know For if a man pretend to me that God hath spoken to him supernaturally and immediately and I make doubt of it I cannot easily perceive what argument he can produce to oblige me to beleeve it It is true that if he be my Soveraign he may oblige me to obedience so as not by act or word to declare I beleeve him not but not to think any otherwise then my reason perswades me But if one that hath not such authority over me shall pretend the same there is nothing that exacteth either beleefe or obedience For to say that God hath spoken to him in the Holy Scripture is not to say God hath spoken to him immediately but by mediation of the Prophets or of the Apostles or of the Church in such manner as he speaks to all other Christian men To say he hath spoken to him in a Dream is no more then to say he dreamed that God spake to him which is not of force to win beleef from any man that knows dreams are for the most part naturall and may proceed from former thoughts and such dreams as that from selfe conceit and foolish arrogance and false opinion of a mans own godlinesse or other vertue by which he thinks he hath merited the favour of extraordinary Revelation To say he hath seen a Vision or heard a Voice is to say that he hath dreamed between sleeping and waking for in such manner a man doth many times naturally take his dream for a vision as not having well observed his own slumbering To say he speaks by supernaturall Inspiration is to say he finds an ardent desire to speak or some strong opinion of himself for which hee can alledge no naturall and sufficient reason So that though God Almighty can speak to a man by Dreams Visions Voice and Inspiration yet he obliges no man to beleeve he hath so done to him that pretends it who being a man may erre and which is more may lie How then can he to whom God hath never revealed his Wil immediately saving by the way of natural reason know when he is to obey or not to obey his Word delivered by him that sayes he is a Prophet Of 400 Prophets of whom the K. of Israel asked counsel concerning the warre he made against Ramoth Gilead only Micaiah was a true one The Prophet that was sent to prophecy against the Altar set up by Ieroboam though a true Prophet and that by two miracles done in his presence appears to be a Prophet sent from God was yet deceived by another old Prophet that perswaded him as from the mouth of God to eat and drink with him If one Prophet deceive another what certainty is there of knowing the will of God by other way than that of Reason To which I answer out of the Holy Scripture that there be two marks by which together not asunder a true Prophet is to be known One is the doing of miracles the other is the not teaching any other Religion than that which is already established Asunder I say neither of these is sufficient If a Prophet rise amongst you or a Dreamer of dreams and shall pretend the doing of amiracle and the miracle come to passe if he say Let us follow strange Gods which thou hast not known thou shalt not hearken to him c. But that Prophet and Dreamer of dreams shall be put to death because be hath spoken to you to Revolt from the Lord your God In which words two things are to be observed First that God wil not have miracles alone serve for arguments to approve the Prophets calling but as it is in the third verse for an experiment of the constancy of our adherence to himself For the works of the Egyptian Sorcerers though not so great as those of Moses yet were great miracles Secondly that how great soever the miracle be yet if it tend to stir up revolt against the King or him that governeth by the Kings authority he that doth such miracle is not to be considered otherwise than as sent to make triall of their allegiance For these words revâ—…lt from the Lord your God are in this place equivalent to revolt from your King For they had made God their King by pact at the foot of Mount Sinai who ruled them by Moses only for he only spake with God and from time to time declared Gods Commandements to the people In like manner after our Saviour Christ had made his Disciples acknowledge him for the Messiah that is to say for Gods anointed whom the nation of the Iews daily expected for their King but refused when he came he omitted not to advertise them of the danger of miracles There shall arise saith he false Christs and false Prophets and shall doe great wonders and miracles even to the seducing if it were possible of the very Elect. By which it appears that false Prophets may have the power of miracles yet are wee not to take their doctrin for Gods Word St. Paul says further to the Galatians that if himself or an Angell from heaven preach another Gospel to them than he had preached let him be accursed That Gospel was that Christ was King so that all preaching against the power of the King received in consequence to these words is by St. Paul accursed For his speech is addressed to those who by his preaching had already received Iesus for the Christ that is to say for King of the Iews And as Miracles without preaching that Doctrine which God hath established so preaching the true Doctrine without the doing of miracles is an unsufficient argument of immediate Revelation For if a man that teacheth not false Doctrine should pretend to bee a Prophet without shewing any Miracle he is never the more to bee regarded for his pretence as is evident by Deut. 18. v. 21 22. If thou say in thy heart How shall we know that the Word of the Prophet is not that which the Lord hath spoken When the Prophet shall have spoken in the name of the Lord that which shall not come to passe that 's the word which the Lord hath not spoken but the
and the Gospels and Epistles of the New Testament have had one and the same scope to convert men to the obedience of God 1. in Moses and the Priests 2. in the man Christ and 3. in the Apostles and the successors to Apostolicall power For these three at several times did represent the person of God Moses and his successors the High Priests and Kings of Judah in the Old Testament Christ himself in the time he lived on earth and the Apostles and their successors from the day of Pentecost when the Holy Ghost descended on them to this day It is a question much disputed between the divers sects of Christian Religion From whence the Scriptures derive their Authority which question is also propounded sometimes in other terms as How wee know them to be the Word of God or Why we b◅leeve them to be so And the difficulty of resolving it ariseth chiefly from the impropernesse of the words wherein the question it self is couched For it is beleeved on all hands that the first and originall Author of them is God and consequently the question disputed is not that Again it is manifest that none can know they are Gods Word though all true Christians beleeve it but those to whom God himself hath revealed it supernaturally and therefore the question is not rightly moved of our Know edge of it Lastly when the question is propounded of our Beleefe because some are moved to beleeve for one and others for other reasons there can be rendred no one generall answer for them all The question truly stated is By what Authority they are made Law As far as they differ not from the Laws of Nature there is no doubt but they are the Law of God and carry their Authority with them legible to all men that have the use of naturall reason but this is no other Authority then that of all other Morall Doctrine consonant to Reason the Dictates whereof are Laws not made but Eternall If they be made Law by God himselfe they are of the nature of written Law which are Laws to them only to whom God hath so sufficiently published them as no man can excuse himself by saying he knew not they were his He therefore to whom God hath not supernaturally revealed that they are his nor that those that published them were sent by him is not obliged to obey them by any Authority but his whose Commands have already the force of Laws that is to say by any other Authority then that of the Common-wealth residing in the Soveraign who only has the Legislative power Again if it be not the Legislative Authority of the Common-wealth that giveth them the force of Laws it must bee some other Authority derived from God either private or publique if private it obliges onely him to whom in particular God hath been pleased to reveale it For if every man should be obliged to take for Gods Law what particular men on pretence of private Inspiration or Revelation should obtrude upon him in such a number of men that out of pride and ignorance take their own Dreams and extravagant Fancies and Madnesse for testimonies of Gods Spirit or out of ambition pretend to such Divine testimonies falsely and contrary to their own consciences it were impossible that any Divine Law should be acknowledged If publique it is the Authority of the Common-wealth or of the Church But the Church if it be one person is the same thing with a Common-wealth of Christians called a Common-wealth because it consisteth of men united in one person their Soveraign and a Church because it consisteth in Christian men united in one Christian Soveraign But if the Church be not one person then it hath no authority at all it can neither command nor doe any action at all nor is capable of having any power or right to any thing nor has any Will Reason nor Voice for all these qualities are personall Now if the whole number of Christians be not contained in one Common-wealth they are not one person nor is there an Universall Church that hath any authority over them and therefore the Scriptures are not made Laws by the Universall Church or if it bee one Common-wealth then all Christian Monarchs and States are private persons and subject to bee judged deposed and punished by an Universall Soveraigne of all Christendome So that the question of the Authority of the Scriptures is reduced to this Whether Christian Kings and the Soveraigne Assemblies in Christian Common-wealths be absolute in their own Territories immediately under God or subject to one Vicar of Christ constituted of the Vniversall Church to bee judged condemned deposed and put to death as hee shall think expedient or necessary for the common good Which question cannot bee resolved without a more particular consideration of the Kingdome of God from whence also wee are to judge of the Authority of Interpreting the Scripture For whosoever hath a lawfull power over any Writing to make it Law hath the power also to approve or disapprove the interpretation of the same CHAP. XXXIV Of the Signification of SPIRIT ANGEL and INSPIRATION in the Books of Holy Scripture SEeing the foundation of all true Ratiocination is the constant Signification of words which in the Doctrine following dependeth not as in naturall science on the Will of the Writer nor as in common conversation on vulgar use but on the sense they carry in the Scripture It is necessary before I proceed any further to determine out of the Bible the meaning of such words as by their ambiguity may render what I am to inferre upon them obscure or disputable I will begin with the words BODY and SPIRIT which in the language of the Schools are termed Substances Corporeall and Incorporeall The Word Body in the most generall acceptation signifieth that which filleth or occupyeth some certain room or imagined place and dependeth not on the imagination but is a reall part of that we call the Vniverse For the Vniverse being the Aggregate of all Bodies there is no reall part thereof that is not also Body nor any thing properly a Body that is not also part of that Aggregate of all Bodies the Vniverse The same also because Bodies are subject to change that is to say to variety of apparence to the sense of living creatures is called Substance that is to say Subject to various accidents as sometimes to be Moved sometimes to stand Still and to seem to our senses sometimes Hot sometimes Cold sometimes of one Colour Smel Tast or Sound somtimes of another And this diversity of Seeming produced by the diversity of the operatiō of bodies on the organs of our sense we attribute to alterations of the Bodies that operate call them Accidents of those Bodies And according to this acceptation of the word Substance and Body signifie the same thing and therefore Substance incorporeall are words which when they are joined together destroy one another as if
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
among them Westward in all businesse of the Lord and in the service of the King Likewise verse 32. that hee made other Hebronites rulers over the Reubenites the Gadites and the halfe tribe of Manasseh these were the rest of Israel that dwelt beyond Jordan for every matter pertaining to God and affairs of the King Is not this full Power both temporall and spirituall as they call it that would divide it To conclude from the first institution of Gods Kingdome to the Captivity the Supremacy of Religion was in the same hand with that of the Civill Soveraignty and the Priests office after the election of Saul was not Magisteriall but Ministeriall Notwithstanding the government both in Policy and Religion were joined first in the High Priests and afterwards in the Kings so far forth as concerned the Right yet it appeareth by the same Holy History that the people understood it not but there being amongst them a great part and probably the greatest part that no longer than they saw great miracles or which is equivalent to a miracle great abilities or great felicity in the enterprises of their Governours gave sufficient credit either to the fame of Moses or to the Colloquies between God and the Priests they took occasion as oft as their Governours displeased them by blaming sometimes the Policy sometimes the Religion to change the Government or revolt from their Obedience at their pleasure And from thence proceeded from time to time the civill troubles divisions and calamities of the Nation As for example after the death of Eleazar and Joshua the next generation which had not seen the wonders of God but were left to their own weak reason not knowing themselves obliged by the Covenant of a Sacerdotall Kingdome regarded no more the Commandement of the Priest nor any law of Moses but did every man that which was right in his own eyes and obeyed in Civill affairs such men as from time to time they thought able to deliver them from the neighbour Nations that oppressed them and consulted not with God as they ought to doc but with such men or women as they guessed to bee Prophets by their Praedictions of things to come and though they had an Idol in their Chappel yet if they had a Levite for their Chaplain they made account they worshipped the God of Israel And afterwards when they demanded a King after the manner of the nations yet it was not with a design to depart from the worship of God their King but despairing of the justice of the sons of Samuel they would have a King to judg them in Civill actions but not that they would allow their King to change the Religion which they thought was recommended to them by Moses So that they alwaies kept in store a pretext either of Justice or Religion to discharge them selves of their obedience whensoever they had hope to prevaile Samuel was displeased with the people for that they desired a King for God was their King already and Samuel had but an authority under him yet did Samuel when Saul observed not his counsell in destroying Agag as God had commanded anoint another King namely David to take the succession from his heirs Rehoboam was no Idolater but when the people thought him an Oppressor that Civil pretence carried from him ten Tribes to Jeroboam an Idolater And generally through the whole History of the Kings as well of Judah as of Israel there were Prophets that alwaies controlled the Kings for transgressing the Religion and sometimes also for Errours of State as Jehosaphat was reproved by the Prophet Jehu for aiding the King of Israel against the Syrians and Hezekiah by Isaiah for shewing his treasures to the Ambassadors of Babylon By all which it appeareth that though the power both of State and Religion were in the Kings yet none of them were uncontrolled in the use of it but such as were gracious for their own naturall abilities or felicities So that from the practise of those times there can no argument be drawn that the Right of Supremacy in Religion was not in the Kings unlesse we place it in the Prophets and conclude that because Hezekiah praying to the Lord before the Cherubins was not answered from thence nor then but afterwards by the Prophet Isaiah therefore Isaiah was supreme Head of the Church or because Iosiah consulted Hulda the Prophetesse concerning the Book of the Law that therefore neither he nor the High Priest but Hulda the Prophetesse had the Supreme authority in matter of Religion which I thinke is not the opinion of any Doctor During the Captivity the Iews had no Common-wealth at all And after their return though they renewed their Covenant with God yet there was no promise made of obedience neither to Esdras nor to any other And presently after they became subjects to the Greeks from whose Customes and Daemonology and from the doctrine of the Cabalists their Religion became much corrupted In such sort as nothing can be gathered from their confusion both in State and Religion concerning the Supremacy in either And therefore so far forth as concerneth the Old Testament we may conclude that whosoever had the Soveraignty of the Common-wealth amongst the Jews the same had also the Supreme Authority in matter of Gods externall worship and represented Gods Person that is the person of God the Father though he were not called by the name of Father till such time as he sent into the world his Son Jesus Christ to redeem mankind from their sins and bring them into his Everlasting Kingdome to be saved for evermore Of which we are to speak in the Chapter following CHAP. XLI Of the OFFICE of our BLESSED SAVIOUR WE find in Holy Scripture three parts of the Office of the Messiah The first of a Redeemer or Saviour The second of a Pastor Counsellor or Teacher that is of a Prophet sent from God to convert such as God hath elected to Salvation The third of a King an eternall King but under his Father as Moses and the High Priests were in their severall times And to these three parts are correspondent three times For our Redemption he wrought at his first coming by the Sacrifice wherein he offered up himself for our sinnes upon the Crosse our Conversion he wrought partly then in his own Person and partly worketh now by his Ministers and will continue to work till his coming again And after his coming again shall begin that his glorious Reign over his elect which is to last eternally To the Office of a Redeemer that is of one that payeth the Ransome of Sin which Ransome is Death it appertaineth that he was Sacrificed and thereby bare upon his own head and carryed away from us our iniquities in such sort as God had required Not that the death of one man though without sinne can satisfie for the offences of all men in the rigour of Justice but in the Mercy of
the◅efore manifest that Christ hath not left to his Ministers in this world unlesse they be also endued with Civill Authority any authority to Command other men But what may some object if a King or a Senate or other Soveraign Person forbid us to beleeve in Christ To this I answer that such forbidding is of no effect because Beleef and Unbeleef never follow mens Commands Faith is a gift of God which Man can neither give nor take away by promise of rewards or menaces of torture And if it be further asked What if wee bee commanded by our lawfull Prince to say with our tongue wee beleeve not must we obey such command Profession with the tongue is but an externall thing and no more then any other gesture whereby we signifie our obedience and wherein a Christian holding firmely in his heart the Faith of Christ hath the same liberty which the Prophet Elisha allowed to Naaman the Syrian Naaman was converted in his heart to the God of Israel For hee saith 2 Kings 5. 17. Thy servant will henceforth offer neither burnt offering nor sacrifice unto other Gods but unto the Lord. In this thing the Lord pardon thy servant that when my Master goeth into the house of Rimmon to worship there and he leaneth on my hand and I bow my selfe in the house of Rimmon when I bow my selfe in the house of Rimmon the Lord pardon thy servant in this thing This the Prophet approved and bid him Goe in peace Here Naaman beleeved in his heart but by bowing before the Idol Rimmon he denyed the true God in effect as much as if he had done it with his lips But then what shall we answer to our Saviours saying Whosoever denyeth me before men I will deny him before my Father which is in Heaven This we may say that whatsoever a Subject as Naaman was is compelled to in obedience to his Soveraign and doth it not in order to his own mind but in order to the laws of his country that action is not his but his Soveraigns nor is it he that in this case denyeth Christ before men but his Governour and the law of his countrey If any man shall accuse this doctrine as repugnant to true and unfegined Christianity I ask him in case there should be a subject in any Christian Common-wealth that should be inwardly in his heart of the Mahometan Religion whether if his Soveraign command him to bee present at the divine service of the Christian Church and that on pain of death he think that Mahometan obliged in conscience to suffer death for that cause rather than to obey that command of his lawfull Prince If he say he ought rather to suffer death then he authorizeth all private men to disobey their Princes in maintenance of their Religion true or false if he say he ought to bee obedient then he alloweth to himself that which hee denyeth to another contrary to the words of our Saviour Whatsoever you would that men should doe unto you that doe yee unto them and contrary to the Law of Nature which is the indubitable everlasting Law of God Do not to another that which thou wouldest not he should doe unto thee But what then shall we say of all those Martyrs we read of in the History of the Church that they have needlessely cast away their lives For answer hereunto we are to distinguish the persons that have been for that cause put to death whereof some have received a Calling to preach and professe the Kingdome of Christ openly others have had no such Calling nor more has been required of them than their owne faith The former sort if they have been put to death for bearing witnesse to this point that Jesus Christ is risen from the dead were true Martyrs For a Martyr is to give the true definition of the word a Witnesse of the Resurrection of Jesus the Messiah which none can be but those that conversed with him on earth and saw him after he was risen For a Witnesse must have seen what he testifieth or else his testimony is not good And that none but such can properly be called Martyrs of Christ is manifest out of the words of St. Peter Act. 1. 21 22. VVherefore of these men which have companyed with us all the time that the Lord Iesus went in and out amongst us beginning from the Baptisme of Iohn unto that same day hee was taken up from us must one one be ordained to be a Martyr that is a Witnesse with us of his Resurrection Where we may observe that he which is to bee a Witnesse of the truth of the Resurrection of Christ that is to say of the truth of this fundamentall article of Christian Religion that Jesus was the Christ must be some Disciple that conversed with him and saw him before and after his Resurrection and consequently must be one of his originall Disciples whereas they which were not so can Witnesse no more but that their antecessors said it and are therefore but Witnesses of other mens testimony and are but second Martyrs or Martyrs of Christs Witnesses He that to maintain every doctrine which he himself draweth out of the History our Saviours of life and of the Acts or Epistles of the Apostles or which he beleeveth upō the authority of a private man wil oppose the Laws and Authority of the Civill State is very far from being a Martyr of Christ or a Martyr of his Martyrs 'T is one Article onely which to die for meriteth so honorable a name and that Article is this that Iesus is the Christ that is to say He that hath redeemed us aud shall come again to give us salvation and eternall life in his glorious Kingdome To die for every tenet that serveth the ambition or profit of the Clergy is not required nor is it the Death of the Witnesse but the Testimony it self that makes the Martyr for the word signifieth nothing else but the man that beareth Witnesse whether he be put to death for his testimony or not Also he that is not sent to preach this fundamentall article but taketh it upon him of his private authority though he be a Witnesse and consequently a Martyr either primary of Christ or secundary of his Apostles Disciples or their Successors yet is he not obliged to suffer death for that cause because being not called thereto t is not required at his hands nor ought hee to complain if he loseth the reward he expecteth from those that never set him on work None therefore can be a Martyr neither of the first nor second degree that have not a warrant to preach Christ come in the flesh that is to say none but such as are sent to the conversion of Infidels For no man is a Witnesse to him that already beleeveth and therefore needs no Witnesse but to them that deny or doubt or have not heard it Christ sent his Apostles and his Seventy Disciples with
not any where that they who received not the Doctrine of Christ did therein sin but that they died in their sins that is that their sins against the Laws to which they owed obedience were not pardoned And those Laws were the Laws of Nature and the Civill Laws of the State whereto every Christian man had by pact submitted himself And therefore by the Burthen which the Apostles might lay on such as they had converted are not to be understood Laws but Conditions proposed to those that sought Salvation which they might accept or refuse at their own perill without a new sin though not without the hazard of being condemned and excluded out of the Kingdome of God for their sins past And therefore of Infidels S. John saith not the wrath of God shall come upon them but the wrath of God remaineth upon them and not that they shall be condemned but that they are condemned already Nor can it be conceived that the benefit of Faith is Remission of sins unlesse we conceive withall that the dammage of Infidelity is the Retention of the same sins But to what end is it may some man aske that the Apostles and other Pastors of the Church after their time should meet together to agree upon what Doctrine should be taught both for Faith and Manners if no man were obliged to observe their Decrees To this may be answered that the Apostles and Elders of that Councell were obliged even by their entrance into it to teach the Doctrine therein concluded and decreed to be taught so far forth as no precedent Law to which they were obliged to yeeld obedience was to the contrary but not that all other Christians should be obliged to observe what they taught For though they might deliberate what each of them should teach yet they could not deliberate what others should do unless their Assembly had had a Legislative Power which none could have but Civil Soveraigns For though God be the Soveraign of all the world we are not bound to take for his Law whatsoever is propounded by every man in his name nor any thing contrary to the Civill Law which God hath expressely commanded us to obey Seeing then the Acts of Councell of the Apostles were then no Laws but Counsells much lesse are Laws the Acts of any other Doctors or Councells since if assembled without the Authority of the Civill Soveraign And consequently the Books of the New Testament though most perfect Rules of Christian Doctrine could not be made Laws by any other authority then that of Kings or Soveraign Assemblies The first Councell that made of the Scriptures we now have Canon is not extant For that Collection of the Canons of the Apostles attributed to Clemens the first Bishop of Rome after S. Peter is subject to question For though the Canonicall books bee there reckoned up yet these words Sint vobis omnibus Clericis Lâ—…icis Libri venerandi c. containe a distinction of Clergy and Laity that was not in use so neer St. Peters time The first Councell for setling the Canonicall Scripture that is extant is that of Laodicea Can. 59. which forbids the reading of other Books then those in the Churches which is a Mandate that is not addressed to every Châ—…istian but to those onely that had authority to read any thing publiquely in the Church that is to Ecclesiastiques onely Of Ecclesiasticall Officers in the time of the Apostles some were Magisteriall some Ministeriall Magisteriall were the Offices of preaching of the Gospel of the Kingdom of God to Infidels of administaing the Sacraments and Divine Service and of teaching the Rules of Faith and Manners to those that were converted Ministeriall was the Office of Deacons that is of them that were appointed to the administration of the secular necessities of the Church at such time as they lived upon a common stock of mony raised out of the voluntary contributions of the faithfull Amongst the Officers Magisteriall the first and principall were the Apostles whereof there were at first but twelve and these were chosen and constituted by our Saviour himselfe and their Office was not onely to Preach Teach and Baptize but also to be Narâ—…yrs Witnesses of our Saviours Resurrection This Testimony was the specificall and essentiall mark whereby the Apostleship was distinguished from other Magistracy Ecclesiasticall as being necessary for an Apostle either to have seen our Saviour after his Resurrection or to have conversed with him before and seen his works and other arguments of his Divinity whereby they might be taken for sufficient Witnesses And therefore at the election of a new Apostle in the place of Judas Iscariot S. Peter saith Acts 1. 21 22. Of these men that have companyed with us all the time that the Lord Iesus went in and out among us beginning from the Baptisme of Iohn unto that same day that he was taken up from us must one be ordained to be a Witnesse with us of his Resurrection where by this word must is implyed a necessary property of an Apostle to have companyed with the first and prime Apostles in the time that our Saviour manifested himself in the flesh The first Apostle of those which were not constituted by Christ in the time he was upon the Earth was Matthias chosen in this manner There were assembled together in Jerusalem about 120 Christians Acts 1. 15. These appointed two Ioseph the Iust and Matthias ver 23. and caused lots to be drawn and ver 26. the Lot fell on Matthias and he was numbred with the Apostles So that here we see the ordination of this Apostle was the act of the Congregation and not of St. Peter nor of the eleven otherwise then as Members of the Assembly After him there was never any other Apostle ordained but Paul and Barnabas which was done as we read Acts 13. 1 2 3. in this manner There were in the Church that was at Antioch certaine Prophets and Teachers as Barnabas and Simeon that was called Niger and Lucius of Cyrene and Manaen which had been brought up with Herod the Tetrarch and Saul As they ministred unto the Lord and fasted the Holy Ghost said Separate mee Barnabas and Saul for the worke whereunto I have called them And when they had fasted and prayed and laid their hands on them they sent them away By which it is manifest that though they were called by the Holy Ghost their Calling was declared unto them and their Mission authorized by the particular Church of Antioch And that this their calling was to the Apostleship is apparent by that that they are both called Acts 14. 14. Apostles And that it was by vertue of this act of the Church of Antioch that they were Apostles S. Paul declareth plainly Rom. 1. 1. in that hee useth the word which the Holy Ghost used at his calling For hee stileth himself An Apostle separated unto the Gospel of God alluding to the words of
The same is also confirmed by the continuall practise even to this day in the Election of the Bishops of Rome For if the Bishop of any place had the right of choosing another to the succession of the Pastorall Office in any City at such time as he went from thence to plant the same in another place much more had he had the Right to appoint his successour in that place in which he last resided and dyed And we find not that ever any Bishop of Rome appointed his successor For they were a long time chosen by the People as we may see by the sedition raised about the Election between Damasus and Vrsicinus which Ammianus Marcellinus saith was so great that Iuventius the Praefect unable to keep the peace between them was forced to goe out of the City and that there were above an hundred men found dead upon that occasion in the Church it self And though they afterwards were chosen first by the whole Clergy of Rome and afterwards by the Cardinalls yet never any was appointed to the succession by his predecessor If therefore they pretended no right to appoint their own successors I think I may reasonably conclude they had no right to appoint the successors of other Bishops without receiving some new power which none could take from the Church to bestow on them but such as had a lawfull authority not onely to Teach but to Command the Church which none could doe but the Civill Soveraign The word Minister in the Originall 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifieth one that voluntarily doth the businesse of another man and differeth from a Servant onely in this that Servants are obliged by their condition to what is commanded them whereas Ministers are obliged onely by their undertaking and bound therefore to no more than that they have undertaken So that both they that teach the Word of God and they that administer the secular affairs of the Church are both Ministers but they are Ministers of different Persons For the Pastors of the Church called Acts 6. 4. The Ministers of the Word are Ministers of Christ whose Word it is But the Ministery of a Deacon which is called verse 2. of the same Chapter Serving of Tables is a service done to the Church or Congregation So that neither any one man nor the whole Church could ever of their Pastor say he was their Minister but of a Deacon whether the charge he undertook were to serve tables or distribute maintenance to the Christians when they lived in each City on a common stock or upon collections as in the first times or to take a care of the House of Prayer or of the Revenue or other worldly businesse of the Church the whole Congregation might properly call him their Minister For their employment as Deacons was to serve the Congregation though upon occasion they omitted not to Preach the Gospel and maintain the Doctrine of Christ every one according to his gifts as S. Steven did and both to Preach and Baptize as Philip did For that Philip which Act. 8. 5. Preached the Gospell at Samaria and verse 38. Baptized the Eunuch was Philip the Deacon not Philip the Apostle For it is manifest verse 1. that when Philip preached in Samaria the Apostles were at Jerusalem and verse 14. when they heard that Samaria had received the Word of God sent Peter and Iohn to them by imposition of whose hands they that were Baptized verse 15. received which before by the Baptisme of Philip they had not received the Holy Ghost For it was necessary for the conferring of the Holy Ghost that their Baptisme should be administred or confirmed by a Minister of the Word not by a Minister of the Church And therefore to confirm the Baptisme of those that Philip the Deacon had Baptized the Apostles sent out of their own number from Jerusalem to Samaria Peter and John who conferred on them that before were but Baptized those graces that were signs of the Holy Spirit which at that time did accompany all true Beleevers which what they were may be understood by that which S. Marke saith chap. 16. 17. These signes follow them that beleeve in my Name they shall cast out Devills they shall speak with new tongues They shall take up Serpents and if they drink any deadly thing it shall not hurt them They shall lay hands on the sick and they shall recover This to doe was it that Philip could not give but the Apostles could and as appears by this place effectually did to every man that truly beleeved and was by a Minister of Christ himself Baptized which power either Christs Ministers in this age cannot conferre or else there are very few true Beleevers or Christ hath very few Ministérs That the first Deacons were chosen not by the Apostles but by a Congregation of the Disciples that is of Christian men of all sorts is manifest out of Acts 6. where we read that the Twelve after the number of Disciples was multiplyed called them together and having told them that it was not fit that the Apostles should leave the Word of God and serve tables said unto them verse 3. Brethren looke you out among you seven men of honest report full of the Holy Ghost and of Wisdome whom we may appoint over this businesse Here it is manifest that though the Apostles declared them elected yet the Congregation chose them which also verse the fift is more expressely said where it is written that the saying pleased the multitude and they chose seven c. Under the Old Testament the Tribe of Levi were onely capable of the Priesthood and other inferiour Offices of the Church The land was divided amongst the other Tribes Levi excepted which by the subdivision of the Tribe of Joseph into Ephraim and Manasses were still twelve To the Tribe of Levi were assigned certain Cities for their habitation with the suburbs for their cattell but for their portion they were to have the tenth of the fruits of the land of their Brethren Again the Priests for their maintenance had the tenth of that tenth together with part of the oblations and sacrifices For God had said to Aaron Numb 18. 20. Thou shalt have no inheritance in their land neither shalt thou have any part amongst them I am thy part and thine inheritance amongst the Children of Israel For God being then King and having constituted the Tribe of Levi to be his Publique Ministers he allowed them for their maintenance the Publique revenue that is to say the part that God had reserved to himself which were Tythes and Offerings and that is it which is meant where God saith I am thine inheritance And therefore to the Levites might not unfitly be attributed the name of Clergy from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifieth Lot or Inheritance not that they were heirs of the Kingdome of God more than other but that Gods inheritance was their maintenance Now seeing in this time
Article Iesus is the Christ. The summe of St. Matthews Gospell is this That Jesus was of the stock of David Born of a Virgin which are the Marks of the true Christ That the Magi came to worship him as King of the Jews That Herod for the same cause sought to kill him That John Baptist proclaimed him That he preached by himselfe and his Apostles that he was that King That he taught the Law not as a Scribe but as a man of Authority That he cured diseases by his Word onely and did many other Miracles which were foretold the Christ should doe That he was saluted King when hee entred into Jerusalem That he fore-warned them to beware of all others that should pretend to be Christ That he was taken accused and put to death for saying hee was King That the cause of his condemnation written on the Crosse was JESUS OF NAZARETH THE KING OF THE JEVVES All which tend to no other end than this that men should beleeve that Iesus is the Christ. Such therefore was the Scope of St. Matthews Gospel But the Scope of all the Evangelists as may appear by reading them was the same Therefore the Scope of the whole Gospell was the establishing of that onely Article And St. John expressely makes it his conclusion Iohn 20. 31. These things are written that you may know that Iesus is the Christ the Son of the living God My second Argument is taken from the Subject of the Sermons of the Apostles both whilest our Saviour lived on earth aud after his Ascension The Apostles in our Saviours time were sent Luke 9. 2. to Preach the Kingdome of God For neither there nor Mat. 10. 7. giveth he any Commission to them other than this As ye go Preach saying the Kingdome of Heaven is at hand that is that Iesus is the Messiah the Christ the King which was to come That their Preaching also after his ascension was the same is manifest out of Acts 17. 6. They drew saith St. Luke Iason and certain Brethren unto the Rulers of the City crying These that have turned the world upside down are come hither also whom Iason hath received And these all do contrary to the Decrees of Caesar saying that there is another King one Iesus And out of the 2. 3. verses of the same Chapter where it is said that St. Paul as his manner was went in unto them and three Sabbath dayes reasoned with them out of the Scriptures opening and alledging that Christ must needs have suffered and risen againe from the dead and that this Iesus whom hee preached is Christ. The third Argument is from those places of Scripture by which all the Faith required to Salvation is declared to be Easie. For if an inward assent of the mind to all the Doctrines concerning Christian Faith now taught whereof the greatest part are disputed were necessary to Salvation there would be nothing in the world so hard as to be a Christian. The Thief upon the Crosse though repenting could not have been saved for saying Lord remember me when thou commest into thy Kinâ—…dome by which he testified no beleefe of any other Article but this That Iesus was the King Nor could it bee said as it is Mat. 11. 30. that Christs yoke is Easy and his burthen Light Nor that Little Children beleeve in him as it is Matth. 18. 6. Nor could St. Paul have said 1 Cor. 1. 21. It pleased God by the Foolishnesse of preaching to save them that beleeve Nor could St. Paul himself have been saved much lesse have been so great a Doctor of the Church so suddenly that never perhaps thought of Transubstantiation nor Purgatory nor many other Articles now obtruded The fourth Argument is taken from places expresse and such as receive no controversie of Interpretation as first Iohn 5. 39. Search the Scriptures for in them yee thinke yee have eternall life and they are they that testifie of mee Our Saviour here speaketh of the Scriptures onely of the Old Testament for the Jews at that time could not search the Scriptures of the New Testament which were not written But the Old Testament hath nothing of Christ but the Markes by which men might know him when hee came as that he should descend from David be born at Bethlem and of a Virgin doe great Miracles and the like Therefore to beleeve that this Jesus was He was sufficient to eternall life but more than sufficient is not Necessary and consequently no other Article is required Again Iohn 11. 26. Whosoever liveth and beleeveth in mee shall not die eternally Therefore to beleeve in Christ is faith sufficient to eternall life and consequently no more faith than that is Necessary But to beleeve in Jesus and to beleeve that Jesus is the Christ is all one as appeareth in the verses immediately following For when our Saviour verse 26. had said to Martha Beleevest thou this she answereth verse 27. Yea Lord I beleeve that thou art the Christ the Son of God which should come into the world Therefore this Article alone is faith sufficient to life eternall and more than sufficient is not Necessary Thirdly Iohn 20. 31. These things are written that yee might beleeve that Iesus is the Christ the Son of God and that beleeving yee might have life through his name There to beleeve that Iesus is the Christ is faith sufficient to the obtaining of life and therefore no other Article is Necessary Fourthly 1 Iohn 4. 2. Every spirit that confesseth that Iesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God And 1 Ioh. 5. 1. Whosoever beleeveth that Iesus is the Christ is born of God And verse 5. Who is hee that overcommeth the world but he that beleeveth that Iesus is the Son of God Fiftly Act. 8. ver 36 37. See saith the Eunuch here is water what doth hinder me to be baptized And Philip said If thou beleevest with all thy heart thou mayst And hee answered and said I beleeve that Iesus Christ is the Son of God Therefore this Article beleeved Iesus is the Christ is sufficient to Baptisme that is to say to our Reception into the Kingdome of God and by consequence onely Necessary And generally in all places where our Saviour saith to any man Thy faith hath saved thee the caâ—…se he saith it is some Confession which directly or by consequence implyeth a beleef that Jesus is the Christ. The last Argument is from the places where this Article is made the Foundation of Faith For he that holdeth the Foundation shall bee saved Which places are first Mat. 24. 23. If any man shall say unto you Loe here is Christ or there beleeve it not for there shall arise false Christs and false Prophets and shall shew great signes and wonders c. Here wee see this Article Jesus is the Christ must bee held though hee that shall teach the contrary should doe great miracles The second place is Gal. 1. 8. Though
Church supposed to be that Kingdom of his to which we are addressed in the Gospel is the Doctrine that it is necessary for a Christian King to receive his Crown by a Bishop as if it were from that Ceremony that he derives the clause of Dei gratiâ in his title and that then onely he is made King by the favour of God when he is crowned by the authority of Gods universall Vicegerent on earth and that every Bishop whosoever be his Soveraign taketh at his Consecration an oath of absolute Obedience to the Pope Consequent to the same is the Doctrine of the fourth Councell of Lateran held under Pope Innocent the third Chap. 3. de Haereticis That if a King at the Popes admonition doe not purge his Kingdome of Haeresies and being excommunicate for the same doe not give satisfaction within a year his Subjects are absolved of the bond of their obedience Where by Haeresies are understood all opinions which the Church of Rome hath forbidden to be maintained And by this means as often as there is any repugnancy between the Politicall designes of the Pope and other Christian Princes as there is very often there ariseth such a Mist amongst their Subjects that they know not a stranger that thrusteth himself into the throne of their lawfull Prince from him whom they had themselves placed there and in this Darknesse of mind are made to fight one against another without discerning their enemies from their friends under the conduct of another mans ambition From the same opinion that the present Church is the Kingdome of God it proceeds that Pastours Deacons and all other Ministers of the Church take the name to themselves of the Clergy giving to other Christians the name of Laity that is simply People For Clergy signifies those whose maintenance is that Revenue which God having reserved to himselfe during his Reigne over the Israelites assigned to the tribe of Levi who were to be his publique Ministers and had no portion of land set them out to live on as their brethren to be their inheritance The Pope therefore pretending the present Church to be as the Realme of Israel the Kingdome of God challenging to himselfe and his subordinate Ministers the like revenue as the Inheritance of God the name of Clergy was sutable to that claime And thence it is that Tithes and other tributes paid to the Levites as Gods Right amongst the Israelites have a long time been demanded and taken of Christians by Ecclesiastiques Iure divino that is in Gods Right By which meanes the people every where were obliged to a double tribute one to the State another to the Clergy whereof that to the Clergy being the tenth of their revenue is double to that which a King of Athens and esteemed a Tyrant exacted of his subjects for the defraying of all publique charges For he demanded no more but the twentieth part and yet abundantly maintained therewith the Commonwealth And in the Kingdome of the Iewes during the Sacerdotall Reigne of God the Tithes and Offerings were the whole Publique Revenue From the same mistaking of the present Church for the Kingdom of God came in the distinction betweene the Civill and the Canon Laws The Civil Law being the Acts of Soveraigns in their own Dominions and the Canon Law being the Acts of the Pope in the same Dominions Which Canons though they were but Canons that is Rules Propounded and but voluntarily received by Christian Princes till the translation of the Empire to Charlemain yet afterwards as the power of the Pope encreased became Rules Commanded and the Emperours themselves to avoyd greater mischiefes which the people blinded might be led into were forced to let them passe for Laws From hence it is that in all Dominions where the Popes Ecclesiasticall power is entirely received Jewes Turkes and Gentiles are in the Roman Church tolerated in their Religion as farre forth as in the exercise and profession thereof they offend not against the civill power whereas in a Christian though a stranger not to be of the Roman Religion is Capitall because the Pope pretendeth that all Christians are his Subjects For otherwise it were as much against the law of Nations to persecute a Christian stranger for professing the Religion of his owne country as an Infidell or rather more in as much as they that are not against Christ are with him From the same it is that in every Christian State there are certaine men that are exempt by Ecclesiasticall liberty from the tributes and from the tribunals of the Civil State for so are the secular Clergy besides Monks and Friars which in many places bear so great a proportion to the common people as if need were there might be raised out of them alone an Army sufficient for any warre the Church militant should imploy them in against their owne or other Princes A second generall abuse of Scripture is the turning of Consecration into Conjuration or Enchantment To Consecrate is in Scripture to Offer Give or Dedicate in pious and decent language and gesture a man or any other thing to God by separating of it from common use that is to say to Sanctifie or make it Gods and to be used only by those whom God hath appointed to be his Publike Ministers as I have already proved at large in the 35. Chapter and thereby to change not the thing Consecrated but onely the use of it from being Profane and common to be Holy and peculiar to Gods service But when by such words the nature or qualitie of the thing it selfe is pretended to be changed it is not Consecration but either an extraordinary worke of God or a vaine and impious Conjuration But seeing for the frequency of pretending the change of Nature in their Consecrations it cannot be esteemed a work extraordinary it is no other than a Conjuration or Incantation whereby they would have men to beleeve an alteration of Nature that is not contrary to the testimony of mans Sight and of all the rest of his Senses As for example when the Priest in stead of Consecrating Bread and Wine to Gods peculiar service in the Sacrament of the Lords Supper which is but a separation of it from the common use to signifie that is to put men in mind of their Redemption by the Passion of Christ whose body was broken and blood shed upon the Crosse for our transgressions pretends that by saying of the words of our Saviour This is my Body and This is my Blood the nature of Bread is no more there but his very Body notwithstanding there appeareth not to the Sight or other Sense of the Receiver any thing that appeared not before the Consecration The Egyptian Conjurers that are said to have turned their Rods to Serpents and the Water into Bloud are thought but to have deluded the senses of the Spectators by a false shew of things yet are esteemed Enchanters But what should wee have thought
every Living Creature And likewise of Man God made him of the dust of the earth and breathed in his face the breath of Life factus est Homo in animam viventem that is and Man was made a Living Creature And after Noah came out of the Arke God saith hee will no more smite omnem animam viventem that is every Living Creature And Deut. 12. 23. Eate not the Bloud for the Bloud is the Soule that is the Life From which places if by Soule were meant a Substance Incorporeall with an existence separated from the Body it might as well be inferred of any other living Creature as of Man But that the Souls of the Faithfull are not of theirown Nature but by Gods speciall Grace to remaine in their Bodies from the Resurrection to all Eternity I have already I think sufficiently proved out of the Scriptures in the 38. Chapter And for the places of the New Testament where it is said that any man shall be cast Body and Soul into Hell fire it is no more than Body and Life that is to say they shall be cast alive into the perpetuall fire of Gehenna This window it is that gives entrance to the Dark Doctrine first of Eternall Torments and afterwards of Purgatory and consequently of the walking abroad especially in places Consecrated Solitary or Dark of the Ghosts of men deceased and thereby to the pretences of Exorcisme and Conjuration of Phantasmes as also of Invocation of men dead and to the Doctrine of Indulgences that is to say of exemption for a time or for ever from the fire of Purgatory wherein these Incorporeall Substances are pretended by burning to be cleansed and made fit for Heaven For men being generally possessed before the time of our Saviour by contagion of the Daemonology of the Greeks of an opinion that the Souls of men were substances distinct from their Bodies and therefore that when the Body was dead the Soulâ—… of every man whether godly or wicked must subsist somewhere by vertue of its own nature without acknowledging therein any supernaturall gift of Gods the Doctors of the Church doubted a long time what was the place which they were to abide in till they should be re-united to their Bodies in the Resurrection supposing for a while they lay under the Altars but afterward the Church of Rome found it more profitable to build for them this place of Purgatory which by some other Churches in this later age has been demolished Let us now consider what texts of Scripture seem most to confirm these three generall Errors I have here touched As for those which Cardinall Bellarmine hath alledged for the present Kingdome of God administred by the Pope than which there are none that make a better shew of proof I have already answered them and made it evident that the Kingdome of God instituted by Moses ended in the election of Saul After which time the Priest of his own authority never deposed any King That which the High Priest did to Athaliah was not done in his owne right but in the right of the young King Joash her Son But Solomon in his own right deposed the High Priest Abiathar and set up another in his place The most difficult place to answer of all those that can be brought to prove the Kingdome of God by Christ is already in this world is alledged not by Bellarmine nor any other of the Church of Rome but by Beza that will have it to begin from the Resurrection of Christ. But whether hee intend thereby to entitle the Presbytery to the Supreme Power Ecclesiasticall in the Common-wealth of Geneva and consequently to every Presbytery in every other Common-wealth or to Princes and other Civill Soveraigns I doe not know For the Presbytery hath challenged the power to Excomunicate their owne Kings and to bee the Supreme Moderators in Religion in the places where they have that form of Church government no lesse then the Pope callengeth it universally The words are Marke 9. 1. Verily I say unto you that there be some of them that stand here which shall not tast of death till they have seene the Kingdome of God come with power Which words if taken grammatically make it certaine that either some of those men that stood by Christ at that time are yet alive or else that the Kingdome of God must be now in this present world And then there is another place more difficult For when the Apostles after our Saviours Resurrection and immediately before his Ascension asked our Saviour saying Acts 1. 6. Wilt thou at this time restore again the Kingdome to Israel he answered them It is not for you to know the times and the seasons which the Father hath put in his own power But ye shall receive power by the comming of the Holy Ghost upon you and yee shall be my Martyrs witnesses both in Ierusalem in all Iudaea and in Samaria and unto the uttermost part of the Earth Which is as much as to say My Kingdome is not yet come nor shall you foreknow when it shall come for it shall come as a theefe in the night But I will send you the Holy Ghost and by him you shall have power to beare witnesse to all the world by your preaching of my Resurrection and the workes I have done and the doctrine I have taught that they may beleeve in me and expect eternall life at my comming againe How does this agree with the comming of Christs Kingdome at the Resurrection And that which St. Paul saies 1 Thessal 1. 9 10. That they turned from Idols to serve the living and true God and to waite for his Sonne from Heaven Where to waite for his Sonne from Heaven is to wait for his comming to be King in power which were not necessary if his Kingdome had beene then present Againe if the Kingdome of God began as Beza on that place Mark 9. 1. would have it at the Resurrection what reason is there for Christians ever since the Resurrection to say in their prayers Let thy Kingdome Come It is therefore manifest that the words of St. Mark are not so to be interpreted There be some of them that stand here saith our Saviour that shall not tast of death till they have seen the Kingdome of God come in power If then this Kingdome were to come at the Resurrection of Christ why is it said some of them rather than all For they all lived till after Christ was risen But they that require an exact interpretation of this text let them interpret first the like words of our Saviour to St. Peter concerning St. John chap. 21. 22. If I will that he tarry till I come what is that to thee upon which was grounded a report that hee should not dye Neverthelesse the truth of that report was neither confirmed as well grounded nor refuted as ill grounded on those words but left as a saying not understood
at his comming again gloriously to reign over his Elect and to save them from their Enemies eternally To which the opinion of Possession by Spirits or Phantasmes are no impediment in the way though it be to some an occasion of going out of the way and to follow their own Inventions If wee require of the Scripture an account of all questions which may be raised to trouble us in the performance of Gods commands we may as well complaine of Moses for not having set downe the time of the creation of such Spirits as well as of the Creation of the Earth and Sea and of Men and Beasts To conclude I find in Scripture that there be Angels and Spirits good and evill but not that they are Incorporeall as are the Apparitions men see in the Dark or in a Dream or Vision which the Latines call Spectra and took for Daemons And I find that there are Spirits Corporeall though subtile and Invisible but not that any mans body was possessed or inhabited by them And that the Bodies of the Saints shall be such namely Spirituall Bodies as St. Paul calls them Neverthelesse the contrary Doctrine namely that there be Incorporeall Spirits hath hitherto so prevailed in the Church that the use of Exorcisme that is to say of ejection of Devills by Conjuration is thereupon built and though rarely and faintly practised is not yet totally given over That there were many Daemoniaques in the Primitive Church and few Mad-men and other such singular diseases whereas in these times we hear of and see many Mad-men and few Daemoniaques proceeds not from the change of Nature but of Names But how it comes to passe that whereas heretofore the Apostles and after them for a time the Pastors of the Church did cure those singular Diseases which now they are not seen to doe as likewise why it is not in the power of every true Beleever now to doe all that the Faithfull did then that is to say as we read Mark 16. 17. In Christs name to cast out Devills to speak with new Tongues to take up Serpents to drink deadly Poison without harm taking and to cure the Sick by the laying on of their hands and all this without other words but in the Name of Iesus is another question And it is probable that those extraordinary gifts were given to the Church for no longer a time than men trusted wholly to Christ and looked for their felicity onely in his Kingdome to come and consequently that when they sought Authority and Riches and trusted to their own Subtilty for a Kingdome of this world these supernaturall gifts of God were again taken from them Another relique of Gentilisme is the Worship of Images neither instituted by Moses in the Old nor by Christ in the New Testament nor yet brought in from the Gentiles but left amongst them after they had given their names to Christ. Before our Saviour preached it was the generall Religion of the Gentiles to worship for Gods those Apparences that remain in the Brain from the impression of externall Bodies upon the organs of their Senses which are commonly called Ideas Idols Phantasmes Conceits as being Representations of those externall Bodies which cause them and have nothing in them of reality no more than there is in the things that seem to stand before us in a Dream And this is the reason why St. Paul says Wee know that an Idol is Nothing Not that he thought that an Image of Metall Stone or Wood was nothing but that the thing which they honored or feared in the Image and held for a God was a meer Figment without place habitation motion or existence but in the motions of the Brain And the worship of these with Divine Honour is that which is in the Scripture called Idolatry and Rebellion against God For God being King of the Jews and his Lieutenant being first Moses and afterward the High Priest if the people had been permitted to worship and pray to Images which are Representations of their own Fancies they had had no farther dependence on the true God of whom their can be no similitude nor on his prime Ministers Moses and the High Priests but every man had governed himself according to his own appetite to the utter eversion of the Common-wealth and their own destruction for want of Union And therefore the first Law of God was They should not take for Gods ALIENOS DEOS that is the Gods of other nations but that onely true God who vouchsafed to commune with Moses and by him to give them laws and directions for their peace and for their salvation from their enemies And the second was that they should not make to themselves any Image to Worship of their own Invention For it is the same deposing of a King to submit to another King whether he be set up by a neighbour nation or by our selves The places of Scripture pretended to countenance the setting up of Images to worship them or to set them up at all in the places where God is worshipped are First two Examples one of the Cherubins over the Ark of God the other of the Brazen Serpent Secondly some texts whereby we are commanded to worship certain Creatures for their relation to God as to worship his Footstool And lastly some other texts by which is authorized a religious honoring of Holy things But before I examine the force of those places to prove that which is pretended I must first explain what is to be understood by Worshipping and what by Images and Idols I have already shewn in the 20 Chapter of this Discourse that to Honor is to value highly the Power of any person and that such value is measured by our comparing him with others But because there is nothing to be compared with God in Power we Honor him not but Dishonour him by any Value lesse than Infinite And thus Honor is properly of its own nature secret and internall in the heart But the inward thoughts of men which appeare outwardly in their words and actions are the signes of our Honoring and these goe by the name of WORSHIP in Latine CULTUS Therefore to Pray to to Swear by to Obey to bee Diligent and Officious in Serving in summe all words and actions that betoken Fear to Offend or Desire to Please is Worship whether those words and actions be sincere or feigned and because they appear as signes of Honoring are ordinarily also called Honor. The Worship we exhibite to those we esteem to be but men as to Kings and men in Authority is Civill Worship But the worship we exhibite to that which we think to bee God whatsoever the words ceremonies gestures or other actions be is Divine VVorship To fall prostrate before a King in him that thinks him but a Man is but Civill Worship And he that but putteth off his hat in the Church for this cause that he thinketh it the House of
the terrour of Death or other great corporall punishment it is not Idolatry For the Worship which the Soveraign commandeth to bee done unto himself by the terrour of his Laws is not a sign that he that obeyeth him does inwardly honour him as a God but that he is desirous to save himselfe from death or from a miserable life and that which is not a sign of internall honor is no Worship and therefore no Idolatry Neither can it bee said that hee that does it scandalizeth or layeth any stumbling block before his Brother because how wise or learned soever he be that worshippeth in that manner another man cannot from thence argue that he approveth it but that he doth it for fear and that it is not his act but the act of his Soveraign To worship God in some peculiar Place or turning a mans faâ—… towards an Image or determinate Place is not to worship or honor the Place or Image but to acknowledge it Holy that is to say to acknowledge the Image or the Place to be set apart from common use for that is the meaning of the word Holy which implies no new quality in the Place or Image but onely a new Relation by Appropriation to God and therefore is not Idolatry no more than it was Idolatry to worship God before the Brazen Serpent or for the Jews when they were out of their owne countrey to turn their faces when they prayed toward the Temple of Jerusalem or for Moses to put off his Shoes when he was before the Flaming Bush the ground appertaining to Mount Sinai which place God had chosen to appear in and to give his Laws to the People of Israel and was therefore Holy ground not by inhaerent sanctity but by separation to Gods use or for Christians to worship in the Churches which are once solemnly dedicated to God for that purpose by the Authority of the King or other true Representant of the Church But to worship God as inanimating or inhabiting such Image or place that is to say an infinite substance in a finite place is Idolatry for such finite Gods are but Idols of the brain nothing reall and are commonly called in the Scripture by the names of Vanity and Lyes and Nothing Also to worship God not as inanimating or present in the place or Image but to the end to be put in mind of him or of some works of his in case the Place or Image be dedicated or set up by private authority and not by the authority of them that are our Soveraign Pastors is Idolatry For the Commandement is Thou shalt not make to thy selfe any graven Image God commanded Moses to set up the Brazen Serpent hee did not make it to himselfe it was not therefore against the Commandement But the making of the Golden Calfe by Aaron and the People as being done without authority from God was Idolatry not onely because they held it for God but also because they made it for a Religious use without warrant either from God their Soveraign or from Moses that was his Lieutenant The Gentiles worshipped for Gods Jupiter and others that living were men perhaps that had done great and glorious Acts and for the Children of God divers men and women supposing them gotten between an Immortall Deity and a mortall man This was Idolatry because they made them so to themselves having no authority from God neither in his eternall Law of Reason nor in his positive and revealed Will. But though our Saviour was a man whom wee also beleeve to bee God Immortall and the Son of God yet this is no Idolatry because wee build not that beleef upon our own fancy or judgment but upon the Word of God revealed in the Scriptures And for the adoration of the Eucharist if the words of Christ This is my Body signifie that he himselfe and the seeming bread in his hand and not onely so but that all the seeming morsells of bread that have ever since been and any time hereafter shall bee consecrated by Priests bee so many Christs bodies and yet all of them but one body then is that no Idolatry because it is authorized by our Saviour but if that text doe not signifie that for there is no other that can be alledged for it then because it is a worship of humane institution it is Idolatry For it is not enough to say God can transubstantiate the Bread into Christs Body For the Gentiles also held God to be Omnipotent and might upon that ground no lesse excuse their Idolatry by pretending as well as others a transubstantiation of their Wood and Stone into God Almighty Whereas there be that pretend Divine Inâ—…piration to be a supernaturall entring of the Holy Ghost into a man and not an acquisition of Gods graces by doctrine and study I think they are in a very dangerous Dilemma For if they worship not the men whom they beleeve to be so inspired they fall into Impiety as not adoring Gods supernaturall Presence And again if they worship him they commit Idolatry for the Apostles would never permit themselves to be so worshipped Therefore the safest way is to beleeve that by the Descending of the Dove upon the Apostles and by Christs Breathing on them when hee gave them the Holy Ghost and by the giving of it by Iâ—…position of Hands are understood the signes which God hath been pleased to use or ordain to bee used of his promise to assist those persons in their study to Preach his Kingdome and in their Conversation that it might not be Scandalous but Edifying to others Besides the Idolatrous Worship of Images there is also a Scandalous Worship of them which is also a sin but not Idolatry For Idolatry is to worship by signes of an internall and reall honour but Scandalous Worship is but Seeming Worship and may sometimes bee joined with an inward and hearty detestation both of the Image and of the Phantasticall Daemon or Idol to which it is dedicated and proceed onely from the fear of death or other grievous punishment and is neverthelesse a sin in them that so worship in case they be men whose actions are looked at by others as lights to guide them by because following their ways they cannot but stumble and fall in the way of Religion Whereas the example of those we regard not works not on us at all but leaves us to our own diligence and caution and consequently are no causes of our falling If therefore a Pastor lawfully called to teach and direct others or any other of whose knowledge there is a great opinion doe externall honor to an Idol for fear unlesse he make his feare and unwillingnesse to it as evident as the worship he Scandalizeth his Brother by seeming to approve Idolatry For his Brother arguing from the action of his teacher or of him whose knowledge he esteemeth great concludes it to bee lawfull in it selfe And this Scandall is Sin and a Scandall given But
if one being no Pastor nor of eminent reputation for knowledge in Christian Doctrine doe the same and another follow him this is no Scandall given for he had no cause to follow such example but is a pretence of Scandall which hee taketh of himselfe for an excuse before mâ—…n For an unlearned man that is in the power of an Idolatrous King or State if commanded on pain of death to worship before an Idoll hee detesteth the Idoll in his heart hee doth well though if he had the fortitude to suffer death rather than worship it he should doe better But if a Pastor who as Christs Messenger has undertaken to teach Christs Doctrine to all nations should doe the same it were not onely a sinfull Scandall in respect of other Christian mens consciences but a perfidious forsaking of his charge The summe of that which I have said hitherto concerning the Worship of Images is this that he that worshippeth in an Image or any Creature either the Matter thereof or any Fancy of his own which he thinketh to dwell in it or both together or beleeveth that such things hear his Prayers or see his Devotions without Ears or Eyes committeth Idolatry and he that counterfeiteth such Worship for fear of punishment if he bee a man whose example hath power amongst his Brethren committeth a sin But he that worshippeth the Creator of the world before such an Image or in such a place as he hath not made or chosen of himselfe but taken from the commandement of Gods Word as the Jewes did in worshipping God before the Cherubins and before the Brazen Serpent for a time and in or towards the Temple of Jerusalem which was also but for a time committeth not Idolatry Now for the Worship of Saints and Images and Reliques and other things at this day practised in the Church of Rome I say they are not allowed by the Word of God nor brought into the Church of Rome from the Doctrine there taught but partly left in it at the first conversion of the Gentiles and afterwards countenanced and confirmed and augmented by the Bishops of Rome As for the proofs alledged out of Scripture namely those examples of Images appointed by God to bee set up They were not set up for the people or any man to worship but that they should worship God himselfe before them as before the Cherubins over the Ark and the Brazen Serpent For we read not that the Priest or any other did worship the Cherubins but contrarily wee read 2 Kings 18.4 that Hezekiah brake in pieces the Brazen Serpent which Moses had set up because the People burnt incense to it Besides those examples are not put for our Imitation that we also should set up Images under pretence of worshipping God before them because the words of the second Commandement Thou shalt not make to thy selfe any graven Image c. distinguish between the Images that God commanded to be set up and those which wee set up to our selves And therefore from the Cherubins or Brazen Serpent to the Images of mans devising and from the Worship commanded by Godâ—… to the Willâ—… Worship of men the argument is not good This also is to bee considered that as Hezekiah brake in pieces the Brazen Serpent because the Jews did worship it to the end they should doe so no more so also Christian Soveraigns ought to break down the Images which their Subjects have been accustomed to worship that there be no more occasion of such Idolatry For at this day the ignorant People where Images are worshipped doe really beleeve there is a Divine Power in the Images and are told by their Pastors that some of them have spoken and have bled and that miracles have been done by them which they apprehend as done by the Saint which they think either is the Image it self or in it The Israelites when they worshipped the Calfe did think they worshipped the God that brought them out of Egypt and yet it was Idolatry because they thought the Calfe either was that God or had him in his belly And though some man may think it impossible for people to be so stupid as to think the Image to be God or a Saint or to worship it in that notion yet it is manifest in Scripture to the contrary where when the Golden Calfe was made the people said These are thy Gods O Israel and where the Images of Laban are called his Gods And wee see daily by experience in all sorts of People that such men as study nothing but their food and ease are content to beleeve any absurdity rather than to trouble themselves to examine it holding their faith as it were by entaile unalienable except by an expresse and new Law But they inferre from some other places that it is lawfull to paint Angels and also God himselfe as from Gods walking in the Garden from Jacobs seeing God at the top of the ladder and from other Visions and Dreams But Visions and Dreams whether naturall or snpernaturall are but Phantasmes and he that painteth an Image of any of them maketh not an Image of God but of his own Phantasm which is making of an Idol I say not that to draw a Picture after a fancy is a Sin but when it is drawn to hold it for a Representation of God is against the second Commandement and can be of no use but to worship And the same may be said of the Images of Angels and of men dead unlesse as Monuments of friends or of men worthy remembrance For such use of an Image is not Worship of the Image but a civill honoring of the Person not that is but that was But when it is done to the Image which we make of a Saint for no other reason but that we think he heareth our prayers and is pleased with the honour wee doe him when dead and without sense wee attribute to him more than humane power and therefore it is Idolatry Seeing therefore there is no authority neither in the Law of Moses nor in the Gospel for the religious Worship of Images or other Representations of God which men set up to themselves or for the Worship of the Image of any Creature in Heaven or Earth or under the Earth And whereas Christian Kings who are living Representants of God are not to be worshipped by their Subjects by any act that signifieth a greater esteem of his power than the nature of mortall man is capable of It cannot be imagined that the Religious Worship now in use was brought into the Church by misunderstanding of the Scripture It resteth therefore that it was left in it by not destroying the Images themselves in the conversion of the Gentiles that worshipped them The cause whereof was the immoderate esteem and prices set upon the workmanship of them which made the owners though converted from worshipping them as they had done Religiously for Daemons to retain them still in their
the sustaining of the same when it is set up or to the worldly Riches Honour and Authority of those that sustain it And therefore by the aforesaid rule of Cui bono we may justly pronounce for the Authors of all this Spirituall Darknesse the Pope and Roman Clergy and all those besides that endeavour to settle in the mindes of men this erroneous Doctrine that the Church now on Earth is that Kingdome of God mentioned in the Old and New Testament But the Emperours and other Christian Soveraigns under whose Government these Errours and the like encroachments of Ecclesiastiques upon their Office at first crept in to the disturbance of their possessions and of the tranquillity of their Subjects though they suffered the same for want of foresight of the Sequel and of insight into the designs of their Teachers may neverthelesse bee esteemed accessaries to their own and the Publique dammage For without their Authority there could at first no seditious Doctrine have been publiquely preached I say they might have hindred the same in the beginning But when the people were once possessed by those spirituall men there was no humane remedy to be applyed that any man could invent And for the remedies that God should provide who never faileth in his good time to destroy all the Machinations of men against the Truth wee are to attend his good pleasure that suffereth many times the prosperity of his enemies together with their ambition to grow to such a height as the violence thereof openeth the eyes which the warinesse of their predecessours had before sealed up and makes men by too much grasping let goe all as Peters net was broken by the struggling of too great a multitude of Fishes whereas the Impatience of those that strive to resist such encroachment before their Subjects eyes were opened did but encrease the power they resisted I doe not therefore blame the Emperour Frederick for holding the stirrop to our countryman Pope Adrian for such was the disposition of his subjects then as if hee had not done it hee was not likely to have succeeded in the Empire But I blame those that in the beginning when their power was entire by suffering such Doctrines to be forged in the Universities of their own Dominions have holden the Stirrop to all the succeeding Popes whilest they mounted into the Thrones of all Christian Soveraigns to ride and tire both them and their people at their pleasure But as the Inventions of men are woven so also are they ravelled out the way is the same but the order is inverted The web begins at the first Elements of Power which are Wisdom Humility Sincerity and other vertues of the Apostles whom the people converted obeyed out of Reverence not by Obligation Their Consciences were free and their Words and Actions subject to none but the Civill Power Afterwards the Presbyters as the Flocks of Christ encreased assembling to consider what they should teach and thereby obliging themselves to teach nothing against the Decrees of their Assemblies made it to be thought the people were thereby obliged to follow their Doctrine and when they refused refused to keep them company that was then called Excommunication not as being Infidels but as being disobedient And this was the first knot upon their Liberty And the number of Presbyters encreasing the Presbyters of the chief City or Province got themselves an authority over the Parochiall Presbyters and appropriated to themselves the names of Bishops And this was a second knot on Christian Liberty Lastly the Bishop of Rome in regard of the Imperiall City took upon him an Authority partly by the wills of the Emperours themselves and by the title of Pontifex Maximus and at last when the Emperours were grown weak by the priviledges of St. Peter over all other Bishops of the Empire Which was the third and last knot and the whole Synthesis and Construction of the Pontificiall Power And therefore the Analysis or Resolution is by the same way but beginneth with the knot that was last tyed as wee may see in the dissolution of the praeterpoliticall Church Government in England First the Power of the Popes was dissolved totally by Queen Elizabeth and the Bishops who before exercised their Functions in Right of the Pope did afterwards exercise the same in Right of the Queen and her Successours though by retaining the phrase of Iure Divino they were thought to demand it by immediate Right from God And so was untyed the first knot After this the Presbyterians lately in England obtained the putting down of Episcopacy And so was the second knot dissolved And almost at the same time the Power was taken also from the Presbyterians And so we are reduced to the Independency of the Primitive Christians to follow Paul or Cephas or Apollos every man as he liketh best Which if it be without contention and without measuring the Doctrine of Christ by our affection to the Person of his Minister the fault which the Apostle reprehended in the Corinthians is perhaps the best First because there ought to be no Power over the Consciences of men but of the Word it selfe working Faith in every one not alwayes according to the purpose of them that Plant and Water but of God himself that giveth the Increase and secondly because it is unreasonable in them who teach there is such danger in every little Errour to require of a man endued with Reason of his own to follow the Reason of any other man or of the most voices of many other men Which is little better then to venture his Salvation at crosse and pile Nor ought those Teachers to be displeased with this losse of their antient Authority For there is none should know better then they that power is preserved by the same Vertues by which it is acquired that is to say by Wisdome Humility Clearnesse of Doctrine and sincerity of Conversation and not by suppression of the Naturall Sciences and of the Morality of Naturall Reason nor by obscure Language nor by Arrogating to themselves more Knowledge than they make appear nor by Pious Frauds nor by such other faults as in the Pastors of Gods Church are not only Faults but also scandalls apt to make men stumble one time or other upon the suppression of their Authority But after this Doctrine that the Church now Militant is the Kingdome of God spoken of in the Old and New Testament was received in the World the ambition and canvasing for the Offices that belong thereunto and especially for that great Office of being Christs Lieutenant and the Pompe of them that obtained therein the principall Publique Charges became by degrees so evident that they lost the inward Reverence due to the Pastorall Function in so much as the Wisest men of them that had any power in the Civill State needed nothing but the authority of their Princes to deny them any further Obedience For from the time that the Bishop of Rome had gotten
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
or a Drunkard or an Extortioner with such a one yee are not to eat But to Excommunicate a man that held this foundation that Iesus was the Christ for difference of opinion in other points by which that Foundation was not destroyed there appeareth no authority in the Scripture nor example in the Apostles There is indeed in St. Paul Titus 3. 10. a text that seemeth to be to the contrary A man that is an Haeretique after the first and second admonition reject For an Haeretiqne is he that being a member of the Church teacheth neverthelesse some private opinion which the Church has forbidden and such a one S. Paul adviseth Titus after the first and second admonition to Reject But to Reject in this place is not to Excommunicate the Man But to give over admonishing him to let him alone to set by disputing with him as one that is to be convinced onely by himselfe The same Apostle saith 2 Tim. 2. 23. Foolish and unlearned questions avoid The word Avoid in this place and Reject in the former is the same in the Originall 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but Foolish questions may bee set by without Excommunication And again Tit. 3. 9. Avoid Foolish questions where the Originall 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 set themby is equivalent to the former word Reject There is no other place that can so much as colourably be drawn to countenance the Casting out of the Church faithfull men such as beleeved the foundation onely for a singular superstructure of their own proceeding perhaps from a good pious conscience But on the contrary all such places as command avoiding such disputes are written for a Lesson to Pastors such as Timothy and Titus were not to make new Articles of Faith by determining every small controversie which oblige men to a needlesse burthen of Conscience or provoke them to break the union of the Church Which Lesson the Apostles themselves observed well S. Peter and S. Paul though their controversie were great as we may read in Gal. 2. 11. yet they did not cast one another out of the Church Neverthelesse during the Apostles times there were other Pastors that observed it not As Diotrephes 3 Iohn 9. c. who cast out of the Church such as S. John himself thought fit to be received into it out of a pride he took in Praeeminence so early it was that Vain-glory and Ambition had found entrance into the Church of Christ. That a man be liable to Excommunication there be many conditions requisite as First that he be a member of some Commonalty that is to say of some lawfull Assembly that is to say of some Christian Church that hath power to judge of the cause for which hee is to bee Excommunicated For where there is no Community there can bee no Excommunication nor where there is no power to Judge can there bee any power to give Sentence From hence it followeth that one Church cannot be Excommunicated by another For either they have equall power to Excommunicate each other in which case Excommunication is not Discipline nor an act of Authority but Schisme and Dissolution of charity or one is so subordinate to the other as that they both have but one voice and then they be but one Church and the part Excommunicated is no more a Church but a dissolute number of individuall persons And because the sentence of Excommunication importeth an advice not to keep company nor so much as to eat with him that is Excommunicate if a Soveraign Prince or Assembly bee Excommunicate the sentence is of no effect For all Subjects are bound to be in the company and presence of their own Soveraign when he requireth it by the law of Nature nor can they lawfully either expell him from any place of his own Dominion whether profane or holy nor go out of his Dominion without his leave much lesse if he call them to that honour refuse to eat with him And as to other Princes and States because they are not parts of one and the same congregation they need not any other sentence to keep them from keeping companywith the State Excommunicate for the very Institution as it uniteth many men into one Community so it dissociateth one Community from another so that Excommunication is not needfull for keeping Kings and States asunder nor has any further effect then is in the nature of Policy it selfe unlesse it be to instigate Princes to warre upon one another Nor is the Excommunication of a Christian Subject that obeyeth the laws of his own Soveraign whether Christian or Heathen of any effect For if he beleeve that Iesus is the Christ he hath the Spirit of God 1 Joh. 4. 1. and God dwelleth in him and he in God 1 Joh. 4. 15. But hee that hath the Spirit of God hee that dwelleth in God hee in whom God dwelleth can receive no harm by the Excommunication of men Therefore he that beleeveth Jesus to be the Christ is free from all the dangers threatned to persons Excommunicate He that beleveeth it not is no Christian. Therefore a true and unfeigned Christian is not liable to Excommunication Nor he also that is a professed Christian till his Hypocrisy appear in his Manners that is till his behaviour bee contrary to the law of his Soveraign which is the rule of Manners and which Christ and his Apostles have commanded us to be subject to For the Church cannot judge of Manners but by externall Actions which Actions can never bee unlawfull but when they are against the Law of the Common-wealth If a mans Father or Mother or Master bee Excommunicate yet are not the Children forbidden to keep them Company nor to Eat with them for that were for the most part to oblige them not to eat at all for want of means â—…o get food and to authorise them to disobey their Parents and Masters contrary to the Precept of the Apostles In summe the Power of Excommunication cannot be extended further than to the end for which the Apostles and Pastors of the Church have their Commission from our Saviour which is not to rule by Command and Coaction but by Teaching and Direction of men in the way of Salvation in the world to come And as a Master in any Science may abandon his Scholar when hee obstinately neglecteth the practise of his rules but not accuse him of Injustice because he was never bound to obey him so a Teacher of Christian doctrine may abandon his Disciples that obstinately continue in an unchristian life but he cannot say they doe him wrong because they are not obliged to obey him For to a Teacher that shall so complain may be applyed the Answer of God to Samuel in the like place They have not rejected thee but mee Excommunication therefore when it wanteth the assistance of the Civill Power as it doth when a Christian State or Prince is Excommunicate by a forain Authority is without effect and consequently ought
to be without terrour The name of Fulmen Excommunicationis that is the Thunderbolt of Excommunication proceeded from an imagination of the Bishop of Rome which first used it that he was King of Kings as the Heathen made Jupiter King of the Gods and assigned him in their Poems and Pictures a Thunderbolt wherewith to subdue and punish the Giants that should dare to deny his power Which imagination was grounded on two errours one that the Kingdome of Christ is of this world contrary to our Saviours owne words My Kingdome is not of this world the other that hee is Christs Vicar not onely over his owne Subjects but over all the Christians of the World whereof there is no ground in Scripture and the contrary shall bee proved in its due place St. Paul coming to Thessalonica where was a Synagogue of the Jews Acts 17. 2 3. As his manner was went in unto them and three Sabbath dayes reasoned with them out of the Scriptures Opening and alledging that Christ must needs have suffered and râ—…sen again from the dead and that this Iesus whom he preached was the Christ. The Scriptures here mentioned were the Scriptures of the Jews that is the Old Testament The men to whom he was to prove that Jesus was the Christ and risen again from the dead were also Jews and did beleeve already that they were the Word of God Hereupon as it is verse 4. some of them beleeved and as it is in the 5. ver some beleeved not What was the reason when they all beleeved the Scripture that they did not all beleeve alike but that some approved others disapproved the Interpretation of St. Paul that cited them and every one Interpreted them to himself It was this S. Paul came to them without any Legall Commission and in the manner of one that would not Command but Perswade which he must needs do either by Miracles as Moses did to the Israelites in Egypt that they might see his Authority in Gods works or by Reasoning from the already received Scripture that they might see the truth of his doctrine in Gods Word But whosoever perswadeth by reasoning from principles written maketh him to whom hee speaketh Judge both of the meaning of those principles and also of the force of his inferences upon them If these Jews of Thessalonica were not who else was the Judge of what S. Paul alledgâ—…d out of Scripture If S. Paul what needed he to quote any places to prove his doctrine It had been enough to have said I find it so in Scripture that is to say in your Laws of which I am Interpreter as sent by Christ. The Interpreter therefore of the Scripture to whose Interpretation the Jews of Thessalonica were bound to stand could be none every one might beleeve or not beleeve according as the Allegations seemed to himselfe to be agreeable or not agreeable to the meaning of the places alledged And generally in all cases of the world hee that pretendeth any proofe maketh Judge of his proofe him to whom he addresseth his speech And as to the case of the Jews in particular they were bound by expresse words Deut. 17. to receive the determination of all hard questions from the Priests and Judges of Israel for the time being But this is to bee understood of the Jews that were yet unconverted For the conversion of the Gentiles there was no use of alledging the Scriptures which they beleeved not The Apostles therefore laboured by Reason to confute their Idolatry and that done to perswade them to the faith of Christ by their testimony of his Life and Resurrection So that there could not yet bee any controversie concerning the authority to Interpret Scripture seeing no man was obliged during his infidelity to follow any mans Interpretation of any Scripture except his Soveraigns Interpretation of the Laws of his countrey Let us now consider the Conversion it sâ—…lf and see what there was therein that could be cause of such an obligation Men were converted to no other thing then to the Beleef of that which the Apostles preached And the Apostles preached nothing but that Jesus was the Christ that is to say the King that was to save them and reign over them eternally in the world to come and consequently that hee was not dead but risen again from the dead and gone up into Heaven and should come again one day to jâ—…dg the world which also should rise again to be judged and reward every man according to his works None of them preached that himselfe or any other Apostle was such an Interpreter of the Scripture as all that became Christians ought to take their Interpretation for Law For to Interpret the Laws is part of the Administration of a present Kingdome which the Apostles had not They prayed then and all other Pastors ever since Let thy Kingdome come and exhorted their Converts to obey their then Ethnique Princes The New Testament was not yet published in one Body Every of the Evangelists was Interpreter of his own Gospel and every Apostle of his own Epistle And of the Old Testament our Saviour himselfe saith to the Jews Iohn 5. 39. Search the Scriptures for in them yee thinke to have eternall life and they are they that testifie of me If hee had not meant they should Interpret them hee would not have bidden them take thence the proof of his being the Christ he would either have Interpreted them himselfe or referred them to the Interpretation of the Priests When a difficulty arose the Apostles and Elders of the Church assembled themselves together and determined what should bee preached and taught and how they should Interpret the Scriptures to the People but took not from the People the liberty to read and Interpret them to themselves The Apostles sent divers Letters to the Churches and other Writings for their instruction which had been in vain if they had not allowed them to Interpret that is to consider the meaning of them And as it was in the Apostles time it must be till such time as there should be Pastors that could authorise an Interpreter whose Interpretation should generally be stood to But that could not be till Kings were Pastors or Pastors Kings There be two senses wherein a Writing may be said to be Canonicall for Canon signifieth a Rule and a Rule is a Precept by which a man is guided and directed in any action whatsoever Such Precepts though given by a Teacher to his Disciple or a Counsellor to his friend without power to Compell him to observe them are neverthelesse Canons because they are Rules But when they are given by one whom he that receiveth them is bound to obey then are those Canons not onely Rules but Laws The question therefore here is of the Power to make the Scriptures which are the Rules of Christian Faith Laws That part of the Scripture which was first Law was the Ten Commandements written in two Tables of Stone
have their Jurisdiction from the Soveraigns of the place wherein they exercise the same And as for that cause they have not their Authority de Iure Divino so neither hath the Pope his de Iure Divino except onely where hee is also the Civill Soveraign His fift argument is this If Bishops have their Iurisdiction immediately from God the Pope could not take it from them for he can doe nothing contrary to Gods ordination And this consequence is good and well proved But saith he the Pope can do this and has done it This also is granted so he doe it in his own Dominions or in the Dominions of any other Prince that hath given him that Power but not universally in Right of the Popedome For that power belongeth to every Christian Soveraign within the bounds of his owne Empire and is inseparable from the Soveraignty Before the People of Israel had by the commandment of God to Samuel set over themselves a King after the manner of other Nations the High Priest had the Civill Government and none but he could make nor depose an inferiour Priest But that Power was afterwards in the King as may be proved by this same argument of Bellarmine For if the Priest be he the High Priest or any other had his Jurisdiction immediately from God then the King could not take it from him for he could doe nothing contrary to Gods ordinance But it is certain that King Solomon 1 Kings 2. 26. deprived Abiathar the High Priest of his Office and placed Zadok verse 35. in his room Kings therefore may in the like manner Ordaine and Deprive Bishops as they shall thinke fit for the well governing of their Subjects His sixth argument is this If Bishops have their Jurisdiction de Iure Divino that is immediately from God they that maintaine it should bring some Word of God to prove it But they can bring none The argument is good I have therefore nothing to say against it But it is an argument no lesse good to prove the Pope himself to have no Jurisdiction in the Dominion of any other Prince Lastly hee bringeth for argument the testimony of two Popes Innocent and Leo and I doubt not but hee might have alledged with as good reason the testimonies of all the Popes almost since S. Peter For considering the love of Power naturally implanted in mankind whosoever were made Pope he would be tempted to uphold the same opinion Neverthelesse they should therein but doe as Innocent and Leo did bear witnesse of themselves and therefore their witnesse should not be good In the fift Book he hath four Conclusions The first is That the Pope is not Lord of all the world The second That the Pope is not Lord of all the Christian world The third That the Pope without his owne Territory has not any Temporall Jurisdiction DIRECTLY These three Conclusions are easily granted The fourth is That the Pope has in the Dominions of other Princes the Supreme Temporall Power INDIRECTLY which is denyed unlesse hee mean by Indirectly that he has gotten it by Indirect means then is that also granted But I understand that when he saith he hath it Indirectly he means that such Temporall Jurisdiction belongeth to him of Right but that this Right is but a Consequence of his Pastorall Authority the which he could not exercise unlesse he have the other with it And therefore to the Pastorall Power which he calls Spirituall the Supreme Power Civill is necessarily annexed and that thereby hee hath a Right to change Kingdomes giving them to one and taking them from another when he shall think it conduces to the Salvation of Souls Before I come to consider the Arguments by which hee would prove this Doctrine it will not bee amisse to lay open the Consequences of it that Princes and States that have the Civill Soveraignty in their severall Common-wealths may bethink themselves whether it bee convenient for them and conducing to the good of their Subjects of whom they are to give an account at the day of Judgment to admit the same When it is said the Pope hath not in the Territories of other States the Supreme Civill Power Directly we are to understand he doth not challenge it as other Civill Soveraigns doe from the originall submission thereto of those that are to be governed For it is evident and has already been sufficiently in this Treatise demonstrated that the Right of all Soveraigns is derived originally from the consent of every one of those that are to bee governed whether they that choose him doe it for their common defence against an Enemy as when they agree amongst themselves to appoint a Man or an Assembly of men to protect them or whether they doe it to save their lives by submission to a conquering Enemy The Pope therefore when he disclaimeth the Supreme Civill Power over other States Directly denyeth no more but that his Right cometh to him by that way He ceaseth not for all that to claime it another way and that is without the consent of them that are to be governed by a Right given him by God which hee calleth indirectly in his Assumption to the Papacy But by what way soever he pretend the Power is the same and he may if it bee granted to be his Right depose Princes and States as often as it is for the Salvation of Soules that is as often as he will for he claimeth also the Sole Power to Judge whether it be to the Salvation of mens Souls or not And this is the Doctrine not onely that Bellarmine here and many other Doctors teach in their Sermons and Books but also that some Councells have decreed and the Popes have accordingly when the occasion hath served them put in practise For the fourth Councell of Lateran held under Pope Innocent the third in the third Chap. De Haereticis hath this Canon If a King at the Popes admonition doe not purge his Kingdome of Haeretiques and being Excommunicate for the same make not satisfaction within a yeer his Subjects are absolved of their Obedience And the practise hereof hath been seen on divers occasions as in the Deposing of Chilperique King of France in the Translation of the Roman Empire to Charlemaine in the Oppression of Iohn King of England in Transferring the Kingdome of Navarre and of late years in the League against Henry the third of France and in many more occâ—…rrences I think there be few Princes that consider not this as Injust and Inconvenient but I wish they would all resolve to be Kings or Subjects Men cannot serve two Masters They ought therefore to ease them either by holding the Reins of Government wholly in their own hands or by wholly delivering them into the hands of the Pope that such men as are willing to be obedient may be protected in their obedience For this distinction of Temporall and Spirituall Power is but words Power is as really divided and as